Joseph Reed Hayes, playwright

If I Had My Way

Florida, 1945. A young woman, educated in the North, reluctantly returns to her childhood home to care for her ailing mother. Finding herself in the same citrus farm kitchen that her mother toiled in all her life, she resents every aspect of her situation, rejecting friendship and suitors, until her abrasive and bitter attitude is broken by a person she considered invisible; the Italian POW brought to the ranch as replacement help. Using lessons learned in his own mother's kitchen, he reminds her of the beauty of food, and teaches her to value things within her grasp as the world outside grows uglier. And then the citrus groves bloom, and during one magical, perfume-filled night, every relationship in the house changes.

Based on a forgotten part of Central Florida history and influenced by the Blues, If I Had My Way looks at relationships formed by the rational and irrational tides of war, the deep-seated racial tension of the Old South, the loneliness of young souls isolated by culture and time, and hope following darkness like a dream amid the scent of orange blossoms.