The play follows the crisis of a Mormon couple, Joe Pitt, who is a lawyer, and his wife Harper, who suffers from hallucinations and anxiety and is also addicted to Valium. Harper lives a passionless and sexless marriage and is losing touch with reality. When her husband is offered a job in Washington in the Justice Department, things get worse.

In this scene Harper is by herself, listening to the radio, which is becoming her only way to escape her lonely and depressing life. She gives a neurotic monologue and talks to the audience. She compares the ozone layer, which is "collapsing and giving way its system of defence" to her crumbling marriage. Her scientific-religious speech sounds more like a desperate/neurotic stream of consciousness than anything else.