"The father-child bond," according to journalist Christopher Anderson, " has always been shrouded in mystery. We must undertake to solve the Rubrik's Cube that is every person's relationship with his or her father." In this drama, Charlie (Martin Sheen) is a successful middle-aged Irish playwright living in New York who returns to Ireland for his father's funeral. While he is settling the old man's affairs, the ghost of Da (Barnard Hughes) appears. Through re-enactments of past events, we see different stages in Charlie's reaction to his father — reverence, toleration, revolt. Da is an eccentric man who never really allows his son to get too close to him. We see the crotchety Da trying unsuccessfully to destroy the boy's dog — because it had been pestering local clerics — and years later, Da intrudes just when Charlie is about to lose his virginity with a sexually available girl. We see the difference between father and son in their attitudes toward work — Da, a gardener, is totally unambitious; Charlie works diligently as a clerk for a misanthropic employer but eventually leaves to pursue his writing. In the end, he is reconciled to Da, realizing that the old man is an unshakeable part of himself. This emotionally affecting Irish memory play, directed by Matt Clark from Hugh Leonard's Tony Award-winning 1978 play, offers a top-drawer look at the mystery of the father-son relationship.