Bizarre in style, yet filled with an arresting immediacy and perceptiveness, the play deals with a strange, intriguing family which has barricaded itself in a cellar, seeking sanctuary from the fearsome, sinister world outside. Led by Ruby, the mother, they lure others to their lair to be seduced and taunted and ultimately destroyed - just as they, in turning so violently from life, must inevitably bring on their own destruction as well.
The play is about fear and negation. Ruby is its hero, Sigfrid and Grandpa its conscience, Clarence and Lakme its victims. It is also a play about choice: the choice of evil, which is constant, over chaos, which is not necessarily good. It is a tragedy of intelligence. Ruby perceives too clearly many truths but does not see the basic one: we cannot destroy everything without destroying ourselves. Her error is the negation of all links with mankind. Her way of life must end as it does, in a colossal suicide. Her Message to the World has come true. For herself, Sigfrid, for all of them. But she does not flinch before the steady trend of her approaching fate. She will not grovel. She cannot beg. She meets it head-on and defiant, like a female Prometheus.