Crabdance is no relaxing bath tub read, but it is worth the pain! Simons is a challenging writer who has no fear of causing discomfort and exposing social ills. Her play is unusual in its structure and imagery, but unusual in the best way: it is original, shocking, and, I think, freeing. The main character is a woman just past middle age. She is struggling to find her place (and sanity) in her world after the departure of her children and death of her husband. She is a woman living alone in the late 1960s with a ravaged sense of self and sexuality. The play explores her life with incredible honesty and love. This isn't the sort of work one would see on the Oprah Book Club list, but it is a liberating play about women, sexuality, and discovery of self in a time when women did not have so many options... I am VERY glad to have read it.