Set in on a ranch in the Mexican desert in the 1950s, Mariela, herself a painter, is caring for her ailing husband Jose, a painter whose fame eclipsed hers long ago. They inhabit the artistic circle of internationally-renowned painters Jose Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siquerios and Diego Rivera.
Mariela tricks her daughter, Blanca, into returning home by sending a telegram that her father has died. Blanca also is a painter who has recently sold one of her paintings for a significant sum of money. She returns with her fiancé, an American art critic who is her mother’s age.
Old jealousies are soon reignited: Jose’s paintings were never as inspired as Mariela’s; Mariela never had the career that Jose had and that Blanca seems destined for; and Blanca, in an artistic dry spell, has always envied her mother’s creativity. Add to this the mysterious death of Carlos, the couple’s other son, who haunts the play, and the prize-winning painting of “The Blue Barn,” which has been slashed and sits shrouded in the living room. As past grievances are rehashed and long hidden feelings rise to the surface, the characters go through an exorcism that either resolves in liberation or destruction.