The play begins with a telephone being installed in Mari and LV's apartment. It is a device to communicate that is being put in for Mari to get calls from Ray Say, her new boyfriend. It is an ironic action that occurs in the play as the very fact that Mari puts the phone in to communicate with a man she barely knows shows that he is already more important than her daughter, LV.
LV plays her records upstairs and Mari screams at her to keep her "noise" down. However, the records represent far more than noise or even music. They are a symbol of her father's love, of a man who always listened to his daughter and someone whose voice was also quenched by Mari. LV never could speak up to her mother, or get a word in so much so that her records became her voice. Thus her playing them loudly represents her rebellion against her mother's not listening to her.
Then enter Ray Say a low-level talent manager who only is out for himself. What's worse is that Mari desires solely to get him to marry her. In her delusion she allows Ray to pluck LV out of her bedroom and place her on a stage in front of hundreds of people night after night. She's created an "act" a persona, but it wears her down. We see this represented in the fact that she can hardly move after so many performances. While the world is praising her and the lights are getting brighter, it is the light within LV that is dying. Her voice is being drowned out even more as no one listens to what she has to say her song and it causes her to snap and shove Ray down violently.
Setting off a chain reaction, Ray leaves Mari and then causes their apartment to burn up. It is only the gentleness of Billy, another misunderstood youth who recognizes the soul within LV, that allows LV to reclaim her voice. The final scene has her in a magical world created by Billy's light show, and she seemingly levitates off of the ground as she sings her song. All it took was for one person to give her a chance to be seen and heard and her gift then becomes full, and she has the chance to be whole in her life.
