Theia mania is a Greek phrase from Plato's time literally meaning divine madness and referring to love at first sight. Noah and Nora are enraptured by this love which unites them them body and soul. But it also leaves them completely unprepared for the stormy cross-currrent of values arising from their differing homelands and dating back to the Great Depression. These attitudes now sprout and flourish and are made all the more turbulent by the kaleidoscopic social and political changes sweeping New York of the Sixties. Their consuming struggle to salvage their dreams is the struggle that not only fashions a panorama of those times but of all time.