SWEENEY'S GHOST

Well, ducks, here we have the Framer family from Aspetuck, Connecticut--sounding for all the world like they've just popped out of a sociological tract on suburbia. The Framers just want to get away from it all and spend a quiet week at their rental villa in Jamaica but end up saddled with the rambunctious though invisible haunting of pirate Thomas Sweeney whose cockney squawking and feeble tricks keep them and us in a state of purposeless agitation. Sweeney's mischief isn't confined to the villa's bar--under which his hanged remains are buried; he rides on top of the car when the family goes out and even stows away with them on the plane back to JFK. Yet his presence never seems to be more than a minor irritation to the minimally differentiated family members. And this reads more like an outline for a projected story than a finished product; only Sweeney's outrageous diatribes (""Oi'm going to be loike a ruddy angel. . ."") have been filled out.