It’s time to break the winter blues. It’s time to end the “I’m not getting off this sofa until April” syndrome. It’s time to rouse your loved ones and friends, to hire a sitter for the younger children and to blow the teens away from their televisions and computers.

It’s time, in other words, to see “Eleemosynary,” the story of three generations of Westbrook women.

Someone you know may object to attending a play whose title may trip up the tongue (although eleemosynary is really quite elementary once you say it a few times). Some men may fuss about seeing a play about “women,” suspecting some sort of angry feminist diatribe that will leave them looking for the nearest exit (Lee Blessing, the playwright, is male, guys, and the play is about people, not agendas). Some teens may have to be pried from the house and dragged to the car (they’ll like this play once they regain control of their breathing. Besides, you go through the same routine just getting some of them out of bed and ready for school).

In case you need some help motivating the slothful and instructing the ignorant, I have listed below seven reasons for attending Eleemosynary. Feel free to use any or all of these reasons to inspire recalcitrant family members and friends

1. You will learn the meaning of eleemosynary (OK, I’ll tell you here, but you have to promise to go see the play anyway. Eleemosynary: adj.: Of or pertaining to alms; charitable.)

2. You will see the work of a fine director. This gem of a play — I saw it performed in Asheville this past weekend — was flawlessly executed. Lloyd Kay deserves a round of applause for his talents as the director of this production.

3. You will enjoy the work of the talented Barbara Bates Smith. Familiar to many in the Waynesville audience for her adaptations of work by Fred Chappell, Kaye Gibbons, and Lee Smith, Smith is outstanding as Dorthea Westbrook, mother of Artie and grandmother of Echo, Artie’s daughter. Smith shines as the bright-eyed, enthusiastic family eccentric, a role she assumes during a mediocre marriage when she realizes that “no one holds an eccentric responsible.” Through her performance we see Dorthea as a woman forced to use this pose to survive the unhappiness of her life.

4. You will also have the opportunity to see Carrie Howard as Artemis Westbrook. Artie as a child was the subject of Dorthea’s fierce love and constant experimentation with life — at one point Dorthea builds a set of wings and films Artie trying to fly — and Carrie Howard perfectly captures this woman who is at once estranged daughter and wounded mother. Howard looks the way we might imagine Artie looking, hard and cool, clipped and clean; she even moves the way we might imagine Artie moving. She is particularly fine in a scene where she describes looking for a lock of her mother’s hair.

5. Trinity Smith, the teenager who plays Echo, Artie’s daughter, gives a splendid performance, carrying herself well in the company of two fine actresses. She matches Echo’s moods with finesse, giving us an amusing scene of her bloodthirsty attitude toward competitors in a spelling bee and then a few moments later showing us Echo caring for her dying grandmother.

6. Eleemosynary is a 70-minute one-act play in which Lee Blessing lets his audience look inside the lives of three women, all of whom struggle with various difficulties in life. Dorthea’s marriage was not the happiest of unions, yet eventually she makes the best of her life and finally triumphs by freeing herself as the family character. Artie is in some ways ruined by her mother’s unusual projects and behavior, yet nevertheless makes a life for herself. Echo, whom Artie has given over to the care of Dorthea, becomes both the battleground on which the two women fight and the healing force that finally brings them back together.

7. It’s the season to go to a play precisely like Eleemosynary. We’ve gotten past the holidays and are into grim winter. You’ve been cooped up with the snow. Come and see this delight of a play. The beauty of it is that you won’t leave this play at the theater. You can take it home with you and discuss it for the rest of the evening.