How does Larry Shue use imagery in The Foreigner?

Stage Directions:

In the darkness, rain and thunder. As the lights come up, we find ourselves in what was once the living-room of a log farmhouse, now adapted for service as a parlor for paying guests —middle-income summer people, mostly, who come to fish, and swim, and play a little cards at night, and to fill up on Betty Meeks' away-from-home
cooking. We might think it still a living-room were it not for the presence of a small counter with modest candy and tobacco displays, a guest register, and a bell. Also, there is about one sofa too many, a small stove and its woodbin, and a coffee-table, on which a bowl of apples rests.