Act 1, Scene 1

The Rose Tattoo opens with a view of a cottage, on whose front steps three neighborhood children sit. The children's mothers are calling them home to dinner, and the play's main character, Serafina delle Rose, appears on stage. She is looking for her own daughter, the twelve-year-old Rosa.

Next, Assunta, an old woman who practices "a simple sort of medicine," arrives on the scene. Over the course of her and Serafina's conversation, it is revealed that Serafina is deeply in love with her handsome husband, that she is extremely proud of his virility, that she is pregnant, and that her husband is a trucker who, while posing as a legitimate operator, in fact smuggles illegal goods.

Assunta leaves and another character, Estelle Hohengarten, is introduced. Serafina takes in sewing for cash. Estelle wishes her to make a shirt for a man with whom she...