That All of Us Should Be Fed

Play # 39 (Make-up #8) - That All of Us Should Be Fed by Eliza Anderson

Another ten-minute play about Martha and Sally - two women in 1920. Sally (who is married) has come by Martha's (who is single) in response to a note Martha had left. Sally brings some meat, and assumes that there must be trouble if her rather reclusive neighbor went to the trouble of bringing a note to the house, but it turns out Martha just wants to have tea. Sally isn't sure what to do with this, but she stays, since her husband is going to be coming by to pick her up in an hour anyway. As they drink tea and chat, Sally can't help but tell Martha why the people in town don't like her - as she hasn't lived the life they do, and she doesn't interact with them the way they might wish. Martha confides about a one-night stand she had with a German soldier four years ago. It's a strange little moment of intimacy between these two women who are practically strangers. Nothing much really happens, but there is some good potential for simple, specific connection. The subtext is rich in this little exchange.

Quiet Torrential Sound

Play #38 - Quiet Torrential Sound by Joan Ackerman

This is a little ten minute play that doesn't have a great flow, but could be kind of fun to perform. Monica and Claire are two sisters on a vacation in the Berkshires. They wander into a cafe after a Beethoven concert in the park, and it is clear almost immediately who is in charge here. Monica - the elder - rhapsodizes about the concert, criticizes her sister, and terrorizes the waiter at every turn. She almost never stops talking or judging for the first half of the play, until Claire takes focus when she decides to confide in her sister that she has begun exploring her own body and has had the excellent experience of multiple orgasms - something Monica really ought to try one of these days. Monica barely listens, continuing to complain about her coffee (was it REALLY decaf?), and planning the rest of their day. The sisters barely manage to connect as they leave to head to the Rockwell museum. It's sort of difficult to follow the flow of the conversation - why Claire decides to bring up what she does when she does isn't particularly clear, but it is sort of fun to see Monica's running commentary on how marvelous and cultured she is interrupted by her sister relating this intimate personal discovery. I can't say that there ends up being a real change or a real trajectory through the course of the short exchange, but there is potential for amusement. And sometimes, that's enough.

Scarcity

Play #37 - Scarcity by Lucy Thurber

Well, it's been a depressing couple of days in Play a Day land. Scarcity is the story of a blue collar family with a hard-working mother (Martha), a drunk, layabout father (Herb), and two very intelligent children (Billy and Rachel). Billy is 16 and has made it into the gifted and talented program at his school. He's in there among all the rich kids, really learning and seeing possibilities for growth. His teacher, Ellen, sees great promise in him, and is trying to help him apply to boarding school. Rachel is 11, and has high hopes of following in Billy's footsteps and far beyond. The whole family seems to agree that she is the smartest one. She is certainly the most ambitious. She keeps asking Billy to talk her up to Ellen so that she'll have support when the times comes. The family is barely scraping by, mostly with the help of Martha's cousin Louie, who is also in love with Martha, despite being married to Gloria. Ellen does help Billy get into school with a scholarship, and he leaves his sister feeling trapped in her circumstances - if he gets out... will he ever come back for her?

Poor Rachel is sort of the only character with redeeming qualities in the entire play, and she ends up being left to stagnate all on her own. Billy and Ellen develop a physical relationship (though they say they haven't slept together, so I guess that's something). Martha barely even notices her daughter, and never holds her husband accountable for his terrible behavior. Herb is a lousy drunk and a jerk to pretty much everyone pretty much all the time... and he may or may not have abused Rachel... and Martha may or may not have covered that up - it's unclear. Louie is totally selfish and disregards his wife because she has the audacity not to be Martha. Gloria is sort of an afterthought in the world of the play, but she seems to hold her own pretty well when all is said and done. It's a play about a slice of life that is hard and ugly and frustrating. It's a picture of an economic cycle that threatens to trap even the most hopeful, capable or extraordinary people, keeping them from living up to their potential. It's a play about a family that hardly seems like one at all except in the biological sense. Once again, I find myself recognizing that the writing is good, but I still can't say I enjoy the play. Tomorrow I'm going to have to find something a little more upbeat. 

Gidion's Knot

Play #36 - Gidion's Knot by Johnna Adams

This was a tough play to read - particularly the end, because I get overly emotional about cats.

What?

Let me explain.

Heather Clark is a fifth grade teacher, sitting in her classroom grading papers at the end of the day and clearly waiting for a phone call. She is not expecting Corryn Fell, the mother of one of her students, to arrive. Apparently they had had a parent/teacher conference scheduled, but Heather assumed it would be canceled because Corryn's son, Gidion, had recently killed himself. But Corryn came anyway, demanding to know why her son had been suspended. Heather attempts to postpone the meeting, wanting to hold off the discussion until the principal and a counselor can be there, but Corryn is persistent, pushing and pushing to know what had led to the suspension and, she believed, probably caused her son's suicide. They dance around the topic for a while until Heather finally reveals a story that Gidion had written. Corryn insists that Heather read the story aloud, and after much resistance, Heather finally agrees. The story details a revolt of the students in which they are systematically murdering raping, and eviscerating the teachers of the school, and enslaving some of the younger students. Heather assumes that its graphic nature will make Corryn understand the situation, but Corryn - a literature professor - exclaims that the story is beautiful, that Gidion was a writer, and that he could have and should have told her about this, so that she could have told him that he was beautiful and that the teachers who suspended him were wrong. Heather tries to explain that the story is inappropriate, and that their responsibility is to protect all the students, but Corryn, disagrees. In the end, it comes out that Heather is waiting on news from the vet about her aging cat, and Corryn notes what a lousy freakin' day it is for them all, that she does blame Heather for her son's death, and that she's sorry, and then she leaves.

The questions about self-expression that are raised by this play are interesting, but I feel like the slope that Adams goes down with her arguments gets a little bit out of whack. Corryn objects to the censoring of the students, going on about civil rights and claiming that slapping a dead child's face on an issue is a sure-fire way to eliminate any given right. (I would advise her to look at the staggering inaction in terms of gun control... but that's not really the point of the play or this post, so I won't digress too far). The story talks about the tragic death of a sensitive, artistic child, one who didn't understand the boundaries that he was bumping up against, but I can't say that the teacher was wrong for her concern over a story that featured, among others, her own brutal rape and murder. There is a grotesque beauty to what was written, and it seems likely that the communication between parent and teacher should have been much, much clearer, but I had a hard time sympathizing with Corryn beyond the obvious sympathy for a parent who has lost a young child. I cannot agree with a college professor arguing that what her eleven-year-old son wrote was appropriate and should have been appreciated by the elementary school teachers as Marquis-de-Sade-esque brilliance. I teach college, and I'd think twice about a student who wrote that kind of story for one of my classes. Of course it's admirable for a parent to support their child, but I can't seem to get on board with this particular manifestation. The writing is good, the emotions are true, the ideas are lofty, but I can't say I liked it.

Dearest Eugenia Haggis

Play #35 - Dearest Eugenia Haggis by Ann Marie Healy

This is an odd little play that takes place in the home of Mister Blind Johnny Knoll. At the beginning, he has a young woman as a boarder named Miss Pauline Khenghis. She is an aspiring writer, and she is working on chronicling Mister Knoll's life as her first novel. It's hard to tell how long it's been just the two of them here. But now, as winter settles in, they are joined by Miss Eugenia Haggis. She is a no-nonsense type of woman who blows in and insists that she will be taking care of the house this winter. Pauline seems troubled by her presence almost immediately. Miss Haggis, on the other hand, seems most troubled with the Sanagret boys who ride their noisy toboggans too close to the house for her taste. One night, these unseen (but often heard and mentioned) Sanagret boys deliver a letter for Miss Haggis through the window to Pauline. Pauline, of course, reads the letter before passing it along. It is a mysterious sort of love letter. From this point on, when Miss Haggis responds, Pauline intercepts the letter and responds to it herself. It's hard to tell exactly why this is happening; is she just trying to get rid of Miss Haggis? Is she trying to write herself a great, tragic love story? Eventually, Pauline steals Mr. Knoll's saved cash and slips it in with a letter proposing elopement, so Miss Haggis does end up leaving, much to Mr. Knoll's disappointment. But Pauline and Mr. Knoll are left as they were at the beginning of the play, and yet somehow more alone.

There are strange little hints throughout the play about the characters' pasts - Mr. Knoll's lost love, Miss Haggis's past disappointments, Pauline's troubled childhood - but they never play out. Had this been an Ibsen play, all of those little tidbits would have come to some dramatic head, connecting them all, or erupting in some revelation. But in this world, no one seems to take the time to know each other or themselves terribly well. 

Spinal Alignment

Play #34 - Spinal Alignment by Deborah Yarchun

In Spinal Alignment, Donovan and Sheila come back to Donovan's apartment after an OKCupid-initiated 2am McDonald's meet-up. This not-a-date turns into a sort of game of chicken. Who can say the weirdest thing? Who can ruin the date quicker? Who can be off-putting? Who can be depressing? Who can be the person who is doomed to be alone? It's actually sort of a bummer of a play... watching these lonely people grasp at and repel each other because they sort of don't know what else to do. The title comes from the central idea of how many terrible things we put into our bodies or minds or lives, and how even the smallest thing can throw everything out of whack. The internet dating world is full of people with those little things out of whack, just looking for some connection... maybe to set things right (a cosmic chiropractor?), or maybe just to dull the pain for a moment or two.

Glutton for Punishment

Play #33 (Make-up #7) - Glutton for Punishment by Catherine Noah

I feel like meetings with Satan or one of his representatives are pretty common conceits. Everyone loves to put their own spin on this particular meeting. In Catherine Noah's offering Wendy objects to being sent to Satan because, as a Hindu, she does not believe in Heaven and Hell. Satan assures her that it doesn't matter, because regardless of whatever yoga she may have done during her life, she's still subject to the same rules as everyone else. The rules are that, if you've committed one of the seven deadly sins, you get 30-40 years in purgatory... a second infraction... and it's Hellsville. And, as it turns out, there are a lot of ways to slip up. Wendy is appalled by the technicalities to which she is subject, but eventually, she just tears up the contract and proclaims that that's enlightenment! It's a cute, sort of silly, 10-minute meditation on right, wrong, and the afterlife.