HIS EYE IS ON THE SPARROW The Story Of Ethel Waters By Larry Parr
The Characters ETHEL WATERS, an AfricanAmerican woman, a wonderful singer and actress, with a face that reflects all the joy and sorrow that shaped her life. PIANO PLAYER The piano player reflects and comments musically upon all that takes place in Ethel’s life. His music often reminds her of what happened in her life and stimulates her recollections. The Time 1957. The Place In Ethel’s mind, as she remembers her life. Production note: HIS EYE IS ON THE SPARROW works best when it is considered not as a faithful representation of Ethel Water’s life, but rather as a theatricalized version of the myth of Ethel Waters. There should be a largess about the production, a largerthanlife feeling reflected in the lighting, costumes, and other production values. Another factor contributing to this largess is that the play is Ethel’s memory, and memory always embellishes and strengthens. THE SET Stage Right is a grand piano. Far Stage Left is an old, comfortable armchair. Stage Center is an area representing the impoverished alley where Ethel grew up, with a couple of garbage cans and street litter. Stage Left is a full mirror and perhaps a dressing table. THE MUSIC
ACT I 1. HIS EYE IS ON THE SPARROW, 1912, C. D. Martin, Charles H. Gariel. 2. MASCULINE WOMEN, FEMININE MEN, 1926, E. Leslie, J. V. Monaco 3. FRANKIE AND JOHNNY, traditional. 4. HIS EYE IS ON THE SPARROW, reprise. 5. I DON’T DIG YOU, JACK, Jack Wilson. 6. SWEET GEORGIA BROWN, 1925, Ben Bernie, Maceo Pinckard, Kenneth Casey. 7 THIS JOINT IS JUMPIN’, 1938, J.C. Johnson, Andy Razaf, Thomas Waller, Chappel and Co., Inc.. 8. LITTLE BLACK BOY, 1934, J. C. Johnson, George Whiting, Record Music Publishing Company 9. OLD MAN HARLEM, 1933, Rudy Vallee, Hoagy Carmichael, Southern Music Company
ACT II 1. DINAH, 1925, Sam Lewis, Joe Young, Harry Akst. 2. TAKING A CHANCE ON LOVE, 1940, John Latorche, Vernon Duke, EMI Catalogue. 3. AM I BLUE?, 1929, Grant Clark, Harry AkstWarner Chappell Music. 4. STORMY WEATHER, 1933, Ted Koehler, Harold Arlen, S. A. Music Co. 5. HEAT WAVE, 1933, Irving Berlin, Irving Berlin Music Co.. 6. CABIN IN THE SKY, 1940, John Latorche, Vernon Duke, EMI. 7. BLACK AND BLUE, 1929, Fats Waller, Harry Brooks, Warner Chapel Music. 8. HIS EYE IS ON THE SPARROW, Reprise.
HIS EYE IS ON THE SPARROW
(During the overture, the stage is dark except for a spot on the piano player. The overture segues to HIS EYE IS ON THE SPARROW.) ANNOUNCER (Voice over.) Ladies and gentlemen, the Billy Graham Crusades is proud to welcome to Madison Square Garden, Miss Ethel Waters.) (Spot up on Ethel, wearing a choir robe. She sings:) Why should I feel discouraged? Why should the shadows come? Why should my heart be lonely? And long for heaven and home? When Jesus is my portion, My constant friend is He. His eye is on the sparrow, And I know He watches me. Oh, I know it’s easy to be discouraged. And I know what it feels like to have a lonely heart. The road can be long and rocky, when we keep pushing the Lord away. I know, because I pushed Him away most of my life. He was always there, tryin’ to get into my heart, but I just turned my back on Him. Starting when I was just a child. Oh, the things I went through when I was comin’ up. Remember how it was, Lord? (As Ethel remembers, she removes the robe and becomes the child she used to be. Lights up on the alley portion of the stage. A gobo of poor tenements and fire escapes appears above the garbage cans.) (MASCULINE WOMEN, FEMININE MEN underscore.) Back home on Clifton Street in Philadelphia. A whores’ alley, full of pimps and thieves and drunks, all makin’ big fools of themselves over sex. Home wasn’t no better. Bedbugs in the bed and rats in the closet. The year was 1896. Louise, she my mother, got knocked up at 12 years old by John Waters. He held a knife at her throat and made her. And she had me. A bastard. His
mother, she white, don’t want nothin’ to do with us shanty niggers. Louise, she more like a sister than a mother, so I always call her by Momweeze. “I hungry Momweeze. My stomach hurt.” Momweez say, “What you want me to do about it? I ain’t got no food neither.” Everyone think Momweeze crazy. Talkin’ to herself. Walkin’ down the street, shoutin’ out, “Repent. The Lord’s comin’ to save your sorry ass!” I see her comin’, I just hide behind some garbage cans till she gone. Drunk men walkin’ jakelegged from bad whiskey. Ladies all painted up and struttin’ ‘round. Oh, the people in that alley. They comical! Some women who think they men. And some men who think, well…. (Ethel sings MASCULINE WOMEN, FEMININE MEN as if she is on the street mocking passersby.) Masculine women, feminine men Which is a rooster? Which is a hen? It’s hard to tell ‘em apart today, And say, Sister Minnie’s learning to shave Brother just got a permanent wave It’s hard to tell ‘em apart today, Hey, hey! Girls were girls and boys were boys When mom was a tot Now we don’t know who’s who Even what’s what. Knickers and trousers, baggy and wide, Nobody knows who’s walking inside Those masculine women and feminine men. My grandma, Sally Harris, she the one always take care of me, so I call her by Mom. But she gone most time, cleanin’ up after white folk. Nighttime I laid in bed, or on the floor, if the bugs too bad, or out on the sidewalk over a grate that come up from the laundry, to keep me warm in the winter. Nobody care where I was.
A bunch of drunks slobberin’ all over each other. Sometimes gettin’ gut shot or stabbed ‘cause of jealousy. And whores everywhere. (Ethel is frightened.) One time one of Momweez’s boyfriends came up to me, and me just a little girl. He got all up under my dress. Oh, I know what he want. I know what he want!! (End of fright.) So I just rared back and kicked him as hard as I could, right in his balls. Wha’d he think? I was stupid or somethin’? Ain’t no man gonna do me that way. Thank you, Lord, for giving me the strength to protect myself. I ran to Mom. She hold me a minute, but she got so much work to do. Mom too busy…. Momweez crazy…always bringin’ home strange men. And me always hungry. I felt my belly button touchin’ my backbone. Mom work for rich white folks who throwed their leftovers in the garbage ‘stead of have it feed starvin’ colored folk. Mom sewed these little pockets all inside her apron, and during the day, she’d wrap up a piece of this, a bit of that, and she’d tuck ‘em away in those pockets. Then when it came time to leave, she just tied that apron under her petticoats. She’d come in our door with a big smile. “I got cold functions for you, Ethel.” Oh, I’d dive under her and come up with a piece of pie, a little sandwich…. She was like a walking, living, breathing delicatessen. But first, we’d say, “Thank you, Lord, for providin’.” So I knew You don’t mind, Lord, takin’ food, as long as it was ‘cause we starvin’. Oh, I learned where to get food. Snitched milk from off people’s stoop and bread deliveries from behind restaurants. Momweeze, she had herself another kid, Genevieve, just as whitelookin’ as a colored girl could be. I called her “Yaller Puppy.” There was Genevieve, sittin’ tall in a chair, lookin’ all dicty. And Momweeze say, “Ethel, go get Genevieve some cookies and milk.”
I say, “I don’t see she got no broken leg. She can get for herself.” Momweez, she slap me! Slap me!! So there I was, Genevieve’s colored maid. I wanted to slap Genevieve upside her straight hair and knock her white ass down to the floor. But I never did, ‘cause that would put me lower down than I already was, and I didn’ t want to find out how low that could be. I was already a nigger to niggers. What could be lower? Genevieve say, “You skin so black, Ethel.” “Black? BLACK?? Don’t you ever call me black again, you hear me?” Genevieve had a little playmate named Hazel who died. I told her, “I murdered Hazel, and if you call me black one more time, I’ll murder you, too.” Genevieve say, “You didn’t murder her. She die of diphtheria.” “That’s what I want ‘em to think. I stuck a needle in her head and pushed it all the way in, so no one could see it. Her hair covered it up. That’s what really killed her. You be careful, or I’ll kill you, too.” After that, if Genevieve got a dime, it suddenly became my dime. And she told every kid in our alley I killed Hazel, so anything they had, all I had to do is give ‘em a look and say, “I’m gonna kill you, too….” Ain’t none of those kids called me black now! (Underscore, FRANKIE AND JOHNNY.) I got hold of one of their dimes, and I skip school and go down to the vaudeville show. I lived to see those people dressed in fine clothes, singin’ and dancin’. ‘Specially this one fancy white woman, Sophie Tucker. (The lights change to reveal Sophie’s performance. Ethel takjsings FRANKIE AND JOHNNY as Sophie would have sung it. Ethel holds a scarf in her hand.) Frankie and Johnny were lovers, O lawdy how they could love, Swore to be true to each other, True as the stars above, He was her man, But he was doin’ her wrong.
Frankie went down to the corner, Stopped for a bucket of beer, She said, “O Mister bartender, Has my Johnny been here? He was my man, But he done me wrong.” (Spoken.) I skipped all the way home from that theater, singin’, “Frankie and Johnny were lovers….” But when I opened our door, there stood Mom. (End underscore.) Home in the middle of the day! Lookin’ like a dark thundercloud across her face. She grabbed ahold of my ear. “Why ain’t you in school? The school called me! At my work, Ethel!! They said you ain’t been there all week.” I told her, “I’m gonna be a maid to a rich white woman. Don’t need no school for that.” Mom say, “You ARE goin’ to school. Your life gonna be better than mine if it kill me to see it happen. Now go wash your face. I’m takin’ you down to that Catholic school.” “Catholic school? Oh, no, Mom, please. Everyone there white….” But I could see from the look on her face, nothin’ I’d say would matter any. (Underscore, somber religious music. Gobo of a church window.) I walked into that place, and it was like nothin’ I’d ever seen before. Big. Beautiful. Quiet. Mom handed me over to Sister Mary Theresa and say, “She wild. Do whatever you need to to tame her down.” And she turn around to go. “Mom, you leavin’ me here all alone?” “What’d you think, Ethel? I was gonna set at your school desk with you?” And she left. Alone. With all those white nuns flappin’ ‘round me. Dressed all in black. Like a bunch of crows, waitin’ to peck my eyes out.
I was afraid to move. Or even speak. Then lunchtime came. And that fat little blonde girl, Mary Mullins, started in a cryin’ and carryin’ on how I stole her apple and ate her cake. The little sissy. I told her, “I didn’t think you’d miss that food. You look like you already ate ‘nuff to last you whole life.” Sister Mary Theresa came right up behind me. “Come with me, Ethel.” She took me out in the hall. Her hands came up to my face! SHE GONNA SLAP ME!! But she just laid her hands on my cheeks, all warm and soft. She say, “I need someone to help me wash a few dishes. Maybe you could help out a little. And then eat lunch with me.” I just nodded…more ashamed than if she hit me. But that first time I had to take confession! Oh, Lord! (End underscore.) “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I had me some impure thoughts. And I socked that fat Mary Mullens in her gut. And I stole, oh, milk and bread and candy and money. And I took the Lord’s name in vain…oh…I don’ t know how many goddamn times….” (Ethel’s eyes grow wide as she slaps her hand over her mouth.) That priest never got mad. Just told me not to do that stuff no more. And to say ten Hail Marys to all the stations of the cross. I was on my knees in that church till late that night, but it didn’t make me feel bad. It made me feel better, somehow. (Gobo fades.) Mom was comin’ home from work every day, lookin’ older and older. Smaller and more used up. She coughed hard. Way down in her chest. I ask, “What you work so hard for all the time?” And she say, “For you, Honey. Oh, my own girl lost. Louise. But you got a light inside you. And I want to think of a day when you out of here. And I’ll do anything I can to make that happen.”
(Underscoring: FRANKIE AND JOHNNY.) When I got old enough to beg at her to let me go to a dance, she didn’t hardly have no energy left to refuse. Oh, I got myself up to look like somethin’. Some whore’s brokendown highheeled shoes from the garbage can in the alley. I put my hair up on my head and packed it with rats till my head looked near as tall as the rest of me. I burnt a cork for eyebrows. And spit on my finger and rubbed it over some red paper for rouge. Oh, I was somethin’ to look at. (Ethel sings FRANKIE AND JOHNNY, while overacting, as would an enthusiastic young girl.) Frankie went down to the hockshop, She bought a little forty four, She aimed it at the ceiling, And shot a hole in the floor. “Where is my man? He’s doin’ me wrong.” Johnny, he grabbed off his Stetson, “Omy gawdd, Frankie, don’t shoot,” But Frankie put her finger on the trigger, Once again that rootatoottoot, For he was her man, And he done her wrong. “O roll me over easy, O roll me over slow, Roll me on my right side, honey, Where the bullets ain’t hurtin’ me so, You’ve shot your man, ‘Cause he done you wrong.” This story has no moral, This story has no end, This story only goes to show, That there ain’ no good in men, He was her man, And he done her wrong. (Underscore: FRANKIE AND JOHNNY continues.) That applause made made me feel like I was worth somethin’.
This man, Buddy Purnsley, started following me around. He musta been 23 years old. Old! His joints creaked when he tried to dance. “I like you Ethel,” he say. I know what he wants. Sniffin’ ‘round me like a lovesick sailor. But I don’t want none of that. Every chance he got, Buddy Purnsley sidle up to me and say, “When you gonna marry me, Ethel?” I told Buddy, “My older boyfriend will kill you with a knife, should you touch me.” He say, “Ethel, you ain’t got no boyfriend but me.” (Underscore: SILENT NIGHT. A Christmas Gobo appears.) Mom, she came home from work draggin’ more every day. Sometimes she just fall in bed. I wanted to do somethin’ good for her. Out on the street, I found the bottom of a Christmas tree someone chopped off. I got a hatchet from our shed and hacked away all the dead limbs. I scrunched up the branches, trying to hide that cutoff stump. Then I strung some popcorn together to decorate it. I snitched a rack of cakes coolin’ behind the bakery. When she came draggin’ in the door Christmas eve, I wanted everything to be perfect. But Momweez come home drunk as a skunk. Laughin’ at my tree. Scoopin’ up those cakes like they was supposed to be for her. “Leave that stuff alone. That’s for Mom’s Christmas. You drunk old whore.” “Who you callin’ drunk?” she say. She grabbed up that hatchet from off the table and threw it at me! (End underscore.) That hatchet missed my head by a inch. Now I know it was your Son’s birthday, Lord. But I had all I could take. So just I tried to choke Momweez to death. It was my Christmas present to her. Mom say, “Ethel! On the Lord’s birthday?”
So I let up on Momweez, and she run out into the snowy night. (Christmas Gobo fades. Underscore: HIS EYE IS ON THE SPARROW.) Each day, Mom grew a little more yellow, a little skinnier, and pretty soon she not able to get up. A big old hole in her back. The old Jamaican herb woman came. “Your grandma she got de cancer, Ethel. Ain’t nothin’ I can do for her.” Wasn’t no hospitals for colored, even if we had the money. So there she laid at home, sufferin’. One day, Mom motioned for me to sit next to her on her brokendown old couch. She say, “Sing that hymn I love so much.” I knew the song she wanted. That spiritual she sang to me when I was comin’ up. And her mother sang to her when she was comin’ up. So I gathered her old frail body, just a skinful of bones, in my arms. (Ethel sings, HIS EYE IS ON THE SPARROW.) I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free, For His eyes is on the sparrow, And I know He watches me. Why should I feel discouraged? Why should the shadows come? Why should my heart be lonely, Away from heaven and home? For Jesus is my portion, My constant friend is He. For His eye is on the sparrow, And I know He watches me. (Spoken.) Mom say, “Keep that light inside you, Honey. And find the way outta here.” Then she…just slipped away. In my arms. Just the two of us, only now me all alone. No, Mom! Oh, no! Who’ll see to me now? Who’ll make sure I’m on the right path? And feed and take care of me? Not Momweez. She too crazy. Where do I turn?
Oh, Mom. Why, why didn’t I realize what you meant to me while you were still here? Now it’s too late! Too late!! It was the end of that Catholic school I loved so much. The end of my learnin’ and my childhood. I didn’t know what would become of me. So I turned to Momweez. “But Ethel,” she say. “I got me a job in Atlantic City. I don’ t know if there be room for you.” “But you my mother. Don’t you care nothin’ ‘bout me?” She said, “I borned you. Ain’t that enough?” What was I gonna do? Well, the answer came soon enough. Buddy ask me to marry him again. I was so sick of him askin’, I just told him, “Ask Momweez, and if she say yes, I’ll marry you.” Now, Momweez know how much I hate him. But when he ask her, she say, “Why yes, you can marry Ethel. That will solve all of our problems.” “But Momweez…! She say, “Just think Ethel. Someone wants to marry you. You don’t got to be a whore.” I knew why she thought like that. ‘Cause I’m a bastard. I didn’t have no say in it at all. So I was married in a skirt and a blouse, in front of some justice of the peace. And that night when we were alone…. It was just as awful and as nasty as I thought it would be. And there was no end to it. He wanted it all the time. Just nasty! Well, I thought, at least there may be a baby. Someone I can love like no one ever love me. Buddy say, “You don’t need to go to no dances no more. You’re married. You don’t need to be singin’ out where people can hear you, neither.” He wouldn’t even let me go to church. The only place he let me go was to my job over at a big hotel, cleanin’ rooms. (She moves before the mirror. Underscore: I DON’T DIG YOU, JACK.)
I cleaned those rooms fast as I could, then I closed the door, and practiced singin’ and dancin’ in front of those great big mirrors. (Ethel sings and dances tentatively, I DON’T DIG YOU, JACK.) Just play fiftyfifty, and I’ll do the same, I ain’t no chump, I’m a darn smart dame…. (Spoken. Continue I DON’T DIG YOU, JACK underscore.) He only let me work at that hotel, ‘cause I brought him home money. But then he’d get home at night and say, “You foolin’ with some man down to the hotel, Ethel?” I said, “I don’t even want you. Why would I want some other man ‘round me?” He balled up his great big hands into fists. “No, Buddy! No!! Please, no!” And blackened both my eyes. Why’s he think such awful things about me? Because I’m a bastard, he thinks I’d cheat on him? Or is he judgin’ me by his own acts? Well, it set me to wonderin’, so I followed him to work one mornin’ and found out he stopped at his old girlfriend’s house. Pearl. And the biggest feeling of relief washed over me. He beat me, humiliated me, and accused me of cheatin’. He wouldn’t let me see my friends, even took away my singin’ and dancin’. And all the while, he was the son of a bitch! (Underscore I DON’T DIG YOU, JACK.) It was Halloween night, my fourteenth birthday. I just got myself up in my partyin’ getup. Buddy say, “Where you goin’?” I say, “Out.” And gave him a look. “Oh now, Ethel. I didn’t mean nothin’. I won’t see Pearl again.”
“Hah! I already heard. She won’t see you again, you mean.” And I left him standin’ there sputterin’. I went down to Jakes’, and everyone was glad to see me. (Ethel sings I DON’T DIG YOU, JACK.) Just play fiftyfifty, and I’ll do the same I ain’t no chump, I’m a darn smart dame You know I’m hip to your wisecracks, I don’t dig you, Jack. The phony play you pulled the other day Prevented you from getting’ all my pay My gold, silver, and my greenbacks, I don’t dig you, Jack. I’m too wise, for you to jive And you’re too dumb to realize So here’s your suitcase already packed. I don’t dig you, Jack. (Spoken.) In the middle of my song, Buddy showed up lookin’ furious. Right from that little stage, I hollered at him, “I’m leavin’ you, Buddy, and you can’t stop me. My suitcase is packed.” He said, “No you won’t, bitch. You my wife.” I said, “Take your choice. I either divorce you, or I got to kill you.” He just sputtered, then he turned around and left. Everybody there roared laughin’ at him. (Sung.) You give every gal you meet a dirty break, It’s easy to give more than you can take I wish you’d leave and never come back, I don’t dig you, Jack. You’re evil as a snake, low as a frog. You even done pawned my police dog But I’ll conquer you if I have to break your back, I don’t dig you, Jack.
Am I talkin’ out my head, am I up a tree? You got me goin’ in the first degree You the lyin’est man I ever seen But I got what it takes to make you come clean. You hear me talkin’ to you, you ain’t deaf. I’m puttin’ my love on the shelf Just leave and don’t come back ‘Cause I don’t dig you, Jack. (Spoken.) There wouldn’t be no precious child of my heart. But at least I was shed of Buddy. There be time for a child later. It was 1910. Mom was dead. Momweeze didn’t want me. And there I was, married at thirteen and divorced at fourteen. There was only two feet I could stand on, and they was sittin’ right there in my own shoes. So I started thinkin’ ‘bout my old dream, of bein’ a rich white lady’s maid, so I could get out of my low station in life. (Underscore: SWEET GEORGIA BROWN.) But I didn’t have too much time to think on that, ‘cause these two men come up to me in Jake’s and said they was Braxton and Nugent and would I like to join their vaudeville show. They paid ten dollars a week. Ten dollars! Wow!! And all I had to do was sing and dance. I knew I couldn’t fool ‘em into thinkin’ I had any talent for long. So I said I would if they let me find someone to fill in at the hotel, so I’d have a job to come back to when they were done with me in show business. Momweeze say she keep my job for me. We played anywhere, and I do mean anywhere. Some of them acts was as sad as McKinley’s funeral. The audience threw cabbages or tomatoes at ‘em. So I always prayed, “Lord above, please let ‘em like me.” (The lights change to reflect Ethel’s performance as she sings SWEET GEORGIA BROWN.) She just got here yesterday, Things are hot here now they say.
A QUESTION OF PRIVACY By Larry Parr A QUESTION OF PRIVACY is based on the rightofprivacy trial brought by Zelma Cason after the publication of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ book, CROSS CREEK. For dramatic purposes, time has been telescoped, characters combined, and dramatic license has been taken, always, though, with the hope that the true nature and importance of the trial is presrved. THE CHARACTERS: MARJORIE KINNAN RAWLINGS, the famous author of THE YEARLING and CROSS CREEK, was 50 years old at the time of the trial. She was a sensual person who loved men, nature, food, and alcohol. She was overweight. Her deep love of nature and her Florida surroundings at Cross Creek made her less aware of her own appearance, and she was apt to go through the day at Cross Creek without shoes and in a plain housedress. In public, though, she was a stylish woman. Today she would probably be diagnosed as having a chemical imbalance, perhaps hypoglycemia, aggravated by alcoholism. NORTON BASKIN, Marjorie’s husband, was a few years younger than Marjorie, a handsome, personable man who used his charm successfully in running various hotels. ZELMA CASON, as described by Marjorie in CROSS CREK, was “an ageless spinster resembling an angry and efficient canary. She manages her orange grove and as much of the village and county as needs management or will submit to it. I cannot decide whether she should have been a man or a mother. She combines the more violent characteristics of both, and those who ask for or accept her manifold ministrations think nothing of being cursed loudly at the very instant of being tenderly fed, clothed, nursed or guided through their troubles.” She was fiftyeight years old at the time of the trial. SIGSBEE SCRUBS, a great bear of a man, was very much a country attorney. He paid no attention to his appearance. “The world’s worst dresser who would go into the courtroom looking like hell in his fivedollar sports coat,” is his son’s description of him. KATE WALTON, in her thirties, intensely private, was an attorney at a time when women could not even serve on juries in Florida. JUDGE JOHN MURPHREE, in his early forties, youthful, with a sense of humor. He often had to cover his mouth to hide his laughter during the more hilarious moments in the trial. THE SET: Upstage is the back porch of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ home at Cross Creek, Florida. It is a neat, wellmanicured Florida Cracker home at the edge of an orange grove, and beyond, to the wild tangle of undeveloped Florida. Marjorie used the porch as her writing studio, and an upright typewriter sits on a table made out of a plam log for a center support and a round piece of wood for the top. A bottle sits next to the typewriter. The rest of the porch is furnished with comfortable chairs for sitting, plants, and so forth. A shotgun hangs on the wall.
The porch overlooks the manicured yard, and beyond, where the audience sits, to a road that passes by the house. An ax is propped against a woodpile next to the house. The set drips with Spanish moss. The porch will be transformed into the judge and witness area at the Alachua County Courthouse in Gainesville, Florida, with the yard becoming the area where attorneys and their clients sit. When attorneys or witnesses address the jury, they are addressing the audience. THE TIME Early in the year 1946 ACT I (MARJORIE is on the porch, working at her typewriter. She takes a drink. NORTON walks up the road, whistling, his jacket slung over his shoulder. He has a bandage on his arm. MARJORIE hears him, stops typing, then leans against the porch railing, looking out at him for a moment.) MARJORIE: Hey, this is private property. NORTON: I heard tell a mighty pretty worldfamous writer lives out here. Wanted to come out and see for myself. (Wolf whistles.) They were right. If you’re the writer, you sure are pretty…. (Marjorie takes the gun from the wall.) MARJORIE: What do you want here? NORTON: I heard you had a fight with your husband, and he left you all alone out here, ripe for the takin’. Thought you might be lonely for some company. (Marjorie cocks the gun.) MARJORIE: We don’t like strangers poking around our business here at the Creek. NORTON:
Well, now that you mention it, pokin’ around in your business for a while sounds like it might be a good way to spend the afternoon. What does your business feel about that? MARJORIE: Well, my husband has been gone awhile. And my business has been pretty lonely lately. Sounds like a good proposition to me. (She puts the gun aside and runs into his arms, and they kiss passionately.) Norton! I thought you w ere spending the whole week in St. Augustine. NORTON: That old hotel practically runs itself. MARJORIE: What happened to your arm? NORTON: Oh. Just a little accident. MARJORIE: At the hotel. I worry so when you’re away. Are you all right? NORTON: A few stitches. MARJORIE: Oh, Honey. I wish I had been there to take care of you. NORTON: I’ve been hurt worse. Look, Marjorie. Somethin’ serious has come up. MARJORIE: You got my apology?
NORTON: Very effective. Sack cloth and ashes in the same envelope as your letter of apology. MARJORIE: I knew I had done something awful, when you weren’t here the next morning. And then I found our supper dishes broken all over the hogpen. And I worried so all week that you wouldn’t forgive me this time. I wish I could make you understand. It’s like a black, cosmic despair. Like a sadness so deep and broad, it can’t have originated in me. Like it gathered from the far reaches of the universe and chose me to settle in. Only I’m too small to hold it. NORTON: Did you ever think…? Well, that maybe we should find someone to help you? That maybe this bad thing comes from the same place your genius comes from? MARJORIE: There’s nothing wrong with me. I’ll control it from now on. I promise. NORTON: Will you? What’s a bottle doing next to your typewriter? That was never there before. MARJORIE: You don’t know how hard it is. You can never know. NORTON: I know you’ve written five books. You’ve earned three honorary doctorate degrees. You won the Pulitzer Prize, for God’s sake, and you didn’t need a bottle next to your typewriter. Drinkin’ is not going to make writing any easier for you. MARJORIE: Is that why you came home? To torment me? NORTON: You are a challenge, Marjorie. These…dark spells of yours. Or while you’re writin’, you move into that place in your head….
MARJORIE: So why do you even bother? NORTON: You make me see, for the first time, the beauty of the scrub country. The seasonal comin’s and goin’s of birds. You make my life more than it has ever been. You fill up my soul. Who else could I love? MARJORIE: Oh, say you came home to forgive me. So things between us can get back to normal. Please, Norton. NORTON: I came home because there’s something serious we have to talk about. MARJORIE: I’m afraid of what you’re going to say. NORTON: It’s about Zelma Cason. MARJORIE: Zelma? Has something happened to her? NORTON: Nothin’ at all wrong with her, except she’s ornerier than a snake. MARJORIE: Feisty old Zelma. One of the things I like about her. You know, come to think of it, I haven’t seen her in months. NORTON:
Marjorie, she’s suin’ you. MARJORIE: Suing! Me?! Why…” NORTON: Over CROSS CREEK. The things you said about her in that book. MARJORIE: Zelma Cason? Norton, is this one of your jokes? NORTON: I wish it was a joke. She’s suin’ me, too. MARJORIE: Why? NORTON: Part of Florida law. A woman gets sued, so does her husband…. MARJORIE: But I a man gets sued? NORTON: He stands alone, like the mighty oak. MARJORIE: I can’t believe it. I’ve never heard of someone suing an author over what appears in a book. NORTON: They’re calling it invasion of privacy. MARJORIE: Invasion of privacy?
NORTON: There’s no law about it on the Florida books. It’ll be some sort of test case, to see if an author can write about anyone she wants to. MARJORIE: Well, of course I can. I was given that right in the constitution. Freedom of speech. Take that away, and, well…. Nobody would be able to write anything. Besides, I don’t remember anything I wrote that’s so awful about her. Do you? NORTON: It’s in the chapter about taking the census. MARJORIE: Let me get it. I can’t imagine…. (Marjorie goes to retrieve a copy of CROSS CREEK from the porch.) NORTON: Well, here. Zelma, the census taker, is an ageless spinster resembling an angry and efficient canary. She manages her orange grove and as much of the village and county as needs management or will submit to it. I cannot decide whether she should have been a man or a mother. She combines the more violent characteristics of both, and those who ask for or accept her manifold ministrations think nothing of being cursed loudly at the very instant of being tenderly fed, clothed, nursed or guided through their troubles.” MARJORIE: What’s wrong withthat? NORTON: There’s more. The suit has two parts. Besides invasion of privacy, they’re claimin’ you libeled her. Zelma says you indicated in the book that she uses foul language, and that besmirches her character. MARJORIE: Uses foul language?
NORTON: I know, I know. She talks like a Hemingway character. Every now and then an eight letter word creeps in, but then you realize it’s made up of two fourletter words put together. (Leafing through CROSS CREEK.) Do you remember what you said? MARJORIE: Oh, here, where she was talking about Yankees moving into the area. “My profane friend Zelma, the census taker, said, ‘The bastards killed the egrets till the egrets gave out. They killed the ‘gators for their hides till the ‘gators gave out. If the frogs ever give out, the sons of bitches will starve to death.’” Now what’s wrong with that? That’s exactly how she talks. NORTON: It’s how every sonofabitch around here talks. MARJORIE: What does she want? NORTON: She wants onehundredthousand dollars to soothe her injured feelings. MARJORIE: A hundred thousand dollars! Oh, Norton, and I got you into this. Whatever are we going to do? NORTON: I already spoke to Sigsbee Scruggs. He agreed to handle the case. MARJORIE: Sigsbee! What does he know about freedom of speech? Or libel? Only people he ever got off are moonshiners and men caught hunting or fishing with traps or nets. NORTON:
And who’s gonna’ be sittin’ on the jury? MARJORIE: Who? NORTON: Those very same fishermen and moonshiners. Or their friends who are out moonshinin’ too. Or at least drinkin’ what they make. Or men tryin’ desperately to make a livin’ off the lake despite government regulations. MARJORIE: It seems you have my lawsuit all taken care of for me. NORTON: Don’t forget, it’s my lawsuit, too. MARJORIE: Save the damned hotel smile for those old ladies over in St. Augustine. NORTON: Sigsbee Scruggs is comin’ over to talk to you. MARJORIE: When? NORTON: Anytime now. MARJORIE: Now? Oh, Norton, this scares me. NORTON: Honey, just think of us. No matter what happens, we’ll have each other. I know this seems like a big, bad thing. But the good parts of our life are more important than the bad parts. Our happiness is more important than Zelma.
MARJORIE: Are we happy? You’re gone so much. And the days seem endless when you’re away. At least I had company when Pat was alive. It about killed me when he died. I went down to his grave this morning. NORTON: I swear, you think more of that poor old dead dog than you do me. I am a revered member of an old Southern family, and Pat was a sonofabitch. But Marjorie, in your treatment of us, you tend to reverse our positions. MARJORIE: You know those three cabbage palms I buried Pat under? NORTON: Where he could be cool in the summer. MARJORIE: A strangler fig took hold of one of those palms. NORTON: Must be a bird dropped a seed up there. MARJORIE: As much as I love every living thing, that’s the one thing I can’t abide. It’s unnatural. Instead of growing up from the ground, like a normal plant, the strangler fig starts growing way up in the tree. And as the roots grow down, they wrap themselves around and around the palm tree like a boa constrictor, trying to choke the life out of that palm, till eventually there will be no palm at all. Only strangler fig. NORTON: You always say about rattlesnakes and ‘gators, they’re God’s creatures. It’s the same way with strangler figs. MARJORIE: I know you’re right. It’s just…. As Leonard Fiddia would say, “they creepify me.”
Zelma Cason creepifies me, too. Suing me. Me! The bitch. NORTON: Think of the good. Think of us. Remember that day when we were first married? We took that walk out past the oak hammock, down along the creek where the wild orange grows. MARJORIE: With the mossy bank pressing into my back and the sun shining down into my face and your smell all around me. Wasn’t our love strong and exciting then? NORTON: It still is. It’s just different now. MARJORIE: I wish we could just go back to that day and wrap up in each other and forget so much what has happened since then. Like this awful thing with Zelma. It just makes me want to run away. I heard from Owen and Louise Young, up in VanHornsville, New York. They know of an old farmhouse up there for sale. Maybe I should just pack up and leave. NORTON: You can't run away from your problems, Honey. They'll still be here, waitin' for you. We'll face this thing together. MARJORIE: I have to get ready for Sigbee. NORTON: You look just fine. MARJORIE: I mean I need a drink. SISGBEE: (Offstage.)
Hello the house. (Sigsbee enters.) MARJORIE: You ready for some of Leonard's moonshine? SIGSBEE: Come to think of it, I am sorta parched. (She goes to the porch to retrieve a Mason jar and glasses.) NORTON: Thanks for comin' by on such short notice.
SUNDEW by Larry Parr THE CHARACTERS ELIZABETH ANDREWS, who owns Eden. ALICE ANDREWS, her daughter. TOM PERKINS, Alice's boyfriend. MATTHEW SPENCER, a country attorney. THE TIME Act I: A spring day. Act 2 Scene 1 An afternoon, a few days later. Scene 2 The next day. THE SETTING Elizabeth Andrews' home, Eden, somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains. THE SET The play is set in what Elizabeth Andrews has come to think of as Eden. It is her home and has been for many years. Upstage is the rambling back porch of a very modest country house with a door leading into the house. Rocking chairs are arranged haphazardly on the porch. The porch is surrounded by lush vegetation, trees, bushes, wild irises in bloom, with the suggestion that this is a clearing in the midst of a wilder place. A path leads around the house Upstage Left.
Downstage Far Right are two old sunkendown graves with faded, wood markers. The graves can be pretty obscure, reclaimed over the years by nature. NOTES: SUNDEW should have a hazy, golden, timeless, mythical quality, reflected in the costumes, lighting, and set. ACT I
(Lights up on Elizabeth weeding the graves.) ELIZABETH: We got the garden all put in, Charlie. And Alice hauled in a big ol' basket of fiddlehead ferns from the woods to put up. (There is a sudden loud call of an exotic bird.) Look! Charlie, you got to see. A pair of Carolina Parakeets! Right up here in the tree! Oop, there they go off. Well, mayhap they'll come back later. (Alice enters from the house carrying a pan of greens, which she sits on the steps to clean.) ALICE: Who's out here, Mama? Who you talkin' to? ELIZABETH: Your daddy. I just showed him those Carolina Parakeets. Well, where did he go to? ALICE: Come in out of the sun now. You know Daddy's been dead since I was a bitty girl. ELIZABETH: Oh, no. Well...yes, I guess. His grave's here. But who was just here talkin' to me?
ALICE: It was just your memories, Mama. ELIZABETH: Memories? I never knew memories could be so real. As real as you sittin' right there before me. (Elizabeth stoops and begins pulling a few stray weeds from the graves. Alice paces.) Alice, what you so restless about? You're so antsy, you ain't hardly stood still all day. ALICE: I've just been thinkin' so much of Tom. I'm startin' to miss him. ELIZABETH: He workin' too hard down to the mill to have time for us anymore? ALICE: We're just spendin' some time apart. ELIZABETH: Sometimes I worry you and Tom are getttin' too serious together. ALICE: Worry? You know we're serious. ELIZABETH: I ain't seen him moonin' 'round you for weeks. ALICE: It's just too much sometimes. Too big. It just feels better apart, knowing he's over there somewhere waiting and thinking about me. That's about as much as we can handle for now. Being together was just too much to fit inside our hearts.
ELIZABETH: Alice, honey, you don't got to rush into anything with Tom. The world is full of men. Mayhap Tom just isn't the one for you. Give yourself time to look around. ALICE: Oh, no. I'm sure. We took a walk out through the peach orchard in full bloom. All lit up by the moonlight. And we both knew we couldn't stop from getting on to each other. ELIZABETH: Oh, Alice, you got to take it easy with him. ALICE: I never knew anything could be so good. We just lay there in each other's arms and cried. The sky was desolate and beautiful. When we looked up and saw all those stars, we felt...lonely instead of loved. Like all of this huge world above and around us.... ELIZABETH: And God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to separate the day from the night." ALICE: Oh, we even tried to talk about it, but we just couldn't find the right words. Our love felt as big as the sky...yet it was tiny and puny too. We didn't even say anything to each other the next day. We just knew we had to stay away from each other awhile. To let our feelings settle into reality. He'll be coming by any day now. Now that we've both finished school, we have to plan between us how our lives will be.... ELIZABETH: ...right here on Eden. ALICE:
I want so much to finish my schooling. I can't do that if we stay here. ELIZABETH: Tom's got somethin' in him belongs out in a woods. Mayhap you think you got to go away from here. But don't ruin Tom by puttin' those thoughts in his head, too. ALICE: Oh, Mama, it's all just whatifs. There's no way we can leave here anyway. ELIZABETH: I was just thinkin' 'bout Tom, too. Somehow, weedin' those graves made me think of that day I found him in a basket down by the spring when he was no higher'n an owl's knee. Like findin' Moses in the bulrushes. (She gets a glass of peach brandy from the porch and sips on it occasionally throughout the rest of this act.) I'm 'bout to give up on those graves. Every year, I see less of 'em and more of Eden. Your daddy and brother are becomin' part of God's earth. ALICE: I can't even remember them. ELIZABETH: Well, you were such a bitty thing. You prob'ly don't even remember livin' away from Eden, do you? ALICE: Did we? ELIZABETH: A bad little while. Before your Daddy and little brother died. ALICE:
Oh, why does there have to be death? Why can't we just go on and on and on. ELIZABETH: Well, I guess we die so the irises will have fertilizer. ALICE: Mama! It's not something to joke about. ELIZABETH: I know, Honey. Death's just the price we pay for livin'. (Tom appears on the path by the porch.) TOM: Is that me I heard you talkin' 'bout? Comin' up through the woods, I heard my name. ALICE: Tom! (She rushes to him and hugs him.) Tom! ELIZABETH: We just spoke 'bout you, Tom. TOM: I felt it in my heart. I felt my girl's voice singin' inside here. That's why I came by, soon as I got off work. And to talk to you, Miss Elizabeth. ELIZABETH: It's like we wished you here. TOM: I just saw the strangest thing out in your woods. Looked like a big deer of some sort, only different. I just got a little glimpse of it. Never saw anything like it before.
ELIZABETH: An Eastern Elk! Oh, Tom, I'm glad you got to see. TOM: Eastern Elk? I've never heard of.... ELIZABETH: Used to be a lot of 'em. A long time ago. A long, long time ago. TOM: But I've never even seen one. ELIZABETH: Keep your eyes open, Tom. You'll see a lot of miracles you never seen before. TOM: I saw something else on my way over here, too. The darndest thing. Whole top of Baldwin Mountain is gone. They blew it up and grated it off. Some big parkin' lot there now. And a food store goin' in. ELIZABETH: (Upset.) Oh, no! I can't abide it! ALICE: Mama! It's just progress. TOM: Are you OK? ELIZABETH: Don't you see? The earth is alive! The soil is her flesh; the rocks are her bones. The wind is her breath, and the meadow is her hair. And they go and plunge their blades into her breast like that! ALICE:
You can't let it get to you so. ELIZABETH: Tom, don't you see? They're pavin' over the whole world. That's why Eden's so important. TOM: You got to calm down. You're gettin' company. When I was walkin' along the ridge on my way here, I saw Attorney Spencer's car stopped down to the road. Looks like he's heading up through the woods this way. ELIZABETH: That slatbutted old geezer'll have a time through those woods. He belongs havin' his feet propped on a desk 'stead of traipsin' 'round in God's outdoors. TOM: I thought you and Attorney Spencer were friends. ELIZABETH: He's like a bull lonely for a heifer. Necessary, but don't turn your back on 'im. ALICE: Tom, Honey. We've got some talking to do. You and me. Let's take a walk down through the peach orchard. ELIZABETH: You younguns stay here and talk. I'll go inside and see to supper. TOM: I saw Miss Hawks yesterday. She told me some interestin' things about you, Miss Elizabeth. Some things we got to talk about. ALICE: The peach orchard would be nice. Remember? ELIZABETH:
Don't go runnin' off with company comin'. Attorney Spencer will think you're tryin' to sneak away from seein' him. I'll just go in and leave you to yourselves. I got to get these greens on, so they'll be ready for supper. TOM: But just a minute. I wanted to.... (Elizabeth exits into the house. Alice rushes to Tom's arms, stopping him from following Elizabeth, and they kiss.) ALICE: Tom, Honey. I missed you. I'm glad you stayed away. It makes seeing you that much more wonderful. TOM: Maybe if I'd have stayed away forever, you would have died of happiness. ALICE: Now that I love you, I just hate for you to see me this way. TOM: What way, Honey? ALICE: Oh, my back aches from haulin' in baskets of fiddlehead ferns from the woods. This rough skin from hours out in the sun. And look at these nails. Ragged from helpin' can mama's jelly and honey. And I stink from livin' so close to possums and coons. This isn't what I want to be. I want to be smooth and sweetsmelling for you to put your hands on. And I want to wear a nice dress for you to look at. TOM: You couldn't be more beautiful to me. ALICE:
Let's daydream together, Tom. TOM: Our whatifs.... ALICE: You and I could move up to Chicago to go to school. TOM: And why did we decide on Chicago? ALICE: 'Cause that's where Cassie Spencer goes to school. It's where fancy people go. TOM: Oh yeah. Now I remember. You'll go to nurses' school. ALICE: And you'll become the world's best doctor. Like how you fixed that robin's broken wing. And helped that badger that got caught in a trap. TOM: You'll be that lady in white. And together, maybe you and I can fix some little kid's broken wing. ALICE: Or broken heart. TOM: Hey, wait a minute. What's up in the sky there? ALICE: Where?
TOM: Way, way up there. By that cloud. Don't you see? ALICE: I don't see. No. TOM: Oh, I see now. It's a pig flyin' by. ALICE: Oh, Tom. Goof. Seems like the only people who can make their dreams come true are people who already have money. TOM: Doesn't hurt any to dream. ALICE: But I can't leave Mama here all alone. She thought Daddy was here again. I wonder about that diamond necklace of Mama's. Do you think it would be enough to see to her if we leave? TOM: I don't know anything about diamonds. ALICE: It just makes me hurt inside to turn down that scholarship. (Matthew Spencer comes huffing and sweating down the path beside the porch, fanning himself and carrying a briefcase.) MATTHEW: There are some creatures movin' around in that underbrush I don't even care to know what they are.
ALICE: Well, Attorney Spencer. I was just thinking about your daughter. However is she? MATTHEW: I suppose you already heard. Cassie found herself a rich man to marry. A bigcity Chicago lawyer. ALICE: See Tom? Chicago. TOM: Here, sit down over here, Attorney. Spencer. (He sits on a tree stump.) ALICE: Let me get you some water. Mama. Attorney Spencer is here. (Alice dips out some water in a gourd dipper and hands it to Matthew, who accepts it gratefully, downs the water, and continues fanning himself. Elizabeth enters.) ELIZABETH: Who I hear out here? Alice got you some purentee water from the Pishon River? ALICE: Mama calls it the Pishon River out of Eden. Downstream a ways they call it Lizzie's Creek. MATTHEW: Why the hell don't you have a road cut through that jungle from the edge of your property to your house? It's a killer walk back here. (As she speaks, Matthew opens his briefcase and arranges some papers.)
ELIZABETH: Why? So you can bring your bigassed old frogkillin' car up through the woods and squarsh my critters? Leave behind a passel of frogshaped pancakes 'tween here and there? No thanks. I'll leave Eden just like it is. And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living critters according to their kinds." (She whistles a strange, exotic bird call, mimicking the Carolinea Parakeet.) ALICE: Mama, not while Attorney Spencer's here. ELIZABETH: I just wanted to call up those Carolina Parakeets. So Tom can see 'em. MATTHEW: (He is nervous.) Miss Elizabeth, I've...uh...come to talk to you 'bout an offer I got for your property. ELIZABETH: For Eden? MATTHEW: A considerable amount of money. ELIZABETH: An offer to buy Eden? Hah! Ain't interested. ALICE: Wait. Hear him out, Mama. MATTHEW: A considerable amount of money, indeed. I've...uh...never seen quite this much money put down in writing before. Folks around here, they die and leave a will or sell somethin', why it never amounts to more than a few hundred dollars. Maybe a thousand, two. But this.... I have to tell you plain, it makes me nervous talkin' 'bout it.
ALICE: How much is it? MATTHEW: Here's their offer. (He holds out a letter, which Alice takes.) ALICE: Is there that much money in the world? I never dreamed all this dirt could be worth something. (Elizabeth looks over her shoulder at the letter.) ELIZABETH: We're sittin' here on God's very best land. Sprawls out over parts of three counties. It ain't so much to offer. MATTHEW: Not so much? It's a great deal. ELIZABETH: They could offer me a river of honey and the Milky Way. I ain't sellin' Eden. MATTHEW: Now Miss Elizabeth. You best leave an open mind about this. Miss Alice, maybe you could talk some sense to your mother. ELIZABETH: Alice don't own Eden. I'm sittin' here in front of you breathin' air in and blowin' it out again. Must mean I'm still alive. That means I still own Eden. Just take these papers back. Thank 'em kindly. Tell 'em no. Eden ain't for sale. And it never will be. (Matthew puts the papers in the briefcase and starts to stand.)
ALICE: Wait, Attorney Spencer. Mama, can't we think about it awhile before you decide? ELIZABETH: I'm shocked inside you'd even consider sellin' Eden. This is your home. ALICE: I see how you struggle to pay the land taxes every single year. ELIZABETH: Ain't no struggle. Eden gives me honey to sell. Apples, peaches.... Eden pays its own taxes. Imagine, having to pay the gov'ment for land that belongs to God. ALICE: That money would make your life a lot easier, Mama. And maybe then Tom and I could go away to school. ELIZABETH: Listen to me. I mind me a old sow bear out in the north woods. I see how she does. Years when the fruit is heavy on the bush and the fish are a'plenty and the hives runnin' with honey, she come out o' her den the next spring with two cubs. Years when food's scarce and she can't make a livin', that same sow bear come out o' her den facin' spring alone. Nary a cub. TOM: What do you mean, Miss Elizabeth? ELIZABETH: Even a old sow bear knows she got to see to the land before she can see to any younguns. ALICE: Attorney Spencer, who wants to buy Mama's land?
MATTHEW: Uh...United Mining.... (Elizabeth gropes for a place to sit, as if she has been struck.) TOM: United Mining...? Why, that's why I came by. Miss Hawks was just tellin' me about.... (He looks strangely at Elizabeth.) ALICE: They'll get the land away from you. One way or another. Little people like us can't fight big companies like that. ELIZABETH: Hogsbreath! MATTHEW: I beg your par...? ELIZABETH: Hogsbreath!! (She pulls a weed from the iris patch and holds it up triumphantly.) Hogsbreath! I've been lookin' all over for this. Make tea from it, and it takes your headaches away. Some morning after you've had too much peach brandy. MATTHEW: You're trying to change the subject. We all thought you'd be glad to sell. That's a lot of money.