Carson McCullers by Carson McCullers

Author:Carson McCullers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Library of America
Published: 2016-10-09T16:00:00+00:00

TIME: The present

ACT I:

A May midnight

ACT II:

The next afternoon

ACT III:

Scene 1: Just before dawn of the following day

Scene 2: A week later

ACT ONE

Time: A May midnight.

Scene: Living room of a comfortable house twenty miles from New York. A small apple farm. The room is comfortable, unpretentious, homey. There is a door upstage center leading to the outside with window seats on either side. When the door is open we see a branch of apple blossoms from the grandfather clock at the foot of the stairway. The stairway, stage left, leads to a shallow landing and two bedrooms upstairs.

Stage left we see a small pantry leading to a kitchen. A door downstage right leads to a small sewing room. There is a sofa and a few pieces of furniture, homey, with a faint air of elegance, but homey.

At Rise: At curtain rise the stage is dark except for a crack of light under the door of the kitchen. We hear gurgle nightmare sounds. MOLLIE enters from kitchen, followed a little later by JOHN. When MOLLIE turns on light we see PARIS asleep on the sofa.

MOLLIE: You are having a nightmare. Wake up, darling.

PARIS: Where am I?

MOLLIE: Safe in your mother’s arms.

PARIS: Oh! It was awful.

JOHN: What was it, Paris?

PARIS: I dreamed a burglar was in the house. A dark man in a kind of burglar’s cap—at first I didn’t see his face.

MOLLIE: It was just a nightmare. There’s not any burglar here.

PARIS: And the moonlight. When I saw the burglar’s face. It was so strange—so awful.

MOLLIE: I was afraid that lamb curry was too rich.

PARIS: The door opened like a hinged window. You know how queer dream windows are. And I was trying to scream, to warn you. And when I saw the burglar’s face it was—

MOLLIE: All this rich food.

PARIS: The burglar was my father—in a burglar’s cap.

MOLLIE: Silly-billy! You see how silly the whole thing is. There’s no burglar in the house and it’s past two o’clock.

PARIS: Why are you up so late?

MOLLIE: We were drinking tea in the kitchen and talking.

PARIS: What were you talking about? Not that I’m nosey or anything like that.

MOLLIE: We were talking about San Francisco and mousetraps. John set the trap for that mouse.

PARIS: Why were you talking about San Francisco?

MOLLIE: John is leaving us soon. He has a job there. I will be desolate without him.

JOHN: Will you, Mollie?

MOLLIE: Yes. Quite lost, in fact.

(JOHN gently puts his arms around MOLLIE.)

PARIS: Why, John?

JOHN: Why what?

PARIS: Why do you put your arms around my mother? Why do you look at her that way?

JOHN: What way?

PARIS: When you look at her, your eyes are zany.

MOLLIE: Don’t be fractious, Lambie. It unhinges me.

JOHN: Go to sleep, Paris. Your mother is tired, unhinged.

MOLLIE: Yes, when I looked in the mirror today I had nine gray hairs.

PARIS: Why do you keep your arms around my mother? Why do you look at her in that zany way?

JOHN: Because I love your mother.

PARIS: You can’t love my mother. She’s my mother.

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