CONTENTS
CHARACTERS
SETTING
PRODUCTION NOTES
ACT ONE
ACT TWO
For Gareth, in his thirteenth year
That Summer opened the 25th Anniversary Blyth Festival season in Blyth, Ontario, on June 25, 1999, with the following cast:
MRS. CRUMP: Diana Belshaw
PAUL: Eric Davis
NARRATOR: Michelle Fisk
DAISY: Samantha Reynolds
CAITLIN: Erin Roulston
MARGARET: Adrienne Wilson
JACK: Larry Yachimec
Directed by Bill Glassco
Set and Costume Design by Shawn Kerwin
Lighting Design by Renee Brode
Sound Design by Evan Turner
O world! O life! O time!
– SHELLEY
CHARACTERS
MARGARET RYAN, narrator, 49
CAITLIN, her granddaughter, 13
MARGARET RYAN, 17
DAISY RYAN, 16
JACK RYAN, 43
MRS. CRUMP, 57
PAUL WYATT, 19
SETTING
The action takes place at Willow Beach, a summer resort on Wolf Lake in southern Ontario. Time present is 1990. Time past is 1958.
PRODUCTION NOTES
The production of the play should be poetic or lyrical. Accordingly, walls are not required. The cottage can be represented simply by a table and chairs. Other locations can be established the same way, or simply through light and sound.
The staging should be fluid, filmic, at moments even dream-like. As the NARRATOR recalls the summer of 1958, she wanders around the periphery of the action, watching the events unfold, reacting to her former self and the other characters.
ACT ONE
Darkness.
Music: A distant choir sings the hymn “Blessed Assurance.”
Lights slowly come up on the corner of an old country churchyard. A few headstones. A white birch … A woman kneels before a grave. This is MARGARET RYAN, who from now on will be referred to as the NARRATOR.
It is Saturday, May 26, 1990.
The NARRATOR reacts to the hymn. Then smiles at the audience.
NARRATOR
Listen. Choir practice … The Reverend Raymond Scott used to be the minister here at the Willow Beach Baptist Church. My sister Daisy and his son Tim took a shine to each other in the summer of 1958. The cottage we rented that year is just down there by the lake. Our neighbour was Mrs. Crump. This is her grave.
It’s been thirty-two years since I was last here on Wolf Lake, though I’ve often returned in dreams. In truth, I wouldn’t have come here this Memorial Day weekend except for my granddaughter Caitlin. She’s heard me mention this place so often that she insisted I bring her.
CAITLIN
(off) Gran!
NARRATOR
That’s her now. She’s thirteen.
CAITLIN enters, carrying a freshly picked bunch of wildflowers.
CAITLIN
I like it here, Gran. It’s so peaceful, isn’t it? Know what it reminds me of? The Congregational Church cemetery back home.
NARRATOR
I suppose it does … For me, though, it’s always been unique. Don’t tell anyone, but I lost my virginity one night in this graveyard. Right under that white birch.
CAITLIN
You never mentioned that before, Gran.
NARRATOR
It’s not something a lot of seventeen-year-olds did in those days, either. Girls or boys … He seemed much older, of course, your grandfather. All of nineteen.
CAITLIN
Did you love him, Gran?
NARRATOR
Paul? Very much … Here, let me take those.
CAITLIN
I just picked them.
NARRATOR
On second thought, I can’t put white lilacs on her grave. Mrs. Crump considered all white flowers unlucky …
CAITLIN
(reads the epitaph)
Kathleen Crump
Born March eleventh, 1901
Died August second, 1958
NARRATOR
(to the audience) She drowned the summer we were here. She was fifty-seven years of age, which doesn’t seem that old to me now, although it certainly did at the time.
CAITLIN
Kathleen’s such a lovely name, isn’t it, Gran? Kathleen with a K.
NARRATOR
Yes, it is. Caitlin, of course, is the Gaelic form of it.
CAITLIN
I know. I’m named after her.
NARRATOR
Come to think of it, I didn’t learn her given name till after she died. She was always Mrs. Crump to Daisy and me. No one called her Kathleen, not even my dad.
In the distance comes the muffled roll of thunder. Lights change, and a slight wind rustles the white birch.
NARRATOR
(to CAITLIN) Could be a storm brewing … Why don’t you wait in the car, Caitlin? I won’t be long.
CAITLIN
I’d sooner poke around, Gran.
NARRATOR
Suit yourself. I saw some touch-me-nots in the woods over there. And starflowers. There used to be a sundial out on the point.
CAITLIN
A sundial? Really?
NARRATOR
No one knows who put it there. The woods have probably claimed it by now.
CAITLIN
I’ll find it. Thanks, Gran.
She exits.
NARRATOR
Back in the 1950s, my dad was the guidance counsellor at our local high school. We lived in Vermont, in a small town called Jericho, our clapboard house not far from the Congregational Church.
When my mom was alive, our family spent the summers on Cape Cod. But after she died, and Dad married Sally, we’d drive to Old Orchard Beach in Maine.
However, 1958 was different. That spring, Sally began an affair with our life insurance salesman. And when Dad found out, he reacted as only Dad could. He sat down and wrote Mr. Rush an angry letter, cancelling our policy. Then he rented the cottage up here on Wolf Lake in southern Ontario.
His plan, I suppose, was to separate the moonstruck lovers. Maybe bring Sally back to her senses.
It didn’t. For two weeks, Sally pouted and sulked or went for long walks. At every meal her empty chair sat there like a rebuke. And at every meal my sister Daisy would mention it …
Lights rise on the cottage … JACK, MARGARET, and DAISY are seated at the table, the room washed in the gold-red light of late afternoon. Even at seventeen, MARGARET has a watchful quality about her. She is flat-chested, and self-conscious, and clearly not as sociable as DAISY.
DAISY
Dad.
JACK
What?
DAISY
Dad, the tension here is killing me. I think I’m getting a bleeding ulcer. And don’t laugh.
JACK
I’m not laughing, Daisy. Did you hear me laugh, Margaret?
MARGARET says nothing.
DAISY
Dad, I think you need your eyes examined. In case you haven’t noticed, Sally’s not at the table. This time, Dad, she’s locked herself in the bathroom. I think she’s reading Doctor Zhivago.
JACK
She has a splitting headache.
DAISY
Splitting headache? Dad, she’s had a splitting headache for two weeks. Either she’s lying through her teeth or she has a brain tumour.
JACK
Keep your voice down, will you? …
He pours himself a bourbon.
DAISY
One thing I know, Dad. Maggie and I couldn’t refuse to come to the table, could we? (then) Could we, Dad?
JACK
Sally’s a grown woman. If she wants time alone, t
hat’s her business … Want some advice? Ignore her.
DAISY
Ignore her? Oh sure. That’s like ignoring a hangnail.
MARGARET
Let’s face it, Dad. Sally didn’t want to come here in the first place. That’s why she’s acting this way … Why not admit you made a mistake and send her home? …
JACK says nothing.
DAISY
Dad?
JACK
I can’t do that, Margaret.
MARGARET
Why not?
JACK
I just can’t.
MARGARET
Dad, I can’t believe the hold she has on you. Is it because she looks so much like Mom? Is it?
JACK
For God’s sake, Margaret, you want Sally to hear you say that?
He belts back the bourbon.
NARRATOR
I noticed Dad was beginning to drink a lot. He hardly drank at all when Mom was alive.
MARGARET
All right. But don’t let her ruin it for the rest of us, okay? I agree with Daisy. I don’t want to spend every meal like a Trappist monk.
DAISY
She means in silence, Dad.
JACK
I know what she means, Daisy.
MARGARET
Dad, it’s summer. Daisy and I are young. I don’t see why we have to tiptoe around like someone’s dying in the next room.
DAISY
Like Garbo in Camille.
JACK
(slams his glass on the table) No wonder I drink!
Lights fade on the cottage.
NARRATOR
In the third week of July, it rained two days straight, and Sally became even more withdrawn, almost catatonic. And then the miracle happened. The morning the sun came out, Sally appeared for the first time in days. And somehow we knew, before being told, that Dad had agreed to send her home … As it turned out, he’d decided to drive her there himself. All the way back to Jericho …
Lights come up on the front porch … MARGARET, in a skirt and blouse, sits on the porch, writing in a blue hardback book. DAISY, in a two-piece bathing suit, sits on the steps, painting her toenails red.
NARRATOR
That morning, Sally was all smiles. She even insisted on carrying out her suitcases. I remember she waited in the car, the radio on, her copy of Lolita raised to her face like a hymnal …
MARGARET
The world is such a mystery, isn’t it, Daisy? I mean, I can understand why Sally might be attracted to Dad. What I can’t understand is why she’d fall for a loser like Mr. Rush. Would you risk it all for someone like that?
DAISY
Are you kidding? I wouldn’t even buy insurance from him. How can you trust a man who wears a hairpiece and drives an Edsel?
MARGARET
I know. His last car was a ’56 Packard. That’s just a glorified Studebaker.
Pause.
DAISY
You don’t suppose he’s a great lover, do you? A sexual acrobat?
MARGARET
(incredulous) Mr. Rush?
DAISY
Tim Scott says short guys are usually great in bed.
MARGARET
Know why Tim says that? Because Tim Scott is five feet tall with his shoes on.
DAISY
He is not, Maggie. He’s five foot six, soaking wet.
MARGARET
Maybe the truth is nobody understands why we’re attracted to each other. Maybe it’s all just chemistry, like fireflies. Is that possible?
JACK comes out, carrying a suitcase.
JACK
What’s that, Margaret? Is what possible?
MARGARET
Dad, remember when you first met Mom? The year you tried out for the Boston Braves?
DAISY
He met her the first week in Florida, didn’t you, Dad? She kept giving you the eye.
JACK
I was a goner, Daisy. From the moment I first laid eyes on her.
MARGARET
Dad, how did you know she was the one? You know, the one?
JACK
You just know it, Margaret. When it happens to you, it’ll hit you like a line drive to the heart. Believe me.
The car horn sounds.
JACK
All right, you two, I’ve got to go. Now pay attention. I want you to look after each other. Daisy, you listen to your sister, you hear? Margaret, you need anything, you ask Mrs. Crump. She’ll be keeping an eye on you.
DAISY
Keeping an eye on us? What for?
MARGARET
We’re not delinquents, Dad.
JACK
I know you’re not. She’ll just be dropping in now and then. See how you’re coping … Look, I’ll be back as soon as possible. I promise. No more than ten days.
DAISY
Ten days? That’s a long, long time, Dad.
JACK
I don’t like it either, sweetheart. But right now I can’t help it. You see, Sally and I have … Well, we’ve decided to separate for a while. Don’t suppose that comes as much of a shock, does it?
DAISY
It doesn’t even register on the Richter scale.
MARGARET
Besides, the walls here are paper thin.
DAISY
What does she expect you to do? Find an apartment for her? Help her move in?
JACK
Don’t make it harder than it is, Daisy.
MARGARET
Dad, you know why she wants her own place, don’t you? She’s not fooling anyone. All of New England knows about her and Mr. Rush.
Car horn sounds.
DAISY
Dad, promise us one thing. Promise you won’t paint her stupid place? Or pick out wallpaper? Promise?
JACK
I promise. Cross my heart … (kisses DAISY) See you soon. Be good now, you two. And don’t give Mrs. Crump a hard time.
DAISY
We won’t.
JACK
(kisses MARGARET) Things’ll be better now, Margaret. Much better. You’ll see.
DAISY
’Bye, Dad. I love you.
JACK walks off, carrying his suitcase.
MARGARET
Drive carefully!
MARGARET and DAISY stand in the yard, waving at the departing car.
NARRATOR
We watched them drive off. Sally wore a red cotton dress and Wayfarer sunglasses, her hair like gold in the morning sun.
MARGARET
Look how she ignores him.
DAISY
NARRATOR
Farther on, I saw my dad salute the rearview mirror. Then he struck the horn once, just once, with the heel of his hand, one long-drawn-out note of goodbye. And the sleek blue Chevy, the sun glinting off the narrow chrome of its fins, took the bend in the road, away from the lake, and was gone.
DAISY
Good riddance.
Lights fade on MARGARET and DAISY.
NARRATOR
Memory, of course, is selective. So much about that summer I’ve long forgotten. After all, it’s been more than three decades. And yet what happened in the next week is as fresh in my mind as though it had just happened.
And besides, there are some things in life we simply don’t forget. Ever.
Music: “Red River Rock” by Johnny & the Hurricanes.
Lights rise on the churchyard … MARGARET sits on the grass, her Yankees baseball cap beside her. She is writing with a yellow pencil in her blue hardback book. Ironically, this is the spot that a few weeks later will be MRS. CRUMP’s grave.
PAUL WYATT runs on. He notices MARGARET, who is completely unaware of his presence … After a moment, PAUL removes a harmonica from his pocket. Rubs it on his shirt. Then blows a few notes. MARGARET, startled, scrambles to her feet, clutching her book.
PAUL
Sorry ’bout that. Did I frighten yo
u?
MARGARET
Yes, you frightened me! Do you always do that? Sneak up on people? What’s wrong with you? What if I had a heart condition?
She slaps the grass off her dress.
PAUL watches her. Finally –
PAUL
Do you?
MARGARET
(looks at him) Do I what?
PAUL
Have a weak heart?
MARGARET
That’s not the point, stupid.
PAUL
What is the point?
MARGARET
Forget it. Just scram. Can’t you see I want to be alone? … Look, if you don’t leave, I’ll scream. I mean it.
PAUL
Go ahead.
MARGARET
I will. I’ll call the minister.
PAUL
He wouldn’t hear you. He’s hard at work on next week’s sermon. The parable of the ten virgins. Remember that one?
MARGARET
No.
PAUL
Five were wise, four were foolish, and the tenth was wearing a baseball cap.
MARGARET
Very funny.
Pause. PAUL blows on the harmonica.
MARGARET
Is this how you get your kicks? Lurking in graveyards? Serenading strange girls?
PAUL
If you ask me, you don’t look all that strange. In fact, you almost look normal.
MARGARET
Normal? Thanks a lot. That’s like calling someone cute.
PAUL
Actually, if I had to describe you in a word, I’d say you were …
MARGARET
What?
PAUL
I don’t know. Different.
MARGARET
Different? You mean, peculiar?
PAUL
I mean, unusual. Unlike anyone else … For one thing, you’re not like your sister at all, are you? Not really.
MARGARET
You know my sister?
PAUL
I’ve seen you together. Mostly at the Red Pavilion … She always dances with Tim Scott. You just sit and watch.
MARGARET
So? What’s wrong with that?
PAUL
Nothing’s wrong with it. Don’t be so defensive.
Pause.
MARGARET
I don’t dance, that’s all.
PAUL
Because you can’t? Or because you won’t?
MARGARET
What difference does it make? Not every girl’s like Daisy, you know. That hardly makes me neurotic.
PAUL
I didn’t say that it did.