The CTR Anthology Page 17
Blackout
SCENE TWENTY-FOUR
(The King in the forest. He is holding a broken branch. Looking at it. Silently crying. He rubs his head with the branch. Kisses it. Cradles it. Suddenly he shrugs. Looks around for a comfortable place. Sits down. Lies down. Dies. Twenty seconds of silence. Suddenly he stands up and begins to walk around aimlessly)
Blackout
SCENE TWENTY-FIVE
(The café. Farmer, Maria III, King, Queen, are all sitting with their arms folded. Becoming beautiful. Smiling. Maria II and Terrorist are whispering to each other. Raymond and Son are tapping the table. Drinking coffee.)
Son: So the king was human after all.
Raymond: We should have given him the benefit of the doubt.
Son: Although looking back he didn’t deserve it.
Raymond: Not that it mattered if we gave it to him or not. He was the king after all.
Son: I was just thinking that.
Raymond: I know.
Son: I know that too.
Raymond: So do I.
Maria II: Conditions here are becoming intolerable. Look at this crowd. Why don’t we do something?
Terrorist: We’re waiting for him to come up with a plan.
Maria II: I’m fed up with waiting for him. Maybe the rumours are true. Maybe he is dead.
Terrorist: Well, we’ll just wait a little longer.
Maria II: I’m fed up!
Terrorist: Lower your voice. This is a secret organization.
Maria II: Don’t give me orders. I can’t stand to be given orders.
Terrorist: Lower your voice! (They continue to argue in whispers.)
Raymond: The head of the church has …
Son: No he hasn’t.
Raymond: Oh. That’s right.
Son: But there is more news about the war. Any day now. The new king is almost certain.
Raymond: Finally. Although the new king has other problems on his mind. They say he’s having trouble getting used to his apartment. It’s haunted.
Son: With memories.
Raymond and Son: Whose memories?
Raymond: And there is a rumour about a new bomb. (Maria II looks up.)
Maria II: What does it do?
Son: No one wants to know.
(A long silence. Raymond/Son scratch Raymond’s nose. A long silence. The Farmer shifts in his chair. Everyone looks at him. Even the dead. Everyone waits. Nothing. Everyone turns away. Sadly.)
BLACKOUT
Ten Lost Years
Jack Winter and Cedric Smith
During the 1960s and 1970s Jack Winter wrote stage plays for Toronto Workshop Productions, where he was resident playwright. His works for TWP included Before Compiègne, The Mechanic, Hey Rube!, The Golem of Venice, Letters from the Earth, You Can’t Get Here from There, and Ten Lost Years. He also wrote freelance plays for specific commissions, including Party Day, The Centre, Mr Pickwick, and Waiting. During the same period he wrote more than two dozen radio and television plays and films for cinema, including Selling Out, The Island, Golovlovo, and Mask of the Bear, as well as critical articles, prose friction, and several collections of poetry. In 1976 he moved to England where he continues to write for production and publication.
An original member of the folk group Perth County Conspiracy, Cedric Smith has acted and directed in theatres across Canada. His roles have included Mr Horner in The Country Wife at Stratford, Richard III for the Manitoba Theatre Centre, and Billy Bishop in a national tour of Billy Bishop Goes to War. He has also written and performed in his solo show Under the Influence.
Ten Lost Years opened at Toronto Workshop Productions on 7 February 1974 for a three-month run. From 16 September to 30 November 1974 it toured western Canada before returning to Toronto for a second run. In August 1975 it played for two weeks in Toronto at the St Lawrence Centre before a tour through Atlantic Canada. In 1976 it toured in Europe, and was revived again in 1981 for a three-month run.
PRODUCTION
Director / George Luscombe
Playwright / Jack Winter
Music / Cedric Smith
Designer / Astrid Janson
Lighting / Alec Cooper
Costumes / Astrid Janson, Barbara Suarez
Stage Manager / Erika Klusch
CAST
Jackie Burroughs
Diane Douglass
Peter Faulkner
François-Régis Klanfer
Patricia Ludwick
Peter Millard
Dita Paabo
Richard Payne
Ross Skene
Cedric Smith
From the book by Barry Broadfoot
Additional song material contributed by Bob Burchill, Terry Jones, and The Perth County Conspiracy Does Not Exist.
DIRECTOR’S NOTE
The play should be performed with 10 actors – six men and four women.
The women have their “homes” on stage that they continue to return to.
The men keep moving as they did during the Depression when they travelled back and forth across the country. When we created the “trains” for the men, the women from their homes made the all-important sounds that accompanied the men on their journeys.
SCENE ONE: THE BENNETT BUGGY
Music in. Actors enter as the buggy.
Balladeer: You ask me what a Bennett Buggy was? Well, in the 20s farmers bought automobiles – Chevs, Fords, Hupmobiles – kinds they don’t even make any more. Then came the crash and the drought and nobody had any money for gasoline, let alone repairs; and they’d already thrown away all those fine old buggies every farm used to have. So what was left? A horse, pullin’ a car, that wouldn’t run.
Song: Bennett Buggy
Get out the Bennett Buggy,
Let’s go for a ride in the lovely countryside,
Two horse power, five miles an hour,
When Dobbin and Dolly get back to work again.
Make your own Bennett Buggy,
Put a tongue into the chassis, you’ve an oatburner classy
With horses pulling double you’ll have no engine trouble, And you’ll get back from town by next Monday night.
SCENE TWO: IN THE SUMMERTIME
Song: Summertime
In the good old summer time,
In the good old summer time,
Strolling down a shady lane with your baby mine,
You hold her hand and she holds yours,
And that’s a very good sign,
That she’s your tootsie-wootsie in
The good old summer time.
Song: Let me call you sweetheart
Let me call you sweetheart, I’m in love with you,
Let me hear you whisper that you love me too,
Keep the love-light glowing in your eyes so true,
Let me call you sweetheart, I’m in love with you.
Song: And the band played on
Casey would waltz with the strawberry blonde,
And the band played on,
He’d glide across the floor with the girl he adored,
And the band played on,
But his brain was so loaded it nearly exploded,
The poor girl would shake with alarm,
He’d ne’er leave the girl with the strawberry curls,
And the band played on.
Song: Circle
Will the circle be unbroken,
By and by, Lord, by and by,
There’s a better home a-waitin’
In the sky, O Lord in the sky.
Music continues underneath …
Farmer: I thought that you might appreciate this little story. It seems that during the Depression, in Canada, if a jack rabbit wanted to travel from Alberta through Saskatchewan into Manitoba he’d have to carry a lunch pail with him ’cause there was nothing to eat in Saskatchewan. They didn’t appreciate that story in Saskatchewan.
SCENE THREE: BIBLE BILL
Song: Circle
Will the circle be unbroken
There’s a better home a-waitin’
In the sky, O Lord in the sky.
Music continues underneath.
Quiet man: Then along came Bible Bill Aberhart and, sure, he was a phoney, but he was the phoney that people were looking for. They’d have voted for a guy selling snake oil if he could have shown them a way out. That’s what Aberhart did. Every Sunday. Religion and politics. Aberhart offered them hope, and spell that in capital letters.
Salesman: The greatest optimist in the world is the farmer. 1932, sold a binder to farmer’s wife. Now you gotta understand that the law of the land in 1932 was not – repeat – not what it is today. A man was not responsible for anything his wife might sign – a darn good idea too. But a man has his pride, even in hard times, and a farmer always thinks the next crop is gonna be a good one, hah, hah, hah, hah! Mrs Cody, come on out here and see what I put in your front yard – a brand new 1932 John Deere Binder – the Man o’ War of Machinery – ain’t it a pip?
Quiet woman (Mrs Cody): Oh I’m afraid we can’t possibly afford to buy that binder.
Salesman: Well now Mrs Cody, I know that times are hard but I stuck my nose into the barn on the way up here and I got a look at your old binder and it’s a wreck. It ain’t got a good week left in it – maybe not a day – and this could be a good summer coming.
Quiet woman (Mrs Cody): My husband is away in Moose Jaw and I think I should wait.
Farmer: Something else you oughta know is that the songs and stories you’re about to hear are the real stories of the real people all across Canada who survived the Depression. And they’re all true.
Salesman: Might say I never took a backward step in my life until that Depression whipped me: took away my wife, my home, a section of good land back in Saskatchewan. Left me with nothing.
Strong woman: My God but we were naïve. Fight the King’s wars, trust our politicians, believe that big wheat crops were the economic cornerstone of the nation, and go to church every Sunday. The 30s sure as hell changed all that.
Young man: We had hopes. We had dreams. Certainly. We were the class of ’35 in Newcastle and we graduated with the trimmings, and then we were told: right turn, forward march, enter the world!
Farm wife: I’ve seen clouds of grasshoppers go over like a great storm. They were in the millions, no, tens of millions. I’ve never seen a more terrifying sight than nature on the loose, gone mad.
Hobo: It seemed every year you’d read that someone at some university had invented a wheat that would resist rust; but someone was inventing a bigger and stronger rust. Must have been.
Quiet woman: We’ve run from those 10 years. We are ashamed of them, because of what we call the Protestant ethic, of course, which in essence says: “Work your arse off all your life and do what the boss tells you, and the Big Guy in the sky, when your time comes, He’ll see you get your reward.”
Salesman: Well now Mrs Cody, I understand that you would be reticent to sign anything with your husband away in Moose Jaw. However, allow me to point out that this is absolutely, positively, indubitably the very last binder I have, and if you don’t take it I’m gonna have to let it go to your neighbour up the road.
Quiet woman (Mrs Cody): Well, my husband will kill me, but I guess it’ll have to be done.
Salesman: Well, ain’t you the cat’s pajamas. Now you just sign right there. Now this is crazy ’cause I don’t know if you have the right to sign.
Quiet woman (Mrs Cody): But how will we ever make the payments?
Salesman: Well now Mrs Cody, don’t you worry about a thing. You’ve signed so I’m going to make sure you make the payments. (Pause.) So I’m going down the road and who should I run into but her old man on his tractor.
Quiet man (Mr Cody): What’s up, Harold?
Salesman: I’m here to face ya, Mr Cody … sold that binder to your wife this afternoon and if you’re going to get hopping mad I’ll rip the contract up.
Quiet man (Mr Cody): You could sell a whale a week to a small town butcher. Got a pen?
Salesman: So he signs the damn thing. That’s the way we did business in those days, anything to get a signature on paper. Of course, they never made a goddamn payment anyway; the grasshoppers had cleaned ’em out by June and if they hadn’t done it the drought would have. It was crazy country.
Song: Will the circle be unbroken,
By and by, Lord, by and by,
There’s a better home a-waitin
In the sky, O Lord, in the sky.
SCENE FOUR: SQUARE DANCE
Music: depressed dance with the ensemble.
Salesman: Into the breadline … come on back
Tie yourself to the railroad track.
If that don’t ease your troubled mind,
It’s better than standin’ in a relief line.
Grand chain across the land,
Bums and hoboes take a stand,
Ride the freights … go trek and roam,
’Cause the wind done blown away your home.
And keep on goin’ all the way round
The great big ring and come on home;
If you’ve got nothin’ left to eat,
Boil the leather on the children’s feet.
Men to the centre with the right hand out,
See that dust blow in and out,
Got no money in the till,
If the dust don’t get you then the hoppers will.
Lost the farm … what’ll we do,
It’s only 1932;
If the last three years have made you sad,
There’s seven more comin’, twice as bad.
Bennett swears he prays a lot,
But God ain’t listenin’ to his rot.
The people haven’t got a chance,
And I hope you like this depressed dance.
SCENE FIVE: HOT SUCKING WIND
Farmer: I’ll tell you what that Depression was like. It was survival of the fittest and I read my Bible more now than I ever did and I never read of hard times like that.
Quiet man: It was like a war. In 1915 when my battalion went into the trenches we were healthy, fit and alert young Canadians and we were considered trained to fight. Of course we weren’t, but that was something you picked up awful fast.
Girl #1: There were 17 in my family, my mother’s sister Marie had 21 and they were all alive.
Hobo: I never heard of any Canadian bankers jumping out of tall buildings into the streets of Toronto.
Girl #2: No baby bonus, no help at all.
Farmer: Let me tell you; the wind blew all the time from four corners of the earth. From the east one day, the west the next.
Girl #2: So there were all these babies anyway; long cold nights and no television. That’s what I say.
Farmer: Ask my wife, but she’s dead now; she said the wind used to make the house vibrate and it was just a small wind, but there, always steady and always hot. A hot sucking wind.
Girl #3: I could never get my laundry white. I’d try and try. The children’s things, the curtains and the sheets, why they all looked as grey as that sky out there.
Farmer: I could pick up a clod of dirt as big as this fist. I’d lay it on my hand and you could see the wind picking at it. The dry dust would just float away, like smoke.
Hobo: It was the interest that got us … nailed us down – them mortgage companies and the banks.
Farmer: I used to say the wind would polish your hand shiny, that is if you left it out long enough.
Hobo: It brought out the worst in a lot of people.
Farmer: You’ve got to understand, this was no roaring wind. It was just a wind blowing all the time, steady as a rock.
Salesman: Do you wonder why some people are bitter.
Hobo: The big companies took out the Bull Whip; pay up now or we take over.
Farmer: That dirt which blew off my hand? That wasn’t dirt. That was my land and it was going north or south or east or west, and it was nev
er coming back.
Quiet man: Some of these big fortunes you see around today were made by ruthless and totally unlikeable men in those years.
Hobo: The little guy went to the wall; thousands of them. But it often wasn’t the economy that did it. In those days the law of the jungle was at its height.
Strong woman: Wasn’t it Kipling who wrote a poem about how the weak shall perish and the strong will always survive, and how it was a good thing?
Salesman: We were all of us – from R.B. Bennett down to the lowest of the low, some Bo-hunk smelling of garlic – in one gigantic insane asylum.
Farmer: The land just blew away.
SCENE SIX: BACK TO THE OLD WAYS
Quiet woman: One thing, we had to go back to doing things the way our mothers did. The old ways. The old methods. We’d had electricity but the windcharger, it broke down and it broke down again and again and there was no money to fix it, or for new batteries. I remember making butter in a churn John found in our implement shed. When my mother was over one afternoon and we were churning she said. “This is what I used to do 30 years ago. What went wrong?” I said everything. I said since we had no electricity I separated cream by hand, and because we had no money I baked all my bread and John mended his own harness, right there at the kitchen table by lamplight, and if the cultivator shoes broke, he made new ones, and he’d learned to shoe the work horses and I was doing all the laundry by hand because we couldn’t afford no gas-operated washer, and Lord God, that was hard work, and I was telling my mother this and she said: “It’ll all work out in the end. You’ll be a better woman for it.” God, I was never closer to killing a person in my life than right then.
Strong woman: The coal killed my man. Just as sure as if he’d been on the field of battle, through shot and shell. He worked for a coal company. You see, you had this truck and you loaded it with these sacks with bulky coal – it would stick out everywhere and push into his back – and then you drove to the house which wanted the coal and you carried each sack to the chute. My man used to say each sack weighed 125 pounds, 16 to the ton. He could count to 16 all right! Home after dark, maybe seven or eight loads on an ordinary day, and he got $2.50 a day. About 60 a month for the hardest work any one man every ordered another man to do. He’d come home and I’d say. “You look like a coal man,” because his face would be black with dust and he’d say, if he had the strength, “No, I look like a whipped nigger.”