PLAYS

American Dream, The: A Play. Edward Albee. 1961. 93p. Coward-McCann. Mommy and Daddy sit in a barren living room making small talk. Mommy, the domineering wife, is grappling with the thought of putting Grandma in a nursing home. Daddy, the long-suffering husband, could not care less. Grandma appears, lugging boxes of belongings, which she stacks by the door. Mommy and Daddy can’t imagine what’s in those boxes, but Grandma is well aware of Mommy’s possible intentions. Mrs. Barker, the chairman of the women’s club, arrives, not knowing why she is there. Is she there to take Grandma away? Apparently not. It all becomes evident when Grandma reveals to Mrs. Barker the story of the botched adoption of a “bumble of joy” twenty years ago by Mommy and Daddy. Mrs. Barker appears to have figured it out when Young Man enters. He’s muscular, well-spoken, the answer to Mommy and Daddy’s prayers: The American Dream. Grandma convinces him to assist in her master plan. She puts one over on everybody and escapes the absurdly realistic world which she finds so predictable.

Approximating Mother. Kathleen Tolan. 1992. 42p. Dramatists Play Service. Fran and Molly are best friends; Molly is already a mother and is expecting again, but Fran is approaching 40 and has yet to find a potential father, let alone husband, amid a comic slew of failed suitors and blind dates, each of whom we hear about in hysterically funny and embarrassing detail during Fran and Molly’s frequent days out together. When Molly delivers, Fran is so moved and slightly envious that she sets out to explore the possibilities of single motherhood, eventually winding up with a shady lawyer who will arrange for Fran to adopt an unwanted baby if she’ll cover the mother’s medical costs. Meanwhile, the mother, an Indiana teenager named Jen, is debating her decision to give up the baby. When the baby is born, Fran makes the mistake of showing up at the hospital where she accidentally runs into Jen and begins to realize that she’s just taken part in an illegal adoption. After she’s returned to the city with the baby, Fran has dreams about the baby’s natural mother that haunt her, along with the doubts about the impact of what she’s done, even as baby Tara sustains her.

Artichoke. Joanna M Glass. 1979. 62p. Dramatists Play Service. The scene is the Morley farm, in the prairie country of Saskatchewan, Canada. Margaret and Walter Morley have been estranged for fourteen years, ever since his encounter with a “water witch” resulted in the arrival of his illegitimate daughter, Lily Agnes, and led to Walter’s banishment to the smokehouse. Margaret has remained in the main house, with Lily Agnes (whom she has raised as her own), and her father, Gramps. They are joined for the summer by Gibson McFarland, Gramps’ adopted son, now a college professor, who is recovering from a mild nervous breakdown. Gibson’s return reopens old wounds and desires, and it is soon apparent (and so reported by two gossipy bachelor neighbors) that Margaret’s needs for culture and affection are now being satisfied at last. As summer wanes so must the idyll of Gibson and Margaret, but her transgression, in Walter’s eyes, evens the score between them—and as the play ends it is clear that the Morley household, so long divided, will once again know the harmony and love that anger and stubborn pride have so long denied.

Avow. Bill C Davis. 2001. 70p. Dramatists Play Service. Brian and Tom ask their liberal and forward-thinking parish priest, Father Raymond, to witness and bless their vows to each other. Although Father Raymond understands their affection for each other, he holds that they must live a celibate life if they wish to be part of the Church. Brian is outraged. Tom becomes reflective, as Father Raymond’s words strike a chord in him. Brian’s sister, Irene, a concert pianist, is single and pregnant from an affair. Brian has convinced her to have the baby, which he and Tom will adopt. Irene, desiring nothing more than her brother’s happiness and security, tries to mediate between Brian and Tom and Father Raymond. Much to her surprise she discovers a deep attraction to Father Raymond. The attraction turns out to be mutual, forcing Father Raymond to reexamine his life of commitment and loneliness. In the meantime, Brian’s and Irene’s mother, Rose, works very hard through her confessor, Father Nash (who is also Father Raymond’s confessor), to come to terms with her son’s and daughter’s “exotic” lifestyles. As Tom begins to pull away from Brian, Father Raymond moves closer to Irene. Tom’s and Brian’s catalytic request creates five separate and linked spiritual journeys, each seeking to balance passion and faith.

Breakfast in Bed. Jack Popplewell. Joe Henderson, a hard-working but rather close-fisted widower, lives with his daughter, Mary, in the grimy, English mill town of Brimley. Joe’s two married sisters, Alice and Jane, also reside in Brimley, as have all of their family—with the exception of three black sheep uncles who were asked to leave town some fifty years earlier. But now one of the uncles, Robert Oldfield, has written to announce his intention of coming back to Brimley to end his days and Joe, learning that the old man has amassed a fortune, decides to offer him a home. His sisters are easily hoodwinked into letting Joe take over the “family obligation,” until they too find out about Uncle Robert’s money—at which point the bickering begins. When the old gentleman arrives he finds that he is to be shuttled back and forth from home to home, but the mood of energetic cordiality rapidly dissipates when it is discovered that their guest is not Uncle Robert at all, but his ne’er do well brother, Emmanuel. A promise being a promise Joe takes the old man in, but begins to fume as his money, his liquor, his cigars and his wardrobe are blithely usurped by his boarder. Joe has had all about he can stand when Uncle Emmanuel obligingly falls down the steps of a pub and expires—but excitement flares up again when the real Uncle Robert arrives shortly afterwards. Again the competition for hospitality (and anticipated inheritance) begins, much to the increasing distaste of Joe’s daughter, Mary, who wants only to marry her fiance, Peter (Jane’s adopted son), and leave Brimley and her petty relatives forever. Mary and Peter dream of buying a farm in Cornwall, but they have no money and Peter is saddled with the running of his foster father’s mill. But Uncle Robert (who is really not rich at all) saves the day by deftly swindling the necessary money from his avaricious kin, after which he dies and leaves it to the lovers. So all works out happily—marred only by the announcement that uncle number three has just arrived from Australia!

Bye Bye Baby. Elyse Gasco. 2006. 80p. Scirocco Drama. Bye Bye Baby is a dramatic comedy inspired by Elyse Gasco’s multi-award-winning book Can You Wave Bye Bye, Baby? and marks her debut as playwright. The play follows one woman’s journey to discover the truth about her birth mother as she struggles to make sense of her own life and identity. Bye Bye Baby has a shockingly tactile quality that hits you right between the eyes with its brazen probing of the human heart. The play’s protagonist, Elle, is a seductive, witty, and immediately recognizable character. The sumptuously vivid images of her womanhood, the intimate realities of her early pregnancy, and her rage at the uncertainty that is her legacy are woven together as Elle navigates her way through the reams of bureaucratic red-tape which link her to the truth of her origins. As the plot twists in this part-mystery part-thriller, various suspects (the elusive birth mother, the chatty imaginary friend, the adoptive mother, the social worker) make their intentions clear and argue a justifiable defence for their presence or absence in Elle’s life. About the Author: Elyse Gasco was born in Montreal. She received a B.A. in Creative Writing from Concordia University and an M.A. in Creative Writing from New York University. Her award–winning collection of short stories, Can You Wave Bye Bye, Baby? was published in 1999 and was the recipient of the QSPELL/FEWQ First Book Award and a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and the Danuta Gleed Literary Award.

Emma’s Child. Kristine Thatcher. 1997. 79p. Dramatists Play Service. Jean and Henry Farrell, after years of unsuccessfully attempting to have a baby of their own, decide to adopt. Emma, the birth mother, approves of the couple. Now a new waiting game begins: awaiting the birth of their child. To help Jean through, her best friend Franny comes for a visit, but brings more baggage than a normal traveler as she is separating from her husband, Sam. When the time arrives it is not a happy occasion however, as the baby, Robin, is born hydrocephalic, and will not live long. It was agreed that Jean and Henry would only accept a healthy infant, but Jean’s investment in the waiting game was too intense and she falls for this child. The attention she pays to Robin not only threatens to tear her marriage apart—sending Henry away on a camping trip with the estranged Sam in a male bonding scene not to be missed—but causes trouble at the hospital as well: Jean has no parental rights, even though Emma has disappeared, and the administrators (despite what the nursing staff have to say) are wary. Eventually, after making some progress, Robin succumbs to his condition, leaving Jean and Henry, not only having to repair their marriage, but right back where they started—interviewing with a new birth mother.

Expecting Isabel. Lisa Loomer. 2005. 63p. Dramatists Play Service. Expecting Isabel is a comedy about the adventures of a New York couple trying to have a baby—by any means necessary. Their difficulties in conceiving lead them on an “Alice in Wonderland-esque” odyssey through the booming baby business as they negotiate the fertility trade, the adoption industry and their own families.

Farewell, Farewell, Eugene. John Vari, with Rodney Ackland. 1960. 81p. S Freanch (UK). How do you say “farewell” to someone who never appears in the first place? Let the action speak for itself: the time is 1915; the place a shabbily genteel basement apartment on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Its denizens are Gert and Minnie Povis, the former quite correct and slightly formidable, the later not above sneaking a clandestine bottle of beer or reliving her brief but happy days as a member of a third-rate opera company. The sisters supplement a small income by turning out handpainted greeting cards, which Cousin Peonie merchandises through her acquaintances in the “outside world.” One of these is Chuck Bailey, who is in love with Poenie but out of favor with Gert. He does move a lot of greeting cards, however, which means more money for the growing fund in the “Visit to Eugene Box.” Brother Eugene, we might add, has been off in Africa for a rather long time doing nobody knows what. All this, of course, has its complications, which runs something like this: Gert manages to break up Peonie’s romance; Peonie vanishes; a baby is left on the doorstep; the authorities take the baby away despite the pleas of Gert and Minnie. But then the pendulum swings back: Chuck redeems himself; Poenie returns; Minnie gets slightly tiddly on liqueur-filled chocolates; Chuck and Peonie decide to get married and adopt the baby. As for brother Eugene, he is exposed for the worm he is by a certain letter not meant for his sisters’ eyes, and they decide not to visit him after all—so it is farewell, and perhaps good riddance too.

Final Placement. Ara Watson. 1983. Dramatists Play Service. In Final Placement (the middle section of a trilogy of related short plays written by Mary Gallagher and Ara Watson, under the collective title Win/Lose/Draw), the scene is the Tulsa office of a child welfare caseworker. A mother guilty of child abuse is intent on regaining the custody of her son, even though he has been put up for adoption by the courts. Despite her poverty and ignorance she displays a touching eloquence—and a disquieting menace—as she attempts to stave off the inevitable.

Finding Claire. Kim Merrill. After the sudden death of her adoptive mother, a rich New York City dancer embarks on a search for her birth mother’s home. She longs for a family connection but ends up with a family crisis. In an impoverished farmhouse in rural upstate New York, her fifteen-year-old half-sister is pregnant—and wants to give up her baby. Her mother—a stubborn, introverted woman who carves rough rock sculptures as a way to express her frustrations—wants her to keep it. Her grandmother wants to be boss. Armed with good intentions and a desire to help her new family, the dancer arrives at their door. When she’s met with a volatile mixture of envy, regret and resentment, her assumptions about identity, biological ties and what it “means” to be a mother are turned upside down.

Heidi Chronicles, The. Wendy Wasserstein. 1990. 81p. Dramatists Play Service. Comprised of a series of interrelated scenes, the play traces the coming of age of Heidi Holland, a successful art historian, as she tries to find her bearings in a rapidly changing world. Gradually distancing herself from her friends, she watches them move from the idealism and political radicalism of their college years through militant feminism and, eventually, back to the materialism that they had sought to reject in the first place. Heidi’s own path to maturity involves an affair with the glib, arrogant Scoop Rosenbaum, a womanizing lawyer/publisher who eventually marries for money and position; a deeper but even more troubling relationship with a charming, witty young pediatrician, Peter Patrone, who turns out to be gay; and increasingly disturbing contacts with the other women, now much changed, who were a part of her childhood and college years. Eventually Heidi comes to accept the fact that liberation can be achieved only if one is true to oneself, with goals that come out of need rather than circumstance. As the play ends she is still “alone,” but having adopted an orphaned baby, it is clear that she has begun to find a sense of fulfillment and continuity that may well continue to elude the others of her anxious, self-centered generation.

Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow, The. Rolin Jones. Jennifer is just an average girl who re-engineers obsolete missile components for the U.S. Army from her bedroom. When she decides to meet her birth mother in China, she uses her technological genius to devise a new form of human contact. Rolin Jones’ irreverent “techno-comedy” chronicles one brilliant woman’s quest to determine her heritage and face her fears with the help of a Mormon missionary, a pizza delivery guy, and her astounding creation called Jenny Chow.

Kindertransport. Diane Samuels. 1995. 98p. Plumsock Mesoamerican Studies. Kindertransport is the poignant story of seven-year-old Eva Schlesinger who, in 1938, was put aboard a train with other Jewish children and evacuated from Nazi Germany in a little-known rescue operation called the Kindertransport. She is taken in and raised by an English woman. Torn between her German heritage and her desire to wipe the Kindertransport experience from her memory, Eva tries to become “English” herself. Based upon autobiographic accounts from Kindertransport children, this play focuses on Eva at four points in her life. We are witness to the rainbow of emotions encountered by Eva as she tries to deal with her families and herself while burdened by the painful past which was chosen for her.—Synopsis from the website of The Starlighters Theatre, located at 136 East Main Street Anamosa, Iowa 52205-1804, where the play was produced during its 1997 season. The play has also been produced at the Studio Theater at the Illinois State University College of Fine Arts (1995-96 season); the Vaudeville Theater in London, England (1996); Cheltenham Center for the Arts, 439 Ashbourne Rd., Cheltenham, MA; and The Invisible Theater, 1400 N. First Ave., Tucson, AZ; among others.

King of Hearts. Jean Kerr and Eleanor Brooke. 1954. 153p. Doubleday. Larry Larkin draws a comic strip and, to put it bluntly, would take all prizes as the world’s No. 1 egoist. Larry is engaged to his secretary, Dunreath Henry, a very nice girl, who sees Larry as he sees himself—not as everyone else sees him. To create a triangle, Francis X. Dignan then appears; ostensibly he’s to draw Larry’s strip while Larry takes a month off to honeymoon with Dunreath; but Dignan immediately decides his purpose in life is to save Dunreath from what he calls “the fate worse than the fate worse than death.” There’s also Norman, a small boy from Australia, whom Larry adopts to show what a good guy he really is. Dignan and Norman, between them, eventually manage to convince Dunreath that she’s really in love with Dignan, and the three of them go off together while Larry happily broods on his own greatness.

Les Belles Soeurs. Michel Tremblay. 1972. 156p. Leméac (Canada); English Translation by John Van Burek & Bill Glassco. 1974. 114p. Talonbooks. One of Canada’s leading playwrights brings us this wildly funny and sharply ironic comedy. The play draws a revealing social commentary from its story of a woman who wins a million trading stamps in a lottery, then invites her friends to a riotous stamp-pasting party. Germaine Lauzon has just won a million trading stamps in the local lottery. To get them pasted into books, she invites her four sisters and a variety of close friends to assist her. While Germaine dreams of things she’s always wanted and can now buy for herself, her sisters and friends scheme to thwart her, as they turn jealous with no understanding as to why Germaine should win anything. Each sister explains her view of Germaine’s life while they scheme to pilfer stamps away from her. Thrown into the wacky group is Germaine’s daughter, Linda, who, going through the dramatic changes of a misunderstood teenager, needs help dealing with her mother, and invites her friend Lisette to the house. But Lisette needs advice too, being newly pregnant, and finds Dear Aunt Pierrette, the black sheep of the family, to advise her on whether to have an abortion, put the baby up for adoption, or any other alternative. Germaine battles with Linda, when she suddenly realizes some of her stamps are missing and catches the ladies in the act. A wild and raucous stamp-throwing melee ensues which triggers Linda to decide that this is a good time to get out on her own. Germaine’s sisters make off with as many stamps as possible and Germaine is left with shattered dreams and only a fraction of the million stamps she had when she started.

Laura Dennis. Horton Foote. 1996. 49p. Dramatists Play Service. Laura Dennis lives with Lena Abernathy in Harrison, Texas. Her mother left Harrison years ago, after her father killed his cousin then died when Laura was very young. Writing to her mother, who now lives in far away South Dakota, Laura is convinced that once her mother realizes how grown up and ready for the world Laura is, she will want Laura to visit, or better yet, come live with her. Laura’s uncle comes to visit once in a while, supplying the much needed money for Laura’s upbringing and trying to care the best he can though he really doesn’t want to be a big part of her life. Laura loves her home in Harrison and the woman who cares for her, but is restless. A high school senior, she is discovering herself, her burgeoning sexuality and wondering about life ahead; all these things are confusing and exciting. A polite, sweet girl, Laura also hears stories about her family’s past: why her mother left and her father killed a man. She discovers an acquaintance across the street, Velma, is really a distant cousin, which both intrigues and repels her as Velma is a dependent, sometimes raving alcoholic, yet she may know the history of her family no one else will tell her. Over the course of several weeks, while Laura waits for an answer from her mother, she learns of her mother’s infidelities and her father’s jealousies. Parallel lives and stories also fill Laura’s world as she begins dating Stewart, who abruptly drops her to go to visit his old girlfriend who has moved to Atlanta. Another classmate, Harvey, seems also involved with that girl when he is accused of making her pregnant; the reason she moved away. Denying he is the father and revealing any number of the boys could have been, he is forbidden out of the house since the girl’s father has threatened to kill him. A quiet, sensitive boy, Harvey has expressed interest in Laura and wanted to ask her to the school dance. He is forbidden to do so, not because of past indiscretions or present threats, but because, as finally revealed to him by his adoptive parents, he is Laura’s half-brother by her mother and her father’s cousin, the one her father killed. Shaken by all that’s happened to him Harvey disobeys his parents and takes a walk in town. In front of the movie house he is shot and killed by the pregnant girl’s father. Laura hears the news about Harvey’s death and her connection to him, just after she receives a letter from her mother saying she wants nothing to do with her. Feeling she lost her mother, and a brother she never knew well, Laura is devastated. Yet, she tries to find something in the day to sustain her. She accepts what help she can get from those who love her through what is now a crossroads in her young, now saddened life.

Marco Polo Sings a Solo. John Guare. The time is 1999, the place an island off the coast of Norway. Stony McBride, a young movie director and adopted son of an aging Hollywood star, is writing a film about Marco Polo, in which, it is hoped, his father will make a comeback. Stony is also attempting to deal with his attractive wife, a former concert pianist whose lover, a dynamic young politician who has gotten hold of the cure for cancer, is also on hand. Adding to the rapidly multiplying complications are Stony’s mother (a transsexual, as she later confesses); a friend named Frank (who has been in space orbit for the past five years); a maid (who is impregnated astrally by Frank); and another friend, Larry (who is fitted with a set of mechanical legs). There is also an earthquake; the discovery of a planet; and the birth of a new hero (Stony himself?); all coming together, within the bizarre action of the play, to yield some chilling, albeit very funny, glimpses of the future that may await us all.

“Me, Candido!”: A Modern Fable. Walt Anderson, 1958. 77p. Dramatists Play Service. “Me, Candido!” is the defiant battlecry of a homeless eleven-year-old shoeshine boy, who is unofficially adopted by Papa Gomez, a poor Puerto Rican with a large family recently arrived in New York; by truculent old Mr. Ramirez, proprietor of a restaurant locally known as “The Garbage Pail”; by Mike McGinty, an eloquent and thirsty ex-longshoreman; and by Yetta Rosenbloom, a lonely old woman whose family has drifted away from her. But the simple, kindly act of taking a boy in from the street comes up against the red tape of officialdom. Candido can’t work in “The Garbage Pail”; he must goto school; he can’t go to school till he has been legally adopted. They need a lawyer—for free; money is for rice and beans. But Candido is a boy, not a case history, and his fathers are determined to keep him out of an institution. The law does not concern itself with love. But the neighbors do, and the struggle spreads to the entire neighborhood. Candido becomes a cause celebre. Amid humorous entanglements, the situation is at last resolved in a poignant and moving scene in the courtroom.

Mrs. McThing. Mary Chase. 1952. 141p. Oxford University Press. As told by Kerr, “all happens very logically. A little girl has slipped past the gatekeeper and over the garden wall to play with a lonely and put-upon lad. She is quickly shooed out by his mother as ’trash.’ It just so happens that the little girl’s mother is a witch, and an experienced one. She takes her revenge by supplying Mrs. Howard V. Larue III with the very little paragon she has always longed for, meanwhile spiriting the real and unruly boy off to a life of crime in the Shantyland Pool Hall Lunchroom. Mother is at first delighted with the impostor’s perfection, then suspicious, then dismayed. When she learns the truth and sets out to reclaim her own nine-year-old mobster, she unwittingly and very foolishly crosses the same little girl, who promptly puts the finger on her and assigns her the role of washing dishes for the gang…by the time mama has been knocked about a bit and come to appreciate the sterling qualities of an ordinary roughneck, she is happy enough to take the boy back on his own terms, and to adopt the little witch-girl into the bargain.”

Redwood Curtain. Lanford Wilson. 1993. 97p. Hill & Wang. Geri, a seventeen-year-old Vietnamese-American girl raised by wealthy adoptive parents in the United States, has taken time out from a rigorous touring schedule as a piano prodigy to stay on her Aunt Geneva’s Redwood plantation in Northern California. She’s been coming here for years, but recently she’s become obsessed with approaching the homeless Vietnam veterans who retreated to the forests because they couldn’t cope with society after returning from the war. One such veteran she interviews in the forest, Lyman, she detains against his will and tells him lies about what she does know to be true about her nameless natural father in hopes that maybe Lyman knew, or even is, him. Lyman acts guilty and tries to flee, but Geri, who says she’s been studying the mysticism of the East, casts a spell over him that she says will bring him back to her. Geneva is horrified at Geri’s actions, and while she warns her of the dangers of approaching these homeless men, she also sympathizes with Geri’s predicament: Namely, as an Asian woman, Geri feels a deep need to know her ancestral history (and in particular the history of her father) in order to structure her life. Tired of the classical music circuit and recording contracts, Geri wants to establish a new life for herself based on knowledge about her biological parents. Her adoptive father, who encouraged her in music from an early age, has since died of alcoholism while her adoptive mother has taken to world travel and has no time for Geri. Geneva gives Geri some details about her natural father that makes it seem like the man Geri met in the forest is indeed him. She persuades her aunt to come with her and they finally meet with Lyman where the shocking and moving truth of Geri’s heritage comes to light.

Riot Act, The. Will[iam Clayton] Greene. 1963. 77p. Dramatists Play Service. Katie Delaney, an upright, hard-working widow, struggles to keep her three grown sons from falling into the clutches of “designing women.” The sons, all members of the New York City police force, are far from pleased by this parental tyranny, but filial duty (and their mother’s good cooking) conspire to keep them in line—at least to outward appearances. But natural impulses and the urgings of their various fiancees begin to tell. It turns out that one son has already married his sweetheart in a secret, civil ceremony, and while he has been fearful of revealing this fact to his rigidly Catholic mother, his wife’s approaching motherhood soon forces the issue. When the truth is known Katie orders her son from the house and, despite the fact that her first grandchild is born soon after, refuses to acknowledge his existence. Before long another of the impatient girls threatens to accept a rival proposal and, to add to the growing confusion, a Puerto Rican urchin becomes embroiled in Katie’s increasingly tangled affairs. Despite her dislike for his kind Katie is drawn to the boy, and in her zeal to help him soon finds herself of all things, in trouble with the police. For the widow of a policeman this is a disturbing turn of events, but beneficial too in the happy transformation it works in Katie. She adopts the boy, forgives her son and starts life over with a lighter heart.

Sarah, Sarah. Daniel Goldfarb. 2004. 55p. Dramatists Play Service. In Toronto, 1961, Sarah Grosberg prepares tea she will serve to her future daughter-in-law, eighteen-year-old Rochelle Bloom. Vincent, her Polish housekeeper arrives, puts on his dress (he cleans in drag), and gets to work. Rochelle arrives, and Sarah begins questioning her. Sarah does not think she is good enough for her son, Artie. Rochelle is poor, her family has terrible genes, but worst of all, they live in a house but can’t afford to pay for the wedding. Rochelle stands up for her family and for her love for Artie, whom she will support while he is finishing his philosophy degree. Philosophy? Sarah thinks her son is studying dentistry. Just then, Artie arrives. Sarah confronts him and demands that Rochelle give him his ring back. At this, Vincent interferes and confronts Sarah about her own past. She does not come from a rich, educated family in the old country but is an abandoned orphan. Sarah, broken and ashamed, begs Artie not to ever tell anyone her terrible secret. Act Two jumps forward forty years to the industrial city of Hefei, China, where Jeannie Grosberg, Sarah’s single granddaughter has come with her father Arthur (Artie, all grown up) to adopt a baby, whom she will name Sarah, after her grandmother. After she gets the baby, she calls her mother and worriedly tells her that Sarah is sick and weak. Another couple, Miles and Maggie, goes to the orphanage and brings back information about Sarah. But Arthur will have nothing of it. He thinks that Jeannie should give the baby back. Late at night, Jeannie stands up to him, and Arthur finally accepts the baby as his granddaughter. On the Great Wall of China, Arthur speaks to Sarah about the woman she is named for. Sarah, from Act One, appears. Arthur tells his mother not to be ashamed. Sarah holds Sarah.

Saturday Adoption. Ron Cowen. 1969. 49p. Dramatists Play Service. Overflowing with good intentions, Rich Meridan becomes a “Big Brother” to Macy Stander, the teenage boy of an ambitious, African-American mother. Rich hopes to inspire Macy to overcome racial prejudice and achieve success in spite of the world being against him. While Macy is initially resentful towards his “Big Brother,” it’s Macy’s actual brother, Paul, who is openly antagonistic towards Rich and what he considers his patronizing generosity. Paul suspects that the “Big Brother” will be unable to deliver on his promises to send Macy through college and law school. Ultimately Rich’s grand idea for Macy’s education falls through, leaving Macy embittered and Rich disillusioned, feeling as if he is just another fervent idealist who has been defeated. First presented by the CBS Playhouse.

Someone Waiting: A Play in Three Acts. Emlyn Williams. 1956. 93p. Dramatists Play Service. As Chapman describes It deals with “a stuffy English motor magnate with an evil look to him, and he is married to Miss Landis. They have adopted and brought up Hardy. Hardy is a problem boy. He has failed in his law exams and he hates his adopted father. He also is upset because his best friend has just been hanged for murdering a servant girl in this very apartment, and he thinks his friend was innocent. So in comes Carroll, with gentle good manners and a baffled look, as the new tutor hired to get the boy through the law exams next time. He is, one soon learns, the father of the boy who was unjustly hanged for murder. He has come here to administer justice all by himself to whoever it was in this house who really did the killing. You can take it from there…Before the evening is over you will find you have been misled several times—but never dishonestly, for playwright Williams has his tidy mind and is an honorable trickster. And if you can guess beforehand what will happen at play’s end you are smarter than I am.”

Strange Boarders. George Batson & Jack Kirkland. 1947. 79p. Dramatists Play Service. A delightful scatterbrained maiden lady runs a boarding-house. Out of her goodness, Cordelia has adopted two girls—Candy and Gloria—practically adopted a delightful sea captain, and the “Professor” —both of them, like herself, impractical. Chiefly the play revolves round the efforts of an amusing band of bank robbers to elude the police in nearby Boston and get away with $10,000 in cash, which is brought to Cordelia’s home by the Misses Amity and Priscilla Haines, who take rooms as respectable school teachers. To Cordelia’s home also come Smiley, a sad-faced thug, Joey, a petty gangster, and the “Deacon,” a fellow with much false piety and a benign manner. The gangsters, having seized the money stolen by the “brains” of the band, attempt to hide from their leader and keep the money themselves. Boston Benny, the “brains,” unexpectedly appears, and tries to get even with his partners. Up to now Cordelia, vainly trying to organize her boarding-house on systematic principles, thinks that all the nice ladies and gentlemen who have suddenly come to her home are boarders, and she is in seventh heaven. However, the crooks cannot long keep secret who they are, and Cordelia’s next problem is how to get the money, round up the crooks and get the reward for their capture. How she does this, with the help of her friends, provides comedy and suspense in generous amounts and brings all to happy conclusion.

Suds in Your Eye. Jack Kirkland, from the novel by Mary Lasswell. 1944. 88p. Dramatists Play Service. A romantic tale of three ladies who, though penniless, extract from life more fun than most people ever enjoy. In Mrs. Feeley’s junk yard are gathered a rich assortment of young and old, including a Chinese boy, a teacher, detectives, a shipyard worker. Miss Tinkham, elderly spinster with a taste for fine language and singing, wanders into Mrs. Feeley’s precincts in search of she knows not what while Mrs. Rasmussen has come because she is unhappy with her daughter. Both are welcomed by Mrs. Feeley and her adopted nephew, a delightful Asian known as Chinatown. The ladies decide to make their home in the yard and build an addition to Mrs. Feeley’s shack. Mrs. Feeley has difficulties with the tax people and the big scene comes when the assessor, trying to be friendly, gives her the idea he is trying to raise her taxes, whereupon the lady assaults him and is hauled into court. She, with Mrs. Rasmussen and Miss Tinkham, is fined the exact amount of the taxes, which fall due shortly. When it is discovered that the tax money, concealed in the stomach of a wooden Indian, has disappeared, together with the Indian himself, things look dark. However, the erstwhile friend who made off with the Indian confesses his theft and gives it back—the money still safely inside.

Tantalus. Ian Cullen & Catherine Arley. 1982. 90p. Dramatists Play Service. Based on a bestselling French novel, this masterpiece of suspense enjoyed successful productions in Paris and London before its highly acclaimed Off-Broadway presentation. Anton Korff, aide to a mysterious ailing recluse, who is reputed to be one of the world’s richest men, interviews a young woman who has applied for a position as nurse for the aging multi-millionaire. Korff’s questioning centers on whether the applicant, Hilde, is completely unattached and whether (as she has stated in her letter of inquiry) she would indeed do anything for money. Once satisfied of her qualifications, Korff adds a startling requirement: If she is taken on he will legally adopt her as his daughter; he will also maneuver his employer, Karl Richmond, into proposing marriage to her, and she will sign a letter paying over a large sum of money to him in the event of her would-be husband’s death. Hilde accepts his terms, and thereafter the action of the play moves darkly and deviously to its menacing conclusion—but with so many strange events and tantalizing developments along the way that the truth of what transpires remains clouded until the final, surprising moments of the play.

Trying to Find Chinatown. David Henry Hwang. 1996. Dramatists Play Service. Lost on his way to Chinatown, Benjamin asks Ronnie for directions. Ronnie, playing his violin on the street for money, is offended that just because he looks like an Asian he automatically knows where Chinatown is. Caucasian looking, Benjamin was adopted by an Asian-American family at birth. He revels in his heritage and is looking for the house where his father was born. Ronnie, on the other hand, throws himself into all things American and finds it hard to sympathize with Benjamin who, when he finds his father’s house, is filled with a special elation.

Tunnel of Love. Joseph Fields & Peter De Vries. 1957. Litte Brown. Stage play based upon Mr. De Vries’s novel of the same name.

Vernon Early. Horton Foote. 1999. 51p. Dramatists Play Service. Vernon Early revisits American life in Horton Foote’s fictional town of Harrison, Texas, during the 1950s. The title character, Vernon, is a doctor, in the days when the house call was commonplace. Consumed by his work, his spirit has been eroded by the pressures of his job and the lingering depression he shares with his wife, Mildred, over the loss of their adopted child to its birth mother. Mirroring the tragic existence of the Earlys, many of Harrison’s other residents are also consumed with the self-inflicted wounds of life: aging, individual isolation, love, and racial inequality. Through all of the bleakness of life there still shines a glimmer of hope reflected in the spirit of the town’s sad doctor: Vernon Early.

Where’s Daddy. William Inge. 1966. 114p. Random House. As Richard Watts, Jr. comments, “Although Mr. Inge is fair and sympathetic to both sides, it would seem that he inclines slightly to the cause of the older generation. This, however, is one of the deftest touches in his treatment of the subject. For maturity, as it may be described at least technically, is represented by two unlikely prospects, a foolish, innocent and bewildered mother and a matronly bachelor unhampered by any illusions of masculinity. Yet how likeable both of them turn out to be! They are confronted by quite a problem, too. A boy, who happens to have been adopted by the bachelor, and a girl, who is the unworldly lady’s daughter, have got themselves married and are about to have a child, and the thought alarms the young pair. The boy wants his freedom and the girl wants to prove her independence by giving it to him, and they have agreed to send the baby to an institution for adoption when it arrives. And it arrives unexpectedly, and amid great alarm…Mr. Inge is good-natured but he is also sharp and can be witty. Instead of getting in the way of the seriousness of his point of view, the humor emphasizes it…The foolishness of the girl’s naive, mother is made honestly moving, the sentimental reconciliation of the boy and girl is believably touching, and the scenes of the peculiar bachelors are downright hilarious.”