America Finding Her Way

By Karen Sunde

SWEET LAND OF FIRE explores the question: what tips exceptional young people toward political violence? The play is an imagining of what could have gone on in this elegant New York townhouse during the 24 hours before it exploded – shaking the nation – on a solar eclipse day in March 1970. At that time, the anguish of our brightest youths – over wrongful war, race divisions, poverty, and greed in this country – led them to plant bombs, (the police found enough dynamite to blow up half a block) with which they ruined their lives in an attempt to alter what they found unacceptable for America. I wanted to know “why?” – because understanding them then may help us now.

NATIVE LAND: Passionate, swift, funny rebirth of a midwest urban American family into the service of its crumbling nation by way of the mother's fierce trust. Each brilliant, stifled person in this family rips away generations of greed and betrayal to find that embracing their rebel child’s dreams will not only revive him, but rekindle them all.

Kate, once charismatic sparkplug of Viet Nam protests, now a tamed neurologist studying dreams, which her publisher husband, Alan, and their children tolerate. But when wartime buddy Mike, now a prominent lawyer, resurfaces to ask Alan to run for Governor, his daughter Jen, 19, (eager to play politics), and son Jamy, 13, (who haunts an urban excavation, bringing home an unstable vagrant), both lobby Alan to run against Kate’s wishes...until Jamy runs away, falls in the excavation, and is comatose. The evolution of the family while Kate insists they must follow Jamy’s dreams, saves everyone.

TRACKING BLOOD WHITE: Depressed south-west hunters, unemployed after drought and fire, take off from their raucous red-neck tavern to bring down a legendary killer bear that guards the timberline of their stripped “holy (to Indians) mountain.” Their skeptical women stay behind, one with a child terminally ill after being lost in the woods. They resent the Native Americans with whom they share the mountain, and who are faring better on the “Rez” (with a casino and a girl healer). The sick child’s mother defies the town, gets astonishing aid from theIndian girl healer while the hunters, attacked by the gigantic raging bear, race terrified back down the mountain, but find the Indian girl gathering herbs in a meadow, and take brutal revenge for all their humiliations. The horrible fall-out for all, and the guilty hunters’ ascent back to the mountain top to face their mystical nemesis, Blood White, bring a devastating and transcendent battle before peace returns to the People.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Karen Sunde
• Release date: Jan 9, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466056169

Karen Sunde

An actor turned writer, Karen performed many leading roles Off-Broadway, and was Associate Director of CSC Repertory. Her plays have been performed Off-Broadway, in regional theatres, on a USA tour, and in eleven countries and seven languages. Sunde’s first screenplay, UNDERCOVER PATRIOT was a finalist at Sundance. She wrote PARALLEL LOVES for Terra Bella Entertainment, Los Angeles; BOULE DE SUIF (adapt Maupassant) for Dace Direction, London; DREAM HOUSE for Passport Films, NYC; THE FASTEST WOMAN ALIVE for Howard S Shulman Productions, NYC; THE SECRET SHIP; FINAL QUEST: THE MOUNTAIN OF THE GODS; TRIPPING TAMMY; CHICKS GOTTA SWIM; LOVE HITS EARTH (& Other Disasters); NEXT!; adaptations of HOW HIS BRIDE CAME TO ABRAHAM, screenplay an "Official Selection" at Oaxaca FilmFest, www.AbrahamFilm.org, and IN A KINGDOM BY THE SEA, won the Gold Prize at Hollywood Screenplay Contest. Published plays: DARK LADY, produced Abbey Theatre, Ireland, Aalborg State Theatre, Denmark, optioned for film; BALLOON, won three VILLAGER awards Off-Broadway, nominated Best Play by Outer Critics Circle, aired Radio France; HAITI: A DREAM in FACING FORWARD, produced Seven Stages, Atlanta, aired WNYC, WHYY, NPR; TO MOSCOW, premiered Ankara National Theatre, Turkey, Chain Lightning, New York; OH WILD WEST WIND in ROWING TO AMERICA, produced Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey (PTNJ). PLAYS BY KAREN SUNDE includes TRUTH TAKES A HOLIDAY, read La MaMa, New York City (NYC); IN A KINGDOM BY THE SEA produced PTNJ, HOW HIS BRIDE CAME TO ABRAHAM, produced PTNJ, Praxis Theatre Project, NYC, premiered at The Unicorn, Kansas City. ANTON, HIMSELF for Actors Theatre of Louisville, also played The Moscow Art Theatre, the Yalta Festival in Russia, Peoples Light and Theatre, NYU in New York. THE FASTEST WOMAN ALIVE produced Luna Stage, NJ, Praxis, NYC, Edinburgh Festival (2010); KABUKI OTHELLO, produced People's Light and Theatre Company and Annenberg Center, Philadelphia; Wisdom Bridge, Chicago; KABUKI LADY MACBETH produced Chicago Shakespeare Theater, cited for five JEFF Awards, including "Best New Work," Best Production," "Best Direction:" IN A KINGDOM BY THE SEA. Scenes from TO MOSCOW; ANTON, HIMSELF; MASHA, TOO; and ABRAHAM appear in SCENES & MONOLOGS FROM THE BEST NEW PLAYS. Among 23 plays--for Actors Theatre of Louisville; People's Light and Theatre; The Acting Company, NYC, Sunde wrote KABUKI MACBETH, KABUKI KING RICHARD and ACHILLES, which toured Hungary, Cyprus, and Japan. She co-wrote musical QUASIMODO,(a musical) premiered Byrdcliffe Festival, Woodstock, NY, produced Lahti City Theatre, Finland. For Cheltenham Center, Philadelphia, she wrote LA PUCELLE (ME & JOAN) and DADDY'S GONE A-HUNTING (TRACKING BLOOD WHITE). In NYC: for Chain Lightning, WHEN REAL LIFE BEGINS, for The Working Theatre, 2020 SEXCARE in FREE MARKET; for Tisch School, NYU, Table and Chair Handmade Theatre, PLEASE GOD, NO WEDDING OR SHOOTING AT THE END! Opera THE SPA with composer Michael Dilthey. also at https://www.dramaticpublishing.com/authors/profile/view/url/karen-sunde Sunde’s won a McKnight Fellowship, an NDEA Fellowship, the Aide de la Creation award in France, the Bob Hope Award, Gold Prize in Hollywood Screenplay Contest, lives in New York City, served on the theatre panel of New Jersey Council on the Arts, and the new plays panel of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, was faculty at New Hampshire Institute of Art's Writing for Stage & Screen MFA program, La MaMa ETC (New York)'s nominee for the Laura Pels/​PEN award, consultant for musical DAMASCUS SQUARE.

Book preview

America Finding Her Way

A Trilogy of Plays

by

Karen Sunde

Copyright: Karen Sunde

Smashwords Edition

For all rights to perform these plays, apply to:

Karen Sunde

130 Barrow St. Suite 412

New York , NY 10014

212/366-1124

[e-mail]

www.karensunde.com

CONTENTS

SWEET LAND OF FIRE

Rebellion. New York, 1970: the 24 hours before the Weatherman house on 11th street explodes. ACT TWO

NATIVE LAND

Rejuvenation. The rebirth of a family to serve their nation by following their delinquent child’s dreams. ACT TWO

TRACKING BLOOD WHITE

Making magic in America, now: A dying red-neck town’s struggle with its Native American neighbors and the killer bear that haunts the mountain they share. ACT TWO

Plays by Karen Sunde

Screenplays by Karen Sunde

TAGS: bear hunting, urban renewal, Viet Nam protesters, homelessness, New York terrorism, 1960’s radicals, Weathermen, Black Panthers, Fred Hampton, bomb building, civil rights, Native American, healer, shaman, mysticism, sacred mountain, reservation, red-neck town

PRODUCTION HISTORY

SWEET LAND OF FIRE has had readings in New York –at Ensemble Studio Theatre as Day Before Noon, at Abingdon Theatre Company as The Flower’s Last Child, and as Sweet Land Of Fire in a Concert Reading at La MaMa E.T.C.

NATIVE LAND was commissioned by Michael Miner at Actor’s Theater of St. Paul, has had readings at Ensemble Studio Theatre, New York as House Of Eeyore, and as Native Land in a staged reading at Actors Stock Company/New York.

TRACKING BLOOD WHITE was commissioned by Ken Marini for the Cheltenham Center For The Arts, PA, and workshopped there as Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting. A series of concert readings were produced by Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey. The Lark Play Development Center, New York presented it as a staged reading during their Playwright’s Week. La MaMa ETC, New York, did the first concert reading of Tracking Blood White

Sweet Land of Fire

the action

based on a real event

is fiction

New York, 1970. The 24 hours before the house on 11th street in Greenwich Village explodes.

SET: One open set   skeletal steps represent New York brownstone, with landing levels.

CHARACTERS: All 21- 30 years

BETH Weatherman, gentle, alienated – anthropologist

ANNE Weatherman, glamorous, fierce leader – lawyer

DAVE former SDS activist, witty, Jewish – physician

SUZY Beth's sister, Midwestern honey – bride

JACK Weatherman, charismatic, macho – architectural engineer

DAMON Black Panther, ferocious, clear-eyed – lawyer

Sweet Land of Fire

Preset: Shafts of sunlight across debris strewn set. Center, a winding staircase reaching full height of stage. It has perches at different levels on the way up. Elegant items suspended in air   chandelier, painting, mirror, drapery   create beauty of the brownstone house.

Pre-audio: Bob Dylan’s When The Ship Comes In, punctuated by newscasts about Weathermen riots, demonstrations, and rallies.

Sunlight brightens. Music gives way to newscast reporting of solar eclipse: Hundreds of thousands lining highways and beaches...etc. Lights perform eclipse as newscaster rattles on. Darkening, strange colors. At totality, a siren.

Firemen wearily enter, begin shifting and examining debris. They set a refrigerator upright near staircase. From behind it, Anne scampers in only shreds of clothing. Firemen catch and envelope her in a blanket. The last items they find on cellar level are body parts: torso, arm and leg pieces. These they place on a stretcher they carry out as sun and sky return to normal.

Scene blends back to day before; from behind the debris, way back, like a resurrection, comes the ragged figure of Beth: in jeans, sweatshirt, tennis shoes, chopped hair, wire-frame glasses. She is smiling, carrying a paper bag, feels light, released, seems giddy.

Beth: Now is the winter of our dis con tent... (Looks up at staircase, House) Anne, it's beautiful: ...made glorious summer.

Anne: (Approaches over rubble, clothed, graceful, strong) What did you expect?

Beth: And all the clouds... But it is, it's really just beautiful.

Anne: Come. I'll show you. (Approaches stairs)

Beth: A town house?

Anne: My father's grandfather's.

Beth: (Still staring) Built straight up.

Anne: (Climbs) Was Mother who understood it, though. Come on. She brought all the colors out of the wood. (Gestures to Beth to follow her) Belle tried to keep me from sliding these banisters. Your flight late from Newark?

Beth: (Following) Yeah.

Anne: Brace yourself for the city?

Beth: Yup. My mantra is roar, mobs, roaches, dogshit…

Anne: (Laughing) …and pig-mobiles! Does it help?

(Anne arrives at bird figurines room; Beth behind her. There may be one bird, several, or none)

Beth: Ooooh, Anne. (Gazing) Birds.

Anne: Ummhmm.

Beth: There must be a hundred. All kinds, colors. Even metal and gold. It's...

Anne: Immense strength in fragility, Daddy says. His remaining shred of poetic vision.

Beth: They're his?

Anne: He can't understand how something so delicate has so much strength to lift itself so far.

Beth: So he fills a whole room with birds, while over on East Third...

Anne: You got it.

Beth: ...there's maybe one room for seven people. (Tight) Have you got the stuff?

Anne: (Looks, then quickly) Not yet. (Turns, climbing) Come on. Have a shower.

Beth: Could use one. (Following) How many floors you got, anyway?

Anne: (Ahead of her) How was the wedding?

Beth: A wedding. Like my worst nightmare.

Anne: Your sister?

Beth: Completely straight. If I gave her an apron, she'd drool.

Anne: You behaved.

Beth: Of course.

Anne: It's good you went.

Beth: Nobody asked why I cried.

Anne: (Handing her a towel) Gives the impression we're cooling it. Home and apple pie.

Beth: (Stepping into shower) Not bringing the stuff here, are you.

Anne: (Sits on step) Course not. Getting the house is luck. Dad and Irene are in Paris.

Beth: (Off) Vacationing?

Anne: No, he’s deciding whether the jet-set can afford a 1000 MPH shuttle. Vision, but not poetry.

Beth: (Off) I’ll save him the trip: they'll afford whatever they want. But your mother...?

Anne: ...never comes here anymore. She's with Peter, who's appealing, even honorable, for an attorney. They're fishing in Maine. (Beat) Ned brought over a couple new pieces.

Beth: (Off) What kind?

Anne: A 22 and a 16-gauge. With ammunition. Said they’d need an overhaul. Not fired since duck season in ‘63.

Beth: (Off) The seven lean years since he went pacifist?

Anne: Right on.

Beth: (Off) I'll check ‘em out right away.

Anne: Not before you've rested.

Beth: (Off) You been keeping in practice?

Anne: Three times a week.

(Dave is coming across the debris to the bottom of the steps)

Dave: Hey, is this what it's going to be like after the revolution? Dumbwaiters on every floor?

Anne: Not a chance.

Dave: (Climbing) Some scene. Satin valances, Louis-the-whatever dining set...

Anne: Knock it off, Dave.

Dave: Sure beats my front porch barbecue in Queens. And do I see…yup: a fairytale garden out back.

Anne: Oh, I just whipped this up to ease Beth's re-entry to the jungle.

Dave: Beth's here too?

Anne: Back from Kansas.

Dave: (Sings) Oh, give me a home...where Papa owns land, and Mama the First National Bank. You aren’t worried she’ll get culture shock when she figures out where they keep the kitchen in these palaces?

Beth: (Coming out wet, fastening clothes) Where? (Kisses him) Hi, Dave.

Dave: Not only below-stairs, below ground. That's where the women and slaves consort. (Squeezes her) How's it going, Madonna?

Beth: Where’ve you been? You finish pre-med?

Dave: Mais, bien sur!

Anne: Ned found him. (Showing bedroom) Here's where I'll put you.

Beth: (Looking at elegant room) God, no.

Dave: Oh, why not. Chippendale rocker, soothing Matisse or two. The four-poster's wasted, Anne. She'll sleep on the floor.

Anne: She will not. She'll rest and get strong. That's how we need her.

Dave: R n’R for the troops, huh? Dig it. Just see you wake her in time for the eclipse.

Beth: What eclipse?

Dave: In exactly...24 hours: I will cause the sun to go down at noon and darken the earth in the clear day. Is it a date, Madonna?

Anne: (Holding Beth's paper bag) Is this all you've got?

Beth: I left a few books on East Third. You didn't blow that place, did you?

Anne: Hanging onto it. Ned's still there with Barton and Josy.

(All three start down the stairs. Beth lags behind at the bird room)

Dave: Big Ned, California's answer to Ivy League frigidity? Are you and he still, uh...

Anne: Don’t be retarded, David. We're grownups.

Dave: Does that mean no?

Anne: It means no today, maybe tomorrow. Relative and irrelevant.

(They arrive at kitchen. She signals him to sit at the table)

Dave: Ok, Gorgeous. I'm at your command. What'll it be?

Anne: Just that.

Dave: What?

Anne: We want you.

Dave: My bod. My fantastic bod. I knew the day would come. My relevance would be apparent. Or is it my station wagon you want?

Anne: The package, Davey. Brains included.

Dave: There you touch on my virtue. The brain’s mine alone, virgin pure.

Anne: And just as useless. (Opens refrigerator, calls) Beth!

(Above, Beth is reaching to touch a bird. Dave picks up guitar, tunes it)

Beth: (Calling down stairs) Yeah?

Anne: (Calls, puts water to boil) You want some orange in yogurt?

Beth: (Leaving the bird, starts down stairs) Sure. Anything.

Dave: Look. When SDS split I decided to stop being bossed by all you hot-headed egotists. I might as well be Nixon's bombardier over Cambodia.

(Dave begins playing "The Times, They Are A-Changing)

Anne: Didn’t Psych teach you hot-heads are a corollary to action? What's the alternative? You – lone egotist consulting his navel? What have you dug out of that grimy crevice?

Dave: I have comrades.

Anne: Marshmallow liberals with half-assed improvement projects and carpeted bathrooms. People are dying in our name every minute. What are you doing to stop it? (Beat) You need our grit.

Dave: (Strums defiantly The best minds, the most grit?

Anne: The best. That's why we want you.

Beth: (Arriving in kitchen) Maya’s first word to me was bird.

Anne: Maya...in Guatemala?

Beth: I found her crouching over a chick that had fallen. Her little face was so intent, she forgot to be afraid. She had responsibility. She looked up in a motherly conspiracy, and whispered: Ave.

Dave: (Hand out to Beth) Ease on over here, sweet bird. This Mama's coming down hard on me.

Beth: (Sliding next to Dave) Don't stop. Sing it.

(Simultaneously, Anne sets out herb tea and yogurt, while Dave plays, sings, and dialogue continues)

Beth: That's good. Thanks.

Dave: (Sings) Come gather round people wherever you roam. And admit that the waters around you have grown...

Anne: Want some honey?

Dave ...And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone. If your time to you is worth savin'...

Beth: No. Thanks. (Hugs Dave)

Dave: ...Then you better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone. For the times they are a changin'. (Ending song)

Beth: See? You didn’t forget us.

Dave: Your Days-of-Rage action was a giant step backwards.

Anne: No argument.

Dave: All your trashing did was convince Mr. and Mrs. America you're out of your fucking minds.

Anne: Not quite all.

Beth: We've restructured.

Anne: We misjudged. It was too early for a mass action.

Beth: But it proved we’re serious.

Dave: Take a bash at Chicago plate-glass   Crushed cranium guaranteed.

Anne: It was a mistake!

Beth: So you were right to split, Dave, but you still care. (Beat) Or did you retire?

Dave: Where to, Angel? (Mock-sings) How you gonna keep ‘em down on the farm after they've seen...the South Bronx.

Anne: We want you back, Dave, and at the top.

Dave: How 'bout on top. With my pick of you two. That's how cell socializing works, isn't it?

Beth: It has to be mutual. But in your condition, you'd make the wrong pick.

Dave: Oh yes?

Beth: You'd pick me, but you'd want Anne.

Dave: Then why wouldn’t I pick Anne?

Beth: Afraid for your masculinity.

Dave: Hoohoo! (Strums Blowing in the Wind, challenged, he bites– ) So what do you want with the station wagon? I'm driving it down the shore tonight. Going to sit there and watch that sun rise up to black noon.

(Beth looks at Anne, comes back to table. Anne says quietly– )

Anne: There's a load of dynamite.

Dave: (Abrupt chord) Geez, you want me for an in-house physician!

Anne: No more shouting. No more kiddy riots…

Dave: Ooo, you’ll make the 6 o’clock news now.

Anne: ...it’s metaphoric language. What they understand.

Dave: Maybe I’ll hire out to the CIA.

Anne: Will you make the pick up?

Beth: (Beat) He doesn't have to decide all at once.

Dave: (Looks at Beth. Pause) Where's the stuff.

Anne: It's ordered. At a construction place in Bridgeport. In the name Park Slope landscaping. (Beat) You pick up Barton from the Third Street place. They’d ask questions if a woman shows up to move it. Then deliver it back to Third Street.

Dave: Barton. The Green Beret Josy hooked, right? He knows how to handle the stuff?

Anne: Cool and dry. Just like you, Davey. That's all you need to know.

Dave: (Tension; looks at both intent women; stands) You sure can break into a man's nature walks. (Beat) One drive. I'll get the load, then I’m gone. I can't hack your lock-step crap.

Anne: You mean discipline? You never saw a decent army without it.

Dave: It's anti-thought.

Anne: We don't have time to play Hamlet. (Kisses Dave) Get the stuff.

Dave: (Stands, giving a half-salute) Royal Dames. Barton at East Third? You I see later.

Anne: Know what's kept you away, Davey? (Beat) You're scared.

Dave: (Stops as he exits) If that's true, I'm still thinking for myself.

(He flips them a grin and leaves. They stand watching him)

Beth: He's in.

Anne: Sticking his neck out, anyway.

Beth: Will you move him in here?

Anne: (Moves to pick up dishes) Yup. We figure five is optimum for a cell, six maximum. Soon as the training’s set, Ned’ll take off to lead the Denver cell.

Beth: (Moving to dishes) Here, I'll get that.

Anne: You sure? You look half dead. (Begins paper work) My study's perfect for communications to headquarter. Soon as Dave gets his head screwed on, I’ll get him writing columns, press releases. It’ll free me for organizational thinking.

(Suzy appears in dressing room (top level) as bride. She’ll check her makeup, veil, and leave a bridesmaid's dress hanging)

Beth: What’d the Blacks say?

Anne: Hmm?

Beth: The Panthers. Did you offer to split the dynamite with them?

Anne: Gotta phone Fred Hampton in Chicago. Been trying to get through all morning.

Beth: He is superb – got the whole South Side organized.

Anne: They’re drawn to him like a soft silver lightening rod. I want him to intercede. Blacks here won't touch us with a ten foot club.

Beth: Why? The briefs you wrote for Martin Luther King should be...

Anne: I don't talk about that. The King was a fool.

Beth: Oh. I thought you said he...

Anne: (Sharp) He's dead, isn't he. Walked right into it.

(Beth looks at Anne oddly; Anne concentrated in work)

Beth: My sister and I sang.

Anne: (Looks up at Beth) Go up for a nap. You’re going to fall over.

Beth: Know what was the hardest thing? At home?

Anne: (Back at work) Uhmhmh?

(Beth speaks as she climbs. Anne will dial long distance several times and get no answer)

Beth: Their bewilderment. They look at me bewildered, and I look back, all the way to Guatemala. That's when I walked out of the circle of sweet Miss Americas so far that I could see it was a glass bubble in never-never land. But I'm still in isolation, and what I've seen has made me old. (Beat) In Guatemala they were just so...poor, it made me angry how much I had. I