Touching Lightly on Love and Death

By Kathleen Thompson

Some years ago, a young playwright appeared on the Chicago theater with a talent for well-written plays and offbeat humor. Reviews in the Chicago Reader, Chicago Sun-Times, and Chicago Tribune described Kathleen Thompson's work with words like "clever, sweet, intelligent entertainment" and "absorbing, humorous and effectively introspective" with a "subtle but strong feminist undercurrent." The three short plays in this book deal with love and death and how the former affects our deepest feeling about the latter. The casts include a young couple in Chicago considering a peculiarly long-term relationship, a trio of friends in an Oklahoma cafe using humor and shopping to provide comfort in the face of death, and a private detective struggling with her cop brother and a widow suspicious about her husband's death. These plays are thought-provoking and often hilarious reading.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kathleen Thompson
• Release date: Jul 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476109367

Book preview

1Touching Lightly

on Love and Death

Three Short Plays

Kathleen Thompson

Published by Around the Block Press at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 Kathleen Thompson

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

For The Commons Theatre Company,

to whose members and audience I will always be grateful.

From the Reviews

I Shall Love You Forever

"Kathleen Thompson’s I Shall Love You Forever has aspirations of being a graceful diversion along the lines of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit, in which fantasy and reality make a cute and cozy match. . . . Her script has the makings of clever, sweet, intelligent entertainment." –J. Linn Allen, Chicago Reader

Kindness

Kindness`` is a bittersweet slice-of-life look at four women in a small Oklahoma town, glimpsed through an ordinary conversation they have at the town`s lone, unglamorous cafe. They have just come from an estate sale for another town resident, and much of the piece is smalltown Southern dish and grotesque humor. (The deceased fell victim to a binge of cole slaw overeating.) But, slyly, Thompson shifts to a sad, artful look at their lonely camaraderie, delivered with delicate balance from the four actresses--Ellie Weingardt, Patti Hannon, Suzy Kuhn and Sandy Spatz--and Ellyn Duncan`s keen direction. –Sid Smith, Chicago Tribune

Private Investigations

"A new script by the Commons Theatre’s playwright-in-residence, Kathleen Thompson, Private Investigations, is astutely written. The dialogue’s crisp, the characters are well observed, and the structure—a sort of braid with two story-strands passing around and across each other—is canny and useful. . . . Private Investigations stands right now is the most sophisticated, best realized work I’ve seen Thompson do. A real mensch of a play. It carries a palpable aura of intelligence, compassion, and playfulness, without the least whiff of indulgence. This is a piece of work I would’ve liked even if it hadn’t gotten to me. . . .

Actually, Thompson worked a kind of double whammy on me with this play. Not only did its theme of loss get to me, but also its portrayal of detectives. You see it just so happens my dad was a private investigator until his death. I’ve seen fictional gumshoes from Raymond Chandler’s existential Philip Marlowe to Moonlighting’s Motown David Addison, but never one that conformed to my actual experience as Diana Hughes does." –Anthony Adler, Chicago Reader

Table of Contents

Program Note

I Shall Love You Forever

Kindness

Private Investigations

Program Note

I wrote these plays a long time ago. A long, long time ago. At the time I wrote I Shall Love You Forever and Private Investigations, I was playwright-in-residence at The Commons Theatre Company in Chicago. The Commons opened in 1980 and was part of what would become the most active, innovative and vital theatre community in the United States. In 1986 I left the company, and I wrote Kindness the next year.

All three of these plays deal in one way or another with death and loss and how people cope, separately and together, with these terrible human realities. Two of the three plays are comedies. I hope you enjoy them all.

Kathleen Thompson

I Shall Love You Forever

This play was first produced at The Commons Theatre in 1981. It was directed by Brian Kaufman and performed by Michael Nowak (Malcolm) and Melinda Skilondz (Ruth).

The scene is an attractive, eclectically decorated living room. There is a couch, at least one armchair, a desk in an area that obviously doubles as an office, and some bookcases. A window seat would be lovely. There are three doors, one to the outside, one to the kitchen, and one to the bedroom and bathroom. There are a few good antiques, lots of plants, and a variety of other objects that are interesting but would never make the pages of Apartment Life. When the lights go up, MALCOLM PORTER is sitting on the couch wearing a softball uniform. He is in his late twenties or early thirties.

MALCOLM sits for a moment, looking at his glove, and then tosses his spikes into the corner of the room and, after them, his hat. He takes his time. Then he gets up and walks towards the kitchen.

From outside, RUTH HUTCHENS has come into the kitchen. She is about the same age. She's been working in the garden and is wearing a pair of overalls with a T-shirt, gardening gloves and an old, somewhat battered man's hat. At the entrance to the kitchen, they collide.

RUTH: Malcolm! You scared me to death.

MALCOLM: Sorry. I just got home.

RUTH: Couldn't you make some noise or something?

MALCOLM: Just would have scared you earlier. We have any beer?

RUTH: Wine. I got a bottle on the way home.

MALCOLM: (Going to the kitchen.) Great.

As they talk, RUTH puts down her gardening tools, takes off her hat and gloves and puts them on the table, sits down on the couch and takes off her shoes.

MALCOLM: From where?

RUTH: The Jewel. I had to cash a check. How was the game?

MALCOLM: We won. Where's the corkscrew?

RUTH: Your guess is as good as mine. How much?

MALCOLM: Fifteen to twelve. I got a double.

RUTH: Great. And?

MALCOLM: No and. One double. But I knocked in three runs. (Puts his head through the doorway.) Ruth, the corkscrew was in the refrigerator.

RUTH: We had white wine last night. (Malcom pops back into the kitchen.) Was Andy there?

MALCOLM: No, I think we've lost him. Getting too grown up, I guess.

MALCOLM comes back into the room with the bottle and two glasses of wine. He hands a glass to RUTH. She takes it and goes into the bedroom, undoing the straps on her overalls on the way. MALCOLM sits down on the couch and takes off his shoes. As they talk, he begins to take off parts of his softball uniform.

MALCOLM: Did you go to the doctor today?

RUTH: No.

MALCOLM: Why not?

RUTH: It's Tuesday.

MALCOLM: Don't you go to the doctor on Tuesdays?

RUTH: Wednesdays.

MALCOLM: Oh. Are you sure?

RUTH: Of course I'm sure. I've been going to the doctor on Wednesdays for three years. Why do you think Andy's grown up?

MALCOLM: Oh, you know. He doesn't think junior executives should play softball. I could have sworn you went to the doctor on Tuesdays.

RUTH: (Putting her head through the doorway) Do you think you could drop the doctor?

MALCOLM: