The Joslyn Circle and the off Season: Two Plays

By Harding Lemay

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 27, 2006
• ISBN: 9781465332158

Harding Lemay

HARDING LEMAY was born, the fifth of thirteen children, in Northern New York State. He ran away from home at seventeen to New York City where he has lived ever since. He was a delivery boy and elevator operator before serving in the U. S. Army during World War II, then an actor, librarian and book publishing executive before devoting himself full time to writing. He has written over twelve full length plays and two memoirs, Inside, Looking Out, (Harpers Magazine Press, nominated for the National Book Award) and Eight Years in Another World (Atheneum). He was the headwriter of NBC's daytime serial, Another World, for eight years and has been a scriptwriter and story consultant on other serials, including As the World Turns, The Doctors, Ryan's Hope, The Guiding Light and One Life to Live. In New York City, he has taught literature, drama and serial writing at New York University, Hunter College and the New School for Social Research. Other plays by Harding Lemay: Look at Any Man From a Dark Land Little Birds Fly Return Upriver Death of Eagles The Joslyn Circle The Off Season Escape Route Interior Landscape Scrutiny

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Copyright © 2005 by Harding Lemay.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents

either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used

fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or

dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

THE JOSLYN CIRCLE

THE OFF SEASON

THE JOSLYN CIRCLE

a play in three acts

HARDING LEMAY was born, the fifth of thirteen children, in Northern New York State. He ran away from home at seventeen to New York City where he has lived ever since. He was a delivery boy, elevator operator and youth counsellor, before serving in the U. S. Army during World War II, then an actor, a library clerk and a book publishing executive before devoting himself full time to writing. He has written over twelve full length plays and two memoirs, Inside, Looking Out (Harpers Magazine Press) and Eight Years in Another World (Atheneum). He was the headwriter of NBC’s daytime serial, Another World, for eight years and has been a scriptwriter and story consultant on other serials, including As the World Turns, The Doctors, Ryan’s Hope, The Guiding Light and One Life to Live. In New York City, he has taught literature, drama and serial writing at New York University, Hunter College, and the New School for Social Research.

Other plays by Harding Lemay:

LOOK AT ANY MAN

FROM A DARK LAND

LITTLE BIRDS FLY

RETURN UPRIVER

DEATH OF EAGLES

THE JOSLYN CIRCLE

THE OFF SEASON

SCRUTINY

INTERIOR LANDSCAPE

A FAR, FAR BETTER WORLD

IN THE EYE OF HEAVEN

THE JOSLYN CIRCLE was first performed at The New Dramatists, New York City, in 1971 with the following cast:

Leonie Joslyn Fox Anne Meacham

Winifred Saunders Mary Fogarty

Ira Fox Addison Powell

Isobel Joslyn M’el Dowd

Ralph Carlson Ed Zimmerman

Joslyn Monroe Joseph Maher

directed by Patricia Carmichael

CAST OF CHARACTERS

(in order of appearance)

Leonie Joslyn Fox,

a novelist

Winifred Saunders,

her cousin, a poet

Ira Fox,

her husband

Isobel Joslyn,

her sister

Ralph Carlson,

her brother-in-law

Joslyn Monroe,

another cousin

The action of the play takes place during the nineteen sixties in the sitting room of Leonie Fox’s house, built by her grandfather over a hundred years ago just outside Boston.

The room, which is on the second floor of the house, is large, comfortably furnished in early nineteenth century style, and dimly lit. The colors of the walls and drapes are muted blues and beiges. The furniture is gold and rust, but the colors have faded. There is not a visually jarring element in the room: it has the subdued, harmonious atmosphere of a retreat.

A door upstage right leads to stairs going to the lower floor. Another door upstage center opens into LEONIE’s bedroom. A fireplace is stage left of that door and heavy drapes cover French doors stage left leading to a balcony overlooking a garden outside.

A comfortable chaise lounge is downstage right with a small table to its right. An armchair is downstage left with another table at its left, and there is a hassock on the right of the armchair. A pair of smaller armchairs face each other before the fireplace. Small tables, with vases of cut flowers, are along the walls. A work table, with pads of paper and pencils on it, is far downstage left with a small chair before it.

On the walls are portraits of bearded nineteenth century men and their wives. There are no decorations in the room beyond the portraits and the flowers.

ACT ONE

ACT ONE

Mid-morning, in early June.

As the curtain rises, LEONIE FOX, a frail woman in her early fifties, is seated in a nightgown at her work table, down stage left, making pencilled notes on a manuscript.

Lifting her head, she listens intently. A watchful woman, she seldom raises her voice or makes an unnecessary gesture. As voices are heard off stage, coming up the stairs, she rises, picks up her papers, and calls toward the open door leading to her bedroom

up center.

Leonie

Snail! Snail!

WINIFRED SAUNDERS, a vibrant woman of fifty five, dessed in country tweeds, walking shoes and wearing no makeup or jewelry, enters hurriedly from the bedroom.

Someone’s coming up!

Winifred

It’s all right. You come work in your room while I finish

cleaning it up.

Leonie

Why doesn’t Ira get rid of them?

They go into the bedroom and close the door behind

them. Voices are heard coming closer.

Ira

(off stage) We didn’t expect you until noon.

Isobel

(off stage) We got an earlier flight.

IRA FOX, a graceful man in his middle fifties enters

speaking, wearing a dressing gown over trousers and

shirt. He glances toward the bedroom door, as ISOBEL

JOSLYN follows him into the room. Also in her fifties,

she is a hearty, carelessly dressed woman, who carries

a briefcase, a purse, and expensive furs.

Ira

(as he enters) She didn’t sleep all night. Your telegram got her excited.

Isobel

(following him into the room) If you had a telephone, we wouldn’t

have had to—

Ira

We had it taken out. It vibrates.

Isobel

It what?

Ira

Vibrates. Telephones vibrate. Radios vibrate. Television

vibrates.

Isobel

People vibrate.

Ira

Everything vibrates. And Leonie can’t sleep with vibrations in the house.

Isobel

Then you’d better not wake her up. Our vibrations can be

overpowering.

Ira

She’s not asleep. Winifred’s with her.

Isobel

(pleased) She is!

Ira

She drove over early to make sure she sees you. We’re lucky

to catch you between headlines.

Isobel

You can thank Harvard for that. If they hadn’t asked me to make their commencement address, I’d be in Kalamazoo or Berkeley.

Ira

Harvard’s displaying better taste than it did in my day.

Isobel

(after a glance at him, changing the subject) This damned

furniture hasn’t been changed since we were girls.

Ira

Then you should have no trouble making yourself at home. You

just wait out here with—

He tries to remember the name. ISOBEL smiles at him tolerantly.

All right, what is his name?

Isobel

His name is Ralph.

Ira

You and Ralph—

Isobel

Ralph Carlson.

Ira

You and Ralph Carlson sit right down and make yourselves—

ISOBEL goes to the stairway and calls down.

Isobel

Ralph!

Ira

Don’t shout. It disturbs Leonie.

Isobel

Sorry! (She whispers loudly down the stairs) Ralph? Oh, Ralph. We’re up here. (She turns back to IRA) Really. It’s not like him to hang back in the shadows.

Ira

He’ll make the perfect Joslyn husband.

ISOBEL throws both arms around IRA, who shrinks back.

Isobel

Oh,God, Ira, it’s good to see you again. I’m with hotheaded rebels so much these days, I forget what civilized people are like.

RALPH CARLSON enters from the stairway, About thirty, he is a restless, vigorous man who examines everything around him, using his hands freely as he touches objects and people.

Ira

Here’s your hotheaded rebel now.

Ralph

(directly to IRA) It takes one to know one, they tell me.

Isobel

(taking RALPH’s arm fondly) I was afraid I’d lost you.

Ralph

(casually, looking around the room) I had to take a piss.

Isobel

(quickly, to IRA) Go on in and tell her we’re here. Ralph’s

shy as a bride, meeting my celebrated sister. I had to drag

him here by the hand, practically.

Ira

Really?

Ralph

My wife tells me what to do and I do it. (He grins at IRA) If you know what I mean.

Ira

(quickly) I’ll go see if she’s up to receiving visitors.

IRA exits into the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

Ralph

Holy Christ! So that’s Ira Fox!

Isobel

What did you expect?

Ralph

I didn’t come all the way here to meet a butler, or a—

Isobel

If I were you, I wouldn’t let on that you came here to meet him.

Leonie’s very jealous.

Ralph

That’s her problem.

Isobel

If you want to be friends with him, you’ve got to please her, too.

Ralph

You talk to him for me. Will you? Please?

Isobel

No. I agreed to introduce you to him. The rest is up to you.

You can have one of your man to man confrontations.

Ralph

But he’s not a man. He’s a shadow.

Isobel

When Ira got fired from his chair at Harvard, back during the

witch hunt, something inside of him snapped.

Ralph

He should have fought them.

Isobel

He did. He lost. Some fights are lost, you know.

Ralph

Only when they’re badly fought.

Isobel

I wouldn’t bring that up with him, either, if I were you. (beat) My God, it’s dark in here. (She goes to the French windows) You wouldn’t even know it was daylight outside.

ISOBEL pulls open the drapes and sunlight floods the

room. RALPH wanders to the work table and begins

automatically reading letters lying open upon it.

Ralph! What are you doing?

Ralph

There’s not even one letter addressed to him, not one. (He looks through the books on the table) Where the Hell is his book? They’re all hers. In all languages.

Isobel

Well, it is her work room, after all. Don’t snoop, darling. (He turns away, irritated. She changes the subject) This used to be our classroom.

Ralph

Classrooms are prisons. (He starts wandering about the room, not listening as she speaks)

Isobel

This one certainly was. We used to have to sit here, hunched over our writing desks, just like this one, while lucky butterflies and bumblebees flew free outside that window, free from Latin conjugations and multiplication tables.

Ralph

(stopping at a portrait) Who’s that?

Isobel

Grandpa Joslyn. Himself. The Quaker story-teller.

Ralph

Creepy looking old fellow, isn’t he?

Isobel

You should have seen the original.

Ralph

God, how I used to hate them.

Isobel

Who, Ralph, for God’s sake, who?

Ralph

You know. Emerson, Thoreau, Joslyn, Monroe, Hawthorne.

Isobel

The hobgoblins of my childhood.

Ralph

And you knew them all.

Isobel

(a little too lightly) Most of them were somewhat before my time.

Ralph

(teasing her) Were they?

Isobel

I knew only Grandpa Joslyn. And he was enough! Poking at us with his cane, telling his tiresome, senile old stories. I gave up listening long before he died. I was fourteen and he was nearly ninety. It was as if God had died. Leonie wandered from room to room, like a cat looking for her kittens.

Ralph

Well, he’s dead now. So are his poems and stories.

Isobel

They are not. Everyone reads To a Young Wife Dead by Fire, in school, even now.

Ralph

I didn’t.

Isobel

I’m surprised you grew up to be such a nice boy.

Ralph

I’m not a boy. If you’re not more respectful, I’ll prove it right here on the carpet. Right here, right now. How about it?

Isobel

Stop it. Someone will hear you.

Ralph

Who cares?

Isobel

I do.

Ralph

It’s not like you to be so prudish.

Isobel

This room brings out the worst in me.

Ralph

Yeah? How about letting me bring out the best in you? (He takes her roughly in his arms)