Three Plays

By Steven McCann

The main protagonists of my three plays are united by a determination to risk security and comfort in their search for greater self-expression. Harold Faver, inspired to write poetry again after giving it up decades before in college, vacates a restful grandfatherly retirement in his snug New Hampshire condo for a small apartment in New York City where his has no friends, relatives, or contacts. Audrey Blancherd leaves behind a secure teaching position and a devoted romantic partner to follow her yearning for a vague career in the theatre somewhere at the end of a bus ride. Sue Amsted breaks off an insincere relationship with a young lawyer, while seven months pregnant, hoping to start her own business with little money, or outside support. None of the three is endowed with rare brilliance, or talent. Yet they are heroes in the sense that our world escapes mediocrity and complacency, because millions like them share these same desires.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781669802808

Steven McCann

Steven McCann is the author of novels, novellas, stories, plays and poems, and a 2021 recipient of a City Artist Corps Grant. He was born in 1948, graduated from Spring Valley High School in New York where he excelled in three sports. He enrolled at the University of Kansas, and later at NYU, majored in English and received a BA. His work experience is varied; nightwatchman at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, hotel detective at the Plaza, home renovator and shipping manager. In 2005 he was stricken with paraplegia and has been wheelchair bound since. He lives in New York City and remains passionate about Central Park, the Shakespeare festival, the Met Museum, Lincoln Center, the opera, and the people of New York.

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Copyright © 2022 by Steven McCann.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 12/03/2021

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Contents

Gratuity

Forever in Time

City Palette

Gratuity

Forever in Time

City Palette

Gratuity

A Comedy in Three Acts

Characters:

Harold Faver, retired high school teacher

Molly, his daughter

Burt, his son

Ann, Molly’s friend

Husband, Molly’s husband

Doorman

Stan, Bartender

Jan, waitress

Kay, a prostitute

Kay’s roommate

Group leader in Harold’s poetry class

Jimmy, Harold’s grandson

Granddaughter, Harold’s granddaughter

Theresa, student in Harold’s poetry class

Detective

Waiter

Maitre’d

Cabbie

Terrence, nephew of Lillian Hawes

Lillian Hawes, former student in Harold’s high school class

Couple

Homeless man

Business man

Act 1

Scene 1

Two people, a father and daughter, are sitting in the living room of a new condominium in Peterboro, New Hampshire, a well-to-do suburb an hour’s commute from Boston. They are talking across a coffee table, the daughter seated on a cushioned lounge chair, the father at the end of a sofa from where he can see over his daughter’s head and out a window to a border of trees colored in early autumn and above and through these trees to the calm blue sky of mid-afternoon. The condominium is new. Everything about the setting suggests ease, comfort, and modest wealth. The daughter is in her mid-thirties, an average-size woman, with modest good looks which she makes no attempt to adorn by dress, make-up, or hairdo. She is absorbed in her duties as a housewife and mother of three; confident in her mission to perform these duties better than anyone else, and confident also that she could be living in no better community than the one she is in. She knows virtually every teacher, coach, instructor, or neighborhood household her children will ever encounter, and every tract of land within the limited radius that her husband, a small homebuilder, will ever purchase to build on. She is aware of a world outside her experience in larger cities like New York, Los Angeles and even nearby Boston, yet she has no desire to take part in this world. It has no tangible connection to her or her friends, except in the person sitting across from her.

Her father is different from everyone else she knows. Although he has been a high school teacher in Peterboro during almost her entire life, he has somehow kept himself separate from everyone, not because of snobbery or social inhibition, but because of some rare tenuous quality that has managed this without incurring the displeasure of the community. She is devoted to him anyway, visits him frequently, bakes for him, and delights in his company. He looks much different than her. He is a few inches over six feet, slender yet muscular, has fine even features that are neither strong nor weak, a full head of hair cut short that is almost but not entirely gray, and striking blue eyes that have a kindly twinkle, yet give his entire person a detachment from those around him. He gives the impression of a man who has reserved himself for some future event, although he is of retirement age. His daughter usually visits him at least once each week, staying for about an hour. She is in the middle of her visit as the play opens.

Molly

You didn’t love any of us. That’s the simple truth.

Harold

Molly, what on earth are you saying?

Molly

You don’t have to lie to me, father.

Harold

His look of quizzical astonishment slowly changes to gentle laughter, joining his daughter’s laughter.

A man works two thirds of his life for his family—

Molly

You would have been happier running off to skid row. You might have found another alcoholic to talk to about poetry and music.

Harold

What in the world are you saying, Molly?

Molly

Don’t tell me you loved Burt, father?

Harold

He exaggerates even greater astonishment

A man not love his own son? A first born son?

Molly

Half a head shorter than you. Didn’t like any of the things you liked. Not literature, not classical music, not hiking. You couldn’t even get him to go fly fishing with you.

Harold

Well, but Burt was a good son anyway. A fine son.

Molly

A frumpy little business person like mother. Happy managing a dry cleaning chain. I remember how excited mother was to get a realtor’s license. Like someone being invited to the debutante ball. Where in the world did you two meet anyway?

Harold

At a teacher’s convention. She was impressed, I think, because I was teaching a higher grade than she was.

Molly

Why didn’t she go after a school principal?

Harold

I don’t think there was one at the meeting. And we were lovers that same evening.

Molly

You and mother lovers?

Harold

It does seem unlikely, doesn’t it. It was a long time ago, Molly. Forty years almost.

Molly

Tell me something. Did you ever have affairs when we were growing up?

Harold

Not a one.

Molly

Not even one?

Harold

Not even one, Molly.

Molly

That’s a tragedy.

Harold

Why?

Molly

Because you were such a good-looking man. Couldn’t you have run off to Boston and found some tall willowy Ratcliff student?

Harold

It wasn’t what I wanted. Your father is a simple man, Molly. Do you know what I really wanted?

Molly

What? Tell me.

Harold

To belong to the Opera Guild.

Molly

Is that all?

Harold

Yes. That was all. My one true wish, to belong to the Metropolitan Opera Guild and go to their performances. And the one time I took your mother to New York she wouldn’t go with me. I went by myself to see Beverly Sills in La Traviata. Oh, she was beautiful! When she came out in that last act dressed in a long gown and swooned, I swooned with her. I died with her, Molly.

Molly

Yes. You loved opera. I remember you used to sit in that upstairs room with your radio, looking out the window to the distance hills. It was a window similar to this one, wasn’t it?

Molly turns in her seat to look through the window behind her, then stands up and moves closer to take in its full vista.

These condominiums have gone up thirty percent in the year since you bought yours. She pauses. But you don’t care about that, do you, father?

She turns and sits, giving her father an affectionate smile.

You did get me to like classical music, Beethoven, Copeland, and that other American, Barber, I think.

Harold

But I couldn’t get you to like Mozart. My one true failing as a father. You were the only one of the three I had a chance with.

Molly

Yes. I had just a smuch of you.

Harold

More than a smuch, Molly. You were my soulmate.

Molly

Oh, father, you never had a soulmate. You should go into Boston now. See if you can’t find a Ratcliff student.

Harold

At sixty-two?

Molly

It isn’t too late. You’re still extremely handsome.

Harold

It’s not what I want. Even now.

Molly

Then, what do you want? They’ll never build an Opera House in Boston, father. Why don’t you take a trip to Europe, to Paris or Vienna? Or maybe to Canada. Remember that ad you saved about the Canadian Rockies train trip? Something along those lines.

Harold

His expression changes to a determined look that his daughter doesn’t notice.

I’m going to. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. You see, the operation changed me in certain ways.

Molly

Not only because of that, I hope. Men don’t die of prostate cancer anymore, father.

Harold

Some do.

Molly

Very few. All you got was decent care in a good hospital.

Harold

He becomes suddenly animated and moved.

But something happened to me in there. I sat in that bed the morning of my operation going over my life, the tidy, well ordered life of a high school teacher. I’d worked hard, never a shirker or irresponsible, but never a risk taker either. It wasn’t the career or wife of my dreams. I never told you this, but I’d wanted to be a poet once. And I never wrote a poem after my second year of college. The years kept falling like kingpins and after each I said, ‘Good, let them, because if I obey my inner urge I’ll run off to New York City and be sending my wife child support payments. When they wheeled me in to the operating table I decided that if there was a good lord above he should take me. I’ve lived my well-ordered life and done the best I could and if he has extra years to give he should give them to some young inventor or poet or artist. Then I woke up afterwards. I immediately felt different, as if I’d been given a gratuity of some kind. And I knew I had to take some kind of a chance, even if it was a small chance.

He pauses, takes a deep breath and his face takes on a determined look.

So, I’ve decided to move to New York City, Molly.

Molly

Good! You should! Join the Opera Guild!

Harold

And so much more. Concerts! The Ballet! The theatre!

Molly

Move to Australia, Paris, anywhere you want to, father.

Harold

He pauses

No. I decided. I’m moving to New York City. Pause Can you help me sell this condo, Molly?

Molly

Stammers

Right now?

Harold

Carried away excitedly

Yes. Immediately! I’ll give it all away! Not the condo, of course, but the furniture and everything else, even my fly fishing equipment. Can’t you get your mother to help you sell it? Tell her I’ll give her ten percent extra. I don’t want to waste anymore of my life, Molly. I’m ready to leave tomorrow with a suitcase.

Molly

Beginning to regain her self- possession

You’re not really serious about this, are you?

Harold

Why wouldn’t I be?

Molly

Because your whole life has been here. Your children, your grand children, former students. Why, you’ve made friends—

Harold

But I haven’t. Not really. Don’t you see, I’ve put my life on hold. For—for forty years. Of course, I loved my family and all that. But there was a part of me, there still is a part of me to this very day, that I didn’t fulfill. And I want to try. I’m not dead yet.

Molly

But going to Operas? How many Operas can you go to?

Harold

That’s just a part of it. I’m talking about a world I never entered, but wanted to. Maybe it just means wandering the streets with tickets in my pockets and standing in crowded lobbies waiting for performances or poetry readings, looking from some great distance at people who really are great artists and performers. I’m not sure. But if you love something, isn’t it worth a chance? Shouldn’t you find out if you can go further? And I did love these things. Why was I sitting in the upstairs room listening to Operas and looking out the window instead of hobnobbing with the local men? Don’t you see? There was a whole part of life I missed, maybe the biggest part. And its not too late for me.

There is an awkward silence. Molly is obviously at a loss to say anything. Finally, she collects herself and feigns sudden surprise.

Molly

Oh, yes! I knew there was something I wanted to tell you. Your grandson made an assist that scored his team’s winning goal yesterday.

Harold

Did he?

Molly

It was the only goal scored the entire game. He insisted I remember to tell you.

Harold.

Waits a respectful moment before speaking.

Do you think you could help me sell this place, Molly? Do you?

Molly

Answers slowly

I’d have to see, father.

Harold

What is there to see?

Molly

I don’t know the market right now.

Harold

Can’t you get your mother involved? For a fee?

Molly

A practical look returns to her face, as if she has decided something.

Sure I can, father. I’ll give her a call tomorrow.

Harold

Wonderful, Molly. Let me know what you find out, won’t you?

Molly

Sure, I will, father. I’ve got to run, now and pick up the kids. Don’t forget to have some of the pie while its still fresh. And please, don’t throw away the pie plate, okay father?

Harold

I certainly won’t, Molly.

Molly leaves. Light fades quickly on Harold’s living room, at center stage, with a brighter light remaining on Harold. While the focus shifts to Molly in the following sequence, Harold moves silently about his living room. At first, he thoughtfully moves closer to the window and looks out, then picks up a fly rod from the top of a shelf, testing its flexibility. He suddenly puts it down, and moving decisively, picks up a magazine from a table, turns its pages quickly, and finding what he is looking for, picks up a phone and calls a number in the ad. While he is doing this, the light has risen to left of stage on Molly’s kitchen. Molly is making salad in a bowl on counter with phone to her ear.

Molly

Yes and no. Listens and stirs salad. I’m worried that he’ll do something impulsive just to prove to himself that he can change. But I don’t believe he’ll move to New York. Listens and stirs again. I was worried when I left his place. Reaches up to a shelve with phone to her ear and bowl in front Then I got in the car and started driving across town.

Two small girls enter the kitchen, a three and a five year old. The older reaches for the refrigerator door. To children:

No! We’re going to eat. Wash your hands. Pause And wash hers too. Children traipse out.

Where was I? Yes. Driving across town. Pause I looked around, Ann. The bank, the school. Bright faces all around me, in every car that passed. The people entering and leaving the post office. Kids getting on a school bus. All the homes, new and old, well kept. The town was sparkling in the sunshine of an autumn day like a postcard. We take it for granted because we drive through it every day.

A boy of eight enters kitchen and goes to refrigerator.

Out! Go wash your hands.

Son

I did.

Molly

No, you didn’t. Wash now. Go! She pauses to collect herself. Where was I? The town. Yes. Our town. What we take for granted. How could he possibly leave us for New York City? No. I know he won’t. He’s the cleanest man I’ve ever seen. Better hygiene than the school nurse. A hiker, an organic foods enthusiast. He’s quiet about these things because he doesn’t want to look vain. I know him, Ann.

Husband enters Kitchen in carpenter garb, reaches for refrigerator

Please! We’re eating in five minutes. He stares at her, says nothing. She stares back at him. Here. Take this inside. She hands him salad bowl. He reaches for it silently, saying nothing. She is unable to resist venting her annoyance. Can’t you change when you come home? She gives husband petulant stare. He stares back, says nothing and leaves kitchen with salad bowl.

What was I saying? Yes. He’s so clean, Ann. And Healthy! You wouldn’t believe he’s sixty-two. The operation didn’t change him a bit. He looks better than the average thirty-year old. I told him. Go into Boston and find some Ratcliff student. He’s exactly what those kind of women want. Yes! He should have done it years ago! You’ve never had an affair? Not even one? I asked him. None! He was loyal to mother for forty years. I can’t believe they ever did anything, really. It seems impossible. But you know what it really is, Ann? He’s a man who had greater potential. We all knew it. He watched the years pass him, falling like kingpins were his words. And now he’s sixty-two. A young, handsome, wonderful sixty-two. But yes, sixty-two. Is he going to live in New York City and became a famous poet now? Its sad and its not sad. How many of us ever reach our full potential? How many—I’m sorry. I have to, too. Okay, sweetie. Yes. I’ll see you at the meeting. Choi.

She hangs up. Looks around, goes to stove and begins removing lids and moving pots off it. Phone rings. Harold’s apartment is faintly illuminated at left of center stage, with brighter light on Harold who is standing with phone to his ear. Molly picks up.

Harold

It’s me, Molly.

Molly

Relieved. Warmly affectionate.

Oh father, I’m glad you called—

Harold

Expansively

I wanted to thank you, Molly, for the encouragement.

Molly

It was nothing, father.

Harold

I made reservations, Molly.

Molly

Alarmed

What did you say?

Harold

He is standing tall, looking up with growing confidence

Reservations. Proudly. For New York City. I took a hotel room for a week.

Molly

Are you sure this is the right thing, father?

Harold

Oh, you won’t have to drive me, Molly. Don’t worry. I’m taking the bus into Boston tomorrow morning. I’ll be gone for a week.

Molly

Upset

Where, father?

Harold

He laughs confidently

What do you mean, where? New York City.

Molly

Where in New York, father?

Harold

Why, Manhattan, of course.

Molly

Is it Pause are you Pause A good neighborhood, right, father?

Harold

Molly! It’s a hotel in midtown Manhattan! I’m going to find a realtor and look for an apartment. I’m just letting you know. So you don’t worry. I’ll be back in about a week. I’m going to be running around and it might be very hectic. So don’t worry if I don’t call. I’ll let you know as soon as I get back. I’ve got to do some packing now, so I’ll sign off. Bye, Molly.

Molly

Father—

Harold hangs up. Light goes out on Harold’s apartment. Molly pauses in middle of kitchen. Slowly recollects herself, takes dishes from counter and leaves kitchen. Light dims on kitchen and it remains empty for a minute, then light comes on again. Molly enters wearing a different dress. Phone rings.

Molly

Yes, Ann. No. He hasn’t. He left Monday. I don’t think so. Not really. He probably looked around and decided in half a day that it was ridiculous. That’s what I think. He’s not a part of it. No. That’s right. It’s like a foreigner from Madagascar coming to Peterboro. It’s not a matter of money, class, taste, none of that. How much time can