Little Wars

By Steven Carl McCasland

A dinner party during the Second World War unites celebrated writers Agatha Christie, Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Parker, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas – with a mysterious guest.
With copious booze flowing, acid-tongued barbs flying, and the threat of global conflict looming, the guests – and the world around them – are close to boiling point. Everyone has a confession. Someone has a secret.
Set in the French Alps in 1940, Steven Carl McCasland's Little Wars is an enthralling, entertaining and ultimately moving portrait of seven exceptional women – and a thrilling fiction based on truth.
It was workshopped Off-Off-Broadway, first performed in 2015, and received an acclaimed digital premiere in 2020, featuring Linda Bassett, Sarah Solemani, Juliet Stevenson and Sophie Thompson. It provides glorious opportunities for an all-female cast to play some of the greatest literary figures of the twentieth century.
'A high concept play with a lightness of touch... the discussions about collective responsibility, individual action or inaction in the face of moral wrongdoing, and the question of whether to stay silent or speak out, are deeply resonant'Guardian
'The script is smart and witty... admirably bold and asks big questions'The Stage
'Extraordinary and vibrant... a pertinent play about refuge, safety, hiding, women, survival and love'BritishTheatre.com

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Release date: Apr 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781788503792

Steven Carl McCasland

Steven Carl McCasland is the founder and Artistic Director of the Beautiful Soup Theater Collective. A Pace University graduate, Steven’s critically acclaimed plays have been seen in New York and Bermuda. In 2009, Steven was commissioned to adapt poet Jack Wiler’s anthologies into a solo performance about Wiler’s struggle with HIV. That play, Fun Being Me, was workshopped with Jack in the title role before his passing in 2009. Steven’s other plays include When I’m 64, Hope & Glory, Opheliacs Anonymous, Blue, Pulchritudinous (First Place, Huntington Award in Playwriting), and Billy Learns About Captain Kirk have all received productions regionally and in Manhattan. In June 2011, Steven premiered his original adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Setting Wonderland in the heart of Paris, he also directed and was featured in the cast as the Mock Turtle. After its one-week workshop, Alice Au Pays Des Merveilles was picked up for an extended run at the SoHo Playhouse through September. His acclaimed play neat & tidy made a splash on the Bowery in May of 2012, with critics hailing McCasland as a new Thornton Wilder and the play as one of the top dramatic plays of the year. After critically acclaimed workshops of Steven’s plays and What Was Lost in 2014, Beautiful Soup partnered with the Clarion Theatre to present five of his plays in repertory in 2015. Also featured in rep were 28 Marchant Avenue, Der Kanarienvogel (The Canary) and a revival of neat & tidy. His writing has been acclaimed by New York critics as ‘brilliant’, ‘riveting’, ‘mesmerising’ and ‘extraordinary’.

Book preview

Steven Carl McCasland

LITTLE WARS

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Original Production Details

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Little Wars

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Little Wars received its world premiere at The Clarion Theatre, New York City, in 2015, with the following cast:

The play received its international premiere at the Daylesford Theatre, Hamilton, Bermuda, in 2016, with the following cast:

The play received its US regional premiere at Mixed Blood Theatre, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 2017, with the following cast:

The play received its digital premiere and was streamed internationally in November 2020, with the following cast:

Acknowledgements

This play went through a number of drafts. The feedback of friends and colleagues was invaluable, and they all must be thanked: Thia Stephan Hyde, Jon Imparato, JoAnn Mariano, Patti Mariano, Polly McKie, Carey Purcell, Molly Tiede, Maggie Wirth, Shelli Place, Debbie Chazen, Catherine Russell, Juliet Stevenson, Ginger Quiff Media and all of the other actresses, directors and designers who have worked on this play. Especially Carol Birch, who helped me discover things I never knew were there.

Great thanks to Georganne Guyan Bender, Charles Busch, Robert Featherstone, Irma and Sol Gurman, Julie Halston, James Horan, Lucille Kenney, Rich Kizer, Alison Broomfield and Logan Rollins for their unwavering support and encouragement.

Overwhelming gratitude to Albert J. Pica, Theresa Pica and Susan Percoco.

Thanks are due to Nora Ephron, whose Imaginary Friends introduced me to Lillian Hellman and Mary McCarthy when I was sixteen. She helped inspire this and every play that followed.

And, of course, to Lillian Hellman.

This play is dedicated to Irma Gurman and Elaine Tozar,

two teachers who inspired a life of learning

Characters

GERTRUDE STEIN, sixty-five. The hostess. A Lesbian writer with no interest in the conventional. American

ALICE B. TOKLAS, sixty-two. Gertrude Stein’s lover, secretary and muse. Art enthusiast and collector. American

LILLIAN HELLMAN, thirty-four. A lying, chain-smoking, conniving woman who also happens to be a brilliant writer. American

DOROTHY PARKER, forty-seven. Satirist and author. Despite her biting wit, Dorothy cowers to Lillian out of respect and fear. American

AGATHA CHRISTIE, forty-nine. A crime-fiction writer. Far too smart for her own good. British

MARY (MURIEL GARDINER), thirty-eight. A psychiatrist working in the Austrian underground to rescue Jews and dissidents. American

BERNADETTE, twenty-two. Gertrude and Alice’s maidservant. German

Time and Place

22 June 1940. Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas’s country home in the French Alps.

Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas’ country home in the French Alps. 22 June 1940. France will fall to Germany in less than twenty-four hours. A piano sits in one corner of the stage, paintings and easels in every other. Some canvases are complete, some are barely touched. A sofa and coffee table down left, an armchair not far away. There are candles burning in some places; a lamp glowing on a tabletop next to the armchair. A half-drunk glass of Scotch sits on the table, too. But more than anything, there are books. Fiction, poetry, plays, essays, biographies, notebooks, sketchbooks. More than you can imagine. At curtain, BERNADETTE, a maidservant of twenty-two, cleans nearby. After a moment, she speaks to us in a hushed and urgent whisper.

BERNADETTE. ‘I’ll tell you when I’m dead,’ I said. She tilted her head. Stupefied. That’s what Gertie would’ve called her. ‘I’ll tell you when I’m dead and buried.’ ‘But if it’s a story worth telling – ’, she said, ‘ – then tell it!’

GERTRUDE (off). There is a ghost in this book.

BERNADETTE. ‘Yes,’ I told the student. ‘But for every story worth telling, there’s a dozen secrets worth keeping.’

GERTRUDE (entering). I repeat: there is a ghost in this book.

ALICE (off). There is no ghost in the book.

GERTRUDE. I open it and I hear Him.

ALICE enters with a drink and stands in the stage-left doorway. She is a petite woman, plainly dressed, and diminutive in every way to GERTRUDE.

ALICE. It’s a Him?

GERTRUDE. Oh, yes.

ALICE. If