Next on the script shelf
Next play in my little unalphabetized pile of Samuel French plays is Lanford Wilson’s eerie The Rimers of Eldritch.
It has the same kaleidoscopic style that his Balm in Gilead had – multiple scenes going on at the same time, conversations chopped up so you get two or three lines from it before you switch to the other scene – then you leap back. If it’s not done well, I imagine it could be confusing. Also, in Rimers – it’s set up backwards. We start with a trial – various people taking the witness stand – and it isn’t until the very last scene that we find out what really happened. It’s devastating when you do find out.
Rimers takes place in a small former mining town – on its way to becoming a ghost town. There is only a population of about 70 people. Needless to say, everyone knows everyone. It’s a very religious town, a very nosy town, and the script – with its multiple scenes, and dialogue from all different characters at the same time – ends up giving the impression of gossip. It feels like the entire cast is whispering in your ear insinuations about their neighbors.
A young handicapped teenage girl (Eva) has been raped. Who did it? Over the course of the play you find out.
I did this play in college. I played Lena, the not-pretty friend to the prettiest girl in the high school. It’s a small part – but this piece is what you would call an “ensemble piece” – there’s not a ‘star’ – and all of us were onstage the whole time. It was an amazing production, actually – a very challenging show, challenging material – and it was a damn fine show.
Out of all of the plays I have excerpted – this one is really difficult to find a “scene”. The whole thing is like one big cut and paste job – giving you just snippets here, snippets there … so you have to put it together. You’ll see how the dialogue is not quite realistic. Rimers is almost choral in nature.
From The Rimers of Eldritch.
MARTHA. Good evening, Mary.
WILMA. Good evening, Mary Windrod.
MARY. [she stops] You two. I watch you two sometimes. [Mary talks, almost with everything she says, as though she were describing a beautiful dream to a pet canary]
WILMA. Aren’t you cold in that shawl, dear?
MARTHA. Nights are cold in this valley for June.
MARY. It’s not bad.
WILMA. You’ll be catching a chill next.
MARY. I was once a nurse and I believe that the constant proximity to sickness has given me an immunity to night air.
MARTHA. Never think that.
MARY. Us dry old women rattle like paper; we couldn’t get sick. I listen to you old women sometimes.
WILMA. How’s your daughter?
MARY. Yes, indeed.
MARTHA. I beg your pardon?
MARY. The proximity to all that sickness.
WILMA. Yes, love.
MARY. Immunity to death itself. My number passed Gabrile right on by. It came up and passed right on by and here I am a forgotten child.
WILMA. You better get inside, love.
MARY. Rusting away, flaking away.
MARTHA. You get in, now.
MARY. This wicked town. God hear a dried up woman’s prayer and do not forgive this wicked town!
[Lights come up on the congregation. The congregation bursts into “Shall We Gather at the River” – only a few bars, the song fades. The congregation disperses. Lights brighten and focus on “court”. All focus on Nelly]
NELLY. [over the last of the song] And mama came running downstairs and said a man had attacked young Eva Jackson.
JUDGE. Would you point out Eva …
NELLY. There, poor lamb, can’t hardly speak two words since this thing happened and I don’t wonder —
[Lights fade out on court and focus on Martha and Wilma]
WILMA. Well, I know I swear I don’t know what he sees in her.
[Eva crosses by the porch]
MARTHA. It’s nice of him though.
WILMA. Well, I know but Driver Junior’s old enough to be taking girls out; he shouldn’t be wandering around with her. [Robert begins to cross to get to Eva]
MARTHA. It’s nice to have somebody to keep her company. Still and all it doesn’t seem natural, I know what you mean.
WILMA. I don’t know what he sees in her.
MARTHA. Poor thing.
ROBERT. Eva!
EVA. Are you glad to be out of school?
ROBERT. I liked it all right.
EVA. What are you going to be?
ROBERT. Who knows?
EVA. I bet I know what you won’t be, don’t I?
ROBERT. What’s that?
EVA. A race car driver.
ROBERT. Why do you want to say that? You think I couldn’t do that if I wanted to?
EVA. You don’t want to get yourself killed.
ROBERT. Driver didn’t want it; he just had an accident.
EVA. You want to be like him?
ROBERT. People don’t want to do the same thing their brother did; I couldn’t see any sense in it.
EVA. I knew you didn’t. You aren’t going to get yourself killed.
ROBERT. Killed doesn’t have anything to do with it. Eva, good lord, I don’t want people carrying on like that; honking their horns, coming into town every week like a parade. I never even went to see Driver.
EVA. You decided what you want to be?
ROBERT. I don’t have to decide this minute, do I?
EVA. I just wondered.
ROBERT. Do you know? You don’t know what you want.
EVA. Of course I know; you know, I told you. So do you know, everybody knows what they want it’s what they think they really can do that they don’t know.
ROBERT. Well, I don’t have to decide yet.
EVA. When’s it gonna be autumn? I love autumn so much I could hug it. I want it to be autumn. That’s what I want right now. Now. Autumn. Now. [This last as though conjuring]
ROBERT. Good luck, I don’t see it.
EVA. [in a burst] Don’t you be derisive to me, Driver Junior!
ROBERT. Don’t call me that.
EVA. Well, don’t you go on Robert Conklin or I’ll call you anything I like.
ROBERT. You’ll be talking to yourself.
EVA. Everybody else calls you that. Don’t go away; I won’t, I promise. Don’t you wish it was autumn? Don’t you? Don’t you love autumn? And the wind and rime and pumpkins and gourds and corn shocks? I won’t again. Don’t you love autumn? Don’t you Robert? I won’t call you that. Everybody else does but I won’t.
ROBERT. I haven’t thought about it.
EVA. Well, think about it, right now. Think about how it smells.
ROBERT. How does it smell?
EVA. Like dry, windy, cold, frosty rime and chaff and leaf smoke and corn husks.
ROBERT. It does, huh?
EVA. Pretend. Close your eyes. Are your eyes closed? Don’t you wish it was here? Like apples and cider. You go.
ROBERT. And rain.
EVA. Sometimes. And potatoes and flower seeds and honey.
ROBERT. And popcorn and butter.
EVA. Yes. Oh, it does not! You’re not playing at all. There’s hay and clover and alfalfa and all that. [Hitting him really quite hard, slapping]
ROBERT. [laughing] Come on, it’s different for everybody.
EVA. Well, that’s not right, it doesn’t at all. Are you making fun?
ROBERT. Come on, don’t be rough.
EVA. I will too; you’re not the least bit funny, Driver Junior! [Robert starts to walk away] Come back here, Robert! Robert Conklin. Driver Junior! Little brother. Your brother was a man, anyway. Coward. Robert? Bobby?
I did this play about a year-and-a-half ago. I was Robert. Devastating play, but an amazing acting challenge.
Andrew – Robert is a terrific part – I agree: a huge acting challenge!! I am so proud of the production I was in. It was one of the best shows I’ve ever been a part of. So difficult to make the dialogue come off because of its fragmented nature – but once we got into a groove with it as a cast, it was an amazing feeling.
I’m in this play right now, playing Lena as well. Very challanging, but that’s what I like about it. And i love that, since it’s an ensemble piece, no one in the cast is getting an ego, because everyone is equally important. It’s a really unique show.
Wow this is so funny. I was just cast in this play today as Lena. Im very excited to be in such an interesting show.
I love this play. I did it in college years ago, and I was Wilma. I’m auditioning for it soon at a local theater group.
I see that the last comment posted was from six years ago, so I hope you’re still reading them, because I have a question for you.
The director I had in the ’80s wanted me to act seductively to Robert in that grocery store scene. Ok, so years later, I’m reading the play, and I don’t see that type of behavior at all. So here’s my question. In the grocery story, when Wilma is asking Robert what he might do with the rest of his life, if he’d leave the town and go of to Des Moines or Chicago, do you think there were sexual undertones – as if Wilma were toying/playing with Robert? Or was it my nutty director’s delusions – he was later fired for his inappropriate behavior with young, female students.
That’s in insane direction. Not supported in the script at all.