Red Rover
(a two act drama)

(writing sample)  (return to plays)

Production History: 

Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, id Theatre Company, Play development in McCall, ID, 2009.

Semi-finalist National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center 2009. 

Abingdon Theatre Company benefit reading. March 2009. 

Story:

It's August 1969 in Clover, Mississippi.   Miss May's grandson is missing in action in Vietnam.  The family goes into a tail spin and blame each other.  May's granddaughter Katie, at her encouragement, runs away to the Mississippi Coast with her boyfriend, AJ, to take the promised pictures of waves and beach, feeling that this fulfilled promise will bring her brother home.  May's son runs away to supposedly go fishing rather than face his French wife, Jenny, and her accusations of his letting "her son join the Marines to finally get some praise from his father."  The only ones holding this shattered family together are May's fashionable and witty sister, June and May's old flame, Judge Wilton Morris.  All May's efforts to find hope for her grandson's return through Katie's actions only sends her granddaughter into unexpected perilous danger.  Now the aging and stagnant May has to save her. 

TIME:             1969.  August 15 through 19. 

SETTING:      The kitchen, and back porch of May Clayton Delaney’s house in Clover, Mississippi. 

 CHARACTERS:

  • Katherine (May) {Maymie [may-me]} Clayton Delaney, 71 years old.
  • Genevieve (June) Clayton Miller, 66, sister of May. 
  • Judge (Wilton) B. Morris, 71, old friend of May. 
  • Katherine (Katie) May Delaney, 18, May’s granddaughter. 
  • Robert (Buddy) Delaney, 46, May’s son. 
  • Jeannine (Jenny) Delaney, 42, May’s French daughter-in-law.
  • (AJ) Montgomery, 20, Dr. and Mary Ellen Montgomery’s grandson. 

RECORDED VOICES/SOUNDS OFF STAGE:

  • Old Joe Collins and the brush wagon and old mule.
  • Elemental sounds of yard day and night: cicadas, birds, crickets.
  • Back yard driveway cars coming and going.
  • Nearby trains. 

 

ACT ONE:

Scene One (Denial):  Around noon.  Friday, August 15, 1969.

Scene Two (Anger):  One AM, Saturday, August 16. 

INTERMISSION

ACT TWO:

Scene One (Negotiation):  Early morning, Sunday, August 17, 1969.

Scene Two (Grief):  Around noon, Monday, August 18.

Scene Three (Acceptance):  Three AM, Tuesday, August 19.

Scene Four (Moving On):         Just before dawn, same day.

Scene Five (One Line):  Around noon, same day.