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This is a Southern comedy about mature love found later in life, and the trouble and insight that such discoveries can bring. Though well-warned, Kitten, a runaway housewife, decides to travel with her Tulane professor, Beau, on a train trip through the Louisiana swamp. Their plans are upset when her son, Bunky, in an effort to punish her, shows up as a stowaway on the train. Kitten and Beau struggle through their disappointments, mourning the futility of their lives, while the hurricane brewing outside the train builds toward its inevitable whirlwind of destruction.
CAST OF CHARACTERS: (2M,
3W)
KITTEN LEGER, 36, China doll gorgeous, occasionally stutters when nervous
BEAU ELLIS, 38, her professor athletic and intense
BUNKY, 14 her wild son, a writer and musician
ACTOR # 1 plays: A STUDENT, A MAN SCUFFLING, A SOAKED ATTENDANT,
THE CONDUCTOR, A SOLDIER, THE WARDEN, THE CAPTAIN, ANCHORS
(V.O.), ANNOUNCERS (V.O.)
ACTRESS # 1 plays THE CHAIR OF THE ENGLISH DEPT, A WOMAN SNORING,
A FAT GIRL, RAVEN--THE PORTER , THE BRAKEMAN, THE OLD WOMAN,
THE HUNTER, THE INDIAN, A TEACHER (V.O.), A LITTLE GIRL (V.O.)
SETTING:
A phantasmogoria* in exotic Louisiana.
August 2005, Louisiana, a sequence of real or imaginary places like that seen in a
dream: an office, a rural train, and a depot in the swamps. Set is minimal and
evocative; sounds and lights creating the optical illusions of place. Fraught
weather gives the feeling that everything is a figment of the imagination; an
illusion or apparition, each place simultaneously known and unknown,
appalling, mystifying, and amusing.
Action takes place for the most part on a bare stage. Locations are defined by
sound, lighting, and a few key props. There will be quick switches between
interior and exterior scenes. Lights down and lights up. The physical actions of
the characters create this comedy of life gone awry inside a magic lantern.
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*phantasmagoria
a sequence of real or imaginary images like that seen in a
dream : what happened next was a phantasmagoria of horror and
mystery.
ORIGIN early 19th cent. (originally the name of a
London exhibition (1802) of optical illusions produced
chiefly by magic lantern): probably from French
fantasmagorie, from fantasme ‘phantasm’ + a fanciful
suffix.
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Beau and Bunky in a scene from
Behind Cut Glass
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