The Trespassers. Morris Panych

      

      CONTENTS

       Cover

       First Production Notes

       Act 1

       Act 2

       About the Playwright

       Copyright Information

      The Trespassers premiered on July 26, 2009, at the Studio Theatre, as part of the Stratford Festival, Stratford, Ontario, with the following cast and crew:

      CASH: Kelli Fox

      MILTON: Robert King

      ROXY: Lucy Peacock

      LOWELL: Noah Reid

      HARDY: Joseph Ziegler

      Director: Morris Panych

      Designer: Ken MacDonald

      Lighting Designer: Jason Hand

      Assistant Lighting Designer: Siobhán Sleath

      Stage Manager: Ann Stuart

      Assistant Stage Manager: Bruno Gonslaves

      Production Assistant: Melissa Bergeron

      Production Stage Manager: Marylu Moyer

1.

      The play unfolds over the course of a few weeks, in some town in the middle of nowhere, not small enough to be a quaint place or large enough to be in any way an interesting one. They had a sawmill there, which was a going concern, but it has since shut down; it now crowns a sort of half-town, gutted of its reason for being. The story unfolds in many locations in town, moving in a generally chronological fashion; these events are recalled from the mind of LOWELL. Out of the darkness, an ungainly boy, fifteen years of age, appears in the middle of a police interview, holding a peach. Nearby, RCMP OFFICER MILTON takes notes.

      LOWELL

      Between just the two of us, we could collect a dozen peaches in one haul. A dozen is twelve, which is a religious number, based on the Apostles.

      MILTON

      Okay, a dozen.

      LOWELL

      A baker’s dozen is thirteen. Thou shalt not steal is the Sixth Commandment. I believe it’s the Sixth Commandment. Or it’s the Seventh. My mother made me memorize them.

      CASH, a tired woman in her late thirties, appears.

      CASH

      I didn’t.

      LOWELL

      And you have to listen to your mother. That’s the Fourth Commandment.

      MILTON

      Lying, what about that?

      LOWELL

      Technically, not a sin.

      MILTON

      Bearing false witness against your neighbour, or something like that?

      CASH

      Neighbour means anybody.

      HARDY

      There’s something in-between lying and not lying. It’s called a story.

      MILTON

      What about murder? Isn’t that a Commandment?

      LOWELL considers.

      CASH

      It’s a Commandment.

      LOWELL

      Murder is the Fifth. And it isn’t just a person. It can count if it’s a frog, say—if you killed it for no reason. That’s what I believe.

      CASH

      You won’t get a straight answer.

      LOWELL

      Or—or—hunting, unless you eat it after; or you could freeze it. But stealing, that’s—besides, even if it was on somebody else’s property, it isn’t stealing if the peach falls from the tree; that’s what my grandfather said.

      MILTON

      What your grandfather said, okay.

      HARDY appears, a wiry old man in a straw hat, carrying a stack of newspapers.

      HARDY

      Anything that isn’t attached to something else belongs to God.

      LOWELL

      You don’t believe in God.

      HARDY

      Don’t I?

      LOWELL

      You’re an atheist, Grandpa.

      HARDY

      You’ll find, as you get older, God starts to slip into the conversation.

      LOWELL

      I’d like to be old.

      HARDY

      Just don’t ever get the feeling that you’ve lived too long.

      LOWELL

      I won’t.

      HARDY

      I’m going to the shed for a bit. Say nothing to your mother on the subject.

      LOWELL

      My grandfather had a stash of newspaper clippings out there, which he took out of their folders and read. My mother called it unseemly.

      CASH

      Trash.

      LOWELL

      He listened to his old records out there. He collected stories about crime. Murder, mostly, but also grand larceny, rape, a story about a man who cut off his balls by accident, only it didn’t say balls, it said “a disfiguring accident involving an olive press.”

      Strains of an old recording.

      HARDY

      You need to read between the lines.

      LOWELL

      Sometimes he’d let me look at his clippings. On a hot day, say. When it was too hot for peach expeditions, or going down to the trough. Horses used to water there, in the old days. You could just imagine. You could.

      HARDY

      A guy gets off his horse, dips his hat in, pours cool water over his head.

      LOWELL

      Were you ever a cowboy?

      HARDY

      I knew one. Buster Hinkey. Rode in the rodeo. But he fell off a mountain—blown clean off in a sudden gust of wind. That’s the way to go: a sudden gust of wind, Lowell. Don’t stick around for the details.

      LOWELL

      Mom says she can hardly wait for you to drop dead.

      The music stops.

      MILTON

      Your mother said that.

      CASH

      I never said that.

      HARDY

      Your mother has a way with words.

      LOWELL