The Supine Cobbler. Jill Connell

Suksi (drawings), Jeremy Kantor (graffiti), Amy Keating (Lindsay Hashknife), and Claudia Dey and Heidi Sopinka (select costume pieces exclusively designed by Horses Atelier).

      A second production by The Maggie Tree took place in Edmonton, Alberta, April 2016, directed by Vanessa Sabourin and featuring Lora Brovold, Kristi Hansen, Jayce Mckenzie, Michelle Milen-kovic, and Melissa Thingelstad.

       Personajes

      The Cobbler. Grace Volonté Cordovan. A shoemaker and an outlaw.

      The Kid. Everett ‘the Kid’ McMurtrett-Howley-Réjean-Cournoyer.

       The Cobbler’s apprentice.

      The Dancer / Nurse 1. Frankie (Francisca) Cordovan.

       The Cobbler’s older sister.

      The Lover / Nurse 2. Leigh Meloné. The Cobbler’s best friend.

      The Doctor. Name unknown. The Cobbler’s abortion provider.

       Setting

      Present day, present city.

      Locations that distill and morph:

      1. The Theatre

      2. The Wilderness

      3. The Abortion Clinic

      4. The City

      Mood and landscape are supreme in the Western.

       Physical Things

      That which is elemental (fire, water, earth, plant, animal) or enfranchises action (digging, hanging, sitting, chopping, dressing).

      Objects can be replaced by reading a stage direction, stating that you have an object, or feeling like you have an object.

       Text

      A slash indicates overlap. A strikethrough indicates something we are not allowed to hear. The text both is exacting and invites improvisation.

       What to Wear

      This is a contemporary Western. Hats and boots are important. Animal: leather, feather, fur. Accessories: kerchiefs, suspenders, charms. The women dress for the wilderness (changeable), more than the heat. They are fashionable, as outlaws tend to be.

       Otras Cosas

      The ensemble is always onstage, as players or as witness.

      Sound is a live band. They play throughout, or they witness.

      The technical elements are transparent. A performer-operated light can choose what it illuminates. We trade theatre magic for aliveness.

      The film genre can be evoked throughout; however, the final film is the only film in the play.

      The show is changeable. That which is repeatable and essential anchors that which is untamable and unknown.

      The Cobbler is our centre; the play moves around her.

      The Doctor is our wild card and our host. She can be used to solve most artistic challenges.

      While the Dancer and Lover might be dead or missing, they must first be present and returned, with real demands and real bodies.

      The Kid sees everything. She is heroic and sane, along with the rest of them.

      It is both. Both contemporary and a Western. Both a clinic and the wild. Both objective and subjective. Both true story and legend. Stories, myths, histories are always thus. We can only see from our own eye(s).

       The Supine Cobbler

      The audience enters. There is a bar where they can buy tall cans of beer and whisky in real glasses. A Fistful of Dollars plays on the tv screen, sound muted. Music plays: contemporary, female, popular.

       The DANCER, LOVER, and KID sit at the bar. The DOCTOR observes from a distance. They wear dusters.

       The Doctor nods. It’s time. Music quiets. House lights dim. The bartender settles up with any customers. Musicians take their places.

      TV sound from A Fistful of Dollars comes in. It is the final duel of the film. The Dancer, Lover, and Kid watch. At the height of the duel: the tv cuts out. House lights out.

       The palpable expectation of silence. The band strikes a resonant chord.

       The COBBLER enters. She stands at the threshold wearing a duster.

       The three at the bar turn. Eyes meet with the Cobbler’s. A small lifetime in this gaze.

       The Cobbler approaches the bar.

       The bartender pours four shots of whisky. They drink: a sober yet casual complicity.

       Prologue

       The Doctor addresses the audience.

      DOCTOR: You all remember the year we had no rain. The year Hassan Jarrar beat a hooker into a coma, same year as the HIV hate-mongering, fifty-three homicides, 243 suicides, that we know of in this city. Almost twenty years ago now. Same year the Cordovan house burnt clean to the ground in the middle of the night, mother and father inside. Two daughters camped in a tent nearby, twelve and fourteen – these the remains of the tragedy. The elder daughter got sent to the Winnipeg Ballet, while the younger took over the family business. Became a shoemaker. She grew into a nice, middle-of-the-road, nice, respectable, nice young woman. Well, not nice, but decent. Then one day she just fell off the map of decency. In the public eye. In the opinion of civilized society. You’ve heard the rumours. The Supine Cobbler, this and that. People talk. The Hashknives, the Nacogdoches, they talk. Now you and I keep quiet. Even though we know a lot of things. We keep quiet. Still. Nobody knows this here story I’m about to unfold. Nobody talks about this. Even though it happened this year. Ultimately this story is brutal and unforgiving. Pretty violent and heartbreaking overall. That’s because most of what follows is true.

       Powder flash. Dusters drop to the ground. Lights expose the gang in a criminal line-up. They step forward one by one as their photographs are taken.

      Francisca Cordovan, AKA Frankie. Thirty-three. The Cobbler’s older sister. Achieved some small fame as a dancer in the Winnipeg Ballet. Met her death by hanging. One tough son of a bitch, such is the way with dancers of the ballet.

      Leigh Meloné. Twenty-nine. The Cobbler’s best friend. Just friends. Married to the Kestrel. He’s not the topic. Leigh went missing three or four years ago, leaving not so much as footprints in the snow, presumed dead.

      Everett ‘the Kid’ McMurtrett-Howley-Réjean-Cournoyer. Twenty-two. The Cobbler’s apprentice. Man-woman-child, a charmer, turncoat, as it turns out. Lived down the street from the Cordovans. Still does.

      Grace Volonté Cordovan. Thirty-something with no name. Well, she was thirty-one and she had a name but you wouldn’t recognize it. I’m not going to try to explain her, as that would be a disservice, and tonight’s soirée would not be needed if I could. But she was a plain genius, with a concern for doing the right thing. And that’s where the trouble begins.

      This is the story of one particular event, one particular sally into the wilderness. I was there for some of it. Some good times we felt immortal but