Trout Stanley. Claudia Dey

      TROUT STANLEY

      A PLAY BY DEY, CLAUDIA

       With illustrations by Jason Logan

      copyright © Claudia Dey, 2005

      first edition

      This epub edition published in 2010. Electronic ISBN 978 1 77056 229 5.

      For production enquiries, please contact Michael Petrasek,

      Kensington Literary Representation, [email protected]

      or 416 979 0187.

      Published with the assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts

      and the Ontario Arts Council. We also acknowledge the

      Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing

      Tax Credit Program and the Government of Canada through the

      Book Publishing Industry Development Program.

      LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

      Dey, Claudia

      Trout Stanley / Claudia Dey; with illustrations by

      Jason Logan. -- 1st ed.

      A play.

      ISBN 1-55245-162-3

      I. Title.

      PS8557.E93T76 2005 C812′.6 C2005-904274-5

      for Bear

      Trout Stanley premiered at the Ship’s Company Theatre in Parrsboro, Nova Scotia, August 2004, with the following cast and crew:

      Sugar Ducharme: Ingrid Rae Doucet

      Grace Ducharme: Krista Laveck

      Trout Stanley: Michael Kash

      Directed by Pamela Halstead

      Set and costume design: Denyse Karn

      Lighting design: Bruce MacLennan

      Sound design: Frederick Kennedy

      Stage Manager: Lisa M. Cochran

      Assistant Stage Manager: Christine Meyers

      Subsequently produced at the Factory Theatre in Toronto,

      Ontario, January 2005, with the following cast and crew:

      Sugar Ducharme: Melody Johnson

      Grace Ducharme: Michelle Giroux

      Trout Stanley: Gord Rand

      Directed by Eda Holmes

      Assistant Director: Natasha Mytnowych

      Set and costume design: Kelly Wolf

      Lighting design: Andrea Lundy

      Sound design: Rick Sacks

      Stage Manager: Tanya Greve

      Assistant Stage Manager: Sandy Plunkett

      Characters

      Sugar Ducharme

      Grace Ducharme

      Trout Stanley

      Parents’ imaginations build frameworks out of their own hopes and regrets into which children seldom grow, but instead, contrary as trees, lean sideways out of the architecture blown by a fatal wind their parents never envisaged.

      – Elizabeth Smart, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept

      The legend of the traveler appears in every civilization, perpetually assuming new forms, afflictions, powers, and symbols. Through every age he walks in utter solitude toward penance and redemption.

      – Evan S. Connell Jr., Notes from a Bottle

      We move between two darknesses. The two entities who might enlighten us, the baby and the corpse, cannot do so.

      – E. M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel

      I would like to learn, or remember how to live.

      – Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk

      Prologue

       Tumbler Ridge, B.C. House beside the town dump. A tidy and trinketful universe. Television, figurines, dinette set. Sugar Ducharme – track suit, crocheted slippers – prepares dinner. Small mutterings, in song form: ‘Sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar, Sugar. Dinner looks so good, it smells so good, it looks so good, you’re everything, what, what, what, you’re Sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar, Sugar …’ All finishings finished, Sugar looks out the window. She slinks to the record player. Puts on Heart’s‘Magic Man.’She dances – a sultry, buoyant secret. Sound of squealing tires. Needle is pulled, record player turned off. Sugar checks her reflection in the mirror. She straightens her track suit, her slippers, her self.

       Enter: Grace Ducharme, through a cloud of dust, coveralls, sunglasses, hair sprayed into a sculpture. Grace and Sugar are twins – they look nothing alike.

      SUGAR: You’re home.

      GRACE: I’m home.

      SUGAR: I’m happy.

      GRACE: I’m home Sugar, I’m home.

       Sugar opens the fridge. Pulls out a soda. She cracks it wide. Hands it to Grace. Grace guzzles.

      SUGAR: How was your day?

      GRACE: Like the others.

      SUGAR: Garbage pickers?

      GRACE: No.

      SUGAR: Illegal dumpers?

      GRACE: No.

      SUGAR: Nothin’ peculiar?

      GRACE: Nothin’ peculiar.

      SUGAR: I’m happy to see ya Grace. I’m happy you’re home.

      GRACE: I’m home.

      SUGAR: I’m happy.

      GRACE: I’m home Sugar, I’m home. (Grace sniffs the air) Gonna freshen up.

       Grace exits to their bedroom. Sugar is still for a moment, directionless. Sound of freshening up – mostly a keen hair dryer. Timer goes. Ding. Sugar pulls the roast out of the oven and places it on the table. Hair dryer off. To the world entire, Sugar announces:

      SUGAR: Roast.

       Blackout.