Rune Arlidge
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About this ebook
The award-winning author of The Drawer Boy and Plan B takes us on a twenty-five-year-long trip to the family cottage.
Three generations of women—the eldest incapable of keeping stories to herself, her two daughters on the verge of making life-altering decisions, a granddaughter wise beyond her years. Through years of summers, these women attempt to relate to one another, but often prove that blood isn't all that ties them together.
Michael Healey
Michael Healey trained as an actor at Toronto’s Ryerson Theatre School in the mid-eighties. He began writing for the stage in the early nineties and his first play, a solo one-act called Kicked, was produced at the Fringe of Toronto Festival in 1996. He subsequently toured the play across Canada and internationally, winning the Dora Mavor Moore Award for best new play. The Drawer Boy, his first full-length play, premiered in Toronto in 1999, winning the Dora Award for best new play, the Chalmers Canadian Playwriting Award, and the Governor General’s Literary Award (Canada’s highest literary honour). It has been translated into multiple languages and continues to be produced regularly across North America and internationally. Healey’s other works include The Road to Hell (co-authored with Kate Lynch), Plan B, Rune Arlidge, The Innocent Eye Test, The Nuttalls, Are You Okay, and 1979. His trilogy focusing on Canadian values and politics—Generous, Courageous, and Proud—met with great critical success and have had multiple productions. In all, his plays have won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for best new play five times. He has also adapted works by Chekhov, Molnar, Hecht and MacArthur, Dürrenmatt, and Shaw for the Stratford Festival, the Shaw Festival, and Soulpepper. He continues to find work as an actor occasionally.
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Rune Arlidge - Michael Healey
Rune Arlidge premiered at the Tarragon Theatre, Toronto, in March 2004 with the following company:
Directed by Leah Cherniak
Set and costumes designed by Charlotte Dean
Lighting designed by Andrea Lundy
Sound design by Kirk Elliot
Stage managed by Arwen MacDonell
Rune Arlidge received workshops at the Tarragon Theatre in 2002, and at the Shaw Festival in 2002 and 2003. My thanks to both companies and to the actors who read those drafts.
Ari Cohen wrote the fat-in-your-new-pants line, and I remain eternally in his debt.
CHARACTERS/SETTING
Act One: A cottage, 1994
RUNE ARLIDGE, 20
MICHELLE, her sister, 26
FRANCES, her mother, 58
MATTHEW, her boyfriend, 23
TOM, the handyman, 59
Act Two: The same, ten years later
HARVAR, 38
LILLIAN, almost 10
Act Three: The same, fifteen years later
TOM JUNIOR, 50
TOM and TOM JUNIOR are played by the same actor
NOTE
Because playgoers can’t be counted on to look at their program, we decided in the first production to include briefly projected slides at the top of each act. They read:
August, 1994;
Ten years later;
and
Fifteen years later
ACT ONE
The porch of a cottage in southern Ontario, 1994. Late summer. Dawn. We hear TOM’s truck pull up, the door open and shut. TOM enters and bangs on the cottage door. Eventually, FRANCES comes to the screen.
TOM
Morning.
FRANCES
Is that Tom?
TOM
Missus Arlidge, you can see it’s me.
FRANCES
What are you accusing me of? I can’t see it’s you. Not necessarily. You’re backlit.
TOM
It’s Tom.
FRANCES
And also, there’s the filthy screen between us. So maybe I can’t see it’s you. Maybe you’re just some shapeless grey hulk, there on the other side of this not particularly useful door, this filthy door. I mean why does everyone—
RUNE
(from within) Mother, shut up.
FRANCES
—everyone is so ready to accuse me of something. Do you know how early it is? I was seconds ago asleep just over there, and now I’m standing here, and I don’t even remember how I got here.
TOM
Missus Arlidge, it’s Tom. Sorry. I’m here—
FRANCES
I can’t see anything. I can’t see anything. What time is it?
RUNE
(from within) Mother, shut up.
FRANCES
Good Lord, it’s—what time does that say? I will not shut up.
We’re being accosted probably. It’s—what?
TOM
It’s early.
FRANCES
Good Lord. What does that—is that six o’clock?
TOM
Rune said I should—
FRANCES
Tom—if that’s who it is—no offence now, but, are you out of your mind?
TOM
Rune said—
FRANCES
Why on earth would you come out here and knock at this time of the morning? You can’t be Tom. He wouldn’t do this. Tom Ilesic is a sweet man. A helpful and useful—
MICHELLE
(from a different part of the cottage) Mother, SHUT THE FUCK UP.
FRANCES
Yes, very nice, that’s fine, sorry to disturb you ladies, but a man has come to rape and kill us all.
RUNE
(appearing behind her mother) In which order.
TOM
I could come back.
RUNE
Hi, Mr. Ilesic. No. Come on in. Move it, Mother.
FRANCES
Wait! How do you know it’s—
RUNE opens the door and steps outside. She is in her pyjamas, as is her mother. And when MICHELLE emerges, she’ll be in pyjamas, too.
Oh. Hello, Tom.
TOM
Missus Arlidge. Hey Rune.
RUNE
Thanks for coming.
TOM
It’s okay.
FRANCES
Hello, Tom. Why is Tom here?
RUNE
I called Mr. Ilesic to come and fix the water.
FRANCES
Yes. What’s the matter with the water?
RUNE
Nothing. The water’s perfect. It just doesn’t come out of anything.
FRANCES
Oh, the pump. Your fucking father—Tom, would you like some coffee?
TOM
Sure.
FRANCES
God. Me too.
FRANCES steps onto the porch, throws herself into a chair. TOM heads inside. A pause.
(of the landscape) Pretty.
A pause.
Michelle!
MICHELLE
(from within) Mother?
FRANCES
Get up and make some coffee. (to RUNE) How are you, um, feeling today?
A pause.
You and your sister have to race today. Don’t forget.
RUNE
The race is today?
FRANCES
Nobody in this family listens. Yes. Today. One o’clock or something. It’s on the thing.
RUNE
I’m not going today. I have to stay here.
FRANCES
Don’t even start.
RUNE
I’m not going anywhere. I have to stay here.
FRANCES
You have to— Now listen. There are a dozen pennants in there.
Hanging proudly in there, singles and doubles and under thirteens and father-daughter things, and whatnot, in there. You and your sister and your father earned every one of them. It’s one of the only joys of my summer, watching for you to return with another pennant. It’s one of the few things that makes this place tolerable, mainly because it meant that the summer was almost over. And there is a four-year gap now, in there, a four-year pennant gap. And I do not judge, I mean, of course you would go to school, and your sister had all the things to do she did, and other sometime family members developed other, obscure priorities unrelated to those parental and matrimonial ones he had already fucking acquired—
RUNE
How do you speak in paragraphs? It’s barely light out.
FRANCES
Never mind me. Never mind attacking my syntax. Today is the day the pennant drought ends for this family. End of story.
RUNE
No. I’m… No.
FRANCES
I’ll get a shoehorn, we’ll fit it into your incredible schedule.
Between the sleeping twenty hours a day and the staring at the inside of the refrigerator.
MICHELLE comes out carrying a bottle of red wine, a corkscrew, and a tumbler.
Good morning. Don’t make any plans for later. You and your sister are paddling.
MICHELLE
Anybody I know?
FRANCES
You’re going to win another pennant for your mother.
MICHELLE
Oh. Okay.
FRANCES
Really?
MICHELLE
Why not? My stroke isn’t what it was, but I’m sure I’ll—(struggling with the cork) motherfucking—what time is this?
FRANCES
One o’clock. So you’ll do it?
MICHELLE
Sure. If I’m conscious. Why not. C’mon, you stupid— Is it at the thing?
FRANCES
See, Rune? Your sister, who’s normally the cunt about these things, is willing to paddle for me.
RUNE
I don’t want to.
FRANCES
Frankly, young lady, what you want is of no concern to— (noticing MICHELLE and the wine)