[Shortly after the election, I started writing a three act play, a mashup loosely inspired by Ubu Roi and King Lear. Now, a month into the new regime, I think I saw what had happened and what was coming fairly clearly. So, rather than obsess over the outrage du jour, I am posting the play here, a scene at a time.]
Late afternoon, a campsite in the woods. Tents, a central fire pit with a large pot hung over it, log benches, a picnic table. Coolers and other gear strewn around the site. Clotheslines string among the trees. People have been here a long time.
Ma and Pa Joad are sitting near the cook pit, Maggie and Gladys Antrobus visitng with them. Maggie is a sturdy Black woman in her late forties with an open, friendly face. Gladys, a beautiful Black woman about the same age as Tom Joad, rocks a sleeping baby in a cradle with her foot. Other people, a mixture of races, sit on benches around the fire pit. All are wearing light, summer clothes: short sleeves, shorts, sandals, or bare feet. One of them begins to pick on a banjo.
Banjo player (singing Stephen Foster's "Hard Times Come Again No More"):
Let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears,
While we all sup sorrow with the poor;
There's a song that will linger forever in our ears;
Oh! Hard times come again no more.
Chorus (Not the Turd Chorus. Some of the campers join in.):
'Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
Hard times, hard times, come again no more.
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;
Oh! Hard times come again no more.
While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay,
There are frail forms fainting at the door;
Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say
Oh! Hard times come again no more.
Chorus (Again, some of the campers join in.)
Enter Trumpaboo and Long Dong. Long Dong leads Trumpaboo by a rope looped around Trumpaboo's neck. They are both attired as in the previous scene, but obviously worn out, exhausted by their travels, unwashed, their clothing soiled and ragged. Long Dong appears alert. Trumpaboo's expression is vacant, unreactive to his surroundings. They approach the Joads and Antrobuses.
Long Dong:
Parm me, but might you kind peoples be disposed to give food an' shelter to two weary travelers?
Maggie (after staring hard at the blackface mask):
You've got to be kdding me. Looking like that. What the hell do you think you're doing?
Long Dong:
It's road dust, ma'am. We been travelin' longtime. (Maggie continues to glare at him suspiciously.) An' this jus' be the way I talks.
Maggie:
(He's just filthy and ragged enough that the explanation of his mask is marginally credible. She's still suspicious he's putting her on, but is willing to give him the benefit of doubt.) We don't have much, but we'll share what we've got. Climate refugees?
Long Dong:
You might say so.
Maggie:
Yes, we're seeing a lot of that, lately. Guess things are really drying up, out west. Here, too. MIghty warm for a New England Christmas, isn't it? We don't have room to spare in any of the tents, but you can join us for a bowl of soup when it's ready, and at night you'll be okay if you stretch out on the pine needles under the trees.
Gladys:
Mister -
Long Dong:
Unclethomas.
Pa Joad:
Hey, that's like my son's name! Tom, we call him. He's off to work now, logging with Mr. Antrobus, husband of Maggie here and Gladys here's father and little Tommy's other grandpa. Everybody just calls me Pa.
Gladys:
Why do you have that man on a leash?
Long Dong:
He ain't quite right in de head, from his troubles; seem he lost his power of speech on de road a ways back, and wasn't dat a blessin'; but he won't be no bother.
