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THE WAVERLY GALLERY
This play is dedicated to
my grandmother and my mother
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ACT ONE
Scene One
A tiny gallery in Greenwich Village in the fall of 1989. GLADYS GREEN and her grandson DANIEL REED sit on either side of GLADYS’ desk, eating sandwiches. GLADYS is eighty-five, extremely energetic and very hard of hearing. She wears a hearing aid that doesn’t do her much good. She is an extraordinarily garrulous, immensely charming and absolutely relentless talker who covers her deep and secret embarrassment at her deafness with even more talking. She lives for company and conversation and perhaps because of her advancing years demands the full attention of her interlocutors with a cheerful and unremitting zeal that can be very wearing after a few minutes. DANIEL is a very bright, occasionally shy, occasionally sarcastic young man with a sense of humor sometimes described as dry. He is at present giving GLADYS his more or less friendly attention.
GLADYS. I never knew anything was the matter. Your mother never told me anything. And then one day your father calls me on the phone and says he’s coming by to say goodbye and that he’s moving out. And I said, ‘I don’t understand! What happened?’ But he wouldn’t tell me, and neither would your mother. I called her and I said, ‘What is the matter?’ But she just said that your father had left her and that’s all I ever knew about it. We always liked Mark, everybody did, but we felt so bad for him, you know… His mother was a little kooky, you know? She was charming as hell, but she never knew what to do with him. I liked her, but she was a nut, she was meshugge. Do you know what that word means?
DANIEL. Yes, I know what it means.
GLADYS. What?
DANIEL. I SAID I KNOW WHAT IT MEANS.
GLADYS. It means kooky, you know: a little nutty – And you know your father never had a real father of his own. But your father and your grandfather, Herb – my husband – were very close. He put your father through medical school, you know –
DANIEL. Yes, I know…
GLADYS. And he said to your father that he would pay for his medical school whether he married Ellen or not. And he also paid for Mark to be in treatment, you know, with a psychiatrist –
DANIEL. Yeah, I know.
GLADYS. And Mark loved that doctor, but he died too. And your poor father just stood there by the window, crying. I never saw anything like it. He was absolutely heartbroken. Because you know he never had a father of his own, not really. But we always liked Mark. He’s a hell of a nice guy, he really is. His mother was witty as hell, but she was a kook, a nut, she was nutty. She had a little magazine, I think, that she used to publish. She was a rather good artist too, and she had a play on Broadway, and she had a very good sense of humor. Oh, she was very charming. But she just didn’t know what to do with him. And your mother and father, you know, they were married in that same apartment, in the one, you know, the one in the back, the one you live in. They were married there, did you know that?
DANIEL. Yeah, I did.
GLADYS. What, honey?
DANIEL. YES, I KNEW THAT. I KNEW THAT.
GLADYS. We were very happy in that apartment. You know I built that apartment, when Herb and I – that’s Herb, your grandfather, my husband – when we bought the building after we came back from Germany. You know we lived in Germany for two years, before the War, because Herb was studying in a laboratory there –
DANIEL. I know!
GLADYS. Well it’s a beautiful apartment. Are you happy there, sweet?
DANIEL. Yes, very happy. I love it.
GLADYS. You love it. Well, that’s wonderful. And have you got it all… fixed up the way you like it, honey?
DANIEL. Yes, I just got it painted!
GLADYS. Oh, I haven’t seen what you did with it.
DANIEL. Yes you have. You’ve seen it since then.
GLADYS. What?
DANIEL. YOU’VE SEEN IT.
GLADYS. No, I don’t think so.
DANIEL. You’ve seen it a few times. You don’t remember.
GLADYS. Well, maybe I don’t remember. But we were very happy there. Do you have a lot of parties?
DANIEL. Once in a while.
GLADYS. You do. Well that’s wonderful.
DANIEL. No, once in a while! Not very often!
GLADYS. Well why not? You should have parties, we had parties all the time. We had a New Year’s Eve party every year –
DANIEL. Well I’m not as much of a social b–
GLADYS. What?
DANIEL. I’m not as much of a social butterfly as you are!
She laughs and gives him a friendly slap on the wrist.
GLADYS. Well why not? Are you shy?
DANIEL. Yeah, I’m a little shy!
GLADYS. You’re not shy, are you? Ellen is shy. Your mother is very shy –
DANIEL. Well, she gets it from you!
GLADYS (laughs again). From me? I was never shy, I love to talk to people! I was never shy! I never understood how your mother can be so shy. She’s so beautiful, and she’s such a good mother, and she’s a damn good doctor. Do you know that, honey?
DANIEL. Yes, I know.
GLADYS. Well your grandfather – that’s Herb, your grandfather, my husband – was a doctor too, you know. And he and I were very active in politics at that time. I was with the American Labor Party – Do you know what that is, honey?
DANIEL. Yeah, basically.
GLADYS. And Emily Bradshaw said that I should run on the ticket for City Council. Did you know that, honey?
DANIEL. Yes!
GLADYS. What?
DANIEL. I said I knew that! Hold on – (Leans in to adjust her hearing aid.)
GLADYS. No! Don’t fiddle | |
with it! You’re gonna break it! What? This damn thing is such a nuisance – What? | DANIEL. Just wait a minute… Hold on. Stop talking – Stop talking for a second! (Adjusts the hearing aid.) |
DANIEL (in a normal voice). Can you h...
