Noah Haidle: Three Plays

Rag and Bone; Mr. Marmalade; Vigils

Noah Haidle

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781840027501
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781783198467
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Includes the plays Rag and Bone, Mr Marmalade and Vigils

'Precocious and formidably talented' (The New Yorker), Noah Haidle is now considered 'one of the most foremost playwrights of his generation' (Boston Globe). This collection celebrates the arrival of Haidle's virtuosic theatrical talent by bringing together three of his most acclaimed plays to date.

Rag and Bone , in which two brothers run an under-the-counter business in human hearts and emotions - 'delightful moments of absurdity' (New York Times)
Mr Marmalade, in which four-year-old Lucy delivers a crash-course in contemporary relationships, 'alternately hilarious and heartbreaking' (The New Yorker)
and Vigils, 'a simple, sweet exploration of human memory and grief' (Variety)

RAG AND BONE

for Pepper,
who knew it was hers even before I did

‘A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street,

Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can,

Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut

Who keeps the till. Now that my ladder’s gone

I must lie down where all the ladders start

In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.’

– from ‘The Circus Animals’ Desertion’ (1939)
by William Butler Yeats

Characters

JEFF

GEORGE

HOOKER

POET

T-BONE

CUSTOMER

MILLIONAIRE

WAITER

Rag and Bone was first performed on 2 February 2005 at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, with the following company:

JEFF, Ian Brennan

GEORGE, Justin Hagan

HOOKER, Annie Golden

POET, David Bishins

T-BONE, Frederick Owens

CUSTOMER / WAITER, Carolyn Baeumler

MILLIONAIRE, Tom Riis Farrell

Directed by Tina Landau

Set design by G W Mercier

Costume design by Candice Donnelly

Lighting design by Scott Zielinkski

Sound design by John Gromada

Dramaturg Beatrice Basso

Production Stage Manager Lori Lundquist

Act One

1

The Ladder Store.

There are ladders everywhere.

JEFF tends the store. Checks on some ladders.

In comes GEORGE wearing a ski mask. He’s got an igloo cooler with him.

JEFF: Hey.

GEORGE: Hey.

JEFF: I was thinking, do you think you could build a ladder that goes all the way to the moon?

GEORGE: No. That’s impossible.

JEFF: Why?

GEORGE: The ozone layer, the earth’s rotation, insurance.

JEFF: What about a ladder to heaven?

GEORGE: Heaven doesn’t exist.

JEFF: That’s where Mom is.

She said she’d wait for me.

GEORGE: Mom is dead in the ground, Jeff.

She’s not waiting for you anywhere.

(He takes off his ski mask.)

JEFF: Don’t get jealous. She’s waiting for you, too.

Just before she died she squeezed my hand and said, (Imitating Mom.) ‘I’ll wait for you and your brother in heaven.’

What’s in the cooler? Is it lunch?

GEORGE: No. It’s not lunch.

JEFF: That’s too bad. I could really use a sandwich.

(GEORGE takes a human heart out of the cooler.)

What’s that? It looks like a human heart.

GEORGE: These are what I sell to make extra money.

Remember? It’s a widget.

JEFF: I forgot. Widgets look so much like hearts.

GEORGE: This is a very special widget, Jeff. After I unload this widget we’re gonna sell the ladder store and move to Bermuda.

JEFF: Sell the ladder store?

GEORGE: Bermuda’s right on the ocean. We can go swimming.

JEFF: I can’t swim.

GEORGE: You can learn. I’m tired of selling ladders, Jeff.

JEFF: That’s because you’re not very good at it.

I don’t want to tell you how to do your job but when I’m with a customer it’s like we’re the only two people in the whole universe and I’m completely attune to their wants and needs. And besides. We provide a very important service to the community.

If it weren’t for us, how would people get cats out of trees?

Or footballs...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Rag and Bone
• Mr Marmalade
• Vigils