Crumbs from the Table of Joy and Other Plays

Lynn Nottage

• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781559367073
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Arte dramático americano

This collection includes Lynn Nottage’s best known work, Crumbs from the Table of Joy, which has been produced widely since its premiere in May 1995 and which the Chicago Tribune hailed as "a complex and thought provoking new play." Also included are Mud, River, Stone, Poof, Por’Knockers and her latest work, Las Meninas, inspired by the playwright’s research into the African presence in 17th century Europe.

Lynn Nottage lives in Brooklyn, New York. Her plays have been produced in many theatres across the U.S. including Second Stage (NY), South Coast Rep (Costa Mesa), Yale Repertory Theatre (New Haven), Alliance Theatre (Atlanta) and Steppenwolf (Chicago). She has won the Heideman and the White Bird awards and was a runner-up for the Susan Blackburn award.

Crumbs from the Table of Joy

dp n="13" folio="" ?dp n="14" folio="" ?

Sometimes a crumb falls from the table of joy,
Sometimes a bone is flung.
To some people love is given,
To others only heaven.

—Langston Hughes
“Luck”

dp n="15" folio="" ?

Production History

Crumbs from the Table of Joy received its world premiere at Second Stage Theatre in New York City (Carole Rothman, Artistic Director; Suzanne Schwartz Davidson, Producing Director) in May 1995 under the direction of Joe Morton. The set design was by Myung Hee Cho, the lights by Donald Holder, the sound by Mark Bennett and the costumes by Karen Perry. The dramaturg was Erin Sanders, the production stage manager was Delicia Turner and the stage manager was David Sugarman. The cast was as follows:

ERNESTINE CRUMP	Kisha Howard
ERMINA CRUMP	Nicole Leach
GODFREY CRUMP	Daryl Edwards
LILY ANN GREEN	Ella Joyce
GERTE SCHULTE	Stephanie Roth

Crumbs from the Table of Joy received its West Coast premiere at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, California (David Emmes, Producing Artistic Director; Martin Benson, Artistic Director) on September, 17, 1996, under the direction of Seret Scott. The set design was by Michael Vaughn Sims, the lights by Paulie Jenkins, the sound by Garth Hemphill, the costumes by Susan Denison Geller and the vocal/dialect consultant was Lynn Watson. The dramaturg was Jerry Patch, the production manager was Michael Mora and the stage manager was Randall K. Lum.

dp n="16" folio="" ?

The cast was as follows:

ERNESTINE CRUMP	Karen Malina White
ERMINA CRUMP	Susan Patterson
GODFREY CRUMP	Dorian Harewood
LILY ANN GREEN	Ella Joyce
GERTE SCHULTE	Nancy Harewood

dp n="17" folio="" ?

Characters

ERNESTINE CRUMP, African-American, seventeen

ERMINA CRUMP, African-American, fifteen

GODFREY CRUMP, African-American, Ernestine and Ermina’s father, thirty-five

LILY ANN GREEN, African-American, Ernestine and Ermina’s aunt, thirty-five

GERTE SCHULTE, German, Caucasian, thirty

Time

Fall

Place

Brooklyn, 1950

dp n="18" folio="7" ?

Prologue

FALL

1950. Ermina, Ernestine and Godfrey Crump sit on a bench with their heads slightly bowed. Ernestine is a slightly plump seventeen year old. She wears her hair pulled tight into tiny mismatched pigtails. Her diction is crisp from practice and has the gentle inflections learned from her favorite screen actresses. Godfrey, a lean, handsome thirty-five-year-old man, wears an impeccably pressed suit. His appearance is always neat and well assembled. Ermina is an attractive, slim fifteen year old; she also wears her hair in mismatched pigtails

ERNESTINE: Death nearly crippled my father, slipping beneath the soles of his feet and taking away his ability to walk at will. Death made him wail like a god-awful banshee.

(Godfrey wails like a god-awful banshee.)

Like the 12:01 steamboat mooring.

(Godfrey continues to wail.)

Death made strangers take hold of our hands and recount endless stories of Mommy. In church, at work, strolling, laughing, eating and of course at that infamous picnic in the park where half the town fell ill to Cyrinthia Bowers’s potato salad.

(They all laugh and shake their heads.)

Death made us nauseous with regret. It clipped Daddy’s tongue and put his temper to rest. Made folks shuffle and bow their heads. But it wouldn’t leave us be, tugging at our stomachs and our throats. And then one day it stopped and we took the train north to New York City.

(The family stands in unison. Ermina stands with her arms folded and her lips pursed in disgust.)

(To audience) Death brought us to Brooklyn, the Nostrand Avenue stop on the A line . . . A basement apartment, kind of romantic, like a Parisian artist’s flat.

ERMINA: If Parisian mean ugly.

ERNESTINE: Daddy worked the late shift at a bakery downtown. He’d leave every night two hours after dinner, tip his hat to Father Divine and return the next morning as we’d rise to go to school.

(Godfrey tips his hat and walks slowly, as if making his way to work. The girls walk the Brooklyn streets.)

And then we’d walk exactly fourteen blocks to school . . . Always thought of myself as being smart. Down home, smart meant you got homework done in time. Not so smart in . . . Brooklyn. They put Ermina back one grade.

ERMINA: So? (Shrugs her shoulders and sticks out her buttocks defiantly)

ERNESTINE: They . . . them . . . the gals laughed at us the first day at school, with our country braids and simple dresses my mommy had sewn.

dp n="20" folio="9" ?

(The sound of girls’ laughter surrounds Ernestine and Ermina. Ermina rolls her eyes.)

ERMINA: Least they clean, which is more than I can say for your tired bag of rags.

ERNESTINE (To audience): Our dresses were sewn with love, each stitch. But them, they couldn’t appreciate it!

(The laughter grows. Ermina prepares herself for a fight. She slicks back her hair and hitches up her dress around her thighs.)

So Ermina fought like a wild animal.

(Ermina swings wildly in the air.)

Scratched and tore at their cashmere cardigans and matching skirts. She walked home with a handful of greasy relaxed hair and a piece of gray cashmere stuffed in her pocket.

(Ermina basks in triumph. Ernestine strolls the streets of Brooklyn.)

Brooklyn . . . everything you’d ever need not more than a few blocks away. Streets of jagged slate, pennies stuck in the crevices; I collected over ten cents one day. Still, it wasn’t any place to live . . .

(She sits down. She is swathed in the brilliant, blue flickering light from a motion-picture projector.)

. . . until I sat in the cinema, The Fox, right smack between two white gals. Oh yes! (Looks from side to side) Practically touching shoulders. And we all wept. Wept unabashedly.

(Ermina joins Ernestine. They take each other’s hands.)

Watching our beautiful and wretched Joan Crawford’s eyebrows and lips battle their way through one hundred and three minutes of pure unadulterated drama, we could be tragic in Brooklyn.

(Ernestine and Ermina weep softly. The sound of the projector rolling gives way to a distant radio.)

RADIO BROADCASTER (Offstage): Today Senator McCarthy began—

(In the distance the radio dial is switched and “Some Enchanted Evening” plays. It continues to play softly throughout the duration of the scene.

Lights rise on a sparsely decorated living room punctuated with an old standing radio/phonograph. On the mantle is a photograph of Sandra Crump, Ernestine and Ermina’s mother, smiling gloriously. Over the mantle hangs a huge photograph of Father Divine, the charismatic leader of the waning Peace Mission Movement, in his prime. Godfrey sits in an armchair reading the daily newspaper with a magnifying glass, chuckling. The music from another apartment is barely audible, taunting the girls with possibility.)

ERMINA: Now? Well?

(Ermina awaits a response. Godfrey doesn’t bother to look up from his newspaper.)

GODFREY: Ain’t listening!

(Ermina walks tentatively over to the radio and flicks it on. She shoots a quick, wide-eyed glance at Godfrey. Radio laughter fills the room.)

Off!

ERMINA: Ah!

(Ermina flips off the radio. Silence, except the distant music of “Some Enchanted Evening.”)

GODFREY: It’s Sunday, gal!

(Ermina’s leg shakes wildly, a nervous tic that is triggered when she becomes agitated. Godfre...