The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder, Volume I

Thornton Wilder

• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781559361316
• eBook ISBN: 9781559368131
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Drama
• Index: Literature

Thornton Wilder, author of such landmark works for the stage as Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth as well as the classic novel The Bridges of San Luis Rey is considered one of America's greatest man of letters. This two volume publication collects the complete short works for the stage, including a never-before-published one act play.

PART I

The Long Christmas Dinner

and OTHER PLAYS IN ONE ACT

The Long Christmas Dinner

CHARACTERS

LUCIA, Roderick’s wife

RODERICK, Mother Bayard’s son

MOTHER BAYARD

COUSIN BRANDON

CHARLES, Lucia and Roderick’s son

GENEVIEVE, Lucia and Roderick’s daughter

LEONORA BANNING, Charles’s wife

LUCIA, Leonora and Charles’s daughter, Samuel’s twin

SAMUEL, Leonora and Charles’s son, Lucia’s twin

RODERICK, Leonora and Charles’s youngest son

COUSIN ERMENGARDE

SERVANTS

NURSES

SETTING

The dining room of the Bayard home.

Close to the footlights a long dining table is handsomely spread for Christmas dinner. The carver’s place with a great turkey before it is at the spectator’s right.

A door, left back, leads into the hall.

At the extreme left, by the proscenium pillar, is a strange portal trimmed with garlands of fruits and flowers. Directly opposite is another, edged and hung with black velvet. The portals denote birth and death.

Ninety years are to be traversed in this play which represents in accelerated motion ninety Christmas dinners in the Bayard household. The actors are dressed in inconspicuous clothes and must indicate their gradual increase in years through their acting. Most of them carry wigs of white hair which they adjust upon their heads at the indicated moment, simply and without comment. The ladies may have shawls concealed beneath the table that they gradually draw up about their shoulders as they grow older.

Throughout the play the characters continue eating imaginary food with imaginary knives and forks.

There is no curtain. The audience arriving at the theatre sees the stage set and the table laid, though still in partial darkness. Gradually the lights in the auditorium become dim and the stage brightens until sparkling winter sunlight streams through the dining-room windows.

Enter Lucia. She inspects the table, touching here a knife and there a fork. She talks to a servant girl who is invisible to us.

LUCIA: I reckon we’re ready now, Gertrude. We won’t ring the chimes today. I’ll just call them myself. (She goes into the hall and calls) Roderick. Mother Bayard. We’re all ready. Come to dinner.

(Enter Roderick pushing Mother Bayard in a wheelchair.)

MOTHER BAYARD: . . . and a new horse too, Roderick. I used to think that only the wicked owned two horses. A new horse and a new house and a new wife!

LUCIA: Here, Mother Bayard, you sit between us.

RODERICK: Well, Mother, how do you like it? Our first Christmas dinner in the new house, hey?

MOTHER BAYARD: Tz—Tz—Tz! I don’t know what your dear father would say!

(Roderick says grace.)

My dear Lucia, I can remember when there were still Indians on this very ground, and I wasn’t a young girl either. I can remember when we had to cross the Mississippi on a new-made raft. I can remember when Saint Louis and Kansas City were full of Indians.

LUCIA (Tying a napkin around Mother Bayard’s neck): Imagine that! There! What a wonderful day for our first Christmas dinner: a beautiful sunny morning, snow, a splendid sermon. Dr. McCarthy preaches a splendid sermon. I cried and cried.

RODERICK (Extending an imaginary carving fork): Come now, what’ll you have, Mother? A little sliver of white?

LUCIA: Every last twig is wrapped around with ice. You almost never see that. Can I cut it up for you, dear? (Over her shoulder) Gertrude, I forgot the jelly. You know—on the top shelf. Mother Bayard, I found your mother’s gravy boat while we were moving. What was her name, dear? What were all your names? You were . . . a . . . Genevieve Wainright. Now your mother—

MOTHER BAYARD: Yes, you must write it down somewhere. I was Genevieve Wainright. My mother was Faith Morrison. She was the daughter of a farmer in New Hampshire who was something of a blacksmith too. And she married young John Wainright—

LUCIA (Memorizing on her fingers): Genevieve Wainright. Faith Morrison.

RODERICK: It’s all down in a book somewhere upstairs. We have it all. All that kind of thing is very interesting. Come, Lucia, just a little wine. Mother, a little red wine for Christmas day. Full of iron. “Take a little wine for thy stomach’s sake.”

LUCIA: Really, I can’t get used to wine! What would my father say? But I suppose it’s all right.

(Enter Cousin Brandon from the hall. He takes his place by Lucia.)

COUSIN BRANDON (Rubbing his hands): Well, well, I smell turkey. My dear cousins, I can’t tell you how pleasant it is to be having Christmas dinner with you all. I’ve lived out there in Alaska so long without relatives. Let me see, how long have you had this new house, Roderick?

RODERICK: Why, it must be . . .

MOTHER BAYARD: Five years. It’s five years, children. You should keep a diary. This is your sixth Christmas dinner here.

LUCIA: Think of that, Roderick. We feel as though we had lived here twenty years.

COUSIN BRANDON: At all events it still looks as good as new.

RODERICK ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part I: The Long Christmas Dinner and Other Plays in One Act
• Part II: Plays for Bleecker Street: (Plays in One Act for an Arena Stage)
• The Two Worlds of Thornton Wilder
• Bibliographic and Production Notes