She stood on the street and waited to be overcome with joy and relief. But soon she was aware of a new sadness within herself. Hope, she felt, had discarded a childish form forever.
“Certainly I am nearer to becoming a saint,” reflected Miss Goering, “but is it possible that a part of me hidden from my sight is piling sin upon sin as fast as Mrs. Copperfield?” This latter possibility Miss Goering thought to be of considerable interest but of no great importance.
In the Summer House
FOR OLIVER SMITH
~ ~ ~
In the Summer House was presented at the Playhouse Theatre in New York on December 29, 1953, by Oliver Smith and the Playwrights’ Company. It was directed by José Quintero with the following cast:
GERTRUDE EASTMAN CUEVAS Judith Anderson
MOLLY, her daughter Elizabeth Ross
MR. SOLARES Don Mayo
MRS. LOPEZ Marita Reid
FREDERICA Miriam Colon
ESPERANZA Isabel Morel
ALTA GRACIA Marjorie Eaton
QUINTINA Phoebe Mackay
LIONEL Logan Ramsey
A FIGURE BEARER Paul Bertelsen
ANOTHER FIGURE BEARER George Spelvin
VIVIAN CONSTABLE Muriel Berkson
CHAUFFEUR Daniel Morales
MRS. CONSTABLE Mildred Dunnock
INEZ Jean Stapleton
Scenery Oliver Smith
Costumes Noel Taylor
Music Paul Bowles
Lighting Peggy Clark
Associate Producer Lyn Austin
SCENES
ACT I
Scene i Gertrude Eastman Cuevas’ garden on the coast, Southern California
Scene ii The beach. One month later
Scene iii The garden. One month later
ACT II
Scene i The Lobster Bowl. Ten months later, before dawn
Scene ii The same. Two months later, late afternoon
Time: the present
Act One
Scene i
GERTRUDE EASTMAN CUEVAS’ garden somewhere on the coast of Southern California. The garden is a mess, with ragged cactus plants and broken ornaments scattered about. A low hedge at the back of the set separates the garden from a dirt lane which supposedly leads to the main road. Beyond the lane is the beach and the sea. The side of the house and the front door are visible. A low balcony hangs over the garden. In the garden itself there is a round summer house covered with vines.
GERTRUDE (A beautiful middle-aged woman with sharply defined features, a good carriage and bright red hair. She is dressed in a tacky provincial fashion. Her voice is tense but resonant. She is seated on the balcony) Are you in the summer house?
(MOLLY, a girl of eighteen with straight black hair cut in bangs and a somnolent impassive face, does not hear GERTRUDE’s question but remains in the summer house. GERTRUDE, repeating, goes to railing)
Are you in the summer house?
MOLLY Yes, I am.
GERTRUDE If I believed in acts of violence, I would burn the summer house down. You love to get in there and loll about hour after hour. You can’t even see out because those vines hide the view. Why don’t you find a good flat rock overlooking the ocean and sit on it? (MOLLY fingers the vine) As long as you’re so indifferent to the beauties of nature, I should think you would interest yourself in political affairs, or in music or painting or at least in the future. But I’ve said this to you at least a thousand times before. You admit you relax too much?
MOLLY I guess I do.
GERTRUDE We already have to take in occasional boarders to help make ends meet. As the years go by the boarders will increase, and I can barely put up with the few that come here now; I’m not temperamentally suited to boarders. Nor am I interested in whether this should be considered a character defect or not. I simply hate gossiping with strangers and I don’t want to listen to their business. I never have and I never will. It disgusts me. Even my own flesh and blood saps my vitality — particularly you. You seem to have developed such a slow and gloomy way of walking lately … not at all becoming to a girl. Don’t you think you could correct your walk?
MOLLY I’m trying. I’m trying to correct it.
GERTRUDE I’m thinking seriously of marrying Mr. Solares, after all. I would at least have a life free of financial worry if I did, and I’m sure I could gradually ease his sister, Mrs. Lopez, out of the house because she certainly gets on my nerves. He’s a manageable man and Spanish men aren’t around the house much, which is a blessing. They’re always out … not getting intoxicated or having a wild time … just out … sitting around with bunches of other men … Spanish men … Cubans, Mexicans … I don’t know … They’re all alike, drinking little cups of coffee and jabbering away to each other for hours on end. That was your father’s life anyway. I minded then. I minded terribly, not so much because he left me alone, but he wasn’t in his office for more than a few hours a day … and he wasn’t rich enough, not like Mr. Solares. I lectured him in the beginning. I lectured him on ambition, on making contacts, on developing his personality. Often at night I was quite hoarse. I worked on him steadily, trying to make him worry about sugar. I warned him he was letting his father’s interests go to pot. Nothing helped. He refused to worry about sugar; he refused to worry about anything. (She knits a moment in silence) I lost interest finally. I lost interest in sugar … in him. I lost interest in our life together. I wanted to give it all up … start out fresh, but I couldn’t. I was carrying you. I had no choice. All my hopes were wrapped up in you then, all of them. You were my reason for going on, my one and only hope … my love. (She knits furiously. Then, craning her neck to look in the summer house, she gets up and goes to the rail) Are you asleep in there, or are you reading comic strips?
MOLLY I’m not asleep.
GERTRUDE Sometimes I have the strangest feeling about you. It frightens me … I feel that you are plotting something. Especially when you get inside that summer house. I think your black hair helps me to feel that way. Whenever I think of a woman going wild, I always picture her with black hair, never blond or red. I know that what I’m saying has no connection with a scientific truth. It’s very personal. They say red-haired women go wild a lot but I never picture it that way. Do you?
MOLLY I don’t guess I’ve ever pictured women going wild.
GERTRUDE And why not? They do all the time. They break the bonds … Sometimes I picture little scenes where they turn evil like wolves … (Shuddering) I don’t choose to, but I do all the same.
MOLLY I’ve never seen a wild woman.
GERTRUDE (Music) On the other hand, sometimes I wake up at night with a strange feeling of isolation … as if I’d fallen off the cliffs and landed miles away from everything that was close to my heart … Even my griefs and my sorrows don’t seem to belong to me. Nothing does — as if a shadow had passed over my whole life and made it dark. I try saying my name aloud, over and over again, but it doesn’t hook things together. Whenever I feel that way I put my wrapper on and I go down into the kitchen. I open the ice chest and take out some fizzy water. Then I sit at the table with the light switched on and by and by I feel all right again. (The music fades. Then in a more matter-of-fact tone) There is no doubt that each one of us has to put up with a shadow or two as he grows older. But if we occupy ourselves while the shadow passes, it passes swiftly enough and scarcely leaves a trace of our daily lives … (She knits for a moment. Then looks up the road) The girl who is coming here this afternoon is about seventeen. She should be arriving pretty soon. I also think that Mr. Solares will be arriving shortly and that he’ll be bringing one of his hot picnic luncheons with him today. I can feel it in my bones. It’s disgraceful of me, really, to allow him to feed us on our own lawn, but then, their mouths count up to six, while ours count up to only two. So actually it’s only half a disgrace. I hope Mr. Solares realizes that. Besides, I might be driven to accepting his marriage offer and then the chicken would be in the same pot anyway. Don’t you agree?