Welcomeby Richard Stuart Dixon
© Richard Stuart Dixon, 2002
(Note: Performance of this play requires the author’s permission. Please contact Good School Plays for details.)
Production Notes:
• running time: approx. 50 minutes
• style: Gothic allegorical tragedy
• suitable for general audiences
• 22 characters (17 female, 5 male)
• black-box staging (no set required)
Summary of Script Content:
• “Drowning” is the story of a large family of women who gather at the family home in the Shetland Islands to grieve the loss at sea of their husbands and fathers.
(This play was first performed in March, 2002, at Gleneagle Secondary School in Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada.)
∗Published Online by Good School Plays, February 21, 2018.
Go to:
Act One, Scene 1
Act One, Scene 2
Act One, Scene 3
Act One, Scene 4
Act One, Scene 5
Act One, Scene 6
Act Two, Scene 1
Act Two, Scene 2
Act Two, Scene 3
Act Two, Scene 4
Act Two, Scene 5
Act Two, Scene 6
Act Two, Scene 7
Act Two, Scene 8
Act Two, Scene 9
Act Two, Scene 10
CHARACTERS:
Elizabeth Darling, 80 (widow of John, 75).
Aunt Rosemary Desjarlais, her Spinster Sister, 74.
Sandra Ralston, 60, Elizabeth’s eldest daughter, (widow of Charles, 56).
Diana Thorne, 35, Sandra’s daughter (married to Franklin, 40).
Darla Thorne, 15, Diana’s daughter.
Louisa Mallory, 56, Elizabeth’s middle daughter ( widow of Ben, 54).
Mary Valemont, 37, Louisa’s daughter (married to Samuel, 41).
Katerina Valemont, 16, Louisa’s daughter.
Vivian Racine, 44, Elizabeth’s youngest daughter (widow of Jean-Paul, 39).
Chelsea Racine, 26, Vivian’s daughter, a student in Edinburgh.
Anastasia Levinskaya, 21, Russian émigré, Chelsea Racine’s fellow student.
Anna Darling, 12, the dead daughter of Elizabeth Darling.
Jeremy Darling, 12, dead twin of Anna Darling.
Gretchen Thomas, 42, housekeeper.
Haley Thomas, 14, daughter of Gretchen Thomas.
Maggie Thomas, 15, daughter of Gretchen Thomas.
Juliana Tarn, 33, housemaid.
Jane Fletcher, 27, housemaid.
John Darling, dead husband of Elizabeth Darling.
Charles Ralston, dead husband of Sandra Ralston.
Ben Mallory, dead husband of Louisa Mallory.
Jean-Paul Racine, dead husband of Vivian Racine.
The Setting: An island in the Shetlands, January 15, 1875.
FAMILY GENEALOGY:
First Generation:
Elizabeth Darling/John Darling
Rosemary Desjarlais
Second Generation:
Anna Darling/Jeremy Darling
Sandra Ralston/Charles Ralston
Louisa Mallory/Ben Mallory
Vivian Racine/JeanPaul Racine
Third Generation:
Diana Thorne/Franklin Thorne
Mary Valemont/Samuel Valemont
Chelsea Racine
Fourth Generation:
Darla Thorne
Katerina Valemont
Drowning by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Act One, “Morning”, Scene 1:
(ELIZABETH DARLING and ROSEMARY DESJARLAIS are on stage as the lights come up.)
ROSEMARY DESJARLAIS
My name is Rosemary Desjarlais. Seventy-four years ago I was born blind here in the stormy Shetlands. Father was a French nobleman, and he settled here with his young wife on this wild and tiny Viking island after fleeing France during the revolution. His wife died giving birth to me, and was buried at sea, as was her request. And so began the drownings.
ELIZABETH DARLING
Father had escaped with French gold, and he used it to build our great stone mansion. Rosemary and I wandered through childhood here on this storm-swept island, which is no more than five miles wide, and far from the nearest land.
ROSEMARY DESJARLAIS
Elizabeth is my older sister. She helped me in my blindness. Then one day when she was a young woman and walking along the shoreline, she met her beloved, a man called John Darling.
ELIZABETH DARLING
There was a shipwreck. John Darling was washed up on our shore like treasure from the sea. He fell in love with me and came to live here on the island with us. He married me when I was seventeen.
ROSEMARY DESJARLAIS
And I was eleven. The year was 1812, and on the angry seas Britain was at war with Napoleon.
ELIZABETH DARLING
Father and John joined the Royal Navy to fight the French republic, but Father was drowned when a French frigate rammed their ship. John came home to me, with his nightmares of splintered wood and drowning men.
ROSEMARY DESJARLAIS
Our men drown. The sea smothers them like a wet, heavy pillow. I never married, and so I never lost a husband.
ELIZABETH DARLING
In 1831, when I was thirty-six and pregnant with my youngest daughter Vivian, my husband John Darling, set out one day in a small boat to fish for pleasure. There was a sudden storm, and the sea washed him up on our shore a second time.
ROSEMARY DESJARLAIS
We buried John Darling under heavy stones, so the sea could never take him again.
(ROSEMARY exits and JOHN DARLING enters.)
JOHN DARLING
Elizabeth, sitting there so quietly…what are you thinking about?
ELIZABETH DARLING
The sea.
JOHN DARLING
I’m going fishing this afternoon. It’s a fine day, and I’m restless for the wind and waves.
ELIZABETH DARLING
The sea gave you to me twice, John, and we gave our first two children to the sea. We have been blessed with a third and fourth child, and now I’m carrying the fifth. I fear that the sea is waiting for payment. Will the sea take you from me?
JOHN DARLING
The sea is just saltwater, Elizabeth. Why do you talk about it as though it were a god demanding sacrifice?
ELIZABETH DARLING
When we were children, my blind sister and I would sit by the sea and listen. The sea would speak to us, telling us stories of raging storms and shipwrecks. If you must go out on the sea today, John, please listen to her. She becomes angry if we don’t listen to her.
JOHN DARLING
I’m a good sailor, Elizabeth. And I have been saved from the high seas twice. How could anything go wrong on a lovely spring day within a mile from the island?
(JOHN exits.)
ELIZABETH DARLING
That day, the sea took as payment my husband, and in return I have my three daughters. But the sea was not finished exacting her tribute. Five years ago today, she drowned the three husbands of my daughters.
Drowning by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Act One, Scene 2:
(Gretchen Thomas enters.)
GRETCHEN THOMAS
You wanted to see me, Mrs. Darling?
ELIZABETH DARLING
Yes, Mrs. Thomas. Today, the fifth anniversary of the drowning of the husbands of my daughters, you must make this old stone house comfortable. I can feel the January wind reaching through the walls, and her damp and chilly fingers will torment my suffering daughters.
GRETCHEN THOMAS
We shall do our best, Mrs. Darling. And we will prepare the evening dinner you requested.
ELIZABETH DARLING
Thankyou, Mrs. Thomas. Now I must go and rest for a moment. I feel as though each of my eighty years is a link in a heavy chain dragging me down into the cold sea.
(ELIZABETH exits.)
(HALEY and MAGGIE THOMAS enter.)
HALEY THOMAS
Here we are, Mother. Maggie didn’t want to get out of bed on such a stormy day.
MAGGIE THOMAS
It’s too early to be up and about, Mother, and so dark and cold.
GRETCHEN THOMAS
No complaints from you, Maggie. Work won’t get done by complaining.
MAGGIE THOMAS
Haley had that dream again. The one about the little boy and girl who drowned.
HALEY THOMAS
Mrs. Darling’s dead children.
GRETCHEN THOMAS
I should never have told you about those two children.
HALEY THOMAS
But you did and now I dream about them.
MAGGIE THOMAS
Haley, don’t talk to Mum that way. She didn’t drown them.
GRETCHEN THOMAS
It happened a long, long time ago, Haley. And dreams can’t hurt you.
(JULIAN TARN and JANE FLETCHER enter.)
GRETCHEN THOMAS
There you are! Now Juliana, you are to keep the lamps lit and the fires burning in every fireplace, and the windows shut and sealed against the storm.
JULIANA TARN
(curtsying)
Yes, Mrs. Thomas. Must I go in the master’s room?
GRETCHEN THOMAS
Of course. It must have a lighted lamp, even if no one uses it.
JANE FLETCHER
No one has slept in there for thirty-four years.
JULIANA TARN
Jane says it’s haunted.
GRETCHEN THOMAS
Learn to think for yourself instead of believing everything Jane Fletcher tells you. Jane, you are to fetch buckets of coal for every fireplace. Before you get started, you must feed the livestock and do the milking.
JANE FLETCHER
I don’t see why I have to do the heavy work. I’m smaller than Juliana.
GRETCHEN THOMAS
Do you want me to send you back to the mainland, Jane? You have no family there, and no work. You’re ungrateful for the position given to you by Mrs. Darling.
JANE FLETCHER
Sometimes I wish I was back on the mainland, cold and poor, instead of here in this dead old house listening to the wind and rain lashing at the walls.
JULIANA TARN
Jane’s just frightened, Mrs. Thomas. We’ll do our best to make the house comfortable, and I’ll help Jane with the milking. It’s cold out in the stables and the animals are restless in the storm.
GRETCHEN THOMAS
Very well. Haley and Maggie, you will help me in the kitchen. It’s no simple thing to prepare a dinner in remembrance of the dead. Dismiss.
(All exit except HALEY THOMAS.)
HALEY THOMAS
When Mrs. Darling was eighteen, she gave birth to twins: a boy and girl called Jeremy and Anna. One day when they were nine years of age, they left their little sister Sandra and slipped out of the house. Down to the sea they went, where they found an old rowboat in which they played, not noticing how far from the shore they were drifting. Then the storm came up, and the two children disappeared, never to be seen again, except by me, in my dreams.
(ANNA and JEREMY DARLING enter and HALEY watches them.)
ANNA DARLING
Look, Jeremy, a boat! Let’s play in it. I’ll be the captain, like Father. And you can be the crew.
JEREMY DARLING
We’re not supposed to play by the sea, Anna.
ANNA DARLING
Don’t be afraid, Jeremy. Be brave, like Grandfather, who escaped from France!
(she is captured by her imagination)
Look, there’s the French fleet coming to invade our island! Let’s take our little ship and stop them!
JEREMY DARLING
We must sink their ships!
ANNA DARLING
We won’t let them capture Grandfather and take him to jail in France!
JEREMY DARLING
Father’s ship is at the bottom of the sea.
ANNA DARLING
But Father’s still alive, and so are we!
(They exit laughing.)
HALEY THOMAS
I dream that the drowned children knock at my window, begging me to let them in from the storm.
(HALEY exits.)
Drowning by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Act One, Scene 3:
(Enter ELIZABETH DARLING, SANDRA RALSTON, DIANA THORNE, and DARLA THORNE.)
ELIZABETH DARLING
Did you sleep well, my dears? Sandra was worried that the storm would keep you awake.
SANDRA RALSTON
Yes. It’s not easy for guests to sleep when the wind howls, but I’m used to the bad weather. I have become accustomed to my nightmares and no longer awaken when dreaming of the stormy sea.
DIANA THORNE
It’s not easy to sleep in this old house, with the wind and rain beating against the window panes, Mother, and my husband Franklin out on the sea today, on his way here for this anniversary.
DARLA THORNE
I had a restless sleep, Great Grandmother, and dreamed of a ghost ship creaking on the sea. I wish I could stay here with you and help you through these winter days. In Edinburgh, I am swept along with the crowds, and forget my duty to my family.
DIANA THORNE
This island is no place for a young woman, Darla. You would soon grow sick at heart and weary of the dark winter days and the endless storms.
DARLA THORNE
Mother, before grandfather drowned you loved it here. Maybe one day you’ll learn to love it again.
SANDRA RALSTON
It’s not easy to love a dark and windswept place that’s seen so much sorrow and loss, Darla. Your mother and father have made a good life for you in Edinburgh.
DARLA THORNE
Is father traveling here with Uncle Samuel, mother?
DIANA THORNE
Yes, Darla. We must pray that the storm calms and the sea settles so their voyage here will be a safe one.
SANDRA RALSTON
The sea will do whatever it wants, as always.
ELIZABETH DARLING
Sandra, you mustn’t frighten Diana and Darla.
SANDRA RALSTON
I’m sorry, Diana. This is a day of sorrow for me. Five years since Charles died.
DARLA THORNE
I was only ten years old. I’ve lived half my life over again since Grandpa drowned.
DIANA THORNE
(to ELIZABETH)
Though I cannot know how sad you must feel, Mother, I miss Father too. Only God knows all the ways a human heart can be broken.
ELIZABETH DARLING
I would like to go to the chapel before breakfast. Will you all come with me?
SANDRA RALSTON
You three go ahead. I’ll tell the others where you are.
ELIZABETH DARLING
Sandra, don’t forget that we’ve chosen to be together on this day. Do not seek to be alone.
SANDRA RALSTON
Mother, I’m sixty years old. You still talk to me as if I were a disobedient child.
DIANA THORNE
(to SANDRA)
That’s how you talk to me, Mother, whenever you fear that I am unhappy.
DARLA THORNE
(to DIANA)
And the way you talk to me, Mother. I suppose daughters will always be lectured by mothers desperate to protect them from the darkness and shadows.
(ELIZABETH, DIANA and DARLA exit, leaving SANDRA.)
SANDRA RALSTON
My husband Charles Ralston married me in 1839. I was twenty-four and studying botany on the mainland. He was a merchant employed by the British East India Company. That year the first Opium War with China broke out, and Charles was sent overseas. When his ship sailed home across storm-ravaged oceans three years later, Diana was already two years old, and Charles swore he’d never go to sea again. Five years ago today, while voyaging to this island, Charles and my two brothers-in-law drowned when their chartered vessel struck a hidden reef and sank in a sudden squall.
(CHARLES RALSTON enters.)
CHARLES RALSTON
Sandra…Ben, Jean-Paul and I will join you and your sisters in two weeks. We can’t afford to be away during the Christmas season. Business compels us to forgo pleasure.
SANDRA RALSTON
We’ve never been apart at Christmas, Charles.
CHARLES RALSTON
I know. But I think it will be good for you, Louisa, and Vivian to have Christmas with your mother. She misses you and she’ll enjoy seeing all her offspring. She is seventy-five, after all, and alone with her servants on that desolate rock she calls home.
SANDRA RALSTON
And I’m fifty-five, positively ancient. Are you worried about taking passage on a boat, Charles? You said you’d never sail again after the Opium War.
CHARLES RALSTON
A religious man would say that God would seek to punish him for getting mixed up in that nasty war, and so stay away from the dangers of the sea. But I’m not a religious man, just a cautious one. A short voyage to the island does not worry me.
SANDRA RALSTON
Charles, I want you to promise me that if the weather is bad, you’ll cancel your voyage.
CHARLES RALSTON
Sandra, I’ve had a good life. I’m not going to start acting like a scared boy at the age of fifty-six. It’s just a short voyage, the same as the one you’re taking today.
SANDRA RALSTON
A woman never fears for herself the same way she fears for those she loves.
CHARLES RALSTON
And a man likes an adventure now and then. I’ll see you in two weeks, Sandra.
(CHARLES hugs SANDRA and exits.)
Drowning by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Act One, Scene 4:
(LOUISA MALLORY, MARY VALEMONT, and KATERINA VALEMONT enter.)
LOUISA MALLORY
Sandra! Good morning. Where’s mother?
SANDRA RALSTON
In the chapel with Diana and Darla.
LOUISA MALLORY
Mary and Katerina tell me they managed to sleep last night, although the storm gave them both troubling dreams.
SANDRA RALSTON
It seems the storm was in all our dreams last night. Excuse me, Louisa, I have forgotten something, in my room.
(SANDRA exits.)
MARY VALEMONT
I’m not used to sleeping without Samuel, but the storm actually helped me relax.
KATERINA VALEMONT
I suspect those five glasses of sherry were the real reason for your good night’s rest, Mother.
LOUISA MALLORY
Why, Katerina, keeping count of the glasses of sherry your mother drinks! Perhaps you should consider a career in banking!
MARY VALEMONT
Or in detective work. I do have a bit of a headache this morning, though.
KATERINA VALEMONT
It’s so dark. I miss the sun, Mother.
MARY VALEMONT
In January, it barely rises over the horizon, Katerina. Aunt Sandra looked upset, Mother.
LOUISA MALLORY
Yes, today will be difficult for her, just as it is for me.
MARY VALEMONT
I’m sorry, Mother. It’s just that you and Aunt Sandra are so different in temperament. You laugh, and she cries.
KATERINA VALEMONT
You’re more like Great Aunt Sandra, Mother, the way you always worry about Father.
MARY VALEMONT
Samuel hasn’t been in very good health of late, Mother. His lungs are not strong. A cold and damp sea voyage will not be good for him.
LOUISA MALLORY
The things you say in front of your daughter, Mary! I never said anything upsetting about your father in front of you!
MARY VALEMONT
That didn’t save me from pain and grief when he drowned, Mother.
KATERINA VALEMONT
Mother, how can you speak to Grandmother that way! You never allow me to say anything about Grandfather, not even to ask you questions about him, and yet you confront Grandmother with the memory of his death!
MARY VALEMONT
I’m going to find Grandmother Elizabeth. If you two are going to complain about me, I don’t want to hear.
(MARY exits.)
KATERINA VALEMONT
Mother!
LOUISA MALLORY
Your mother was always had a temper, Katerina, just like her father.
KATERINA VALEMONT
I was only eleven when grandfather died. But he used to make me laugh. My father doesn’t make me laugh, ever.
LOUISA MALLORY
Perhaps not, but your father’s a good, kind man, and he’s sensible. Your grandfather Ben was an adventurer. The year before he married me, he was an army officer in Lower Canada fighting the rebellion. The year after your mother was born, he was gone again, to China to fight in the Opium War. That’s where he became a business partner with your Great Aunt Sandra’s husband Charles.
KATERINA VALEMONT
I wish girls were allowed to join the army. I’d volunteer for the cavalry. I love horses, Grandmother.
LOUISA MALLORY
Well, at least you wouldn’t be going off to sea like my father. When that French frigate rammed his ship, I’ll bet he was wishing he was in the cavalry instead of clinging to a plank in the North Sea. Men lead such adventurous lives. And yet their deaths are often smaller than their lives. My father and my husband both drowned within a mile or two of the shores of this island.
KATERINA VALEMONT
I better go find Mother and apologize. Are you going to be all right, Grandmother?
LOUISA MALLORY
Me? Of course, my dear. But I’m not so sure about your mother. She’s very unsettled this morning.
(KATERINA exits.)
(BEN MALLORY enters.)
LOUISA MALLORY
Ben! You frightened me! I didn’t hear you come in the room.
BEN MALLORY
Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you to the island for Christmas Day, Louisa?
LOUISA MALLORY
Yes. It’s a chance for us sisters to get together with Mother and our daughters. You’d be terribly bored, Ben.
BEN MALLORY
Your mother never bores me, Louisa. She runs that big stone house of hers like a military barracks.
LOUISA MALLORY
She wasn’t always that way, Ben. Before Father died when I was twelve, I remember her being soft and magical, full of pretty words and charming thoughts.
BEN MALLORY
That island needs pretty words and charming thoughts. I’ve never seen such a desolate and barren place in all my travels.
LOUISA MALLORY
The island has a hard kind of beauty, Ben, like a battlefield perhaps.
BEN MALLORY
That’s an interesting way to put it, Louisa. And your mother is the general who commands the rocks and the waves and the wind and the rain.
LOUISA MALLORY
Ben, are you afraid to die?
BEN MALLORY
No. But I worry about dying before you, my dear. I don’t like the thought of you grieving for me.
LOUISA MALLORY
What makes you think I’d grieve for you, you old war horse? I’d be rid of you and have your fortune all to myself!
BEN MALLORY
My fortune! Enough for you to live comfortably in a one-room cottage for half a year, if you gave up your daily glass of sherry.
LOUISA MALLORY
I think the worst part about dying is having to say goodbye to yourself. In the end, all our experiences are nothing more than images, thoughts, and feelings inside our minds.
BEN MALLORY
You’ve become a philosopher, my dear. And why are we discussing death? It’s almost Christmas.
LOUISA MALLORY
Ben, I want you to promise me something.
BEN MALLORY
Of course.
LOUISA MALLORY
If ever you should find yourself facing death, please think of me, and remember that I love you.
BEN MALLORY
Very well, Louisa, as the ship sinks and I struggle in the waves, I shall remember your pretty face smiling at me like a mermaid in the storm!
LOUISA MALLORY
Don’t make fun of me. Promise!
BEN MALLORY
I promise.
(BEN embraces LOUISA and leaves.)
Drowning by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Act One, Scene 5:
(VIVIAN and CHELSEA RACINE enter with ANASTASIA LEVINSKAYA.)
VIVIAN RACINE
Good morning, Louisa.
LOUISA MALLORY
Good morning, Vivian. And good morning to you, Chelsea and Miss Levinskaya.
CHELSEA RACINE
Good morning, Aunt Louisa.
ANASTASIA LEVINSKAYA
(saying “good morning” in Russian)
Dobrahye ootrah Madam Mallory. Such a storm last night! Like a winter blizzard in St. Petersburg!
LOUISA MALLORY
Our island is as far north as St. Petersburg, Miss Levinskaya.
ANASTASIA LEVINKSKAYA
Please call me Anastasia.
LOUISA MALLORY
What a beautiful name! Please excuse me, everyone, I must make sure the housekeeper is taking care of breakfast.
(LOUISA exits.)
ANASTASIA LEVINSKAYA
Forgive me, Madam Racine, but your sister appears to be much older than you.
VIVIAN RACINE
I’m the youngest daughter, Anastasia. Louisa is twelve years older than me.
CHELSEA RACINE
Mother was only eighteen when I was born, Anastasia.
VIVIAN RACINE
And my husband Jean-Paul was only nineteen.
CHELSEA RACINE
Seven years younger than I am now. And I’m still unmarried.
ANASTASIA LEVINSKAYA
By the time my mother was twenty-six, she had four children. She gave birth to me when she was thirty-seven.
VIVIAN RACINE
You are married to the university in Edinburgh, Chelsea.
CHELSEA RACINE
Yes, I suppose that’s true. My studies don’t give me much time for pursuing a husband.
ANASTASIA LEVINSKAYA
But Chelsea has been a great help to me, Madam Racine.
VIVIAN RACINE
Chelsea tells me you can never go back to Russia, Anastasia.
ANASTASIA LEVINSKAYA
That is true. My parents were both arrested for anti-government activities, and I was warned that the Tsar’s secret police would arrest me, too, if I did not leave the country.
CHELSEA RACINE
Someday there will be a revolution in Russia, and then you’ll be able to return, Anastasia.
ANASTASIA LEVINSKAYA
Perhaps. But for now, I am a guest of your government.
VIVIAN RACINE
My husband Jean-Paul, Chelsea’s father, was a “guest of our government” too. When he was eighteen, he was a leader in the 1848 worker’s uprising in Paris and had to flee to England when the rebellion was crushed.
CHELSEA RACINE
So you see, Anastasia, you’re in good company with us.
ANASTASIA LEVINSKAYA
And yet your grandmother seems very wealthy. Does she support communism?
VIVIAN RACINE
Good heavens, no. My mother isn’t political. And we really don’t have much money…just land, and this big old house.
ANASTASIA LEVINSKAYA
You must miss your husband, Madam Racine.
VIVIAN RACINE
Yes. It’s been five years since the shipwreck that drowned Jean-Paul and my two brothers-in-law, but it seems much shorter than that. Our family has been plagued with drownings. My grandfather, my father, and my eldest brother and sister drowned at sea, all within sight of this island.
CHELSEA RACINE
Mother has chosen to live here with Grandmother and her sisters as a way of paying tribute to the memories of all those who lost their lives here.
ANASTASIA LEVINSKAYA
You have not let the sea drive you away from this place, Madam Racine. That is very brave of you. I am much more cowardly, running away from my home country.
VIVIAN RACINE
The sea is not as dangerous as your secret police, Anastasia.
CHELSEA RACINE
All the same, Mother, I wish you’d come and live in Edinburgh with me. You’re still young. You might even re-marry.
VIVIAN RACINE
No, Chelsea. I’ve experienced love with a man once, and once is enough. Perhaps you’ll understand one day when you meet someone who loves you the way your father loved me. It’s the most bewildering thing in the world. As strange as it may seem, I’ve discovered I’m less lonely when I’m alone.
CHELSEA RACINE
I may be well-educated, but I certainly don’t understand you, Mother.
ANASTASIA LEVINSKAYA
Perhaps you are more like your mother than you think, Chelsea. Perhaps you miss your father more than you think, and perhaps that is why you do not seek a man to marry.
CHELSEA RACINE
Perhaps I’m hungry for breakfast. Come on, Anastasia, I’ll introduce you to Grandmother’s housekeeper.
(CHELSEA and ANASTASIA exit.)
(JEAN-PAUL RACINE enters.)
VIVIAN RACINE
I miss you, Jean-Paul.
JEAN-PAUL RACINE
I know, Vivian.
VIVIAN RACINE
My mother and my sisters and I are cursed. The sea has taken our husbands from us.
JEAN-PAUL RACINE
I’m still in your dreams.
VIVIAN RACINE
Yes, still in my dreams. Is the man I dream about really you, Jean-Paul?
JEAN-PAUL RACINE
Was the man you loved when I was alive really me, Vivian?
VIVIAN RACINE
I wonder if God looks down at us and laughs while we try to solve the endless riddles he sets for us.
JEAN-PAUL RACINE
God himself is a puzzle and a mystery.
VIVIAN RACINE
You survived the violence of the workers’ uprising in Paris, only to drown close to the shore of this island a few days after Christmas.
JEAN-PAUL RACINE
In the uprising, I was prepared to die. But I was not prepared to drown.
VIVIAN RACINE
I know. I try not to be superstitious, but I can’t help but feel that I am cursed, that I am being punished. Perhaps I should never have tried to find happiness by letting my love for you grow wild and strong.
JEAN-PAUL RACINE
Let me go, Vivian.
VIVIAN RACINE
What?
JEAN-PAUL RACINE
Let me go.
VIVIAN RACINE
No. I’m not ready. I’ll never be ready.
JEAN-PAUL RACINE
Someday soon, you must say goodbye to me.
(JEAN-PAUL exits.)
Drowning by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Act One, Scene 6:
(The entire family now enters, as well as the help, and form formal groupings on the stage. At the centre are ELIZABETH DARLIN and ROSEMARY DESJARLAIS.)
ELIZABETH DARLING
My dears, how joyful it is for me to see you all.
ROSEMARY DESJARLAIS
And though I cannot see you, I feel your warmth. Even old blind eyes can cry.
LOUISA MALLORY
God bless you, Aunt Rosemary.
ELIZABETH DARLING
God bless you, Sandra, Louisa, and Vivian, my three daughters.
SANDRA, LOUISA, and VIVIAN
(together)
God bless you, Mother.
ELIZABETH DARLING
God bless you, Diana, Mary, and Chelsea, my three grandchildren.
DIANA, MARY, and CHELSEA
(together)
God bless you, Grandmother.
ELIZABETH DARLING
And may God bless you, Darla and Katerina, my great-grandchildren.
DARLA and KATERINA
(together)
Bless you, Great-Grandmother.
ROSEMARY DESJARLAIS
Anastasia, may your first full day on our island be a happy one.
ANASTASIA LEVINSKAYA
Thank you, Madam Desjarlais. I am grateful to be here.
DIANA THORNE
May God protect my husband Franklin, and my brother-in-law Samuel, on their stormy sea journey to this island today.
ELIZABETH DARLING
And may God bless those who the sea has taken from us: my father, my husband John, and my children Anna and Jeremy.
SANDRA RALSTON
My husband Charles…
LOUISA MALLORY
My husband Ben…
VIVIAN RACINE
And my husband Jean-Paul.
ELIZABETH DARLING
Mrs. Thomas?
GRETCHEN THOMAS
Yes, Mrs. Darling.
(clapping her hands)
Girls!
(HALEY and MAGGIE THOMAS, JULIANA TARN, and JANE FLETCHER curtsy together.)
JANE FLETCHER
Breakfast is served in the dining room.
(Everyone except ELIZABETH and her three daughters exit. The drowned husbands JOHN, CHARLES, BEN, and JEAN-PAUL enter and stand briefly by their widowed wives, who stand and take their hands, or embrace, and then leave, except ELIZABETH. The men watch their wives exit, and then also exit. ANNA and JEREMY DARLING enter, playing tag and laughing, and then exit. ELIZABETH is last to exit.)
End of Act One.
Drowning by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Act Two, “Night”, Scene 1:
Scene One:
(It’s evening. Dinner is over. GRETCHEN THOMAS enters, with her daughters HALEY and MAGGIE and the two maids JULIANA and JANE.)
MAGGIE THOMAS
It’s so dark and cold this time of year.
JULIANA TARN
The lamps have been lit all day.
HALEY THOMAS
I can’t seem to get warm tonight. And I should be hungry, especially after serving all that food to the family. But I’m not.
JULIANA TARN
They didn’t eat very much. All that wasted food.
JANE FLETCHER
They were all so pale and still, sitting there as though they were seeing ghosts. Even Louisa. She nearly always makes jokes, but tonight she hardly said a word.
GRETCHEN THOMAS
I’ve told you over and over you’re not to call Mrs. Mallory by her first name. She’s the daughter of your employer, and it’s not proper to call her Louisa, as if she was your equal.
JANE FLETCHER
It’s not fair. No one has to call me “Mrs.” I’m just Jane Fletcher, the serving girl.
JULIANA TARN
But the family did look like they were seeing ghosts, Mrs. Thomas.
GRETCHEN THOMAS
They’re just remembering the dead, Juliana.
HALEY THOMAS
The five men and two children who drowned.
JANE FLETCHER
I think the family’s afraid because Samuel Thorne and Samuel Valemont aren’t here yet. They were supposed to arrive this afternoon, but there’s no sign of the ship.
JULIANA TARN
It might have gone back to the mainland because of the bad weather.
HALEY THOMAS
Or it might have sunk. I think it’s sunk.
GRETCHEN THOMAS
Haley! It’s bad luck to think such thoughts. And all this talking doesn’t get the pots and pans scrubbed. Now off to the kitchen with you!
(All exit except HALEY. She sits and watches as ANNA and JEREMY DARLING enter.)
ANNA DARLING
Out here in the boat, no one sees us, Jeremy, only the fishes.
JEREMY DARLING
It’s cold, Anna.
ANNA DARLING
The wind is starting to blow. I don’t know how to get back to the island.
JEREMY DARLING
The waves are getting bigger.
ANNA DARLING
Don’t worry, Jeremy, I’ll take care of you.
(ANNA puts her arm around JEREMY.)
JEREMY DARLING
I don’t want to drown, Anna.
ANNA DARLING
We won’t drown. We’ll turn into fishes and swim to India.
JEREMY DARLING
That’s a long way away.
ANNA DARLING
We can do anything as long as we’re together. Let’s walk on the water together, like Jesus.
JEREMY DARLING
Let’s walk home.
(They stand and exit. HALEY goes to where they were sitting.)
HALEY THOMAS
Walk on the water like Jesus, who turned water into wine, the blood of Christ.
(HALEY exits. JOHN DARLING enters.)
JOHN DARLING
There is heavy fog. The French frigate looms out of the mist, driving heavily towards our starboard bow. Elizabeth’s father is beside me on the deck and he shouts, “She’s going to ram us, John!” Those are his last words to me. The heavy frigate rises up over our little sloop, and bears down on us with crushing weight. I am thrown off my feet by the shock of the collision, and I’m suddenly in the cold sea. I hear wood splintering and men crying out. I see the high black sides of the frigate sliding past, and as suddenly as it appeared, it is gone. There are broken planks and lengths of rope floating on the sea, but no sign of our sloop. I cling to a plank, unable to believe that our ship could disappear under the waves so quickly. There are other men around me, but we drift apart. I begin to lose consciousness. In my delirium, I see our old rowboat…my daughter Anna and my son Jeremy…they help me into the boat. I fall into a deep sleep. When I awaken I am in an officer’s cabin on board a Royal Navy man-of-war. They tell me they heard the sound of children calling in the fog, and found me still clinging to the plank in the cold sea, unconscious. When I come home to the island and tell Elizabeth about the children saving me, she flies into a rage and strikes me with her fists, then holds me so tight I feel I am being smothered, drowned by her embrace.
(JOHN exits.)
Drowning by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Act Two, Scene 2:
(DARLA THORNE and KATERINA VALEMONT enter.)
DARLA THORNE
The weather’s getting worse again, Katerina, and the night is as dark as the far side of the moon. Our fathers are out there on the sea somewhere, on this day of all days.
KATERINA VALEMONT
The fifth anniversary of the deaths of our grandfathers. Are you superstitious, Darla?
DARLA THORNE
No. I just don’t trust the sea.
KATERINA VALEMONT
You sound like Great-Grandmother. She always talks about the sea as if it was alive. But it isn’t.
DARLA THORNE
But don’t you see, Katerina? It’s the indifference of the sea that’s so frightening. We live our complicated little lives, but the big cold ocean can smash our little boats and drown us like a man stepping on a flea he doesn’t even see.
KATERINA VALEMONT
My father is a lawyer. If a ship sinks and someone drowns, he can sue the ship’s owners on behalf of the drowned man’s family.
DARLA THORNE
But he can’t bring the drowned man back to life.
KATERINA VALEMONT
I suggest that you never marry a sailor, Darla.
DARLA THORNE
Father’s not a sailor, but he’s on a ship out there tonight with your father, and the wind grows stronger.
KATERINA VALEMONT
What I hate most about being a woman is all the waiting. We wait and wait for our men, while they live their lives out in the world. For once, I wish my father was waiting for me. I wish I was out on that ship in the stormy sea and he was sitting here wondering and worrying.
DARLA THORNE
In the end it makes no difference who’s on the ship if it sinks. Those who are on the ship will drown, and those on land who love them will mourn for them.
KATERINA VALEMONT
You can sit there helpless and sad, cousin Darla, but I’m going out for a walk, storm or no storm. I won’t stay cooped up in this old house waiting and waiting.
(KATERINA exits.)
DARLA THORNE
Father, I’m so afraid for you. But I can do nothing for you or for Uncle Samuel.
Drowning by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Act Two, Scene 3:
(SANDRA RALSTON, LOUISA MALLORY, and VIVIAN RACINE enter.)
SANDRA RALSTON
Darla, my granddaughter, why are you sitting here alone?
DARLA THORNE
I was just talking with cousin Katerina, Grandmother. She’s gone outside to walk in the storm.
LOUISA MALLORY
In the storm! My granddaughter out in the storm! Why did she go out there, Darla?
DARLA THORNE
She can’t stand waiting. She said she didn’t want to stay in the house with me. She said I was helpless and sad.
SANDRA RALSTON
Helpless and sad! Darla, we all feel helpless, with your father Franklin and your Uncle Samuel out on the sea somewhere.
VIVIAN RACINE
She’s worried about her father, Darla, just as you are. That’s why she’s so argumentative tonight.
SANDRA RALSTON
Darla, please go and find her and bring her back. Take Juliana Tarn with you. She’s a sensible girl. She’ll soon find Katerina. We must all stay close together tonight.
DARLA THORNE
I don’t think she’ll come back with me. She’s so stubborn.
LOUISA MALLORY
Do as your grandmother asks, Darla.
DARLA THORNE
I’m sorry, Grandmother. I’ll go at once.
VIVIAN RACINE
This is all too much. I don’t know how we can all stand the strain.
SANDRA RALSTON
Our daughter’s husbands missing on the sea on the fifth anniversary of the deaths of our husbands. It’s a cruel and terrible coincidence.
LOUISA MALLORY
Surely their vessel would have returned to port rather than try to sail north in this weather?
VIVIAN RACINE
Even if it did, it could be days until we find out. It’ll be terribly difficult for Diana and Mary and their children.
SANDRA RALSTON
We should never have agreed to this idea of Mother’s, gathering everybody out here on the island at the worst time of the year, putting everyone at risk.
LOUISA MALLORY
But we did agree. And we didn’t do it just for Mother and Aunt Rosemary. We did it for ourselves. We wanted to be near our children on this sad day, to ease the pain.
VIVIAN RACINE
We should have gone to the mainland ourselves, rather than risk them coming here.
SANDRA RALSTON
There’s no point in talking about this, going round and round in circles. What’s done is done.
VIVIAN RACINE
We must give our love and support to your daughters. They are the ones who are suffering most, waiting and waiting while the sea rages.
LOUISA MALLORY
Here we sit, three sisters waiting while a storm howls outside, just as we did five years ago.
SANDRA RALSTON
We must pray that things will end more happily then on that night.
Drowning by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Act Two, Scene 4:
(The three sisters go to separate parts of the stage, and CHARLES, BEN, and JEAN-PAUL enter and go to stage centre.)
CHARLES RALSTON
It’s becoming a rather rough voyage, gentlemen.
BEN MALLORY
The sea in this part of the world is treacherous, especially in January.
JEAN-PAUL RACINE
I’m not much of a sailor. I get seasick very easily.
CHARLES RALSTON
Well, if our wives and children can make the voyage, so can we. We’re talking like frightened boys.
BEN MALLORY
Don’t worry, Jean-Paul. If you get sick, you can lean over the side of the ship. There’s lots of room in the ocean for your dinner.
CHARLES RALSTON
The food is rather terrible on this ship. In fact, they should throw all of it over the side.
JEAN-PAUL RACINE
You speak like a rich man who has never starved, Charles.
CHARLES RALSTON
You know, I had a dream last night. I’m not the sort of man who remembers his dreams, but this one was very clear. We were sailing northward, and our ship just kept sailing and sailing, and never arriving. I asked the captain why we didn’t seem to be getting any closer to land, and he said we were destined to sail onward for ever and ever. What do you make of that, Ben?
BEN MALLORY
I’d say you ate too many pickled herrings last night, Charles.
JEAN-PAUL RACINE
Look at those clouds building up in the northwest.
BEN MALLORY
I don’t like the look of those. Let’s go below decks and have a drink and play some cards.
CHARLES RALSTON
You owe me fifteen pounds already, Ben. But if you want to go further into debt, I’m more than happy to assist you. I feel supremely lucky tonight.
(CHARLES, BEN, and JEAN-PAUL exit.)
Drowning by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Act Two, Scene 5:
(CHELSEA RACINE and ANASTASIA LEVINSKAYA enter.)
CHELSEA RACINE
Anastasia has just told me a most remarkable story, Mother. You and Aunt Louisa and Aunt Sandra really must hear it.
ANASTASIA LEVINSKAYA
I do not want to bore your mother and your aunts with my silly story, Chelsea.
VIVIAN RACINE
Please, Anastasia, tell us your story. We would enjoy some distraction from all this worrying.
CHELSEA RACINE It’s a story of hope, Mother, a true story. We need to feel hope tonight. Go ahead, Anastasia.
ANASTASIA LEVINSKAYA
Very well, Chelsea. My story is about a ship that sailed from St. Petersburg carrying a Russian princess. She was young and beautiful, with pale green eyes and blonde hair, and was on her way to pay a state visit to Sweden. All the crew on the ship were in love with her, especially one young man who was only an ordinary sailor. There was a storm, and the princess insisted on working with the sailors to help keep the ship afloat. She worked as hard as any man, but a huge wave washed her from the deck into the cold Baltic sea. The young man who loved her threw himself into the sea with a rope, and reached her and tied the rope around her. The crew pulled her safely back on the deck but the young man disappeared. The princess wept and wept, not because she was cold and afraid, but because of the young sailor. And suddenly, just for a moment, the sea became calm. To everyone’s astonishment, the young man was suddenly standing before them, alive and well. He had somehow managed to reach the ship and climb the sides onto the deck. Then the waves came rushing back, and they continued their terrible journey to Sweden.
LOUISA MALLORY
Did they all survive the journey?
ANASTASIA LEVINSKAYA
Yes. The battered ship arrived in Stockholm, and everyone survived. And yes, the princess married the sailor, and their descendants live in St. Petersburg to this day.
CHELSEA RACINE
So the sea sometimes shows mercy. In the middle of the storm, the water became calm and the young man was saved.
LOUISA MALLORY
Thank you, Anastasia. That was a fine story. Perhaps the sea will become calm for Samuel and Franklin, so that they may arrive here safely.
Drowning by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Act Two, Scene 6:
(ELIZABETH DARLIN and ROSEMARY DESJARLAIS enter.)
ROSEMARY DESJARLAIS
Is everyone here, Elizabeth?
ELIZABETH DARLING
Almost everyone, Rosemary. Louisa, where are Darla and Katerina?
LOUISA MALLORY
Katerina went for a walk, and Darla went to fetch her back, Mother.
ROSEMARY DESJARLAIS
Those children ought not to be outside in this weather.
SANDRA RALSTON
They’ll be fine, Mother. Juliana Tarn went with Darla, and Juliana could find her way around the island blindfolded.
ROSEMARY DESJARLAIS
Sometimes I get lost even in this old house in which I’ve lived all my long, blind life.
ELIZABETH DARLING
Rosemary, must you always talk in riddles? You never get lost in this house.
ROSEMARY DESJARLAIS
I get lost in my thoughts, Elizabeth. They are more difficult to navigate than the sea.
ELIZABETH DARLING
The weather has become worse, and it is now late at night. Do you know, I want midnight to arrive so that this day of remembrance will be over.
ROSEMARY DESJARLAIS
I want to hear the sound of men’s voices loud and strong in this room. Why are there no men’s voices?
ELIZABETH DARLING
Rosemary, please be careful how you speak. We all want to hear the voices of our men in this room, and do not need reminding.
ROSEMARY DESJARLAIS
I have never known the company of a man in the way that you have Elizabeth, but I do know that a house that has only women in it is a house that is half-empty.
ELIZABETH DARLING
No, Rosemary, there are men in this house. The ghosts of men. They wander through our thoughts endlessly.
SANDRA RALSTON
Please, Mother, can we talk about something else?
(to audience)
Where is my daughter Diana, who waits for news of her husband Franklin?
LOUISA MALLORY
(to audience)
And where is my daughter Mary, who waits for her husband Samuel?
Drowning by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Act Two, Scene 7:
(The room becomes still, and ANNA and JEREMY enter with HALEY THOMAS, who watches them from a distance.)
ANNA DARLING
Jeremy, Mother will be angry.
JEREMY DARLING
Why, Anna?
ANNA DARLING
Because we’ll never go home again.
JEREMY DARLING
But I want to go home.
ANNA DARLING
The sea won’t let us, Jeremy. It takes us farther and farther away from the island.
JEREMY DARLING
Where will it take us, Anna?
ANNA DARLING
To God, Jeremy. We are going to live with God.
ELIZABETH DARLING
I love you, my children.
(ANNA and JEREMY and HALEY THOMAS exit.)
Drowning by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Act Two, Scene 8:
(DIANA THORNE and MARY VALEMONT enter. They speak as though the others are not there. The others stay still as though frozen. DIANA and MARY speak to the audience.)
DIANA THORNE
Our husbands are out on the sea, and we are here on this island waiting.
MARY VALEMONT
We wait and wait and still they do not arrive.
DIANA THORNE
My husband Franklin is a man who laughs and gives me presents. He’s a man of kindness and grace.
MARY VALEMONT
My husband Samuel is gentle. He cares about the suffering of those less fortunate. He cares about me, in my misfortune, a woman who lost her father to the sea.
DIANA THORNE
We are the daughters of mothers whose husbands drowned.
MARY VALEMONT
They are the daughters of a mother whose husband drowned.
DIANA THORNE
And now our husbands are out on the raging sea.
MARY VALEMONT
And our daughters wonder if they will become the daughters of mothers whose husbands drowned.
DIANA THORNE
Drowning.
MARY VALEMONT
We are all drowning.
DIANA THORNE
The water is rising slowly. It is getting hard to breathe.
MARY VALEMONT
Soon we will all sink down, down into the deep, deep sea. Drowning.
(MARY and DIANA go and sit with their mothers.)
Drowning by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Act Two, Scene 9:
(GRETCHAN, HALEY, and MAGGIE THOMAS enter with JANE FLETCHER. They speak to the audience.)
GRETCHEN THOMAS
I am the housekeeper of Elizabeth Darling, who waits with her daughters for news of the men who sail on the stormy sea.
HALEY THOMAS
I am the daughter of the housekeeper, who dreams of the drowned children of Elizabeth Darling, and watches the women of the house sinking into the deep sea of their fear.
JANE FLETCHER
I am the orphan girl who works in the cold stone house where the women drown slowly in the deep, deep pool of their grief.
Drowning by Richard Stuart Dixon, Good School Plays.
Act Two, Scene 10:
(DARLA THORNE, KATERINA VALEMONT, and JULIANA TARN enter, in a state of distress. Everyone turns to look at them.)
JULIANA TARN
Mrs. Darling, a ship has arrived.
KATERINA VALEMONT
It’s anchored in the bay to escape the storm. An officer came to us in a boat.
DARLA THORNE
It’s not Father’s ship, Mother. It’s not his ship.
KATERINA VALEMONT
Oh, Mother, Mother, Father’s ship is gone.
MARY VALEMONT
Gone?
DARLA THORNE
The officer says their ship tried to help. Father’s ship was in distress.
KATERINA VALEMONT
But they couldn’t reach her, and she sank, Mother. His ship sank.
JULIANA TARN
Mrs. Darling, he says there were no survivors.
DARLA THORNE
Mother, my father is drowned!
KATERINA VALEMONT
Oh, my poor, poor mother, Father is drowned!
(DARLA and KATERINA go to their mothers.)
(ANNA and JEREMY, and the drowned husbands JOHN, CHARLES, BEN, and JEAN-PAUL assemble on stage. The cast faces the audience and ELIZABETH speaks.)
ELIZABETH DARLING
The water closes over our heads. We can no longer breathe. We do not struggle. There is only silence.
END OF PLAY.