What do you want, chickadee? Are you pecking at the shell? Do you need my help?
- Cordelia Leon, Act II Scene V, The Princess in Rags
Its cover was the off-white of a manila folder, with lightning-bolt creases crackling across the title: The Princess in Rags, by Theodore Dempsey. Lydia opened it carefully; the pages were as thin as onionskin but far more delicate. On the first page, someone had scrawled a note in faded pencil. Lydia squinted at it. The handwriting was a loopy old-fashioned cursive, but she could make out the message.
DO NOT READ THIS PLAY. Please stop before you go any further!!! This play is CURSED and will drive anyone who reads it or hears it MAD. I did not dare to destroy it because of what it might unleash if I had burned or torn it. Instead I leave this warning. DO NOT READ!!!!!
The note was unsigned. Lydia chuckled. Someone had been playing a prank on whoever found the play next, as she just had in the far back corner of the university library’s Drama section.
There was no publisher information. The booklet resembled the “acting edition” scripts put out by Dramatists Play Service, but without the signature pinstripe bars. There was no title page inside and nothing in the back. The only information the booklet contained was the play’s title and author on the front cover, a page listing the characters and a brief note about setting, and the text of the play itself.
Lydia settled down on the floor in the corner where no one would bother her and read through the play. It took her less than an hour to read; she estimated the total runtime as perhaps ninety minutes including intermission. Like many plays Lydia had read over the last few years, the play was straightforward realism in the first act and devolved into abstract chaos in the second.
In the first act of the play, a popular upstart politician named Julia McIntosh is at a reception for her portrait unveiling at the National Portrait Gallery. (Julia is described as a good-looking thirtysomething woman in a fabulous suit.) Documenting the process is a photographer, Miri Hoff, who corners Julia after the unveiling and asks why she won’t “tell the truth” about some unspecified secret. Julia evades Miri but winds up in an out-of-the-way gallery with Cordelia Leon, a beautiful philosopher. They have a long conversation about Julia’s political career, the problems in the country, and life in general.
Meanwhile, Miri is looking for Julia and runs into her friend Fitz, who is also looking for Julia because he’s in love with her and wants to serve her cause.
When Julia finally emerges from her conversation with Cordelia, it’s because a voice over an intercom is calling for “Senator-Elect McIntosh” to give a speech. She rushes to the podium and gives a rousing speech. At the end, the voice over the intercom says “Thank you, sir!” Lights down.
The second act opens in the living room of Miri and her lover Selena. The stage directions call for the living room to be stuffed with canned food, bottles of water, fire logs, batteries, first aid kits, etc. Edward and Julia embrace on the couch. Julia says she has to go to the outhouse; Edward begs her to be careful. Selena and Miri enter. Edward tells them “She still doesn’t know.”
“Doesn’t know, or won’t admit?” Selena says, to which Edward shrugs. A scream from outside has them all jump to their feet; moments later, Julia re-enters with Cordelia, whose presence initially makes Selena and Miri star-struck.
By the end of the act, Selena, Miri and Cordelia have formed a triple-faced and triple-voiced goddess speaking in unison.
“Each of us is Maiden.”
“Each of us is Mother.”
“Each of us is Crone.”
Like an angelic visitation, they demand that Julia go and Tell the Truth and Save the World.
“You can Save the World,” they say, “but not until you Tell the Truth.”
The triple goddess breaks apart and each of the women takes a turn having a private conversation with Julie. At the end, Edward gets on his knees and begs Julie to save the world. She protests that she doesn’t know what he wants, what any of them want from her. Edward insists that she does know; she insists she doesn’t. The world ends.
This was perfect, Lydia thought. She wasn’t entirely sure what point the play was trying to make, especially at the end, but it had roles for four girls and only one boy. That was hard to come by; usually plays had the reverse proportions. It was like playwrights in general wanted to make things difficult for small college theatre departments. (Never mind those poor saps in high school where you had to bribe a zitty, tone-deaf boy with two left feet to play the lead opposite a trained soprano with ten years of dance!) But “thank you, Theodore Dempsey,” Lydia said out loud. (She had to check the cover again.) Besides that, the absence of Selena in the first act meant that one actress would move the changing sets of the Portrait Gallery around and they wouldn’t need as much of a run crew.
The play was cast within two weeks and rehearsals started the week after that. Lydia told them all about the handwritten note, giving them the option to back out before they were handed their scripts. Though she didn’t take the warning seriously, she anticipated some fallout if a student were to later find the original booklet in the library. There was also the added benefit of the cast (who all chose to stay) feeling bonded by doing something a little dangerous and illicit.
Promotional materials for the play, both on campus and in town, included the unofficial subtitle: “a cursed play!” Lydia had been unable to find any evidence the play was properly copyrighted, and hadn’t been able to trace its author. Neither the Internet nor university records contained any information about the play or the playwright. Lydia had opted to play it safe by not charging for tickets. The posters said: “free of charge… the only cost is your sanity!” (Some students, along with the school wellness counselor, had complained this was insensitive but by then dozens of posters were already up all over town.)
After each of the six performances, the cast would look at each other after curtain call with the wide-eyed grins of people who’d just left a haunted house:
“We’re OK, aren’t we?”
“Yeah, we’re OK.”
And each night they asked each other again, and reassured each other again. And again.