GRANDMA'S BAND
Two-act play: first act from 2-3PM, second act from 8-9PM of the same June day of the wake in the home of GRANDMA, who lies invisible in the coffin at stage left, surrounded by flowers which may be real, or symbolized by grotesque dead branches stuck into newspaper holders in "Germanic" production. Players may be conventionally made up and dressed or in grotesque black-and-white faces and black clothes except for the brilliant-flower dress of MOM, in "Germanic" production. NONSTATED directional point must be that this is 1) circling around Grandma's wedding band, 2) circling around the family that Grandma produced, 3) showing that Grandma is at last banned from the arguments, petty quarrels, and quibbling of her offspring, and 3.5) the NOISE that the INSTRUMENTS around her make while TALKING, and 4) offering a view that can be taken as mythologically as Wagner's Ring. First act opens with Bob going to Mom, after talking in another circle with Helen, who gestures toward coffin and toward Mom, saying the first word, "Mom," to his mother, echoing the last word in the last act, when Mom breaks down before coffin, sobbing, "Mom," as she takes the ring off her finger once more.
Lighting is general except for a follow-spot which tracks Bob about the room: as he moves to a group, the area lights on that group come up; as he moves away from the group, the follow-spot follows him to the next group or area, where the next conversations take place. Other characters may come and go within the framework of the play, but it all takes place in the one room---an adjoining small alcove separated from the sight and hearing of the main room. Mom goes into her fluxes: money on trips, tears, bowels, sniffles (while telling Bob constantly to stop sniffling), and "Oh, she's LOOKING at me!" HER view of herself, her children. Rita and Dennis symbolize the separated new group, taking whatever I could have fantasized into the roles of Lorene and Bob. Marion is the terminally ill, determined to live, trying to "help" Mom accept Bob's gayness. Henry and Edward's traits are combined in Henry; Greg and Gary are combined into one son. Mom's new conquest is Mr. Didi, between taking his pin, being just ten feet from the Pope, trip to Italy. Bob's lover is non-speaking, only holding him acceptingly at the end of each act. Priest, undertaker, Mom's friend, old-woman mother-in-law are minor characters that fill out the stage and convey the minor points of the play. Jimmy's in, shaking, too, so it looks like a rather heavy 14 characters. Later revisions may bring that down.