Cast
5 men, 2 women, 4 townspeople
(ages are flexable)
S/Sgt. "FROGGY" LeSUEUR: "forties,
perhaps," British Army sergeant, "well-fed, flushed with the spirit of
adventure"
CHARLIE BAKER: same age as "Froggy," also
English, "standing in his forlorn trenchcoat, [he] seems quietly,
somehow permanently, lost;" "I've sat behind my grey little
proofreader's desk for twenty-seven years"
The rest of the characters are from rural Georgia:
BETTY MEEKS "more than seventy... like, everyone,
is wise about some things and naive about others"
REV. DAVID MARSHALL LEE: 20s-30s, "a friendly,
open face... He seems rather to be a regular fella -- humorous, and
open, it would appear, a good young man to have on our side."
CATHERINE SIMMS: 18 or 20, fiancee of David and
pregnant by him when the action of the play begins, "formidable little
figure... basilisk stare from her pretty face"
OWEN MUSSER: 20s-40s, "dank presence...
Psychologists tell us to beware of a man with two tattoos. One, he may
have gotten on a drunk or a dare. But two means he went back. Owen is a
two-tattoo man. "
ELLARD SIMMS: Catherine's younger brother, "There
doesn't, we must admit, seem to be much to Ellard. He is a lumpy,
overgrown, backward youth, who spends much of his time kneading
something tiny and invisible in from of his chest."
4 TOWNSPEOPLE: non-speaking
|
THE STORY
The scene is a fishing lodge in rural Georgia often visited by "Froggy"
LeSeuer, a British demolition expert who occasionally runs training
sessions at a nearby U.S. Army base. This time "Froggy" has brought along
a friend, a pathologically shy young man named Charlie who is overcome
with fear at the thought of making conversation with strangers. So "Froggy,"
before departing, tells all assembled that Charlie is from an exotic
foreign country and speaks no English. Once alone the fun really begins,
as Charlie overhears more than he should—the evil plans of a sinister,
two-faced minister and his redneck associate; the fact that the minister's
pretty fiancée is pregnant; and many other damaging revelations made with
the thought that Charlie doesn't understand a word being said. That he
does fuels the nonstop hilarity of the play and sets up the wildly funny
climax in which things go uproariously awry for the "bad guys," and the
"good guys" emerge triumphant. |
