Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People Part 30

Make no resistance, ye sc.u.m of Dagon's brood, or Merrymount and all that is within it shall be sacked within the hour! Where is the maid ye stole?

RESOLUTE (dearly).

Here, Gillian Pritchard! Here, safe and sound, and courteously treated by the folk of Merrymount. Why use ye such words as stole? 'Tis most unseemly. And why come ye here unbidden? Sure, none sent for you?

GILLIAN PRITCHARD (amazed: disapproving).

Resolute!

RESOLUTE (haughtily).

Mistress Endicott, so please you, and the governor's cousin!

GILLIAN PRITCHARD (more and more pained).

Resolute!

RESOLUTE (continuing quickly).

May I not step from my door to do a deed of kindness for an old woman but what the whole of Wollaston is at my heels? Or give a lesson in spinning without a cry being raised that I am stolen? I do not take it kindly of you, Amos Warren; no, nor of you, Ebenezer Matthews. Pick up my spinning-wheel, Frugal Hilton, and let Fight-for-Right Norcross carry my chair. (To Sarah.) There are herbs in that pocket for your gran'am.

[Gives her herb pocket.

[The Puritans, including Resolute Endicott, exeunt right.

SCARLETT (breaking forth).

She saved us! Saved us! Zounds! Was there ever anything like unto it!

What dost thou make of it, Sarah?

SARAH.

I make of it that Mistress Endicott hath a warm heart beneath her cold white Puritan kerchief, and that in this new land of ours we should better strive to understand each other; for, though our ways be different, are we not beset by the same hopes and fears, doth not the same sky arch above us all? (To Simon.) Think you not so, my brother?

(As all begin to go towards background where the feast is in readiness.) Come, gran'am, lean on me. Our feast must be near to readiness. A Puritan hearthstone--sooth, it must be a goodly place; yet right glad am I that we live beneath the stars, and are still the light free-hearted folk o' Merrymount!

COSTUMES

The costumes are those of the seventeenth-century cavaliers for the Merrymount lads. Slashed jerkins, full sleeves with puffs and slas.h.i.+ngs, or bishop's sleeves of white lawn showing through tattered velvet oversleeves. Their cloaks are sometimes topped with white lace collars. They wear either stockings and low slippers with buckles, or high cavalier boots. Their hair is worn in lovelocks. See the ill.u.s.trated edition of "Pilgrim's Progress," or any good cavalier pictures. If the velvets and satins cannot be had, use cambric in gay colors with the glazed side out, which gives the effect of satin.

SIMON SCARLETT. Scarlet suit. Scarlet cloak with white lace collar.

Scarlet shoes and stockings. His costume is the high note of color in the play.

WILL LACKLEATHER. Dark-brown cloak. High brown boots. Brown jerkin, through which show sleeves of white lawn. The jerkin is of leather.

ROBIN WAKELESS. Suit of blue satin. Gray cloak. Gray foot-gear.

CHRISTOPHER CARMEL. Dark-blue velvet slashed with orange.

JOCK. Very dark-purple cloak, with touches of tarnished gold. Leather jerkin, pieced out with fur.

FAUNCH THE FIDDLER. Costume of pale-blue satin and black velvet. A black velvet cloak.

All the Merrymount maidens wear fine raiment that is equally tattered and weather-worn. They have peasant bodices--that is, a very deep girdle the color of their skirts, worn with white square-necked waists that have soft semi-full sleeves; or they wear bodices of one piece made very plainly. Cambric in gay colors will do.

SARAH SCARLETT. Forest-green dress, ankle-length. White bodice showing through tattered green sleeves. Forest-green cloak patched with scarlet.

GOODY GLEASON. Leaf-brown cloak and dress, patched a little with black and gray.

MOLL. Olive-green dress, white bodice. It is pieced out with bits of leather.

NAN. Maroon dress, patched in black.

TIB. Dull blue dress.

JOAN. Dark dull-green and red flowered dress, giving the appearance of tattered brocade.

BESS. Gray dress.

The maypole dancers are in dull-green, dull-violet, and dull-blue, bronze, and slate-gray. Some wear cloaks and some do not. All should have a wild, picturesque gipsyish look.

RESOLUTE ENDICOTT. Black dress, ankle-length. White Puritan cap, cuffs, and kerchief. (Black cambric with the glazed side turned in.) The Puritan men wear long cloaks coming to their ankles: deep, white plain collars, plain white cuffs on black sleeves. Black hats. "Boxed"

hair, falling below the ears. Low black shoes. Black stockings. Black knee-breeches, somewhat full.

For a cast composed entirely of girls, such as a girls' camp or school, this play can be given with gymnasium suits forming part of the costumes for both Merrymount lads and Puritans. The girls can wear the bloomers of their gymnasium suits fastened with a ribbon-garter, so as to make the puffed seventeenth century garb. The ribbon should be gay in color and fastened either with a rosette or a bow. White, soft loose waists, with rather full long sleeves. The cloaks of cambric in bright colors should come to the ankles, the glazed side worn outward, to give a satiny look. The cloaks for the Puritans should be of the same length, made of black cambric, with the glazed side turned in. They should wear black cotton waists, and it will be easy and simple for the girls to fas.h.i.+on the white cuffs and collars out of white lawn or cheesecloth. The whole play can thus be costumed for a very small sum.

If a further touch of color is to be added to the costumes of the Merrymount lads, their gay cloaks may be topped with white lace collars. Their stockings can be gay in color, and here and there a slashed jerkin will add variety. The maidens of Merrymount can wear dresses of cambric, made on the simplest possible lines. The color scheme of the foregoing costumes should, in the main, be adhered to.

The ribbon-garters and stockings may match in color. Pale-blue, orange, purple, jade, corn-yellow, and hunter's green will prove effective. No pink or old rose should be worn, as scarlet is the high note of color in the play.

MUSIC: Any quaint old-time maypole dance will do for the maypole rout.

The words and music of "Fortune, My Foe" can be found in Chappell's "Popular Musk of Antiquity," Vol. I, page 62.

PAGEANT DIRECTIONS

The Hawthorne Pageant can be produced either indoors or out of doors.

For the outdoor production there should be a level sward with trees right, left, and background. It is suitable for any of the Spring, Summer, or Autumn months, or for Hawthorne's birthday, July 4.

For an indoor production of the pageant if a green woodland set cannot be had, green screens with pine branches fastened to them, a green or brown floor-cloth, and forest-green hanging filling in the background may be used. Pine trees in green stands around which green and brown burlap is banked is another way of having an inexpensive and realistic scene setting. _The setting for the whole pageant is the same_. It can be given in an a.s.sembly hall, gymnasium, or armory.

The costumes for the episodes have already been indicated. The pageant may be given by a cast made up entirely of girls, if it is so wished.

THE MUSE OF HAWTHORNE. Pale-pink cheesecloth draperies. A tall white staff, on which is fastened a cl.u.s.ter of pink hawthorn blossoms.

Flowing hair, and a chaplet of laurel leaves. White stockings and sandals.

THE SPIRITS OF THE OLD MANSE. Greek robes in colored cheesecloth or cotton crepe. There are eight of these maidens, and the colors they wear are pale-green, pale-lavender, pale-yellow, and pale-blue. They carry great garlands of moss interwoven with pine--about two yards for each player, so that it can be held gracefully. White stockings and sandals. Hair bound With Greek fillets of white or of silver.

Symbolically these spirits represent Joy, Mystery, Peace, Dreams, Hope, Aspiration, Fulfilment, Ecstasy.

MUSIC. The songs of the episodes are already indicated on pages 194 and 203. The music for the chorus of the Spirits of the Old Manse can be found in "Songs of the West," by S. Baring Gould, which is a collection of the Folk Songs of Devon and Cornwall, collected from the mouths of the people. The music of this chorus is set to the seventeenth-century folk song called "The Sweet Nightingale" ("My sweetheart, come along,"

etc.). The incidental music for the Hawthorne Pageant when it is given indoors should be from Edward MacDowell's "New England Idylls" Op. 62, and from his "Indian Suite." "From an Old Garden," "Midsummer," "An Indian Idyll," and "From Puritan Days" can be played between the episodes and the Dance Interlude. An orchestra or piano can add to the music of Faunch's fiddle in the Merrymount scene. The music for the procession should be very stately, and by a seventeenth-century composer, if possible.

NOTES ON DIRECTING THE PAGEANT. The first verse of the chorus of the Spirits of the Old Manse should be sung off stage in the indoor production. The stage should be darkened: footlights low. With the next verse the spirits enter, four from right, and four from left, mystic, half-seen figures. As they enter the lights gradually begin to come up, until with the middle of the second verse there is full strong daylight. If the eight voices are not enough a hidden augmented chorus can be behind the scenes. If the stage is such that it can be darkened and lighted at will, a fire-glow effect should be given for the Merrymount scene. The light for all the scenes should be that of strong daylight. There should be no curtain. The characters simply appear and disappear. After the Spirits of the Manse have made their exit the Prologue enters. The procession at the end of the play may simply cross the scene to march music, the players not stiffly moving in ones and twos, but in more or less significant groups.

Those who direct the pageant should see to it that the players speak the dialogue in the episodes with the utmost briskness. There should be no waits and pauses. Simon Scarlett especially should enunciate clearly and swiftly, with dash and fire in both voice and gesture. Even if some of the words are lost, it is better to keep up the tempo of the piece.

Philippe Beaucoeur should also speak with a rush of energy and determination. The players who are on the scene but not speaking, should develop their pantomimic powers, and form animated groups; their interest should be first with one character who is speaking, and then with another. They should never stand idle, looking blankly at the audience, as so many amateurs are in the habit of doing. In the Salem episode they should surge forward and back, and discuss in pantomimic groups all that is happening.