SYNOPSIS
It’s Willum’s birthday but the only people able to come celebrate are his friend Axel, romantic interest Tansy, and the hotelier Willum is designing for Waldgrave – including wife Clelia and young ill-behaved son Thor. It’s set up to be a sad affair until Willum checks his messages and receives word that Rick Steadman, who he’s never met despite the man having saved his life in Nam, is finally coming for a visit. Everyone is excited until Rick arrives believing it to be a costume party and unknown to anyone else, terrifying Thor. He insults Waldgrave and his wife thinking they’re also in costume before boring them by explaining what he’s been doing since the war month by month. When dinner is served Rick ruins everyone’s appetite and complains that it’s exactly what he had or lunch and asks Tansy to make him spaghetti instead, of which he only eats two strands before declaring he’s full. Rick then ruins the game the gang is trying to play and insists on having them play his own requiring them to remove their shoes and put bags over their heads with only one eyehole. Waldgrave puts his hole too high up and trying to help, Rick repeatedly jabs at his eye trying to make a new hole but only resulting in irritating Waldgrave’s eye and his nerves. Rick has them spinning around and then reveals that to continue the game he has to read from a bible, which Willum doesn’t own. With the game unplayable Rick goes to get everyone’s shoes and knocks them down into the water below. If the party wasn’t ruined already Waldgrave discovers that his son has fainted after seeing Rick’s hanging costume and been stuffed into the closet by Willum. Everyone leaves except for Rick and just when Willum thinks the night can’t get any worse, Rick reveals he’s staying indefinitely and starts practicing the tambourine and singing loudly and offkey as Willum tries to sleep.
It’s been two weeks and Willum is at his wits end with his houseguest. Rick’s family has moved without leaving a forwarding address so he assumes all his stuff will be sent to Willum’s. That’s what pushes Willum past his breaking point. Axel convinces Willum to listen to his friend Kemp’s advice to make Rick homesick and weirded out by Terre Haute culture. Everything they try ends up backfiring from inside jokes to strange food and even having Willum fake turning into a were-pig. Of course, that’s when it turns out that Rick invited Waldgrave and the events cost Willum his job with the man. Finally, Willum loses his cool and blows up at Rick, kicking him out. Free of his pest, Willum realizes it’s the happiest he’s been in forever and he resolves to take the job in Virgina he’s been offered so he can stay with Tansy. The stinger is that Kemp has been pretending to be Rick and is also the man who’s been offering Willum the job in Virginia. The whole charade was arranged by Axel as an elaborate way to get Willum to stand up for himself, which also fulfills Tansy’s challenge to have Axel perform an anonymous favor.
CHARACTERS
Willum – Adult
Tansy – Adult
Axel – Adult
Ticky Waldgrave – Adult, “The last time Mr. Waldgrave smiled was forty-seven years ago, and then it was gas”
Clelia Waldgrave – Adult, Tasteful, Patient
Thor Waldgrave – 8 Years Old, a Monster of a Child
Rick/Kemp – Adult
POTETIAL MONOLOGUES
Willum technically has a monologue where he’s explaining who Rick Steadman is to him and how the man saved his life but that’s all it is. It’s not a particularly dynamic monologue so I don’t recommend it for auditions. The same is true for Willum’s recap of the two weeks that get skipped between Act I and Act II, but I will say that if you’re determined to do one of the two, the latter one is better. His best by far though, is when he’s finally telling Rick off, especially if you include the hilarious line that Rick didn’t hear a word Willum says.
PERSONAL THOUGHTS
So, I almost didn’t finish reading the play the first time I picked it up. As you can see in the trigger warning there’s pedophilia mentioned. The specific instance is Rick talking about a girl he proposed to at an elementary school. She was eight and he was thirty and her parents ran him out of town. It’s played as a joke to show just how out of touch Rick is and how boggled down the other characters are with being polite. Regardless, for me the play should’ve stopped right there because there are some lines you just don’t cross, but apparently it was fair game in 1981. Still the play is performed fairly regularly. In fact Milwaukee REP does it every 12 years and in 2019 Willum was played by a non-white actor while Axel was played as a gay character. Still, I pushed through and finished the play for the reveal that it was a farce within a farce. I still don’t care for the joke, but it’s just bearable with the understanding that even in the world of the play it didn’t happen.
One thing that is worth talking about is Rick’s traits that play up his nerd status. He misses or misinterprets nearly every social cue, eats strange food in an odd manner, talks in a decidedly strange voice, and has interests that are perceived as boring. The exact words aren’t used of course, but most, if not all of Rick’s nerdy quirks are also autistic traits. It’s something that should be considered. As of Sept, 17th, 2021 there’s a free PDF of the play available through Jocular Theatre.
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