OCR Quality Check

 

"NIGHT,
MOTHER

sy MARSHA NORMAN

    
 

DRAMATISTS
PLAY SERVICE
INC.


 

CHARACTERS

JESSIE CATES — Jessie is in her late thirties or early forties,
pale and vaguely unsteady, physically. It is only in
the last year that Jessie has gained control of her
mind and body, and tonight, she is determined to
hold onto that control. She wears pants and a long
black sweater with deep pockets one of which con-
tains a notepad and there may be a pencil behind her
ear of a pen clipped to one of the pockets of the
sweater.

As a tule, Jessie doesn’t feel much like talking,
Other people have rarely found her quirky sense of
humor amusing. She has a peaceful energy on this
night, a sense of purpose, but is clearly aware of the
time passing moment by moment. Oddly enough,
Jessie has never been as communicative or as en-
joyable as she is on this evening, but we must know
she has not always been this way. There is a familiari-
ty between these two women that comes from having
lived together for a long time. There is a shorthand
to the talk and a sense of routine comfort to the way
they relate to each other physically. Naturally, there
ate also routine aggravations.


‘snitch reer abe ior ty teen tr AP MSRM LEN CDR RL NN ESR ASCO AOS OO ASC

 

Loretta gave us? Beach towel, that’s the name of it. You want
it? (Mama shakes her head No.)

MAMA. What have you been doing in there?

JESSIE. And a big piece of plastic like a rubber sheet or
something. Garbage bags would do if there’s enough.
MAMA. Don’t go making a big mess, Jessie. It’s eight
o'clock already.

JESSIE. Maybe an old blanket ot towels we got in a soap box
sometime?

MAMA. I said don’t make a mess. Your hair is black
enough, hon.

JESSIE. (Continues to search the kitchen cabinets, finding
two or three more towels to add to her stack.) \t's not for my
hair, Mama. What about some old pillows anywhere or a
foam cushion out of a yard chait would be real good.
MAMA. You haven't forgot what night it is, have you?
(Holding up her fingernails.) They're all chipped, see? P've
been waiting all week, Jess. It’s Saturday night, sugar.
JESSIE. I know. I got it on the schedule.

MAMA. (Crossing to the living room.) You want me to wash
‘em now or are you making your mess first? (Looking at the
snowball.) We're out of these. Did I say that already?
JESSIE. There’s more coming tomorrow. I ordered you a
whole case.

MAMA. (Checking the TV Guide.) A whole case will go
stale, Jessie.

JESSIE. They can go in the freezer til you're ready for them.
Where’s Daddy’s gun?

MAMA. In the attic.

JESSIE. Where in the attic? I looked your whole nap and
couldn’t find it anywhere.

MAMA. One of his shoeboxes, I think.

JESSIE. Full of shoes. I looked already.

MAMA. Well, you didn’t look good enough, then. There’s
that box from the ones he wore to the hospital. When he

10


 

JESSIE. You guess what? What’s she ever said? She must’ve
given you some reason.

MAMA. Your hands are cold.

JESSIE. What difference does that make?

MAMA. Like a corpse, she says, and I’m gonna be one soon
enough as it is.

JESSIE. That's crazy.

MAMA. That’s Agnes. “Jessie’s shook the hand of death and
I can’t take the chance it’s catching, Thelma, so I ain’t comin’
over and you can understand or not, but I ain’t comin. I'll
come up the driveway, but that’s as far as I go.”

JESSIE. (Laughing, relieved.) I thought she didn’t like me!
She’s scared of me! How about that! Scared of me.
MAMA. I could make her come over here, Jessie. I could call
her up right now and she could bring the birds and come
visit. I didn’t know you ever thought about her at all. I'll tell
her she just has to come and she’ll come all right. She owes
me one.

JESSIE. No, that’s all right. I just wondered about it. When
I’m in the hospital, does she come over here?

MAMA. Her kitchen is just a tiny thing. When she comes
over here, she feels like . . . (Toning it down a little.) Well,
we all like a change of scene, don’t we?’

JESSIE. (Playing along.) Sure we do. Plus there’s no birds
diving around.

MAMA. I hate those birds. She says I don’t understand
them. What's there to understand about birds?

JESSIE. Why Agnes likes them, for one thing. Why they stay
with her when they could be outside with the other birds.
How much water they need. What their singing means. How
they fly. What they think Agnes is.

MAMA. Why do you have to know so much about things,
Jessie? There's just not that much fo things that I could ever
see.

JESSIE. That you could ever ¢e//, you mean. You didn’t have
to lie to me about Agnes.

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MAMA. How can I let you go?

JESSIE. You can because you have to. It’s what you've always
done.

MAMA. You are my child!

JESSIE. I am what became of your child. (Mama cannot
answer.) 1 found an old baby picture of me. And it was
somebody else, not me. It was somebody pink and fat who
never heard of sick or lonely, somebody who cried and got
fed, and reached up and got held and kicked but didn’t hurt
anybody, and slept whenever she wanted to, just by closing
her eyes. Somebody who mainly just laid there and laughed
at the colors waving around over her head and chewed on a
polka-dot whale and woke up knowing some new trick nearly
every day and rolled over and drooled ‘on the sheet and felt
your hand pulling my quilt back up over me. That's who I
started out and this is who is left: (There ts 20 self-pity here.)
That’s what this is about. It’s somebody I lost, all right, it’s
my own self. Who I never was. Or who I tried to be and never
got there. Somebody I waited for who never came. And never
will. So, see, it doesn’t much matter what else happens in the
world or in this house, even. I’m what was worth waiting for
and I didn’t make it. Me . . . who might have made a dif-
ference to me. . . I’m not going to show up, so there’s no
reason to stay, except to keep you company, and
that’s . . . not reason enough because I’m not . . . very good
company. (A pause.) Am I.

MAMA. (Knowing she must tell the truth.) No. And neither
am I.

JESSIE. I had this strange little thought, well, maybe it’s not
so strange. Anyway, after Christmas, after I decided to do
this, | would wonder, sometimes, what might keep me here,
what might be worth staying for, and you know what it was?
It was maybe if there was something I really liked, like maybe
if I really liked rice pudding or cornflakes for breakfast ot
something, that riight be tnough. "  ”

MAMA. Rice pudding’is good.“ «

50


 

Dial telephone

Memoboard

Phone book (thin)

Assorted terra cotta bowls

Assorted wicker baskets

Assorted small appliances

Soda syphon

Honey beat

Assotted plastic bowls

Wooden ttay

Knife rack es
Napkin holder (w/ folded napkins)
Pitcher & bow! °
Assorted dish towels

Sugar bow! w/spoon

Cannister set

Cookie jar

Kitchen table w/2 chairs

Loud wind up clock

Hanging lamp over kitchen table
Rubbermaid sink stop

Magic marker

Address book

Wicker basket w/6”knitting and pre-measured 6” cloth tape
and knitting equipment

Ashtray

Reftigerator: (main compartment)
Assorted jats, cans, cartons & Tupperware
Milk
Catsup
Pickles
Cream cheese (used & spoiled)
Sour cream (used & spoiled)
Cottage cheese (used & spoiled)

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