PLAY #10: THE FARM PLAY or Desire Under the Eves





Scene:  A stern barnyard with a farmhouse nearby.
There are three characters in the play: Bo-Peep, a Sheepstress, Miss Seed, a housekeeper, and Rib Tickler, a dissolute farmer.

Bo-Peep:  I tend my sheep in the sunny meadow.  I think of little else but their comfort.

Rib Tickler:  Horses asses, pigs’ pizzles, bull testicles, the horns of goats.

Miss Seed (whacking the dinner triangle):  Time for your prayers, Rib.

Bo-Peep:  I do not go in for prayers for if I did, my flock would wander.  And besides, Mister Tickler would stare at my belly from over his psalter.

Rib Tickler (intoning the words): Pizzles, horns, dark under the covers.

Bo Peep (to all the world):  There is joy in the hills.  (to herself) I see him looking at my baby hands, at my lacy fingers and at my cross-tied bonnet.

Miss Seed: Go back now to work, Rib.

Rib Tickler:  The girl cares for her sheep.  I care only for her pincushion body.

Miss Seed:  I am hoping for rain. It’s been too long dry

Bo Peep and Rib Tickler leave the stage in opposite directions.  Miss Seed remains, gazing up at the cloudless sky.

(curtain)