BIG LAKE

A Tragedy in
Two Parts

PLAYS BY

LYNN RIGGS

Knives from Syria. Comedy in 1 act. In One-Act Plays for Stage and Study, 3rd Series. Samuel French.

Big Lake. Tragedy in 2 Parts. Samuel French.

Sump’n Like Wings. Not published.

A Lantern To See By. Not published.

HELEN COBURN AS “BETTY”

BIG LAKE
A Tragedy in Two Parts

As produced by the American
Laboratory Theater, New York City
By
LYNN RIGGS

FOREWORD BY
BARRETT H. CLARK

SAMUEL FRENCH

Incorporated 1898

T. R. Edwards, Managing Director

NEW YORK CITY :: ::MCMXXVII

SAMUEL FRENCH, Ltd. :::: :: London

All Rights Reserved
Copyright, 1927, by Lynn Riggs
Copyright, 1927, by Samuel French

This play is fully protected by copyright. All acting rights, both professional and amateur, are reserved in the United States, the British Empire, including the Dominion of Canada, and all countries of the Copyright Union, by the owner. Application for the right of performing this play or of reading it in public should be made to Samuel French, 25 West 45th Street, New York City.

PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY
QUINN & BODEN COMPANY, INC.
RAHWAY, N. J.

PROGRAM OF THE FIRST PRODUCTION, APRIL 8, 1927

The American Laboratory Theater (New York)
presents

BIG LAKE

By Lynn Riggs

Staged by George Auerbach

Country School Boys and Girls
Messrs. Kradoska, Hayes, Parsons, Fielding,
Williams, Curtis.
Misses Schmidt, Seymour, Titsworth, Johnson,
Squire, Smith.

Part 1—The Woods
Scene 1—The Woods
Scene 2—The Cabin

Intermission

Part 2—The Lake
Scene 1—A Cleared Place
Scene 2—The Lake

The action takes place in Indian Territory, now Oklahoma, in the
year 1906
Settings designed by Lewis Barrington
Costumes designed by Gertrude Brows
Sets and costumes executed by the Laboratory Theater Workshop
Property Man Morton Brown

The Director and Actors are deeply grateful to Mme. Maria Ouspenskaya for the invaluable assistance she gave in the preparation of this production.

FOREWORD

This play came to us late in the season of 1926-1927. Produced by George Auerbach at the American Laboratory Theater in New York, it attracted some attention during April and May, and survived without serious damage the ordeal of criticism by several of the front-line reviewers. With two or three exceptions, however, the notices showed little understanding of what Mr. Riggs was trying to do.

That is one reason why I am presuming to add these few words to the dramatist’s text. Big Lake is that rarest of things, a poetic drama that is at once poetry and drama. To one of his later plays Mr. Riggs has given the title Sump’n Like Wings, and I can think of no words that so accurately describe what I felt when, over a year ago, I read the manuscript of Big Lake. There is a winged lightness in the words that the poet puts into the mouths of his young people, an ecstasy born of the sheer joy of being alive. How poor a thing is the mere “observation” of a clever playwright beside the deeper, more incisive and highly intuitive scenes in Big Lake!

In calling Mr. Riggs a poet (I refer here not to his formal verse-making, but to his plays) I am not forgetting that poetry in the theater is a different thing from the poetry you read in a book: Mr. Riggs’ plays are stage pieces; the poetry in them is never a matter of mere words, but an integral part of the speeches uttered and the gestures made by the characters, directing each scene and permeating the whole. It lies first in the writer’s conception of a harmonic entity, and floods it from beginning to end.

Mr. Riggs’ three full-length plays are the work of a young man who is still close enough to his youth to remember and understand those fleeting moments of exaltation and depression that constitute the glory and the tragedy of adolescence. In Big Lake, more especially than in A Lantern To See By and Sump’n Like Wings, Mr. Riggs has been able on occasion to look at the world about him through the eyes of a child: can you not feel in the second scene of the first act something of the wonder and terror of the more wildly romantic stories of the Brothers Grimm?

If this Foreword were a study, I should go on to point out how Lynn Riggs has taken the folk-material and the idiom of his native district and skillfully made of them a rich medium of expression, and explain how, with only the slightest technical manipulation, he has reproduced the subtle rhythms of everyday speech. Then I should also have to take him to task for an occasional awkwardness in the management of his plots. But my purpose here is not to criticize: it is to point out to you a new American dramatist, whose work is permeated by an odd and strangely haunting beauty.

Barrett H. Clark.

August, 1927.

PART ONE

CHARACTERS

BIG LAKE

THE WOODS

Scene 1

(The woods adjoining the Big Lake, near Verdigree Switch, Indian Territory, 1906. It is Spring. Vines creep on the trees just putting out their green. The ground is soft with dead leaves, among which grow the earliest flowers. A fallen log lies in a tangle of last year’s briars. It is the grayness of morning. Color is beginning to show in the East, where the lake lies, and as the light grows the lake shines through the leaves. Lloyd and Betty come from the left, softly over the matted earth. They are very young. Lloyd is tall, dark; he has black hair; his face is sensitive; he wears rough shoes, dark trousers, and a pale blue shirt. Betty’s hair is yellow. She has let it down. It frames her white, delicate face. Her dress is a coarse dark slip.)

Lloyd

It’s been s’ gray.

Betty

It’s gettin’ lighter.

Lloyd

It’s been s’ gray. But now it’s gettin’ lighter and lighter—even to clear back here in the woods.

Betty (softly)

I c’n feel the dawn.

Lloyd

I c’n feel the dawn. I c’n see the dawn! Look! Through the trees! Whur the lake’s at! The Big Lake’s a-shinin’ like a tub full o’ soap-suds! I’m glad we come. Ain’t you, Betty?

Betty

I’m glad we come early.

Lloyd

I’m glad we come. (They stand a moment breathless at the beauty before them.) Le’s set down. (They sit at left.) The horse is tied up. Grub’s safe in the buggy. Miss Meredith ’n’ the rest of ’em won’t be here fer a long time yit.

Betty

They’ll be here, though.

Lloyd

Yeow, but it’ll be a long time. Won’t Miss Meredith be supprised to find us here ahead of everbody? It was my idee. She’ll think we’re purty smart.

Betty

How many’s comin’?

Lloyd

The whole class, I guess—’cept the Davis boy. It’ll be a nice day to picnic, won’t it? (He rises and goes away from her and looks out toward the Lake. Softly, then more and more ecstatic, like a prayer—) I alwys liked the Big Lake. I’ve come here many’s the time with Paw, when we’d went out to git some cattle. Miles and miles through the bilin’ heat, tongue clawin’ at yer mouth—a-eatin’ dust, mebbe we’d go. Dust bilin’ up and blindin’ you—a-gettin’ in yer mouth and eyes till you thought you couldn’t stand it. An’ then the dark woods here—briars a-clawin’ at yer legs and hands, rattlers a-hidin’ under the leaves mebbe, logs t’ make yer horses jump, and branches ye’d have t’ dodge. Then the lake—flowin’ wide out—plum over almost out o’ sight—a-settin’ thar in the sun like sump’n you never hoped t’ see! I’d alwys want t’ git off my horse and go down to the edge of it—and tech it—and look at it—a long time. But Paw ud alwys say, “Set thar a-gawkin’, you kid. We got to git back to the sawmill ’fore 2 o’clock,” or he’d say, “’Tother end o’ the Lake is dried up purty good, son. We could cross over thar ’stid o’ goin’ round by the section line.” (After a moment.) I ain’t never seen it like this, though. It’s purtier’n I ever seen it. And we c’n look at it ’s long’s we want to. And we c’n go out on it—in a boat—if they is a boat—

Betty (timidly)

Why don’t you come over here and set down by me?

Lloyd

Why don’t you come over here and look at the lake?

Betty

I c’n see it good—from here.

Lloyd

Come on over the big log, and you c’n see it better.

Betty

No. I like it here better.

Lloyd (puzzled)

You’re funny. Set over thar then. I like you thar jist as well. You look purty good no matter whur you’re a-settin’. You set purty good. I like you settin’ thar with the vine leaves and the tree leaves behind you. You’ve got purtier and purtier, Betty.

Betty

Have I? You’re sweet to say it.

Lloyd

Why wouldn’t I say it?

Betty

No reason not to. I like to hear it.

Lloyd

Words git in the way some. I cain’t think t’ say much.

Betty

They’s no need t’ say much—

Lloyd

They is need to. Seems t’ me yore comin’ to Verdigree wuz like you’d come from some place besides down the river. It made me think of the Bible—sump’n about the angel that come down to roll away the stone—

Betty

You wuzn’t dead.

Lloyd

I uz asleep, I wuz. I uz young-asleep. I uz boy-asleep. I’m awake now. I’m a man. I’ve come to life.

Betty

You’d think I uz an angel—sproutin’ wings!

Lloyd

You’re better’n an angel—

Betty

I ain’t!

Lloyd

You air, too, to me. Better’n an angel! I’ll put this flower in yer hair—

Betty

No.

Lloyd

’S like a star.

Betty

No, no. Whur’d you git it at?

Lloyd (puzzled)

Why, here.

Betty (strangely)

Under the leaves. It growed up through the dead leaves. I don’t like it—

Lloyd

Why, Betty!

Betty

I cain’t stand them kind of flowers.

Lloyd

’S jist a flower. Growin’ in the woods.

Betty

In the dark woods. Lloyd—

Lloyd (puzzled)

Whut is it?

Betty

Lloyd, le’s go away frum here—

Lloyd

Whur’d you want to go to?

Betty

Out of here, out of these woods! (Pleading for him to understand.) Oh, you think I ain’t right. I cain’t expect you to know how I feel. They’s sump’n—I don’t know what it is— Please! It’s like the woods wuz waitin’—

Lloyd

Like a animal.

Betty

To git us. To git us! I’m afeard. They’s things growin’ here—an’ fightin’. They’s things crawlin’ on the ground, under the ground—in the trees—everwhur! I’m afeard!

Lloyd

I’m afeard!

Betty

Lloyd!

Lloyd

I’m afeard, too! Le’s go—

Betty

Whur’ll we go to?

Lloyd

Out on the lake.

Betty

They’s no boat.

Lloyd

Futher down—they’s a cabin, I know, and a boat—mebbe. Come on—le’s go to it. (They start. Lloyd stops, shaking off his fear.) Aw, listen. Whut’s the matter with us? Runnin’ like rabbits. They ain’t nuthin’ to be skeered of. We’re jist cold, that’s all. That’s it. Drivin’ so long ’fore it got light has jist got us chilled to the bone.

Betty

I ain’t cold.

Lloyd

Y’air. Cold as ice. Ye’re tremblin’.

Betty

I’m afeard!

Lloyd

We’ll go the cabin, then. It’s safe thar.

Betty

And git the boat and go out on the lake?

Lloyd

We’ll git warm first.

Betty

No! No! Le’s not go to the cabin. Le’s go on the lake.

Lloyd

Why, Betty! I never seen you like this!

Betty

I never been like this. Come on, to the Lake—

Lloyd (patiently)

Now, Betty, to the cabin first. Why, you’re cold! They’ll be a fa’r a-burnin’ thar. I doan know who’s a-livin’ thar, but we’ll go up and knock, and ask t’ git warm. They’ll be up. Country folks git up early. And they’ll have a fa’r—a nice roarin’ warm fa’r in the fa’rplace fer us to git warm at. Won’t you like that?

Betty

Mebbe—

Lloyd

It’s the funniest kind o’ cabin you ever see. It’s a log cabin. I been in it a long time ago with Paw. It’s a nice log cabin. An’ they’ll have a fa’r.

Betty (reluctantly)

Well, I’ll go—if you think—

Lloyd

Frum the outside it looks jist like any log cabin. But when you open the door, and look in—whut do you see? Steps! Three steps a-goin’ down to the dirt floor. It’s part under the ground—

Betty

Oh! Like it growed up out o’ the ground—?

Lloyd

Yes, jist like that! Like it growed out o’ the ground!

Betty (with conviction)

It growed out o’ the ground. It growed out o’ the same ground the big woods growed out of! (She shudders.)

Lloyd

Yeow.

Betty

Le’s don’t go thar!

Lloyd

Jist long enough to git warm.

Betty

No, not that long!

Lloyd

And to ask ’em fer the boat—if they got a boat.

Betty (desperately)

Couldn’t we jist take the boat—’thout asking?

Lloyd

Betty! Course we couldn’t!

Betty

I don’t see why, I don’t see!

Lloyd (laughs)

We ain’t thieves.

Betty

I’d be one.

Lloyd

No, you wouldn’t. Come on.

Betty

To the Lake?

Lloyd

To the cabin first.

Betty

Lake!

Lloyd (firmly)

No, Betty, cabin! (They go out, right.)

Curtain

THE WOODS

Scene 2

(Interior of the cabin. At the back three steps descend from the planked door to the dirt floor of the cabin. Windows, curtained, are on either side of the door. They are so high up that only a tall man can see out. A wide fireplace made of stone rises from the floor at the right end of the room. In the left corner of the cabin, a wide double-deck bunk juts out. Crazy quilts cover both beds. A few chairs, a rough table (set for breakfast at right of steps) and utensils for cooking at the fireplace—complete the furnishings. A fire burns in the fireplace; coffee bubbles on a little iron stand on the hearth. It is dark and gloomy; no direct sunlight has ever reached this secret place.

Elly, a tall, dark woman of thirty-five, stands tensely by the corner of the bunk. Her face, even in her excitement, is brooding and restrained. Her thick black hair, parted in the middle, is done up in a knob at the back of her head. She is wearing a faded, predominantly purple, plaid dress—full-sleeved, full-skirted, pulled in at the waist. After a moment she goes swiftly to the fireplace, pokes the fire, then goes across to the window nearest the bunk, and with extraordinary agility and grace steps upon a chair under the window and looks out. She gets down, goes slowly toward the fireplace. In the center of the room she halts, wheels about and faces the door. It opens. A man comes in quickly, and closes the door as if shutting something out. He turns, facing her from the top of the steps. He is of medium height, brutal, crafty. His clothes are nondescript and unclean. His hair slants into his eyes.)

Elly

Butch! Thank God! I didn’t see ya— (She makes a step toward him.)

Butch (quickly)

Shet up!

Elly

Butch, w’at is it?

Butch (in a hoarse whisper)

Shet up, I tell you! Squawkin’ like a hen. You wanta git me killed? (In a low voice.) They follered me.

Elly

Tell me—w’at is it—?

Butch

I’ll show ’em! They won’t git me. I’ve got away frum better men ’n they are. They won’t git me alive—the lousy bums! I’d like to see ’em! They follered me. I been at the Switch. An’ when I started back I seen three men a-follerin’. They’ll come here. (He stops thoughtfully.) They ain’t got nuthin’ on me. They cain’t prove nuthin’— (In a hard, matter-of-fact voice.) They don’t know it’s me done it. They only got somebody’s word. They don’t know it, and they cain’t prove it. No one saw me—

Elly (with foreboding)

Butch, I knowed this ud come. I knowed it. You’ll git sent up. And it ain’t right. You ain’t done nuthin’ wrong. It’s jist a law. W’at the hell’s a law? W’at’s it good fer? Why’n’t it agin the law everwhur else to sell whiskey? Them men whur they have their corner saloons all polished up—a-makin’ it criminal to sell a man a drink—w’at’s right about it? (With scorn.) Oh, yes! I know. Pertectin’ the Indians! They don’t want the Indians to git all lit up like they do all the time—ever day, ever night, regular. (With disgust.) Hell! Indians! I ain’t saw two Indians since I come to Indian Territory. Now they’ll git you. I’ve knowed it. They’ll stick you fer sellin’ the stuff to the poor fools that’s too skeered, and too weak, and too damn big a cowards to go up to Kansas City or Joplin and bring in their own whiskey, like a man. They’ll send you to jail—the only man that’s got guts enough to do it. You’ll git ten year or more. W’at’ll I git? I’ll git off—that’s w’at I’ll git. I’ll git left here to rot!

Butch

Shet up! (He goes up the steps and listens intently. Then he comes down.) Let up on yer jail stuff. You’ll have me skeered. And I got to keep my senses. Listen t’ me. I been follered before. The last bunch o’ guys laid in wait close to the Holler whur the whiskey’s at. Did that stop me frum gettin’ the whiskey and gettin’ out with it? Did that stop me frum sellin’ it regler to Joe Hurd’s Curio Store at Claremont? I been follered lots o’ times and you know it. I been follered lots o’ times ’count o’ selling whiskey. It ain’t nuthin’ new to me. But this time I’m follered and it ain’t on the ’count o’ whiskey! They’s sump’n else....

Elly

Butch! You got to tell me! W’at is it, w’at’ve you done?

Butch

Easy, easy!

Elly

You wuz skeered! I never see you like that before. You’ve done sump’n. Tell me w’at it is. W’at’ve you done?

Butch

Lay off, take it easy....

Elly

Butch....

Butch

Christ’s sake! You’re a mad womern! Keep yer shirt on! Mebbe I ain’t done nuthin’. Mebbe I jist been foolin’ myself. Mebbe—for all I know, they ain’t nuthin’ to git excited about.

Elly (suddenly)

Butch! You got blood on yer coat! (She stands a moment, terrified.) You’re hurt! Why’n’t you tell me? Quick, lemme fix it—I didn’t know.

Butch

I ain’t hurt.

Elly

You’re bleedin’.

Butch

It ain’t my blood. (Elly draws back, her hand at her face, confused.) I killed a man.

Elly (sickened)

Oh! (With terrible conviction.) You’ll hang fer it, Butch Adams! Why’d you go and do it? Who wuz it?

Butch (begins in a hard voice, but becomes more and more excited.)

Jim Dory. He told on me fer sellin’ whiskey. He told the federal officers at Tulsy. I killed him. Stuck a knife in him and turned it around. That’s why I went out at midnight ... to lay fer him. I knowed he’d go to the play-party over t’ Binghams. I laid fer him in the big woods close to the sawmill here. He’d go that a-way home, I figgered. About three o’clock this mornin’ he come along in a buggy with one horse to it. I jumped out and grabbed the bridle. He lep’ out on me with a knife. I got a-hold of it. I stuck it through his ribs and turned it around. Then I got skeered. They might think I done it ... findin’ him so close t’ here. It wouldn’t do to find him so close. I picked him up and dumped him in the buggy and give the horse a crack with a stick. He started off in a run down the road. But not afore I’d saw Jim kinda raise up one of his hands to his face! He wuzn’t dead. I hadn’t made shore! He wuzn’t dead, and he’d tell on me! He’d tell some one ’fore he died, and I’d hang fer it! I thought mebbe I could ketch up and finish the job. But the horse run like mad, crashin’ through the bushes but keepin’ purty close to the road. I run and run after him—almost to the Switch. Then I seen some one come out of the store whur a light was burnin’, and grab the horse’s bridle. I seen him take Jim up and carry him in and shet the door. I run away then. I didn’t know if he wuz dead or not. If he wuzn’t, he’d tell on me! I wuz crazy—not knowin’ if he wuz dead or not. I come on to the woods. I couldn’t stand it not knowin’: I started back. When I got to the edge of the woods I seen three men comin’ up the road. I knowed one of ’em! It wuz the Shuruff. They musta wired to Claremont fer him. Jim ’d told on me! Elly! Whut’ll I do? They’ll git me! (Elly goes over to the fireplace, in her absorbed way, without speaking, and pours some water in a pan.) Elly! They’ll be here any minute! Fer God’s sake, say sump’n!

Elly

Yer breakfast’s ready.

Butch

Elly!...

Elly

Take off yer coat. (He does, like one in a daze.) Throw it under the bunk. (He does so.) Wash yer hands. (He moves toward the pan slowly and begins to wash his hands. She has gone to the table with the coffee pot and poured some coffee. He finishes washing and dries his hands on a towel.) Set down. (He moves toward the table.)

Butch

But, Elly....

Elly (imperiously)

Set down! And eat yer breakfast,—Mister Murderer! (He sits. Elly leans over the table.) Eat a plenty. Drink—here’s coffee. Salt pork, gravy, potaters—eat ’em! Enjoy yerself!

Butch (half rising)

Whut’re you meanin’! I hadn’t oughta done it? Whut’d you want me to do ... let him git away with it, let that dirty little coward sneak off to Tulsy and sick the officers onto me like bloodhounds ’n do nuthin’ about it? That ain’t my way! If some one does me dirt he gets his, you c’n count on it! I ain’t no Christian: I’m a man!

Elly (with infinite scorn)

You—

Butch

I’m a man. Let up!

Elly (goes away from him. Bitterly....)

You’re lower’n I thought you wuz. I never thought t’ be livin’ with a murderer. (He comes toward her.) Oh, I ain’t so good. I know. You don’t have t’ tell me. But I never thought t’ come t’ this. I thought I knowed w’at I uz gettin’ into when I went away with you. I knowed you uz a bootlegger. I didn’t keer. It’s clean. It’s right. But killin’ ... I stop at killin’! Why’d you go and do it? Why did you? Now they’ll come and take you. They’ll take you away from me!

Butch

Christ’s sake, shet up! They’d a-took me away fer bootleggin’.

Elly

No, they wouldn’ta! They couldn’t ’a’ proved it. But now they’ll take you. They’ll hang you fer murder. (She clings to him.) No, I won’t let ’em! They cain’t take you! I love you—I cain’t help it. ’N I won’t let ’em take you away frum me! I won’t let em! I’ll find a way! I will! They ain’t proved you done it ... you said no one seen you....

Butch

They got Jim’s word, I tell you....

Elly (calmer)

He’s dead. He cain’t talk now.

Butch

Sh—! I heerd sump’n! (Excitedly—drawing his pistol.) They won’t git me!...

Elly

Gimme that gun!

Butch

... Not’s long’s I’m alive!

Elly

Butch! Give it t’ me! I’m all right now. I ain’t never advised you wrong. I’ll git you outa this! Listen t’ me: you ain’t been outa the house, y’hear—not since yistiddy. Eat yer breakfast! (She goes to the window, steps on the chair, and looks out.) It’s only a man an’ womern....

Butch

It’s a blind!