Featured Playwright
June 2022
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GENERAL
Leonard has written in various genres.Besides creating plays, he’s enjoyed producing, and all aspects of theater. His work entertains but also, stimulates and inspires one’s sociological, psychological, and political consciences, and through these one’s spirituality.
He was Development Director at Eclectic Theater and artistic director at the Pocket Theater until each closed, also a TPS reviewer / rater for local plays. Leonard has written about three dozen full length plays, and many more one act plays. Some have won prizes. Ten full length plays have been produced and many one acts.
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OWNERS
SYNOPSIS
Two young women confide or deny their interest in their genealogy, with the inferred emphasis on the role played by their ancestors in the horror, guilt, and embarrassment of slavery.
CHARACTERS
Beverly - female African American 20’s Annette- female 20’s, white presenting
Scene 1
(Beverly and Annette are sitting in the cafeteria, their lunches in front of them.)
BEVERLY
Okay. You’ve noticed that I’m nervous.
ANNETTE
Nervous in the cafeteria. The macaroni and cheese is good today.
BEVERLY
Don’t deny it. You’ve noticed how upset I am and you’ve even sort of mentioned it.
ANNETTE
Sorry, did I? I didn’t mean to. I glanced over awkwardly by mistake.
BEVERLY
Yes, when you glanced over in that awkward way, you mentioned it.
ANNETTE
That awkward way? I’m sorry. Really.
BEVERLY
There’s nothing to apologize about. But you did.
ANNETTE
I’m just saying that if you need someone to talk to, I’m here.
BEVERLY
I’m talking. You know that woman in accounting? The very tall woman, always wears goofy outfits.
ANNETTE
Oh. Maybe
BEVERLY
She did it. Everyone is doing it.
ANNETTE
She did what?
BEVERLY
Her genealogy. You know? She went to my fantastic grand ancestry dot com or something like that and plunked in her credit card numbers and sent them her saliva in the vial they provided and did her genealogy. A tall woman like that, you think, probably has a lot of genealogy.
ANNETTE
She did her genealogy. Had it done anyway. So?
BEVERLY
So now she’s bragging to everyone that she descended from an African Prince.
ANNETTE
I think they always tell you that just to make sure you feel you got your money’s worth.
BEVERLY
Come on.
ANNETTE
Who’s to know? How do you check on something like that?
BEVERLY
And, she’s bragging big about this next piece, she’s five percent Apache. All of a sudden she’s strutting around with a strange rhythm to her walk as if everyone’s going to be afraid she might curse them out in some incomprehensible language and then scalp them. She’s so proud.
ANNETTE
She needed it, that extra proud pump of air to inflate her a little. She’s always been a little wimpy for such a tall woman. But I’ve met tall women before who were wimpy. I wish I were taller. Anyway, this web site, my genealogical ancestry dot dot dot com seems to have worked. She got pumped up, got her money’s worth.
BEVERLY
Well?
ANNETTE
Well what?
BEVERLY
Well, I need it too, that little pump of air. Don’t you feel sometimes that...
ANNETTE
Oh, no. Who’d have thought it? You seem like such a nice person. Just joking. I love you. Well, you can go on line any time and get it if you want. Oh, oh. You already did, didn’t you?
BEVERLY
I did.
ANNETTE
And it didn’t work out all that well? Did it?
BEVERLY
Some of it was fine. You know when you go back two parents, four grandparents, eight great grand parents, it would seem if you go back far enough, you think, you’re related to everybody.
ANNETTE
Sort of, seems you’d at least be related to everybody in that place or those places your various ancestors came from.
BEVERLY
That’s a cheating way to look at it, makes the whole thing seem a cheap trick, like you’re never getting your money’s worth.
ANNETTE
So, you don’t feel you got your money’s worth. Is that what’s going on?
BEVERLY
No, it was okay.
ANNETTE
But no African Prince.
BEVERLY
No, I got the African Prince.
ANNETTE
Cool! Congrats. The same African Prince that Accounting claims?
BEVERLY
Don’t call her “Accounting.” She ’s not Accounting. She has a name.
ANNETTE
But you don’t like her and I don’t know her name.
BEVERLY
I don’t dislike her that much. It’s just that she’s acting out a little too much, especially this whole bit about being an Apache African Princess.
ANNETTE
But you got the African Prince too, right? So what’s the problem? You got your money’s worth. By the way, what do you know about this African Prince you once were? Or her Prince?
BEVERLY
It costs another twenty-five dollars to find out more about the African Prince. I didn’t pay it; now I don’t know why. Can I taste your macaroni and cheese.It looks good, but do I want it?
ANNETTE
Sure. He’s probably a Prince of a really major kingdom, like with a big castle.
BEVERLY
They didn’t have that kind of big castle in Africa as they did in Europe.
ANNETTE
I know that, but he could have owned a lot of water buffalo or something. And it could be the same African Prince as the tall woman in accounting has as an ancestor, oh-oh, and now you’re some kind of third cousin of hers. Is that it?
BEVERLY
I hope not, but maybe.
ANNETTE
That African Prince really got around. Didn’t he?
BEVERLY
How would I know?
ANNETTE
Well, you’re like (twists her fingers) that close with him. What’s wrong? The mac and cheese is bad?
BEVERLY
No. It’s good, but the Prince was only half of the story, the good half.
ANNETTE
Yeah. What about the other side of the family? Oh -oh. We didn’t do so well there, did we?
BEVERLY
It’s not funny. You gotta remember why people do this genealogy crap.
ANNETTE
Because its new technology and we‘re told to adopt it. We have to adopt it. Embrace change, the new way.
BEVERLY
The new way to what, to look at oneself, with terror.
ANNETTE
Why with terror? Oh, you mean why would you embrace this genealogy crap.
BEVERLY
Why do we do it?
ANNETTE
You have to embrace what’s new, what’s now. But why did you do it? Because you don’t have enough self esteem. You’re thinking, if you’re not great shakes, you can still hope somewhere in your past there was someone who proves you’re still really an A 1 person.
BEVERLY
Look. I think I like you because you’re smart, but there’s such a thing as being too smart. I’m the one who put my credit card number and my saliva on line so I know why I did it and I don’t need you estimating my self-esteem. And how can you, my best friend, accuse me of having some crazy psychobabble construct like self esteem, low self-esteem no less?
ANNETTE
Sorry. But tell me. What did you find out? About the important citizens who worked so hard to get you here, well maybe not worked so hard but at least made love hard enough so you’re here.
BEVERLY
Disgusting, but you’re right. It’s really important for some people, me for example, to know there was someone in their past who worked hard to get me here, someone to look up to.
ANNETTE
I think that’s what I was trying to say. Your ancestors at least accomplished that. Didn’t they?
BEVERLY What?
ANNETTE
They got you here and I’m grateful for it.
BEVERLY
Shut up. But it’s true, anyway, for me anyway. Especially for an African-American like me because otherwise, with a past denied, all we are are the descendants of slaves, losers who everyone got the better of.
ANNETTE
That’s nonsense and you know it. Slaves were not losers. A slave was someone in the wrong place at the wrong time, taken prisoner, enslaved and all the rest, however ugly the story was. But they were tough enough to survive, at least those that’s survived were. They fought their way to a life with descendants like you. They did things, while others were pampered.
BEVERLY
I know that. You don’t have to tell me. Were you pampered?
ANNETTE
Damn no. And you know it.
BEVERLY
Still. You don’t have to tell me.
ANNETTE
Still what? Obviously I do have to tell you or you wouldn’t have done that.
BEVERLY
Done what?
ANNETTE
Gone fishing in the genetics of years gone by for a golden catch.
BEVERLY
Well, I did it, embraced the new technology and now I have to live with it.
ANNETTE
And something didn’t turn out the way you wanted it to. Let me guess. You wanted to be related to a heroic slave who fought in the revolutionary war and escaped north to have a career as a concert pianist and nuclear scientist. You’re not all that musical you know.
BEVERLY
I can carry a tune, but there weren’t nuclear scientists when slaves were escaping north.
ANNETTE
Or whatever the equivalent was. A frontier doctor maybe.
BEVERLY
(Pause.) You see? My ancestors in the south weren’t really slaves.
ANNETTE
Really. What were they?
BEVERLY
You know there were some slaves who made it out of slavery at some point and some even got to the point where they, you know, held slaves themselves. They were slave holders.
ANNETTE
Well those slave owners probably had children too. Oh no. Don’t tell me. That’s so cool!
BEVERLY
Not cool! How can you say it’s cool. They were slave owners! Owners! Can you believe that? How could they do that to me? Didn’t they have any moral foundation? Didn’t they realize how wrong slavery was? How ugly? How cruel? Don’t they see where that leaves me?
ANNETTE
You mean didn’t they see back then where this would leave you today, now. They aspired to live like the people above them lived. Listen, take it easy. I understand.
BEVERLY
How could you understand?
ANNETTE
I understand. Okay, okay, I did it too.
BEVERLY
I don’t think you do understand. Did what?
ANNETTE
My ancestral genealogical guilt trip. You wouldn’t believe it.
BEVERLY
The African Prince?
ANNETTE
Absolutely. I didn’t expect that., but there he was, handsome as all get up, although he wasn’t wearing that much clothing in the picture. I think it’s pretty hot in parts of Africa. Anyway, I got it, the macaroni and cheese of genealogies.
BEVERLY
That Prince really did get around. But you don’t even look black. You passing?
ANNETTE
Not that I know of but I must be, right?
BEVERLY
And now you’re embarrassed, diminished; feeling less of a person, now that you know you’re black, although only a little black.
ANNETTE
Not at all. I’m proud of that. You’re black, a little bit anyway. We’re good friends, now maybe closer friends. That’s fine. It’s the royalty I hate. Royalty is a form of slavery, oppression, rape, all that stuff. I hate it. I think it’s the same black prince as you and that lady in Accounting got.
BEVERLY
Not sure. I didn’t pay for the picture.
ANNETTE
It’s not a picture of him anyway, just a picture of what an African Prince might look like now, through someone’s modern eyes, when he’s posing, with a fancy colorful sash; and maybe African princes looked a little like that hundreds of years ago but not as handsome, because they were always getting scratched going through the jungle or something, and they didn’t eat that well or take care of themselves.
BEVERLY
Not all of Africa is a scratchy jungle.
ANNETTE
I know that.
BEVERLY
Anyway, you’re royalty and that’s cool.
ANNETTE
It’s not cool. I’m embarrassed that I’m descended from one of those royalty monsters, Prince Who Got Around, or whatever his name was, and I’m related to you, great, and that lady in Accounting.
BEVERLY
Not so great.
ANNETTE
Royalty rapes and abuses everyone in the kingdom and what about Queendoms. When do they come in? (Pause.) But there’s more. It gets worse.
BEVERLY
Or better. Depends how you look at it I suppose. What?
ANNETTE
I don’t want to tell, not really. The thing is, if you pay extra, they won’t tell you all the bad things they find out about your ancestors. I was too cheap, to pay extra. I should have.
BEVERLY
Tell. I promise not to say a word to anyone.
ANNETTE
Okay. Ship owners. Traders.
BEVERLY
Ship owners? What’s wrong with that? Smooth operators, good businessmen. Oh. I get it. Slave ship owners, slave traders. That’s wild. I wonder if they did any deals with my ancestors. I mean sold a slave or two to my great great ... whatever they were who had slaves.
ANNETTE
Nothing I hate more than slavery, selling people, bossing everybody around, taking from them everything you have no right to take, denying they made the contributions they made. I hate it and hate it and hate it and it turns out it’s me.
BEVERLY
Maybe we should go fishing in the future.
ANNETTE
Yeah. We gotta hope the people in our future will be good people, better than we are anyway.
BEVERLY
That’s something we can work for. It’s too late for the past.
ANNETTE
The technology’s not there yet. I don’t think; but it would be cool: to find out that someone in our future will do something good, something people admire. We better have kids fast.
BEVERLY
Why?
ANNETTE
So we have a future, the right kind of future.
BEVERLY
That lady in accounting doesn’t have kids. I don’t think.
ANNETTE
We can get ahead of her. (Pause.) But meanwhile, look. We gotta keep all this between the two of us. Not a word. Right? I owned slaves; you owned slave ships.
BEVERLY
Disgusting. We’re owners.
ANNETTE
But owners can own the truth too, can’t they?
BEVERLY
But really? You can pay a little more and get a better, more positive, report on your genealogy?
ANNETTE
Yeah, even owners can. Anyone can.The technology allows that.
BEVERLY
Not a word then, from either of us, except the truth.
END
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Thank you for reading this month’s featured playwright! Come back next month for more talented writers and featured works!
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