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Ebook has 1219 lines and 12876 words, and 25 pages

BIG LAKE

PLAYS BY

LYNN RIGGS

BIG LAKE. Tragedy in 2 Parts. Samuel French.

SUMP'N LIKE WINGS. Not published.

A LANTERN TO SEE BY. Not published.

BIG LAKE A Tragedy in Two Parts

FOREWORD BY BARRETT H. CLARK

SAMUEL FRENCH, LTD. :: :: :: LONDON

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.

PROGRAM OF THE FIRST PRODUCTION, APRIL 8, 1927

BIG LAKE

BY LYNN RIGGS

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

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

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

FOREWORD

In calling Mr. Riggs a poet 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.

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.

PART ONE

CHARACTERS

BIG LAKE

THE WOODS

SCENE 1

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

I c'n feel the dawn.

LLOYD

BETTY

I'm glad we come early.

LLOYD

I'm glad we come. Le's set down. 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

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? 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." 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

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

LLOYD

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