Love of Life
Mother
Anna Mae
Scene One
A plain living room in a small town house. It is a late winter morning in the 1950’s. Anita Mae Trolio lies on the
floor, watching television. Suddenly, she calls out.
ANITA MAE
Mother, I love watching these soap operas.
They’re so real. Mother, come in here and see Love of Life. Vanessa Sterling is
going out on a date. She is wearing a very flattering dress. A
lovely shade of gray. Wonder what it looks like in living color. Mother,
did you see those color television sets in LOOK Magazine? Wouldn't it be nice
to have one of those...we could see the real color of Vanessa's dress...I’ll
bet it’s like a dream come true…
Mother explodes from the kitchen, knife in one hand and a
large onion in the other.
MOTHER
Anita, you ding dong! Can you shut
your trap long enough for me to finish peeling these onions? Do you think fried
onion rings appear out of thin air? Grow on trees? For Lord's sake, you'd think
you were on the TV yourself, the way you blabber on so much. Now turn off that
crap and turn on WHAT’S MY LINE? Bennett Cerf is on all week. It’s a very
special week…
(swoons lightly)
ANITA MAE
Love of Life isn't over yet.
MOTHER
Either turn
on WHATS MY LINE? or get in your room and finish your
homework. Your grades could certainly be improved. I think this here red onion
is smarter than you. How many more years are you going to sit idle in the
fourth grade -
ANITA MAE
But Mother! I never get to see this
soap opera…
MOTHER
Not another word out of you. Oh Lord,
why did it have to snow so much today that the snow plow couldn't get up here
to Potpie Lake? Why did the schools have to close today, of all days? Of all
weeks! Bennett Cerf is on WHAT’S MY LINE. Change the channel, dammit!
(Anita gets up and changes the channel, we hear music laughter and
applause)
ANITA MAE
There…
(She collapses back to the floor)
MOTHER
Oh, good, I didn't miss too much of
WHAT’S MY LINE.
(Mother sits, jabbing the knife into the onion. She is quickly taken over
by the program.)
ANITA
Mother, which one is Bennett Certs? The dumpy guy or the bald guy?
MOTHER
His name is Cerf, not Certs, the one
on the left, wearing the bow tie. He is good looking, and funny, too. Imagine
on a date with him, laughing the night away
(Laughs girlishly)
Oh, Bennett. I wonder if he likes
fried onion rings. Do you, Bennett? Care to try MY fried onion rings?
ANITA
He's a funny looking guy, Mother. I
wonder if he has kids my age. Are they on television, too, Mother? His kids? Huh? Huh?
MOTHER
Anita, please, I am trying to enjoy
Bennett Cerf. If I knew that you were going to be this annoying today, I would
have shoveled you a route down Potpie Hill to school myself. Here, read the TV
Guide.
(She tosses the TV Guide at Anita)
Oooh, Helen Hayes is the special
guest. Helen, you are one glamorous woman.
Your hair all done up. When I meet Bennett Cerf, I will wear my hear like that. What's her line, I wonder…
(She reads from TV screen)
“I wear two wristwatches." My, that is a line, if I ever heard one. I wonder if Helen Hayes laughs at Bennett
Cerf. Why, she is looking him straight in the eye, and not laughing. If I were
there, I’d be on the floor laughing.
(Anita flips absently through the TV Guide.)
Oh, Bennett, take me away from Potpie
Lake and into your world of finery and sophistication. We could stroll down
Park Avenue, dine at Twenty One, and enjoy our sponsor-related parting gifts.
You could read to me from one of your books by the fountain at the Plaza.-
ANITA
Mother, look, there is going to be a
writing contest. A writing contest with prize money.
With the prize money, I could buy us one of those new color television sets.
MOTHER
What are you saying, you can't even
spell your own name, let alone win a writing contest. What could you possibly
write about anyway...Ooh, Bennett, if I wasn't married to that drip of a
husband, I would walk out of this miserable house, past Potpie Lake, down
Potpie Hill, rush to New York City and whisk you off that stage.
(Cuts onion)
ANITA
(snotty)
You can’t go nowhere,
Mother. The snow plow can’t get up here.
(reads aloud)
The Ford Motor Company is sponsoring
a Writing Contest. We have a Ford station wagon, and a Ford television set. I
have an advantage already. I could win. Seeing Vanessa Sterling’s dress would
be a dream no more.
MOTHER
It’s a Philco Ford television, if you
want to get specific. What a stupid dream, Anna Mae.
(Her eyes are getting watery)
Oh, Bennett, you make my eyes
water...tears of joy…you bring so much happiness to a simple woman…take me!
ANITA
What could I write about? Ford Cars? No,
everyone else will do that.
MOTHER
(Leans back in her chair)
A commercial. Thank heavens. I don't know how much
more Bennett Cerf my heart can take. Anita, run upstairs and get me a cool
washcloth. I’m feeling a little warm.
(Fans herself with the onion)
ANITA
Ford...Cars, Trucks...Ford City...Ford’s
Theater, nooo...
(Sounding it out)
Phi-lco
Ford, Ford Phil-co!
(She tries to snap her finger)
Mother, that's, it, I’m going to
write a play about Henry Ford’s brother Phil and his company and I am going to
win that contest. Color TV, here we come! Finally we will see what color dress
Vanessa Sterling is wearing on her date! My dream will come true
MOTHER
Sure you will, and I’m going to bear
Bennett Cerf's child. Forget the washcloth. Run in the kitchen and get a bowl
for these onion rings. What a nitwit you are, Anita. By the time you get a
color television set, Vanessa Sterling will be dead and buried. You ding dong. There
will never be a color television up here at Potpie Lake and long as you are
alive…get your silly head out of the clouds. Dreams never come true…Oh WHATS MY
LINE is back on…oh Bennett, take me away.
(She swoons in her chair)
ANITA
(at kitchen door)
Just you wait and see, mother, just
you wait. Some dreams do come true.
END OF SCENE
Scene Two
The same room. Forty years later. Mother is sitting in a wheelchair, wearing
her hat and coat.. The room is almost bare. After a
beat, ANITA comes down the stairs.
ANITA
Well mother, the upstairs is empty. Like you never lived here. Over fifty years of life, of
memories, all packed up and moved away.
MOTHER
I can’t believe it. Old Potpie Lake
is becoming a ski resort. And this old house is becoming a ski lodge. Wouldn’t
your father be surprised? He built this house for me, all those years ago. In the middle of nowhere. On Potpie Hill.
ANITA
What would really surprise him is how
much the developer paid you for the house and land. You’re rich, Mother!
MOTHER
Lot of good all this money is. What
can I do with it all at my age. I’ll just keep it right
where it is, in the savings and loan for you. You need it, much more than I do.
With both our names on the account, just in case…
ANITA
Mother…
MOTHER
That waitressing job isn’t going to
last forever. Not that there is anything wrong with it.
ANITA
Not now, Mother, we have to get you
down the hill. What a day for it to snow so hard. I should have put chains on
my tires. I really should save up for a set of snow tires.
MOTHER
Those few occasions that I am down
the hill, in town, and the senior ride bus drives past your restaurant, I say
to the other people in the bus. “That’s
where my daughter, Anita Mae, works. She has been waiting tables there longer
than any other waitress.” It brings a tear to my eye.
ANITA
I bet it does.
(Looks around room)
It still looks the same, the same
rug, and the same curtains.
(Touches wall)
They’re going to have to do a good
bit of plastering to get these walls in shape, look at this hole behind where
the TV used to be.
MOTHER
The TV was the only thing that could cover
up that hole, it was so big. Why just last summer, I could hear a few mice in
that hole. I had to turn the TV up to drown them out.
ANITA
(Goes over to hole in wall)
I’m sure it’s too cold for mice to live
in there. .They must have gone to the basement. By the
furnace. They’ll be black as soot.
(Looks in hole)
Don’t see a nest…
(Sticks hand in)
Can’t feel nothing…what the…what
this?
(She pulls out a faded old envelope)
MOTHER
Uh, we should be going, dear, it’s
going to take a while to get my chair down that slippery hill.
ANITA
Dear?
(Brushes off envelope)
What? What the...
(reads envelope)
The Ford Motor
Company, Writing Contest, Dearborn, Michigan. This envelope is over forty years
old!
(Rips open envelope)
It’s my submission for that writing
contest! The contest I was sure to win!
MOTHER
Oops…
ANITA
Mother you were supposed to mail this
for me, forty years ago! How could you do that? You ruined my life?
MOTHER
I ruined your life? I think you did a
good job of ruining it all by yourself. Dropping out of high
school, marching in those silly protests, having a baby that you had to give up
because the father walked out on you, never to come back. I was the disgrace
of Potpie Hill and beyond!
ANITA
I could have won that contest, Mother,
and become a successful famous writer. I could have even been on What’s My Line. With Bennett Cerf! Those silly dreams of
yours, Mother. He would have taken one look at you and run the other way! If he
didn’t, he was the dumbest man on TV!
MOTHER
How dare you speak of the dead like that?
I do not have to take this, Anna Mae Trolio. I don’t need you now, or will in the future. I
can very well get don Potpie Hill on my own, and soon after I will go to the
savings and loan and take your name off my savings account. You had better
hurry back to work, you’ll need those tips!
(She angrily rolls off)
ANITA
I don’t need you either…
(She unfolds the letter and reads around,, as if
she is i front of the panel of judges)
Ahem…
Philip Ford, by Anna Mae Trolio, Age 12
We all know about the famous Henry
Ford, who invented the automobile, but very little is known about his twin
brother, Philip Ford.
Henry and Phil were born at about the
same time, in Michigan, on a weekend, which was good because their mother had
the day off from the factory that she worked at. Both boys were very smart.
Henry liked to play with screwdrivers and wrenches and gasoline and Phil
enjoyed dressing up his older sisters dolls and recreating scenes from famous
books, like Gone With The Wind , Scarlet Letter and The Bible.
One day, while playing with his sisters
dolls, Phil said to his mother, “Mother, I wish there was a way to let
everyone in town see me playing with my sisters dolls. “ His mother, who
already knew what the rest of the town thought of Phil playing with his sisters
dolls, replied. “Phil, you could sit in the town square and play with your
sisters dolls and everyone in town could watch.”
“Mother,” Phil scoffed, “I was
thinking more of something like a teletype that could transmit moving images
through some type of electrical wire from a box containing an assemblage of
vacuum tubes to another similar device. I would then need to form a corporation
to manufacture and distribute this device, and a production company to create
entertainment to be broadcast to the town with these devices.”
His Mother thought that playing in
the town square was a better idea. “The sunlight will be good for a big strong
boy like you.”
Philip insisted on his idea. “I’ll
call the company the Phil Ford Company, or Philco Ford. I’ll be famous.”
His mother was not amused. “Philip
Ford, go out to the town square, and play with your sisters’ dolls!”
So Phil gathered up his sisters
dolls, walked out the front door and headed towards the town square.
As he approached the square, he
stepped off the curb into the street, only to be run down by his brother,
Henry, in his new invention, the Model T.
Phil spent the rest of his life
bedridden, with only his sister’s dolls to keep him company.
The End
(She bows uncomfortably, and then laughs a bit…)
Well, that was just…awful! What on
earth was I thinking?
(Laughs)
Maybe mother was right not to send
this in. I would have been the laughing stock of…but the envelope was sealed.
.Been sealed for all these years, which means she never read this…
(Goes to door)
Mother? Don’t you try to get down the hill
alone, wait for me. I’ll be right out!
MOTHER (Off)
I can manage fine on my own…ahhhhh…helppp!!!
(We hear a loud crash)
ANITA
(Looks out open door)
Mother? Mother?
Well that must have hurt. She’s not moving. Not one bit. Well, Mother, I guess
you won’t be making it to the savings and loan after all. Tell Bennett Cerf I said hello.
(She steps out the door and closes it behind her.)
End of Play