Better Days - a theatrical journey through the Great Depression.
Synopsis and Script Sample
by Gillian Chadsey
Better Days was developed collaboratively with musicians, actors, and visual artists. Using primary and secondary source materials - transcripts, photographs, recordings and personal interviews we developed this piece through a year of workshops. Better Days was produced at the San Francisco Exit Theater 2001 for which it won a Bay Area Critics Circle Award for Best New Original Script. The 2nd rewrite was completed at The Field, NYC in Fall 2002.
Better Days is a journey through the Great Depression in the search for hope. Adapted from transcripts collected by the Federal Writer's Project, and incorporating blues lyrics, journals, letters, literature and interviews Better Days follows the lives of two families: the Tillers, who lose their farm to crop failure and the dust storms of the 1920’s and the Butlers whose lives in the big city, unravel with the crash of 1929. These characters' fractured lives emerge from a series of scenes - a montage of monologues and dialogue, connected through movement and traditional folk music.
The Tillers send their oldest daughter, Harvest, off to find work in the fields of the west and send money home. Chase Butler, a young man from an affluent family, runs away from the big city to see America's vast, wide-open spaces before going to college. Harvest and Chase’s journeys are illuminated and amplified through the lives of others: a flapper at a marathon dance contest, a young family traveling the railroads, the jackrabbit wars, a carnival barker selling his wares on a pecan farm, a philosophizing apple seller, and a lunchroom orchestra. Chase and Harvest eventually meet on a Pullman railway car and journey together across the expanse of the American Frontier teaching each other the difference between surviving and living.
Better Days is a play for 7 actors portraying the 28 characters through a demanding physical score, self-generated percussion, and singing. Rather than a linear narrative, the characters' lives emerge through rallies and auctions played right to the audience to naturalism, silent film, and musical spectacle.
"SCENE 16: Ketchup"
A Train Whistle. Ensemble enters with chairs. Each sits with utensils and plates creating a percussive rhythm that underlines the text.
V.O.
“My advise to all everywhere is not to come to Chicago. There are not enough jobs here to go around and it is very much better for all to remain in their own homes with their own friends and with those who can help them in their time of trouble and distress.”
CATE
“Look here John, if you think I’m going to ride all the way home and nothing to eat your mighty mistaken.”
JOHN
“Sure, my dear, I don’t want you to go hungry” To WAITRESS, ”I’ll have a hamburger sandwich.”
CATE
“I don’t like hamburgers.”
LITTLE GIRL
Taking the napkin off her lap, “You must pay the rent.”
MAE
“I can give you a plate lunch for 15 cents. Green beans, creamed potatoes and carrots with stew beef or pork chop. Either one you prefer.”
LITTLE GIRL
“I can’t pay the rent.”
A bell. CHASE enters.
CHASE
“Excuse me, I saw the sign in the window. Dishwasher wanted.”
LITTLE GIRL
“I can’t pay the rent.”
MAE
“Have you a college education, son?”
CHASE shakes his head.
MAE
“Sorry only college graduates.”
LITTLE GIRL
“You must pay the rent.”
CATE
“I don’t like carrots and I won’t eat them.”
MAE
“I can leave them off.”
LITTLE GIRL
“I can’t pay the rent.”
CATE
“And me pay for them?”
CHASE
“How much for a cup of coffee?”
LITTLE GIRL
“I’ll pay the rent.”
MAE
“Five cents.”
CHASE checks his pockets.
CATE
“Oh no, well I don’t want such a dinner. I got plenty of them things at home, tatters and beans.”
CHASE sits at the counter. Bell. HARVEST enters.
LITTLE GIRL
“My hero.”
CATE
“Could I have some potted ham in a saucer with some crackers?”
JOHN
“Surely, you ain’t going to a cafe and eat potted ham.”
CATE
“I’m going to eat what I want.”
HARVEST sits at the counter beside CHASE.
JOHN
“Of course dear, its you and not me.”
MAE
“You know some customers sure try to try your patience. Think about going to a lunch room where they have a variety of things to choose from and ordering potted ham.”
CHASE
“How much for this roll here?”
MAE
“5 cents.”
HARVEST
“Can I order?”
CHASE
“I’ll take a cup of coffee and a glass of water.”
MAE
“And you?”
HARVEST
“Same. Please.”
CHASE
“Thank you.”
MAE rolls her eyes and sets down to glasses of water. Walks down stage to turn on radio. HARVEST takes a bottle of ketchup off the counter and pours it into her glass. Mixes in a few packages of oyster crackers. CHASE watches her as she eats.
RADIO JINGLE
“Every woman can add magic to her cooking skill with Heinz Tomato Ketchup. It gives zestful taste and tang to favorite sauces and gravies. It’s spicy appetizing flavor makes humble stew and old fashioned hash truly delicious dishes. And men relish their steaks and chops far more when a bottle of ketchup is at their elbow. Made from the most luscious Heinz-bred tomatoes you ever tasted - seasoned by experts with the Orient’s choice spices - and bottled piping hot on picking day, it’s marvelous flavor is famous through out the world... keep it handy when you cook. Bring it to the table daily.”
Harvest pulls out a nickel and drops it on the counter and exits.
CHASE
“Hey, fella. Hey??!”, he runs after HARVEST.