West Moon Summary

West Moon by Al Pittman

Copyright and Publication

• Published by Breakwater, located at 100 Water Street, P.O. Box 2188, St. John's, NF, Canada, A1C 6E6.

• Grateful acknowledgment is given to The Canada Council for financial assistance.

• Cover image: "No Longer May Seagulls Cry At Their Ears" by Gerald Squires.

• Author's photo by Scott Jamieson.

• Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data:

  • Pittman, Al, 1940-

  • West moon : a play.

  • ISBN 1-55081-123-1

  • I. Title.

  • PS8531.I86W47 1995 C812'.54 C95-950232-7

• Copyright ©1995 Al Pittman

• Reprinted in 2008.

• All rights reserved; no reproduction allowed without the publisher's permission. Requests for photocopying, recording, etc., should be directed to the Canadian Reprography Collective.

Dedication

• Dedicated to Mary, who lived a lot of the life experiences depicted in the play.

Quote

• A quote from Dylan Thomas: "Dead men, naked, they shall be one with the man in the wind and the west moon."

Cast of Characters

• A Voice: Serves as a narrator, setting the scene and providing context.

• Jack Leonard:

  • Born: April 11, 1900

  • Died: September 2, 1955

  • Age: 55

• Raymond Dwyer:

  • Born: June 6, 1908

  • Died: October 13, 1960

  • Age: 52

• William Sullivan:

  • Born: May 2, 1880

  • Died: August 9, 1953

  • Age: 73

• Rose Anne Hepditch:

  • Born: June 23, 1872

  • Died: December 10, 1962

  • Age: 90

• Margaret Greene:

  • Born: November 9, 1925

  • Died: November 21, 1961

  • Age: 36

• Sheila Connors:

  • Born: July 19, 1940

  • Died: April 15, 1951

  • Age: 10

• Edward S. Shea:

  • Born: September 19, 1905

  • Died: April 5, 1965

  • Age: 59

• Bridget Sullivan:

  • Born: May 25, 1885

  • Died: May 30, 1965

  • Age: 80

• Aaron Leonard:

  • Born: August 6, 1936

  • Died: November 22, 1964

  • Age: 28

• Ignatius Rogers:

  • Born: January 12, 1914

  • Died: September 8, 1965

  • Age: 51

Setting

• The play is set on November 2nd, 1965, All Souls' Night.

• The location is a graveyard in a small, isolated coastal community in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland.

Part I: This Side Of Heaven

• Opening quote from Archibald MacLeish: "I shall say you were young, and your arms straight, and your mouth scarlet: I shall say you will die and none will remember you."

• A Voice sets the scene describing the darkness of an outport night in Newfoundland, emphasizing the desolation and absence of human activity in St. Kevin's, now a dead village.

• The Voice describes the activities of animals in the darkness.

  • An otter hunting trout in Middle Brook.

  • A rabbit fleeing an unseen threat near Jack Leonard's hayfield.

  • A fox drinking from a spring near Bill Sullivan's ruined house.

  • Frogs croaking in Chapel Pond, while trout sleep.

  • Crabs crawling on the beach below the old road.

  • Mice running among the headstones in the graveyard below Ladore waterfall.

• Thunder emphasizes the isolation.

• The dead characters begin to find their voices.

  • Jack: Calls out to see who is present.

  • Ray: Responds to Jack, confirming their continued existence in the graveyard.

  • Bill: Joins the conversation, mentioning Rose is also present.

  • Rose: Complains about Bill's comment.

  • Maggie: Speaks up, prompting Bill to confirm her presence.

  • Sheila: Speaks, expressing her unhappiness.

• The characters discuss the possibility of others having joined them in the graveyard since the previous year.

• Jack recalls the year Maggie arrived, noting her initial silence due to fear.

• The characters ponder why they are still here and not in Heaven or Hell.

• Rose laments that her prayers and religious devotion seem to have been in vain.

• Ray suggests their state could be purgatory, while Jack finds it different from what he learned in school.

• The group recalls Sheila's death, the first burial in the new cemetery 14 years prior.

• Sheila recounts her drowning, the panic, and the sensation of seeing broken rainbows as she died.

• Ray remembers accidentally hooking Sheila in the eye while trying to retrieve her body.

• Ned Shea speaks up, after recently being buried.

• The others welcome Ned, with Maggie making her typical barbed comments.

• Maggie inquires about her husband, Tom, and learns he has remarried to Edna Leonard.

• Maggie expresses disbelief and anguish that Tom has remarried.

• Ned reveals he was buried with all his money sewed into the lining of his coffin.

• Rose criticizes Ned's past crooked dealings as a merchant.

• Bride Sullivan arrives, making Bill happy.

• The characters discuss whether anyone goes to Heaven, and not the graveyard.

• Rose describes how she accumulated over three million years' worth of indulgences.

• Jack suggests Rose's indulgences might have helped others, including Protestants.

• Rose defends herself, claiming she never committed a mortal sin.

• Maggie alludes to a scandal involving Rose and a priest.

• Rose denies the allegations, providing her version of events involving Father Walsh during his short stay.

  • She recounts how Father Walsh confessed his feelings for her and his doubts about priesthood.

  • Rose, frightened, ran away and became paralyzed from the waist down, remaining bedridden for 73 years until her death.

• The others react with surprise and skepticism to Rose's story.

• Jack suggests Rose's paralysis may have been a natural ailment.

• Sheila hopes her family is not dead and buried alongside her.

• Bride informs Sheila that her siblings are alive and well: Robert is grown, and Julia is married with children, including a child with a club foot.

• Aaron Leonard (Jack's son) speaks up, confirming that he is also newly deceased.

• Aaron recounts how he died from a shotgun wound inflicted by his brother, Peter, during a bird hunting trip.

• Aaron reveals the tension between him, Peter, and a woman named Donna Hennessey, whom Aaron was supposed to marry.

• The others comment on the state of the fish.

• Bill criticizes the younger generation, leading Jack to defend his sons.

• The characters discuss how deaths can occur unexpectedly.

• Rose states that God decides when it is someone's time to die.

• Maggie brings up Rose's father, who gave his property to John Joe Callahan to care for Rose.

• Rose denounces Maggie's statements as lies.

• Ned comments that being among the dead is much like being alive.

• The group reminisces about Ned's shop and the stories told there.

• Aaron mentions ordering a wedding ring that never arrived, due to his death.

• Bride recalls her wedding with Bill in the old church.

• Aaron laments his interrupted wedding plans.

• Jack comforts Aaron, saying that Donna will mourn him but eventually move on.

• Jack reflects on missing his wife, Maud, and his past life.

• Jack reveals he misses the days when he was at the wheel of the Alice-Eileen, taking salt fish down to Spencer's Cove.

• Sheila misses her mother tucking her in.

• Rose misses the wallpaper in her room.

• Ray misses the snow clinging to the eaves.

• Maggie misses her looking glass.

• Bill misses the sound of the sea.

• Ned misses the smells of cinnamon, cloves, new leather, and fresh dustbane.

• Bride misses the sound of Bill's snoring.

• Aaron misses the touch of Donna.

• Aaron loudly calls for Donna, asking her to remember him.

• Maggie refutes Aaron's sentiments, declaring Donna will be dishonest.

• Aaron demands if Maggie's statements are true.

• Maggie confirms her negative views on love.

• Jack tells Maggie off for upsetting Aaron.

• Ray reports that a man from Isle Valen, named Walsh, was singing Ray's songs at Tom's wedding.

• Bill recalls singing songs in Golden Bay.

• Bill suggests that Ray sings a song.

• Rose objects.

• Ray sings about Cradle Hill.

• Aaron laments being dead.

• A Voice reflects on death, worms, and residue.

• The Voice describes sleep can last forever, and it won't matter. Nothing of death's desolation will matter as long as dead lovers are loved still in the wishes of lovers left alive and longing. Nothing of it will matter as long as the honoured dead are honoured still in the heart-felt toasts of drunk and drinking men, or as long as cursing men still curse their dead enemies, glad to be rid of them and their interventions. It won't matter how long the dead lie dying of hunger, as long as children remember the taste of their dead mom's milk and the feel of breasty flesh upon their cheeks. It won't matter as long as the living live and remember. Whether they thrive or endure, as long as the living live and remember, the dear deceased cannot be diminished by the fearful fact of death.

• The ever-remembered of St. Kevin's have learned before they died, that there is no survival this side of immortality, no final gladness this side of Heaven.

Part II: The Coming Of Winter

• Opening quote from Archibald MacLeish: "None know if our deaths are now or forever: We lie down and the snow covers our garments."

• A Voice presents hypothetical scenarios of loss and forgetting, questioning what would happen if the living were to forget the dead. These are:

  • Widows forgetting the scent of their husband's boots or his touch.

  • Husbands forgetting the scent of his wife, the sounds of her, or commands to the wind to clear the dust.

  • Mothers forgetting their children's sounds, whether whimpers or shrieks.

  • Fathers forgetting pride for their sons and their tears.

  • Friends forget friendship, lovers forget love.

• The Voice concludes that if the living forget the dead, then death would truly have dominion.

• The characters reflect on what is going on in the world.

• Rose says a prayer.

• Bill says it's too late for prayers here.

• Ray says we mightn't have a lot of time let and I'd like to know what's going on up there.

• Maggie says wouldn't we be better off without it? There's no such thing as good news, so it seems.

• Ned mentions the resettlement program.

• Rose wants to know what resettlement is.

• Ned says the government got it up.

• Aaron uses the term centralization.

• Ned says it's a rotten scheme no matter what.

• Ned indicates many communities are already empty.

• Rose hopes St. Kevin's people won't move.

• Ned says it might not matter a damn if they want to or not.

• Bride says they were the next thing to it when I passed away. Don't know what went on since, but it was one awful fuss up to that time.

• Rose says no one in their right mind would want to shift out of here. Where could they go to that'd be any better place than here?

• Ned reports seeing some residents open to moving.

• Aaron comments on meetings being held.

• Bride elucidates to the group that a certain percentage of the residents have to vote to transfer, otherwise no one will receive money from the government.

• Ray asks why they wouldn't let the ones who wants to move, move? And let them that wants to stay, stay?

• Ned explains that they want the whole lot cleared out or none at all. So if enough of 'em signs up, then it'd be all over for St. Kevin's. What stayed after that would have to stay at their own risk with no help from the government at all.

• Ray asks how many people are signing up with Aaron saying she was about half and half the last I saw of it. Half, or nearly half, already signed up and the other half saying they'd be damned if they'd ever sign.

• Ray says I can't imagine half the people I know up there electing to move some place else.

• Bride says it's not so much that they want to. I don't know a single soul that really wants to move, but still I know lots that already signed up.

• Ray asks why if they don't want to.

• Ned says, they're forced to, b'y.

• Bride suggests not really forced. Nobody got to sign.

• Ned says but they're left no other choice, not really.

• Jack wants to know the reason.

• They say the government is saying they can't afford to keep all small settlements like St. Kevin's going'. They say that it's no good for anyone in places like this to think that someday they'll have electric lights or a hospital clinic or anything like that, because they can't afford to put all them things in all such places around the coast. And another thing they're sayin' is that the fishery is done with, finished. That nobody will be able to make a living fishin' ever again. If a person wants to work from here on in, then they got to go to places where there's work to be had. Factory work.

• Jack doesn't see no sense to that, damned if I do!

• Aaron states, They're goin' to knock off with the fish and build factories. Factories is the new thing.

• The member he's self was there makin' a speech, and he went on the whole night about how Newfoundland was nothin' but a nation of squid jiggers, that that's all she ever was, and how the government was goin' to put a end to that.

• Ned notes, A lot of that kind of talk goin' on. Puttin' down the place. A meeting I was at, when they first come around, one of them fellows from the government got up and spouted off about what a awful disgrace it was that we had nothin' better than trunk-holes for toilets. And that's all we'd ever have, he said, unless we moved to places that had water and sewage in 'em. We were too cut off, he said, to be a part of the new age. The age of industry. And he said if the people here was goin' to share in the benefits of it, then they'd have to move, else they'd all end up on welfare.

• Bride says the priest is just as bad. He got nothin' good to say for the place anymore. He says he can't get teachers to come here because they'd sooner be in bigger places. And he says they can't afford to keep up the school any longer, and that from now on no one will ever have the slightest chance of a job without their grade eleven. And what's more, he says, anyone who considers theirselves a Catholic have got to move where their children can get a Catholic education. He puts it like it would be a mortal sin if you didn't shift some place else.

• Jack wonders if they'll go, Ned replies that looked like it was gettin' awful close to that the last I seen of it.

• Aaron says I was right in the middle of it too, with me and Donna goin' to be married. I didn't know if it'd be best to stay in St. Kevin's at the fish after we got married, or what.

• Jack reveals, I don't say Maud'd be the first to sign up for leavin' St. Kevin's.

• Aaron says more people would be more lonelier than ever going on.

• Maggie asks if Tom ever comes or has he forgotton me already. I dare say he got so lonely, that he lost he's senses.

• Rose mentions I put it in my last will and testament for them to keep my garden going.

• Maggie mentions that the poor Callahan's gave up going according to your wishes.

• Ray touches on if they all left, our graves would soon go to hay with no one to rake, the gravel and cut the grass.

• Bill says it breaks my heart to think they mightn't be around at all.

• (Sheila is weeping)

• Jack tells her, We don't know what's goin' on up above. We're all safe and sound, and soon we'll meet again. You'll be in heaven soon.

• Rose askes Rose helps with the Rosary and soons asks,Sacred Heart of Jesus!

• Nish speaks up with the last name Rogers that the graves know.

• The people welcome him even though he has always been deaf and dumb, now he begins to speak but only to be able to feel equal with the group.

• Nish says he died out of sorry.

• Bride can't believe that he just hung himself.

• Jack wonders, they must of thought I took leave of me senses, went mental.

• Rose asks, what was it then. Sounds like it worse than we thought.

• Nish speaks up again saying, A couple of years now there's been nothing but talk about it.

• Jack asks it's going that way when he has to move.

• Nish says they're already shifted sir, over the last one of them. All of a sudden I can hear.

• Rose finds this to hard to believe.

• Aaron is trying to put her all by herself but she can't

• Sheila asks here do they have to go

• Ray replies, far and wide girl, now they all had a good rest.

• Aaron has to imagine the graves so sad and he is so lost, he then asks what to do with her.

• Nish informs him that she is no longer around too.

• Maggie told Aaron she was right.

• Jack tells Maggie to Never mind starting, they went in to a long ride with the help line.

• Rose brings up And the Callahans all gone? No one to look after the garden.

• Bride exclaims: they're all gone, it's hard to believe.

• Ray then says, How come you closed up the church? Was the priest already gone?

• Jack asks how come you want me you.

• Nish Then what you don't get nothing what you, but that's why there it come to go as you go through the

• Sheila cries while weeping to Mom with so many around you.

• Bride replies shhh child. There are lot of things to think.

• Ray goes for this kind of time.

• Rose is going for nightmare enough for All The people around him.

• Ray sings As I Roved Out with out thinking this makes it nice when here then the same is not around you.

• Jack is still speaking then it's not this kind then they don't want this thing any more.

• Ray replies it does not seem very good to think what you are thinking about this time and she will feel ok.

• Jack thinks the kind of words with other family make you as very sweet.

• May is gone so why make it any worse when we has it.

• Ray will think of them and then all sudden the good is coming around it.

• All: He’s right with what we need, we’re thinking of them and they need it so we make the very easy or fun.

• Aaron mentions it might have been so, something so many

• Jach what does and does good one can all have this place, what do

• He mentions the way so what can't we still that there.

• With something that one can't get what we

• Rose wonders with a group that gets her this time.

• You've had what the matter for the way it looks then. I meant you don't make more if you'd like to

• Now he also mentioned I want you all, is there.

• That she can have here then what the one then if that

• So the devil can take you, is the way we had there.

• That's like that it all in now. I should have give him the best to know, but still.

• He already to that then what she should want, well I can tell the others

• Why is what we say now they look on that one to find the place now if still.

• I just want something about it

• Why is what you now that there is.

• It’s a way or what it.

• She know him still, no with a.

• We're like to be to each here,

• I love here there be all and with some to the water just one way
  Then in the sky, for here is be,

• A Voice: that time in them that can be with there, in the ocean with a good way, we should be and will there and that should be here.

• The End:

Author's Note

• The characters are dead and in various states of decay, buried in coffins. On All Souls' Night, their voices, memories, mental faculties, personalities, and emotions are returned to them.

• The play does not suggest bodily resurrection but acknowledges decay.

• The characters should be portrayed somewhere between skeletons and their former selves, perhaps as they were at burial, clothed in funeral clothes.

• The fact that the people are dead and cannot be forgotten must always be emphasized.

• The characters' movements should be limited to their grave space; they cannot touch one another.

• Props must be limited to those naturally present in the graveyard.

• Despite these limitations, all liberties of movement, gesture, and posture should be explored.

Note on The Music

• Music for the songs in West Moon ("Cradle Hill", "As I Roved Out" and "Sleepy Time Child") may be obtained on request from Breakwater Books.

Glossary

• Definitions of Newfoundland English terms used in the play can be found in "The Dictionary of Newfoundland English."

Premiere Production

• An earlier version of West Moon premiered at the L.S.P.U. Hall in St. John's, Newfoundland on October 31, 1980.

• Produced by the Mummers' Troupe, directed by Rhonda Payne, designed by Gerry Squires, and acted by numerous actors.

Acknowledgments

• The author thanks The Canada Council, Gerry Squires, Linda Humphries, Peggy Baxter, Clyde Rose, Wilf Wareham, Pat Byrne, Paul Dean, Des Walsh, Denyse Lynde, Rex Brown, Bill Glasco, Rhonda Payne, Donna Butt, Ken Livingstone, Eli Mandel, Marilee, Kyran, Emily, A.D. and Mary Pittman, and the people who once lived in the resettled communities of Placentia Bay.

Other books by Al Pittman

• Poems, Drama, Children's Titles, Short Stories, Unpublished Plays, Co-edited