CONTENTS
The Trespassers premiered on July 26, 2009, at the Studio Theatre, as part of the Stratford Festival, Stratford, Ontario, with the following cast and crew:
CASH: Kelli Fox
MILTON: Robert King
ROXY: Lucy Peacock
LOWELL: Noah Reid
HARDY: Joseph Ziegler
Director: Morris Panych
Designer: Ken MacDonald
Lighting Designer: Jason Hand
Assistant Lighting Designer: Siobhán Sleath
Stage Manager: Ann Stuart
Assistant Stage Manager: Bruno Gonslaves
Production Assistant: Melissa Bergeron
Production Stage Manager: Marylu Moyer
1.
The play unfolds over the course of a few weeks, in some town in the middle of nowhere, not small enough to be a quaint place or large enough to be in any way an interesting one. They had a sawmill there, which was a going concern, but it has since shut down; it now crowns a sort of half-town, gutted of its reason for being. The story unfolds in many locations in town, moving in a generally chronological fashion; these events are recalled from the mind of LOWELL. Out of the darkness, an ungainly boy, fifteen years of age, appears in the middle of a police interview, holding a peach. Nearby, RCMP OFFICER MILTON takes notes.
LOWELL
Between just the two of us, we could collect a dozen peaches in one haul. A dozen is twelve, which is a religious number, based on the Apostles.
MILTON
Okay, a dozen.
LOWELL
A baker’s dozen is thirteen. Thou shalt not steal is the Sixth Commandment. I believe it’s the Sixth Commandment. Or it’s the Seventh. My mother made me memorize them.
CASH, a tired woman in her late thirties, appears.
CASH
I didn’t.
LOWELL
And you have to listen to your mother. That’s the Fourth Commandment.
MILTON
Lying, what about that?
LOWELL
Technically, not a sin.
MILTON
Bearing false witness against your neighbour, or something like that?
CASH
Neighbour means anybody.
HARDY
There’s something in-between lying and not lying. It’s called a story.
MILTON
What about murder? Isn’t that a Commandment?
LOWELL considers.
CASH
It’s a Commandment.
LOWELL
Murder is the Fifth. And it isn’t just a person. It can count if it’s a frog, say—if you killed it for no reason. That’s what I believe.
CASH
You won’t get a straight answer.
LOWELL
Or—or—hunting, unless you eat it after; or you could freeze it. But stealing, that’s—besides, even if it was on somebody else’s property, it isn’t stealing if the peach falls from the tree; that’s what my grandfather said.
MILTON
What your grandfather said, okay.
HARDY appears, a wiry old man in a straw hat, carrying a stack of newspapers.
HARDY
Anything that isn’t attached to something else belongs to God.
LOWELL
You don’t believe in God.
HARDY
Don’t I?
LOWELL
You’re an atheist, Grandpa.
HARDY
You’ll find, as you get older, God starts to slip into the conversation.
LOWELL
I’d like to be old.
HARDY
Just don’t ever get the feeling that you’ve lived too long.
LOWELL
I won’t.
HARDY
I’m going to the shed for a bit. Say nothing to your mother on the subject.
LOWELL
My grandfather had a stash of newspaper clippings out there, which he took out of their folders and read. My mother called it unseemly.
CASH
Trash.
LOWELL
He listened to his old records out there. He collected stories about
