Page:Zora Neale Hurston - Meet the Mamma.pdf/3



SETTING:

One-half of stage (left) is dining room, the other is a lobby (right), with desk, elevator, etc. The dining room is set with white cloths, etc. Elevator is upstage exit (center). There is a swinging door exit right and left.

ACTION:

As the curtain goes up, singing and dancing can be heard, and as it ascends the chorus of waitresses and bellhops are discovered singing and dancing about the lobby and dining room. (7-9 minutes).

CASHIER: (looking off stage right) Psst! Here comes the boss! (Everyone scurries to his or her position and pretends to be occupied. Enter boss, right, in evening clothes and cane. Walks wearily through lobby and dining room and back again, speaking to everyone in a hoarse whisper)

BOSS: Have you seen my mother-in-law? (Everyone answers "No".

BOSS: It wontwon't [sic] be long now before she comes sniffing and whiffing around. I aint been home since yesterday, and I got to have an alibi. What can I tell 'em?

ONE BELL-HOP: Tell 'em you sat up with a sick brother Mason.

BOSS: Oh no,- can't say that. I'm supposed to have been at the bedside and funeral of every Mason in New York City. There aint supposed to be no more left.

ANOTHER: Tell her you went to a bone yard to meditate and see if you could make 'em get up and gallop like Man O' War.