Also by Norm Foster
Bedtime Stories
Dear Santa
Ethan Claymore
A Foster Christmas
The Foster Season
The Foursome
The Gentleman Clothier
Hilda’s Yard
Jasper Station
Jenny’s House of Joy
Jonas and Barry in the Home
Kiss the Moon, Kiss the Sun
The Ladies Foursome
The Long Weekend
The Melville Boys
Mending Fences
Ned Durango (with Leslie Arden)
Office Hours
Old Love
On a First Name Basis
One-Actmanship
Opening Night
Outlaw
Self-Help
Sinners
Skin Flick
Storm Warning
Triple Play
The Writer
Wrong for Each Other
Halfway There
Norm Foster
Playwrights Canada Press
Toronto
Halfway There © Copyright 2021 by Norm Foster
First edition: April 2021
Cover art and design by Patrick Gray Illustration
Playwrights Canada Press
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Halfway there / Norm Foster.
Names: Foster, Norm, 1949- author.
Description: A play.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210139358 | Canadiana (ebook) 20210139374 | ISBN 9780369102225 (softcover) | ISBN 9780369102232 (PDF) | ISBN 9780369102249 (HTML) | ISBN 9780369102256 (Kindle)
Classification: LCC PS8561.O7745 H35 2021 | DDC C812/.54—dc23
Playwrights Canada Press operates on Mississaugas of the Credit, Wendat, Anishinaabe, Métis, and Haudenosaunee land. It always was and always will be Indigenous land.
We acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council (OAC), Ontario Creates, and the Government of Canada for our publishing activities.
For my children, Lee, Randy, Daniel, and Jacqueline.
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Production History
Cast of Characters
Time
Place
Act One Scene One
Scene Two
Scene Three
Act Two Scene One
Scene Two
Scene Three
About the Author
Landmarks
Also By
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Table of Contents
Production History
Cast of Characters
Act One
Scene One
Scene Two
Scene Three
Act Two
Scene One
Scene Two
Scene Three
About the Author
Page List
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Halfway There was first produced from August 10 to 27, 2016, at the Foster Festival in St. Catharines, Ontario, with the following cast and creative team:
Vi: Lisa Horner
Rita: Sheila McCarthy
Mary Ellen: Helen Taylor
Sean Merrit: Darren Keay
Janine Babineau: Kirsten Alter
Director: Patricia Vanstone
Stage Manager: Carolyn Mackenzie
Set and Costume Design: Sue LePage
Lighting Design: Chris Malkowski
Cast of Characters
Janine Babineau, mid to late thirties
Vi
Rita
Mary Ellen
Sean Merrit, forty-two years old
Vi, Rita, and Mary Ellen can be anywhere from fifty to sixty years old
Time
The present. Friday afternoon.
Place
A restaurant cal
led Junior’s in the town of Stewiacke, a town in Nova Scotia located halfway between the equator and the North Pole.
Act One
Scene One
There are tables and a counter with stools in the diner. On the front door is sign on a string. The sign, facing the audience, reads “Closed.” Lights up to reveal three women, Vi, Rita, and Mary Ellen sitting at a table in the diner.
Rita: Well, I don’t know why she doesn’t just leave him. They don’t even sleep in the same bed anymore.
Vi: Get out.
Rita: Hand to God, Vi. She sleeps in the master bedroom and Ian sleeps in what used to be Harvey’s room.
Vi: Harvey? Their son Harvey?
Rita: Yep.
Vi: So, why don’t they just get a divorce?
Mary Ellen: No, Elspeth won’t do that.
Rita: No. She says it would be too hard on the children.
Vi: Harvey and Glad?
Rita: Right.
Vi: Harvey’s forty-one.
Rita: But he only just moved out a couple of months ago. He’s still finding his legs. His parents divorcing could be a setback. Plus there’s the whole circumcision fiasco. That muddies the waters too.
Vi: The circumcision has nothing to do with Harvey’s insecurities.
Mary Ellen: The “botched” circumcision.
Rita: Performed by Elspeth’s veterinarian cousin.
Vi: Oh, that’s just a rumour. I don’t think it was done by a veterinarian at all.
Mary Ellen: Elspeth swears it’s the gospel.
Rita: I wouldn’t have let him near a flank steak with a knife let alone a you-know-what. My land, it’s no wonder Harvey is skittish.
Mary Ellen: I’ve never seen a man flinch so much around cutlery.
Vi: But he was a baby when it happened.
Rita: Yes, but those things stay with a person. That’s why I’m against circumcision. It should be outlawed.
Vi: And Glad? Glad lives in Costa Rica last I heard.
Mary Ellen: Well, not so much lives as is “in custody.”
Rita: Anyway, I hope they work it out. I mean, Elspeth just turned sixty. She hasn’t got too much tread left on those tires.
Vi: I’m just glad I didn’t have any kids when I got divorced. Johnny’s girl Katie still finds it tough, and he’s been divorced from her mother for twelve years.
Mary Ellen: How old is she now?
Vi: Seventeen. And she’s having a rough go of it up there in Thunder Bay. Hanging with a bad crowd too. Johnny’s really worried.
Rita: Johnny’s a cop. Can’t he tell the cops up there to keep an eye on her?
Vi: He has. But it’s not the same as being there himself.
Mary Ellen: It’s so hard being a teenager these days. I hope she gets through it.
Vi: From your lips to God’s ears, Mary Ellen. All right, girls, I’m off to the gym. Or as the owner insists on calling it, Dugan’s Pub.
Mary Ellen: No, don’t go yet, Vi. What’s the rush?
Vi: I’m meeting Johnny for happy hour.
Rita: Oh, Johnny. What’s Johnny?
Mary Ellen: Yeah, what’s Johnny?
Vi: We meet every Friday at Dugan’s for happy hour. You know that.
Mary Ellen: So, he can’t wait on you for fifteen minutes?
Rita: Yeah, you know what they say about keepin’ a man waiting.
Vi: No. What do they say, Rita?
Rita: It makes him want you more.
Mary Ellen: Maybe Rita has a point, Vi. Maybe you should play hard to get.
Vi: Mary Ellen, I’ve already been got. I’ve been got six ways from Sunday.
Rita: She’s right. Her gettin’ got days are long gone.
Vi: Well, now I haven’t stopped gettin’ got. I still get got. There’s just no need to play hard to get got. Now, I gotta get. The love of my life is waiting.
Sean Merrit enters the restaurant.
I suppose he can wait fifteen more minutes.
Vi sits.
Mary Ellen: Well, what do we have here?
Rita: What do we have, indeed?
Sean: Ladies.
Vi: Well, the jury’s still out on that but thank you anyway.
Mary Ellen: Vi, stop that.
(to Sean) Don’t listen to her. She’s nothing but trouble.
Rita: And so am I if you like that sort of thing. And I hope you do.
Mary Ellen: Now, that’s enough, you two.
(to Sean) They’re a caution. I’m sorry.
Sean: Quite all right.
Mary Ellen: Just sit anywhere. Janine will be out shortly.
Sean: Janine?
Vi: Your waitress. She’s using the facilities at present.
Sean: Oh. Thank you.
Sean sits.
Rita: Well, he’s a handsome rascal, isn’t he?
Vi: You can say that again.
Mary Ellen: Not from around here, I’m guessing.
Vi: Oh, he’s not from around here at all, Mary Ellen. He’s from away as sure as a monkey’s got a bare arse.
Mary Ellen: He is a cute one.
Rita: He is. And looks to be unspoiled. Like a piece of fresh fruit on a sturdy vine. Just waiting to get plucked.
Sean: Ladies. I can hear you.
Rita: Oh, we know, dear. We don’t like to talk behind someone’s back.
Vi: No, we’ll say it straight to your face.
Sean: Well, that’s good to know.
Mary Ellen: So, were we right? Are you from away?
Vi, Rita, and Mary Ellen move to Sean and sit, surrounding him.
Sean: From away? Uh . . . yes, yes I am. I just got into town and I haven’t eaten since breakfast. That’s why I stopped in here.
Rita: Oh, ya poor thing. You gotta eat. You gotta keep up your strength. You need it for your endurance. Although I’ll bet your endurance is just fine. Is it?
Vi: What’s your name?
Sean: Sean Merrit.
Vi: Well, welcome to Stewiacke. I’m Violet. This is Rita. And this is Mary Ellen.
Sean: Pleased to meet you.
Vi: So, where are you from, Sean?
Sean: Toronto.
Vi, Rita, and Mary Ellen just stare at Sean.
What’s wrong?
Mary Ellen: We don’t like Toronto.
Rita: We don’t like Toronto one bit.
Sean: That seems like an odd reaction. Is there a reason that you don’t like Toronto?
Mary Ellen: Oh, there’s a very good reason.
Vi: Mary Ellen’s niece Martine fell in love with a fella from Toronto.
Mary Ellen: Fell head over heels.
Rita: Like a ton o’ bricks.
Vi: Next thing you know she gives up a good job at the Scoop and Save and moves to Toronto to be with him. Oh he promised her the world he did. And I don’t mean little trinkets and baubles here and there. No, I mean he literally promised her the world.
Sean: Well, I don’t think he could “literally” promise her the world. I mean, “literally” would mean . . .
Vi: Who’s telling the story here, Sean?
Sean: Sorry. Go ahead.
Vi: So, within two months he decides that he’s not “in love” with Martine anymore. He said she had some qualities that weren’t apparent to him at first blush. Qualities that only came to light when they moved in together.
Sean: Like what?
Vi: Well, when she got mad she’d throw knives at him.
Mary Ellen: Not big knives. Not your carving knife or your bread knife.
Rita: No, just little ones. A paring knife or a cheese knife.
Vi: But that wasn’t the worst of it.
Sean: Throwing knives at him wasn’t the worst of it?
Rita: No. Martine is a kleptomaniac. She steals things. She can’t help herself.
Vi: And they were living in a small apartment and they had no place to put everything.
Rita: And apparently this got to be too much for the jam tart Toronto boyfriend. I guess he
doesn’t like clutter. And so he sent her packing. Without so much as a by your leave.
Vi: He broke that poor girl’s heart he did.
Mary Ellen: Broke it bad.
Vi: And she comes back home with tears in her eyes and her tail between her legs. And I mean literally with her tail between her legs.
Pause.
Okay, now I’m messin’ with ya’. She doesn’t have a tail.
Rita: At least not one long enough to tuck between her legs.
The women laugh.
Sean: And that’s why you hate Toronto?
Vi: That’s it.
Sean: Well, that’s tarring a pretty sizable population with the same brush, isn’t it?
Vi, Rita, and Mary Ellen just stare at Sean.
But it’s probably valid. You’re probably right.
Rita: So what brings you to Stewiacke, Sean? Is there a slacks convention in town?
Sean: I’m going to be working at the medical clinic. I’m taking over for Doctor Caldwell for a month.
Rita: You’re a doctor?
Sean: I am.
Rita: Well. And me about due for my annual physical. How fortuitous.
Mary Ellen: Yes, I think I might be coming down with something.
Vi: I’m feeling a little feverish myself, girls. Whoo! Is it hot in here or is it him?
Rita: So, you’re taking over for Pooch Caldwell?
Sean: Pooch?
Rita: Yeah, Pooch. We’ve called him that for years.
Sean: Do I want to know why you call him that?
Rita: Well, it’s no big secret. A while back we had a pharmacist here named Virginia Wilmot. Sometimes she’d go out for lunch and not come back for two or three hours. She’d just disappear. So one day the druggist asked her where she’d been and she said nowhere. She was just screwin’ the pooch. Turns out it was Doctor Caldwell.