Word had reached Poppy that the Maplewood Actor’s Guild had taken to shunning performers it considers “low-brow.” She had opinions about that and rather than print them in the paper, she wrote them as a play and sent the Guild a copy to perform while they were in travels looking for a new screenwriter. The script is below.
THE MIDDLE OF THE POND
A fable in one act
NARRATOR – DUCKLING – SWAN – DUCK ONE – DUCK TWO
(A pond. DUCK ONE and DUCK TWO splash at one end. The SWAN glides at the other, chin high.)
NARRATOR: Once upon a time, a family of ducks laid an egg that was larger and considerably stranger than the others. Father Duck had questions, Mother Duck had no answers, so Father Duck went out for bread and never came back. What hatched from the egg was this.
(DUCKLING waddles in, tripping over her own feet, gangly and awkward.)
DUCKLING: Good morrow, kin! How fares the pond today?
DUCK ONE: She’s speaking weird again!
DUCK TWO: Say something else!
DUCKLING: I know no other way to speak, good ducks.
DUCK ONE: (delighted) “Good ducks.”
DUCK TWO: We’re good ducks!
(The SWAN glides past, stops, and looks the DUCKLING over.)
SWAN: Oh. Is that one of yours?
DUCK ONE: She is!
SWAN: What’s wrong with its mouth?
DUCK TWO: Nothing! She talks pretty.
SWAN: She talks like a playbill. Do keep her to the reeds, darling.
(SWAN glides off.)
DUCKLING: How white they are! How straight they hold their neck,
As though a cloud had settled on the pond.
DUCK ONE: The swan? They called you “it!”
DUCKLING: They called me “it”! They noticed I exist!
What wonders wait within the middle, friends?
DUCK TWO: Water, mostly. Same as here.
DUCK ONE: Colder too, I bet.
DUCKLING: Oh, but how fine ’twould be, to swim beyond the reeds!
NARRATOR: Seasons passed. The duckling grew more verbose, and the ducks grew used to being called “bawcocks,” though they were never sure if it was an insult or not. Then, one spring morning: puberty.
(DUCKLING spins dramatically with the feather boa and becomes a beautiful swan.)
NARRATOR: Nature is a marvel. Costuming is a close second.
DUCKLING: (Looks at her reflection in the pond) O wondrous change! What creature greets mine eye?
DUCK TWO: SHE’S A SWAN!
(The DUCKS cheer wildly.)
DUCK ONE: Look at that neck!
DUCK TWO: She can see the middle of the pond from up there!
DUCK ONE: Say something!
DUCKLING: Methinks my neck hath gotten out of hand.
DUCK TWO: Still talks weird!
DUCK ONE: Oh thank goodness.
DUCK TWO: (proudly) You look like a right bawcock!
(The SWAN glides in, stops, looks the DUCKLING over, and gasps.)
SWAN: Oh! Is that one of ours?
DUCKLING: I think it must be so, if eyes speak true.
SWAN: And she speaks verse! How terribly refined. (to the DUCKS) Run along to the reeds, darlings.
(The DUCKS shuffle off, confused.)
DUCKLING: (calling after them, delighted) They called me refined!
SWAN: Now. A few small formalities. There are dues, of course.
DUCKLING: Dues?
SWAN: Two coppers a month. A trifle.
DUCKLING: Alas, I have no coppers. I’m a bird.
SWAN: You’ll find some. For the first year you’ll preen the senior swans. The older ones molt rather a lot.
DUCKLING: For a twelvemonth?
SWAN: Then you’ll follow an elder swan and watch how she glides. No gliding yourself, of course. Just watching.
DUCKLING: And then I’ll swim the middle of the pond?
SWAN: Then you may ask to swim the middle of the pond. A panel decides if you are allowed.
(Splashing noises, then the DUCKS burst back in.)
DUCK ONE: There is a mud slide! Straight into the pond! With enormous splashes!
DUCK TWO: And somebody brought a whole loaf of bread!
DUCK ONE: A WHOLE loaf!
DUCK TWO: Are you coming?
(DUCKLING looks at the SWAN, then at the DUCKS.)
DUCKLING: O Swan! Thou gracious, long-necked, gliding thing,
Who called me “it” when I was small and grey,
SWAN: Did I?
DUCKLING: Thou didst.
Who asked what ailed my mouth, and called me “playbill,”
And bade me keep the reeds and out of sight.
This selfsame mouth now speaks these selfsame words,
And now thou call’st them “terribly refined”?
For two good coppers monthly, and a year
Of plucking moulted feathers from thine elders,
Then trailing some old swan to watch her glide,
Forbid to glide myself, and at the end
To ask, to ASK, if I might swim the middle,
And wait upon the judgment of a panel?
These ducks have never once required a fee.
They loved my mouth when it was all I had.
They begged for more. They let me call them bawcocks.
DUCK TWO: We still don’t know what that means!
DUCKLING: And when I changed, they only prayed I hadn’t.
They cheered for me! (The DUCKS cheer.) They cheer for me now!
What dues wouldst charge for cheering such as that?
Nay, keep thy middle and thy panel, Swan,
Keep thy cold water and thy careful glide.
I go to slide in mud and eat a loaf,
A WHOLE loaf, with the fowl who loved me first.
(She plucks a feather from her wings and hands it to the SWAN. Then, normally:)
DUCKLING: No thanks. The ducks are more fun.
(DUCKLING exits with the DUCKS.)
SWAN: You still talk like a playbill!
DUCK ONE: (offstage) BAWCOCK!
SWAN: (uncertain) ...Thank you?
NARRATOR: And thus, the Duckling chose the warmth of true community over a year of unpaid labor and a monthly subscription fee. Art, it turns out, cannot be institutionalized, and no one should have to pay for the privilege of creating it. Good day, gentleswans. (NARRATOR throws the script over their shoulder and walks off dramatically.)