Garden of Blue Chairs
Characters
- Catherine:
- Mid-fifties, attractive, no make-up
- Becca:
- Mid-fifties, Catherine's friend since childhood.
- Jessica:
- Catherine's daughter, early to mid-thirties
- Philip:
- Catherine's lover, late fifties, handsome, sensitive
- Pauline:
- Catherine's aunt, mid- to late seventies, fun
Set
The suggestion of a northern California wine-country landscape, oaks and madrones, blue sky, reddish earth, muted grey-greens of vegetation. Center stage there are two old wooden chairs, slightly different shades of faded-blue.
Production history
Staged reading, Magic Theatre, San Francisco, December 2007.
The Story
Meet Catherine, recently widowed, who’s creating a garden of lavender, rosemary, perovskia, and thyme, plus a scattering of old blue chairs. She’s also having an “affair” (lots of kissing but no sex) with a married man. Having attempted suicide before, the issue of Catherine's survival is never far from the surface, and her quirky, lovely, blossoming relationship with Philip provides a certain hope that she's found a compelling reason to pursue life. But don't try to second-guess Catherine. She's strong, she's willful, she's smart, always surprising, often contradictory, never ever a victim. You've met your match.