All Winged Creatures
...an excerpt of a play
by Lindsay Kennedy
Cast of Characters:
Dierdre: 30s. Female.
Joanie: 20. Female.
Legend: 50s. Female.
Mother: Late 40s-early 50s. Female.
Father: Late 40s-early 50s. Male.
Setting:
A stage, as well as a therapy office in a psychiatric ward, a rooftop, etc.
Time:
Here and Now.
Scene 1
A white room with white chairs and a white table.
Joanie and Deirdre sit at the table across from each other.
JOANIE
Where are my wings?
DEIRDRE
We don’t have them.
JOANIE
You took them from me so you have to.
DEIRDRE
Joanie, you can’t start every session asking me that.
JOANIE
I wouldn’t if you’d answer my question.
DEIRDRE
You aren’t unintelligent.
JOANIE
Thank you.
DEIRDRE
Graduated top of your class. Got a full ride on academic scholarship.
JOANIE
Thank you.
Where are they?
DEIRDRE
That’s what I’m talking about. If I haven’t told you before, why would I now?
JOANIE
I’ve been praying you would.
DEIRDRE
And why would that make me tell you?
JOANIE
Why wouldn’t it?
DEIRDRE
You don’t answer my questions either.
JOANIE
I don’t like it when people make fun of me.
DEIRDRE
I’m not making fun. It was an honest question.
JOANIE
I don’t know what you want me to say.
DEIRDRE
I just want you to tell me the truth.
JOANIE
I’ve been telling everyone the truth. No one believes me.
DEIRDRE
Let me rephrase the question.
When you’ve prayed for things in the past. Have they...all...come true?
JOANIE
Not all of them.
DEIRDRE
So why did you think this time would work?
JOANIE
I hoped it would. It’s different.
I don’t expect everything I pray for to come true.
Sometimes what I want doesn’t fit into the plan.
DEIRDRE
Oh right. The plan.
JOANIE
Yes...
DEIRDRE
You’ve mentioned a plan a couple of times in our sessions.
Can you explain what that means to you?
JOANIE
The plan is what orders the universe.
DEIRDRE
Okay, but... Okay. Can you get a little more specific?
JOANIE
The plan is pretty big picture.
DEIRDRE
Alright. You being here. Is that part of the plan?
JOANIE
I don’t know. I imagine it’d have to be. But I haven’t been told yet.
DEIRDRE
So it hasn’t been talking to you...lately?
JOANIE
Not it.
DEIRDRE
She.
Alright, she then.
Joanie shrugs.
DEIRDRE
Was your attempt at harming yourself part of the plan?
JOANIE
I wouldn’t have been hurt. That wasn’t why-
DEIRDRE
How would you not get hurt?
JOANIE
Give me back my wings and I’ll show you.
DEIRDRE
Good try. You’re getting more creative now.
Weren’t you afraid?
JOANIE
Of...?
DEIRDRE
When we found you, you were ready to step off a twenty-story building.
Looking down. Weren’t you afraid?
JOANIE
I had wings.
DEIRDRE
But what if they didn’t work? You weren’t afraid at all?
JOANIE
I’m not afraid of heights.
DEIRDRE
Twenty stories though.
I’m not afraid of heights either, but I think that would make me a bit nervous.
JOANIE
No.
DEIRDRE
If that didn’t scare you, then...what does?
JOANIE
Nothing. I don’t think.
DEIRDRE
Now that’s just not true.
JOANIE
When you believe, you can’t be scared.
You’re not supposed to be, anyway.
There’s a purpose to everything.
You have to have faith that everything will turn out as it was meant to be.
DEIRDRE
But everybody slips up sometimes. No one’s perfect.
JOANIE
We can try.
DEIRDRE
Sure we can.
But when we don’t.
When fear creeps in...as it does...what is it?
For you?
JOANIE
Just...the usual things.
DEIRDRE
Like? Bugs, death, enclosed spaces, loneliness, water, clowns, intimacy, needles, commitment, bridges, snakes, cats, darkness. Any of those strike you?
Silence.
DEIRDRE
I’m allowed a sense of humor.
Sometimes.
JOANIE
If it helps you with your fear.
DEIRDRE
What about the plan?
JOANIE
What about it?
DEIRDRE
Does it ever scare you?
Shift to another scene, another place, another sphere of existence maybe?
Interlude 1
Legend sits. She is sewing a quilt.
She stabs through the fabric with her needle and pulls an impossibly long thread through it. Then she pushes the needle back through, and pulls the thread again.
She pulls on it again to make sure it is tight.
She sees the audience for the first time.
Oh, hello there...
Back again I see.
You want another story?
Well...as long as it’s alright that I tell you something true.
Or as true as I can tell it.
Oh no, I lost it!
The thread has crept out of the eye of the needle.
She wets the thread and threads it back through.
Once there was a girl.
She lived in a place much like this one.
With the same kinda people, with the same kinda human problems I figure we all got.
And this little girl, she wanted nothing more than to be an angel.
She had a little voice, you see, a little voice inside of her.
It spoke to her and told her she loved angels for a reason.
And she loved them a lot.
She loved their wings and their halos and the light that shone from their eyes.
She loved everything about them.
But she never prayed to a guardian angel to keep her safe.
Or to make sure she would wake up in the morning.
She prayed to become a guardian angel.
So when her teacher told the class to write a report about what they wanted to be when they grew up, the little girl, she wrote about being a seraphim.
And she stood up in front of the class
and showed them her drawings
and told them about her dreams
and then, they laughed at her.
Her teacher said ‘You can't be an angel, you have to be a lawyer or a firefighter or a surgeon or a turnip farmer. Being an angel isn't the right answer at all. What kind of job do you want to do when you get bigger?’
She stood and she thought and then she said...An Angel.
She got sent home early that day.
Her parents were very worried. She couldn’t be an angel, they said. If she wanted to fly, she could be a pilot.
She sat and she waited as they talked.
She said she didn’t want to be a pilot. And she didn’t just want to fly.
She wanted to save people.
So they kept going, maybe she could be a doctor then.
You see, they said, angels were more...metaphorical.
Not a real thing. Just a nice idea to think about.
When they stopped, she told them I'm gonna get some wings, just you wait and see,
and then I’m gonna be an angel.
But they didn't believe her.
So every day she went up to her room to sew herself some wings, but it took longer than she thought it would. She still had to do homework, you see, and help her parents with the dishes and make her bed.
But each night she just added on a little bit
and as she got bigger the wings grew with her.
As it turns out Legend isn’t just sewing any old quilt. She holds up her sewing to show she’s quilting a pair of patchwork wings.
She stands up and flaps the quilted wings as if shaking the dust from them, then releases. They float and are suspended in midair.
Eventually, when the girl was pretty much grown.
She got an apartment, the kind that stacks people one on top of the other.
And the little voice said, “You got this. It’s time.”
She had been working and working on the wings until they reached so wide.
She knew the little voice wouldn’t steer her wrong.
She was ready to fly.
Joanie appears in front of the patchwork wings, perhaps right at the edge of the stage. She looks down, then steps one leg out, holding it like it is over a ledge.
We hear voices.
VOICES
Oh God. There’s a person up there.
I think she’s going to jump.
Somebody call 911.
It’s too late.
Oh God, oh God.
Don’t look.
Put your phones down.
She’s going to do it.
She’s going to-
Sirens. Blackout.
Scene 2
Spotlight on Joanie’s parents. They stand together, looking out at the audience. They speak in a continuous stream of thought. The following dialogue should be spoken as fast as possible.
MOTHER
It’s just
FATHER
Sometimes
MOTHER
Sometimes
FATHER
We don’t know what
MOTHER
What to
FATHER
What to do
MOTHER
With you
FATHER
You just
MOTHER
Aren’t what
FATHER
What we expected
MOTHER
We expected you to be more...
FATHER
More like
MOTHER
Me
FATHER
Like us
MOTHER
Specifically
FATHER
Not like
MOTHER
This
FATHER
Not like this
MOTHER
You were so normal
FATHER
Before this
MOTHER
Such a beautiful girl
FATHER
Before
MOTHER
You started
FATHER
Thinking
MOTHER
...
FATHER
...
MOTHER [In unison]
You can’t fly.
You just can’t.
You aren’t an angel.
Trust me, you aren’t.
I’m your mother.
I know.
You can’t fly.
People can’t fly.
No one can fly.
We just can’t.
You Can’t.
FATHER [In unison]
You can’t fly.
You just can’t.
You aren’t an angel.
Trust me, you aren’t.
I’m your father.
I know.
You can’t fly.
You can’t.
People can’t fly.
They just can’t.
They can’t.
Lights up on the rest of the room.
Joanie and her parents are in a session with Dierdre.
JOANIE
I don’t know why you can’t believe in me.
Even if you don’t believe in anything else.
MOTHER
It’s not about believing in you.
FATHER
This is ridiculous. It’s ridiculous.
(To Dierdre) She’s still being ridiculous.
DIERDRE
Please, if you could refrain from that kind of language.
We aren’t here to make judgments,
I think it’s more important to address why Joanie feels you don’t believe in her.
FATHER
Because we don’t think she can fly.
I don’t know what you expect us to do differently.
MOTHER
It’s like you think we haven’t been good parents.
Like this is our fault.
DIERDRE
This isn’t about placing blame on anyone.
It’s about trying to understand where Joanie is coming from.
And where these feelings started.
Joanie?
MOTHER
She’s always been like this.
Difficult.
We couldn’t do anything.
FATHER
When she said she wanted to go to church.
MOTHER
We said no, but we explained why.
FATHER
But then, she kept asking.
MOTHER
So we took her.
We’re not unreasonable.
FATHER
We never should have taken her there.
All that mumbo-jumbo got in her brain.
MOTHER
We didn’t think it would last.
We thought it was a phase.
FATHER
A phase that lasted ten years.
We should have put a stop to it.
But we didn’t...
MOTHER
And that’s why we’re here.
DIERDRE
I want to make something clear. Joanie didn’t want you to come.
It was only because I thought it was important that she talk to you...
And that we have a session together, so I can get a better sense of her situation.
That’s why you’re here.
Joanie?
jOANIE
(To her parents) You can leave now.
(To Dierdre) There's nothing else to say.
MOTHER
Fine.
If you don't want us here.
FATHER
I'm sure you have a busy schedule.
All the finger-painting and yoga and whatever else you do.
JOANIE
Just go!
They leave.
Blackout.
Lindsay Kennedy
Lindsay Kennedy is a playwright, theatre artist, and an Assistant Professor of Theatre at Benedictine College. She has been honored nationally for her work as a playwright and her work has been produced and developed across the US. Her creative works have been published in Theater in the Time of COVID: 50 Plays of Love, Loss and Hope, Their Own Devices: A Collection of Kansas City Playwrights, and Stage It, Stream It: Plays for Virtual Theatre, among others. She is a proud member of the Dramatists’ Guild and has an MFA in Playwriting from the Catholic University of America and a PhD in Early Modern Drama from Saint Louis University.