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Directory: Writers with Works in NAWPA
Salvage
by Diane Glancy
SUMMARY
WOLF has a car accident. The man whose family WOLF injures seeks
revenge, stalking WOLF's family. WOLF kills him in a field out of self
defense. SALVAGE is about the swift and irrevocable change in the way
of life. The play in one word: collision.
CHARACTERS
WOLF, 32, son of WOLFERT, husband of MEMLA
WOLFERT, 63, father of WOLF, father-in-law of MEMELA
MEMELA (Me'--mah-lah or Me-me), 32, wife of WOLF, daughter-in-law of
WOLFERT
WOLF and his father, WOLFERT, run the tow truck and salvage
yard called, Blackfeet's. MEMELA is a grade-school teacher. WOLFERT
is a medicine man. WOLF and MEMELA are general Indians who have lost some
but not all of their traditions. They have two sons, ages 15
and 16, who do not appear in the play.
TIME
Present
SETTING
Cut Bank, a small town off the Blackfeet reservation near Browning in
northwestern Montana, where Blackfeet Salvage Yard lines the north side
of Highway 2.
There is a well worn linoleum floor floating slightly askew as if it
were set down amid the hulls of old cars. A cemetery gate. Telephone
poles. A billboard of broken glass. The setting is not realistic, but a
disembodiment of shape/form, light/dark.
The only furniture on stage is three chairs, a stool, a crate, and a
table.
The back of the stage is a corrugated fence that backs up to
Highway 2.
LIGHTS
Light and shadow illuminate and define the stage. The subtle movement of
the characters during the LIGHT SHIFTS is at the core of the setting as
they move fluidly from one scene/location into the next, melding
seamlessly into moonlight, shadow, dawn.
PHOEBE, WOLFERT's dead wife, can be represented by lights when she
appears as an apparition to WOLFERT. Maybe she is actually there.
Maybe she is an animal. WOLFERT may bring a sandwich to eat while he's
in the cemetery. Maybe an elk or some animal comes for the
crumbs.
There is also the possibility for DARK SPIRITS who hover over several
scenes: the accident, when Stover follows Memela, when Wolf kills
Stover,
and when Wolf is in prison.
SOUNDSCAPE
The sound of PHOEBE. The beating heart. The hiss of an oxygen tank. A
ticking clock. Dogs barking. The sounds of dark spirits. Metal against
metal. The toll of a church bell. The Montana wind. Snow falling.
-Synopsis written by the author.
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