based on “The Harbinger,”
a short story by O HENRY
© 2017 Roy Proctor
Inquiries regarding performance rights for “The Dollar Bill” should be addressed to the author at royproctor@aol.com.
PUBLIC DOMAIN: “The Harbinger,” which was included in O Henry’s 1908 short story collection, “The Voice of the City,” is in the public domain.
Time
Around noon on a sunny spring day in 1908
Place
A Manhattan park and a cold-water, walk-up flat in a nearby tenement
Characters
JAMES PETERS, 40s, unkempt, shabbily dressed
CLARA PETERS, 40s, his wife, plump and plain, but with the last vestiges of youthful beauty
RAGSDALE, young to middle-aged, Peters’ companion in park idleness
KIDD, young to middle-aged, Peters’ companion in park idleness
Setting
ESSENTIAL: Stage right, park represented by park bench. Stage left, walk-up flat represented by a small kitchen table with two chairs. OPTIONAL: Other scenery and furnishings to suggest park and meager home settings.
Incidental music
No music is indicated in the script. However, composer Scott Joplin’s immense popularity paralleled O. Henry’s in the first decade of the 20th century. Directors might want to consider using Joplin’s rags, all of which are in the public domain, as incidental music in their productions.
RAGSDALE
So your wife has a dollar?
PETERS
Yes, she has a dollar.
KIDD
A whole dollar bill, good and receivable by the government for customs, taxes and all public due?
PETERS
Well, listen to you.
RAGSDALE
How do you know it’s a dollar?
PETERS
(exasperated)
The coalman seen her have a dollar. She went out and done some washing yesterday. And look what she gave me for breakfast – the heel of a loaf and a cup of stale coffee—and her with that dollar hid away!
RAGSDALE
It’s fierce, I tell you, fierce.
KIDD
Say we go up and punch her and stick a towel in her mouth and snatch the dollar. Y’ aren’t afraid of a woman, are you?
RAGSDALE
She might holler and bring in the cops. I don’t believe in slugging no woman in a tenement full of people.
PETERS
Gentlemen, gentlemen, remember that you’re referring to my wife. A man who would lift his hand against a lady except –
RAGSDALE
Look! (pointing over audience’s heads) Maguire’s putting his bock beer sign on the sidewalk again. If we had that dollar, we could drown in suds.
PETERS
(licking his lips at the mention of beer)
Hush up! We got to get that banknote somehow, boys. Ain’t what a man’s wife has is his, too?
RAGSDALE
Napoleonic code!
KIDD
English common law!
PETERS
Every other law!
KIDD
Now you’re talking, Peters.
PETERS
Leave it to me. (stands up) I’ll go home and get it. Wait here.
KIDD
I’ve seen ‘em give up quick and tell you where it’s hid if you kick ‘em in the ribs.
PETERS
(virtuously)
No decent man kicks a lady. A little choking maybe – just a touch on the windpipe – with no marks left. (crossing upstage left to flat) Wait for me here. I’ll be back with that dollar, boys.
CLARA
That you, James?
PETERS
Who else?
CLARA
You’ll get nothing more to eat till night. Take your hound-dog face out of the room.
PETERS
You ain’t seen my face yet.
CLARA
Don’t want to see it.
PETERS
You have a dollar.
CLARA
I have. (pulling the precious bill from her bosom and crackling it teasingly) But you’re not getting it.
PETERS
(sitting at the table)
I need it.
CLARA
Well, you aren’t getting it. Don’t turn those fox-terrier eyes on me.
PETERS
I’ve been offered a position in a – in a tea store. I start work tomorrow. But I have to buy a pair of –
CLARA
You’re a liar. You haven’t earned a penny in five years while I’ve worked my knuckles to the bone scrubbing other people’s floors and washing other people’s clothes.
PETERS
Oh, Clara. Don’t be like that!
CLARA
You’re a liar, I tell you. No tea store, no liquor store, no junk shop would have you, and you know it. I rubbed the skin off both me hands washing jumpers and overalls to make that dollar. Do you think my skinless hands come out of those suds just to buy the kind of suds you crave?
PETERS
But Clara –
CLARA
(stuffing the dollar bill back in her bosom)
Skiddoo! Get your mind off the money.
PETERS
(pleadingly, almost lovingly)
Clara, to struggle further is useless. You’ve always misunderstood me. Heaven knows I’ve striven with all my might to keep my head above the waters of misfortune, but –
CLARA
Don’t pull that rainbow stuff on me. I’ve heard it too many times before, all that blarney about walking cheek to cheek through the roses in the narrow streets of Spain.
PETERS
But it’ll be different this time.
CLARA
Liar! We don’t even walk hand in hand at Coney Island.
PETERS
Believe me, Clara.
CLARA
Say, there’s a bottle of carbolic acid on the shelf behind the empty coffee tin. Drink hearty.
PETERS
(tearing up)
Clara, you don’t mean that.
CLARA
Don’t I?
PETERS
What happened to all our hope?
CLARA
You killed it.
PETERS
Why, I remember when we would melt in each other’s arms. We used to run all over ourselves doing things for each other. I remember lying in the meadow and weaving daisies in your golden hair and snapping your garter and — (pauses, stands up, walks behind CLARA and places his hands gently on her shoulders) Oh, Clara! Why should we ever have harsh words? Ain’t you still my own tootsum-wootsum?
CLARA
Do you still love me, James?
PETERS
Madly, but –
CLARA
See! Empty words!
PETERS
I just wanted to love you like we used to.
CLARA
Liar! Liar! Liar! You just wanted that dollar bill. (suddenly looking at PETERS with concern) You look ill, James. (standing up and placing her hand on his forehead) Why are you so pale and tired looking?
PETERS
I do feel weak, Clara. I think I’m weak with love.
CLARA
(moving away from the table)
Wait, James! I know how to fix that.
PETERS
Are you going downstairs to tell Mrs. Muldoon that we’re reconciled?
CLARA
Better than that. Wait here. I’ll be back in a minute.
RAGSDALE
Wonder what’s keeping Peters.
KIDD
Maybe he and his old lady patched it up.
RAGSDALE
But it’s our dollar.
KIDD
It’s her dollar ‘til he gets it. Possession is nine-tenths of the law.
RAGSDALE
Maybe we should have got hitched, Kidd.
KIDD
Who needs it?
RAGSDALE
I remember, back when we all worked together at the warehouse, Peters was swimmy-headed with love.
KIDD
Clara would look at him in that foxy way. She could twist him around her little finger.
RAGSDALE
Peters was like a puppy at her feet.
KIDD
Maybe we shoulda got married, after all.
RAGSDALE
Don’t think about it. Thinking don’t do no good.
CLARA
I’m glad I had that dollar, honey. You’re run-down for sure. (unscrewing the bottle cap, lifting a spoon from the table and pouring liquid into it from the bottle) Open up! Open your mouth, I say.
PETERS
What’s that?
CLARA
(forcing the liquid into his mouth)
Cod liver oil. Good for anything that ails you.
Call me tootsum- wootsum again, James, just one more time for old time’s sake.
RAGSDALE
Wonder what’s keeping him.
KIDD
I can taste those suds for sure.
RAGSDALE
Well?
KIDD
Did you get the dollar?
PETERS
(staring them down)
I should have choked her first.
END OF PLAY
Roy Proctor wrote his first play in 2012 after retiring from a 30-year career as the staff theater critic on the two daily newspapers (one long gone) in Richmond, Va. Since then, he has completed more than 50 short plays – 55 minutes down to one minute – and combined many of them into larger one-act and full-length formats that are thematically related. They have been performed in 21 fully staged productions and more than 50 staged readings in an arc stretching from Los Angeles to Chicago to New York to London to Bangalore, India, and in dozens of cities in between. His audio adaptations of some of his plays have been broadcast or produced as podcasts by radio theaters in San Francisco, San Diego, New York and Woodstock, Vermont. He writes all kinds of plays, but specializes in short-play adaptations of short stories in the public domain. He is perhaps best known for his adaptations of Chekhov stories, which, in particular, have developed a British following in London and other cities in England and Wales. He has adapted 13 Chekhov tales into short plays so far, and five more are in process. Proctor grew up in Thomasville, N.C., and holds a BA in English (Creative Writing) from the University of Iowa, where he wrote fiction under Philip Roth in the Iowa Writers Workshop. He lives in Richmond and is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.
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