The Cave Painter & The Woodcutter

by Don Hannah

  And that’s because The Woodcutter is trademark Don Hannah. Every word feels true. It’s dark and it’s gritty. It breaks your heart and makes you laugh in the same breath. It does what Don always does—gives voice to someone almost everyone in the world would much rather forget. And although Don states in his notes that all his life, he has been seen as the least memorable person in the room, in the end, of course, Ted’s story is unforgettable.

  —Joan MacLeod

  The Woodcutter was first produced in Edmonton by the Canadian Centre for Theatre Creation at the Working Title 2 Festival. The play premiered in May 2010 with the following cast and crew:

  Ted: Mark Jenkins

  Director: Kim McCaw

  Set and costume design: Victoria Zimski

  Lighting design: Guido Tondino

  Sound design: Matthew Skopyk

  Stage manager: Emma Deobald

  Notes

  The Woodcutter is set in a clearing in the deep woods, evening into night.

  Ted is in his early thirties; small, wiry, rough-looking. All his life he has been seen as the least memorable person in the room.

  He is dressed modestly and poorly, a jacket and jeans, old shoes inappropriate for walking. He is not dressed for a night in the woods.

  In the one-person show there is always the question, “Who is he talking to?” In this show there is a very simple answer: himself. This is a one-man show with no direct address. Ted arrives exhausted, but as he talks, he needs to be exploring his immediate world, to be fully engaged with the clearing. He talks to trees, pine cones, stones, to the objects at hand. He talks as he works, as he paces. He only raises his voice as indicated in the text. The audience needs to believe that they are overhearing him, as if watching him through a gap in the trees.

  There is more than one hymn called “Tell Me the Stories of Jesus.” The one that Ted knows was written by William H. Parker, with music by Frederick A. Challinor.

  Dusk. A small opening in the woods with conifers—pine, spruce, fir, larch—thick all around and above it. Brief snatches of sky through branches. On the ground, brown evergreen needles, sticks, small rocks, forest debris. The end of a grey day late in October. Crows cawing, sounding both angry and annoying.

  TED lurches, staggers, into the opening, nearly falling. He’s a short man, scrawny—a bantam—unshaven, scruffy and dirty. He’s wearing a worn coat, a bit too big, and holding a sturdy branch as a walking stick. He’s exhausted.

  TED

  Jesus Murphy asshole trees!

  He trips on a stick, nearly falling flat on his face. He catches himself—

  Frig!

  —turns and starts to beat at the stick that tripped him with the stick he’s holding—

  Stupid woods! Stupid ugly woods—

  —when he loses his balance and falls on his butt.

  Stupid stick!

  A crow calls, “Caw caw caw,” as if mocking him. He kicks out at the stick that tripped him.

  Goddamn stupid asshole stick!

  For a moment he’s a five-year-old having a temper tantrum.

  Ugly stupid woods fulla asshole sticks! What good are ya! Stupid sticks, stupid woods! I hate ya! Hate ev’ry frickin’ asshole stick in the whole frickin’ woods!

  He starts to get up but he doesn’t have the energy. He sits, defeated. The crow mocks him again.

  Y’re lost. Got yerself good’n lost. Not a hope of findin’ ya!

  And they’re lookin’ right now. Didn’t know where ta start, but they’re out there lookin’ right now somewhere.

  Nobody knows where y’are, not a clue, nothin’.

  Needle in a frickin’ haystack you are.

  And you!

  He’s crawled over to the stick that he tripped over. He grabs it and starts slamming it against the ground over and over.

  Asshole. Asshole stick!

  He stops and holds what’s left of the stick in his hand.

  What’d I ever do ta you?

  What’d I ever…

  What’d I…

  He’s moved to the verge of tears, but then he sighs, sits up straight and starts looking all around him, checking out the clearing. The crow calls are in the distance, flying away.

  Well now. Dandy.

  Like Gram useta say. “Ain’t this just dandy!”

  ’Cause it weren’t. Weren’t dandy at all.

  Middle a goddamn nowhere.

  Just frickin’ dandy.

  Let this be it then.

  Let this be it in the middle a goddamn nowhere.

  He’s starting to get up when he hears a coyote in the distance. He listens.

  Oh, that’s a comfort, that is.

  He listens. Coyote wails again.

  A real comfort that, with the night comin’ on.

  Those fellas steer clear if they hear ya comin’?

  Bears do. S’why ya wear the bells.

  He’s still holding the stick, looking at it.

  Ya think a snake’d hear them bells?

  They even got ears, snakes?

  Or they just lie around deaf. Just lie around.

  Like sticks. Just lie around like asshole sticks waitin’ to get ya.

  He drops it.

  No goddamn wonder ya always hated the woods.

  Sighs.

  Useta tell the kids about’m. Animal stories and that.

  “Tell me a story. Tell me a story. Tell me a…”

  He angrily whacks the ground with his walking stick. Then he sighs.

  That father left his kids out in a woods like this. Took’m out there and just walked away. Deserted’m.

  Ya tell’m that and they just go, “Then what happened? What happens next?” Don’t question it at all. ’Cause it’s a story.

  Jesus Murphy it’s cold.

  He picks up the broken stick again and glares at it.

  Asshole!

  He drops the stick to one side. Looks around.

  Find ya here as well as anywhere else.

  That’s right. Here’s as good as anywhere else. All the same anyway.

  Good a place as any.

  That’s what he’d a said to himself, too, I s’pose, that father. “Good a place as any.” And then he left those kids. He and his wife.

  He’s rubbing his hands together.

  (mimics) “Then what happened? Then what happened?”

  He puts his hands in his coat pockets. He pulls out a crumpled photograph, looks at it.

  Their mother. Stepmother, I mean.

  He puts it back in his pocket.

  Real mother was dead. They must a been real small when she died.

  But that stepmother, she was somethin’ else! “We got nothin’ ta feed’m,” she says. “Can’t go on like this, we’ll all starve.”

  He worked in the woods. Not much money there. Hard work, too.

  At Mrs. Conrad’s there, I useta chop her wood—split it and stack it by the side of the kitchen door. “Wear yer mittens,” she’d say, “Or you’ll ruin yer hands.” I didn’t need no mittens. Had tough little hands, me.

  S’damn cold.

  I’d take things out on it. Like if you’re mad or upset. Bein’ picked on. Just take that old axe and go at it. Mike now, he was faster. He could chop wood, stack it neat and solid as could be, and lickety-split no time. And good with the cars and that. Real smart back then, Mike.

  He’s looking about in the dim light.

  Middle a goddamn nowhere.

  How far away is this from everything? Should a brought a watch or…

  For what? Should a brought a watch for what?

  Time’s up, Ted!

  Time’s up, asshole!

  (shaking his head) “Nothin’ ta feed’m,” she says. “Nothin’ t
a feed’m.”

  But ya know how Gram ustea tell it? Tell us why she come up with that idea a dumpin’ those kids?

  “She was rotten, that one—horrible mean selfish and rotten, no other reason. Too lazy to look after them, wanted it all for herself.”

  But I don’t know. Lookin’ back, I’d hafta say, comin’ from Gram, ya take that version with a grain a salt. I think she did it ’cause they’re poor and can’t feed’m.

  That Gram.

  After Dad died, we was off ta Gram and Fa. Never lived with Mom much, just stayed over there sometimes. Couple a Christmases I think, and…

  So Mike told me.

  But first thing I remember ever, ever-ever, goin’ way way back, was Mom blowin’ on my tummy. I must a been real small, way before school, and her mouth on me, makin’ a funny noise and the both of us bein’ happy.

  Ha. Just goes ta show ya…

  Gram and Mom—no love lost there. And Gram had no time for my brother hardly, no patience with Mike at all.

  Mom, she just couldn’t cope.

  She useta call a chicken a “chooky.” “I’m gonna cook us up some chooky.” I’m sittin’ on the counter by the sink while she washed it. “Like givin’ a baby a bath,” she says. “Just like I useta wash you.” After she dried it off, she’d hold it by the wings and jiggle it there beside me. “Wanna dance with Miss Chooky?”

  People like bein’ silly around kids, makes’m feel good. When little Bobby first arrived, I was silly like that, I was as happy as happy…

  I was…

  TED slams the ground with his fist.

  Changed my life. He did that. Little Bobby changed my life.

  Starts to slam his fist on the ground again but stops himself. He takes hold of his walking stick and stands.

  We was at that place—Mrs. Allen her name was, and she was somethin’, “cleanliness is next ta godliness” and that—that’s the word she used for my thing, my penis, calls it a chooky.

  First night there I’m lyin’ in the tub and she come thunderin’ in, “Have you scrubbed your chooky!” Then gets all mad ’cause I’m mixed up. How’m I s’posed ta know? I’m like what—maybe ten?

  “You make sure that chooky’s good and clean!”

  Cripes.

  We had no use for that one, Mike and me. Glad ta see the end a that friggin’ place!

  “Know how I’d clean her chooky?” Mike says.

  “How?”

  “I’d kick it clean out the window!”

  Then he goes, “Kick it clean across town!”

  Then he’s, “Let’s kick that asshole chooky a hers clean ta Thunder Bay!”

  He’s looking about, sizing the place up. He talks as if he’s explaining things to objects—trees, branches, pebbles, pinecones, etc.—that are close by.

  S’why I says to Angie, “We’re havin’ no cutesy-pie names in this house. Don’t want’m growin’ up stupid like me, havin’ folks laugh at’m for no good reason. It’s a penis, what Bobby has, and Brittie’s got a vagina. No cutesy-pie words or dirty talk, we’re bringin’m up smart as we can. No skippin’ school, and we’re taken’m ta Sunday school—Bible stories and the hymns and that. Gettin’m help for the homework when it starts up. Not brought up like us.”

  “Good,” she says, “that we’ll do.”

  ’Cause Angie had a hard time of it growin’ up, too. She knew all about bein’ picked on in that family. Her mother, she’s somethin’ else, that damn thing. The mouth on her. And a real hard-lookin’ ticket, too. Face like a…

  Well, scare ya, she would.

  The moustache on her!

  Useta call her Geraldo.

  But behind her back.

  Say it to her face, she’d kill ya.

  No, Angie knew all about bein’ picked on when y’re growin’ up, bein’ picked on, and…

  Times, she said, she and her sisters had it so bad with her folks’ drinkin’—partyin’ and that. Mean drunks, the both a them, all sarcastic and that, makin’ fun a the kids, puttin’m down. And fightin’. And that kid brother a hers, that little Kevin, had it worst of all, she says. Says that—

  Ah, whatta I care about him? (angry) Tattooed little prick, he can go straight ta hell !

  So why go back, eh? Why go back?

  A moment, and then a coyote is heard in the distance. TED listens. Another coyote.

  Those kids, all alone. All alone out there in the woods.

  Sometimes now, sometimes they have the wife say this—“If we leave those kids out in the wood, chances are that someone rich might come along and find’m, and take’m in, give’m a better life.”

  Mike says, “Who’d she think’d just come strollin’ by way out there in the middle a nowhere? Some millionaire movie star?”

  “A rich hunter,” I says. “Or maybe like a sport fisherman.”

  But he’s got a point.

  But ya can’t imagine the father goin’ along with her plan fer no good reason, ya think he had ta believe someone’d come along and give’m a better life.

  More coyote sounds further away.

  TED starts to clear a space on the ground. He doesn’t set out to do it, it evolves as a task. First, he bats some stones and twigs out of the way with his walking stick. Later he will get down on his hands and knees. The cleared area will be about eight by three feet.

  Back then, fathers was good usually, but weak. Mothers was either real good or evil. And there’s no such thing as a good stepmother, not ever. Impossible. She’s like a bull with tits, not gonna happen.

  He was good. Just couldn’t stand up to her.

  It’s hard sometimes. Standin’ up. It’s a hard thing ta do. Standin’ up ain’t easy.

  It’s damn fuckin’ hard!

  He takes a swipe at a stone with the walking stick, then stands very still, calms down.

  So the father and his wife takes’m out ta the woods, lights a fire and tells’m ta wait. “You two stay put. We’re gonna get some more wood cut, then we’ll come back and get ya, and take yas home.”

  But they knew those grown-ups was up ta somethin’, those kids. They knew. So before they left the house that mornin’, Hansel fills up his pockets with gravel, and when they’re bein’ led off he’s droppin’ them all the way along. So, nighttime, fire’s all burnt down and the moon come up, they was white and shiny in the moonlight.

  “Look, Gretel, see? Those’ll lead us back ta Father.”

  So Hansel takes his sister by the hand there, and they follow the trail, walkin’ all through the night, till they’re out a the woods and back at the house.

  If ya leave a dog somewheres, just dump’m far off ta try and be rid of him, he’s so faithful, trustin’ as can be, that he’ll do whatever it takes ta get home. Hundreds a miles even. Might take weeks. One mornin’ at the back door, there he’ll be, all skin and bones, waggin’ his tail. Those two kids’re like that. Most kids are. Even though they know somethin’s up and things aren’t so good at home, they’ll head straight back. Just like Walt Disney there, The Incredible Journey.

  And the stepmother’s goin’, “Ya bad kids! Where ya been? Ya had yer poor father and me worried sick!”

  Like it’s all their fault. Next day, when they get dumped in the woods again, all they had was a scrap a bread. Dropped pieces of it behind’m. Little pieces of it, little… like even smaller than what they give ya at communion. No bigger than the end of your baby finger.

  Gram and Fa useta be in charge a that sometimes for the church. Store-bought bread. Stack it, trim off the crusts, slice it up tiny, puny little squares. Give us the crusts to play with and eat.

  And that seemed like a treat back then. Don’t take much ta make a kid happy sometimes. Don’t always need the Game Boys and the PlayStations and Barbie’s new waterslide.

  Now, I liked it when they dra
gged us off ta Sunday school. Mike, though, “I’m too big fer this nonsense. And I’m not singin’! I’m no fruit, me.”

  “Me either!”

  But I liked the singin’. I always liked bein’ part of everybody when we all sang together, all of us goin’ “Tell Me the Stories of Jesus.”

  Makes ya feel good. Angie and me singin’ it with the kids…

  (sings, tentatively) Tell me the stories of… Jesus…

  A pause. He’s shaking his head. Then he goes back to his clearing.

  The stories, see, Mike liked them. They weren’t fruity ta him at all, just the singin’. He’s always got time for stories. Me too.

  I always say ta those kids, “Listen up at Sunday school and ya can learn somethin’.” (nods) That’s what I always say. “Listen up, Bobby, listen up, Brittie, and ya can—”

  He’s lost for a moment.

  Little Brittie, she was some sweet little angel at Christmas there.

  And Bobby he…

  When y’re little, people like ya ’cause y’re cute, and ’cause ya can make’m laugh sometimes with yer antics. Even when y’re bad—like that time Bobby comes sailin’ ’cross the yard hangin’ from the clothesline, all the way from the clothes pole ta the back porch. Slams right inta the side of the house there. Angie and I’m watchin’ out the window and laughin’ like two fools.

  “Lookit! Lookit’m go!” she says.

  Ha…

  He’s awful cute sometimes, even when he’s bad. Stretched that clothesline somethin’ useless. I was out there after supper fer hours tryin’ ta tighten the damn thing.

  “Lookit! Lookit’m go!”

  And he was a wise man at Christmas, remembered all his lines, “I come bearin’ the gift a myrrh” and that. Brittie was scared a gettin’ up in front a everybody, even though she was the sweetest-lookin’ angel a the bunch. Minister’s wife there, that Mrs. Simon, she said that. Come right over to Brittie and knelt down and said it, “Don’t be nervous, honey, y’re the sweetest-lookin’ angel of the bunch.”