Frank's Home

by Richard Nelson

  OTHER BOOKS BY RICHARD NELSON

  PUBLISHED BY TCG

  Goodnight Children Everywhere and Other Plays

  INCLUDES:

  Franny’s Way

  New England

  Some Americans Abroad

  Two Shakespearean Actors

  Rodney’s Wife

  Frank’s Home is copyright © 2011 by Richard Nelson

  Frank’s Home is published by Theatre Communications Group, Inc., 520 Eighth Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10018-4156

  All Rights Reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio or television reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that this material, being fully protected under the Copyright Laws of the United States of America and all other countries of the Berne and Universal Copyright Conventions, is subject to a royalty. All rights, including but not limited to, professional, amateur, recording, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio and television broadcasting, and the rights of translation into foreign languages are expressly reserved. Particular emphasis is placed on the question of readings and all uses of this book by educational institutions, permission for which must be secured from the author’s representative: Patrick Herold, ICM, 825 Eighth Ave, New York, NY 10019, 212 556-5600.

  The lyrics to “I Am a Pirate King” and “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General,” which appear on pages 43–44 and 90–92, are from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance.

  This publication is made possible in part with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency.

  TCG books are exclusively distributed to the book trade by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Nelson, Richard, 1950–

  Frank’s home / Richard Nelson.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  eISBN 978-1-55936-827-8

  I. Title.

  PS3564.E4747F732011

  812’.54—dc222011013340

  Book design and composition by Lisa Govan

  Cover design by Mark Melnick

  Cover photograph: © Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ / Art

  Resource, NY / Artists Rights Society, NY

  First Edition, May 2011

  FOR JOCELYN

  Contents

  PREFACE

  PRODUCTION HISTORY

  CHARACTERS

  SCENE 1

  SCENE 2A

  SCENE 2B

  SCENE 3

  SCENE 4

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PREFACE

  What is a history play? I find it odd that one can go to the American theater and over time learn a great deal about the kings and queens of England, but almost nothing about our own country’s history: where we come from, what our nation’s aspirations, confusions, compromises have been. There are some illustrious examples of course to the contrary: Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, Arthur Kopit’s Indians, but they truly are rare animals among American drama.

  When I submitted my play to Playwrights Horizons, the artistic director responded very positively, but also surprisingly when he said he liked it and wanted to produce it even though Playwrights Horizons did not really do historical plays. When I was talking to a friend involved in a New York play festival, I was surprised to hear her say that the festival accepted every sort of play except historical plays. I have since learned of other major theaters who will not even read what they call “period plays.” What’s the problem?

  Mostly, I think there is a confusion about what is an historical play. There seems to be the misbegotten belief that the reason to write such a play is to dramatize interesting history. This is nonsense and has the whole thing the wrong way around. An historical play doesn’t start out to dramatize interesting history; an historical play uses history to convey our own times. It’s a method, a style, an approach to reflect things we as writers need to address and convey, about our world, our times, even ourselves. History can give us a critical distance that allows us to look more closely at ourselves.

  Also, history allows a playwright to connect with our past, to not only draw parallels between different times, but to draw lines connecting them, and thereby show how societies are continuous and contiguous, how what we did affects what we are, and what we do will affect what we as a society will become. In other words, a history play places the playwright’s concerns into a social context, even if that society is a hundred years ago.

  A history play is always a way of dissecting large swaths of a society, drawing the parallels to large swaths of our own. An historical event or incident, we know, affects all of society, up and down its social orders; a depiction of this whole interrelated if not interdependent society is in fact an effort on the writer’s part to organize society into some coherent organism.

  I have written over the years a number of plays based on historical characters and historical events: Columbus and the Discovery of Japan about Columbus’s voyage and what led up to it in 1492; Two Shakespearean Actors about the theatrical rivalry between the English actor, William Charles Macready and the American actor, Edwin Forrest, which culminated in the Astor Place Riot; and The General from America about Benedict Arnold and his treason. Each of these plays, I think, was an attempt to write about America, what it is founded upon, and an effort to rethink or question what we as a nation have become. The General was written as a direct response to the time of Newt Gingrich’s Contract With America, when I was watching, I thought, my country reinvent itself into something it was never suppose to be. Columbus and Two Shakespearean Actors both center on not only America and American culture, but also on the role of art, or more particularly the role of the artist. This has been a theme that has continued to interest me a great deal. What is art’s place in our society, what is its function; what is an American artist? In this way, I always saw the character of Columbus as a portrait of an artist—half visionary, half hustler—a man who sets himself off on an impossible mission and by chance, fate, luck comes across something else, something he didn’t expect.

  I had the idea to make a play about Frank Lloyd Wright or rather about two specific days in the life of Frank Lloyd Wright years before I sat down to write it. I suppose it took me all that time to discover what this story meant to me, why a fifty-five-year-old writer wanted to write a story about a fifty-five-year-old architect who looked at his country and found it confused, unable to respond to its inherent virtues and sense of self. An America that had lost its way.

  Finally, I think pretty much every play I have written for twenty-five years could be entitled: “Home.” Frank’s Home, though, is the first where I’ve dared used that word in the title. It seemed appropriate, especially for a man who created beautiful houses, but perhaps no homes.

  Richard Nelson

  Rhinebeck, New York

  April 2011

  PRODUCTION HISTORY

  Frank’s Home was first produced in a co-production by Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director; William Russo, General Manager) and the Goodman Theatre (Robert Falls, Artistic Director; Roche Schulfer, Executive Director) on November 25, 2006, at the Goodman Theatre, and on January 13, 2007, at Playwrights Horizons. The director was Robert Falls; the set design was by Thomas Lynch, the costume design was by Susan Hilferty, the lighting design was by Michael Philippi, the original music and sound design were by Richard Woodbury; the stage managers were T. Paul Lync
h and Jamie Wolfe (Goodman) and Barclay Stiff and Brandon Kahn (Playwrights). The cast was:

  FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

  Peter Weller

  LLOYD

  Jay Whittaker

  CATHERINE

  Maggie Siff

  KENNETH BAXTER

  Chris Henry Coffey

  WILLIAM

  Jeremy Strong

  MIRIAM NOEL

  Mary Beth Fisher

  LOUIS SULLIVAN

  Harris Yulin

  HELEN GIRVIN

  Holley Fain

  CHARACTERS

  FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT, fifty-five

  LLOYD, his son, thirty-three

  CATHERINE, his daughter, twenty-nine

  KENNETH BAXTER, Catherine’s husband, thirty

  WILLIAM, Wright’s assistant, twenties

  MIRIAM NOEL, Wright’s mistress, fifty-three

  LOUIS SULLIVAN, sixty-seven

  HELEN GIRVIN, a schoolteacher, twenties

  TIME

  The play takes place over three days, beginning August 31, 1923.

  PLACE

  A hillside on the grounds of Olive Hill, Hollywood, California.

  On the grounds are two (unseen) buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for Miss Aline Barnsdall, a wealthy benefactress: the main building (Hollyhock House) and the guest quarters (Residence B). A third building, a schoolhouse, is under construction. It too is unseen.

  From this hillside one can see the Pacific Ocean.

  SCENE 1

  Outside.

  Olive Hill which overlooks Hollywood, California, and the ocean; August 31, 1923. Hollyhock House, a second residence, and the beginnings of a schoolhouse sit on the property, though all are out of view. Early evening, still a bit of light at the beginning of the scene. Frank Lloyd Wright (fifty-five) sits in a chair.

  A blanket is spread on the ground; remains of dinner—plates, glasses. Helen Girvin (twenties), a schoolteacher, and Catherine Wright Baxter (twenty-nine), Frank’s daughter, sit on the blanket, picking at the remains of the meal.

  FRANK: Sometimes—I think I am America.

  CATHERINE: Father . . .

  HELEN: What’s wrong?

  CATHERINE: I hate it when he talks like that.

  FRANK (Continuing his thought): Or what’s left of it.

  CATHERINE: Don’t listen when he talks like that.

  FRANK: She asked—

  CATHERINE: She asked a simple, obvious, polite question.

  FRANK (The question): “Why have I moved here?”

  CATHERINE (Answering for him): Because he needs the work.

  FRANK: Because this—here . . . maybe. It may still be possible here. Back home, they have all seemed to have lost their way. Chicago’s bad, New York even worse. It’s like they’ve just ripped up their roots. Forgotten who they were, who we are. They make money doing nothing now. Hard work—“for suckers.” I’ve heard young people say this. And greed. And selfishness. What happened to everything we have been trying to do? They build buildings now that were in fashion in Europe eighty years ago. Or worse—in vogue in Athens—twenty-five-hundred years ago. They’ve forgotten how to look to themselves. Inside themselves—as Americans. You feel it getting worse and worse. In Chicago. Away for a few years, and I came back, I couldn’t believe all that had changed. It wasn’t where I wished to live anymore.

  CATHERINE: And no one wanted to hire him, so he needs work.

  FRANK: And no one wanted to hire me, so I need work.

  (Smiling at Helen) California is young. I need youth.

  (He nods to the attractive Helen, who blushes)

  CATHERINE: Leave her alone.

  (Helen “slaps” Catherine on the leg to tell her to “stop.”)

  Or do you like it? She likes it, Father.

  FRANK: Not to make you any more self-conscious, my dear, but my God how I missed that—a young woman blushing.

  CATHERINE: Father—

  FRANK: In Japan, the women turn away, they cover their faces, but you realize they’re thinking their own private thoughts. But an American woman’s blush—you know her thoughts.

  CATHERINE: Father.

  HELEN: And what am I thinking?

  (Helen looks at Frank, half smiling. Catherine is surprised by this boldness as they look at each other—flirting. Then:)

  FRANK: But we weren’t talking about me.

  CATHERINE: When aren’t we talking about—

  FRANK: Helen was talking about the school.

  (William Smith, twenties, Frank’s assistant, has entered from the house and has started to pick up the plates.)

  HELEN: We’ve based the school on the principle that nature—

  (Catherine has been watching William pick up the remains of the meal. Frank has been watching her.)

  FRANK (To Helen): One second. My daughter has complained that I treat my assistants as servants. Is that how you feel, William? Like a servant?

  CATHERINE: He’s not going to tell you how—

  FRANK: William? (Then introduces) Helen.

  WILLIAM: We’ve met. I am whatever Mister Wright wishes me to be when he wishes me to be it.

  (Frank laughs.)

  FRANK: Was there an edge in that voice?

  WILLIAM: Should I bring drinks?

  FRANK: We’re not drinking. None of us is drinking, are we?

  CATHERINE (After a hesitation): No.

  FRANK (To Helen): You were saying about the—

  HELEN: Nature—our principle. Nature would have her children be children before they are men or women. The tragic error of our schools today is that we are so anxious for results of growth that we neglect the process of growth.

  FRANK (Referring back to his earlier comments): My daughter has a lot of complaints about me. One reason it is nice to be here in California is because I have children here.

  CATHERINE: And a grandchild.

  FRANK: And a grandchild who will be coming to this school.

  HELEN: I haven’t met her yet. But tomorrow— I’m looking foward . . .

  CATHERINE: I’ve been meaning to bring her by. So she wouldn’t be frightened—

  FRANK: You should have. (To Helen) I look forward to sitting her at my drafting table.

  CATHERINE: Ann. (To Frank) You remember that, don’t you? Her name? Ann.

  FRANK: That’s not fair.

  HELEN (Getting back on track): We’ve articulated our goals—

  FRANK (Interrupting, to Catherine): I remember my granddaughter’s name, Catherine. I’ve been away. I’m sorry. (To Helen, but speaking to Catherine) My daughter has never forgiven me for—being away.

  HELEN: It wasn’t for—“being away.”

  FRANK (Over this): And so I’ve come to live in California—where she and my granddaughter are—Ann—to make up for this.

  CATHERINE: Untrue. (She smiles)

  (He looks at her, then:)

  FRANK (Trying to make a joke): Not completely.

  CATHERINE: Untrue.

  (They turn back to Helen.)

  HELEN: The goals? Of the school?

  (Frank nods.)

  To develop the child to the fullest. To encourage spontaneity. To free the child from self-consciousness. (She has a brochure) And the curriculum: English, Arithmetic, History.

  (Frank takes the brochure from her. She continues, now at his side, on her knees, reading as he leans over.)

  Geography, Drawing and Construction. Art. (She looks into his eyes, then continues) Music, Dancing.

  (Frank smiles.)

  What?

  (He shakes his head, she continues to read.)

  Physical Training and Games, French, Sewing, Civics, Cooking, Hygiene, Character Building, Dramatics.

  CATHERINE: You don’t have to read everything. He can read.

  (Helen stops, but stays kneeling at Frank’s side as he reads.)

  FRANK: “The Little Dipper School.” I hadn’t realized that was its name. I’ve been labeling the plans—“the playroom.” (Handing back th
e brochure) Very nice. (To Catherine) Another reason for being here—because there are people like her. She’s blushing again. (Smiling, teasing to Helen) What is it about young American women? I would just like to say that I am honored to have designed your schoolhouse, Miss Girvin. I’m only sorry it won’t be ready in time for tomorrow.

  HELEN: There’s plenty of room in the main residence. We can wait. And for such a—perfect space. (To Catherine) I showed you the plans.

  FRANK: I based it upon the children’s playroom—when she (Catherine) and her brothers were growing up. I rebuilt that room four or five times.

  CATHERINE: And then you left us.

  (Pause. Helen, uncomfortable, starts to get up.)

  FRANK: Sit. Sit, please. (To Catherine) And now—I’ve come back. To make this—home. And your school, Miss Girvin, is a good start. Start all over with the children, and do it right this time, isn’t that the idea? Recognize our failures, and try again. Assuming our children will let us. (Short pause) I used to love working around the noise of children. I’m looking forward to that again. (Looks back toward the house, then off toward the sea) You know they offered me everything—in Japan, to stay. I could have built a city. They didn’t want me to go.

  CATHERINE: Lloyd said you were fired.

  FRANK (To “Helen”): My son, Lloyd, is a very stupid man. Why my daughter listens to him I have no idea. They begged me, Helen. After what I built—the Imperial Hotel. I don’t say this myself, but it’s now been said—a new wonder of the world. They wanted more; I had to come home. But I’m sorry you can’t see it. I’m sorry my daughter can’t walk around it. It ate four years of my life.

  CATHERINE: Lloyd said you were fired.

  (Frank ignores her.)

  HELEN: Maybe I will see it sometime. And I love this house— (Points off) you’ve made. Someone said it was—“Mayan”?

  FRANK: Lloyd, her brother, oversaw the construction while I was in Japan, that’s why it’s so badly built. I feel the need to apologize to Miss Barnsdall every time I see her.