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SMALL IRONIES: Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Epilogue

Three Continents

From the ship at sea 1

From the ship at sea 2

From the ship at sea 3

From the ship at sea, 4

From the ship at sea, 5

From the ship at sea , 6

From Rio!!

The Trip Home

NEW SHORT STORIES

Nothing There For You

Nothing There For You, 2

Nothing There For You, 3

Nothing There For You, 4

Chase of The Thrill, 1

Chase of the Thrill, 2

Chase of the Thrill, 3

Chase of The Thrill, 4

Of Course, part1

Of Course, part 2

Of Course, part 3

Of Course, concluded

In Memory: Of My Cruise 1

In Memory: Of My Cruise 2

In Memory: Of My Cruise 3

In Memory: Of My Cruise 4

Las Vegas, 1

Las Vegas, 2

Las Vegas, 3

Las Vegas, 4

Las Vegas, concluded

Mad Moment #1

Mad Moment #2

Mad Moment #3

Mad Moment #4

Margaret Never Knows, 1

Margaret Never Knows, 2

Margaret Never Knows, 3

Margaret Never Knows, 4

Margaret Never Knows, 5

Remote, part 1

Remote, part 2

Remote, part 3

Remote, concluded

POETRY

April's Fools

Easter Sunday

...simple answers

And when they come at me

Fogged In

BROADWAY/NYC THEATRE

Love, Linda

Curtains

Barrington Stage Co. 2010

Art

Pool Boy

Sweeney Todd

The Whipping Man

Freud's Last Session

BSC ARCHIVED REVIEWS

Carousel

The Fantasticks

I Am My Own Wife

Mysteries of Harris Burdi

Private Lives

See Rock City. . .

Sleuth

...Spelling Bee

A Streetcar Named Desire

This Wonderful Life

To Kill a Mockingbird

Trumbo

Underneath the Lintel

The Violet Hour

Berkshire Opera

Le Nozze di Figaro

La Boheme

Berkshire Theatre 2010

The Guardsman

Endgame

The Last Five Years

K2

BTF ARCHIVED REVIEWS

BTF Archive

The Book Club Play

Broadway by the Year

Candida

Candide

The Caretaker

A Christmas Carol

The Einstein Project

Eleanor: Her Secret Journ

Faith Healer

Ghosts

A Man For All Seasons

Noel Coward in Two Keys

Pageant Play

Prisoner of 2nd Avenue

Red Remembers

Sick

Waiting for Godot

Chester Theatre Company

Tilted House

The Dishwashers

Almost, Maine

Blackbird

Copake Theatre Company

Nine Months

I Do! I Do!

Sour Grapes

Talking Heads

Grace & Glorie

Dorset Theatre Fest 2010

Murder on the Nile

Fallen Angels

The Pavilion

DORSET ARCHIVED REVIEWS

The Hollow

June Moon

Marry Me a Little

Merton of the Movies

St. Nicholas

A Year with Frog and Toad

Ghent Playhouse

Prisoner/2nd Avenue

Mrs. Farnsworth

Complete Wm Shakespeare

Puss in Boots

Belles

Enchanted April

Dancing at Lughnasa

The Boys Next Door

Jack and the Beanstalk

Clue: The Musical

6 Women...

Picnic

Hair Loom!

Over the River, etc.

Literature

B ob Dylan

Christmasville

A Lesser Saint

Upstreet, #1

Mac-Haydn Theatre 2010

Damn Yankees

Chicago

The Secret Garden

Anything Goes

MACHAYDN ARCHIVED REVIEWS

Beauty and the Beast

Chorus Line

Crazy For You

Hairspray

Hello, Dolly!

High Society

Joseph. . .Dreamcoat

Meet Me in St. Lou

Phantom

The Sound of Music

Sweet Charity

Music

Journeys by Robert Baksa

Mary Verdi: Precious Love

Mahagonny

NYSTI

Romeo & Juliet

And Then There Were None

King Island Christmas

A Legend of Sleepy Hollow

The Philadelphia Story

Yours, Anne

Orphan Train

Of Mice and Men

Twelve Angry Jurors

Anastasia

1776

Macbeth

Miracle On 34th Street

Arsenic and Old Lace

American Soup

Ordeal By Innocence

Reunion

OLDCASTLE ARCHIVED REVIEW

"Almost, Maine" in VT

Beauty Queen of Leenane

The Grass is Greener

One Two Three

Third

Restaurants

Bezalel Gables

Blantyre

Brazillian

Burrito Bound

SPICE!

Shakespeare & Co-2010

The Winter's Tale

Richard III

Mengelberg and Mahler

Julius Caesar

SHAKES & CO ARCHIVES

The Actors Rehearse...

All's Well That Ends Well

Bad Dates

The Canterville Ghost

Cindy Bella

Dreamer Examines Pillow

Goatwoman of Corvis Count

Golda's Balcony

Hound of Baskervilles

The Ladies Man

Liaisons Dangereuses

Othello

Pinter's Mirror

Romeo and Juliet

Shirley Valentine

Twelfth Night

White People

Special Attractions

"Earnest" in Albany

Life Is Short

Paris, 1890--Unlaced

BCC's A Christmas Carol

Sister's Christmas Catech

The Pajame Game

Her Name is Vincent

Property Known as Garland

12th Night

I Know I Came...Something

Forbidden Broadway

Doubt, a Parable

Voices' A Christmas Carol

Dickens A Christmas Carol

Marie Galante

Machinal

Capitol Steps

Late Nite Catechism

Rabbit Hole

Taming of The Shrew

Mystery of Irma Vep

I Love a Piano

The News in Revue

The Mikado

Saturday Night Liv

A Chorus Line

BCC - Christmas Carol

Morgan O-Yuki

Rent

Stageworks Hudson 2010

Imagining Madoff

Or,

Theater Barn 2010

Spider's Web

Red, White and Tuna

THEATER BARN ARCHIVES

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

Forever Plaid

Grease

How the Other Half Loves

Leading Ladies

Moonlight and Magnolias

The Mousetrap

Murder at Howard Johnson

The Musical of Musicals

Romance, Romance

Same Time, Next Year

Veronica's Room

Visiting Mr. Green

Zanna Don't!

Visual Arts

Walking the Dog Thtr 2010

Our Town

WALKING THE DOG: ARCHIVED

Cyrano

daemons

The Gospel of John

i take your hand in mine

The Owl and the Pussycat

Under Milk Wood

Vritue, Desire, etc.

Walking the dog's HAMLET

Weston Playhouse

A Raisin in the Sun

Rent - Weston

25th Spelling Bee

Fully Committed

Les Miserables

No Child. . .

The Light in the Piazza

Williamstown Theatre 2010

After the Revolution

Six Degrees of Separation

Samuel J. and K.

Funny Thing II

Funny Thing/Forum

It's Jewdy's Show

WTF ARCHIVED REVIEWS

The Atheist

Beyond Therapy

Broke-Ology

Caroline in Jersey

Children

David Storey's "Home"

A Flea in Her Ear

Knickerbocker

Quartermaine's Terms

She Loves Me

Three Sisters

The Torch-Bearers

True West

What is..Cause of Thunder

 

MARGARET NEVER KNOWS, DOES SHE

By J. Peter Bergman

           At ten they closed their books and glanced quickly, furtively around the table at one another. They were guarded. No one showed anything, not one emotion played out over one face. Finally, after what seemed a single exhalation of breath on the part of the entire group, Margaret broke into a broad smile, her tongue emerging from between her teeth, and Frank spoke.

          "Margaret loses," he said in a loud, sharp voice.

          "Margaret loses," the others intoned solemnly.

          Margaret’s smile spread across her entire face and became an outrageous chuckle. The others sat silent again as she followed this with unbridled laughter. They watched her as she rose from the table, clasping her right hand over her mouth, trying to suppress her idiotic reaction. She couldn’t stop what nature had demanded from her and she fled the room. When the door slapped the sill crisply closing behind her, when the silence had once again overtaken them all, they rose and silently left the hall. The first rehearsal was over.

          Margaret Culver was nineteen. She was tall, almost six feet, slender and light on her feet. She had been dancing since the day after she stood up and took her first steps. Her mother had enrolled her in ballet class the next day. Thelma Clover, Margaret’s mom, had an instinct about this child, her third, from the moment she was born. When the nurse had placed the tiny infant in her arms she looked into baby Margaret’s eyes and she’d known that this child was special, was talented. She’d said as much to anyone who would listen to her. This was the one, she said to them, this was the one. The others were very nice, but Margaret was the one. She had treated her daughter differently from the very beginning and now, at nineteen, Margaret was going to prove to them all that her mother had been right.

          Divorced from Hank Clover, Margaret’s mother had changed their last name to Culver. It was much more elegant, she said to anyone who objected or questioned. It was a better name for Margaret, also. Clover was common; Culver was special. Clover was a weed; Culver was the city where Hollywood made its best movies. Margaret deserved Culver, and not Clover. That, Thelma insisted, was why she changed their name.

          Margaret’s older brothers chose to keep the name Clover and divorce themselves from Thelma and Margaret. The two boys left the nest as early as they could, Bob going back to their father and his older brother Elmer striking out on his own. Margaret rarely heard from them during her teen years, and never saw them. She only saw Thelma and her teachers and no one else. She was being groomed, Thelma told her. Groomed.

          Sometimes, though, she felt she was actually doomed, not groomed. Doomed to a life of non-stop training, work, and such. She hadn’t played with dolls or boys or anyone for that matter. Her childhood had been one of constant lessons, dancing, singing, standing still for hours like a model. She could recite Shakespeare intelligently and dance on her toes for an hour without descending to her heels. She could sing intelligibly in English, French, Italian and German. She could actually hit a D-sharp above high C without batting an eyelash. Margaret was the product of her mother’s ambition for her, or as Thelma would have, she was the realization of all that promise she'd seen on that fateful afternoon when the nurse first placed Margaret on her breast.

          But Margaret wasn’t sure. She often said to herself, about herself, and in the absolute third person, "Margaret never knows, does she?" She wasn’t so sure.

          This time, this fateful evening rehearsal, was her first with the summer stock company in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The apprentice company, after all her training and work, and not the professionals, was where she found herself. The plays were an interesting lot, none of them familiar to her, so when the director informed them all at this first reading of the opening show, that this was a "serious, serious, serious" play (his hand striking the table hard with each repeated word) and that he would brook no humor, no silliness, no response not proscribed by the author, the young actors had diligently accepted his admonition. Even Margaret had felt the need to keep a straight face and not react badly to the play. Her problem was that the play seemed frivolous to her.

          As they read it, and she listened carefully to every actor at the table in his or her character, and as she read her own lines, the play became more of a challenge to her. Not that there was anything strange or difficult in it; it was just the play itself. It seemed slight, a minor piece about stupid people caught in an asinine situation. She had managed to hold back her reaction until the end of the third act, but then it was all too much for her. The smile had overtaken her, the laughter bubbled outward. Margaret had lost the challenge of "serious (bang), serious (bang), serious (bang)."

          The night air threatened to calm her down, its chill entering her instantly. She stopped laughing, stopped moving for a moment and by the time she had taken her second deep breath the laughing scene was all behind her, all but the usual phrase, that is, the usual reaction to her own internal insanities: "Margaret never knows, does she?" She heard herself saying it out loud and when she heard the man’s voice responding she knew she’d finally gone too far.

          "And why doesn’t she?" he asked from somewhere in the darkness that surrounded her. Margaret knew one thing right away: her question now had a questioner and she had no answer.


 

More to come - Next Sunday!


 

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