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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
(Concluded)

By J. Peter Bergman

 

          Two hours later, on a large, overstuffed cushion in an even larger, Victorian wicker easy chair on the porch, Margaret sat curled up, her legs tightly tucked beneath her body, her arms wrapped around her bosom, her left thumb stuck up under her upper lip. She had been sitting there like that, watching the cars that rove the night roads, for over an hour. She hadn’t moved once. She hadn’t allowed herself to even think of moving, think of anything really. She sat and watched and thought nothing about anything. Occasionally the door to the hallway would open and one or another of the apprentices would stick his or her head out, look at Margaret so tight and so silent, and retreat quickly to some other refuge in the building or on the grounds.

          That was how Frank found her, just after one in the morning.

          The night air had developed a chill of its own and the night callers had perked up, chirping in the darkness, calling out for one another. Fireflies danced on the lawn and in the trees and, at one particular point that Margaret could easily see, they filled the air with twinkling lights creating a heaven just for Margaret to be thrilled. She was staring into the miniature solar system when Frank approached her.

          "You know, you were very good," he said softly. When she didn’t respond he reached down and touched her lightly on the shoulder. She looked away from her favorite living constellations and turned her face upward toward him. "You were very good," he said again.

          "I don’t like the play," she said to him.

          "I know."

          "Then why am I good in it?"

          "Margaret never knows, does she," he said with a smile.

          "What’s that supposed to mean?"

          "You tell me. You say it often enough. You must know what it means."

          Margaret moved in her chair and found that hre right arm and both her legs had fallen asleep. Movement was painful and she grimaced, hoping he wouldn’t see her do it. She hoped in vain.

          "Do you need some help?"

          "I’ll be all right. I’ve just been sitting there like that for far too long."

          "Let me help you," he offered. He reached out to take her right arm, but it was just so much jam and jelly in his hands. There was no supporting her that way, so he instantly threw his left arm across her shoulders to hold her on her good side.

          She found that she liked his arm there, that the support was excellent.

          "Thanks," she said. "And Thelma Clover thanks you, too."

          "Who?"

          "Thelma Clover. My mother."

          "Oh. Not Culver, then? Did I get it wrong for the program?"

          "No, no. We use Culver. Mother prefers it."

          "Another name change, Margaret. We seem to be full of them this summer."

          "I know," she said. "Why do we do that?"

          "It’s like your scene in the play, actually. Names say things about us that even our faces and voices don’t relay."

          "Oh, yes, that Frank Morgan stuff. That’s clever, I suppose."

          "No, not clever, practical. The union won’t allow two actors to have the same name, so sometimes you lose your own name, your born identity, to someone else who chose it, bought it really."

          "We gave mine back to my father. In anger, I think," Margaret told him. "My mother thought that Culver made more sense if I was going to be an actress."

          "There’s a book, and a movie too, called Marjorie Morningstar. It’s about an actress, about your age, who changes her name from Morgenstern - which means morning star - so that she can hide her religion and her ethnic background. She finds out how difficult that can be when she falls in love."

          "Sounds a bit silly to me, Frank."

          "It’s not. It has a reality, too."

          "Thank you for the compliment, by the way. That helped me. Now."

          "It wasn’t meant as a compliment, just a truth. You were good tonight. You have a flair for it, you know."

          "I know."

          "Ah!" His voice was louder suddenly. "So Margaret actually does know, doesn’t she?"

          "Don’t. Please." She felt a tear on her cheek, but she hadn’t been aware of one forming. "Don’t mock me, please."

          "I wasn’t. Not really."

          "You were. It felt as though you were."

          "I wasn’t." He pulled her closer to him, his arm still gently draped over her shoulders. "Do you mind me doing this?"

          "No. It’s much warmer this way, but..." She stopped abruptly as she realized that the air, the sky and the field had altered while they’d been talking. The fireflies were gone, or had somehow shut off their lovely little twinklers. "Where did they go?"

          "Where did who go?"

          "My field of starlights. Where are they?"

          "I believe they’re in your eyes, Margaret," he said as he bent forward to give her the gentlest of kisses. Their lips met for an instant, parted and then drifted closer to one another again. They joined in a kiss that included heavy breathing and shutting eyelids. Margaret’s eyes brought back the missing field of stars as he held her in this sweet embrace.

          When they finally broke apart and she moved a step out of his grasp, she said, "You’re not a boy, are you, Frank?"

          "Can’t you tell?"

          "I don’t know, but I think you’re the first man I ever kissed."

          "Don’t." He stopped after the one word, then instantly took up the response again. "Don’t fall in love with me, Margaret. It might not be right."

          "If I don’t try it, I’ll never know," she said. "It’s like the part in this play - I didn’t like it, didn’t want it, but I’m good at it. Maybe I’d be good with you, too."

          "Don’t, baby," he murmured, honestly unsure whether he had gone too far or not.

          "I think I have to, Frank," she reassured him. "If I don’t I might be stuck forever with ‘Margaret never knows, does she.’ I don’t want that for my whole life. I want to be sure of something, even if its only a temporary something. At least it would be something." She tried to smile at him, but her face retained its more serious aspects.

          "Well, if you’re serious.." (She slapped him hard on his shoulder), "serious..." (she did it again), "what are you doing?"

          "You always bang your hand down when you say serious, Frank."

          And that got him to laugh and he took both of her hands in both of his and he pulled her toward him and they kissed again.

          "And Margaret never knows, does she?" she thought to herself, "and Margaret doesn’t care."

#####

 


 

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