©1990 Marie-Lynn Hammond

Mouse was commissioned about 1990 by Alberta Theatre Projects in Calgary, along with several other short plays by other playwrights, for a 10-minute play festival. We were told that the plays would be performed as a lunch-time series, so topics that didn’t mix with lunch should be avoided; also, they would be staged with a minimum of props, lighting, etc. Other than that there were no restrictions on style or subject matter. I got the idea for this play after seeing a young street kid in the subway with a pet rat in the pocket of her jacket.

CHARACTERS

VINCE, a punk with green hair, Doc Marten boots, and a black leather jacket with chains. A young seventeen.

IDA, an office clerk in a beige raincoat with unfashionable glasses and no makeup. An old thirty-two.

PLACE

On a bus in a city.

TIME

The present.

Read the play…

©1984 Marie-Lynn Hammond

THE CHARACTERS

CORINNE, a Franco-Ontarian woman about 60

ELSIE, an English Canadian woman in her late 50s

MARIE-LYNN, their grand-daughter, mid 30s

THE SETTING

CORINNE is in her kitchen in Lowertown Ottawa; ELSIE is in the living room of her Montreal apartment. But while these spaces can be hinted at, the set shouldn’t attempt realism. It should be a relatively abstract space in which the three characters can move about freely.

THE TIME

For CORINNE and ELSIE, the spring of 1944 (except for the phone call section of the prologue which is a flash forward to about one year later). For MARIE-LYNN it is the present (mid 1980s). Read excerpts from the play…