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    Odd Ducks
    Odd Ducks
    Odd Ducks
    Ebook133 pages28 minutes

    Odd Ducks

    By Bryden MacDonald

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    About this ebook

    Welcome to the small town of Tartan Cross, Nova Scotia, where skeletons rattle in closets and past histories are so intertwined that the lives of four fortysomething, eccentric characters have become so complicated that something needs to change. In the comedy, Odd Ducks, award-winning playwright Bryden MacDonald positions his four characters at the brink of existential angst – and the action unfolds from there.

    At the centre of the drama is Ambrose, an irredeemable reprobate and the type of guy who rants philosophically at the bar while mooching beer from his friends. He’s a narcissist who thinks he’s God’s gift to women. And he’s having an affair with Mandy Menzies, a charming and beautiful brunette who was the high school beauty queen but is now stuck in a marriage of convenience and a life of boredom. Her housekeeper, Estelle Carmichael, has seen it all, but her prickly exterior belies a loving heart. The dryly funny Freddy Durdle is the perfect counter-balance to over-the-top Ambrose.

    All four oddballs seem stuck in their lives, but searing sarcasm relieves the boredom and crazy, everyday dramas aid their struggle to move on and keep things light.

    Cast of 2 women and 2 men.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTalonbooks
    Release dateApr 24, 2015
    ISBN9780889229358
    Odd Ducks
    Author

    Bryden MacDonald

    Bryden MacDonald is a playwright, director, actor and teacher. His published plays are Whale Riding Weather, The Weekend Healer, Divinity Bash/nine lives, With Bated Breath, and Odd Ducks. He’s created and directed theatrical interpretations of the words and music of Leonard Cohen (“Sincerely a Friend”), Carol Pope & Rough Trade (“Shaking the Foundations”), and Joni Mitchell (“When All the Slaves Are Free”). He has coached students at the National Theatre School of Canada and McGill University. He’s been in residence at Factory Theatre; The National Theatre School; Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal; Mulgrave Road; Neptune Theatre; The Stratford Festival and Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. Bryden lives in Halifax.

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      Book preview

      Odd Ducks - Bryden MacDonald

      Odd-Ducks-Cover-EPUB.jpg

      Contents

      Production History

      Cast

      Production Note

      ODD DUCKS

      Acknowledgements

      Other Plays by Bryden Macdonald

      This one is for my mom –

      Marie.

      She loves a good laugh.

      Production History

      Odd Ducks by Bryden MacDonald was commissioned by the Chester Playhouse Summer Theatre Festival and produced at the playhouse in Chester, Nova Scotia, from September 20 to 29, 2012, with the following cast and crew:

      AMBROSE: Christian Murray

      MANDY: Joanne Miller

      ESTELLE: Samantha Wilson

      FREDDY: Brian Heighton

      Directed by Bryden MacDonald

      Lights, set, and sound designed by Bob Elliott

      Costume, set, and props designed by Janet MacLellan

      Stage managed and sound designed by Jenn Hewitt

      Technical assistance by Seth Cole

      Produced by Mary Lou Martin and Erick Bickerdike

      Cast

      All in their forties.

      AMBROSE ARCHIBALD

      A narcissist. Charming. Irritating. Unemployed.

      MANDY MENZIES

      Sweet. Naive. Needy. Prone to hysteria.

      ESTELLE CARMICHAEL

      Mandy’s only friend. Impatient. Direct but kind.

      FREDDY DURDLE

      Ambrose’s only friend. Hard-working. Fed up.

      The offstage voices of WALTER and MAN and WOMAN

      can be supplied by the main cast.

      Production Note

      The play takes place at

      and in the near vicinity of

      the Odd Duck Pub

      in Tartan Cross

      a small village near the ocean

      on Canada’s east coast.

      The Odd Duck’s old wooden bar

      is a constant.

      With upside-down bar stools

      on its countertop –

      legs reaching to the sky –

      it mimics a shadowy stand of birch.

      It might also ramble and morph

      into a fence

      through a pretty backyard garden.

      Weathered barnboard

      and bursts of sunflowers

      might embrace the playing area

      creating a number of places

      for characters to appear from

      and eavesdrop behind.

      The play

      is lively and chaotic

      taking place just before

      during

      and not very long after

      the incident

      that compels these misfits

      to tell their story.

      They often leave a scene

      to come and speak to us –

      to defend themselves

      or to confide.

      There is the feeling

      that they might not know what is coming next.

      Sometimes we might wonder

      if they know why they are even there at all.

      With minimal set and props

      Odd Ducks should move at a bright and carefree pace.

      There is no need to hide anything –

      the characters set the stage

      speaking as they do so if necessary.

      The overlapping scenes

      are punctuated

      by snippets of jukebox pop songs

      and shifts in light.

      ODD DUCKS

      MUSIC

      All by Myself

      by Eric Carmen

      plays

      as the lights fade up

      on a calm starry moonlit night

      in a forest clearing.

      Shadows of birch trees.

      An intimidating shrub.

      A pup tent:

      a pair of booted feet

      protrude from one end.

      As the song’s chorus repeats

      the music fades

      into exaggeratedly ominous forest sounds.

      Then silence.

      The pup tent collapses.

      From within

      we hear a grown man begin to weep.

      The weeping becomes histrionic

      as he wrestles with the tent.

      Finally the man appears

      from under the wreckage.

      This is AMBROSE Archibald –

      a roguish man-child.

      He wears jeans

      and a plaid jacket with snap closures.

      He has a bandage on his head.

      AMBROSE kicks and spits at the tent.

      He stomps on it.

      AMBROSE

      I hate you I hate you

      I hate hate hate you!

      He pants

      until his breathing regulates.

      AMBROSE looks around

      fearful and suspicious.

      In an attempt to calm down

      he speaks to himself.

      This is very traumatic.

      This is no picnic.

      This is very unpleasant

      and painful and grim and hard.

      This is so hard.

      Vision quests are hard.

      He walks into the shrub

      and squeals.

      I hate nature.

      I hate the woods.

      The woods are –

      the woods are devilish.

      The woods are devilish and

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