30 minutes / 2 characters
Description
Anyone familiar with Reinhart from the His Company script, Sand Mountain, may be surprised by him here. In Sand Mountain the confident Reinhart has all the answers; in Someone Stronger Reinhart has fallen on hard times. His wife has left him and he has returned to his old hometown seeking familiar solace.
Edna Mae is the aging matriarch of the church in which Reinhart grew up. She has just buried her husband of 60-plus years. But instead of losing herself in grief, we find her sitting alone, communing with God in the fading light of the church sanctuary. This one so tuned to the heart of the Lord helps her friend Reinhart past his bitterness and anger, to reach out and take the hand of the God who loves him.
Someone Stronger is not a story of sorrow or grief, but of trust. It is a story about taking the strong hand of an attentive, loving Father when life gets hard. At the same time, Someone Stronger is a testament to the strength of two people bound together as one under God.
Theme
Trust; Dependancy on God
Characters
Reinhart
a man in his late-twenties or thirties, dressed casually. Reinhart was raised in the church, accepted Christ as his Savior at a young age. But as it is with many Christians, in his adult life he has taken a few wrong turns–some of which have taken him away from God.
Edna Mae
an elderly woman in her early- to mid-eighties, dressed as if she has just come from a funeral (not necessarily black, but at least Sunday-go-to-meeting). (See Reinhart’s opening monologue in the script for a description.)
Set
While this play does not have multiple “scenes,” per se, the dialogue is broken up into several segments that could, depending on the capabilities of the venue, be separated by various mechanical (i.e., lights, sound) means: It would work to have very little separation at all—little more than a pause in the conversation, or a piece of blocking business to move a character about for a few seconds. Or, to show passage of time, the stage could dim to black, with a moment of program music inserted.
Ideally, a combination of program music and set lighting would be used to suggest the passage of time. The setting is an older church sanctuary; if the play opens in the late afternoon, there would be still-bright colored light streaming through the church’s stained glass windows, spilling across the old wooden pews. As the day, and conversation, wears on, the light would gradually fade and grow warmer. So the transitional spaces between the segments could be used to suggest the passage of time by bringing up some program music while the colored light (as if through stained glass windows)—as well as the light on the actors—dims to a lower level.
Props
No props are necessary for Reinhart, but Edna Mae would have a purse, and perhaps a walker or cane. Props may be added in at the director’s discretion to round out the scene and work with blocking.
Topics
Someone Stronger Edna Mae Reinhart Trust Loss Heavenly Father Marriage Dependancy on God Reaching Out Anger Distrust Divorce Strengh Farm The Depression 1930s Government World War Two FDR Roosevelt Dialogue Funeral Husbands Wife Wives Age Aging California Church Sanctuary Stained Glass Windows Reliance Relying on God Faith Strong Hand Strong Arm Alienation
