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PLAYS: Salmonberry

Production History

Salmonberry Synopsis

SALMONBERRY: A West Coast Fairy Tale

The play takes place in the present, in a home on a west coast Canadian beach.
Soundtrack of ocean waves fills the theatre as people enter. The set should include the following:

Beach/large Rock--symbolically associated with Teabag, even when he is not in the scene.
The moon (at different stages) appears several times over the course of the play.

Interior downstairs living room/upstairs bedroom window/exterior porch. Suggestion of road upstage.
This freestanding framework can accommodate, with surface changes:

Community hall (Festival Dance), Library and Cafe.

Scene 1

Beach. Sounds of the sea --waves, gulls. A seal's watery snort. SALMONBERRY wears wooden shoes, yellow sweater.
She carries an oversized apple. Her hair is tied back until Scene 10, when it hangs loose.

SALMONBERRY: I hate her.
SALMONBERRY kicks rock with her lime wooden shoe. Sits on rock, throws stones into the water.
Get----out-of-here.
SALMONBERRY throws stones to the rhythm of the sentences.
I gotta get out of here. Gotta.
Stone hits the Rock. A loud ping.

TEABAG: (Seal appears at Rock.) Hey watch it. (Ducking.) You could hit a friend.

SALMONBERRY: Go away. (Turns back to seal.)

TEABAG: Hmmm. Not happy. (Antics--does tricks even though her back is to him.)
Hey you, look at me. (Does tricks.) Did you bring me apples?

SALMONBERRY: Can’t you think about anything but food? Geez.

TEABAG: Can’t you do anything but sulk?

SALMONBERRY: (Angrily turning around.) She took my mother’s embroidery--the one that’s hung in the front hall since
I was born and you tell me stop sulking? (Turns her back to TEABAG.)

TEABAG: (Doing a silly trick.) You didn’t bring one of those golden apples favoured by that king..uh..

SALMONBERRY: Louis XIV.

TEABAG: Yeah.

SALMONBERRY: Yeah I did. (Throws apple behind her back. TEABAG catches it.)

TEABAG: Merci beaucoup mademoiselle. Yum yum. (Crunching sounds. TEABAG eats apple.) I have an idea.
Why don't you swim out to my Rock?

SALMONBERRY: Swim? Looks...(Testing water)... Cold.

TEABAG: Use your shoes-they’ll double as boats. (SALMONBERRY looks at wooden shoes.) Just kidding. Use the boat-there. (Pause.) Tell you what. Get into the boat. (Pause.) Hurry up, be a good girl do as you're told I don't have all day. (SALMONBERRY climbs into boat.) Good. Now, where's that tricky fellow? (Streamers suggest wind over the water.) Hey wind! (Pause.) Wind, wind, over the sea, blow my friend across to me. (SALMONBERRY in boat chants with TEABAG.)
SB & TEABAG: Wind, wind, over the sea, blow my friend across to me.
Boat lands SALMONBERRY on Rock. She climbs on board and TEABAG puts a flipper around SALMONBERRY.

TEABAG: Those are very good apples

SALMONBERRY: (Angry.) Is food all that you think about? Food food food. Here have them all. (SALMONBERRY dumps six apples onto Rock.)


SALMONBERRY: female with longish hair. Lime green wooden shoes, yellow sweater.
STEPMOTHER: female, scary looking
TEABAG the Seal: seal-costumed character
T. VOICE OVER: Teabag’s voice
Tom’s Cousin/PRINCE: Native male, blue jeans, white shirt, long dark hair
BOY IN CROWD: boy, casually dressed
JANITOR: Older male or female, janitorial clothes.
CUSTOMER: Male dressed in black suit, glasses and whiskers
STEPDAUGHTER: hand puppet
FIDDLE PLAYER: musician or taped music
CROWD: male/female children/adults or props and audio suggestions of crowd (cardboard cutouts, video, etc.)
Play can be cast with four actors but this is a bare minumum.
Staging Notes:
Two interpretive, story-telling opportunities in this play. They can occur as live events or the stories can be pre-recorded. First opportunity: Before the play begins an actor walks on stage and into audience, glass float in hand. She/he talks about the original function and origin of glass floats, and tells her fictional story about finding this one on Canada's West Coast (quite common at one time, no longer possible except in remote areas. Talk about them as magical. Audience invited to make up stories about a glass ball. This can be very successful; a planted audience member can tell the first story if necessary. Children and adults have told me various stories. For example, one story about a dog who rescues a salmon from a net near Deep Bay. The salmon gives the dog one of the glass balls supporting the net as a souvenir of its brave deed. Somebody else tells of finding a glass float at Value Village and putting it in her green bottle collection. Somebody else tells of an eagle that finds a float at Tribune Bay and keeps it in its nest in the single high limb of the burned-out Douglas fir. In my experience, the spontaneous storytellers often used familiar place names in their telling. Concrete details of this sort is an important feature of storytelling. Once audience has had a chance to tell stories, and people have passed the glass float around, the play begins. The second opportunity occurs in Scene 14. The director can use one or the other, or omit this element of the play.
OPTIONAL: Audience participation occurs in scenes 3 and 6. Also, the audience can be invited to repeat the chorus with cast, i.e. wind wind over the sea, blow my friend across to me (scenes 1, 3, 8, 9, 11, 13. Audience will need cue cards as text changes). Audience can also be invited to create the soundscape of wind, waves, etc. characters and staging link end