Incomparable Fanny Barnwarmer

by Jay Squires

The author has placed a warning on this post for violence.

Bird’s-eye view of Scene 1: Brady City, Texas 1929 and Fanny Barnwarmer is being interviewed by a New York City reporter about her lofty career as a comedian. But the subject soon finds its true focus on Fanny’s companion, Juniper Albright, who had come to Brady City to kill Thurston Flourney.

CHARACTERS:
Fanny Barnwarmer: Eighty-five-year-old woman with plenty of spark and sizzle still in her. Has been performing at the Tavern for forty-four years.
Juniper Albright: Seventy-six-year-old woman who was Fanny’s former companion from their first years at Brady City.
Reporter: Mid-thirties. Works for the New York Times; now in Brady, Texas to write a human-interest story on the famous Fanny Barnwarmer.
Voice (OFFSTAGE LEFT): Female, age indeterminate.

SETTING: Front porch of Fanny Barnwarmer’s home. Rocking chair, DOWNSTAGE RIGHT, facing kitchen chair CENTER, and front steps behind, descending to street level with a flowerbed to the side. OFFSTAGE LEFT are street sounds of traffic: of vintage 1929 cars, some horse whinnying, etc., that continue as a kind of white-noise background throughout the scene. UPSTAGE LEFT, is like a separate SET placed at an angle to the main stage with indistinct, smoky walls (conveying a sense of unreality). A very plain cot faces DOWNSTAGE. This section is always in shadow when downstage is in full light—and vice-versa.

PLACE/TIME: Brady Texas, Aug. 8, 1929

AT RISE: FANNY sits in rocking chair facing REPORTER. She is wearing a flowered housedress and he is wearing a suit with the tie loosened at the neck and askew, a hat on the floor beside him. JUNIPER sits on the cot, in shadow. OFFSTAGE LEFT is the occasional, but faint, sound of 1929 street traffic, which is the unsonorous blend of vehicles with backfire, the whinnying response of horses, and creaking of wagon wheels.

REPORTER:
(A full anticipatory grin as of one waiting for a joke’s punchline, which then transforms to a look of perplexity when he realizes that punchline is not forthcoming)
Miss Barnwarmer! You must realize this stretches credibility to the breaking point. One just doesn’t go to the Sherriff when one wants to know the whereabouts of the person one wants to kill.

FANNY:
One-one-one! By this one yer a-one-in’, are ya meanin’ Juniper?

REPORTER:
Well …

FANNY:
No, Juniper ain’t stupid, if that’s what you mean.

[A female voice from OFFSTAGE LEFT (the street) intrudes]

VOICE:
Whatcha got there, Miss Fanny, a gentleman caller?

FANNY:
That you, Grizzy? Cain’t rightly see ya fer the dust yer automobile's kickin’ up. Now Grizzy, you jes mind yer way with yer own Howard, ya hear? an’ stay ’way from this young man who be jes' fool enough to give up his hog-sloppin’ time to court me fer a spell.

VOICE:
Haw! See ya tonight, Miss Fanny.

FANNY:
(To REPORTER)
Where was we?

REPORTER:
(Grinning)
Hog sloppin’?

FANNY:
There’s worse callin’s a body can have. So … where was I? Oh, yes, you was thinkin’ our Miss Juniper was a mite dim-witted.

REPORTER:
(Chuckling, wagging a finger, comically, at her)
No … I—

FANNY:
Fact is, she come from mighty fine stock. Juniper Eileen Albright—that’s her full name—was the gran'chil' of Isabella Baumfree ….
(Watching till recognition forces his jaw to drop before he goes on)
You may know Isabella Baumfree as—

REPORTER:
Oh yes! Sojourner Truth … yes, Miss Barnwarmer, I wrote an article about Sojourner Truth for the Times. She was a champion for women’s rights and abolition.
(Beat)
She was—also—was also a-a-a Negro, Miss Barnwarmer. That means Miss Juniper Albright was—she was—

FANNY:
—as white as you or me. Her hair’s a right bit curlier than mine an’ her lips a little fuller, but she's white to the point o' her skin blisterin’ in the sun. An’ beautiful. She was tall, like her Grandma, an' so—so pretty to look at.

[Full light on JUNIPER, while FANNY and REPORTER go into shadow. NOTE: hereinafter stage directions will be shortened to “Switch to”]

JUNIPER:
(Reading, stopping occasionally to dry a tear)
Oh, Jun, darlin’, I tried to keep my feelin’s outta my describing you. But I think my eyes mighta filled a mite, as I talked about you, and I watched him kinda look away to give my feelings some privacy. And right then, Juniper, I could see the story he came halfway cross country to write wasn’t gonna get writ the way his editor wanted. You know why? I could see the workings of his brain right then and there. This was gonna be your story, Jun, and my heart was about to crack outta my chest and fly away with happiness. So, after a spell, I reach out and touch his knee.

[Switch to FANNY and REPORTER]

FANNY:
(Removing her fingertips she had briefly put on the REPORTER’S knee)
So … let me jes’ tell you the story ’bout Juniper Eileen Albright.

REPORTER:
I would like that, yes.

FANNY:
Juniper’s Mama, a fine woman, near six-foot-tall, like her Mama, Sojourner, was smitten by a proper Englishman, as handsome an’ polite an’—an’ as wealthy a man as Chicago’d ever seen. He owned stock—not cattle stock, mind ya, but paper stock, like steel an’ railroad an’ such. An’ he loved Elizabeth so much. He wooed her an’ courted her … but all in them secret places, ’cause, well, she was a nigra. Juniper tells me her Mama and Daddy never got married, but not for want o’ tryin’.

REPORTER:
Of course. A white man and a negro. As it was, people probably figured she was his chattel. His slave.

FANNY:
Yep. Then, came the children. Juniper was the youngest, an’ the lightest skin of the bunch. The others—they all died from smallpox. Only Juniper lived through it. They had themselves a right pretty home outside o’ Chicago. A quiet life in the country. Well, sir, Juniper was just five when Lincoln was elected an' in a month the South started secedin’ from the Union, one after t’other. An’ she tells me—I mean, later on, she tells me, cause she heard it from her Mama—that it waren’t safe for anyone to step outside their front door ….

REPORTER:
Yes, I read that political division was rife in the north. Especially when Mr. Lincoln started gearing for war.

FANNY:
That musta been true, ’cause long about that time, one early evenin’, Mr. Albright, Juniper’s Daddy, hears a knockin’ at the door. He looks through the window to see his neighbor on the porch. But when he opens the door he finds hisself face-to-face with a gunnysack-hooded gang, and his neighbor just a-walkin’ away. By then, Juniper’s Mama was pleadin’ with the gang while they drag Mr. Albright off the porch steps an’ to the big tree in the front yard.

[From now until the end of the scene …in shadowy silhouette, JUNIPER can be seen slumped forward from the edge of her cot, her head in her hands, her body rocking]

REPORTER:
(Looking physically ill, he retches and makes a horrible face)
Oh Lord, don’t tell me they—

FANNY:
I’m tellin’ ya, son. But that’s not the worst of it. While the gang’s leader an’ two others, throw a rope over a limb, another two was forcin’ Juniper’s Mama … then Juniper herself out onto the porch. Well, Juniper’s Mama faints outright, an’ that jest leaves Juniper.

REPORTER:
Sweet Jesus, not the child!

FANNY:
—Out on the porch, with them forcin’ her to watch. By now they have Mr. Albright, a noose 'round his neck, atop an’ ol’ gray plowhorse, an’ strugglin’ to get off, but them holdin’ him on … an’ then they swats that horse’s rump, an’ Mr. Albright—

[FANNY stops in mid-sentence when the REPORTER shoots to his feet, his eyes glazed, his lips moving as he half-stumbles across the face of the porch to the parapet (stage right), then returns to slump into his chair]

FANNY (Continues):
You want I should stop fer a spell?

REPORTER:
(Tearfully, holding his tablet in one hand)
No … it needs to be recorded.

FANNY:
So, one of ’em gives that horse’s rump a swat. an’ Juniper—her head clamped atween two strong hands—is forced to watch her daddy, his eyes big as silver dollars, grabbin’ for that dang rope till his arms give out and he just swings there, twitchin’ an’ starin’.

END OF SCENE 2

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February
2022

A special thanks for RGStar for his very thoughtful review in which he enlightened me about the unimportance to the reader of the note I FORMERLY HAD placed at the beginning, to wit: "[NOTE TO READER: Remember this play is from the actors' perspective, not the audience's. What is "left" to the actor would be "right" for the audience. What is "far back" on the stage to the audience is designated "upstage" to the actor.]"

Not only is it unimportant, but as he explained (very gently, I might add), every time he came across my "Stage Left" or "Upstage Right" he found himself abstracting from the action taking place 'on the stage of his mind' and making those crazy reversals in his mind.

As I told RGStar, I've removed the offender as a director would an obtuse actor who kept muffing his lines.

Thank you, RGStar. Truly.

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The Education of a Reporter, Scene 2

A chapter in the book The Incomparable Fanny Barnwarmer

Incomparable Fanny Barnwarmer

by Jay Squires

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