Krenzke, Raymond E. (American playwright, 19__-____ ), and Kathleen F. Doll (American playwright, 19__-____ ), “Breakfast in Coventry,”
a comedy, set in the dining area of a Romanesque Anglo-Saxon manor, breakfast, c. 1040 A.D.,
1m1f,
© 1995 by Raymond E. Krenzke and Kathleen F. Doll; scripts and rights available from Raymond E. Krenzke, e-mail FlowersL@ix.netcom.com. Cited by Raymond E. Krenzke, via hand delivery, June 29, 1998.
Dramatis Personae Leofric (m), Earl of Mercia, well built, married for two years; Godiva (f) beautiful wife of Leofric.
Synopsis Leofric begins his breakfast. Godiva sardonically challenges him on an erotic statue he has moved into their bedroom. She does not accept that a naked and well defined presentation of Mary Magdalene really portrays a penitential theme. His announcement that it will eventually go as a gift to the monastery does not assuage her ire. Moreover, she feels a lack of personal freedom, as he has vetoed several of her housekeeping projects. He claims that these projects all involved men. She calls him jealous. He interrupts her nagging to get on with his project for the day: proclaiming a new tax on the locals. To her snide remarks about his fondness for taxing, he dismisses her with a rhetorical challenge, “I’ll tell you what you can do, Miss Modesty: ride through the streets of the town stark naked at high noon today and I swear I will not enact nay new taxes until they are really necessary.” Wheels begin whirring in her head. She accepts the challenge. He warns that he will blind anyone who watches, but that does not deter her. She starts preparing for noon by letting down her voluminous hair.
Comment Krenzke says, “By the end of the play, Godiva should have the radiance of a divinely inspired Joan of Arc going out to lead the troops to save her people.”
Themes altrusim, Anglo-Saxon, civil disobedience, English
history, feminism, jealousy, marriage, Mary Magdalene, nudity, protest,
religion, Saint Sebestian, statue, tax.
This Website continues under construction and welcomes new citations and comments.
Page entered July 4, 1998, by the site Webmaster.
There is
a there there with a correct click.