"Creeping Charlie"
Robbins, Kenneth R. (American playwright, professor, author, 1944-____), “Creeping Charlie,”
a 40-minute drama in English, set in a college town, in the middle of America, 1999,
2m2f;
• © 1999 by Kenneth R. Robbins; • script/rights available from Lettie Lee, Ann Elmo Agency, Inc., 60 East 42nd Street, New York City, New York 10165, U.S.A., telephone 212-661-2880; contact Kenneth R. Robbins at 1504 Elizabeth Avenue, Ruston, Louisiana 71270, U.S.A., e-mail krobbins@latech.edu, telephone (home) 318-513-2407, (work) 318-257-2711, fax 318-257-4571. • Cited by Kenneth R. Robbins, via ftp November 9, 1999; Robbins says,
§ Dramatis Personae Lambert (m), 35, a college professor; Ellin (f), 29, Lambert’s wife, a Steinbeck scholar; Nelli (20), Lambert’s student/The Ageless Wonder/The Garden Spot/Harriet Laurgaard, County Agent; Willis (45), Lambert’s tennis pal.
§ Synopsis “‘Let’s say tomorrow, you were given a choice: tennis or sex; which would you choose?’ Thus challenged, Lambert, a college professor begins evaluating his life and the meaning it holds. Into his yard comes ‘creeping Charlie,’ a runner that is killing his grass. At the same time, Willis, his tennis partner, begins suffering from an unknown ailment that causes their weekly tennis matches to be postponed and cancelled. Finally, Ellin, Lambert’s wife, struggles with the issues of political correctness as they relate to the published works of John Steinbeck. All these important things in Lambert’s life fall into perspective when Willis informs him that his complaint is cancer, subsequently fatal. Only then can Lambert accept a chemical attack on ‘creeping Charlie’ as valid.
§ Comment “‘Creeping Charlie’ offers seamless fluid action requiring actors to define the space. One of the actors assumes multiple roles: Nelli appears as The Ageless Wonder, as owner of The Garden Spot, and as Harriet Laurgaard, County Agent. • The play awaits its premiere. • Kenneth R. Robbins is the author of two published novels and seventeen published plays. His work has received the Toni Morrison Prize for Fiction, the Associated Writing Programs Novel Award, the Charles Getchell Award, and a Corporation for Public Broadcasting Award, among others. His works for the stage have been produced by the New Works Theatre, Dallas Theater Center, Nashville Academy Theatre, Atlanta Off Peachtree, and the Project Arts Center, Dublin, Ireland. His radio play, Dynamite Hill, was aired over National Public Radio and BBC Radio 3. Atomic Field closed in September after a summer-long run in Tokyo, in a translation prepared by Akira Wakabayashi.
§ Themes creeping Charlie (moneywort), death, fairness, faithfulness, friendship, illness, marriage, personal philosophy, predictability, Steinbeck (John Ernst Steinbeck, American Nobel Prize novelist, 1902-1968), tennis.
See also Kenneth R. Robbins’
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