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    A Man A Fish
    A Man A Fish
    A Man A Fish
    Ebook115 pages45 minutes

    A Man A Fish

    By Donna-Michelle St. Bernard

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    About this ebook

    Prosper is a fisherman trying to get by in the face of everyday problems: there’s the spectre of the baby his wife desires, the ghost of his dead mistress, his wife’s secret admirer, and the overwhelming lure of the village bar. When a slippery eel salesman arrives in town peddling progress to the rural community, Prosper’s list of problems only increases. Faced with an invasive new species in his lake, his fortunes decline along with the fish population, and Prosper gets a lesson in gift horses and generosity.

    A Man A Fish is a part of the 54ology, inspired by events in Burundi.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPlaywrights Canada Press
    Release dateOct 1, 2015
    ISBN9781770914360
    A Man A Fish
    Author

    Donna-Michelle St. Bernard

    Donna-Michelle St. Bernard, a.k.a. Belladonna the Blest, is an emcee, playwright, and agitator. Her main body of work, the 54ology, includes Cake, Sound of the Beast, A Man A Fish, Salome’s Clothes, Gas Girls, Give It Up, The Smell of Horses, and The First Stone. Works for young audiences include the META-nominated Reaching For Starlight, The Chariot, and Rabbit King of Kenya. Opera libretti include Forbidden (Afarin Mansouri/Tapestry Opera) and Oubliette (Ivan Barbotin/Tapestry Opera). She is co-editor with Yvette Nolan of the Playwrights Canada Press Refractions anthologies, and editor of Indian Act: Residential School Plays.

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      Book preview

      A Man A Fish - Donna-Michelle St. Bernard

      A Man A Fish was first produced by Persephone Theatre at the Backstage Stage in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, between October 23 and November 3, 2013, and featured the following cast and creative team:

      Characters

      Prosper: fisherman

      Solange: fishwife

      Eddy: eel salesman

      Edige: bartender

      Ines: possibly a ghost, or an imagining, or a diversion. In any case . . .

      Settings

      House: Home of Prosper and Solange. Mostly the kitchen and bedroom.

      Bar: Bar operated by Edige. Can be indoor, or a roadside kiosk.

      Lake: Prosper’s fishing spot on the bank of a ginormous lake.

      Room: Eddy’s rented room. Stifling. May be unseen or only a window.

      Notes On Text

      A backslash (\) indicates the character is actively not responding.

      1. All I Need Is

      Movement One: SOLANGE kisses PROSPER goodbye as he leaves their house. He sits at the lake, fishing line in the water. After a while he hears something on the opposite shore, smiles, watches. He returns home and is greeted by SOLANGE, who takes the fish from his full line. PROSPER goes to the bar. A buyer passes and takes the fish from SOLANGE; she puts money in a wish jar and then kisses the jar.

      SOLANGE:

      Good morning, little one! Did you pass the night well? Look. Look at how the sun sits just in the top of that tree as though in a nest, resting before it completes its climb to noonday, when your father will turn towards home again. The sun sees us admiring him, but instead of coming closer he moves further away, afraid that we might see his flaws. That is what the sun is like.

      Your father can’t wait to meet you, believe me. There are just a few more things to make ready before we can hope to welcome you into the warmth of my blood and flesh. Oh, have I shown you this? Look here, between the paving stones. Do you see the tiny white flower that has struggled to exist? It is a flower that some will call a weed simply because it does not ask our efforts to grow. They did not tell it to be there, and for that reason they would pull it out by the root.

      EDDY arrives and stands outside the bar with his suitcase.

      SOLANGE passes on the other side of the bar. EDIGE hears her passing and goes to the

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