by Paula Vogel
The Oldest Profession was produced October 1991 by Company One in Hartford, Connecticut. Juanita Rockwell directed, with sets by Carl Sprague, lights by Randy Glickman and costumes by Cassandra Hamilton. The cast was as follows:
VERA
Cheryl Berger
EDNA
Susan Dreyfuss
LILLIAN
Alycia Evica
URSULA
Laurie Tyler
MAE
Gloria Pilot
CHARACTERS
VERA: The youngest, 72. Loves the sun.
EDNA: Next in line, 74. A good time girl. Best friend of Vera. Loves her work.
LILLIAN: 75. Age has been gentle. Sure of herself, a woman of great style and great audacity. The Rose of Mae’s stable.
URSULA: 79. Germanic, bossy, set and determined. Believes in rules, promotion, work ethic. Horsey and big boned, she slumps now. Can by very crabby. Can not stand the sound of Vera eating with loose dentures. Fond of adages with harsh, moralistic messages.
MAE: 83. A self-made woman, a leader who finds the management of men ridiculously easy, and has mastered the management of women as well. She looks after her girls.
TIME AND PLACE
A sunny day shortly after the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.
A sunny day shortly after the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. A long bench on 72nd Street and Broadway, New York City. Five women sitting in the sun.
VERA: …and so last night I thought a bit of fish would be nice for supper—not too heavy, not too light—so I bought just the nicest bit of fish down the block at Joe’s—fresh, pink—much nicer than the fish store up on 89th Street; their fish isn’t fresh at all; it smells like a bad joke about ladies of the night—(Whoops) and it costs five cents more the pound—five cents! So I bought this fish from Joe; lemon sole it was, very good and tender. I do so love a nice bit of lemon sole. I melted some unsalted butter in the skillet, and chopped up, oh, about this much scallion, and then I just sautéed it on each side till it flaked with a fork and then just squeezed lemon and parsley over it—and I tell you, it melted in my mouth. Just melted.
URSULA: Last night was Friday.
VERA: Why, yes, it was.
URSULA: The Pope says you don’t have to eat fish on Friday anymore. For the past ten years, you don’t have to eat fish on Friday. And for the past ten years we’ve been hearing about your fish on Friday.
VERA: Well, Ursula, excuse me. I didn’t mean to bore you.
URSULA: Well, then, try not to tell us in detail what you ate for dinner the night before. With or without your teeth in.
LILLIAN: Oh, really, Ursula, it doesn’t matter. Just don’t listen.
VERA (Brightly): All right, then—let’s discuss something else.
(Sniffles) We…we can talk about the weather. It’s…it’s a lovely day, isn’t it?
LILLIAN: My God, Vera—you cry at the slightest little thing.
URSULA: Can’t say “boo” to her—it sets her off.
MAE: Vera—stop that now.
URSULA: You can’t take correction for your own good. Why do you always have to start sniffling? You are the tetchiest thing…
EDNA (Nasty): Well, it can’t be change of life.
MAE: All right, all of you—that’s enough.
(There is a silence. Vera sniffles softly. Edna looks through her handbag.)
EDNA: Here—take my compact. Your nose is all shiny now.
(Vera takes the compact, looks in the mirror, stops crying. Checks her makeup, smiles at herself. Pats on a little powder. Mollified, she hands the mirror back to Edna, who looks in the mirror, and spreads the powder on thick.)
MAE: Edna, you put on entirely too much rouge. I don’t like it. It makes you look like a grandmother tarting it up. Look at Lillian—she doesn’t use any rouge at all.
EDNA: No—but she doesn’t get any, either.
(Edna and Ursula cackle.)
LILLIAN (Shrugs): Who wants it?
EDNA: I do.
(There is a pause.)
EDNA: Well, will you look at her—
URSULA: Where?
EDNA: Coming out of the Citibank…
LILLIAN: Oh? Which one?
URSULA: Oh, don’t pretend, Lillian…you can’t see your way to the john at night…
MAE: Those pants are so tight on her, she’s practically parading her wazoo on Broadway.
URSULA: Think she’s professional?
MAE (Shrewd): No. I haven’t seen her around before.
EDNA: I bet she gives it away for free.
VERA: Why—she’s wearing a chain around her neck.
(Thrilled) Edna—she’s in chains!
URSULA: Amateur auto-erotic bondage…
MAE: It all went downhill after Guy Lombardo…
VERA: Why is she wearing chains?
LILLIAN: Who cares?
VERA: She looks like she’s having fun.
MAE (Stern): You need a little trip to Miami, Vera. Spend some time with normal folks down there.
(For a moment, no one speaks.)
URSULA: Yes, sir, the sixties was bad enough…what with long hair and miniskirts so short that young women were bein’ rushed to St. Vincent’s for frostbite on their female parts. But now—now there’s Punk.
MAE: The Good Lord made safety pins for diapers, not for earlobes.
LILLIAN: I don’t know. I side with Vera. They’re just kids not doing anybody any harm…it’s a free country.
URSULA: It’s free for kids under twenty-one! But not for you and me! Not free for grandmothers to sit on park benches, what with the rapists and the muggers!
LILLIAN: Oh, Ursula, that’s a load of horse manure and wishful thinking! Who’d rape you!
(The two women have a stare down.)
MAE: These kids don’t know the meaning of work. They don’t know about hunger; they don’t know the pride that comes from giving a dollar’s worth of work for a fifty-cent wage. Half the people we know in Jefferson Square don’t even get birthday cards from their kids, let alone a Christmas visit.
EDNA: Thank Jesus we don’t have any kids.
VERA: But we have each other; you always give me a nice card and a cake for my birthday. I love the cake you gave me last year from that Third Avenue bakery. I must have had two, three pieces of it, even though I kept saying “Now, Vera, you know you shouldn’t eat it…”—But I did. It was made with Grand Marnier and had a sponge interior, iced with a butter frosting that was so light it just melted—
EDNA: Mr. Donovan’s been asking for cigar money…and I said to him, “But Mr. Donovan, you’ve already got a cigar, and it smokes.”
(She cracks up. Alone.)
So I finally asked him why he didn’t call his big hot-shot son the banker on Wall Street for some extra cigar moola—and do you know what he said? “My son’s secretary won’t put my calls through—”
MAE: These kids are the Me Generation.
VERA: I like Donny and Marie.
(The other women just look at her. Beat.)
URSULA: All I can say is that it’s a permissive generation; these kids are going to put us all out of business. Lord knows we’re not getting any younger.
VERA: Well, Ursula, remember what they say: Youth is in the Mind. Take Mr. Jonathan: He was full of piss and vinegar to the last. When I went to visit him, all laid out in the Riverside Chapel, his face was still full of the devil…He was just so handsome in his gray flannel suit with the red tie that I just whisked up beside the casket, and when his family wasn’t looking, I slipped my hand down the side and behind his coat tails and into his trousers, and then I tweaked the hell out of his marble behind for old times and I whispered: “Jonathan Rhodes, you old geezer—”
(Vera whoops from the memory.)
MAE (Uneasy): Vera, now stop that morbid talk.
VERA: Why, it’s not morbid to talk of the dead, Mae. Really it’s not. We’re all of us going to die.
LILLIAN: Not Ursula. “Waste not, wa
nt not.” She’s going to be preserved.
URSULA: Better that than a pauper’s grave, paid for by Uncle Sam. Subsidized begging—Medicare. Social Security has no place in a free market.
LILLIAN: I wouldn’t mind being eligible for a government subsidy each month in recognition of all my years of public service.
MAE: Any business woman with the slightest shred of pride doesn’t need their handouts.
LILLIAN: You’re wrong. It’s a matter of principle, social security. It should be inviolate. If I could, I wouldn’t be too proud to mooch off Uncle Sam.
URSULA: Oh, Lillian buys the whole Keynesian economy claptrap, which is just a fancy excuse for big government spending and borrowing! You’d have more than enough income to live on, much less die on, if you took what opportunities came along, instead of being so choosy!
LILLIAN: There’s not much that comes along…
VERA: And besides, the cost of living’s so high nowadays; what with prices and all—you know, Mr. Zabar’s cheese is out of the question. It used to be that you could buy a nice hunk of…oh, Camembert or Brie, for maybe $1.50 and have change left over for their delicious bread—with the thick crusts so that the inside’s all fluffy and light. But now, that same piece of Brie will cost you a good $2.75. Can’t afford to go downstairs to Mr. Zabar’s anymore—only the rich can buy down there. When I die I want to go to Mr. Zabar’s and eat all I want with close-fitting plates—
URSULA: The reason living costs so much for you, Vera, is that you fritter your money away on luxuries. Fish. Cheese. Chocolates. I eat frugal, and I sock the money I save away, for sickness or old age. “A fool and his money are soon parted,” so they say…I’m putting away every penny into sure investments; no use putting it into the bank so’s the feds can profit. I learned that the hard way in ’29. No one’s going to have to take care of me—no charity case here. The rest of you can spend it all on sweet-tooth fancies. Or Lillian’s lace panties that droop the second they’re washed in hot water. But Ursula’s a wiser bird than that. There’ll be plenty of goodies left when I go, hidden, too. It’s gonna take you a day just to find it all.
LILLIAN: You know, you really shouldn’t store money in your rooms above Mr. Zabar’s. It’s just not safe.
URSULA: How many fool times do I have to tell you? It’s not money—it’s securities.
EDNA: I still don’t know what “securities” mean.
URSULA: Something more solid than gold, more stable than oil, that’s for sure. You’ll have to wait for me to kick the bucket to find out what.
MAE: Why are you girls constantly harping on…“passing away” today?
URSULA: I’m not harping, Mae—I’ve got plenty of juice left in me. The rest of you will go before me.
(Long pause. Vera stretches and smiles.)
VERA: I just love the sun. Don’t you?
(No answer. The women bask in the sun.)
MAE: Edna?
EDNA (Drowsy): Yes?
MAE: Mind the time, now.
EDNA: The appointment’s not till five. I’m watching the time—I’m counting the minutes.
MAE: That’s the spirit. Just mind the time.
(Another pause.)
VERA (In tense aside to Edna): Uh-oh. Edna, look down the street!
EDNA: What?
VERA: Trouble’s coming. Edna, she’s back again.
EDNA: Who?
VERA: That snippy chippy—
EDNA (Looks): Oh, boy. We’d better tell Mae.
(Urgently) Mae! MAE! That cold piece of punk’s back for more…
(The women, excited, sit up, alert. Mae stands.)
MAE: I’ll take care of this. (Advances forward and yells to the woman who is offstage)
You! You!! Back for more? Asking for it? You’ve been warned! Trespassing on my girls’ territory. I’m gonna fix that face the next time you even sniff the air downstream from this park. Do you understand me? When I get through with you, you’ll only be good for night traffic when there’s no moon!! What?…What?…Old goods are we?
(She listens to the woman offstage)
Well, I’ll tell you what—this has been our beat for over forty-five years, and listen, baby, we still tick! We’re built to last! We give service we’re proud of!! Unlike you, your plastic twat is gonna fall out in the road five years from now! (Gets winded)
URSULA: That’s right! Not like you, wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am down the alley and overcharge twenty for it!
MAE: I said I’ll take care of this, Ursula. I’m in charge.
(Back to the woman offstage) I MEAN IT! Scram and suck rats by the boat basin. This part of the West Side belongs to me!! WHAT did you call me! WHAT??!!
(The women, backing their leader, stand as one, ready and mean for battle.)
VERA (Simultaneously): She can’t get away with calling Mae that!
EDNA (Simultaneously): Let’s tear that tart to bits!
LILLIAN (Simultaneously): Scratch that Snatch!
URSULA (Simultaneously): Disrespectful Slut!!
(Mae draws out a large, gleaming, wicked hat pin.)
MAE: Cheap amateur whores don’t know how to act like ladies; I’ll teach you etiquette if I catch you…let me catch you around here again and you’ll be laughing out the other side of your ASS!!
(Mae, triumphant, gives the fleeing prostitute the finger. Mae makes her way back to the bench, exhausted, and sits. The others, worked up, sit one by one.)
VERA: You were majestic, Mae.
EDNA: Scared the hell out of me, you did, Mae.
LILLIAN: Good show!
URSULA: She was outnumbered. Stupid little tart.
EDNA: Imagine her thinking she can just waltz in here and take over our clientele with her gaudy, swishy clothes and her gum chewing—
LILLIAN (With real interest): What was she wearing? I…didn’t get too good a look—
EDNA: She was wearing a tight cotton skirt slit up to Hackensack with a top so low you could see Hoboken.
VERA: That outfit was on sale in Bloomingdale’s basement last month…
LILLIAN: That’s nerve, coming to the West Side in reduced East Side castoffs.
URSULA: Oh, these upstart whores think all they have to do is buy a Bloomingdale’s outfit and they can just open up shop for trade; but these young things will get their comeuppance: “A pretty pig makes an ugly sow.”
VERA: I do so love bright colors.
EDNA: Well, we won’t be seeing her again. You gave her what for, Mae.
MAE: When a woman can’t defend her territory or her girls, it’s time to get out of the Life. I tell you, it makes me sad. When I see the new generation of prostitutes working right on the street—gypsies, all of them—on their own with no group, no house to call their own, no amenities for customers, no tradition or…or finesse… where’s the pride in the name of prostitute? It’s all gone downhill since the government poked their nose in our business and booted decent self-respecting businesswomen out of Storeyville. Remember the House where we all first met? A spick-and-span establishment. The music from Professor Joe in the parlor; the men folk bathed, their hair combed back and dressed in their Sunday best, waiting downstairs happy and shy. We knew them all; knew their wives and kids, too. It was always Mr. Buddy or Mr. Luigi; never this anonymous “John” for any stranger with a Jackson in his billfold.
URSULA: And we were called Miss Ursula and Miss Lillian too…Men who treated their wives and mothers right treated their mistresses right, too.
MAE: There was honor in the trade…My father went to Storeyville often when I was a girl. Mother used to nod to Miss Sophie right in the street before Mass in the Quarter. Miss Sophie saved our lives, she did. The depression of ’97—Papa lost work and there were seven of us to feed. So every morning before folks were up and about, Miss Sophie came and put groceries on the back step—Papa was a regular customer, she couldn’t let us starve. And none of the neighbors knew a thing. Finally Papa got work again; the money came in for food on the
table and Saturday nights at Miss Sophie’s. And then my mother got pregnant again—I guess there was plenty of my father to go around. Mother had a boy. So Miss Sophie said she’d be real pleased if they named that boy after her gentleman protector. So they named my brother—
LILLIAN AND VERA (In unison): Radcliffe.
VERA: I love that story. It’s such a nice name, too. So refined.
URSULA (Irritated): We’ve heard that old story before, Mae. The best thing that ever happened was the day the Navy closed Storeyville down because too many boys were jumping ship.
EDNA: You always say that, Ursula. I liked Storeyville when it was legal.
URSULA: Oh, sure. The working girls loved Storeyville.
MAE: We would have been Number One in the District if those military police hadn’t of busted us. Hauled us to jail and slammed the Door shut. And then the bulldozers came in overnight.
URSULA (Frustrated): I just can’t get you to understand the Law of Supply and Demand. Anything Black Market fetches a higher price. Prohibition was the best thing for the liquor market—
LILLIAN: Uh-oh!! Ursula’s off again about Prohibition! Check the bathtubs!
URSULA: That’s not funny! I was making a pretty penny in 1927 until someone—one of you!—snitched on me. Butted their nose in my business. I’m still gonna find out who it was—
(Ursula glares at Lillian; Lillian, Vera and Edna look blank.)
MAE: Hold the line right here! Lillian, Ursula’s arrest record is not a subject for levity. You hear me?
LILLIAN (Mild): I can still hear you.
MAE: Second thing, for the record, I’m glad someone put a stop to your bathtub gin, Ursula. We were new here, and the last thing we could afford was to bring the law down on us. We’re in the Life, not the distillery business.
URSULA: Well, we’re not going to stay in the Life, Mae, unless you stop living in the past! It’s a New Age: We’ve got to get off our fannies and sell!
MAE: Oh? Exactly what are you trying to tell me, Ursula?
URSULA: Smell the coffee! “Fair words butter no parsnips!” It takes different strategies to stay afloat in today’s competitive market; that little chippy will be back.