Longfellow Falling

Synopsis:

Longfellow Falling is a play about a famous woman who flees to her ancestral home in the rural West of Ireland after a scandal breaks and she is accused of sexually abusing a child. Zeala Rathmore, accustomed to money, fame and fortune, finds herself holed up in a small, crumbling cottage called “Longfellow”, built by her father and situated ‘down the cliff’ from her magnificent family home on the sea. She surrounds herself with the people who have known her forever, her family and her friends, and their constant presence forces her to examine herself in relation to the persona the media has helped her create.

As the sea pounds away at Longfellow and it begins to disintegrate, so Zeala’s secret eats away at her until the time comes when she must finally learn to tell the truth about herself, accept her humanness and move forward despite her shame and disgrace. Her journey to Ireland is a flight to freedom, though a much different kind than she had imagined upon her escape to its shores.

Characters:

A star; a housekeeper; a grand dame; an invalid; a sensitive new age guy; a groundsman; a journalist.

First Produced:

Staged Reading, Nightwood Theatre, Toronto, 2003.

Resources:

Please contact playwright directly at celiajanemcbride@gmail.com for access to the Longfellow Falling script.

To view other works by this playwright, click here.

For more information about the playwright and her work, visit the CWPO collection.