Shunned
Shunned
Shunned
SHUNNED
by
Larry Parr
3722 Glen Oaks Manor Drive
Sarasota, Florida 34232
(941) 366-3332
FAX: (941) 365-4679
Copyright, Larry Parr, 2012
Southern Appalachian Repertory Theater’s ScriptFest Winner
Utah Shakespeare Festival
New American Playwrights Project
Julie Harris Playwright Award Finalist
December 18, 2014
2
THE CAST
LEVI YODER, an Amish man, nineteen, clean-shaven, indicating he is
single.
AARON YODER, his papa, fortyish but aged by decades of hard work in the
sun. He wears a beard but no mustache, indicating he is a married Amish
man. Very religious but surprisingly bawdy. He has all the power in his
family, so there is no need for him to be loud or abusive. He is leading his
family the best way he knows how, which sometimes breaks his heart.
MARY YODER, Levi’s younger sister, eighteen.
KATHERINE YODER, Levi’s mother, fortyish.
MARK CUMMINGS, an “Englisher,” or non-Amish townsperson.
GARY SMITH, twenty, neighbor of the Yoders.
SARAH MILLER, fifty to sixties, an Amish neighbor of the Yoders. Doubles
as FEMALE CUSTOMER.
The Amish, a Christian denomination, traditionally farmers, consider
buttons too worldly, so they use hooks and eyes. Their clothes are
hand-made, usually black or dark blue. Men wear hats outside. Married
women and widows’ heads are covered with black bonnets. Single women
wear white caps with tie strings. Women often wear plain aprons. Men
wear distinctive “bowl” haircuts and suspenders.
They strive for humility before God, so their arms and legs are never
exposed. Unmarried men are clean-shaven. Married men wear a beard but
no mustache. Women do not wear makeup. Their origins are
Swiss-German. They speak German in their homes, but they speak
English when dealing with the “Englishers,” or non-Amish people.
It is very much a patriarchal society.
3
THE SET
The Yoder farm. Stage Right, the Yoder Kitchen. There is no electricity
on an Amish farm. The house is lit by kerosene lamps. There is a plain
table in the kitchen and chairs, where the family eats. There is a hand
pump in the sink, for pumping water. This is where the family washes
when they enter the house, since there are no inside bathrooms. The
furnishings are plain and functional. No pictures adorn the walls. There
are no curtains. The kitchen is scrubbed clean. A door enters into the
rest of the house, unseen, and another door enters the pantry.
A door opens from the kitchen onto the front porch, Center Stage, with a
porch swing and a plain chair. Porch stairs lead down into the front yard.
In the yard is a manual alarm bell on a post, that rings by yanking a cord.
It is used only for emergencies. Beyond the front yard, far downstage, a
road passes the house.
Stage Left is a produce stand where the Yoders sell farm goods to the
townspeople. It has eggs, apples, vegetables, pumpkins, corn, and fruit.
There are flower pots and old barn boards with Amish hex signs painted on
them for sale.
Stage Right is a sunken area in the garden.
This is a working farm, so throughout the play there are background
sounds of birds, cows, horses, chickens – all the sounds of a farm being
worked by hand and animals. No modern equipment is used for farming
Amish farms.
THE TIME
ACT I
An autumn day in Northern Indiana, near Shipshewana, the present.
ACT II
Scene I: Two weeks later.
Scene II: The next morning.
4
GLOSSARY
Ah-mos – A derogatory term for Amish.
Canoodle – Makin’ whoopie.
Clops -- A derogatory term for Amish, probably from the sound of horses’
hooves.
Doppleheaded – Dumb.
The English – People who are not Amish.
Frahootled – Crazy
Gelasssenheit – The state of humility that all Amish people seek, a feeling of
peace, created by totally giving over of one’s self and future to God, a feeling
of acceptance, that everything is God’s plan.
Mutter – Mother.
Rumspringa – The period Amish teenagers leave home, to explore the world,
to try things they have never tried, to determine whether or not they want
to return to the Amish world and be baptized as part of the order. Literal
translation: “Running around.”
Smearcase – A kind of cottage cheese or clabbered milk.
Stupsen – Slang for intercourse.
5
ACT I
6
(Lights up on Levi Yoder, hauling in a basket of apples
to the produce stand. His sister, Mary Yoder, is
arranging fruit. Levi flips up the OPEN sign.)
LEVI
Mary, the apples are beautiful from the orchard this morning.
MARY
Fer lunch I’ll take one later. With some smearcase it’d be good. And
some of Sarah Miller’s bread.
(Levi looks around furtively, making sure no one will
hear.)
LEVI
I thank God every day that Sarah Miller is our neighbor. Mutter’s bread
might kill us should we try to eat it. Or sicken us so bad we’d wish to be
dead.
MARY
Do you think an Amishwoman could be shunned fer her cookin’?
LEVI
Like Mutter?
MARY
She made noodles. Not like any Amish noodles they look like to me.
LEVI
If she could be shunned fer her noodles, she should be excommunicated
fer her pot roast.
(They try to stifle their laughter.)
LEVI
Mary! I got a secret.
MARY
One you could be shunned fer?
LEVI
I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you.
MARY
I got a secret, too! I’ll tell mine if you’ll tell. Only don’t tell Papa. Yah?
7
(Levi nods.)
I rode Jake down through the meadow this morning before nary one was
up in the early sunrise.
LEVI
You sat up on him. Like the English ride the horses?
MARY
He drank from the brook, while I sat up there so high like the Queen of
England. And the sun was just comin’ up, breaking through the leaves,
all dappled on my arms.
LEVI
Horses are fer workin’, not fer pleasurin’.
MARY
God makes horses, too. What could be the sin of it?
LEVI
Papa’ll be takin’ you over to the sinkhole in the garden, showin’ you old
Moses Beachy’s grave. Tellin’ you he died from ridin’ a horse.
(Mary laughs.)
MARY
When I was twelve years old, he caught me swipin’ an apple from the
Millers’ orchard. And over to that sunken old hole he took me and told
me, “Moses Beachy is buried here, and he died by gettin’ shot fer stealin’
apples from his neighbor. So with decent Amish folk he can’t be buried.”
LEVI
And Becky Bontrager’s papa brought her over here when she said, “Gosh
Darn” once and told her Moses Beachy had to be buried alone, because
God struck him dead with lightning when he swore.
MARY
They think we’re such doppleheads not to know they’re just usin’ that old
sinkhole to scare us into behavin’. But never once Papa probably told
you about Moses Beachy, did he? Because you’re always so perfect yet.
LEVI
I’m not so perfect.
8
MARY
Everything he says, you say, “Yes, Sir.” You got no backbone when
Papa’s around.
LEVI
We’re supposed to do what Papa bids.
MARY
Maybe on your own feet if you took a stand once, God’s path would be
revealed directly to you. Instead of havin’ to go through Papa.
LEVI
I don’t see you standin’ up to Papa.
MARY
Amishwomen do what their men say. But you’re almost a grown man.
LEVI
Some things Papa doesn’t know about I do. Only don’t say nothin’. I’ll
maybe tell Papa but not yet.
MARY
Well what is it that you done?
LEVI
I saw a play.
MARY
On a stage? That kind of play?
No, you didn’t. Where would you see such a thing?
LEVI
Over to Wingspread. That summer theater up by Sturgis. Honey and
apples and eggs fer to feed the actors I delivered ‘em. They were
practicin’, so up in the hayloft I crawled and watched ‘em.
MARY
When?
LEVI
A couple of weeks ago
MARY
Was it like Papa at Christmastime? In the barn tellin’ about Jesus?
9
LEVI
Only with real actors. With electric lights. And the most-beautiful story
the words coming out of their mouths told.
MARY
What was it called, the play?
LEVI
OUR TOWN.
MARY
What was the story?
LEVI
About dead people. And live people. And living and the earth. Oh,
Mary, it was beautiful.
“Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any
human beings ever realize life while they live it – every, every minute?”
MARY
Dead people? And they talked, too?
LEVI
On chairs they sat and talked.
MARY
I wouldn’t want to hear dead people talkin’. I was scared enough already
when they laid out Grandma on our kitchen table, all cold and blue. And
I had to get up the next morning and eat my scrambled eggs and fried
mush at that very same table.
LEVI
Somebody’s got to write down those words the actors say. Why couldn’t I
do that?
MARY
Levi! You’re an Amishman! All you can do is farm and marry Becky
Bontrager like Papa wants so our farms will one day be joined together.
LEVI
Becky Bontrager’s a cow. I’m gonna marry Hannah Lambright.
Her eyes so blue like cornflowers
10
Her hair like summer wheat
The smile that plays upon her lips
Is cunning and so sweet.
MARY
Oh, Levi. You write so beautiful. I should want one day Samuel Lapp to
write me a poem like that.
LEVI
Samuel Lapp? The Bishop’s son? You set your sights mighty high, Miss
Mary.
MARY
He asked me to come to the Autumn Frolic in two weeks. I think he
fancies me.
LEVI
Wait till Papa hears how you’re chasin’ after the Bishop’s son! Shame!
MARY
And shame on you, too! Wantin’ to marry Hannah just because she’s
pretty. You be forgettin’ your humility.
LEVI
Seein’ OUR TOWN, away from the hayloft and the barn it took me.
Hearing those words was like God speaking to me inside my heart. I just
got to see more plays.
MARY
Over to Wingspread?
LEVI
Maybe bigger places. Maybe a bus into Chicago I could ride and see
some plays. In big theaters. I stopped at the library and brought home a
copy of OUR TOWN. And some other plays.
MARY
You’re Amish. You can’t ride the bus. And go to Chicago. And see more
plays.
LEVI
Maybe now our autumn chores are almost done, and it won’t be so hard
farmin’ fer Papa alone, my rumspringa I could take. Go into Chicago and
see plays. See how they work and maybe learn to write one.
11
MARY
You wait so long before you take a rumspringa, and you want now to go
see plays?
LEVI
I thought I wouldn’t have a rumspringa at all. Didn’t need one. Till now
this comes up.
MARY
You’re either frahootled or a genius. I never could figure which about
you.
LEVI
I plow a furrow or milk a cow or pick some apples, but my mind is writin’
down people’s words or thinkin’ of a story. I can’t help it.
MARY
So famous you could be?
LEVI
Famous I wouldn’t want to be. I just want to show the English what
we’re really like.
MARY
What difference does it make what the English think? It only matters
what God thinks.
LEVI
I wonder what God thinks about plays on the stage.
(Gary Smith walks down the road in front of the Yoder
home, wearing battered blue jeans and a T-shirt. When
he speaks to them, Levi and Mary look down instead of
at him.)
GARY
Hi. Levi. Hey, Mary.
(They don’t respond. They turn away and continue
looking down.)
GARY
I thought maybe because we used to be friends, you’d still talk to me.
Despite the shunning.
12
(No response.)
GARY
Levi. Look, honest. I didn’t mean to kill that man. Matthew Miller. I
didn’t kill him really. He just fell down dead of a heart attack on the
ground.
LEVI
But you took….
(Mary holds out her hand, reminding Levi they can’t talk
to Gary.)
GARY
I was just borrowing his money, honest. I was gonna bring it back.
Look, Levi. Look. I saw you in church the other day. I peeked through
the window, but the Bishop ran me off. My own parents, they don’t talk
to me. I got no one.
Levi, can’t you speak up fer me? Tell ‘em I didn’t mean it?
LEVI
Mary, if I could speak to Amos….
GARY
Gary! My name is Gary now.
LEVI
Mary, if I could speak to Gary right now, I’d tell him how sorry I am that
he’s gone from the order. But it’s the older men the decisions they make.
GARY
You could try, though. Nothin’ you do to help me!
(Mary tries to stop Levi from talking to Gary, but Levi
brushes her aside.)
LEVI
Doesn’t Gary remember what fun we had as kids? Playin’ in the woods.
In our minds we could be anything we wanted. A famous baseball
player!
GARY
A movie actor!
13
LEVI
President of the United States.
GARY
Kids stuff. President! Some kinda dream fer two kids that aren’t even
allowed to vote when they grow up. Not allowed to do this or that.
Rules, rules, rules….
LEVI
But now you’re free.
GARY
I wanna come back, Levi. That’s all I want. Be with my mutter and papa
again. Have friends…. But won’t no one listen to me.
LEVI
You could be anywhere else in the world. Be anything you want. Like
we dreamed of as kids. Yet here you stay.
GARY
I…I don’t know where to go, Levi. Ain’t nobody taught me how to live in
the world. I don’t understand half the things goin’ on around me.
LEVI
Crippled up by your own freedom.
GARY
I…I….
LEVI
And by drugs and alcohol you brought home from rumspringa. Just stop
usin’ that stuff.
(This snaps Gary out of it.)
GARY
You don’t know nothin’. Talkin’ ‘bout kids’ stuff, what we used to
pretend. You think you know all about everything, but you’re just a
dumb clop. Well, now I got television. The best thing on earth. And a
toilet right inside the house. Instead of takin’a crap out in the rain.
Dumb Ah-mos.
(As he exits, he knocks over a produce basket.)
14
MARY
He scares me.
LEVI
So frahootled. One minute friendly. The next minute hateful.
MARY
Oop, here comes one of the English. Painted up like a circus clown.
I’m goin’ ta gather the eggs. To spell you I’ll be back noontime, so you
can go help Papa in the fields.
(As Mary exits, a Female Customer enters, wearing
shorts that are too short, a bright top, and her makeup
is garish. She looks over the produce.)
CUSTOMER
Oh, these apples smell so good! What kind are they?
LEVI
McIntosh. From our orchard.
(She looks him over.)
CUSTOMER
Oh, aren’t you a doll? Let me take your picture.
(As she paws through her purse, she sets clutter on the
counter, including a lipstick that she inadvertently
knocks off. She finally hauls out her camera.)
LEVI
Please. The Bible tell us not to make any images of anything in Heaven
or on Earth....
(Ignoring his protests, she snaps his photo. Mark
Cummings enters, picks up a basket, and begins going
through the vegetables. He chooses a lot of produce,
because he runs a bed and breakfast in Shipshewana.)
CUSTOMER
I’m gonna show this to my niece. Oh, she’ll think you’re so cute. Maybe
I’ll bring her out here to meet you.
LEVI
15
An Amish girl I’m gonna marry.
CUSTOMER
I didn’t say nothin’ about marrying her. Just maybe you could give her a
ride on one of your horses.
LEVI
Our horses are fer workin’ the fields, not fer pleasurin’.
CUSTOMER
Listen, Honey, do you wear those hot clothes just for the tourists? I
mean, when you go home at night to watch television, don’t you just put
on a T-shirt and shorts?
LEVI
No television we have.
CUSTOMER
No television! Oh, I couldn’t live without my soaps!
(She finishes paying and exits, leaving her lipstick
behind.)
MARK
Oh, Levi. She’s got some plans for you and her niece!
LEVI
Inside she makes me laugh but not to her face.
MARK
She’s a real beauty. How’d you like to take her out into your haystack
and kiss her gorgeous face?
LEVI
I didn’t think she was gorgeous at all!
MARK
No, see. It’s sarcasm. When I say one thing but mean the opposite.
LEVI
Just imagine if down to the Methodist Church I went some Sunday
mornin’ and pointed and whispered about the people goin’ in. And
laughed at ‘em and took their pictures. They’d think I was frahootled.
But the same thing they do to us every single day.
16
MARK
I bet you see everything out here.
LEVI
So many different kinds of people. And different they all talk, too.
Yesterday, these two boys about my age came by. One of ‘em said,
“Dude, check out these like totally cool apples. Smell, Dude. They’re like
so awesome, they give me a total woody.”
Mark, what is a “total woody?”
(Mark laughs.)
MARK
You certainly have an ear for dialogue!
LEVI
And what does she mean, “Soaps?”
MARK
Cheesy stories on television for lonely women to watch during the day
who have nothin’ better to do with their lives.
LEVI
You mean like plays?
MARK
Like plays only really bad.
LEVI
Do you like plays? I saw OUR TOWN. At Wingspread.
“The dead don’t stay interested in us living people for very long.”
MARK
“Gradually, they let go of the earth and the ambitions they once had.”
LEVI
You know OUR TOWN!!
MARK
I wanted be an actor. Once upon a time.
LEVI
Really! On the stage? Like the actors I saw?
17
MARK
I kept tryin’ to get to New York to audition, but my Ma got sick. So I took
care of her for a couple years till she died. And I found out I love it here,
and I didn’t want to live anywhere else. So I turned her old house into a
bed and breakfast.
LEVI
So your dream was gone.
MARK
Seems like life’s all about giving up one dream for another. The trick is
knowin’ which one’s the right dream.
LEVI
How did you know what the right dream was?
MARK
Sometimes the universe shows you what path you’re supposed to take,
even when you don’t know it your own self.
LEVI
The universe?
MARK
That’s what people who think they’re too sophisticated to believe in God
call the Divine Force. It’s very chic these days to say, “the universe”
instead of saying, “God.”
LEVI
But the same thing they mean?
MARK
It lets people off the hook for ridicule should they use the word, “God.”
LEVI
God means ridicule? How the English reason things out I’ll never
understand.
MARK
Maybe it doesn’t matter what you call it. The Universe. God. As long as
you’re grateful.
LEVI
OUR TOWN is about God. AND the Universe.
18
MARK
I love OUR TOWN. Well, I love all theater. My partner and I are goin’ to
New York tomorrow morning. Our yearly trip. We stay a couple weeks
and see as many shows as we can. It’s a theater banquet.
LEVI
At the library in town I got some plays to read.
MARK
Whatcha readin’?
LEVI
INHERIT THE WIND.
MARK
A great play.
LEVI
And WAITING FOR GO DOT. I need to read it a few more times so I can
understand what it’s talkin’ about.
MARK
Yeah, well, good luck with that plan.
LEVI
Out in the barn every Christmas, Papa reads the story of Jesus from the
German Bible. That’s sorta like a play. But when I saw OUR TOWN,
with the electric lights on and the actors all dressed up and talkin’
pretty, well.... See, I just never knew.
MARK
Well, Kid. My world’s full of stuff you’ve never seen. And your world’s
full of stuff I’ve never seen. Like those cardinals fledging their nest you
showed me.
LEVI
I got somethin’ this week, too. I’ve been watchin’ ‘em.
(Levi shows Mark something at the end of the produce
stand.)
MARK
What? Why, it’s.... Turtles. What...?
19
LEVI
Box turtles. They’re mating. See, he starts up on her back, like cows
mating, but then pretty soon, he’s standing straight up.
MARK
I swear I can see a smile on his face.
LEVI
But then over on his back he falls. And then they’re stuck together, and
around she drags him. Sometimes fer over an hour.
MARK
I never in my life woulda seen this if you hadn’t shown me.
LEVI
It somehow makes me sad, though.
MARK
Sad?
LEVI
Sad the Amish don’t believe in reincarnation. I wouldn’t mind comin’
back as a male turtle.
(Mark laughs uproariously at this.)
MARK
Oh, my gosh. Sometimes you surprise me.
LEVI
You don’t think about reincarnation Amish are smart enough to know?
(Mark begins paying for his purchases.)
MARK
Oh, I know you’re smart. I just didn’t know the Amish liked to make
jokes!
LEVI
“Make a joyful noise onto the Lord.”
MARK
Well, you have a gift, Levi. Finding God in a couple of amorous turtles.
(Mark picks up the lipstick.)
20
Somebody dropped their lip paint.
LEVI
Oh, that English woman. Maybe she’ll come back fer it. When in the
mirror she looks and finds out what she really looks like.
(He puts the lipstick beside the till.)
MARK
Levi, I love talking to you. You make me laugh.
LEVI
You make me feel like a friend I have.
MARK
I’m very touched, Levi.
LEVI
Maybe about plays we can talk some more next time you come out, yah?
MARK
Anytime you want, Kiddo. You know, I wonder....
LEVI
What?
MARK
Look, maybe you’d like to go to New York with us? See a buncha shows.
Broadway. And off-Broadway. For a couple weeks. If riding in a car
isn’t too sinful for you.
LEVI
Cars are not sinful.
MARK
Then why not drive?
LEVI
To ride in a buggy gives us more time to appreciate God’s beautiful earth.
And less time the trouble to get into.
MARK
Then come along with us. You’ll get to see more theater than you
dreamed existed.
21
LEVI
So this is what temptation feels like
MARK
Temptation?
LEVI
It feels like something I want to do more than anything in the world only
know I must not. This is the biggest temptation I ever felt. More than
when I wanted to swipe an apple pie cooling on Sarah Miller’s windowsill.
MARK
Yield! Give in!! Cave!!!
LEVI
You talk so colorful.
See you can’t know what it’s like. To know there’s a whole world out
there full of things you’ve never seen, ideas you’ve never thought. Beauty
you’ve never imagined.
MARK
Here’s your chance.
LEVI
I was thinkin’ about goin’ to Chicago to see some shows. But it sorta
scares me. Such a big thing to do.
MARK
We’ll be there with you all the way.
LEVI
No, Mark. No. I can’t go.
MARK
Well, if you change your mind….
(Mark waves and exits. Levi recites a passage from
OUR TOWN.)
LEVI
“We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t
names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars. Everybody knows in
22
their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with
human beings.”
(Aaron Yoder enters, carrying produce for the stand. He
stands a moment, listening proudly to Levi.)
AARON
That’s beautiful, Son. Something you wrote down?
LEVI
No, Papa. It’s from a play called OUR TOWN. From the library.
AARON
Well, it’s beautiful, like you all the time write down things beautiful.
All damp and breathy Old Jake seemed this mornin’. Like he’d been out
of the barn runnin’. Except still in his stall he was. I hope he ain’t
comin’ down with somethin’.
(Levi wants to change the subject.)
LEVI
Papa, do you think plays are worldly? Like the English go to see. In
theaters. With actors and costumes and lights.
AARON
(Lecherously.)
With girls all painted up and dancing the hoochy cooch? Waving their
English bottoms around to get you all stirred up? Make you want to take
‘em up in the hayloft and see what’s under their knickers? My son’s all
grown up! Ah, I remember my rumspringa.
LEVI
No. No, Papa. I mean plays that make you think. Like readin’ a book
only live right in front of your eyes.
AARON
What brought all this talk on about plays and actors on a stage? Last I
knew, out in the orchard you were pickin’ apples. Somethin’ goin’ on out
in that orchard I don’t know about?
LEVI
See, I went to see a play. At Wingspread. A barn theater over by Sturgis.
23
AARON
Levi!
LEVI
Oh, not on purpose. I was just deliverin’ our produce up to them to feed
the actors with. Practicin’ they were, and up into the hayloft I climbed.
Oh, Papa, it was magic. So it got me to thinkin’ and in the library I
stopped and brought home some plays. And I’ve been readin’ ‘em.
AARON
You’ve always been a good boy. To shame me you wouldn’t do nothin’.
But the English plays on a stage you know you can’t get involved in.
You’re goin’ to be Amish. A farmer. You must shun the outside world
LEVI
But, see.... See, it taken over my head. It’s all I can think on.
AARON
But first plays then what? Store-bought shirts and pants and preenin’
before a mirror? A television? You might as well be one of the English.
Look, Levi. You’re a good boy. You never even went on your rumspringa,
because you didn’t want to leave me here alone with the farm work....
LEVI
With our autumn chores mostly done, maybe on my rumspringa I could
go soon already.
AARON
Oh, I sure do remember my rumspringa. Those English girls want to find
out what it’s like to be with an Amishman. You can have yourself some
fun, Son, get it out of your system.
You can stupsen the English, Son, but don’t marry ‘em.
LEVI
But you married Mutter.
AARON
I can’t imagine our life without her. She fills me with love. And my
most-valuable possessions she gave me. You and your sister.
24
But the other women, they never really accepted her as one of us. They
leave her out of the quilting bees. Don’t share their recipes. Oh, sure,
they smile to her face but cluck their tongues behind her back.
And Levi. You think maybe I don’t know, but sometimes I hear you and
Mary laughin’ about your mutter behind her back. It shames me.
LEVI
She’s so different from us. Why did you marry her, Papa?
AARON
Why? Because I stupsen her and put you inside her belly. Oh, look how
big your eyes get. You think your papa ain’t a man? I was your age
once, Levi, so I know how it is.
LEVI
But you and Mutter? This I never knew before.
AARON
God blessed me with a son that will be by my side till the day I die,
helpin’ me farm and take care of your mutter. And then the next year,
here comes along a sister fer you, Mary, and complete our family is.
LEVI
So? Does everyone know this but me? Does Mary know this? Papa, I
can’t believe this.
AARON
Well, things like this you don’t tell a child. But so the same thing don’t
happen to you on your rumspringa I tell you. You’re a man now, Levi, a
young man.
LEVI
So Mutter her family gave up. This is why she came to be Amish. Fer
me?
AARON
So you could grow up with your papa. That’s how much we both love
you, see?
LEVI
And so the bastard I wouldn’t be.
AARON
25
Levi, maybe the wrong way it started out. Just kids we were. But we’re
both, your Mutter and I, glad it worked out in this way. We both love
you. And are so proud of you.
LEVI
And the Bishop allowed it, her becomin’ the Amish?
AARON
Well, he saw the situation with you, a fine young Amishman comin’ soon
into the world. And she agreed to be baptised and to be Amish forever.
But I see now, how sometimes it’s hard fer her. One of her paintings she
keeps wrapped up in a blanket, high up in the pantry.
Sometimes, when she doesn’t think anyone is looking, out of the pantry
she takes it and unwraps it. She hugs it to herself and dances around
the kitchen with it. Sometimes it makes her cry.
She was paintin’ when I first met her.
LEVI
Yah, Papa? Where?
AARON
A picture of our farm she was paintin’ down in the meadow. Her easel
set up next to the haystack. She didn’t know I was up there sleepin’ off
the last of my rumspringa till I slid down the haystack and almost
knocked her over.
LEVI
Oh, Papa! Did you frighten her?
AARON
One look in her eyes, and I knew our lives would be wrapped around
each other forever. And I could tell she knew it, too. But that meant the
paintings she couldn’t make no more. “Make no images of any likeness
of anything on Heaven or on Earth.”
LEVI
But the hex signs she still paints fer the tourists.
AARON
Hex signs don’t look like anything to me in Heaven. Or on Earth. But
the Englishers buy ‘em like they mean somethin’. We get a few dollars
26
fer ‘em. But her paintings, Son. Her paintings used to sell fer many
thousands of dollars.
LEVI
And fer me she gave it all up?
AARON
Yourself maybe you flatter too much. Maybe some of it she gave up fer
your Papa!
So go on your rumspringa. But no plays. And be careful who you give
your heart to.
Sometimes some woman you think you just got to have. But to make a
good marriage, it’s how evenly yoked you are fer workin’ and buildin’ a
life together. Second Corinthians tells us, “Do not ye be unequally
yoked.”
LEVI
But you love Mutter.
AARON
I do love your mutter. And one day, you’ll love Becky Bontrager. And
marry her. And we’ll have twice the farm we have now.
LEVI
Becky Bontrager!
AARON
Now listen. Becky Bontrager got no brothers fer her Papa to leave their
farm to. And right up next to ours their farm is.
Take a walk with her. In the woods. Down by the river. Fer a bundling
date go to her house.
LEVI
Papa!
AARON
You want I should talk to you like a child? You’re a man now. You know
about these things.
Go to her house fer a bundling date. Her parents their eyes will turn and
pretend not to see. I know this already from talking to Becky’s papa.
And you’ll see how much love grows between you.
27
You marry her, and one day, her papa’s farm and our farm will all be
yours. You’ll have the best farm in the whole state of Indiana.
LEVI
But Becky Bontrager’s a cow.
AARON
Levi! You don’t marry a girl because of how she looks. You marry a girl
because of what’s in her heart.
LEVI
And how big her father’s farm is.
AARON
Good farmland is disappearin’. Having you to go to work in an Englisher
factory I don’t want you should do. Makin’ camping trailers and other
worthless Englisher things, like the Burkholder boys got to do because
their father’s farm ain’t big enough to support ‘em all.
LEVI
But to support a family fer me and you and Mutter our farm is big
enough.
AARON
But then when your sons come along. Go to my grave I’d like knowin’ I
taken care of my family, right down the line, beyond you and beyond
your sons.
Besides, a good, sturdy gal Becky Bontrager is. A lot of sons she’ll bear
you to help with your farm. And she’s not afraid to work either yet.
LEVI
Sounds like pickin’ out a wife is like pickin’ out a horse.
AARON
It is like that, Son. You pick a good horse, and a good twenty, thirty
years it’ll work fer you if you’re lucky. Same with a wife. Fer you she’ll
work a long time, iffen you don’t ride her too hard.
LEVI
Papa!!
AARON
28
A young fella like you, you not careful, a sturdy Amish girl you could ride
into an early grave. But at least with a smile on her face she’d go!
LEVI
Papa!!
AARON
Besides, didn’t I hear Becky’s partner you were at the corn huskin’ last
Saturday?
LEVI
Becky trapped me into it. Rude by refusin’ I didn’t want to be.
AARON
You just go on your rumspringa, Son. Get the taste of liquor in you, so
you won’t rue missin’ it. Sow your wild oats and then come back, settle
down, and be Amish.
LEVI
Drinkin’ I don’t care about. I see how Amos Byler took his rumspringa,
and he came back all changed because of drugs and liquor.
AARON
Then what will you do?
LEVI
Look, Papa, a rumspringa I don’t need. If seein’ plays is too worldly, I’ll
just stay here. But is it OK I should read the plays? From the library?
AARON
Should readin’ the plays make you want to veer from your lovin’ plain
path, then no. You shouldn’t read ‘em.
LEVI
I was talkin’ to Mark about plays this morning....
AARON
Mark? Who’s this?
LEVI
Mark Cummings.
AARON
Mark Cummings? The one in Shipshewana who runs that bed and
breakfast?
29
LEVI
Yah, Papa. I think he’s my new friend. Like you’re friends with that
Englisher, Paul Smith.
AARON
My friend he is not. Just because we’re pleasant to each other when we
do business don’t make him my friend. No Amishman can have an
Englisher friend.
LEVI
Yah, Papa.
AARON
So. Your rumspringa you wanted to go on. Not to meet girls or try
liquor? But you want to go to see the plays?
And your friend is Mark Cummings? Who owns that bed and breakfast
in Shipshewana?
LEVI
Yah, Papa.
(Aaron, drawing a deep breath, paces a moment.)
AARON
I got something in the garden to show you, Son.
LEVI
But the horses I got to go put away....
AARON
They can wait. There’s a grave over here, in that old sink hole. To know
what happened to Moses Beachy you’re old enough now. Down here in
that grave he’s buried, away from decent Amish folks, all alone fer
eternity, because of his own actions.
LEVI
Papa, what are you sayin’...?
AARON
He was abomination. Homosexual. God struck him dead, and his family
put him down there, because to be with Godly folks he’s not fit.
LEVI
30
Why are you tellin’ me this?
AARON
This is why we draw our customs up around us, from the sins out in the
world to protect us.
LEVI
But why this talk about homosexuals?
AARON
Because with that abomination, Mark Cummings, you’re friends. I
thought I knew everything about you, but now seein’ plays and
homosexuals, all in one day.
LEVI
No! Mark is abomination? How do you know this?
AARON
He is abomination I can tell by lookin’ at him. Can’t you tell?
LEVI
No such worldly knowledge I have, Papa.
AARON
He keeps it no secret. Everyone knows.
(Levi ponders this and then begins laughing
uproariously.)
AARON
What...? Has seein’ that play frahootled you?
LEVI
No. Oh, Papa. Nobody’s really buried down there. All the kids know
grownups use that old sinkhole to scare us, to make us behave. You
think I’m homosexual?? Oh, Papa....
AARON
Levi, this world is gone mad with sin. What if we are God’s last
stronghold? What if it is up to us, and only us, to make sure something
holy is left upon this earth? Us and our children and their children. At
such things you should never laugh, Levi. This is too serious.
LEVI
Papa, I’m not homosexual.
31
AARON
To marry Becky Bontrager you don’t want, and she’s a fine Amish girl.
LEVI
Oh, Papa. Hannah Lambright stole my heart.
AARON
Hannah Lambright! But she has four brothers! You’ll never get even one
acre of her papa’s farm. No, Becky Bontrager’s the one fer you.
We’ve had a good talk, Son. But no more plays. And no more friendship
with Mark Cummings.
LEVI
So we should treat him like the English treat us? Just because he’s
different, too.
AARON
Levi! Surely the difference between Amish and abomination you can see.
LEVI
Yah, Papa. Yah, I can. I never knew he was abomination. I never knew
there were any homosexuals in all of Indiana.
AARON
Levi, you’re so trusting of people. And sometimes a pure heart that just
shows.
LEVI
It’s some kinda day fer findin’ out things.
(Sarah Miller enters, carrying a basket of food.)
AARON
God bless you, Sarah. I don’t know what we’d do without you.
SARAH
Without you, either, Aaron, I don’t know what I’d do. Und your family.
LEVI
We love your food, Sarah.
SARAH
If a good cook I am, it’s only that God guides my hand.
32
Listen, Aaron, there was a barn fire last night. Over at the Hersbergers.
LEVI
Oh, no....
AARON
Was anyone hurt?
SARAH
No one’s hurt. Most of the animals they got out in time. Lost a few
sheep.
The men are gonna raise the barn next Tuesday.
AARON
We’ll be there, Levi and me. I guess the food the women will bring.
SARAH
That’s OK. Katherine don’t need to bring anything. I’ll bring enough fer
you.
LEVI
God bless you, Sarah Miller. Was it lightning burned the barn?
SARAH
They think somebody set the fire. Why can’t the English just leave us
alone?
AARON
Why can’t over there the English stay and over here us? Like we want.
Speaking of the English. I saw Amos Byler walking up the road toward
our produce stand.
LEVI
I still think of Amos as Amish.
AARON
Amos Byler ain’t Amish no more. He was shunned. If he ain’t Amish,
then he’s the English. You didn’t speak to him, did you, Levi?
LEVI
No, Papa. No.
33
AARON
Good. You must never speak to him again ever.
LEVI
But remember what a good friend he was? Fishing we used to go every
Saturday. And we rigged up that rope by the swimmin’ hole. But he
came back all changed. He was by here this morning. Calls himself
“Gary Smith” now.
SARAH
God bless him. All alone in the world.
AARON
Just stickin’ around here rottin’ like a piece of meat in the sun. The
Amish don’t want him no more. But instead of movin’ on with his life, he
just stays here and makes life miserable fer everyone. In with the
English he doesn’t fit. And in with the Amish he doesn’t fit. Nowhere to
fit in he got.
SARAH
I’ll never forget that awful day. Amos grabbed that can of money, our life
savings, und took off across our front lawn. Matthew right behind him.
But then, right down on the ground Matthew dropped. Never sick a day
in his life und just dropped down dead.
So Amos Byler the elders excommunicated, because his bad actions
caused a man’s death.
LEVI
Yet so understanding you are about how hard it is fer him now? And say
God bless him.
SARAH
Ah, Levi. I tried hating him. But so bad in my heart that felt, forgiving
him felt better. In an Amish heart, a grudge don’t seem to fit so good.
LEVI
Your husband he killed!
SARAH
He’s being punished, Levi. Cast out into the world with no one to love
him. It’s the worst thing in the world not to be loved by anyone. Imagine
the depth of his loneliness.
LEVI
34
All mixed up he is because of drugs. We should get him help.
AARON
That ain’t our place.
LEVI
Papa, that just seems wrong, turnin’ our backs on him.
AARON
It’s not you who decides what is right and wrong. Nor me. Nor the
elders. God is the judge of all. Besides, we shouldn’t be gossiping such
as this
SARAH
Well, maybe you’re right.
Katherine now I should see to. Everything going all right?
LEVI
Well. She made the noodles. Without you.
SARAH
How’d that go?
LEVI
Well, they’re colorful!
SARAH
Colorful? Oh, Dear. I told her I’d make them today.
(She bustles onto the porch and in through the kitchen
door. Lights up on kitchen, where Katherine is washing
dishes in the kitchen sink. Lights down on the produce
stand. When Levi is sure no one is looking, he pulls out
a play and reads it.)
KATHERINE
Oh! You startled me. Coming in like that.
SARAH
I’m here every day. To help you. You want I should knock still after all
these years even?
KATHERINE
You act like my family is your family.
35
SARAH
The noodles you made? You know I was going to make them today.
KATHERINE
I already made them.
SARAH
Well, where are they? Let me see ‘em.
KATHERINE
In the pantry.
(Sarah goes into the pantry and brings out noodles,
drying on a rack. They are all different colors – green,
yellow, red…..)
SARAH
What did you do to these noodles? These are not the Amish noodles.
Look! Green!
KATHERINE
I added a little chopped spinach to the dough.
SARAH
And red!
KATHERINE
Beets!
SARAH
And yellow!
KATHERINE
Some butternut squash. Tastes delicious.
SARAH
These are not the Amish noodles. I must make the Amish noodles fer
you.
KATHERINE
I like to experiment sometimes. Instead of fixing the same things over
and over again. Oh, and you don’t have to worry about canning our
tomatoes for us this year. I canned tomatoes from the garden. Thirty
quarts. By myself. Without you.
36
SARAH
Und canned tomatoes? Have you ever canned anything before? In your
whole life?
KATHERINE
Well, no, but it wasn’t that hard.
SARAH
Did you put them through the hot bath, to seal the jars?
KATHERINE
The hot bath? Well. Well, of course I did.
(Only she didn’t.)
SARAH
Making der noodles is my job.
KATHERINE
Mary runs over to your house every day, so she can learn how to cook
and sew. How do you think that makes me feel?
I want to be a good mother. And to teach my own daughter what she
must know. I know how to cook!
SARAH
Englisher food! Noodles like Joseph’s coat of many colors.
Cooking is not your job. Making the hex signs fer the tourists is your
job. Und tending your garden und taking care of the chickens. Und all
the laundry you got to do. Und delivering my food to the shut-ins. No,
you got enough yer hands to keep busy.
KATHERINE
You keep comin’ here like my family is your own.
SARAH
That’s the Amish way, to help our own. I see you struggling....
KATHERINE
You don’t think I can do anything right. Everything I touch in the
kitchen is not like you want it to be! Maybe you don’t approve of the way
I raise my children, either.
37
SARAH
Your children I love like my own they are. The whole Amish community
is their family. Should something wrong I see them doing, I would tell
your husband. Because I want them always to be on the right path.
KATHERINE
When my mother needed noodles, she just opened up a package. And
bought tomatoes from the store. And raised us kids without our
neighbors putting their nose in.
SARAH
So, a buttinsky you think I am! So now I know what you think about
me, Katherine, I’ll tell you exactly what I think about you.
I think you’ve been so generous und kind to let me be a part of your
family. When my man died, I was lost. No sons to pick up the slack.
Not even a daughter! Everyone clucks their tongue in pity.
Comin’ here gave me a purpose to get up in the mornin’. Loved and
lovin’ it made me feel. So I want to thank you fer lettin’ me the noodles
to make all these years.
KATHERINE
Oh, Sarah. I’m so grateful. Really. You make me ashamed of myself.
It’s just…. Out in the world, I was never one to say, “That group is over
there. My group is over here. They’re not as good as we are.” I just
thought all humans made one big group, just trying to get through life
the best way we know how.
But since I became Amish, I feel like it’s me against the whole world.
SARAH
Because of the way the English treat us.
KATHERINE
No. Because of how the Amish treat me. A group I’m supposed to be
welcomed into and a part of.
(This impacts Sarah.)
SARAH
Look, Katherine. This chicken pie I brought you fer your supper. To go
with it just make a salad from your produce stand. Just save up eggs fer
next week, und I’ll make the noodles.
38
KATHERINE
Sarah, I’m sorry I was short with you. Only I want so bad to do things
for my own family.
SARAH
If everything you was good at doin’, then what would I have to do with
my life?
(Sarah exits to the produce stand. Lights down on the
kitchen and up on the produce stand, where Levi is
arranging produce.)
SARAH
Levi! Lovely apples. Mmmm. So good they smell.
LEVI
You saw the noodles?
SARAH
Right you were. Colorful!
LEVI
Not like any Amish noodles I ever saw.
SARAH
Oh! Look at this watercress.
LEVI
I found it growin’ down in the brook this morning. Here, fer your supper
you take a bunch of it. And some apples fer a pie. And whatever else
you want.
SARAH
Thank you, Levi.
LEVI
We’re glad to give you anything we have.
(She loads the produce in her basket.)
SARAH
Now you set aside some eggs fer noodles, und next week, I’ll come by und
make enough to last you through winter. Amish noodles. Und while I’m
at it, I’ll teach Mary how to do it.
39
LEVI
Sure, Sarah.
(Sarah exits. Lights down on produce stand. Lights up
on kitchen, where Mary enters and washes her hands
at the pump in the sink.)
KATHERINE
Mary, you’re back.
MARY
Yes, Mutter. What is it?
KATHERINE
Mary, come sit and talk a bit.
MARY
I have so much to do. When I get my work done in the garden, I must go
over to Sarah Miller’s house. We’re making a wedding ring quilt. And
tomorrow a sauerbraten we’re going to start.
KATHERINE
Just a moment with your mutter. It seems like we never have a chance
to talk.
MARY
Yes, Mutter.
KATHERINE
I wish we could spend more time together. Here you are, my grown-up
daughter, and I feel like I hardly know you.
MARY
Yes, but I’m always so busy. Here to the house and over to Sarah
Miller’s.
KATHERINE
I could teach you to cook some of the dishes I grew up eating.
MARY
Not the German dishes?
KATHERINE
40
No. Different things I used to cook. Broiled salmon and mango salsa.
Things like that.
MARY
But when I get married, my Amish husband won’t eat that. So why
should I learn to cook it?
KATHERINE
Mary…. Can’t you come and talk to me sometimes?
MARY
About what?
KATHERINE
You’re getting to an age, you could talk to me about boys. That’s
something I know about.
MARY
What do you know, Mutter. About the boys?
KATHERINE
I know you have to be careful what you believe some boy tells you. Tell
you you’re pretty and wonderful just to get what he wants. And then
he’ll have nothing to do with you again. These are things you must be
careful of.
MARY
Did this happen to you a lot, Mutter? Did you know a lot of boys like
this?
KATHERINE
Enough for me to want to protect you. I don’t want you getting hurt
because you don’t know what’s out in the world.
MARY
About the English boys you’re talkin’. And that’s exactly why the English
boys I would never date. I’m marryin’ an Amish boy.
KATHERINE
Is there some special Amish boy you like? You can talk to me about him.
MARY
I must go now out to Levi to see if help he needs at the produce stand.
(Mary exits.)
41
KATHERINE
Ah, Mary. Mary….
(Lights down on kitchen. Lights up on Levi and Mary at
the produce stand.)
MARY
Did something good fer supper Sarah Miller bring?
LEVI
Smelled like one of her chicken pies.
MARY
What would we do without Sarah Miller? Eat rainbow noodles? Roil up
our intestines and beat a crowded path to the outhouse. Runnin’ in, I’d
bump into you comin’ out.
LEVI
Mary!
Have you seen Papa today already yet?
MARY
I saw him away down in the field. Not yet to talk to.
LEVI
Papa told me Moses Beachy was a homosexual!
(Mary ponders this a moment and suddenly finds it to
be hysterical.)
MARY
Levi! No! He doesn’t think...? Oh, Lord help us. Oh, Levi!
LEVI
I told him just because I didn’t want to marry Becky Bontrager doesn’t
make me abomination.
MARY
Becky’s the abomination!
(They both guffaw.)
LEVI
42
Shhhh. He’ll hear.
MARY
He’s way down in the field. He can’t hear us.
(Mary finds the lipstick and picks it up.)
What’s this?
LEVI
Lip paint from that Englisher who took my picture this morning.
MARY
Why do the English think we’re the ones who dress funny? When they’re
the ones who look so ridiculous.
LEVI
I don’t understand makeup. It seems the woman is saying, “You can’t
see my real face. It’s too hideous.”
MARY
To be wicked just once I think it would be fun. Paint up my face and
sashay down the streets of Shipshewana and entangle men in my evil
snare. Like this morning, here comes that customer, that Englisher,
paint all over her face like a clown.
(She smears her lips garishly with the lipstick. Levi
laughs hysterically throughout Mary’s depiction of the
customer.)
And comin’ in, her crownin’ glory exposed fer everyone to see.
(Mary removes her bonnet and roughs up her hair, so it
stands around her head.)
And her legs naked to the whole world.
(She hikes up her skirt and sashays saucily around the
stage. Aaron enters. Shocked, he stops to stare at her,
not believing his eyes.)
And makin’ fun of us. “Oh, my, you dress so quaint. How odd you all
live. Why can’t you just use cars, like everyone else?”
43
(She suddenly sees her papa. Panicked, she covers her
bare legs, covers her hair with her bonnet, and tries to
hide the lipstick with her hand.)
Papa!!
AARON
Mary! What are you doin’? What is that on your face?
LEVI
Papa, we were just funnin’....
AARON
Quiet, Levi. Mary, on your face what do you have?
(Mary continues trying to cover the lipstick. Aaron pulls
her hand away.)
What! Lip paint? On my daughter? Has the devil taken your soul?
(Mary, scrubbing furiously at the lipstick, smears it all
over her face.)
LEVI
No, Papa. In a sinnin’ way she didn’t mean it. We were just makin’ fun
of the English....
AARON
Makin’ fun of the English? Why? Because you want to be like them,
makin’ fun of us?
LEVI
But no. See, we were just funnin’ together. No. It was my fault....
AARON
I don’t see any paint on your face. I don’t see you hikin’ up your trousers
to show your legs. I see this on Mary but not on you, so how could it be
your fault?
LEVI
We just got to laughin’ and lost control of ourselves. We didn’t mean....
(Katherine, hearing the exchange, comes out onto the
porch to listen.)
44
AARON
You want to be Amish, you must never lose control. You must be an
example of humility and Gelassenheit before the Lord.
And Mary. Tricks on me did my ears play? Sarah Miller told me you
were out ridin’ Old Jake this morning.
MARY
Papa, I.... Papa. I didn’t mean....
AARON
The answer to my question is one of two words, Mary. We’re you ridin’
Old Jake? Yah? Or no?
MARY
Yah, Papa. Yah.
AARON
Paintin’ your face. Hikin’ up your skirts. Uncoverin’ your crowning
glory. And astride a horse pleasure ridin’.
MARY
Old Jake is my friend. We talk to each other.
AARON
Your Papa is the dopplehead do you think? That you can talk to a
horse?
MARY
Connected together Jake and I are somehow. He was born out to the
barn on the very same day I was born right here in the house.
AARON
Ridin’ Old Jake is one thing that we could have talked about. Because
maybe you just needed straightenin’ out your misunderstandin’. But lip
paint you know is a sin. And hikin’ up your skirts. And sashayin’
around like a strumpet. You know you must be punished.
LEVI
Please, Papa. We didn’t mean nothin’ by it. We were just funnin’. We
got to laughin’ together and just forgot.
AARON
45
Levi. Hush. A papa one day you are going to be. And to guide your
family it will be up to you. Watch me. And learn what your job must be
someday, too, yah?
LEVI
Yah, Papa.
AARON
You want Bishop Lapp to think your papa’s weak?
LEVI
No, Papa.
AARON
No. And neither do I. Mary, you are shunned. Your meals you cannot
take with us. You cannot speak to us. Not your family. Not no one in
the whole Amish community. Nor the English. Do you understand?
MARY
No, Papa. Please, no. It’s humliatin’ before everyone. Fer the rest of my
life, they’ll point and say, “There goes that girl who fer paintin’ her face
was shunned.”
AARON
You should have thought of that!
KATHERINE
Aaron. No. Please.
AARON
This is between Mary and me.
KATHERINE
She’s my daughter. Have I no say in how she is treated?
AARON
Look, Wife. I’m not tryin’ to hurt our daughter. I’m trying to teach her.
Please, don’t make this harder.
Mary, you are shunned!
MARY
Levi! Have you no backbone. Stand up fer me!
46
LEVI
Amos Byler runs free fer killin’ a man. And you punish Mary just fer
funnin’?
AARON
Levi! Do you want to be shunned, too?
LEVI
No, Sir. No, Papa.
MARY
How long, Papa?
AARON
No talkin’ to anyone. And no eatin’ with us. And Mary. Stay away from
Old Jake.
MARY
No, Papa! No, please.... He will miss me so bad. He’ll think I’m mad at
him.
KATHERINE
She loves that horse. Why is it wrong to learn about love, no matter how
she learns it? Shun her for the lipstick, if you must, but let her be with
her horse.
AARON
Horses aren’t fer to pleasure people. They’re to work the fields.
KATHERINE
But she’s just a girl. She’ll be a woman soon, and what is there for
Amish women? Work from morning till night and no joy in her life.
AARON
No joy! The joy of walking the plain path of God she has. Wife, if too
hard this is fer you to see, then go into the house. To hurt your heart I
don’t want to do. I’ll be in soon to talk to you.
(Katherine goes into the house.)
MARY
How long?
AARON
You are shunned fer four weeks!!
47
MARY
But see, no. No, Papa. The Autumn Frolic is in two weeks. I promised
Samuel I would….
AARON
What? Promised Samuel? You and the Bishop’s son?
MARY
I promised him I would be there.
AARON
You promised? Well, then. You must be there.
MARY
Thank you, Papa. Thank you.
AARON
You will be there, and everyone will know you are shunned. You will
attend the frolic. But you will speak to no one. And no one will speak to
you.
MARY
No, Papa. Samuel can’t know this about me, that I tried on lip paint. He
will think I’m too vain…
AARON
Mary, you are shunned!
(Mary acquiesces by bowing. She picks up a cloth from
the produce stand and scrubs her face. She begins
arranging vegetables.
AARON
No speaking to your sister, Levi. Not one word. Now rid that frown from
off your face.
(Lights up on kitchen and Katherine. Aaron enters.)
AARON
Katherine. Love. I don’t want to hurt you. Please, when I must
discipline our children, don’t watch. Your love fer me I don’t want to be
weakened. I couldn’t bear that.
KATHERINE
48
You seem so harsh with her.
AARON
Harsh? You think instead I should beat the worldliness out of her?
KATHERINE
Oh, no. No.
AARON
This is how we teach our children. Some English hit their children.
Sometimes right out in public. At the livestock auction I saw this. It
embarrassed me.
KATHERINE
My parents used to hit me.
AARON
How did that make you feel?
KATHERINE
Like they didn’t value me very much.
AARON
Mary I value huge in my heart. Enough to hurt inside to teach her the
plain path.
KATHERINE
But the Autumn Frolic. To be embarrassed like that in front of Bishop
Lapp.
AARON
The bishop’s son. Samuel Lapp. And Mary. A thing I didn’t know about.
KATHERINE
Maybe his son won’t be so interested in our daughter if he sees her being
punished.
AARON
Yah. That is something I must think about, yah?
KATHERINE
All this drama over lipstick. I was wearing lipstick the day we met.
AARON
And so much cleaner and worthy of God you look without it.
49
KATHERINE
She’s just a girl.
AARON
And that’s why right from wrong I must teach her. The elders, the
bishop, a big concession they made, allowing us to be married. I must
constantly prove to them I am a good Papa and worthy of being Amish.
And now Levi is talking about taking his rumspringa. It scares me so,
that he might succumb to temptation out in the world and not come
back.
KATHERINE
You succumbed to temptation on your rumspringa. We did.
AARON
Yah, but we made it good in the eyes of God. Not everyone does that
though. Lost forever some people are. I couldn’t abide it if we lost Levi.
I hate this part, Katherine. My children feel hurt by my actions. But I
must do all I can to lead them on the plain path.
KATHERINE
Are these tears on your cheek?
AARON
I can’t let the children see my weakness.
KATHERINE
Tears don’t show weakness. They show love.
AARON
I must protect them from the sin growing out in the world. This life is a
grain of sand compared to eternity.
KATHERINE
I know you mean well by us, Aaron.
AARON
Every year, more and more Amish kids leave to go out into the world.
Never to return.
I encouraged Levi to go see Becky Bontrager. Have a bundle date with
her.
50
KATHERINE
You punish your daughter for wearing lipstick, yet you encourage your
son to have a bed date with a girl?
AARON
If he gets taken with an Amish girl, then Amish he’ll remain. And so will
Becky. Both of them win, and her parents and us, too.
KATHERINE
I’ll bet a hot Amish lad like you had a lot of bundle dates in your day.
AARON
Ain’t none of ‘em as good as a haystack date with a wild English woman.
KATHERINE
Husband.
(Aaron hugs her.)
AARON
Ah, Katherine.
(Lights down in kitchen. Lights up on produce stand.
Mark enters, excited. Levi is initially stand-offish.)
MARK
Hey, Levi. Look. I couldn’t wait to tell you. I talked to Tim. About you
maybe comin’ to New York with us. He’s excited about something he
found on the Internet. Something great to show you.
Oh, hi, Mary. I didn’t see you there.
(Mary, keeping her head down, rushes off toward the
back of the house.)
Did I say something wrong?
LEVI
To you she cannot speak. Nor anyone. She’s shunned.
MARK
Shunned! She has to leave your house and your order...?
LEVI
51
No. Only the bishop can shun someone forever from the order. No.
Papa just uses shunning to punish us. Like the English sometimes hit
their children only he doesn’t hit us.
MARK
Oh. Like a time out. For how long?
LEVI
Fer four weeks she can’t speak to no one. And can’t take meals with us.
MARK
Not speak for four weeks! But what did she do?
LEVI
This is Amish business. Not fer the English.
MARK.
Oh, gosh. You’re right. I’m so sorry. I apologize.
(Levi doesn’t answer or look at Mark. He busies himself
with his vegetables.)
Levi, is something wrong?
LEVI
No.
(But there is.)
MARK
You know how we were taking about theater, and you were so excited.
Well, I spoke to my partner....
(No response.)
Levi, what’s the matter?
(No response.)
Look, Levi. I thought we were friends. I always enjoy talking to you, out
here and in Shipshewana.
LEVI
At your bed and breakfast. You and your partner? And you and your
partner are going to New York?
52
MARK
Well... Yes, sure.
LEVI
But you don’t mean business partner, do you? You’re homosexual.
MARK
Well, sure....
LEVI
“Well, sure.” Just like that.
MARK
Sorry. I can do a more-dramatic reading if you’d like
(Over-the-top.)
“Oh, yes, Big Daddy. I am...that which cannot speak its name. I am,
gasp, HOMOSEXUAL.”
(He buries his hands and sobs crocodile tears.)
LEVI
What…?
MARK
Tennessee Williams. Keep reading plays, and you’ll run into him.
LEVI
Out in the open you talk about this?
MARK
Sorry, Levi. It’s a new world.
LEVI
It’s never a new world fer me. That’s the point of being Amish.
MARK
You’re always telling me about the awful things the English think about
the Amish.
LEVI
I wish I could write a play and make them see what they think of us is
ridiculous!
53
MARK
The things people get in their mind about other people are horrible.
That’s why I’ve enjoyed our friendship. So I can learn more about your
people.
Here’s your chance to learn more about me.
You call me abomination because of the Bible.
LEVI
Leviticus.
MARK
Yes, Leviticus, where it tells us to keep slaves and make human
sacrifices and stone disobedient children. Didn’t you ever wonder about
that?
LEVI
Papa says, to question God’s word is not my place.
MARK
Look, Levi, I want the same things the Amish community wants. To live
life the best way I know how, without bigots trying to hurt me or the
people I love.
(Levi ponders this a moment. Then he laughs.)
LEVI
Who would of thought homosexuals and Amish people want the same
things?
MARK
All people want the same thing. To live our lives in peace.
Look, maybe this isn’t a good time. You seem upset.
LEVI
Should I be a papa someday, at my child’s heart I’d look. And if there’s
no sin, then why shun her?
MARK
Well, it has to be so hard trying to do right with all the temptations. The
Internet, telephones....
54
LEVI
Yah. And theater!
MARK
You can go with us, you know? Two weeks. See a bunch of shows. And
that special thing Tim found to show you.
LEVI
What thing? Tell me.
MARK
Can’t. It’s a surprise.
LEVI
This year’s the last I can go on rumspringa.
MARK
What is “rumspringa?”
LEVI
My runnin’-around time, fer me to see the world. To make sure the
Amishman I want to be. Then by twenty years old, I got to be baptized
and join the order.
MARK
So it’s your last chance to see plays?
LEVI
See plays. Real plays? In real theaters!
MARK
But do you want to leave your sister here alone when she’s being
shunned?
LEVI
If I should stay here, how could I not talk to her? We chatter all the
time, when we’re workin’, when we’re eatin’.
MARK
Well, think about it. Only think fast. We leave tomorrow morning.
LEVI
Away from Papa I think I need to be right now.
Only the clothes to wear around the English I don’t have.
55
MARK
You’re about the same size as Tim. We’ll take care of you.
LEVI
And in a restaurant I never ate. Or stayed in a hotel. Or used inside
plumbing.
MARK
We’ll be there to answer all your questions.
LEVI
Only my own hotel room to stay in I’d want.
MARK
Well, of course. Wouldn’t have it any other way.
LEVI
Fer to pay my own way I got the money.
MARK
You sure? ‘Cause we’ll be glad to help.
LEVI
No. I saved a lot. See, the orchard Papa gave me when I was twelve.
Said, “Here, Son. You make money from this however you can.”
So fer all these years, I been sellin’ apples. And seedlings. And
apple-blossom honey. And firewood if an apple tree gets too old.
MARK
New York is expensive.
LEVI
I got money. Enough to start my family when it’s time.
And you’ll tell me what to do? So among the English I won’t look so
foolish?
MARK
Sure, Kid. It’ll be fun to show you the ropes in New York. And show you
some great theater.
LEVI
Plays! I get to see plays!
56
MARK
Sometimes two a day. You’ll come home either loving theater or hating
it.
LEVI
Can we go to a church in New York?
MARK
Uh, I don’t think there are many Amish churches in New York City.
LEVI
No. No, I know. I mean other churches. Maybe Catholic. Or a
synagogue.
MARK
Why would you…?
LEVI
I do a lot of reading. About different things. I’m just curious about what
other people believe.
MARK
We could go to St. Patrick’s. It’s beautiful.
LEVI
But if I go, Papa must never know this. He forbid me from plays and
havin’ you as a friend. And on rumspringa we don’t hafta ask what we
can and can’t do even.
MARK
I don’t know about goin’ against your Papa.
LEVI
On their rumspringa some Amish kids come back home addicted to
drugs. Or alcohol. Or with some disease. Or they end up in prison.
But instead something good I want, that will make me understand the
world in a bigger way.
Oh, I just don’t know. I want to be the best Amishman I know how. To
lead my family on the plain path. Maybe seeing the plays is the wrong
thing fer me to do.
MARK
Really, I understand if you don’t want to go against your Papa.
57
LEVI
But Papa isn’t always right. What he did to Mary is wrong. She was just
funnin’. Oh, she was so comical. Like in a play. But he wouldn’t listen.
Stubborn, he is. So why should I listen to him?
And Mary says I have no backbone. That against him I’d never go.
When I come back, I’ll have a thing to tell her. About my backbone, she
won’t hardly believe then!
He can’t tell me what to do forever. I’m growin’ up!
Yah. Yah, I’ll do it. I’ll go.
Besides, we’re just gonna have fun. What could go wrong?
(Curtain. End Act I.)
58
ACT II
59
ACT II, SCENE I
(Early evening. Lights up on the stand and Sarah
Miller. Levi and Mark walk up to the stand. Mark
begins picking out vegetables.)
LEVI
Sarah Miller! What are you doin’ here? Is everyone OK to home?
SARAH
Oh, Levi! You back home from rumspringa? Who’s that you ridin’ in a
car with?
LEVI
A customer gave me a ride from Shipshewana to buy produce. Where’s
everyone at?
SARAH
I been comin’ over to see to the produce stand. Mary is still shunned fer
two more weeks. Und your mutter, she’s so busy. Und your papa got to
see to the farmin’. So your vegetables I been sellin’.
LEVI
Is Papa still at the livestock auction in Shipshewana?
SARAH
He’ll be there all day, just like every Wednesday. So what’d you do on
your rumspringa?
LEVI
A young Amishman you don’t ask what he did on his rumspringa! You
might be scandalized.
SARAH
Oh, Levi. I’m sorry. It’s just like my own son, you are.
LEVI
It’s good to be home, to smell the hay and see the horses.
SARAH
Did I see you in Shipshewana get in that car, too, to go on your
rumspringa?
LEVI
60
Must of been someone else you saw looked like me. You go on home
now, afore the dark comes. The produce stand I’ll close up. And thank
you so much fer seein’ after things here. Without you, I don’t know what
we’d do.
SARAH
Thank you, Levi. You’re a good boy. Welcome home.
(She exits.)
MARK
She’s certainly interested in your life!
LEVI
We call her “the Amish radio.” Broadcasting news from farm to farm.
Take what you want, Mark, before I close up the stand. You and Tim,
such a good time you gave me. I’ll never forget it.
MARK
It was so fun showing you New York and shows....
LEVI
...and restaurants and hotels and the Statue of Liberty.... Oh! And
rainbow flags. And “Embrace Diversity!”
MARK
So what was your favorite show?
LEVI
All of ‘em. Oh, those actors were so bold! Struttin’ around up there,
their chests stuck out, sayin’, “Look at me!”
MARK
Thank you so much for sharing this time with us. I feel like I have a new
little brother.
(Mark hugs Levi. Gary Smith enters walking down the
road and sees them.)
GARY
What the hell....? That faggot from Shipshewana and Levi? Huggin’ like
a coupla boyfriends.
(Levi pulls away from Mark.)
61
You two been stupsen in your Papa’s hayloft?
MARK
What’s his name, Levi? So I can tell the sheriff. Get him off the streets
and away from normal people.
GARY
Normal people? Like you? Hah!
LEVI
Calls himself Gary Smith now. Used to be Amos Byler.
MARK
So Gary. Or Amos. Why do you come by my bed and breakfast all the
time and scream at me? And my customers?
GARY
Because you’re abomination.
MARK
Look, the world’s full of people you’re never gonna agree with. That
doesn’t mean you have to harass us. Just stay away from me. Away
from my business. Just…stay away.
GARY
You, tellin’ me what to do? You…you….
(Gary balls up his fists and starts for Mark. Mark steps
toward him.)
MARK
You little grubworm. You think you’re gonna hurt me? Come on, I’ll
beat the living crap out of you and enjoy every minute of it.
(Frightened, Gary backs down and steps away.)
MARK
Just what I thought. A coward.
LEVI
Look. Gary. I know you’re goin’ through some bad times.
GARY
62
What bad times? You mean my friends turnin’ their backs on me? Like
you? You think you know so much, just ‘cause all the time you’re
readin’.
LEVI
Mark knows people in town. Someone to help you.
GARY
What kind of people?
MARK
Counselors. Someone who understands what you’re going through.
Maybe a psychiatrist.
GARY
You think I’m crazy? Is that what you think?
MARK
From what Levi says, you got involved in some things that aren’t good for
you. And now you need help getting away from them.
GARY
You frickin’ Ah-mo. You? S’posed to be my friend, and you’re talkin’
about me behind my back? To this abomination? I’m gonna.... I’m
gonna....
LEVI
No, no, now look. It’s nothin’ to be ashamed of, getting the help should
you need it. You’re just frahootled.
GARY
Frahootled! You! You calling me crazy!? You…. I’M GONNA GET YOU
FOR THIS. YOU’LL SEE!! YOU’RE GONNA BE SORRY, BOTH OF YOU.
(Irate, he exits.)
LEVI
Oh, we shouldn’t have said anything. He’s shunned. We shouldn’t have
talked to him at all.
MARK
Now that I know his name, I’ll tell the sheriff. He’s been harassing us for
months.
LEVI
63
Good. Papa says let God handle it. But dangerous he seems sometimes.
So angry. Not at all like he used to be.
MARK
I’ll go talk to the sheriff as soon as I get back into town.
LEVI
Look, Mark. Look. It was the best time of my life. Really, I’ll never ever
forget it.
MARK
It was really great to have you along.
LEVI
I never knew the theater could be so many different things. It made me
laugh. And cry. And think. And all the singing and dancing. It was
everything in the world, right up there on a stage.
MARK
You lit up from the inside every time you were in a theater.
LEVI
And so much to talk about it gave me.
MARK
We’ve never had such intelligent discussions about theater as we had
with you.
LEVI
My head was filled with thoughts and ideas. And seeing Shakespeare.
“All the world’s a stage.” I thought I’d bust open when I heard that,
because so true it is. A whole different world you can show people, make
them think of things they never thought of before.
Theater can change people’s lives!
MARK
You were born to be part of the theatre world.
LEVI
Well, no, Mark. No. See, my rumspringa is over now. An Amishman I’m
gonna be. I can never do that again, go to New York, see shows. My life
now will be apart from the world, away from theater forever. Here,
farmin’ with my papa.
64
MARK
You don’t want to write plays anymore? You don’t want to be part of
theater after seein’ all those great shows?
LEVI
I love it more than anything I’ve ever seen in my whole life. To be part of
that, what else would I need? My heart would be full.
MARK
You’d give up something you love so much?
LEVI
Givin’ up something I love so much makes bein’ Amish that much more
important to my heart. Like how Mutter gave up her English family to
love us. And her life as an artist. It was a very big thing fer her to do.
Besides, it would break my papa’s heart should I leave the order. He’s
my best friend. He’d never go against me. Ever. And I could never do
something bad to hurt his heart, either. No, I’ll be content here, bein’ the
Amishman.
MARK
Your papa should want what’s best for you.
LEVI
Everything he does is to make sure I’m safe and on the plain path.
The life I must have now is Amish. Seeking Gelassenheit.
MARK
What is that? Gelassenheit?
LEVI
A feeling of total humility, of inner peace, of understanding and
acceptance that everything that happens is God’s plan, whether we
understand why things happen or not.
MARK
Wow. How Zen!
LEVI
What?
MARK
It’s the same feeling of peace Buddhists seek.
65
LEVI
What do you know? I’m an Amish Buddhist who wants the same thing
homosexuals want.
(Mark laughs while gathering up his produce and goes
to pay. Levi waves him off.)
I couldn’t take anything. Not after all you did fer me.
MARK
So what’s next for you?
LEVI
Maybe tomorrow I’ll get some canoodlin’ with Becky Bontrager in Papa’s
buggy.
MARK
I’m sorta sad you won’t be with Hannah Lembright.
LEVI
I will be content with whatever path God blesses me.
Besides, I belong here. I felt like I was walkin’ naked down the street
wearin’ your clothes. And all the people buyin’ and sellin’ and crowdin’
together and jostlin’.
God lives out in the woods and fields. Not in a big town with concrete
and gas cars. Seems like the English spend every minute of every day
worrying how they look on the outside instead of what they’re like on the
inside.
MARK
Yes. Well. Maybe I have been spending too much time in the gym lately.
LEVI
Don’t worry. It doesn’t show.
MARK
Why thank you!
LEVI
I learned it from you. Sarcasm.
MARK
66
Ah, sarcasm and musical theater. Time to issue you your honorary gay
membership card.
LEVI
Ah. Mark. Now that I’m going to be Amish, I can’t be your friend.
Understand? I mean, when I see you, I’ll ask you how you are. And Tim.
And I’ll really want to know. But we can’t be good friends, like we were
on this trip.
MARK
Oh, I see. Because we’re gay.
LEVI
The Amish abide by what the Bible teaches us.
MARK
Even if what it teaches you hurts other people?
LEVI
Mark! Has any Amishman ever hurt you? Hurting anyone is not what
we want. Only to lead our lives the best way we know how.
When I begin following church, what you are is not my business. What
you do will not concern me. I won’t judge you or agree with you or
disagree with you. All that will concern me is my path and the path of
my family. Seeing to myself takes up enough time without worrying
about others.
MARK
Every part of your life tied up around God.
LEVI
Don’t you believe in a Supreme Being?
MARK
Well, sure. Diana Ross.
LEVI
Sometimes I don’t know when you’re being serious and when the jokes
you’re making.
MARK
Neither do I, Levi.
67
I guess I’m just too embarrassed to talk about religion. It’s…too personal
of an issue.
LEVI
Yes, a personal decision fer each of us.
And you want me to respect your right to believe and live exactly as you
wish?
MARK
Of course I do. Embrace diversity!
LEVI
Yes, Embrace diversity.
How about embracing my diversity? Can’t you give me the same right
you want? And the same respect?
I would never try to take away what you believe. Why would you do that
to me?
MARK
You just don’t know what it’s like, facing prejudice every single day of
your life.
LEVI
Mark. This is something I understand much better than most people.
MARK
Then you should be more understanding.
LEVI
There’s so much I don’t understand about the world. But this is one
thing I do understand. My place now will be to shun the world. My
friends must be Amish. No more plays fer me. And no more pants with
zippers and shirts with buttons. How do you ever get into and out of
your clothes with all those darn buttons? An hour every morning it took
fer just the dressin’.
(Mark laughs. He tries to hug Levi, but Levi turns away,
rejecting his embrace.)
MARK
Good-bye, Levi.
68
LEVI
Good-bye, Mark. And thank you again. So much.
(Mark exits. Levi begins straightening up the produce,
getting ready to close the stand for the night. Night is
coming on. Mary enters and walks by Levi. They want
to speak to each other but can’t. She is still being
shunned. Levi turns away from her.)
MARY
Oh, God, so thankful to You I am that my brother’s home safe. The days
go on forever with no one to talk to. With only thoughts of how wicked I
am filling my brain. And worried so bad about my brother and where he
is and how he is and if he’s safe. And no one to ask. But now, Levi’s
home safe. Thank You, God. Thank You so much.
(Mary enters the house. Aaron enters and silently
watches his son for a moment He is initially
standoffish.)
AARON
So. It is home you are.
LEVI
Papa!
AARON
It’s the first time since you were born, upstairs in that room, that I’ve
been apart from you. And you don’t even tell me you’re leavin’?
LEVI
I...I went on my rumspringa.
AARON
Your mutter, she told me. Your own self I thought you shoulda told me.
I thought we were best friends even.
LEVI
Things were in a turmoil, and it come up so fast. I just hadda go so
soon.
AARON
I know you was mad. Because I shunned your sister.
LEVI
69
I didn’t want to say things to you that maybe I’d regret. Because of my
anger. I thought it best to leave.
AARON
You thought I did wrong.
LEVI
Glad I’ll be when I’m the papa and get to make the decisions.
AARON
You think that now, but it’s the very hardest of God’s jobs. It sets your
wife and children apart from you. You can never be as one with them, no
matter how much you want it.
(The tension between them dissolves.)
LEVI
Papa, I’m so sorry. I shoulda told you I was goin’.
AARON
Hush, now. Come on the steps sit. Your shoes and socks remove.
(Aaron goes to the produce stand to retrieve a bucket of
water and a towel. As he speaks, he dips water from
the pail with his cupped hands and washes his son’s
feet and dries them with the towel. Levi is
overwhelmed at his father’s actions.)
On your rumspringa I don’t need to know what you did. Ain’t none of my
business. None of it matters except you’re back home now with us.
LEVI
It’s proud and humble I am to have you as my father.
AARON
And proud and humble I am to have you as a son.
Levi. Levi, are you gonna be Amish?
LEVI
Oh, yah Papa. My heart is in the earth here, with you and Mutter and
Mary. And the animals. And the woods and the stream. I missed it all
something fierce.
AARON
70
Good. Good!! Into God’s rich earth we’ll sink our hands together. And
when your bride you bring home to live, we’ll love her as part of our
family.
LEVI
I understand how people who live apart from a farm and the woods came
to forget their place in the world.
AARON
Go in the house, Son. Your mutter is worried fer yah. I’ll be in after I
check the horses.
(Aaron exits. Levi enters the kitchen. Katherine is
wearing a white apron.)
KATHERINE
My son!
LEVI
Mutter, what is this, these tears? Why are you cryin’ so?
KATHERINE
Having you gone was like an empty spot deep inside my heart.
LEVI
Mutter! I didn’t know you’d miss me so.
KATHERINE
You don’t know how much I love you? You’re so much a part of me. And
your papa.
LEVI
Mutter. I understand now. About you.
KATHERINE
What do you mean?
LEVI
On my rumspringa. Your paintings I saw in a gallery. And your name.
Your old name. See.
(He hands her a folded piece of paper.)
KATHERINE
“Katherine Henderson. A retrospective.” My.
71
LEVI
And I saw your paintings you did before you came here. Beautiful they
are. What did they call them…?
KATHERINE
Impressionist?
LEVI
Such a good word fer them. Impressions of God’s world. I never knew so
many people know about you.
KATHERINE
Well, they used to. I didn’t know they still did. How did you find out
about this show?
LEVI
Two people I know in Shipshewana. They know who you are. Even more
than I did yet, and you my own mutter. On the Internet they found the
showing. They asked me to go to New York and surprised me with your
paintings. They knew how much it would mean to me.
KATHERINE
My. People still remember me.
LEVI
How could you give up such a big thing?
KATHERINE
Oh, I loved the painting. It’s all the stuff that went with it I learned to
hate. Gallery openings, and all the pretentious people pressing up to me.
Talking just so. Drinking the correct wine. Eating caviar they thought
they’re supposed to like. And all the men hitting on me.
LEVI
Mutter! Men hit you!
KATHERINE
No, Levi. No. Men pretending to like me because I was successful. But
they were really just so wrapped up in themselves. Me, me, me. And
party after party after party in a meaningless blur.
But then here comes your father. Someone I never expected. No
pretense. Everything about him real. And his every thought, his every
action, is to take care of me. Not only in this life but in the next life, too
72
Once you’ve loved someone. I mean really loved, with all your soul and
every part of you. And once someone loves you back the same way.
Why, you’d give up the world to be with that person.
LEVI
Sometimes, maybe, well, bad words I’ve said to you and hurt you. But
Mutter, never again. Now I will honor you like I should have all along.
KATHERINE
You never hurt me. How could you? You’re my son.
(Aaron enters the kitchen.)
AARON
Katherine, Amish he’s going to be!
KATHERINE
Oh, I’m so glad. For you, Aaron. I know how much this means to you.
(As Aaron washes in the sink, Katherine sets another
place at the table. There are now three. She sets the
food on the table.)
KATHERINE
Look at you. All grown up and ready to be baptized.
Now come, sit. Mrs. Miller brought us sauerbraten today. And noodles.
Amish noodles. White. Without a lot of different colors.
(They sit down to eat. Mary enters through the house,
picks up a plate from the cupboard, and dishes up her
dinner. She does not look at her family members, and
they do not look at her. She takes her plate out onto the
porch, where she sits in a plain chair or on the steps
and eats and listens to what is going on inside.)
(Katherine, Levi, and Aaron join hands in a circle. They
bow their heads. Amish prayers are silent. After a
moment, Aaron says....)
AARON
Amen.
Now you must all reach and help yourselves.
73
(They begin eating.)
AARON
And I’d like to say more, today, Lord. Today is such a big day fer us.
Our son is home. Amish he’s going to be. And farm this land with me
till the day I die, then his sons, then their sons after.
And it’s a big day fer another reason, too, Lord.
(Although Aaron is talking about Mary, he is also really
talking to her in the only way he can while she is being
shunned. She reacts with great joy at his words.)
Lord, you have put pity inside my heart. I’ve decided our daughter,
Mary, is done being shunned tomorrow, two whole weeks early.
Tomorrow morning, she will get up with us and have breakfast. And her
sunny face we will welcome to our table. And then complete our family
will be. Mutter, Papa, Levi, and Mary, all together again. Like God
intended.
Oh, a lot to say to us I bet she’ll have after she’s been quiet fer so long. I
bet all that unused chatter filled up her head fer these two weeks.
And after breakfast, she’ll go down to the barn, where her horse, Old
Jake, has been waiting patiently fer her all this time.
And this means, Lord, that she’ll be able to go to the Autumn Frolic like
she promised the bishop’s son. And all her friends will never know about
the lip paint. Because we know You have forgiveness fer her, Lord.
Thank you, Lord.
(There is a loud POP. Then another and another.
Katherine looks horrified.)
KATHERINE
No! Oh, no!
AARON
What is this?
LEVI
Gunshots?
74
KATHERINE
No! My tomatoes!
(She exits into the pantry. There are three or four more
loud pops.)
KATHERINE
Oh, no. Just look! What a mess. Don’t you dare tell Sarah Miller about
this!
(Katherine re-enters the kitchen. Her white apron is
stained with large floral-looking red patches.)
KATHERINE
Oh, my tomatoes! They’re spoiled. They’re blowing up all over the
pantry. What am I going to do?
AARON
Come here Wife.
Just look at this fancy pokey-doted apron you’re wearin’. I think should
the bishop see you in such a fancy garb, he’ll think you been down to
Shipshewana doin’ the hoochey cooch fer all the tourists who come to
gape at us Amish.
LEVI
Oh, Papa!
(Levi and Aaron begin laughing, and so does Katherine.
Mary squirms on the porch, barely able to contain her
glee. It is now dark out.)
AARON
Don’t worry nothin’ about the mess, Mutter. Tomorrow, the pantry we’ll
clean up together.
KATHERINE
But all those spoiled tomatoes!
AARON
I hear fall tomatoes makes fer the best cannin’ anyway. Tomatoes don’t
matter, not when we got our health and our whole family here together
under one roof.
Besides, maybe spoiled tomatoes is one way God keeps you humble.
75
KATHERINE
God has so very many ways to keep me humble.
(Aaron stands.)
AARON
It was a real good meal. And glad we are to have you home, Son, to
share it with us. The Bible tells us, “Better is a dinner of herbs where
love is, than a fatted calf with hatred.”
KATHERINE
Welcome home, Levi. Son.
AARON
Time to bed fer all of us to go and get tomorrow morning a fresh start.
(Katherine carries the dishes to the sink where she
rinses them under the hand pump. Levi puts the food in
the icebox. They turn down the oil lamp and exit to the
house, and up to their rooms. Mary enters the kitchen,
where she quickly wipes the dishes and puts them
away, then goes to bed.)
(A cow lows in the barn. The sound of crickets fills the
air. The peace is suddenly broken when the cyclorama
begins glowing faintly red. Gary enters, drunk,
swigging from a bottle.)
GARY
You frickin’ Ah-mo faggot! Talkin’ about me behind my back!
My friend you was supposed to be!
(The cyclorama suddenly bursts into red, orange, and
yellow light. The barn is burning. Gary runs offstage.
Mary bursts into the kitchen, out onto the porch, and
runs across the yard, toward the barn. A horse
screams, whinnies.)
MARY
Oh no! My horse!
I’m comin’, Old Jake. I’m comin’!
76
(Levi stumbles into the kitchen, pulling on his clothes,
and exits out onto the porch.)
LEVI
Papa! Papa, the barn’s afire. Papa, come!!
(He yanks the cord on the alarm bell then picks up the
bucket of water on his way to the barn. Aaron bursts
into the kitchen, followed by Katherine. They go out
into the yard)
AARON
Get the animals out, Levi. Open the big door. Quick!
(Aaron exits. Sarah enters in a run. Katherine tries to
exit to the barn, but Sarah wraps her arms around
Katherine and guides her to the porch, where they sit.)
KATHERINE
I must go help my husband!
SARAH
Sit here, out of the way. The men will fight the fire.
KATHERINE
But Aaron….
SARAH
Up through the field the Bontragers ran to help Aaron and Levi. Und the
Lembrights are driving their buggies up through the corn stubble. Let
the men handle it. We’ll just be in the way.
KATHERINE
But Aaron and Levi. And Mary. Where’s Mary?
SARAH
Katherine, calm down und listen. Tomorrow, when this is all over, you
can teach me the colorful noodles how to make. Und Bishop Lapp’s wife
asked you to join us in the quilting bee circle. All the ladies want you
there, Katherine. I told them about your noodles, und they all want to
learn. Und their recipes to share with you, too.
KATHERINE
Why are you telling me this now? In the middle of all this?
77
SARAH
Because you shamed me. I’m the one who should be teachin’ you the
Amish how to be. But when you talk about how we shunned you aside
fer all those years, I realize you have the better Amish heart than I.
The less you did in the kitchen, the more I felt needed.
Und I want to make it up to you.
(A horse whinnies.)
SARAH
Oh, look! Our English neighbors are comin’ through the field to help us
the fire to fight.
KATHERINE
Let go of me! I must find my family!
MARY (OS)
Hold still! Old Jake! I’ll get you out! OLD JAKE!!
(The horse screams. Mary screams. Aaron and Levi
call to each other. The voices of other men, fighting the
fire, join in.)
KATHERINE
Where is my daughter?!!
AARON (OS)
Oh, no! Good Lord, no.
KATHERINE
Mary. Where is Mary?
SARAH
Now hush. Here comes Aaron. And Levi.... Oh.... Oh, dear Lord....
(Aaron and Levi enter carrying a board between them
with a body on it, draped in a black cloth. They are
smudged with soot, their clothes torn and dirty.)
LEVI
Please, Sarah. Open the door fer us.
78
(Sarah opens the door, enters the kitchen, and turns up
the oil lamp. She quickly clears away anything left on
the table. Levi and Aaron put Mary’s draped body on
the table.)
KATHERINE
Where is...? What...? What happened to...?
(Aaron folds Katherine in his arms.)
AARON
Katherine. Wife. Old Jake. Mary tried to help him out of the fire.
He...he fell on her. Old Jake is dead. Mary is....
(Overcome with grief, Katherine moves to the body on
the table. She puts her hand on the black cloth.)
KATHERINE
Mary.... Mary.... How can we go on?
AARON
Why...? Who would want to hurt Mary such as this?
LEVI
Papa, I…. I don’t know....
AARON
Amos Byler was out here, screamin’ names at us. Amos Byler burned
our barn. And killed Mary. Oh, my God. Mary, my dear, dear
daughter....
KATHERINE
Oh, Mary. Oh no, no, no, no....
LEVI
Mutter.... Oh, Mutter....
KATHERINE
This is the worst of it all. Anything else I could take. But now this. God
took my daughter!! How can I bear this? How can I ever get over this
horrible thing?
Oh, no, no, no, no....
AARON
79
We will get through this.
KATHERINE
How? How will we get through this?
AARON
The same way we get through all tribulations. Our faith in God.
KATHERINE
What kind of God allows such a thing to happen?
AARON
No matter what God gives us, He is showing us the path we must take in
life.
KATHERINE
It’s a cruel, twisted path.
(Lights down. End Act II, Scene I.)
80
ACT II, SCENE II
(A rooster crows. Lights up on Aaron, Katherine, Levi, and
Sarah. It is morning. Mary’s body has been removed from the
table.)
AARON
But why fer would Amos Byler want to hurt us? Over and over in my
head I keep wonderin’ this.
LEVI
He’s frahootled. Ever since his rumspringa.
AARON
And what was it that Amos Byler screamed? “Ah-mo faggot.” Why would
he scream such a thing at us?
LEVI
I.... No, I don’t know.....
SARAH
Aaron, talk to you I must.
(Sarah takes Aaron out onto the porch, where they talk
while Levi holds his mother as they sob over Mary.
Katherine goes into the pantry and takes out her
painting of the farm.)
LEVI
What is this, Mutter?
KATHERINE
The last painting I ever made. Of this farm. I finished it the day I met
your papa.
LEVI
Mutter, just look! At the colors. Like looking at the meadow, only it
shows what God meant about the meadow. Like you’re showin’ what the
farm looks like seeing it through your own soul.
KATHERINE
I was saving’ it for Mary. For when she was married. To put away and
remember me by sometimes. Or to sell if she ever needed money.
81
But she won’t need it now.
LEVI
Oh, Mutter.
(Lights down on the kitchen, up on the porch.)
AARON
Levi, come out here.
(Levi enters the porch.)
Levi, Sarah Miller says in a car she saw you. With Mark Cummings. Is
this true?
LEVI
Yah, well. Yah. Yah, he gave me a ride out here after my rumspringa.
AARON
But she said in Shipshewana she saw you. Getting in a car with him
and someone else. At the beginning of your rumspringa.
SARAH
I did, Levi. Clear as day I saw you. I couldn’t believe it was you, because
Englisher clothes you had on. But it was. Close I looked. You saw me,
too, didn’t you?
AARON
Thank you, Sarah. Alone to my son I need to speak now.
SARAH
Oh, I... Well, OK. I’ll go in then, to Katherine.
(She enters the kitchen and puts her arm around
Katherine, who is grieving.)
AARON
What did you do, Levi? Fer your rumspringa?
LEVI
I didn’t have to ask you what I could do and couldn’t do.
AARON
Our barn is burned. Your sister is dead. DEAD! Most of our animals,
lost. Did this happen because of something you did?
82
(They move to the yard.)
LEVI
Amos Byler has been burnin’ barns. The police you should have called
and had him locked up instead of shunnin’ him. Or got him help fer the
drugs and alcohol. So he couldn’t kill my sister.
AARON
We must never interfere with God’s will. This you already know!
LEVI
Maybe God gave man a brain capable understanding how to help people
addicted to drugs. Like Amos Byler needs.
AARON
Amos Byler and what he did or didn’t do is not my business. It is God’s
work to punish him. Not mine nor the police nor anyone but God. Amos
Byler ain’t my son. You are my son. God put you here fer me to see
over. Now tell me. What did you do on your rumspringa!
LEVI
I went to New York. And I stayed in a hotel. And ate in restaurants.
And saw plays.
AARON
How did you know how to do this, go to New York and see plays?
LEVI
Some people I went with. Who have been there before. They showed me.
AARON
And these people. Who are they?
LEVI
Papa, I....
(Katherine and Sarah have heard what is going on, and
they move to the porch to watch.)
AARON
Your sister is dead! Who did you go with??
LEVI
Mark Cummings. And his partner Tim.
83
AARON
So. So....
LEVI
Papa, I’m so sorry....
AARON
So. And did Amos Byler see you? With the abomination?
LEVI
Together he saw us. He yelled bad things at us. Mark said he needed a
psychiatrist. So Amos screamed that he would get even with us....
AARON
Levi. Oh, God, Son. Levi.
LEVI
Papa, I....
AARON
I forbade you to see this Mark person. And I forbade you to see plays.
Didn’t I?
LEVI
Yah, Papa. Yah.
AARON
With that abomination you went anyway.
LEVI
He isn’t what you think. He’s a good person.
AARON
What he is or isn’t I don’t care. I only care about you and the rest of my
family.
If you had not disobeyed me, your sister would still be alive now. Yah?
LEVI
Not if it’s God’s plan.
AARON
Is it God’s plan you should cause your sister’s death?
84
LEVI
No, Papa. No. It was Amos Byler.
AARON
Your actions caused your sister’s death. When your actions cause
another’s death, you must be shunned.
(Katherine moves into the house to retrieve the painting. She
brings it out onto the porch.)
LEVI
You would go against me in this way? I thought you would never do
such a thing. I thought we were friends.
KATHERINE
Look. Husband. I’ve been hiding this from you. The painting I finished
the day we met.
AARON
Why do you bring this out now? Can’t you see with my son I’m busy?
KATHERINE
Because. I will trade it. For my son. Please don’t shun Levi. Please.
And I will give you this. We have already lost our daughter.
AARON
Your painting wrap back up in that blanket and put it on the pantry
shelf where you keep it.
KATHERINE
This is all I have left of my past. Of the person I used to be.
But I am willing to burn it. To never, ever think of that time again. If
you will only please not do this to Levi.
LEVI
Mutter! You would do this fer me?
AARON
Wife, put it away. It has nothin’ to do with this.
Levi! You are shunned!
LEVI
How long, Papa? How long am I shunned?
85
AARON
Psalm 27:11 tells us, “Teach me thy way, oh Lord, and lead me in a plain
path.” Going against what your papa says is not traveling a plain path.
LEVI
How long, Papa?
AARON
Fer six months you are shunned. Shun you forever I should. Ban you
from being Amish. But fer you God has put pity in my heart. Because
you’re my only son.
KATHERINE
Oh, no, Aaron. You cannot do this. Six months!
AARON
Wife! Please! This is hard enough. Understand. Levi must learn.
(Katherine goes into the house, where she sobs. Sarah
goes in to comfort her.)
AARON
Six months. No talkin’. To anyone. And no meals with us. Because of
your actions, your sister is dead!
LEVI
You’re not really my friend. Like I thought. I thought we were best
friends. Now all alone in the world I feel.
AARON
Alone? We’re all alone!
Life shuns us all, Son. The only real thing we have, the only thing to
count on, is God
Levi, you are shunned.
LEVI
No. I will not agree to this. My sister’s death I did not cause. Be blamed
fer actions that are not mine? No, this I will not do.
AARON
I am the papa of this house. You will do as I say. You have no choice.
86
LEVI
I haven’t been baptized yet. So I’m not Amish. So you can’t shun me
from the order. And even if I was Amish, only the bishop can shun me.
It’s just like the sinkhole and Moses Beachey. You just use shunning to
try to control me.
AARON
I use shunning to teach you. Like all the Amish papas.
You are shunned fer six months. You have no choice in this.
LEVI
A choice I do have. A choice to leave. To not be baptized.
AARON
No! You can’t do this. To your mutter you would hurt her heart after her
daughter dies?
LEVI
You went against me! You, my best friend!
You betray me by blaming me fer something I did not do.
I’m leavin’ home, Papa. And the order.
AARON
You can’t mean such a thing.
This is what I thought fer our life. You and me workin’ shoulder to
shoulder till I can’t work no more. And then you takin’ care of me. And
your wife helpin’ Mutter in the house.
LEVI
Maybe God has a different path fer my life.
AARON
What? Writing down plays? Having homosexual friends?
LEVI
Is this the Amish way? That I must marry a girl I don’t love, so you can
have a bigger farm?
That Mary must be punished just fer funnin’?
87
That I must turn my back on people who are friends to me, because you
don’t understand them?
And I must give up somethin’ that fills me with such pure joy?
Something I don’t see the wrong of at all?
AARON
The plays on the stage. That’s what this is really about, isn’t it?
LEVI
What you think is right fer you and what is right fer me, two different
things they are. This doesn’t make you wrong nor me wrong either yet.
AARON
The Amish way is the only path to everlasting life.
LEVI
You know what the Catholic Church says? That they are the only path
to Heaven. And the Baptist Church? And the Mormons? And all
religions. They all say, every single one, that they are the only true path
to Heaven. Just like the Amish say.
AARON
The Amish way IS the only way. The Amish way is supported right down
the line by scripture.
LEVI
It seems to me all religions are sayin’, “If you don’t shop at our church,
you’ll go to hell.”
AARON
Levi! You would make worshipping God so crass? True faith is believing
in God no matter what. “Blessed are they who cannot see yet still
believe.”
LEVI
This is what I believe, Papa. I believe God is a mountain. I believe the
Amish way is one path to the top. But there are other paths. Many ways
God has provided fer us to understand Him.
AARON
Is this the ideas your plays on a stage put into your head? All your life, I
have tried to keep you safe from such thoughts.
So now, you think the Amish way is wrong??!!
88
LEVI
No! Oh, no, Papa. Not wrong. Not fer you or anyone else who wants to
follow the church.
But maybe it isn’t right fer me.
AARON
Not right! Levi!!
LEVI
Our fathers’ fathers in Europe were tortured. Burned at the stake.
Stoned.
AARON
That’s why we left Europe fer to come to the United States.
LEVI
And fer what? Because the Amish believe we must be adult to make a
decision to be baptized and to follow the faith.
Well, now I am adult. And I’m making that decision.
AARON
Levi, no….
(Aaron reaches out to Levi, but Levi turns his back,
shunning his father. Broken, Aaron goes into the house.
Katherine comes out onto the porch carrying the
painting.)
KATHERINE
You’re leaving, Son?
LEVI
Mutter! No more I can’t stay here yet.
KATHERINE
I know you love it here, Levi. The farm. The horses. Everything. Us.
But if you don’t think this is your world, then go make your world exactly
what you want it to be.
LEVI
I love the farm, though.
89
KATHERINE
I loved the life I had before coming here, too. My career. And my
parents. But I love you even more. And your Papa.
LEVI
I know you do, Mutter.
KATHERINE
You’re finding out. All of life is giving up one thing for another. You have
to do what your heart thinks is right. Isn’t that what your rumspringa
was for, Levi?
LEVI
It’s so hard to know what is right. Such a gift you had. And you gave it
all up.
KATHERINE
To have a life with you. And your papa. And Mary.
LEVI
But your heart, doesn’t it hurt, not using the gift you were born with?
KATHERINE
Yes. Yes it does. But it would hurt my heart to turn away from your
Papa, too.
LEVI
Both things hurt you. How do you choose which hurt to endure?
KATHERINE
When I’m on my death bed, who do I want to be surrounded by? Art
critics? Strangers who bought my paintings over the years? People who
love my talent but don’t care about me? Piles of money?
No.
I want to be surrounded by love. My husband. Memories of my children.
Because in the end, how much you love and are loved is all that really
matters.
LEVI
So much to think on, it frahootles me.
90
KATHERINE
Levi, maybe the answer is different for every person. Maybe there’s more
than one way to serve God.
The promise I made to your father, and to God, was that I would love him
and remain Amish forever. But you, Son. You have not made that
promise yet. So now is the time for you to decide what your life will be.
(She gives him the painting.)
This is for you, Levi.
LEVI
You would give me this?
KATHERINE
I will think of you having it. And maybe you’ll think of me sometimes.
Or if someday you need money to get by, you can sell it.
LEVI
But it’s worth so much money, Mutter.
KATHERINE
In that way, I’ll think I was a good mutter to you. Even though maybe I
was so different from the other Amish mutters, I embarrassed you
sometimes.
LEVI
Mutter! Thank you. You humble me.
You could leave, too, Mutter. You’re famous out in the world.
KATHERINE
Oh…. Levi. My heart rises and sets with your papa, like the sun shining
in my face. I’m filled up with our life together here. The beauty I tried to
portray in my paintings is all around me, changing with every season.
I know sometimes you think your papa is harsh. But it was just out of
love for you, Levi.
LEVI
He went against me.
KATHERINE
He tries to do what he feels is right. Even when it kills him inside.
91
LEVI
He blames me fer Mary’s death.
KATHERINE
Find it in your heart to forgive him someday, Levi. And make sure when
you give up something you love this much, you love the thing you’re
running to even more.
LEVI
I think I do, Mutter. Mother.
(They hug each other desperately as the lights fade to a
spot on them.)
Oh, God. I hope I do….
(The spot fades. Curtain.)