High Tea With His
Excellency by Robert Joseph Ahola
#2006-0011ISBN #1-933159-61-8
(See also Robert Joseph Ahola's Pavlov's
Cats, Year of the Tiger and
Dr. Max Love)
The Cast
 | The Baron - “His Excellency Raymond Emanuel Van Pelt”:
He is a gentleman, a scholar, and a total misfit, “drawn into this purgatory of a
town, as if by the ordination of a karmic debt.” An elegant aristocrat his late
sixties, The Baron reflects an era which by now few people either remember or care about.
He also harbors dark secrets about his past that are certain to come out, especially when
they are provoked to do so. |
| Constance McClure: A woman who clearly refuses to accept life as
it is presented to her, Constance is a woman in her fifties who longs for the glories of a
gentler time, and will do everything in her power to see that it is revisited as often as
possible. A kind of innocent who earlier spent her youth as a married mans mistress, she
acknowledges the drudgery of life but refuses to surrender to it.
|
| Élan: Constance’s cousin. A beautiful young woman whom many
suspect is still a virgin at thirty. She has an aesthetic soul and a certain need to
revisit the poetry of life that her birth into this time and place has denied her. Taunted
for being “the ice queen,” she harbors secrets and fantasies that cry out to be
revealed, and will be – today at High Tea. |
| Rhonda De La Roca: A seemingly ageless femme fatale, she plays
flamenco music on the harpsichord which she accompanies with a mongrelized Spanish that
passes for lyrics while she reminiscences about her many ex-husbands that she uses to
pepper the conversation. Candid about her romantic affairs, especially with the race
driver “The Baron” Alfonso de Portago, she loves playing the agent provocateur
to get others to “put your passion on display for all the world to see.”
|
| Ira “Candy” Cain: Real name Ira Cohen, “Candy”
is an oil tycoon, cattle baron, and nominated by the Baron as “the crudest white
collar worker,” in America. He is also declared by his sister-in-law,
“Connie” to be, “the most generous and compassionate man on this
planet.” Ira Cain is also a man for whom truth is a citadel, and reality the only
point of reference. It is a conviction he is willing to foist upon others, no matter how
it roils them for him to do so. He is a large powerfully built man in his sixties, yet
with a middle-aged softness that implies a lack of exercise.
|
| Patrick Dalton: Candy Cain’s congenitally kind but
inveterately tactless young legal counsel, Patrick, like Dostoyevsky’s Idiot, seems
able speak only the truth, no matter what the cost of his doing so. His kindness is only
exceeded by his flawless instinct for saying the wrong thing at precisely the right time.
Both are surpassed by his undying affection for Elan, which he is inclined to share often
and at his own expense. |
| Aunt Noreen: A cynical old dame who considers herself an
aristocrat, she doesn’t like anybody very much. At 86, she doesn’t mind telling
everyone what she thinks and doesn’t care much whoever she offends in the process.
There is a sense of her that she will probably live forever and complain the whole time. |
Synopsis
What happens when one man’s obsessions with truth collide with hidden
fantasies of a room full of not-so-repressed women? The answer -
HIGH TEA/With his Excellency.
And it’s like no other high tea you will ever attend. It is 1993 in a small
city in Texas, sensitive to status and utterly insecure about everything. In
the midst of the local country club circle emerges Baron Raymond Emanuel Van
Pelt—a dashing aristocrat in his 60s with impeccable manners and a pedigree
he wears with unconcealed panache. "His Excellency" has, for years, charmed
women of all ages in the local circle of "tea ladies" with his tales of
elegant times and bygone eras. The Baron is clearly a man out of time and
out of step the local "good old boys" from Texas oil who question both the
Baron’s credentials and his sexual proclivities. Principally, a billionaire
cattle baron and oil tycoon named Ira "Candy" Cain who, accompanied by his
love-struck legal counsel Patrick, decides to lob emotional hand grenades
into this thinly civilized affair.
Determined to create a dynamic that breaks the paradigms of
propriety, Candy challenges the Baron and the tea ladies into a bout of
"truth or dare." Soon, High Tea breaks down into a bawdy night of reveling
and a bizarre turn of true confessions that are alternately hilarious,
touching and sexually provocative.
The Setting
There are two sets for this play.
| Constance McClure’s Living Room.
Props: The special requirements for
props would include a breakfront (with a drop-leaf for a bar), and either a harpsichord or
a baby grand piano. |
| The Balcony, Atrium and Garden.
This set may be presented fully, or played as an
adjacent portion of the same single set. The garden and atrium may be fully presented or
merely implied. As it is designed for the purposes of this play, the balcony is the focus
of action for all the action on this set. (A fly-space could be ideal for this set, though
not all houses have them.) |
|
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|
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copy
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Gender Bias, Prejudice, Homophobia,
Bisexuality, Unfettered Erotic Fantasy, Anti-Semitism, Unrequited Love, Thinly Concealed
Lust, Voyeurism, Hidden Pasts, Snappy Dialogue Stuffed with Innuendo, Genuine Denouement,
Strong Spiritual Undertones and a Highly Poetic Cast of Characters who refuse to play with
the cards life has dealt them - HIGH TEA has it all*
* WARNING: It also contains unconditional love, personal
transformation, ultimate redemption, and large doses of both humanity and humor –
plus a couple of wonderfully corny solo songs accompanied by a flamenco harpsichord. |
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