(The
full-length version of Best Laid Plans,
winner of the Readers' Theatre Playwriting Competition, CT)
by Robert Schroeder
Young-in-heart and witty Grandmother
Lorena, 71, has lived in her small Midwestern town all her life, and loves it. Lorena’s daughter Carol, 45, had longed to escape to the city, and succeeded. She and her husband Richard, 48, their daughter Anne, 17, and son Don, 21, live several hours from Lorena in an upscale metropolitan suburb.Every Christmas since Carol was born has been spent at her Mother’s, as has every Christmas Don and Anne have known. The grandchildren are at Grandma’s every other chance they get.
Wes, 62, who has presided over the family business since Lorena’s husband died, has become a second father to Don, and Anne has fallen in love with Jim, 20, a local star athlete.But "Christmas at Grandmother’s" is in jeopardy. Carol, caught up in a constant whirl of fashionable urban activity, no longer wants to feel obliged to spend the holidays at her Mother’s. Husband Richard prefers the sports channels.
Carol has decided it’s time for Lorena to sell her home and the business to the highest cash bidder, paying for her move into a lifecare facility. With Wendy, 20, as her live-in aide, Lorena wants to live in her own home until she dies, and pass the family business on to her grandson Don.
Agendas thus in conflict, Carol’s family arrives for the Holidays. Carol has devised a plan which would turn Lorena’s and Don’s family loyalty to Carol’s advantage. While Lorena maintains a philosophical calm, the opposing forces become so caught up that they overreact -- mounting a whirligig of wheelings, dealings, and finally farcical maneuverings.
But each of the family’s confrontational moves is countered by the Spirit of Christmas -- with a soothing interlude of Yuletide music, the heartening display of Holiday decorations, the joyous, contagious vigor of the caroling.
The zest and camaraderie of the season exercise their charm -- an enchantment no one, including the relenting, ultimately caring Carol, is able to resist. At the height of the contention, the family is brought to realize that all they truly have is the love they share with one another.
(4 m., 4 f., one pianist, and carolers, simple set)
