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The Curious Savage Shows Savagery and Caring
by Heather Tourtellotte
Mrs Savage (Jennifer Hall) and her
Teddy Bear ponder their fate as she is
committed to the Cloisters.
Mrs Savage tells the other patients of her
exploits as an actress.
Mrs Savage (Jennifer Hall, seated) leads her
step children on a wild goose chase.
(Left to right: Melena Whittington as Lily Belle, Justin Phaneuf as Titus and Thomas Felty as Samuel.)
Dr. Emmett (Kyle Mason)and Miss
Wilhelmina (Sophomore Leigh Anne
Spencer) talk to Mrs. Savage
(Jennifer Hall, seated).
Dr. Emmett (Kyle Mason)
talks to Mrs Savage (Jennifer Hall)
as the rest of the cast looks on.
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It looks like any other living room of an old-fashioned house. A low couch upholstered in velvet brocade is in the middle of the room, with a small table and a chair beside it on the right.
A piano sits in front of the left wall, and on top of the piano is an open violin case.
The noise level in Mars Hill College's Owen Theatre drops as jazz music from the 30's and 40's fills the room. The lights go out. The Curious Savage begins.
Mars Hill Theatre Department's newest play ran from February 26 to March 2, 2003.
When Mrs. Ethel Savage is put into a mental hospital by her step-children who only want her money, she finds that the patients inside care for her and each other like a family, more than her own family on the outside.
The opening scenes occur at night as the patients at the Cloisters Sanatorium meet the newest patient to arrive.
Miss Wilhelmina, the nurse, shows Mrs. Savage into the living room. She enters clutching a brown teddy bear, and she is very angry with her stepchildren for admitting her.
Florence introduces her to the other patients.
Hannibal, a former statistician, plays the violin. The other patients always compliment him when he plays and only gradually confide to Mrs. Savage what the audience already knows - that he can't play a note.
Jeff, a former concert pianist, sits at the piano bench but won't play because his hand always covers the scar on his cheek that he injured during the war. Gradually you realize that there isn't a physical scar at all, at least not on his face.
Miss Wilhelmina keeps showering Jeff with special attention even though he doesn't like being singled out by her. She later reveals that Jeff is her husband.
Fairy Mae is very abrupt with her questions and wants all the attention, as well as for everybody to say that they love her. She thinks herself ugly and unloved.
Mrs. Paddy comes in while Florence introduces everybody and shuts the lights off. When Mrs. Savage says hello, she reels off a list of everything she hates. The other patients explain that she stopped talking after her husband told her to shut up one day. From then on Mrs. Savage really likes her.
Florence starts looking for her little boy and the other patient's kindly help her find him -- under the sofa - and never remark on the fact that he is actually a doll. We gradually realize that she once had a son who died and believes the doll is her son.
Her stepchildren admitted Mrs. Savage because she wants to spend the money her deceased husband left her on a memorial fund. The money would be given to younger people who have dreams but don't have the money to realize them.
The real reason she was admitted soon is revealed as Senator Titus, his brother Samuel, who is a judge, and their sister Lilly Belle, who has been married and divorced several times, talk about trying to find a way to get her to tell them where the money is.
Mrs. Savage tells the other patients about how she fell in love with her husband at first sight and got married when she was 16.
She had to raise his three children who were mean to her. Lily Belle would bite her, and the two boys would speak all in French so she didn't know what they were saying.
Mrs. Savage had always wanted to be an actress, but since she got married so young her dream died until her husband died. Then she took to the stage and even produced and starred in her own play for about a year.
The Curious Savage Players
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The next morning Mrs. Savage tries to bribe Miss Wilhelmina to let her out of the sanatorium, but Miss Wilhelmina doesn't believe she has that kind of money. Then Dr. Emmett comes in with the morning newspaper. The headlines announce that she really does have money -- $10 million -- and Dr. Emmett tells her that her stepchildren are on their way back to talk to her about it.
That night the three stepchildren come back and try to get her to tell them where she hid the money. She tells them the money is in the form of bonds. She pleads a bad headache and makes them go get her some headache powders.
The piece of paper with the prescription actually has a message on it saying where the money is hidden. Samuel gets the paper.
As they leave, she calls Lilly Belle and Titus back separately and tells them a different story of where the money is hidden. She tells Lilly Belle that the bonds are in the stuffed porpoise in the Natural Museum, and she tells Titus that the bonds are hidden in a tin box buried in the U.S. president's hot house, in the petunia bed. The piece of paper Samuel got said that the bonds are hidden in a chimney.
A few nights later, Mrs. Savage reads in the papers the exploits and trouble the children got into trying to find the bonds. They come to her furious and threaten to make Dr. Emmett give her a truth drug. She then reveals that the bonds are in the teddy bear that she has been carrying around.
Just then Mrs. Paddy turns out the lights. When they come back on, the bonds are missing, and so is Mrs. Paddy. As a search for Mrs. Paddy goes on, the patients all claim that they took the bonds. Once they find Mrs. Paddy, the step-children are furious when they find out the bonds were burned in Mrs. Paddy's bathtub.
The money seems to be gone forever, so the step-children finally leave very upset.
Once they are gone, Dr. Emmett tells Mrs. Savage that she is free to go because there is nothing wrong with her. Each of the patients gives her something to remember them by. The best one is when Mrs. Paddy finally speaks to tell Mrs. Savage that she loves her.
As Miss Wilhelmina brings Mrs. Savage's luggage to her, she reveals that she took the bonds. She tore one corner of one of the bonds and then set fire to a newspaper so that it only looked as if the bonds were burned.
Mrs. Savage has her money back, but she decides that she doesn't really want to leave because she feels that she doesn't really have anyone that cares about her outside of the Cloisters. There she found friends.
No matter what their problems, the patients cared about her and each other, unlike her family members on the outside.
Dr. Emmett however tells her that the other patients haven't faced reality yet, and she must. So Mrs. Savage leaves. As she goes she sees the patients as they would like to be.
Florence sits on the couch with her son, a real boy, while Hannibal plays the violin beautifully accompanied by Jeff on the piano. Miss Wilhelmina listens to Jeff with a loving smile. Fairy Mae looks like a fairy princess with a beautiful pink dress and a tiara on top of her head, while Mrs. Paddy proudly shows off her landscape painting on her easel.
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