The Silent Appeal #3
To: Sarah-Jane MacDonald
From: Emma Crooks
Date: January 3, 2025
Subject: Nicky-Rose?
Thank you for a lovely party last night. Don’t know how you managed to keep it secret from Kevin all over Christmas and New Year. I’m terrible at keeping secrets because my heart chakra is always open.
Did you know Nicky-Rose was coming? Only everyone looked so surprised. What a way to arrive home after twenty years, bursting through the door during the speeches for your brother-in-law’s fiftieth birthday!
She must be nearly forty. I remember people talking about what a great dancer she was and how she’d gone to America. Is she still dancing on cruise ships? Didn’t she live in the Bahamas or something?
I’m super excited to read for a part on Monday. Has Kevin spoken to you about casting? Henrietta is by far the best fit for me. She’s sparky and creative, yet also wise and observant when it comes to the people around her. I give Henrietta vibes all the time, I know. Namaste, Emma x
To: Emma Crooks
From: Sarah-Jane MacDonald
Date: January 3, 2025
Subject: Re: Nicky-Rose?
Oh, Emma, you know I hate surprises unless I’m organizing them.
When Kevin walked in wearing Crocs, Harley’s school anorak, and Sammy’s Christmas fairy earmuffs over his most threadbare tracksuit, I knew he had no idea the Fairway Players, his family, friends, and key business clients were about to jump out from behind the stage.
When Nicky-Rose appeared half an hour later it was my turn—Mum is still in shock.
No, my little sister hasn’t danced herself in years; she and another dancer, her friend Trina, started a company supplying cruise-ship entertainment.
She hopped about all over the Caribbean and Florida.
The last we heard, the company was doing well and she’d bought a place in Barbados.
She kept in touch with Mum more than me, but honestly, she’s been away so long it’s like someone’s come back from the dead when you’ve eBayed their clothes and converted their bedroom into an office.
The Hollow is Kevin’s baby and I don’t want to interfere with his vision for it. My only request is that casting is colorblind and gender-fluid. I know the Fairways are all white and no one—to my knowledge—suffers from gender dysphoria, but still, it’s the intention that counts.
Sarah-Jane MacDonald
Independent Retail Marketing Consultant
Message exchange between Sarah-Jane and Kevin MacDonald on January 3, 2025:
5:34 p.m. Sarah-Jane wrote:
Emma wants to play Henrietta.
5:35 p.m. Kevin wrote:
As do Fran and Karen and I’m sure every other female Fairway under fifty.
5:36 p.m. Sarah-Jane wrote:
Surely Veronica Craye is the most popular role? Glamorous film star and femme fatale, etc.
5:40 p.m. Kevin wrote:
Who only has a handful of lines. Gerda is the role no one wants. Unattractive, dull, nagging, and tiresome. In a play about love, Gerda is a great big loser and no one wants in.
5:41 p.m. Sarah-Jane wrote:
Everyone knows auditioning means a commitment to whatever part they’re given.
5:43 p.m. Kevin wrote:
And if I struggle to cast Gerda, I know I can rely on my wonderful wife to step into the role.
5:45 p.m. Sarah-Jane wrote:
Your wonderful wife will be busy producing the play. On the other hand, if you struggle to cast Veronica Craye…
To: The Fairway Players mailing list
From: Kevin MacDonald
Date: January 4, 2025
Subject: Character breakdown
Dear Fairway Players,
As promised, here is a character breakdown for The Hollow and a scan of the diagram Sarah-Jane has drawn to illustrate the tangled relationships between the characters. This is a play about the dark side of romance and how love can go so wrong, it ends in murder.
The Angkatell family live in a large house called the Hollow. However, they are preoccupied with how they used to live at the family’s large country estate, Ainswick, before their uncle died and it was inherited by cousin Edward. I should mention that cousin marriage is de rigueur in this world.
This is what the script says or implies about each character. Not me, the script, and I am a big believer that when we stage a play, we retain the integrity of the author’s original intention.
Sir Henry Angkatell
An elderly gentleman. He and his wife, Lucy, are second cousins.
Lady Lucy Angkatell
A charming, eccentric, aristocratic woman of sixty. She speaks five languages and is adept at getting away with things. Henrietta says she has manners but is cruel. This is a proper character part for a confident actor to get their teeth into.
Description 1
Henrietta Angkatell
A handsome woman who works as a sculptor. She likes her cousin Edward, but not enough to marry him as the family would like. She is having an affair with John Cristow.
Midge Harvey
Midge is short for Margery. Her mother was Lady Angkatell’s first cousin. She is the poor relation who works in a dress shop and is hopelessly in love with her cousin Edward.
Edward Angkatell
Second cousin of Henry and Henrietta. He inherited Ainswick. The family wants him to marry Henrietta, whom he is in love with (but he also knows that she loves John Cristow). Edward is unaware Midge is in love with him.
Gudgeon
The perfect butler. A man of few words, except when he’s bullying the maid.
Doris
The maid. She is terrified of Gudgeon, whose bullying she is clearly powerless to stop.
John Cristow
A Harley Street doctor, John is a good-looking, dynamic risk-taker. He was engaged to Veronica Craye ten years ago, but broke it off because he didn’t want to ditch his medical career to go with her to Hollywood. He’s regretted that decision ever since.
Gerda Cristow
John’s wife. Midge describes her as “rather dim,” Lucy that she’s “devoid of intelligence” and that she looks like “a puzzled cow.” Stage directions say “timid and rather stupid.” John, her husband, says she is “patient and long-suffering.”
Veronica Craye
Hollywood star, blonde with a husky voice. Was engaged to John ten years ago, before she went to America, and now she’s back. She and John are still in love.
Inspector Colquhoun
Attractive, thoughtful, quiet with charm and a sense of humor.
Detective Sergeant Penny
Has a notebook.
If you want to read for a specific part, then let me know. Otherwise, I’ll consider you for any and all parts in your playing-range. 7:30 p.m. on Monday, folks. Let the adventure begin.
Kevin MacDonald, Committee cochair and director
To: Kevin MacDonald
From: Celia Halliday
Date: January 4, 2025
Subject: Re: Character breakdown
This script is full of people smoking! There are laws about lighting cigarettes in enclosed areas, i.e. the church hall. Vapes are just the same. You can’t cut the smoking out, because if no one smokes, then Veronica can’t ask to borrow matches and thus rekindle her affair with John.
Props are a nightmare! You’ll need an Edwardian moletrap, a cooked lobster, and no fewer than TWO specific sculptures (and I haven’t even read to the end yet!). You won’t get away with something nice from John Lewis this time, because the sculptures must depict the actress playing Gerda.
As for cousin marriage, I’m assuming Angkatell is a foreign name. If the Fairway Players have to black-up then I’m sorry, Kevin, but the Hallidays can’t be involved. Beth works at the council and she’d have to resign.
You failed to mention in your email exactly why Nicky-Rose is back. I’m sure that’s an oversight rather than a deliberate attempt to withhold relevant information from the group. Celia
Message exchange between Sarah-Jane and Kevin MacDonald on January 4, 2025:
8:16 a.m. Sarah-Jane wrote:
It’s her manner, that’s all. Everyone is wondering about Nicky-Rose, Celia is the only one with a thin enough social filter to mention it.
8:17 a.m. Kevin wrote:
Pisses me off that she’s right about the bloody sculptures. For once we don’t know any local groups who’ve staged the play to borrow their props.
8:19 a.m. Sarah-Jane wrote:
Emma studied sculpture. I’ll check with John, but I’m sure our budget will stretch to some clay.
8:23 a.m. Sarah-Jane wrote:
Don’t piss off the Hallidays, we need them for set-building, box office, and admin.
8:24 a.m. Kevin wrote:
It’s no good. I have to reply or I won’t sleep tonight.
8:28 a.m. Sarah-Jane wrote:
This is not my circus. I am a calm sea. Grounded by peace. May the wind be my guide. Breath simply is.
8:29 a.m. Kevin wrote:
Have you been hacked?
8:31 a.m. Sarah-Jane wrote:
Relaxing mantras from the AI affirmation app I’m working on a pitch for.
To: Celia Halliday
From: Kevin MacDonald
Date: January 4, 2025
Subject: Re: Character breakdown
Celia,
Thank you. Whenever I send a group email your response arrives even before the automatic out-of-offices. I am delighted to answer your queries as follows:
Smoking. We’ll get a box of stage cigarettes. They are perfectly legal and nontoxic.
Props. No one knows what an Edwardian moletrap looks like.
There’s an old popcorn maker in our garage, I’m sure Denise can do something with it.
A quick scan of the props rental website reveals a choice of plastic lobsters.
I’m sure someone can knock us up a sculpture.
Failing that, it’ll be a job for the most wooden actor we can find.
The Angkatells. After the Norman conquest of 1066, land in England was divided up by the invaders, who were of Viking stock from northern France (Normandy).
They built castles and a few National Trust properties, established fiefdoms, and became what we recognize today as the aristocracy.
Angkatell is a Norman name, part French, part Germanic, and now 100 percent English as the Normans were known more for being posh and Caucasian than for their consistent spelling.