The Dastardly Uncle - Act 1

The setting is a late Victorian drawing room and garden. The drawing room has a fireplace (with a fake fire flickering in the grate), a few chairs and a table; it takes up half the stage and is seperated from the other half, resembling a patio with cast iron chairs, by a section of a wall with window casement and the suggested presence of a French window.

I am sitting on one of the cast iron seats on the patio section admiring the views of a garden afforded by the backdrop. My name is George, but I have been roped in to playing the role of Dean in a play entitled "The Dastardly Uncle: A Play without a Cast". Somewhere behind the scenes my three step-sisters are being costumed to play other roles.

I have been instructed to sit here by a voice in my ear that introduced itself as Clive. My earpiece gives me my first line of dialogue.

"I hope I get to see Debra, before Mr Fanshaw notices I am here." My delivery of the line is stilted, because the first time I heard the line was when Clive whispered it into my ear. I am still trying to make sense of the line I have just spoken, when the next one arrives and semi-automatically comes out of my mouth. "Failing that I hope to see Florence and I feel sure that she will be able to pass on a message."

Based on what I have been told, by the man who claims to be producing the show, this made sense in the following way. The characters Dean, played by me, and Debra, to be played by my eldest step-sister, Alicia, are boyfriend and girlfriend. Mr Fanshaw is the villain of the piece, to be played by the producer. And Florence is Debra's sister to be played by my middle step-sister, Giselle. My youngest step, Petra, has been less willingly roped in and has been assigned the small part of Imogen the maid.

Clive gives me my next line, but I am distracted by hearing with my other ear someone coming on the other side of the stage and turning to see what was happening.

Clive sharply tells me to concentrate and ignore what is happening on the other side of the stage for the moment. He repeats the line and I consider it long enough to understand it, then say, "Maybe if I can catch one of the servants, I can persuade them to pass on a message, that I'm here."

I am instructed to stand and look towards the window. I can hear someone on the other side of the wall in the middle of the stage humming an era-inappropriate tune, which I know to be a favourite of Petra's. Through the window casement I can see someone in a black satin dress, white stockings, a white apron with lacy edges, flat shoes and a white mob-cap on her head. It takes me a moment to recognise this girl in a maid's costume as Petra, as she gently waves a duster across the furniture and along the ornaments on the mantel above the fake fireplace.

The voice in my ears tells me to make a hissing noise to try attracting her attention, except the voice refers to her as Imogen, which confused me for a moment.

I move toward the window and make a 'Psssst!' noise. There is the briefest pause while Petra receives the instruction to ignore what I have just done, but the entire audience could tell from the stutter in her humming that she has been hearing something.

A few of the audience snigger a little, but most either smile at our incompetence or sympathise, because they know we had been part of their number before being cast in the play; Allowances are being made for poor delivery of lines and bad acting. I was hoping that the play will be good enough that it took us along and retained the interest of the spectators; or bad enough that the audience will be entertained and think we were the best part in it.

My earphone is telling me to hiss again and that this time Imogen will respond. I repeat my hiss; a little louder, which I felt is the natural thing to do in the situation I am portraying. Clive says, "Good!" as Petra makes a short squeak and turns to face me.

She says, "Oh, Mister Dean, sir, you startled me. I had not noticed that you were there. Can I help you, sir?"

It take me a moment to realise that the line was addressed to me. Clive gives me my next line, which  I deliver as, "Oh, I'm sorry, Petra; oops sorry, I meant 'Imogen'. I did not mean to startle you. Would you be a good girl and let Debra know that I am here with something important to discuss?"

"Oh no sir, I'm sorry I can't, because of Mr Fanshaw's orders that I am not to take messages from suitors to my newly rich mistresses without his permission."

"And who's money pays your wages, Imogen?" I am prompted to ask.

"My wages are indeed paid by the mistresses, as sir well knows. But as sir also well knows, Mr Fanshaw is their legal guardian until Miss Debra reaches the age of twenty-five."

After this bit of backstory, we play out a scene where I persuade her to take a message to Debra, but in the process I drop a few Petras and she drops a George or two. I hate to admit that she is doing a better job of this than I am.

As Petra, as Imogen, tries to leave the stage on the supposed errand, she almost bumps into the gentleman producing the show and playing the part of Mr Fanshaw. She is instructed to make a curtsey and mutter a scared apology, then be about her business. I get told by the voice in my ear to retreat to the side of the stage and pretend to hide behind the curtain designed to resemble a tree.

I cower behind the fake tree and watch Mr Fanshaw spend the next five minutes delivering exposition of the situation and his plans of what to do about it. The situation at the start of the play is that Debra and Florence are recently orphaned and have been left a great deal of wealth, but the will has also left Mr Fanshaw, who it appears is the uncle of the play's title, as their legal guardian, charged with protecting them from the hazards that may befall a young lady under the age of 25 and, if possible, ensuring a suitable match. On the occasion of the ladies being wed or reaching their majorities, he would be paid one thousand pounds.

Then he moves on to monologuing about his plans. It seems that two thousand pounds, is not what he wants, but he plans to have the sisters meet with accidents and come into the entire several hundred thousand pounds himself, instead of it being bestowed upon the sisters if he did his job as set out in the will,.

By this time the audience are getting to see the melodramatic nature of the plot and are booing Mr Fanshaw. As the producer he seems pleased that the audience are getting into the spirit of his production, but as the actor playing the villain of the piece, it gives him the opportunity to make snarky comments to the audience, which the audience do not approve but enjoy none the less.

We hear giggles from the interior side wings and Mr Fanshaw does his best to change his snarling expression with which he has expounded on the plans that accounted for the 'dastardly' part of the play's title. His attempt to marshal a smile onto his face is less than totally successful.

Two woman enter the drawing room part of the set. Again it takes me a moment to appreciate that they are the older two of my step sisters. The transformation is spectacular, especially as it has occurred in the ten to fifteen minutes since I have last seen them.

Alicia is dressed in a pale blue costume with a wide skirt and a tight bodice and a nearly as tight jacket over that with sleeves reaching to her elbows. Her whole costume is trimmed with white lace and the skirt has additional flounces of the blue. Giselle is similarly attired, but in a pale brown and without the jacket, which shows that her breasts are squeezed in and peeping over the top of the bodice.

"Good morning, uncle," opens Alicia; a line repeated by Giselle.

"Good morning, nieces," Mr Fanshaw replies. "What brings you down from your sewing room?"

"We thought that it was such a lovely day, that we would like to take some air in the garden before luncheon." Alicia hitches at her skirts; despite looking perfectly dressed, it seemed that something had not been fitted quite right and was causing some discomfort.

"Are you sure you are not hoping to see one of those worthless young men who have besieged the house since word got out that you were heiresses to a princess' ransom?" challenged Mr Fanshaw.

I had a moment of doubt; was I one of the worthless young men? I took a moment to figure out that if I was one of them, I would be the villain and I knew from the monologuing that Mr Fanshaw was the villain. I was a genuine suitor and not some male gold-digger. My purpose in the play was to rescue the sisters from Mr Fanshaw's machinations.

My introspection was cut short, by a rattle and a thud.

"That damnable casement!" yelled Mr Fanshaw. He strode to the window pushed it back up. Then moderating his temper and voice, he said, "If you wish take some morning air you may sit in here with the window open and the door ajar." He moved to where the French window was supposed to be and mimed opening it. As he exited through the wings, he shouted back that he was going to get something to prop the window open.

I heard Clive in my ear again, telling me that I should approach the patio again. As I headed to where I was told to go, Alicia and Giselle, in there characters of Debra and Florence, discussed how tedious it was to be confined to the house, because their uncle was trying to protect them from the money-hungry suitors and in the process shielding them from their boyfriends. This dialogue informed that audience that Debra was in love with Dean and Florence had a love called Archibold, that referred to as Archie.

I had reached the window and was instructed to act as if I was about to make my presence known to the ladies inside. The window slammed down again. I was told to act startled (not difficult) and to rush back to my hiding place next to the tree scenery.

I was most of the way back, when Mr Fanshaw stormed into the parlour half of the set, seeing him made me scamper for my hiding place. The long knife that he brandished in his hand gave the extra urgency I had not previous put into it. He began to rant about the poor workmanship of the fellow who had been engaged to repair the window and left it with a tendency to slam shut for no obvious reason. While he ranted and my two elder step-sisters cowered, he raised the sash window again and used the knife in his hand to prop it open. He also ranted that he thought that he had heard someone creeping about in the grounds. That would be me.

He went to the fictitious French windows and scanned the garden with a malevolent glare, although I thought I caught him giving me an approving wink with the eye that the audience could not see.

He imparted the information that he had instructed the male staff to scour the grounds for intruders, arrest them and take them before the magistrates for trespassing. Then he left telling Debra and Florence that he was going to be in his study and should not be disturbed.

"Shall we called for some mid-morning tea," suggested Florence. This sounded odd to me because Giselle did not like hot drinks of any sort. She pulled the tasselled cord beside the fireplace and shortly, following a few lines of filler dialogue, Petra arrived and curtseyed to her two older sisters; or as they were in the play, her mistresses.

Debra and Giselle requested tea and Imogen departed. Throughout this, I had been approaching the dividing line between inside and outside. Alicia spotted me, but took a few moments to react, because she was also listening to the voice in her ear. "Oh, Dean!" she cried. She stood and rushed at me. I was unable to concentrate on what I was meant to say, as supplied by Clive, because I was nearly knocked over by the huge volume of skirts and enveloped in the hug from Alicia.

Having missed my line, what I said was, "Please be calm, my darling, erm, Debra! What would your uncle say if he caught us embracing thus."

While we disentangled ourselves, Clive, the voice in my ear, congratulated me on covering the gist of the line he had given me. Then gave me the next. "I have both great and grave news to impart." This I said, by just repeating it, because it did not make much sense to me at this stage.

"Please tell us your good news, Dean," implored Florence. Giselle had followed Alicia towards me across the stage, but remained in the inside part of the set.

"You may have heard me talk of my black sheep uncle Timothy. It turns out that he was not such a disgrace to the family, because he made a fortune in India and now he has succumb to malaria and I have come into a large portion of his fortune. I hoped that this would allow me to ask Mr Fanshaw, your uncle, for your hand."

"That is good news indeed," enthused Debra, although Alicia managed to say it as, "That's good indeed news indeed indeed good." Nobody in the audience much cared though because they were cheering Dean's good news.

As the cheer faded, Florence said, "You must go at once to see our uncle and ask for my sister's hand. He is in his study."

I was told that I should try to calm Debra, Alicia was doing a very good impression of being excited by Dean's good news. I took her by her upper arms and explained the bad news. "I fear that your uncle would say no, because I heard him planning that each of you would meet with horrible accidents, so that he may inherit your entire fortune."

Alicia and I were told to take our discussion upstage and seeming to be talking in whispers. Florence took the lead, She initially called the maid back and instructed her to wait there and let Debra and Dean know if they were at risk of being discovered by Mr Fanshaw. She said that she would go scouting for evidence that Mr Fanshaw was indeed plotting to do away with his nieces.

Clive instructed me to be more romantic with my gestures towards Debra, and it appeared that Alicia had received similar instructions. We hugged and kissed, accompanied by some 'oooo'ing from the audience.

From offstage there came the noise of Mr Fanshaw approaching. Petra was instructed to put her head through the window to warn us of the imminent arrival of the dastardly uncle, but we had instructions to ignore her.

Mr Fanshaw stormed into the drawing room dragging Giselle, before throwing her into a chair. Giselle was trying to act Florence's daze, but not well. "Caught you!" he bellowed as he slammed the sash window shut on Petra's neck.

There was a collective gasp from the audience, as the knife propping the window up severed Petra's neck. Her body collapsed to the floor on the drawing room side of the stage, while her head bounced on a few soft things before rolling across the stage to end up at my feet.

The looks of total horror on Alicia's, Giselle's and my faces did not need to be acted, despite Clive's instruction that that was how we were to act.

The curtain closed.

Front of house staff announced a short interval before act 2.

Back stage, me and my two remaining step-sisters were making a beeline for Mr Fanshaw, all with the intention of severely hurting him before he was arrested for the murder of Petra. He was easily holding off Giselle when I noticed that Petra's body was not dead on the floor, but doing an impression of Velma looking for her glasses, but instead looking for her head.

Realising that something other than what I had originally thought had happened was going on, I pointed this out to Alicia and went to fetch Petra's head.

To my surprise Petra was smiling and was soon telling me that being beheaded was a rush and that we ought to try it some time.

With her head returned to her, Petra stood up and pushed her head towards Mr Fanshaw to kiss him. "Can we do that again?" she asked.

"Of course, my dear, but not just yet, because we have a big scene change to do. I need you all to go back to where you did your costume changes and be ready for act two. Petra go with them so that they know that they don't need to worry about what we have in store for acts two and three. Now scoot!"

I followed my three step-sisters into the wings and down a short corridor into a moderate sized changing room, where two ladies greeted them and began the costume change for act 2.