Zora Neale Hurston: Collected Plays

Cock Robin

Cock Robin cast: Cock Robin Owl Sparrow Crow Jaybird Beetle Mrs. Blackbird Sister Buzzard Mrs. Crow Fly Mrs. Fish Mrs. Beetle Bull Other Animals: Wrens, Owls, Fish, Crows, Blackbirds, Beetles, Jaybirds Time: Present. Place: Any city. Scene: A city street in colored town. Setting: Straight across the stage,upstage,are (1) a cheap restaurant with a crude sign on which is written “The Grease Spot”; (2) a cheap pool hall called “The Eight Rock”;10 [and] (3) a dingy rooming house,“The Shimmy Shack.” All have practical doors and windows. All are two-story buildings with numerous small-paned windows. There is a generous sidewalk and the rest of the stage is street. Action: At the rise there are characteristic noises from each of the places. Voice from the Grease Spot:Adam and Eve on a raft—wreck ’em! Clean up de kitchen for one! Let one come gruntin’, one come switchin’, snatch one from de rear!11 Voice from the Eight Rock: Now, I’m going to show you some of Blue Baby’s stuff . . . Another voice: Aw, shut up! You trying to show yo’ grandma how to milk ducks—shoot! (A crack of balls.) 85 050 cold (75-130) 4/9/08 11:03 AM Page 85 ([In the] Shimmy Shack, somebody [is] playing blues on the piano. There is a sudden turmoil in the Shack and three shots are heard. The door flies open and Cock Robin staggers out with three arrows sticking in him and falls dead on his back on the sidewalk. All the windows fly up and heads are thrust out.Crowds pour out of the doors.Sparrow12 is looking out of the second -story window of the Shack.) Jaybird: (Standing over Cock Robin) It’s Cock Robin! Beetle:(Gazing down on him) Dat’s him all right,and murdered in de first degree . Owl: Who! Who! Who kilt Cock Robin? Mrs. Blackbird: I just knowed something bad was going to happen—I dreamed last night the air was full of feathers. Beetle: I don’t know who kilt him—but I do know he was due for a first class killin’. He give these married men more aid and assistance than de ice man. Sister Buzzard: (Belligerently) I don’t keer who kilt him....But nobody better not cast no slams at my hotel. (Points to Shack) They bet’ not say my shack ain’t respectable and they bet’ not tell me my eye is black. Owl: (Officiously) Hey,Sister Buzzard,let’s squat dat rabbit and jump another one. What we wants to know is—who kilt Cock Robin? Sparrow: (Has a bow and quiver of arrows, coming out of Shack to center stage. Very belligerently) I,the sparrow,with my bow and arrow,and I kilt Cock Robin—who wants to know? Owl: (Warily) ’Course we don’t keer nothin’ ’bout you killin’ him, Brother Sparrow, we wants to know how come. Sparrow: Well, I’ll tell you. When me and my wife first started to nestin’ she never laid nothin’but plain white eggs.But since Cock Robin been hanging ’round our place—every time I go out on a worm hunt,when I come back, she’ll done laid another blue egg. Jaybird: (Begins to pick feathers violently) Now, you done got me to scratchin’ where I don’t itch—come to think of it,I done seen two or three blue eggs in my nest. Crow: (Glaring at his wife)You been complaining ’bout my singing ever since this guy (Points at Cock Robin) has been ’round here. ’Nother thing—I ain’t never brought home nothin’ but worms, and I been seeing a powerful lot of grasshoppers’ bones around lately. 86 • cold keener 050 cold (75-130) 4/9/08 11:03 AM Page 86 Mrs. Crow: (Crying and trembling) Oo-oo, you done got me so nervous—I got de haystacks. (She flutters and an egg falls to the floor.) Chorus of voices: She’s lain a egg! And it’s blue—robin egg blue. Jaybird: Dere now! De mule done kicked Rucker! Owl: Let’s get dis killin’ straight. Brother Sparrow say he kilt him for just causes . . . Crow: And I don’t blame him—when they get so they kin lay mo’ eggs in my nest than I kin—they’s got to be some changes made. Owl: Who saw him...