TENT MEETING
Tent Meeting was written by Larry C. Larson and Eddie Levi Lee, with Rebecca Wackler. The play has been performed all over the US, and in Ireland and South Africa. Tent Meeting received the TCG/HBO award for Best New Play in 1986.
Self-styled Arkansas preacher Rev. Edward O. Tarbox is convinced that his daughter Becky Ann’s baby is the second coming of Jesus, despite the fact it was born without limbs, eyes, or internal organs. Becky Ann, who also claims divine origins for the child, is a simple young woman who has cotton stuffed in her ears to hold in the celestial music. Her brother, the surly Darrell, claims to be a war veteran, saying his hernia scar is the result of a bayonet wound. These three southern eccentrics kidnap the baby from a laboratory, hitch up their small trailer, and head for the promised land, which, in this case, is Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Once there, Rev. Tarbox plans to hold a giant tent meeting and proclaim the child the Messiah, a plan his two children foil, in different and astonishing ways.
“It is at once terrifying and hilarious.”
N.Y. Daily News
“What is remarkable is its blend of satirical vigour and religious strangeness.”
Manchester Guardian
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TENT MEETING (Opening scene)
Night. Outside a laboratory at the University of Arkansas. Dim light on a high balcony. Reverend Eddie and Darrell stand in front of the trailer, carrying large flashlights and a wicker basket. They look up at the balcony and speak in hushed, urgent tones.
REV. ED: This is it!
DARRELL: How do you know?
REV. ED: Because God told me this is it.
DARRELL: Oh.
REV. ED: He has led our footsteps to this place. This is it. Up there. (He shines his flaslight on the balcony.)
DARRELL: Way up there?
REV. ED: It’s not that high.
DARRELL: Not that high! If I had a good leg, I would go up, which I don’t…
REV. ED: Darrell…
DARRELL: So I’ll just stay here…
REV. ED: Darrell, you’re going up.
DARRELL: Yes, sir. (Dog barks.)
REV. ED: Hand me the rope.
DARRELL: What rope?
REV. ED: The rope to get up there with! You haven’t got the rope?
DARRELL: No.
REV. ED: Then how do you aim to get up there?
DARRELL: Well, I don’t have no rope.
REV. ED: I hear you saying that! I am simply asking you how you aim to get up to that window!
DARRELL: I’ll go up the fire ladder.
REV. ED: And what about the rope?
DARRELL: What rope?
REV. ED: The rope, the rope, the rope! We gotta have a rope! How’s the rope gonna get up there? It ain’t gonna climb up there magically by itself!
A rope comes tumbling from the balcony. They are startled.
DARRELL: Jesus!
REV. ED: Shhh! (We hear humming from the balcony. The Rev. Ed shines his light up, illuminating the face of Becky Ann. She is leaning over the railing, with large wads of cotton stuck in her ears.) Becky Ann!
DARRELL: Jesus!
REV. ED: Don’t say Jesus.
DARRELL: You say it.
REV. ED: I’m praying when I say it. (Looks at the balcony) Becky Ann, I thought I told you to wait in the car! Now get down here!
DARRELL: Someone’s gonna hear that hummin’! We’re all gonna go to jai for a hundred years.
REV. ED: Becky Ann!
DARRELL: She can’t hear you. She has that cotton stuck in her ears.
REV. ED: I know she does. Becky Ann! Take that cotton out! Becky Ann!
REV. ED AND DARRELL: (Ad-libbing, overlapping) Take the cotton out…take it out…etc TAKE THE COTTON OUT!
(Becky Ann removes the cotton from one ear.)
BECKY ANN: Huh?
DARRELL: Jesus.
BECKY ANN: What?
REV. ED: Get down here.
BECKY ANN: Okay.
(She stuffs the cotton back in her ear and starts down, humming.)
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