GONE ASTRAY

GRACE O'MALLY , 40's
 

Grace is an edgy White woman, a former smoker, a public smiler, an expert. She harbors guilt for giving birth to a developmentally disabled son (Winston) . When her daughter, Raven, is born, she treasures the child as a rebirth of her motherly worth. With the horror of Raven’s abduction, Grace cannot allow herself to grieve lest the pain destroy her, but fights the trauma with obsession, driven by a terror of alighting in one place long enough to feel.  When she isn't giving talks to PTA parents on how to protect their children, she is monitoring Winston, feeding him  high calorie food to make him too heavy to fit out their front door, compelling  him to speak more and not rely on American Sign Language (ASL, which he prefers for its wealth of expression) so she knows where he is every second, and praying to the holiest of mothers, the Virgin Mary.  With an implacable grip on the assurance that Raven cannot possibly be dead, Grace freezes their home into a state of expectation, Raven’s room untouched. Grace is unprepared when an entirely opposite worldview in the form of a girl who is one with nature, almost parallel to Raven, enters her world.  

WARREN O'MALLY, 50's

Warren is Grace’s husband, a mechanic, a sodden hulk of a man, White, stalwart, collects beers of the world, drinks them. His son's birth defects compel him to try, in vain, to appease Grace's self-blame, but she shuts him out. The distance between them is replaced by a fascination with exotic brands of beer. This dulls his pain until the birth of their daughter, Raven.  The two grow close in love and respect which Grace shares but is incapable of  expressing. When Raven is taken, Warren's only recourse is to return to his beer. Then when Abbie appears with keen perceptions about life uncannily similar to Raven's, he gains enlightenment and finds new strength.  But soon the buried grief bubbles to the surface and Warren's suppressed hurt and anger feel free to be released.  

WINSTON O'MALLY

[Deaf Community actor]. Grace and Warren’s deaf, obese, developmentally disabled son, 22. Guilelessness itself. He communicates with his parents using ASL (American Sign Language) and speaks.  He is a perpetually innocent child living in a world where he expresses inner feelings represented by masterful musical work of the ages. His mother has created an almost symbiotic relationship, filling his world, but he is drawn more to his father whose suffering he intuits. Winston’s insights are further sharpened when Abbie appears, so similar to his sister and so counter to his mother. He instantly senses Abbie's  potential depth of love and trusts her to heal the darkness that has embraced his parents and himself. 

ABBIE HILL

 
A twenty year old member of the Seneca Nation, sly, haunted, belligerent beneath a false obsequiousness. Abbie grew up on her people's reservation where connection to nature and respect for the culture of ancestors exist side by side with poverty and indifference from the White world whose authority can control her community’s lifestyle. Her grandparents hold pain within from past Roman Catholic church invasion of indigenous communities to take children into residential schools. There they suffered mental, emotional and physical abuse and efforts to obliterate their culture. These experiences carried intergenerational, psychological and emotional injury down to Abbie and her friends. Women and girls have disappeared from the Seneca community, but when one of them is her mother, she forsakes the strength and honor of her ancestors and seeks another form of pride. She has settled on inventing melodramatic performances that tourists and other Whites pay  for when Abbie assures them that they are powerful spells. Abbie is rewarded not only with money, but with the satisfaction that she is paying back the injustice that harmed her family.  

DAVE TRUMBULL, any age/ethnicity

Dave is the County Sheriff. He is sarcastic and affects the world-weariness expected of him. Dave manages a Western New York State town that borders the Allegany Mountain Seneca reservation. The Nation is a federally recognized sovereign superpower that has their own marshals and tribal law enforcement. But  because of a controversial 1948 federal statute, New York State also claims criminal jurisdiction over offenses occurring on the reservation. This overlapping authority can  create a legal loophole, notably to  the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) crisis. Unlike the concerted efforts to pursue missing White children, when an Indigenous girl goes missing near the territory, county sheriffs, state troopers, and tribal marshals can hit jurisdictional walls, causing investigations to stall under systemic apathy. 

LEONARD BELL, 40's, any ethnicity

Although Leonard has been the Sheriff’s Deputy for many years, he has yet to view humanity with cynicism and trusts his instincts.  Len takes Grace's side when others cannot believe her mystic visions and beliefs. 

CHARLIE HARRIS, 30's, any ethnicity

 Deputy Charlie is a new hire. He is highly ambitious and eager for experience, especially anything that allows him to be brave. He views law enforcement as a calling.

KÄKËL'  ABBIE’S grandmother, in Memory 

KÄKËL' was highly revered in the Seneca Native Community for authentic power, wisdom and love of creation.

ENSEMBLE/CHORUS

Middle-aged neighbors/friends, Native, Visionary characters. Three men, three women, any ethnicity.