Free The Bootlegger Blues by Drew Hayden Taylor

ACT I
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    SCENE 1
    The scene is a large kitchen found in community centers everywhere. Everything is a mess, showing current use. In the background drum music can be heard. A powwow is going on. Martha, a matronly woman in her late 50s, comes charging like a train into the kitchen, carrying a huge bowl of peeled potatoes.
    MARTHA:
    How many more orders? ( Pause ) Oh my lord, they want seconds? Tell them to lick their plates till the corn soup's done. I'm getting too old for this. After feeding the first hundred people, I start to get kinda tired. It's amazing the way them dancers can jump around the way they do with so much food in their stomachs. The way they jump and bounce you'd think they were all Rabbit Clan or something. But I gotta keep telling myself, it's for the church. Nobody ever told me peeling potatoes would become God's work.
    She starts peeling potatoes, gradually to the beat of the drum.
    MARTHA:
    Does set a nice pace, though. Music to peel by.
    Martha busily peels potatoes. Occasionally she looks with frustration at the clock, as if waiting for someone. Marianne's head appears around the corner. She knows she's late.
    MARTHA:
    I never should have agreed to do this. It's more work than I ever expected.
    MARIANNE:
    It's the same with men.
    MARTHA:
    It might help if you'd try marrying one instead of just shacking up with them. You should marry David, he's so nice.
    MARIANNE:
    And you should stop smoking. Both would probably kill us. Geez Mom, it's hot in here.
    MARTHA:
    You better get used to hot places.
    MARIANNE:
    The hotter the better, Mom. Brownies!
    MARTHA:
    Get away from that food. If you want some, you know where to buy your ticket.
    MARIANNE:
    How much food you got in here anyways?
    Martha opens up a huge refrigerator door showing an innumerable number of beer bottles.
    MARIANNE:
    I like your interior decorator.
    Marianne reaches for one but Martha closes the refrigerator door before she's successful. Marianne continues to stare longingly at the closed door.
    MARTHA:
    It's all the fault of that old fool, Marjorie. She told me, ( In a shrill, nagging voice ) "You can't have a dinner for Indians without selling beer, they'll go crazy." Crazy fool, she ain't been the same since she got hit with the ball at that baseball game.
    MARIANNE:
    Remember Mom, love thy neighbor.
    Martha shoves a big bowl of potatoes into Marianne's gut.
    MARTHA:
    And obey thy mother!
    Marianne finds the bowl extremely heavy and gradually loses her grip on it.
    MARTHA:
    The old bat. So now I got all this beer and I don't know what to do with it. Being a good Christian woman like myself, I've never even taken a sip, never a sip in my life, and never will. Never even had it in my house.
    MARIANNE:
    Uh, Mom …
    MARTHA:
    ( Angrily ) That Marjorie. "I'll fill out the forms," she said. "You just have to sign them;' she said. Ever since we was little kids Marjorie never caused me nothing but trouble.
    MARIANNE:
    Mamaa, piniig! [Mother, the potatoes!]
    MARTHA:
    I'd better start getting used to striped pajamas and bread and water. There probably won't be any decent good scone there either. All I can do is pray these powwow people start getting a powerful thirst soon.
    MARIANNE:
    You're not sup .posed to drink and drum, Mother. The few that drink do it at night, when you're closed. I told you all this before.
    MARTHA:
    Bah, it don't matter if it's day or night, drinking is drinking and if they're gonna do it, it might as well support the church.
    Marianne is visibly straining under the weight of the potatoes.
    MARIANNE:
    Mamaa, znigziwag giw! [Mama, it's heavy!]
    MARTHA:
    Dga-binizh giw. [Oh, give me those.]
    Martha grabs the potatoes with ease.
    MARTHA:
    That's the problem with women today, not enough muscle.
    MARIANNE:
    Finally. Thank you.
    MARTHA:
    I would have thought that exercise man of yours would have done something good with that body of yours by now.
    MARIANNE:
    Not in a while, Mom, not in a while.
    MARTHA:
    I was told them