Sidetracked
It’s September 1932, and Franklin Roosevelt is campaigning for the Presidency on a 9000-mile, whistlestop tour across the United States. His train is on a sidetrack in an Arizona depot, and the members of press corps, given the day off, have headed into town.
Lorena Hickok, the only woman in the New York bureau of the Associated Press (AP), nurses a bootleg whiskey in the abandoned press car. She is shadowed by a ghost of her younger, teenaged self.
The ghost hides when fellow reporter Warner Ragsdale enters the car. Ragsdale covers the White House for the AP. A middle-class, Southern, college graduate, "Rags" is agitated by the presence of Hickok, a working-class and gender non-conforming lesbian who has had to fight her way from the ground up. The two spar over the rise of Hitler in Germany, as well as controversial coverage of the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh’s baby. Lorena’s unique subject position has given her an advantage in seeing past the headlines.
Ragsdale receives an invitation from his fellow journalists to join them in a male-only poker game in town. As he departs, Lorena’s ghost makes a brief appearance, followed by the entrance of Tommy, Eleanor Roosevelt’s personal secretary.
Tommy shares with Lorena a shocking secret about Eleanor’s threat to divorce FDR if he wins the election. She begs Hickok to accept an assignment to cover the First Lady, in order to mentor her into acceptance of her new role.The assignment feels like a throwback to the days when Hickok was only allowed to cover stories for the “women’s pages” in the newspaper, and she adamantly rejects the offer.
At this point, Hickok's child-self disrupts the debate, and this disruption results in a radical reframing of what it means for a woman to "make it" in a man's world. According to Archimedes, one must have a long lever and the right place to stand in order to move the world. Hickok realizes that, in spite of her considerable leverage as a mainstream journalist, she is unable to effect real change, because she has mistaken the location of the true fulcrum.
The play tracks a turning point in Hickok's career, but also in the fate of the nation. It provides a cautionary tale for women who, in the words of Audre Lorde, are attempting to use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house.
Two males, two females, one teenaged girl
Single set
40 minutes
Lorena Hickok, the only woman in the New York bureau of the Associated Press (AP), nurses a bootleg whiskey in the abandoned press car. She is shadowed by a ghost of her younger, teenaged self.
The ghost hides when fellow reporter Warner Ragsdale enters the car. Ragsdale covers the White House for the AP. A middle-class, Southern, college graduate, "Rags" is agitated by the presence of Hickok, a working-class and gender non-conforming lesbian who has had to fight her way from the ground up. The two spar over the rise of Hitler in Germany, as well as controversial coverage of the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh’s baby. Lorena’s unique subject position has given her an advantage in seeing past the headlines.
Ragsdale receives an invitation from his fellow journalists to join them in a male-only poker game in town. As he departs, Lorena’s ghost makes a brief appearance, followed by the entrance of Tommy, Eleanor Roosevelt’s personal secretary.
Tommy shares with Lorena a shocking secret about Eleanor’s threat to divorce FDR if he wins the election. She begs Hickok to accept an assignment to cover the First Lady, in order to mentor her into acceptance of her new role.The assignment feels like a throwback to the days when Hickok was only allowed to cover stories for the “women’s pages” in the newspaper, and she adamantly rejects the offer.
At this point, Hickok's child-self disrupts the debate, and this disruption results in a radical reframing of what it means for a woman to "make it" in a man's world. According to Archimedes, one must have a long lever and the right place to stand in order to move the world. Hickok realizes that, in spite of her considerable leverage as a mainstream journalist, she is unable to effect real change, because she has mistaken the location of the true fulcrum.
The play tracks a turning point in Hickok's career, but also in the fate of the nation. It provides a cautionary tale for women who, in the words of Audre Lorde, are attempting to use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house.
Two males, two females, one teenaged girl
Single set
40 minutes