“The Last Day At Maple View” farm closed today after five staged readings at Hubbard Hall, the work is over, the work is just beginning. The play is about a farmer whose dairy farm is facing it’s last days, battered by corporate competition and a world that seems to no longer know or care what people are for.

Here, Ralph Tunney is confronted by his wife, (Christine Decker) and son Tyler (Eric Rose), who are telling him an awful truth: the farm is over, it can’t continue any longer. The feed company has cut him off, the bank is circling, the big farms are chewing him up. An emotional play for me, I think for the audience.

But this is just the beginning. Playwrighting suits me, but it is hard and arduous work, and I have a lot more work to do if I want to see this play produced in full on a stage. It needs to be sharpened, focused, fleshed out. I want to add scenes in the farm kitchen, from the Farmer’s Prayer Group, from Tyler’s house.

Ralph Tunney’s wife Sarah is a strong a force in the play as Ralph, she is a strong and intelligent woman who is determined that her husband not fall apart and give up on life. I wanted the farmer’s wife to be a strong figure, not a pliant one. Decker was amazing in that role. In the next few weeks I’ll meet with David Snider – he wants to commission an original musical score for the play – and see what he thinks about my continuing to work on this play.

In the talk back section after the performance, I told the audience that “Death Of A Salesman” was one of the first plays I ever saw, and one of the most powerful. At the time, the discarded human was still a shocking idea, it was before we became a Corporate Nation, where people began to be discarded by the millions, and almost always go quietly and sheepishly. They are wantonly and cruelly treated, yet it is the workers (like the farmers) who always seem to feel ashamed and embarrassed.

Now, people are so routinely discarded that is becoming a universal experience. I didn’t want Willie Loman’s fate for Ralph Tunney, my characters are not going ultimately to quit on themselves.

I think David is interested in seeing this play completed, but we both have to think about it and talk about it, it is a major commitment of time and energy. Playwrighting is comfortable for me, I love writing dialogue and also plotting short and vivid scenes. I love the collegiality of working with a smart director and good actors. So many friends and people I know in town showed up to see the play this week – that was a moving thing for me. I thank them.

I am not a football fan, the Super Bowl is not for me or Maria, so a quiet chance to bask in this week, there are few things i love more than a creative challenge and a creative opportunity. I have a big one (both ways) in front of me now.