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Love and tea: A comedy-drama of colonial times in two acts cover

Love and tea: A comedy-drama of colonial times in two acts

Chapter 13: CHARACTERS
By Anna Phillips See
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About This Book

Set in a colonial village home during the opening phase of the Revolutionary conflict, the play tracks a stern spinster who publicly joins a ladies’ boycott of taxed tea while secretly drinking it. Her niece discovers the habit and leverages the secret to secure approval for her engagement to a young Minuteman. The aunt’s longtime attachment to a Tory judge is challenged when he casts his lot with the Patriot cause and is falsely reported arrested; her defense of him kindles both love and newfound political zeal. A faithful domestic supplies comic relief as the piece examines loyalty, social pressure, and shifting allegiances.

Love and Tea

CHARACTERS

Miss Lavinia Boltwood, a despotic spinster.
Betty Boltwood, her niece.
Mrs. Cowles, a neighbor.
Mrs. Adams, a neighbor.
Mrs. Strong, the village gossip.
Mandy, slave of Miss Boltwood.
Judge Ingram, a middle-aged bachelor of mild Tory sentiments.
William Dickinson, a fiery young Minuteman.

SYNOPSIS

Act I.—Place, the living-room of a comfortable village home.
Time, April 1775, a few days after the Battle of Lexington.

Act II.—Place, the same.
Time, June 1775, not long after the battle of Bunker Hill.

THE STORY OF THE PLAY

Miss Boltwood, a despotic spinster, is persuaded to join a band of ladies who have sworn to give up tea and all taxed articles till the Revolutionary War is over. The tea habit is too strong for Miss Boltwood and she drinks it secretly. Her niece, Betty, discovers this and uses the information to compel her aunt to consent to her (Betty’s) engagement to the young minuteman, William Dickinson.

Miss Boltwood also has a lover, the Tory, Judge Ingram, whom she has kept dangling for years. When he joins the Patriot cause and she hears the (false) report that he has been arrested as a spy, she champions him and finds that she loves him; she becomes an ardent Patriot also—all this just as he has decided that their friendship is ideal! Mandy, who is a privileged character, furnishes much fun.

Copyright, 1915, by Anna Phillips See
As author and proprietor

All rights reserved.