Angel's Trumpet
by Sharon Pollock

Published by Playwrights Canada Press Toronto

"Three Plays Sharon Pollock" orders@playwrightscanada.com
PDF Manuscript copy available on request HC_Pollock@shaw.ca

 Number of Acts: 1
 Length: 85 mins
 Total actors required: 4
 Men: 2
 Women: 2

 Synopsis:
The turbulent relationship between Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald is encapsulated in a meeting with Zelda's psychiatrist. Scott, suspicious of the doctor's relationship with his wife, and on the verge of breakdown himself, demands that Zelda assume her role of wife and mother and that her literary ambitions be diagnosed as evidence of her escalating mental deterioration. While the psychiatrist attempts to mediate, the couple square off against each other using as their weapons the events of their past, present, and eventually their projected future. The struggle between these two passionate and talented individuals is underscored by the tapping of a typewriter's keys as a stenographer documents the meeting.

Playwright's note: On May 28,1933 Zelda Sayre and her husband Scott Fitzgerald had such a meeting with her psychiatrist at Scott s request. He had also demanded the presence of a stenographer to document the proceedings. Since 1930 Zelda had been in and out of mental institutions, her artistic ambitions diagnosed as self-deceptions. Scott saw that self-deception as a threat to his own writing, their livelihood, and Zelda's mental health. "Angel's Trumpet" is what I make of this meeting.