Strings

Strings by Mary Donnet Johnson

Synopsis:

Three generations of Vermont women gather as dementia and a self-imposed hunger strike threaten to rapidly overtake the eldest.  Desperate to connect before she slips away, her daughter and grandchild visit with increasing urgency, bringing new questions, resolving old conflicts, and reaching for reconciliation.  Then, she is gone.  Days later her daughter and grandchild discover a mysterious string that has been painstakingly placed throughout the grandmother’s beloved woods.  Was the string intended to guide her to her favorite spots when she could no longer remember the way?  The daughter and grandchild follow this slender twine and gain access to a privileged portal where mysteries are solved, grace is given, and the secrets and delights of this small universe the grandmother cherished can finally be shared and fiercely protected.

A generous grant from the Puffin Foundation helped me launch work on a play I urgently wanted to write as my answer to the panic and grief many of us feel over the ever-worsening plight of our planet.  As soon as I received the funds in late August of 2024 I organized the process, mapped out the story line, wrote some pivotal scenes, researched myriad activity among the environmental action community, and started to compile a list of collaborators.

Now a resident of Tennessee I felt a compelling desire to travel back to my home state of Vermont where my consciousness of all things environmental began as far back as grade school.  I’ve always been attracted to political activism through the arts, and as luck would have it the Bread and Puppet Theatre (a brilliant and venerable organization that uses art to engage audiences in critically important subjects) was giving a performance that I was able to attend.

I spent time absorbing the beautiful landscapes of my childhood and revisiting special spots where I could commune with nature and listen to what the earth had to tell me.  The Puffin Foundation grant also allowed me to purchase a wide array of books pertaining to the natural world, our environmental crisis, and ways activists across the globe are addressing the situation.

What I first envisioned as a sweeping macro vision of a world crying out to be noticed and saved, gradually simmered down to a highly concentrated micro vision of three generations of Vermont women whose lives are a love letter to the little things.  I realized that the story I am passionate to tell springs from a deeply personal place but is one that can have universal implications.   This piece could be a powerful tool to inspire individuals to perform even small acts of rescue the world over that might reap big benefits.  A fellowship at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts this winter allowed me to finish the first draft and now, six months later, I have a full-length, fully realized play called Strings that honors, encourages, and celebrates the connections between us and the natural world.

Thank you, Puffin Foundation!