A Beach Read Falls by the Bay… (2)
A Beach Read Falls by the Bay: We Are Not Going Anywhere
A Puppet Theater Script in Salty-Sweet Fragments
By Marguerite Elswyth Reeves-Beaumont, aged 82
[Written in my flat overlooking Hampstead Heath, London, during the endless grey of January 2024. The
radiator coughs like an old friend. I've just returned from watching the puppeteers at Covent Garden, and
something about their desperate joy in making cloth move like life has seized me. This is for them. For all of
us who make dead things dance.]
SYNOPSIS
Six friends gather at their annual beach reunion, but this year is different. Through a series of revelations
—including the discovery that Penelope was the doctor who attended Constance's dying daughter
twenty-one years ago—the group confronts their deepest wounds and finds unexpected healing.
As the tide rises and threatens their sandcastle creations, each character faces their own "coming of age"
crisis: Shannon (mentally eight years old though physically thirty-five) realizes she's become her lunch-
lady mother; Francoiz reveals his suicide attempts and daily medication; Bertrand learns to "bend" instead
of "bow" to win back his ex-wife; and Constance finally stops counting every second since her daughter's
death.
Through overlapping conversations that flow like tide pools, the friends discover that they are all "living-
beinghood"—flawed, medicated, grieving, but choosing to stay. As Thierry (dead but still present)
observes, they're all just "magnificent idiots" building temporary things on disappearing beaches, finding
meaning in the building itself rather than the permanence.
The play ends with all six friends linked arm-in-arm as the tide comes in, their puppet strings beautifully
tangled, refusing to go anywhere even as everything washes away beneath them.
CHARACTERS
FRANCOIZ - 49, British, carries everyone's pain in mismatched hands
PENELOPE - 40s, playwright/doctor, writing comedies from tragedies
BERTRAND - 53, perpetually proper, learning to bend
CONSTANCE - 54, time-obsessed until freed, carries her daughter's death
SHANNON - 35 (but 8 inside), food truck owner, grief made mobile
THIERRY - Dead since 2021, still chatty, perspective from beyond
PUPPET CONSTRUCTION NOTES
[These puppets should be built like archaeological finds—layers of time visible in their construction, ancient
materials married to modern, roots tangling with wings.]
General Construction: Think "museum restoration meets child's toy box." Each puppet contains
something old—a Victorian button, a shard of Roman glass, a feather from an extinct bird. We are all
made of history.
FRANCOIZ: Hawaiian shirts over a wire frame bent like a question mark. His core is driftwood from
various beaches, smooth from centuries of tides. Hands are leather gardening gloves—one stuffed with
sand from the Sahara (ancient seabed), one with crushed shells from Brighton (future sand). Wings
suggested by loose threads from his missing button that flutter with movement.
PENELOPE: Built around a hot water bottle (that most British of objects), filled with rice and iron filings so
she's drawn to magnetic north—the pull of home. Hair is unraveled ship's rope, carrying salt from every
ocean. Typewriter key eyes—"I" and "U"—the only letters needed for understanding. Small feathers sewn
into her collar, invisible until she moves fast—then she almost flies.
BERTRAND: Coat hanger spine wrapped in morning coat fabric. But inside the spine: a flexible branch
from an ancient yew tree, waiting to remember how to bend. His roots show in the green oxidation of his
class ring, the way metal returns to earth. Tiny wings drawn in invisible ink on his white gloves—only
visible when he finally bends toward love.
CONSTANCE: Built around a ticking clock (time as tyrant), but her dress is sewn from map fragments—all
the places her daughter will never visit. Twenty-three shells for pearls, each from a different geological
era. When she throws away time, we see she has wing bones beneath her sleeves—hollow, light, ready for
flight she'd forgotten was possible.
SHANNON: Paper lunch bag body reinforced with cardboard from ancient board games—Parcheesi
from 1962, Monopoly from 1978—her mother's games. Hair is yellow yarn braided with invisible thread.
Her mittens have root patterns stitched in brown thread. When she bounces, small feathers fall from her
pockets—she's molting into her adult self but doesn't know it yet.
THIERRY: Made of translucent materials layered like sediment—shower curtain (modern), rice paper
(old), pressed flowers (timeless). His roots are visible through his chest—a network of veins made from
seaweed. His wings are fully formed but made of fishing net and plastic bags—death's evolution. Most
puppet wings suggest flight; his achieve it.
ACT ONE
Scene 1: The Archaeology of Arrival
Late afternoon. Beach somewhere between memory and map.
Setting: A beach that exists in all times simultaneously. Driftwood arranged like Stonehenge. Medical
equipment growing barnacles. A typewriter half-buried like a fossil still being formed. The puppets begin
frozen—an exhibition in a natural history museum.
Lighting: That particular light that happens when the sun remembers it was once fire.
(All puppets frozen in tableau. Above them, a mobile of extinct birds turns slowly. Their strings are not yet
connected to the puppeteers—they hang like roots seeking earth.)
THE SPACE BEFORE SPEAKING
(Wind carries sounds: whale song, typewriter keys, a child's laughter from 1994. The audience is asked to
breathe with the rhythm of waves—becoming the ocean that watches this story.)
Note from the Playwright: We begin in stillness because all movement comes from rest. Like seeds. Like
eggs. Like the moment before grief becomes words.
FRANCOIZ (internal voice, puppet still as driftwood): These hands tell an evolutionary story—one larger, as
if reaching toward a different future. The archaeologists would puzzle over me: "Specimen shows signs of
repeated mending. Subject attempted to hold too much."
(A puppeteer's hand slowly picks up Francoiz's strings—like an archaeologist lifting ancient cloth)
My Hawaiian shirt missing the third button since 1993—a tiny archaeological dig where you'd find
fragments of my younger self. Hopeful pottery shards.
SHANNON (internal voice, puppet crumpled like discarded paper): I am a fossil in training. Thirty-five years
of sediment, but inside I'm still eight—a child preserved in amber made of tears. My mom is in this cooler.
Not her body. Her body became roots. But her smell is here, caught like prehistoric insects in resin.
(Shannon's strings are taken up by someone with gentle hands—a parent lifting a sleeping child)
The anthropologists would say: "Female, mid-thirties, carries ancestral trauma in matched containers."
They'd be wrong. I carry lunch.
PENELOPE (internal voice): In Beirut, I learned that hospitals are just modern temples where we practice
ancient rituals. Blood-letting. Last rites. The laying on of hands. My stethoscope is a divining rod for
heartbeats.
(Her strings lifted with medical precision)
Future archaeologists finding my notebooks would think they'd discovered a new form of hieroglyphics—
half medical notation, half desperate prayer.
(Continue with other inner monologues, each referencing their place in the long history of human grief and
connection...)
Scene Break: The Puppets Animate
(The puppeteers step forward, visible now. They could be any age—time is negotiable in puppet theater.
They lift the strings and the puppets transform from artifacts to living beings.)
(Lights shift from museum quality to beach afternoon. The whale song fades to actual waves.)
SHANNON (awakening with a child's abruptness): (Her puppet springs up, strings tangling immediately)
"I HAD THE DREAM AGAIN! The one where everyone's made of food but the food is made of feelings but
the feelings are made of history!"
FRANCOIZ (slower to wake, archaeological layers visible in his movement): (His puppet rises unevenly, the
larger hand pulling him off-balance)
"Shannon, it's too early for existential anthropology."
SHANNON: (Puppet bouncing, feathers falling from her pockets)
"But you WERE a sandwich! An OLD sandwich! Like from before refrigerators! When people had to eat
things fast or they'd grow roots!"
Scene 2: Establishing the Tribe
The friends arrange themselves in patterns old as humanity—circles for safety, pairs for intimacy,
solitude for processing.
(The puppets move into configurations that echo ancient human gatherings—around fires, around the sick,
around stories.)
BERTRAND AND FRANCOIZ - The Ritual of Male Friendship
(They sit in the way men have sat together since time began—side by side, looking out, not at each other.)
BERTRAND (puppet maintaining rigid posture, the yew branch inside still sleeping): "I'm practicing."
FRANCOIZ: "Practicing what? Becoming a standing stone?"
BERTRAND (puppet's invisible wings rustling with indignation): "Bending. Margaret said I bow when I
should bend. Bowing is distance. Bending is... archaeology. Digging down to find what's real."
(Francoiz's puppet reaches into his pocket with the smaller hand—precise movement of offering comfort)
FRANCOIZ: "Here. Emergency bow tie. Been carrying it since '96."
(The bow tie is purple with tiny wing patterns only visible up close)
"Your funeral tie dissolved. Like sugar in rain. Like everything eventually."
BERTRAND: "Twenty-eight years. That's a whole archaeological layer. That's limestone becoming
marble."
PENELOPE AND SHANNON - Teaching Across Generations
(They sit as humans have always sat when wisdom passes between ages—the elder focused on work, the
younger watching and learning through proximity.)
SHANNON (puppet hovering too close, the way children ignore personal space): "You're doing the paper
dance again. Shuffle shuffle, sad face, shuffle shuffle."
(Her puppet mimics the movement, accidentally graceful—the ghost of future wings)
PENELOPE (puppet's fingers still for the first time): "There aren't any happy papers."
SHANNON: "Then why keep looking?"
PENELOPE (puppet head tilts—the universal gesture of reconsidering): "I... I don't know."
(Shannon's puppet reaches for chips with mittened hands—clumsy but determined)
SHANNON: "When I don't know things, I eat chips. They're barbecue flavored. That's like happiness but
for your mouth. Ancient people probably had berries for the same thing. Sad berries. Happy berries.
Tuesday berries."
Scene 3: The Archaeology of Trauma
The past surfaces like artifacts washing ashore
Transition: Lights dim to amber—museum quality again. The sound of careful digging.
(Penelope's puppet drops papers. They scatter like disturbed archaeological site.)
BERTRAND (puppet attempts to lean forward, ancient yew branch creaking): "Pen? What have you
unearthed?"
PENELOPE (puppet's whole body curling inward—protective posture unchanged since prehistory):
"Bangladesh. 2013. The factory collapse. Layers of time compressed in ninety seconds."
(Her puppet's hands shake—the washers inside creating rattling like small bones)
"The building was called Joy Garments. Built on a swamp. Built on the bones of older buildings. Built on
hope that physics would make an exception."
SHANNON (puppet very still—the way children become when sensing adult pain): "Like when you build a
sand castle on another sand castle but the bottom one is already sinking?"
PENELOPE: "Exactly like that. But with people inside."
(The puppets form a circle—ancient formation for containing difficult truths)
FRANCOIZ (puppet gestures with both hands, showing scars on wrists): "The girl in your papers—"
PENELOPE: "Rashida. Nineteen. Trapped for six days in a pocket of air the size of a coffin. The size of a
womb. The size of the space between heartbeats."
(Her puppet looks at Shannon)
"She apologized for bleeding. Like bleeding was bad manners. Like dying was a social error."
SHANNON (puppet processes this with whole body): "I apologized when Mom died. Said sorry to the
nurses. Like it was my fault her roots stopped drinking."
Scene 4: The Revelation
Truth surfaces like ancient cities after rain
Transition: The light becomes archaeological—revealing hidden layers. Constance's clock ticks louder.
(All puppets have gravitated together now, their strings creating patterns like constellations, like DNA, like
fate.)
CONSTANCE (approaching the group, mechanical arm still checking time): "It's 3:15. Thirty-two minutes
until my daily archaeological dig. Every day I excavate the same moment. Find the same pottery shards of
loss."
SHANNON (puppet pats ground beside her—invitation ritual old as humanity): "Sit! We have sad chips
and sad stories! It's like a wake but nobody's dead! Except Thierry!"
THIERRY (materializing in parts like smoke becoming solid): "Present! Well, not present. Formerly present.
Presently absent. It's complicated."
(The revelation builds through artifacts—each detail a clue)
PENELOPE: "Your daughter. What was her name?"
CONSTANCE: "Mira. Seven. An entire civilization in seven years."
PENELOPE (puppet trembling, papers falling like autumn leaves): "Brown eyes? Loved elephants? Asked
about elephants even when—"
CONSTANCE (puppet freezes—absolute stillness of recognition): "How could you possibly—"
PENELOPE: "October 9th, 2003. 3:47 PM. I was the last person to see your daughter's civilization. I was
her... archaeologist. Recording the final moments."
(All puppets freeze. The moment extends like amber forming around insects.)
SHANNON (whisper that carries like wind through ruins): "The universe is playing that matching game.
Where you flip cards to find pairs. But with people. And pain. And time."
End of Act One
ACT TWO
Scene 1: Excavating Freedom
The space after revelation—tender as a new archaeological site
Setting: The beach rearranged. Constance's castle spot now a careful dig. Shannon's food truck more
elaborate—a monument to mobile grief. The tide closer.
Lighting: Golden hour—that light that makes everything look like a museum piece worth saving.
(Constance and Penelope sit together, their puppets carefully not touching—the space between them electric
with connection.)
CONSTANCE (removing her watch, the clock in her chest still ticking but lighter): "Twenty-one years of
archaeological layers. Twenty-one years of digging in the same spot. And my daughter was already
found. Already catalogued. Already safe in someone else's field notes."
(She stands, walks to ocean with Shannon)
SHANNON (puppet bouncing with ritual importance): "We need to throw it with ceremony! Like ancient
people throwing spears but at time instead of mammoths!"
(They wind up together—Constance's aged grace and Shannon's eight-year-old enthusiasm creating a
perfect arc)
CONSTANCE AND SHANNON (together): "Bye bye, mean time! Go be someone else's fossil!"
(The watch flies. In its wake, a feather falls from Constance's sleeve—she's growing wings she forgot she
had.)
Scene 2: The Anthropology of Medication
How humans have always found ways to continue
Transition: Lights shift to intimate warmth. The sound of pills shaking is also rain sticks, is also ancient
rattles.
(Francoiz and Shannon sit by her sand food truck, building and talking.)
FRANCOIZ (pulling out pill bottle, puppet's smaller hand precise): "Want to know a secret older than
writing?"
SHANNON: "Is it about dinosaurs?"
FRANCOIZ: "Older. It's about how humans have always needed help to keep going. These pills—they're
just modern cave paintings. Ways of saying 'I was here and I was scared but I stayed.'"
(His puppet shows the bottle like an artifact)
"Lexapro. 40mg. Every day for fifteen years. My little chemical time machine. Keeps me in the present
instead of the past where the monsters live."
SHANNON (puppet examines bottle with archaeological curiosity): "My mom took happy pills but stayed
sad. Like buying wings but forgetting how to fly."
FRANCOIZ: "The pills don't teach you to fly. They just make you remember you're not actually falling."
Scene 3: The Evolution of Grief
Shannon's coming of age—ancient ritual in modern form
Transition: The light becomes ceremonial. Shannon's puppet stands before her sand food truck like a
child before a cave painting—recognizing herself.
SHANNON (puppet very still, then explosive): "I'M THIRTY-FIVE BUT INSIDE I'M EIGHT AND I DON'T
MATCH!"
(Her puppet spins, feathers flying from her pockets—molting in fast-forward)
"It's like those Russian dolls but all the dolls are different ages and the smallest one is crying and the
biggest one is pretending everything's fine and selling tacos!"
PENELOPE (puppet approaches with shamanic wisdom): "That's the human condition. We're all
archaeological sites. Layers of who we were, who we are, who we're becoming."
MARGARET (entering like visiting anthropologist): "I heard there's a coming-of-age crisis happening?"
SHANNON (puppet races over, strings creating chaos patterns): "ARE YOU THE MATH FEELINGS LADY? I'M
EIGHT INSIDE! MY MOM IS DEAD BUT I KEPT HER JOB BUT ADDED WHEELS!"
MARGARET: "That's evolution, dear. Adaptation to changed circumstances. Very anthropologically
sound."
Scene 4: Collective Ritual
The tribe prepares for the tide
Transition: Light shifts to urgent gold. The sound of water approaching like centuries passing.
(All puppets work together to save their creations. Their movements echo ancient human cooperation—
hunting parties, barn raisings, funeral preparations.)
SHANNON (dragging her sand truck): "SAVE THE FOOD TRUCK! IT'S MY EVOLUTIONARY ADVANTAGE!"
FRANCOIZ (using both hands, finding balance): "I've got the modern medicine! And the ancient wisdom!
And the Tuesday feelings!"
CONSTANCE (letting her castle go): "Some things are meant to wash away. That's how beaches become
mountains become beaches again. Everything recycles. Even grief."
THIERRY (flickering between helping and watching): "From my perspective, you're all just rearranging
sand on a spinning rock in infinite space! It's MAGNIFICENT!"
ACT THREE
Scene 1: The Final Gathering
Night falling like history writing itself
Setting: The beach transformed. Higher ground. All their creations partially saved, partially lost. The
puppets arranged in a formation old as humanity—a circle facing out, backs protected, ready for
whatever comes.
Lighting: That blue-gold of endings. Stars appearing like ancestors watching.
(The puppets sit in configurations that shift and blend—sometimes pairs, sometimes group, always
connected by invisible threads older than their strings.)
THIERRY'S WISDOM FROM BEYOND
THIERRY (puppet more solid now, as if death has given him weight): "Can I tell you something without
jokes? Without wings or roots or archaeological metaphors?"
EVERYONE: "Yes."
THIERRY: "I was so lonely. Thirty-seven years of eating lunch like a cave painter with no cave. Apologizing
for taking up space in the fossil record."
(His puppet moves between them, leaving traces like light)
"Then you weirdos found me and suddenly I was real. Part of the tribal record. Part of the continuing
story."
SHANNON (puppet reaches out, touches air where Thierry might be): "You're still in the story! Just in the
footnotes! Footnotes are the best parts—that's where the secrets live!"
Scene 2: The Weaving of Wings and Roots
Each character's transformation made visible
Transition: Light becomes magical. Each puppet's hidden wings and roots become visible—shadows on
the backdrop, real feathers falling, root patterns appearing in the sand.
CONSTANCE (moving freely for the first time): "I threw away time and grew wings. Who knew they were
connected?"
(Her puppet moves in ways impossible before—the clock still ticks but doesn't control)
BERTRAND (on phone with Margaret, bending in ways that make his wings visible): "I'm bending! It's like
archaeology but emotional! I'm digging down to where we planted our roots!"
MARGARET: "I'm almost there. Save me some sand. Some wings. Some whatever this is."
PENELOPE (writing in sand, her movements creating wing patterns): "New play: Everyone discovers they're
ancient. Everyone discovers they're new. Everyone discovers they're both. Everyone discovers that's
enough."
FRANCOIZ (building with balanced hands): "My pills are just modern wings. Chemical feathers. Whatever
keeps you airborne."
SHANNON (puppet finally still, finally centered): "I'm my mom but with wheels. I'm eight but with keys to
a truck. I'm roots that drive. I'm wings that serve lunch. I'M EVOLUTION AND IT'S WEIRD BUT IT'S
WORKING!"
Scene 3: The Final Scene
Everything ends. Nothing ends. The tide decides.
Transition: The lights become oceanic. Sound of waves like breathing. Like the earth's heartbeat. Like
time itself moving in and out.
(All puppets link arms. Their strings tangle hopelessly, beautifully. The puppeteers stop trying to untangle
them—this is the point.)
PENELOPE: "In my next play, everyone has wings but chooses to grow roots. Everyone has roots but
chooses to grow wings. Everyone chooses."
SHANNON: "In my next life, I'm still eight but I know it's okay! Being eight is like having wings on the
inside!"
CONSTANCE: "In my next minute, I don't count it. I just live it. Revolutionary."
FRANCOIZ: "In my next breath, I take my medicine and say thank you. To chemistry. To continuing. To
Tuesday."
BERTRAND: "In my next bow, it's actually a bend. Toward. Instead of away. The difference is everything."
THIERRY: "In my next existence, I'm exactly this. Dead but present. Rooted in memory, wings in
possibility. The perfect combination."
ALL TOGETHER (their voices weaving like a chain of DNA): "We are not going anywhere. Our roots too
deep. We are not going anywhere. Our wings too new. We are not going anywhere. We ARE. Not going.
ANYWHERE. Except together. Except forward. Except here."
(The tide reaches them. They don't move. Their puppets are tangled, rooted, winged, ridiculous, beautiful,
human.)
SHANNON (final words): "This silence means everything. This silence means we evolved to stay."
Final Tableau: The puppets remain linked as lights fade. Above them, the mobile of extinct birds has
been joined by new ones—made of hospital bracelets, bow ties, pill bottles, clock parts. Evolution
continues.
THE END
PLAYWRIGHT'S FINAL NOTE
At 82, I've learned we are all archaeological sites. Dig gently in each other. You'll find wings buried under
grief, roots growing toward light, and in the deepest layers—joy. Fossilized but still recognizable. Still warm.
The puppets should end the play tangled. Their strings are now roots, are now wings, are now the web that
holds us all. Don't untangle them. The mess is the message. The tangle is the truth.
We are all magnificent idiots, building on beaches that are becoming mountains that are becoming
beaches. Build anyway. The building is the point. The company is the point. The continuing is the point.
Perform this with sand in your shoes and hope in your pockets.
- M.E.R-B. Hampstead Heath, London January 2024 Still here Still growing roots Still testing wings
