Wee Aggie and Big Maggie
Ron Nicol
Genre: Comedy
Cast size: 10
Duration: 40 mins approx
Ron Nicol | Comedy | One Act | 2m, 3f, 5m/f
Short synopsis
- Synopsis
- Characters
Penniless Agatha - Wee Aggie - lives by her wits. An argument about horses with her envious neighbour Magnolia - Big Maggie - leads to Magnolia killing Aggie’s horse. Aggie sets off to sell the horse’s hide, but a storm on the way leads her to ask for shelter with a farmer’s wife, who is having a surreptitious affair with the Sexton of the local church. On Maggie’s arrival the Sexton hides in a large wooden chest, and then the Farmer unexpectedly arrives home. Aggie pretends that the hide inside her sack is a wizard, encourages the Farmer to get drunk, persuades him that the trunk contains the Devil and sells him the supposed wizard. She agrees to get rid of the trunk, but the Sexton pays her not to throw it - and him - into the river. Aggie shows Maggie the money obtained from the Farmer and the Sexton, pretending it’s gold which came from selling her horse’s hide at the market.
Maggie kills all her own horses and sets off to market to become rich. She tries to sell her hides for sacks of gold to a Tanner and a Shoemaker, and is chased out of the market for her audacity.
Meanwhile, Aggie’s grandmother has died. While taking the body to an undertaker in a wheelbarrow, Aggie stops at an inn. By mistake the innkeeper violently throws the body out of the barrow, and believing she’s murdered Granny, the innkeeper gives Aggie money. Aggie tells Maggie that she got the cash by selling Granny’s body, so Maggie kills her own grandmother and tries to sell the body to the undertaker, who is horrified and rejects her.
Maggie determines to drown Aggie, covers her with a sack, puts her into the wheelbarrow and sets off to the river. On the way she stops and leaves the barrow while she goes into the church. A Cowherd comes along, is persuaded by Aggie to take her place inside the sack, and asks her to look after his herd of cows. Maggie returns from church and throws the sack into the river. Aggie later re-appears, pretending she’s had a marvellous underwater vision in which she’s been given the cows by a fairy maiden, and persuades Maggie to throw herself into the river. However, Maggie survives and doggedly chases Aggie.
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