I collect and research quotations, to a degree that some might deem obsessive. The fruits of my amateur labor are stashed at my Wish I’d Said That (wist.info) website.
The other day I was doing a deep dive into quotations by Judith Martin, a one-time journalist who shifted into a columnist and bookwriting career as “Miss Manners.” Martin’s etiquette work is witty, thought-provoking, grounded, and delightful to read.
I’d pulled together a (large) number of quotations by her, grouped by books she’d written, and decided to find URLs to those books online so that I could provided proper, linked citations for them. A quote without citation is nearly useless; a citation without a link to prove it exists is merely problematic.
While I’m a longtime fan of Google Books, I’ve of late become an even bigger fan, as a researcher, of the Internet Archive. Among its many other invaluable resources, its online collection of scanned eBooks is invaluable in finding or confirming the existence of quoted text, in a way that access to the biggest research library would find challenging.
So I searched at IA for books by “Martin, Judith,”, and amidst the various Miss Manners books (and books by other people with that name), I ran across a volume that made me do a double-take:
Huh, I said, looking at it. That reminds me of a play I was in back in … 2nd grade, I think.
And it was, in fact, my stage debut. Not that I have an extensive theater career, but I did a lot of plays in school, and in college, and even a couple of things since then, and this, this reminded me of that very first play.
I didn’t remember the title, but I remembered cardboard cutout trees that looked like that.
And I opened the book — and, by golly, this was in fact the book (and script) for that play. The Tree Angel, published in 1962.
It’s a frothy bit of children’s theater silliness, about a trio of trees chopped down by a woodcutter, rescued by an angel who gives them legs, letting them out-run the woodcutter who comes back to drag them off.
While written for three kids (as trees) and a couple more as the angel and woodcutter (which can actually be performed by a single person), it can also be expanded to fit a full class, with three speaking trees, a bunch of relatively silent trees, and (in the case of Mrs. Bogosian’s class) two woodcutters.
I was Woodcutter #2. And I had one line. And here it is, as illustrated by Remy Charlip:
“Trees can’t run!”
Of such lines are great theater careers made. Or not, but it stuck with me all these years, so we’ll say great memories of theater careers, instead.
We woodcutters didn’t have actual axes, of course, but painted, corrugated cardboard cutouts (I had the green-handled axe, much less exciting than the red-handled axe, but I was, after all, only Woodcutter #2.)
Fortunately, given the fragility of corrugated cardboard, and the propensity of 2nd grade boys to want to chop at things with a prop like that, it was a one-night show, suitable for parents. I have to wonder if there are pictures lurking in my Mom’s photo albums somewhere.
As it turns out, the author of the play was not Judith “Miss Manners” Martin, but a child theater artist named Judith Martin who passed away a decade ago. She co-founded the Paper Bag Theater in 1960, focused on contemporary theater for children using everyday themes and props. It looks like she had a marvelous career.
I was a bit disappointed to learn in the end that a seminal literary and theatrical experience for me wasn’t actually crafted by “Miss Manners,” providing some sort of subliminal influence over me all these years — but it was still amazing running across the book unexpectedly, and the backpaths of memory it took me along.
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