Mando the Goat Herd

Part one of an exasperating two-part trilogy.

Characters

Mando.   A shaggy young goatherd, heir to his family’s debts.

Pa.   Current proprieter of his family’s debts. Has no left hand.

Gran.  Pa’s mother, deaf as a hoot.

Splendid Pete.  The bank’s reposession agent.

As many goats as can be mustered.

Scene 1

Music plays.

A lone goat wanders across the stage. It bleats once, pauses, then laughs and bleats again. The other goats come from all sides of the stage, congregate on the other side of the stage from the lone goat. They stop and bleat. Mando enters.

Mando: Sally you silly ape, I’ve been looking for you. He goes to her, hoists her on his shoulders and drops her in the middle of the flock, they all nuzzle in joy.

Scene 2.

The corrugated iron shed where he lives with his Pa and Gran. Gran has a bowl of olives on her lap, from which she takes the occasional olive and eats it mullingly.

Gran: There’s no telling what the young will do.

Pa: Until they go out and do it that is.

Pause, Gran has not heard, Pa sees this and goes over to her. He take…