Vinegar Tom
Vinegar Tom Author: Caryl Churchill
First Performance: 1976, Hull
Published: 1978
Genre: Hist. drama in 21 scenes; prose with songs
Setting: An English village, 17th c.
Cast: 7m, 7f
In a small rural community, Alice, a loose woman, lives with her eccentric old mother Joan Noakes, whose main company is her cat Vinegar Tom. An upright couple, Jack and Margery, make plans for their farm but are dismayed when their cattle get sick. Because Margery was cursed by Joan when she refused her some yeast, and Jack was rejected by Alice when he tried to seduce her, the two accuse Joan and Alice of being witches. Betty, the daughter of the local gentry, is bled by the doctor to cure her, because she refuses to get married. Ellen, the cunning woman, gives Alice a potion to win her lover and provides Susan, another villager,...
[The entire page is 346 words long]
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