A darkly comic play in one act
Contestable
by Butch Maxwell
The funeral is over.
The story still needs work.
Come into the kitchen ↓Late November · The Pruitt kitchen4:10 p.m.The insurance representative arrives at five.
FormOne act
Running timeApproximately 50 minutes
Company3 actors + recorded voice
SettingOne Rust Belt kitchen
TimeOne afternoon, in real time
01 / The play
Grief has paperwork.
A calm house.
A consistent story.
Dennis Pruitt has been buried. His widow, Lorna, is back in the kitchen, surrounded by funeral food and the documents an insurance representative has asked to see.
Ray Kistler, the salesman who sold Dennis his policy, has come to help her prepare. He wants the answers rehearsed, the paperwork in order, and nothing volunteered. Lorna keeps saying what actually happened.
Then Dennis’s older brother Wade arrives on his way to deer camp. He has questions of his own.
Before five o’clock, three people need to agree on a story. Each has something at stake. And the kitchen is getting harder to keep calm.
“I’m not nervous. I’m organized.”
Lorna Pruitt
02 / About the play
Every word goes in a file.
The truth won’t
stay in order.
Contestable puts the language of insurance into a room where nobody can afford to speak carelessly. Ray knows how an answer should sound. Lorna knows where the documents are. Wade knows what his brother would have wanted—or believes he does.
The comedy comes from ordinary things: a casserole made exactly according to the card, a job title nobody recognizes, an envelope that keeps returning to the folder. As the afternoon narrows, these small corrections begin to expose what each person has been protecting.
It is a play about grief, financial dependence, and the distance between following instructions and taking responsibility.
03 / Artifacts from the kitchen
The things on the table.
Paperwork, family habits, and the things nobody wants to leave unattended.
01 / The recipe cardExactly as written.
Dennis’s mother brought her chicken and rice to funerals for forty years. Lorna has followed the card. Who is she to decide it meant something else?
02 / The accordion folder“If available.”
Carol asked for the documents. Lorna has them. Ray would prefer that being organized looked a little less like being nervous.
03 / Dennis’s phone“Like a goldfish.”
The police gave it back in a bag. An ordinary object, returned to a kitchen where its owner will never pick it up again.
04 / The rifle case“It stays where I can see it.”
Wade won’t leave his rifle in the truck. Ray needs a calm house. The case comes through the back door with two men already disagreeing about where it belongs.
Artwork inspired by the script. Select an image to view it in full.
04 / The people in the kitchen
Three people.
One absent center.
01Lorna Pruitt
Early 50s · Dennis’s widow
A dental-office receptionist who cannot hold a lie long enough to tell it. She has the documents. She wants an answer.
02Ray Kistler
Early 50s · Insurance salesman
He sold Dennis his policy. Now he is helping Lorna prepare for the questions—and trying to keep the answers consistent.
03Wade Pruitt
Late 50s · Dennis’s older brother
He teaches hunter safety on weekends. His truck is packed for deer camp, but he has something to settle first.
04 / Recorded voiceDennis Pruitt
Heard only on a voicemail. The man everyone is talking about finally gets a word in.
05 / On stage
One room. No escape from the conversation.
A kitchen full
of things left behind.
The action unfolds in real time on a weekday afternoon in late November, during the first week of buck season. A kitchen table, a back door with a window onto the driveway, and a visible clock hold the space together.
Funeral food and sympathy cards fill the room. An accordion folder, a legal pad, a shoebox of papers, and a phone in a clear plastic evidence bag give the actors a world of small, consequential tasks.
- Cast
- One woman and two men on stage; one male voice on a voicemail.
- Staging
- A single interior with practical kitchen furnishings and sound cues.
- Production note
- The script requires a non-firing replica rifle and a shot created as a sound effect. Rifle handling and the final sequence should be staged under the supervision of a qualified fight director or armorer.
- Content
- Discussion of suicide and bereavement; firearm threat and a gunshot sound effect.
Companion plays
A full evening
of dark comedy.
Read the play / Production inquiries
Start with the excerpt.
Download a sample, find the complete script on New Play Exchange, or request a reading copy directly.
The excerpt downloads directly, with no registration required. For performance rights and production inquiries, contact the playwright.
From the Notebook
Further reflections on the writing of the play.
These reflections discuss plot developments and endings.