A Teacher's Manual for Good People By David ... - Centaur Theatre

1
Centaur’s Theatre of Tomorrow presents
A Teacher’s Manual for
Good People
By David Lindsay-Abaire
Prepared for Centaur Theatre
by
Tracie Gemmel
(Department of English, Dawson College)
&
Mark Cohen
(Department of English, Vanier College)
Tracie Gemmel tgemmel@dawsoncollege.qc.ca
Mark Cohen cohenm@vaniercollege.qc.ca
2012-2013 Season
Montreal, Quebec, Canada

At Great-West Life, London Life and Canada Life, we are committed to enriching communities through
our support of the arts. We focus on accessibility and audience involvement, and encourage the
participation and education of youth. We’re proud to support Theatre of Tomorrow through the Centaur
Theatre Company as they engage minds, entertain audiences and encourage new ideas.
2

3
DAVID LINDSAY-ABAIRE
American playwright and lyricist David Lindsay-Abaire was born on November 30, 1969. to a working
class family of five in a rough South Boston neighbourhood. His father sold fruit out of a truck in
Boston’s Chelsea Fruit Market and his mother worked on a circuit-board assembly line. The young
David attended Boston public schools until the seventh grade, when he received a six-year scholarship to
the Milton Academy, a small, private New England boarding school. Known to his classmates as the
“funny one,” he wrote what he called "terrible, terrible plays" as a result of the school's tradition of
presenting original student work. He went on to study acting and writing at Sarah Lawrence College
where he met actor Chrisinte Lindsay. They married on April 9, 1994. From 1996-1998 he attended the
prestigious Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program at the Juilliard School on fellowship,
where he studied with playwrights Marsha Norman and Christopher Durang and began writing his first
off-Broadway hit, Fuddy Meers.
Other successful plays quickly followed. Wonder of the World (2000); Kimberly Akimbo (2001), which
received the L.A. Drama Circle Award for Playwriting, three Garland Awards, and the Kesselring Prize;
and the Rabbit Hole (2006). For the latter Pulitzer prize-winning drama about the loss of a child he also
wrote the screenplay for the 2010 film of the Rabbit Hole starring Nicole Kidman. In film, his writing
credits include the movie Robots (2006) and the screenplay for Inkheart (2007). He also wrote the book
for the musical High Fidelity, and the book and lyrics for Shrek the Musical.
His play Good People had its official opening on Broadway on March 3, 2011, with Frances
McDormand and Tate Donovan in the lead roles. Presently, Lindsay-Abaire lives in Brooklyn with his
wife Christine and their son Nicholas who was born in 2000.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Margaret: Caucasian, about fifty
Stevie: Caucasian, late twenties
Dottie: Caucasian, mid-sixties
Jean: Caucasian, about fifty
Mike: Caucasian, about fifty
Kate: African American, early thirties
Various offstage voices: probably pre-recorded
.

4
SYNOPSIS
This is what fools people: a man is always a teller of tales, he lives surrounded by his stories and the
stories of others, he sees everything that happens to him through them; and he tries to live his life as if
he were telling a story
-Jean-Paul Sartre
Good People is set in South Boston’s Lower End and in Chestnut Hill, an affluent Boston suburb. The
main character is Margaret, a 50-year-old woman who grew up in the rough and tumble south end of
Boston. Lindsay-Abaire describes his own mother as having “a mouth like a trucker,“hilarious” and “the
performer” of his family. In many ways this describes Margaret or “Margie,” (pronounced with a hard
“g” as the script indicates). Margie navigates her life of living below the poverty line with humour, and
colourful slice-of-life stories filled with poor and disenfranchised “Southies”. In the first scene of the
play, when her boss at the Dollar Store, Stevie, attempts to tell Margaret that she is fired, she tries to
avoid the grim prospect of losing her job as cashier by recounting a humorous anecdote about Stevie’s
mother. The truth of her story is questionable, it fails to redeem her, and she is fired for her inability to
get to work on time. Stevie, a young Southie man in his late twenties has to fire Margaret or risk losing
his job, but he is ultimately sympathetic to Margaret, and suggests that she try to find work at Gillette,
one of the community’s main employers.
Mulling over the depressing prospects of finding another job, Margaret’s friend Jean suggests that she
approach Mikey Dillon (Mike) for a job. Mike, is an old flame of Margaret’s and a former Southie who
has escaped the poverty of South Boston’s lower end by becoming a doctor. When Margaret approaches
Mike for a job, their encounter becomes the heart of the play, and explores questions of class, social
versus individual responsibility, community, race, and gender in relation to issues of social mobility. In
Act II, Margaret shows up at Mike’s door in Chestnut Hill, and her Southie ways clash with Mike’s
educated adult persona and sensibility. Mike’s wife Kate, fascinated and curious about her husband’s
Southie roots, allows herself to be pulled into the drama and conflict of Margaret and Mike’s “reunion.”
Things turn sour when Margaret’s stories of their colourful past, which Lindsay-Abaire makes
intentionally ambiguous, raise questions about the “truth” of the past and present reality in all of their
lives. Following the dramatic and potentially damaging evening Margaret spends with Mike and Kate,
the play ends on a somewhat positive note. Margaret’s future is brighter with the prospect of a job at
Gillette and the generosity of Stevie, who has encountered a bit of luck.
TOPICS and THEMES
1. Class relations in America
2. The American dream: fact or fiction
3. Being successful in America: hard work or luck
4. Social responsibility
5. Is being philanthropic a luxury?
6. What is community in America?
7. What is political correctness?

5
8. Class/racial stereotypes
9. The stories we live by
10. Storytelling as a coping mechanism
11. Truth and memory
12. The intersection of personal and national mythologies
STUDY QUESTIONS
1. Scene one of the play takes place in an alley with a dumpster and a rusty chair behind a dollar store.
Why does the playwright choose this setting? What symbolic associations do we make with a dollar
store and the overall setting in this scene?
2. Why does Margaret tell Stevie the story about his mother? What is she trying to do, and why does her
story fail to change Stevie’s mind about firing Margaret? Do you believe Margaret’s version of the
story?
3. Throughout the play, is Margaret’s sense of a Southie community real or imagined? Do people in her
community look out for one another, or is everyone simply motivated by self-interest?
4. Draw a character sketch of Margaret. Is she a stereotype of an uneducated, lower class middle-aged
woman, or is she something more than this? Give examples of things she says and does to suggest either.
Do you view Margaret as being “too nice,” as Jean describes her, or has she become “mean” like the
other Southie girls, as Mike suggests?
5. What do the expressions “good people,” and “lace-curtain” mean in the play? Is it fair for Margaret to
say that Mike has become “all lace-curtain”?
6. When Margaret approaches Mike for a job, does this illustrate naivety or resourcefulness? Does Mike
want to help Margaret out?
7. Where throughout the play does Margaret appear politically incorrect? Where conversely does she
appear to be witty and insightful? Note Margaret’s off-colour remarks and contrast them with examples
of the political correctness that Kate and Mike display.
8. Throughout the play, Margaret shows distrust, perhaps even a paranoia of the intentions of others.
Who and what is she distrustful of exactly? How can we explain this distrust, and do you think she is
justified? Why might a woman like Margaret feel easily threatened and mistrustful of people?
9. In scene three, Margaret pushes certain emotional buttons that upset and anger Mike. What are these
emotional buttons? What is she doing, and why?
10. When Kate confuses Margaret with one of the caterers, why does she feel bad, and why can she
relate to what Margaret might be feeling? Is Margaret offended by Kate? Why might being mistaken for
a caterer ironically not bother Margaret?

6
11. What explains Kate’s welcoming and warm behaviour towards Margaret? Is her interest in Margaret
sincere? Why is Mike not thrilled to have Margaret in their home? Is it because of their past together or
is it a question of class?
12. Why doesn’t Mike tell Kate that he and Margaret were more than friends?
13. Why does Margaret accuse Mike of being Joyce’s father? Does she do it because her friend Jean
suggested it, or does she do it for another reason?
14. Do you believe that Mike is Joyce’s father? Based on a careful examination of the text, who do you
think is telling the truth? How can we tell when Margaret is telling the truth? Why does Lindsay-Abaire
make it so ambiguous?
15. Throughout most of Act Two, Kate seems very sympathetic towards Margaret. What do you make of
her reaction to the idea that Mike may be Joyce’s father? What is her initial attitude and how does it
evolve as she comes to fear that Margaret may really be telling the truth? How does she call Margaret’s
bluff?
16. Do you think that Margaret is a bad person and mother as Kate suggests she is if her story about
Mike being Joyce’s father is true? Kate judges her for not putting her pride aside and approaching Mike
for help, but is Kate justified in this?
17. Is Mike proud of his Southie roots or embarrassed? Has he lost his “street cred,” or did he ever really
have it? How has he portrayed his past to Kate? Is this a story he tells himself and others? Is it true, or is
it part of his personal mythology? Does Margaret believe that Mike is admirable for how he escaped
Southie life?
18. From looking closely at the play, what accounts for Margaret’s inability to escape the poverty of
Southie? What sets her apart from Mike? Did Mike have more advantages than she did growing up? If
so, what were they?
19. By the end of the play, who do you think is “good people”? After what Margaret does at Mike’s
place, do we think she is “nice”? How do we feel about Mike and Kate? Do they sincerely care about
Margaret and her present situation?
20. In the final scene of the play we assume that the cheque that Dottie receives in the mail to cover
Margaret’s rent is from Mike or Kate. When we discover that it was indeed Stevie’s generosity, due to
his recent luck at bingo, what final message does it seem Lindsay-Abaire wants to give? What does
Stevie’s action say about the Southie community and about community in general?

7
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. The Southie characters like to play bingo, a game that basically relies on luck, rather than on skill or
strategy. How are the two bingo scenes in the play used by the playwright symbolically? What do we
make of the bingo caller being the local priest? Is this meant to be just an amusing detail, or is Lindsay-
Abaire suggesting something more? Margaret is unlucky at bingo, and in her life. What does this
suggest? Are the Southie characters unable to improve their lives because they are relying on a lucky
break and are averse to hard work? In the game of life, is success based on hard work and ambition á la
the American Dream, or on luck and being of the right class, gender and race at birth?
2. According to Michael S. Kimmel and Abby L. Ferber in their preface to Privilege: A Reader:
We live in a nation where – despite all ideological assertions about meritocracy, about
how individuals are free to rise as high as they can based solely on their individual
achievements – race, class, and gender are the best predictors of what we social scientists
call “life chances” – your level of wealth, your occupation, health, even marital
happiness. Ours is a nation where characteristics of your birth are the best predictors of
where you will end up at your death. On the other hand, we actually do want to live in a
nation in which those ideals of individual achievement are actually realized, where talent,
motivation, ambition, and hard work actually do pay off, where race, class, sexuality, and
gender predict very little about your economic and social life.
In Good People, is Lindsay-Abaire’s America a place where race, class, and gender predict the future of
economic and social life? Even though Mike is born in a lower class Southie neighbourhood, what
advantages does he have that Margaret doesn’t?
3. According to David Sheppard, “The story of our lives is our myth. People in the later stages of life
seem to become more mythical, to enjoy looking back and spinning yarns about what they experienced.
One thing to keep in mind is that myths don’t necessarily pertain to the literal part of our lives but how
we experience events internally, our perceptions and emotional reactions.”
Throughout the play Margaret tells stories about the past, and Lindsay-Abaire intentionally makes us
question the truth of her stories. Margaret seems to have a personal mythology that sustains her belief
that she is a “good” person, and “nice.” When Margaret tells her stories, however, the truth is always
questionable. Mike also has a personal mythology that accounts for his ability to escape Southie. When
both of these characters reveal their personal mythologies, naturally other characters puncture the
validity of their stories and memories of their pasts. Take a close look at all of the “stories” in the play.
It is not just Margaret who is questioned for telling the truth. Kate also seems to question Mike’s
portrayal of the truth in his past and present life. What parallel might Lindsay-Abaire be making
between personal mythmaking and the American Dream, which is part of American mythology?

8
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1. American life and culture, is extremely influenced by what is commonly known as the “American
Dream.” James Truslow Adams coined the phrase "American Dream" during the depths of the Great
Depression. In his book, The Epic of America, which was published in 1931, Adams describes America:
[It] is a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity
for each according to ability or achievement … It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages
merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to
the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognised by others for what they
are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.
Adams was careful to say the American Dream was not just a desire for affluence, but historian David
Farber says the term quickly came to include it. The American Dream "became closely linked to
material comfort, to the consumer abundance America was producing. 'A better life' started to connote
not just an economically secure life, but an abundant life. So there's a kind of linkage between mobility,
a better life, and the good stuff that would make it so."
What do you think the American Dream means to people today? Has the meaning changed? Do we
ascribe to the American Dream in Canada?
2. Read “Class in America” by Gregory Mantsios (see link below). What are the myths, and realities of
class in America today?
http://povertyisviolence.blogspot.ca/2009/03/class-in-america-gregory-mantsios.htm
3. Is South Boston today still the rough and tumble area that it was in past, or has it been gentrified?
What does gentrification mean? Does Lindsay- Abaire present us with a gentrified South Boston in his
play? Research what made Southie the infamous place that it is today. Name some well-known movies
and T.V. shows like Southie Rules, that have been set in South Boston. What are the Southie characters
like in the play?
4. When Margaret loses her job at the beginning of the play, she does not have unemployment insurance
to fall back on. Margaret also struggles to look after Joyce because she is disabled and requires special
care. How is life sometimes tougher in the U.S. than in Canada? Does the U.S. have social programs like
Canada? Define what a welfare state is. What is the purpose of a welfare state?
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. In small groups, students make a list of all of the material objects, lifestyle choices, and world-views
that Lindsay-Abaire uses throughout the play to help him in painting a portrait of lower and upper
middle-class America. Students will discuss whether or not his portrait is realistic or stereotyped. What
separates the Southies from the Chestnut Hill set? Why is it so hard for classes to mix socially?
2. In small groups, students imagine that they are directing the play and want to set it in Montreal rather
than in South Boston’s Lower End and in Chestnut Hill. If this play were set in Montreal what

9
neighbourhoods might be chosen? Students need to write a brief description of the neighbourhoods and
what the people who live there are like.
3. In Act Two, we learn that Mike and Kate are seeing a marriage therapist. Although we are given some
hints, it is not clear what the couple’s issues are exactly. From what the playwright gives us (examine
the subtext and dialogue), imagine what their issues are. Form a group with other students and have
Mike and Kate appear on Oprah or the Dr. Phil show. You will have to identify the issues they have to
work out and the host’s strategy for getting them to resolve these issues before you present your skit to
the class.
4. Margaret loses her job, and must apply for new ones. With a partner, write a cover letter that we
imagine she might write. What would she say? What would the tone and overall style of her writing look
and sound like? Students should imagine a fictional job, or find an actual job posting online or from a
newspaper.