Scorn of Women
Jack London
A Play In Three Acts
By Jack London
The Macmillan Company
London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.
1906
ACT I Alaska Commercial Company's Store at Dawson
ACT II Anteroom of Pioneer Hall
ACT III Freda Moloof's Cabin
Time of play, 1897, Dawson, Northwest Territory. It occurs in thirteen hours.
Freda Moloof............A dancer.
Floyd Vanderlip.........An Eldorado king.
Loraine Lisznayi........A Hungarian.
Captain Eppingwell......United States government agent.
Mrs. Eppingwell.........His wife.
Flossie.................Engaged to marry Floyd Vanderlip
Sitka Charley...........An Indian dog-driver.
Dave Harney.............An Eldorado king.
Prince..................A mining engineer.
Mrs. McFee..............Whose business is morals.
Minnie..................Maid to Freda Moloof.
Dog-punchers, couriers, miners, Indians, mounted police, clerks, etc.
FREDA MOLOOF. A Greek girl and a dancer. Speaks perfect English, but withal has that slight, indefinable foreign touch of accent. Good figure, willowy, yet not too slender. Of indeterminate age, possibly no more than twenty-five. Her furs the most magnificent in all the Yukon country from Chilcoot to St. Michael's, her name common on the lips of men.
FLOYD VANDERLIP. An Eldorado king, worth a couple of millions. Simple, elemental, almost childish in his emotions. But a brave man, and masculine; a man who has done a man's work in the world. Has caressed more shovel-handles than women's hands. Big-muscled, big-bodied, ingenuous-faced; the sort of a man whom women of the right sort can tie into knots.
LORAINE LISZNAYI. A Hungarian, reputed to be wealthy, and to be travelling in the Klondike for pleasure and love of adventure. Past the flush of youth, and with fair success feigning youth. In the first stages of putting flesh upon her erstwhile plumpness. Dark-eyed, a flashing, dazzling brunette, with a cosmopolitan reputation earned in a day when she posed in the studios of artist-queens and received at her door the cards of cardinals and princes.
CAPTAIN EPPINGWELL. Special agent for the United States government.
MRS. EPPINGWELL. His wife. Twenty-five to twenty-eight years of age. Of the cold order of women, possessing sanity, and restraint, and control. Brown hair, demi-blond type, oval-faced, with cameo-like features. The kind of a woman who is not painfully good, but who acts upon principle and who knows always just what she is doing.
FLOSSIE. Eighteen or nineteen years of age. Of the soft and clinging kind, with pretty, pouting lips, blow-away hair, and eyes full of the merry shallows of life. Engaged to marry Floyd Vanderlip.
PRINCE. A young mining engineer. A good fellow, a man's man.
MRS. MCFEE. Near to forty, Scotch accent, sharp-featured, and unbeautiful, with an eager nose that leads her into the affairs of others. So painfully good that it hurts.
SITKA CHARLEY. An Indian dog-puncher, who has come into the warm and sat by the fires of the white man until he is somewhat as one of them. Should not be much shorter than Vanderlip and Captain Eppingwell.
DAVE HARNEY. An Eldorado king, also a Yankee, with a fondness for sugar and a faculty for sharp dealing. Is tall, lean, loose-jointed. Walks with a shambling gait. Speaks slowly, with a drawl.
MINNIE. (Maid to Freda.) A cool, impassive young woman.
POLICEMAN. A young fellow, with small blond mustache. An Englishman, brave, cool, but easily embarrassed. Though he says "Sorry" frequently, he is never for an instant afraid.
ACT I—ALASKA COMPANY'S STORE AT DAWSON
