Three Generations of Imbeciles

In 1938, rural teenager JOYCE stands before DR. HALSEY JENNINGS, a Virginia state mental hospital physician. After crudely quizzing Joyce to gage her intelligence, Dr. Jennings sends her to be forcibly sterilized as part of the state’s eugenics program. He performs the surgery after Joyce loses a court appeal to stop it, filed on her behalf by LINETTE KEOGH, the caretaker of the farm for the poor and “feeble-...
In 1938, rural teenager JOYCE stands before DR. HALSEY JENNINGS, a Virginia state mental hospital physician. After crudely quizzing Joyce to gage her intelligence, Dr. Jennings sends her to be forcibly sterilized as part of the state’s eugenics program. He performs the surgery after Joyce loses a court appeal to stop it, filed on her behalf by LINETTE KEOGH, the caretaker of the farm for the poor and “feeble-minded” in the Virginia foothills where orphan Joyce lives.

After the surgery, Linette learns that a baby girl with Down Syndrome, rejected by her parents, will come to live at the poor farm. With the encouragement of her gregarious brother GLENN, a soldier visiting the farm, Linette gives the baby to Joyce to informally adopt. Inspired by the old saying about “when life gives you a lemon,” Joyce names the baby LEMONADE. Dr. Jennings objects to the idea, but Linette confronts his doubt and his belief in eugenics, along with lingering conflict over her failed relationship with him.

In the second act, set two decades later, Lemonade has grown to be a young woman. “Lemmy,” as everyone at the farm calls her, is pregnant by her sweetheart who also lives at the farm, and she wants to marry him. In flashbacks, Joyce teaches Lemmy to read and do other things nobody expected of her as she grows up.
Dr. Jennings still fears the result of the mentally disabled having children, and he visits the poor farm. Dr. Jennings tells Linette that she could have done better things with her life, but she explains why she has no regret for her choices, nor for valuing the people she works with. Linette prompts Lemmy to show Dr. Jennings that she can read, and then negotiates with Dr. Jennings about how the new baby will receive care.

But when Joyce sees Dr. Jennings, she flees to the mountains with Lemmy, fearing that Dr. Jennings has come to take her away. With the help of Glenn, who was recently wounded in the war, Linette and Dr. Jennings search for them. During the search, Glenn is shocked to learn that the Nazi eugenics programs he learned about during the war were inspired by Dr. Jennings’ work. He had interrogated a German prisoner who told him that American eugenics practices had inspired the Nazis, but he hadn’t believed it. Dr. Jennings is unrepentant, defending his actions as for the greater good, but Glenn and Linette reject the toll his ideas have taken on Joyce and Lemmy. They find Joyce and Lemmy, and Joyce stands up to Dr. Jennings. Linette makes Dr. Jennings promise to support Lemmy as a mother instead of obstructing her.
In a scene that echoes the opening sterilization scene, Lemmy gives birth to her baby, completing three generations of Joyce’s family.
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Three Generations of Imbeciles

Recommended by

  • Andrew Martineau:
    2 Jan. 2021
    This play had a staged reading with the theatre company I cofounded, Sundial Theatre Company, that focused on disability issues. Hodges beautifully crafts a fictional drama that parallels several true stories of eugenics in rural, early twentieth century Virginia, most notably the story of Carrie Buck, which led to the landmark Supreme Court case, Buck v. Bell, from which Hodges takes his title. With a key role given to an actor with an intellectual challenge, the drama demonstrates how profoundly vital a character such as Lemmy is to our society. Highly recommended!

Production History

  • Community Theater
    ,
    The Barcroft Players
    ,
    2008