Play a Day: Cracked

Gwydion Suilebhan

For Friday, I read Cracked by Gwydion Suilebhan and posted at New Play Exchange.

For 2021, I conclude with a short play, not a full-length play. And I do so for several reasons. First of all, I am tired. It has been a long month. I have final projects to complete, polish and turn in before the end of the semester.

But I do not choose a short play out of resignation, far from it. I do so because this is my project, and so I celebrate the completion of another month of plays with a lagniappe. Yes, that should more appropriately come tomorrow, the “something extra”, but as I said, this is my project, and if that bothers you, you can suck it.

Speaking of which, this short play is about the egg. Not any particular egg, but the egg in general. The incredible, edible egg. And it was written by a good egg, Gwydion Suilebhan, Project Director for New Play Exchange, without whom I would not have had the opportunity to read all of these plays. And by that I don’t mean 30 plays, I mean those 149 full-length plays I have read since the beginning of April, 2017. And this one, short play.

In this short play, this six page monologue, Suilebhan presents a lyric and gentle rumination on the nature of existence, bundled into a small, delicate spheroid. A provocative, promised “demonstration” takes the shape of a sermon, through which the egg represents all things, and no thing. It’s a gorgeous piece of surprising depth.

And with that, I have read thirty plays in thirty days. The imagined thoughts of real people, reimagined classic plays and fables, the shockwaves of historic events, traveled across the nation and the cosmos, troubled and troublesome relationships. All written for our as yet still empty stages.

"Cracked" by Gwydion Suilebhan is available from Original Works publishing.

Play a Day: Fremont Junior High is NOT Doing “Oklahoma”!

Paul Michael Thomson

For Thursday, I read Fremont Junior High is NOT Doing “Oklahoma”! by Paul Michael Thomson and posted at New Play Exchange.

“A lot of classics are racist. And sexist. Or even homophobic! That doesn’t mean we stop doing them. We just take the good with the bad and maybe, you know, make a comment about it or something.”

And here we are.

The drama coach at Fremont Junior High has chosen Oklahoma for that year’s musical, and in a short period of time those dedicated, fourteen year-old students who will compose the company have broken into factions which reflect the current moment in national theater: do we produce a problematic yet popular American musical featuring a diverse cast, which may serve to undermine the worser aspects of the work and provide visibility and advantage to BIPOC these performers OR create a new, so-called divised play reflecting Gen Z anxiety and concerns which may not actually be good and no one’s going to want to see but at least it’s not fucking Oklahoma?

This play is so funny, even Thomson’s stage directions are hilarious.

Who should I read tomorrow?

Play a Day: What Was Lost

Steven Carl McCasland

For Wednesday, I read What Was Lost by Steven Carl McCasland and posted at New Play Exchange.

I have put the dead white male playwrights on a shelf for a while (except for, you know, that one) but I still hold a certain regard for those frustrating American navel-gazers of the mid-twentieth century, Miller and Williams. Miller fancied himself a poet but he only ever wrote a weird kind of prose. It is Williams whose work truly sings with beautiful melody.

The one thing they most had in common was the chosen subject matter of all of their plays; themselves.

McCasland has created a creation myth, about the original production of The Glass Menagerie. But he does not center the playwright but the ageing star, Laurette Taylor, who originated the role of Amanda Wingfield. It is a story of recovery, poetic in its own fashion, as Taylor presents at AA meetings, her stories of personal struggle rival that of Tom, the narrator of the play she is starring in.

Williams plays his part as well, an alcoholic philosopher who inspired his mother figure into sobriety, for her own sake, but really for his, you know?

Who should I read tomorrow?

Play a Day: Alien Motel 29: The Secret Outtakes of the Ebony Lady Macbeth

Robert Alexander

For Tuesday, I read Alien Motel 29: The Secret Outtakes of the Ebony Lady Macbeth by Robert Alexander and posted at New Play Exchange.

Shakespeare liked a good gangster film. Macbeth? Brutus? Hamlet? Gangsters. Okay, not Hamlet. But conspiracy to commit murder to gain power or maintain the order. What are the terrorists but what the big army calls the little army?

Alexander’s script takes its inspiration from “the Scottish play” reinterpreting it as a cross-generational Afrofuturist fever dream, in which Top Dollar and Lady Lava aspire to dominance in a poetic fantasy replete with vengeful ghosts, mysterious strangers and sex robots.

It's a trip, it's got a funky beat, and I can bug out to it.

Who should I read tomorrow?

Play a Day: Clyt; or, the Bathtub Play

Elizabeth Giffin Speckman

For Monday, I read Clyt; or, the Bathtub Play by Elisabeth Giffin Speckman and posted at New Play Exchange.

“It wasn't until I gave birth that I started to think a lot about dying.” This line struck me particularly, because it is absolutely true. I never thought seriously of death or dying until my wife was first pregnant. Because he died, and she may well have. But then, after having subsequent, living children, it never stopped. To have a child is to put your heart into another living thing and watch it move about on its own. And one day, to move away.

My daughter leaves for college later this year. It’s beautiful. It’s worrying.

Speckman’s script tells the story of the period of the Trojan War from the point of view of Clytemnestra, sister to Helen, wife to Agamemmnon. Things do not go well for any of them. Except, I guess, Helen. She is often depicted as feckless and self-involved, she is a canvas for whatever the male writer thinks of women.

In this case she is the sibling who went away and had fun and attention while Clytemnestra remains at home, to do the things that mothers are expected to do. Care for the children, manage the relationships, and wait. Bath time is “me time” and she does seem to deserve a great deal of that.

The playwright playful anachronrizes the tale, it is then, but also now, with phones and media and humorous, contemporary turns of phrase. But it’s comic relief, which serves to make the tragedy, the drama bearable, not to send it up. The protagonist endures such grief, the absence of her husband, the murder of one child, the dismissive behavior of her other children.

She is left alone, and when the “great” Agamemmnon returns she does exact her revenge, but there is no joy in it. Why would there be?

I would imagine most productions would eschew the use of an actual bath. There’s the nudity thing, but that’s not what I’m talking about. It’s water. Water is the most villainous of stage elements. A water actor can develop a chill, the water can become contaminated. And then there is the danger of slipping, falling, twisting, breaking.

But in the right hands it is so magical.

Who should I read tomorrow?

Play a Day: The Two Kids That Blow Shit Up

Carla Ching

For Sunday, I read The Two Kids Who Blow Shit Up by Carla Ching and posted at New Play Exchange.

When I was younger, I held the belief that I would have one of those relationships which lasted my entire life, from childhood and on through to whenever. I held onto this belief for longer than was necessary, but when I look back it really wasn’t that long. Life really does seem to go on forever when you’re in the middle of it.

Still, I love those stories that span decades about people who are each other’s one, less than perfect soulmates, much more than friends.

Max and Diana were united when their parents began sleeping together, and over the next thirty years they manage their folks and themselves, two souls entwined in a need for trust, for having one person that they can entirely count on.

And that’s hard. To be the child of divorce, to have addictions, enter into unstable relationships. To clean up after each other’s messes, and those of their parents. It’s a very touching, soul-bearing work that jumps back and forth in time, from childhood to middle years, and all points in between, creating a tapestry of love and dependence. It’s worth it to have someone.

Who should I read tomorrow?

Play a Day: The Sugar Ridge Rag

Philip Middleton Williams

For Saturday, I read The Sugar Ridge Rag by Philip Middleton Williams and posted at New Play Exchange.

Those who most loudly proclaim the importance of American “freedom” are ironically the least independent people in our society. They listen to their leaders, and they blindly follow. In the past, that meant going to war wherever they were sent. Today it means not getting vaccinated.

Williams’ sweet family drama is about identical twins Dave and Pete in the early 1970s. One enlists in the army, to become a medic. The other heads to Canada, to go to school, but also to stay. He won’t go when drafted, not just because he’s gay, but becaue he doesn’t believe in it.

What is unique is this piece is that it is not a Vietnam era tragedy in which the father is a bellicose, authoritarian bigot or the mother a homophobic shrew. They are accepting, if not immediately, then easily. Their love of their children is more important than societal pressure or their own generational impulses.

No, the conflict is between the brothers and their separation. This play is a picture of how this war, which tore apart a nation, failed to tear apart one family, which is an uplifting tale to hear.

Who should I read tomorrow?

Play a Day: Last Ship to Proxima Centauri

Greg Lam

For Friday, I read Last Ship to Proxima Centauri by Greg Lam and posted at New Play Exchange.

So-called “cancel culture” is the phrase used by those who feel threatened by the idea of one being held accountable for one’s own actions. Tearing down a Confederate statue is not erasing history, it is no longer accepting the adulation of bad history. The history remains, but we will no longer allow it to be held up as an example of good behavior.

How will future generations judge us? Four, five mass shootings in the span of one week? And we remain indoors, we aren’t in the streets, we have not called for the resignation of every elected official for their refusal to act? What does that say about us? Are we not all responsible?

Lam’s play Last Ship to Proxima Centauri is fucking hilarious, and deeply troubling. And fucking hilarious. What if the Americans were the last to arrive at a planet already resettled by all those other survivors of our dying planet, none of whom are of European ancestry? Why on Earth (or Yeni Dünya, the “New World”) would they not be less than happy to see us?

“They all had guns. And they shot all the blacks all the time.” That is our history, as it is remembered. Any argument to the contrary begins, “Whatabout ?”

What keeps this play charging along are those gut punches Lam includes, without additional commentary, suggesting that the 100,000 Americans held in stasis for the 2,000 journey include some “very fine people” or when the one BIPOC American who is received during the ship’s crash landing defends the reputation of white Americans by stating that “most of my friends are white.”

It’s devastating, devastatingly funny, and now I need to write my Senators.

Who should I read tomorrow?

See also: Last Ship to Proxima Centauri (revisited)

Play a Day: Syd

Craig Houk

For Thursday, I read Syd by Craig Houk and posted at New Play Exchange.

On the evening of June 24, 1973, the Up Stairs Lounge on the edge of the French Quarter in New Orleans was intentionally set on fire. The fast-moving and intense blaze lasted for only twenty minutes, but in that time 32 people were killed. The Up Stairs Lounge was a popular hangout for the NOLA gay community, and until the Pulse shooting in 2016 was the single greatest tragedy targeting the gay community in American history.

“If God is love, then why is the world so filled with hate?”

This true history is the backdrop to the tale of two families, neighbors. The Larson family has a son named Roscoe who does not appear on stage. The Trahan’s daughter, Sydney (or Syd, of the title) is studying to be a nurse. Roscoe is a gay man, Sydney is a lesbian. They have both spent time at the Up Stairs Lounge.

How the parents either do or do not come to terms with who their children are is at the root of this tale. Living in a more accepting place and time, it is difficult to imagine the kind of murderous hatred people can feel, even toward their own children. Each parent self-defines as Christian, though each has a different idea of exactly what that means.

This is a devastating, often ugly, and ultimately hopeful expression of love, faith, family, and acceptance.

Who should I read tomorrow?

Play a Day: Frozen Fluid

Fly Jamerson

For Wednesday, I read Frozen Fluid (An Antarctic Gender Non-Conforming Creation Myth) by Fly Jamerson and posted at New Play Exchange.

“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.” - Rev 22:13

An Antarctic fever dream, stretching back to the beginning of recorded time to the present moment, from when humans were all genders in one being, before being split apart by the gods, or by God, or by nature. For original life on Earth was one gender, all life was all one.

All-One! Dilute! Dilute! OK! (If you get it, you get it.)

Three researchers (each who happen to identify as one of three genders) investigate the implications of global climate change, its effects on plankton and algae blooms, and the calamity of masses of dying whales. Exhibiting either dreams or madness, each get caught in spectacular considerations on identity, the importance of naming the animals, as Adam was said to have done, naming themselves, and naming each other.

What’s in a name? A name is a symbol that represents the individual. I changed my name when I turned eighteen, and I have never regretted that decision.

Who should I read tomorrow?

Play a Day: Misfit, America

Nelson Diaz-Marcano

For Monday, I read Misfit, America (An American Western With Color) by Nelson Diaz-Marcano and posted at New Play Exchange.

Let us speak of Replacement Theory. White Supremacy, now in its death throes, wails about their fear of being replaced. They fear their dominance has already passed (which is nonsense) and that they face an existential threat, one which is based on the idea that White is a “race” and that it may someday vanish.

So what if it did? That is a question for another time. I, for one, am not truly concerned that, for example, the works of Shakespeare will pass from this earth. There is room enough for all writing, and all people.

“We will not be replaced!” cried the Tiki Torch wielding dickheads at Charlottesville, four years ago. One of America’s most prominent white supremacists, Tucker Carlson, has been flouting the word “replacement” when discussing the advancement of voting rights for people of color. White votes are being “replaced” and “diluted”. He acknowledges and mocks the term “white replacement theory” even as he uses to promote voter suppression. We call that gaslighting.

In this play, Diaz-Marcano presents America in microcosm, a desert town called Slab City in which a reformed Nazi skinhead and his Afro-Carribean Latinx lover live on the outskirts of Western civilization, caring for their two-spirited Native and adopted child Támit. Striving to create a new future, the past returns for revenge and though there is great loss, the younger generation are able to escape and move into a New America, to be two of those the character named Roberta calls those “great people in between the stars and stripes.”

Who should I read tomorrow?

Play a Day: Robert Hawkes is a Vampire

David L. Munnell

For Sunday, I read Robert Hawkes is a Vampire by David L. Munnell and posted at New Play Exchange.

There are people in your life who, though you may have only known them a relatively short span, occupy such a grand picture in your imagination, embodying such a familiar type and yet entirely unique unto themselves, that it feels that not only have they always been with you, they have always been. Such a man is Robert Hawkes.

I call him Robert Hawkes. I think we all do. Can’t call him Hawkes, or Mister Hawkes, certainly not Robert or any of its diminutives, he is Robert Hawkes. English teacher, actor, playwright, lover, bonvivant, curmudgeon, that old guy you get to do the outdoor Shakespeare.

He played Lear to my Kent. We like to tweak each other on Facebook. He is one classy fuck.

It makes complete sense that David Munnell would choose to create a play with Robert Hawkes as the central character, because someone had to. And he has created a remarkable simulacrum of the old man, one who enjoys words, the company of women, and a microwave dinner.

It would not surprise me at all to discover he is actually a vampire, though it does make me shudder to think of all the driving back and forth to Lakewood we did.

Robert Hawkes
(Vampire)

The point being, it makes perfect sense that Munnell would make Robert Hawkes into the character at the center of this play because we all have a Robert Hawkes. Some of us have two. This could also be my wife’s grandfather. You don’t have to know Robert Hawkes for this to work, because you someone who is. Inquiries could include a request to change the name to the guy like that in your town. 

Some day, I will be Robert Hawkes. I lie awake at night, wondering if I already am.

The night in question, a trio of women (Fates? Weird Sisters? Wives of Dracula?) visit Robert Hawkes in his home in search of ancient and forbidden knowledge, the Vampyr Prognostica. And they have a dance of language, which is the best kind of dance, and you are led to wonder if he is, in fact, a vampire, or just some guy who has read a lot of books.

I mean, it’s right there in the title. But you still wonder.

This is a gothic mystery with a great deal of wry and witty wordplay, and also a copiously horrific amount of blood which is also delightful.

Who should I read tomorrow?

Play a Day: Bill Clinton Hercules

Rachel Mariner

For Saturday, I read Bill Clinton Hercules by Rachel Mariner and posted at New Play Exchange.

It was not my intention to read a play about Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton this go-round, but these things happen. What I found surprising about the work is that it was written before the 2016 election. It is a monologue of the 42nd President giving a speech to a public audience. These are not meant to be private thoughts, these are the thoughts that he is choosing to share.

And overshare. Clinton was one for oversharing, at least as far as Presidents go.

Three years ago, the Slate podcast Slow Burn revisited the Clinton-Lewinsky Scandal. It was revelatory, it was eye-opening. It was shame inducing. Shame because yes, we defended him. Yes, we said his personal life was none of our business. Yes, because it was a Republican staged sham and entirely unfair.

Because this play is told from his perspective, he cleverly acknowledges the scandal, and more than cleverly he dismisses it. He has always missed his momma. And Monica was a flirt. And he was the most powerful man on earth.

"Bill Clinton"
Pristina, Kosovo

That is the true narrative of this piece, which is beautifully and believably written. The comparison between himself and Hercules, the demigod who returns to earth to instruct and lament man’s inability to abandon hate and mistrust for peace. Here the master orator, code-switching as necessary, between Bubba and William Jefferson Clinton, espousing his love of Arkansas watermelon at one moment, and Nelson Mandela the next.

Did you know there is a statue of Bill Clinton in Pristina, Kosovo? Now you do and so do I.

This Bill Clinton comes to lament the decisions he’s made, but only insofar as it relates to a greater peace, and domestic surveillance. He says nothing of damaging the social safety net, encouraging the prison-industrial complex, or again, what he refers to as “his love life.”

His love for his wife appears genuine, and he truly believes she will be elected in November 2016. But then, we all did.

Who should I read tomorrow?

Play a Day: Father/Daughter

Kait Kerrigan

For Friday, I read Father/Daughter by Kait Kerrigan and posted at New Play Exchange.

I love this, because it is about a Gen X/Millennial father/daughter relationship told in two different time periods when each is roughly thirty years old, watching each first navigate a romantic relationship from its inception, and then their relationship as parent and child.

Because it manages love and disappointment and hope and the desire to be desired. And because it delves into what is ugly and awkward and so so deeply upsetting without flinching. Because it’s brutal in its honesty. Because I feel like I could be any of these people. I feel like I am all of them.

Also, seriously; two actors play these two couples, and the older couple is SO late-90s Gen X and the other is SO right-now Millennial, it kills me. I would love the opportunity to see two actors play these four characters.

I am a father who has a daughter and I think this is a beautiful description of that uniquely indescribable relationship.

Who should I read tomorrow?

Play a Day: Johanna: Facing Forward

Tlaloc Riveras

For Thursday, I read Johanna: Facing Forward by Tlaloc Rivas and posted at New Play Exchange.

This play is a work of nonfiction, adapted from personal writing by Johanna Orozco and also the journalism of Rachel Dissell. The play premiered at Cleveland Public Theatre/Teatro Público de Cleveland in 2015, and is the true story of a young woman who was shot in the face by her boyfriend and how she survived.

It’s not just about that. It’s about domestic abuse, and about the failure of our protective services. It is also about the fourth estate, and how journalism has been compromised by the corporations who have acquired our media outlets and have compromised them to serve profit.

Cleveland Public Theatre, 2015

And it’s about women. How they are hurt, and once hurt how our systems are more successful at protecting the men who have harmed them.

The subject matter is compelling enough, but it is well-served by the playwright. Rivas structured a fact-based script which is gripping, moving, poetic and frank.

As a personal note; I don't know any of the players involved in this tragedy. But I do know the high school. Located on Cleveland's near west side, Lincoln-West is a city school, and before COVID we would bring the residency program there once or twice a year, to teach Shakespeare, and The Crucible. It's a great school, and I engaged with brilliant, young students there, taught by strong, dedicated teachers. Devastating events like these can truly happen anywhere.

Who should I read tomorrow?

Source (warning, graphic images): A look back at Johanna Orozco: Facing Forward, by Rachel Dissell, The Plain Dealer (5/19/2015)

Play a Day: Antigone, Presented by the Girls of St. Catherine's

Madhiru Shekar

This week, New Play Exchange posted a list of plays curated by Audrey Lang, "Scripts About Teenage Girls." Today's play has been selected from that list.

For Wednesday, I read Antigone, Presented by the Girls of St. Catherine's by Madhuri Shekar and posted at New Play Exchange.

There are many reasons to set your play in the past. One of the most important reasons is that before today there weren’t cellphones. There are stories that can no longer be told, or told in the same way, with cellphones in the picture. There was a time when we could not access all human information in a moment, or to be able to reach someone, to know where they are.

Maybe today doesn’t suck as much as we imagine.

Do you know what it feels like to be a teenager, and having to lie on behalf of a friend because they were seeing someone they shouldn’t be? Someone older? Maybe a teacher? I know what that feels like. It happened. It has always happened. It will always happen, cellphones or no.

Shekar’s play, set in the not-too-distant past, centers on a production of Antigone at an all-girls’ school. The transformative power of theater is a popular trope, especially, you know, among theater people. In this tale we have a charming male drama coach, new to the school, one who inspires his young charges, and helps them to break through their personal issues to be more their true selves. He also fucks one of them.

Themes of pride, confidence, and the indefatigable power of women, all present in Antigone, are also reflected in this play, as the girls band together to protect one of their own.

Who should I read tomorrow?

Play a Day: The Crown Forum

Craig Ester

For Tuesday, I read The Crown Forum by Craig Ester and posted at New Play Exchange.

“Everybody’s so worried about being ashamed that they don’t get better.” Facts.

Ester pens a familiar yet fresh family drama, the young PK saddled with the weight of his father’s legacy and haunted by his own lack of faith. Often in these narratives, doing the right thing takes precedent over being true to yourself. In this case, however, Ester’s characters possess a true and honest affection, and a refreshing impatience with bullshit. The reconciliation provides satisfaction, and the world moves forward.

“You can’t tell somebody you love them and then disappear when that love requires action.”

Who should I read tomorrow?

Play a Day: La Sirena

Eteya Trinidad

For Monday, I read La Sirena by Eteya Trinidad and posted at New Play Exchange.

I heard a joke recently. Three sirens sit together on a rock, singing. Some sailors sail past and say, “Hey, let’s have sex with them,” and jump in the ocean and die. The sirens don’t notice because, really. They’re just three women, minding their own business, singing together.

That’s it. That’s the joke. Get it?

Trinidad’s play revolves around the close friendship of Thelxi and Chim, and the diner where they work. The place is lorded over by two white men, the owner, Tanner, and the busboy/waiter Wyatt. It is also about art, and sexual assault, about workplace harrassment, and the uses of a sincere apology.

Who should I read tomorrow?

Play a Day: Hey Siri

Dr. Mary E. Weems

For Sunday, I read Hey Siri by Mary Weems and posted at New Play Exchange.

We live in the future. Science fiction has long consisted of machines that we could speak to, like they were other people. B-movie robots, for example. HAL was a computer, whose disembodied voice was created to be calming to the listener.

And now many of us have phones that are also disembodied voices that have been programmed to respond as though they are other people. Alexa. Siri. Those are the two we all know by name, I guess.

Dr. Mary Weems is a poet and an author and a professor and another one of Cleveland’s great writers. This piece was composed a few years ago, and it is an unintentional COVID play, the story of three individuals, closed off from the world, who each have a close relationship with the iPhone. They are each lost souls, an Iraq War vet, the adult child of a heroin addict, and a woman with a strong attachment to dolls.

It is also about Siri herself, as an actor, visible, on stage, plays this artificial intelligence. She acts as therapist to each of them, sometimes a dispassionate provider of information - which can be taken as advice - other times an apparent mind-reader, able to console the human to whom she is speaking.

The question is, are these troubled individuals using Siri for guidance? Or are they healing themselves? The need for connection runs strong throughout, some are able to move beyond their lonely confines, for others it is too late.

Who should I read tomorrow?

Play a Day: I Wanna Fuck Like Romeo and Juliet

Andrew Rincón

For Saturday, I read I Wanna Fuck Like Romeo and Juliet by Andrew Rincón and posted at New Play Exchange.

Come on, girls -- do you believe in love? Because Andrew Rincón has got something to say about it, and it goes something like this. A poet (the stage directions) tells a story of love between two (or three) shepherded by a god of love and a Catholic saint.

It’s a story of the ending of relationships, and also the beginnings, from Heaven to Hackensack. And even if Kanye and Kim have broken up since this script was written (sorry, Valentine) it remains a touching, hopeful and hilarious examination of love and why it matters. 

Who should I read tomorrow?