Black is the New White

by Nakkiah Lui

  FRANCIS He thinks Bill did or didn’t?

  CHARLOTTE Thinks he didn’t. Thinks that he was set up by “The System.” But when I ask him why “The System” would want to bring down a powerful, rich, White man, he can never give me an answer.

  FRANCIS Regardless, that doesn’t mean that he didn’t … receive anything /

  CHARLOTTE / Just say it, Francis. Get head. Yes, you’re right. But by this time, Dad has usually had another few wines and it’s time to get a cheeseboard and then watch The Shawshank Redemption for the one millionth time.

  FRANCIS So your Dad likes The Shawshank Redemption, Forrest Gump, Braveheart, The Godfather, Wanted /

  CHARLOTTE / Not Wanted, Taken. Or really anything with Liam Neeson. But in particular Taken.

  FRANCIS The one about the guy who saves his daughter from the sex trade?

  CHARLOTTE Yep. I think he secretly wishes my sister and I would get into some situation he could rescue us from.

  FRANCIS So, The Shawshank Redemption, Forrest Gump, Braveheart, The Godfather and Taken. For a Black man your dad sure has White taste in movies.

  CHARLOTTE He’s got White taste in a lot of things.

  FRANCIS Like exquisitely designed holiday homes?

  CHARLOTTE’S phone rings. She ignores it.

  FRANCIS Who are you ignoring?

  CHARLOTTE Pennelope, the producer who wants me to host that new current affairs show.

  FRANCIS Just tell her you’re moving to New York. Just say: “Sorry, I am moving to New York with my debonair and dashing White fiancé to follow our dreams and I have no time for your pithy TV show.”

  CHARLOTTE Tell her just like that?

  FRANCIS Just like that.

  CHARLOTTE’S phone beeps. She plays a voicemail.

  PRODUCER Charlotte, darling. It’s Pennelope. From The Studio. I don’t mean to be stalking you but – OKAY – You got me – I AM stalking you. Everyone is so keen to have you on and we’d be wanting to announce after New Year. Make a real landmark thing. Because that’s what it is – a landmark thing. Not to put on the pressure – but please tell me how else I can put the pressure on. Love you, love your work, get back to me. Oh, also we absolutely loved the video of your father. It’s the Martin Luther King moment for Australia.

  CHARLOTTE Ugh. My father is not the Martin Luther King of Australia. He is so far from Martin Luther King. If only people knew.

  Martin Luther King had a dream and my father is a total nightmare.

  Maybe I won’t do anything. I won’t do the show, I’ll quit law. I’ll even turn down the scholarship in New York.

  FRANCIS And what are you going to do instead of having adventures with me in New York, sweet poppet?

  CHARLOTTE Sweet poppet? That’s a new one.

  FRANCIS Thought I’d try it. Like it?

  CHARLOTTE Not really. Maybe I’ll stay in Sydney and work at that artisanal bread shop.

  FRANCIS “Artisanal bread shop” is the worst phrase I’ve ever heard any human being say.

  CHARLOTTE But imagine not having to bring your work home with you.

  FRANCIS I think you’re being a bit classist and romanticising the poor and the working class.

  CHARLOTTE Okay, I am not being classist or romanticising the poor or the working class.

  FRANCIS You’re not?

  CHARLOTTE Okay, well, first of all, aren’t you being classist assuming it’s only poor or working-class people who work in shops? Maybe there are rich people working in shops? Also, as a Black woman /

  FRANCIS / Here we go.

  CHARLOTTE As a Black woman, a White man, such as yourself, should not be discrediting the place of privilege from which you make your judgement, Francis. Which, may I point out, is the Whitest name possible, Francis.

  FRANCIS Well, look, it’s not my fault that my name is Francis. It’s not my fault I was born White /

  CHARLOTTE / Here we go again.

  FRANCIS More wine?

  FRANCIS kisses CHARLOTTE to shut her up.

  CHARLOTTE Did you kiss me to shut me up?

  FRANCIS Yes. See, us White people have all the solutions. Just think, soon it will just be me and you in /

  CHARLOTTE / In New York.

  FRANCIS In New York.

  They kiss again.

  FRANCIS What if you did quit? You’d quit and do what?

  CHARLOTTE I don’t know. Not think. Do some painting. Make babies. Little bi-racial babies.

  FRANCIS Ambitious.

  CHARLOTTE It is. One could argue I’m changing the world by eradicating racism through procreation.

  FRANCIS By staying at home and making lots of babies?

  CHARLOTTE Yes.

  FRANCIS So freeloading?

  CHARLOTTE Precisely.

  FRANCIS I’m pretty sure we can only have one of those in this relationship.

  CHARLOTTE You’re not a freeloader.

  FRANCIS Yes, I am.

  CHARLOTTE Do you really think that?

  FRANCIS Well, it’s not so much a thought as a fact. I’m a detriment.

  CHARLOTTE Have you been speaking to your father again?

  FRANCIS No.

  CHARLOTTE Don’t lie.

  FRANCIS Look, it’s not as if he’s wrong.

  CHARLOTTE He’s wrong. You are not a detriment.

  FRANCIS That is not what you usually say about my race.

  CHARLOTTE Okay, yes, you may be White, and from the people who stole my family’s land and tried to kill us. Yes! You may be all of those things but you are not / a

  FRANCIS My father hates me and your father will most likely hate me because I can’t look after his little girl. And I’m a gubbo.

  CHARLOTTE It’s gubba.

  FRANCIS Charlotte, how much is the perfume I’m meant to be giving your mother?

  CHARLOTTE Don’t worry about it.

  FRANCIS How much is don’t worry about it?

  CHARLOTTE Seriously, Francis.

  FRANCIS How much is it, Charlotte?

  CHARLOTTE Really, Francis, come on … this is so gauche …

  FRANCIS I don’t know if you’re using that ironically or not.

  CHARLOTTE Stop making me sound like this person. This … uppity … weird about money person.

  FRANCIS Well, tell me how much it is.

  CHARLOTTE $450.

  FRANCIS $450! Charlotte, that’s more than my weekly allowance! Your parents will think that I can afford that type of thing. That type of lifestyle. And that would be a lie.

  CHARLOTTE I don’t care what they think about you. Well, I care what they think about you. But I mean, I don’t care how they value your finances. I just wanted to give Mum something she liked. And … she is going to like you … but … Look, I wanted to get her on side because when my father …

  When my father finds out about the engagement … Well … he might make it hard … Please don’t be mad.

  FRANCIS Charlotte, just as long as you realise that I’m poor.

  CHARLOTTE Oh, I totally realise that.

  FRANCIS I’m very poor. This poor artist act isn’t an act.

  CHARLOTTE Well, at least till your parents die.

  FRANCIS They’ll most likely cut me out of the will.

  CHARLOTTE Francis, I was joking. They’re rich, White people. They’ll probably never die.

  FRANCIS God, Charlotte, don’t tempt fate.

  CHARLOTTE None of that matters to me. Your family. Your money. Your weird feet.

  FRANCIS Look, don’t speak to me from your place of normal foot privilege—

  CHARLOTTE You matter to me. This man. This man here in front of me. Under these useless rags you call clothes.

  CHARLOTTE starts undressing FRANCIS.

  CHARLOTTE Under this useless shirt. Under these useless, useless pants. Under these especially useless underpants. The original tool of White oppression. Underpants. Under all this is the man I love. Just a man.

  FRANCIS I love you too.

  CHARLOTTE My darling, to me, yo
u are the silver lining of colonisation.

  They start to get it on.

  SCENE 2

  Lounge room. JOAN and RAY enter. JOAN struggling to hold numerous presents and bags. RAY tapping away at his phone. JOAN drops everything.

  JOAN Ray! Get off your phone!

  RAY Wait there … Get this – old mate sack-a-whack Dennison Smith just tweeted that rocket is better than iceberg. What a tosser! Just when you think the man can’t be any more of an idiot, turns out he’s even stupid when it comes to lettuce.

  JOAN Get off your bloody phone and help with the bags.

  RAY Alright, alright. But first, what should I say to him? “Lettuce pray for tossers like you.” Hmm. No good. Joan, what should I reply? Joan?

  JOAN You know, I hadn’t wanted a cigarette for a good twenty years until you joined Twitter. Now I want one every day.

  RAY What’s a good reply? Joan, what should I say?

  JOAN Tell him that “Iceberg brought the Titanic down” or something. I really don’t care.

  RAY Yes, that’s it! Brilliant. “Iceberg brought the Titanic down. Who is king of the lettuce now? NOT rocket. Sucker.”

  JOAN Give that here. Now go get the rest of the bags.

  RAY leaves and brings in more bags. JOAN starts unpacking presents.

  NARRATOR

  Joan met Ray at a Deaths in Custody March in 1980 in Redfern, Sydney. It was love at first sight. She had just returned from working on Thursday Island as a remote area nurse. She loved it there: the soft harshness of isolated island life, the sea water and the sun.

  She was from the heart of the bush and grew up in a tent by the river. But by the sea she felt at home. And up on the islands, as a RAN, she had a lot of responsibility. She helped people. People trusted her. And she trusted them.

  Joan had many lovers before meeting Ray. He doesn’t know that. Before deciding to leave Torres Strait, she was almost going to marry a young Swedish doctor. He had the bluest eyes she had ever seen and sometimes he even modelled.

  Joan thought about him often. Like she is now. Not wondering what could have been but just of his blue eyes and what a fine shade of blue they were.

  RAY drags the last of the bags in.

  JOAN The sky always looks so blue out here, doesn’t it?

  RAY Did we bring my golf clubs? Did – what’s her name – the little Asian lady – your mate – did she pack my clubs?

  JOAN Her name’s Beth, Ray. And no, you have a new set here. The ones I got you last Christmas.

  RAY But that doesn’t have my lucky club.

  JOAN You have a lucky club?

  RAY Yes, I do. It’s the driver I used to hit the eagle.

  JOAN I don’t know what any of that means / but

  RAY / It’s a type of / club

  JOAN / You’ll be fine, Ray.

  RAY Well, I suppose I’ll have to be. You know, you could have asked if I wanted to bring my clubs.

  JOAN And you could have packed your own bags.

  RAY When was the gardener last here? Looks like the lawn hasn’t been done in a while.

  JOAN His mother has been ill, so he went home to spend Christmas with her.

  RAY Well, I guess I’ll have to mow the place myself now.

  JOAN It’ll be good for / you

  RAY / He just tweeted! Dennison. He said: “They don’t call it rocket science for nothing.” But he didn’t tweet it at me. But I know it’s about me. It’s totally about me. Didn’t even have the balls to tweet it to my face! That piece of /

  JOAN / Ray. Stop it. It’s just lettuce.

  RAY It’s not just lettuce. It’s that he’s wrong.

  JOAN Says who?

  RAY Says the world. It’s just the way it is. It’s the natural order of things. It’s truth, and you can’t run around saying that something true isn’t true.

  JOAN Who cares?

  RAY I care, Joan, I care. If we can’t stand for the truth of the simple things in life then what can we stand for?

  JOAN I want a cigarette.

  RAY You know, Joan, if you were to start I wouldn’t mind. I always thought you were very sexy when you smoked.

  JOAN Did you now?

  RAY Yes.

  JOAN When I used to huff on a cigarette like this?

  RAY Yes.

  JOAN And how about like this?

  RAY Yes.

  JOAN And like this?

  JOAN starts coughing ferociously.

  RAY No – definitely not. Wait – Joan, are you okay? Joan. Joan!

  JOAN That’s lung cancer, Ray. And you better find that sexy because that’s what I’m going to get if you push me to start smoking because you won’t get off that stupid phone.

  RAY Hey, look, the channel is repeating my speech tonight!

  JOAN I said no phones!

  RAY I’m only looking at my phone because this is important! They’re showing my speech and interview again tonight.

  JOAN Okay.

  RAY Back by popular demand!

  JOAN That’s very nice, Ray.

  RAY We should watch it again.

  JOAN We’ve watched it quite a lot …

  RAY But I mean, we should watch it with the girls.

  JOAN But the girls saw it when it went to air.

  RAY But we haven’t watched it together as a family yet. Not yet. And we should watch it as a family.

  JOAN Ray, we’ve got Charlotte’s new boyfriend and his parents coming as well. I don’t / think

  RAY / It’ll be a way to introduce them to the family.

  JOAN Ray, there’s probably better ways to introduce them to the family.

  RAY Like what?

  JOAN Like, I don’t know … Like talking to them. Over dinner. Sharing stories. Getting to know each other’s values. You know, just, regular things people do when meeting each other for the first time.

  RAY Well, that’s what my speech does. I talk about our family values, do I not?

  JOAN Ray, your speech was about the current state of racial politics in Australia.

  RAY Exactly. Family values.

  JOAN Ray, don’t you think it’s a little intense to talk about these things straight away?

  RAY You’ve never thought so before.

  JOAN Charlotte is bringing someone for Christmas. The first man she has brought home in years.

  RAY It’s bound to come up.

  JOAN Then let it come up naturally. But politics, race, all that. To the side, okay? It’s Christmas!

  RAY Okay.

  JOAN You promise?

  RAY Yes, Joan.

  JOAN You know, I like it when you’re agreeable. It’s very sexy.

  RAY Do you like it when I’m agreeable like this?

  RAY pulls an agreeable pose.

  JOAN Mmm … yes.

  RAY Or how about like this?

  RAY pulls a very agreeable pose. They start kissing. They start to undress each other while the narrator speaks. JOAN takes more control, until RAY is pretty close to nude.

  NARRATOR

  Francis met Charlotte three months ago on a night when he was particularly poor and particularly cold in London.

  He is no longer cold. Or in London. But he is still very poor. Something that was never an issue for him, until he fell in love with Charlotte.

  You see, Francis is an experimental classical composer, which in our day and age there is not too much demand for. It is an antiquated profession. Much like ballet shoe makers, butter churners and playwrights.

  (And we’ll pause that there. Hey! Hey! Focus. I’m watching you!)

  His father urged him to go into something more relevant. By “relevant” he meant a profession that actually made money. “There is no money in experimental classical composing, Francis,” his father told him. Francis rebelled and left for Europe.

  He last saw his parents over post-show steak frites at the Ivy in London. Later that evening he saw his mother on Tinder. He swiped left, of course. Though, one does wonder, what preferences Francis had
set on his Tinder that made his mother Marie come up at all.

  Anyways (or “resume”).

  Now, the fact that there is not much money to be made in the world of modern experimental classical composition is something Francis thinks about often.

  In fact, he thinks about this right now, as he ventures out nude to get a snack.

  FRANCIS ventures out nude to get a snack. He sees RAY (semi-nude) and JOAN kissing and screams. JOAN spots him and screams. FRANCIS screams more. RAY screams. It’s a festival of hands covering penises and yelling.

  RAY WHO ARE YOU?

  FRANCIS grabs a pillow to cover up his bits.

  FRANCIS I am so sorry! Oh, God! I should have put on pants. I knew I should have put pants on. I just had this feeling, you / know—

  RAY / WHO ARE YOU?

  CHARLOTTE comes wandering in wearing a silk dressing robe.

  CHARLOTTE Francis – can you make me one of those goat cheese things – Oh, God. Mum. Dad. Why are you – oh no – oh, gross.

  JOAN Charlotte! My darling girl! Come here!

  JOAN scoops CHARLOTTE into a hug while she looks on, mortified.

  CHARLOTTE Please tell me I didn’t interrupt anything. Please tell me that. I beg you. Please.

  RAY We tell you?! How about you tell us! Under my roof / in my—

  JOAN / Oh, Ray, shut up, she’s a grown woman. Charlotte! I should have realised you would arrive before us!

  RAY Who is this … naked White boy?!

  CHARLOTTE Dad, this is Francis. My partner, Francis.

  FRANCIS holds out one hand

  RAY Partner? You mean boyfriend.

  RAY doesn’t shake his hand, so JOAN does.

  CHARLOTTE I mean partner, Dad.

  JOAN I would hug you, but let’s save that for when you have some clothes on. Ray, shake his hand.

  RAY I’m not shaking a naked White boy’s hand. It’s not right.

  JOAN Shake it.

  FRANCIS Look, it’s fine. Thank you, but it’s fine.

  RAY It’s not fine. It’s disrespectful. How dare he be nude … and White … under my / roof.

  JOAN Raymond! Shake his fucking hand.

  RAY gives in and shakes FRANCIS’s hand.

  FRANCIS I promise I’ll try and keep the nudity limited to showers. Unless you don’t want me to shower nude. It’s up to you. How I shower. Or not.