by Lynn Nottage
SCENE 7
October 15, 2008
Outside it’s 77°F.
In the news: Baghdad and Washington have reached a final agreement on a pact requiring U.S. forces to withdraw from Iraq by 2012. U.S. stocks plunge 733 points, the second biggest point loss in history. John McCain and Barack Obama hold their final televised debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. Federal prosecutors convict a multimillion-dollar drug ring that converted several Reading houses into indoor marijuana farms.
Evan stands over Chris, who is finishing describing his encounter with Jason.
EVAN: It’s not a big place. You two were bound to run into each other sooner or later. I don’t want this to be a problem.
CHRIS: I’d spent so much time being angry at Jason, but standing there I don’t even know what I was feeling.
EVAN: That’s okay. These things ain’t simple. I had a ’banger who was up in here, hard as stone. He got out, made amends, crossed so many bridges he was practically walking on water. He found forgiveness to be the easier of his two paths.
CHRIS: Dunno about all of that. Shit, I remember when I sat down at the bar I knew I didn’t want the same flat-ass beer that Stan always poured. I knew I was gonna drive down to Philly that evening and hit a club with some friends. And the next day, I had planned to go over to Albright. I was feeling free, like for the first time I had an option other than jacking and a hangover. And I coulda walked away, and today I’d // be—
EVAN: Don’t.
CHRIS: I hate the way people be looking at me now. I feel like they can see what I done. I pray on it. I ask for forgiveness. But every morning I wake up with the same panic. All I see is a closed door, and when I finally get the courage to open it, it leads to yet another closed door.
(Evan shifts. He is now talking to Jason.)
EVAN: Maybe you two need to sit down and talk?
JASON: … Yeah. I hear you. Been thinking.
(Jason smiles.)
EVAN: That’s new. Look, I know what you’re avoiding, and man, I don’t blame you, but—
JASON: I ain’t thought about that day in the bar in a long time. Now I can’t get away from it. Every place I walk in this city reminds me of that day, it’s like the whole city was in that bar and got turned upside down in the same way I did.
EVAN: Got a call that you were fighting at the shelter. That true? Where are you sleeping these days?
JASON: My mom’s place was too depressing, and a friend of mine gave me a tent and sleeping bag, so I’ve been camping in the woods with a couple of other guys. It’s easy.
EVAN: I’m gonna need an address.
JASON: It don’t cost me nothing. It’s easier than playing musical beds at the shelter. Nobody calls me out.
EVAN: It’s gonna get cold soon.
JASON: Well, I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. Ever since I ran into Chris I haven’t been able to focus. I’m trying to figure it out, you know? What happened. I just remember the fury. The blind fury. And I ain’t been able to shake it. It’s like a wool jacket that I wear all of the fucking time. Someone looks at me wrong, I wanna bash them in the face, and I don’t know why.
EVAN: Man, you’re not gonna like what I have to say. But I’m just gonna say it. Shame.
JASON: What?
EVAN: I’ve seen enough guys in your situation to know that over time it’s … it’s crippling. I’m not a therapist, I’m not the right dude to talk to about all of this. But what I do know, is that it’s not a productive emotion. Most folks think it’s the guilt or rage that destroys us in the end, but I know from experience that it’s shame that eats us away until we disappear. You put in your time. But look here, we been talking, and we can keep talking—but whatcha gonna do about where you’re at right now? You hear me?
(Light shift. We’re back with Chris.)
JASON: Yeah.
CHRIS: Yeah, I hear you.
SCENE 8
October 18, 2008
Outside it’s 58°F.
In the news: Thousands of Latin American immigrants are returning home as U.S. jobs dry up in the construction, landscaping and restaurant industries. Pennsylvania’s Republican Party sues the community activist group ACORN, accusing the group of fostering voter registration fraud. The Philadelphia Phillies prepare to face off against the Tampa Bay Rays in the 2008 Major League Baseball World Series.
Bar. It has been refurbished, polished. Oscar, older and more mature, stands behind the bar. Chris enters and reluctantly sits at a table. A moment. Oscar contemplates whether to speak.
OSCAR: You want me to turn on the game?
CHRIS: Nah. You awright?
OSCAR: Yeah. I heard you guys got out.
(A moment.)
CHRIS: Oscar, I—
OSCAR: Didn’t know you knew my name.
CHRIS: I—
OSCAR: Whatchu drinking?
CHRIS: … Whatcha got on tap?
OSCAR: It’s this artisanal stuff. A guy, local, makes it.
CHRIS: You’re joking.
OSCAR: Nah. It’s good.
CHRIS: Um, okay.
(Oscar pours a beer.)
The place looks nice.
OSCAR: New crowd. We get a lot of college kids since the plant closed. I been trying to keep it up, you know—
CHRIS: Yeah. How’s, um, Howard?
OSCAR: Retired. Moved to Phoenix. I’m the manager.
CHRIS: Really?
OSCAR: Yeah. Bartend on weekends.
CHRIS: That’s real cool.
OSCAR: Thanks.
CHRIS: I …
OSCAR: Look. Whatever you gotta say—
CHRIS: Listen—
(Jason enters. Oscar’s surprised, and grows a little on edge.)
OSCAR: Whoa, what’s going on here?
(Jason stops short, panic, then turns to leave.)
CHRIS: Jason!
OSCAR: I don’t want—
JASON: Yo, I can’t do—
CHRIS: Don’t walk outta here. I didn’t think you’d come. We have—
(A moment. Jason contemplates whether or not to leave. Then Stan, severely crippled, enters. A traumatic brain injury. He moves with extreme difficulty; it is painful to watch. Finally:)
Hey Stan. Stan.
(Stan doesn’t register their presence.)
OSCAR: He can’t really hear good.
CHRIS: Jesus.
(Stan goes about wiping tables. They all watch. Stan drops his cloth. He struggles to get it. Jason runs over and picks it up.)
STAN (Garbled): Thank … you.
JASON: It’s nice that you take care of him.
OSCAR: That’s how it oughta be.
(There’s apology in their eyes, but Chris and Jason are unable to conjure words just yet. The four men, uneasy in their bodies, await the next moment in a fractured togetherness.
Blackout.)
END OF PLAY
LYNN NOTTAGE has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice (for Sweat and Ruined), the first woman ever to do so. Her plays have been produced in the U.S. and throughout the world. Sweat (Pulitzer Prize, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize) moved to Broadway after a sold-out run at The Public Theater in New York City. It premiered and was commissioned by Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s American Revolutions History Cycle/Arena Stage. By the Way, Meet Vera Stark received the Lilly Award, and a Drama Desk nomination. Ruined received the Pulitzer Prize, an Obie Award, a Lucille Lortel Award, the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, an AUDELCO Award, a Drama Desk Award, and an Outer Critics Circle Award. Intimate Apparel received the American Theatre Critics and New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards for Best Play. Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine received an Obie Award. Her other plays include Crumbs from the Table of Joy; Las Meninas; Mud, River, Stone; Por’knockers; and POOF. She is working with the composer Ricky Ian Gordon on the adaptation of Intimate Apparel into an opera (commissioned by The Metropolitan Opera and Lincoln Center Theater). She is also developing This Is
Reading, a performance installation set to open at the Reading Railroad Station in Reading, Pennsylvania, in the summer of 2017.
She is the co-founder of the production company Market Road Films. Recent projects include The Notorious Mr. Bout, directed by Tony Gerber and Maxim Pozdorovkin (Premiere/Sundance 2014); First to Fall, directed by Rachel Beth Anderson and Timothy Grucza (Premiere/IDFA).
She has developed original projects for HBO, Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, Showtime, This Is That, and Harpo. She is a writer/producer on the Netflix series She’s Gotta Have It, directed by Spike Lee.
Nottage is the recipient of a PEN/Laura Pels Master American Dramatist Award; an Award of Merit Medal and a Literature Award from The Academy of Arts and Letters; a Provost Grant; a Doris Duke Artist Award; The Joyce Foundation Commission Project and Grant; the Madge Evans and Sidney Kingsley Award; a MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship; a Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award; a Nelson A. Rockefeller Award for Creativity; The Dramatists Guild Hull-Warriner Award; the inaugural Horton Foote Prize; the Helen Hayes Award; the Lee Reynolds Award; and the Jewish World Watch I Witness Award. Her other honors include the National Black Theatre Fest’s August Wilson Playwriting Award, a Guggenheim Grant, the Lucille Lortel Fellowship, and a Visiting Research Fellowship at Princeton University.
She is a graduate of Brown University and the Yale School of Drama. She is also an associate professor in the Theatre Department at the Columbia School of the Arts. She is member of The Dramatists Guild and WGAE.
Theatre Communications Group would like to offer our special thanks to Paula Marie Black for her generous support of the publication of Sweat by Lynn Nottage
PAULA MARIE BLACK is a Drama Desk, Drama League, Tony Award, Olivier Award, and Helpmann Award–winning producer dedicating her efforts in theatre to women directors, playwrights, and all people who have not had a voice.
Women’s Voices in the Art of Theatre is an endowment that Paula established in perpetuity at La Jolla Playhouse, benefitting women as directors, playwrights, and book writers of musicals.
TCG books sponsored by Paula include:
Annie Baker, John
Amy Herzog, The Great God Pan and Belleville
Lynn Nottage, Sweat
Suzan-Lori Parks, The Book of Grace
Paula Vogel, Indecent
THEATRE COMMUNICATIONS GROUP (TCG), the national organization for the American theatre, promotes the idea of “A Better World for Theatre, and a Better World Because of Theatre.” In addition to TCG’s numerous services to the theatre field, TCG Books is the nation’s largest independent publisher of dramatic literature, with 15 Pulitzer Prizes for Best Play on its book list. The book program commits to the life-long career of its playwrights, keeping all of their plays in print. TCG Books’ other authors include: Nilo Cruz, Quiara Alegría Hudes, David Henry Hwang, Tony Kushner, Donald Margulies, Sarah Ruhl, Stephen Sondheim, Anne Washburn, and August Wilson, among many others.
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