We're Gonna Die

by Young Jean Lee

  WE’RE GONNA DIE

  OTHER BOOKS BY YOUNG JEAN LEE PUBLISHED BY TCG

  The Shipment and Lear

  Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven and Other Plays

  ALSO INCLUDES:

  Church

  Pullman, WA

  The Appeal

  Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals

  Yaggoo

  We’re Gonna Die is copyright © 2015 by Young Jean Lee

  We’re Gonna Die is published by Theatre Communications Group, Inc.,

  520 Eighth Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10018-4156

  All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio or television reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that this material, being fully protected under the Copyright Laws of the United States of America and all other countries of the Berne and Universal Copyright Conventions, is subject to a royalty.

  All rights, including but not limited to, professional, amateur, recording, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio and television broadcasting, and the rights of translation into foreign languages are expressly reserved. Particular emphasis is placed on the question of readings and all uses of this book by educational institutions, permission for which must be secured from the author’s representative: Antje Oegel, AO International, 540 President Street, 2E, Brooklyn, NY, 11215, 917-521-6640, aoegel@aoiagency.com.

  The publication of We’re Gonna Die, by Young Jean Lee, through TCG’s Book Program, is made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

  TCG books are exclusively distributed to the book trade by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Lee, Young Jean.

  We’re gonna die / Young Jean Lee.—First edition.

  pages; cm

  ISBN 978-1-55936-785-1 (ebook)

  1. Death—Drama.I. Title.II. Title: We are going to die.

  PS3612.E228W472015

  812’.6—dc232015007280

  Book design and composition by Lisa Govan

  Cover design by Benedict Kupstas

  First Edition, June 2015

  For Lou Reed

  CONTENTS

  WE’RE GONNA DIE

  PRODUCTION HISTORY

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  CHORD SHEETS

  ALBUM CREDITS AND CD

  WE’RE GONNA DIE

  PRODUCTION HISTORY

  We’re Gonna Die premiered in April 2011 at Joe’s Pub in New York City. It was co-produced by 13P (Maria Goyanes, Executive Producer) and Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company (Young Jean Lee, Artistic Director; Caleb Hammons, Producing Director). It was written by Young Jean Lee, directed by Paul Lazar and produced by Caleb Hammons. The choreography was by Faye Driscoll, the costume design was by Roxana Ramseur, the lighting design was by Cindy Shumsey; the sound engineer was Thanasis Psarros, the dramaturg was Mike Farry, the associate director was Morgan Gould, the production supervisor was Sunny Stapleton and the creative consultant was Eric Dyer. It was performed by:

  Michael Hanf

  DRUMMER

  Nick Jenkins

  BASS GUITARIST

  Benedict Kupstas

  GUITARIST 2

  Young Jean Lee

  SINGER

  Tim Simmonds

  GUITARIST 1

  We’re Gonna Die was developed in part through a residency at the National Theater Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, and through the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Swing Space program (space at 14 Wall Street is donated by Capstone Equities), and was presented with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency.

  We’re Gonna Die was remounted in September 2012 and again in August 2013 at LCT3’s Claire Tow Theater (Paige Evans, Artistic Director) at Lincoln Center Theater in New York City. It was produced by Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company (Young Jean Lee, Artistic Director; Aaron Rosenblum, Producing Director). It was written by Young Jean Lee, directed by Paul Lazar and produced by Aaron Rosenblum. The choreography was by Faye Driscoll, the costume design was by Roxana Ramseur, the lighting design was by Tyler Micoleau; the sound designer was Jamie McElhinney, the dramaturg was Mike Farry, the associate director was Morgan Gould and the production supervisor was Sunny Stapleton. It was performed by:

  Michael Hanf

  GUITARIST 1

  Andrew Hoepfner

  BASS GUITARIST

  Benedict Kupstas

  GUITARIST 2

  Young Jean Lee

  SINGER

  Booker Stardrum

  DRUMMER

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  All of the stories in this show are true, but not all of them happened to me, so although I originally performed the piece, the character of “Singer” is not meant to be me. Instead, the show is designed for anyone to be able to perform as themselves without adopting a theatrical persona. For that reason, performers should feel free to make whatever small changes are necessary in order to make the text feel natural for them to perform.

  The band should be good, with real musicians who have interesting takes on the songs. Once they enter, they remain onstage for the rest of the show. During the monologues, they watch and listen in stillness. In the original production, the arrangements grew more full and more complex, song-by-song, over the course of the show.

  A stage is set up with instruments and microphones on stands.

  There is upbeat pre-show indie pop music.

  An Announcer, wearing ordinary street clothes, enters and goes to one of the microphones.

  The Announcer introduces the piece and warms up the crowd without mentioning any of the performers’ names or creating any expectation that a star is about to take the stage. In the original production, we used the following text. Whatever speech you come up with, it should end like the announcement below, with the words: “And now: We’re Gonna Die.”

  ANNOUNCER

  Good [afternoon/evening] and welcome to [name of venue]. I’m [name], the [job title] of [name of company/theater/venue]. We’re Gonna Die was originally written for 13P, which was a collective of thirteen playwrights who were devoted to realizing full productions of each of their plays. Now that they have done all thirteen plays, 13P has imploded. This was number eleven. Please turn off your cell phones. And now: We’re Gonna Die.

  (The Announcer exits as the Singer enters holding a cordless microphone. She wears yellow jeans, a blue sweater with a sailboat on it, and sneakers. She smiles at the audience.)

  SINGER

  When I was growing up, my mother would always try to scare my sister and me by saying, “You’d better behave, or you’re gonna end up like your Uncle John.” And this was actually a pretty effective threat, because my Uncle John is the most isolated person I’ve ever known. He’s always lived alone; he doesn’t have a single friend; as far as anyone knows, he’s still a virgin; and for as long as I can remember, he’s spent every major holiday with my family.

  And it’s this awful paradox because, on the one hand, we all feel really terrible for my Uncle John and for how lonely he is. But at the same time, none of us really wants to be around him either. He smells bad, he’s rude, and whenever he comes to visit, he just kind of sits there and lets everyone wait on him.

  And he’s always had this weirdly lethargic quality. I remember when I was growing up, I would always ask him, “Uncle John, do you want to p
lay with me?” And he would always respond, “Why don’t we just sit here and rest?”

  So when I was twelve, I decided that I wanted to see what my Uncle John was like in a more animated state. So one night, when he went to brush his teeth before going to sleep, I snuck into his room and I hid under his bed. And my plan was that when he went to get into bed, I was going to grab his ankles and give him a little surprise.

  So I’m under my Uncle John’s bed, waiting for him to come back from brushing his teeth. But when he came back into the room, instead of going right to bed, he went and sat down at a little desk that was in the room, and I heard him start to mutter something to himself. He was muttering it over and over, and at first I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but then he started to get louder and louder.

  And I heard that what he was saying was, “I’m a piece of shit, piece of shit, piece of shit, I’m shit, I’m shit, I’m shit,” over and over again. And then he started to cry.

  And I was under his bed!

  Obviously, I couldn’t do the ankle-grabbing thing anymore, so I just started panicking, like I didn’t know how much longer I was going to be stuck under there. And all the while, my Uncle John is like, “I’m a piece of shit, piece of shit,” and crying. Until, suddenly, he stopped.

  And then I heard a loud snore. He had fallen asleep at his desk. And as I got the hell out of there, I remember wondering to myself if this was how my Uncle John fell asleep every night.

  Looking back on that story now, the thing that strikes me the most is the fact that even my Uncle John, weird Uncle John, had a public face that he put on to cover up the true extent of his suffering. When you’re little, it’s sort of more okay to cry and freak out when you’re upset, but the older you get, the more necessary it becomes to develop this public face that you put on to hide your pain. And it’s not even like you can rip off the mask and let it all hang out when you’re in private around people who care about you, because there’s only so long you can go on dumping your pain on other people before they eventually start to get fed up. Which can make being in pain an incredibly lonely experience.

  This is something that has always really bothered me a lot, and I’ve always wished that there were some form of comfort available to us so that, when we were in that isolated place of pain, there would be something to make us feel better and not so alone. And I always imagined that if I found that comfort, it would take the form of something big and revelatory and amazing. But when I have encountered actual comfort in my life, it’s never been anything like that. It’s usually been something really ordinary and common sense.

  For example, there’s this thing that my mom said to me when I was six and experiencing that awful, alone, in-pain feeling for the very first time. At the time, I had two best friends named Emily and Jenny. They were sisters who lived across the street. My favorite memory of Emily and Jenny is this one time when they came over and their grandparents had bought them bicycles. Neither of our families had any money, so this was like a huge deal. And I didn’t have a bicycle, so I remember running alongside them as they rode their bikes until eventually they would overtake me, and then I would walk back home and wait for them to come back so that I could run alongside again. And I did this over and over again, until eventually Emily turned to me and said, “Hey, why don’t we teach you how to ride a bike so that you can take a turn?” And I was so excited.

  But it turns out that learning how to ride a bike from six year olds is not the best idea. I was bleeding from every joint, and I couldn’t go inside and get cleaned up because if my mom had seen me, she would have freaked out and made me stop, and at this point all I wanted out of life was to be able to ride a bicycle. So I kept at it, becoming increasingly injured, until eventually I got to the point where I could do it—I could ride the bike.

  Emily had volunteered to be the one to chase after, and she saw me covered in blood, and she got inspired. And she said, “Why don’t we pretend that I’m an advertising executive?” (For some reason, Emily always wanted to be an advertising executive. I don’t think she even knew what it was.) But she said, “I’m an advertising executive, and you have just murdered my husband. And that’s why you’re covered in blood. And now you are trying to escape on your bicycles.”

  So Jenny and I rode off down the street with Emily chasing us screaming, “Murderers! You murdered my husband!” And Jenny and I were like, “Ha ha ha! You’ll never see your husband again!”

  And we called that game Murder, and we played it all the time after that.

  About a year later, a new girl moved into the neighborhood, and her name was Mary Didio. And she started to play with us, and eventually it got to the point where she was playing with Emily and Jenny and I wasn’t invited. And then finally one day at school during recess, the three of them were playing together, and I walked up to them, and they all kind of looked at each other, and then Emily said, “One! Two! Three! GO!” And the three of them just ran away from me as fast as they could. And it was really clear that I was not supposed to chase them.

  I remember going to the nurse’s office and telling her that I had a stomachache, and she let me lie down on a little cot that she had in her office. And then I started to cry, so she thought I was really sick and called my mother to come pick me up.

  (The Band enters wearing brightly colored shirts. They start lightly playing their instruments to underscore the following.)

  That night, as I was lying in bed, for the first time in my life I experienced the feeling of not being able to fall asleep. And I had this tiny little attic bedroom with these two little windows right above my bed, and I remember staring at the branches through the windows for a really long time. And eventually my mom came in to check on me, and I told her that I couldn’t sleep, and this is what she said to me.

  LULLABY FOR THE MISERABLE

  In the dead of the night

  With your eyes open wide

  You will sleep

  By and by

  By and by

  All alone in the dark

  With the pain in your heart

  You will sleep

  By and by

  By and by

  When you wait for the dawn

  And sleep won’t come

  If you don’t sleep tonight

  It’s all right, it’s all right

  You will sleep

  By and by

  By and by

  (Instrumental Break)

  When all your hope is gone

  And sleep won’t come

  When your brain’s had enough

  And your body gives up

  You will sleep

  By and by

  By and by

  Fast asleep in your bed

  Not a thought in your head

  You will sleep

  By and by

  By and by

  You are not the only one

  You are not the only one

  You are not the only one

  You are not the only one

  So that’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. Like I said, it’s not some big profound thing, but I feel like it’s better than nothing. And that’s the type of thing I’d like to share with you tonight: just some sort of ordinary comforting things that have somehow managed to make me feel a little better when I was in that lonely, isolated place. And I’m sharing them with you in the hopes that they might help you to feel less lonely when you’re in pain—which I hope you’re not.

  Okay, so a lot of people believe that the best way to not feel alone is to find romance. But, as most of you know, there are a lot of problems with that—one of the biggest ones being that not everyone can find it. I didn’t find romance until I had graduated from college. When I was in high school, I didn’t date at all. And then when I was in college, I dated a series of alcoholics, none of whom were my boyfriend, which I knew because they would all tell me, “You’re not my girlfriend.”

  But then I graduated from college, and I
sort of started to get my life together, and I met this amazing guy named Henry. Henry was smart, he was funny, and he was really nice to me. And after we’d been dating for about a year, we moved in together.

  And it was around that time that my parents decided to host this big family reunion at their house. And I was really excited because I’d always kind of been the black sheep of the family—I had an older sister who had always been very successful and popular. And yet even she had never brought home a guy as wonderful as Henry. So I was really eager to go home and show him off.

  So we went to the reunion, and everyone was really impressed by Henry, like almost to an offensive extent? I was like, “Is it really that amazing that I managed to find a good boyfriend?”

  But it was great, and I remember all the cousins were playing soft-ball in the backyard the way we used to when we were kids. And the ball rolled into the bushes by the kitchen door, and I went to go look for it. And the kitchen door was open, and my mom was in the kitchen with one of my aunts. And I heard my mom tell my aunt that she could never feel the same way about me as she felt about my sister.

  That night, I told Henry what had happened, and he was really nice about it, but he was an only child, so he didn’t really understand, and then he fell asleep. And as I was lying there, this is what I thought to myself.

  I STILL HAVE YOU

  When life deals me a blow

  And I’m reeling in pain

  You try to comfort me

  But it doesn’t go away

  You tell me that you love me

  Before you fall asleep

  And as I lie awake

  With my worries on repeat

  I try to think of something

  That can ease my grief

  And the answer comes right to me

  While I listen to you breathe

  I still have you

  You’re in my bed