Our Lady of 121st Street
Page 24
SKANK: Who?
CHARLIE: I woulda protected her! Kept her safe! I wouldn’t a let her be hookin’ or nothin’, I woulda helped her! I shoulda helped her! I shoulda! I—
(CHARLIE puts on his Darth Vader mask and takes out a knife.)
CHARLIE: I’m crossin’ to another place. I’m crossin’ it, and I’m takin’ you wit’ me. You didn’t deserve her. You never deserved her! She was a princess! She was a Princess fuckin’ Leia, thass who she was! She was, she was …
(CHARLIE takes off the mask, drops the knife.)
CHARLIE: I woulda made her a princess. An Arabian princess. She woulda … She, she woulda …
(CHARLIE empties his money out of his pocket, a few coins and loose singles. He drops it near SKANK’s hands. He spits.)
(CHARLIE exits. SKANK is giggling and gurgling, oblivious.)
Scene 3. Dawn. A park bench near the West Side Highway. Skank is drinking his hot chocolate. A beat. Lenny runs by with a purse.
LENNY: You seen 5-0?
SKANK: Huh?
LENNY: Cops. You seen cops?
SKANK: Nah, man.
LENNY: I know you?
SKANK: What?
LENNY: I know you, right? Gimme your hat.
SKANK: Hey, man. I’m juss sittin’ here.
LENNY: Gimme the hat.
SKANK: Here, man.
LENNY: Switch jackets wit me!
SKANK: What’re ya talkin’ bout, “jackets”?
LENNY: I got no time here, okay? Switch jackets.
SKANK: I doan think my jacket’s gonna fit you, man, no offense.
LENNY: C’mon, quick!
SKANK: Okay, okay … hey, this is a nice jacket man, thanks.
LENNY: It’s temporary, don’t stink it up. Take this purse, hide it in your pants.
SKANK: Look, man, I’m holding here, I’m not lookin’ to get busted, this is my quiet time here, bro.
LENNY: Juss hide it!
SKANK: Where I’m going to put it?
LENNY: Look man, put it in your ass, I doan care. Make it disappear.
SKANK: You should calm down, man.
LENNY: Doan tell me—
SKANK: Here, bro, have a sip a this.
LENNY: Juss talk to me like you know me, like we been here for hours.
SKANK: Have a sip, man. Go ahead. Here, take the comics, pretend you can read.
LENNY: I could read. (LENNY takes a sip.) This shit is good, what is it?
SKANK: It’s good, right?
LENNY: Damn, this shit is good.
SKANK: I’m gonna get that shit copyrighted, make a million dollars!
LENNY: You should.
SKANK: Hey, don’t drink it all, save me some.
LENNY: Juss a little more.
SKANK: Okay … we could share it.
LENNY: You made this shit?
SKANK: Yup.
LENNY: It’s very creamy.
SKANK: I know.
LENNY: But it has a kick.
SKANK: I’m a creative person, I got skills like that.
LENNY: You see cops?
SKANK: Nah … what’d you do, knock over a ol’ lady?
LENNY: She wasn’t that old. She was big.
SKANK: Yeah?
LENNY: Bigger than me. She punched me.
SKANK: Yeah?
LENNY: Yeah. I was gonna punch her back, but then I woulda felt guilty.
SKANK: How much money she got?
LENNY: I doan know. I juss ran.
SKANK: Wanna open it?
LENNY: Hey! Chill!
SKANK: I’m chill, man.
LENNY: I’m gonna take that money, buy my girl a steak dinner, shut her ass up! If I got anything left, I’m gonna get a gun, a big fuckin’ Gat, so mothafuckahs know I ain’t playin’.
SKANK: Good idea.
LENNY: Yeah.
(Pause)
SKANK: Hey, you heard about Sammy?
LENNY: Sammy?
SKANK: The old guy, Sammy?
LENNY: What about him?
SKANK: He died in the bar last night.
LENNY: Really?
SKANK: When he died, Jake and the bartender, they put him on the street, laid him out like a strip a bacon, man, before they called 911. They didn’t want the cops fuckin’ up business, plus, something about insurance.
LENNY: Thass fucked up.
(Pause)
SKANK: When I die, man, I wanna die here, with the sound of the traffic on the highway puttin’ me to sleep.
LENNY: Yeah?
SKANK: I almost died here last week, but Chickie came by, woke me up.
LENNY: Chickie’s your girl?
SKANK: Yeah … I should go find her. She’s, like, missing.
LENNY: So’s mine.
SKANK: Who? Your girl?
LENNY: I doan wanna talk about it.
(Pause)
SKANK: A guy jerked off on my face the other night for twenty dollars, man. He came right in my eyes.
LENNY: Yeah?
SKANK: Like I was nothin’.
LENNY: Yeah.
SKANK: Twenty bucks.
LENNY: Thass okay … at least you got twenty bucks, man.
SKANK: Thass what I’m tryin’ to tell myself
(Pause)
LENNY: Let’s open this bag man.
SKANK: Want me to go?
LENNY: Why? You wanna go?
SKANK: Nah, but, uh … if you want—
LENNY: Nah, man, stay … Stay … you can stay.
(End of play)
STEPHEN ADLY GUIRGIS
Our Lady of 121st Street,
Jesus Hopped the A Train, and In Arabia, We’d All Be Kings
Stephen Adly Guirgis is a proud longtime member of New York City’s LAByrinth Theater Company. The plays in this anthology were all originally produced by LAByrinth at Center Stage, New York, and were directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman. The plays have also been performed at the Union Square Theater in New York City; The East 13th Street Theater; London’s Donmar Warehouse, The Hampstead Theatre, and the Arts Theater in the West End; the Edinburgh Fringe Festival; the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago; and theaters in Australia, Norway, Finland, Chile, South Africa, and across the United States.
Jesus Hopped the A Train won the Edinburgh Fringe First Award and the Detroit Free Press Play of the Year, and was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award as Best New Play. Our Lady of 121st Street received Best Play nominations from the Drama Desk and the Lucille Lortel Foundation, as well as a Joseph Jefferson Nomination from the Outer Critics Circle. In Arabia, We’d All Be Kings was named one of the Ten Best Plays of 1999 by TimeOut New York. Guirgis is a member of New Dramatists and the MCC Playwrights Coalition, and has received new play commissions from Manhattan Theater Club and South Coast Rep.
His television writing credits include The Sopranos, NYPD Blue, NBC’s UC: Undercover, David Milch’s CBS drama Big Apple, and a forthcoming television movie about exonerated death row inmates for the FX Channel.
He continues to work as an actor on stage, on film, and in television. Upcoming features include Todd Solondz’s Palindromes and Brett C. Leonard’s Jailbait, opposite Michael Pitt. A former violence prevention specialist and H.I.V. prevention educator in New York City area prisons, shelters, and schools, he lives in Hell’s Kitchen, New York.
ACCLAIM FOR THE PLAYS OF STEPHEN ADLY GUlRGIS
OUR LADY OF 121ST STREET
“Guirgis … may be the best playwright in America under 40 … [He] already belongs on the list of accomplished young … playwrights that includes Suzan-Lori Parks and David Auburn … Our Lady of 121st Street … is a knockout.”
—Bruce Weber, The New York Times Magazine
“The immensely gifted Stephen Adly Guirgis just fills me with hope … His urban voice is startlingly fresh and new—an unmistakable great talent in the wilderness … [with] an unpredictable, original mind … on a par even with the manic farce and subterfuge of Joe Orton … but it is the dramatist’s seamless transi
tion to quiet revelation that makes him a poet of tender mercies … Our Lady of 121st Street is the best new play I’ve seen in a decade.”
—John Heilpern, The New York Observer
“Guirgis … has a hilarious, sympathetic, terrific ear for Harlem … He heightens the rhythms of the street until there is a brilliant buoyant cacophony … Written … with desperate and fierce and funny life, Our Lady of 121st Street is exciting theater.”
—Donald Lyons, New York Post
“Guirgis has a fresh, furious, yet sympathetic voice, and … a gift for mosaic, for creating a throbbing canvas from the accumulating bits of people’s lives.”
—Linda Winer, USA Today
“A wild, woolly dark comedy … which has exploded off the stage of off-Broadway … Guirgis is an original.”
—Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press
“Guirgis is an exciting talent with a gift for raw but rich dialogue and an entertaining ability to find the absurd humor in emotional extremis.”
—Charles Isherwood, Variety
“Wickedly funny.”
—Robert Dominguez, Daily News
“Guirgis would qualify as the poet laureate of the angry … [He] has one of the finest imaginations for dialogue to come along in years.”
—Bruce Weber, The New York Times
JESUS HOPPED THE A TRAIN
“This probing, intense portrait of lives behind bars … considers subjects of Dostoyevskyan reach: crime and punishment, free will, moral responsibility … [Full of] intellectual vigor and sophistication on the one hand and … anguished passion on the other … Jesus Hopped the A Train … has been written in flame. Plays of this ilk automatically raise the body—and mind—temperature of New York theater.”
—Ben Brantley, The New York Times
“An incendiary piece of theatre rife with complexity and pulsing energy … Guirgis … creates dialogue that is so pitch-perfect you hang on most every word.”
—Michael Lazan, Back Stage
“Frighteningly powerful.”
—TimeOut New York
IN ARABIA, WE’D ALL BE KINGS
“An updated Balm in Gilead for the 1990s.”
—Wilborn Hampton, The New York Times
“Guirgis has a real talent for capturing the wit and absurdity in the most hopeless situation.”
—Jason Zinoman, TimeOut New York
“You can’t dismiss the author’s knack for brutally realistic dialogue … There are moments so authentic, you feel as though you’re in the seedy W 43rd St. bar where the play takes place.”
—Daily News
“Guirgis is harking back to the abiding theme of American drama: the conflict between dreams and reality … In the tradition of Tennessee Williams, [he] combines sympathy for the walking wounded with sharp humour.”
—Michael Billington, The Guardian
“A fascinating portrait of a group of New York City denizens who will do anything to survive … Guirgis has filled his script with colorful characters and daring dialogue … [and] does not pull any punches in dramatizing life on the street.”
—Elias Stimac, Back Stage
“If Adly Guirgis is not one of the freshest new voices in theater he is certainly one of the most courageous … In Arabia, We’d All Be Kings is a magnificent achievement.”
—Ricky Spears, In Theater
“Guirgis [has] a Mamet-like ability to catch and express the nuances of angry low-life vernacular.”
—Nicholas de Jongh, The Evening Standard
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author wishes to very gratefully thank the following: Carlo Alban, Sarah Almond, The Arts Theater, Al Asermely, Vanessa Aspillaga, David Anzuelo, Jonathon Baruch, Mike Batistick, Dick Benedek, Blair Benz, Quincey Bernstine, The Black Dahlia Theater, Blanca, Maggie Bofill, Seth Boigon, Bruce Bouchard, Kai Brothers, Maggie Burke, John Buzzetti, Paul and Cathy Calderon, Liz Sherman Canavan, Mariana Carreno, CenterStage New York, Nathaniel Charney, Andrea Ciannevi, Rebecca Cohen, Beth Cole, The Corpus Christi School, Alexis Croucher, Tom Cruise, CSC, Francis Cunningham, Francesco D‘Amico, Matt Damon, Max Daniels, Sasha Dasaro, Eric DeArmon, Jaden DeArmon, Jill DeArmon, Max DeArmon, David Deblinger, Tomoko Deblinger, Iva Hacker-Delaney, Cheryl Dennis, The Donmar Warehouse, Oliver Dow, The East 13th Street Theater, Jackie Eckhouse and Sloss Law, William Esper, everyone at 125 Riverside and 255 West 43rd, Doreen Feldman, Melissa Feldman, Michael Filerman, Marlene Forte, Roy Gabay, Wilemina Olivia Garcia, Adam Gebb, Charles Goforth, Veronica Golden, Robyn Goodman, Yetta Gottesman, Jennifer Lauren Grant, David Greco, Marco Greco, Judy Gringorten, Marie Therese Guirgis, Maurice and Therese Guirgis, H.A.I., Mark Hammer, The Hampstead Theater, Mary Jane Hanrahan, Daniel Harnett, Mariana Hellmund, Ruth Hendel, Cooper Hoffman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Aldene Hoghe, David Hoghe (R.I.P), Scott Hudson, Laura Hughes, Ernie Inzerillo, Salvatore Inzerillo, Ron Cephas Jones, Russell G. Jones, JPQ El-Fayoumy, Lisa Jucean, Ron Kastner, Ayelet Kaznelson, Kate Kelly, Dr. Michael Kennedy, Jinn S. Kim, Robin Kramer, The LAByrinth Theater Company, The Leadership Project, Mike Lebowitz, Brett C. Leonard, Joey Leonard, Trevor Long, Florencia Lozano, Madonna, John Malkovich for Burn This, Tiprin Mandalay, MCC, John McDonald from the Rhodes School, Amelia McGarry, Chris McGarry, Mary Kate Spach-McGarry, Riesa Minakan, Monica Moore, MTC, Jamie Mullins, New Dramatists, Paul Newman, Met Nieves, Alison Norris, Kelly O’Donnell, Mimi O’Donnell, Ana Ortiz, John Ortiz, Denise Oswald, Gina Maria Paoli, Anilu Pardo, Gary Perez, Manny Perez, Mary Perez, Richard Petrocelli, Delilah Picart, Ira Pittelman, Paula Pizzi, Begonya Plaza, Portia, Michael Puzzo, Joe Quintero, Lidia Ramirez, Richard Raveis, Justin Reinsilber, Judy Reyes, Nicole Rivera, Babette Roberts, Tala Robinson, Sam Rockwell, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Brian Roff, Al Roffe, Daryl Roth, John Gould Rubin, Sammy Rubin, Johnny Sanchez, Sallie Sanders, Matt Shakman, John Patrick Shanley, Sherma (R.I.P.) and Greg, Sarah Sidman, Claudine Sinnett, Narelle Sissons, Felix Solis, Ernesto Solo, South Coast Rep, John Starks, Steppenwolf, KaDee Strickland, Laura Tarantini, Jack Thomas, Jenny Topper, The Union Square Theatre, Yul Vazquez, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Lauren Velez, James Vermuelen, Dawn Wagner, Webb Wilcoxen, Stephen Willems, Mookie Wilson, George C. Wolfe, Stephanie Yankwitt, David Zayas, Liza Colon-Zayas.
Copyright © 2001. 2003 by Stephen Adly Guirgis
All rights reserved
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
18 West 18th Street. New York 10011
Our Lady of 121st Street was first published, in slightly different form, in American Theatre magazine. Jesus Hopped the A Train and In Arabia, We’d All Be Kings were originally published, in slightly different form, in 2001 by Dramatists Play Service, Inc.
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