REVIEW: A STAGEPLAY FOR TWO PLAYERS
A Thesis
Presented to
The Faculty of Graduate Studies
of
The University of Guelph
by
DAVID JAMES BROCK
In partial fulfillment of requirements
For the degree of
Master of Fine Arts
August, 2008
© David James Brock, 2008 Library and Bibliotheque et 1*1 Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition
395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Canada Canada
Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-42759-0 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-42759-0
NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par Plntemet, prefer, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans loan, distribute and sell theses le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non sur support microforme, papier, electronique commercial purposes, in microform, et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats.
The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission.
In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these.
While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. Canada Acknowledgements
The playwright wishes to acknowledge all the people who helped with this draft of the playscript, and to thank in advance, any directors, actors, designers and dramaturges who continue to help with the development of this piece for production. For her encouragement, suggestions, challenges and space, the playwright thanks Judith
Thompson for her role as advisor while developing this play to its thesis form. For his rigourous questions and political insight as it pertains to the play, Sky Gilbert was second to none. Abby Whidden's reading of the earliest draft of the play provided the perfect balance of editorial and content related questioning. For creating a dynamic and useful workshop process, the playwright gratefully acknowledges Leah Jane Esau, Duncan
Patterson, and Lexi von Konigslow. For her encouragement and thoughtful analysis from an actor's perspective, Freya Ravensbergen was invaluable. For her inspiration and amazing critical faculty, the playwright thanks Constance Rooke: this play is dedicated to her. And finally, a debt of gratitude to my parents, whose support provided me precious time to work on a creative thesis, when I might have been off making money.
1 CHARACTERS
REBECCA, 32. She is put together and attractive, which is added to by the charming combination of intelligence and calculated awkwardness.
DAVIS, 55. The type of writer who becomes his characters—not the other way around. We'd hate him if he wasn't a writer; then again, he wouldn't be such a dick if he wasn't.
SETTING
A kitchen in an urban upscale home. Tonight.
NOTES
// indicates interrupting dialogue.
indicates sounds of discomfort that do not come out as words. Maybe it's a grunt. Maybe it's a sigh. The dialogue around it will suggest the sound.
1 "You'll never catch me bragging about goals, but I'll talk all you want about my assists."
— Wayne Gretzky
"You said that nothing can come in-between us The way of getting things we wanted done Then enissophobia held you under its influence Until you compromised your style."
— Megadeth
Enissophilia —noun 1. Abnormal persistent love of criticism. 2. Abnormal persistent love of attack.
— based on the phobia, a made but logical noun.
2 THE PLAY
REBECCA alone. She holds a stylish briefcase. Examines unfamiliar surroundings impatiently.
DA VIS enters. Cheerfulness masks resentment.
DAVIS So you're the ballbreaker?
REBECCA I'm sorry?
DAVIS Don't be sorry.
Pause.
REBECCA I was just about to leave, you know—
DAVIS Your article said I was a misogynist—
REBECCA You let me in, make me wait fifteen minutes...
DAVIS //Suddenly you're against name calling?
REBECCA I said what I felt.
DAVIS Figured you should've met me before you started calling me names.
REBECCA It's not about you...
DAVIS //Met some sort of journalistic standards and what-have-you REBECCA It was about your book...
DAVIS Or are you a throw snowballs from behind snow banks kinda girl?
REBECCA What's that smell?
DAVIS It's Italian. I got it in Italy where they don't fill goddamned colognes with
water. Like it?
REBECCA It's very.. .present.
DAVIS Better be.
REBECCA So what am I doing here?
DAVIS I don't know.. .what are you doing here?
REBECCA Okay, so this is some sort of game.
DAVIS No game. REBECCA Invite me to your home, have me give you the benefit of the doubt that maybe you are nothing like your books, then prove you are exactly like them?
DAVIS //You got kids?
REBECCA //Calling me girl and making me wait...
DAVIS //No kids?
4 REBECCA //While you go and douse yourself with Italian—Huh?
DAVIS Kids. Have them, Becky?
REBECCA Rebecca.
DAVIS Eh?
REBECCA What does my having kids have anything to do with anything?
DAVIS I have two kids and eight novels.
REBECCA I know.
DAVIS Had you written the kind of shit you did about my two kids, I wouldn't have asked to meet you. That I can ignore—
REBECCA If it's all the same, I'd rather you get to your reason for this meeting so you can disagree with me, I can defend myself and we can leave it alone knowing that neither of us changed the other's mind, but at least we had it out, and remain the gods of our own ethical universe.
DAVIS //Married?
REBECCA Are you serious?
DAVIS Me neither. Anymore.
REBECCA I know your bio.
5 DAVIS Of course you do. You do your research, don't you? Where'd you go to
school?
REBECCA What's with all the personal questions?
DAVIS You seem to know everything about me. I'd like to know a bit about you.
REBECCA Why?
DAVIS {Readingfrom a newspaper article.) 'The muscular prose of E.H. Davis's The Black Year flexes too much bravado and not only degrades his female protagonist, but more egregiously, by appropriating the slave narrative, makes an exploitative connection between a victim's desire for sexual assault, violent sexuality, and slavery.'
REBECCA //If you've brought me here to simply read back what I wrote...
DAVIS // 'In E.H. Davis's world, every woman wants a raping.'
REBECCA //You can save the scolding.
DAVIS Your parents must be proud.
REBECCA My mother is proud.
DAVIS Okay. I get it now.
REBECCA Get what?
DAVIS Daddy left when you were what.. .two?
6 REBECCA Am I here to be insulted?
DAVIS //Fucked off somewhere with his secretary and growing up you took the eightfold path to feminism.. .grew your body hair, read a lot of Gloria Steinem, kissed your first boy to a Janis Joplin album—
REBECCA How do people normally react when you verbally abuse them?
DAVIS And now you dress this way to score that notion that a woman can still be
a feminist and look feminine.
REBECCA Right. That's why.
DAVIS You a dyke?
REBECCA I thought you might be slightly less offensive than your books...
DAVIS A rug boinker?
REBECCA Never would've thought you'd be worse.
DAVIS Just trying to get at the source of the bubbling hate this review has for all things male.
REBECCA Those bubbles are because of your book.
DAVIS Which exist because you hate men, right?
REBECCA Yes. Yes, okay you got me... I'm a lesbian.
DAVIS No you're not.
7 REBECCA Whatever you say, Mister Davis.
DAVIS Unless you're a lipstick lesbian...
REBECCA Which would turn you on, no doubt.
DAVIS Nah, nothing about lesbians turns me on. See that's where your preconceived notions of me would be tested, Becky.. .I'm really a gentle guy. My tastes are almost.. .catholic.
REBECCA If it's all the same, I'd rather we stick to the article, which is after all...
DAVIS Red or white?
REBECCA What?
DAVIS Wine. I have a beautiful French First Growth I picked up last spring—
REBECCA I'm not staying long enough for wine, Mister Davis.
DAVIS You came here just to leave?
REBECCA //I'm here out of professional courtesy.
DAVIS //And can we drop the Mister?
REBECCA //And because I thought maybe you were a reasonable, uh, uh...
DAVIS //It's Emmett, please. REBECCA What I wrote, I wrote in a professional.. .1 mean, it was respectful even don't respect what it is you write.. .1 thought you would be respectful too...
DAVIS //All the formality, Becky...
REBECCA But I never expected...
DAVIS You never expected you'd have to face your reviewee...
REBECCA No. I didn't. I assumed an unspoken protocol.
DAVIS That writers write, reviewers review, and never the twain shall meet?
REBECCA Yes.
DAVIS But?
REBECCA ...
DAVIS I'm E.H. Davis.
REBECCA You are.
DAVIS And you're a fan.
REBECCA No.
DAVIS Come on. Not even just a little?
REBECCA Not even just a little. You're a danger to.. .people's uh, sensibilities...
9 DAVIS Danger?
REBECCA You make generalizations and then people think that's the way it is.
DAVIS But come on, danger...
REBECCA Yes. It's dangerous. It is. You are.
DAVIS I'm just a writer, Becky.
REBECCA Really?
DAVIS Yep. Really. Here, pinch me. It'll still hurt.
He wants her to touch him, she certainly doesn 't thank you very much.
REBECCA {Reciting.) 'E.H. Davis's dazzling poetry and profound insights into the darkest side of human nature place him at the forefront of letters. He is our greatest living writer. A treasure.'
DAVIS New York Times.
REBECCA Hardly words fit for 'just a writer.'
DAVIS Memorize any others?
REBECCA Yes.
DAVIS So you do like me.. .you really really like me.
10 REBECCA Trust me, my knowledge of you is a burden.
DAVIS Oh come on now, you don't mean that.
REBECCA It's my job. Nothing else.
DA VIS has poured one white and one red wine.
DAVIS You strike me as a white wine girl.
REBECCA Is that so?
DAVIS East Coast University gal. Wanted to go to Wellesley College, but had to settle for some place where the football program is more important than the output of the English faculty.
REBECCA Yale, actually, and thank you, our football team sucked.
DAVIS Probably succumbed to a life you felt beneath you for reasons of happiness. Drank all the girly drinks at college, and then graduated from white wine spritzer to plain old white wine for professional reasons. Hence, white wine. Right?
REBECCA You've got it all figured out.
DAVIS And you've got good teeth. Red wine and good teeth are like...
REBECCA A reviewer and a reviewee?
DAVIS Clever.
11 REBECCA I'll take the red.
DAVIS So tell me... what' d you really think of my book?
REBECCA It's all there.
DAVIS This is an edited version.
REBECCA Paper gives me freedom to write what I want to write.
DAVIS But not to have it all printed.
REBECCA Sorry, but what you read is what I submitted.
DAVIS There must've been something good. I know how it works—no one reads book reviews, so papers have to take hard-lines, stir up some sort of controversy, inject some politics that weren't a part of the actual novel.
REBECCA Nope.
DAVIS S'only respectable papers who trust their readers to be able to decide for themselves and not fill it with some.. .propaganda.
REBECCA And if an intelligent reader still wants to go and read your book, well, though I wish it were true, I doubt my review will have any effect on that.
DAVIS Every reviewer has to have some goddamn agenda.
REBECCA Guess so.
DAVIS You're not really a dyke, right?
12 REBECCA You're an idiot.
DAVIS Ah, now there's something you didn't print along with... {From article.) 'Davis's story is racist...'
REBECCA It is.
DAVIS 'Demeaning.'
REBECCA It is.
DAVIS 'And in general, an exercise in white male dominance both in the book's
world, and sadly, in ours.'
REBECCA It is.
DAVIS Sadly? Not really unbiased reporting there, Becky.
REBECCA Well, isn't it sad? That people eat up the sex and violence in your books and then turn around and call them treasures, all the while forgetting that real rape and torture and modern forms of slavery are all around us?
DAVIS You've been dying to say that.
REBECCA Well, I'm right.
DAVIS It's just a novel, Becky.
REBECCA Right. It's just a novel.
13 DAVIS Give people some credit.
REBECCA Writing a novel and saying 'it's just a novel' is like holding a loaded gun and saying it's just a loaded gun.
DAVIS Who was it? Jane Austen? One of the Brontes?
REBECCA What?
DAVIS Who was it that created your high expectations for writing? That made you think words on paper had any power at all?
REBECCA You think you know me pretty well, don't you?
DAVIS (Mocking.) What was the book that brought that little girl out and made her decide that there was this whole other world out there, and that that other world existed so large.. .in her imagination.
REBECCA Go on, make fun. Get it out.
DAVIS I don't see you as an Anne of Green Gables girl. Bit too feminine to come from Alice in Wonderland stock....
REBECCA You categorize everyone this way?
DAVIS //If you were uglier I'd go the other way and say something like The Hobbit.
REBECCA //You do...
14 DAVIS //If I had to say I had any inspiration, I guess it was Hemingway.
REBECCA Appropriate.
DAVIS Old Man and the Sea.
REBECCA //Too appropriate actually. I had you penned for a Norman Mailer or Dr. Seuss....
DAVIS //But it's not like I was one of these little girls living their lives through books instead of through living.
REBECCA Yes, you didn't write your first book until you were almost forty.
DAVIS That's because I didn't have any interest in writing my first book until I
was almost forty. That kills you, doesn't it?
REBECCA Why should I care?
DAVIS Show me a critic who doesn't have a novel in the drawer and I'll show you a perfect critic.
REBECCA Okay. So what? I have a novel.
DAVIS {Maybe a bit too excited.) Ah, I knew it!
REBECCA You knew it, heh?
DAVIS You're what.. .thirty?
REBECCA Thirty-two.
15 DAVIS And all you've wanted your entire life was to write that novel. You have a manuscript and it's been rejected by what.. .ten publishers? So you keep writing these reviews to make ends meet. To keep your teeth white, your hair that colour—that perfume you're wearing can't be cheap.
REBECCA Well, it's not Italian.
DAVIS And it gives you some power. Looking the way you do but believing it to only be the costume. And sure, you can call yourself a 'writer,' but all the while you read books like mine, seething that they do what your writing cannot.
REBECCA So what? Your novels get published. Lots of novels are published by people who aren't E.H. Davis.
DAVIS I'm not talking about published. That's easy. Anyone with a stack of pages can convince someone to call it a book. What really eats you up is that my writing does exactly what I want it to do. That you may not like what it does, well, there's no accounting for personal politics—but you see in my writing what you want. Control. Reactions. Gut fucking reactions!
REBECCA Ever considered writing your own reviews?
DAVIS //Except me.
REBECCA You what?
DAVIS You've made me react.
REBECCA From the gut...
16 DAVIS Do you think I've ever invited a critic to my house before?
REBECCA I don't know what you do and don't do.
DAVIS Think I haven't been reviewed poorly before?
REBECCA Actually, you haven't.
DAVIS I haven't had much of a reaction to anything in a long time.
REBECCA You know, I hear that sort of thing starts to happen to men your age.
DAVIS Didn't you hear me?
REBECCA Yes, and I am glad I could be of service.
DAVIS You don't even know how much control you have.
REBECCA And this is the ironic part where you tell me?
DAVIS You can talk about your review's professionalism, you can talk about the political ramifications of the novel in light of its effect on a decaying world... .buzz words like hegemony and cultural fucking this and fucking that.. .but in the end it comes down to having one simple aim. To piss me off. And that young woman, you have done, very very well.
REBECCA So that's why you asked me here. To tell me you had an unfavourable reaction to my opinion. Seems like a waste of time. I could have guessed you wouldn't have liked it. Where I'm surprised is that a big MAN like you would have cared.
17 DAVIS You brought your novel with you.
REBECCA What?
DAVIS You don't come to meet a famous writer without having a piece of your own writing with you.
REBECCA Is that so?
DAVIS One time I did an interview for a college newspaper. I hate that shit, but once in a while you gotta appeal to idiots, you know. So this kid, nice kid, sort of geeky girl, sort of thin, wearing glasses with no prescription in the lenses kinda girl who wished it was 1965.. .asked me all these questions. Fan questions. Where do I get my inspiration? Where do my ideas come from? Do I write in the morning? In the night? Who am I reading now? Complete bullshit, but was licking her lips when I'd give her answers as though some secret vault was being opened because of course she was writing. And I just wanted to shake the kid and tell her, sack up and write and stop worrying what someone else is doing.
And then she handed me her novel
REBECCA And?
DAVIS And nothing. She sacked up. I actually taught her a lot.
REBECCA I bet you did.
DAVIS About writing!
18 REBECCA Right, and I'm sure that's all.
DAVIS So what? Consenting adults. Do I detect some jealousy?
REBECCA Uh, no, that's disgust.
DAVIS If your whole goal in coming here is to get me to apologize for being a man, I won't.
Beat.
REBECCA Well, this has all been very lovely, but I think you said what you wanted to—
DAVIS But you haven't said your piece.
REBECCA It's all in the review.
DAVIS No it's not or you wouldn't still be here.
REBECCA Right, my ultimate intentions according to E.H. Davis...
DAVIS I can help you.
REBECCA Excuse me?
DAVIS I can help you with your writing. Like I helped her. If...
REBECCA If I fuck you?
DAVIS No! No, Jesus.. .that's not what I'm talking about at all.
19 REBECCA Okay, how can you help me?
DAVIS First, you shouldn't be wasting your talent working for a shit newspaper.
REBECCA So you want to be my fucking career counselor?
DAVIS It's a waste!
REBECCA This is where you tear me down to build me back up. Thanks, but I don't need a mentor.
DAVIS No, I'm not going to do anything like that.
REBECCA Okay, so what?
DAVIS How about we start with dinner?
REBECCA I don't think that's a good idea.
DAVIS No?
REBECCA No.
DA VIS pours more wine into REBECCA's glass.
DAVIS So what was really your plan then?
REBECCA My plan?
DAVIS I invite you here, practically demand it—what were you going to do when
20 I undoubtedly unleashed a tirade upon you?
REBECCA I came here to stand up to you.
DAVIS To back up your writing?
REBECCA To tell you to fuck off.
DAVIS Really?
REBECCA Really.
DAVIS Someone with your power.. .your control.. .and all you were going to muster up was fuck off?
REBECCA That was about the extent of it, Emmett. And even that was worst case scenario if you acted like...
DAVIS Like I am now.
REBECCA Exactly.
DAVIS So tell me to fuck off.
REBECCA Fuck off, Emmett.
DAVIS Well, that certainly didn't affect me the same way as the review. You're going to have to do better than that.
REBECCA This turns you on, doesn't it?
21 DAVIS Yes.
REBECCA You're like one of your characters.
DAVIS Now there's something no writer wants to answer.
REBECCA Which came first? Your sadistic tendencies or theirs?
DAVIS You're still here, I can only imagine what kinds of characters you have in that failed novel of yours.
REBECCA Emmett, if you must know, there was a time, before I grew up, where I was a great admirer of your work.
DAVIS I know.
REBECCA But that was before The Black Year, and now I find it hard to see anything you've done in the old light.
Pause.
DAVIS What bothers you most about me?
REBECCA That you have no idea about women.
DAVIS Well, I'm doing pretty well pegging you, no? And you're a woman.
REBECCA So you've been right about a few things.
DAVIS Oh, I'd love to know which.. .one of my greatest pleasures is finding out when I am right.
22 Pause.
REBECCA It was Jane Austen.
DAVIS So you're a romantic.
REBECCA But I can't stand to read her anymore.
DAVIS An ex-romantic. What happened? Dumped by a college boyfriend.. .or is it girlfriend? Divorce before thirty? An abortion that seemed like a good idea at the time?
REBECCA I just changed. And at this point...
DAVIS It's too late. You think all this literary shit matters.
Pause.
DAVIS No one ever changes, Becky. They just get smarter.
REBECCA And I'm smarter than I used to be about E.H. Davis.
DAVIS Sure you are.
REBECCA I certainly am.
DAVIS Meeting me, you haven't seen where your article was off the mark in many ways?
23 REBECCA No. Far as I can tell, I've been bang on. Actually, to see how right / was about you is sort of—
DAVIS Pleasurable?
REBECCA Yeah. You could call it that.
DAVIS Nice to be right, isn't it?
REBECCA ...
DAVIS Stay for dinner.
REBECCA Right...
DAVIS I'll cook—
REBECCA You'll pour more wine...
DAVIS I know this great North African sweet lamb recipe—
REBECCA Get me drunk...
DAVIS Though you're probably a vegetarian—
REBECCA Tell me what a bitch I am.
DAVIS Come on now, this is just friendly.
REBECCA Sure it is.
24 DAVIS Two writers, debating, if we must, our own personal philosophies...
REBECCA But what's the point if no one changes?
DAVIS When do you really get the chance to have it out with someone you so
vehemently disagree with but admire?
REBECCA Did admire.
DAVIS Two heavyweights like Hemingway and Faulkner—
REBECCA And let me guess who you are?
DAVIS Hey, at least I'm calling you a writer which is more than anyone else has
done in.. .how long?
REBECCA So an exercise in critical faculty?
DAVIS A dream come true for a writer-cum-critic, no?
REBECCA You really are a sadist.
DAVIS And haven't you ever wondered what makes E.H. Davis tick?
REBECCA The same way you wonder what makes a serial killer tick—
DAVIS Ouch.
REBECCA You don't want to see me when I really choose to do damage.
DAVIS No? 25 REBECCA Nope.
DAVIS Stay.
Pause.
Rebecca reaches into her bag, pulls out a large manuscript.
DAVIS I knew it.
REBECCA Yeah, well.. .don't think I like doing it.
DAVIS But I am E.H. Davis.
REBECCA You are.. .you are.
DAVIS Don't you just hate that?
REBECCA Hate what?
DAVIS How much you object to the way I write women, but how bang on I am about you?
DA VIS starts doing all the things you do when you 're going to make a dinner and though there 11 be lots of interruptions, this doesn 't stop for the rest of the play.
REBECCA Not about everything, Emmett.
DAVIS Okay.. .so what else am I wrong about?
26 REBECCA I eat meat.
DAVIS Good, so lamb it is.
REBECCA And okay, my father was not around—
DAVIS That was obvious.
REBECCA But I had an older brother.
DAVIS Oh, the plot thickens.
REBECCA But grew up fairly happy.
DAVIS Of course you did. No shame in that. I grew up happy and spoiled and fat—certainly no upbringing for a real writer.
REBECCA But I never wanted to be a writer when I grew up.
DAVIS We have so much in common. It really is going to be hard fighting you if we keep this up.
REBECCA I wanted to be a professional hockey player.
DAVIS Okay, now I'm back to thinking you're a lesbian.
REBECCA Played on the boys' teams against boys.
DAVIS Little Becky, always taking on the big boys.
27 REBECCA The only girl who did that even though I wasn't the only girl who wanted to.
DAVIS A real glutton for punishment.
REBECCA So I got shit from both sides.
DAVIS Hence the confused feminism which hates what I write, but wants to know how I do it.. ..you know what I've always wondered.. .why do you lesbians use cock shaped dildos?
REBECCA Do you even know what feminism is?
DAVIS Hey, I grew up in the sixties, girlfriend.
REBECCA Right. So tell me what you think it is.
Pause.
REBECCA You don't know, do you?
DAVIS Not really.
REBECCA You really are an idiot.
DAVIS All I know.. .a feminist is harder to get into bed.
REBECCA Or in this case impossible.
DAVIS Yeah?
28 Pause. Someone is going to have to say something to cut this grand sexual tension slash inappropriateness.
Pause.
Please! Somebody say something! Even something banal like,
DAVIS So who was your favourite hockey player growing up?
REBECCA Lemieux.
DAVIS Christ, I should've known.
REBECCA Known what?
DAVIS Girl like you could just never bring herself to say Gretzky.
REBECCA Who said you had to have Gretzky as a favourite?
DAVIS He was the best.
REBECCA And that's not what you asked.
DAVIS You're a contrarian you know. Whatever is the best, you'll go second best. Actually, I'm surprised you didn't go to like, some player no one ever heard of to prove a point.
REBECCA Or like Manon Rheaume.
DAVIS Right. Like Manon Rheaume.. .who reveals a very interesting truth.
29 REBECCA Which is.
DAVIS The first woman to play in the NHL, and even still Playboy gave two shits
about that and asked to see her tits.
REBECCA Hey, she said no...
DAVIS And that was the dumbest thing she ever did.
REBECCA How?
DAVIS Who the hell remembers who she is other than a few hockey nerds like us?
REBECCA And the world is just filled with Playboy centerfolds whose names we remember.
DAVIS Probably about the same number of remembered published authors.
REBECCA So because she was successful in a men's professional sport, the next logical choice is pornography.
Wow, they can turn anything into a sexual politics battle, can't they?
DAVIS Playboy is hardly pornography.
REBECCA Christ, don't tell me one of our "greatest living authors" is going to say it's art.
DAVIS No, but it's not pornography. Come on, you're not so ashamed of your body, you can't tell that it's something appealing to the eyes.
30 REBECCA I know what parts it appeals to.
DAVIS In fact, I'd like to see a few writers pose in Playboy. That'd make people
actually care about books the way you think they do.
REBECCA Maybe most writers are not comfortable being wanked to.
DAVIS I can honestly tell you I have never jerked off to Playboy.
REBECCA Thanks for that.
DAVIS And that is the criteria for what makes pornography.
REBECCA (Reciting.) 'Her cunt bled like mavro grapes squeezed to make wine. I drank and was immediately drunk from her. Her black blood made me strong. She could feel my strength, she was animal, savage animal who begged for my strength.
DA VIS joins in seamlessly and excitedly,
BOTH To eat and claw and fuck and kill, if I must, kill, so that she could be fucked. But first and foremost fucked.'
DAVIS Wow! That is impressive! Did you memorize my whole book?
REBECCA No. That part I just particularly hate. Does that fit your definition of pornography.
DAVIS Hardly.
31 REBECCA You weren't trying arouse something animal, control something base within the reader?
Beat.
DAVIS Touche.
But let's struggle to keep this professional.
REBECCA What inspires you to write shit like that?
DAVIS Christ, don't ask me that inspiration question...
REBECCA What'd you tell the girl when she was interviewing you?
DAVIS I don't know.
REBECCA Yes you do. You know every word ever printed about you.
DAVIS Sort of gave it away knowing the New York Times quote, heh?
REBECCA You know it, bud.
DAVIS My wife. Ex-wife.
REBECCA Interesting inspiration.
DAVIS When I was married I wasn't writing. You know that part of my life. Marriage ended, as they do, and when it did, I asked myself, what was the best way I could let her know that I didn't need her as much as she thought I needed her. To tell her, fuck you, look what I'm going to do now that
32 you aren't holding me down. She was always teasing me, you know. That real shit teasing that comes out in a fight and hits you in the bones, the balls, the nuts, the guts. She would say, "Oh, what, you gonna write that novel?" Always with the novel the novel the novel...'cause she knew it was something I would mention in passing, that maybe it was an unfulfilled dream. Something I had toyed with but wasn't doing and it burned me up a bit, but what are you gonna do? But then in fights there it came, right at me like a sack of flaming shit. So when she left me, I thought, shit, I'll show her what kind of an influence she is on people. I'll show her what her absence does to a man.
REBECCA Don't tell me you wrote A Life Untitled on... .revenge.
DAVIS Pretty much.
REBECCA Okay, now I really do hate you.
DAVIS Don't feel bad. Only the first one was for revenge. After that it was the money.
REBECCA Though I guess it's not without precedent. I heard Phil Collins would never have written Against All Odds if his first wife hadn't left him. And, he had a decent solo career.
DAVIS I like Phil Collins.
REBECCA So do I in a kitschy sort of way.
DAVIS We really do have a lot in common!
REBECCA Except I don't degrade women because of my failures with them.
33 DAVIS Hey, I told you, that was just the first book. After that it was the money.
REBECCA Great.
DAVIS Then the sex.
REBECCA You're a real role model to young artists, Emmett.
DAVIS You think a woman like you would be spending as much time listening to me if I wasn't who I was?
REBECCA Would' ve made writing a review on you a bit awkward.
DAVIS I know how it works.
REBECCA Well, you're the god.
DAVIS You've never been truly unhappy, have you?
REBECCA Sure I have.
DAVIS But truly unhappy. Like stay in bed, drink all day, fuck strangers and cry about it unhappy.
REBECCA Come on, I'm a failed novelist.
DAVIS You shouldn't be at that paper.
REBECCA Well, as you said, it pays for perfume...
34 DAVIS If it truly paralyzed you, you' d leave.
REBECCA //Maybe I'll start getting serious about it when I'm forty.
DAVIS //.. .you'd find a way to walk. That's what people do.
REBECCA Says the man who didn't write a book until he wanted to get back at his ex-wife.
DAVIS But it was passion.
REBECCA Right.
DAVIS It was control.
REBECCA Arguable.
DAVIS What makes you passionate?
REBECCA Lots of things.
DAVIS Tell me one.
REBECCA No.
DAVIS Come on. We'll trade.
REBECCA Nice try, Emmett.
DAVIS I promise mine won't be about sex.
35 REBECCA //Winning.
DAVIS Winning.
REBECCA Proving myself.
DAVIS Example.
REBECCA You're looking at it.
DAVIS Another one since we've both agreed neither of us has any chance of inflicting change on the other's world perspective.
REBECCA Okay.. .when I played hockey, I had long hair. And I'd put it in a braid and that braid would come out the back of my helmet. So it was an obvious target to be pulled. And they'd pull it and pull it and pull it and I knew that was just what I was gonna have to put up with playing against boys. And name calling, but that didn't feel like anything. Besides what could I call them? So this one game, this fat kid on the other team comes up and says to me.. .hey bitch, you have your pussy in one of those braids too? And it was like, pussy—to hear the word pussy.. .1 mean, it wasn't just the name, but I mean, there was something about the way he said it, or the way he looked or.. .but everyone was laughing—even my own team— and I recognized that it was actually a good joke, except it was aimed at me, and if I didn't do anything, he beat me. He wins.
So I kicked him.
DAVIS You kicked the fat kid with a skate?
REBECCA In the nuts.
36 DAVIS Of course the nuts. Jesus.
REBECCA And it cut him.
DAVIS No! Don't tell me you cut the fat kid's dick off?
REBECCA I didn't cut his dick—it was his thigh—that area with no padding on the inside of the leg...
DAVIS Holy shit my shit!
REBECCA And there was this blood just coming out of his crotch spilling over the ice...
DAVIS Tell me he didn't die so I can laugh at this!
REBECCA Bright red—just pumping out all over the ice
DAVIS He didn't die!
REBECCA Sort of going bright pink when it froze...
DAVIS Tell me! Please!
REBECCA He didn't die.
DAVIS {Enjoying the gruesomeness.) Unbelievable!
REBECCA Actually, they stitched him up and he was okay, but for the rest of the year everyone at school was asking him if he was still on his period.
37 DAVIS Clever fucking kids! God, I love how mean they can be sometimes.
REBECCA Like, they'd tape tampons to his locker...
DAVIS So I'd say you won that one.
REBECCA No, you see...actually, I lost.
DAVIS What do you mean? You gave a teenage boy a period! That's like.. .goddamn poetry!
REBECCA Because that was the last game they let me play in the boys' league. So actually.. .in acting so passionately.. .wanting to beat him.. .1 lost.
Pause. I like to think that REBECCA might be thinking about how this connects to her present situation with DAVIS.
DAVIS Hm.
REBECCA Yeah.
DAVIS My turn?
REBECCA Knock yourself out.
DAVIS Secrets. I love knowing something no one else knows. Or only one other person knows. It's why I've never been much of a gossip.
REBECCA I imagine that'd be tough.. .to not put some of that into your books.
38 DAVIS Oh, but I do. And that's the best part of it.. .that I know where those people come from. I mean, it used to just.. .1 used to love it.
This part gets kinda sexual if you couldn 't tell.
Knowing who inspired a word, a person, a scene.. .and I love holding in that secret.. .owning it.. .until I just can't.. .couldn't.. .and I let it sit inside me.. .building building building.. .until I can't bear it... just need to tell one person—to let it out...to...to....
Want to know a secret, Rebecca?
DA VIS grabs her hand. No way!
REBECCA You're pathetic.
That killed that moment.
DAVIS You really don't get me, do you?
REBECCA I think I do.
DAVIS No, you don't—
REBECCA That you compare telling a secret with having an orgasm?
DAVIS I thought you'd understand.
REBECCA I understand that you think you're one of your characters.
39 DAVIS Only crazy people write their lives and only crazy people live their writing.
REBECCA Is that so?
DAVIS That is so.
REBECCA Then what compels you to.. .1 mean the way you think women are.
DAVIS What about it?
REBECCA The fact that you just tried that.
DAVIS Tried what?
REBECCA Even in your books, I mean, if it wasn't cliche to say one-dimensional, I would, the problem is, Emmett, I don't see any dimensions.
DAVIS No?
REBECCA They seem to only want punishing sex.
DAVIS Punishing sex. More wine?
REBECCA No.
DAVIS You sure?
REBECCA I'm sure.
DAVIS Okay, so you were saying.. .punishing sex?
40 DA VIS fills her wine up anyway. What a guy.
REBECCA Violent sex. Your books suggest that woman desire this rape—and not just sexual, but physical and mental and, well, moral rape.
DAVIS You keep saying rape as though it's a synonym for sex between a man and a woman.
REBECCA You keep writing sex as though it's rape.
Two people who live for literary debate are kicking it into gear here with all the passion and irrelevance of someone arguing who the best hockey player of all time is. The conversation means the world, but won't change the world.
REBECCA is working through her thoughts, while DA VIS is enjoying his.
DAVIS Okay, hold on here—first, sexuality is a dimension, so you saying that someone who wants it has zero-dimensions, is not right. Second, and I don't mean to take the place of a literary philosophy you fostered during an undergraduate class or getting banged up against the boards playing against the boys, but novels are a world. We might think they are taking place in the world we know, and they might not be the world as you wish it was, but they contain their own rules and order and morality and any judgement you put on them is essentially that of an alien. So as aliens, readers are looking down on something that can never wholly understand.
REBECCA Emmett, that's ridiculous. Otherwise how is anyone ever gleaning anything from a book?
41 DAVIS Have you ever known love in your own life to be anything like love in a
Jane Austen novel?
REBECCA No, but—
DAVIS Ah! No! See?
REBECCA But some of the general feelings...
DAVIS Abstracts. Yet look at how many people still hold certain stories to be a standard despite the fact that they are not of this world.
REBECCA But that's why they say, where the term universal comes from—it's that general.. .um.. ,um.. .idea, which is why I—which is where any of the value lies. Where I do not see any value in what you write, is that as a woman, I do not see how a man can write about how a woman does or does not feel about being raped.
DAVIS So what if a woman writes those things?
REBECCA And here's my point, I cannot envision a world—fictional or non—where a woman would write this...
DAVIS Is that so?
REBECCA That is so.
DAVIS Really?
REBECCA I believe it.
42 DAVIS You're sure?
REBECCA I'm sure.
DAVIS So my only crime is being a male writer?
REBECCA Cut the victim bullshit, Emmett. As you are in no position to know what it is to be oppressed, you will never be in a position to comment on it.
DAVIS Oh, and I bet the world is just filled with subjugated Yale grads.
REBECCA It's exactly how you.. .how you are treating me—since I've been here. Dictating. Telling me what I am instead of asking. Not conversing with, but at me?
DAVIS Aren't we conversing?
REBECCA Degrading me to get back at me.. .or.. .or telling me.. .you know what's best—what to think.. .or.. .or wooing me.
DAVIS This is not wooing.
REBECCA Because you can't help yourself.
DAVIS This is not—
REBECCA You say you are angry, that you say my article aroused some passion, but—how you show it.. .you do.. .all the things which you know I am against. As though you are trying to change me.
DAVIS And aren't you here to try and change me?
43 REBECCA But you're a lost cause, Emmett. You are. I hold no hope for you. Less now that I met you, because you act.. .automatically.
DAVIS Jesus, were you raped or something.
REBECCA I cannot believe you think you have the right...
DAVIS //I'm not making light of it...
REBECCA //... the right to even... to even suggest...
DAVIS III just don't understand this obsession you have with how I portray
fictional people.
REBECCA I thought you were just writing for shock.
DAVIS Fictional women.
REBECCA But it's you. And it's worse because you aren't fictional.
DAVIS //Because if you weren't raped.. .then what position are you in.. .1 mean, you're in no more position than I to comment on.. .to write about.. .to have an opinion.
REBECCA I'm a woman!
DAVIS I mean you can say what I can and can't write because you have a vagina?
REBECCA This is pointless.
44 DAVIS Because if you weren't raped....
REBECCA I'm leaving.
DAVIS I mean, if you weren't raped.. .what do you know about it other than imagining it in the same way I would imagine it.
REBECCA Goddamn it, I wasn't raped! That isn't what I'm talking about.
DAVIS Then ah! I reject it. I reject your rejection of me. You can't say you have any, credibility over me if neither of us has had direct, uh, direct experience.. ..I mean, we can talk to people. We can ask. Do the uh, research. And then think that's first hand experience.
REBECCA It's not the same.
DAVIS To say I can't put my name on that experience unless I had it is—because I did put my name on it, and people responded.. .and I was never.. .uh, uh—
REBECCA And that's what I'm saying—you wrote something you shouldn't have!
DAVIS Oh, if it isn't Becky fucking Stalin!
Beat.
REBECCA I think we should just.. .calm down. I haven't—I haven't ever fought like this....ever...
DAVIS We have quite the effect on each other.
45 Pause.
REBECCA This isn't what I had in mind.
DAVIS What did you have in mind?
REBECCA Honestly, I already told you.. .1 was going to come here, stand behind my work and...
DAVIS And win.
REBECCA Maybe.
DAVIS Kick me in the nuts.
REBECCA So to speak.
DAVIS Make me bleed out my crotch.
REBECCA Metaphorically, of course.
DAVIS And then I'd go for the whole critical relevance thing and then respect you? And in that grand moment of triumph.. .you'd show me your book.
REBECCA I take it with me everywhere because you never know....
DAVIS //You never know.
REBECCA I really just came to find out if you were an asshole or not.
DAVIS Which would have told you a lot about yourself, no?
46 REBECCA ...
DAVIS If I wasn't an asshole.
REBECCA ...
DAVIS That prospect scared you a bit.. .didn't it? That I would be nothing like my writing.
REBECCA Yes.
DAVIS Maybe this isn't really me.
REBECCA Why would you fake this?
DAVIS Maybe that's my secret.
REBECCA Christ.
DAVIS And maybe I want to tell you that secret...
REBECCA Really?
DAVIS .. .because I respect you.
REBECCA You respect me.
DAVIS I do.. .respect you.
REBECCA You have a funny way of showing it.
47 DAVIS
REBECCA So you have a secret?
DAVIS Not yet, Rebecca. Not yet.
REBECCA When?
DAVIS Maybe never. I don't know. That's the exciting part. That's.. .the passion.
Pause.
REBECCA So an alien is looking at this right now. A little green man, a reader, someone who has no experience or only a passing interest in the world we inhabit.. .what do they see?
DAVIS Right now, or just a second ago?
REBECCA Now.
DAVIS Two people who have chosen to be in the same room.
REBECCA I don't feel like I have a choice.
DAVIS Little Becky, always taking on the big boys
REBECCA Emmett Davis, always trying to show a woman she's wrong.
REBECCA goes to pick up her manuscript.
48 DAVIS Leaving so soon?
REBECCA I was just.. .going to use your washroom. Is that okay?
DAVIS So not leaving?
REBECCA No. Not leaving.
DAVIS Because you haven't won yet?
REBECCA I'm doing okay, I'd say.
REBECCA exits.
DA VIS takes a deep breath. Shit that was exhausting, but he's feeling high.
Looks at the article.
Opens another bottle.
DAVIS (Yelling off.) You really don't get it, you know. I mean, I stand by what I said, but I really don't go around all day telling women.. .telling anyone they're wrong and I'm right. In fact, I don't really care if I'm right. Look what that's got me.
He fills REBECCA's glass right to the top.
Not a bad life. A pretty good one actually. In fact, I couldn't live without it now. I wouldn't remember how.
And dinner doesn 't make itself. Better get back to it, Davis.
49 And not all women hate my work. That college girl I was telling you about.. .that interviewer, her name was Angel and she positively loved it, and I'm almost sure Angel was taking at least one or two women's studies classes. So her critical mind would've been like, as high as—relatively speaking.. ..it had ever been....so, I mean—come on.. .and I know I made her a better writer. I know it!
REBECCA reenters.
REBECCA Were you saying something?
DAVIS No.
REBECCA Who designed your bathroom?
DAVIS It has a design?
REBECCA It has a feel.
DAVIS Then I guess I designed the feel.
REBECCA It's not what I would have expected.
DAVIS Because of my writing?
REBECCA Yes.
DAVIS So you see no connection between my writing and my bathroom. That's the nicest thing you've said to me since you've been here.
50 REBECCA It's just.. .you know.. .feminine...
DAVIS It's a not a men's room...
REBECCA Soft.
DAVIS Something you never would've known if you left. So see.. .I'm full of
surprises.
REBECCA picks up the wine.
REBECCA Did you put enough in this?
DAVIS Sorry. Accident.
REBECCA Did you roofie it?
DAVIS What's a roofie?
REBECCA You really don't know?
DAVIS No.
REBECCA You'd love it.
DAVIS Why, what the hell is it?
REBECCA Like, a date rape drug.
DAVIS Just when I think we're getting along, you stay on theme.
51 REBECCA Sorry, I was sort of kidding. A girl's gotta be careful though.
DAVIS And is this a date?
REBECCA No.
DAVIS Oh.
REBECCA It's just a term.
DAVIS So what happens, someone slips something into your drink and you lose
inhibitions...
REBECCA Are you fucking with me? You really don't know?
DAVIS No. I didn't know what a roofie was.
REBECCA Wow, you're older than I thought.
DAVIS Sorry if I never needed to drug a woman to get her into bed.
REBECCA Out of touch...
DAVIS Guess I'm just fortunate by today's standards that I get my women the old fashioned way. REBECCA Bet you'd know what it was if you were just another a dirty old man and not the grand E.H. Davis.
DAVIS Dirty old man?
52 REBECCA Stricken.
DAVIS And anyway, what you're describing sounds a lot like what we used to
call... alcohol.
REBECCA puts the wine down for forty-seven and a half seconds.
DAVIS When I was in college all we needed to do was give a girl some gin.
REBECCA You romantic.
DAVIS Even the girls called it liquid panty remover.
REBECCA When you say shit like that, does the thought of your daughter even cross your mind?
DAVIS Let's just leave my daughter out of this, heh?
REBECCA I'm just saying...
DAVIS Okay, you get one question about her. And that's it.
REBECCA I don't.. .uh.. .do you get along?
DAVIS No. As a matter of fact we do not. She doesn't like what I write—in fact, you'd probably get along with her just fine.
REBECCA Why doesn't she like what you write?
DAVIS I said one question.
53 REBECCA Well this is sort of on the same line...
DAVIS Okay. And then we drop it.
REBECCA It shall be dropped.
DAVIS You read my third book?
REBECCA Um... Sagittarius?
DAVIS That's the one. So there's a scene where the character Hannah is
hospitalized for driving those screws into her arm—
REBECCA Christ, that was your daughter?
DAVIS That was my daughter. She didn't like that I put that in the book. Thought I was profiting from a very difficult time in her life.
REBECCA A bit insensitive.
DAVIS Yeah, well.. .not like anyone knew but us. I still had kept the secret.
REBECCA But she didn't see it that way.
DAVIS That's the only secret that I regret telling.. .the one I wish I had've kept in. And when I think of that.. .that's the only time I really feel like I truly betrayed some sort of ethic.. .problem is, I didn't know it existed until I did.
Pause. Pause. Wine. Food fiddling.
54 DAVIS So why aren't you married?
REBECCA Don't know. Just not.
DAVIS A lot of friends your age are paired up around now.
REBECCA Yep.
DAVIS I was when I was your age.
REBECCA Well, it was a different generation then, wasn't it?
DAVIS Never thought about it?
REBECCA Not enough to do it.
DAVIS Not even once?
REBECCA Not even once.
DAVIS Surprising.
REBECCA Why?
DAVIS I don't know. Security. You seem like you'd want that.
REBECCA Really?
DAVIS Yeah. Seems like you want to take your risks in controlled environments—
55 REBECCA Like coming here is controlled?
DAVIS People like that are the usually the type of people who get married so that
there's something to catch them on the way down.
REBECCA And if there's no way down?
DAVIS Those are the same people who get the fuck out when the risk pays off.
REBECCA Always so acidic...
DAVIS S'just the way it is, ami wrong?
REBECCA I don't know. With me it's just been a series of short relationships. Few months here. Few months there.
DAVIS Of course. The unfulfilled have a hard time pretending a relationship is the
actual thing they're after.
REBECCA Longest was.. .thirteen months.
DAVIS She leave you for another man?
REBECCA He...
DAVIS Okay, what happened?
REBECCA He was ugly.
DAVIS Whoa, that's a hot snowball to throw there.
56 REBECCA I always knew he wasn't like.. .the best looking in the world, but that shouldn't matter, should it?
DAVIS Was he rich?
REBECCA No.
DAVIS Nice car?
REBECCA You have some low opinion of me...
DAVIS Big cock?
REBECCA Inappropriate.
DAVIS He was a writer!
REBECCA Fuck you.
DAVIS Got ya!
REBECCA I hate that you can do that.
DAVIS Face it, Becky, you're a writing groupie.
REBECCA Okay, let me preface by saying this: Ugly Guy was a writer.
DAVIS Aren't they all.
REBECCA But a real writer. Like, the first person I had ever known to have a book.. .and it made him at the time.. .at the time.. .really sexy—
57 DAVIS Go on.
REBECCA I don't really want to talk about this.
DAVIS I'm very easy to talk to.
Beat.
REBECCA He had this habit. You know.. .he would.. .always need to tell me what he was writing about. He'd call me with 'the best' idea and he'd always be bouncing them off me, but really it was more to hear himself say them rather than ask me a question and there were times where I could just.. .leave the room. And all of his stories were about writers, and it was like, who gives a shit about this? Who does this apply to? And suddenly him being a writer, and all those romantic notions of what that meant to me—well, he wasn't as smart to listen to as he was to read. He was taking off layers I wanted to stay on. Take me: I think I look good in this dress, but I'm average naked.. .and that's what started to happen. And then from average, the more he talked, the more he took off until suddenly he was naked. And I was eighteen and figure I would've found this out anyway. Or maybe I'm full of shit, and really it was because he was actually physically repulsive.
DAVIS No judgements here.
REBECCA It's probably the reason I started writing reviews—just to make sure that I was calling out the ones who had a self-important view of the world. I mean, the reality is, more people care about hockey—
DAVIS And so they should.
58 REBECCA Anyway, I wasn't really defined then. Maybe I still feel that way. Like one of your characters.
DAVIS Couldn't resist, heh?
REBECCA I guess I still want to trust what I read, you know?
DAVIS Cheers to that.
Pause. Wine. Foodstuff.
DAVIS She used to hit me, you know.
REBECCA Your daughter?
DAVIS My wife.
REBECCA Hit you?
DAVIS Ex-wife.
REBECCA Bullshit.
DAVIS True.
REBECCA You think that impresses me?
DAVIS Why?
REBECCA Think that makes you less of an asshole?
59 DAVIS Yes.
REBECCA Makes you a victim or something?
DAVIS Well, wasn't I?
Beat.
REBECCA What do you mean, she hit you?
DAVIS I mean what I mean. She hit me.
REBECCA During fights.
DAVIS That's when people hit people.
REBECCA And you're telling me this because?
DAVIS Because I feel like it's something you should know.
REBECCA It's not.
DAVIS Okay, then forget about it.
Beat.
REBECCA You hit her first?
DAVIS No.
60 REBECCA Really?
DAVIS Really.
REBECCA You hit her back?
DAVIS Never once.
REBECCA I don't—
DAVIS //You don't believe me.
REBECCA —believe you.
DAVIS I knew you wouldn't.
REBECCA Right, you know...
DAVIS Why do you think I would?
REBECCA I just—
DAVIS That I could?
REBECCA It just feels like something.. .you are capable of.
DAVIS That / am, or that the person who writes my books is?
REBECCA Same thing.
DAVIS And here I thought we had gotten somewhere.
61 REBECCA Was she bigger than you?
DAVIS You don't need to be bigger than someone for your hits to hurt.
REBECCA It hurt?
DAVIS Yeah, it hurt.
REBECCA How'd she do it?
DAVIS Punches.
REBECCA Where.
DAVIS Everywhere?
REBECCA Like this...
REBECCA play punches DA VIS on the shoulder.
DAVIS No. The face.
REBECCA You mean.. .here?
REBECCA play punches DA VIS on the chin.
DAVIS Sometimes.
REBECCA And here?
62 REBECCA play punches DAVIS on the nose. Is this really happening?
DAVIS Yeah.
REBECCA And here?
REBECCA play punches DAVIS on the mouth. Yes. Yes it is.
DAVIS Lots.
REBECCA And what happened after she hit you?
DAVIS It would hurt.
REBECCA Blood?
DAVIS Sometimes. Cuts.
REBECCA Yet you stayed with her.
DAVIS She'd apologize.
REBECCA That's all it took?
DAVIS Promised she'd never do it again...
REBECCA And you believed her.
DAVIS She'd kiss it better?
REBECCA She would, would she?
63 DAVIS She would.
REBECCA and DA VIS are super close. They would kiss if I didn 't firmly believe in Mark Ravenhill's notion that plays are not drama, they are delayed drama.
So instead, REBECCA slaps his face.
DAVIS What the fuck did you do that for?
REBECCA That almost worked.
DAVIS What?
REBECCA That puppy dog, woe is me, little boy routine...
DAVIS It wasn't a routine.
REBECCA Right.. .you just wanted to tell me a secret?
DAVIS No, I just wanted to give you some insight.
REBECCA I don't want to know anything else about you! Don't you understand that?
DAVIS Right, I'm a burden.
REBECCA It is a burden.
DAVIS How is my ex-wife hitting me a burden on you?
REBECCA 'Cause it changes the way I look at you, of course, fuck.
64 DAVIS How?
REBECCA Well, I don't think you deserve to be hit. Anyone deserves to be hit.
DAVIS You don't, heh?
REBECCA Not for real, like, not out of anger.
DAVIS You know when I read your review, it felt the same. As when she would hit me.
REBECCA But it's not the same—
DAVIS But it is. You know. It is. That same sort of.. .winding.
REBECCA But how hard could she have been hitting you?
DAVIS What, because she's a girl?
REBECCA Well, yes.
DAVIS Take it like a man?
REBECCA Not exactly what I'm saying...
DAVIS You don't think a girl's punches could hurt? That's sexist.
REBECCA No... I think they could hurt—
DAVIS You think your punches could hurt?
65 REBECCA Yeah, I punch pretty hard.
DAVIS Hurt me.
REBECCA Huh?
DAVIS Punch me. Hard as you can.
REBECCA No.
DAVIS Why, don't think you've got it in you?
REBECCA I just don't want to.
DAVIS You're telling me, you wrote that review, and there was some part of you that wasn't so pissed off, that you didn't want to hit me?
REBECCA I'm a professional.
DAVIS Right. Hit me.
REBECCA I've never hit anyone.
DAVIS What are you talking about.. .what about the fat kid?
REBECCA That was on the ice. That's a different type of...
DAVIS You have it in you, though. Don't go getting all precious. Just once. In the stomach.
66 REBECCA No.
DAVIS Come on, pussy!
Beat.
REBECCA doesn 't react the same as when she was a kid, but DA VIS recalling "pussy" certainly is a nice card to play.
REBECCA You really like this stuff, don't you?
DAVIS No, I don't like it at all.
REBECCA You need it.
DAVIS Maybe.
REBECCA I do want to.
DAVIS Then do it.
REBECCA One time?
DAVIS Yeah.
REBECCA And you're not gonna hit back.
DAVIS I told you, even when I want to....
REBECCA And you want to?
67 DAVIS Yes. I do.
REBECCA But you won't.
DAVIS No.
REBECCA approaches DA VIS. Socks him in the gut.
It hurts. DA VIS is winded. On his knees. Gasping.
REBECCA Are you... are you okay?
DAVIS
REBECCA Fuck, I didn't rupture something...
DAVIS I'm...
REBECCA This is how Houdini died...
DAVIS It's...
REBECCA That was stupid.
DAVIS
REBECCA Why did you want me to do that?
DAVIS
REBECCA Why did you...
68 DAVIS I'm...
REBECCA Stupid.
DAVIS It's okay. I'm...okay.
DA VIS gets to his feet after a moment. Takes that breath that finally gets you out being winded.
DAVIS That hurt.
REBECCA I can see that.
DAVIS Woo! That was.. .1 felt that one!
REBECCA You're sick.
DAVIS Got a good punch on you, Rebecca.
REBECCA I told you...
DAVIS You really know how to sock it to a man...
REBECCA Okay. Are we done now?
DAVIS Done? Aren't we just getting to it?
REBECCA To what?
DAVIS You trust me now.
69 REBECCA I don't...
DAVIS Or I trust you now.
REBECCA Okay.
DAVIS I have an idea.
REBECCA Oh-kay...
DAVIS Read me some of that novel there.
REBECCA I don't think—
DAVIS Come on, you say you take it everywhere with you just in case...
REBECCA Yeah, but—
DAVIS Isn't this a just in case moment?
REBECCA Why?
DAVIS Why not? You know all of my writing—I only know what I read in review. I'd like to be on a bit more.. .even ground.
REBECCA So you can tell me how much it sucks?
DAVIS No...
REBECCA So you can get your revenge?
70 DAVIS Come on.
REBECCA This is how you hit back, isn't it?
DAVIS Rebecca, please.
REBECCA There's a rule at the paper against reviewing someone who reviewed your work.
DAVIS Well, we aren't at the paper now, are we?
REBECCA No, but I'm not about to betray my ethics....
DAVIS Come on. Just a bit. I mean.. .1 am...
REBECCA E.H. Davis. Christ, how often does that work?
DAVIS Only with people who've heard of me.
Pause. REBECCA looks down at her manuscript.
REBECCA From where.
DAVIS The beginning seems as natural a place as any.
REBECCA {Starts reading.) I have become one of those people—
DAVIS Wait wait wait.. .what's the title?
REBECCA Oh, it's uh, The Lucretia Thread.
71 DAVIS The Lucretia Thread. Okay. Sorry. Continue.
REBECCA 'I have become one of those people: scouring opera section at bookstores, furrowing my brow like an expert so as to not betray how green I am. I feel like someone who just now, ten years past the best part of adolescence, has discovered The Beatles albums her parents still find too experimental.'
This is stupid.
DAVIS If you think that, how is anyone else going to think differently?
REBECCA There are plot problems.
DAVIS There are always plot problems. Fuck plot. Keep going.
REBECCA is about to read a lot here. We all understand the risk of this. Let's try it anyway, hey? I mean, people go to fiction readings all the time.
REBECCA 'I suppose I have always teetered on the edge of being one of those people: aware that music defined the books I read, the conversations I am willing to enter and to some extent, the men I attempt. My closest friends, particularly those who I don't see on a regular basis, can, after an absence, take one look at me and call it: My switch to earth tones: Hendrix, The Band. Shaved head: Bad Religion, Black Flag. Concert t-shirts: Metal. Ah, metal. Dave Mustaine, you fucking God. Him: Opera. He sits besides me. Knows all the stories of all the great operas. When I found this out, I was quick to buy one of those primer books made for
72 people who want to become suddenly interesting. Opera for Dummies. The Idiot's Guide to Opera. Ironic couples. I am surprised how big the section at the bookstore is for people who admit their shortcomings while simultaneously striving for the cred of a bourgeoisie. Somewhere, an aristocrat curses his decision to sell out and write Intellect for Dummies. Somewhere, an intellect curses the sad fact that more books are bought at the beginning of relationships than at any other time. "Tosca is one of my favourite operas," he whispers. "Good," I say, which doesn't feel like enough. I read the program notes which tell me that Act One of Tosca is about a painter and a singer who fall in love but shouldn't. You know, that type of shit. Opera is full of either glamourous or petty occupations. No one gets old, no one gets bored. So far, I've yet to see a synopsis where a banker carries the action. You will never see a television or a t-shirt on the opera stage; this is the contract between art and audience. This is what I get from the whole deal: sound. I find it hard to read about opera; the stories are dense, but the music pierces something in me that needed popping. I am an Opera Gal. But first and foremost, a sound gal. Be it a the shriek of soprano or Axl Rose, a chorus of violins, or Yngwie Malmestein fucking it up on the guitar, I'm a sucker for bodies becoming instruments. It's sexual, I know, and I've avoided Freud because sometimes it's comfortable to not dissect it. Body as instrument. I know, this sounds like a bad pickup line—though it has been a good pickup line on more than one occasion. Opera has never been about story, or to the point, the story the words can tell. My interest in an English opera and the surtitles at the top of the stage is nil. Seriously, I can't give you more than two or three lines of song lyrics from the best fucking band I know, Megadeth (and even in those two or three, only from Symphony of Destruction, which every kid who got channel 30 in junior high could tell you!), but I can wiggle my fingers in perfect synchronicity to every
73 goddamn guitar solo on Peace Sells... But Who's Buying. 'Hangar 18,1 know too much.' "I love Puccnini's work. Second only to Verdi," he says. "Aida!" I say excited, having answered a question not asked. Having gotten some way into the A's of The Idiot's Guide. "You like Aida?" "Yeah. Yeah. Powerful." At which point he can sense a lie. He goes back to reading his program, examining the stage as though visualizing expectations. And then, "But The Rape ofLucretia. The Rape ofLucretia is the finest opera I have ever seen. I cried." Name dropper. Crier. No idea. But he excites me the way someone speaking Spanish will if you don't understand what they're saying. So this is me. One of those people. I am not doing it for him, but he doesn't hurt the development. Though I had no interest in opera before him, when he told me it was 'his thing' the novelty was a nice accessory to his obvious physical appeal to me. And I still find him beautiful, only now, and this sells me shorter than him, I find we have become too intellectually compatible. Surtitle: Where's the heat? As the overture begins to play, I glide my hand over his leg, smooth from what must be a suit worth the money. No reaction. Ah! Finalmente! Nel terror mio stolto "Who's that one?" "Angelotti," he says. I look down at my program as though further clarification is needed. Angelloti continues. His sound is okay, but I sense that this is one of those operas where the talent is withheld until emotions and audiences are ready to bust. And wasn't the hardest ass song on metal cassettes always the first track on Side B? My eyes feel heavy. Heavier than sleep.
74 DAVIS has stopped preparing food and starts a slow move towards her.
I blame the tenor, when in fact, these are the final moments of my life. I die in the seat beside him. Somehow this surprises me. He might not notice until the end of Act I when Tosca storms offstage in jealousy. Had I known I was about to die, I would have made sure to think of something else. Something more symbolic of my twenty-nine years here. Dying in a black dress. They won't even have to change my clothes for a funeral. I wonder if anyone will question the decorum of not waiting until the third act to die. Dying for Dummies.'
DA VIS closer, closer, closer...holy shit, he's going to try and kiss her!
REBECCA What are you doing?
DAVIS Let me have it.
REBECCA Have what?
DAVIS Your book.
REBECCA What do you mean, have it?
DAVIS I knew you'd be perfect.
REBECCA What?
75 DAVIS Just like Angel.
REBECCA What?
DAVIS I'll give you half the profits.
REBECCA No. What are you—what do you mean?
DAVIS I'm telling you a secret.
REBECCA I don't know if I want one.
DAVIS The Black Year.. .the book you so vehemently hated.
REBECCA Yes.
DAVIS The book that created so demeaning a world you said no woman ever would've imagined....
REBECCA Uh huh.
DAVIS A woman wrote it.
REBECCA What do you mean?
DAVIS College girl, she had a name. Angel Cannon.. .1 mean could you believe such a name, as though she was just.. .shot here.
REBECCA What the hell are you taking about?
76 DAVIS And I knew you had a novel—I just knew it—the way you wrote the review.
REBECCA Wait, you plagiarized?
DAVIS I remember thinking, I needed to have been the one to have written this. My name needed to be on the book. In copying my style, she made it something I couldn't have...
REBECCA ...
DAVIS Because she had been raped.
REBECCA Christ, are you smiling?
DAVIS But no one was going to take her seriously because she was copying E.H. Davis' style, see? Writing in my voice, not her own. No one else could've written it but me. The world needs another E.H. Davis book.
REBECCA This is my book.
DAVIS The world doesn't need another anonymous writer...
REBECCA But it's mine—
DAVIS And if your book has all the elements that you are telling me mine lacks, and of all the reviews, yours was the only one with any balls.. .what better than to take a turn.. .to change—no, to atone for The Black Year!
REBECCA Thought you didn't need to atone for anything.
77 DAVIS No, but this is working on a legacy. A late career shift, showing that I have depth.
REBECCA But you won't have depth.. .you'll be.. .it won't be your writing.
DAVIS We split everything in half. Just like with Angel.
REBECCA No one's gonna believe that someone who doesn't know what a roofie is knows who Megadeth is.
DAVIS I'll say I did my research.
REBECA It's written first person in a woman's voice.
DAVIS I know, it's brilliant! A man in his late fifties writing a woman in her early thirties! They'll eat it up!
REBECCA I could just be patient and hope someone picks it up...
DAVIS With your name, it's a struggle, with mine....
REBECCA I can't do it.
DAVIS Do you want people to read it?
REBECCA Sure, but at what cost?
DAVIS Lighten up? It's all a fiction anyway, right?
REBECCA But there are parts of me in this book.
78 DAVIS Of course there are, it's a first novel!
REBECCA What happened to the girl?
DAVIS It's perfect. We both win.
REBECCA What happened to Angel Cannon?
DAVIS Oh.. .we.. .broke up.
REBECCA Right, 'cause you were fucking her.
DAVIS Well, after The Black Year, she got what she want, I got what I want.. .and after the excitement.. .we moved on.
REBECCA You couldn't have—it couldn't have been mutual.
DAVIS It was. She was excited about it too.
REBECCA And she just gave it away?
DAVIS Yeah.
REBECCA Just like that?
DAVIS Just like that.
REBECCA How could she do that?
DAVIS She was a fan.. .but see, I was a fan of hers—and well, sharing a book is a very intimate thing.
79 REBECCA But it's not sharing. Your name goes on it. She gets no credit.
DAVIS What credit does she need? She wrote the thing, it does well, gets great reviews—except from you—I mean, she is a part of something bigger than she would ever be.
REBECCA But only she knows it.
DAVIS Think everyone wants to be a celebrity?
REBECCA You do.
DAVIS Think everyone needs to be in Playboy or play professional hockey?
REBECCA I don't know.. .1 don't. How do you know she'll never tell?
DAVIS Why would she? She never wanted anyone to know that was her in the
book.
REBECCA She was a victim.
DAVIS She was. And she turned it into something great.
REBECCA But she was your victim too.
DAVIS Come on, she had a book, I needed a book.
REBECCA Why? Why not just write your own?
DAVIS I'm out.
80 REBECCA What do you mean out?
DAVIS When I sit down to write, I sit down knowing, I'm E.H. Davis. There's no desperation. I start writing and it's all crap now. I have nothing to fight against. Like you. You love to win. Well, I've won.
But then I see what happens with a lot of guys my age, and it's all just crap at the end. And then all their best stuff gets footnoted with, 'but his last work was weaker, showed a decline in old age..."
But I'm not willing to give it up. That.. .seeing my name in a store. Reading the reviews. Being called a treasure, when I'm not. I know I'm not a treasure, but then to be called that.. .could you give that up?
REBECCA I don't know. I've never had it.
DAVIS See!
REBECCA Did you do this for all your books?
DAVIS No.
REBECCA Are you lying?
DAVIS Just The Black Year. I promise.
REBECCA It degrades the art.
DAVIS According to who?
81 REBECCA The rules. The order of things...
DAVIS No one is going to know.
REBECCA I'll know.
DAVIS And with the money you can buy time and write another one...
REBECCA And you'll want that one too.
DAVIS No. Maybe. I don't know. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
REBECCA Why not just stop? Instead of doing it this way. Why not just go out when you're on top? Not like you need the money.
DAVIS Guess I'm addicted to getting my dick sucked by the New York Times.
REBECCA There will always be women who want to be degraded by you.
DAVIS The way you write is the way I write.
REBECCA Hardly.
DAVIS The way you are is the way I am.
REBECCA Now you're just trying to insult me.
DAVIS I'm not talking about content.. .I'm taking about.. .passion. The way you argue, the way you form an opinion, the fact that you have not left despite every instinct you have ever had telling you to.. .that's me.
82 REBECCA You've manipulated me from the minute I came in here.
DAVIS You write a book that has my name on it. Tell me, who is really controlling who in that situation?
REBECCA Told me what I am and what I'm not—
DAVIS You make it sound so sinister. They used to do this in Hollywood all the time.. .writers would do whole scripts that someone else's name got credit for.. ..but everyone got paid and some pretty good fucking movies were made, so who cares?
REBECCA So this was all some test? Some interview?
DAVIS Maybe.
REBECCA And if I didn't have a novel?
DAVIS Then I was just going to fuck you and maybe ask you to be my biographer.
REBECCA Ah, so a double honour.
DAVIS We can negotiate that later.
REBECCA This is wrong.
DAVIS If we're the gods of our own ethical universes, then how can it be wrong?
REBECCA How can you justify this?
DAVIS I can't. And I don't care.
83 Beat.
DAVIS Look, I'm lucky. I'm one of the lucky ones.
REBECCA Yeah but....
DAVIS Okay, you're sixteen—someone asks you this.. .if you can win the Stanley Cup, the scoring title and the MVP all in your rookie season—guaranteed, but that'll mean you're dead when you're thirty and be forgotten when you're forty—or, you can still have a career, but then maybe you win, no guarantee, and you can live to say.. .1 don't know, eighty.. .what do you say?
REBECCA When I'm sixteen?
DAVIS Yeah. What do you say?
REBECCA Honestly?
DAVIS Honestly.
REBECCA Okay. I take the deal.
DAVIS And why?
REBECCA Because if I don't, and I don't win.. .then I have the double problem of a pretty long life knowing I turned down the best deal anyone was going to offer me.
84 DAVIS And what I'm offering you now—the guarantee that people are going to
read this.. .do you think that is the best deal you're ever going to get?
REBECCA Maybe.
DAVIS Listen, this is perfect. You're perfect.
Beat.
DAVIS
REBECCA ...
REBECCA Do you want to read the whole thing?
DAVIS Sure.
REBECCA How much editing do you do?
DAVIS I'll look at it a bit. Surely my—our editor will have a few notes—which you can be the one to address if you want.
REBECCA Okay.. .and how do I know you won't cheat me? I mean, we can't have a contract or anything...
DAVIS I never cheated Angel.
REBECCA That doesn't make me feel much better.
85 DAVIS I told you about Angel. I mean, you have the biggest possible secret you can possibly have, and if I cheat you, what's to stop you from telling everyone?
Beat.
DAVIS How does my book end?
REBECCA Everyone gets what they want.
DAVIS Didn't the narrator die in the first chapter?
REBECCA Having some doubts?
DAVIS No no...
REBECCA Just because someone is fucked from the start, doesn't mean they can't get smarter.
REBECCA takes a glass of wine to DA VIS.
REBECCA Red or white?
DAVIS takes red.
They are close, close, closer.
REBECCA You know what really disappoints me?
DAVIS What?
86 REBECCA I really was a huge fan of your writing.
DAVIS I knew it when I read the review. No one gets that angry unless they feel betrayed.
REBECCA It might be fun, turning you back into the writer you could have been.
DAVIS Always taking on the big boys.
REBECCA I'm not going to fuck you.
DAVIS No?
REBECCA I'm not one of your characters.
DAVIS Then I'll be one of yours where everyone gets what they want in the end. We'll see how long you can resist.
REBECCA Oh, don't worry about me.. .1 can resist the great E.H. Davis.
DAVIS You can?
REBECCA I'm ten times the woman Angel Cannon is.
DAVIS I can see that.
REBECCA Can you?
DAVIS But you'll give in.
REBECCA What are you gonna do, rape me?
87 DAVIS It won't be rape, believe me.
REBECCA No, huh?
DAVIS Sometimes two people ruck because they both want to. Not because one is
holding the other down.
REBECCA In what world?
DAVIS In this one.
REBECCA So I win?
DAVIS We both win.
REBECCA Rape me.
DAVIS Really?
REBECCA No. Not really.
REBECCA kisses DAVIS. It is passionate and secret and then it is dark.
END
88