7/17/14 1
HOW WATER BEHAVES
Contact: Bruce Ostler Bret Adams, Ltd. 448 West 44th Street New York, NY 10036 1 212-765-5630 [email protected]
c. 2012 Sherry Kramer 5/18/2014
7/17/14 2
HOW WATER BEHAVES CHARACTERS
NAN, our luckless heroine Middle to late 20’s. She works at Crespy, a private high school. She’s not happy about it. She is obsessed with Melinda Gates and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She’s married to Steve. Any race.
STEVE, our reluctant hero Middle to late 20’s. He designs websites. He just got fired. He’s married to Nan. Any race.
MOLLY Nan’s best friend. Middle to late 20’s. She wants a baby. She works at Crespy, a private high school, with Nan. She’s been an everyday hero to Nan since they were 8. Any race
ALLEN BELL Early 30’s. String theory poet. Well, he’s our hero too…they’re all heroes! Any race
HANK Steve’s brother Late 20’s, early 30’s. Hank is the same race as Steve. He’s not much of a hero, actually. But he means well.
SALLY Late 20’s, early 30’s. Married to Hank. She’s made a lot of money in the market, and she’s rich and not ashamed of it. Any race.
AYUTUNDE—a young and lovely woman from Africa. Early 20’s. African.
STRING THEORY POETRY written by Michael Dickman
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SETTING
The living room of Nan and Steve’s home. Somewhere in the Northeast or Northcentral United States. Nan and Steve live in an old, cared for house, and the heating system is steam heat that comes from large, old, free standing radiators. One of those radiators is in the living room in a prominent position.
The thermostat for the house is also in this room, probably right above the radiator.
Doors lead off to the kitchen and the bedroom.
The front door of the house leads directly into the living room.
MUSIC
Music and sound design for Ilsa, the radiator, are essential for the piece, as well as water sounds for the website. The sound element of the play is where much of the magical realism of the piece can flourish.
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HOW WATER BEHAVES
SCENE 1* Evening. A day in mid December
NAN (Nan and Steve walk into their house. The heat is on.) Oh, CRAP!!! (Nan flings down her purse and bag on the floor, and runs to the thermostat, crashing and stumbling, to turn it down.) Crap. Crap. Crap. I put it on hold when I thought I was turning it off. We’ve been heating the house at 70 since we left on Friday.
STEVE 70? What was it doing at 70?
NAN I was cold, okay, the house wouldn’t warm up, so I knocked it up to 70.
STEVE Because you turn it too cold at night, and then it takes too long to warm up.
NAN I thought I was turning it off! CRAP.
STEVE It’s not the end of the world. It’s just a little heat.
NAN No it’s not! It’s not heat anymore. It’s money. Money we don’t have. The furnace kicks on in the middle of the night, and all I think is, we’re the people I always feel so bad for, in the supermarket, when their kid puts some ridiculously overpriced box of cereal they’ve seen advertised on TV into the cart and longingly says ‘please” and the mother sadly says, “no”. We’re the people who can’t afford to feed our kids.
STEVE 7/17/14 5
Except we don’t have any kids.
NAN I used to love it when the heat kicked on, I used to think, mmmmmm, nice, I love the heat. But now when it kicks on I think, I hate the heat. That heat is killing us. And then I think about those mothers in the supermarket, and how much they must hate the heat too, and how I never knew you could hate the heat and what a fool I’ve been, and how now I know how hard it is, when you’re a mother, you have to be full of love when in reality you hate everything you need and can’t afford.
STEVE Are you hiding something from me? Do we have kids, and I just haven’t noticed?
NAN I can’t stand having my heart broken every time the heat kicks on.
STEVE Honey, don’t be so— (He looks at the thermostat.) What did you do?
NAN I set it to 33.
STEVE But I’ve told you--
NAN It’s one degree above freezing. An acceptable margin of error.
STEVE Are you serious?
NAN I’m tired of giving it the upper hand, Steve. Of being scared of it. If water doesn’t freeze at 33, then 33 it is. I’m taking a stand.
STEVE This is your idea of a stand?
NAN We’re going to be going to bed soon anyway.
STEVE 7/17/14 6
In 4 or 5 or 6 hours. By then we won’t be able to feel our toes.
NAN You’re supposed to sleep better in the cold.
STEVE The pipes will freeze.
NAN Not in one night.
STEVE Famous last words. (He sighs.) You know we can’t keep it there. (Nan ignores him and turns on the radio.) I’m turning it up to 50.
NAN Coward.
STEVE No, realist.
NAN Same thing.
RADIO (NPR is on.) “This hours programming brought to you by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, dedicated to the idea that all people deserve to live healthy and productive lives.” (Music programming on NPR starts.
Steve gets himself a glass of water, while Nan settles in at the table with papers to grade.)
NAN They’re so lucky.
STEVE Who?
NAN Bill and Melinda.
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STEVE Yeah. I bet Melinda never sets the thermostat to 33 degrees just to piss Bill off.
NAN You don’t know that. It’s dangerous to ever assume anything about someone else’s marriage.
STEVE True. They probably have upper-class heat like geo-thermal or radiant, it’s so cheap and carbon neutral they set it at 90 and never even think about it.
NAN The richer you are, the less it costs you to stay warm. Why is that?
STEVE Some rule of the universe, I guess.
NAN They’re warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and it never breaks their heart. And when Bill was sure that Melinda and their kids were warm and cool enough, he took his money and turned it into the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He made that money from little bits of electricity, from almost nothing, and he spun it into gold.
STEVE Well, actually, he sort of stole that almost nothing. He didn’t even write the original Microsoft program—he paid the guy who did write it like 250 bucks.
NAN Wow. You sort of steal something that’s almost nothing, and you spin it into a better world.
I wish we could do that. (She goes back to grading her papers.) They’re spelling by-bye bu-bye. B U-dash-B Y E. Or B U H dash bye.
STEVE So?
NAN So this is the third essay with it spelled this way. It’s weird.
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STEVE No it isn’t. Probably some young adult book that’s like the new Harry Potter that we’ve never heard of spells it like that, so they all read it. Maybe some vampire book.
NAN Oh, I hadn’t thought of that.
STEVE You thought it was some sort of meme?
NAN What?
STEVE You know, we watched that TED Talk about memes, the way ideas and values spread, they were talking about the monkey washing fruit in the jungle thing? They put this chimp back into the jungle to see how she’d interact with chimps in the wild after a life spent with humans, but what nobody noticed was that she’d picked up this fruit washing thing in the lab, because, you know, monkey see, monkey do, and the lab workers ate their lunch in the lab and always washed their fruit. So everyday, down by the river, this chimp does it. She has a baby, she shows her baby how to do it. Other monkeys close by see them, they start doing it. Then other monkeys see them and fruit washing spreads relentlessly through the jungle like a slow moving tidal wave.
NAN So? More monkeys see more monkeys doing, so?
STEVE Well, so then, something strange happens. One day, suddenly, every monkey in the jungle is washing their fruit. Monkeys too far away to have ever seen another monkey washing theirs. Monkey not see, but monkey do anyway. The fruit washing had achieved critical mass in the jungle.
NAN So it’s like a virus, when enough of them get it, they all catch it.
STEVE Except they don’t catch it, exactly. They aren’t near enough. They are hundreds of miles from any fruit washing. What happened was, when enough monkeys do it, and that new pattern is in their brain, it changes the brain of the entire species. It becomes a part of their DNA.
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NAN Really?
STEVE Really. And if fruit washing washes off harmful parasites or something, then all the monkeys who wash their fruit thrive. The fruit washing is like—like the simian version of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It is dedicated to the idea that all monkeys deserve to have healthy and productive lives.
NAN But what happens if washing fruit is like a bad thing?
STEVE You mean, if the fruit washing gives an alligator a chance to steal your fruit before you can eat it? Or what if the stream is polluted??
NAN Yeah.
STEVE Well, then the fruit washers die out.
NAN But what if all the monkeys are already fruit washers when the river gets polluted or the fruit stealing crocodiles arrive?
STEVE You mean, it starts out a good adaptation, but then?
NAN Yes, what if the entire species is washing their fruit in the polluted river? And they can’t stop doing it because it’s part of their DNA?
STEVE Then they all die. The entire species. The Bill and Melinda Gates Simian Analog Foundation helps them right into extinction.
NAN But probably it was a good change, right? Fruit washing?
STEVE Probably. But not every change is. That’s why nature doesn’t want us to learn some things that easily.
NAN 7/17/14 10
You mean, just by seeing other people do it?
STEVE Yeah.
NAN But for some things it would be good to learn like that.
STEVE Yes, but then you’d be out of a job, wouldn’t you? No more teachers. So just be grateful it doesn’t happen when it comes to learning English lit or things like string theory. Crespy Academy would be turned into a condo slash curves complex. (He grabs the clicker, turns on the TV) Hey, you care what I watch?
NAN (Nan holds up a stack of essays.) No, I’ve got all these papers to read tonight. If Christmas break weren’t next week I’d go mad. I hate teaching English. I wish I taught physics. There’s unambiguous yes or no, and nothing in between.
STEVE True, but you might have to understand physics to teach it.
NAN Are you sure we can’t learn string theory like fruit washing? (The heat kicks on.) Noooooo! How can it be kicking on, you’re telling me it dropped 20 degrees in the last 10 minutes?
STEVE That’s weird. (He goes over to the thermostat) There’s no reason at all for it to have kicked on.
NAN It hates me! The heat hates me!
STEVE (Comes back to the couch to comfort her.) It’s gonna be okay, honey, really. I haven’t been out of work half as long as Chris or Sara were when they got downsized, and look what great jobs they ended up with. It’s gonna be okay. Winter won’t last forever.
NAN 7/17/14 11
No. Spring will come, it’ll last 3 days and then we’ll be home invaded by the air conditioning bills.
STEVE I’ll have a job by then. We just have to get through Christmas, that’s all.
NAN Crap. Christmas. If we can just get through your family’s insane Give Till It Kills You Christmas…we’ll be okay. (They hold each other.
The essays fall to the floor as they kiss.
Lights fade.)
7/17/14 12
SCENE 2* Afternoon. A few days later
MOLLY (Molly, Nan’s best friend, and Nan are busy at the table gluing bows onto cards with hot glue. The cards are bright red. But the bows are black.) How many so far tonight?
NAN (Checks the pile of completed cards next to her.) 35.
MOLLY Great. I’ve got 33. Let’s stop the killing pace. We can finish these tomorrow night, right?
NAN You’ve got your first rehearsal for the spring Shakespeare play, remember?
MOLLY SHIT!!! I forgot. Damn it. And I don’t have it cut down yet, either.
NAN It’s so much work, editing a different Shakespeare down to 45 minutes every year. Don’t you hate it?
MOLLY It’s not so hard after you’ve done a 45 minute Hamlet for 15 year olds. Once you’ve reduced that masterpiece to rubble, the rest are a piece of cake.
NAN What is it this year?
MOLLY All’s Well That Ends Well. I just cut to the chase 5 times, and I’m done. (Holding up the card she is gluing things to.) I think this is our best design yet.
NAN Which we promised to have finished yesterday? So they could be in the shops in time for the after Christmas surge? Women leave their husbands in droves after the holidays, apparently.
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MOLLY Who can blame them, they’re trapped for days with a person they’ve grown to hate in their mother-in-laws house eating her idea of family food.
NAN Well, I hate to profit from other people’s misfortune—but we can really use the extra cash.
MOLLY Who says it’s a misfortune? Flood is misfortune. Tornado is misfortune. Teaching at Crespy Academy is misfortune. Divorcing the man who makes you miserable is not misfortune. And buying one of our divorce announcement cards is our good luck. Hey, remember the one we put the bells on last month that said, “I’VE DECIDED TO CHOOSE HAPPINESS.” They’re choosing happiness.
NAN Yeah, but a lot of unhappiness went into that choice.
MOLLY Don’t think about that. Think 3 dollars of pure profit a card. Think how we are both just an hour or so away from our nightly goal: 300 dollars. We’re choosing happiness, too. (Molly takes out a joint, lights it up.)
NAN That won’t make it any easier to glue the bows on straight.
MOLLY It makes it harder to glue the bows technically, but easier philosophically. So it’s a wash. (Molly takes a huge toke and passes the joint to Nan.) What would make it easier would be if I could feel my fingers. Don’t you think it’s a little cold in here? (She blows on her fingers to warm them.)
NAN No, as a matter of fact, I think it’s just fine. But unlike some people, I worked out today, so my body chemistry might be running a little hotter than some other peoples?
MOLLY (They go back to work.) So. How’s it going with Steve? 7/17/14 14
NAN It’s not. No job in sight. We can limp along on my salary—if you can call what we get at Crespy a salary. It sucks. The house is falling apart and we can’t afford to fix it. The heater keeps coming on, no matter how low we set it. Even when we turn it off. Weird, huh?
MOLLY Any chance it will turn itself on now?
NAN Stop it! It’s perfectly comfortable in here.
MOLLY Really? Then give me your sweater.
NAN Sure, be happy to— (She starts to get up to get her a sweater.)
MOLLY No, not a sweater, your sweater. If your body temp is running sooo hot, and it’s soooo comfortable in here—give me yours.
NAN Okay. Sure. (Molly looks smug, as if she’s won. Nan takes off her sweater. She has a heavy Polar fleece, expedition weight jacket on under it.)
MOLLY You skunk! You snake in the grass!
NAN Stop it, you can have it!
MOLLY That’s expedition weight! Good all the way to base camp at Mount Everest!
NAN I said you can have it! And I’ll take the sweater, okay?
MOLLY Deal. (She puts it on.) 7/17/14 15
Oh, it’s nice and warm from your body heat! (Beat. She smokes.) Remember how we used to get stoned in high school and go to the Sonic so we didn’t have to get out of the car?
NAN Every time I got high back then, if I went to a restroom I was POSITIVE the walls were transparent and everyone could see me.
MOLLY (Wistfully remembering Nan’s panic at those moments.) Yeah. That was my favorite part. (She sighs.) And then, after you’d freak out in some random restroom, we’d drive around pretending we were Thelma and Louise.
NAN Right now I’m imagining I am Melinda Gates. I am wearing a white sari with patterns woven with gold threads in it and I am saving the world from malaria. (A sweeping gesture with her hand.) I just wave my hand and poof—the mosquitos are vaporized. I go to a leper colony—I hand out state of the art pharmaceuticals Bill has cooked up in his spare time using a logarithm he found stuck on the bottom of his shoe while running a marathon to cure world wide wall eye. I walk through the streets of Bombay handing out Microsoft word to infant programmers so they can pull their families out of poverty by the age of 3. My hair blows in the breeze. I wear no make up but I look refreshed and dewy at all times. I walk through the crowds like a good looking Mother Theresa.
MOLLY If you could choose, to be the most beautiful woman on earth but it takes like 95% of your time, or ugly, but be like Mother Theresa and do good deeds and not care at all about your looks—which would you choose?
NAN You don’t know she didn’t care about it.
MOLLY Oh she couldn’t have.
NAN Maybe it was her struggle with not caring about it that made her a saint.
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MOLLY You did not just say that.
NAN Oh, like we’re not supposed to notice what she looks like? I might point out that all the paintings and statues of saints? They’re always beautiful. Beautification, that’s what it’s called, when you get made a saint, right?
MOLLY No, you get be-AT-ified. Has nothing to do with beauty.
NAN Oh, who knew.
MOLLY Anyone who isn’t an idiot? (They smoke.) You know, if you need to borrow some money—
NAN No.
MOLLY Because it’s no big deal.
NAN It is if you’re the one borrowing it. Thank you, Molly, really. But no. If we sell enough of these during the after Christmas divorce rush, maybe we’ll get another order—and that will cover groceries and heat.
MOLLY What heat?
NAN (Ignoring her.) We’ve got enough saved to get us through the Williams’ Family Give Like You’re a Sieve Christmas, thank God.
MOLLY Oh, right, the feudal redistribution of wealth Steve’s family calls Christmas.
NAN I hate it. Every year, I just feel cheap and poor and resentful.
MOLLY 7/17/14 17
You do get a lot of great gifts, you have to admit that.
NAN That I don’t want and I don’t need. It’s obscene. Everybody brings in truck loads of gifts, they pile them up, everyone trying to have the biggest pile to give away to prove they’re the most generous, which is really just code for who makes the most money. Well it’s easy to give it away when you’ve got plenty.
MOLLY Just say no.
NAN That’s what I said. But when Steve was little he had an uncle who tried that, he was saving up to pay for his daughters wedding or his mother’s surgery, I forget which. Banned from the family. Never heard from again. It’s haunted Steve ever since.
MOLLY That’s ridiculous.
NAN That’s the way families work. Ridiculously.
MOLLY This is crazy. You can’t do it. You can’t. Not if you’re going to stick to the Master Plan.
NAN The Master Plan is temporarily on hold.
MOLLY But your eggs aren’t.
NAN We can’t until Steve gets a job, okay? I mean that would be crazy, to do it now. Don’t you think?
MOLLY (Shrugs.) Maybe. Maybe not. What do I know? (Pause) No. I do know. I think you should go ahead and get pregnant. I’d do it. I wouldn’t wait. If I were married to someone I loved and who loved me? And while we’re talking about money, do you know how expensive 7/17/14 18 sperm is these days? Do you? I do. And every time it doesn’t work you have to go there and-- (She makes a swiping gesture.) --swipe another 300 dollars on your visa card. You, on the other hand, have got a free, endless supply of quality sperm at your beck and call. Do it.
NAN Oh Molly. Why didn’t you tell me?
MOLLY When it worked, that was when I was going to tell you.
NAN I thought Peter was giving you some? (Molly shakes her head.) Stan wouldn’t either? (Molly shakes her head.)
MOLLY They don’t want to be responsible for a child. Even though I promise them they won’t be. But if they have a child they want to be responsible for it. Which I guess is responsible. (Pause) Stop the insanity, Nan. Just say no to Give Till it Kills You Christmas.
NAN It’s important to him! And he’s trying so hard to be brave about all this. (Molly sighs.) Not that it’s going to be easy. We’ve maxed out our credit cards.
MOLLY Then how are you going to buy anything? Nobody takes a personal check these days without getting your credit score and doing a cavity search.
NAN There’s a thing called….cash?
MOLLY Can you shop online with cash?
NAN There are things called…stores?
MOLLY 7/17/14 19
Hey, when are you going, I’ll go with you, it’ll be fun.
NAN Saturday. I’m gonna go to the bank and take out our life savings to do it.
MOLLY No, I can’t Saturday, can you do it Friday?
NAN Nope, Friday I have to tackle the list and get things done.
MOLLY Oh Jesus.
NAN Stop it, he’s right, if we get things done, if we are people who get things done--
MOLLY Isn’t shopping for Bankruptcy Here We Come Christmas getting things done?
NAN No, there is a list, which we make, together, of the things we will get done. And as long as we stick to the list, we won’t despair or panic.
MOLLY Really?
NAN No. But I pretend not to despair for his sake, and he pretends not to panic for mine. And so we don’t despair, and we don’t panic, which I think may be the whole point of marriage. (The heat kicks on.) Oh, Jesus. There goes Ilsa again.
MOLLY You’ve named the heat Ilsa?
NAN That’s the name of Ingrid Bergman’s character in Casablanca. You can’t have her, no matter how much you love her. And she’s the most desirable thing in all the occupied world.
MOLLY (She looks at Nan’s work.) 7/17/14 20
Hey--you’re putting the ring too low.
NAN I am not.
MOLLY You are too, the bow is supposed to be like—the diamond, on top of the ring.
NAN It is, it is, see? (Nan holds up the card. It’s red. A little black bow on top of a ring. Nan reads the text.) “HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ME I’M RINGING OUT THE OLD RINGING IN THE NEW CASHING IN THE RING”
I think this one is my favorite.
MOLLY I don’t know. The ones we did last week, with the sprig of live mistletoe that said, OPEN FOR BUSINESS UNDER OLD NAME. That was so hopeful. (They work for a moment.) Sometimes I think about the kind of woman who would spend 15.95 each on handmade divorce announcements instead of calling people to tell them. And then I stop myself.
NAN Yeah. Me too. They say the three most important things in a good marriage are sexual compatibility, generosity, and—crap, I always forget the third thing.
MOLLY Is it a pool table that morphs into a dining room table?
NAN No, I don’t think so.
MOLLY Then I have no idea.
NAN Me neither. But it’s not money. I’d remember if it were money, and it’s not. Money is not what matters. That’s what I keep telling myself. 7/17/14 21
MOLLY Hey, it’s going to be all right.
NAN We need so little. It’s not fair that we don’t have enough. (They go back to work. Lights fade.)
7/17/14 22
SCENE 3* A couple days later, a Friday, late afternoon
STEVE (The sound of crying.
Steve comes in from the outside. He takes off his coat, and immediately begins putting on three layers of sweaters, scarfs, etc. He hears the crying. It gets louder. He discovers Nan weeping on the floor. He rushes over to her.) What’s wrong?
NAN Everything.
STEVE Are you hurt? (He checks.) Come on, honey, get off the floor.
NAN I can’t! (She does.)
STEVE What happened, did someone attack you?
NAN Yes.
STEVE WHAT!
NAN No. I was at a poetry reading.
STEVE What were you doing at a poetry reading, we agreed we were going to be people who got things done.
NAN Going to a poetry reading is a thing. Doing it could count.
STEVE 7/17/14 23
NAN. Please.
NAN I know, know, it wasn’t on the list, I know but I wanted to be someplace where there would be something in my head other than me, I wanted a vacation. I wanted to sit in a room and not think. So I went to a poetry reading.
STEVE And someone attacked you at a poetry reading?
NAN Of course not. Well, in a way. There was this sweet little old lady, and she tripped, her walker caught on a chair, and she went over, and I jumped up to help her, everybody did. She wasn’t hurt, so we put her back up on her feet. She stumped away. I sat back down. That’s when it must have happened.
STEVE What. Happened. (Nan sobs and sobs and sobs.)
NAN My purse.
STEVE Oh, sweetie, your purse? (She sobs, nods her head.) So what, so you lost your credit cards, they’re completely maxed out, silver lining, right, they’ll rue the day they try to use your card for some big ticket item, sweetie, it’s okay, I’ll call and cancel them.
NAN The money--
STEVE What did you have in your wallet, 30 or 40 dollars? Don’t cry over 30 or 40 dollars, don’t. It’s not your fault. They were probably a team, working together, the old lady goes over, the gang cleans out the purses.
NAN The money. All of it.
STEVE What do you mean, all of it.
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NAN All the Christmas money.
STEVE What?
NAN I’d just gone to the bank.
STEVE Why? Why on earth--
NAN To get things done! To be a person who gets things done.
STEVE But—but that wasn’t on the list to get done today--we didn’t have to do that till Saturday—
NAN I wanted to do something easy. It was an easy something to get done.
STEVE All of it?
NAN Everything. (As Nan bursts into fresh despair, Ilsa kicks on in a fresh burst of steam heat noise.) That is just like her! To kick me when I’m down! Turn her off, Steve, turn her off!
STEVE Nan, we can’t, the pipes—
NAN Ilsa’s torturing me, can’t you see it? She’s torturing me. Just like you are.
STEVE All I’m saying is, if you had just stuck to the list. The plan of getting things done.
Who was it?
NAN 7/17/14 25
I told you, I didn’t see who did it.
STEVE No, who was the poet. Plain spoken, deep image, hip hop?
NAN I don’t know. I was walking past the Barnes and Noble, and it said, poetry reading, so I just went in.
STEVE And then you saw him read, so--
NAN But I was late, I didn’t hear the introduction. And then after, when I reached down under my chair and my purse was gone—no, wait, I do remember one of the poems. It was about this song that could only be sung by a billion tiny strings, and which no one can hear. I remember that I didn’t get the metaphor.
STEVE You went to a reading of a poem about strings singing songs you can’t hear, you lost our life savings, and you don’t even know the poet’s name.
NAN Oh, wait. I do know his name. (She produces a book she’s been lying on top of.) Allen Bell.
STEVE What’s this?
NAN His book. I was weeping and screaming that I was going to commit suicide and so he gave me a signed copy of his book.
STEVE He thought a signed copy of his poems would keep you from killing yourself?
NAN Here. It’s called 57893. Weird. (Steve looks at it, dumfounded.)
STEVE It’s like Jack and the Beanstalk. You go to town with the cow, and you come back with a handful of horse manure. 7/17/14 26
NAN Well, it is signed. (Reading) “For Nan. Best Wishes. PS. I’m so sorry, I hope you find your purse, Allen Bell.” Here’s his bio. “Mr. Bell is the prestigious Lillian Germania MacIntyre Foundation Poet of the Year. This is his first published book of poetry.” Maybe the fact that it’s signed makes it more valuable.
STEVE It probably makes it less. If he hadn’t signed it, we could have taken it to another Barns and Noble and returned it. We could have used the 19.95.
NAN Well, we could give it to Maryann and Peter. They like this sort of thing.
STEVE Billions of tiny strings singing love songs you can’t hear? Yeah. Actually, they do. That’s one Christmas gift. One down, 47 to go. Lucky us.
Have you called and cancelled the cards yet?
NAN What? No, I’ve been traumatized.
STEVE Of course. Okay. (He gets his credit card out of his wallet, calls the number on the back to call Master Card.)
NAN Say you forgive me.
STEVE Nan, it wasn’t your fault.
NAN Say you forgive me anyway. Even though I’ve ruined our lives. Brought down shame on our heads. Possibly even endangered the Master Plan--
STEVE Stop it. It was an accident. There’s nothing to forgive.
7/17/14 27
NAN SO. Say it.
STEVE (On the phone) Be quiet, Nan I can’t hear the prompts. STEVE (To the phone.) Yes. Stolen. (Nan opens the book of poetry with a furious flourish. She will read a poem from it at the top of her lungs. The poem was written by Michael Dickman, with some small tweaking.)
NAN Too busy to say I forgive you. This is so like you.
STEVE That is not the--
(On the phone) NAN Actually, my wife String String Theory Theory I LOVE YOU by Allen Bell
It was stolen (She noisily clears her throat) At a poetry reading In the night in the night The veins are light (To Nan.) You’re not helping. (To Steve) And you think you are? (Back to poem) (Back to phone.) In the night in the night Yes. Yes. We’ve done that. The veins are light I can’t—can you speak Are lights in the night Louder, I can’t-- In the rivers. (To Nan) Did you report it to the police? (To Steve) The store manager did. (Back to poetry.) I’m going to have to-- I love you I love you Can you hold for a-- Says the small loop Yes, just a-- To the big loop who loves you
STEVE (Steve waits a second, she seems to have stopped.) I’m sorry for the noise, my wife has been traumatized by her loss. 7/17/14 28
NAN And shivers. It’s quiet out there--
STEVE (Screaming back.) STOP IT! STOP IT!!!! YOU ARE MAKING ME CRAZY!!! (He calms down.) No. You’ve been traumatized. You don’t know what you’re doing.
NAN Yes I do. I’m reading POETRY!!! It’s quiet out there It’s silent in air White noise doesn’t care. About love’s spatial curvature
STEVE (To the phone) NAN What? What? String calls to string: Hello! Hello! I can’t-- Tiny mouths repeat in an echo But—I thought-- I love you I love you is all they know And want you under the furniture.
STEVE STOP IT RIGHT NOW! JESUS CHRIST! CAN’T YOU SEE I’M GETTING SOMETHING DONE HERE!!!
NAN Right. You’re getting it done so you can hold it over my head because you got it done and I didn’t.
STEVE No, actually, I’m getting it done to get it done. The holding it over your head is—a bonus, a perk, but not the actual point of doing it.
NAN It can wait, can’t it?
STEVE No. It can’t.
NAN 7/17/14 29
But the cards are maxed out, the thieves can’t buy a hot apple pie at MacDonald’s with them, it doesn’t matter if you do this now or later, and I want some comfort! I want you to hold me and talk to me and--
STEVE You want to waste our life, you want to talk about things that talking doesn’t get done, so there is no end to talking about them, there’s no bottom to them, the talk is endless and pointless. That’s what you want to do, to talk and talk and talk.
NAN You don’t mean that.
STEVE Oh yes I do.
NAN Say you don’t mean that.
STEVE That would be a lie.
NAN You’re just mad about the money.
STEVE I’m not mad…at you…about the money. Of course I’m mad about the money.
NAN About Christmas…it means we don’t have any money for Give Till it Kills You Christma--
STEVE DON’T CALL IT THAT. You know I HATE IT WHEN YOU CALL IT THAT. YES I’M MAD AT YOU. I’m mad at everything. I know it’s not my fault I got let go, but I also know that if I’d been smarter or luckier I would have gotten a smarter, luckier job and I wouldn’t have been. I build websites. So does half of everybody else in this town, apparently. I am a redundancy on the market. I have no value or worth. So I’m the reason we can’t stick to the Master Plan.
I’m just humiliated, okay? I’m humiliated every minute of the day. Do you really think I don’t want to go out anymore because we’re watching our pennies? It’s because I can’t stand to have someone ask me what I do when I don’t do anything. 7/17/14 30
I’m going to go outside to get this done where there is less competition from your deranged ideas about…everything. (He takes off a few layers of polar fleece, throws them on the floor, and storms out the door.)
NAN Steve! Don’t go. Steve. Don’t you dare go!!! (He goes, shedding a layer of polar fleece as he does.
She stares at the door. She kicks the polar fleece he dropped on the floor as he exited. Then she locks all the locks and chains on the door and retrieves her hidden cigarette stash.) Oh god, what are we going to do. (She lights up. She has two blissful inhales.
There’s pounding on the door.) Crap. Steve? Steve— (She puts out the cigarette, opens the windows.) Hang on, I’m coming…I’m coming…I’m… (She opens another window, the heat kicks on. She snarls at the thermostat.) Oh, you think you’re so smart, don’t you! I’ll show you. (She savagely turns the heat off.) Off! Completely! Try turning yourself on now! (The knocking continues.)
VOICE ON OTHER SIDE OF DOOR I’ve got your purse.
NAN What?
VOICE ON OTHER SIDE OF DOOR I’ve got your purse.
NAN You’ve got my-- (She opens the door. There’s a man, holding her purse.) OH MY GOD!!! They found it. (She grabs it from him.)
MAN Empty, I’m afraid. 7/17/14 31
(She turns it upside down, it is, of course, empty.) Professional pick pockets throw them away immediately, they say. Dead giveaway, man holding a handbag. (Nan slumps down on the floor.)
NAN Thanks for bringing it to me.
MAN Well, it was the least I could do. (She looks at him blankly.) I mean, if you hadn’t come to my reading, you wouldn’t have lost your purse.
NAN Oh—Allen. I didn’t even—I’m sorry—I didn’t recognize you.
ALLEN That’s not surprising. You’ve had a traumatic event.
NAN Yes, I have. I’m glad someone recognizes that. Would you like something to drink?
ALLEN Yes, I would.
NAN We have…water.
ALLEN That would be nice.
NAN I don’t have anything else to offer you, I’m afraid—
ALLEN That’s okay. You’ve been traumatized.
NAN My husband was furious when he came home. (She goes into the kitchen.)
ALLEN (Nan isn’t in the room, so he doesn’t have to hide how deeply depressed he is to hear this.) 7/17/14 32
Oh. I didn’t know you were married. Is he here?
NAN Oh, no, he’s…he’s back at work. He just came home for lunch, a late lunch, but he’s back at work now.
ALLEN What does he do?
NAN He…he works for a charitable organization.
ALLEN Which one?
NAN (She comes out of the kitchen with a glass of water.) Oh, you’ve never heard of it.
ALLEN Try me!
NAN It’s-- (She hands him the glass of water.) --water. (She grabs the idea out of the air.) Water in Africa. His charity drills wells in Africa.
ALLEN What’s it called?
NAN ALL’S WELL WHEN IT ENDS WITH A WELL. It was started by theatre people.
ALLEN Oh, I think I’ve heard of it.
NAN Oh. I don’t think so. It’s very low profile. He makes almost…nothing, that’s why losing all our Christmas money is sort of a blow. We have this arrangement, one of us has the money job, and the other one has the repairing the world job. I got stuck with the money job. The problem is, the money job doesn’t actually make very much. Money. 7/17/14 33
ALLEN But isn’t it harder to repair the world than it is to make money?
NAN In the long run, sure, but in the short run? In the short run it’s 100% better. I mean, when you work at a place like ALL’S WELL or, say, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, you work with very evolved people. You work with people who care about things, and I bet you can take as long a lunch as you like, because your long lunches are with other people who are also trying to repair the world, you’re working to make the world better during breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you’re dedicated instead of driven, and you’re not cranky when you come home from work like you are when you come home from building internet websites, for instance. And it’s always clear what’s right and what’s wrong, even though it’s sometimes hard to see the best way to do the good, you are still clear about good. Everyone’s fair and kind to each other, and everybody’s ideas are given equal consideration. And nobody cares about things like fashion or pro-football or anything trivial, nobody in your office has a face lift or gets Botox. It’s like a temple, a sacred place. All the paper is recycled effortlessly, the coffee in the coffee room is organic and fair trade, and it’s always the right temperature without you ever hearing the heat or air conditioning turning on. (During the above monologue, Allen has fallen totally in love with Nan.)
ALLEN I never thought about it that way.
NAN I do. I think about it all the time.
ALLEN I’d like to donate to it.
NAN To the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation? I think they have enough, don’t you?
ALLEN No! To your husband’s charity. To ALL’S WELL WHEN IT ENDS WITH A WELL.
NAN Oh. That would be so great. (BLACKOUT) 7/17/14 34
SCENE 4* Evening Later that same day
STEVE (Allen is gone, but Steve is back.) You lied to a poet?
NAN Yes, I lied to a poet. Why, is that worse?
STEVE I don’t know. Why did you lie to him?
NAN I just didn’t want him to feel sorry for us. For you. After what you said, I didn’t want to tell him you didn’t have a job. (She starts laughing.)
STEVE What’s so funny?
NAN I told him the name of the charity was ALL’S WELL WHEN IT ENDS WITH A WELL.
STEVE You didn’t.
NAN I did.
STEVE Nan, you can’t lie to people like that.
NAN I wasn’t lying, I was protecting you.
STEVE I can’t believe he bought that.
NAN He not only bought it, look-- (She takes a check out of the purse that Allen 7/17/14 35
brought back.) --/he gave me a—
STEVE (His back to her, he doesn’t see the check.) We’re lucky he didn’t give you a contribution for it. Now that would be my worst nightmare.
NAN (Stuffing the check back into the purse so Steve doesn’t see it.) Why? Why would it be a nightmare?
STEVE Why would accepting a check for a charity that doesn’t exist be a nightmare? Oh, I don’t know. It’s fraud? Theft? Completely unethical? Fortunately for us, nobody carries their checkbook with them.
NAN They might have a check, if they’d just picked up their mail, and gotten their VISA statement and it had those annoying checks they’re always sending you that you have to shred.
STEVE Yeah, but who uses those? They’re not really checks, they’re loans from your credit card company, they cost you 17 point 4 percent interest the minute you write them.
NAN Well, you know, a poet might use them, they don’t care about practical things.
STEVE Well, that’s not the point, he should call and get them to stop sending them, it’s more secure.
NAN Yes, Steve, everybody knows that.
STEVE I thought you said Allen Bell didn’t.
NAN 7/17/14 36
No, that was hypothetical Allen Bell. The hypothetical Allen Bell who hypothetically gave us a check. The real one, of course, did not. I think he wanted to, though. In fact, he said he wanted to.
STEVE What?
NAN But I was fast, I was thinking on my feet. I said that the charity wasn’t doing well. That All’s Well When It Ends With a Well had had some drilling problems, they had drilled too many wells in bedrock, the charity was about to go under. So he shouldn’t bother donating because if they didn’t get 10,000 dollars by the end of the day, the charity was going to fold.
STEVE Where is this charity, drilling these unfortunate wells into bedrock, if you don’t mind my asking?
NAN Africa.
STEVE Africa. Is this lying a new thing, or have you been practicing behind my back. Don’t answer that. So. Any specific place, in Africa?
NAN I didn’t have time to consult a map, Steve, I was thinking on my feet.
STEVE I don’t think there’s any bedrock in Africa. Isn’t it mostly sand with a little soil on top? The veldt? The Serengeti?
NAN Don’t be ridiculous, of course there’s bedrock. There’s mountains, there’s Kilimanjaro, it can’t be made out of sand.
STEVE Kilimanjaro is a volcanic cone, not rock.
NAN Well, I’m sure there’s bedrock somewhere. I mean, I don’t think that Allen is going to race home and start googling African bedrock. (There is a knock on the door.) Who’s that!
7/17/14 37
STEVE Sally and Hank. They called. I said it was okay to come by.
NAN But it isn’t, I’ve recently been traumatized!
STEVE (He opens the door.) Hi, come on in. (It’s Sally, Steve’s sister-in-law. She walks in, hugs Steve, then hugs Nan.)
SALLY (Sally talks very fast, in general.) I know the whole ritual thing is that you pile up your gifts as high as you can, like Cortez making Montezuma pile up all that gold, but this year it’s just not going to work. There’s just no room in the car to take it all out to Hank and Steve’s folks. (Yelling back out the door.) Hank! Come on! We’re already late. (Back to Nan.) We’re going to this place on Olive and 8th that--WHAT’S THAT SMELL?
NAN What? Oh, just some gingerbread I made this morning.
SALLY There is no such thing as just some gingerbread anymore. Oh my god. (There it is on the table. She slices right into it. Crams a huge piece in her mouth.) That is heaven. I haven’t had anything with wheat in it for 3 months! Your brother is driving me crazy with his gluten free diet. At first it was just wheat, but now I have to cook without grains of any kind. You can’t believe what it’s like for me. The end of my world. (She keeps eating.)
NAN Oh, I can believe it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you go anywhere without a coconut cream pie or a German chocolate cake or a--
SALLY PLEASE. Don’t say it out loud. If it makes him feel better, of course it’d be worth it. And they say you lose weight on it, even if that hasn’t worked out for Hank yet. Keep an eye out for him, I don’t want him to see me eating this. I’m trying to be supportive. 7/17/14 38
(She keeps eating.)
STEVE Where is he, I thought he was coming over too?
SALLY I told him to rent a trailer, but no, he had to cram it in the trunk. And now, of course, it’s stuck.
HANK (Hank lumbers in, dragging an enormous wrapped gift. Sally immediately hides the fact that she’s swallowing a huge mouthful of gingerbread.) I hope you don’t mind us bringing your gift over early, (The gift is so big there is no way it could fit in a trunk. It hardly fits in the door. Part of it looks crushed.)
STEVE (Helping him.) Sure, sure, no problem. (A piece of the gift falls to the ground. It looks slightly like a handle.)
HANK Oh, man, I’m sorry.
SALLY I told you so.
HANK Steve—Nan—I’m sorry. I broke off the handle.
SALLY I told you—
HANK I know, I know. Shit. We’d better open it up and see how badly it’s damaged.
SALLY We don’t have time.
HANK Of course we do—
SALLY 7/17/14 39
If we don’t get there the second they open they’re going to be sold out. We’ve tracked down this food collective that has organic zucchini flour they say makes cakes you can’t tell are gluten free—some secret, proprietary process. The whole thing is like a black ops operation—first you track down the rumor, then you start emailing around, watching out for tweets, checking all the pertinent blogs, finally, after two or three weeks they text you the secret location for their truck.
HANK Foodies. Insane! But what you gonna do. So we gotta go. Sorry. I’ll just put this under the tree— (He sees the tree. It couldn’t be smaller. In fact, it is so frail that the weight of three ornaments and a pretty kitchen utensil hanging from it is almost enough to make it fall over.) This is your tree? Steve? (Concerned.) This is your tree?
NAN Cut trees are an irresponsible use of precious resources, Hank. Did you know it takes 300 gallons of water for every inch of growth on a Christmas tree? That was a dying shrub someone had thrown out. We decided to repurpose it.
SALLY Oh, wow. That’s…cool.
HANK Yeah. Cool.
SALLY I didn’t know you guys were so into—water.
NAN Oh, we are.
STEVE We are.
HANK Well, we gotta go. I’m just gonna run to the bathroom, okay, hon? Wait for me in the car, okay? (He heads for the bathroom)
SALLY 7/17/14 40
(She is at the door, hugging Nan.) Bye, see you soon Steve. Nan, walk me out?
NAN Sure. (They leave. The instant they are gone, Hank sprints back from the hall and locks the door and heads for the gingerbread.)
HANK Gingerbread. My favorite. (Smashes it into his mouth.) Wow. This is delicious.
STEVE Put that down.
HANK Why? Oh, shit, was this for company or something?
STEVE You’re gluten intolerant! You’ll have an attack.
HANK Oh please. (He keeps eating.)
STEVE But--
HANK All those years I was trying to lose weight and she was like, “show some discipline”, while she was baking cake and brownies and her famous German Chocolate fucking cake—filling the house with sweets, and telling me to show some discipline? (He inhales some more gingerbread.) Well, the discipline is on the other foot now. You know how hard it is to bake without real flour! Now that takes discipline!
STEVE You’re not gluten intolerant?
HANK God no. (Steve stares at him.) Don’t look at me like that, I’m going to tell her. 7/17/14 41
STEVE When?
HANK After the New Year. You know how much she loves baking everything for your party. Not this year! She’ll have to come up with an entire party that’s gluten free.
STEVE You’re torturing her.
HANK Yeah, so, she was torturing me.
Why is it so cold in here?
STEVE Is it cold in here?
HANK Steve, you’re wearing three polar fleece jackets and dad’s old boiled wool vest.
STEVE We like it cold.
HANK Since when? You’ve always hated the cold. Is your heat broken or something?
STEVE Nan read somewhere that the colder it is, the higher it boosts your metabolism. You know Nan, always trying the newest diets.
HANK Really?
STEVE Really.
HANK Wow. The things women believe when it comes to losing weight. Shit, Steve, if that were true, Eskimos would look like Ethiopians and Ethiopians would look like Eskimos. (The sound of a car horn, Sally really laying on it.) 7/17/14 42
See you at mom and dad’s. Gotta go. (He unlocks the door and goes out just as Nan comes back in.)
NAN Bye, Hank. See you soon.
STEVE What did Sally want to talk to you about?
NAN You. The job situation. You want some gingerbread? Watching Sally made me hungry for it. (She goes to the plate—there’s almost nothin left.) Steve! What—oh my God, you didn’t let Hank eat any of this, did you? He’ll have an attack!
STEVE No, no, of course not—
NAN Then what—
STEVE I ate it.
NAN What?
STEVE I was hungry.
NAN You don’t even like gingerbread.
STEVE Then why do you make it?
NAN Well, you like it enough to eat it, but not so much that you eat all of it.
STEVE I didn’t eat all of it. Sally had about a third of it, and—
NAN Panic eating! You’re panic eating! 7/17/14 43
STEVE …Yes! Yes, I am! (He immediately grabs a piece and crams it in his mouth.)
NAN But I don’t understand—why would you--
STEVE THAT!!! (He points at the huge gift looming in the living room.) THAT is why.
NAN Oh. Right. I’m sorry.
STEVE It’s okay.
NAN Of course you’re in a white hot panic. All right, let’s nip this in the bud. I won’t despair if you won’t panic. (They kiss, walk over to the gift, and sit down on the floor in front of it.) How the hell did he even get this in the trunk?
STEVE No idea.
NAN I suppose we have to open it.
STEVE No option, really. After the panic and despair taper off, it’s going to set off a tsunami wave of rage.
NAN Of despair.
STEVE Of panic. But what if it’s something we really want? Something from the Neiman Marcus Christmas catalogue. What if it’s that personal, portable foldable airplane I always dream about?
NAN 7/17/14 44
Look, Sally’s rich but she’s not that rich…is she?
STEVE She’s a genius in the market. She inherited a bundle and every year the bundle gets bigger, and bigger, and--
NAN Okay, so what if it is a personal foldable airplane? So what?
STEVE So if it is, it will make it worse. The tidal wave of rage and panic will be all wrapped up with longing and desire and-
NAN No. It won’t. It will be something bought in the worst taste that is incredibly expensive and completely worthless. It always is. It can’t be worse. I lost our life savings, you lost your job, and your brother and sister-in-law have just delivered the Trojan Horse of Shame into our home and put it under the worlds saddest Christmas tree.
STEVE When we open it, an army of self loathing calibrated to our precise frequencies will emerge and consume us whole. (As he is about to tear off the wrapping, Ilsa kicks on loudly and there is a knock at the door.) Who can that be!
NAN It’s no one, it’s just Ilsa. She’s doing it to spite me. Spite me all you want, I’m not turning you back on.
STEVE What? You turned her off completely?
NAN Yes.
STEVE In the dead of winter you turned off our heat?
NAN And it hasn’t affected her in the least. She goes on and off whenever she likes. It’s like a game of chicken. But I’m not blinking first. (The knocking continues.)
STEVE 7/17/14 45
No, there is someone at the door—
NAN Don’t give in to her, Steve, she’s just playing you—I’ll show you, there’s no one at the-- (She opens the door. It’s Allen Bell! Wearing a Santa hat!!!) Allen!
ALLEN Nan! Nan. NAN. I— (He sees Steve.) Oh. And you must be Steve. I’m Alan Bell. The poet who—
STEVE I know who you are.
NAN It wasn’t his fault, Steve.
STEVE In a way. And in another way—
NAN Can I get you something to drink? Some water?
ALLEN No, but water is why I’m here. Nan, I wondered if you had that check I gave you for All’s Well When It Ends With a Well?
STEVE Check? What check?
NAN Oh, I forgot all about it—
STEVE What. Check.
ALLEN A small check. A token.
NAN (Gets her purse, gets the check.) No, it was very generous.
7/17/14 46
ALLEN Thank God, you’ve still got it. I shouldn’t have done it.
NAN It was a beautiful gesture.
ALLEN Yes, but did you know that the credit card companies charge 17 point 4 percent interest on these checks?
NAN Really? I didn’t know that.
ALLEN Just because I’m a poet doesn’t mean I have my head in the fiscal clouds! It dawned on me--why should American Express get rich on my charitable impulses! So here is a personal check, and if you’ll just give me back my other one— (They trade checks.) There, all done. I even included the vig—that’s loan-sharkese for the interest American Express would have charged me—to show what I was saving by being smart.
I feel like Father Christmas! (He grabs Steve by the shoulders.) Steve, I’m so jealous—you get to give for a living! What’s it like, working at a place like All’s Well When It Ends With a Well! I can’t even imagine.
STEVE Me either.
ALLEN But I can still give even if I don’t give for a living--my poetry is free verse, my giving can be too! I’ve been googling Africa to look into that bedrock situation Nan was telling me about. But I have to go, I’ve got a plane to catch. (Passionately.) MERRY CHRISTMAS, NAN. (A crushing after thought.) And Steve. (He pauses in the door.) Nan. You may have lost your purse. But you’ve changed my life. (And is gone.)
NAN 7/17/14 47
So. Why didn’t I tell you?
STEVE He’s in LOVE with you.
NAN Oh, that’s not why, I didn’t tell you because—
STEVE You knew he was in love with you!?
NAN I was just going to keep it for a little while and then shred it.
STEVE Keep it with the other love tokens you receive? From poets, from god knows who else? (He grabs the check from her.)
NAN I was going to shred it.
STEVE Then why didn’t you? I told you it was fraud! I told you it was theft! I told you it was— (He looks at the check.) --10 thousand one hundred seventy-four dollars?
NAN What? No it wasn’t, it was a thousand dollars.
STEVE Well, this one isn’t.
NAN He must have made a mistake when he wrote the new one.
STEVE (Gazing at the check) It has to be a joke.
NAN I don’t think so.
STEVE 7/17/14 48
Nobody gives a total stranger a check for 10,000 for a charity they’ve never heard of before.
NAN Allen Bell did.
STEVE But why?
NAN You mean, other than him being in love with me?
STEVE It’s probably not in your best interests to keep bringing that up.
NAN Right.
STEVE I’d like to cash it just to spite him!
NAN Oh, Steve, that’s a great idea. We’ll cash it and give it to a charity in Africa!
STEVE Of course we won’t. We’d have to run it through our account, where it would it look like income, and then we’d have to pay taxes on it.
NAN Oh, I didn’t think about that.
STEVE The only way to do it would be to set up a not for profit, well, that’s not that hard, but it takes time, there’s lots of hoops to jump through. And for what?
NAN For the chance to give ten thousand, one hundred seventy four dollars to charity.
STEVE No, for the chance to give ten thousand, one hundred seventy four dollars of Allen Bell’s to charity.
NAN 7/17/14 49
I liked it, okay! It made me feel like Melinda Gates! A man gave money to charity in my name!
STEVE This Melinda Gates obsession is getting out of hand. I’ve indulged you too long. It’s starting to impair your judgment.
NAN It takes a village!
STEVE Right. One person to actually donate the 10,000, plus vig, and two people to lie and cheat him into doing it.
NAN Isn’t all money tainted? Andrew Carnegie, he gave all those libraries, he’s the one who said, “He who dies rich dies disgraced”, he gave away millions of dollars and where did he get those millions? Every dollar he got he got by exploiting the workers, he made a profit on their backs.
That ten thousand and change would do good. Unambiguous good. So what if there is a small amount of ambiguity along the way. (She hugs him.) Please???? Donating money to All’s Well When It Ends With a Well made Allen Bell so happy. The way it would make us. I wish we could turn that— (She points at the gift from Hank and Sally) --unknown monstrosity, that soul crushing Trojan Horse equivalent into money we could send to charity—wouldn’t that make you happy? Wouldn’t it make you happy if instead of getting a giant blender-laser printer-thigh master or whatever it is Sally and Hank have gotten us, that we’d gotten an email saying, a donation of 500 dollars has been made in your name to All’s Well When It Ends With a Well, a charity bringing water to people in Africa?
STEVE Yeah. It would. (He throws his arms around her.) It would! (He kisses her.) You’re a genius. That’s exactly what we’re going to give this year for Give Till You Kill Christmas. Come on— (He drags her over to the computer.) I can build the website tonight—
NAN 7/17/14 50
What are you talking about—
STEVE What do you mean, what am I talking about, it’s your idea!
NAN But my idea is to win a million dollars, give it to charity and have lunch with Melinda Gates. How can you build a website that does that?
STEVE Nan. Please. What I’m going to do is build a website and use it to generate emails to our friends and family saying a donation of 500 dollars has been made in your name to All’s Well When It Ends With a Well, a charity bringing water to people in Africa.
NAN 500 dollars each? Do we really love your family that much?
STEVE Let’s not be stingy with our imaginary money. (He clicks a few keys. He sits back.) Look at this. Safe water is the biggest problem to stable rural communities in Africa. Who knew there are so many charities drilling wells in Africa??
NAN Wow. That’s amazing.
STEVE There are dozens of them. I can cut and paste their images so it looks like we’re bringing water to Africa.
NAN So the people in these photos are people getting safe water?
STEVE Yeah, from legitimate charities. Well, they look like legitimate charities--it’s the internet, so who knows?
NAN I wish All’s Well When It Ends With A Well were real. And not imaginary.
STEVE Me too. But we don’t get what we want by wishing for it. Make me some coffee? 7/17/14 51
NAN Sure. (She kisses the top of his head.) Oh, should I go ahead and see what the Trojan Horse is?
STEVE (Already deep into the computer.) Yeah, sure, go ahead. (Nan tears off the paper. It’s a Trojan Horse. Steve doesn’t look up.) So? What is it?
NAN A Trojan Horse.
STEVE Yeah, yeah, we know it’s a Trojan Horse, but what is it?
NAN It is. A Trojan. Horse. (Steve looks up. Stumbles away from the computer.)
STEVE Oh my God.
NAN What’s inside it? There’s always something inside a Trojan Horse something that’s going to sack your city and rape your women.
STEVE Probably not in this case. (Steve is looking for the compartment in the horse’s belly.) Where’s the door to open it-- (He’s found the place where the handle goes.) This is where Hank broke off the handle, getting it into the trunk.
NAN Who gives a Trojan Horse as a Christmas Gift? I think it’s very passive aggressive. (Holding up the piece that Hank broke off.) How are we going to get it open?
STEVE Maybe there’s a handle on the inside to let whatever’s inside out. 7/17/14 52
NAN Do you think there’s someone in there?
STEVE Of course not! My brother and sister-in-law did not give us a horse filled with Trojans. Unless that’s what’s in there. Condoms. Could be. That would be like Hank too.
NAN Not funny. And they were Greeks.
STEVE What?
NAN The Trojan Horse was full of Greeks.
STEVE Then why do they call it the Trojan Horse?
NAN I’ll get you your coffee. (Fade to blackout.)
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SCENE 5* Night Christmas Day NAN (They come home from the Williams’ Family Christmas, dragging in an enormous pile of presents, a huge haul.) Okay, let’s get this stuff sorted, pick out a few things we absolutely have to keep, then go on line and see what the value of the rest is in cash.
STEVE Excellent. I’m worried the dentist is going to repossess my root canal if we don’t pay her soon. (After they’ve gotten all the loot in the house, they take off their coats to put on layers of polar fleece tops and bottoms and their down things.
Steve is rooting around looking for something to wear in their pile of warm clothes.) Did you put my polar fleece jacket in the wash?
NAN No, I don’t think so. (He keeps looking.) I never thought you’d hear me say it. But The Williams Family Gift of Giving Bacchanal is a moving ritual.
STEVE I knew you’d come around. (He can’t find it, puts on something else.)
NAN Ever since I married you I spend Christmas feeling poor and cheap and resentful because we can’t give the kind of gifts everybody else in your family can. This year, for the first time, I enjoyed myself.
STEVE Yes.
NAN For the first time, we could really hold our own with everybody.
STEVE Yeah. We were very generous this year. (He sighs) Too generous, some might say.
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NAN No, I’m glad we gave so much. And it’s not like we have to donate it all once, right? So it takes us two years. And they’ll be charitable contributions—we can take them as deductions!
STEVE Two years, Nan?
NAN Okay, so it will take us three, so it takes us five, it’s money we would give to charity anyway, isn’t it?
STEVE 30,000 dollars? We were going to give 30,000 to charity?
NAN So we got carried away. Who wouldn’t? It was just so—great. Sending out those emails. “A donation of 1000 dollars has been made in your name to ALL’S WELL WHEN IT ENDS WITH A WELL a charity bringing water to Africa.” It made me…happy…it was like a dream. It was almost real. I was almost repairing the world. So what if it takes us the rest of our lives to pay it back—isn’t that all right? And today, when we went on line and showed everybody the website, I was so proud of you. It’s your best work, Steve.
STEVE It’s not bad, I admit that.
NAN Not bad? It’s irresistible. The instant you see it, you want to contribute to it. It’s just such a shame that when you click on the CONTRIBUTE button, nothing happens.
STEVE Of course nothing happens, it’d have to be a real charity for that.
NAN But wouldn’t it be funny if someone did try to make a contribution?
STEVE It’s not real, Nan.
NAN I know that.
STEVE 7/17/14 55
I’m not so sure.
NAN I appreciate it as the work of art that it is, as well as the charity I wish it were.
STEVE I feel funny about the whole thing, now. I wish we hadn’t lied to them.
NAN You think I liked it?
STEVE Well, you sort of did.
NAN Okay, that’s fair. Mean, but fair. But is it a lie that we’re going to make donations to match every penny we said we gave?
STEVE No.
NAN Is it a lie that you did this for me because I lost all the Christmas money and you didn’t want me to feel bad?
STEVE You didn’t lose it, somebody stole it.
NAN You did it for me. For us. How can it be a lie? It’s all good. Come on. (She hugs him.) Look. We’re donating 30,000 to bring clean water to Africa.
STEVE Yes. We’ve just donated an imaginary 30,000 thousand dollars we don’t have to a charity that doesn’t exist.
NAN It’s the thought that counts.
STEVE Goody two-shoes.
NAN 7/17/14 56
Okay, we’re not donating it today. Not today, not tomorrow. But soon. That’s a good thing, right? Instead of buying things that didn’t matter and we couldn’t afford, we found a way to repair the world.
STEVE As soon as I get a job we’re going to set up a donation schedule, and we’re going to stick to it, we’re not going to buy anything except the necessities or take a vacation or—
NAN All those things. Yes. Now stop worrying. When we get back on our feet, we’ll pay it all back double. We’ll get back on the Master Plan and—
STEVE (Deadly serious) Nan? About the Master Plan—the Master Plan is on hold.
NAN Sure, sure, you have to get a job first—
STEVE And pay the money back—
NAN Sure, on the installment plan, we agreed—
STEVE No, that’s not what I mean. I mean we--
NAN There’s no law that says the Master Plan can’t include regular payments.
STEVE Of course there is, the Master Plan can’t change just because it’s convenient! It’s on hold until we pay every penny back.
NAN Steve, with this website as a calling card you’re sure to get a job right away and—
STEVE Show it to people? Are you nuts?
NAN 7/17/14 57
Okay, okay, we won’t show it to anyone. We’ll take the best website you ever made in your life and stick it in a cave.
STEVE I’m going to take it down right now—
NAN No—you can’t---it’s got to stay up for a little while for credibility—
STEVE I’m starting to panic.
NAN Stop it. Stop it right now.
STEVE I don’t think you realize. We’re in debt now. 30,000 dollars in debt.
NAN It’s not real debt, Steve.
STEVE Yes it is.
NAN Well, okay, it is, but it isn’t.
STEVE It is. And the fact that you don’t get that--I’m definitely starting to panic--
NAN Stop it! Don’t panic! It’s all good. Our friends and family feel valued. We don’t feel like worthless crap. Right after the New Year we’ll take the website down and that’ll be the end of that.
STEVE Okay. That makes sense. So we just have to live this lie—
NAN It’s not a lie. It’s a future directed event we are making manifest with the best of intentions to make the world better for—
STEVE Stop it! It makes me panic when you talk like that. I said okay! We’ll leave it up till New Years. I can live with that. 7/17/14 58
NAN (Puts her arms around him.) We’re going to look back at this someday, and laugh.
STEVE You’re right.
NAN Of course I’m right. I love you.
STEVE I love you. (They kiss.)
NAN Everybody’s happy and nobody’s ever gonna know. What could possibly go wrong? (They go off to the bedroom, shedding polar fleece as they go.
In the dim light, we see the door of the Trojan Horse open. A figure climbs out, retrieves some dropped clothing, and climbs back into the belly of the horse.
BLACKOUT
END OF ACT ONE)
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