HONESTY ACTION INFINI STUDY GUIDE A discussion document relating to Honesty Rents by the Hour, a play in one act RENTS BY Presented by Infinithéâtre at the Rialto Infinite Studio March 7th to the 26th, 2017 THE HOUR BY Michael Milech Honesty Rents by the Hour by Michael Milech, Study Guide 1 Table of Contents Page 1 ………………………………………………………………………… Table of Contents Page 2 ………………………………………………………………… Infinithéâtre`s Mandate Page 3 ……………………………………………………………… Notes from the Playwright Page 4 ……………………………………………………………………... Play Synopsis (&Qs) Page 5 ………………………………………………………….. Character Descriptions (& Qs) Page 6 ……………………………………………………… Identity based on language (& Qs) Page 7 ……………………………………………………….. Identity based on religion (& Qs) Page 8 …………………………………………………….... Identity based on sexuality (& Qs) Page 9 ……………………………………………………...… Identity based on desire (& Qs) Page 10 ………………………………………………………………… The motel room (& Qs) Page 11 …………………………………………………………………... True or False? (& Qs) Page 12 …………………………………………………………….……... True or False (Con’t) Page 13 ……………………………………………………………………. Classroom Activities Page 14 …………………………………………………………… Classroom Activities (Con’t) Page 15 …………………………………………………………... References – Jewish Proverbs Page 16 ……………………………………………………………….... Jewish Proverbs (Con’t) Page 17 …………………………………………….………… Definitions of Terms and Phrases Page 18 ……………………………………………… Definitions of Terms and Phrases (Con’t) Page 19 ……………………………………………………………..……………… Jewish Terms Page 20 …………………………………………………………………..… Jewish Terms (Con’t) Page 21 ………………………………………………………………...…… Jewish Terms (Con’t) Page 22 ……………………………………………………………......................…. French Terms Page 23 ……………………………..……….…………………………...… French Terms (Con’t) Page 24 ………………………………………………………………….... Geography of Montréal Page 25 ……………………………………….…..… Honesty Rents by the Hour Creative Team Page 26 ……………………………………………………………………………. What’s Next? Page 27 …………………………………………………………………………… THANK YOU! Honesty Rents by the Hour by Michael Milech, Study Guide 2 INFINITHÉÂTRE`S MANDATE REFLECTING AND EXPLORING LIFE IN 21ST CENTURY MONTRÉAL Infinithéâtre’s mission is to develop, produce and broker new Québec theatre to ever-widening audiences. We are dedicated to staging theatre that is as entertaining as it is relevant. We believe that live theatre is an essential part of our society’s democratic discourse and that great theatre speaks to and about its own community. Great theatre begins with great writing. We challenge writers from other media—journalists, poets, and novelists—to write for the stage. We seek out innovative Québec plays, playwrights, and new theatrical styles. In addition, we tackle and adapt classic plays when the themes and characters are relevant. Anglophone artistic expression is Infinithéâtre's mother tongue. However, as life in the great creative crucible of Montréal is primarily conducted in French, inevitably some of our work is bilingual, even multilingual. Language, and the paradox of creating in English in Québec, a linguistic minority within a linguistic minority, helps shape our identity and fuels our creative work. With our unique record of longevity and achievement as an independent Anglophone theatre company in Montréal, we play a leadership role in the relève of Québécois theatre in English. With the digital screens of our wired universe dominating the mindset and quality of contemporary life, we strive to celebrate live human connection. We believe it is especially important to ensure a younger generation of theatregoers has a chance to celebrate community and collectivity through the experience of live theatre. INFINITE VISION ∞ INFINITE POSSIBILITIES Honesty Rents by the Hour by Michael Milech, Study Guide 3 Notes from the Playwright This is a play about a McGill grad student, a Québécoise housewife, and a Hasidic man who meet at a motel for a ménage-à-trois. People have asked if I’m concerned about offending Hasidim, and they’ve asked if I’m concerned about offending Francophones. Interestingly, no one’s asked if I’m concerned about offending bisexual, secular Jewish communications majors… I think these are all variations of a common question for writers: How do you avoid caricature and write convincingly about people unlike yourself? I’ll leave it to audiences to decide whether this play achieves that – (and if it doesn’t, I can always try to blame the actors) – but the answer is probably that there’s no such thing as a person unlike oneself. This play is about three people who couldn’t be more different, except that they all want more from life than what they’re getting, they’re all afraid, they’re all liars, they’re all lovers, and they all have secrets. The idea that, beneath our superficial differences, we all have our humanity in common is so fundamental that it’s trite. But it’s also such a familiar concept that it’s easy to accept without grasping it in the gut. Maybe it's easier to grasp it in the gut with fewer clothes on. There’s nothing more human than a contradiction. This play is about three of them. - Michael Milech Michael Milech lives in Gatineau, works in Ottawa, and plays back home in Montreal. He has a Creative Writing MA from the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, where he won one-act and ten-minute playwriting competitions as part of the NotaBle Acts Theatre Festival. His most recent script, The Nutritional Value of Anger, won Infinitheatre’s 2016 Write-On-Q! contest. And the play you’re about to see was a Write-On-Q! finalist in 2015, and was named Best English Text at the Montréal Fringe Festival last year. Honesty Rents by the Hour by Michael Milech, Study Guide 4 In a Nutshell Honesty Rents by the Hour tells the story of three strangers, Chantal, Danny, and Pinchas, who meet at a cheap motel room in Montréal. A Quebecoise mother of one, a 22-year-old graduate student, and a Hasidic Jewish man reveal more than just skin when they arrive at the dirty motel room for an anonymous threesome. What was supposed to be a night of casual sex quickly turns into a confrontation of identity, sexuality, religion, desire and prejudice. The longer the sex is delayed, the more layers of truth are peeled back. Questions 1) If you had to describe Honesty Rents by the Hour in a few words, what would you call it? A comedy? A drama? Why? 2) Do you think the play offers a generally upbeat view of human nature? Is it pessimistic about people’s capacity for moral behaviour? Or does the truth lie somewhere in between? 3) Did you enjoy the play? Why or why not? 4) Did you find any elements of the play offensive? Why or why not? 5) Thinking about the play, what light, if any, does it shed on your own life? What broader truths, if any, does it offer us about human experience? 6) Does this play offer a moral to its story? If so, what is it? 7) How did you feel about the play walking out of the theatre? Does the play end happily ever after? Honesty Rents by the Hour by Michael Milech, Study Guide 5 Character Description Honesty Rents by the Hour by Michael Milech features three characters: Chantal, a part-time secretary from Saint-Eustache (a small town on the North Shore of Montréal, Québec). She is married and is the mother of a 16-year old son. She meets both Danny and Pinchas online with the alias MILF-44 (MILF-99 on stage). Danny, a 22-year-old Communications graduate student of (presumably) McGill University. Originally from Dollard-Des-Ormeaux, a North-Western borough of Montréal, Québec, but is currently living in the McGill Ghetto, another more central borough of the city. Self-identifies as bisexual and has supposedly had a one-night ménage-à-trois several times before. Pinchas, a Hasidic Jewish man from Outremont (an upper-class neighbourhood of Montréal, Québec with a large Hasidic community). Self-identifies as bisexual and has also supposedly engaged in this type of activity before. Questions 1) Do you identify with any particular character? Which one? Why? 2) Are any of the characters bad or immoral people? Do any of them do or say anything that might cast doubt on that assessment? What do you think their assessment of themselves is? Do you agree with it? 3) Think of a moment when a character behaves badly. Do you feel they are justified in this behaviour? Why or why not? 4) After seeing Honesty Rents by the Hour, do you have any thoughts about what it means to call someone a good person? A moral person? 5) Do you believe any of the characters are behaving unethically? If so, at what particular moments? 6) What are the ethical implications of their behaviour? Do you agree with any of their choices to engage in a threesome? What do you think motivates each of them to act in such a way? 7) Have the characters exposed themselves more fully clothed than they ever will naked? 8) What future do you foresee for the three characters? Honesty Rents by the Hour by Michael Milech, Study Guide 6 Identity based on language 1) Chantal’s first language is French, Danny’s is English, and Pinchas is from a Yiddish- speaking community. How do the characters’ languages impact their interactions? 2) The characters mostly interact in English, and Chantal is less comfortable speaking English than Danny and Pinchas. What challenges does that create for her? How does she deal with them? 3) Clearly, Danny understands French. Why do he and Chantal communicate in English? What does the fact that they speak Danny’s language reveal about the characters? Does it say anything about Montréal or Québec society more generally? 4) How do the characters conform to language-based stereotypes? How do