SWEET AND SOUR A Written Creative Work submitted to the faculty of San Francisco State University In partial fulfillment of ^ ^ the requirements for the Degree EtfG,C.U) Master of Arts - S 3 5 + In Creative Writing by Daniel Ron Schifrin San Francisco, California August 2017 Copyright by Daniel Ron Schifrin 2017 CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL I certify that I have read SWEET AND SOUR by Daniel Ron Schifrin, and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree Master of Arts in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. Michelle Carter, M.A. Professor of Creative Writing Andrew Jo^on, B. A. Assistant/Professor of Creative Writing SWEET AND SOUR Daniel Ron Schifrin San Francisco, California 2017 I will be writing a play, “Sweet and Sour,” that explores the themes of science, autobiography and audience response. I certify that the Abstract is a correct representation of the content of this Written Creative Work /Z - / - Chair, Thesis Committee Date ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I’d like to thank my professors and classmates at San Francisco State University for their support of this project. Special thanks are due to Professor Michelle Carter, who inspired me to follow my muse in all things dramaturgical. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Cast of Characters.........................................................................................................................1 ACT 1...............................................................................................................................................2 ACT II............................................................................................................................................31 ACT III.......................................................................................................................................... 78 vi 1 SWEET AND SOUR Cast of Characters MEL, retired engineer. LEAH, thirty-something artist, daughter of Mel. PREE, thirty-something scientist, son of Mel. RANDI, Mel’s lover, whose gender and age is uncertain or fluid. Randi was originally written to be a hirsute male wearing female clothes, but this could change depending on the actor and the interpretation. Randi is expected to demonstrate a full, even exaggerated, range of emotions. The actor playing Randi will also play several minor characters, some of whom appear only once. Randi will also have a knife on him in every scene. The entire play takes place in Mel’s home, although there are flashbacks to other locations. 2 ACT I SCENE 1 LEAH and PREE are sitting in their father’s comfortable, if slightly Spartan, living room. LEAH Why are we here? PREE You know why we’re here. LEAH I know why we’re here, but why are we here? PREE Every time I see you I think I understand what you’re saying, and then something happens - 1 think it’s that you start talking - and then I have no idea. LEAH You understand exactly why I’m asking.... PREE Dad doesn’t ask that much of us, and when he says (in father’s voice, arm up to ear, phone-like) come visit on Sunday...don Y worry, nothing’s wrong.... LEAH ...you know something’s wrong...Do you think he’s ok? 3 PREE Of course he’s okay. When has he not been ok? (beat) LEAH You remember that one time, when we were in Italy - the four of us - and he had those stomach pains... PREE We thought he pulled a muscle driving that Alfa Romeo around Rome.... (mimicking dad, hands dead-set on steering wheel) ...you think you ’re a crazy driver? Watch this! (turns the wheel sharply) LEAH If he’s okay, why is he still in the bathroom? (Flushing sounds. A man comes out hunched over, in a bathrobe and slippers, hair disheveled) MEL I ate nothing today but a banana! LEAH (relieved and concerned) Oh dad! MEL Why the long face? I’m on a diet. (siblings look at each other; they both get up) I’m fine. I just wanted to see you guys before, you know, things got busy. 4 PREE What kind of busy do you mean? MEL A good question. A scientist’s question. That’s my boy. How’s the practice? PREE It’s busy. We added two chemists last week.... MEL Busy is good, busy is good.... PREE But I kind of left in a hurry, you know, your message and all. MEL And you, my dear, how is your puppet show? John Cage meets Twyla Tharp meets Sesame Street, if the New York Times can be believed... LEAH You mean “Lady Macbeth’s Kitchen”? (Leah pretends to put a gun to her head. Pree is not amused.) MEL My little genius. I always knew you could do it. And what’s the name of your new production company? The kitchen? LEAH The Lab. MEL The Lab. I know, I know.... (a slight cough) Of course, the Lab. 5 (Mel’s cough picks up steam, and is suddenly upon them like a storm blowing through the house. It goes on longer than is polite. He sits down.) Maybe the banana wasn’t such a good idea. (He takes a deep breath.) Well, you want the good news, or...? (Mel starts coughing again, and he makes a slight performance out of it.) FREE The good news ore, like the gospel about gold? Or is there a comma in there somewhere? Or is there bad news too? Or is there no good news at all, and only the appearance of good news? Or/ (Mel finishes his performance, then starts talking as if he didn’t hear Pree.) Okay, the good news first. I’m alive. PREE A golden opportunity to state the obvious. LEAH And....? MEL You two will finally have the chance to live together again, to do projects and tell jokes, just like the old days. (Pree rolls his eyes, but she leans forward, concerned.) LEAH Dad? 6 MEL The funny thing is, when you were kids, Leah was the one who was always asking the probing questions, and Pree was always drawing pretty pictures. PREE Art and science are surprisingly comfortable bed-fellows... (with a sudden, rising pique) Now what’s the big mystery? What’s the or news? MEL Stage 4, all my organs, like Swiss cheese, the cancer eating me up like a glutton at the buffet. (he gets up, looking ill) Whoo...that banana. Maybe I overdid it. (Mel starts to hobble off stage. They get up. She grabs her brother’s arm, but he looks much the wobblier.) PREE Dad? MEL (he turns around half-way) I’m not asking much. Just stay and cook for me. You know, all the stuff I like. The chicken with the sweet and sour sauce, the cranberry garnish, those muffins with the dry oats floating on top. Just until, you know...it passes. PREE I don’t understand. LEAH Yes you do. It’s an experiment. Which of us can come up with the tastiest dishes for our dying father. Like one of those old myths... 7 PREE .. .but also a competition... LEAH .. .like when we were kids, and we created all these games... PREE .. .to distract us while mom was.... MEL (coughing) Oh, nothing like that. Nothing like that at all. 8 SCENE 2 Pree and Leah are sitting in the kitchen. It looks like a crime scene, with the carcasses of vegetables and food containers littering the table and counter. They look wearily at each other like two warriors having come to a truce after a night of fighting. Then, they soften. LEAH Did we start with smoothies and end up with gazpacho, or was it the other way around? PREE Yup. LEAH No, really? PREE (long pause) Did you ever meet Susan? LEAH Which girlfriend was that? PREE The alchemist. LEAH From Taiwan or something? 9 PREE Shanghai. I met her at the metallurgy conference. LEAH Sexy. PREE Kind of, but more elegant, I would say, than... LEAH Not her, your conference. It’s like you’re the James Bond of chemistry. PREE (throwing a vegetable at her) Anyway, her father died after years of eating fool’s gold with his food, something to do with Tao Buddhism. He thought he would live forever if he transmuted base metals into a synthetic gold, then ingested it, you know, iron pyrite, FeS2, versus just AU, which is natural, organic gold... LEAH I told you, James Bond. (she hums the 007 theme song) PREE (not paying attention) She couldn’t understand why her father did this. He was a man who wouldn’t mix his rice and chicken, so that if something tasted wrong he would know which food it was. He wouldn’t eat a fruit from the orchard behind his house unless he knew which tree it came from, and not just which tree, but which part of the tree, a high branch, a low branch, etc. He was crazy about these things long before people in San Francisco were. LEAH (she starts to clean up) So why did he eat gold? PREE Fool’s gold...I asked Susan the same question. But we broke up before I got an answer... 10 (Leah stops cleaning and watches Pree) But of course I have a hypothesis... LEAH Yes, of course you do. PREE At the end of his life something happened, he returned to an ancient cultural idea. Alchemy. The possibility that with enough knowledge, with enough skill, with enough patience, one can turn base elements into something precious. And this process is imbued with a spiritual dimension. It was the knowledge that prolonged your life, not what you actually ate. LEAH Since when did you get interested in spiritual stuff? PREE (Tasting something, then indicates it’s not so bad) I don’t know if I would call this line of questioning spiritual. (beat) I often wondered how we survived with our parents as cooks.