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38 pages

English

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Neil LaBute burst onto the American theater scene with the premiere of BASH at NYC's Douglas Fairbanks Theater in 1999 in a wildly praised production that featured Calista Flockhart, Paul Rudd, and Ron Eldard. It went on to play at the Almeida Theatre in London and since then has seen hundreds of productions across the U.S. and around the world. These three provocative one-act plays examine the complexities of evil in everyday life and thrillingly exhibit LaBute's signature raw lyrical intensity. Ablaze with the muscular dialogue and searing artistry that immediately established him as a major playwright, BASH is enduringly brilliant-classic and essential Neil LaBute. In Medea Redux, a young woman relates her complex and ultimately tragic relationship with her high school English teacher; in Iphigenia in Orem, a businessman confides to a stranger in a Las Vegal hotel room about a chilling crime; and in A Gaggle of Saints, a young couple separately recounts the violent events of an anniversary weekend in New York City.

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Publié par	ABRAMS BOOKS
Date de parution	01 novembre 1999
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781468305081
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0622€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Copyright
CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that BASH, being fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America, the British Commonwealth, including the Dominion of Canada, and all other countries of the Copyright Union, and other countries of the world, is subject to royalty. All rights including professional, amateur, motion-picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio and television, broadcasting and the rights of translation into foreign languages are strictly reserved. Particular emphasis is laid on the question of readings, permission for which must be secured in writing. Please direct all requests for production rights to:
Stephen Pevner, Inc.
248 West 73rd St
Second Floor
New York, NY 10023
First published in the United States in 1999 by
The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc.
141 Wooster Street
New York, New York 10012
Copyright © 1999 by Neil LaBute
Photographs Copyright © by Joan Marcus
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.
ISBN 978-1-46830-508-1
for emma, chet, and billie
bash premiered in new york city at the douglas fairbanks theater on june 24, 1999. the cast was as follows:
iphigenia in orem
young man ……..ron eldard
a gaggle of saints
john ………………..paul rudd
sue …………..calista flockhart
medea redux
woman ……calista flockhart
produced by eric krebs and stephen pevner
directed by joe mantello
scenic design by scott pask
costume design by lynette meyer
lighting design by james vermuelen
sound design by red ramona
contents
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iphigenia in orem
a gaggle of saints
medea redux
iphigenia in orem

silence, darkness .
lights up slowly to reveal a young man, early 30s, dressed in a plain suit. he is seated on the edge of a hotel chair and nurses a water glass in one hand .
YOUNG MAN
…i’ll tell it once. one time because it deserves to be told, and then never again, fair enough? well, doesn’t really matter what you think, i mean, i care, i do, i want you to listen to this, hear me out, but it’s not really important how you feel about it all in the end…it’s happened now. and i don’t know you from adam…or eve, for that matter. (LAUGHS) sorry, i’m just trying to keep this… yeah, anyway, your drink okay? there’s plenty over on the counter there, so feel free…the looser the better on this one, i figure, so bottoms up, or whatever they say at the bar these days. i wouldn’t know. really, feel free…comes with the room. (BEAT) i’m not a drinker…you probably guessed that, though, right? yeah…nothing but water here. (HOLDS UP GLASS) never was, but when i saw you down in the lounge i could tell right away that you enjoyed the stuff, what is that you’ve got there? some kind of red, what, wine, is it? looks like it. wine. do, really, feel at home, all that’s just gonna go to waste if you don’t…well, the next person’ll drink it maybe, but you know what i mean. myself, i hate to waste things… (BEAT) so anyway, when i spotted you, alone like you were and going through that bottle, i figured you’d be a great listener, that you wouldn’t mind if i told you all this.., and if i’m lucky, by tomorrow, you won’t even remember it. i’m kidding, but you’re okay, comfortable? good. (BEAT) so…where should i…let me see. alright, i never used to travel, pretty much stayed in our branch office, did things over the phone, handled it all that way. you know? never cared much for driving all the time, meeting clients, that end of things…i mean, i did it when i first started, low man on the pole and whatever, but once i got the old m.b.a., foot in the door and all…i stuck to the desk as much as i could, i like it. that office…i don’t know…“feel.” the atmosphere. faxes coming in, people zipping around, emergency strategy sessions, all that. it’s like being a kid again, playing at “war” or that type of thing, i don’t mean exactly like that, but you know what i’m saying, it’s a whole different thing out there, i have to tell you. the world of business, it is. all that “dog eat dog,” “jungle out there” stuff has become pretty clich~ now, but it’s true. i mean, you can see what guys love about it. and i don’t mean just guys either, because there’s plenty of women in the field, too, obviously, but i mean “guys” like in… well, “guys.” you know, how it’s used these days. all encompassing, it’s very high stakes, lots of cash floating around you, and the pressure’s a real… well, just hot. day in and out. seriously, it is. we may play it like a game sometimes, but believe me, a day doesn’t go by in business that you’re not out for somebody’s blood…
pause .
but, hey, you know what i’m talking about…you’re in what, sales? yeah, i thought so. you look like… well, no, i mean it in a complimentary…you just look like you could sell. things, if you wanted to…
pause .
i guess the point i’m making is that it’s a stress-filled situation i’m in, but i’m paid for it, not complaining, i just wanted to, i don’t know, lead in the right way on this. i’m not making excuses, i’m not… (BEAT) looks like i’m losing you. las vegas isn’t that far from…must be getting late. i’ll try and be…brief—things took a bit of a turn for us last year. well, i guess about two years ago, now. my wife and me, the family, you know…we lost a child, newborn, well, five months old.., just like that. just happened. (BEAT) i was off that day, a friday, i think, and deborah, that’s my wife, deb, she was out—her mother was staying with us, and they were over at safeway getting some milk—deb put the baby down, “emma” we’d named her, she put emma in our bed because that’s where she’d been sleeping the first few months…we always thought that was a good bonding thing, i’d read it somewhere, or she heard it at church or something like that…anyway, so that’s what she did. she tucks her in, and out they went. and see, i was gonna lie down with her, i really was, but i just went back into the living room for a second, watch a little wheel of fortune or some thing, you know, five minutes a week to myself, and i fell. fell off to sleep right there, there on the loveseat by the window. (BEAT) deb’s mom…emma’s grandma… found her. maybe a half hour later, she’d smothered herself under the covers, i don’t know, beneath the weight of the comforter or whatever it was. this big old maroon and gold thing we’d gotten as a wedding gift, huge—and she’d, well, she’d suffocated, that’s about as plain as you can tell it, right? the little thing…died in our bed, tangling herself in the blankets. (BEAT) the police had to come, they do for any kind of infant death, that’s what the officer said; i’d gotten a hold of myself by that time, still crying, but deb…deb was just kind of sitting there next to me, staring off, and this guy—this person—a detective, i suppose, was asking us questions, standing there and firing off this series of questions. “standard procedure,” he assured us, but still…
pause .
what bothered him…no, “puzzled” him, he said, never came right out and said it bothered him but you could see by the way he…he didn’t understand how the baby could get so far down. (BEAT) now i am losing you, right? okay, yeah, i’m getting ahead of myself…it seemed to him that the baby, a baby that young and small, she was such a small little thing…was too far down toward the foot of the bed, and turned, something about that seemed to be eating at him. i didn’t understand what he was getting at, the way he kept going back and forth over the events and times and all that, “where were you standing?” and “approximately how long were you…?” blah, blah, blah. i mean, my god, we’re sitting there on the edge of the sofa, the bed my daughter has just died in i can see through an open door back down the hallway, and this man is pacing around, sucking on the chewed cap of a ballpoint pen and…asking me quietly, “did you check on her?” (BEAT) what’s he getting at, anyway? i mean, that’s a no-win, isn’t it? think about it…if i didn’t check on her, i’m not a good father, not anything he can say about it, but i carry around the guilt, you know…maybe i could’ve prevented it. right? and if i did go in there, if i had’ve done what i was supposed to do, had planned on doing, the nap…then maybe she’d be alive, maybe. (BEAT) and for just a second, just the briefest of moments…i catch deb looking over at me. as if this is the first time the thought’s come to her as well. this possibility, the whole incident hangs there—probably only two or three seconds all together—but it just lays there in the air over us all. this shadow of a doubt…there’s another cliché for you…it hangs there until i say, very matter-of-factly, “umm, no, i didn’t, i meant to, but…” and off he goes. says “fine,” stops me cold, and off he goes. onto another tangent… (BEAT) she took my hand in hers, deb did, just after that. scooped it up into her tiny fingers and held it there…all the rest of that afternoon, even after the police were gone, as we sat there into the evening with her mother, our two other children, home from school and having heard it all…none of us talking, just sitting and watching the darkness crowd into the room…she held onto my hand. and somehow, because of that, i felt at peace… (BEAT) anyway, the detective said that he was nearly done, just one or two more items, when deborah grabbed hold of my hand like she did. when she did that…
pause .
all during this i can see guys passing—oops, i mean “people”—i can see these people passing in front of the doorway, i could, deb was just off to the side enough to miss it, thank heavens… twee