THE TWENTY-FOURTH
CHALLENGE
FOOD
Food. Cook and
prepare food on stage.
It needs to come from
a personal place. It can be taboo.
This is, no doubt, a
“campfire play” vs a “raindance play”
Make it about why we
are who we are, but that doesn’t have to be innocent.
Make it sensual in
terms of the sizzle and smell.
Share it with the
audience? Why not?
*********************
(there are few things more
satisfying than getting to the words End of Act One or End of Play – here’s the
last of the latest version of Spellbound, for now
The rest of act two is here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here and now, the end of it)
MICAH and DUNCAN walk together as the lights shift.
The metaphysical supply store fades into the dark as
MICAH’s place, with the fallen guitar, appears.
MICAH and DUNCAN walk into the light and MICAH picks up the
guitar.
MICAH
It’s weird, the more
time I spend with the guitar, the more sensitive I am about it being bumped
into or knocked over. It’s like the
American flag, I’m not supposed to let it touch the ground.
DUNCAN
You guys spend a lot of
time with the guitar?
MICAH
Yeah. It seemed like a safe kind of intimacy, for a
while. Plus, you know, something
physical between us, literally.
DUNCAN
Guitar hangs low in just
the right places.
MICAH
My musical chastity
belt.
He wrote me a song.
DUNCAN
Wow.
MICAH
He made it simple, too,
because he wanted me to be able to play it myself if he wasn’t around.
That idea brings MICAH up short.
DUNCAN
He’ll be around. Again.
Just give it a little time.
In the meantime, he gave
you a song.
MICAH
Yeah.
DUNCAN
You should play it.
MICAH
Right now? No.
DUNCAN
I’m a very
non-judgmental audience.
I’d like to hear it.
The kind of song he’d
write about you probably says just as much about him as it does about you.
I could get to know you
both a little bit better.
MICAH
He’s really a much
better guitar player than I am. It’s his
job.
DUNCAN
He’s not here. And he wrote it for you to play. You should play it. If you want.
MICAH
Oh, I want to.
DUNCAN
Pretend I’m not here if
you want, if that helps. Close your
eyes.
MICAH
Then I really won’t be
able to play. I don’t have it memorized.
DUNCAN
Focus on the guitar
then.
Whatever gets you there.
MICAH starts to play, then realizes the sound is off.
MICAH
We knocked it out of
tune.
DUNCAN
Tune it. I’m in no hurry.
MICAH
Normally, Auggie has
little stories he tells, bantering with the audience while he quickly tunes the
guitar. I’m not that quick, and I have
zero stories at the moment, my mind’s a blank.
DUNCAN
I’ve got a story.
MICAH
Great. You talk, I’ll tune.
MICAH tunes the guitar as DUNCAN speaks.
DUNCAN
I
owe my existence to a busted green metal alarm clock.
My
grandma, my mom's mom, had an older sister and two younger sisters and a
brother, and into their young adult years they all lived with their parents in
a crowded house across a narrow alley from a woman who took in boarders, mostly
young men who came to town to work in the local factory.
Well,
one day, the neighbor landlady came over and asked my grandma's older sister
Constance for help. Turns out one of the
boarders in her house wasn't waking up, and she was afraid he was going to be
late for work. His alarm clock
apparently didn't go off, and no amount of calling from downstairs or even
knocking on the door seemed to be waking him up.
The
window in Constance's room on the second floor was just across that narrow
alley from this guy's room. So Constance
got herself a broom, opened her window, and just kept poking at the guy's
bedroom window until it roused him. He
came to the window, opened it and poked his head out, confused, and Constance
told him, "You overslept, you're going to be late for work." And with that, the guy hurried off to get
ready.
Well,
at the end of the work day, Constance was waiting out on her porch for that
young man to come back home. She was
waiting with my grandma, of course. In
those days, a young woman couldn't be thought to be just waiting around, lying
in wait for a man to walk by. Two
sisters who just happened to be enjoying a summer night out on the porch,
however, that was perfectly respectable.
Home
the young man came, and he was on the lookout for Constance, as well. He introduced himself. His name was Bruce. He thanked her for her assistance in helping
him keep his job. He complained that
this wasn't the first time his alarm clock had failed him. He asked if he might come to call again.
And
so he did. And since my grandma was
Constance's constant companion, Bruce brought a friend. His name was Andrew. The two couples went out on double dates
together. And that was it. My grandma put thoughts of all other
boyfriends out of her head, and set her cap, as she liked to say, for
Andrew. Both couples were married within
a year of each other.
Andrew
and my grandma had only one child - my mother.
Who met my father. And here I am.
My
great-uncle Bruce smoked a pipe his whole life, developed emphysema, and spent
his last few years hooked up to a little oxygen tank that he dragged around on
wheels behind him. Sometimes Constance
helped. His breathing in those last
years was more like wheezing, shallowly, with great effort. Bruce fought to stay with Constance as long
as he could, but eventually his lungs were just done. Constance only outlived him by a year. Though she had her children, without Bruce,
Constance was lonely. Almost a year to
the day after she put Bruce in the ground, Constance died in her sleep. Her daughter found her. It was a peaceful way to go. When they cleaned out Constance's house, her
daughter found something tucked away in the back of a kitchen drawer - a busted
green metal alarm clock.
I
don't know if Bruce gave the clock to Constance as a joke, or a gift, if she
swiped it when he wasn't looking, or rescued it from the trash, or he just hung
onto it himself. But that busted green
metal alarm clock was the reason they met.
So they hung onto it, for the rest of their lives. No matter how many times they moved, no
matter how many times they downsized their possessions and threw things away.
That
busted green metal alarm clock is the reason Bruce met Constance, and Andrew
met my grandma, who gave birth to my mother, who gave birth to me.
So
I owe my existence to the fact that one morning back in the 1930s, a man's
green metal alarm clock failed to ring.
I
believe in magic but -
Magic's
got nothing on that.
MICAH finished tuning the guitar a long time ago and is just
standing there, staring at DUNCAN.
DUNCAN smiles.
DUNCAN (cont’d)
So, you gonna play that
thing or what?
MICAH
Oh. Yeah.
Sure.
MICAH strums the guitar chords in a gentle rhythm. He’s not professional, but he’s not bad.
This can be as obvious or subtle a flirtation from both directions
as you like. But it should be clear
something is starting between the two of them.
MICAH (cont’d)
(sings, verse)
I blame you (C major chord)
for the (A minor chord)
blush in my (F major 7 chord)
cheek. Don’t (G
major chord)
tell me the (C major chord)
heart’s just a (A minor chord)
mus-cle (F major 7 chord), (G major
chord)
To touch your (F major 7 chord)
face your (G major chord)
hair your (E minor chord)
hand; I (A minor chord)
hold you (F major 7 chord)
and I (G major chord)
un-der-stand (E minor chord), (A minor chord)
MICAH’s phone rings.
MICAH stops briefly to check.
MICAH (cont’d)
(speaking)
It’s Auggie.
DUNCAN
You should answer it.
MICAH answers the call.
MICAH
Hey.
AUGGIE, on the phone, and SARAH appear in another pool of light.
AUGGIE
Hey. How’re you doing?
MICAH
OK. How about you?
AUGGIE
OK.
MICAH
That’s good.
And Sarah. And the baby
AUGGIE
Everything’s good.
MICAH
Good.
AUGGIE
Yeah.
So.
See you tomorrow?
MICAH
Yeah. I’d like that.
AUGGIE
Yeah?
MICAH
‘Course.
AUGGIE
Oh. OK.
Good.
MICAH
Auggie?
AUGGIE
Yeah?
MICAH
It’s gonna be a little
weird for a while.
But that’s OK.
We’ll get through
it. If you want.
AUGGIE
I do.
MICAH
Me, too.
AUGGIE
We can talk more,
tomorrow?
MICAH
‘Course.
AUGGIE
Good.
MICAH
Get a good night’s
sleep. We’ll start fresh, tomorrow.
AUGGIE
Tomorrow.
MICAH
Have a good night,
Auggie.
AUGGIE
You, too.
They hang up.
AUGGIE’s relief makes SARAH relieved.
DUNCAN
Good call?
MICAH smiles.
MICAH
Yeah.
So, that was the first
verse.
DUNCAN
And the chorus?
MICAH plays again.
MICAH
(sings, chorus)
There was a
hole at the (D minor chord)
center of my (G major chord)
life; (C major chord), (C major
chord)
Another pool of light appears, revealing JEFFREY, looking at his
grandmother’s grimoire which he holds in his hands.
We can now see all the characters on stage at once, JEFFREY;
AUGGIE and SARAH, as MICAH continues to sing to an attentive DUNCAN.
MICAH (cont’d)
(sings, chorus)
Hole at the (D minor chord)
center of my (G major chord)
life; there was a (C major chord), (C major chord)
hole at the (D minor chord)
center of my, (Am minor chord)
center of my (Em minor chord)
life; But (Am minor chord)
life’s a (D minor chord)
whole lot (G major chord)
better now with (C major chord)
you. (C major chord)
MICAH and DUNCAN look at each other.
The lights fade to black on JEFFREY
Then AUGGIE and SARAH
And finally MICAH, DUNCAN, and the guitar.
END OF PLAY
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