Pronoun

Evan Placey

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781780013831
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

A love story about transition, testosterone, and James Dean.

Josh and Isabella are childhood sweethearts. They were meant to spend their gap year together, they were meant to be together forever. But Isabella has now become a boy.

Evan Placey's play Pronoun was commissioned as part of the 2014 National Theatre Connections Festival and premiered by youth theatres across the UK. Especially written for young actors, the play can be performed by a cast of seven, with some doubling of roles, or a much larger cast.

Scene One

AMY’s bedroom. JOSH wears a dress. He looks in a full-length mirror.

KYLE. What the fuck?

JOSH. For nothing in the world.

KYLE. What?

JOSH. For nothing in the world, will I swear not to arm myself.

KYLE. What?

JOSH. Will I swear not to arm myself and put on a man’s dress.

KYLE. Josh.

JOSH. Who said that?

KYLE. What?

JOSH. Who said that?

KYLE. Said what? Josh, why are you –

JOSH. For nothing in the world, will I swear not to arm myself and put on a man’s dress. Who said it?

KYLE. Rihanna?

JOSH. Joan of Arc.

KYLE.…Okay.

JOSH. But in history, sir overlooked that bit, why she was actually condemned to death, y’know.

KYLE. Josh?

JOSH. Yeah?

KYLE. You’re wearing a dress.

JOSH. Yeah.

KYLE. Okay.

JOSH. Yeah.

KYLE. So you’re aware, you’re aware, that you’re wearing – I thought maybe.

JOSH. No. I’m aware.

KYLE. Right.

JOSH. Amy rang when you were downstairs. They’re out of pineapple so she’s replaced it with mushrooms, which in my mind isn’t really a comparable replacement, one’s a fruit and the other’s – and she’s got it without cheese, which actually entirely defeats the purpose of ordering a pizza if you ask me.

KYLE. Dude, why the fuck are you wearing a dress?

JOSH. I dunno. I thought. Thought it would help. Understand, y’know.

KYLE. And?

JOSH. Nothing.

KYLE. At least you look pretty.

JOSH. You think?

KYLE. Shows off your legs.

JOSH. Thought somehow, if I, like there’d be this moment, it would just click, that I’d feel how she, how he… but I just feel like a boy in a dress.

KYLE. You used to wear eyeliner and mascara.

JOSH. For like a week.

KYLE. Three as I recall.

JOSH. That’s not the same.

KYLE. Your emo days.

JOSH. It’s not the – this isn’t how it was supposed to go. This wasn’t part of the plan.

KYLE. Every plan has variables, mate.

JOSH. You go away for a shitty two-week holiday for Easter with your annoying family to some three-star shithole in Benidorm, you expect to come home with a sunburn, you expect to come home with diarrhoea, you expect to come home with a pen that has a picture of a woman on it whose clothes fall off every time you click it – what you do not expect when you come home is to find your sixteen-year-old best friend engaged and that your girlfriend is…

KYLE. Come here.

JOSH. No. What are you –

KYLE. It’ll help. (Puts eyeliner on JOSH.)

JOSH. We were supposed to – there were so many things we were supposed to do, that we’d planned to do. After next year, gonna spend our gap year together. Travel Thailand.

KYLE. You still can. (Gets lipstick, starts to put it on JOSH.)

JOSH. How are we –

KYLE. Stop talking.

Push your lips together.

JOSH looks in mirror.

Anything?

JOSH. No.

KYLE gets on one knee. Holds out a ring box.

The fuck you doing?

KYLE. Joshua Robbins.

JOSH. Kyle.

KYLE. We’ve known each other a long time now.

JOSH. Kyle, get up.

KYLE. Ever since I first spotted you having pissed your pants by the sandpit in nursery, I knew. I knew then you were the one. Joshua Michael Robins, make me the happiest groom and be my best man? (Opens box, it’s a Haribo sweet.)

JOSH takes it, eats it.

Is that a yes?

JOSH. I love you, man.

KYLE picks JOSH up, spins him around, whooping.

KYLE. It’s gonna be ace. Here. (Envelope.)

JOSH. What’s this?

KYLE. Your duties as best man. I’ve put a tick-list in.

JOSH.…Terrific.

JOSH gets distracted by himself in the mirror again.

KYLE. It’ll be alright, man.

JOSH. It’ll be great.

KYLE. I meant about.

JOSH. Oh.

KYLE. Josh?

JOSH. Yeah.

KYLE. Amy’ll be back any minute, and [if] she finds you in her room she’ll castrate you with her bare teeth. Trust me, I’ve got the teethmarks. It still hurts when I pee. (Exits.)

The song ‘Everyday’ by Buddy Holly begins to play.

JOSH takes off the dress. On the other side of the mirror (somewhere else), DEAN enters in boxers and a sports bra/vest top. Faces himself in the mirror. The effect being that by this point JOSH too is in his underwear – the two of them looking at each other through the mirror.

Beat.

JOSH exits.

Scene Two

Continuous from Scene One.

DEAN’s bedroom. A large poster of JAMES DEAN from Rebel Without a Cause on the wall.

DEAN retrieves a needle. Fills it with liquid from a small tube. Squirts the end of the needle gently. And reaches round and confidently injects himself in his bum cheek.

He then wraps a large roll of bandage around his chest, binding his breasts so they’re flat. Puts a T-shirt on. Looks in mirror.

Puts another T-shirt over top of the first.

Gets a sock. Puts it in his underwear, adjusts it.

Puts on some skinny jeans and Converse.

Hair product in his short hair.

Douses himself in Lynx. The ritual is complete.

JAMES DEAN appears. The music stops.

JAMES DEAN. Hey, kid.

DEAN. I look crap.

JAMES DEAN. Take it easy.

DEAN. Do I look crap?

JAMES DEAN. You look swell.

DEAN. Fuck off swell.

JAMES DEAN. You look a bit like me, kid.

DEAN looks at the poster of J...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Dedication
• Author’s Note
• Acknowledgements
• Original Production
• Characters
• Pronoun
• About the Author
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information