Lighten Up

Nicholas Brown, Sam McCool

• Publisher: Currency Press
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781760620363
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

'Bollywood comes to Griffin-sort of.'In Australia, we like 'em blonde and bronzed. In India, it's 'fair and lovely'. So what happens if you're stuck in between?John Green is an Anglo-Indian Australian actor who dreams of being cast in his favourite TV soap, Bondi Parade. The problem is, his coloured contacts can't hide the fact that his skin is more brown than white. Meanwhile, his skin-bleached mum is determined for him to procreate with a blonde, white Aussie woman in order to rid the family of any sign of their ethnic heritage. All hell breaks loose when John falls in love with an Indigenous woman called Sandy.This very funny play by actor (and Bollywood leading-man) Nicholas Brown and comedian Sam McCool tells a universal tale of identity, cultural assimilation and bleaching your bits.

ACT TWO

SCENE ONE

JOHN stands onstage debating whether to wear his green contact lenses. MERLE enters, frantic.

MERLE: My gravestone! My grave!

JOHN: Not now, lady ghost.

MERLE: Don’t you call me a ghost! Once I had a fulsome figure, but now, I’m entirely apparitional.

JOHN: I’m pretending to be entirely Aboriginal.

MERLE: I know. The pretending has to stop! My whole life was an extended lie and all I have left is a grave of deceit. My gravestone is cursed!

Pause.

I’m … I’m not Tasmanian. I just wanted to get in with Flynn. But he was more interested in his ‘merry men’. If I told the truth, I never would have reached the heights that I did.

JOHN: I understand.

MERLE: I know you do. We’re mutually entwined. I may be flawed and fractured, but I’m still your spirit guide.

JOHN: My mum’s messed up and I reckon only you can help her.

MERLE: She’s quite something.

JOHN: Help her to help me? Please?

MERLE: Mahatma’s mother needs help too? That wasn’t part of the plan.

JOHN: Please, Merle. If you fix her then I’ll be whoever you need me to be. Deal or no deal?

MERLE: I shall dig to the depths of your mother’s secret chamber. Deal.

SCENE TWO

ANIL enters. JOHN enters wearing a hoodie and sunglasses.

ANIL: [to an optometrist offstage] Doctor? Where’s my order? Fifteen parcels of the blue. Another fifteen of the grey/blue lenses. Fifteen of the violet blue lenses and twelve parcels of the aquamarine. Jaldi karo, mate. I haven’t got all day.

JOHN: Indian actors wear coloured contact lenses?

ANIL: Of course, my new cast are arriving from India today. How else can I make them look natural and sexy. Who are you—the Grim Reaper?

JOHN: Shhh. I don’t want my new girlfriend to bust me here. I’m trying to wean myself off contacts.

ANIL: Then why are you at the optometrist?

JOHN: I’m lapsing.

ANIL: Hey—I remember you from Bindhi Beach when Patel’s patella was broken. I never forget a face. Good, bad or ugly.

JOHN: How did Bindhi Beach turn out?

ANIL: Let’s just say it’s lucky you didn’t replace Patel.

JOHN: Why?

ANIL: The production was cancelled. My Indian money-man thinks this country is dumb, drunk and racist.

JOHN: Wasn’t that a TV show?

ANIL: That’s why he got that impression. So he pulled the plug on the finance.

JOHN: Sorry to hear that. Do you think we are?

ANIL: Personally I don’t see it. But that might be my cheap contacts. Either way, I’m getting a lot of work here. More than I ever did in Bombay.

JOHN: I thought you were huge over there?

ANIL: No, that was Daddy Dixit—Anil the Second. He won nine FilmFare awards in a single year. My granddaddy Anil Dixit the First, founded the FilmFare awards, which explains why he won so many.

JOHN: So why didn’t you get the same treatment?

ANIL: Somebody changed the bloody rules. Nepotism has a use-by date. My first masterpiece, Gondwanaland, was ripped to pieces by the press like the tattered tectonic plates of a jigsaw puzzle.

JOHN: Is that why you came here to do Bindhi Beach?

ANIL: Ya, I thought I could make it ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• First Production
• Characters
• Act One
• Act Two
• Griffin Plays Published by Currency Press
• Copyright Details