Nice Fish

A Play

Mark Rylance, Louis Jenkins

• Publisher: Grove Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780802126856
• eBook ISBN: 9780802189479
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Drama
• Index: Literature

"A quirky charmer of a play [that] contains, beneath its homely surfaces, larger meanings that glide softly into your mind and heart."— The New York Times (Critics' Pick) On a frozen Minnesota lake, the ice is beginning to creak and groan. It's the end of the fishing season and on the frostbitten, unforgiving landscape, two friends are out on the ice, angling for something big, something down there that, had it the wherewithal, could swallow them whole. With the existentialism of a Beckett two-hander but set in the icy and folksy depths of the Midwest, Nice Fish is a unique portrayal of a friendship forged out of boredom, bad jokes, and an ability to wait for a really nice fish. Nice Fish premiered at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge Massachusetts, directed by Claire van Kampen; played to rave reviews in a sold-out extended run in New York in February 2016 at St. Ann's Warehouse, starring Mark Rylance and Jim Lichtscheidl, and featuring Louis Jenkins; and transferred to London for a run in the West End at the Harold Pinter Theatre, beginning in November 2016.

ACT ONE

PRESET and SCENE ONE

The Ice Fisherman

A frozen lake somewhere in northern Minnesota.

Late Winter. Early Spring.

The last day of ice fishing season.

Early morning.

Upstage, a high wall of white cloud, divisible from the snowy white ice of the lake only by a very distant shoreline of spruce trees and bare poplars which disappears from stage right into the far horizon center stage. At the distant tip of the shoreline, a lighthouse.

Only a few miniature, brightly painted ice-fishing huts are visible on the ice in front of the distant shoreline. Perhaps a miniature truck pulls an icehouse off of the ice. The shore looks unpopulated. We are far north.

There are two distant ice fishing huts on the lake of differing size to give perspective before you get to the shore.

Off stage right, always unseen to the audience, Wayne’s spear fishing house and Erik’s truck will be referred to. Off stage left is Flo’s sauna house, also referred to.

We hear the sound of the ice booming as it shifts and cracks. The wind. Distant snowmobiles. Perhaps we hear, drifting across the ice, a little of The Calle Schewenn Waltz played by Mel Brenden and the Minnesota Scandinavian Ensemble. A train passes slowly along the shoreline, behind the trees. We see its lights and hear its whistle.

Mid-stage, we see a man in black ice fishing as described in the following poem.

We hear the voice of LOUIS JENKINS, or WAYNE.

From here, he appears as a black spot, one of the shadows that today has found it necessary to assume solid form. Along with the black jut of shoreline far to the left, he is the only break in the undifferentiated gray of ice and overcast sky.

Here is a man going jiggidy-jig-jig in a black hole. Depth and the current are of only incidental interest to him. He’s after something big, something down there that is pure need, something that, had it the wherewithal, would swallow him whole.

Right now nothing is happening. The fisherman stands and straightens, back to the wind. He stays out on the ice all day.

BLACKOUT

SCENE TWO

A Strike Master Handheld Ice Auger

LIGHTS UP

Very early morning.

A beautiful morning sky at back.

Downstage right we see RON, or a bundle of winter clothes inside of which, somewhere, is RON. He is drilling a hole in the ice by hand with a Strike Master handheld ice auger. Standing behind him, holding some fishing equipment and watching, we see ERIK.

A few moments.

BLACKOUT

SCENE THREE

A Strike Master Gas-Powered Ice Auger

In the darkness, we hear the sound of the gas-powered auger start up.

LIGHTS UP

ERIK, similarly dressed for the intense cold is drilling a second hole in the ice with a Strike Master gas-powered auger. RON, collapsed on the ice with his handheld auger, watches, exhausted.

BLACKOUT

SCENE FOUR

In Just a Little Closer

LIGHTS UP

ERIK is standing with his fishing poles and tackle box, which he opens during the speech to look at the lure. He speaks with the audience until after the word “Terror?”.

Then he speaks with RON.

RON is standing, looking upstage. After a while he turns, looks at his new sunglasses, and places them on the front of his fur hat.

ERIK I’ve spent a great deal of my life fretting over things that most people wouldn’t waste their time on. Trying to explain something I haven’t a clue about. It’s given me that worried look, that wide-eyed, staring look. The look that wild animals sometimes have, deer, for instance, trying to make sense of the situation: “What is that?” Motionless, transfixed. The same look that’s on the face of this fishing lure. Stupidity? Terror? What is the right bait for these conditions? High stratus clouds, maybe snow later. It’s all a trick anyway. What is this thing supposed to be? A minnow? A bug? Gaudy paint and hooks all over. It’s like bleached blond hair and bright red lipstick. Nobody really believes it. There isn’t a way in the world I’d bite on that thing.

RON I might swim in just a little closer.

BLACKOUT

SCENE FIVE

The Back Country

LIGHTS UP

ERIK is looking at the gear on a plastic sled. He places his underwater camera, radar, and a couple of five gallon buckets with more fishing poles next to the stage left fishing hole.

RON approaches from offstage right, as if he is coming from the offstage truck, wheeling a red and white cooler, with his blue chair folded up on it. He is wearing fancy new sunglasses, label still attached, over the brow of his hat.

RON speaks with the audience, standing over the stage right fishing hole.

RON When you are in town, wearing some kind of uniform is helpful, policeman, priest, et cetera. Driving a tank is very impressive, or a car with official lettering on the side. If that isn’t to your taste, you could join the revolution, wear an armband, carry a homemade flag tied to a broom handle, or a placard bearing an incendiary slogan. At the very least, you should wear a suit and carry a briefcase and a cell phone, or wear a team jacket and a baseball cap and carry a cell phone.

He has taken his cell phone from his pocket.

If you go into the woods, the back country, someplace past all human habitation, it is a good idea to wear orange and carry a gun, or, depending on the season, carry a fishing pole, or a camera with a big lens. Otherwise, it might appear that you have no idea what you are doing, that you are merely wandering the earth, no particular reason for being here, no particular place to go.

RON accidentally drops his cell phone into the fishing hole. When he looks down to see what has happened, his sunglasses also fall into the hole.

He looks at ERIK.

BLACKOUT

SCENE SIX

Everything You Have Is Lost

LIGHTS UP

RON is looking into the fishing hole for his phone.

ERIK is returning from down stage left where he has just drilled a third hole with the gas-powered augur.

RON looks up and listens to ERIK as he speaks, putting out buckets to sit on and preparing Ron’s pole for fishing.

ERIK In the morning, after I dressed, I looked for my wristwatch on the nightstand and discovered that it was missing. I looked in the drawer and on the floor, under the bed. It was nowhere to be seen. I looked in the bathroom, checked the pockets of my jacket, my pants. I looked downstairs in the kitchen, the living room. I went out to check the car. I went to the basement and looked through the laundry. I went back upstairs and looked everywhere again. I said, “Have you seen my watch?” to my wife, my children. “I’m sure I left it on the nightstand.” I became obsessed with...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Poetry, Prose and Play
• Production Credits
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Characters
• Act One
• Act Two
• Act Three
• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• Back Cover