The Performance of Heartbreak and Other Plays

Scott Caan

• Publisher: Rare Bird Books, A Barnacle Book
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781942600015
• eBook ISBN: 9781942600121
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Drama
• Index: Literature

A collection of eleven one-act plays. With hints of Samuel Beckett, Sam Shepard, Neil LaBute, and Tracy Letts, Scott Caan grapples with the emotional interiors of people in a fractured world. Whether writing about actors, lovers, or co-workers, Caan takes on the complicated tension between what we say and what we feel, how we grapple with the world publicly and privately, and what that difference says about us as people.Caan's training as an actor imbues his words with a sense of play and the characters he leaves other actors to create within these plays are deep and open to interpretation. The Performance of Heartbreak and Other Plays is the introduction of an exciting new voice in American theater.

The Performance of Heartbreak

The Performance of Heartbreak

SCENE ONE

THE STAGE

A young-looking thirty-five-year-old man glides across the stage. This is GIOVANNI.

MARTY, same age, pays attention. Or tries.

GIOVANNI: So, this kid, right? He’s this actor. A real AC-TOR! High hopes and aspirations. A real thespian. So what’s he doing? Funny you should ask. He’s moping around the south side of Philadelphia doing shit. This guy. Here he is. Boom! The phone rings. Now keep in mind, this kid’s been at it for a while. But here is still. The rent in New York, his sister’s baby daddy drama, and his mom don’t like him so far anyway. Anyhow… He’s got a dumpy studio on the south side, and the rent’s a mess… He’s a fucking bum for all intents, so you can imagine the excitement of this call.

Marty just looks at him.

GIOVANNI: Got it. Hold on. The phone rings, right?

Marty nods.

GIOVANNI: Right. So he mopes over. Ain’t nothing shaking but the leaves on the trees, right?

Marty nods.

GIOVANNI: Wrong! It’s this cat’s agent! Apple to the cheesesteak through the wire. Talk at me. I mean, he ain’t heard a word since the last time he ain’t heard shit, so needless to say my dude’s got a little jump in his hump, right?

Marty nods.

GIOVANNI: So, here we go… Word is, and keep in mind that there’s zero chance this cat’s booker is taking him for a spin in the wind. I mean, no way… He’d kill the kid with a prank like this, at this point anyway… Break his already broken heart to bits… So, as a preface, this ain’t no joke. So boom. Here’s what. You got the part.

Marty lights up.

GIOVANNI: That’s right. He steps right into a moonwalk halfway across the floor plan and back. And I’m talking six feet and back across. Bitch is bouncing off the walls. Literally. This is not a large space. And at this point, he don’t even know what’s what. He might have booked a tampon commercial, at this point we don’t know. But then he settles. And mind you, he don’t give a shit what it is. Tampon or Teflon, the bitch is in.

Marty smiles.

GIOVANNI: Right? So here’s the news. Broadway, bitch! His dude might have even said those very words, he was so excited for his funky ass. And please believe this is one of those well-to-do, Barney’s shopping motherfuckers too. He thinks who is he, this agent, who gets weekly mani-pedis talking about “Broadway, bitch!” He don’t talk like that is my point.

Marty smiles.

GIOVANNI: Right? So turns out some kid caught a case. Been rehearsing for nine weeks and ate too much sushi… Whale poison. Mercury… Something. The point is… He dropped out and now our boy here gets the call. Period piece about Romans and gods and war and shit, I don’t know. Medium-sized part, maybe even on the small side, but this is Broadway… There are no small parts, only small people. That’s word on the street, anyway. So our kid’s bouncing off the walls again. Holy shit, right?

Marty smiles.

GIOVANNI: I mean, he’s been deep in the dump house. He’s got the rent in one hand, his sister’s ba...

Table of contents

• On Scott Caan’s Plays
• Foreword
• Author’s Note
• 9/11
• Minor Holidays
• They Meet aka The Kiss
• How It Works aka Tom and Jerry
• The Pain aka The Shrew
• The End aka A Man and His Barbecue
• 100 Days of Yesterday
• Minor Conversations
• The Room Before
• Wrong Side
• Clean It Up
• A Theory
• Cheating
• No More
• Right’s Right
• The Last Conversation
• Word Faithful
• The Performance of Heartbreak
• An Epilogue
• Day In Life