Exposure

Two Plays

Greg MacArthur

• Publisher: Coach House Books
• Year: 2001
• ISBN:
  9781770560529
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Canadian Drama
• Index: Literature

Expose yourself to one of the most original new voices in theatre with this collection of two uncompromising plays by Greg MacArthur.

Snowman: After years of wandering, Denver and Marjorie find themselves in a remote northern community at the edge of a glacier, chopping wood, renting out stolen videos and doing cocaine with Jude, a young gay man whose parents have abandoned him. When Jude discovers the body of a prehistoric boy frozen in the glacier, everyone finds their lives beginning to shift and thaw in unexpected ways.

girls! girls! girls!: Splitz deserved to win. Missy stole first place. Set in the cutthroat world of high school gymnastics, this play follows the Friday-night exploits of four teenage chums as they seek revenge for a loss on the vaulting horse. Told in a hypnotic, rap-meets-nursery-rhymes style, this play, which takes its cue from A Clockwork Orange and the Columbine massacre, is brutally violent as it explores what happens when emptiness becomes the norm.

Exposure includes an introduction by Peter Hinton.

SNOWMAN

Snowman was first produced by Section 8 Theatre (presented by Rumble Productions) in Vancouver, British Columbia, in April 2003.

Denver: Derek Metz
Jude: Kevin MacDonald
Marjorie: Jody-Kay Marklew
Kim: Erin Monahan

Directed by Craig Hall
Set and costume design by Craig Hall, Kevin MacDonald and Yvan
Morisette
Lighting design by Yvan Morisette
Sound design by Robert Perrault

It has subsequently been produced at the Baxter Theatre Centre (Cape Town, South Africa), Imago Theatre (Montreal, Quebec), Buddies in Bad Times Theatre (Toronto, Ontario) and Nakai Theatre (White-horse, Yukon).

Snowman was written and developed with the assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts, Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre’s 2002 Rhubarb! Festival, the National Arts Centre’s On the Verge ... Festival of New Work, and the 2002 Banff playRites Colony (a partnership between the Canada Council for the Arts, the Banff Centre for the Arts and Alberta Theatre Projects).

My thanks to the following for their inspiration, encouragement and support in development of this script: Peter Hinton, Paula Danckert, David Oiye, Craig Hall, Kevin MacDonald, Lise Ann Johnson, Michael Clarke, Peter and Sandy MacArthur and the many actors across the country who gave these characters a voice and a heart.

This play is for Sionnach.

CHARACTERS

DENVER
a man in his mid-thirties, a little past his prime

JUDE
a nineteen-year-old boy, solitary and beautiful

MARJORIE
a woman in her mid-thirties, a little past her prime

KIM
a woman in her thirties, an archaeologist

PRODUCTION NOTES

This play takes place in a small community at the edge of a glacial sheet. No effort should be made to realistically portray this.

Movement and the use of props should be concise and minimal.

PART ONE

SCENE ONE

DENVER: (to audience) We live simple and quiet, me and Marjorie. We got what we need and we like what we got. Not much. A wood stove, a Ski-Doo, a collection of videos.

I always thought I was the kind of person who needed more from life. I was wrong.

I’m not afraid to change my opinion of myself. People tend to get an idea of themselves and generally stick with it. For fear of being contradictory.

Like my dad. He was a bastard. Always was. Couldn’t seem to shake it. When I was a kid he made me cry all the time.

One day he said – my mom was downstairs writing Christmas cards – he said, ‘Get the fuck out of my house.’

I left big snowy footprints in the driveway.

I went to a nearby city. I worked at a video store and met Marjorie at a booze can. She was fucking ripped. We did some speed she had in her purse.

For a while I was happy. Then I wasn’t.

Marjorie said, ‘Pick a direction and let’s go.’

North seemed good. I never had a problem with cold. Some people do. Not me. I’m warm-blooded.

Or is it cold-blooded? I could never keep that fact of science straight.

(pause)

Fuck it.

I stole seven boxes of videotapes from the store and loaded them into our car. New releases, classics, some porn.

We took off.

We’d drive till we hit a place we both liked. Rent an apartment, get jobs, walk around, make friends.

Sometimes we’d stay a month. Sometimes a year. Depended on the job. Depended on the friends.

When the time came, we’d just pack up the car and that was that.

We’ve been doing this for about ten years. Going north.

We currently live in a spit of a town at the edge of a glacial sheet. Go past that row of trees and it’s ice. Go past the ice and it’s ice. You get the idea.

We rent videos out of our house. I cut wood for people and generally fuck around. We scrape by.

Our friend Jude says we’re lucky we got each other.

Jude’s a piece. Messy hair and big eyes. Wears gumboots and a big toque and pulls it off. He’s got this ... magnetic appeal. You can’t stop looking at him. In the city he’d be the cat’s meow. Beautiful people’d want to hang with him. Here he’s just –

JUDE: I hear you have some videos to rent.

DENVER: I do.

JUDE: I wouldn’t mind seeing one.

DENVER: You got any particular tastes?

JUDE: I don’t know.

DENVER: We got a catalogue. Marjorie made it. She lives here. It’s not much, but it’s alphabetized. You can browse through it.

JUDE: You have any recommendations?

DENVER: I wouldn’t want to be – what’s the word? – presumptuous.

(pause)

JUDE: Maybe some porn.

DENVER: You want some porn?

JUDE: If you got any.

DENVER: Well. I got some porn.

JUDE: Can I see what you got?

DENVER: What do you like?

JUDE: Guys.

DENVER: Now we’re getting specific. Now we’re getting down to the nitty-gritty. Now I can help you.

(pause)

JUDE: This looks good.

DENVER: It’s German.

JUDE: You need to see any ID? I got a card here with my name on it.

DENVER: You seem like a straight-up guy.

JUDE: Well, I don’t like to cause trouble or cheat people.

DENVER: I don’t expect you do.

(pause)

JUDE: Um ... I don’t have a TV or VCR. I’m not really hooked up to anything.

DENVER: We got a good system in our living room. Me and Marjorie. You wanna come in and watch it here?

JUDE: Thanks.

DENVER: (to audience) His parents bailed on him years ago. He was just a kid. Woke up one morning expecting eggs and bacon and got slapped with a bye-bye note saying, ‘We’re gone kiddo. Sorry ’bout the mess.’

Maybe they looked at their kid sleeping and couldn’t bear it. Maybe they got scared of what they saw in him. Or maybe they were just bastards.

Jude’s got this idea they got so cold and frosty their hearts froze up. They left to find the sun. They’re travelling around looking to be warm and they’re gonna come back for him.

I don’t know. I don’t know. Anything’s possible. I live next to a glacier renting porn tapes to teenagers and I’m happy.

Anything’s possible.

(Marjorie turns to Jude.)

MARJORIE: Who’s this?

DENVER: He’s got no TV, so –

MARJORIE: What’s his name?

JUDE: Jude.

(pause)

MARJORIE: Jude. Wouldn’t you rather be doing this somewhere else?

JUDE: I got no TV.

DENVER: He’s got no TV.

MARJORIE: He’s got no TV.

(pause)

MARJORIE: Maybe we should leave him alone.

JUDE: I don’t mind the company.

DENVER: He don’t mind.

MARJORIE: He don’t mind.

(pause)

DENVER: (to audience) So, Jude comes over every now and then. We get to know him. We go through all the German gay pornography we got. Some tapes we watch twice. Jude brings some coke over the odd time and we have a real party.

Coke’s easy to get up here. Can’t get a chunk of feta cheese to save your life, but coke – they fly it in, cut it up, fly it out. We get the runoff.

Marjorie warms up to him over time. Takes a real shine ...