Where Do We Live and Other Plays

Christopher Shinn

• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781559366700
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Drama
• Index: Literature

This anthology marks the emergence of one of the finest and most innovative new artists writing for the theater today. “The secret of Shinn’s success is in the way he exploits the dramatic gap between what is said and that which is left unsaid... writing like this is rare,” said the London Independent. Where Do We Live, the title play, was written shortly after 9/11 and though never referenced, it still haunts this chronicle of the struggles of several aspiring and gifted young New Yorkers on the Lower East Side. Like all his work, it is a deeply affecting story of how we define our lives and our place in the world.

The Coming World
“Shinn certainly looks like a shining prospect for the future.”— Daily Telegraph

Four
“Nothing is simple emotionally. The play keeps delivering small shocks and aches that end in a standoff, or maybe in that pause between despair, resignation and a twinge of hope. Haunting.”—Margo Jefferson, The New York Times

Other People
“Shinn writes with graceful compassion about people trapped inside their own skins unable to make sense of their lives.”— The Guardian

What Didn’t Happen
“... is about the distance between people, and the ways in which even friends, spouses and lovers are ultimately unknowable to one another... a playwright to cherish.”— The New York Times

Christopher Shinn ’s plays have been produced at Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan Theatre Club, the Vineyard Theatre in New York and often at London’s Royal Court Theatre. Where Do We Live received a 2003 Olivier Award nomination for most promising playwright. His next play, On the Mountain, premieres in New York City early in 2005.

Scene 1

Slide: August 9, 2001

A bar. Patricia works behind the bar. Stephen sits, with soda. Two Young Businessmen sit a few stools away, looking up at stock quotes on the television. Stephen is smoking.

STEPHEN: And he said, “Ooh, you don’t want to be a caretaker.”

PATRICIA: Oh. Of course.

STEPHEN: And I thought—I mean, the guy’s missing a leg, what? . . .

PATRICIA: Of course you did.

STEPHEN: And he knew the facts.

PATRICIA: What are the facts exactly?

(Patricia listens while filling pretzel bowls.)

STEPHEN: Well. When I moved in, I just noticed—a family. There was a woman—and there was a man—and a kid—not a kid—maybe eighteen. So one day the woman disappears—I never see her again, and the father—when I see / him next

YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 1: One more round here, Patricia.

(Patricia pours two whiskeys.)

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PATRICIA (Nodding to TV, pouring drinks): You guys losing money today?

YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 2: You’re a loser if you’re losing / money

YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 1: You gotta be crazy to lose money in this market.

YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 2 (Nodding toward Stephen): What’s your boyfriend’s name?

PATRICIA (Laughs, gives whiskeys to men): Here you go. (Goes back to Stephen, keeps refilling pretzel bowls) So the woman disappears. S

TEPHEN: Right. And then, the man, the father, he has no leg suddenly. I see him, he has no leg below the knee.

(The bar phone rings. Patricia answers.)

PATRICIA: Hello?

YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 1 (To Patricia): Ah, that’s your boyfriend.

YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 2 (To Stephen): She have a boyfriend? She never tells us.

PATRICIA: Okay. (Hangs up)

YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 2: You ready to invest yet, Patricia?

PATRICIA: I’m already in the stock market—it goes up, I get good tips, if it goes down I know it’s gonna be a bad day.

YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 1: You’re lucky Bush got in.

PATRICIA: Right, yeah, thank God.

YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 1: More money for you!

YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 2 : Three-hundred-dollar tax refund, what is that, how many tips is that? How many drinks you have to serve to get that?

(Patricia goes back to Stephen. The men laugh.)

PATRICIA: Okay, so.

STEPHEN: Anyway—I can’t tell for sure but I think the kid, I think the kid is dealing drugs out of the apartment, because I see people go in there during the day—white people—so that’s the / situation basically.

YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 1 (Regarding the TV): Bingo. I told / you

YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 2: Yeah, yeah, it’ll drop, just / watch

YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 1: I don’t / think so

STEPHEN: Anyway—the father—knocks on my door maybe once a week and asks me for cigarettes, and I give him a few. This has never seemed to bother Tyler—until—

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(The phone rings. Patricia answers it.)

PATRICIA: Hello?

YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 2 (To Stephen): What do you do?

STEPHEN:—I’m a writer.

YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 1: Oh yeah? A screenwriter?

STEPHEN: No, not a / screenwriter

YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 2 : You should write a story about us. I’m / serious

YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 1 : Yeah, this guy’s life is screwed up, let me / tell you

YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 2 :—Two guys, one of them gets laid all the time, the other one can’t / get laid

STEPHEN (Amiably): Maybe I will.

PATRICIA: Okay, gotcha.

(Patricia hangs up and goes to Stephen, starts drying glasses.)

Sorry. This has never seemed to bother Tyler “until”—

STEPHEN :—The other night. So the father knocks on my door. He needs to go to the deli. It’s raining outside and he’s afraid his crutches will slip. He tells me if he falls on his leg—the amputated leg, the remaining part of it—he’ll be in really bad trouble. So I help him—I go with him—to the deli. And as we’re walking, he starts talking. Telling me he’s worked his whole life, he can’t work anymore, he’s on Social Security . . . Anyway, so he buys his stuff, I help him back up to his apartment—the end. And I tell Tyler this, I tell him this, and his response is—and this is his instinctive response—“Oooh, be careful, you don’t want to become a caretaker.”

PATRICIA: I see. (Beat; sincerely) Do you love this person?

STEPHEN: Do I love him? Yeah—yeah. I do. I really / do. (Stephen’s cell phone rings. He checks the number, answers) Hey sweets. Nothing, just stopped by to see Patricia. Yeah? Okay. Okay great. Bye. (He hangs up)

PATRICIA: It’s funny—because from what you’ve told me about him, he’s been taken care of.

STEPHEN: What?

PATRICIA: Was that him by the way?

STEPHEN: Yeah.

PATRICIA: You told me that he has a trust fund. He’s never had to worry about money.

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STEPHEN: Right?

PATRICIA: He’s been taken care of. So why was he threatened by your taking care of someone?

STEPHEN: Oh—right. Hunh. (Beat)—It made me think about empathy.

(Patricia clears Stephen’s empty soda, wipes down the bar.)

PATRICIA: Uh-huh?

STEPHEN: Just—what it is. How it comes to be. On an individual level, a societal level . . . how do you imagine other people, their lives—whether it’s someone you love or someone you don’t—a stranger—I should get going, we’re “clubbing” tonight. —I guess it’s really a small thing to get so worked up about. P

ATRICIA: No it’s not. (Beat) I mean—the way you spoke of it, it doesn’t sound like a small thing to you.

(Pause.)

STEPHEN (Lightly): Yeah. Okay. I’ll see you soon.

(Stephen puts down money for his soda.)

PATRICIA: Shut up.

(Stephen laughs and takes his money back. He goes.)

YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 1 (To Patricia): Blah blah blah, Jesus that guy can talk.—Is he gay, that guy?

PATRICIA (Teasingly): What do you think?

YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 2 (To 1): I told you he was.

YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 1: He’s a writer like you, / huh?

YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 2:—You know Patricia, there’s this whole trend of attractive women hanging around gay guys, I saw a thing about it on TV.

PATRICIA (Laughing): Is that so? This is a trend now?

(The men rise, take out money, preparing to go.)

YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 2: Yeah, but it’s not healthy, they’re afraid of real men, they’ve been hurt too many times, so they take comfort in gay men. But it’s bad, you’re / cutting off from—

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YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 1:—Don’t listen to this / guy, Patricia.

YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 2: What? It’s just an / observation.

PATRICIA: I actually have a boyfriend, but thank you for your concern.

YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 2: You do. Truth is out.—That’s a lucky guy. What’s his name?

PATRICIA: Frank.

YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 2: What’s he do?

PATRICIA: He’s a chef.

YOUNG BUSINESSMAN 2: A chef? What kind of money do chefs make?

YOUNG BUSINE...