The Happiest Song Plays Last

Quiara Alegría Hudes

• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781559367721
• Topic: Littérature
• Subtopic: Théâtre américain

"As ever, Hudes’s writing is poetic but wry, full of swagger and poetry. There’s live music, but oh, how the lines sing too." — David Cote, Time Out New York "Ms. Hudes draws all her characters with precision and understanding... this warm-blooded play underscores how the disorienting flux of life can be navigated with the help of carefully tended family ties." — Charles Isherwood, New York Times "Delightful... Hudes is a very accomplished storyteller, a playwright with an emergent, fulsome American narrative." — Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune At the dawn of the Arab Spring in an ancient Jordinian town, an Iraq War veteran struggles to overcome the traumas of combat by taking on an entirely new and unexpected career: an action-film hero. At the same time, halfway around the world in a cozy North Philadelphia kitchen, his cousin takes on a heroic new role of her own: as the heart and soul of her crumbling community, providing hot meals and an open door for the needy.The final installment in Hudes’s three-play cycle, which began with the Pulitzer Prize-finalist Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue and Pulitzer Prize-winner Water By the Spoonful, The Happiest Song Plays Last is about the search for redemption, humility and one’s place in the world. Quiara Alegría Hudes is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Water by the Spoonful, the Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights and the Pulitzer Prize finalist Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue. Her other works include Barrio Grrrl!, a children’s musical; 26 Miles; Yemaya’s Belly and The Happiest Song Plays Last, the third piece in her acclaimed trilogy. Hudes is on the board of Philadelphia Young Playwrights, which produced her first play in the tenth grade. She now lives in New York with her husband and children.

Act One

SCENE 1

The Film Set of Haditha on Fire. Azraq, Jordan. January 2011.

A violent explosion. The sound of debris landing in the explosion’s wake. Shar, in a traditional abaya, lies on the ground. She is harnessed for flying.

SHAR: Oh shit . . . Ow . . . Uhhhh . . .

(Elliot enters in combat gear, fake blood.)

ELLIOT: Yoooooo! You flew! You fucking trampolined! You okay? Shar? Shar! You good?

SHAR: Aw . . . That hurt. Ow.

ELLIOT: Who are you where are you?

SHAR: I’m Shar. I’m in Jordan filming a movie.

ELLIOT (Holding up fingers): Count.

SHAR: Three. I think I’m okay . . . Ugh . . .

ELLIOT: Breathe, dude. Get up slowly.

SHAR: What happened?

ELLIOT: The second they said action, this gust of wind came up, you could literally see the air moving. That thing detonated sixty degrees to the left! Even Nigel was running cuz he was like, “Protect the cameras! Protect the film!”

SHAR (Spitting): I have a mouthful of pebbles.

ELLIOT: Shit looked tight.

SHAR: Yeah?

ELLIOT: You trampolined like twenty feet off the ground!

(Shar has made it to her feet. Elliot removes the harness from her.)

SHAR: I hope he got what he needs.

ELLIOT: Don’t worry, he doesn’t have another bomb. I told that hardhead of his. This is the desert. This ain’t no soundstage. You can’t manipulate an explosion when you got wind like this. On the ride out here, I saw that grass blowing all around, I was like, “Nigel, man, the weather conditions aren’t right.”

SHAR: We better get credit for these stunts.

ELLIOT: Docudrama. Everything’s gotta be real.

SHAR: FYI, a stunt in Hollywood is falling to your knees.

ELLIOT: FYI, I been knowed that.

SHAR (Snapping her fingers near her ear): I’m gonna go deaf for an indie. For no distribution.

ELLIOT: We’re gonna be distributed.

SHAR: The optimistic newbie.

ELLIOT: Don’t you believe in The Secret? Manifest it.

SHAR: Manifest me a soft mattress to lie on.

ELLIOT: I ain’t no newbie. National Colgate ad.

SHAR: You sent me the link to that ad three times.

ELLIOT: National Target ad, bee-yotch.

SHAR: I stand humbled, Sidney Poitier.

ELLIOT: We can’t all go to the Yale School of Drama.

SHAR: Juilliard.

(Ali enters, rushes to Shar.)

ALI: My sister, my sister!

SHAR: It looked jacked, didn’t it?

ALI: Beautiful, beautiful. You are a bird!

SHAR: I need to shower.

ALI: Nigel says you fall down wrong way. They have to make explosion again. They send car to next town to buy new explosion.

SHAR: No!

ELLIOT: How far is the next town?

ALI: Thirty minutes.

(Shar pulls cigarettes from her abaya.)

SHAR (To Ali): Smoke?

ALI: No, my sister.

SHAR: Suit yourself, Little Mr. Innocent.

ELLIOT: Don’t act like I didn’t walk in on you with porn jacking off last night.

ALI: Please, my brother! (To Shar) This is not true.

SHAR: All right, Ali. I like you more than I realized.

ALI (Regarding the cigarettes): Okay, I take one for my uncle.

(Shar gives him a cigarette. Ali guards it in his pocket.)

ELLIOT: Something was off with the timing. Listen, before the bomb goes off, like four seconds after they call action, the Humvee’s gonna come around the corner, and when I go into the house, that’s when you get in ready position. When the ropes pull you up, suck in your abs for the liftoff.

SHAR: Did they train you in flying trapeze in the Marines?

ELLIOT: Yeah, just like they trained you to shit diamonds at Yale.

SHAR AND ELLIOT: Juilliard.

ELLIOT: And don’t forget, flip backward.

SHAR: I did!

ELLIOT: You flipped forward, Juilliard.

SHAR: I thought I flipped backward.

(Pause.)

So is the real thing actually like this? An IED blows and people become aerialists above the road?

ELLIOT: People? I seen Bradleys, I seen tanks flipping like Sea World dolphins. From a medium explosion ...