Gnit

Will Eno

• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781559364775
• eBook ISBN: 9781559367899
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Drama
• Index: Literature

“The marvel of Mr. Eno’s new version is how closely it tracks the original while also being, at every moment and unmistakably, a Will Eno play. After climbing the craggy peaks of Ibsen’s daunting play, Mr. Eno has brought down from its dizzying heights a surprising crowd-pleasing (if still strange) work.” — Charles Isherwood, New York Times

“Gnit is classic Will Eno. By that I mean I was thrilled by it.” — Kris Vire, TimeOut Chicago

“If ever a play made me want to be a better person, this is it.” — Bob Fischbach, Omaha World-Herald

Peter Gnit, a funny enough, but so-so specimen of humanity, makes a lifetime of bad decisions on the search for his True Self. This is a rollicking yet cautionary tale about (among other things) how the opposite of love is laziness. Gnit is a faithful, unfaithful and willfully American misreading of Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt (a nineteenth-century Norwegian play), written by Will Eno, who has never been to Norway.

Will Eno’s most recent plays include The Open House (Signature Theatre, New York, 2014; Obie Award, Lucille Lortel Award for Best Play) and The Realistic Joneses (Yale Repertory Theatre, New Haven, 2012; Broadway, 2014). His play Middletown received the Horton Foote Prize and Thom Pain (based on nothing) was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize. Mr. Eno lives Brooklyn.

ACT FIRST

SCENE FIRST

The GNIT home (pronounced “Guh-nit”). Lights up on MOTHER, alone, in bed, recovering from a hysterectomy. Any movements she makes, throughout the scene, are made with a little difficulty.

MOTHER: Never have children. Or, I don’t know, have children. You end up talking to yourself, either way.

Pause. PETER enters, with a small box.

PETER: Hi, Mom.

MOTHER: You’re a liar.

PETER: That’s a nice “welcome home.”

MOTHER: No, it isn’t.

PETER: God, Mom. I was trying to –

MOTHER: (Interrupting.) Yes, I’m sure you were. (Noticing the small box that PETER holds.) Is that for me?

PETER: What, this? Uh, yeah. You might not like it.

MOTHER: (She opens it. It’s a men’s tie, yellow-green.) You know, just because I can’t have children anymore, because I don’t have the organs for it anymore, doesn’t mean I suddenly started goddamn wearing goddamn ties. Oh, but we’re in luck. It’s your color.

PETER: If you don’t want it, I’ll give it a try. (Begins putting it on.)

MOTHER: How kind.

PETER: Hey, it fits.

MOTHER: Aren’t you even going to ask how I am?

PETER: How are you?

MOTHER: You promised you’d be here. What a darling boy. You lied.

PETER: I said I was sorry.

MOTHER: No, in fact, you didn’t.

PETER: Well, I am.

MOTHER: No, in fact, you aren’t.

PETER: Why don’t you ever believe me?

MOTHER: Probably because you’re always lying.

PETER: I was trying to tell you, if you’d just let me –

MOTHER: (Interrupting.) And because, when you begin sentences with “I,” I’m not even sure you know who you’re talking about. Because maybe I didn’t hold you enough when you were little.

PETER: You held me a lot.

MOTHER: I held you all the time. I never let you go. You were very holdable. I held you and told you little stories to cover up the sound of your father piddling our futures away. (Pause.) I needed you, Peter. I was scared.

PETER: I’m sorry, mom.

MOTHER: I know you are, sweetheart. You always were.

PETER: I was trying to get home and then the –

MOTHER: (Interrupting.) Maybe if I’d let you babble more when you were a baby, you wouldn’t still be babbling now.

PETER: I’m not babbling, this is the story of –

MOTHER: (Interrupting.) “Mrs. Gnit, will someone be coming to help you home?” “My son should be here any minute. I think he’s going to surprise me. I’ll just wait here.” And we all stared down a long empty hallway. Surprise!

PETER: I was trying to –

MOTHER: (Interrupting.) Just be quiet.

PETER: So now I can’t even open my mouth?

MOTHER: That’s all you can do. Like a little fuzzy baby bird. Making little peeps for its dirty worm.

PETER: (Pause.) Peep peep. (Brief pause.) Is there any chance I could get that dirty worm now? (Brief pause.) I like your dress.

MOTHER: I’m glad you’re home, you big old disappointment.

PETER: (Wanting to tell a story.) I almost didn’t make it.

MOTHER: (Not wanting to hear it.) But you did. Where’s the cat?

PETER: Probably outside.

MOTHER: Can you get me the blanket? I think it’s under the bed.

PETER: (He starts looking for the blanket, which isn’t under the bed.) So, yeah, no, I almost didn’t make it.

MOTHER: There’s supposed to be a frost tonight.

PETER: Huh. Anyway, so a few days ago, I’m looking around, and what do I see, but a –

MOTHER: (Interrupting.) It isn’t under the bed?

PETER: No. What do I see, but this crazy dog. Wild, but familiar; brown fur, but with Dad’s eyes. So I took off after it.

MOTHER: Okay.

PETER: What?

MOTHER: No, go ahead.

PETER: I will. So, I could so easily see the thing, shivering on a rusty tangled chain, while a family dined inside, in silence. There it sits, banished – hungry and getting smarter. Scrawniness is power, it seemed to say. I wanted to know its secret.

MOTHER: I don’t think dogs have secrets. (Admiring her dress.) Do you really like this dress?

PETER: It’s fine. Yeah, so this dog. I started screaming my own name, chasing after it. God. Wow. (He stares off, dreamily.)

MOTHER: (Brief pause.) And? I’m not interested – but, don’t leave us hanging. Did you catch it?

PETER: Yes and no. We ran through backyards, boy and dog, together. My legs got all scratched up. Somebody shot at us, I think.

MOTHER: (Concerned.) No.

PETER: Yeah. I think. People screamed. I didn’t recognize anything. The dog, now limping, now half-wearing a pretty dress from a clothesline we’d run though, and me. Man and Nature, Mom. On a journey without maps, through a new theology, bible-less. And I suddenly could see that the –

MOTHER: (Interrupting.) God, what is that smell? Do you smell that? Oh, God, it’s terrible.

PETER: I don’t smell anything. But, so there we were. I saw the world as if I’d just turned a corner onto it. This was my moment. I wanted to –

MOTHER: (Still trying to find the source of the smell.) Is it your shoes? Did you step in something?

PETER: (He sniffs his shoes and is repulsed.) Oh, God. Yeah, I did. Sorry. Fuck.

MOTHER: Take them off, Peter. Get them outside. And don’t swear. (He exits.) Love is in the air. (PETER returns with his shoes off.) Light a candle or some matches. (Brief pause.) We don’t have any candles. Maybe I hung that blanket up outside.

PETER: So, the dog and I. It had been a few days now and the hunger and blood loss were getting us somewhere special. I was seeing stars. I don’t know what the dog was seeing. Sticks? Bones? Stars, just like me? I don’t know, I’m not a veterinarian. We stopped to breathe and I was rubbing my leg and then the dog just bolted. Then I looked up, and, there was the house, and, here I was, Home.

MOTHER: Really?

PETER: Really, Mom. Mom, I never felt so alive.

MOTHER: No? Not even last year? When the exact same thing happened? And you couldn’t get home in time to take me in for my tests? You told me the exact same story, last year.

PETER: What do you mean, last–. No, come on– I felt alive then, too. This was different. This time, at first, I was thinking –

MOTHER: (Interrupting.) Enough, Peter. I can’t, okay. No more. (Brief pause.) God, I can’t get warm.

PETER: Here. (He puts his jacket over her.)

MOTHER: Can you tell me what you were born for? Honestly? Because I can’t.

PETER: Well, you always told me –

MOTHER: (Inte...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Characters
• ACT FIRST
• ACT SECOND
• ACT THIRD
• ACT FOURTH
• ACT FIFTH