(more)

image bank/spring cleaning

Notes from Tech Week (1)

the major issue we are facing right now with this piece is how to "activate" it. By activate I could also mean "energize" or "breathe life into". We have nice moments - naturalistic, honest - but we must now take a step back and consider the performance of these moments. Let's welcome the audience into this interaction instead of just letting them observe. Some other notes:

-projection - wayyyyyyy louder. work from your belly, not your throat.

- remember to lift Abigail out through your chest and chin - don't close her from the audience.

- actively sit, always be engaged with what is going on onstage.

- choose your pauses wisely.

- if a sound cue gets messed up, cover it. Stay in character.

Really great job, I look forward to seeing how this piece changes this week.

grown. prop list.

Borrowed from Amherst:

- x-mas tinsel (red)

- table cloth (knit, off-white)

- tray (floral pattern, tin/metal)

- dish rag

- 4 dishes (2 styles)

- Cassette tape

- Frame (5x7)

- 2 tea cups

- 2 saucers

- kettle (blue)

- plastic sword

- stethoscope

- forks

- pots (for plants)

- radio/recorder

- glass for watering plants

Brought by Kathi:

- bag w/ take-out

- planner

- aspirin bottle

- egg timer

- box (for costumes)

Still Need:

- cassette tapes (and cases) – or some way to elude to many other tapes.

- purse (Malorie) – Ashley?

- costume pieces in trunk – Ashley?

- 2 plants

- lamp

- rice/tic-taks

- ballet shoe (preferably point) – Ashley?

- marshmallows

- toothpicks

- table

- chairs

New title, new draft, new questions

So here's the latest draft. There are still some things I need to fix/add in. Here are my concerns right now:

- Malorie's opening voice-over. I haven't even attempted to edit this yet, but I plan to.

- Working the 1-sock into the dinner conversation so its more prominent.

- Working Malorie being a ballerina into the dinner conversation so its more prominent.

Also - you offered a great list of titles. I especially liked Big Girls, but I still didn't think it was perfect, so I started riffing off of your title. I thought Big girls...grown ups...grown girls...grown! I think "grown" encapsulates both sisters' struggles and also relates to the plants - which is great. Let me know what you think, and without further adieu, the draft!

Time: Today

Place: The attic of a childhood home.

Abigail – a younger sister.

Malorie – an older sister.

grown.

Lights up on the interior of an attic. The attic is spacious but barren, cold but welcoming – it should hint at a life packed up in boxes, a life the audience was 20 years too late to see. ABIGAIL enters from a doorway (presumably a second room within the attic) and looks around her home. She takes in what is “out of place”. She moves to table, grabs her egg timer, sets it, and quickly begins running around, trying to finish specific chores before the timer rings. When the timer rings, Abigail drops whatever she is doing, resets the egg timer, and starts in on a new task. One of these chores should be changing into her costume for her and her sister’s themed dinner. After she accessorizes with articles from a costume trunk, she pulls the trunk offstage through the exit. After a few examples of these chores, she grabs MALORIE’s tape recorder and a tape off a shelf, sets them up at the table, and plays the tape. While the audience hears what is on the tape, ABIGAIL continues to run around completing mindless tasks. At the beginning of the recording, we hear an egg timer being wound, then ticking. It is clear that MALORIE also uses an egg timer for her own tasks.

MALORIE (voiceover).

March 31^st, 2008

My sister Abigail is what most people call a “shut in”. She doesn’t leave the attic. She won’t. She…can’t. She’s also what people call, “crazy” or, perhaps if we had money, “eccentric”. But we don’t have money. People say…people say many things. Talk talk talk. If you asked me, if you wanted my professional opinion? She’s suffering from agoraphobia triggered by a traumatic life event. What was the life event?

My mother dropped dead a few years ago, right here in this kitchen. One moment she was making chocolate chip pancakes and the next she was horizontal on the floor, cold as the day is long. Heart attack. I wasn’t there for it, but Abigail was. Abigail had always been a little on the…quirky side. She had shared that with my late mother. But I suppose that seeing our mother collapse dead in front of her must’ve triggered her, accessed something inside her that just…snapped.

From that moment on, Abigail vowed…well, she vowed many things. But among them, she vowed to never make chocolate chip pancakes again, never to wear two socks at the same time, and never to abandon her childhood home, the place our mother died. I have no idea where the one-sock thing came from, and she never explains it. She couldn’t leave and she couldn’t work. So, I uh, arranged for the bottom two floors to be rented out, and moved Abigail up to the attic. She’s been up there ever since.

I think she's worried that if she leaves now, she'll come back and I’ll have rented out the attic, too. She keeps getting pushed up stairs. She'd probably move to the roof.

The egg timer on the recording alarms, and ABIGAIL once again drops whatever chore she is doing. She goes over to the tape recorder, stops it, rewinds it a little, re-plays it.

MALORIE (voiceover).

From that moment on, Abigail vowed…well, she vowed many things. But among them, she vowed to never make chocolate chip pancakes again—

ABIGAIL stops the recording abruptly, then records herself over this part of the tape.

ABIGAIL.

I didn’t like those pancakes much anyway. They always got too soggy.

Noise from outside the attic – it is clear someone is approaching. ABIGAIL listens for a moment, then quickly replaces the tape and tape recorder back onto the shelf, exactly as it was before. She neurotically straightens out the remaining objects/set pieces onstage, and readies herself for MALORIE. MALORIE enters the attic, plastic bag in hand.

MALORIE.

Hey.

ABIGAIL.

Hi!

Pause. No one moves.

ABIGAIL.

Can you guess what this week’s dinner theme is?

MALORIE looks around. It is obvious that the theme is make-shift Alice in Wonderland. ABIGAIL is dressed as the Mad Hatter. There is a tea set on the table.

MALORIE.

Uhhh, I don’t know. What?

ABIGAIL.

Guess!

MALORIE.

Abigail…you got me. What is it?

ABIGAIL.

You didn’t even try.

MALORIE.

It’s been a long day, Abigail.

ABIGAIL, sincere, concerned,

What happened?!

MALORIE moves around ABIGAIL in the doorway and puts her plastic bag on the table. She digs through her purse until she finds a new cassette tape. She holds it up.

MALORIE, dismissively,

Nothing, just… busy. Do you want to catalogue this?

ABIGAIL snatches the new cassette from her sister’s hand and runs back to where the rest of the tapes are kept. She dates it and puts it away.

You swear…?

ABIGAIL.

“not to listen to your recordings in any way shape or form.” Yes.

MALORIE.

Ok.

MALORIE takes her planner out from her purse. Opens it to a date (presumably today) and checks “dinner” off her schedule.

Arrive at Mom’s house. Check. Catalogue cassette tape diary. Check.

From the take out bag, MALORIE removes some food and a napkin. She probes the bag. Meanwhile, ABIGAIL has brought her own dinner over to the table, a tray of marshmallows held together by toothpicks, resembling people and creatures.

ABIGAIL

You brought your own dinner.

MALORIE.

Yes.

ABIGAIL.

But I told you I’d cook this week. Again.

MALORIE.

Yes, I know, but what you’re doing isn’t cooking.

Pause.

I’m sorry. I just, I can’t eat that for a meal.

Pause.

Do you want some of my pad thai?

ABIGAIL.

No.

MALORIE.

Ok.

Pause. MALORIE looks for a fork in her take out bag, but cannot find one. She gets up and crosses to where the silverware is kept. After a moment:

Did you move the forks again? I can never find anything in this place.

ABIGAIL gets up and goes to another area in the attic, retrieving the forks. MALORIE joins her.

ABIGAIL.

Now there’s the salad forks and the entre forks and the dessert forks are here and the miscellaneous—

MALORIE gets impatient and grabs for a fork.

MALORIE.

I don’t care which one. It doesn’t matter.

Pause.

I liked it more when the forks were over there.

Both sisters return to the table and begin eating in silence. Before ABIGAIL begins to eat, she sets her egg timer. MALORIE looks over her planner again.

ABIGAIL.

I stopped feeding Atticus Finch.

MALORIE.

What?

ABIGAIL.

Your plant. I stopped feeding it for you.

Pause.

Remember? The 2 plants I asked you to bring me? One for me, Scout, and one for you, Atticus. Well, I stopped feeding your’s.

Pause. ABIGAIL gets up and brings a tray back over to the table. The tray has two plants on it: one that is lush and alive, the other withered and dead. She drops the tray loudly on the table.

It’s dead. You let it die.

MALORIE, insincerely.

Sorry.

ABIGAIL is frustrated by MALORIE’s insincerity, we see childish anger bubbling. She takes a few more bites of her marshmallow dinner before her egg timer goes off. She immediately throws down her food and looks at it, disappointed.

Great. Now I can’t eat! You wasted my eating-time!

ABIGAIL gets up from the table, upset. She resets her egg timer and goes about completing another menial chore. MALORIE watches, used to this routine. She continues eating. The timer goes off.

MALORIE.

Reset it and come finish your dinner.

ABIGAIL.

I can’t.

MALORIE, gently.

Yes, you can. Just reset it. I’m telling you that you can do this and its alright.

ABIGAIL considers the offer, slowly moves back toward the table. She resets the egg timer. She begins to eat again. MALORIE watches ABIGAIL until she begins eating, then allows herself to eat again as well. After a few moments, MALORIE rubs her temple again, goes back into her purse and pulls out a bottle of aspirin. She begins to try to open it, but has trouble with the child-proof cap. ABIGAIL stops eating and notices.

ABIGAIL.

You don’t need those—

MALORIE.

Abigail, its ok. I just have a headache—

ABIGAIL.

You always have a headache! You don’t need them!

MALORIE.

They aren’t harmful. I promise you. Look, can you please open this? I can’t get it—

ABIGAIL crosses to her sister, grabs the pills out of her hands. Her egg timer goes off again. She pulls off the cap and dumps the pills all over the floor. She then begins to smash them with her foot, as if they were ants.

Abigail!

ABIGAIL resets the egg timer as she continues stomping around the room.

ABIGAIL.

You don’t need them. You don’t need them! You don’t need them, you don’t need them!

MALORIE, interrupting ABIGAIL’s previous line.

Abigail! Stop! Please! Abigail!

ABIGAIL.

You don’t need them!

ABIGAIL grabs MALORIE’s planner off the table. MALORIE immediately runs for it.

And, you don’t need this! I hate this, I hate this, I hate this!

ABIGAIL throws the planner out the window. MALORIE grabs ABIGAIL by the shoulders, hard. ABIGAIL quiets down for a moment. Looks at her sister, becomes sad.

ABIGAIL, heart-broken,

You’ve lost it.

MALORIE.

What?

ABIGAIL.

Your muchness. Its gone.

MALORIE.

My what?

ABIGAIL.

The thing that made you special, the thing that—

ABIGAIL’s egg timer goes off again. ABIGAIL abandons her post with MALORIE. She goes back to the table, resets her egg timer quietly, and begins to eat. It is clear she is still holding on to her hurt, despite the fact that the timer went off, prompting her to do something different.

MALORIE.

What did I lose? Abigail?

ABIGAIL.

It’s over.

MALORIE.

Abigail, what are you talking about?

ABIGAIL.

The timer went off. The fight’s over.

MALORIE, torn and frustrated.

That’s…that’s not how it works, Abigail.

Pause.

That’s not how it works! This isn’t over! Abigail! That’s not how real life works!

Pause. The egg timer goes off.

Reset it. I’m not finished with this yet. Reset it!

ABIGAIL.

NO!

Pause.

MALORIE, defeated, overwhelmed.

Fine. I…I need to…lay down for a while. Enjoy your dinner.

MALORIE disappears into the second room of the attic. It is quiet onstage. ABIGAIL is frozen in her seat for a few moments. Then, she gets up, moves to the tapes and tape recorder, and brings them back to the table. She pulls out the newest tape that MALORIE had just dropped off and puts it in the recorder, and presses play.

MALORIE (voice over).

December 6^th, 2010. Another long day. Schedule as follows. 6am: wake up. Shower. Eat. Go over planner for appointments. 7am – 45 minute commute to work. Grid-lock, no doubt. 7:45: first client of the day – young woman who gave up daughter after unwanted pregnancy, now regrets her choice of adoption. 8:30 – second client: middle-aged man, professor. Screws undergraduate students to compensate for his own failed sexual career of his youth. Flinches at the word “chivalrous”.

ABIGAIL fast-forwards a little on the tape. Then plays it again. MALORIE’S voice continues to lose stability and starts to sound continuously more overwhelmed.

--finish lunch, mail updated vehicle registration, pick up dry-cleaning. 1:20: allotted bathroom break before next appointment. 1:30: 8^th client – teenage girl with eating disorder. Looks just like Abigail 10 years ago. Too much like Abigail—

Again, ABIGAIL fast-forwards, plays. This time though, we don’t hear MALORIE’s journal entry, but just her weeping. ABIGAIL is frozen by her sister’s cries on the recording. She listens for a moment longer, then abruptly silences is. She may hold her face in her hands. Then, an idea melts over her. She brings the tape recorder closer to her, set the egg timer, and begins to record.

ABIGAIL.

Malorie, I’ve never heard you cry before. Not even when mom died. You were so strong, too strong. Do you remember the first big snowstorm? Mom wouldn’t let us out of the house, so she made the theme Peter Pan, and drew a secret treasure map that lead to all her old jewelry boxes and our dusty Halloween costumes in the attic.

MALORIE has appeared in the doorway behind ABIGAIL, listening to her sister’s confession. Perhaps she may look mad at first, mad that her sister is recording over her tape, but her mood changes.

I used to think you let me be Peter Pan during our adventures, but I think you wanted to be Captain Hook, to be the adult: to grow-up and be a big girl…

Those stories and costumes became my treasure because I lost my real treasures. I lost my mom. But I lost more than just my mom; I lost you. You’ve lost you. Malorie, my toes are cold. That day that mom left: she was so cold, but her toes were warm in two socks, but that’s why the heart attack got her, isn’t it? That’s why I can’t wear two socks, and no socks might be just as bad. Despite being cold, one sock is neutral. What’s worse, cold toes or a heart attack?

I’ve never told you this before. You said before that people think I’m crazy, but you don’t think I’m crazy do you? Because I don’t think I could handle it if you do. I don’t think you’re crazy either, but you have lost your muchness. When you danced you had it, and when you smiled, when you laughed. But now you’re ballerina with a broken heart. I want to help fix you, help you find you, but I don’t know how. I don’t know how to find you if you can’t find you.

MALORIE fades back into the second room, leaving the doorway.

I’ve tried to tell you that those things can be lost, but you’ve already lost your curiosity for the unknown. I don’t know what to do anymore. Love, Abigail.

ABIGAIL takes a deep breath and looks at the egg timer, which hasn’t alarmed. She sits in silence for a moment. She gets up and looks around the attic. Another idea falls over ABIGAIL. She goes over to table and looks at the two plants – one withered and one lush. She runs over to the sink and gets a small watering can. She tries to water MALORIE’s dead plant. She may also take some of the toothpicks from her marshmallow dinner and use them to prop up some of the plant’s leaves. As she turns from the table, MALORIE reenters in a tattered ballerina costume, looking very self-conscious. Pause. Then.

MALORIE, kindly, as if to a child.

Are you…are you trying to water Atticus?

ABIGAIL.

No….maybe…well, you never know, it might not be dead yet.

MALORIE.

Oh.

Neither sister moves, but they both find ways of smiling.

Thank you.

ABIGAIL.

Yes.

Pause, no one moves. Then, MALORIE removes one sock and throws it into the space in between her and her sibling. Both sisters stand looking at one another in their costumes and single socks. The egg timer alarms. Lights out.