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Almost Exactly Like Us (excerpt)

by Alan M. Berks
© copyright 2006


CHARACTERS:

MICHAEL, early 30s, good-looking professor. A believer. Seemingly confident but in moments without definition not so sure.
ANDERS, early 20s, grunting student. A rebel. Someone who likes the look of ideas more than their specific content.
ZOE, 19. An outsider. Unpredictable in a way that may be immature or may be on purpose or both. Torn between the security and possibility of expectation and the ecstasy and anarchy of real freedom.
HELEN, early 30s, a presence both frightening and a little pathetic. In the first act, she changes only slightly with each appearance. She might be the same person, or she might not. Ominous and mysterious. In the second act, as MICHAEL’s wife, she is still mysterious and ominous but more because of the sadness of how she lives her life rather than her unknown-variable quality.

PLACE:

Act I, A country where the government doesn’t allow freedom of expression or religion. Like Chechnya in an alternate universe.
Act II, section 1, A university town in a freer country. Like the U.S. in an alternate universe.
Act II, section 2, Somewhere armegedonish during WW3.

SET (and notes on set):

Three areas on three different levels. The same areas, with slight modifications during the act break, will serve for each place.

Down center, a park bench (at least) to signify first a public square in a foreign country, then a public quad in a Christian college in the U.S.

Up left, a bed (at least) to signify first ZOE’s bedroom which is small, cramped, romantic in a gloomy kind of way. In Act II, section 1, the same area becomes ANDER’s dorm room which is small, cramped, cluttered and bright in a college-kid way.

Up right, a different level than the bedroom, contains at least a table as, first, an underground wine bar. Then MICHAEL and HELEN’s dining room.

Ideally, during the third part of the play (II,2), the entire set combines to look like one bombed-out area. The cut-away walls, etc., that are conventions of the theater in the previous sections should actually look like walls that have been blown away in the final section.

Also, can we/should we avoid having a television on stage? As I wrote, I imagined that the television was embedded in the platform underneath the dining room so that it cast blue, flickering light on the actor’s faces from below while they stared at nothing in front of them. . . I am open to better ideas.

Finally, you might want to include subtle dream symbols blended effortlessly into the set design as signifiers that a theater experience is, as a dream, ephemeral. Or not.

NOTES:

[ ] indicate words that aren’t spoken out loud.
* indicate that the next line begins there.

TO THE DIRECTOR:

1. Pace is essential. Urgency is necessary. Action is everything. Avoid the trap of believing that the words are precious and a situation’s seriousness creates a weight on the characters that overwhelms them. Words are the method by which these characters act to achieve their goals, and these characters have confidence that if they achieve their goals, all will end well rather than badly. This belief animates rather than slows, buoys rather than depresses.

Conduct rehearsals as you would if you were sure this play were a comedy. When we rehearse comedies we hunt for rhythm, for the sense of humor, for the punchlines. The scene moves: set-up, set-up, set-up, punchline! My own scripts, even when they are dramas, work likewise, i.e., set-up, set-up, set-up, meaning. Set-up, set-up, set-up, meaning. Surprise! For the most part, for example, pauses are placed after an important line rather than before it.

In other words, this play script is very much a musical score. It is not only necessary for you to play the notes but to play them at the right speed with the right rests. How exactly the actors say the words and where you move them is your business; rhythm is mine. Honor the pauses, beats, and silences as you would the text. For the most part.

If performed at the right pace, with the proper sense of urgency and action, the audience will be swept up into the story. The ultimate effect is cumulative and transformative rather than episodic and deliberative.

Also, it’s funny. It’s funnier than you think. I know from experience that my plays are a lot funnier when heard out loud than you thought they were when you read the script on the page.

Trust me.

2. People have noted the shifting sense of empathy and sympathy they feel for the characters over the course of the play. They have concluded from this that I don’t have an opinion, that I’m a nihilist. Certainly, I am more interested in exploring what people feel they have to do than moralizing about what they’ve done before or after the fact. However, I do feel as though I have a perspective that underlies the story:



ACT I



Am I glad I found you.


Hello. Hi. Excuse me. Hi. Hello. Hey. How’s it goin’? Wassup?


You’re writing. English. English letters all up and down the page. Even in the air around you, I see. The latin alphabet floats. Plus, you’re wearing — also — Also, you’re wearing the knit cap and thrift store clothes. Excuse me. You look up when I say, “Wassup?” and you’re not afraid to be alone. Here. You’re an American girl. Unexpected as salvation. Surprise. Here. Am I glad I found you. You’re an American girl between the ages of 18 and 25. 23? I’m right. You are apple pie, baseball, and home. Here.

I’m writing.

Yes! What are you doing here? Am I glad [I found you]. Thank god. I was right. . . I’m American also.


I’m also. Like you. Can you imagine how happy I am to find someone who understands what I’m saying without an accent. No mixed messages.

I’m writing.

Say something else. Say something full. With color. Purple mountains. Please.

What you want?

Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Every word you say is the word you mean. No “What you take?” meaning “want” — What you want? What you said. — But saying instead “take” — “What you take?” Instead of want — Confusing any word for exchange with any word for desire. . . I don’t intend to take anything from you, if you’re worried. If that is actually what you were asking.

?

Sorry. . . I am suffering from a serious lack of serious American speak. I’m lost.


I’m a professor.

You teach language?

They take me from the lecture hall to the hotel where I dine with rich men. Who are not like American rich men at all. They seem both more well dressed and dirtier at once. All they want to talk about is me. I don’t want to talk about me.

They don’t like Americans, but they enjoy us.

Tell me what you’re doing here.

I’m writing.

Here. In this public square where I could find you in this country most Americans don’t know exists.


Please.


For God Bless Americans, everywhere!


I felt kind of confused at first too.
My mom told me: what’s the point of going anywhere since everyone in the world speaks English. She was so wrong. Which makes me happy.

20. You’re 20 years old.

You don’t look old enough to be a Professor.

Thank you.

You must be super smart.

I’d look older. Real wisdom weighs something.

I like how you speak.

American.

No. Out there.

No.

Why don’t you want to talk about yourself?

I asked you what you were doing here.

I don’t understand?

You didn’t answer my question either.


Can I buy you an ice cream?

Say what?

You mentioned an ice cream cone.

And a jello rocket ship.

Rocket shop. — I thought maybe you wanted one, and the language barrier frustrated you.

I said I liked the language barrier.

I speak a little.

Then your loss.

Except I can’t nail it. As if they change it on me every morning. At one place, a newspaper is one word; at another place, it’s different.

Maybe they don’t want you to know what’s happening. Maybe they don’t want you to read the newspaper

Yes.

Maybe you should enjoy it. They have bull fights here but with elephants.

I heard.

Bull fights with elephants. Totally honest.

[Is that] Like jello rocket ships?

Shops — I haven’t seen one, they’re very secret, but everyone says its true.

And the matadors —

They don’t call them matadors.

Whoever they are goad these big, strange elephants into charging so they can stick them somewhere vulnerable. Matadors are pussies compared to these people.

You don’t talk like a professor.

You’re not a student.

I teach.

Young.

I teach English. I’m. I’m not a professor, but. I’ve got 3 classes. 62 students. 61 and a half students. (One of them is a midget. I shouldn’t joke. She’s got a whole brain.) Most of my students are older than me. I don’t know what I’m doing. I just talk and talk and talk. I don’t know their language at all. They don’t know English from Martian. I could tell them anything. Someone thought that just listening to me babble and babble would teach someone something. I don’t know why.

You’ve got the look.

Explain.

You’ve got the cap and the clothing. You’re like an American kid straight of an American Kid magazine. You’re the hippest person I’ve ever talked to who didn’t want a better grade from me.


You stopped me in my tracks. Like a wall stops a train. Or God overhead has a whim. I was walking from here to there, and I had to stop right there just to look at you.

You’re so sincere. Stop it. I’m sure you’re lying.

American kid again. Cynical. 19 years old.

I thought you saw me writing English, and you had to speak to an American.

I sensed you were writing English. No one here journals — especially not the way Americans [do] — You almost tumbled off the bench.

You know this from the rich men in the lecture hall and the hotel?

They can’t afford the free time they would need to devote themselves to journaling.

You’re an economics professor.

No.

History.

[Shakes no]

Philosophy?

No. Please no. Not exactly.

English? Sociology! Psychology?

I don’t believe you can guess.

You’re flirting with me, Professor.


You’re very perceptive.

Yet not one of your students.

I’m very happy that you’re not one of my students.

Do you think its just an American thing? I mean, we have this bond because [we’re Americans together] but its not really real. We can chat each other up and all. English words. So we feel like we really know each other. Only we don’t really know each other. You look so American. Tall. Broad. You talk so American. Straight. Clear. You are so, American. And I haven’t talked to one in — Wow. What time is it? Awhile. Right. A long time. In fact, really, you know truthfully, maybe, we have nothing in common. . . I don’t want to be stupid.

We’re both teachers.

I’m not really a teacher. I’m an American specimen. To them. *To you too.

I think you’re lovely.

I think you’re lonely.

Yes. Yes, I am lonely.

That was totally honest in a freaky kind of way.

How does a person wind up in a country like this unless he, or she, is lonely? Loneliness is the national crop. They are at the moment one of the chief import exporters of loneliness. Their bombs. Explode. Boom. Someone else is a widower. Boom. Someone is an orphan. Back home, here, the government builds fences, literal and figurative and legal. Twenty, thirty feet high. Separating everyone from everyone, so they can’t plot bad things together. For their own good. For the good of world. . . It’s a lonely place. Look. We’re sitting in a public square, yet no one sits together.


Which ones do you think are spying on us?

We’re sitting [together]. We’re not separate.

We have that in common also. We were drawn to meet each other here.

You’re a poetry professor.

Not poetry. I was speaking economics again.

Except your thing ain’t economics.

Yes.

Do you want to go back to my apartment with me?

. . . That was honest in like a totally [freaky kind of way] -

We’re not in the U.S. We don’t have to play by the rules.

I think I’m too old for you.

I don’t care. Do you? You don’t look too old. I’ll talk more American to you.

I like you.

If you promise to teach me something you teach.

Can you keep secrets?

I keep secrets.

You’re smart.

Thank you.


You smell good.

You’re perfect.



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