Everything Else

By Derek Strahan

EVERYTHING ELSE A play by Derek Strahan - SYNOPSIS
Tony, Kurt, Dave and Dennis meet most evenings after work at the nearby Runaway Bar to exchange views and commiserate about problems with their respective wives who are all banning their favourite pastimes. Tony works for Alumox and wants to alleviate guilt feelings about their products by using empty aluminium cans to construct art works such as a model of the Taj Mahal. Kurt works for Idea, a self-assembly furniture company whose products he despises. He wants to build and design high-end quality furniture. Dave Rockford works for APM (All Planet Media) a company that is suffering from the effects of the digitisation of intellectual product. He wants to sell up, and go surfing. Dennis, a realtor, is frustrated because Louise, his wife, is retreating from him sexually. Hugh McGregor, a thrice-divorced old Scot, explains to the guys why their wives are banning what they most want from life: they are manifesting the “Everything Else Syndrome”: when a wife bans what her husband really wants and allows him everything else. Tony and Kurt agree to outwit their wives by each taking on the other one’s chosen hobby in the guise of play activities for children at arts centres that they persuade their respective firms to set up, as good company PR. Tony accidentally meets up with Louise at a Surf Shop and resume a previous affair dating from when they were both surfing hippies. Dennis finds out about the affair. Carol and Ingrid rumble the lies and evasions of their husbands, Tony and Kurt. These crises threaten the opening of the Picasso Children’s Arts & Crafts Center where Dennis and Dave get into a fist fight. Dave, coming off worst, crashes into the Taj Mahal and destroys it. Hugh mediates, and suggests rebuilding the cans as the Loch Ness Monster. With nothing resolved all combine to prepare for the opening. Hugh hopes there’ll be a rich widow in attendance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 7, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483505756

Derek Strahan

Derek Strahan is a Springfield resident and the author of the blog "Lost New England." He is a graduate of Westfield State University with degrees in English and regional planning, and he teaches English at the Master's School in Simsbury, Connecticut.

Book preview

attendance.

ACT ONE

ACT ONE, SCENE 1 – GARDEN OF THE THOMAS HOME.

In the corner of the garden Tony is at work banging flat several aluminium cans. In front of him is a low wall of cans about a foot high, six inches wide and several feet long. Behind him is a large pile of aluminium cans showing a miscellaneous range of beverage types. After about half a minute of loud banging Carol enters, dressing in tennis gear and carrying a tennis racquet. She stands looking at Tony who, seeing her, stops banging.

Carol whacks at a pile of cans with her racquet, and storms