Someone Else

By Kristen Thomson

Lately Cathy, a middle-aged comedian, has found very little to laugh about. Everything seems either tragic or frustrating, especially her eighteen-year marriage to Peter, a doctor at a local community clinic. Their list of complaints about one another grows day by day, and their teenage daughter is rarely anything but a handful. Despite a once solid and happy marriage, the couple has hit a snag that even counselling can't repair. While Cathy falls further into a creative slump, Peter starts to fall for April, a troubled young patient who helps him open up. The two are unrecognizable to each other and themselves, and as they navigate middle age they push each other further apart. Can they negotiate their changing relationship and learn to be comfortable with who they've become?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Playwrights Canada Press
• Release date: Sep 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781770912564

Book preview

Someone Else

by Kristen Thomson

Playwrights Canada Press

Toronto

Contents

Production History

Characters

Scene One

Scene Two

Scene Three

Scene Four

Scene Five

Scene Six

Scene Seven

Scene Eight

Scene Nine

Scene Ten

Scene Eleven

Scene Twelve

Scene Thirteen

Scene Fourteen

Scene Fifteen

Scene Sixteen

Scene Seventeen

Scene Eighteen

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also By

Copyright

For Hussain Amarshi, with whom all things are made possible, including our beauties: Zayd, Samir & Nyla!

Someone Else was first produced by Crow’s Theatre in association with the Canadian Stage Company at the Berkeley Street Theatre, Toronto, from January 7 to February 2, 2013. It featured the following cast and creative team:

Characters

Cathy: Forty-five. A stand-up comic, married to Peter.

Peter: Fifty. A doctor in a community clinic, married to Cathy.

April: Nineteen. One of a kind.

David: Forty-two. A community worker, father of two, in an electric wheelchair or scooter.

Vanessa: Fourteen. Cathy and Peter’s daughter.

Scene One: Solo

CATHY enters with a coffee and some comic material on recipe cards. She sorts through them, reviewing/practising bits with an air of privacy, working on her phrasing to capture the right delivery. She uses her microphone and amplifier.

First cue card: Can’t Complain.

CATHY

How are ya? How’s everyone doing tonight? How ya doin’? You know the answer I always love, how are you? Oh, I can’t complain. Really? Wow. You can’t? Wow. Uh. Wow. I don’t think you’re trying hard enough. Can’t complain. ’Cause I can. I can.

Second cue card: Cotton Warehouse T-shirt Factory.

I’ve started working part-time for my dad—I’m back at the family business working part-time for Daddy. The cotton warehouse T-shirt factory. That’s right. I’m selling T-shirts and underwear. Part-time. I come up with cute sayings for the booty patch on the undies. Crack Addict. Yeah. That was me. I came up with that one. Skid Row.

Third cue card: Inviting Peter On Stage.

So, I would like to begin by asking my husband Peter to come up here—I’d like to welcome my husband Peter up here on stage with me at this point in the evening. This is going to be very special because he’s not used to being on stage. And, Peter, you’d better plug your ears because I am going to talk about you quite a bit: I’m going to talk about our relationship. I am going to talk about our sex life. I am going to— Well, I think that’s all I need to tell you for now.

Scene Two: Therapy

Projected title: Why are you here?

He shrugs. She rolls her eyes.

PETER

I don’t know what to say.

Pause.

CATHY

I am here because I think we could lose our marriage.

Pause.

PETER

I am here because Cathy wanted me to come.

Projected title: What do you want?

CATHY

I want to be hilarious, like I used to be. When I was funny, he didn’t have a problem with me. But I got a little depressed, started slowing down and it’s like I hit the off switch on Peter. But I just can’t see the humour. I’m not sharp. Right now, I wish I’d never taken up comedy. I wish I’d just gone to school and stopped showing off. Most of the time people laugh, of course, but when there’s no reaction—or outright hostility, you can get that, too—you do wonder: What am I doing here? Why am I doing this to myself? Why can’t you act like a normal woman? It’s not funny to be a comedian. It hurts.

Pause.

I’m kidding.

PETER

I’d like to be happily married. To someone who could handle the real ups and downs. Like my mother.

Projected title: "We finally came here because . . .