Heaven

By George F. Walker

Heaven is George F. Walker’s ‘millennium play.’ Well, sort of, if we can free ourselves from the expectation of the usual science-fiction-based projection and imposition of our current personal, cultural and spiritual values on the future of the coming millennium, considered almost mandatory for authors working in this particular genre. As usual, Walker sees things a bit differently: he intimates the future by having a very hard look at some unanswered questions from the Judeo-Christian-Muslim past which has pretty much determined the evolution of western, especially white, male-dominated civilization, for the last two thousand years.

Five instantly recognizable multi-cultural characters play out their coincidental relationships in a very contemporary paradise-a park on the outskirts of a city. All of them are, in one form or another, engaged in the ‘fundamental right’ of the pursuit of their own happiness, whether that means acquiring life skills, improving their career prospects, working on their family relationships, increasing social justice in the world, balancing the concerns of crime and punishment or integrating more closely with what they identify as their own communities. Of course, the pursuit of these personal goals, usually considered as good and worthwhile in our society, pits each of these characters irrevocably against each other.

In this comedy of how individual good intentions carried to their absurd extremes inevitably frustrate the goals of others, Walker leaves us with two unanswered questions: “What is so ‘good’ about our good intentions?” and, “What do we imagine our reward for them (Heaven) to be?” Wasn’t it some other place, the road to which was paved with?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Talonbooks
• Release date: Mar 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9780889228061

George F. Walker

George F. Walker has been one of Canada’s most prolific and popular playwrights since his career in theatre began in the early 1970s. His first play, The Prince of Naples, premiered in 1972 at the newly opened Factory Theatre, a company that continues to produce his work. Since that time, he has written more than twenty plays and has created screenplays for several award-winning Canadian television series. Part Kafka, part Lewis Carroll, Walker’s distinctive, gritty, fast-paced comedies satirize the selfishness, greed, and aggression of contemporary urban culture. Among his best-known plays are Gossip (1977); Zastrozzi, the Master of Discipline (1977); Criminals in Love (1984); Better Living (1986); Nothing Sacred (1988); Love and Anger (1989); Escape from Happiness (1991); Suburban Motel (1997, a series of six plays set in the same motel room); and Heaven (2000). Since the early 1980s, he has directed most of the premieres of his own plays. Many of Walker’s plays have been presented across Canada and in more than five hundred productions internationally; they have been translated into French, German, Hebrew, Turkish, Polish, and Czechoslovakian. During a ten-year absence from theatre, he mainly wrote for television, including the television series Due South, The Newsroom, This Is Wonderland, and The Line, as well as for the film Niagara Motel (based on three plays from his Suburban Motel series). Walker returned to the theatre with And So It Goes (2010). Awards and honours include Member of the Order of Canada (2005); National Theatre School Gascon-Thomas Award (2002); two Governor General’s Literary Awards for Drama (for Criminals in Love and Nothing Sacred); five Dora Mavor Moore Awards; and eight Chalmers Canadian Play Awards.

Book preview

Persons

JAMES JOYCE MILLIKEN (JIMMY)

JUDY GARSON

KARL SMITH

DAVID OLSHEN

DEREK

SISSY

Place

A city park. Several benches. Lots of trees. A gravel pathway. Part of a church wall. Against another wall, some scaffolding, a dumpster.

And in the background, a city street.

And beyond that, a cityscape.

Prologue

Edge of a city park.

KARL waiting. Smoking. Sports jacket. Open collar.

Unshaven.

JIMMY comes on. Hands in pockets.

KARL

Thanks for coming.

JIMMY

Yeah well we gotta make it fast. I’ve got a family dinner.

KARL

No it’s okay. I don’t need long. Thanks for coming. Did I say that.

JIMMY

Yeah.

KARL

I’m kinda messed up.

JIMMY

Yeah.

KARL

Is that all you can say, Jimmy. I say I’m kinda messed up. And you say yeah.

JIMMY

You got something in mind for me to say.

KARL

I’m just telling you I’m not in great shape and I want you to say more than yeah and nod like a fucking dog.

JIMMY

Get to it.

KARL

Get to what.

JIMMY

Why I’m here. What you want.

KARL

You need to know something. You need to know something about Tommy.

JIMMY

Yeah? What?

KARL

He’s dead.

JIMMY

Whatya mean he’s dead.

KARL

He’s dead. You killed him. Well he pulled the trigger. He put the gun to his head and pulled the fucking trigger. But really you killed him. I’m blaming you.

JIMMY

When did this happen.

KARL

Last night I guess. They found him this morning.

JIMMY

His family?

KARL

Yeah. His family. His kids. His kids found him. You prick. (grabs JIMMY) You rotten prick.

JIMMY

Let me go ... Get your fucking hands off me.

KARL steps back

JIMMY

Look ... I’m sorry about Tommy.

KARL

I’m blaming you.

JIMMY

I was doing my job.

KARL

You ruined his life.

JIMMY

He killed that kid. He was a fuckup. He shouldn’t have been a cop anyway. Taking his badge away was a thing that should have happened years ago.

KARL

Says who.

JIMMY

Me.

KARL

You’re an asshole, Jimmy. A heartless murdering asshole. He was your friend! You’d known him since you were five fucking years old. You know his mother and his father. You’ve eaten food off their table. Maybe some part of your cold heartless brain could have remembered that while you were doing your fucking job.

JIMMY

He killed that kid because he was black.

KARL

Bullshit. Tommy had nothing against blacks.

JIMMY

Nothing except he thought they were all criminals. He saw that kid in that stairwell and there was no benefit of the doubt, Karl. He just pulled the trigger.

KARL

Bullshit. The kid looked like he was gonna—

JIMMY

Look. Shut the fuck up.

KARL

(pulls a gun from his shoulder holster)

No you shut the fuck up. Mr. Bigshot lawyer. Mr. Protect every asshole in the whole fucking world. Protect everyone except his friends. Mr. Human Rights. What a bunch of crap. Human rights. Two things. One, what are rights. The right to fuck up and rape and mug and kill. And two, who says they’re human. Really. I mean really. (KARL has the gun at JIMMY’s head)

JIMMY

Put that away.

KARL

Yeah. But first I think I’ll use it.

JIMMY

Use it? On me?

KARL

On you. On me. What’s it matter. I’m messed up. But I think really so are you. I mean you gotta be. You’ve forgotten where you’re from, man. You’re wandering around in a strange world without loyalty. You’re disconnected. You’re pathetic.

JIMMY

No. You’re pathetic.

JIMMY pushes KARL away.

KARL

I’ll kill you you son of a bitch.

JIMMY

I’m going home.

KARL

He was our friend! He was my partner!! And he was a good cop! And you never blinked when it came time to take him down. You just compiled a shitload of factual evidence and fucked him over royally ... He was ... my friend! (sinks to the ground) He was my friend you son of a bitch!!

KARL is weeping.

JIMMY is gone.

Blackout.

Scene One

Dusk.

City park.

Skyscrapers loom in the background.

JAMES JOYCE MILLIKEN—they call him JIMMY—is sitting on a bench taking swigs from a magnum of champagne. He’s wearing a nice suit but he is kind of messed up. His tie is undone. One of his sleeves is a bit ripped and he has a cut over an eye.

On the other side of the park, under a park lamp which acts as a kind of overhead spot light, SISSY is practising juggling three hackysacks. She is not very good. But she is trying hard. She is about sixteen. Pierced. Ragged. Wiry.

JIMMY watches her intently. Occasionally he checks to see if his cut is still bleeding, licking the bloodoff his fingers each time.

SISSY

Fuck.

SISSY has dropped a hackysack.

SISSY

Fuck.

She picks it up. Juggles. Drops one.

SISSY

Fuck. You little fuckers.

She picks it up. Juggles. Drops one.

SISSY

Fuck.

She picks it up. Juggles. Drops one.

SISSY

Fuck.

She picks it up. Juggles. Drops all three.

SISSY

Fuck. Fuck it. I fucking give up.

JUDY passes SISSY as she is bending down for her hackysack. JUDY is dressed in overcoat and high heels. And in a hurry.

SISSY

Got any change?

JUDY

(without stopping) No.

SISSY

Are you sure ... Hey!

JUDY

(stops, turns) What.

SISSY

Are you sure. I mean you didn’t even look.

JUDY

Don’t say hey when a person walks by. If a person says no and keeps walking that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that. Just let the person go. Don’t say hey. It sounds threatening. A person doesn’t need to feel threatened in a situation like this. Okay?

SISSY

Sure.

JUDY

Good.

JUDY starts off.

SISSY

Hey!

JUDY stops. Turns.

SISSY

Sorry.

SISSY leaves.

JUDY continues over to JIMMY.

JIMMY

Why didn’t you give her some money.

JUDY

I don’t have any on me.

JIMMY

(mumbles) Bullshit.

JUDY

What did you say. Did you just say bullshit.

JIMMY

You’ve got your shoe money. Twenty dollars in each shoe.

JUDY

I don’t do that anymore.

JIMMY

(mumbles) Bullshit.

JUDY

Did you just say bullshit again.

JIMMY

You don’t do that anymore. Gimme a break. Take your shoes off.

JUDY

I’m not taking my shoes off.

JIMMY

Why not.

JUDY

Because I don’t want to. Because I don’t take my shoes off just because someone tells me to. Who the hell are you to tell me to take my shoes off.

JIMMY

Take off your shoes.

JUDY

Fuck off!

JIMMY

Take off your shoes and show me those two sad little twenty dollar bills you always put in when you’re going out