Dead Metaphor: Three Plays

By George F. Walker

Canada’s top playwright sears the page with three new darkly comic plays that denounce political culture, individualism, and the accompanying moral depravity. The title play, Dead Metaphor, examines the collision of a politician’s personal and professional lives, complicated by a son’s return from Afghanistan. In The Ravine, a mayoral candidate learns that his ex-wife is living in a gully nearby and wants to put a hit on him. The Burden of Self-Awareness has money at the centre of a dramatic conflict of values. Each of the three plays is populated by characters trying to navigate the increasingly blurred lines of what’s right and wrong – trying to always stay informed, alert, and ready to act for the common good. Or just to get even.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Talonbooks
• Release date: Aug 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9780889229297

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

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Contents

Introduction to Three Plays by Jerry Wasserman

Dead Metaphor

Production History

Setting

Characters

Scene 1 •  Scene 2 •  Scene 3 •  Scene 4 •  Scene 5 •  Scene 6 •  Scene 7 •  Scene 8 •  Scene 9 •  Scene 10 •  Scene 11 •  Scene 12 •  Scene 13 •  Scene 14 •  Scene 15 •  Scene 16 •  Scene 17 •  Scene 18 •  Scene 19 •  Scene 20 •  Scene 21 •  Scene 22

The Ravine

Production History

Setting

Characters

Scene 1 •  Scene 2 •  Scene 3 •  Scene 4 •  Scene 5 •  Scene 6 •  Scene 7 •  Scene 8 •  Scene 9 •  Scene 10 •  Scene 11 •  Scene 12 •  Scene 13 •  Scene 14 •  Scene 15 •  Scene 16 •  Scene 17 •  Scene 18 •  Scene 19 •  Scene 20 •  Scene 21 •  Scene 22

The Burden of Self Awareness

Production History

Setting

Characters

Scene 1 •  Scene 2 •  Scene 3 •  Scene 4 •  Scene 5 •  Scene 6 •  Scene 7 •  Scene 8 •  Scene 9 •  Scene 10 •  Scene 11 •  Scene 12 •  Scene 13 •  Scene 14 •  Scene 15 •  Scene 16

George F. Walker

Also by George F. Walker

Individual Plays

Collected Plays

These plays are dedicated to my parents,

Florence and Malcolm Walker

INTRODUCTION

George F. Walker is back. With a vengeance, you might say, based on these three plays. But was he ever really gone? Except for a brief detour into television, Walker has been a persistent presence on the North American theatre scene since the heady days of the early 1970s when he and Canadian alternate theatre made their explosive, impolite appearance together.

In almost two dozen dark, dark comedies leading up to this volume, and in his various TV episodics, Walker has relentlessly dissected economic ruthlessness, political corruption, dysfunctional families, and all kinds of abuses of power within the general craziness of urban North American life. With a sharp satirical eye and deep sympathy for the downtrodden, his Power Plays, East End Plays, Suburban Motel plays, and random others explore the stacked-deck injustices of the status quo and the forces that profit from keeping it that way. These new plays, equally giddy and ferocious, tackle similar themes. After more than four decades Walker remains what critic Richard Ouzounian called him in a rave review of Dead Metaphor: Canada’s angriest and funniest playwright.

What makes him angry? Greed, blind ambition, venal politicians, social Darwinism, religious hypocrisy, clichés, and stupidity, among other things. And what’s so funny? You name it. Walker’s theatre is une comédie humaine. His people act absurdly because they’re people. Self-awareness, when it comes, doesn’t necessarily cause them to behave more astutely or understand things more acutely. And if it does, don’t expect them to express themselves politely. Since I got my iPhone, pragmatic hooker Lianne says in The Burden of Self Awareness, "I can suck cocks and read about things at the same time." What she reads has taught her that redistributing rich people’s money can make a difference in the lives of the troubled and destitute. Though Walker’s characters may be vulgar, anxious, or deluded, only rarely are they paralyzed by their own absurdity. When in doubt they do something. Often it involves picking up a gun or hiring someone who’s packing. They have major concerns about accountability.

The prevalence of guns in these plays might suggest an American setting but Walker never identifies his cities by name or region, much less nationality, and his work consistently speaks to audiences on both sides of the border. The treatment of veterans coming home from our twenty-first century wars is a significant issue in both countries; Dean, the sniper just returned from Afghanistan in Dead Metaphor, could as easily be Canadian as American. The Tea Party-ish politics of Helen in that play (running for Congress? Parliament?) may sound American – teaching Intelligent Design doesn’t get much traction in Canada – but her positions on patriotism, gun ownership, taxes, attack ads, and climate change would not be out of place at a Conservative Party rally. The Ravine points obliquely in the direction of Walker’s hometown of Toronto and the rantings of its recent mayor (those elitist bastards) but the campaign rhetoric has a distinct cross-border ring: I don’t have ideas, I have beliefs. I believe in the taxpayer. Walker is a satirical free trader, an equal opportunity social critic.

Many of the central elements of Dead Metaphor repeat themselves in the other two plays. The innocents who try to remain hopeful in a corrupt world, Dean in this case, turn out to be not quite as innocent as they seem. The outspokenness of apparent truth-tellers like Hank, Dean’s father, may result from brain damage or mental illness. Women drive the baroque plots, partly from a biological imperative (pregnancy powerfully motivates Dean’s wife, Jenny, as it does Lesley in The Ravine), but generally because, like Helen, they are simply more ambitious, ruthless, greedy, and amoral than the men. Dean’s mother, Frannie, is the exception. Revenge schemes beget ironic reversals, counterplots, and confusions. Yet something gets done at the end, more sobering in Dead Metaphor than in The Ravine or The Burden of Self Awareness. Certain logical patterns play themselves out.

Cassie, the antagonist of The Ravine, is another cynical, ambitious, political animal, mayoral candidate Oscar’s campaign manager. She meets her match in a different kind of powerful woman: Michele from the homeless camp, a classic Walker character. Marginalized, possibly deranged, and deeply entangled in her own issues, Michele nevertheless has a utopian vision of society that demands accountability and includes things like universal daycare and a total revamp of the mental health situation as it relates to the criminal justice system. She manages to attain some leverage, possibly, but only after a great deal of carnage, comic and otherwise.

Like former Army sniper Dean, many characters in these plays are transitioning from something they just were, trying to figure out how to be what they have become or to become something else. The Ravine’s Cassie is an ex-prosecutor, skip tracer Finn an ex-con. In The Burden of Self Awareness, escort Lianne is a recent college student, a history major. Once a news anchor, Phil became a private eye (to live a life that was as sleazy as I felt). Stan, the world’s worst shrink, is becoming a mental case. Rich Judy violently resists turning into a poor person as her anxious husband, Michael, tries to give away his inherited money to stop feeling inauthentic.

Some of these characters end badly. Others find outlandish comic escape. A few even get away with murder. This is Walker’s world, comedy with a bang. And a social conscience.

—Jerry Wasserman

DEAD METAPHOR

PRODUCTION HISTORY

Dead Metaphor premiered at San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater on March 9 to 24, 2013, with the following cast and crew:

DEAN: George Hampe

OLIVER: Anthony Fusco

JENNY: Rebekah Brockman

HANK: Tom Bloom

FRANNIE: Sharon Lockwood

HELEN: René Augesten

Director: Irene Lewis

Set Designer: Christopher Barreca

Lighting Designer: Alexander V. Nichols

Sound Designer: Cliff Caruthers

Costume Designer: Lydia Tanji

The Canadian premiere of Dead Metaphor was produced by Canadian Repertory Theatre and performed at the Pana­sonic Theatre in Toronto from May 20 to June 8, 2014, with the following cast and crew:

DEAN: Noah Reid

OLIVER: Michael Healey

JENNY: Haley McGee

HANK: Eric Peterson

FRANNIE: Julie Stewart

HELEN: Nancy Beatty

Director: George F. Walker

Producer: Ken Gass

Presenter: David Mirvish

Set and Costume Designer: Shawn Kerwin

Lighting Designer: Rebecca Picherack

Sound Designer: Robin Johnston

Associate Director: Jennifer Brewin

Stage Manager: Crystal Salverda

Assistant Stage Manager: Kevin Olson

SETTING

Various locations, all just suggested

CHARACTERS

Dean Trusk, a returned soldier, age twenty-seven

OLIVER DENNY, an employment counsellor, age forty-five

JENNY TRUSK, Dean’s wife, age twenty-seven

HANK TRUSK, Dean’s father, age seventy

FRANNIE TRUSK, Dean’s mother, age sixty-six

HELEN DENNY, Oliver’s wife, age forty-five

SCENE 1

Employment office.OLIVERDenny is behind his desk interviewingDEAN Trusk.

OLIVER: So where do you see yourself in five years?

DEAN: Pardon?

OLIVER: What do you see yourself doing?

DEAN: Whatever I can, I guess.

OLIVER: What’s that mean?

DEAN: Well whatever job I can get and, you know, keep . . . I’ll be doing that. Unless I’m doing something else.

OLIVER: Something else instead of . . . ?

DEAN: Whatever job I get . . . now.

OLIVER: Okay but . . . nothing specific?

DEAN: Pardon?

OLIVER: It’s just that the question, Where do you see yourself in five years is really meant to elicit from you whatever plan, or even dream you might have for yourself.

DEAN: Oh. You mean what would be my favourite thing to do?

OLIVER: Yeah . . .

DEAN: Well the guys in my unit thought I’d be pretty good at writing those funny things on cards.

OLIVER: I’m sorry?

DEAN: You know, birthday cards, and cards for . . . anniversaries.

OLIVER: Greeting cards . . .

DEAN: Right. They have this kinda sincere thing on the front and then inside there’s something pretty sarcastic which changes the whole point.

OLIVER: Of the thing on the front, you mean.

DEAN: Yeah. The guys thought I was always doing that kinda thing anyway. You know . . . being a little sarcastic just to keep it real.

OLIVER: What was your job in the army?

DEAN: First thing was a tank driver. Then I qualified for marksmanship training.

OLIVER: And that meant?

DEAN: If I passed the course I could be a sniper.

OLIVER: Did you pass the course?

DEAN: Yes, sir.

OLIVER: So you were a sniper.

DEAN: Yes, sir.

OLIVER: You killed people from a distance.

DEAN: Whenever I could, yes.

OLIVER: These would be Taliban leaders . . .

DEAN: Yes. Or one of their own snipers. Personally I thought killing their snipers was a priority.

OLIVER: Why was that?

DEAN: Because they were trying to kill me.

OLIVER: Right.

DEAN: Well not just me. My buddies too.

OLIVER: Okay . . . And now that you’re out of the military you’d like to . . . write jokes on greeting cards.

DEAN: If I could. I mean, that was just an answer to your question about my . . . dream, right? Truth is, I’ll take just about anything. I’ve been looking for work for a while now and –

OLIVER: No luck at all?

DEAN: No, sir. None.

OLIVER: How are your parents doing, by the way?

DEAN: They’re okay. What do my parents have to do with my getting a job?

OLIVER: We’re members of the same church. But I haven’t seen them at a service in a while. I was just inquiring after their –

DEAN: My dad’s kinda losing it. You know, forgetting things and –

OLIVER: I’m sorry to hear that. Has he been diagnosed?

DEAN: With what?

OLIVER: With . . . whatever is wrong with him.

DEAN: I don’t know. I was just saying that’s probably why you haven’t seen much of them lately. My mom’s kinda embarrassed by some of the things he says and does, so they keep to themselves most of the time.

OLIVER: I don’t remember you ever attending services, Dean. Did you ever accompany your parents?

DEAN: I was there at Christmas a few times.

OLIVER: Your parents were regulars.

DEAN: Yes. They’re pretty religious. Well my mom is anyway.

OLIVER: And you’re not.

DEAN: No, sir. I am definitely not.

OLIVER: Well . . . send them my best, okay?

DEAN: Sure. So do you think you can help?

OLIVER: With your father?

DEAN: What? No. Finding me a job.

OLIVER: Oh. Well that might take some – Why did you wait this long to come to us? You’ve been back quite a while now, right?

DEAN: Five months.

OLIVER: Didn’t you know the government offered this service?

DEAN: Yeah . . . but people kept telling me there was nothing you could do for me.

OLIVER: What people?

DEAN: People you didn’t do anything for. Other soldiers.

OLIVER: Well it’s a bad situation out there, isn’t it?

DEAN: You mean job-wise?

OLIVER: Yes.

DEAN: Right. But I can’t give up or anything. We’re gonna have a kid.

OLIVER: We?

DEAN: My wife and me.

OLIVER: Your wife? (off an information form) It says here you’re divorced.

DEAN: I am. But we’re gonna get married again in a week or two.

OLIVER: Because she’s pregnant . . .

DEAN: Yeah. Also because . . . I made it back in one piece, which is something she didn’t think would happen. You see, she really only got a divorce because she didn’t want to be an army widow. She said it’d be bad enough if I was dead, but she didn’t want to listen to all that crap about how grateful the nation was. Because she knew the nation didn’t really give a shit. At least most of them.

OLIVER: So she divorced you so she wouldn’t have to –

DEAN: Listen to a bunch of fucking disgusting lies. Pardon my French. I mean her French.

OLIVER: It’s a lovely language, French. I occasionally speak it myself.

DEAN: Yeah? Anyway she told me she was gonna do it if I re-enlisted. I thought it was something she was just saying. But there I was lying in my bunk just back from three days hiding behind a rock waiting for someone to kill, I open her letter and it’s the first thing I read. I’ve been to a lawyer. You’ll get the papers in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, go fuck yourself.

OLIVER: That must have been rough on you.

DEAN: I figured it was just her way of making sure I took whatever she said more seriously from now on. Anyway, now she’s pregnant and she had to quit her job as a teacher’s aide because being pregnant made her pretty sick for quite a while, so . . .

OLIVER: So . . . here you are.

DEAN: Yeah . . . Did you mean here I am . . . here? Or here I am in a situation with the baby and all that?

OLIVER: Both.

DEAN: Yeah. But if I could just get myself employed then things would maybe start to turn around.

OLIVER: I’m sure they would.

DEAN: So . . . what now?

OLIVER: I’ll pass your file on to one of our agents and they’ll start looking for you.

DEAN: That’s it?

OLIVER: Yeah . . .

DEAN:(standing) Be sure to tell them I’ll take anything. I’ll start as low on the ladder as they need me to. And I’ll try my hand at anything.

OLIVER: That’s good. It’ll help.

DEAN: And I’m a pretty fast learner. Also . . . I guess you could tell them about my kills.

OLIVER: Your what? Your skills?

DEAN: My kills. I mean, officially there were eighteen high-level targets that I got. Plus nine, maybe ten of their snipers. That’s just if they’re wondering if I’m . . . efficient.

OLIVER: Efficient.

DEAN: You know,