Moss Park and Tough!: The Bobby and Tina Plays

By George F. Walker

Canada’s top playwright takes on teen pregnancy in two comic dramas for young people.

Moss Park

It’s been twenty years since the debut of Tough!, but only two years have passed in the lives of Tina and Bobby, the main characters. Of course the poverty trap, which grips them both, is ageless.

In Moss Park, Bobby and Tina aren’t married, or even living together, but they have a young child, and another is on the way – a fact Bobby learns from Tina early in the play. Bobby wants Tina to take him back – he’s always wanted that – but she has serious doubts about his ability to hold down a job. In this fast-paced dark comedy, Bobby’s plans for big money collide with Tina’s dreams of home, sweet home, and we root for them even as we are exasperated by them. Funny, touching, and raw, Moss Park finds hope in unlikely places.

Cast of one man and one woman.

Tough!

In Tough! young Tina summons her nineteen-year-old boyfriend Bobby to a tattered city playground. She’s got something to tell him, and she’s brought her tough-talking pal, Jill, along as backup. Bobby doesn’t know what he’s walking into. In fact, he’s been planning to break up but the stakes quickly skyrocket when Tina reveals that she’s pregnant. With its sharply drawn young characters, Tough! has been a nearly continuous success in Canada since its premiere in 1993, especially as programming for younger audiences. Tough! has played to packed houses in Victoria, Vancouver, Ottawa, and Toronto. It has been translated into six languages and is regularly performed in theatres all over the world.

Cast of one man and two women.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Talonbooks
• Release date: Nov 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9780889229556

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

MPT_coverMPT_cover

For my daughters:

Reni, Courtney, and Kate

CONTENTS

Introduction by Patrick McDonald

Tough!

Moss Park

INTRODUCTION

It was in the early 1990s that I asked George to write a play for Green Thumb Theatre, a company I had been running for a couple of years. George and I had worked together a couple of times at Great Canadian Theatre Company and had got along rather well.

At first he was confused by the offer, You want me to write a play for teenagers that goes into schools?

No, I want you to write a play about young adults that teenagers and everyone else may be interested in seeing.

I went on to explain that Green Thumb was expanding its mandate to include what we were calling young adult programming, to be presented at fixed venues. I wanted to create a series of plays that would be about the lives of seventeen-to thirty-year-olds. I did not want a teen play.

Upon hearing this, George was eager to write. We had no discussions about any possible subject matter, at least none that I recall. Several weeks passed and then George called me and stated, I think I have it. We joked a bit and then ended the call. About three weeks later, Tough! landed on my desk.

The first thing you notice with a George F. Walker script is the fluidity of his writing: it moves at the speed of thought. Characters say what they think as they think it and the result can and does lead to both hilarious and painful moments between characters. You will also notice that Walker never censors or manages what a character has to say. The words and thoughts just tumble out as they all struggle to find the language they so desperately seek to make their thoughts whole. It makes for an exhilarating ride.

Both Tough! and Moss Park are real-time plays, something you very rarely come across. Real-time means just that – real time. Both plays take place in an east-side park and both play out over seventy to eighty minutes. It makes for an intense and engaging encounter with three young adults who have lived their lives under the imposing shadow of systemic poverty or, to be polite, underemployment.

In Tough! Bobby, Tina, and Jill are nineteen. In Moss Park it’s more than two years later but Bobby and Tina are dealing with the identical situation – an unplanned pregnancy. In Tough! Jill is very present in the action as best friend to Tina. She offers her unconditional love and support while never hesitating to call out Bobby for his misdeeds and fecklessness. In Moss Park she remains a powerful presence albeit an offstage one. She is caring for Holly, Tina and Bobby’s daughter, while Tina and Bobby meet to see if the future includes them together as a family with a second child in the mix.

It is fascinating to think that more than twenty years has passed between the writing of these two plays but only two years in the lives of the characters. Walker has matured Bobby and Tina brilliantly. While the situation they find themselves in is virtually the same, in Moss Park their reactions are more severe and moving and often more hilarious than in Tough! Yes, both of these plays are funny. Very funny.

In these two plays the comedy comes from the characters’ lives and the situations they are forced to confront. Walker is not interested in the traditional comedy staple – the one-liner. Instead, the comedy in these plays erupts unexpectedly at the blackest of moments. A scene can veer wildly from side-splitting humour to profound sadness in the blink of an eye.

Bobby, Tina, and Jill are very real people who can be found in any community. Walker knows these people intimately and cares for them in an honest and moving way. These three characters are totally engaging and determined to find a solution to their plight, whether it be Tina’s straightforward idea of Bobby getting a minimum-wage job or his momentary thought that he could be a successful rapper.

All three characters are very conscious of their status in life but never for a moment does Walker allow them to place blame on others for their predicament. Instead we watch as they try to make sense of their history, their place in the world, and what the future may offer them. The struggles that Bobby and Tina take on are very real to most of us. They face more than an unforeseen pregnancy; they were born into poverty. But they are battlers and never give up. They each have moments of teetering on the precipice only to be rescued by one another. What Tina and Bobby have above all is love for each other and their children. Family is what matters most for both these young adults.

An unbelievable heart beats at the centre of these plays. It is heart-wrenching to watch as they struggle to find their place in the world – one that can allow them the peace and dignity and security that we all long for.

Patrick McDonald

July 2015

TOUGH!

PRODUCTION HISTORY

Tough! was first produced by Green Thumb Theatre for Young People and opened at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre on February 4, 1993, with the following cast and crew:

TINA: Robyn Stevan

BOBBY: Frank Zotter

JILL: Leslie Jones

Directed by Patrick McDonald

Set and costumes by Phillip Tidd

Lighting by Gerald King

Stage managed by Cynthia Burtinshaw

Tough! then went on to complete an eleven-week national tour to Great Canadian Theatre Company (Ottawa), Factory Theatre (Toronto), and Phoenix Theatre (Edmonton).

CHARACTERS

TINA

BOBBY

JILL

All are age nineteen.

SETTING

A small inner-city park.

Early evening. Late summer. A small inner-city park. A picnic table. A trash can. BOBBY is sitting on the picnic table, watching TINA move around in a very agitated way. JILL is lying on the grass a few feet away, writing something on a thick pad.

BOBBY is wearing a work shirt, jeans, and boots. JILL is wearing a T-shirt and jeans. TINA is wearing slacks and a nice blouse. She is carrying her shoes.

TINA: It’s all lies. Everything you ever told me was a fucking lie. You said I could trust you. That’s a lie. You let me think I knew you. What did I know about you. Lies. I knew your lies. Ah shit, aren’t you going to say anything. Are you just gonna sit there like a dog. A lying dog.

BOBBY: So what do you want me –

TINA: Shut the fuck up. Anything you say now is gonna be a lie.

BOBBY: No, it’s not.

TINA: No? You’re gonna say something truthful? Why? Why start now? ’Cause you’re under pressure?

BOBBY: I’m not under pressure. There’s no pressure. I could leave, you know. I don’t have to stay here and listen to this stuff.

TINA: You could leave and I’d follow you. You could run and hide and I’d track you down like the sad animal you are. And grab you by your fucking ears. And yell the truth into your sad, stupid, lying face. And I will, you know. I will. So you know you gotta sit there and take it. Because you deserve it. You’re a shit. A real shit. And you know what else you are? You’re a coward. What? What?! You wanna say something now? You getting mad? You don’t like being called a coward, coward. Well, what?! What?!

BOBBY: You want me to talk?

TINA: You wanna talk? Talk. Who’s stopping you.

BOBBY: Ah . . . Listen . . . Okay. All I want . . . I mean, the only thing now is that maybe you’re making too much out of what –

TINA: Jesus! You had your hand up her shirt. You had your hand up her fucking shirt.

BOBBY: Yeah, that’s the story. That’s what’s going round. But –

JILL sits up.

JILL: Hey! I saw you, asshole.

BOBBY: This is a set-up. I was brought here under false circumstances.

JILL: False circumstances. What the hell does that mean. Talk English.

BOBBY: It’s like a trial. You never liked me.

JILL: You’re right. But what’s that got to do with anything. I still saw you take that bimbo slut into the kitchen.

BOBBY: (to TINA) See? Okay, that’s not true. Not really. She took me. Really. I was –

TINA: Look, be careful. You’re gonna lie. You’re gonna lie and then I’m gonna kill you.

BOBBY: Fuck it. It’s a trial. You’ve got a witness who never liked