The Art of Building a Bunker

By Guillermo Verdecchia and Adam Lazarus

The Art of Building a Bunker is a dark, viciously funny story recounting a week in the life of your average Elvis as he endures mandatory workplace sensitivity training. Elvis struggles to meet the demands of Camerson, the sensitivity traning leader, and to work with the group that surrounds him without revealing anything about what he really feels or believes. His struggles culminate in a radical oration delivered on the last day of the course to the sensitivity group, workplace colleagues, as well as international luminaries of sensitivity like Nelson Mandela, Geddy Lee, and Malala.

Created for Toronto’s SummerWorks 2013, Verdecchia explained to Colin Thomas of the Georgia Straight the impulse to create Bunker: “We were just looking around the city and at the culture generally,” Verdecchia said – remember that Rob Ford was Toronto’s mayor at that time – “and there was a kind of incivility in the air, which I think is still there. It seems like it’s permissible to say things that you couldn’t say before, like ‘Fuck her right in the cunt,’ or whatever guys are saying on television.” (Verdecchia is referring to the phenomenon that reporter Shauna Hunt very publicly challenged recently.) “There was also this incredible anger on the web, YouTube videos with people ranting about their situations or about Obama—a lot of Americans. They seemed like really disenfranchised folk who were stewing in their anger and fear. And that struck us as really interesting. Adam and I genuinely want to ask about what is permissible.”

Bunker is to be played by one virtuosic actor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Talonbooks
• Release date: Dec 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9781772014259

Guillermo Verdecchia

Guillermo Verdecchia is a writer of drama and fiction as well as a director, dramaturge, translator, and actor. He received the Governor-General's Award for Drama for his play Fronteras Americanas and is a four-time winner of the Chalmers Canadian Play Award. His work includes the critically acclaimed Feast, The Art of Building a Bunker (with Adam Lazarus), the Governor-General shortlisted Noam Chomsky Lectures (with Daniel Brooks), the Seattle Times' Footlight Award-winning Adventures of Ali & Ali (with Marcus Youssef and Camyar Chai), A Line in the Sand (with Marcus Youssef), bloom, and Another Country. His work has been recorded, anthologized, translated into Spanish and Italian, produced in Europe and the US, and is studied in Latin America, Australia, Europe, and North America. He lives in Toronto with Tamsin Kelsey, his partner of many years, and their two children.

Book preview

PRAISE FOR LAZARUS AND VERDECCHIA’S

THE ART OF BUILDING A BUNKER

A tour de force … truly provocative.

—J. KELLY NESTRUCK

Globe and Mail

Layered, funny, timely, angry, disturbing …

—GLENN SUMI

NOW Toronto

A whirl of confusion, conviction, sadness, desperation, and sorrowfulness … emotionally compelling … Creators Adam Lazarus and Guillermo Verdecchia know how to mine those things that would drive anyone crazy … Lazarus and Verdecchia do not soft-pedal.

—LYNN SLOTKIN

The Slotkin Letter

Adam Lazarus as Elvis Goldstein, on stage with Guillermo Verdecchia (Toronto, 2014). Photo by Bronwen Sharp, courtesy Factory Theatre

THE ART OF BUILDING A BUNKER

Also by Guillermo Verdecchia

The Noam Chomsky Lectures (with Daniel Brooks)*

Insomnia (with Daniel Brooks)

Fronteras Americanas*

The Terrible but Incomplete Journals of John D.

Another Country / bloom*

A Line in the Sand (with Marcus Youssef)*

Adventures of Ali and Ali and the aXes of Evil: A Divertimento for Warlords (with Camyar Chai and Marcus Youssef)*

Ali & Ali: The Deportation Hearings (with Camyar Chai and Marcus Youssef)*

Citizen Suárez

* Published by Talonbooks

THE ART OF BUILDING A BUNKER

A PLAY

ADAM LAZARUS

and

GUILLERMO VERDECCHIA

© 2017 Adam Lazarus and Guillermo Verdecchia

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from Access Copyright (The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency). For a copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

Talonbooks

278 East First Avenue, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V5T 1A6

www.talonbooks.com

First printing: 2017

Typeset in Minion

Printed and bound in Canada on 100% post-consumer recycled paper

Interior design by Typesmith

Cover collage and design by Chloë Filson

Talonbooks acknowledges the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund, and the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

Rights to produce The Art of Building a Bunker, in whole or in part, in any medium by any group, amateur or professional, are retained by the author. Interested persons are requested to contact Talonbooks at 278 East First Avenue, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V5T 1A6; telephone (toll-free): 888-445-4176; email: [e-mail]; talonbooks.com.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Lazarus, Adam, 1976–, author

The art of building a bunker / a play by Adam Lazarus and Guillermo Verdecchia ; introduction by David Yee.

ISBN 978-1-77201-186-9 (SOFTCOVER)

I. Verdecchia, Guillermo, author II. Yee, David, 1977–, writer of foreword III. Title.

PS8623.A965A89 2017 C812’.6 C2017-906003-1

S + J + O

CONTENTS

DISCLAIMER

INTRODUCTION

PRODUCTION HISTORY

SETTING

CHARACTERS

DAY ONE

DAY TWO

DAY THREE

DAY FOUR

SPEECH DAY

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Adam Lazarus as Elvis (Toronto, 2014). Photo by Bronwen Sharp, courtesy Factory Theatre

Two urges, the one towards personal happiness and the other towards union with other human beings must struggle with each other in every individual.

—SIGMUND FREUD

Civilization and Its Discontents (1930)

The fateful question for the human species seems to be whether and to what extent their cultural development will succeed in mastering the disturbance of their communal life by the human instinct of aggression and self-destruction.

—SIGMUND FREUD

Civilization and Its Discontents (1930)

Lacan said that there was surely something ironic about