Chafe - The Secret Mask

A wonderfully touching and often heartbreaking story that is also able to frequently bring the entire audience into an uproar of laughter. A simply beautiful play in just about every way.
Production Ottawa great emotional power with wonderful moments of humour This delicate play is a rare combination of heartbreak and humor a beautifully layered portrayal of a man fighting to recapture as much of himself as possible NCPR Radio, New York Alternately hilarious and touching a poignant triumph The Ottawa Citizen Tender, touching, and tense Uptown Magazine a play thats sensitive and humorous in equal measure an enriching, cathartic theatre experience.
Apartment613 Heartbreakingly funny A beautifully affecting play. CityTV
Unpretentious, satisfying, and personal. Humble and lovely a story thats as everyday and extraordinary as real life. The Georgia Straight The Secret Mask Copyright 2013 by Rick Chafe Sonny Boy words and music by Al Jolson, Buddy Desylva, Lew Brown, and Ray Henderson 1928 (Renewed) Chappell & Co., Stephen Ballentine Music and Ray Henderson Music. Playwrights Canada Press 202-269 Richmond Street West, Toronto, ON, Canada M5V 1X1 416.960.9686 No part of this book may be reproduced, downloaded, or used in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, except for excerpts in a review or by a licence from Access Copyright, www.accesscopyright.ca.

For professional or amateur production rights, please contact: Michael Petrasek, The Talent House 204A St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5R 2N6 416.928.0299, Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Chafe, Rick, author The Secret Mask / Rick Chafe. A play. Electronic monograph. Issued in print and electronic formats. Title. Title.

PS8555.H265S43 2013 C812.6 C2013-904411-6 C2013-904415-94416-7

We acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council (OAC)an agency of the Government of Ontario, which last year funded 1,681 individual artists and 1,125 organizations in 216 communities across Ontario for a total of $52.8 millionthe Ontario Media Development Corporation, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities. For my father, Fred Chafe, 19292012 Preface My father had a stroke that resulted in aphasia and memory loss in September 2002. Over the following three months my siblings and I took turns flying out to Vancouver from our homes across Canada to help with his rehab and eventual relocation. Many of the events in this play are based on our collective experiences with Dad over that period. The character Ernie is closely based on Dad and his evolving personality and behaviour at the time. George is drawn from the stories of several friends who all share his backstory, a son to an absent or abandoning father.

Mae is inspired by the warm and wonderful speech-language pathologist who worked with my father for his three months of rehab in Vancouver. Dad seemed to be magnetically pulled to women following his stroke, and all of the additional characters played by Mae are drawn from real events and people we encountered together along the way. Ernies language is not intended to be a textbook depiction of aphasia, but is a rough approximation of Dads speech as I remember it in the months after the stroke. A little Internet research will quickly tell you that aphasia can be expressive (the aphasic person has difficulty expressing himself), or receptive (the aphasic person has difficulty understanding what is said to him). Dads aphasia seemed to have characteristics of both. Furthermore, expressive aphasia can be fluent, with lots of words flowing easily, many of which are inaccurate, nonsensical, or even merely gibberish, and the speaker largely unaware that hes not making sense.

Or the expressive aphasia may be non-fluent, with the speaker unable to summon the right words or sounds to say what he wants to say and being acutely aware that what is coming out of his mouth is incorrect. Dads aphasia was mostly fluent, but at times he was painfully aware that hed lost the words, as well as most of his old confidence. I should also say that for periods of time, although Dad seemed to use some words consistently as substitutes for others (the same way Ernie uses her royal highness, the square place, and piece of potato more than once), most of his misspeaks were one-time poetic-like utterances, never to be repeated. Sometimes his meaning would be obvious, other times we would have to play Twenty Questions to guess, and many times we didnt have a clue. For this reason I havent attempted to impose definitive translations or any sort of glossary of Ernie-isms. For the productions so far, the actors have invented their own intentions behind Ernies words; sometimes the scenes provide context, other times, as anyone living with an aphasiac speaker knows, its anyones guess.

Id like to thank Pamela Bager, M.Sc., SLP (C), who generously gave her time, patience, enthusiasm, and hundreds of suggestions in the portrayal of Ernies aphasia and Maes approach to speech-language pathology. Thank you to Bob Metcalfe who commissioned the play, was an endlessly supportive dramaturg, and directed a gorgeous premiere production. Thanks also to the cast of the first production, John B. Lowe, Skye Brandon, and Sharon Bajer, who brought enormous contributions to the script, and to the Ottawa and Vancouver casts, Paul Rainville, Michael Mancini, Kate Hurman, Jay Brazeau, Haig Sutherland, Alison Kelly, and directors Ann Hodges and Pam Johnson, all of whom tested and pushed the script further towards its present form. Thank you Prairie Theatre Exchange Playwrights Unit for reading and responding, rewrite after rewrite, to Burgandy Code for a raft of great suggestions, and huge thanks to my great friend, David Stevens, who read and responded to every draft and paid for every beer to boot. Thanks also to the Manitoba Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts for financial support during the writing of this play.

As always to Martine and Charlotte for patience and love. And to my father, for his bounty of humour and resilience, and to Vida, for bringing more love to his last ten years than most people are lucky enough to have in the first seventy. Rick Chafe, September 2013 The Secret Mask was commissioned by Prairie Theatre Exchange and premiered on September 15, 2011, at Prairie Theatre Exchange, Winnipeg, Manitoba, with the following cast and creative team: George: Skye Brandon Mae: Sharon Bajer Ernie: John B. Lowe Director and dramaturg: Robert Metcalfe Set and costume design: Brian Perchaluk Lighting design: Larry Isacoff Sound design: Don Benedictson Stage manager: Karyn Kumhyr Apprentice stage manager: Heather Lee Brereton Characters George: Forty Mae: Thirties, but can be played older Ernie: Early seventies Notes Mae also plays the Waitress, Fisher, Teller, Retirement Home Director, Health Authority, and Lawyer. Time and location shifts are instantaneous and frequent in the play. The space is empty except for a few small furniture pieces that can be rolled on or around as necessary; Ernies truck in Act One should be mimed or only minimally suggested.

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