was first presented on November 2, 2000, at the Firehall Arts Centre in Vancouver, B.C. with the following cast:
is a play based on a true murder case in Vancouver that involved the deaths of at least ten women and many more mystery deaths of women in the East Hastings Street area unofficially referred to as Skid Row. All the women were found dead with a blood-alcohol reading far beyond safe human consumption, and all the women were last seen with Gilbert Paul Jordan, a local barber who frequented the bars preying on primarily middle-aged Native women. The coroners reports listed the cause of death for many of the women as unnatural and accidental.
CHARACTERS: |
REBECCA (ages 4 and 30): | Mixed blood/Nativea writer searching for the end of a story. |
ROSE (age 52): | English immigranta switchboard operator with a soft heart, but thorny. |
AUNT SHADIE (age 52): | Nativemother qualities of strength, humour, love, patience. |
MAVIS (age 42): | Nativea little slow from the butt down, but stubborn in life and memory. |
THE WOMAN (age 27): | Nativelooks and moves like a deer. |
VALERIE (age 33): | Nativea big, beautiful woman proud of her parts. |
VERNA (age 38): | Nativesarcastic but searching to do the right thing, the right way. |
VIOLET (ages 5 and 27): | Nativean old spirit who grows younger to see herself again. |
THE BARBERSHOP WOMEN: | A beautiful, sexy threesome that can move and sing. |
MARILYN (age 25): Native |
PENNY (age 30): Native |
PATSY (age 40): Native |
THE BARBER (ages 30s and 60s): | Whiteshort, balding, nice andcreepy.
Also transforms into THE MAN, THE ROMANTIC PARTNER, THE PILLOW, THE DRESSER, THE MANS SHADOW, THE AIRLINE STEWARD, and 2ND FATHERLY MALE VOICE. |
RON (age 35): | A cophandsome, with a nice body and a good sense of humour. Also plays THE LOGGER, and is IT until he is RON. |
SFX VOICES: |
EVAN (age 8): | VALERIEs oldest son, wise and angry. |
TOMMY (age 5): | VALERIEs youngest son, naive and sweet. |
THE OPERATOR: | A polite but repetitive telephone recording. |
FATHERLY MALE VOICE: | THE WOMANS adopted father. |
Can I buy you a drink?: | THE BARBERs voice. |
ACT 1
Scenes involving the women should have a black-and-white picture feel that is animated by the bleeding-in of colour as the scene and their imaginations unfold. Colours of personality and spirit, life and isolation, paint their reality and activate their own particular landscape within their own particular hotel room and world. Their deaths are a drowning-down of hopes, despairs, wishes. The killer is a manipulative embodiment of their human need. Levels, rooms, views, perspectives, shadow, light, voices, memories, desires.
REBECCAs journey through Act 1 should be a growing up through memory. Being in a memory, but present in time. Walking. Seeing. Time going by. Lifecolour of memory and the searching.
AUNT SHADIE and ROSE are on the top level from the beginning. In their own spaces and places. They are in their own world. Happy hunting ground and/or heaven.Elements: Trees falling, falling of women, earth, water flowing/transforming.
ACT 2
Scenes in REBECCAs apartment are present and in Kitsilano, but reflect the symptoms of urban isolation even without being on Hastings Street.Flow: Scenes of hearing, shadow-seeing, consciousness, unconsciousness of what is around us/within us.DEATH BY ALCOHOLThe Vancouver Sun, October 22, 1988 She was found lying nude on her bed and had recent bruises on her scalp, noses, lips, and chin There was no evidence of violence, or suspicion of foul play, noted Coroner Glen McDonald. , a native Indian, had been drinking continuously for four days before she died Coroner Larry Campbell concluded her death was unnatural and accidental. drank enough to kill her twice.
Thats the conclusion of a coroners inquiry into the native Indian womans death. She was found dead, lying face down on a foam mattress with a blanket covering her, in Jordans barbershop At the time of her death, Coroner Campbell said there was no indication of foul play. To get the blood-alcohol reading that had at the time of her death, experts say she would have had to drink about 40 ounces of hard liquor all at once. The mother of four died at Jordans barbershop Coroner Mary Lou Glazier concluded s death was unnatural and accidental. She had the highest blood-alcohol level reading of all the women. He believes Jordan was finally stopped because he killed his daughter, who was not an alcoholic and who has family that insisted police look into her death.
He picked the wrong person. She was someone that someone cares about No coroners report has been issued.
ACT 1
SFX: A collage of trees whispering in the wind.S LIDE: T HE U NNATURAL AND A CCIDENTAL W OMENSFX: The sound of a tree opening up to a split. A loud cracka haunting gasp for air that is suspended. The sustained sound of suspension as the tree teeters.S LIDE: F ALLING B ACKBeacon HotelLights dim up on a small room covered with the shadows of tree leaves and limbs. Lights up on a LOGGER looking up at a tree, handsaw in hand.
He shouts across time. LOGGER: TIM-BER AUNT SHADIE: Re-becca A big woman suddenly emerges from a bed of dark leaves. Gasping, she bolts upright, unfallen. Nude, she rises, leaving the image of herself in the bed. She follows the sounds and images of the trees.