Rapp - Essential self-defense: a play

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Table of Contents

The author would like to thank Tim Sanford at Playwrights Horizons, David Korins and Carolyn Cantor of Edge Theater Company, and John Buzzetti at The Gersh Agency.

Nocturne

Stone Cold Dead Serious and Other Plays

Red Light Winter

The Year of Endless Sorrows

ADAM RAPP

ADAM RAPP has been the recipient of the Herbert and Patricia Brodkin Scholarship; two Lincoln Center Le Comte du Nouy awards; a fellowship to the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France; two Princess Grace awards for playwriting; a Roger L. Stevens Award from the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays; a Suite Residency with Mabou Mines; the Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwrights; Bostons Elliot Norton Award; and a Lucille Lortel Playwrights Fellowship. He was short-listed for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing for Nocturne , and he received a Joseph Jefferson Award in Chicago for Best New Play, received a special citation from the Obies, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Red Light Winter .

His plays include Ghosts in the Cottonwoods (Victory Gardens; The Arcola, London); Animals and Plants (American Repertory Theatre); Blackbird (The Bush, London; Pittsburgh City Theatre; Off-Broadway at Edge Theater); Nocturne (A.R.T., Off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop); Stone Cold Dead Serious (A.R.T., Off-Broadway at Edge Theater); Finer Noble Gases (26th Annual Humana Festival of New American Plays, Off-Broadway at Rattlestick); Faster (Off-Broadway at Rattlestick); Trueblinka (Off-Broadway at the MaverickTheater); Dreams of the Salthorse (Encore, San Francisco); Red Light Winter (Steppenwolf; Off-Broadway at the Barrow Street Theater); and Gompers (Pittsburgh City Theatre; The Arcola, London).

Trade editions of his plays, all available from Faber and Faber, include Nocturne , Stone Cold Dead Serious and Other Plays , and Red Light Winter .

He is the writer and director of two feature films: Winter Passing , starring Ed Harris, Will Ferrell, and Zooey Deschanel, which premiered at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival; and Blackbird .

He is the author of six novels for young adults: Missing the Piano ( Viking/HarperCollins); The Buffalo Tree (Front Street/ HarperCollins); The Copper Elephant (Front Street/HarperCollins); Little Chicago (Front Street/HarperCollins); 33 Snowfish (Candlewick Press); and Under the Wolf, Under the Dog (Candlewick Press), which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He is also the author of the adult novel The Year of Endless Sorrows (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).

Currently he is at work on a graphic novel, Decelerate Blue , forthcoming from First Second.

A graduate of Clarke College in Dubuque, Iowa, Mr. Rapp also completed a two-year playwriting fellowship at Juilliard. He lives in New York City.

The Big Beat-Down Self-Defense Studio/Kiffs Karaoke

The encounter mat, which is a polyurethane rectangular wrestling mat. YUL is standing in the center, wearing a large suit of sponge. His hair is a mess and he looks as if he hasnt slept in years. He stares out at the audience. A loud industrial-sounding buzzer sounds and then SADIE , thirty and small, enters in a fury. She wears sweats, headgear, and boxing gloves. Through an unseen bullhorn we hear the incantation Take it back! Take it back! Take it back! over and over again. SADIE begins using a series of pugilistslashmartial arts combinations to attack YUL , who simply stands there and takes the beating.

In Kiff s Karaoke Room, BOB BEARD , the drummer for Bob Beard and the Unholy Stones, is seated at his drum kit. Kiff s Karaoke Room is the back room of a small dive bar. There are a half dozen or so small tables and a small raised stage outfitted with a full drum kit, two electric guitar amps, two electric guitars on stands, and a few microphone stands. As soon as SADIE begins attacking YUL , BOB BEARD scores it with accompanying percussion. He is unaware of their actions and it should seem like hes simply tuning up his drums for the evenings gig.

At the Big Beat-Down Self-Defense Studio, YUL is driven to the ground and places his arms in the air submissively. The women in the studiocheer. Again! the self-defense leader yells through her bullhorn. SADIE helps YUL up and then exits the stage. A second buzzer sounds and then SADIE rushes YUL again, unleashing another round of punches, kicks, knees, etc., while BOB BEARD accompanies her percussively and the women of the studio yell, Take it back! Take it back! Take it back! repeatedly. Again, this goes on until YUL is driven to the ground and raises his arms in submission. The studio applauds.

Again! the self-defense leader yells through her bullhorn. SADIE again helps YUL off the mat and exits the stage. The third and final buzzer sounds and then SADIE rushes YUL again, unleashing her third and final round on him. Take it back! Take it back! Take it back forever! the other members of the studio yell. Again, BOB BEARD accompanies the beating on his drum set. During a final crescendo, SADIE accidentally knees YUL and he goes down, holding his face. The drums cease.

SADIE Oh my god.

The members of the studio continue applauding and cheering for SADIE . From his knees, YUL looks at his tooth pinched between his fingers, and then rises off the mat, flings the tooth wildly, and lurches out of the studio.

SELF-DEFENSE LEADERS BULLHORN VOICE Good work, Sadie. You conquered the meat man and took back your power.

SADIE That was his tooth.

SELF-DEFENSE LEADERS BULLHORN VOICE Its just a tooth, hell be fine.

SADIE But I hurt him.

SELF-DEFENSE LEADERS BULLHORN VOICE You conquered the meat man, Sadie.

SADIE I didnt mean to hurt him.

SELF-DEFENSE LEADERS BULLHORN VOICE Yes, you did.

Sadies Kitchen/Yuls Basement Apartment

SADIE is standing very rigidly in her kitchen. It is a simple, clean, suburban kitchen. There is a table with four chairs. She is holding YUL s tooth, pacing back and forth.

In YUL s apartment, YUL is sitting at his desk with several paper towels wrapped around his waist (as if they were a regular towel), freshly showered, boiling eggs on a portable stovetop. His apartment is a crude cement and cinder-block basement. His light is off and he is mostly in silhouette so that outside of a cot, a footlocker, and the desk, the details of his living space cant be made out.

He is listening to a news report on the radio.

MALE RADIO ANNOUNCER In local news, as of six oclock this evening, area seventh-grader Edith Paul has been reported as officially missing. Twelve-year-old Paul is the twelfth student from Bloggs Junior High School to mysteriously disappear in the past three weeks. Police currently have no leads.

In SADIE s kitchen, SADIE grabs her phone off the wall and dials a number that she reads from a small piece of paper.

MALE RADIO ANNOUNCER In other news, King Kenny, the leader of the East Coastbased rap group King Kenny and the Kings Highway Kings, pleaded guilty to four counts of

In YUL s apartment, his phone rings. He turns the radio off, stares at the phone for a moment, hesitates, then answers it quickly. He speaks in a low-energy, deliberate fashion.

YUL Yes?

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