Rebeck - Dead Accounts

Dead Accounts By Theresa Rebeck DEAD ACCOUNTS 2012 by Theresa Rebeck CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that DEAD ACCOUNTS by Theresa Rebeck is subject to a royalty. It is fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America and of all countries covered by the International Copyright Union (including the Dominion of Canada and the rest of the British Commonwealth), The Berne Convention, the Pan-American Copyright Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention as well as all countries with which the United States has reciprocal copyright relations. All rights, including professional/amateur stage rights, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio broadcasting, television, video or sound recording, all other forms of mechanical or electronic reproduction, such as CD-ROM, CD-I, DVD, information storage and retrieval systems and photocopying, and the rights of translation into foreign languages, are strictly reserved. All rights reserved. ISBN: 1-57525-813-7 Library of Congress Control Number: 978-1-57525-813-3 Typesetting by: Eric Holmes & Elizabeth E. Monteleone Cover by: Serino Coyne Smashwords edition published at Smashwords by Crossroad Press
177 Lyme Road, Hanover, NH 03755 Editorial 603.643.6431 To Order 1.800.558.2846 www.smithandkraus.com Printed in the United States of America FROM THE PLAYWRIGHT America doesnt know how to talk to itself anymore.

It wasnt always like this. I was born and raised in the Midwest, where people were taught that decency and integrity and community were all important values. We were democrats with a little d. We were told that hard work and talent and character would get you somewhere. At school, we learned it was important to share. On Arbor Day, we all planted trees.

And we admired the people who lived and worked on the East Coast. Writers like Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams were heroic figures. The great museums and orchestras and universities were, to us, the jewels of American accomplishment. It was an unimaginable thrill, to go New York and see the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building and Times Square. To see a play on Broadwaywhich cost I think about $25 dollarswas a dream beyond dreaming. I dont know what New Yorkers thought about Midwesterners during those yearsand this wasnt all that long ago; Im actually not a hundred years old.

I do know what New Yorkers think of the Midwest now, and I know what the Midwest thinks of New York. When I go to Ohio to visit relatives on holidays, I am often astonished by the level of casual dismissal which is offered up by way of discussion. At a time when the country faces deeply complex challenges around its future and the future of the planet itself, there is a sense that only crazy east coast liberals worry about that stuff. There is a sense that the East Coast has lost its moral center. The catastrophe of the banking industry, and the scandalous waste of our character, perpetrated by our government and the media has offended the Midwest so deeply they dont want to even talk about it. Or, they do want to talk about it, but they are so angry and simultaneously so polite, they dont know how to talk about it.

So they bury their heads in Fox News and pretend that reducing the deficit will salve their anxiety. Meanwhile, the East Coast cannot believe how stupid the center of the country seems to have gotten. How do you make this funny? There are times when I wonder how I ever thought that I could dramatize the death of a national discussion as a family comedy. But so many of us are the spawn of this perplexing divide; we carry it in our DNA. The questionHow did we start there, and get here?is in fact a question of mortality. Which, as we all know, is hilarious.

Death is coming to our little family, and so we fight to live. Peculiarly, that is funny. And we do have things to teach each other. As long as we can remember how to talk. Theresa Rebeck THE LIFE IN DEAD ACCOUNTS .... AND NOW, THERESA REBECK! In a life and career that has embraced nearly as many styles and opportunities as there are theatrical genres, Rebecks DEAD ACCOUNTS was my first encounter with her world and her magic; and I trust and pray, not my last! On the surface, of course, this is a wry, witty, caustic tale of a young man going to ground in his parents home in Ohio having somehow siphoned off 27 million dollars from a New York bank without anyone knowing about it.

But the surface only glitters and enchantingly distracts in Ms. Rebecks world from deeper shadows and shuddering shoals below. People are never quite how they represent themselves, and the baffling game of life is a canvas upon which she can splay, flay, and dissect her characters with the skill and precision of a surgeon, and the romantic tough of a jazz pianist. Music is very much a part of this experience, as a swift reading of any of the major passages will reveal: she stutters, she stammers, she articulately skips from subject to transition like a dizzy aerialist at the top of a tent, and my first direction to the company was to meticulously care for and replicate each and every ellipse, each unfinished thought until her cadence was second-nature to them. But stretching still beyond for us was the plays mystery what was pulling Jack on, what was compelling him, and what was drawing all the other relatives and characters in his boiling wake? Daily, we searched, asked, and questioned the text for its secrets. And one other thing: at the end of the play, Ms Rebeck calls for a kind of coup de theatrea dissolving of the entire set to reveal a glorious Midwestern autumn vista and a tree, planted by Jack himself, that seems to be the final message.

She offers no clues, she never explains herself, she seems to trust in the ineffable mystery of life, a life she renders with exquisite care and infinite patience, believing that we, too, will fall under the spell of her characters as she has, and therein, ferret out our own explanation. Because life itself offers no explanations, and the great writers, Shakespeare, Cornelle, Shaw, de Vega, as well as the classic modernist, most especially the good Doctor Chekhov, whose tragicomic world she so completely understands, never tell us what to think, they allow us our own conclusions. And we are always grateful to be led, rather than instructed. A wise director makes no assumptions, and no predictions. He directs, he doesnt qualify but this modern fable of morals, money, and mystic magic, I sense will be tempting us for years to come. What a breathtaking ride! Jack OBrien
New York City
3 November, 2012 THE OPENING NIGHT CAST WAS: (In order of speaking)

Jack	Norbert Leo Butz
Lorna	Katie Holmes
Barbara	Jayne Houdyshell
Phil	Josh Hamilton
Jenny	Judy Greer

Dead Accounts opened on Broadway on November 29th, 2012 at The Music Box Theatre.

It was presented by Jeffrey Finn, John N. Hart, Jr., David Mirvish, Amy Nauiokas, Ergo Entertainment, Harriet Newman Leve, Double Gemini Productions, 3toGo Entertainment and The Shubert Organization, with associate producers Jamie Kaye-Phillips and Charles Stone. The general manager was 101 Productions, LTD. Dead Accounts was directed by Jack OBrien with scenic design by David Rockwell, costume design by Catherine Zuber, lighting design by David Weiner, and composition/sound design by Mark Bennett. The casting was by Caparelliotis Casting, the production manager was Peter Fulbright and the production stage manager was Rolt Smith. Dead Accounts was commissioned and originally produced by Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park (Edward Stern, Producing Artistic Director; Buzz Ward, Executive Director) Dead Accounts was further developed at the 2011 New Harmony Project playwriting workshop.

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