Image courtesy of Alex Emerson

 

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Alisa

Jessica

J’s Boyfriend

Michelle

Tara

Patrick

Nick

Expert

J’s Lawyer

A’s Lawyer

Dad

Susana

 Upperclassman-college student, the narrator.

Upperclassman-college student, newly returned from Michigan.

Upperclassman-college student, Jessica’s boyfriend. Evidently he parties.

Upperclassman-college student, friend to Jessica’s boyfriend, roommate to Tara. Evidently, she parties as well.

Michelle’s roommate, Patrick’s girlfriend.

Tara’s boyfriend, Nick’s roommate.

Alisa’s significant other.

An expert witness.

Jessica’s lawyer.

Alisa’s lawyer.

Alisa’s Dad.

Alisa’s roommate. A radical thinker and a born lawyer. Must be played by a PoC actress.

Note: All actors but Alisa appear as extras during the dumb show and trial.

Note: the forward slashes “/” indicate overlapping speech

 

SCENE 1

Lights up on Alisa 1. She tosses a penny between her hands. 

ALISA Once upon a time, there was a Broadway show.

To tell you the truth: I forget which Broadway show.

Sorry.

Anyway, it was like Rent or Les Miz or Hamilton—well it wasn’t Hamilton—but it was one of those, you know? One of those big shows. The sort that runs for like three years and even my dad has heard of it. 

Now for the audience, Broadway shows are very entertaining—I mean, what’s not entertaining about it? There’s spectacle, dance, a plot! There’re talented and attractive bodies doing feats of vocal and bodily athleticism.

But for the actors, Broadway shows are very boring because six days a week, they perform the exact same show 

Eight.

Whole.

Times.

Every day (and sometimes even twice a day!) they do the same high note or vocal flourish or whatever, and then they watch the audience deliver more or less the same old reaction.

It’s boring—frankly, it sounds miserable.

Anyway, the cast of this big Broadway show had been doing the same show for several years now and they were getting very burnt out. Luckily, somebody in the cast or crew has a genius idea for getting everybody energetic again: they bring a penny to the theatre, and they start the whole cast playing a game.

During the show, actors pass the penny to one another while they are on stage and the goal is to pass the penny to as many people as possible or not to be caught with the penny at the end of the show or whatever and—above all else!—to do this without the audience noticing. 

Suddenly the entire cast is showing up to work excited.

Excited to play the penny game.

And the audience is none the wiser.

My theatre teacher would tell us that story on the second night after opening. The moral of the story was that we should look for ways to make our show feel new every night even if we’d done it all before.

Enter actors.

ALISA Now these actors are going to act out a few scenes and you are going to see if you can tell when and where they pass that penny between each other. Here, though, the penny also goes to show how, without much effort, people acting in very routine and scripted ways can create something . . . well, for lack of a better word: consequential, noteworthy. 

Alisa tosses the penny to Jessica. The dumbshow and penny parsing begins. The audience should not be able to see the movement of the penny during the following scenes which are done in short succession:

  • Jessica returns home from Michigan, hugs her Boyfriend. (Jessica passes the penny to J’s Boyfriend)
  • J’s Boyfriend, Michelle, and Actors as partygoers at a birthday party. (Boyfriend passes the penny to Michelle)
  • Michelle and Tara in the kitchen of their apartment, cooking. (Michelle passes the penny to Tara)
  • Tara and Patrick being boyfriend and girlfriend. (No penny pass)
  • Patrick and Nick being roommates. (No penny pass)
  • Nick and Alisa doing a small lift. (No penny pass)

 

ALISA Didn’t catch it? Let’s watch it again.

The actors repeat. It takes half of the time.

ALISA And again.

It takes a quarter of the time.

ALISA And again.

It takes even less time. Now the actors are looping frenetically and their actions have grown more comically garish. What once was partying is now raving, what once was kissing is now screwing. The lift at the end has become a full-blown Dirty Dancing style lift.

The gestures continue into. . . 

SCENE 2

Alisa and Jessica step out from the dumb show, which continues in their absence as though they never left. The women walk to opposite sides of the stage and sit in chairs marked “Plaintiff” and “Defendant.” Now we see that the dumb show is actually situated on the floor of a courtroom. Slowly the testimony of the Expert Witness fades in.

Expert Witness . . . because viral shedding does not begin until at earliest twenty-four hours from infection, Tara would have not been able to infect Patrick, given that Tara began isolating as soon as Michelle alerted Tara of her gentleman acquaintance’s positive test result.
J’s Lawyer

Expert Witness

 Gotcha. So, to rephrase what you said for the jury: the virus that Jessica carried did not even reach the plaintiff. 

Correct.
J’s Lawyer Thank you. That’s all we need.

Tara holds up the penny triumphantly and tosses it to J’s Lawyer. Actors of the dumb show and the Expert Witness exit. Jessica and J’s Lawyer stand as though to leave.

A’s Lawyer Not so fast. We aren’t suing for damages, we’re suing for (reading from a paper) “possession of the moral high ground, disruption of routine socialization, the inconvenience of wearing a mask in one’s own home, and related stress and anxiety.”

They sit.

J’s Lawyer Well then,  I call the Plaintiff’s father to witness.

Dad enters. Alisa is clearly mortified.

Alisa Dad?!
Dad Sorry, buddy, but you know my thoughts on this. When it comes to spreading COVID, it’s all about taking personal responsibility. Now, granted, illness and death are rough, but only 1 in 100 people will die of this virus and these aren’t healthy people—most of these people already have health conditions. But while we wait for a vaccine, people are losing jobs. Our economy is suffering. I think it makes logical sense that those who are immunocompromised or whatever or, you know, those who don’t want to catch COVID should quarantine, and the rest of us who are willing to assume that risk should just proceed and work. Focus on getting our economy back in shape. Business as usual. If you really didn’t want to catch the virus, you wouldn’t have been seeing anybody, not even your little boyfriend.
Alisa He’s literally the only person I see besides my roommates.
Dad (ignoring her) If you think about it, Jessica and you more or less did the same thing, only Jessica wasn’t so lucky. You should be thankful that somebody warned you before you got it. Now it’s not productive for you to be suing somebody for the moral high ground when you could be working on getting a job at Amazon as Jeff Bezos’s personal footlicker and making mountains of money right after college.
Susana

(enters)

 Hold up!
Alisa Susie? / You’re not supposed to be here.
A’s Lawyer I’m sorry, ma’am, but you’re going to have to go / or else we’re going to have to bring in security. 
Alisa She’ll see herself out. It’s just my roommate.
Susana No, I’m here because of what a bad job you (at A’s Lawyer) and you (at Alisa) are doing here. Y’all are slipping on this trial. I’m calling myself to witness. 

Jury, today you have a very easy choice, like, almost too easy because Alisa and I have been quarantining hard in our apartment and, like, only see one person outside of the apartment mask off because we made those rules so we don’t go to parties, or to restaurants, or even ride in Ubers, and we definitely don’t go to UMichigan to visit our friend like somebody in this courtroom because UMich is like a freaking known covid hotspot so it’s not like Jessica didn’t know she was a risk and even though Jessica didn’t have to legally quarantine when coming to Chicago the fact that she didn’t is a big problem and honestly shows that Jessica probably hates people of color because the virus disproportionately affects our black and brown communities so not only is Jessica freaking reckless but she’s probably a WHITE FUCKING SUPREMACIST so jury you should also book her for HATE CRIMES.
Dad Now I don’t know how I feel about all this racial rhetoric being used here . . .
Alisa Susie, I highly doubt that Jessica is a white supremacist.
Susana And that’s your problem, Alisa. This is your exact problem. You keep on deconstructing and equivocating until you quarantining at home and seeing your very Covid-conscious boyfriend is just the same as Jessica returning home from Michigan (without quarantining!) and seeing her boyfriend who freaking attends parties during a PANDEMIC when black and brown people are dying! She’s making a choice!

(at Jessica and Dad) Y’all can’t just pretend like your actions don’t have consequences on other people. You can’t just choose to have the run of the planet and then go die and gunk up the ICU beds while the rest of us hunker down and wait for a vaccine because some people don’t get the option of isolating. Some people live in multigenerational homes. Some people work **multiple jobs.** Some people do essential labor, and don’t have enough savings to take off from work for however long it takes to make a vaccine. Some people are ALL OF THE ABOVE. And guess what? And yes, that was a statement about race and class and access to healthcare AND . . .

The actor playing Susana continues improvising the speech as Dad begins to argue back. Gradually, all the other characters except Jessica and Alisa begin chiming in shouting at each other. Transition to . . . 

SCENE 3

Outside the courtroom, Alisa on a curb. She’s just sitting, processing. Jessica enters and moves to sit beside Alisa.

Alisa Six feet away, Covid Kid.

Jessica scooches away but remains at the curb. Alisa is clearly discomfited by Jessica. A beat. 

Jessica Well, that was entertaining. I’ve been to a couple of these since I’ve come back from Michigan. Mostly the same arguments. Good prosecutors, usually, but they always let me off.

Beat.

Jessica Obviously, you don’t like me much right now, but I came out here because I wanted to prep you. For the verdict . . . And I know it may not seem fair, but I didn’t break any laws. I didn’t spread it recklessly—and even if I did, it’s Covid, not AIDS, there’s no real law against it and sure, I could have been more responsible or Covid-conscious or whatever-the-fuck, but . . . 
Alisa Can you stop gloating? I’m this close to calling my roommate over to kick your ass.
Jessica (taken aback) I-I’m not gloating

(Beat)

Look, I know you’re frustrated: you miss your friends, you miss going outside. Whatever you miss, so do I.  

And one thing we’ve got in common is that it’s neither of our faults. 

Ever think about Taiwan? New Zealand? You can blame me all you want but it’s not like pandemics end because people like me stop interstate travel or whatever. 

You and I are both victims of authorities who didn’t take this seriously until too late and didn’t make laws or print masks and suddenly it’s been nine months and I’m getting stir crazy and the country’s not healed and so I take a trip. 
Jessica

(cont’d)

 Big deal in the scheme of things.
Alisa Alright, Patient Zero.
Jessica Don’t mock me. You know I’m right.

Jessica gets up to leave and brushes past Alisa as she makes her last speech.

Alisa How about we take some level of personal responsibility, huh, Jessica? Yeah, our government didn’t do anything, but, so what? We might as well work on changing us and being—what the heck?

Alisa notices something in her hand. She holds it up to the light. It’s a penny.

 

 

. . .

Alisa is a fourth-year student of History and Creative Writing at the University of Chicago. She aspires to go into a creative field post-grad either as a screenwriter or a journalist. She contributes arts and culture writing to Rescripted and food writing to Bite. You can follow her on Instagram at @alisa.boland.