Five @ Fifty Read online

  FIVE @ FIFTY

  BRAD FRASER

  Playwrights Canada Press

  Toronto

  Other Books by Brad Fraser:

  Cold Meat Party

  Love and Human Remains

  Martin Yesterday

  Poor Super Man

  Snake in Fridge

  True Love Lies

  The Ugly Man

  The Wolf Plays

  For all the codependent enablers and their addicts.

  INTRODUCTION

  I was in auditions for my play True Love Lies at the Factory Theatre in Toronto. There was one part for a woman in her mid-forties. The day we were reading for that character was like a parade of actresses out of my theatrical past. One after another they filed in. Their interest in the part and their commitment to giving their best reading were palpable. Some of them were keyed so high I would ask them to stop partway through their first reading, tell them to take a moment to breathe and relax, then start again.

  In talking to them after the readings it became clear what the problem was. These amazing women, most of whom had resumes filled with memorable work and numerous awards, hadn’t been acting much. As they matured the parts started to dry up and those jobs that had sustained them both artistically and professionally became fewer and farther between. So every time there was a call for an audition, that audition took on a new significance.

  I realized the next play I wrote would have to take some steps to alleviate this problem because it seemed terribly unfair that so much talent was being squandered, forced to move out of the arts and on to other things, when most of these women were now capable of producing the most convincing, imaginative and nuanced work of their careers. And that was how I was impregnated with what was then known as Interventing Sylvia Fairfax.

  I’d decided it would be a show with all female actors and would be about the relationships women have with one another, a subject I’d always found fascinating with the women in my extended family and with my many girl friends over the years. I began to listen to women’s voices more intently. I became a voyeur, an eavesdropper, a spy on the world of the ladies, and I was amazed to discover how little I truly knew about one half of the world’s population, what their concerns were, how they saw the world and were seen in return. My interest in classic actresses and their films gave me an entire repertoire of archetypes that were both inspired and insipid. A Woman’s View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women 1930–1960 by the brilliant film critic and scholar Jeanine Basinger was ingenious in decoding and illuminating the many strengths and flaws with the film industry’s treatment of actresses and the characters they create and in illustrating how pervasive the lessons they taught were to their target audience.

  I used social media to seek out female voices of all kinds in order to learn more about women in their middle-age. What were they most concerned with? What were their bodies doing? How had their needs and feelings changed as they experienced the aging process and menopause? I gave everyone I approached the option of speaking privately or in a more public forum. Most of them chose the public forum. We talked about dying menstrual cycles, grown children, long-term relationships, drug regimes and so much more. Many volunteered painful, personal information freely and with good humour. I owe each of them a great debt and their concerns, advice and support permeate this script.

  I could see the traps. Being a gay man may have given me a rapport with many women that allows for a sometimes shocking honesty, but that rapport also brings the danger of creating characters who are female but just gay-influenced enough to become slightly more convincing drag queens. While such characters are very popular with men and women—on TV, film and stage—they are not, to me at least, authentic and I didn’t want to be accused of writing such characters. I have also, on occasion, been accused of being “too hard” on my female characters—I’m sure none of the characters of any sex I was writing early in my career were as convincing as they would become as I matured—and I often felt that some people made that accusation not because I was particularly hard on the female characters, but because I was equally hard on the female characters as I was the male characters, and that sort of equality isn’t something such personalities are really comfortable with, no matter how loudly they might protest otherwise—but I wanted these characters to be as genuine as they were entertaining. I was also interested in the difficulty of writing characters that were not only the same sex but also the same age and basic economic class and still keep them contrasted and interesting. While immersed in the writing of this script I discovered how both liberating and revealing it can be to write characters you have no physical connection to at all. Speaking and thinking in the voices of women allowed me to explore and reveal things that most men, even gay men, are not encouraged to dwell on.

  Like so many of my plays, it took a single event in my life for the last piece of the puzzle to fall into place and lead to the final gelling of the plot. Just before embarking on this project I was forced to face the realities of addiction and codependency and the negative effects of both with a long-term couple I had known for most of my life. Seeing what alcohol was doing to both of them—despite the fact only one drank—was too much to put up with and, after a clumsy and ultimately too emotional and negative attempt at an intervention, I was forced to say goodbye to them. From that experience I realized that the play would be about friendship, addiction and moving on. The fact all the characters would be female was no longer an issue, they were simply characters in a story, just like in any other play I’d written.

  Originally the show was conceived as a vehicle for Sylvia and Tricia’s characters, with the others playing supporting roles, but only a couple scenes into it that began to change. As each of the characters came into focus and their voices began to emerge they started to argue with me as I wrote. “If she gets a monologue why can’t I have one? How come she gets all of the funny lines? I’m going to want a costume change too, you know.” It was crazy. They were taking over and I realized that what they wanted was a more democratic show, a shared experience for all of the characters, a showcase for everyone. The show still had a focus but it was the strength of these characters’ voices that changed it from what I’d originally planned to what it eventually became.

  The first draft was three acts, about one hundred and sixty pages and, quite rightly, horrified everyone who read it. Thankfully Braham Murray, then–artistic director of the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, England, saw enough potential to commit to a two-day reading/workshop. I was equally grateful that Toronto dramaturgical treasure Iris Turcott was willing to give me a very blunt but constructive assessment of the play’s strengths and weaknesses, which led to a major rewrite and edit, bringing the piece down to a much more manageable length and thematically clean draft. The only sticking point was the title, which Braham and the marketing team at the RX found challenging. After much to and fro-ing—I’ve often changed play titles at the last minute—I decided to replace the name Sylvia with Olivia as Edward Albee already had a title with that name in it and came up with the more timely Five @ Fifty.

  The show opened a year later at the RX with an amazing cast and design team. Having apparently reached that point in my career where my plays are no longer developed by theatres but simply judged either worthy of production or not, there wasn’t a lot of workshopping or public reading of the play. I did some rewrites and many cuts during rehearsal but, production pressures being what they are, some issues were never resolved. A poetic opening with each character listing what they were addicted to was cut after the first rather yawny preview, but I never quite found a way to reconcile a matching poetic bit at the end before we opened. I found it h
ard to watch the previews with an audience. As I later confessed on Facebook, “I felt like everyone was looking at my vagina.”

  To be fair, the script was close but not quite there. The story and characters were there, all of the events, the mood, etc., but the balance, the flavour, wasn’t quite harmonious yet. There were parts where too much was being said and other areas where not enough was being said. The ending still wasn’t working. These were all things that demanded a public reaction to repair, and the lack of development was deeply felt. Once a show’s open and running further changes are, quite rightly, not encouraged. I flew back to Canada two days after opening. It had a very successful run.

  The script, review quotes, box office reports and other enticements went out to theatres all across Canada and America. So far no one has picked up Five @ Fifty for production. I organized a sort of underground, guerrilla-style, invite-only, actors-working-for-free reading of the show that forced me to revisit the script and do all of the detailed alchemy required to make a play work better. The reading was wonderful and the positive response from the audience was palpable. It was this reading that allowed me to find the final scene of the show, which dispensed with the now incongruous poetic bit, and to come to this final version of the script.

  I’m a bit baffled why a show about the largest group of people who make up the theatre-going audience hasn’t managed to find another production. When I asked a female AD in Canada why she wouldn’t program the play she said it “Wasn’t in their mandate.” When I asked whether her mandate excluded plays about women, lesbian-ish sexuality or alcoholism she simply shrugged and smiled. Braham Murray was blunter in his assessment when he wrote me, “Men don’t give a shit and women don’t trust it because it’s written by you.”

  I hope her mandate changes and I hope he’s wrong.

  Time will tell.

  Brad Fraser

  Toronto

  July 23, 2012

  Five @ Fifty was first produced by the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, England, on April 12, 2011, with the following cast and crew:

  Jan Ravens: Olivia Fairfax

  Ingrid Lacey: Tricia Woodcock

  Teresa Banham: Norma Goulet

  Barbara Barnes: Fern Brown

  Candida Gubbins: Lorene Goodman

  Director: Braham Murray

  Designer: Johanna Bryant

  Lighting: Jason Taylor

  Sound: John Leonard

  Company manager: Lee Drinkwater

  Stage manager: Julia Wade

  Deputy stage manager: Tracey Fleet

  Assistant stage manager: Greg Skipworth

  THE CHARACTERS

  All aged fifty

  Olivia Fairfax

  Tricia Woodcock

  Norma Goulet

  Fern Brown

  Lorene Goodman

  THE SETTING

  Various locations as specified.

  PUNCTUATION NOTE

  A period is used to indicate the end of vocalization, not necessarily the end of a thought, likewise with capital letters at the beginning of sentences. Commas and other punctuation have been intentionally omitted.

  ACT ONE

  A doorbell rings. Lights rise on NORMA and OLIVIA’s living room, decorated for a party.

  NORMA: Come in.

  TRICIA enters with wine.

  TRICIA: Hey.

  NORMA: Tissue.

  They kiss and hug.

  How are you?

  TRICIA: Good.

  NORMA: You look great. Is that?

  TRICIA: Wine. Both colours. As requested.

  NORMA: Great. Drink?

  TRICIA: I’d blow a monkey for a bourbon.

  NORMA: Where did you learn those manners?

  TRICIA: Our Lady of Perpetual Sexual Abuse Roman Catholic Elementary School—something’s different.

  NORMA: I’ve gained ten pounds.

  TRICIA: Oh.

  NORMA: I was hoping it was water retention but it’s actually just fat thanx for asking.

  TRICIA: You should start cooking with a healthy butter alternative.

  NORMA: As if.

  TRICIA: You know better than butter.

  NORMA: Your drink.

  TRICIA: Am I early?

  NORMA: Always are.

  TRICIA: What can I do?

  NORMA gives her a hand pump.

  NORMA: Tie some balloons while I finish arranging fruit no one will touch.

  TRICIA: How are things at the office?

  NORMA: Horrifying. This weird viral outbreak has every kid with a cough in the office. And their poor mothers. I don’t know how those women cope.

  TRICIA: And your own doctor thing?

  NORMA: Fine.

  TRICIA: What did he say about your blood pressure?

  NORMA: High. We might do some drugs to bring it down.

  TRICIA: And the sleep thing?

  NORMA: Stress. Apnea. I have to go for a sleep test.

  TRICIA: I did one of those. It’s a nightmare. They stick wires all over your body and your head and then expect you to just go to sleep without sex or drugs or alcohol or anything. How many balloons?

  NORMA: Lots. And tie them in pretty bouquets.

  TRICIA: Have you told Olivia about it?

  NORMA: If it’s a problem I’ll let her know.

  TRICIA: If it’s a problem you let me know.

  NORMA: Of course. And your leg slash back thing?

  TRICIA: Tests and more tests. A touch of arthritis seems likely.

  NORMA: Let’s hope so.

  TRICIA: What else would it be?

  NORMA: A blockage or growth.

  TRICIA: Very reassuring thanx.

  NORMA: Just a possibility. No need to panic.

  The doorbell rings.

  It’s open.

  LORENE enters with a gift.

  Early.

  LORENE: My last showing was just a couple blocks away.

  NORMA and LORENE kiss. LORENE hands her the gift.

  NORMA: Fern’s already getting one. We decided.

  LORENE: I know but I couldn’t just. It’s a special day. Hey Tricia.

  They kiss.

  TRICIA: I wish you wouldn’t do that when we plan a group gift. It makes the rest of us look bad.

  LORENE: I know but.

  NORMA: You’re looking good.

  LORENE: Really?

  NORMA: That’s a new dress.

  LORENE: It is.

  TRICIA: Very fetching. I’m tying balloons into attractive bundles.

  LORENE: Can I help?

  NORMA: Put your gift on the table and get the cheese plate out of the fridge. Help yourself to a beer while you’re at it.

  LORENE: Beer. Yum.

  LORENE exits.

  TRICIA: So it’s just?

  NORMA: The usual suspects yes.

  TRICIA: And the birthday babe?

  NORMA: Some of those horrible women she works with have taken her for drinks.

  TRICIA: I’m so glad Lorene didn’t bring the bottom.

  NORMA: His name’s Clifford.

  TRICIA: Clifford’s Diana Ross collection makes me very nervous.

  NORMA: She swears they have excellent sex.

  TRICIA: But what does that mean coming from her?

  LORENE enters with the cheese plate and a beer.

  LORENE: I thought Olivia’d want some total blowout for the big five-oh. She’s not going to walk in early is she?

  TRICIA: She’s at a bar. Please.

  NORMA: She didn’t want a fuss.

  LORENE: Damn this is a nice cold beer.

  NORMA: I’ve always loved the unapologetic way you swill it right from the bottle.

  LORENE: You’d almost think I was the lesbian.

  NORMA: Almost.

  LORENE: You and Olivia are so lucky. I envy lesbians but unfortunately the only thing that can really satisfy me is a very large member.

  TRICIA: Is Clifford that
blessed?

  LORENE: He puts the cock in Caucasian.

  NORMA: Nice.

  LORENE: Ha. Fourth time lucky. But this is the one. I can feel it. He’s so into me.

  The doorbell rings.

  Fern.

  NORMA opens the door. FERN enters with a gift bag.

  FERN: Ladies.

  TRICIA: Hey Fern.

  FERN kisses TRICIA.

  FERN: Am I late?

  NORMA: No you’re right on time you just feel late because these two always show up early.

  FERN kisses LORENE.

  LORENE: That’s a cunning outfit.

  FERN: Call me a shopaholic.

  FERN kisses NORMA.

  NORMA: You’re in amazing shape.

  FERN: Yoga. My religion. Right after football practice with the boys.

  TRICIA: How are they?

  FERN: Giants. And beautiful. You girls won’t believe how they’ve matured.

  LORENE: White wine?

  FERN: You’re a dear.

  TRICIA: I haven’t seen them for a year.

  FERN: Nearly two. That’s a long time with teenagers. They change so fast.

  NORMA: Are they doing the girlfriend thing yet?

  FERN: Miles is. He’s been seeing the same girl for nearly a year. She’s very nice but Walt and I are trying to break them up. He’s young. He shouldn’t be getting so attached.