SHOPPERS CARRIED BY ESCALATORS INTO THE FLAMES
A DRAMA IN TWO ACTS
Shoppers Carried by Escalators into the Flames was written for Campo Santo + Intersection and premiered at Intersection for the Arts (Deborah Cullinan, executive director) in San Francisco, California, on August 8, 2001.
Produced by Campo Santo (James Faerron, Margo Hall, Sean San Jose, Luis Saguar, Michael Torres, Drew Yerys; Denis Johnson: playwright in residence)
Cast
GRANDMA: Helen Shumaker
CASS: Sean San Jose
DAD: Michael Torres
TV: Brian Keith Russell
BRO: Luis Saguar
SUZANNE: Lisa Joffrey
GIB: John Polak
MARIGOLD: Alexis Lezin
PASTOR ROCK: Brian Keith Russell
MARCY: Catherine Castellanos
(The role of MARIGOLD was understudied and also performed by Gabriela Barragan)
Original musical score by Marcus Shelby
Additional music by Jim Roll
Designed by Suzanne Castillo, James Faerron, and Drew Yerys
Directed by Nancy Benjamin
GRANDMA: Around eighty
DAD: Around sixty
MARIGOLD: His daughter, late twenties
CASS: His youngest son; around thirty
BRO: The middle brother; mid-thirties
SUZANNE: Around thirty
GIB: Around thirty
PASTOR ROCK
MARCY: Mid-thirties
TV: A box full of voices
Scene: A lower-middle-income apartment in Ukiah, California, at the start of the third millennium
Set consists of two levels, separately lighted: the upper, DADās bedroom; the lower, the kitchen/living room.
Players exit right, out the apartmentās front door (which opens directly onto the outdoors), or left, into a hallway (which leads to GRANDMAās room and also to the stairs up to DADās bedroom).
Sets and lighting should be simple and true-to-life; no music except as indicated. Let TV be realistically rendered and inhabited by a live actor.
Act I
SCENE 1
Downstairs at the Cassandra residence: kitchen-dining area; living area with a hide-a-bed couch, a recliner, a large TV with its face turned upstage.
GRANDMA at the stove, the sink. Because she doesnāt know where else to be. Making tea, washing dishes.
In the living room sits her grandson MARK CASSANDRA, called CASS: around thirty, in a Hawaiian shirt with a bullet hole in it; threadbare jeans; warped cowboy boots. Unshaven, unwashed.
Both look down at a little barking dog we canāt see but we sure can hearāindicated maybe just by one of those fifties-Disney-type elongated shadows on the wall. The dog is a Chihuahua. The bark is a yip.
DOG: Bark! bark! bark! bark! bark! bark! bark!
GRANDMA: Lord, look at her dribble. I donāt like old people or old dogs or anything old like that.
CASS jumps up and herds the tiny decrepit animal away from him with his toe.
CASS: Dang! Aināt it housebroke yet?
GRANDMA: That dog is twenty years old. It should be killedā¦Iām going to make you some biscuits!
CASS: Grandma, I donāt wanna stand in dog piss and hear about biscuits.
GRANDMA: Do you know what? Do you know what piss is? Urine.
She turns toward stove.
She opens and closes cupboards.
DOG (outside): Bark! bark! bark! bark!
CASS adjusts a laminated Johnny Carson clock on the wall:
CASS (to Johnny Carson): Sure, itās crazy. Did I say it wasnāt? Itās absurd. Youāre absurd.
GRANDMA: And popcorn!
She tosses a bag in the microwave.
Sporadic barking just outside the door.
CASS: Popcorn is absurd. (Shifting to rapid:) Okay, okay, okay, number one: I drank and I used and Iām like a (shouting toward the barking) DOG BEEN KICKED IN THE HEAD. Second Iām broke, number three Iām stuck here at Dadās house with Grandma, not to mention Dad himself, not to mention SHUT UP OR I WILL GODDAMN I PROMISE STEP ON YOUR HEAD ONE TIME.
Barking ceases.
GRANDMA: Boy, Jesus will forgive you that you talked to your grandmother thataway. But I believe I never will find it in my heart.
CASS: Have you got a cigarette?
GRANDMA: I donāt smoke.
CASS snags a butt from an ashtray.
CASS: Would you have a match?
GRANDMA: Your ass and my face!ā¦I mean my face, I mean, and your ass!
CASS finds a lighter in a kitchen drawer.
GRANDMA: I meant it the other way. Your face.
The popcorn takes off. The dog joins in. CASS drags deep on his abbreviated smoke and steps out the front door.
DOG: Bark! bark! bark! bark! bark! bark! YOWP!
GRANDMA putters around, forgets herself, moves slowly to the recliner and eases herself into it, starts to speak, realizes sheās al...