Title and Deed / Oh, the Humanity and other good intentions

Will Eno

• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781559367776
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Drama
• Index: Literature

"A haunting and often fiercely funny meditation on life as a state of permanent exile... The marvel of Mr. Eno’s voice is how naturally it combines a carefully sculptured lyricism with sly, poker-faced humor. Everyday phrases and familiar platitudes—'Don’t ever change,’ 'Who knows’—are turned inside out or twisted into blunt, unexpected punch lines punctuating long rhapsodic passages that leave you happily word-drunk." —Charles Isherwood, New York Times on Title and Deed " Title and Deed is daring within its masquerade of the mundane, spectacular within its minimalism and hilarious within its display of po-faced bewilderment. It is a clown play that capers at the edge of the abyss... Eno’s voice is unique; his play is stage poetry of a high order. You can’t see the ideas coming in Title and Deed. When they arrive—tiptoeing in with a quiet yet startling energy—you don’t quite know how they got there. In this tale’s brilliant telling, it is not the narrator who proves unreliable but life itself. The unspoken message of Eno’s smart, bleak musings seems to be: enjoy the nothingness while you can." —John Lahr, New Yorker "Eno is a supreme monologist, using a distinctive, edgy blend of non sequiturs and provisional statements to explore the fragility of our existence... There are a lot of words, but they are always exquisitely chosen... Oh, the Humanity reveals that we are beautiful walking tragedies blinking with absurd optimism into the camera lens of history." —Lyn Gardner, Guardian Known for his wry humor and deeply moving plays, Will Eno's "gift for articulating life's absurd beauty and its no less absurd horrors may be unmatched among writers of his generation" ( New York Times ). This new volume of the acclaimed playwright's work includes five short plays about being alive— Behold the Coach, in a Blazer, Uninsured; Ladies and Gentlemen, the Rain; Enter the Spokeswoman, Gently; The Bully Composition; and Oh, the Humanity —as well as Title and Deed, a haunting and severely funny solo rumination on life as everlasting exile. WILL ENO is a fellow of Residency Five at Signature Theatre Company in New York. His play The Open House premiered at Signature in 2014, and received an Obie Award, the Lucille Lortel Award for Best Play, and a Drama Desk Special Award. His play The Realistic Joneses premiered at Yale Repertory Theatre in 2012, and was produced on Broadway in 2014, for which he and the cast received a Drama Desk Special Award. His play Title and Deed premiered at Signature in 2012 and was presented at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2014. Both Title and Deed and The Realistic Joneses were included in the New York Times Best Plays List of 2012. Gnit, an adaption of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, premiered at Actors Theatre of Louisville in 2013. Middletown, winner of the Horton Foote Prize, premiered at the Vineyard Theatre in New York in 2010, and was then produced at Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago in 2011. Thom Pain (based on nothing) was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize and has been translated into many languages. The Flu Season premiered at the Gate Theatre in London in 2003, and later received the Oppenheimer Award for best New York debut production by an American writer. Tragedy: a tragedy premiered at the Gate Theatre in 2001, and was subsequently produced by Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2008. Mr. Eno lives in Brooklyn with his wife Maria Dizzia and their daughter Albertine.

OH, THE HUMANITY

and other good intentions

BEHOLD THE COACH, IN A BLAZER, UNINSURED

Dramatis Persona

THE COACH

Setting

A press conference. A table with a paper cup and several microphones on it.

THE COACH

He enters, places his keys, cigarettes, etc, on the table. Sits down.

All right, everybody, let’s just get going. You people know what I’ve come here to probably say. This should all come as all as no surprise. The phrase, of course, you are familiar with. It was a “building year,” this last year was. We suffered some losses, yes, we suffered some, last season, and we had to start out all over, in a fashion; we had to come at this thing as if it were a—you folks in the press can tell me if this is a pleonasm—a new beginning. We made some changes here and there and here and we made these, mainly, mostly, with the fans in mind, because we wanted the fans to be happy, in our minds we wanted the fans to love us. And I think they should be happy, in my mind I think they should love us.

Listen, last year was not the easiest year. The plan was that it would be for building, for rebuilding, for replacing what was lost, replenishing what was gone, and trying to reverse a routine of losing that had grown in-grown and somehow strangely proud. Our strategy was, in theory, to betray that which had become merely habit, to betray our very fear, the very thing that’s kept us alive, the thing that says to us: Don’t cross the street without looking both ways first; Don’t speak your mind and certainly never your heart.

Brief pause.

But habit’s a hard habit to break.

Brief pause.

And was it only habit that kept us from dropping to our knees in the middle of the street and sobbing and begging “Can somebody help me, please?” Was it just mere routine that kept us on our feet, with our mouths shut and our hands in our pockets?

One night, after practice—some of you might appreciate this—I found myself standing in the unforgivable light of a grocery store, staring at my reflection in a freezer, and realizing: “You’re not having a bad day—this is just what you look like, now. This is who the years are making you.” The praying kind probably would have prayed. I just wanted to grab a courtesy phone and beg into it: “Could someone come to the front of the store and clean up the spill that is my life on this earth? Could somebody please just somehow help me through this punishing crushing nauseating sorrow?”

Brief pause.

So that’s what this last year was. We had to look hard at a few things and, surprise surprise, we found that they looked hard back. But in many ways, I think we have to be happy. We sold some hot dogs. We got some sun, some fresh air. We played some close games—some of them, even, we were still in until right up to the end. It was the life, it really was, and, granted, yeah, no, this was not the greatest year. Some people are saying it was barely even a shambles. I’m sure there’s a more charitable view, but, okay: fair enough. Fair enough.

Brief pause.

I had no idea how hard hard was until this year came around. Nights, whole nights, weeks of nights, in a row. I bet I walked a thousand miles up and down my street alone. I came home and went out, walking. My eyes all runny, just walking, counting up the things I don’t have anymore, thinking of the Fair Lady of my own incompetent sonnets. Who I lost, by the way. Or, failed to win. Or, forfeited, in some miserable show of inwardness, or downwardness, or shame.

Brief pause.

It was a hard year. Tough schedule.

Brief pause.

My love is like a sunset, stunning, and then over.

And in the year since her, there has not been

A single thing but ashes and formalities.

A year of cigarette butts and minor car crashes.

Rosemary, for remembrance;

Glucosamine and Chondroitin, for the joints.

And I will never love

any thing or body again.

And I am not young and handsome.

And I could not coach a gallon of water

Out of a paper bag.

Pause.

So. That was some poetry. And, so, yes, obviously, I’ve had my doubts. I’ve had what you people might call Personal Problems. But I tried. To run things different. With a little elegance, a new uniform. I tried writing that thing about the sunset. I tried to act with some sense of honor and calm amidst the urgency and vulgarity of the—I don’t know. You tell me, you lived through it, too, you lived right straight through it, too. What was this year? Can we even—I don’t know. Christ Jesus Christ.

He directs the question toward a person in the audience.

What did you feel, this past year? Of what would you be speaking, if ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Title and Deed
• Oh, the Humanity and other good intentions
• About the Author