A PLAY.
Sorrows come not as single spies, but in battalions. What if nothing is left in their wake but newspaper clippings?
Tarragon Theatre, 2005
Starring John Jarvis
Directed by Andy McKim
"What a terrific evening! Many laughs, many insights, delicious commentary on the world as we live in it."
Robert Fulford
Teddy:
Because the freelancer is a trouble shooter, really.
An adventurer.
A writer of fortune
Someone who goes whenever the call comes
Someone who goes wherever the need arises.
His white scarf streaming from the cockpit.
His face black with oil,
His fuselage riddled with machine-gun fire.
Oh, yes.
It's headline writing one minute. Speeches the next.
Once,
I got the call to do
a corporate annual report for a parsnip company.
You smile?
Oh, go ahead.
Write about your broken heart.
Your shattered dreams.
Your loneliness.
Your despair.
Write about the cold, black emptiness
That sits,
Like a derelict theatre,
Like an abandoned hall,
Like a boarded-up gallery
in the ruins of your soul.
Anyone can do that.
Anyone can ....
(He searches for most appalling word he can think of)
Reminisce.
But what really separates the men from the boys
Is when you have to pay the rent by writing
Five thousand words on...
(He lunges for reference books. He reads from dictionary. Counts words on fingers as he does.)
"Parsnip. A biennial, umbelliferous plant used as a culinary vegetable."
Ten. Ten words down. Only four thousand, nine hundred, and ninety more to go.