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Talonbooks is a small, independent, Canadian book publishing company. We have been publishing works of the highest literary merit since the 1960s. With more than 500 books in print, we offer drama, poetry, fiction, and non-fiction by local playwrights, poets, and authors from the mainstream and margins of Canada’s three founding nations, as well as both visible and invisible minorities within Canada’s cultural mosaic. Learn more about us or about the playwright, George F. Walker.
PEOPLE LIVE HERE
THE
PARKDALE
TRILOGY
THE CHANCE
HER INSIDE LIFE
KILL THE POOR
by George F. Walker
Foreword by Wes Berger
Talonbooks
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Contents
Foreword by Rick Berger
People Live Here: The Parkdale Trilogy The Chance
Her Inside Life
Kill the Poor
Copyright Page
Page List
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Landmarks
Cover
Title Page
The Chance
FOREWORD
by Wes Berger
When I was growing up I fantasized about being in theatre, but there wasn’t much around me that made it seem like that could happen. In Chippawa, a working-class part of Niagara Falls, Ontario, young people were more inclined to go to bush parties or creekside bonfires for recreation or, if you were lucky enough to have a car, to cruise up and down Clifton Hill, the hub of the tourist area of the city. Somehow I found my way to Brock University in St. Catharines and took some theatre courses, but my connection to theatre still felt tenuous. It was only when I was introduced to George F. Walker’s plays that the hook landed good and deep. His characters talked like my uncles, and their determination to be seen, heard, and understood, their resilience in the face of seemingly impossible circumstances, inspired me. Their concerns – poverty, family, survival, rules and laws that seemed indifferent or even hostile to people’s well-being – were ones I had seen in my own life and in the lives of the people around me. For the first time, the theatre felt like a place where I might really belong.
When I was invited to write the preface for People Live Here, I asked myself what the three plays in Walker’s Parkdale Trilogy have in common, apart from being set in the same low-income apartment complex. On some level, all three plays are populist fantasies of belonging and justice, grounded by the great empathy Walker feels for his characters and expresses through them, and tempered by their genuinely deep grief and pain.
Because Walker writes about working-class characters, his plays are sometimes miscategorized, and thus misjudged, as “social realism.” The protagonists in this collection are all women who are marginalized by their life circumstances:
Marcie in The Chance by her poverty, depression, and age; Lacey in Kill the Poor by her poverty, history of addiction, and sex work; Violet in Her Inside Life by her mental illness and violent histo
ry. Is it likely that any of these women would end up with the almost-happy endings that these stories provide them? Probably not. But does that matter? Walker takes care to honestly depict these women’s socio-political conditions, and to overtly critique the power structures behind them; but what really lies at the strongly beating heart of these plays is a stirring mix of the representative and the mythic.
Part of the power of these often darkly hilarious, touching, and sometime-harrowing plays is that the playwright envisions a different kind of ending for his characters. These grieving, angry, beleaguered women endure so much, but they also fight back with huge reserves of toughness, intelligence, courage, and grit. They are genuine, layered, complex characters, and they are also inspirational folk heroes. In these works, Walker not only moves people who would normally be on the margins to centre stage, he gives them a fighting chance at winning. I love them all so much, I want to believe they might.
PEOPLE LIVE HERE
THE
PARKDALE
TRILOGY
Fiona Reid (Marcie), Claire Burns (Jo), and Anne van Leeuwen (Amie) in The Chance at the Assembly Theatre in Toronto, Ontario (October 12 to 28, 2017). All photographs by John Gundy, used with permission.
Anne van Leeuwen (Amie) and Claire Burns (Jo).
THE CHANCE
PRODUCTION HISTORY
The Chance was first produced by Leroy Street Theatre at the Assembly Theatre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, from October 12 to 28, 2017, with the following cast and crew:
MARCIE
Fiona Reid
JO
Claire Burns
AMIE
Anne van Leeuwen
Director
Wes Berger
Assistant Director
Martha Moldaver
Stage Manager
Lin-Mei Lay
Producers
Chris Bretecher and Melissa Wright
Production Manager
Melissa Wright
Set Designer
Chris Bretecher
Lighting Designer
Steve Vargo
Sound Designer
Tim Lindsay
Costume Designer
Laura-Rose MacPhee
Photographer
John Gundy
SETTING
A one-bedroom apartment in a low-income high-rise.
CHARACTERS
MARCIE, fifty-six
JO, twenty-three, Marcie’s daughter
AMIE, twenty-three, Jo’s co-worker
THE CHANCE
A one-bedroom apartment in a low-income high-rise. MARCIE, fifty-six, comes in from the kitchen, talking on her cellphone.
MARCIE: (on the phone) It doesn’t matter if it’s legal for you to raise it that much. I can’t pay it … Of course I’m sure. I’d have to make at least ten dollars an hour more to pay that much … Well, if you want to ask my boss for me, go ahead. I mean, I guess I could win the lottery, but since I can’t afford to buy a ticket … What kind of action? … You mean I’ll be evicted … Sure, you have another choice. Your other choice would be to just give me a break … Yes. You can … All you have to do is behave like a decent human being!
She disconnects. JO, her twenty-three-year-old daughter, comes out of the bathroom and heads for the kitchen.
MARCIE: How are you feeling?
JO: Okay …
MARCIE: Is that a lie?
JO: (making coffee) Yeah …
MARCIE: You should stop drinking. At least for a while. Give your body a break. It’d be the smart thing to do. (no response) So will you?
JO: (from the kitchen) Probably not.
MARCIE: Then you’ll keep suffering.
JO: But I’ll keep enjoying myself too. So it’s a saw-off.
MARCIE: Who was that you had in here last night?
JO: His name was Greg.
MARCIE: Craig?
JO: No. Greg. Or maybe Craig, yeah.
MARCIE: Did you meet him at work?
JO: Yeah.
MARCIE: So he was a customer.
JO: He’s a friend of Amie’s. She introduced us.
MARCIE: So he wasn’t a customer.
JO: He was both. Her friend and a customer.
MARCIE: I thought you weren’t going to have anything more to do with men who go to that place.
JO: That’s right. But –
MARCIE: He was a friend of Amie’s. Got it.
JO: Are you upset that I brought him back here? We tried not to make too much noise.
MARCIE: You mean when you were screwing your brains out on my couch. Why didn’t you go to his place?
JO: He’s in the middle of a divorce.
MARCIE: Meaning what?
JO: His wife is still in the house.
MARCIE: And even though the marriage is over, he thinks bringing a stripper home might be a little much.
JO: He didn’t want to upset her. They’re negotiating the terms of their –
MARCIE: Is that why she’s divorcing him? Because he goes to the clubs?
JO: Maybe.
MARCIE: You’re really just letting it go, aren’t you?
JO: Letting what go?
MARCIE: Any bit of common sense or decency you might have left.
JO: Well, I’m trying. You want coffee?
MARCIE: This isn’t going to help. This way of looking at things.
JO: I’m trying not to look at things at all, Mum. I’m just doing things, okay.
MARCIE: Stupid things. Stupid and –
JO: Do you want coffee or not?
MARCIE: You think you’re going to jail, don’t you.
JO: Coffee, Mum. Yes or no.
MARCIE: Yes. Coffee would be nice. Thank you. And a piece of toast.
JO: Sure …
She brings the coffee and returns to the kitchen.
MARCIE: You might not, you know. You might get community service. Then you could go back to school and –
JO: What do you want on this?
MARCIE: Sorry?
JO: Your toast. You want jam?
MARCIE: Yes, please. And margarine. Anyway what good does it do to dwell on the bad things?
JO: I’m not dwelling. (bringing toast) I’m preparing.
MARCIE: Sounds like you’re giving up
JO: I’m preparing to give up. If I have to serve time I want to be –
MARCIE: Numb …
JO: What?
MARCIE: Numb. You want to be numb. I get that but be careful you don’t take it too far. Total numbness might be hard to recover from. (eating) I like this jam better when it’s refrigerated.
JO: I’ll keep that in mind. I gotta get ready. I’m working the lunch hour.
JO starts off.
MARCIE: Yeah, what a thing that is. Men eating their lunch while you shake your ass in their faces … Oh I found your boyfriend’s wallet in the couch. (holding it up) Must have fallen out when –
JO: Just put it on the table, I’ll take it with me when I –
MARCIE: Man’s got a lot of credit cards.
JO: You looked?
MARCIE: Why not?
JO: Was there any cash?
MARCIE: Yeah. Four hundred bucks.
JO: Okay. You can keep that. He probably won’t miss it.
MARCIE: He might.
JO: No. He was pretty wasted. Just keep it, buy yourself something nice.
MARCIE: I’ll put it towards the rent.
JO: I gave you money for the rent.
MARCIE: I used it for hydro, and the car insurance.
JO: Buy yourself something. I’ll bring more for the rent when I finish my shift.
MARCIE: Big tippers, are they? The men who eat their lunch there.
JO: Some of them. (leaving) Depends.
MARCIE: On what?
JO: How well I fake it, I guess.
JO goes into the bathroom. MARCIE opens the wallet and takes out the money. She starts looking at all the credit cards. Finds a folded paper. Unfolds
it. Looks closely at it.
MARCIE’s phone rings. She answers it.
MARCIE: (on the phone) Speaking … (a long listening pause) Okay … Okay, I heard what you said. But I don’t know what I can do about that … If it’s accumulating, its accumulating … Well, maybe you could suspend the interest until I catch up … Well, who would I have to talk to if I wanted that to happen? … You just told me you couldn’t do that … So no one can then … Right … But if you don’t, I’ll never catch up, and eventually I’ll get so sick of owing you that much that I’ll probably just kill myself … No, it wasn’t a threat. It was an idea. Look, I need a break here … I got sick and wasn’t able to work for almost a year. It wasn’t an actual sickness. It was grief. I lost my partner … Yeah, thanks. Anyway, that meant that I had to live on my credit cards and … Excuse me. I wasn’t finished … Finished explaining how I got myself in this mess. But if that doesn’t matter … Okay, if it doesn’t matter enough … Nothing … It means I can give you nothing … Not this month.
A knock on the door.
JO: (from the bathroom) I’ll get it.
JO heads for the door.
MARCIE: Because this month is when I have to pay my Visa bill. Next month is when I was planning to pay you something … I don’t know. Maybe a hundred. Maybe a little more … No, not for sure. But I’ll try.
JO comes in with AMIE, her co-worker.
MARCIE: Look, it’s been great talking to you, but I have to go. The plumber’s here.
She disconnects.
JO: Who was that?
MARCIE: Mastercard.
JO: They hassling you?
MARCIE: I’m a little behind.
AMIE: You want some advice about how to handle those credit card companies? Tell them to go fuck themselves. They’re all thieving bastards.
MARCIE: Yes, they are. But I’m trying to hold on to some kind of half-decent credit rating.
AMIE: Why?
JO: She wants to buy a house.
AMIE: Really?
MARCIE: Just a small one. And I need to qualify for a mortgage.
AMIE: With what you make? Good luck.
MARCIE: How do you know what I make?
AMIE: Because I worked at Walmart too, remember? And you’re on reduced shifts, aren’t you?
People Live Here Page 1
