Cul-de-sac

by Daniel MacIvor

  CUL-DE-SAC

  Daniel MacIvor

  Talonbooks

  Contents

  Cover

  Foreword

  First Production Notes

  Cul-de-sac

  About Talonbooks

  Copyright Information

  Foreword

  Cul-de-sac is the fourth one-man show I have created with Daniel MacIvor.

  In the past, the work on each show would begin with Daniel proposing a title, a concern, an obsession, a theme. Daniel and I would meet, and he would read to me from his notebook. The notebook contained scattered ideas, impressions, and proposals for the work to be developed. Cul-de-sac was an exception.

  The big black notebook Daniel brought to our first meeting was blank. Though the notebook was blank, we knew something about what we wanted to do; we wanted to do a show about neighbourhood, about how people live together, about a specific neighbourhood in which something burns or someone dies, a show about what connects and separates people. Lonely people trying to connect. We wanted to create a little cul-de-sac in a theatre each and every night. The stage was the end of the dead end. Daniel also knew that he wanted to play a number of characters, and it all had something to do with the idea of “transformation.”

  Our work was to proceed as follows: an initial exploratory workshop in the Backspace at Theatre Passe Muraille, and several months later, a four week workshop in Montreal, where we would present “a work in progress” to a small audience.

  Our first rehearsals in Toronto consisted of long, meandering conversations in the theatre, with one of us often complaining about our life while the other played the sage and offered cheap advice. We would then go for coffee (I can’t remember who was or wasn’t smoking at the time—we weren’t drinking). We would come back to the theatre, and Daniel would—on a good day—start to improvise. As he played, he found the voices for a group of nasty teenagers who had formed a rock band named “G-d’s cunt” (or “God’s C-nt,” can’t remember which). He spent an afternoon introducing the band with various voices, and we excitedly chattered about the world inhabited by these teenagers; who knew who, who wore what, who lived where (we often find ourselves gossiping about people who don’t exist).

  One afternoon Daniel did something very funny with a box of tissues.

  We spent a few days messing around, playing around, and talking around. We talked a lot about where we were in our lives (often on the edge of despair), with the speaker often pacing about the little stage in the backspace, the listener waiting for his turn to talk. In these early rehearsals we often tell each other secrets (one such secret that I’m not allowed to tell is a part of this story). We talk of fears, hopes, disappointments, desires, the usual. We talk about other projects we are working on.

  At that time, Daniel was working on a script for his first feature film, Past Perfect. On the evening of the third day of rehearsal, I read the film script. When I came in to the theatre the next day, I told him I thought the script had some problems and asked if he had time before shooting to work on it. He didn’t. He was about to shoot a feature film with an under-developed script while Cul-de-sac was scheduled for a mere “work in progress” presentation in Montreal in the distant future. As a result, we spent the remainder of our workshop discussing the screenplay. I have no idea if those discussions ended up influencing the movie Daniel eventually made. I do know that they did influence Cul-de-sac, by devouring our time and attention.

  The Toronto workshop was not fruitful. In fact, I don’t think a single invention from those few days of work made it into our final play. Perhaps there was a glimmer of the beginnings of the character Madison.

  I have often been asked how to go about making a play. I usually respond, “book a venue.” In the case of Cul-de-sac our venue had been booked; Usine C in Montreal. Daniel and I understood that we were to be an informal part of the Theatre du Monde Festival. We were to present our “work in progress” in the studio space at Usine C. The show would be attended by a sophisticated audience, small in numbers, that would understand how to suspend judgment for a “work in progress.” This was after all the land of Carbone 14 and Robert Lepage. We had four weeks at Usine C to come up with a little something to show people.

  In the weeks before our departure we were both very busy with other projects, and had given Cul-de-sac little thought.

  Upon our arrival in Montreal, we were given an itinerary; a long impressive list of press interviews. We were going to be on the cover of a weekly magazine, and were to be featured in a number of articles. We were, as it turned out, one of three major shows at the Festival du Monde. We were to open Cul-de-sac at an international theatre festival in four weeks in a theatre that seats four hundred.

  We had no show to show.

  We went to work. Our process was quite simple; Daniel sat in a chair, I sat in a chair. I asked him questions. Slowly, or quickly, he would assume a voice, a character, a name, a gender—sometimes I would make a suggestion as to where to place his voice, what to do with his posture, how to amplify a gesture. I would talk to the character (the neighbour) that Daniel was inhabiting. Often, these characters were quite rude.

  As Daniel talked, I wrote down what was of interest to me. I would ask simple questions, sometimes leading questions, and Daniel would answer. Often we would end up in a kind of conversation in which the creature Daniel had created would tell intimate stories or flirt with me or insult me or spew out elaborate philosophies or state crude opinions.

  When we had had enough, I would read Daniel my notes, perhaps editing as I went, perhaps adding, and he would write down what I said in his notebook, again, editing and adding as he went. We would discuss what was funny, what was a possible narrative strategy, what seemed a fruitful motif. We talked about plays we’d done in the past, how this one might differ, what makes theatre interesting, idly talking and talking for hours on end, reflecting, and remembering. The work was productive, although we had no play, nothing remotely like a play. We had Daniel’s big black notebook, and I had a big black notebook filled with words.

  We began to panic. We decided that we would simply not be ready to present anything, that this international theatre festival was far too visible and reputable an event in which to present a “work in progress.” We thought that since we had never done the one-man show Here Lies Henry in English in Montreal, we should do it in Cul-de-sac’s place. We made a flurry of panicked phone calls to Sherrie Johnson, the producer of the show, to Andy Moro, who had last operated lights for Here Lies Henry, to the people in the office at da da kamera to see if they had all the material we would need for Here Lies Henry, and to Marie Helene Falcon, the producer of the festival. We spoke to Marie Helene. We proposed that we do Here Lies Henry. She was entirely uninterested in our proposition, and insisted that we continue work on Cul-de-sac. She reminded us that her audience knew what “work in progress” meant, and that she was very much looking forward to seeing the beginnings of our new play.

  Her expression of faith was bone shatteringly disappointing. We had no play, but we had an audience.

  Sherrie did most of the negotiating with Marie Helene, although everyone talked to everyone, and we eventually agreed that we would do the show in the main auditorium at Usine C, but would change the seating around so that there would be between 120 and 140 seats. We went back to work. We asked our hosts at Usine C to hang some lights so that we could begin to experiment with design. We played CDs, seeking music for the show. Daniel continued to talk in his chair, I continued to ask questions, and the notebooks continued to fill with possibilities.

  The weekend was approaching. I was to go to Toronto to spend time with my children while Daniel was to attempt to write a draft based on the work he had been collecti
ng in his notebook. On Thursday I had dinner with Daniel. We had a beer. Some friends joined us. We had another beer. Daniel bought a pack of cigarettes. He declared that he was going to stay and drink. When Daniel stays to drink, he does so with abandon. I went back to the hotel.

  At ten the next morning I was riding my bike along Rue Ontario on my way to the theatre when I saw a strange looking gentleman on a bicycle, his eyes wide, pupils dilated, face pale. It was Daniel. He stopped in front of me. He explained that he had been in an after hours bar after hours and had left his orange bag unattended, and in those few moments it was stolen. His black notebook was in the bag. He had been riding back and forth along Rue Ontario looking for his notebook, rummaging in trash cans throughout the neighbourhood with the hope that the thief had no use for notebooks and had tossed it in the garbage, or had taken whatever valuables (including Daniel’s watch) and thrown the orange bag away. The notebook was not to be found. Daniel had fallen off the wagon and he was feeling guilty, ashamed, and hung over.

  It was little over two weeks before our work in progress was to be presented, and we did not have the document that would form the basis of the performance. Over the next two days, we attempted to reconstruct his notes from my notes; a desperately laborious effort and a desperately uninspired one. We were soaked in worry.

  At the end of the two days Daniel had reconstructed his notes, and we had the beginnings of characters, some good lines, some thoughts on what would happen in this Cul-de-sac, who lived there, what the people might say. We had an opera buff, an autistic boy, the boy’s sister, and their father the lawyer. We had a couple from Cape Breton who talked constantly about sex and barbecues, we had an old guy who was dangerously similar to an old guy we had in our last play. We were also interested in an article Daniel found in a local paper that told the story of two neighbours who were battling over a property line. Also with us in Montreal at that time was Amiel Goldstein, a young man we both very much respected. He was there as an apprentice/assistant. He was asked to do a little research on Asperger’s, HIV, lawyer lingo, etc … And I had to go to Toronto.

  And so, in the next several days, as I returned to the bosom of my family, Daniel lived his own drama as he furiously wrote a play. Cul-de-sac was born. More importantly, Daniel’s night on the town spawned a new character, Eric. He was born the night Daniel stayed out too late, born of Daniel’s shame, frustration, fear, and anger at the bastard who stole his bag and all the stuff in it—like the black notebook and his watch.

  Daniel had also fallen upon the central event of the play.

  In the meantime, we continued giving interviews. The main theme of those interviews was “process,” and we stressed over and over again that we were doing a “work in progress.”

  We moved into the theatre. We had a script to work from—all of the characters in the finished version of Cul-de-sac already existed—and we had an extremely clever idea: Leonard, the central character, would never appear. He was only talked about. We learned about him solely through what the neighbours had to say.

  Rehearsal continued. One night, about three days before our opening, we had an idea as to how we would present the play; Daniel would sit at a long table and the play would be like a series of interviews, a kind of documentary, with each of the characters in turn accounting for the events of that murderous night. We brought a long table on stage, Daniel sat behind it and read through the text. Not so interesting. We tried it a number of different ways, but each time he read the text it felt utterly inconsequential. We were weak with despair.

  Sherrie Johnson had arrived in Montreal, and was aware of the difficulties we were having. There was not much she could do. Daniel was going to be on a stage in front of 140 people very soon. I walked home with him that evening. We tried desperately to figure out what it was the play needed. For forty minutes he made me laugh, throwing out one wild proposition after another, one idea after another, improvising on one verbal hook after another, falling into one vivid voice after another, each voice insane, each shatteringly panicked and funny, but not one word useful to us.

  That night in our hotel I had a discussion with Sherrie on the telephone. I told her that we did not have a show, and I didn’t think we would have one in two days. She calmly said, “If you want to cancel the opening, that’s fine, as long as you take responsibility for it.” She said the right thing. She provoked me. I was determined to find a solution. I quickly concluded that Leonard needed a voice. The conceit of the central character never speaking was not working. He needed to speak, and he needed to be the centre of the show. I spent the night going over it, making sure that such a shift in the form of the play would work, that it made sense, that it was elegant enough as an idea that Daniel could act upon it in a short time. Daniel was in rough shape. I had to be searingly clear with him.

  At seven the next morning I went to his room. I told him what I thought. He was begrudgingly receptive. We talked about what kind of rewrites he might do. He agreed to try. I went back to my room, and for the next fifteen minutes I heard noises— things hitting the wall, cries of despair. Daniel was having a tantrum in the room next door. Then the noises subsided, and I went to sleep.

  While I slept, and over the next ten hours, the voice of Leonard, the five-minute “nooooo,” and the time structure of Cul-de-sac were invented by a feverish and all too awake Daniel MacIvor.

  The next day the work continued; Daniel wrote, Amiel researched Gilbert and Sullivan, lights were hung, Daniel wrote and memorized, wrote and memorized, a stage was built, Kim Purtell and I cued the lights as Richard Feren built the sound, the panic peeked, and then, suddenly, 140 people came to Usine C, and sat down, all looking in the same direction, into our Cul-de-sac. Daniel had somehow learned the text. He performed it with incredible command. The show ended, and people applauded. Then they stood, and continued applauding.

  In the ensuing year we performed Cul-de-sac in Philadelphia, Antigonish, and Toronto. In each city we worked on the play. We reassessed text, performance, lights, and sound. We refined verbal rhythms, clarified character and tone, developed details in Leonard’s world. Daniel found increasing confidence with his performance, and on the surface the play was driven less and less by fear. Nonetheless, the essence of the play that exploded into life in Montreal changed very little. Daniel gave birth to Cul-de-sac in a heightened state of fear, a fear that is not unusual for any person who presents their work to the public, to a very large neighbourhood. It is a fear that is familiar to most people, it is a fear of the question, “What will the neighbours say?” From the point of view of the play’s central character Leonard, Cul-de-sac is an answer to that question.

  —Daniel Brooks

  First Production Notes

  Cul-de-sac was first performed in May 2002 at Usine C in Montreal, Quebec as part of Theatre du Monde with the following cast and crew:

  Text and Performance: Daniel MacIvor

  Director and Dramaturgy: Daniel Brooks

  Lighting Design: Kim Purtell

  Sound and Music: Richard Feren

  Assistant Director: Amiel Gladstone

  Song: “If You See My Love,” written by Mary Margaret O’Hara, used by permission of the artist.

  Cul-de-sac

  A storm builds. Lightning flashes. Rain subsides. Light up.

  LEONARD

  Interesting.

  I’ve always been a sucker for an interesting story.

  I mean I don’t know if it’s going to be interesting to you, I don’t know you. It’s interesting to me because it happened to me. I mean it wasn’t even all that interesting to me really. It was one of those things you approach thinking, “oh this is going to be interesting,” and then when it’s happening you think “this is not interesting at all,” and then you just go through with it in hopes that it will be interesting in the telling. But there’s not really that much to tell. Oh great, there’s not much to tell and not how long in ...

  He checks his watch.

>   Oh I shouldn’t have that on.

  He takes off the watch.

  That’s evidence. It used to be mine. Now it’s evidence.

  He pockets the watch.

  (he sings the theme song to “Law and Order”) Do-do-do-do-do. “Law and Order.” I can understand if you didn’t get that. Apparently I’m somewhat tone deaf. If someone can be “somewhat” tone deaf.

  Note: whenever LEONARD says a word which is written in quotations he makes a “quotations” gesture with his fingers.

  Pause.

  My first mistake was leaving the house.

  Well no, my first mistake that night was leaving the house, if we’re going to talk about first mistakes we’re going to have to go back a lot farther than that. In which case my first mistake would probably be not trying harder to like hockey.

  I don’t like hockey. Can you tell? Well I should hope so, what do you think this is? An accent? What am I, Australian? I always thought of Australians being gay because they were so obsessed with Barbies and so was I!

  No I don’t like hockey.

  I like the costumes. But those shoes?

  Pause.

  Or maybe my first mistake was trying to pretend I didn’t need anybody. But I do.

  Or maybe my first mistake was not realizing that sophistication was something you could develop, as opposed to, you know, be “born with.” I never did get that.

  You all seem pretty sophisticated. I mean I don’t know you but, just you know, the “vibe.” Well clearly you’re sophisticated, you’re the type of people who attend a “cultural event.” I was never much for cultural events. I was more movies. Not even really ... I was more HGTV. Oh, but one time I saw Lena Home. That was you know ... Oh and I saw Bonnie Raitt. But that was more—

  Takes lighter from pocket and holds it aloft and lit—then pockets lighter.