by Paula Vogel
EMILIA: Now, then—
(Starts) One, two, three, four, five, six…
29.
The same.
EMILIA: Forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven…
30.
Desdemona and Emilia. Emilia reaches the hundredth stroke.
EMILIA: Ninety-seven…ninety-eight…ninety-nine…
(They freeze. Blackout.)
END OF PLAY
Hot ‘N’ Throbbing
PRODUCTION HISTORY
A workshop of Hot ’N’ Throbbing was directed by Anne Bogart at Circle Repertory Theatre in October 1993 with the following cast:
GIRL
Kristina Lear
BOY
Allan Heinberg
WOMAN
Leslie Lyles
MAN
Jeffrey LeBeau
VOICE-OVER
Zoey Zimmerman
THE VOICE
Robert Watson
Hot ’N’ Throbbing opened April 16, 1994 at the Hasty Pudding Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The play was produced by American Repertory Theatre under Robert Brustein, Artistic Director, with a grant from the Fund for New American Plays, a project of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts with support from the American Express Company, in cooperation with the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. It was directed by Anne Bogart, with sets by Christine Jones, lights by John Ambrosone, sound and music by Christopher Walker and costumes by Jenny Fulton. The cast was as follows:
GIRL
Amy Louise Lammert
BOY
Randall Jaynes
WOMAN
Diane D’Aquila
MAN
Jack Willis
VOICE-OVER
Alexandra Loria
THE VOICE
Royal Miller
SOME PLAYS ONLY DAUGHTERS CAN WRITE.
Hot ’N’ Throbbing was written on a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship—because obscenity begins at home.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I began work on this play in 1985. While I was driving the streets of Providence late at night, suddenly the vision of the play’s ending came upon me with a terrible clarity. I knew that I would have to face this play in my future, and that certainty fueled a fear that kept me driving the deserted downtown streets in circles.
It was not until 1990, after my brother’s illness and Baltimore Waltz, that I sat down with a reading list to begin research on the play. Again, late at night, as I began reading about domestic violence, I thought I heard a woman’s cry—it was past midnight, and the street outside my house was abandoned. I would turn a page of my book, hear a faint cry, stop and listen. Was it an intimate response somewhere in the night to a couple’s love-making or something more dangerous? I concentrated on the sound until I could pinpoint the source. Taking my house keys with me, I ventured out on the street. There I saw, half a block down, a car idling in the middle of the street. When I heard a man’s voice say: “Shut up, bitch,” and thought I saw a drawn knife inside the car, my worst fears were confirmed. I ran back to the house, started my own car and drove behind the car at a fast pace until I could flag down a police car to pursue the chase. Finally, the car was stopped by police; a shaking woman emerged, bleeding from a cut to her face.
She declined to press charges.
As I continued to work on the play, I kept a file filled with clippings from the Providence Journal on incidents of domestic violence. Providence is a relatively small city, of approximately 190,000 residents. Within less than a year, the file was crammed two inches thick. Domestic violence was all around us as I wrote.
Incentive to finish the play came from Senator Jesse Helms and Congress; the obscenity pledge now had to be signed by all recipients of the National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, in which fellows would pledge not to write or create art that caused offense to the community. I applied for an NEA grant, received one and wrote Hot ’N’ Throbbing to see just what would be perceived as pornographic, eager to test the censorship of the NEA pledge.
Ironically, now, five years later, I realize that Jesse Helms and the fundamentalist Right are not the greatest threats to the arts community. Rather, it is our own cooperation with the Right within the arts community. For some time now, many theatres have been choosing their seasons from fear rather than conviction. We have quietly, silently, drifted to the Right in our seasonal offerings of benign and often vacuous theatre: boulevard theatre (now termed “classic”) of the 1930s to 1950s; new comedies in the ’90s written within the mode of Harvey; and an occasional political drama imported from South America, South Africa or England to expiate our own lack of moral courage. And of course, we have trumpeted Angels in America (rightly, in terms of its dramatic and political importance) with an almost hysterical relief: So many of us are now “off the hook.” For the rest of the decade, we can relax. We can point to Angels in America, rather than produce a continuing dialogue with Tony Kushner’s ground-breaking work.
Peter Franklin, my agent, a man of both literary discrimination and marketing savvy, read the first draft of Hot ’N’ Throbbing. His remark: “I think we may get two productions of this play—one here and one abroad.”
To date, only two artistic directors of professional companies—Robert Brustein of the American Repertory Theatre and Andrew Manley of the Harrogate Theatre in England—have produced this play. The premiere of Hot ’N’ Throbbing occurred two months before the murder of Nicole Simpson.
To return to the play: I was interested to learn that “obscene” came from the Greek, for “offstage.” Violence in the Greek theatre was kept “offstage”: Platforms on wheels brought the bodies onstage to show the outcome, rather than the act. We have abdicated our responsibility for showing the results of violence to film, which all too often fetishizes the act rather than its impact. At a time when the Simpson trial became a media frenzy, my play itself has been kept “offstage”—many artistic directors have told me that it is too disturbing; audiences won’t want to “see that onstage” (the same audiences that pack Pulp Fiction); or that the play is anti-pornography; or that the play is pro-pornography.
Domestic violence respects neither gender, race nor class. No politically correct approach can encompass all aspects of this problem. I worry that there is no longer a place for audiences to come to a civic space—the theatre—to confront the disturbing questions of our time. I remain scared of the dark—scared of our darkness—and I seek a communal light in the darkness of our theatres.
Censorship is alive and well in 1995: a benign censorship, a censorship within. If we cannot confront domestic violence on our stages, we will not be able to eliminate it from our living rooms.
Paula Vogel
December 28, 1995
CHARACTERS
GIRL: About fifteen.
BOY: About fourteen.
WOMAN: Almost thirty-four. Wears Lina Wertmuller glasses. On-again, off-again member of Weight Watchers.
MAN: Over thirty-four. Holes in dungarees. Almost a beer belly. (Note to actor: You’ve got to go gangbusters on this role. The bigger the asshole you are, the more we’ll love you. Trust me on this.)
VOICE-OVER: Hard to tell her age under the blue lights. Voice-Over (V.O.) narrates the script that The Woman is writing, her inner voice. She is a sex worker: at times bored with her job; at times emphatically overacting, trying to land a role in a legitimate film. Voice-Over watches the stage action from her glass booth, where she dances. Her voice is amplified through a microphone. Her voice is sensual and husky.
THE VOICE: He is a presence, more than a person. At times he acts as a bouncer/owner in the erotic dance hall. His voice is also amplified through a microphone, and it is always theatrical, rich, baritone and commanding. The Voice breathes a lot through the mike. The Voice’s dialect varies from German, French, Victorian British and Brooklynese. It often sounds just like The Man. The Voice also acts like a live DJ, spinning the score of the piece, always
impassive to the onstage action. The Voice may wear headsets and sunglasses.
Note on Krafft-Ebing for The Voice. Krafft-Ebing has three sides in this piece: his lectures on sexuality to first-year medical students, his condescending talk to a ladies’ club luncheon and his impassive dictation during an autopsy for police.
SET
There are two play worlds in this piece. The stage lights and the blue lights—reality, constructed as we know it; and the erotic dance hall, as we fantasize about it.
First, the blue light: The interior of the nude dance hall, The Foxy Lady. On either side of the stage, there are glass enclosures. Stage left is the glass encasement of The Voice-Over, like the cheap porno acts, live, for a buck. Stage right is the sound booth where The Voice reigns with his equipment, microphone and tinted glass. Both booths are very high-tech in appearance.
In the midst of the dance-hall interior there is a platformed construction of a living room, almost like an island floating in the deep blue light. It should look like the living room of a townhouse that cost $79,900 five years ago, on a 9½% mortgage, no deposit down. Although we never see the upstairs, we know there are two bedrooms, one bath; downstairs there is a half-bath. These preconstructed developments are called “empty-nesters.”
Both The Foxy Lady and the living room have this in common: They are stages for performance, for the acting out of erotic fantasies, for viewing.
A few pieces. A sofa that folds out, in a tweed. A matching armchair. A coffee table. Television set, which may or may not be running erotica—if there is erotica, no one in the family notices.
The door to the half-bath. A front door. On the lower stage left, a large, white office-desk complex, with a secretary, holding a computer and printer. Along the wall behind this office-island, where the dining room was supposed to be, is the ubiquitous sliding patio doors, looking out onto the parking lot in a suburb. Premade, cream curtains that sort of match the tweed. And, oh yes—wall-to-wall shag.
On the other side of the sliding patio doors, a red ramp curves its way out into the audience in the shape of an engorged tongue—a runway/dance area for stripping.
MUSIC NOTES
I wrote this piece to several soundtracks: Janet Jackson’s Control (particularly “Nasty”), and Kaoma’s World Beat. After The Girl’s last appearance, with the mention of horror movies, I wrote to the tape of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, and the soundtrack to Silence of the Lambs. Sound tapes from horror movies, and A.M.G. and other rap might be played under the action (Frank Sinatra is also a nice possibility). The main thing is that the music changes from erotic to terrorific.
Two more props. Blue light where indicated and music. Music always helps to get it up.
In a growing blue light, we see The Girl dressed in very tight pants and a halter top, making suggestive stripper or vogueing movements. At end of Voice-Over, we see an older woman sitting at a computer screen, typing. Living room.
V.O.
“CUT TO: INTERIOR. NIGHT. VOICE-OVER:
She was hot. She was throbbing. But she was in control. Control of her body. Control of her thoughts. Control of…him.
He was hot. He was throbbing. And out of control. He needed to be restrained. Tied Down. And taught a Lesson.
But not hurt. Not too much. Just enough. Enough to make the burning hotter, the throbbing hotter. Just…enough. She would make his flesh red all over. She would raise the blood with her loving discipline. And she would make him wait. Make him beg. Make them both wait…until she was ready.”
WOMAN AND VOICE-OVER: And she would make him wait. Make him beg.
WOMAN (Types): Sounds too male-bashing—“Make him ask?” Oh, fuck it. “Make him beg…Make them both beg…”
(Suddenly the bathroom door slams open in stage light. The Girl stands in front of the sink dressed as before.)
GIRL (Screams): MAAHM! WHERE’S YOUR EYELINER?
WOMAN: ON THE TOP SHELF! BY THE BEN GAY!
(Back to flat, narrative tone at computer.)
WOMAN: “Until she was ready. Ready to release them both at the end of a long, hard night. Ready to heave herself to the other side of her love throes, ready to give it up—”
GIRL: MAAHM! CAN I USE YOUR MASCARA!!
WOMAN: Sounds like upchucking. “Ready to pant, ready to scream, ready to die in each other’s arms…”
(Stops; calls out) Leslie Ann! What are you doing?
GIRL: Puttin’ on some pancake.
WOMAN: Why are you putting on makeup.
GIRL: I already told you.
WOMAN: No you did not tell me.
GIRL: I Did. So.
WOMAN: Why are you wearing makeup.
GIRL: I’m Going. Out.
WOMAN: Where?
GIRL: Out. To Lisa’s. To Spend The Night.
WOMAN: This is the first time I’ve heard about it.
GIRL: I Told You!
WOMAN: I don’t want you going to Lisa’s.
GIRL: But Why?!
WOMAN: Because I. said. so.
GIRL: I’m goin’.
WOMAN: Her parents do not supervise that young lady. You are not going to Lisa’s.
GIRL: But all the girls will be there!
WOMAN: You are not all the girls.
(The Girl slams bathroom door. We hear the water running.)
GIRL (Offstage): I’MM GOING!
(The Woman sighs; types.
Blue Light. The Boy enters. The Girl emerges from bathroom in tight pants.
Exaggerated movements of Boy humping Girl from behind with clothes on.)
V.O.
“VOICE-OVER CONTINUED:
He wanted to enter her. Penetrate her secrets with his will. He wanted to gently pry open that sweet channel that leads to joy, and fill her with his passion until the dull pain faded into pleasure, until her hips locked into a rhythm to match his. Together they would rock each other, clinging to each other as the tempo got faster, faster, faster and faster, faster and faster and faster, faster…”
(The Boy stops as lights go back to normal, and slumps on sofa. The Girl stands facing The Woman.)
GIRL: You just don’t care. You want me to stay in this boring house until I rot like you and four-eyes on the sofa over there.
WOMAN: Leslie Ann. I am behind my schedule. I’ve got to get out forty pages by the first mail tomorrow morning, and I’m on page twenty-six.
GIRL: Layla. I am not answering to a dumb-shit name like Leslie Ann.
BOY (Singing riff, and then): “LAY-LA!! YOU’VE GOT ME ON MY KNEES.”
GIRL: MAH-HM.
WOMAN: I’m sorry, sweetie. Layla.
BOY: “LAY-LA! I’M BEGGING DARLIN’, PLEASE.”
GIRL: Shut up, creep!
BOY: Are you going out in those tight pants?
GIRL: What business is it of yours?
BOY: Those pants are so tight you can see your P.L.s.
GIRL: Shut up.
(The Woman looks up from typing with interest.)
WOMAN: What are P.L.s?
(No Answer.)
GIRL: Nothin’.
BOY: Hey, as long as I don’t have to walk you up the aisle for some shotgun wedding, you trouncing around with your P.L.s hanging out…
WOMAN: P.L.s?
GIRL: Why don’t you just go beat-off in your room, you little pervo…
WOMAN: Those pants are too tight. Did you spray-paint them on?
GIRL: Betcha wish you had my thighs, huh, Ma?
WOMAN: We are not discussing the subject of my thighs. You are not leaving this house dressed like that.
GIRL: Huh. That’s funny. Coming from you.
WOMAN: What’s that supposed to mean?
GIRL: Nothin’.
WOMAN: I could kill your father for telling you kids a thing like that. I do not write pornography. There’s a mile of difference between that and…adult entertainment. He wouldn’t know the difference.
BOY: I think it’s cool, Mom.
GIRL: Shut up, toady.<
br />
WOMAN: This is not about me. You will not fling…the way I make.a.living into my face every time I give. you. a. directive. The way I put food on the plate, and Reeboks on the feet. You are not leaving this house, period, young lady. I want you to go upstairs to your room and do some homework for a change. Your grades last quarter were a disgrace.
GIRL: Calvin gets to go out.
WOMAN: Calvin has a 3.5. Calvin can go out all he wants on a Friday night. You are staying home and opening up a book. You’ll like it. Silas Marner. I loved that book.
BOY: Her book report’s due Monday.
WOMAN: You children can read quietly in your room. I’ve got to get this section done. Go on upstairs and open up your books.
BOY: The only thing Leslie Ann wants to open is her P.L.s.
WOMAN: Calvin! Quit picking on your sister!
GIRL: Get your little tattletale nose out of my P.L.s., creep!
WOMAN: I’VE HAD IT! What are you talking about? Leslie Ann?
GIRL: Ask Calvin. Go ahead, little brother, tell Mom what you’ve been calling me.
WOMAN: Calvin?
(No response)
I asked you a question.
BOY: P.L.s are a name for a girl’s…you know.
GIRL: It’s not very nice. You know, for an honor-roll creep, you sure use some nice language.
WOMAN: When I was growing up, I didn’t have a room of my own. And so I was determined that my children would each have their own privacy. Your mother sleeps on a convertible sofa that has to be made up each morning so you can have your own space. I want you both to go upstairs to your rooms, if you can’t be quiet and act normal down here.
GIRL: Some privacy. The walls are paper-thin. How can I concentrate when all I can hear is four-eyes beating-off?
BOY: I do not! You have the mouth of a slut, Leslie Ann!
GIRL: You beat-off! In the catcher’s mitt Daddy gave you for Christmas! I can feel the walls shaking!—
