Just Wrought

Recovering playwright, once won a STRANGER Genius Award for theater. Now writing a bloated novel about… G-d help me! Theatre.

Tag: window cleaning

  • Damned Fugue

    DAMNED FUGUE
    by
    Paul Mullin

    Characters:
        SOMEONE– A man
        SOMEONE ELSE– A man
        SOMEONE DIFFERENT– A woman
        SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT– A woman

    SOMEONE:  This is a shotgun.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  You are a hero.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  She is heroin.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  That is the story.

         (beat)

    SOMEONE:  This is a shotgun.

    EVERYONE ELSE:  — kissed.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  You are a hero.

    EVERYONE ELSE:  — missed.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  She is heroin.

    EVERYONE ELSE:  –blissed.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  That is the story.

    EVERYONE ELSE:  –sold.

        (beat)

    SOMEONE ELSE:  This is a twelve-gauge pump-action sawed-off.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  You are the owner/operator.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  She is somewhere else.

    SOMEONE:  That is the bottom line.

         (beat)

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  This is–

    EVERYONE ELSE:  Life.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  You are–

    EVERYONE ELSE:  Life.

    SOMEONE:  She is–

    EVERYONE ELSE:  Life.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  That was–

    EVERYONE ELSE:  Life.

         (beat)

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  This is a–

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Hero–

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  Harrowing–

    SOMEONE:  Shotgun–

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Life she blessed you with.

    SOMEONE:  You are a–

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Sawed-off–

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  Heroin–

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Pumping–

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Missed-gauge–

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  Operator–

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Somewhere else.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  She owner-sold–

    SOMEONE:  Bottom-line story.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  This is–

    SOMEONE:  Do you?

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  You are–

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Do you sing?

    SOMEONE:  She is–

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  do you sing now?

    SOMEONE ELSE:  That was–

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Do you sing now in the shower?

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  Life.

    SOMEONE (overlapping):  Life.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT (overlapping):  Life.

    SOMEONE ELSE (overlapping):  Life.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  Do you sing now in the shower of blood foamed bone and brain–

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Heavy metal rain crashing up through your cranium–

    SOMEONE:  Shattered–

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Cranium through down crashing rain metal heavy–

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  Brain and bone foamed blood shower now sing!  You do.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Now you do, do you?

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  This–

    SOMEONE:  You–

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  She–

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Was–

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Is–

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  Are–

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Is–

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Was–

    SOMEONE:  Shotgun–

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Hero–

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  Heroin–

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Story.

         (Rest.)

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  Go….  Baby, go!

         (Beat.)

    SOMEONE:  The writer was thinking of play he wanted to write called “The Septarchy” the day the window fell on him.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  “Septarchy”.

    SOMEONE:  “Rule of Seven.”

    SOMEONE ELSE:  All day he was figuring significances of the number seven.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  But there were four horseman riding out of Harlem.  Four project buildings in the skyline to the north which seemed to stand out for him.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Darker somehow.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  Riding in a row, same height, same features.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  He kept seeing them in the February wind mist like grim relentless riders.  Not really moving, mind you–

    SOMEONE ELSE:  But closing in… as he went from vacant apartment to vacant apartment, popping out seventy-five pounds of framed glass from the sliding window tracks, mop squeegee swiping clockwork, then popping it back in.

    SOMEONE:  They jammed.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  All the time.

    SOMEONE:  All day.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Relentless.

    SOMEONE:  Who fitted these fucking windows?

    SOMEONE ELSE:  They’re the worst.  Every fucking frame misaligned.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  No lunch but a slice and a can of coke.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Up all nights working a graveyard as hotel porter.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  Aunt who’s a nun coming to see his play about abortion and dreams about nuns in lace lingerie–red, of course, bright blood red.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Oxygen.

    SOMEONE:  Couldn’t get them back in without help sometimes.  Had to ask Big Al, the Puerto Rican super’s assistant who followed him keying him into the apartments, to help muscle them back in sometimes.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  He thought about it.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  “What does that mean?”

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  “Four riders into seven.”

    SOMEONE:  Four-thirty.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Last apartment.

    SOMEONE:  Breeze through the living room.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  On to the bedroom.

    SOMEONE:  Clean the inside glass.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Then do the outside lean work.

    SOMEONE:  Saving the bitch pop-out for last.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Pop it out.

    SOMEONE:  Clean it.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Pop it in….  Pop it in!…  Pop the bitch in, fucker!   Don’t get weak.  Don’t let the arms go.  You fucker, you lose this window you’re fucked, y’hear?  You’re fucked.

    SOMEONE:  Get it in.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Shit.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  The writer props it up on the ledge, and walks to the door to call Al in to help him.  He walks back towards the window.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  There’s a gust.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  There’s a crash.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  There’s glass everywhere.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Great, you broke the fucking window.  That’s got to be a hundred bucks easy.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Al’s freaking.

    SOMEONE:  Al, why are you freaking?… What?

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Oh shit, I’m bleading.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  Dark.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Vein blood?
        Al’s freaking.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  Al…

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Al…

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Al!… 

    SOMEONE:  Get me to a hospital.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Al.

    SOMEONE:  We got to find out how bad I’m cut.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Take it easy.  It’s all right.  You got to get me to a hospital.  I don’t know where I’m cut

    SOMEONE:  Could be bad, Al.  So I don’t want to lose too much, you know?  Got to stay in.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Can’t go out.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  So just get me to a hospital.  Okay?

    (Rest.
    Someone comes center and kneels.  Someone Different stands over him from behind.  Someone Else approaches one side of the audience while Someone Else Different approaches the opposite side.)

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Ever wonder how to get the taste of dying out of your mouth?

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Oh, come on.  Everybody dies.  All the time.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Did you get that?  That’s an important point.  Everybody dies all the time.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Don’t deny it.  You just did it.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  And you… just now.  What just went away in your eyes?

    SOMEONE ELSE:  It happens.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  All the time.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Want to know how to get the taste of dying out of your mouth?  Okay.  I figured it out.  Take the barrel and point it at your face.

    (Someone Different takes Someone’s chin in her hand and lifts his face.  On the next line, she puts her mouth to his.)

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Now put your mouth to it.  And… yeah… explore.  It’s got a shape.  It’s got a flavor.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Now run a hand down the length.

    (She finds his zipper.)

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Now wait a second.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Take it easy.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  No need to rush it.  It’s all there in your hands and in your mouth.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  The shape.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  The flavor.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  The trigger.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  The last thing anyone truly experiences.

    (Rest.
    Everyone returns to their original places.)

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  Baby, go.  You’re on.

    (Rest.)

    SOMEONE ELSE:  When the doctor pressed the needle of lidocaine into the writer’s face was the only real pain he felt from the shattered glass.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Like bliss.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  Like heroin, he sucked the pain in.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  It felt so good… real… like hell.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  Feel it.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  You feel it.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  You’re alive.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  You’re alive.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  You feel it.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  You wouldn’t if you weren’t.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  A bargain.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Bliss.

    SOMEONE:  His then future wife now soon to be Ex told the writer later–

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  That after the she got the phone call from his boss saying he’d been in a window cleaning accident–

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  She sat in the dark apartment for an hour and did nothing.

    SOMEONE:  The writer wondered what took her so long getting to the hospital only twenty blocks away.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Years later the writer would have a really bad reaction to some really strong pot and had to be rushed to the hospital.

    SOMEONE:  Thought he was dying insane.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Praying to himself.

    SOMEONE (repeating underneath the following lines):  Be the hero of this….  Be the hero of this….  Be the hero of this….

    SOMEONE ELSE:  But the words twisted, deteriorated.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT (sotto voce at first, then gradually crescendoing to dominate Someone’s chant):  Be thee here or this?…  Be thee here or this?…  Be thee here or this?…

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  The writer’s wife stood for a moment on the back porch of their triplex wondering if she should go along in the ambulance.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  After all what could she do to help?

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Everyone dies alone.

    (Rest.
    Someone Different steps forward.)

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  Go….  Baby, go….  You’re on, baby.  Go.

    (Someone steps forward.)

    SOMEONE:   Why?

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  Why?…  Baby.

    SOMEONE:  I don’t love it.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  What?

    SOMEONE:  The roar.  It just roars… all the time.  And I don’t love it.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  Baby.

    SOMEONE:  I’m out there singing about gang rape; I’m out there singing about dying–“Polly Wanna Cracker”.  And they got their lighters lit like it’s fucking “Freebird”.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  They don’t get it.

    SOMEONE:  Right.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  That’s why you’re singing, right?

    SOMEONE:  What?

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:   So why’d you become a rock star, asshole?  Isn’t that what this is about?  Jamming your fingers into narrow cherry minds?  You wanna preach to the converted, go write little self-important plays and put ‘em on in fringe theatres downtown somewhere….  But baby, you got to go now… you’re up.

    (Someone steps forward.
    Beat.
    Someone steps back.  Then both Someone and Someone Different step back to join the other two.
    Rest.)

    SOMEONE:  This is a shotgun.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  You are a hero.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  She is heroin.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  That is the story.

    (beat)

    SOMEONE:  This is a shotgun.

    EVERYONE ELSE:  — kissed.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  You are a hero.

    EVERYONE ELSE:  — missed.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  She is heroin.

    EVERYONE ELSE:  –blissed.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  That is the story.

    EVERYONE ELSE:  –sold.

    (beat)

    SOMEONE ELSE:  This is a twelve-gauge pump-action sawed-off.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  You are the owner/operator.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  She is somewhere else.

    SOMEONE:  That is the bottom line.

    (beat)

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  This is–

    EVERYONE ELSE:  Life.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  You are–

    EVERYONE ELSE:  Life.

    SOMEONE:  She is–

    EVERYONE ELSE:  Life.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  That was–

    EVERYONE ELSE:  Life.

    (beat)

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  This is a–

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Hero–

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  Harrowing–

    SOMEONE:  Shotgun–

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  She blessed you with.

    SOMEONE:  You are a–

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Sawed-off–

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  Heroin–

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Pumping–

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Missed-gauge–

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  Operator–

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Somewhere else.

    SOMEONE ELSE:  She owner-sold–

    SOMEONE:  Bottom-line story.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  This is–

    SOMEONE:  Do you?

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  You are–

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Do you sing?

    SOMEONE:  She is–

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  do you sing now?

    SOMEONE ELSE:  That was–

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Do you sing now in the shower?

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  Life.

    SOMEONE (overlapping):  Life.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT (overlapping):  Life.

    SOMEONE ELSE (overlapping):  Life.

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  Do you sing now in the shower of blood foamed bone and brain–

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Heavy metal rain crashing up through your cranium–

    SOMEONE:  Shattered–

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Cranium through down crashing rain metal heavy–

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  Brain and bone foamed blood shower now sing!  You do.

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Now you do, do you?

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  This–

    SOMEONE:  You–

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  She–

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Was–

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Is–

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  Are–

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Is–

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Was–

    SOMEONE:  Shotgun–

    SOMEONE ELSE:  Hero–

    SOMEONE DIFFERENT:  Heroin–

    SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT:  Story.

    (End of play.)

    Posted at 9:10 AM in Scripts, Ten-Minute plays, Theatre | Comments (0)

    Tags: 10-minute play, Courtney Love, Damned Fugue, Fugue, Kurt Cobain, Paul Mullin, Shotgun, Suicide, window cleaning

  • Seattle Artists Lose an Unsung Support

    Seattle Artists Lose an Unsung Support

    When I first came to Seattle in 1990 I had only one decent paying trade to my name: I knew how to clean glass. The problem was I was spoiled. In New York I had worked mostly high-rise residential units and got paid three dollars a window by my boss/friend Patrick Shields who worked next to me and also happened to be an actor/writer himself. In Seattle the only window work I could find was with a large outfit that did commercial properties and offered a flat ten dollars an hour. Instead of a bon vivant, polymath, small business-owner working next to me, I had ex-cons, two-bit bigots and pot-smoking thugs tying my ropes. (Literally.  One guy told me getting high beforehand made him concentrate harder on the knots.) I quit after a week and took a job dishing at a breakfast cafe in Green Lake, but the money from that, barely above minimum wage, just wasn’t enough.

    The advice I got at the 1911, the dive-bar de facto headquarters of 90’s Seattle fringe theatre, situated directly across Fourth Avenue from Annex Theatre, was simple: “go to Woods.” Woods and Associates was a small, locally owned temporary and permanent placement service located in the Galland Building downtown. I protested that I had zero office experience. The advice was reiterated: “Go to Woods. They’ll take care of you.  You can even tell them you’re an actor. They like actors.”

    “They like actors!?”  What kind of outfit was this?

    An outfit, as it turns out, that I would have an ongoing professional relationship with for the next two decades. My fellow Annexers were right.  After my initial interview I was paraded around the office to meet owner Sarah Woods, Sarah’s brother Will, Sarah’s business partner Sam Hunter, plus all the rest of the folks in the placement bullpen.  It didn’t matter that I was an actor or that I had never worked in an office.  I would start out slow and simple, they told me.  First gig: the microfilm department of Northern Life Insurance, where I captured images of old annuities documents on their way to the shredder. To tame the boredom I listened to Rush Limbaugh and KPLU jazz on my Sony Walkman. Aldrich Allen, another Annexer, now dead, worked beside me.  A few years later, when I came back from shooting a movie in Maryland to find my first marriage disintegrating, I needed a job desperately. So Woods put me back at “No Life”, this time in the licensing department. It’s where I got to know William Salyers and began to hatch my plan to write a role that only an actor of his talents could pull off.  A few years later we premiered Tuesday at AHA! Theatre.

    As time went on, I even found myself temping  in the Woods office itself. I called these gigs “meta-temping”. I used to love Fridays, not only because Sarah ordered in lunch and a masseuse every week, but also because Woods, unlike any other temp service I knew, paid every week,  on the week.  Many temps came into to pick up their checks personally, giving me a chance to do a quick gossip swap with my fellow show folk, like Chris Jeffries or Josh List.

    It is not an exaggeration to say Woods was a big part of why my wife and I came back to Seattle from New York City after 9/11.  Temp work in Manhattan had completely dried up.  My unemployment was running out and I had literally no idea how I was going to support our new-born baby boy.  I was certain, however, that if we went back to Seattle, Woods would find work for either Heather or me, so that the other could stay home with the baby.  As it turned out, Heather landed the more lucrative gig—she always could stand working for lawyers more than me.  On nice days I would roll my son in his stroller downtown from Capitol Hill and often visit the folks at Woods after having lunch with Heather.  Bottom line:  after a very tough year, Woods gave us options in another city where theatre thrived.

    Woods and Associates will be closing their offices for good today.  When I spoke with Sarah yesterday she sounded upbeat: “I don’t regret the decision at all, but it I’m the one making it so I understand it’s hard for others.”  I nearly choked up when I told her what Woods had meant to me and my family over the years.  “That’s the sad part,” she replied.  “We’ve all been there for each other: the folks that work for us, the client companies.”  Certainly Woods has always been there for me.  No matter how bad a particular day gig might get, I could always think to myself, “Well, I can quit and Woods’ll take care of me: find me something.”  Now, I guess I’m on my own.  My only solace is that I’m not alone in feeling that way.

    * * *

    So here’s my request.  If you are an artist, theatre or otherwise, and Woods has helped you at some point, please chime in down in the comments section below.  Share a story if you’d like, but chime in, regardless, even with just your name.  I’d love to share a sense of how many creative folks Woods and Associates has helped over the years.

    Posted at 9:10 AM in Scripts, Ten-Minute plays, Theatre | Comments (0)

    Tags: 10-minute play, Courtney Love, Damned Fugue, Fugue, Kurt Cobain, Paul Mullin, Shotgun, Suicide, window cleaning

  • Chicago Posts: Why Chicago Still Thrills

    Chicago Posts: Why Chicago Still Thrills

    I figured out why Chicago thrills me so.  I wish the answer was more nuanced or complex, but the fact is, I love tall buildings.  I always have. 

    Skyscrapers have always stirred me, since before I can remember.  I always knew I would live in New York City some day, not because I wanted to be an actor (I did) but because of the skyscrapers.  I wanted to live among them, in them.  I wanted to look out from the tops of them.  As fate would have it, I got to work as a window cleaner for a few years in New York and later a few months in Seattle.  I got to hang from these amazing human constructions by thin lines.  The job ultimately carved scars on my face, head, back and arms but if that was the price of getting to see Manhattan and Seattle in ways only a handful of people can claim, I say I got a bargain.

    Perhaps more crucial to Chicago’s thrill, over, say, Seattle or Baltimore or L.A., is how these buildings I love are all jammed together to form the canyons that turn far off sirens and car horns into the most comforting music.  Yesterday, Heather and I meditated with that song as background before heading out to drinks and dinner.  I fell asleep to it last night.

    The song of aspiration.

    The Trump Hotel as seen from the Dearborn Bridge.

    Posted at 9:10 AM in Scripts, Ten-Minute plays, Theatre | Comments (0)

    Tags: 10-minute play, Courtney Love, Damned Fugue, Fugue, Kurt Cobain, Paul Mullin, Shotgun, Suicide, window cleaning