Sequence Read online

  Winner of the 2013 Betty Mitchell Award for Outstanding New Play

  Winner of the 2013/2014 Woodward/Newman Drama Award

  Winner of the 2013 Calgary Theatre Critics Award for Best New Script

  Winner of the 2011 Grand Prize in the Alberta Playwriting Competition

  Finalist for the 2012 STAGE International Script Competition

  “Sequence balances smart and heart.”

  —Stephen Hunt, Calgary Herald

  “Absolutely one of the most dynamic and intriguing shows I’ve seen this year…. Sequence doesn’t underestimate the audience’s ability to intelligently engage with the notion of luck and coincidence… This play challenges the audience with smart dialogue about complex ideas… The entertaining results will give you much to think and talk about long after the play is done… It will be one of the most interesting and well-conceived shows you’ve had the pleasure of seeing.”

  —Jessica Goldman, CBC Radio

  “Witty, intelligent, and remarkably funny.”

  —Doris Lynch, Bloomington Herald-Times

  Sequence © Copyright 2014 by Arun Lakra

  Playwrights Canada Press

  202-269 Richmond Street West, Toronto, ON, Canada M5V 1X1

  phone 416.703.0013 • info@playwrightscanada.com • www.playwrightscanada.com

  No part of this book may be reproduced, downloaded, or used in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, except for excerpts in a review or by a licence from Access Copyright, www.accesscopyright.ca.

  For professional or amateur production rights, please contact Michael Petrasek at The Talent House

  204A St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5R 2N5

  416.960.9686, michael@talenthouse.ca

  Cover design and illustration and diagrams by Jeff Kulak

  Book design by Blake Sproule

  author photo © Andy Nichols

  The Alegreya serif typeface used was designed by Juan Pablo del Peral. The Source Sans Pro sans serif typeface was designed by Paul D. Hunt. The typefaces are used under the SIL Open font license version 1.1

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Lakra, Arun, 1966-, author

  Sequence [electronic resource] / Arun Lakra.

  A play.

  Electronic monograph in multiple formats.

  Issued also in print format.

  ISBN 978-1-77091-198-7 (pdf).--ISBN 978-1-77091-199-4 (epub)

  I. Title

  PS8623.A4246S46 2014 C812’.6 C2013-908487-8

  We acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council (OAC)—an agency of the Government of Ontario, which last year funded 1,681 individual artists and 1,125 organizations in 216 communities across Ontario for a total of $52.8 million—the Ontario Media Development Corporation, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

  to Mom and Dad

  for your nature and your nurture

  Author’s Notes

  The play runs continuously.

  For most of the play, the set doubles as a genetics laboratory and an auditorium stage.

  When viewed from the audience, the design might loosely resemble a spiral of DNA.

  A whiteboard (or chalkboard) extends the entire length of the stage.

  Early in the performance, the board is erased. From that point on, the characters illustrate their dialogue using a marker (or chalk). No further erasing is done.

  The board may be used to illustrate any dialogue. In the script, specific drawings are identified that may be used to execute a particular staging concept (outlined in the end notes).

  Each character may seem to observe the drawings of the others.

  Props may be shared by characters from different times and places.

  There may be intersections or wormholes where the pronunciation, delivery, actions, mannerisms, or physical attributes of Dr. Guzman may be reminiscent of Cynthia’s. A similar relationship exists between Theo and Mr. Adamson. For example, Cynthia and Dr. Guzman may use the British pronunciation of the word laboratory. Specific light and/or sound cues may be utilized to highlight these intersections.

  The transitions between scenes should be seamless and without pause, as if a character’s first words in a new scene are a direct response to the last phrase in the previous scene.

  Pace is critical. For most of the play, especially during the science-intensive dialogue, there should be a quick and urgent rhythm. These are fast-thinking, fast-talking characters who speak with almost overlapping dialogue. The play lives best at a running time of not more than eighty minutes.

  Sequence received its first workshop through the Alberta Playwrights’ Network in 2011. Following this, as part of the award for winning the grand prize in the Alberta Playwriting Competition, Sequence received a workshop and a public reading during Theatre Alberta/Alberta Playwrights’ Network’s 2011 PlayWorks Ink Conference. Sequence was developed further through a special workshop presentation at the 2013 Telluride Playwrights Festival. The play received its world premiere at the Big Secret Theatre in the EPCOR Centre for the Performing Arts, Calgary, Alberta, in a joint production by Downstage and Hit & Myth Productions from February 20 through March 2, 2013. It featured the following cast and creative team:

  Theo: Joel Cochrane

  Dr. Guzman: Karen Johnson-Diamond

  Cynthia: Alana Hawley

  Mr. Adamson: Braden Griffiths

  Producers: Simon Mallett, Joel Cochrane, and Ellen Close

  Director: Kevin McKendrick

  Assistant director: Michelle Kneale

  Set and co-production designer: Terry Gunvordahl

  Lighting and co-production designer: Anton de Groot

  Sound designer: Peter Moller

  Costume designer: Laura Lottes

  Stage manager: Kelsey ter Kuile

  Production manager: Tuled Giovanazzi

  Production intern: Taryn Haley

  Sequence received its US premiere in a production by the Bloomington Playwrights Project from October 4 through October 12, 2013, in Bloomington, Indiana. It featured the following cast and creative team:

  Theo: Henry A. McDaniel III

  Dr. Guzman: Catharine Du Bois

  Cynthia: Lauren Sagendorph

  Mr. Adamson: Paul Kühne

  Producing artistic director: Chad Rabinovitz

  Director: Lee Cromwell

  Scenic design: David Wade

  Lighting design: Tilman Piedmont

  Sound design: Brian Donnelly

  Costume design: Chib Gratz

  Stage manager: Travis Staley

  God does not play dice.

  —Albert Einstein

  The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.

  —Proverbs 16:33

  It is possible for the way the universe began to be determined by the laws of science. In that case, it would not be necessary to appeal to God to decide how the universe began. This doesn’t prove that there is no God, only that God is not necessary.

  —Stephen Hawking

  Characters

  Dr. Guzman: Female. Fifties.

  Theo: Male. Fifties.

  Mr. Adamson: Male. Twenties.

  Cynthia: Female. Twenties.

  Lights up.

  DR. GUZMAN and THEO enter. THEO carries an unopened umbrella.

  They converge at the whiteboard. It shows a mess of diagrams, numbers, and words.
<
br />   DR. GUZMAN turns to face the board. She finds an eraser, wipes the board clean.

  THEO turns to face the audience. With mock trepidation, he pops open the umbrella.

  Playfully, he peers out from under it, looks upward. He closes the umbrella.

  THEO moves to the ladder. He circles it. Mysteriously. Mischievously.

  DR. GUZMAN takes a moment to find a marker. She accidentally drops it, picks it up again.

  Abruptly, THEO ducks under the ladder. He emerges, welcomes the applause.

  Chest pain! Is he having a heart attack? No, he’s just joking around.

  DR. GUZMAN writes on the board with her left hand: WHICH CAME FIRST?

  THEO strides to a wall mirror. He stumbles, almost trips on the way.

  DR. GUZMAN addresses the audience.

  THEO fixes his hair in the mirror.

  DR. GUZMAN

  The question is, which came first?

  THEO suddenly takes a big swing with his umbrella handle, smashing the mirror.

  The chicken or the egg?

  THEO

  Macbeth!

  THEO looks up to the heavens, opens his arms, waits for the lightning bolt that never comes.

  DR. GUZMAN

  I submit to you, despite popular misconception, that the question is not rhetorical.

  THEO addresses the audience.

  THEO

  Luck is like irony. Not everybody who thinks they got it, got it.

  DR. GUZMAN

  One had to come first. Wouldn’t you agree? Unless you postulate simultaneous creation. That is, unless you postulate God.

  DR. GUZMAN writes on the board: GOD.

  THEO

  Luck is like breasts. It’s relative. If everybody had big breasts, we’d just call them breasts. And we wouldn’t stare. As much.

  He picks up a marker. He writes on the board: lLUCK.

  DR. GUZMAN

  But we’re scientists, are we not? At least until your final exam results are posted. And we know Borel’s Law states if the odds of an event are less than one in ten to the fiftieth, that event will never happen in the entire time and space of our known universe.

  THEO

  You are not all lucky; I’m sorry to have to break it to you. In fact, I suspect the truly lucky ones are those whose wives did not drag them to a book reading three hours before kickoff on Super Bowl Sunday.

  DR. GUZMAN

  So the chances of the chicken and the egg evolving simultaneously are perilously close to zero. Ergo, it must have been sequential.

  THEO

  Take a guy in a wheelchair, who can’t even take a crap by himself. Ask him if he considers himself lucky. Trust me. He’ll say yes. Every time. He has persuaded himself he’s the luckiest guy in the world. But he’s not. You know why?

  Pause.

  Because I am.

  DR. GUZMAN

  Everything happens sequentially. Music. DNA. Every story ever told. There is an order to the universe. If chicken, then egg. Or if egg, then chicken. And, even more importantly, the order implies causality. Egg creates chicken. Or chicken spawns egg.

  THEO

  What determines success? Does a Nobel Prize recipient stand up and say, “I’m an average schmuck who just got lucky”? No, they won’t tell you that. But I will. Because in many ways I’m just like you. I put on my pants one leg at a time—always the right one first, as someone once pointed out to me.

  DR. GUZMAN

  But whatever you do, do not tell me it doesn’t matter. That’s a cheat. The only thing I detest more than cheating is laziness, and chaos is lazy. Entropy is lazy. God is lazy.

  DR. GUZMAN circles the word GOD.

  THEO

  Except, on the luck scale, I am off the charts. If you look at the odds I’ve fortuitously overcome… I’m told I’m a one in a billion. That’s with a B!

  DR. GUZMAN

  Order is sweat. Order is who you are and why you’re here today. In this classroom. On this planet. Wasting oxygen.

  THEO holds up a book.

  THEO

  My book is called Change Your Luck. And that is the reason you’re here today.

  DR. GUZMAN

  So which came first? You may not know right now, but by the end of my class you will hypothesize an answer, support it, and commit to it.

  She underlines WHICH CAME FIRST.

  THEO

  There are a thousand books out there that offer to change you in some way. Change your attitude. Your diet. Your golf swing. You know the best way to shave a couple of strokes off your score?

  Pause.

  Get a hole in one.

  THEO circles the word LUCK.

  DR. GUZMAN

  I’m telling you right now, you’d better start thinking about it. The last question on your final exam will be this… Which came first? A: the chicken. B: the egg. C: simultaneous. And if anyone is audacious or careless enough to put down C, that will earn you an automatic F and you will be shot. I know you’ve heard those campus myths about me. Don’t test me. I have tenure.

  THEO

  Now before we get started, let me ask you a question.

  DR. GUZMAN reaches for a white cane, smacks it against her hand.

  DR. GUZMAN

  What jury would convict a blind woman?

  THEO reaches into a jar full of papers.

  THEO

  Anybody feel lucky today?

  The board shows:

  WHICH CAME FIRST?

  LUCK GOD

  Laboratory

  DR. GUZMAN holds a clipboard close to her eyes.

  She has good central vision but no peripheral vision. She has learned to compensate.

  A knock on the door.

  DR. GUZMAN

  Who is it?

  MR. ADAMSON

  (off stage) Dr. Guzman? I’m one of your students. From your 121 class.

  DR. GUZMAN

  What time is it?

  MR. ADAMSON

  (off stage) I’m sorry, I know it’s late. But the library just closed and I thought I’d take a chance. You don’t have regular office hours.

  DR. GUZMAN

  See me after class.

  MR. ADAMSON

  (off stage) By the time I get to the front you’re out the door.

  DR. GUZMAN

  Walk faster.

  MR. ADAMSON

  (off stage) Right.

  Pause.

  You said you wanted to see me.

  DR. GUZMAN

  Give me your ID card.

  She slips the clipboard under the door.

  When she pulls back the clipboard there is an id card on it. She holds it close to her eyes, then stuffs it in her pocket.

  Ah, Mr. Adamson. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.

  DR. GUZMAN unlocks the door and opens it. She slips the key back into her pocket.

  You’d think with the recent incidents the university could spring for some state-of-the-art security. I’d settle for a damn peephole.

  MR. ADAMSON enters.

  He is in a wheelchair, a jacket on his lap.

  A wheelchair. Intriguing.

  MR. ADAMSON reaches for his jacket.

  Without warning, DR. GUZMAN grabs the jacket, tosses it aside, and reveals a briefcase.

  She lunges for the briefcase, throws it on her desk.

  Put your hands on your head. I said put your hands on your head.

  MR. ADAMSON reluctantly lifts his arms.

  DR. GUZMAN does her best to frisk him. She kneels down, looks under the wheelchair.

  Hear the latest? Some undergrad student sneaks into a genetics laboratory at Princeton and burns the whole thing down. Shoots the Ph.D.
, who just happened to be a stem-cell researcher. We seem to be a dying breed.

  DR. GUZMAN turns her attention to the briefcase. It’s locked.

  What’s the combination?

  MR. ADAMSON

  I’d prefer if you didn’t open it.

  DR. GUZMAN

  I’d prefer if I was assigned to teach courses commensurate with my qualifications. What’s the combination? No doubt something you might be capable of memorizing… One two three, four five six? What’s inside?

  No response. DR. GUZMAN tries various combinations on the briefcase lock.

  MR. ADAMSON

  Can I please have my briefcase?

  DR. GUZMAN

  I have reviewed the results of the Introductory Genetics final exam.

  MR. ADAMSON

  It was a long test.

  DR. GUZMAN

  I like to separate the men from the boys.

  MR. ADAMSON

  So which am I?

  DR. GUZMAN

  You, Mr. Adamson, are an embryo. No, a zygote. That first moment when the sperm touches a polysaccharide on the egg and says, “Hi honey, I’m home.” That instant when the staunchest pro-lifer in all of Kentucky would have a tough time calling it the beginning of human life. That’s what you are.

  MR. ADAMSON

  So did I pass?

  DR. GUZMAN draws a bell curve on the board. She doesn’t let go of the briefcase.

  DR. GUZMAN

  In this exam, the mean was seventy-one per cent. The passing grade was fifty-eight. Sixteen per cent got an A.

  She draws on the board: 16.

  MR. ADAMSON

  What did I get?

  DR. GUZMAN

  You got an F.

  MR. ADAMSON

  I see.

  DR. GUZMAN

  Sometimes you get an outlier on the curve. On this exam, one person ended up more than five standard deviations below the mean. Do you know what that means?

  MR. ADAMSON

  No.

  DR. GUZMAN

  Computer malfunction. Usually. Only this time, the computer was right. You, sir, had the misfortune of getting every question wrong.

  Auditorium