Word War

For Nathan
With undying gratitude to Barbara Ebert


PlayNaked at Burning Coal Theatre    May 2009
Jon Byers, Roberto Velarde, George Kaiser, Aaron Pratt, Julie Oliver, Hazel Edmond,
Barbara Harrison, Aaron Wright, Hilary Edwards & Elsbeth Cassandra.



Synopsis

Word War is an 9-character (4 men, 4 women, 1 either gender) full-length farce.  The play takes place in present day over the course of a few days.  The set is split into 3 sections - stage left and stage right are suggestive of college dorm rooms, upstage center is a bare set of the play within the play.  It contains mild language and sexual innuendo.  A basic PG-13 rating.


GRETCHEN and FREDDIE, college freshman with a complicated romantic history, are unknowing partners in a class assignment - writing a play together via email.  Each writes a section to which the other can add before continuing the story, but the rules forbid them from changing what is already written.  Egged on by their respective roommates, CICI and JOE, they both take advantage of things implied but not stated to deliberately block the other’s intent and take the play in a new direction.

The stage is split into Gretchen’s writing space, Freddie’s writing space and the space where their play is performed.  And performed again with rewrites.  And performed again with rewrites. And performed again . . .

Actors LISA, MONICA, STEVE and CHARLIE  portray the characters in Gretchen and Freddie’s play – LORELEI, MIRABELLA, SIR GALLANTRY and CHET – and are assisted by a disinterested and irritable STAGEHAND.  The Actors have lives of their own which unfold during pauses in the action written by Gretchen and Freddie.

Drawing on her obsession with romance novels, Gretchen starts their play with Lorelei and Mirabella exploring a medieval castle. Freddie and Joe immediately turn the play into “Die Hard in a Castle” when they add a knight in shining armor (Sir Gallantry) and – as the play digresses – a CIA agent (Chet).  In spite of the distraction of Cici’s nonsensical, non-stop chatter, Gretchen musters up the creativity to turn the CIA upside down.

Lisa, Monica, Steve, Charlie and the Stagehand see, hear and respond to everything that happens in Gretchen and Freddie’s world.  But the connection only works one way.  Or does it?  As Gretchen and Freddie use their play to relive their own bizarre break-up, the Actors attempt to take matters into their own hands.  The three levels of this farce overlap and intersect until at last they collide head-on.  And you find that nothing is as it seems.


Click here to download the first 15 pages of Word War.

Author's Note

The idea for this play came from an email sent to me by my dear friend - and the world's best groupie - Barbara Ebert.   One day, desperate for an idea for a short play for my son's 8th grade theatre class, I was naturally doing anything I could to avoid work.  While cleaning out my inbox, I came across the email and voila, had a script for 11 students.  But I realized the characters still had plenty to say.  So I doubled up some of the cast and expanded the script.  So thanks to whoever started the email about the writing class exercise and the person who forwarded it to Barbara.

 
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