How Not to Be Sad-by Hart
A shift. It should feel cold, like in your bones.
HART– When I told him I cheated on him, he thought I was joking. My curse. When I told him I cheated on him, it was over lunch at a dumpling place in China Town. I want to call the walls emerald, but they were not. They were green. The floor was not the colour of sand, it was beige and textured with grit tracked in from a workman’s boots.
The doorbell.
DELIVERY PERSON (OFF STAGE) Delivery from Bao House. Hart doesn’t move. Stuck in the memory.
HART– When I told him I cheated on him, there was this look on his face. This knot right in between his eyebrows, like a kink in a hose. Like I could physically see him trying to figure it out.
The doorbell, again.
DELIVERY PERSON (OFF STAGE) Hello?
HIM (V.O) I-I don’t know what to say.
The doorbell.
HIM (V.O) Why didn’t you just talk to me?
The doorbell. Again. And again.
DELIVERY PERSON (OFF STAGE) Hello?? I can see the light on.
Hart goes to the door. Opens it.
DELIVERY PERSON (OFF STAGE) Oh shit, you look rough. Are you alright?
HART– Do you want to mind your own fucking business? Hart snatches the delivery bag. Shuts the door in his face. He throws it down on the table. He picks up a cushion from a chair or a sofa; yells into it.
HART– Stupid. Stupid. STUPID!
Hart begins to collapse in on himself, holding the cushion like a life raft. Oh, so quietly a song starts playing but where is it coming from? The sound gets louder, and louder. It’s muffled but it’s hot and heavy. Dark and bassy. Hart begins to search for its source. Where is it coming from? Under the table? No. Outside the front door? No. Under the sink? No. The fridge? Is it…coming from the fridge? Hart opens the fridge a crack. The sound gets clearer. He slams the door back close. Opens it again, peaks inside. Closes it. Deep breath. Throws the door open fully. The music comes out full force.
It’s Anz’s “Last Before Lights”. A beam of light comes blaring out of the fridge. It begins to strobe and pulse. Hart begins to move. Becoming more and more animated, lost in the music. The light on the entire stage begins to pulse and strobe, it is hypnotic and disjointed. His movements are sexual and hungry. At one point, he is on all fours, slowly moving back and forth. Is he…getting fucked?
A body emerges from the fridge…they find a space in the room and begin their own dance. Clubby and sweaty. Another body emerges…and another…and another….and another. The stage becomes flooded with bodies, claustrophobic and heady, all dancing in their own worlds. Individuals begin to become groups, morphing into something bigger