The Pain and the Itch

Bruce Norris

WHO    Cash, a successful plastic surgeon, American. His age is unspecified, but we assume mid-thirties.

TO WHOM    Mr Hadid, a cab driver.

WHERE    The living room in the home of Cash’s brother Clay and his wife Kelly.

WHEN    Winter (around the time the play was written and first produced 2004–05).

WHAT HAS JUST HAPPENED    The play moves forwards and backwards in time as it recounts the events of Cash’s family’s Thanksgiving dinner and its disastrous consequences on the family of Mr Hadid. Mr Hadid and his wife have come to America to make a better life for themselves. Mrs Hadid speaks no English. She has been working for Cash’s mother Carol as a cleaner and for Cash’s brother Clay as a childminder. Then one day Mrs Hadid helps herself to half of Carol’s expensive fig and nut loaf. It reminds her of the bread they eat back home. She does not have the English to explain this to Carol, and when Carol spots the bread in Mrs Hadid’s handbag she assumes Mrs Hadid is a thief. Then when Clay’s daughter develops a particularly nasty rash in her genital area the family assume it is something to do with Mrs Hadid. The police are alerted and go to Mr Hadid’s house where they arrest her. Mrs Hadid is a diabetic and has just injected herself with insulin. Mr Hadid tries to explain to the police that it is vital his wife has something to eat, but they fail to take notice and Mrs Hadid goes into a coma and dies while in police custody. It is some time later that Mr Hadid is invited to Clay and Kelly’s house. It becomes apparent that he intends to sue the family for wrongful accusation. We, meanwhile, come to discover that the cause of the daughter’s itch is a venereal condition passed from mother to child and contracted when Kelly was having an affair with Cash. While they try to placate Mr Hadid and to persuade him not to take legal action, Cash does his best in the speech that follows to explain just how shallow their lives are. Shortly afterwards he adds: ‘Look, you want to be more like us… (Laughs.) But we’re a bunch of assholes.’

WHAT TO CONSIDER

•	Cash is perpetually fighting with his brother Clay. They are rivalrous. Cash slept with Clay’s wife while she was pregnant.
•	Cash has a partner, Kalina, a twenty-three-year-old Eastern European. The relationship is volatile.
•	Cash’s manner is brash and, to some, offensive.
•	Read the play to understand fully the way in which the playwright examines the hypocrisies at the heart of American liberalism.

WHAT HE WANTS

•	To reveal to Mr Hadid both the superficiality and flimsiness of holding onto ‘beliefs’ in a world dominated by greed and gain, and the pointlessness of chasing the ‘American Dream’.
•	Decide to what extent that he too wants to dissuade Mr Hadid from filing a suit and that this is his way of going about it.

KEYWORDS  believe/belief/beliefs  superficial  deeper  serious

Cash

So okay. So listen to this. So the other day this woman comes in my office. Says, to me, I think I want to get a nose job. […] (She) says, Doc, I want to get a nose job. The problem is – and get this, she says to me – the problem is, I don’t believe in plastic surgery. I say, wait a second. I’m sorry, what? She says, not believe like it doesn’t exist, it’s that my belief system tells me not to agree with it. So I say, okay, which belief system is this? She says it’s my personal belief. I think it’s wrong. I don’t think our lives should be determined by something so random as biology. I think that people should stop being hung up on the superficial. I have a wonderful personality. I’m a good friend. I’m funny. I’m lively. And still I don’t have a boyfriend and I don’t get the jobs I want. I’m at this enormous disadvantage all because I’ve got this nose. She says the world should not be that way. And that is what I believe. I believe it. And she says, so what can you say to me to put my mind at ease about the whole procedure? (He thinks.) Now, I’m trying to wrap my head around this. I’m trying to get this. I really am. I’m the doctor. Obviously I can’t just act like… So I look at her. I put on a serious expression. And I say, well, let me ask you this: Which do you think came first, your beliefs, or your nose? Because maybe, and I could be wrong, correct me if I am, but maybe if you hadn’t been born with this giant… with this nose, you wouldn’t have developed these beliefs. She says, yes, but my beliefs go deeper. My beliefs are who I really am. And I say, yes, right, understood, but see, the problem is, I can’t see your beliefs. Whereas your nose, to put it mildly, is readily apparent. And she says, you’re acting like my beliefs aren’t serious. And I say, as gently as I can, I say, well, perhaps not serious enough since you’re already here for the nose job. And she says, I don’t care for your attitude and I say okay. So she storms out. Goes to a friend of mine. He fixed her nose last week. Chin implant, too. My point is… well, you see what my point is.