• • • Production History • • •
Starfishes received its world-premiere production Off-Broadway at the Theatre at Dance New Amsterdam as part of the Actors Studio Drama School’s 2011 repertory season, featuring the following cast and creative team:
ELI, Brad Harris
CHASTITY, Shereen Macklin
Directed by Mekeva McNeil
Production Design by Shawn Lewis
Stage Manager, Joseph A. Onorato
Characters
ELI, a man in his late 20s
CHASTITY, a prostitute
• • •
[A Nova Scotia lighthouse in the late 1980s. The sitting room. A front door leading outside is upstage. On the opposite end of the upstage wall, a spiral staircase leading up. There is a window through which the maritime coast can be seen. A bookshelf, neatly stacked with books. A rotary phone. Comfortable, antiquated furniture. A rug covers a hardwood floor. Oil lanterns. A crucifix. The sound of waves crashing against the cliff. ELI is pacing the room anxiously. There is a loud, angry knock at the door. It continues throughout the following.]
ELI I’m sorry, I told you, this is a big misunderstanding.
[More knocking.]
I can’t let you in.
[More knocking.]
This lighthouse is the property of the federal government.
[More knocking.]
If you continue to create a disturbance, I am required to alert the coast guard. Do you understand?
[More knocking.]
Argh!
[He goes to the door and opens it a crack.]
CHASTITY Jesus Christ, what the hell’s the matter with—
ELI I’m sorry, this is a terrible mistake.
CHASTITY Let me in!
ELI No, I really can’t do that.
CHASTITY At least let me warm up for a minute!
ELI Miss, this is federal property!
CHASTITY I’m in the middle of nowhere. I can’t see a damn thing with all the fog coming in—
ELI I’m really sorry....Good-bye.
CHASTITY Come on, it’s freezing.
ELI I...listen, I can’t...
CHASTITY Please! It’s getting dark!
[Beat.]
Hello? It’s getting dark!
[Beat.]
Please, it’s—
ELI All right! Just for a minute, and that’s it.
[He steps aside. CHASTITY enters. She is a prostitute.]
CHASTITY Two hundred dollars.
ELI Okay, listen, lady...
CHASTITY Do you know how long I’ve been standing outside? In the freezing cold? And you can’t even pay me? Uh-uh. I’m getting Rodney.
ELI Rodney....Who’s...who’s Rodney?
CHASTITY Who do you think Rodney is? He’s the man about to come inside your lighthouse and fuck you up. Understand?
ELI Okay. Maybe we can sort this out.
CHASTITY You wanna sort it out? Give me two hundred dollars.
ELI Why should I have to pay you anything? We haven’t...copulated.
CHASTITY Copulated?
ELI We haven’t...you know...
CHASTITY I know what copulated means, sweetheart. I just never heard anybody say it before in a sentence. And I’m in a line of business where there are a lot of chances for it to be said.
ELI Yes, I can see that.
CHASTITY Someone called. They told me to come all the way out to the edge of the cliff, to go to the lighthouse—
ELI I’m sorry, but I don’t know anything about that.
CHASTITY Well, someone called.
ELI It wasn’t me.
CHASTITY I don’t care who it was. It took me an hour and a half to get here from the city. The fog’s getting so thick, I had to walk the last kilometer in front of the headlights so Rodney could see where he was going. I expect to be paid.
ELI I shouldn’t have to pay you. We haven’t—
CHASTITY Oh, you don’t have to tell me. It is painfully obvious that you and I have not copulated. And that you haven’t copulated with anybody in a really long time. Is that true?
ELI That’s none of your business.
CHASTITY I thought so.
[Beat.]
I need that money.
ELI No, you need to leave. I have a lot of work to do. My mother will be home from Bingo soon—
CHASTITY Bingo!?
ELI She’s not going to be too happy if she comes home and the light’s not lit and I’m with a...a...
CHASTITY A what?
ELI Look, I’m sorry you got sent out here. But I shouldn’t have to pay you.
CHASTITY You’re right. You shouldn’t.
ELI Uh...
CHASTITY Not unless you wanna take advantage of my services.
ELI Your...services?
CHASTITY I mean, I’m here...you’re here...
ELI Oh no, I couldn’t.
CHASTITY Why not, stud? You don’t like me?
ELI Well, I think you’re very...
CHASTITY Why don’t you like me?
ELI I hardly know you. But. You strike me as a very...nice young lady.
CHASTITY Oh. I get it.
[She gathers her things.]
ELI What are you doing?
CHASTITY I thought I could at least try to seduce you. I shoulda figured, though. This furniture, the décor. I shoulda figured you didn’t like women.
ELI What?
CHASTITY Well, you don’t, do you?
ELI Don’t what?
CHASTITY You don’t like women?
ELI Well...
CHASTITY You’re one of those guys that’s into guys, eh?
ELI No.
CHASTITY Oh, please.
ELI What? Really, I’m not.
CHASTITY All right. You don’t like women, you don’t like men. Who do you like?
ELI No one.
[Beat.]
CHASTITY What do you mean, no one?
ELI Listen, I have to see if the whistle buoy’s shifted its position.
CHASTITY Wait a second. Let me get this straight.
ELI I have serious work to do!
CHASTITY You don’t have sex with anybody?
ELI If you don’t leave right now—
CHASTITY You’re telling me you don’t have sex at all?!
ELI No, I don’t! All right!? I don’t have sex! Ever!
[Beat.]
CHASTITY Wait. You’re not a virgin, are you?
[Pause.]
Well, aren’t we a match made in heaven?
ELI This has been a lot of fun, but you are trespassing on government property.
CHASTITY I’m sorry. It’s just...I didn’t think anyone was a virgin anymore.
ELI Yeah, it’s really funny.
CHASTITY Even the word. Virgin. It sounds so...sacrificial. Hey, y’know, maybe that’s why you live in a lighthouse.
ELI Why?
CHASTITY ’Cuz you need to get laid.
ELI What does that have anything to do with—
CHASTITY It’s a giant phallic symbol.
ELI Phallic symbol?
CHASTITY You live in a building shaped like a gigantic dildo. You live inside a shiny metal penis. Ha, this is too funny! Fucking droll is what this is.
ELI You’re pretty well-spoken for a prostitute.
CHASTITY What did you just say?
ELI Nothing.
CHASTITY What the fuck did you just say? I’m pretty well-spoken for a prostitute? I know a lotta fancy words for a common whore, is that what you mean?
ELI I wasn’t trying to offend—
CHASTITY Let me tell you something, I went to night school!
ELI Uh-huh.
CHASTITY I am a well-educated woman. Understand?
ELI Sure.
CHASTITY I’m not sucking dick for yayo. I’ve got a life. And an associate’s degree. All right?
ELI Okay! Would you stop pestering me? I have to light the lamp.
CHASTITY It doesn’t turn on automatically?
ELI Not yet it doesn’t. That’s why I live here. Inside this giant metal phallic symbol. I turn on the light.
CHASTITY No, you live here ’cuz you need to get some ass.
[She picks up a book and pretends to read.]
“There once was a virgin who lived in a dick.”
ELI This lighthouse has been in my family for—
CHASTITY “Who desperately wanted some pussy to lick!” Ha! I’m a fucking poet!
ELI You know what?!
CHASTITY What?
ELI Never mind. You’re right! I live inside a dick! My grandfather, who stopped offshore oil spills, he lived inside a dick. And my great-grandfather who spent his whole life rescuing other people, he lived inside a dick. And every generation of my family for more than a hundred and eighty-five years has lived inside a giant dick!
CHASTITY See, you’re getting all angry because of your sexual repression.
ELI Did you learn that in night school?
CHASTITY No, I learned that by dragging my ass all the way to your goddamn lighthouse.
ELI Did you really go to night school?
CHASTITY What? That seems strange to you?
ELI It’s just, didn’t that get in the way of...work hours?
CHASTITY Darling, in my line of business, every hour of the day has the potential to be a working one. And when I was young and green, I worked during the afternoons so I could pay to go to school at night. Wanna see where I keep the world’s smallest violin?
ELI How long have you been doing this for?
CHASTITY Oh, don’t make me talk about that. It would ruin the mood.
[Beat.]
So are you planning on paying me, or do I have to get the man waiting outside in the Chevy Impala?
ELI II just can’t, all right? It’s something about me, it’s just...I’m sorry.
[She steps closer to him.]
What are you doing?
CHASTITY I wanted to get close to you.
ELI Well...don’t.
CHASTITY What’s your name?
ELI Eli. What’s yours?
CHASTITY Chastity.
ELI What’s your real name?
CHASTITY That is my real name. They named me after my grandmother.
ELI It’s a nice name.
CHASTITY Yeah, well, it was the only nice thing about that woman. She was a nasty old Newfie who smelled like she worked at a cannery.
ELI I was named after my father.
CHASTITY Oh, is he at the Bingo too?
ELI No, he drowned.
[Beat.]
When I was ten.
CHASTITY How ’bout we sit down together?
ELI Why?
CHASTITY I wanna help you, Eli. You seem like a really good person. The guys around here, well...They’re fishermen. Sailors. Wedded to the sea. Desperate for some satisfaction when their marriage hits a dry spot. It’s easy work. But it’s the easy work that’s really hard, y’know? Makes you wonder why you do this at all. You’re different, though. I can tell that about you. You’re different from most men in the Maritimes. You’re landlocked.
[Beat.]
So? Are you going to invite me to sit down?
ELI Sure....Hang on one second.
[He puts a few paper towels over a segment of the couch. He motions to her to sit on the covered section. She does. He remains standing.]
CHASTITY You’re not gonna join me?
ELI Maybe in a minute.
CHASTITY I want to try and figure this out.
ELI Figure what out?
CHASTITY I used to study the sciences.
ELI In night school?
CHASTITY I have an inquisitive mind.
ELI What are you—
CHASTITY And I wanna get to the bottom of this.
ELI Of what?
CHASTITY Everything in life (and this is a scientific fact), everything in life needs to fuck. Plants fuck. Sure, they get bees to carry their pollen around, but that’s still fucking. Otherwise, they wouldn’t reproduce. They wouldn’t grow. On top of that, bees and plants would be having a hell of a dull time, rooted to the ground all their lives, or flitting about making honey instead’a making sweet love. Am I wrong?
ELI Well—
CHASTITY Don’t contradict me. I’m right! Everything alive needs to fuck. Except you, Eli.
ELI No, there are things, other things, that don’t need to, to have sex...to reproduce. They just...it just happens.
CHASTITY Like what?
ELI Take starfish, for example. They don’t need to have sex. Neither do I.
CHASTITY Oh, please.
ELI It’s true. I’m just...one of those exceptions to the rule.
CHASTITY So what makes you so special?
ELI Special?
CHASTITY Yeah. How come everyone else on this island has to go through the motions, and you get to be a starfish?
ELI Well...
CHASTITY I’ve met every other man in this province.
ELI Every single one?
CHASTITY That’s right, every single fucking one. And I’ll tell you something about them. They only think about two things. And both of them smell like fish.
ELI Oh my God.
CHASTITY And, unlike every other man in Nova Scotia, you don’t want to have sex. At all. Why not?
ELI I really don’t know. I had to go to church a lot when I was younger?
CHASTITY So?
ELI My mother would drag me along with her so she’d have some company. Aside from the other women who only left their widows’ walks on Sunday mornings.
CHASTITY That’s why you don’t have sex?
ELI Well...Y’know they tell you in church—are you religious? Oh, sorry, look who I’m asking.
CHASTITY What? What!? You’re saying because I’m a prostitute I can’t be religious?!
ELI No, that wasn’t what I meant at all.
CHASTITY I am a deeply religious woman!
ELI I’m sure you are—
CHASTITY Just because a person needs to make a living does not mean she can’t be religious. You know what? I don’t think I wanna help you anymore. Question my religion and make me sit on a paper towel. I’ll see you in hell, starfish!
ELI I just meant that you’re studying the sciences, you probably wouldn’t believe in God.
[Beat.]
CHASTITY Is that really what you meant?
ELI No. I’m sorry, I just didn’t mean to upset you.
CHASTITY Uh-huh.
ELI Look. I may not have asked you to come here, but as long as you’re my guest (and don’t demand a large sum of money), I am going to try to be civil. All right? I don’t want to offend you. At all.
CHASTITY That’s the sweetest thing anybody’s said to me in a long time.
ELI It is?
CHASTITY Can I give you a hug?
ELI A hug?
CHASTITY Yeah, you heard of one of those? It’s where you wrap your arms around another person and squeeze.
ELI Well...
CHASTITY Unless you’re afraid it’ll give you the clap or something.
ELI I don’t know....
CHASTITY Come on, Eli. I promise I’m not gonna bite.
ELI I guess it could be...enjoyable.
CHASTITY So are we gonna hug?
ELI Yeah. Sure.
[They hug.]
CHASTITY Isn’t that better?
ELI It’s very nice.
CHASTITY Funny. You live inside a dick...and I think there’s a lighthouse in your pants.
ELI [Breaking away from her.] Oh God...
CHASTITY Don’t worry, Eli. No one’s gonna blame you. I mean, look at me. I am one foxy lady. Don’t you think so?
ELI I...I guess.
CHASTITY You guess? You’ve got more wood than a lumber yard.
ELI I think you should leave. I have to go record the wind speed and—
CHASTITY Can I explain something?
ELI What?
CHASTITY I’m not normally this...brazen. I’m a little upset tonight, that’s all. Truth be told, I’ve been seriously thinking about a career change. Rodney keeps sending me out at all hours, and I get anxious when I work at night. I always told him, I hate working after dark. Sure, it makes more sense, it’s better for business. But I never like doing it.
ELI Why not?
[Beat.]
CHASTITY Promise not to tell anyone?
ELI I promise.
CHASTITY Promise you won’t laugh?
ELI Promise.
CHASTITY I’m afraid of the dark.
ELI Isn’t everyone?
[She kisses him. He breaks off.]
CHASTITY Sorry. I know. It’s just...I’ve never told that to anybody before. Well, except this one boy.
ELI Rodney?
CHASTITY No! It was...He lived next door to my smelly grandmother. And he was the only one that...Anyway, we’re not talking about me right now.
ELI Why not?
CHASTITY Because you were trying to tell me about going to church with your mom.
ELI Oh, it’s not that interesting.
CHASTITY No, please. I’m very involved.
ELI Listen, I don’t want to upset your...pimp, or whatever he is. I think you should just leave and tell him—
CHASTITY Don’t worry about Rodney. Tell me more about yourself.
ELI Really, the fog’s getting thicker.
CHASTITY Aw, you take your job more seriously than I do. And I am a model employee.
ELI People’s lives depend on this lighthouse! My father’s family built it. Now the government’s talking about tearing it down.
CHASTITY Really?
ELI They’re firing lightkeepers all up the coast. It’s easier to make these places automatic. Or just get rid of them. It’s ridiculous. It—it guides lost vessels back to shore.
[Beat.]
Anyway, I should go upstairs.
CHASTITY Wait a second. The only woman you’ve talked about so far is your mother. I want to know why you’ve never been with a woman.
[Pause.]
ELI When I was younger, I used to listen to other people’s conversations on the two-way radio. The lighthouse was so far away from anybody that I...And one day, I heard this girl over the radio. She must’ve been around my age. Pretty voice. Her name was Margaret, I think. And every Sunday, at the same time, just when I’d be getting home from church, she’d send out the same frequency.
CHASTITY What was her name again?
ELI I think it was Margaret. I started talking to her over the radio upstairs. There was something about her voice. And I think I...
CHASTITY What?
ELI It felt so...good. To have someone to talk to. Especially after my father died. Her father was a sailor. She used to tell me about all the exotic things he brought back with him from his voyages. Ships in a bottle from Martinique, uh...dried-out sea lions from coral reefs. But the thing she talked about most was this starfish. She said it was perfect. She said that God didn’t make man in his image. He made starfish instead.
CHASTITY What happened to her?
ELI The last time I spoke to her, she was going away for the summer. Her father decided to let her travel with him. And...I heard some sailors on the radio talking about it later....Their ship was lost at sea. It must have been a foggy night. Somebody probably forgot to light the lamp in the lighthouse. Excuse me.
[He moves to the stairs. CHASTITY restrains him.]
CHASTITY Wait.
ELI What do you want from me?
CHASTITY The way you spoke about that little girl. It sounded like you really loved her....Did you?
[He kisses her. He pulls away, almost in tears.]
What is it?
ELI The sound of your voice...
CHASTITY Come here.
ELI I used to pray that I could hear her voice again.
CHASTITY Well, Eli. You finally fished your wish.
[They kiss. They stumble to the wall. She begins to undo his pants. He stops her.]
ELI I can’t. I’m sorry, I can’t.
CHASTITY What’s the matter?
[Beat.]
ELI I called you. It was me who asked you to come here. But when you got here, I was so...nervous. And ashamed of myself.
[Beat.]
I’m sorry, I can’t.
CHASTITY Eli.
ELI I can’t, all right!? I just can’t! I shouldn’t have called you. I’m sorry...I’m so...Please, I...
[He is crying. He moves to the couch and sits.]
CHASTITY Listen. Don’t worry about it, okay? I’ll sort things out with Rodney. It—it’ll be all right.
ELI It’s not going to be all right. My lighthouse is being torn down. I have nowhere to go, and no one to, no one to even talk to. She was my only friend. Just like that boy you told me about. Margaret was the only friend I ever had. And I never even saw her face....
[Pause.]
CHASTITY Look, I really should get going. If Rodney’s waiting outside and expecting—
ELI Don’t. Please. Just...will you stay with me for a little while?
CHASTITY I can’t.
ELI Just...a few more minutes. Please.
CHASTITY I’m sorry, Eli.
[She begins collecting her things and goes to the door. She stops.]
Can I tell you something?
[Beat.]
I’ve been doing this kind of work for too long. I know that. I’ve been doing this so long I didn’t think there were any good people left out there. But I want you to understand. You are not like the sailors I usually fuck. You’re a man, Eli. Made in God’s image.
ELI If that’s true, God must be so lonely. I am. I am. I...
[She moves and sits down next to him.]
CHASTITY I know. I am too. But one day, I’ll find someone. Someone perfect for me. Someone who can make me...happy. You and I won’t be alone forever. One day, Eli, I promise you, we’ll find someone to love us. I know we will. There’s plenty of fish in the sea.
[She rests her head on his shoulder, as the lights fade to black.]
• • •