Metastasis and other plays
by Gordon Pengilly
Metastasis was first performed by Northern Light Theatre in Edmonton from October 17–29, 1995, under the direction of D.D. Kugler. It was subsequently produced at the Montreal Fringe Festival in 1998 and by the Company of Rogues in Calgary in 1999. It won the 1994 Alberta Playwrights’ Network Annual Playwriting Competition (Full-Length Category), followed by a summer workshop at the Page-to-Stage Festival at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.
Hardball, at this point just a voice and a shadow on the wall, wears baseball cap, long coat, cigarette in his mouth. Deerborn’s shirt is half undone and his suspenders dangle. Tammy, in a nurse’s uniform, has her panties in her hand and her arms around Deerborn. They are kissing goodnight in a doorway.
Hardball: V.O. You don’t know me, Dr. Deerborn. We haven’t been introduced to each other yet. But soon enough.
Tammy: Breathlessly. G’night, Doctor.
Deerborn: Sweet dreams, nurse.
Tammy: Of you. She holds her panties up to her face like a veil and slips out the door with a little laugh.
Hardball: V.O. I’m dying to get to know you, Dr. Deerborn.
Deerborn closes the door and leans against it.
At first you won’t open up to me but gradually the door of your cage will loosen and you will open yourself wider and wider until you have all of me. Then we’ll play some Hardball. Whispers. Dr. Deerborn?
Deerborn: Is somebody there? He opens the door and looks. Nothing.
Two
Carol: Her bedside phone rings. Hello?
Deerborn: Did I wake you up?
Carol: I’m reading in bed.
Deerborn: That sounds cozy.
Carol: Where are you?
Deerborn: I’m calling from the car, the traffic is terrible. Don’t wait up for me.
Carol: I’ve barely seen you all week.
Deerborn: It’s been one of those weeks.
Carol: Maybe I want to wait up.
Deerborn: Really, Carol, don’t. I’m completely done in tonight, and I’m grouchy and I’m … you know. He smells his hand.
Carol: You missed dinner.
Deerborn: Didn’t I tell you I had to stay late?
Carol: No.
Deerborn: I thought I did.
Carol: I made Italian.
Deerborn: Darnit! I’m sorry.
Carol: Sexy. Guess where my hand is right now. Pause. Martin, guess where my hand is right now. Pause. Are you still there, Martin?
Deerborn: Go back to your book, Carol. I’ll talk to you in the morning. G’night.
Carol: Sure. They hang up. In the morning. Carol tosses her book away and turns out the bedside lamp. A moment in darkness.
Hardball: V.O. Gently … gently open. Push!
Then two loud blasts from a shotgun which ripple for several seconds after. The shots should shake the theatre.
Hardball: V.O. It’s begun.
Three
Dr. Doc Holiday: In bloodspeckled greens and a cowboy hat. Cheerful. Over here, Mrs. Deerborn!
Carol: Approaching quickly. Where’s my husband?
Dr. Doc Holiday: He’s gonna be okay, Mrs. Deerborn, you can take him right on home. He’s a very lucky man though.
Carol: Thank God.
Dr. Doc Holiday: I’m Dr. Doc Holiday. We met at the last Christmas party. I was playin’ the piano.
Carol: Can I see him?
Dr. Doc Holiday: He’s with a policeman—shouldn’t be another minute.
Carol: Why the police? What do you mean?
Dr. Doc Holiday: What’ve you been told?
Carol: I was told he drove off the road.
Dr. Doc Holiday: Oo. Maybe you better sit down.
Carol: Out with it!
Dr. Doc Holiday: Somebody took a potshot at him on the freeway, Mrs. Deerborn … Commonly known as a drive-by shooting. He wasn’t hit, and that was good, it being a sawed-off shotgun, ma’am, but he’s got a few bumps and bruises …
Carol: Get out of my way!
Dr. Doc Holiday: Straight through there.
Four
Carol: Here, darling. She gives him a painkiller. Deerborn has his arm in a sling and a large bandage in the middle of his forehead.
Deerborn: Thank you. It’s good to be home.
Carol: Can I get you something else while I’m up?
Deerborn: No. Come sit by me.
Carol: Sitting on the sofa with him. Oh Marty … why? Why you? What’s the matter with this world?
Deerborn: It’s the work of the Devil, it’s become deranged.
Carol: You could’ve been … Bites her knuckle.
Deerborn: Go ahead and say it, Carol. I could’ve been killed. Shot in the head. My brains all over the—
Carol: Be quiet.
Deerborn: Upholstery.
Carol: Hush.
Deerborn: If I’d just come home for dinner none of this would’ve …
Carol: Ssshh. No, hush.
Deerborn: I feel terrible. The Mercedes was only two weeks old and now it’s full of little holes.
Carol: The Mercedes can be fixed. She puts her head on his shoulder.
Deerborn: Ow!
Carol: Sore shoulder?
Deerborn: Yes!
Carol: I’ll have Maria make up the spare room for you, darling, you’ll sleep better alone for a night or two.
Deerborn: I don’t like the spare room.
Carol: Then Sebastion’s old room.
Deerborn: I don’t like that room either, I might not ever sleep again. She strokes his hair.
Carol, I saw the eyes of the one with the shotgun, I saw them aiming down the barrel at me. He looked so young … he was wearing a ski mask.
Carol: He’s an animal.
Deerborn: I’ll never forget those eyes.
Carol: Oh Marty …
Deerborn: And it’s true what they say: my whole life flashed through my mind. I saw myself at different angles and ages like flipping through a photo album, and I think I saw the face of God. He looked like my old Aunt Izzy.
Carol: The one who left you her cello.
Deerborn: The spooky old hag, she’s come back to haunt me.
Carol: You’ve been traumatized, darling, it’s going to take some time.
Deerborn: I guess so.
Carol: Sleep now? Somewhere?
Deerborn: Sighs deeply. I’ll try to.
Five
Maria: Gently. Good morning, Dr. Deerborn.
Deerborn: Downcast. Good morning, Maria.
Maria: I hope you are feeling much better today. Such an awful thing.
Deerborn: I feel lousy. My head is banging.
Maria: You sit there, I will bring you some coffee and the paper is there and I’m making your favourite omelette, the old Spanish one from my grandmother’s book. You like that one.
Deerborn: Where’s Mrs. Deerborn this morning?
Maria: She went to see her friend today.
Deerborn: You mean her shrink. He sips his coffee. The coffee tastes funny. What did you do to it, Maria?
Maria: It’s the same as I always make it, Doctor.
Deerborn: It tastes funny.
The telephone rings.
Maria: Answering. Deerborn residence. Pause. Can I ask who is this calling please? Pause. One moment please. Then to him. Dr. Deerborn, a young woman, she says her name is Tammy, don’t talk unless you want to I’ll say you’re still in bed.
Deerborn: Beat. I’ll take it.
Maria: You don’t have to if you …
Deerborn: Give me the phone and leave me by myself.
Maria: Si, Dr. Deerborn.
Deerborn: English, Maria.
Maria: Sorry, Dr. Deerborn … whenever I make that crazy omelette … She exits.
To read more of Gordon Pengilly's internationally acclaimed plays, be on the lookout for Metastasis and other plays, making its much-anticipated debut in April 2009.