Unproduced (to be produced by the ABC in 1998 by Libby Douglas)
About `McHAPPINESS - THE RADIO PLAY'
This is such a different kettle of fish to the stage version, to the point that I was wary of giving it the same name. It's what you could call `Fantasy on McHappiness' - it's a post-modern McHappiness, a kind of fantasy world in which all the characters from all my major works and some minor works appear. Long is from NOT THAT LONG, Violet from DON'T CALL ME SONNY BOY, Lydia from THEY SOLD THEIR SOULS TO SANTA, Mercedes from GARDENING AT NIGHT and Indie from a play I wrote after the crisis of winning the award in 1995 to convince myself I could still write (but have never quite figured out the main message behind, so I haven't included it here).
Ultimately, it was written as a last hurrah for my teenage writings and teenage experiences (it was written just before my twentieth birthday). It incorporates elements of many of my other plays, and random writings that I have never been able to slot in anywhere else. The main theme however, is the same as the stage version - the idea that we cannot stop time, but can only grab certain moments for souvenirs. This is the theme of my own teenage years, and implicitly, in many of the plays I wrote during that time.
by Camille Scaysbrook
LONG - A typical `everyboy'
VIOLET - A little more idiosyncratic than Long.
LYDIA - Slightly lonely and somewhat ethereal.
MERCEDES - The kind of female friend people would describe as quirky.
INDIE - The garrulous, slightly annoying `everymate'.
Suburban Sydney, the present in various cars, at a party, and a concert.
NOTE TO VISITORS OF THE ARTS HOLE
This section is different to the one I have provided to represent the stage version of McHAPPINESS.
Scene 1. Introduction
1. SFX MUSIC - I Am Awake by Rail.
2. LONG - I was kind of hoping in a way that some of the kids from school would be at the party. I miss some of them in the holidays, in a weird kind of way. This is the last summer holidays ever, for me. Next time it'll be the summer holidays that never ends. This time next year, it's like we've been all together on a huge big tarpaulin, way above the earth. But now they're about to take the tarpaulin away and we're all going to fall together right down to earth with nothing to break our fall. And those people will go from people who you tell your feelings to, to smile- and-nod people you see walking in the opposite direction in the mall, to faces in the yearbook, to faces in the street. They'll like, go off and have their life, fall in love, have a career, all that stuff. And I'll never see them again. I don't even know if they'll remember me. I mean you're holed up with most of these people for like, six years of your life. Whether you like them or not, or whether they like you or not, they're up there in your mind somewhere.In some ways, I almost wish school would never end, I wish you could have that, I don't know, at least the security of knowing exactly who you're going to see there and pretty much what you're going to do there, every day, every year. And ... I guess I'll miss everybody too. Just miss the fact that I know I'll be with them there every day. I've almost finished the bit of my life that other people write, I'm up to the bit that I write, and shit, I don't even know how to damn well start it.
Scene 2. In the Cars
3. SFX Inside a car. They are listening to Tumbleweed's `Circus Sideshow' but it is turned down as they talk into a drive-thru radio at a fast food outlet.
4. MERCEDES - ... a three dollar combo meal, and 9 nuggets with sweet mustard sauce thanks.
5. VOICE - Any desserts with that ?
1. MERCEDES - No thanks.
2. VOICE - Okay, please proceed to the next window.
3. SFX They drive to the next window.
4. MERCEDES - Thankyou.
5. SFX The car drives off.
6. MERCEDES - God ! That was Jessie Harlow ! I hate that girl!
7.LONG - She's not that bad.
8.MERCEDES - Did you hear about Indie's mosh accident the other day?
9.LONG - Nope ?
10. MERCEDES - Yeah ! He dives and nobody catches him.
11. LONG - Bummer.
12. MERCEDES - Remember that time you fell on your back on the concrete ?
13. LONG - Shit that hurt !
14. MERCEDES - It's so cool driving this car. Everyone you drive past goes `SHIT !' cause they can tell it's an unmarked police car!
15. SFX A change in sound to denote we are now in a different car - a real bomb. `I Like Your Old Stuff Better Than Your New Stuff' by Regurgitator is playing loudly.
16. INDIE - Shit, Violet ! Get the hell down, there's cops at those lights ! Wanna just ditch 'em at the next turn off ?
1. VIOLET - You don't even know if they're after us yet, dickhead!
2.INDIE - Turn the fuck'n stereo down, asshole !
3. SFX The stereo is turned down.
4. VIOLET - Seven fifteen. The volume is fumbled down. The car tiptoes through the intersection, whistling with its hands in its pockets, staring at the sky. The cops don't see us.
5. SFX The roar of the car going through the intersection. Then, a total change of atmosphere. Someone is typing on a computer, indoors. A party can only just be heard from outside. Unless specified, it is always Lydia's thoughts being heard.
6. LYDIA - There was a party, just down the street. I had a cup of cocoa, gentle froth clinging to the sides of the glass and creamy undisolved particles waiting to plunge into the burning milk, dragging my eyes and nostrils into a nauseous hazy slumber.
7. SFX The slam of a door. Lydia is now outside. Delicate outdoor night time sounds - crickets chirruping, a windchime, the party at a distance, cars roaring up a distant highway, alone. These sounds will become a motif.
8. LYDIA - The night outside was echoy and huge. I realised that two nights before.
9. SFX The same, but with footsteps running.
10. LYDIA - I had run outside, alone, stood motionless in the middle of the road, and run. Run for the pleasure of running; run for the pleasure of the night sky pressing down on my face and the silence cramming itself into my ears,
11. SFX No longer footsteps. The party sounds slowly creep back.
1. LYDIA - The same silence on which the mute strands of music were riding to my window, the murmur of traffic on the fluorescent-lit highway and the green violin strains of crickets. A faceless face yelling to anonymous friends across a shady yard .... so long since I've been to a party....
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