touch

TOUCH

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by Toni Press-Coffman 2M,2W

NI PIIESS-COFFMAN

Kyle Kalke, an astonomer since childhood, a high school "science nerd," falls in love with flamboyant, outspoken, openhearted Zoe, who - astonishingly - loves him back. When she is kidnapped and murdered, Kyle barricades himself by devoting himself more feverishly to the cosmos and losing himself in love­ less sex. TOUCH is about a man in despair questioning whether there is any point ro rediscovering passion, risking connection, groping toward the touch that will rekindle joy. a gripping, heart-wrenching, tender drama whose scenes shift seamlessly, character to character, past to present. ))

-.The New York Times "So often these days, theater aspires to nothing more than sheer escapism. But now and then, a deeply touching play comes along. TOUCH is one ofthose. )) -The Miami Herald "Toni Press-Coffinan 5 play celebrates the beauty of survival with -The Portland Oregonian eloquence and grace. ))

P,." ISBN 0-8222-2055-5 90000>

DRAMATISTS PLAY SERVICE, INC.

91178082211220558

*

DRAMATISTS PLAY SERVICE INC.

fS TOUCH Copyrighr © 2005, Toni Press-Coffman

All Righ rs Reserved

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CAUTION: Professionals and amareurs are hereby warned thar performance of TOUCH is subjecr ro paymenr of a royalry. Ir is fully prorecred under rhe copyrighr laws of rhe Un ired Srares of America, and of all counrries covered by rhe Inrernarional Copyrighr Union (including the Dominion of Canada and rhe rest of the British Commonwealth), and of all counrries covered by rhe Pan-American Copyright Convenrion, rhe Universal Copyright Convenrion, rhe Berne Convenrion, and of all counrries with which rhe United Srares has reciprocal copyrighr relations. All righrs, including professional/amareur srage rights, morion picture, reciration, lecturing, pub­ lic reading, radio broadcasting, television, video or sound recording, all other forms of mechanical Or electronic reproduction, such as CD-ROM, CD-I, DVD, information storage and retrieval systems and phorocopying, and the rights of translation into for­ eign languages, are strictly reserved. Particular emphasis is placed upon the matter of readings, permission for which musr be secured ftom the Author's agenr in writing.

This play is dedicated to the memory ofJason Ingbretson.

The English language srock and amateur stage performance rights in rhe United States, its territories, possessions and Canada for TOUCH are controlled exclusively by DRAMATISTS PLAY SERVICE, INC., 440 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016. No professional or nonprofessional performance of the Play may be given wirh­ our obtaining in advance the written permission of DRAMATISTS PLAY SERVICE, INC. , and paying rhe requisite fee. Inquiries concerning all other rights should be addressed ro Peregrine Whirtlesey Agency, 279 Cenrral Park Wesr, New York, NY 10024. Arm: Peregrine Whittlesey.

SPECIAL NOTE Anyone receiving permission to produce TOUCH is required ro give credit ro the Author as sole and exclusive Author of rhe Play on rhe ririe page of all programs dis­ tribured in connecrion with performances of the Play and in all instances in which rhe tirle of rhe Play appears for purposes of advertising, publicizing or otherwise exploir­ ing the Play and/or a producrion thereof The name of the Aurhor musr appear on a separare line, in which no other name appears, immediately benearh the tirie and in size of rype equal to 50% of the size of the largest, mosr prominenr letter used for the ride of rhe Play. No person, firm ot enriry may receive credit larger or more prominenr rhan rhat accorded the Aurhor. The following acknowledgmenrs must arpear on the tirle page in all programs distributed in connection with performances 0 rhe Play: TOUCH was originally produced in 1999

at Damesrocket Theatre in Tucson, Arizona.

Ptoduced in the 2000 Humana Fesrival of

New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville.

Originally ptoduced Off-Broadway in 2003

by The Women's Project and Productions Inc.,

Marya Cohen, Artisric Director.

SPECIAL NOTE ON SONGS AND RECORDINGS For performances of copyrighted songs, arrangements or recordings menrioned in rhis Play, the permission of the copyright owner(s) must be obrained. Other songs, arrange­ ments or recordings may be subsrituted provided permission from the copyright owner(s) of such songs, arrangemenrs or recordings is obtained; or songs, arrangements or recordings in the public domain may be substiruted.

2

Z SMITH REYNOLDS UBRARY

WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY

'1'( ) UCH

was originally produced in 1999 at Damesrocket Theater in Tucson, Arizona. It was directed by Caroline Reed; the set and costume design were by Susan Rojas; the lighting design was by Norm Testa; the sound design was by Chris Babbie; the production manager was David Walker; and the stage manager was William Barrett. The cast was as follows: Jonathan Ingbretson ........ Patrick Burke Christina Walker Erika Cossitt

KYLE KALKE BENNIE LOCASTO SERENA KATHLEEN

TOUCH was produced at the Humana Festival of New American Plays at the Actors Theatre of Louisville in March 2000. It was directed by M laden Kiselov; the set design was by Paul Owen; the costume design was by James Schuette; the lighting design was by Mimi Jordan Sherin; the sound desi gn was by Martin R. Desjardins; the properties design was by Mark Walston; the dra­ maturg was Amy Wegener; the assistant dramturg was Ginna Hoben; the casting was by Laura Richin; the stage manager was Juliet Penna; and the assistant stage manage r was Charles M. Turner III. The cast was as follows:

TOUCH opened Off-Broadway at the Women's Project and Productions (Marya Cohn, Artistic Director) in October 2003. It was directed by Loretta Greco; the assistant director was Alyse Rothman; the set design was by Michael Brown; the costume design was by Jeff Mahshie; the lighting design was by James Vermeulen; the original music and sound design were by Robert Kaplowitz; the dramaturg was Karen Keagle; the casting was by Amanda Mackey Johnson, C.S.A.; the stage manager was Gillian Duncan; and the assistant stage manager was Cyrille Blackburn . The cast was as follows: KYLE KALKE BENNIE LOCASTO .......... . SERENA KATHLEEN

Tom Everett Scott Matthew Del Negro Yetta Gottesman Michele Ammon

KYLE KALKE ............ .. .. .. ........... ................. ...... Stephen Kunken

BENNIE LOCASTO ........................................ Dominic Fumusa

SERENA .. .................................................. .......... .. .. Kaili Vernoff

KATHLEEN ....................................................... Joanna Glushak

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CHARACTERS KYLE KALKE, an astronomer in his late 20s BENNIE LOCASTO, a doctor in his late 20s, Kyle's best friend SERENA, Kyle's sister-in-law, in her 30s KATHLEEN, a prostitute, about 35

SETTING The play is set in Kyle's mind and the places he conjures there.

NOTE Dialogue in parentheses should be spoken in the event that the speech is not interrupted as indicated.

6

Every cubic inch afspace is a miracle. -Walt Whitman

TOUCH

ACT ONE Kyle is alone on the stage, which is bare - except for perhaps a chair or two - throughout the play, except occasionally when a specific set piece or prop is reftrred to in the script.

KYLE. I was taking physics. I was taking physics again is what I mean. My freshman year I took biology and chemistly and physics. My sophomore year I took advanced biology and physics again because there's nothing else in high school. (Beat') Earth science. Which I skipped. I wasn't sure about my career yet, although I was leaning toward the planets and the stars even then. Zoe told me later I was leaning toward the cosmos. I kept taking physics because chem­ istly doesn't work more than once, what you need for chemistry is a higher level class, but somehow with physics, you can take it over and over and over and over and the world keeps opening. My high school didn't offer astronomy. So instead I was taking physics for the fourth year in a row, and that's where I saw her for the first time. She looked inro the room. Peeked in. The teacher asked her whether he could help her, and then she stepped in, looking all around the room. She was wearing orange pants and a strange hat ;Ind a lot of make-up. (Beat') Zoe had huge eyes. Gigantic. And she ;dways wore bright green or dark brown or lavender eye shadow and that made her eyes seem even larger than they actually were. And they were so big to begin with that as she looked around the room, her eyes reminded me of the heavens. Which I had already wrne to love. I was thinking hard about how a person's physical fcarul'es could cause me ro reflect on planetary bodies, when she saiJ, "Jesus," and started laughing. I looked straight at her, and she said, "This is a science class." (He thinks. Then he laughs.) I laughed. I think now how odd that I laughed about science, since science 9

was everything I loved from the time I was small, but I did . When I laughed, she glanced at me. No one else laughed, no one else grasped that she had stepped into an entirely foreign world. She fixed her glance on me for a second or maybe two seconds, only it felt like much longer. Then she said, "I am so in the wrong room," and turned around and walked out the door. I didn't think. Which had rarely - maybe never - happened before. 1 literally jumped to my feet and went after her. I followed her into the hall and stood outside my physics classroom watching her. The bell sounded for class to start, but I didn't budge. Zoe caused me to be late to class for the first time in my life. Then it was every day. Every day. I arrived at school and I looked for her. Before then, I had arrived at school maybe a minute before the first bell because I didn't hang out. Because I grew up in the desert - it's hard to hang out in such heat. Well, other kids did it, but I didn't hang out with my friends because I had no friends. (Quickf).) That's not true. I have a friend from childhood. Bennie Locasto. His mother always corrected me when I called him Bennie because she hated if people did not call him by his full name, which is Benjamin. But Bennie liked his nickname, and I wanted to please him. Bennie went to a private high school, where I wished I could go because the private high school did offer astronomy. Since Bennie didn't go to my high school, I had no reason to come to school early to hang out. Except I came early the day after Zoe visited my physics class. Because I wanted to find her. It was easy. She had on another hat. Zoe owned a couple dozen hats, one stranger than the next. Which I liked. I found her and all I did was look at her. She wasn't beautiful in the way a lot of people think is beautiful. She wasn't skinny. She wasn't fat, but she wasn't skinny. She had a face that was falling in on itself Flattened out. Hollow. And the eyes. What I mean is she was beyond gorgeous. It was impossible to StOP looking at her once I started. I would come to school early, I would find her, and I would look at her until the bell. I dreamed of her at night and did nothing but look at her at school. I looked and looked and looked and looked and looked and looked at her. (Pause, then a gigantic grin.) Astounding. She looked back. I'd been coming to school early every morning for at least a week. I don't know how long she'd been looking back, but she did tell me later that it took me a while to notice. She used to say that for a scientist, for a person who does painstaking research, 1 didn't notice much besides what's in the sky. (Beat.) Except I noticed Zoe, and I finally noticed her looking

back at me. First I could not believe it. But she made it clear. When she saw me realizing she was looking back, she waved. Not in a cute way at all, not in a dopey way. In an excited way. (He can't believe it.) Zoe was excited that I was looking at her. I was always an in-the-shadows person, never in the forefront, not often in the light. That follows because I was attracted to the night sky early on. And to being alone. 1 enjoyed solitude. Like John Keats. The only poet. Boundless understanding of the uni­ verse. (A smile, then another beat') Even after I realized Zoe was looking back, 1 didn't know what to do. She was always surround­ ed by people. Most of them were guys. Although she had a lot of girlfriends too, and they'd squeal and laugh. Zoe was noisy. One morning, one of her admirers knocked her hat off her head. A straw hat with a giant-sized, rose-like silk flower attached to the band. The weather was tranquil, so the hat didn't go very far. She ran after it and scooped it up and put it on her head and then in one motion, she stood up straight, walked across the quad and spoke to me. "I found out your name you know." That's what she said. "I found out your name you know." I said, "How'd you do that?" I was trying to keep the thrill out of my voice. I had let go of the idea that I was ever going to be cool, so I didn't go for cool. I was trying more for calm. (Beat') She'd asked my physics teacher my name. I got very happy thinking about her approaching the physics teacher, inquiring about my name. (Beat.) "Kyle Kalke, right?" That's what she said. Now the guys backed off. She made it clear to them - she had a way of making things clear. There was never any confusion about what Zoe felt or thought. "This is Kyle," she said. "He's with me." (Big grin.) The next day was the first time I kissed her. After school, she walked out to my car with me, and we stood there together, lalking and mostly laughing. She said, "Don't science guys kiss t:;irls?" I couldn't possibly have kissed a person faster. Which still surprises me when I think about it because I had not kissed a girl very often. Twice to be exact, in the ninth grade. The girl was my lab partner and we got the highest grade on our experiment, so I kissed her to congratulate her and then I kissed her again, because I - I just liked the way it felt. Which was a completely different situation. With Zoe, I didn't think, there was no worry about whether it would go well. There was her and me, allover each other in the parking lot. Boy. We got married the Christmas after high school graduation.

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11

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December twenty-second. Winter solstice. Our decision to marry made our parents insane. Mine tOld me I didn't have to marry the first young woman I dated and that there was a lot of time to fall in love with other women. (Beat, some anger comes in here.) Ie was like they didn't even know me. Ie was like they thought I was going to marry Zoe Out of fear of never falling in love again. Which is an insult to her that I still haven't forgiven them for. Tell me I'm tOO young to marry. Tell me you're afraid I won't go to college and ful­ fill my dreams if I marry. But don't tell me I'm marrying Zoe Out of fear, don't hurt me by implying that I don't love Zoe. (Beat.) Her folks and her older brother and sister just thought I was - odd. I could understand why they would think so, since Zoe was so vibrant, while I was much more introverted. That's changed about me. Zoe reached in there and coaxed more of me OUt intO the light. (He thinks for a long time. He wants to stop thinking. He pushes the thoughts he doesn't want out - struggles to /,hl' ll " ,"" (I y(";t1 I, [lIli Iw\ got this

thing for Keats.

SERENA. Ah. Right. Zoe wid 1I1l" 11i;1!. TII:II 111.ld e I .ot.: happy.

(Beat.) I prefer T.S. Eliot - I1l1illl;IIl"I ), 11111 I\y l(" i ~ ri gll (. There's

something exquisite abou r ](C;l (s.

KYLE and SERENA. (Rcriting.)

Bold Lover, neve r, ncver ca llS( (hOII ki.\.\, Though winning near th e goal SERENA. (To Bennie.) YO Il kllow (h i~ !'OCIII ? BENNIE. Maybe a lin le, lik e I r(":1(1 II III 111)', 11 11I1()1 or so me­ thing. (Serena thumbs tiJrouxh 1/1{" 11fJ(J1.' III 1\ "II' ;"1'11" I'II/hi"g.) KYLE. - yet do not grieve; She cannot fade, th ough rhOiI II.I ~ ( Iltll tily 1'[1 ''- ' ­ Those lovers have rhar one 1ll0IlH'II!. Wll il I, t ', 1'll'I'IIiI!. That's the goal. To become one of tiWSl" IO WI!" III , II ,I\l' / ,\11' .Iround and around and aro und and aro1l lHI ;!lld Il l'Vi I ~l l(i 11111 '1, 11I1( kc.:ep smil­ ing because I can see he r r1l11l1ill)', .tl ll .1I 1 III 11Il', )\1.\1 nur of my I .1111 lill ed with reach, and I am filled wirlt ;llltil il'.111I1I1 .111t1 hope. (Beat.) How's that I()r ;\ t.(): tI ~ (,~f'rc 'lir' r!/J \(I' 1/,(, (JOo/;:, holds it close for a moment; then PUiS /1 till II/If . S/I:~/J/ / ItIIN. ) BENNIE. (Now what till / "'((J'~) .'i ll. Vi lli 100Vl wO llk That's why you're a teacher, right? SERENA. I made th e decision (0 Il':11II wl"'!1 I W,1.', Iwelve, on Zoe's first day ofkinderg:lrlctl. I 1111'1 111'1 ,i1 " !l· IIiI" .11 11()()11 and she ';i ll ~, , '\,\:, II n] 111',1',I !.i YOII as ;tll ex tension of

Kyle . 11\, ( .. ,d I d tll l! h j Ii , II ) 11 11 I'll 1',I,IIII, ·d. Benjamin.

BE N N II Il ll, (II,d l )lI l lIlth '>i' H ~ "', 111.11 " ~ ": I)( lTly whacked-

out. I( · II I~ I "" ' 11 111/10 1III, Ii, t I

SF.RI :N I\ t·Jn , 11\ 11 II 1111' Ii 'II'

BFN N II ' 1 1 11\~ 111111 11 \ p ili II 111\' 'I, " i il l ,

SEIZI :,N t\ W II \I

BE N N II ' I IliI,'UIl fO il' IIUoI ' 1" 8 blJ 111 II l1dld ,

SER I'N 1\ 1'1 '1 11/ h f(l lJ I .

BENNII ' I 11 1 1~i1!l l jU H di e Wil.)' 11 " "1\,