Clybourne Park Read online

  KENNETH

  (looks outside)

  I don’t see the car.

  BEV

  What time is it?

  KENNETH

  Don’t know

  BEV

  I overslept.

  KENNETH

  Yup.

  BEV

  (yawning

  I don’t know why I was up so late. I was up half the night and the house was so quiet and your father was sound asleep but for some , reason my mind was just racing and it took forever to fall asleep.

  KENNETH

  Go back to bed.

  BEV

  (finally focusing)

  Oh look how you’re dressed up. Why are you all dressed up like that?

  (KENNETH stares, doesn’t answer.)

  BEV

  Kenneth?

  KENNETH

  Job interview

  (A key turns in the front door. It opens and FRANCINE enters in her street clothes with a scarf tied around her head. She carries a wet umbrella.)

  FRANCINE

  (sleepy

  Morning.

  KENNETH

  Morning.

  BEV

  Morning, Francine.

  FRANCINE

  Morning.

  BEV

  Oh, is it raining out there?

  FRANCINE

  Sprinkling a little.

  BEV

  I didn’t even notice. Well. It’s good for the grass.

  (She stands at the bottom of the stairs, as FRANCINE crosses past her and up the hallway. BEV lingers on the stairs.)

  KENNETH

  Aren’t you going back to sleep?

  BEV

  (pensive)

  Oh, I will. I’m just about to. But you know, I think things are about to change. I really do. I know it’s been a hard couple of years for all of us, I know they have been, but I really believe things are about to change for the better. I firmly believe that.

  (KENNETH waits. BEV turns and starts back up the stairs.)

  BEV

  You have enough light, there?

  KENNETH

  Uh-huh.

  BEV

  (as she ascends)

  Well, don’t hurt your eyes.

  (She is gone. KENNETH turns the radio back up, resumes writing. DAN continues to read The lights slowly fade as the music concludes.)

  End of play.

  TIME AND PLACE

  The set is the interior of a modest three-bedroom bungalow, 406 Clybourne Street, in the near northwest of central Chicago. There is a sitting room with front door access, a fireplace with an oak mantelpiece, and a separate dining area with built-in cupboards. At the rear of the dining area a swinging door leads to a kitchen. A staircase leads up to a second floor, and beneath it, another door leads down to a basement. There is a hallway and a bathroom door as well.

  CLYBOURNE PARK

  By Bruce Norris

  Directed by Pam MacKinnon

  World Premiere

  Playwrights Horizons Mainstage Theater

  Opening Night: February 21, 2010

  The cast was as follows

  (in order of speaking):

  ACT I (1959)

  Bev Christina Kirk

  Russ Frank Wood

  Francine Crystal A. Dickinson

  Jim Brendan Griffin

  Albert Damon Gupton

  Karl Jeremy Shamos

  Betsy Annie Parisse

  ACT II (2009)

  Tom/Kenneth Brendan Griffin

  Lindsey Annie Parisse

  Steve Jeremy Shamos

  Kathy Christina Kirk

  Kevin Damon Gupton

  Lena Crystal A. Dickinson

  Dan Frank Wood

  Bruce Norris

  CLYBOURNE PARK

  Bruce Norris is the author of the play Clybourne Park, which had its world premiere at Playwrights Horizons Mainstage Theater and was also produced at the Royal Court Theatre. It won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the 2011 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play, the 2010 London Critics Circle Award for Best New Play, and the 2010 Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Play. His other plays include The Infidel (2000), Purple Heart (2002), We All Went Down to Amsterdam (2003), The Pain and the Itch (2004), and The Unmentionables (2006), all of which had their premieres at Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago. His newest play, titled A Parallelogram, premiered there in July 2010. His work has also been seen at Playwrights Horizons (New York), Lookingglass Theatre (Chicago), Philadelphia Theatre Company, Woolly Mammoth Theatre (Washington, D.C.), Staatstheater Mainz (Germany), and the Galway Festival (Ireland), among others. He is the recipient of the Steinberg Playwright Award (2009) and the Whiting Foundation Prize for Drama (2006), as well as two Joseph Jefferson Awards (Chicago) for Best New Work. As an actor he can be seen in the films A Civil Action and The Sixth Sense, and in the recent All Good Things. He lives in New York.

  Copyright © 2011 by Bruce Norris

  All rights reserved

  CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that Clybourne Park is subject to a royalty. It is fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States and all countries covered by the International Copyright Union (including the Dominion of Canada and the rest of the British Commonwealth) and of all countries covered by the Pan-American Copyright Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention, and of all countries with which the United States has reciprocal copyright relations. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio broadcasting, television, video or sound taping, all other forms of mechanical or electronic reproduction, such as information storage and retrieval systems and photocopying, and the rights of translation into foreign languages, are strictly reserved. Particular emphasis is laid upon the question of readings, permission for which must be secured from the author’s agent in writing. Inquiries concerning all rights should be addressed to Harden Curtis Associates, 850 Seventh Avenue #903, New York, NY 10019, Attn: Mary Harden.

  Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  18 West 18th Street, New York 10011

  Originally published in 2011 by Nick Hern Books, Great Britain

  Published in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  www.fsgbooks.com

  Designed by Emily Kent

  eISBN 9781466807747

  First eBook Edition : December 2011

  First American edition, 2011

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2011931149