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JAKE JEPPSON |
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Nationality: n/a Email: n/a Website: n/a |
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Literary Agent: n/a |
Please send me a biography and information about this Playwright
xxx doollee
Plays by Jake Jeppson |
Cover Me in Humanness | ||
| 1st Produced: | Page to Stage Festival. John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, DC, USA >>> | 2008 | ||||
Company: | The Zoo Project | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #101439 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | There are few things less vulnerable in the world than statues. Sure, they may be pulled down in time of revolution or melted for ordinance in time of war, but otherwise, they are the very definition of durable goods. You cannot insult them; they do not suffer from lost love or thwarted ambition; they have no children to see die in front of their eyes. The real Lincoln felt the tortures of the damned over the Civil War dead, but the Lincoln statue in his Memorial sits immobile surrounded by his words and his admirers, and takes the long view. Or consider the Ballerina (Gwen Grastorf), bronze-cast and glittering, standing on permanent display at the National Gallery. Every evening she draws an audience of two: Nigel, a security guard (Matt Pearson) who you will identify within three sentences as a graduate of vocational rehab or of special education, and a closed-off young woman named Beth (Meghan Nesmith). The ballerina is poised in the moment before movement, a monument to potential energy. Although they don't know it, her two visitors are as well. It turns out that being a statue, notwithstanding the invulnerability, has no appeal to the Ballerina. She longs to recover her softness, her mobility, her human heart, but only the sustained touch of a human being can bring it to her. She calls out from her stony core, but the minds of most people are clouded with their own schemes and theories. Only dim Nigel is clear enough to hear her. And when he does, he responds fully, and touches her with his heart as well as his hand. He sings to her. (Amusingly, Pearson, who is known for his beautiful voice, makes himself almost unlistenable. "I have some more," he promises the Ballerina. "I'll hear it in installments," she replies.) And being statue-like is growing old for Beth also. Every week she shows up at the local video store and rents the same two ballet-based DVDs - which she never watches. Assistant Manager Randy (Kevin O'Reilly) has watched in silent agony. Finally, he can stand it no longer; he insists that she watch the old Kevin Bacon movie, "Footloose" with him, or he will no longer rent the DVDs to her. Rather against her better judgment, she watches the movie with him; rather against her better judgment, she finds she liked him; rather against her better judgment, she finds herself in a passionate embrace with him. Better judgment loses; Beth wins. "Footloose" is an inspired pick for them to watch, because it is the story of a young man who leads the fight to overturn a ban on rock 'n roll in his town. Cover Me In Humanness is the story of people leading the fight to overturn the ban on rock 'n roll in their own hearts. The statue, and Beth, melt into humanness in the arms of their flawed but ardent admirers. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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