You Are Happy Read online

  Contents

  Production History

  Characters

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  To Write of Love

  translated from Rébecca Déraspe’s

  author’s notes

  Writing of love

  Means making do

  And laughing

  At others

  At myself

  At you

  And seeing the sickly sweet conceit of lovers

  And loving that, too

  Writing of love is no joke

  Or else too much of one

  Because love has the face of a big tacky diva

  But one we listen to

  Behind closed doors

  Writing of love means searching for the humanity inside the caricature

  When Les Biches Pensives approached me to write about being single

  About being a couple

  About intimate life in the face of the outside world

  I wanted

  To write for Love

  Making it see itself

  In the acid of my words

  Making it laugh at itself

  This Love

  That thinks it can get away with anything

  And takes itself so seriously

  Deux ans de votre vie premiered in Montreal on August 16, 2011, at the Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui, under the artistic direction of Marie-Thérèse Fortin. The play was commissioned and produced by Les Biches Pensives. It featured the following cast and creative team:

  Jérémie Castonguay:

  Benoît Drouin-Germain

  Brigitte Castonguay:

  Dominique Leclerc

  Chloé Jolicoeur:

  Annie Darisse

  Director:

  Jacques Laroche

  Set and costume designer:

  Marzia Pellisier

  Lighting designer and stage manager:

  Josiane Fontaine-Zuchowski

  Sound designer:

  Gaël Lane Lépineß

  Movement coach:

  Andrew Turner

  You Are Happy, translated by Leanna Brodie, was given a public reading (under its working title, It’ll Never Last) in Vancouver on May 18, 2014, during the Ta Gueule Festival held by BoucheWHACKED! Theatre Collective, as part of Up in the Air Theatre’s rEvolver Arts Festival at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre (The Cultch). The translation was commissioned and presented by Ruby Slippers Theatre under the artistic direction of Diane Brown. It was supported by the Theatre International Program of the Canada Council for the Arts. It featured the following cast and creative team:

  Jeremy Castonguay:

  Sean Harris Oliver

  Bridget Castonguay:

  Melissa Oei

  Chloe Hartwell:

  Evelyn Chew

  Director:

  Diane Brown

  Characters

  Jeremy

  Bridget

  Chloe

  I

  JEREMY

  Hi

  It’s all over

  When it’s gotten this bad

  It has to stop

  I mean

  I can’t

  Right now you are inside a closet

  My sister’s, actually

  Face squashed between her turquoise skirts

  And her upscalerrific dresses

  As you can see it’s pretty cramped in here

  I’m sitting on a box full of sunflower knick-knacks

  I’m squeezed in so tight my knees are in my mouth

  It smells of stale perfume

  You hear me sneeze

  And you’re concerned

  Dust allergy

  But don’t worry about me

  I won’t be here for long

  Oh no!

  You see the rope I’m holding in my hand

  And now

  You’re getting the picture

  It’s a thick sailing rope type thing

  I stole it from the quay

  At the marina

  I do some sailing, you know

  I’m a guy who’s super-qualified to go out on the water

  It’s over

  You’ll be the witnesses to

  My suicide

  You can tell the story afterwards at those dinner parties where people tell stories about terrible things

  You’ll probably be rewarded with a couple of pats on the back

  And some very good advice

  Along the lines of: what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger

  You’ll be comforted by that

  I make a noose with the rope

  Get a splinter from the rope

  It hurts

  I swear

  I suck my finger

  To get it out

  I mean, I don’t want to take that with me to the grave

  Or the funeral home

  How dumb would I look?

  There’s no one here to stop me from doing what I’m about to do

  No girl who said “I love you” this morning

  Who would’ve seen I wasn’t doing too well

  Who would’ve followed me

  And then taken me in her arms crying, telling me, don’t do it

  No one

  I have razors with me too

  My sister’s razors

  She’s an aesthetician—so you just know they’re good and sharp

  This way

  If the rope doesn’t work

  I’ll slit my wrists

  Because

  That’ll make an impression

  Even more so in fact

  Actually

  I can’t quite make up my mind

  If I was a girl

  And I was really into me

  I don’t know which one would be more traumatizing

  The razors or the rope

  The most shocking image

  The gut punch

  That would make me spend my whole life regretting I never told me that I loved me

  I hear some noise in the house

  Quick

  I climb onto the knick-knack box

  Fasten the rope

  Put it around my neck

  It doesn’t work

  The noose comes apart

  The box collapses

  Down I go

  Split my knee wide open on a piece of broken sunflower crap

  Gross

  Gross

  Gross

  I take the razors out of my pocket

  I wait
for a bit

  I hear footsteps on the stairs

  Then in the hall

  BRIDGET

  Hi, Jeremy!

  JEREMY

  I’m unwrapping the razors

  Goddamn stupid plastic packaging

  BRIDGET

  Hello?

  JEREMY

  Come on

  BRIDGET

  Jeremy?

  JEREMY

  Come on

  BRIDGET

  Je-re-my!

  JEREMY

  Okay

  Here we go

  I’ve got one

  BRIDGET

  Say something! I know you’re here. I saw your car in the driveway.

  JEREMY

  I hold my breath

  BRIDGET

  Are you hiding in my closet again?

  JEREMY

  Soon as she’s close enough to the bedroom

  I’m gonna slash my wrists

  BRIDGET

  Jeremy!

  JEREMY

  She opens the bedroom door

  Runs over to me

  Takes me in her arms

  Now

  I can pass out in total safety at last

  BRIDGET

  Not again!

  II

  BRIDGET

  Hi

  Right now you’re with me inside the grocery store

  Neon illuminating happy faces

  Couples—choosing

  The best kind of salad dressing

  All around me

  Hands are in hands

  Eyes gaze into eyes

  I push my cart

  Head held high

  I avoid

  As best I can

  The amorous looks

  The lovey-dovey smiles

  The caresses

  The “Sweetheart, what do you feel like eating, my little boo-boo bear”

  The click of my heels on the ground reassures me

  I pass by cans of tomatoes

  Cans of mushrooms

  Cans of peas

  Cans of carrots

  Dried pasta

  Fresh pasta

  Vaguely Asian condiments

  Tap

  Choose

  Sniff

  Judge

  Weigh

  Count

  Check

  Pick

  In the baby-care aisle

  A man and a woman look at each other

  Smiling

  At a happy newborn seen in long shot

  On a pack of eco-friendly disposable diapers

  They kiss

  And suddenly

  I understand

  Everything

  I stop dead

  Paralyzed—except

  My head, which does a kind of three-hundred-and-sixty-degree scan

  Everyone here is two

  Couples

  Man/woman

  Man/man

  Woman/woman

  Buying butter

  And meatballs for two

  Love me tender

  Love me true

  “Babe, do I like roast beef?”

  Oh come on

  Come on

  I don’t need someone to hold my hand and tell me I like three-fruit marmalade

  I figure out

  Right here

  Right now

  Bam!

  Right in front of you

  That I’m different

  Everyone needs to be two

  Everyone

  Even my mother

  Who’s been cheated on in her own marriage bed

  Even my father

  Who cheats on his wife with a man

  Even that girl

  Wearing a black eye for makeup

  Even that guy

  Holding his girlfriend’s hand like it was a rancid salmon

  Even my brother

  My poor brother

  I can’t make love to him to make him forget that the world’s a mess

  I can’t take his hand to show everyone that someone loves him

  And then

  She appears

  Her

  Standing in the personal-care aisle

  All alone

  I wait a bit

  Hiding behind my little grocery list

  Someone’ll come and join her

  I can’t believe that no one

  But no

  No one

  III

  CHLOE

  Hi

  Right now you’re in my bedroom

  My bedroom is a beautiful room

  With frames

  And photos in the frames

  Me as a child

  Me as a teenager

  Me now

  Me with my parents

  My parents as children

  My parents as teenagers

  My parents now

  There are lovely wooden shutters on the windows

  You say to yourself

  What lovely wooden shutters on the windows!

  You promise yourself to remember to ask me where I got them from

  You really like me

  You look at my bed

  A double bed

  The pillows are placed in the middle

  You can tell I’m sleeping alone

  You conclude from this that I always sleep alone

  You don’t like single people

  They’re scary, with their disastrous date stories

  Their forgot-the-condom stories

  Single people have genital warts

  And abortions

  And drink too much

  It’s a well-known fact

  You see me

  Me

  Alone

  In front of my mirror

  You think I wear too much makeup

  You prefer natural girls

  Who prefer a quiet park to music in bars

  I light up a smoke

  You think that’s insane

  After all

  What with the booze

  Cancer

  Abortion

  And warts

  That’s a lot on my plate already

  You look for my bottle of antidepressants

  You don’t find one

  That scares you even more

  My name is Chloe

  I met Bridget in a supermarket

  IV

  CHLOE

  I was just standing there in front of the razors for women

  Pink

  Blue

  I didn’t know which one to choose

  She came up to me

  She was wearing a pretty white summer dress

  A dress you could trust

  BRIDGET

  Don’t know which one to choose?

  CHLOE

  Excuse me?

  BRIDGET

  Getting groceries by yourself?

  CHLOE

  Yes.

  BRIDGET

  Me too.

  CHLOE

  Great.

  BRIDGET

  It’s unusual.

  CHLOE

  Yes it is. I’ve gotta say it would be easier to choose my barbecue sauce if I had a second opinion.

  BRIDGET

  You don’t have a boyfriend?

  CHLOE

  You know, just someone to hold your hand while you try to figure out which pineapple is the juiciest.

  BRIDGET

  I understand.

/>   CHLOE

  Well . . . Bye.

  BRIDGET

  I work for a razor company.

  CHLOE

  I’m a waitress.

  BRIDGET

  Those ones there.

  CHLOE

  She held out a pack of pink razors

  So these ones’re good?

  BRIDGET

  Very good.

  CHLOE

  Okay.

  I put the pack of razors in my basket

  BRIDGET

  I’ll give you two years of free razors.

  CHLOE

  You’re kidding.

  BRIDGET

  All you have to do is come and see me once a month and tell me about the razors. So the company can improve the product.

  Come on

  Come on

  Come on

  CHLOE

  Why not?

  It was just on impulse

  She gave me the address of her office

  I gave her the address of my apartment

  So she could mail me my survey reward

  Then we went up to the cash

  She paid for my razors

  We shook hands

  All official and everything

  V

  CHLOE

  Today

  The day of our first meeting

  I leave my apartment

  You follow me

  We walk down the street

  It’s nice out

  Even though we’re hot

  The heat feels so good

  But still you’re pining for the snowflakes of January

  The ones that let you get under a blanket

  With a hot chocolate

  And romantic movies just made for days like that

  Deep down, we’re all the same

  An old lady crashes into me with her walker

  Hey! Goddammit!

  Watch where you’re going!

  You think I’m rude

  But you understand

  If I’ve got something against grandmothers

  It’s because mine never loved me

  Which breaks your heart

  A little

  Clutching the piece of paper with the address on it

  I arrive at

  A building several storeys high

  I go inside

  I take the elevator

  I wait

  At every floor I hope that someone will get in

  And the someone is a man

  And this man is the love of my life

  But elevators don’t stop all by themselves just to please us

  They keep on going

  Seventh floor