Thefre

A queer children’s play (12 and up) about loving after bullying, set in a ball pit (disguised as a mud pit).

Excerpt from The Fre:

FRANKIE (popping up from the mud). Story Time Competitor number #2-

Taylor Mac, in the rat costume, carries on an eleven year old boy (or gender queer kid). And puts them down center.

FRANKIE(Surprised). Taylor Fre.

The Fre all murmur “Who?”, “What?” “Hu?”

TAYLOR FRE. Hello. Hi. Nice to see you all. This story goes out to my sister Janis Fre. Janis, as some of you may know, was a quadriplegic, which means, in her case, she didn’t have use of her arms or legs, was paralyzed, couldn’t talk, and could barely move her face. I never really liked her all that much ‘cause she was always so cynical and mean but the main reason was she never seemed to be going anywhere or striving for anything and even if all you can do is think, there are things you can think about that will add to the world, you don’t always have to take things and wait around for pleasure to come to you. But one day she joined this online sports team where she would blow into a straw hooked up to her computer to move a digital ball around. She was obsessed. And little by little her neck started to stick out like this-(She demonstrates)It was as if she were starting to strive for something. Apparently she was one of the best players in her online league. And I got to thinking, wow if some dumb online game can make her life a little better, then maybe if I read her some, I don’t know, something really important like Ulysses or The Sound and The Fury, maybe that could fix her totally. So I started staying up late, reading to her the complete works of Gertrude Stein, Hart Crane, George Eliot, James Joyce, Simon de Beauvoir, John Ashbery-

HERO. John Donne?

TAYLOR FRE. I’m not that cruel. But all the same I read and read and read and then finally one day, just as I was about to give up hope, she actually did speak. I couldn’t believe it. Her voice was a little robotic sounding ‘cause really it came out of the computer that my parents had hooked up to a speaker around her neck and she had to type what she wanted to say into the computer by blowing into a straw like this:

They demonstrate.

TAYLOR FRE. But I could tell from the snarky tone that it was still her. And after all those months of reading late into the evening, neither one of us getting any sleep, she says the first words she’s said in five years, since the school shooting, she says,

(In a robotic voice)

“LEAVE ME ALONE”. And I said to her, “No I don’t think I will leave you alone. Clearly my plan is working. You weren’t speaking and now you are.” And she says to me, after she blows into her straw for a loooooong time, she says, (Robotic voice)“Look asterisk, at symbol, number symbol, percent sign, exclamation point! You don’t fix broken things. It’s insulting to them. Let them be broken. Why does everything have to work? Everything doesn’t have to work”. Well that made me think a little bit but still something didn’t sit right with me that all she wanted to do with her life was play and hang out and so I said,“But it’s a Universal truth that the only purpose in life is betterment.” And after another thirty minuets of blowing into the straw, she said,

(Robotic voice)

“Well then make me another Universe where there aren’t number symbol, asterisk, exclamation marks like you. And while I’m thinking about it, what about old people? Shouldn’t old people get to lay around and look at things?” To which I replied, “Well first off, it’s lie around, not lay. A chicken lays but a person lies. And secondly, of course old people shouldn’t get to lie around and look at things. Don’t you know once you stop working you die? Like how Grandpa retired and then two weeks later he died.” And she said, quickly this time, as if she’d been getting the hang of it, she said,

(Robotic voice)

“MOOOOOOOOOOOM! TAYLOR IS BUGGING MEEEEEE!” Well she did die, my sister. And everyone thought it was a blessing. But I didn’t.

Taylor Fre has finished and there is a pause. After the pause a buzzer goes off.

FRANNY FRE FRE. You’re out of time. Throw mud at the Fre who will grow up to make theater that is too long.

The Fre throw mud at Taylor Fre. Taylor Fre runs off, never to be seen again.

FRANKIE. Score cards please.

Bobby Fre gives a 2, Billy Fre gives a 1 and a half, and Frannkie Fre is about to put his score card up when Billy pushes him face first in the mud.

HERO. Oh! That should get a minimum of four. For ingenuity with how she swore.

SHOW CREDITS

The premiere production of "The Fre" was a casualty of the Covid 2020 shutdown. A production made it through previews and then was no more. It was bad timing to stage a children's play in a ball-pit at the start of pandemic. Gyrrrrl.

Written by Taylor Mac

Director: Niegel Smith

Associate Director: Kristan Seemel

Assistant Directors: Rebecca Aparicio and Sarah Jane Schostack

Performed by the Bats

Scenic Designer: Jian Jung

Costume Designer: Machine Dazzle

Lighting Designer; Xavier Pierce

Composer, Music Director, & Sound Designer: Matt Ray

Choreographer: Sarah East Johnson

Video Designer: Adam J. Thompson

Dramaturg: Jocelyn Clarke and Drayton Alexander