JENNIFER LINDSAY
jennifer lindsay (canada/the republic of ireland) is a tkaronto based artist-researcher working in theatre, video, ceramics, and sound. spanning art and health sciences, her practice is informed by memoirs of the body, language disfluency, and crip time.
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A TICKET ON THE 4
ALUNA THEATRE
jul 17, 2014
jul 18, 2014
jul 19, 2014
jul 24, 2014
jul
25, 2014
jul 26, 2014
8pm - 9pm
10pm - 11pm
a theatre adaptation of work by charles bukowski, this show is a stark look at the gritty world of gambling at the horse racetrack. presented in a series of whisky-soaked vignettes exploring chance and choice, A TICKET ON THE 4 is told through its transient hero hank as he encounters a collection of vagabonds, all while attempting to win his big ticket from the racetrack bar.
cast
hank: adrien benson
bartender: matthew smith
hector: jake zabusky
mr. graves: matthew binkley
mary-lou: liz jukovsky
direction and production
adaption and direction: jennifer lindsay
production management: lily mills
production coordination: giordana pimental
technology, sound, and music: ariel bialski
marketing: asif hameed
special thanks to: adrien benson for his patience with hank, bea pizano and trevor schwellnus at aluna theatre, harry tiefenbach, jason pilling, perdro mendes, gary and christina mills, andrea campo, simona analte, elizabeth bridge, emily gazley, shane robinson, and boo radley’s bar.
photos by jake zabusky
before pursuing my interests in memoirs of the bodymind, i was drawn to theatrical memoirs. mostly absurd dark comedies and tumultuous tales that took place in dingy hotel rooms, racetrack bars, and crime scenes.
charles bukowski was a
misogynist and all around heinous man who wrote beautiful poetry. his poetry led me to reading POST OFFICE where i could envision a chapter set on stage. from this place, i collected long and short stories, poetry, and prose, cut them up, and pieced them together into a play. 52 works by bukowski were used.
in bukowski’s poem the laughing heart, he says: “you can’t beat death, but you can beat death in life.” i felt that hank, the protagonist in A TICKET ON THE 4, was trying to beat death in life. by taking chances with it and betting on it. numerologically, and in some cultures, the number 4 has connections to death. mostly transformative death. A TICKET ON THE 4 is a ticket on death. these are the foundations for the title piece. the play is divided into seven acts. a selection of excerpts from each act are noted below.
(HANK attempts to study the racetrack ledger)
HECTOR: who do you like?
HANK: sir, I’d prefer not to talk.
HECTOR: my buddy told me about you. he says you don’t talk to anybody…. and that when you do talk, you fool people! parading around the track giving lectures, telling stories… what are you going to do when they find you out?
HANK: I’ll go back to the factory, or the post office.
(HECTOR becomes distracted by somebody who remembers him.)
HECTOR: hey-hey champ, how you doing?!
HANK: (without looking up, studying the ledger) good luck.
HANK: i feel for the lonely, i sense their need, but i also feel that they should all comfort each other and leave me alone. being alone has always been very necessary to me. i am naturally a loner, content just to live. sometimes with a woman, eat with her, and sleep with her, walk down the street with her. i don't want conversation, or to go anywhere except the racetrack or the boxing matches. i don't understand television. i feel foolish paying money to go into a movie theatre just to sit with other people to share their emotions. parties sicken me. i hate the game playing, the flirting, the amateur drunks.
HANK: last sunday. i had been up until 3 a.m. the night before. heavy drinking: beer, vodka, wine and there i was at the track. it was hot. the track was giving away free caps and 45,000 people were wearing caps. usually about six minutes to post the parade is over. and then the tide comes in. everybody was there. the killers, the lovers, the fools, the brother of jesus christ, the uncle of mickey mouse, some old, some bald, some macho. sexless. little old bent women, cheap hold-up men, the unemployed, the a.f.d.c., the mad, the damned, the dull, the bored, the dull and the bored, the worn, the style less, the defeated and the driven. the pickpockets, the food stampers, the muggers, the clerktypists, the wife-beaters, the unemployed air-controllers, the displaced auto workers, the fortune tellers, the glass-blowers, the night watchmen, the female –libbers, the dog catchers on sick leave, members of the city council, private dicks, bank examiners, bit men, hit men, your friends and mine.
MR.GRAVES: man you must know something. what do you like in the first? HANK: four-to-one should finish one-two…. i lost a dollar at the track today and i know that’s stupid: it’s better to win a hundred or lose a hundred.
MR: GRAVES: ya, there is at least the jostle of emotions.
HANK: but i was twenty-nine bucks ahead going into the last race so i laid thirty win on this eight-to-one shot going into the last, he came in second, it was back luck that’s all. so I lost a dollar.
MR.GRAVES: sometimes we got to settle for not very much; we need our rest; great tragedy or great victory will arrive soon enough… i waited on that eight-to-one shot in the last race and he came on in the stretch rapidly closing the space between him and the horse neared the wire, came with a beautiful rush, pounding and driving-to fall a head short. such is the life of a gambler: to go away then and wait to return. not all of us are gamblers: those who aren’t don’t matter.
HANK: as a boy i remember the sound: "rags! bottles! sacks! rags! bottles! sacks!" you could hear the voice long before you saw the old wagon and the old tired swaybacked horse. then you heard the hooves. and then you saw the horse and the wagon and it always seemed to be on the hottest summer day: "rags! bottles! sacks!" oh that horse was so tired- white stream of saliva drooling as the bit dug into the mouth. he pulled an intolerable load of rags, bottles, and sacks. i saw his eyes large in agony his ribs showing, the giant flies whirled and landed upon raw places on his skin. sometimes one of our fathers would yell: "hey! why don't you feed that horse, you bastard!” the man's answer was always the same: "rags! bottles! sacks!" the man was incredibly dirty, un-shaven, wearing a crushed and stained fedora. he sat on top of a large pile of sacks and now and then as the horse seemed to miss a step this man would lay down the long whip... the sound was like a rifle shot. he was the first man I ever wanted to kill, and there have been none since.
MARY-LOU: get your hands off me!
HANK: officer! officer! has my wife done something wrong?
OFFICER: believe that she is intoxicated, sir. i was going to escort her to the gate.
HANK: (big grin) the starting gate?
OFFICER: no, sir. the exit gate.
HANK: i’ll take over here, officer
OFFICER: all right sir. but see that she doesn’t drink anymore.
(OFFICER exits stage right. HANK and MARY-LOU take a seat)
MARY-LOU: thank god, you saved my life.
HANK: it’s all right. my name’s hank.
MARY-LOU: i’m mary-lou.
HANK: mary-lou. i love you.
MARY-LOU: i’m going with him (points to HANK).
HECTOR: that’s fair. i am a terribly jealous man. i mistreat you. it’s probably best you stay with him.
HANK: (facing the audience) she pointed at me. i felt important. i had lost so many women to so many other guys that it felt good for the thing to be working the other way around (HANK looks into the audience as if it is a mirror). jesus christ, I look like shi-
(HECTOR attempts to stab HANK with a knife and he is met with HANK’S beer bottle in defense. HECTOR’S mouth fills with blood, he cries and falls to the floor.)
MARY-LOU: hector? baby?!
HANK: you set this up, didn’t you? you’d let this monkey kill me for the lousy four or five hundred bucks in my wallet?