Here is a little street theater, a charming bijou, something concocted out of the air for the delectation of passers-by. Lipstick and Cigarettes was originally performed last year, June, 2010, at Asphalt Jungle Shorts VI, a drama festival in Kitchener, Ontario (the place where they invented the Blackberry, in case you didn’t know). Lipstick and Cigarettes, like all good theater, rises in silence and resolves itself in silence, and in between it seems, on a tenuous line of dialogue and the slightest of actions, to imply epic motions of the spirit—the drama of age and youth, a girl’s passage into womanhood, temptation and the Fall, and the joyful exuberance of life.
Dwight Storring is an old friend from dg’s newspaper days. In the mid-1970s, he was a photographer at the Peterborough Examiner when dg was the sports editor (a place and time immortalized in dg’s novel Precious). Now Dwight lives in Kitchener (did I tell you about the Blackberry), about a 50-minute drive from the farm where dg grew up. He is a digital media artist and producer who dabbles in many disciplines including playwriting. The photo above shows Jessalyn Broadfoot playing Angel. Dwight was a resident artist playwright at Theatre and Company during the 2005-06 season. He is currently exploring the connection between story and place through the Latitudes and Longitudes Digital Storytelling Project and his work with community agencies where he teaches the creation of personal narratives as a fundamental part of daily life.
dg
Lipstick and Cigarettes
By Dwight Storring
Characters
Evelyn – a woman, approaching 60.
Angel – a girl in her early teens or at least appears to be.
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The play opens in a small green space in downtown Kitchener. The space nestles up against the spiraling ramps of a parking garage – Kitchener’s Guggenheim.
Angel perches in the tree that arches over the benches in the park. She is dressed crisply in a gingham dress with a white apron over top, her hair in braids. She is iconic.
Angel sings an old jazz standard to herself, perhaps “It Amazes Me” or “I Walk a Little Faster.”
Evelyn, dressed in her housecoat and slippers, trudges into the parkette lugging a cheap, battered suitcase.
Evelyn places the suitcase on a bench and starts unpacking it. She joins Angel in the song. She removes a slinky red dress and drapes it gently over the bushes followed by a slip. She sets out a pair of matching shoes. The clothes have all seen better days.
She carefully sets out a bottle of wine and two glasses. She opens the wine, pours a glass and takes a drink.
Angel
Took you long enough.
Evelyn ignores her and continues to sing.
Angel
Took you long enough!
Evelyn continues to ignore her while she waltzes her glass of wine around the park.
Angel
Hey you. Evelyn, remember me?
I’ve been waiting here forever.
Evelyn bursts into loud peels of laughter as she dances.
Angel
Are you laughing at me … Stop … stop it, come on. Where have you been?
Evelyn
Trying to bring her laughing under control.
Sorry.
Angel
Stop it, stop it, stop it … Stop it … right now! Momma’s probably crying her eyes out wondering where I am and you’re laughing your ass off!
Evelyn
Still laughing.
Poor Momma. As if.
If you’re so worried about Momma, what’re you doing here?