Separation by Christopher Notarnicola

VETERAN’S TEN-MINUTE PLAYWRIGHTING CONTEST WINNER- CHRISTOPHER NOTARNICOLA

This year’s winner of the Veteran’s 10-minute Playwrighting Contest was Christopher Notarnicola’s for his play “Separation.” In this play, the audience finds themselves listening into a session between a Veteran, V, and their therapist, VA. This quick 10-minute exchange is personal enough to evoke compassion for V and, simultaneously, as the character name choices show, non-specific enough to allow V to stand for any Veteran. The complexities of Veterans’ struggle to return to civilian life are played out before us as the two take turns completing a puzzle as they talk. V’s discomfort with therapy and the methodical cooperation that the activity requires is clear from the beginning. The audience is drawn in by the dialogue, eager to uncover why V is in therapy and desperate for them to find relief from their pain and frustration. The everyday setting, conversation, and activity juxtapose the realities and difficulties facing Veterans returning to civilian life.

Julie Kiernan, Artistic Director

Veteran’s 10-minute Playwriting Contest & Festival

SEPARATION

Christopher Notarnicola

CHARACTERS

VA, mid 40s, professional.

V, mid 20s, casual.

SETTING

An office. There is a table in the middle of the room with a partially completed puzzle atop and a chair on either side.

TIME

Present, midday.

(VA sits and contemplates a puzzle on the table. V enters from offstage and takes a seat.)

Find it alright?

Yes, the dispenser is out of soap.

I'll make a note of it, thank you.

Shall we continue?

It's your turn.

(They select and place pieces of the puzzle over the course of their conversation. They may play quickly or they may pause to contemplate their selections as dictated by interpretations of their dialogue.)

A puzzle isn't usually a game where people take turns.

Tell me of a time when you felt needed by another.

When I felt needed?

When you felt that someone else depended, perhaps desperately, upon you.

Upon me.

You may consider family or friends, a colleague, someone close, a significant other or roommate.

I got it.

Take all the time you need.

I have a time in mind now.

Whenever you’re ready.

I stopped running when I got out, but I started again in college after a guy on campus, prior ordnance guy, told me it’s dramatic changes to our physiology which cause the greatest difficulties in adjusting to the pace of civilian living.

No regular endorphin release.

Right, no routine dopamine rush. No runner’s high and no utter collapse.

Tough to chase those extremes.

Correct me if we’re wrong, but the body becomes accustomed to such extremes.

You’re not wrong.

We have been or our bodies have been, in a sense, conditioned to produce and receive our chemicals, have come to expect certain feelings, regular feeling, a condition, I believe, not dissimilar to addiction.

Well, now you wouldn’t want to use that language.

No, I suppose I wouldn’t.

You aren’t being treated for substance abuse.

No one’s being treated.

What’s that supposed to mean?

Is it at all possible that I am actually better off because of my experiences overseas?

It is possible you feel that way, but we'll get there.

I do feel that way. Let's get there.

Let’s get back to this guy on campus, the one who served, like you, with the military, and his take on civilian living.

He isn’t being treated either.

Does he feel he is better off because of his experiences?

I don’t know, but he convinced me to continue to run so I wouldn't shock my system now that I’m free to be lazy again.

You run often, then.

Often enough.

Do you worry about becoming lazy?

I'm saying I only worry when I'm lazy.

He needed to share that advice with you, this fellow veteran, needed you to understand, and needed a friend, perhaps.

Yes, well, we didn't end up being best buddies or anything, but I wasn’t thinking of him when you asked about a time when I felt needed, the way you phrased it, desperately needed.

You want to pick this whole process apart.

I want to pick every process apart.

You must be a big fan of puzzles.

I'm not, actually, but it is satisfying to find a good fit.

Tell me what you had in mind, this time when you were needed.

In those suggestions, roommate, and so I thought of mine and then her dog, a seventy-pound mutt with selective hearing, and how my roommate works evenings and stays out most nights which means her dog spends half his waking life in my care.

You may find the company of a pet therapeutic.

We get along. He lets me lay on him and I move with his breath, lets me take him for runs and he keeps up and listens to me the way he never would listen to her or to anyone.

Ah, the dog depends on you as a caregiver while your roommate is out.

I would have said caretaker.

Caretaker, caregiver, same difference.

They sound like they should be opposites.

We usually use caretaker to describe one who looks after a place, like an old house.

Or a cemetery.

Right, but not a dog.

Caretaker feels right for a dog.

Do you feel you’ve taken more care than you’ve given?

Yes.

This dog needs you, depends on you for its daily comforts.

Yes, but only after I nearly killed him.

Well, now physical abuse is a tough way to train a dog.

If running is abuse.

Say more.

He dropped back on our first run, slowed after a mile or so, struggled to keep pace with a jog, then a walk, then he collapsed at my feet. I tried to get him up but he wouldn’t move, and I had to carry him home on my shoulders, draped around my neck, legs over my chest, his paws in my hands, his heat and heart and breath on me, his ribs flexing with every step.

You’ve told this story before.

I have.

You seem proud.

I am.

That dog needed you to carry it home and you, if you’ll permit the equation, needed that dog.

I suppose.

With the dog you have some practiced thing to tell, a moment from your civilian life in which you can be the hero.

Right, I see myself as a hero now. Thanks for the help.

It is important for you to think on these moments, to think in terms of need, to keep this idea of necessity at the fore and to recognize that such instances of mutual dependence occur far more often than you probably realize.

I can see how this could be a useful outlook. Or inlook.

A looking around, we might say.

He listens to me now.

You mean your roommate’s dog.

I take him outside without a leash and he listens to me like he would never listen to her or to anyone before. I call him from far and he will come running, or I can tell him to stay and he will stand at my side and wait, point at the ground and he will sit, snap fingers and he will give me his eyes as I watch him curb his curiosity while other dogs pass.

Let’s have you think of another time, if you can, same idea, when you were needed.

He only listens to me like this, only after that run, after he was too tired to stand, too tired to do anything other than trust me with his life.

This seems quite important to you.

More than important.

More important than important?

It doesn't seem fair that some of these pieces were placed before I came in.

Would you have preferred a blank slate?

I would have liked to make the first move.

It's not chess, you know. This is a collaborative game.

How many collaborators like me does it usually take to finish a puzzle?

What makes you think we've ever finished one?

I am the reason he lives, the reason he rushes to the door, the reason he understands gratitude, loyalty, purpose.

Talk to me about your sense of purpose.

I am still talking about my roommate’s dog.

I wonder why you won’t call this dog by its name.

I do.

You didn’t name it just now.

I did not.

You haven’t mentioned its name this whole time.

I have not.

But you will call the dog’s name, for instance, when you are together, when you want it to listen.

That’s right.

And yet you don’t use its name when you tell of it proudly in this story of yours.

Is that suddenly a problem?

What is the name of your roommate’s dog?

Silly.

What’s silly?

The names we give to dogs.

Why don’t you tell me this dog’s silly name?

There’s no need.

Why is there no need?

There is only one dog in this story.

I see.

You see and you feel without need for silly names.

Tell me a little more about it, what it looks like, let’s start there.

Didn’t you see a dog just then when I told you how I carried him home, see his weight across my shoulders, his ribs against my neck, paws in my hands?

I saw a dog, yes.

Let’s keep it that way.

What way is that?

You imagining your dog on my shoulders and me seeing the dog I carried home.

You've been chipping away at the middle bits, but I find it easiest to work from the outside in.

I keep trying pieces I've already tried in places I've already tried them.

All the loose ones are starting to look the same.

I'm just trying blank spaces at random.

We need a new perspective.

(VA stands to contemplate the puzzle from above. V stands to contemplate VA. When VA looks up at V, V looks down at the puzzle. When V looks up at VA, VA continues to contemplate V.)

Wouldn't it be easier if we put it together with the picture facing up?

Oh yes, much easier.

(They contemplate the puzzle.)

(End)

VETERAN’S TEN-MINUTE PLAYWRIGHTING CONTEST WINNER- CHRISTOPHER NOTARNICOLA

SEPARATION

Christopher Notarnicola

Soundings East