Title Character List:
Reporter: 29, female, usually annoyed.
Pops: 56, male, bald, half-blind, lumbering giant.
Sister: 15, female, track star, aspires to learn Cardi-B’s tik tok dance and likes anime.
Sista: 15, female, reluctant basketball player, loves to sing Ariana Grande songs.
Lil Sis: 8, female, short, hates remote learning.
The Debaters: Two over 70 yr old white men. One Republican and one Democrat. Problematic politicians at best.
Curtain opens to a bare soundstage, save for a lone, black flatscreen TV propped on top of a bookshelf without any books on it. The walls are empty. The audience watches the TV as the family would from a living room.
Downstage center sits an ancient and brown pull out couch that was reupholstered to cover the stains and dent in it. Between the TV and the couch lies the hideous floor carpet from Bobby’s Department Store on Church Avenue that everyone’s sitting on and calmly eating McDonald’s waiting for the President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden debate to begin.
The family doesn’t have cable, but they’re live streaming from someone’s phone on the TV to tune in. The debate, during COVID times, has at least piqued the kids’ interest.
ACT 1, SCENE 1 (The twins, SISTER and SISTA spread out their fries and chicken nuggets. LIL SIS gets up to lay across the couch, already poised to fall asleep. POPS is inaudibly telling a story about fake news as he fiddles with his phone. THE DEBATERS haven’t appeared on the screen just yet, but should be on in a few minutes.)
Sista: Ari!!!!!! It’s almost on. Where are you? You coming?
Reporter: In the bathroom (She calls back from offstage). (SISTA immediately bursts into the bathroom while she’s still on the toilet to get a comb to separate her thick hair since she intends to start braiding while she watches the show.)
Sista: Well come on then.
(Seen returning to the living room.) (REPORTER enters begrudgingly with notebook in hand and sits on the floor)
(THE DEBATERS enter the screen. Stage lights dim to focus on the TV and the family. The debate begins.)
Sister: Biden looks asleep.
Lil Sis: I’m going to sleep. (Rolls over into a nest egg of blankets)
Sista: Why does he talk like that? He’s orange. (Shakes head) Want my fries?
(THE DEBATERS continue to argue in the background. The lights go up while the family has a discussion and half pays attention to what’s happening on screen.)
THE DEBATERS: …COVID. I can’t stay locked up in the basement like Joe…
(Everyone laughs hysterically) Sista: Yo, Trump savage. (SISTER imitates the debater’s face and hand motions)
Pops: Now see all these government secrets are ridiculous. The Simpsons already predicted it. See. Look, they’re not opening schools. They both liars. This is called blowing smoke. They’re not under oath. They can say whatever shit they want.
(SISTA watches REPORTER taking notes and tries to read it. She makes a face at the handwriting and begins to laugh like a hyena.)
Sister: There’s only like 12 kids in our class that showed up to like gym. I heard some of our teachers still have to be in the building, that’s crazy.
Pops: Should’ve shut it all down from the beginning and had them kids on the computer. Everyone has the phone, I mean, it’s computer times.
THE DEBATERS: …It was China’s fault…
(Everyone stays silent in what seems to be agreement.)
Pops: Well he’s not wrong. It was the c****s–
THE SISTERS: Dad, No!
Pops: What? That’s what not correct now? (Squints)
Reporter: No, it’s not.
Sister: It’s a racial slur. Plus, there’s a bunch of different Asian cultures, and a government isn’t always its people. Just say Chinese. (Squints back)
(POPS grumbles and proceeds to tell a story about the string of Chinese restaurants in Brooklyn he believes sold him rat in the 90s, but at the girl’s insistence, decides not to push anymore anti-Chinese rhetoric for the night.
Clearly annoyed, Pops gets up to retrieve a toothbrush from the bathroom offstage. He picks up some of the food containers from the floor and drops them off in the kitchen garbage. Once back in the living room, he sits down and brushes his teeth aggressively. REPORTER mother hens him about oral hygiene.) (SISTER starts to part her long, fluffy afro into two big sections. Leaning her head to the side, she carefully twists up a tight pattern out of her coils.)
THE DEBATERS: …made deal with the IRS. I prepaid my taxes…
Sista: Don’t they both got foreign entanglements? Isn’t Joe down with spies? How come Trump didn’t get impeached?
Reporter: They didn’t have enough convincing evidence.
Sista: (looks affronted) How can you accuse someone of something like that and not have enough evidence to begin with?
THE DEBATERS: …Obamacare. Period…
THE SISTERS: (Imitating Cardi-B.) Period’t. (Everyone breaks out in giggles.)
Pops: You know Obama for his last speech did a whole mic drop. He’s from the Southside, probably hung out with all them n**g*s.
Sista: Why’s it always people of color that are bad? Like why’s it always us? It’s 2020. I can identify as a fan if I want to. I was watching T.I. and this Black lady talking and she was agreeing with making America great again. And he goes, ‘What part slavery? AIDS?’
(REPORTER silently wonders if THE DEBATERS know that Blackness and criminality are not the same things from the way they argue about the 1994 crime bill.)
THE DEBATERS: ..I’m the least racist person…
Sista: (Throws sock at the TV) Ugh shut up! Don’t you know your supporters hate us? Like they get white people have gangs too. His nose is growing.
THE DEBATERS: ..Black people should get treatment, not jail…
Sister: This man stutters. (Looks down at Tik Tok and giggles) OOOOh, Chris Pratt, the Avenger one, is getting canceled.
POPS fumbles his phone and the TV goes blank. Everyone protests. By the time the technical difficulties are dealt with the live debate is over so the family shrugs. POPS lays down to get ready for bed. SISTA switches the TV to the Braxton Family Values reality show instead. Seeing that, REPORTER swiftly exits to her room.
FADE OUT
CURTAIN
