Slightly West of the Universe
Harold: Glass? What the hell do you think this is- a house of glass? Shit- someone’s going to come around with a pocket full of rocks and bust us to pieces! Fuck fashion!
Dramatic comedy
Harold and Babs bicker themselves to insanity until something mystifying happens and they are forced to cope with a new change in perception. In the meantime their son Twiggy struggles to find out where he fits into all of it.
Characters:
BABS – A ripe woman in her mid to late-50s. A material idealist and chain smoker. Her constant urges to buy things drives her husband crazy, but that doesn’t bother her, she just wants what she wants and that’s all there is to it.
HAROLD – Babs’ husband, also mid to late 50s. A macho man with neat-freak tendencies. He grunts a lot and even growls sometimes like a bear.
TWIGGY – Babs and Harold’s 39 year-old son who lives two doors down from them. He’s a party guy trying to find some direction in his life separate from his parents, who are his best friends.
Set:
The whole play is set inside of Babs and Harold’s house in small town rural Ontario. On stage left there is an entrance to the house, which is a screen door lying on the ground. When people come in or out of the door, they open it and close it on the floor as if it is vertical. There is a dining and/or kitchen area upstage centre. On stage right there is a television facing upstage on stage right, with a loveseat that faces the audience.
There are several laminated signs stuck in random places around the house. All of them have instructions listed on them about keeping things clean, tidy or orderly. One is a sign that says: “No Smoking. At all.”
Approximate running time: 85 minutes.