auditions

About The Play

The developing evolution of the title Retribution is illuminating about the entire play.

For over a decade, 40+ year resident San Diego playwright/actor/director/instructor J Marcus Newman (the erstwhile Nonnie Vishner) has been refining his second play.

Originally, with inspiration from the Divine (Miss M), Newman’s work strove to examine what could finally happen when a young gay and a young lesbian couple, shepherded by their older community friends, say Gee I Really Love You on their way to a small-town chapel to get legally married.

Then, drawing deeper inspiration from Jerry Herman, Matt realizes [I] Got Lost in [his] arms of the high school musical lead in “Annie Get Your Gun”/main quarterback and found that comfort and security of home not only for their first dance, but forever more.

As the world turns and old wounds are re-opened, Ben, the one non-local resident among this octet of gay and lesbian friends, breaks his back figuring out how best to help them understand that, having promised his Holocaust survivor father and his AIDS victim husband, he would Never Again allow them to do that to us.

Sometimes, during refinement, practicality informs change. In this case, the focus zoomed in on just the two male couples.

Retribution became the answer. The play is ready.

↑ Back to top

Story & Setting

In and around a large bed in a simple set, two couples explore complex internal conflicts as well as their responses to persistent external incitement.

Ben’s rage has been simmering for decades.

First his father was interred by the Nazis as a child in a concentration camp, then his lover died of AIDS amidst the Bible-wielding people he grew up with, and now Ben’s protégé Scott gets beaten up at his own wedding.

That was the last straw. Ben responds violently to this third affront with a deeply personal protestation of “Never again!”- fulfilling the pledge he made to his father.
His husband Harry remains his steadfast support.

Meanwhile, Matt simply wants a home, marriage to his hero and a child with lesbian friends. Scott prefers to fight for the idea of equality as a cause rather than a reality.

[in full production] Playing behind the bed is an evolving montage of projections that illuminates the lives of the separate couples. A “visual score” of subliminal messaging parallels their issues with those of other American sub-cultures and landmark events.

The era of Dumpy/Pants is on course to make it all much worse.

SETTING:

Time:
Present

Place:

Two bedrooms in a college town in a red state.

Large bed with a high, solid head board.
Free-standing door frame DR implies the bathroom. Above it UR is another door frame implying exit to the rest of the home.
Projections behind the bed define the two couples’ different rooms.

Quick transitions between scenes are executed with images pertinent to the thematic content projected on a traveler. Subliminal messages occasionally move from the traveler to the rear wall projections which define the rooms.

↑ Back to top

Character Descriptions

All are from the town, except Ben

Scott - gay, extremely handsome and athletic, late 20s

Ben - gay, East Coast secular Jew, 60s

Matt - gay, good looking, fit, late 20s (Amer-Asian)

Harry - gay, handsome, 60s

↑ Back to top