image: torontopubs.wordpress.com
A series of mini-dramas based on public conversations, as overheard and rewritten by local playwright/director Aurora Stewart de Peña.
Overheard at Sin and Redemption Pub
Ella, Max, Julia and Paul, all 20, drink beer out of very large mugs. Julia and Paul hold hands across the table. Max is wearing a pinstriped fedora on his small head. A chain connects his wallet to his belt loop. Ella wears a gold mini-skirt.
Max: Well, what’s the difference between that and having a drawer full of kitchen knives?
Those can kill.
Ella slams down her mug.
Ella: You have got to be kidding me.
Max: Why?
Ella: (Loudly) Why?!
Because a three year old can’t pick up a kitchen knife and accidently kill their father!
Max: I think they could.
Ella: No. No Max, they could not. A three year old doesn’t have the strength or the hand to eye co-ordination. But a three year old could certainly accidentally pull the trigger on a gun, should it be available, and accidentally murder any adult within shooting range. I can not, in my wildest dreams, imagine why you think that’s the same thing! It is not the same thing, Max, and you know it.
Max: So, just because of a couple of accidental gun deaths you think there shouldn’t be any guns?
Ella: Exactly!
Max: Why?
Ella: Because then there wouldn’t be any gun deaths at all!
Max: That’s ridiculous.
Ella leans back and crosses her arms, narrowing her eyes.
People die in accidental car deaths. Should we outlaw cars?
Ella: That is a stupid, stupid argument.
I have to go to the washroom.
Ella gets up, tossing her hair over her shoulder. She exhales loudly.
Max: Hey, that’s a cute skirt.
Ella: Yeah, thanks.
Ella stomps away.
Max: (To Paul and Julia) I like her, she can hold her own in a debate.
Julia takes a big gulp of beer.
Paul: You’re really killing this date, Man.
Julia: Never setting you up again.
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Aurora Stewart de Peña is half of the theatre company Birdtown & Swanville (the other half is Nika Mistruzzi). You can follow her on Twitter at @Aurorahhh.
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