Drama/ 4 Characters, 2 Women, 2 Men/ One Act
Synopsis:
(from The Georgia Straight): “Claire explores our relationships to masculinity which, in this play, is a relentlessly abusive force. A character called 1 is the mean, beautiful daddy figure who wields a none-too-subtle phallic symbol: a baseball bat . . . . 1 tells us how his father used to beat up his mom with the bat in consensual erotic encounters until 1 decided to off his old man, at which point his mother begged him to take over his father’s role. ‘So I did what I was told,’ he explains. ‘I beat the shit out of the old cunt.’
“He eventually murdered his mother, too, and has gone on to relationships with 2 and 3. He calls 2 ‘Cunt’ and 3 ‘Faggot.'”. . . The play asks how, as adults, we can find a satisfying expression for love that has been imprinted by abuse . . . . A character named Claire, a sexualized 10-year-old — in the play’s overlapping realities, she is 1’s daughter — embodies the origins of the conundrum . . . . Gatchalian does some subtle things with the reversals of power in abusive relationships; both 2 and 3 become sadistic for awhile. He explores his characters’ fruitless attempts to escape into anonymous, blindfolded sensuality, and their inevitable return to a desire for more personal intimate connections.”
“Gatchalian creates a one-act play so sexual, so violent and so sexually violent that it could encompass the decades-long traumas of an octogenarian . . . . Claire is evidence of greater, and no doubt even more disturbing, things to come from the writer.”
– The Vancouver Sun“I applaud Gatchalian’s willingness to go to dark places . . . . He questions the possibility of [intimate] connections in a sexual culture in which masculinity is, by definition, dehumanized.”
– Colin Thomas, The Georgia Straight“Gatchalian is well on his way to making his mark in contemporary drama.”
–CBC Radio
Amateur and professional rights:
Zero Summer Theatre and Literary Arts
Attention: C.E. Gatchalian
1710 Cotton Drive (Main Floor)
Vancouver, B.C.
CANADA
V5N 3V2
Ph.: (604) 254-2124, ext. 1
E-mail: zerosummer2002@yahoo.ca
About the Playwright: C. E. Gatchalian is a writer based in Vancouver. He studied Creative Writing and Theatre at the University of British Columbia (BFA, 1996; MFA, 2002). His first play, Motifs & Repetitions, aired on Canada’s Bravo! channel in 1997. His next play, Claire, was produced in Vancouver in 1999. His writings on the arts have appeared in numerous publications, including Xtra! West, The Vancouver Sun, and The Georgia Straight. His first book, Motifs & Repetitions & Other Plays, is forthcoming.
Claire was first produced at The Blinding Light!! Theatre, Vancouver, British Columbia in 1999.