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| aug 9 - 15 |
| triumphant, gleaming, tight-pantsed |
| hi: 87 |
| lo: 49 |
Contributed by MJV, February 2004
Based on a True Story
Scene: A tennis club in Haines Point - a park abutting the Potomac River in Washington, DC. It's early spring and players on a multitude of courts are wearing track suits of varying expense and fashion. On one court a gangly teenage boy mis-hits a top-spin backhand. The ball drops on an adjacent court and rolls to the heels of a heavy-set, encumbered, middle aged Italian-American man. The man uses his racket to flick the ball back towards the boy without much enthusiasm.
Boy: Thanks!
Man: (nothing)
Boy: Hey! You're Antonin Scalia!
Man: Yes. Someone has to be.
The boy and the man lock eyes for what could be presented as a moment pregnant with meaning before a cold wind picks up and causes the boy to shudder. The boy returns to his game and the man to his.
Ideas for second act:
*The boy goes on to have sex, get into a good college and maintain generally positive relationships with his immediate family members and many of his friends.
*The man goes on to exercise his constitutional influence to set the American legal system back nearly 150 years.
A note on the title: The title does not have to do with the temperature, which admittedly at less than 40 degrees Fahrenheit would be too cold to play tennis - even in tracksuits. Rather the title is a reference to Washington's latitudinal position north of the equator. It is also meant to subtly introduce thematic parallels to both John Guare's famous play "Six Degrees of Separation" and the popular phenomenon of tracing working Hollywood relationships through Kevin Bacon. This is to say that the two characters in this play exist entirely unconnected at the outset but fate brings them together, greatly changing their 'degree' of familiarity. And yet, what really, has changed for these two characters? This might be a good essay question or 'jumping-off' point for class discussion. |
