End of the Road

You are at the end of the road. You turn back to admire all the bumps and the deceptive smooth straights into those sharp bends that almost took you out. What do you want to feel? What do you want to see? Who do you want to be?

I attempted to answer these questions in my play The End of the Road with the following logline: During Driver’s Training, a nervous high schooler—accompanied by her instructor and a fellow student—accidentally gets onto the highway for the first time, possibly the last, as the three characters must reconcile with their dire reality and the veering trajectory of their lives. 

In theater—while the action happens on stage—the audience also simultaneously creates their own quiet performance of internal discourse. The latter is the show I am truly interested in. I wanted to lean into those visceral emotions by creating a play centered around my character’s inner worlds. When I watch plays, the parts that linger in my mind long after time has muddied my memory are the scenes that hone in on the character’s interpersonal relationships and internal struggles—notable in duo-led shows like Waiting for Godot or I and You. Take away the costumes and the set pieces and the props and the lights and all the distractions. Just, talk. Just, listen.

I have always been enamored by people’s duality: the cognitive dissonance between what we show and what we keep shrouded under layers for protection. I am writing for all those who feel incongruent with the world around them. Like they are chasing a dream that they’d want to wake up from. Like they are constantly waiting for something, for anything, for the beginning to end, for the end to begin.  

The actual plot only takes up a small portion of the show but I attempted to play with its pacing by stretching it out, slowing it down, and stopping it with a series of monologues delivered by the three main characters. Each character gets two monologues. One is told about their lives during the “Middle of the Road” and the other monologue is about the characters' lives during the “End of the Road”. I want to show a contrast between how each of these characters approach their own existence: not making any moves, moving too fast, or just going through the motions. I also want to play with a less explicit goal of subverting expectations with these characters, establishing them in stereotypical roles and through the monologues breaking that mold.

To be quite frank, I still don’t know what I want to stir in you, the audience, with this play. Life is hard? Expectations suck? Trying to slap a quick moralistic tagline on this show feels cheap like it is selling itself short. I don’t know what I want you to feel but I want you to feel. I want everyone to take away from this show what lands with them. I want you to hear my characters and through their words I want you to hear yourself. 

This play was born out of my own experiences. I am Abena: I sever my tongue and chain myself to the ground, afraid of making the wrong step and walking headfirst into regret. I am Mr. F: I inherited a body that works and works and works and gives up everything to the world only leaving myself with the pit of my heart to suck on for sustenance. I am Isaac: I am going through the motions and doing what is prescribed to me for the promise that one day I will reap the benefits. And you are them too. And only day you will be at the end of the road. And hopefully, after this show, you will be able to say that you at least enjoyed the ride. 

~ Anonymous