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    That Elusive Spark
    That Elusive Spark
    That Elusive Spark
    Ebook172 pages43 minutes

    That Elusive Spark

    By Janet Munsil

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    About this ebook

    Neuropsychologist Helen Harlow is an expert at understanding the functions of the human brain, and yet her own remains a mystery. Turning her back on a once-brilliant future filled with scientific promise, Helen attempts to escape the mess of her life by diving headfirst into a new one: living in a frat-house basement, teaching Psych 101 to clueless freshmen, and confronting both her depression and the puzzling attentions of her slacker housemate Finlay. Pushed to the brink and increasingly desperate for some semblance of normalcy, Helen finds herself in a doctor's office looking for a change. But not everyone chooses to change. Certainly not Phineas Gage, a construction foreman in 1848 who miraculously survives an explosion that shoots an iron rod though his head. While Phineas makes an extraordinary physical recovery, he has a dramatic change in personality. Attended to and observed by the young doctor James Harlow, Helen's ancestor, the legacy of Phineas's dramatic story shows how far we have come scientifically, and yet how little we can comprehend of the mystery of our own hearts and minds.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPlaywrights Canada Press
    Release dateMar 1, 2014
    ISBN9781770912069
    That Elusive Spark
    Author

    Janet Munsil

    Janet Munsil is a Victoria-based playwright, and a graduate of the University of Victoria's Phoenix Theatre program. She has been the artistic director and festival producer of Intrepid Theatre since 1992, where she produces the annual Victoria Fringe Festival, Uno Fest, and Winterlab. Her plays have been produced internationally and include The Ugly Duchess, Emphysema (a love story), and Circus Fire, among others. Recently, Janet was commissioned by Theatre Calgary and Canada's National Arts Centre to adapt Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which won the Calgary Theatre Critics Award for Best Play of 2013.

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      Book preview

      That Elusive Spark - Janet Munsil

      9781770912069.jpg

      That Elusive Spark © Copyright 2014 by Janet Munsil

      Playwrights Canada Press

      202-269 Richmond Street West, Toronto, ON, Canada M5V 1X1

      phone 416.703.0013 • info@playwrightscanada.com • www.playwrightscanada.com

      No part of this book may be reproduced, downloaded, or used in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, except for excerpts in a review or by a licence from Access Copyright, www.accesscopyright.ca.

      For professional or amateur production rights, please contact The Playwrights Guild of Canada

      401 Richmond St. W., Suite 350

      Toronto, ON M5V 3A8

      Cover design by Elliott C. Smith

      Jacket design by Kisscut Design

      The Alegreya serif typeface used was designed by Juan Pablo del Peral. The Viga typeface was designed by Fontstage. The typefaces are used under the SIL Open font license version 1.1

      Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

      Munsil, Janet, author

         That Elusive Spark [electronic resource] / Janet Munsil.

      A play.

      Electronic monograph in multiple formats.

      Issued also in print format.

      ISBN 978-1-77091-205-2 (pdf).--ISBN 978-1-77091-206-9 (epub)

      I. Title

      PS8576.U576T53 2014   C812’.54    C2013-908489-4

      cip

      We acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council (OAC)—an agency of the Government of Ontario, which last year funded 1,681 individual artists and 1,125 organizations in 216 communities across Ontario for a total of $52.8 million—the Ontario Media Development Corporation, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

      The leading feature of this case is its improbability. A physician who holds in his hand a crowbar, three and a half feet long and more than thirteen pounds in weight, will not readily believe that it has been driven with a crash through the brain of a man who is still able to walk off, talking with composure and equanimity of the hole in his head.

      This is the sort of accident that happens in the pantomime at the theatre, but not elsewhere. Yet there is every reason for supposing it is in this case literally true. Taking all the circumstances into consideration, it may be doubted whether the present is not the most remarkable history of injury to the brain which has been recorded.

      —Dr. Henry J. Bigelow, MD, Professor of Surgery at Harvard University, The American Journal of the Medical Sciences, July 1850

      3643.jpg

      That Elusive Spark was commissioned by the University of Victoria’s Department of Theatre, and was developed and produced there with a student cast in March 2005, directed by Linda Moore. The professional premiere was produced at the Alberta Theatre Projects Enbridge playRites Festival in 2008, in the Martha Cohen Theatre, Calgary. It featured the following cast and creative team:

      Helen: Kathleen Duborg

      Jack: Braden Griffiths

      Sophie and Wendy: Vanessa Holmes

      Phineas and Hamlet: Kevin K. James

      Harlow and Brian: John Kirkpatrick

      Finlay: Lucas Myers

      Phyllis and Phyl: Valerie Ann Pearson

      Sizer: Paul Rainville

      Director: Linda Moore

      Set design: Scott Reid

      Costume design: Jenifer Darbellay

      Lighting design: David Fraser

      Composer: Sandy Moore

      Production dramaturg: Amy Lynn Strilchuk

      Production stage manager: Dianne Goodman

      Stage manager: Marcie Januska

      Assistant stage manager: Karen Fleury

      Rehearsal assistant stage manager: Rachel Parris

      Dialect coach: Jane MacFarlane

      Fight director: Kevin K. James

      Makeup artist: Whitney Huget-Penner

      Junior apprentice: Ian Wylie

      Characters

      …today—a contemporary college town and Harvard Medical School

      Dr. Helen Harlow

      Phyl Adams

      Finlay

      Wendy

      Jack

      Brian

      Dr. Sizer

      Hamlet

      …in 1848—Cavendish, Vermont, and Harvard Medical School

      Phineas Gage

      Jack Kirwin

      Sophie Kirwin

      Dr. John Harlow

      Dr. Sizer

      Mrs. Phyllis Adams

      Doubling

      Sizer/Sizer

      Phyl/Phyllis Adams

      Hamlet/Phineas

      Wendy/Sophie

      Brian/Dr. John Harlow

      Jack/Jack

      Act 1

      Loud music, off. Thumping bass.

      A tiny basement suite in Phyllis Adams’s boarding house. phyl lights a smoke, switches on a low-watt bare bulb with a chain.

      PHYL

      Watch your head.

      HELEN enters, carrying a sports bag. They shout over the volume of the music.

      Two hundred and eighty, first of the month. No cooking in your room. No loud music after midnight. Bathroom’s down the hall. Baseboard heat. You won’t need it. There’s a window up there. Doesn’t open. Looks onto a brick wall ever since they built that condo next door.

      HELEN

      I’ll be out during the day.

      PHYL

      They’re buying up all these old dumps where the college kids live, tearing ’em down and building condos. I’m holding out for a million. Where you from?

      HELEN

      Winnipeg.

      PHYL

      Where?

      HELEN

      Win-ni-peg.

      PHYL

      Jesus! Finlay! Finlay! Keep it down!

      HELEN

      I’ll take it.

      PHYL

      I’ll need references. Real references, not character references.

      HELEN

      Okay.

      PHYL

      And a month’s deposit, and first month’s rent.

      HELEN

      Okay.

      PHYL

      It’s not very quiet, you know. The boys just come and go all hours. You a student?

      HELEN

      Uh, no.

      PHYL

      You’re not on the run? Last fellow I had in this one was on the run. ’Scaped from the mental. That’s why I ask for references. Real references, not character references.

      HELEN

      I’m going to be teaching. At the college. Look, here’s my faculty ID.

      HELEN hands her a laminated card.

      PHYL

      Dr. Harlow. You a real doctor?

      HELEN

      Ph.D. Neuropsychology. I study consciousness.

      PHYL

      Consciousness.

      HELEN

      The mind?

      PHYL

      Like ESP? I’m a bit psychic, you know.

      HELEN

      Is that right? Look, I really, really need to find a place.

      PHYL

      Smart young gal like you with a good job could find a real nice rental closer to town. Might suit you better; no offence. My boarders, they’re all good boys, don’t get me wrong. But you got to trust your instincts, know what I mean? I know right away in my gut if they belong here, or if they’re going to run into trouble.

      HELEN

      I won’t be any trouble. I promise. This is fine for me.

      PHYL

      All I’m saying is, it’s hard to make good choices when you’re on the run.

      HELEN

      Look, I’m just not myself right now. I’ve been driving for

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