LARRY AND LUCY

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Reminiscent  in tone of classic films like “Midnight Cowboy” and “Whitnail & I,” “Larry & Lucy” is about two emotionally wounded outsiders struggling to find a sense of place in the world.  The play touches on the themes of loneliness, togetherness and the continuing opiate crisis in America.

THE STORY:  Larry is a worn-out, 60-year-old, semi-famous street muralist who now barely supports his meager, one room Hollywood existence by driving for Uber. Lucy is a fragile Kansas City teen runaway looking to beat a heroin addiction. After a few chance meetings where Larry picks Lucy up near the methadone clinic she frequents, the two embark on a series of misadventures that help them gain insight into their troubled lives, yet also reminds them of the difficulties they’ll face when trying to overcome their afflictions.

STORY BACKGROUND: In the summer of 2017 the national opiate crisis entered my life in a very personal way. A family member  who I’m very close with went into drug rehab for the third time while I was staying with her family in  Arizona working on a video project. I had known about her prior struggles with heroin addiction, but since  I lived thousands of miles away in New York I had no genuine perspective of just how severe they were. I  also had no idea what it was like to be in day to day contact with someone who is struggling with this  problem, and the upheaval of emotions you experience as a caring observer.

The story I’ve written,  LARRY & LUCY, is a direct response to that experience; and though the setting and characters are not one  and the same, they do reflect many of the emotions I had while trying to help someone I truly care about.  I wish I could say these emotions were all positive in nature, You know- a shoulder to lean on, the gift of  giving, happy to be there for you. However, most of the time I felt just the opposite. In fact most of the time the only emotion I felt was hopelessness, and not just in regards to the family member struggling  with addiction, but hopelessness for myself and my ability to help someone who desperately needed it.  However, beyond the daily check ins to see if they were still breathing, the random words of  encouragement and the occasional pickups and drops off at the methadone clinic, it quickly dawned on  me that this wasn’t really my problem to solve as much as I wanted it to be, I say this with near certainty  because if it had been my problem there would’ve been more things I could do on my own to remedy it.  However, this was their problem, and though I believe my influence had some positive effect, it would  ultimately be up to them as to whether they beat this or not, whether they lived or not. This lack of  control over something I wanted to fix so badly completely took me by surprise, and has left me  questioning aspects of the human experience in ways I never imagined.

I feel this is the core dramatic question of LARRY & LUCY- can we really help each other or are we  ultimately left all alone in the world to figure it out for ourselves? Sure I can help you move a couch or  lend you fifty bucks, but can I or anyone help you beyond that? And though in some way I already know  the answer to this, I still find it interesting that we want to help each other despite the possible futility of that pursuit. It seems to play right into the suggestion of the famous Beckett quote “Ever tried, ever failed. No matter. Try again, fail again, fail better.” Of course if Larry and Lucy fail in helping one another  again it might just cost them their lives. If that isn’t a story worth telling, I don’t know what is.