Multiplex

Hello, seat!

It is with utmost, joyous, heightened pleasure that I shall be sitting upon you this early evening. I must confess, there is something about you, something that fills me with tingles and shivers I rarely, if ever, feel.

A multiplex movie theater somewhere in America, on any given night, showing any given Hollywood film. The 8:10 show.

Enter a solitary, desperate individual, holding more snacks than necessary. He talks to his chair. Enter an angsty 30something, generally unhappy couple, tense with untold secrets. Enter two high school "dudes," doing their best to co-opt hip hop culture, on the cusp of adulthood and with way too much candy. Enter a pair of crusty office co-workers, who enjoy verbally destroying everything they encounter, until a God and suppressed love begin to intervene.

As showtime approaches, lives unravel. Crises erupt all over the theater as everyone, as different as they are, suffers from the same ailment: loneliness, and isolation.

Strangely, magically, something brings them together.

Multiplex is a biting comedy about loneliness in modern times, and a sobering morality tale showing why movies should always start on schedule.

4M 4F 1 Chair (offstage voice)

PRODUCTION HISTORY

• First produced by Killing My Lobster at the Bruno's Island New Plays Festival, May 2003
  Directed by Tracy Ward
• Produced at San Francisco State University, October 2003
  Directed by Rhonnie Washington
  Nominated for ACTF Regional Festival, 2004.

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