(no subject)
I just finished reading Debbie Tucker Green's Random for my recent British drama class. I started this play with the dreaded expectation. My expectation was that the play would suck. I've read two of Debbie Tucker Green's plays prior to this one and I really didn't like them, so I thought Random would be the same.
I didn't like the play until a few pages before the first act ended. At the end of act one, we learn that (spoiler alert) the brother has died. He's been killed by a gang and when the father and sister go to confirm that it is him, they see that an eye is missing and a chunk of his flesh has been torn off. While I'm not a fan of this morbidity, I liked this because the writing and voices seemed more passionate. Maybe it was just that I can relate. Not that I know anyone who has been murdered, but I have lost family in the last two days. The second act continued with the same passion and relatability (that's now officially a word).
At the end of the play, the sister goes into her brother's room and describes the typical disarray that it is in. Despite the fact that the room smells bad, she breathes it in, remembering her brother. She treats her brother's room as he would if he were still alive, although she explains she wouldn't even think about going in if he were still around.
The play ends with her saying
Random don't happen to everybody.
So.
How come
'random' haveta happen to him?
This shit ent fair.
RC had small cell lung cancer, a type of cancer that is directly linked to smoking. Once upon a time, when my dad and RC were thirteen-years-old, they stood on Laurel Street, around the corner from Miz Brown's Feed Bag in Laurel Village, and each smoked a cigarette. My dad thought they were pretty swell and continued to smoke for the next twenty years. RC decided they were gross and didn't smoke cigarettes again.
So, congratulations, Debbie Tucker Green, you made me like you. Random doesn't happen to everybody and it did happen to RC and this shit definitely isn't fair.