SubUrbia

From SubUrbia, by Eric Bogosian



TIM: Sooze is too good for you, Jeff. That's the problem. A man should never be with a woman whose vocabulary is larger than his.
~Act I, Scene I

JEFF: It used to scare me that I didn't know what was coming in my life. I always thought, what if I make the wrong move? You know? But maybe there isn't any right move. You know I was trying to figure it all out. But maybe you can't. We all dress the same, we all talk the same, we all watch the same TV. No one's really different, even if they think they're different. "Oh boy, look at my tattoo!" You know? And that makes me free, because I can do anything if I really don't care what the result is. I don't need money. I don't even need a future. I could knock out all my teeth with a hammer, so what? I could poke my eyes out. I'd still be alive. Strip naked and fart in the wind. At least I would know I was doing something real for two or three seconds. It's all about fear. And I'm not afraid anymore. Fuck it! (Jeff starts disrobing) Because anything is possible. Itis night on the planet earth and I am alive and someday I will be dead. Someday, I'll be bones in a box. But right now, I'm not. And anything is possible. And that's why I can go to New York with Sooze. Because each moment can be what it is. I'm on the train going there, I'm living there, I'm reading a newspaper, I'm walking down the street. There is no failure, there is no mistake. I just go and live there and what happens, happens. So at this moment, I am getting naked. And I am not afraid.  FUCK FEAR! FUCK MONEY! I WILL GO TO NEW YORK AND I WILL LIVE IN A BOX. I WILL SING WITH THE BUMS. I WILL STARVE BUT I WILL NOT DIE. I WILL LIVE. I IWLL TALK TO GOD!
~Act II, Scene I

BEE-BEE: Do you . . . do you ever get up in the morning and think: "Well, here's another day, just like the last one?" You know? LIke what difference does it make? The days just keep coming, one after another . . . so . . . But I mean, if you lived them or not, what different would it make, you know?
~Act II, Scene I

JEFF: I don't feel so good. (Tim grabs him by the face and pulls him to him, making him listen.)
TIM: Because you don't want to admit what you are. Drink the last beer, go home, have a piss, jerk off and pass out. And you will have completed your mission on earth for one more day.
~Act II, Scene I

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As I was reading this play, I was really struck with how these characters, Jeff, Buff, and Tim, are just living. Just living on the most basic level, dicking around each night in front of the 7-Eleven, getting drunk, shootin' the shit - basically doing absolutely nothing. And in the stage directions, Bogosian indicates " The area stretching out toward the audience and into the wings is asphalt pavement, demarked with yellow parking lines. A large cement curb sits along the extreme downstage edge of the stage." Basically, these characters, who are just wasting their lives away, do so in front of a road.

And I thought to myself, "Why does this sound so familiar?" Oh yeah. Waiting for Godot. Vladimir and Estragon are waiting, doing almost nothing, day after day, for one Mr. Godot. And they do so next to a country road. The road's a symbol of journey, what life has to offer, and here, Beckett presents the irony of these two characters, given the chance to move on, to progress, but they don't. The same goes for Jeff especially in SubUrbia; he's the one who talks the most about how he can leave and explore and live if he wants to - he just chooses not to. Again: irony. Life and all it has to offer is presented to him, in opportunities, and he keeps missing them and continues to not advance. He could've been a part of Pony's band and living the rock star life. Sooze suggests he come with her to New York, but he blows it off. What is this guy doing? Wasting his life away.

Anyways, just a blurb on that realization.


...ok fine, I thought it was interesting, all right? Geez.