First Production

Beached was first produced by Melbourne Theatre Company at Southbank Theatre, Lawler Studio, Melbourne, on 23 April 2013 with the following cast:

Director, Petra Kalive

Set Designer, Andrew Bailey

Costume Designer, Kat Chan

Lighting Designer, Lisa Mibus

Sound Designer, Robert Jordan

Beached then went on to be produced by Griffin Theatre Company at the SBW Stables Theatre, Sydney, opening on 19 July 2013 with the following cast:

Director, Shannon Murphy

Set Designer, James Browne

Lighting and AV Designer, Verity Hampson

Composer and AV Designer, Steve Toulmin

Dramaturg, Kit Brookman

Assistant Director, Liz Arday

Stage Manager, Benjamin Brockman

CHARACTERS

ARTY, 18 years old, and 400 kilograms

JOJO, mid 40s, his mother

LOUISE, 39, his Pathways to work officer

PRODUCER, any age or gender

DOCUMENTARY VOICE-OVER, a disembodied voice

AMY SCHLUSSER, author and commentator

FOOD INDUSTRY EXECUTIVE

KENNETH JONES, super morbidly obese person

DR FINKELSTEIN, leading gastroenterologist

LORRAINE, gastric bypass case study

STEPHANIE, gastric bypass case study

DAN RYDER, gastric bypass case study

NOTES

This play is to be performed by four actors.

The four lead characters of Arty, JoJo, Louise and Producer, are to be performed by four actors respectively. All other characters are to be divided among the ensemble.

The number of days before Arty’s surgery date, indicated in the text, should be made visible at all times; an ever-present countdown to the big day.

A line with no full stop at the end of a speech indicates that the next speech follows on immediately.

259 DAYS BEFORE SURGERY

PRODUCER: To camera

JOJO: And so when I’m looking at him, right, I still see him as my baby. I know he’s a big boy now and I’m careful not to look at his pee-pee when I lift his belly apron ’cause he needs his dignity, but I make sure it’s clean all the same. I looked after him when he was no bigger than a squirming watermelon and he could be as big as the sky and I’d still look after him—no different. It’s the same in the animal kingdom, you understand. You don’t see a mum tossing her baby aside just ’cause he’s a beluga whale and weighs a ton, do ya? Your baby’s your baby no matter how big they are. And Arty’d be my boy even if he was a beluga whale.

Beat.

Not that he is but y’know, ’cause of the size.

She looks down at her outfit.

These clothes make me look like I’m drinking Jim Beam out the front of the pokies. How’s it ‘ruin the illusion’ if I wear my pearls again?

PRODUCER: Cue theme music

‘Shocking Fat Stories’ theme music plays.

DOCUMENTARY VOICE-OVER: This is the home of Arthur Arthur.

PRODUCER: Cut to

Enormous young man in a muu-muu wheezing with the effort of trying to force his wedged frame through the door

DOCUMENTARY VOICE-OVER: At 18 years old and weighing 400 kilograms, Arthur is the world’s heaviest teenager.

ARTY: It’s not like something I tried for, y’know, but… it’s kinda nice being in the books for something. Otherwise I’m no special piggy.

He tries to laugh, as though this was a joke.

But I hear there’s a kid coming along in Houston who’s only 15 and already like 350 kilos, so, y’know, the competition’s out there.

Beat.

Not that I’m competing but… y’know.

DOCUMENTARY VOICE-OVER: His weight has reached critical proportions but for now, everyday life goes on as normal.

ARTY: I wake up, have breakfast, and then I might watch some telly or read, and y’know, have lunch and more telly—

JOJO: Or Scrabble.

ARTY: Or Scrabble, and… I don’t really do much.

JOJO: I never beat him at Scrabble, do I, Moon? He’s got a real good vocabulary, like knows all these words, don’t you, love?

ARTY: This is what I call icing ’cause she’s laying it on real thick now.

JOJO: I know every mum thinks her baby is the best but you look at some kids and think, I don’t care if your mum does reckon you’re the bee’s knees, I know a gimped-up little monkey when I see one. But seriously, my Art-Art’s got a gift with words. Like what was that one you come up with the other day?

ARTY is embarrassed but proud.

ARTY: ‘Epitome’—that was the word.

JOJO: See what I mean?

JOJO and ARTY beam.

But I’m better than him at Jessica Fletcher, aren’t I?

ARTY: We love Jessica Fletcher.

JOJO: Even the episodes that aren’t any good when it’s just Jessica’s acquaintances doing mystery-solving somewhere that’s not even Cabot Cove. But I always guess right the killer, don’t I, Moon?

ARTY: She just looks at someone start of the episode and says, ‘It’s him—he done it’ and I say, ‘What d’you mean? How you know it’s him when there hasn’t even been a murder yet?’

JOJO: I got an instinct for people.

Beat.

And I seen most of the episodes already so that helps too.

DOCUMENTARY VOICE-OVER: Almost immobile, Arthur lives with his mother Joanne, who takes care of him full-time.

ARTY: I’m really lucky to have Mum. If it weren’t for her I…

PRODUCER: Cut to

JoJo tucking Arty into nest with a hot water bottle

Folding the doona under his body so he doesn’t catch draft

And planting a volley of kisses on his forehead

JOJO: Night-night, Moon.

ARTY: Night-night, Mum.

Back to camera.

’Cause I know… no matter how big I get, how disgusting I am, she loves me. And I think there’s a lot of people who don’t have someone who loves ’em. And I feel really sad when I think of that.

JOJO: Like we saw on the telly right, when we were watching… Arty, y’know, with Batty-bra?

ARTY: She means David Attenborough.

JOJO: There were foxes wanting a tasty gosling but the geese mums weren’t having it. They went absolutely mental with the flapping and the pecking and honest-to-God these foxes with their sharp teeth ran straight the other way ’cause a mother’s love is not to be trifled with. And that’s the same with me and my Moon. Oh, that’s what I call him, don’t I, love? ’Cause when he smiles it’s like a great big light gone on in the dark. So I’d dare them foxes to have a go ’cause it won’t be pretty when I’m finished. Blood on the floor, there’d be. Blood on the floor.

DOCUMENTARY VOICE-OVER: But the burden of living life as a 400-kilo man is starting to take its toll on Arthur’s health.

ARTY: When I had the second heart attack when I was like… 17 yeah, and the second heart attack, just a couple months after the first I thought… yeah, this is me done.

JOJO: It was like the light was disappearing and everything turning grey. And I said, ‘I can’t lose him. I won’t’. That’s what I said to the doctor, I said, ‘I don’t care what you do but you bring my Moon back safe to me’.

ARTY: And that’s why, y’know, I need the gastric bypass. They said if I don’t lose weight I’m gonna die so…

He stares off into space.

I never think about the future. What I’m gonna be when I grow up. I think I’ve grown up. I think this is it. And there’s no point having dreams.

JOJO: And that’s when I contacted ‘Shocking Fat Stories’. ’Cause we need help. ’Cause I can’t lose my boy.

259 DAYS BEFORE SURGERY

DOCUMENTARY VOICE-OVER: To prepare for his new life post-surgery, Arthur is receiving assistance from Centrelink Pathways to work officer, Louise Jelenic.

LOUISE: Disability is a state of mind. The best form of welfare is work. It doesn’t matter if you’re missing a leg or have no fingers—

PRODUCER: Cut to

Young man with Down’s syndrome, smiling for the camera, pushing trolleys at Woolworths

LOUISE: There’s a job for you. For too long the disabled have been a wasted resource, denied the opportunity to be economically active—to our loss. The Real Deal is a range of programs to enhance the social usefulness of the disabled and long-term unemployed. So we offer interpersonal skills building and interview preparation workshops, job matching and a referral service, and one-to-one consultation.

Beat.

No I haven’t uh… worked with a super morbidly obese client before. I’ve had heaps of overweight clients but their weight didn’t make them disabled, just unattractive. Which in itself, well, depending on the severity of the aesthetic misfortune, can be an impediment to securing employment.

She relaxes.

We laugh sometimes and say that should be one of the boxes on applications. Do you consider yourself hearing impaired, visually impaired, aesthetically impaired, because the reality is no-one wants extreme eczema on the KFC counter. There’s some you take one look at and just know, it’s definitely back of house for you, flaky face. Well out of the public eye.

LOUISE laughs then stops, not entirely sure she should have said that.

235 DAYS

ARTY: I don’t look in the mirror. I don’t wanna see who I am now but who I could be. Who I’d like to be. I wanna see that person. When I do see me, my refection, it’s like… I dunno. Doesn’t seem real.

PRODUCER: But you’re going to be on television.

ARTY: I’m not gonna watch it.

JOJO: I told him it’s like being a movie star—

ARTY: It’s not—

JOJO: Being on the telly, but he doesn’t like pictures of himself—not vain that way.

PRODUCER: Cut to

A naked Arty pretending he’s somewhere else

His privates blurred to preserve his modesty

He turns slowly for the camera that zooms in on his stupendous breasts

The giant orb of wobbling belly fat that hangs over the rippling, jiggling rolls of his gargantuan thighs

Close-up of his bloated feet

DOCUMENTARY VOICE-OVER: ‘Shocking Fat Stories’ brings you the inspirational true story of one man’s odyssey to transform his life.

PRODUCER: Arty mate, can you dance a little—nothing flash, no-one’s expecting Lady Gaga, but even a sort of gentle ‘Dancing with the Stars’ blind geriatric celeb, brave, giving it a go kinda feel? Just so we get a better sense of, you know, the start of a big adventure? Just when we cut it to music it’ll look more… um…

ARTY is crying.

No wozzas, mate, we’ll um, get that later then.

ARTY: In the life Arty’s living in his head he is

An explorer

Intrepid

He likes the word intrepid

His body is hard and brown and lean

He has facial hair

A sexy, roguish beard ’cause you don’t have to shave in the

Amazon

And he’s with his sidekick Pedro

He and Pedro have been together for ages, doing this kind of thing, not shaving and being sexy without trying, sleeping under the stars and caving down underwater river systems that lead to the Lost City of Z and encounters with an ancient warrior tribe guarding pyramids and gold and stuff

And when Arty looks at Pedro

He has an intensity, a real shocking intensity that says, ‘I know who I am and I’m a man and I matter’

And Pedro respects and loves Arty and they’ve been friends so long they forgot where they met (some bar in Rio drunk on cachaça over a poker game that got dangerous when Señor Gangster Thug refused to accept he was beat and he wore a wide-brimmed hat

A white hat of course

And a white suit

’Cause that’s what gangster thugs wear in Rio)

And in this life that Arty’s living in his head

He smiles the brilliant white-teeth smile of the movie star.

216 DAYS

LOUISE enters to meet ARTY for the first time.

She is shocked by his appearance.

ARTY: It’s Mrs Jelenic, isn’t it?

Pause.

Um… hello.

LOUISE still cannot speak.

Thanks for coming—I know you don’t normally do house calls but it’s a bit hard for me to get about with um, well y’know, so thank you, Mrs—

LOUISE: It’s Ms.

LOUISE gingerly puts out her hand.

ARTY: You don’t have to touch me, that’s okay.

Relieved, LOUISE retracts her hand.

LOUISE: It’s good to meet you, Mr Arthur… Arthur. You have the same first name and surname. That’s… unusual.

ARTY: Mum went to school with a boy called Saad Saad and the kids called him Sad Sad.

Beat.

LOUISE: Okay. Arthur, I’m here to—

ARTY pulls a seat out for LOUISE with his moving stick.

Oh… thank you. Now, Arthur, we have a lot to—

ARTY: Would you like a cuppa tea? We got coffee too I think. And low-fat milk.

LOUISE: That’s good. The low-fat milk.

ARTY: So you’d like a cuppa milk?

LOUISE: No, it’s good that you have low-fat milk.

ARTY: Mum can’t tolerate lactose. Or chihuahuas.

ARTY laughs.

LOUISE doesn’t.

PRODUCER: Cut to

JoJo eavesdropping

LOUISE: Do you know why I’m here?

ARTY: You wanna get me work so Mum and me can’t have disability any more.

LOUISE: That’s not quite what the letter said.

ARTY: But that’s what it means. Could we offer you a Tim Tam?

LOUISE: I fear Tim Tams are the problem, Arthur.

ARTY: You’re absolutely right. I prefer chocolate teddy bears myself.

ARTY laughs.

LOUISE doesn’t.

LOUISE: Are you happy, Arthur?

Beat.

ARTY: Things could be worse, y’know. Mum told me a baby got hit by a fallen lamppost and now he’s deady-bones and he’s just a baby so what right have I got, to be sad when… when…

LOUISE: Do you feel useful? Do you have purpose?

Pause.

ARTY shakes his head.

Would you like to?

Beat.

ARTY nods.

Life does not have to be this bedroom and Tim Tams and welfare dependency. Life can be you standing on your own two feet. Life can be pride, clocking in, clocking out, staring at the pay slip that you earned, being a part of something, and not just existing on the margins. You can be more than this.

ARTY nods.

Say it. Say, ‘I can be more than this’.

ARTY: I can—

LOUISE: Has the fat squashed your lungs?

ARTY: Actually I do have respiratory / problems—

LOUISE: I don’t care. You’re a man, not a mouse. Say it, don’t squeak it.

ARTY: I can be more—

LOUISE: Louder!

ARTY: [louder] I can be more than this!

LOUISE: Like you believe it!

ARTY: I CAN BE MORE THAN THIS!

ARTY has surprised himself.

LOUISE: How did that feel?

ARTY: It felt… good. Really… good.

LOUISE: You can talk the talk now let’s walk the walk.

ARTY: Oh, but I can’t walk very… oh, it’s a metaphor, isn’t it? Yep, I get it. Sorry.

ARTY beams.

LOUISE smiles back.

JOJO enters.

JOJO: Moon love, it’s time for—

LOUISE: Mrs Arthur—

JOJO: Call me JoJo, love, everyone calls me—

LOUISE: We’re working, Mrs Arthur.

JOJO: But it’s time for Arty’s morning tea and I’ll fetch a cuppa for you, pet. Don’t worry, we’ve got low-fat milk.

LOUISE: No, Mrs Arthur. We’re working. Arthur doesn’t need tea and Tim Tams because we’re working.

The two women stare at each other.

ARTY doesn’t take his eyes off LOUISE.

ARTY: Yeah, Mum, I’m working.

LOUISE walks towards JOJO.

JOJO backs away until she is out of the room.

LOUISE closes the door on JOJO, turns towards ARTY.

LOUISE: So let’s begin the work.

JOJO is confused, standing about like a dill.

She clocks the camera and remembers she is being watched.

She smiles, somewhat unconvincingly.

210 DAYS

DOCUMENTARY VOICE-OVER: Arthur Arthur is not alone.

Sound bites of overlapping broadcast news repeating obesity-related statistics, and associated phrases such as ‘obesity epidemic’, ‘ticking fat bomb’, etc.

In Australia, over two-thirds of men and nearly two-thirds of women are either overweight or obese.

PRODUCER: Cut to

Fat bodies waddling in shopping centres, their fat faces out of frame

DOCUMENTARY VOICE-OVER: The number of obese six to 15 year olds has trebled in the past decade.

PRODUCER: Cut to

Fat children eating burgers, fries, and ice-cream—zombies in front of the Xbox

DOCUMENTARY VOICE-OVER: It is estimated that obesity is responsible for 50,000 excess deaths each year. The direct medical costs alone are in excess of 25 billion dollars.

The sound bites continue to build in volume.

If current trends continue, obesity may very well bankrupt our public health system.

Jaws musical sting.

PRODUCER: Extreme close-up of a pre-packaged chocolate éclair disappearing into the hole that is Arty’s mouth

ARTY is a deer in headlights, startled by the camera’s gaze.

DOCUMENTARY VOICE-OVER: So how did we get so fat?

PRODUCER: Lady with a head like a toothbrush

Super

Amy Schlusser

Author, Lay Off the Gravy

AMY SCHLUSSER: For early humans, when times were good they needed to stockpile for when times were bad. So, good times, we’ve killed a mammoth, hooray, better save some of that energy for when the berry-picking is lean—and we saved it in the form of fat. We now live in a high-energy environment where access to food is… well, I must’ve passed 17 fast food restaurants in just the two blocks it took to get here.

PRODUCER: Cut to

Shot panning across a table of all the food Arty eats in a day

Sausage rolls and hotdogs and M&Ms and two loaves of white bread and three large pizzas (Hawaiian, Salami Supreme, Prawn Surprise) and a dozen eggs and bacon and fried chicken and lamb vindaloo and several two-litre bottles of Coke and cream puffs and a ham, banana and mayo sandwich for a snack

And inform the good people at home that Arthur consumes a staggering

Yes, a staggering

33,000 calories a day

What the average man consumes in two weeks

(Though fuck me if we’ve found a Mr Average yet)

Cut to

Arty wiping grease off his chin from a deep-fried drumstick when he thought the camera was off.

ARTY: I don’t want you filming that.

PRODUCER: That’s what people want to see—I mean that’s what they need to see. To understand your addiction. This program is about education, right?

ARTY: Mum, you promised me they wouldn’t—

PRODUCER: Look, mate, you’re getting a free ride here, okay? Top surgeon, private care—the works. And you don’t have to lift a pinkie. So how about a little less whining and—oi! I need more cream puffs in shot!

JOJO: He doesn’t eat 33 cream puffs in a go! That was one time when he heard about Amy Winehouse and we were all depressed about that, weren’t we?

ARTY: I don’t wanna look like a freak.

JOJO: Y’know, love, there’s kids in Africa starving for want of a couple of cream puffs. You’d be like a god to them. There’s no-one else in the whole world like my Art-Art.

ARTY: You promised they—

He clocks the camera.

Can you get them out please? [Whispering] I need to shoot a bunny.

JOJO shoos away the camera.

JOJO: Piss off, you lot! Let the boy fart in peace.

ARTY: Mum!

JOJO: They’ve gone, pet, go ahead.

ARTY glares at his mother.

What?

PRODUCER: A man sitting in shadow

His face blurred and voice digitally altered

Super

Food Industry Executive

EXECUTIVE: Fat, sugar, salt—the three points of the compass—that’s what we try and hit with every eatertainment product. We’ve done studies that show rats will work almost as hard for fat, sugar and salt, as they will for cocaine. When in doubt, add bacon and cheese.

201 DAYS

DOCUMENTARY VOICE-OVER: No surgeon will operate on Arthur until he loses weight. But breaking the habits of a lifetime is not easy.

JOJO: Whatta you want for lunch, love?

ARTY: Not that hungry.

JOJO: Hotdogs alright then?

ARTY: Alright.

JOJO: Four or five?

ARTY: Just four. You got the low-fat cheese?

JOJO: Like you told me. And I’ll fix you a ham and mayo sandwich for later.

ARTY: Don’t want it.

JOJO: You will as soon as I sit down so I’m fixing it now.

ARTY: Don’t want it.

JOJO: Don’t ask me later.

Beat.

Moon?

ARTY: Just a small one then.

JOJO: [to camera] I knew he was different, I mean he had a big appetite, y’know? The first three years I didn’t bother wearing a bra ’cause as soon as I popped my dinners away he was crying so I had to pop ’em out again.

PRODUCER: Cut to

Photo of Arty at three. Close up of his chubby face, his eyes like pins in a cushion of flab, his mouth a gleeful gaping hole into which his fat fist is stuffing Wizz Fizz

JOJO: When I cut the crusts off or do the mustard just so—it’s ’cause I love him. Like the time Rita Rodriguez, this little slut, invited the whole class except my Art-Art to her eighth birthday. It took a whole chocolate cake but my boy smiled again. I just want him happy. And food makes Moon happy.

PRODUCER: Cut to

Photo of Arty at 15 and nearly 270 kilos. And that same nervous smile, trying to hide behind Doreen from next door’s brilliant henna-red hair, trying to shrink himself, be shorter, be smaller, be invisible

199 DAYS

LOUISE is conducting a personality test with ARTY.

LOUISE: If I were a garden, I would most resemble:

A wildflower garden: carefree, easy-going, and enthusiastic; or An English garden: accurate, organised, and detail-oriented

ARTY: Um… English?

LOUISE: I enjoy entertaining people:

Not so often

Occasionally

Fairly often

Regularly

ARTY: I don’t really have any friends.

LOUISE: Not so often then?

ARTY: But if I did have friends I prob’ly would enjoy—

LOUISE: We’ll say not so often.

When I look at the stars, I wonder:

Where they came from; or—

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