A Guy Walks Into a Bar:
Three Shorts About Booze & What it Can Do To & For You
by Con Chapman
ISBN #1-50513-005-2
JAC
#2008-0002
The Casts…
LET ME BUY YOU A DRINK
WIFE:
HUSBAND:
BOORISH MAN:
BARTENDER: Optional, a bit part
THE NIGHT OF THE GRASSHOPPER
BETH: A woman with a big heart
GREG: Beth’s brother; his personality is dominated by what he considers
to be his imposing intellect
HOBIE: Beth’s husband
CATHY PETIT: A well-adjusted, mature young woman
THE WRITER AND THE TALKER
CAROL McGILLIGAN: The Writer. A woman with a self-possessed air
about her.
JAY FITZHUGH: The Talker
A WOMAN: A bit part.
BARTENDER: Optional
A Note from the Playwright
I like to drink—perhaps you do too. When I drink, I make sure I set
limits; how much I’ll drink, when I’ll start, when I’ll stop, what I’ll
say once I’m drunk, etc. The trouble is, alcohol relaxes the muscles,
and the brain is a muscle. By the time I’m on my second drink, those
hard-and-fast rules begin to seem too narrow, too restrictive, the
hidebound strictures of a . . . yeah, I’ll have another. Uh, I think it
was a Smutty Nose Blueberry I.P.A. Thanks.
Modern science tells us that despite all the lives lost and marriages
broken, consumption of alcohol in moderation is good for you, and who
are we to argue with a bunch of scientists? Oh yeah? You think you’re a
freaking Nobel Prize winner, don’t you? You wanna meet me and a couple
of nuclear physicists outside—right now? C’mon—it’s go time, pal!
In these three plays, men and women drink too much, or too little. In
The Writer and the Talker (Page 51), a woman who likes to drink alone in
the company of others encounters a man who likes to drink and talk. In
vino veritas the Romans used to say, and they meant it. When we drink we
say whatever’s on our minds, then we pass out. Other people drink and
clam up, but their tongues inevitably tell the truth, or a lie,
whichever will get them laid.
In Let Me Buy You a Drink (Page 7), a couple out for a nice drink
encounters a fellow who likes to talk—to others, but mainly about
himself. How do you get rid of such people? The guy who wants to talk, I
mean, not the other two—they’re not bothering anybody. I hope this play
will provide you with some guidance.
Lastly, I present The Night of the Grasshopper (Page 16), an exploration
of the science of mixology, which is more of an art than a science, but
you get my drift. All across this great country of ours young men and
women are staying up late, studying for their final bartender exams,
trying to get their piece of the American Dream; a bar of their own
somewhere that you or I can stumble into, and then out of, after eating
all the free beer nuts. Is that too much to ask?
I didn’t think so. I’m glad you agree with me. You know what? You’re a
terrific guy—no, I’m serious. Hey—let me buy you a drink. --Con Chapman
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Perhaps you'd also like to consider something from Chapman's other short play collections, The Hockey Plays and West of Boston?
Let Me Buy You a Drink was read as part of the Eatful Day Plays of the Emerging Artists Theatre Company in New York in September of 2004.
The Writer and the Talker was performed as part of the Theatre Collaborative’s 2005 Ritalin Readings.
Author Biography
Con Chapman is a Boston-area writer. He is the author of The Year of the Gerbil: How the Yankees Won (and the Red Sox Lost) the Greatest Pennant Race Ever, a history of the 1978 Red Sox season, and A View of the Charles, a novel. He has written twenty plays, including the following which have been performed, published or recognized:
The Little Theatre is a one-act play for middle and high school audiences that follows a group of four students as they prepare for a speech and debate tournament. It is published by Eldridge Publishing;
The Undertakers Club is a one-act play for middle and high school audiences about a group of adolescent outcasts who start their own student organization devoted to mortuary science. It was a finalist in the 2003 Jackie White Memorial National Children’s Play Writing Contest and is published by Brooklyn Publishers;
The 5:05 is a one-act depiction of an evening’s run on a Boston commuter train. It received a staged reading as part of the Boston Directors Lab 2003 New Directions Playwright Festival and was a semi-finalist at the 2002 Nantucket Short Play Competition;
The Picket Line, a full-length play about a labor dispute in a small Massachusetts town, received a staged reading by the Manhattan Theatre Cooperative in January of 2005;
The Last Day of the Mai-Tai Novelty Company is a ten-minute play about a foreclosure sale at which an old lady with her eye on a box of stuffed animals gets into a bidding war with a professional bottom-fisher. It was performed as part of Acme Theatre’s 2003 New Works Winter Festival in Maynard, Massachusetts. The Ten-Minute Workshop is a ten-minute play about ten-minute plays. It was performed at the Hovey Players 2003 Summer Shorts Festival and was the favorite comedy of “The Theater Mirror: New England’s Live Theatre Guide.” It was also performed as part of the 2004 “Buffalo Quickies Festival” at the Alleyway Theatre in Buffalo, New York.
Take Out the Trash is a ten-minute play about whom, as between a man and woman who share an apartment, will take out the trash. It was performed as part of the Theatre Collaborative’s 2004 Ritalin Readings and the Arlington Friends of the Drama “Short Takes Festival” in Arlington, Massachusetts.
Fast Nickels, a one-act play about a used car salesman, was performed as part of the New England Academy of Theatre’s 2004 Short & NEAT One Act Play Festival in New Haven, Connecticut.
The Hat Trick, a two-act play, received a staged reading by The New Play House in Frederick, Maryland, in December of 2004.
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