I started writing my play, Minimum Wage, in 1998. There were two things that inspired me. Here they are:
1. I was working as a delivery driver for a printing company in downtown Calgary. The conversations I had and overheard with my co-workers struck me as compelling and musical.
2. David Mamet's play Lakeboat.
I love the episodic structure of Lakeboat. There's no linear timeline, just a series of vignettes that take place among a group of veteran seamen and a summer student. They talk about sex, alcohol, money, abandoned dreams, but there is a through-line in what happened to the ship's cook who failed to report for duty. I think the play is about how we need to have answers for our most compelling questions and, without any hard evidence, we're willing to speculate and accept those speculations as fact.
Minimum Wage owes a lot to Lakeboat. When I did a public reading of it in Alberta back in 2006, I asked my audience if the structure reminded them of another play. Instantly, three young men yelled "Lakeboat." I was both flattered and annoyed. I'm sure David Mamet has spawned thousands of aspiring playwrights trying to emulate his unique "Mametspeak." I'm of the opinion that a writer's own style will come out regardless of who he's trying to copy.
I'm not David Mamet. Mamet, in his prime, seemed obsessed with the destructive side of the American dream. I'm not interested in that. I'm more interested in how our religious beliefs (or lack of beliefs) shapes who we are and how we affect other people. Minimum Wage is about the universal need for redemption and how we don't always seek to redeem ourselves in healthy ways.
It's my dream to see Minimum Wage performed onstage one day. It has a cast of seven men.
Here is a brief scene between Dylan, a recent high school graduate, and Bart, a veteran courier who's been married and divorced four times. It may be the best thing I have ever written.
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Bart: My old man was a son of a bitch but he gave me one really good piece of advice. He told me once that before you make any big decision - leaving school, moving across the country, getting married, quitting your job - that what you should do is excuse yourself, go into your bedroom, and jerk off. He said it’s because men make their decisions based on the probability of getting laid and that’s not a good way to live your life. So, what happens, after you jerk off, he said, you have this brief window of time where you absolutely don’t want to get laid and you can see with perfect clarity what is the logical thing to do. (Pause.) You tell yourself that this is a good move or that is a good move and then you jerk yourself off and you realize “No, that’s a stupid idea. I was just gonna do that so I could get laid.” (Pause) That window of time saves your ass. (Pause.) That window of time lasts about thirty seconds.
Dylan: Mm.
Bart: Sure. I don’t know how you feel about my telling you this. I was fifteen when he told me that, and not very comfortable about hearing my dad talk about things like that if you want the truth.
Dylan: Will you pass the salt?
Bart: Sure. But you know what? My old man was right. Lord how he was right. Man, I wish I took that advice thirty-thirty five years ago. I could be a doctor now...
Dylan: Who wants to always do the logical thing?
Bart: What?
Dylan: You want to know how my parents met?
Bart: Sure.
Dylan: My dad was working for this bank up north and he won a week long trip to Vegas.
Bart: Yeah?
Dylan: A trip for two.
Bart: Okay.
Dylan: So he’s single, right? Tries calling some friends but no one can go. Then he finds himself in this restaurant and the waitress asks him what’s new and he tells her.
Bart: Sure.
Dylan: She says she’d love to go to Vegas. He thought she was joking. She wasn’t. So he offers to take her.
(Pause.)
Bart: Your mother?
Dylan: My mother. You see?
Bart: Yes.
Dylan: It was impulsive. It was stupid. But they went and they’re still together today. And I’m here too. (Pause.) Sometimes, I wonder how much of our happiness is due to our idiocy.
(Pause. Bart gets up.)
Dylan: Where are you going?
Bart: Make a phone call.
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