Work Text:
YORK
A one-act play
By crabmoney3
The stage is dark. We hear a faint crackling of a fire, the rumbling of a crowd. A red wash slowly begins to light up the stage and we see the silhouette of a young man on stage. He is wearing a gray baseball uniform, with no discernible team, and holds a bat.
YORK
Do you hear it?
The roar of a fire.
Do you hear the crowd above it all? The cheering, always the cheering, but not for who I’ve become. Only for what they remember me as. To them a child star is always a child despite how much I've grown.
Pause.
What they forget too is that a star is still a star, made of gas and spitting flames. No matter how brightly a child star burns we will always eventually burn out. But no, that’s not what they choose to remember. What they choose to remember is this:
The lights come up. A pale green wash comes over the stage. Enter YOUNG YORK, chasing after a fly ball, downstage right. He catches it. We hear cheering, chants of “Our Dork!” echoing.
YOUNG YORK
Yeah!! I caught it!!
YORK
So young. So fearless. This is what they picture. And they saw nothing wrong with it, really. I was happy. I was skilled. Sure, there were some concerns of “He’s so young!” but the benefit of “He’s so young AND talented!” always outweighed them. So no one stopped me.
YOUNG YORK walks over to YORK, who hands him the bat.
It’s not like I could have stopped myself at that age.
YOUNG YORK begins feeling out the bat and trying to swing. His grip is too far down, and his swing is awkward. We hear an umpire call “Strike one!”
YORK
I was so new to everything. Still learning how the world worked. I loved the attention it brought me, the love, the fans.
YOUNG YORK swings again. Strike two. We hear a voice call from off stage, and she tells him to choke up on the bat. He does.
YORK
And then there was the mentor.
A beautiful swing. We hear the crack of the bat, the wild cheering as YOUNG YORK rounds the bases, YORK acting as a center point on which his younger self orbits.
YORK
She was the reason I worked so hard, really. To make her proud. To earn her respect. She was someone I looked up to, someone the crowds cheered on harder than anyone I’d ever seen. I’d always told her—
YOUNG YORK/YORK
One day I’m going to be just like you.
YORK
I wish I’d understood the sadness, the hesitation in her eyes then. Why she brushed me off. I always thought—
YOUNG YORK
Am I not good enough yet? Doesn’t she think I can do this? I’ll keep practicing! Then she’ll see I can do anything she can someday.
YOUNG YORK swings. The crack of the bat. Another hit. Another round of thunderous cheers.
YORK
I worked so hard. I think I loved it. I don’t know. It’s hard to know if you love the only thing you do. All my time I spent on the field—in games, in practice, extra coaching. Even my birthday I celebrated on the field with the team.
A sudden blackout. Spotlight on YOUNG YORK. He is grinning. “Happy Birthday” is playing faintly. YOUNG YORK blows out the candles, and the spotlight goes out with them. In the darkness, a voice from offstage asks: “How old are you turning?”
YOUNG YORK
I’m turning—
YOUNG YORK/YORK
Eight years old.
The lights begin slowly to rise again.
YORK
Always eight years old. In their eyes, at least. I was always their shining star, shielded from reality and yet thrust into the spotlight. In their eyes, I was protected. But their protection was a glass cage on a pedestal, the walls catching the light like a magnifying glass where I stood.
A red wash creeps over a third of the stage, opposite of YOUNG YORK.
They painted my childhood like a dream. Like nothing would ever change. Like I could stay young forever, playing games and eating cake without ever having a care in the world. I lived in their glass house, a doll on display in a perfect little pocket of existence. And for the longest time I believed it.
Pause.
But then the mentor left.
We hear a radio announcer: “Nagomi McDaniel has just hit a solo home run! The Baltimore Crabs score!”
YORK
She moved so far away. She became everyone’s star, everyone’s idol across the nation as she moved from team to team to team to team but never back home, never back to me. She was my idol first, before any of them, and in my mind, her leaving meant I needed to work even harder to prove I was worth of her time.
YOUNG YORK picks the bat back up.
So I continued to push myself.
He swings.
Day in and day out, I showed that I was one of the brightest of the stars, that I was great with or without her.
He swings.
And she still wrote to me. And she still said she was proud of me. But then she reached the top, she did it without me, and the mentor in her own fame disappeared.
The red wash suddenly covers 2/3 of the stage, approaching YOUNG YORK.
Why she disappeared, no one told me. No one thought to tell me, so I kept pushing. I kept rising. I didn’t listen when my mother told me to take a step back because nobody ever told me why I should or what lied ahead.
YOUNG YORK swings. The crack of the bat. He begins to round the bases.
Nobody wanted to be the one to pop the perfect bubble they’d blown around me. So I rose higher and higher towards the branches of the trees, towards the heat of the sun. I thought maybe, just maybe, if I were good enough I would be able to see the mentor again. To hear her praise for how well I had done. Because even then, even with her gone, I kept saying the same thing day in and day out.
YOUNG YORK stops directly in front of YORK. The red wash completely covers the stage.
YOUNG YORK/YORK
One day I’m going to be just like you.
Suddenly the wash is gone. The stage is in blackout.
YORK
And then I was.
A dark red wash creeps at the corners of the stage. A dim red spot illuminates YORK. YOUNG YORK is no longer on stage.
YORK
For the first time in my life I was completely alone. No team, no mother, no mentor, no cameras. Just me.
Pause.
Do you know what that does to someone so young? Someone so used to constant attention? I was left alone with nothing but my own thoughts, silent and empty, alone and confined. The world was my oyster but I am its pearl, a grain of sand being compressed and compressed with no way out, being transformed into something no longer me, no longer the idea of myself I was taught to be.
Pause.
Did I even know anything about who I was?
YORK sits in silence. It should make the audience uncomfortable. We can hear his heartbeat. Softly, at first, and slowly becoming more prominent.
YORK
I think a part of me preferred things that way. It was better to not know who I was than to be told day in and day out who people thought I was supposed to be.
YOUNG YORK laughs offstage. A ground ball rolls across the stage, he chases after it and off the other side.
YORK
But even that is difficult when the only image of yourself you’ve ever seen was painted by someone else. It’s hard not to see what they see, even when you know that’s not really you.
A distorted, deep voice echoes over the stage: Who are you?
YORK
You don’t know. And not knowing, for so long, so quietly, it weighs you down. Your insides and your outsides repel like magnets but there’s nowhere for you to separate.
The distorted voice reverberates: Our Dork.
YORK
So I gave in.
Our Dork.
This is who I am to you, isn’t it? This is who I was?
The red spotlight begins to spread across the stage.
You can re-enter the limelight as a wholly different person, but that doesn’t change anything.
YORK grabs a bat from offstage.
You’re still the child they remember you as. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been gone, how desperately you want to make them forget. The second they recognize you, that’s all you’ll ever be.
YORK swings the bat. The crowd cheers, but it is distorted, like the voice. YORK laughs.
YORK
And then there’s the mentor. The mentor who once again has left you behind, who has escaped the same fate as you by some miracle. Who needs a mentor when you are your own entity, when the person you looked up to for so long looks back down on you in horror and disgust and disappointment? Why does she look at me like that, when I am more famous than I have ever been, more powerful than she could have dreamed? Will I never be good enough to meet her standards?
A blue wash begins to creep across the stage, overtaking the red.
YORK
But this wasn’t me either, not really. No, this is taking what they want to the extreme. Here I am, your star, a ball of fire burning bright, hydrogen smashing into itself over and over to make myself into someone else. Look how I burned! Did I blind you? Could you see me then?
The blue overtakes more of the stage.
Here I am! Are you watching? Do you know who I am now? I am not the perfect child you thought me to be. This is me! This is who I am! I am grown, I am my own self, can’t you see?
The blue wash fully covers the stage. Silence.
YORK
But they don’t, not really. They only see this as a facet of the child they remember. A fall from grace, they say, how sad it is for someone so young to go through this.
YORK laughs softly.
A tragedy, they say, as though they have no fault in the matter. How horrible a thing to happen, they say, separating their own culpability. Do they not remember putting me on the pedestal in the first place? Have they forgotten who built the sets and filmed the scenes?
Pause.
When I fell from grace I landed on a mirror and shattered whatever image remained of myself. I stared into the shards, so different from who I’d been before. I did not recognize myself, so why did everyone around me? Why couldn’t they see the new person, older, fractured, pieces stitched back together.
Chants of “Our Dork! Our Dork!” begin again, no longer distorted.
YORK
Still they only see the child. Still they only see who I was. I go back to work, I keep working, because what else am I going to do? I hope that they learn, but they don’t, of course not. Why would they? Why would anyone admit that I am a fucked up product of their creation?
Pause.
What, are you like them too? Should your image of me not be able to utter such a thing?
YORK gets into a batter’s ready stance. He chokes up on the bat.
To you all a child star is always a child despite how much I've grown.
He swings.
What you refuse to acknowledge is that a star is still a star, made of gas and spitting fire.
YORK swings. The sound of fire.
What you refuse to acknowledge is that I stand upon a pile of matches that were left at my feet by those around me.
The stage burns with a fiery red wash.
When I go up in flames, it will not be a fuse I lit myself.
YORK stands still at center. The lights get brighter and brighter on stage.
No matter how brightly a child star burns—
The lights begin to dim.
—we will always eventually burn out.
The fire roars. The lights are near-blackout.
YORK
I think maybe it’s better when it’s all over. That it’ll be quiet.
A dark blue wash begins to glow on the stage.
But that’s never the case, is it?
The stage becomes brighter.
They tell me I can come back from this. That I can revive a dead career. It’s not like hiding from the limelight changes for me, it’s not like I’ll be seen as anything other than how they remember me.
YOUNG YORK re-enters and walks towards YORK. YORK looks at his younger self.
YORK
That’s all I’ll ever be to you isn’t it? This is what I look like in your eyes? No matter where I go, no matter what I do, this is all you’ll ever see. Even gone, I’d never be forgotten.
He hands the bat to YOUNG YORK, who takes it and stands downstage center in line with his older counterpart. They both take ready stances.
YORK
So come one and all, to look upon the dying star. Project your illusions, see what you remember. Stare upon me tired and broken, stare straight through me and see the version muddled in TV static.
They swing in sync.
Remember the boy and forget the man who lives again in his own shadow. It’s what you want, isn’t it? To turn back time and see the child, not what became of him? To imagine a time where he was never broken, a time where you were not at fault?
They swing again.
So go on and look. Look at the star, risen from his own ashes. Gawk and point and pretend this is not your doing. Pretend this will not happen all over again. But remember:
They swing. An announcer: “York Silk strikes out swinging!”
A star will always burn out.
Lights down. Fin.