The Books: “Savage in Limbo” (John Patrick Shanley)

Next in my Daily Book Excerpt:

The next play is Savage in Limbo. This play is fabulous. Stanley really hit his stride here. Danny and the Deep Blue Sea was the first glimpse of what he could really do … but Savage in Limbo takes it to the next level. John Patrick Shanley writes about the Bronx. He writes about men and women, their struggles to connect. He writes about people who grew up Catholic. He writes about tough guys and bar flies. He writes about women trying to find a guy who will appreciate and love them. He writes, in essence, about lonely people desperate to connect. John Patrick Shanley believes in connection. He’s not a bleak playwright, it’s always “we can do this, we can DO this!!! Even if we’re misfits, even if we think we’re too old, or ugly, or damaged … we can DO this!”

That’s what Savage in Limbo is about. It takes place in a bar in the Bronx, a neighborhood bar where everybody knows each other’s business. There are 5 characters: Murk, the humorless taciturn bartender. April – a pathetic tired woman who falls asleep at the bar. Denise Savage – the lead. Shanley describes here as “small, wild-haired, strong, belligerent, determined, dissatisfied and scared. She is in pain, paranoid, and full of hunger. She has hungry ears.” Then there is Linda Rotunda: she describes herself as ‘very fertile’. She sleeps with everyone, and constantly gets pregnant. She is promiscuous and sad. And then, there’s Tony Aronica, described as “a streamlined Italian stud with a streak of self-doubt and a yearning sweetness”.

These characters have all known each other since they were kids.

I’ll excerpt a fantastic scene from the start of the play. A scene between Savage and Linda. Linda enters the bar, hysterically crying. The two have a long talk. This is just part of that talk.

EXCERPT FROM Savage in Limbo, by John Patrick Shanley.

SAVAGE. These cards are disgusting anyway. I left ’em near the humidifier one night and they got all spongy. I got the humidifier cause my mother was dryin out. She never goes anywhere, she can’t, and we got so much heat in that fuckin apartment — I looked at her one day and she looked like a dead plant. So I went out and I got the humidifier and I run it every night. She still looks like freeze-dried shit, but I feel better cause I did somethin. I didn’t just take it. I didn’t just fuckin accept it. I believe in action. Anyway, between the humidity and my sloppy ways, these cards are real crappy. Some of these Sister Rosita’s, you know, these witchtellers, they’re supposed to be able to see your future inna pack a cards. I look at these cards, I never see anything about my future. I just see my fuckin life. I’m gonna go i nsane.

LINDA. What are you talkin about?

SAVAGE. I’m talkin about tension. I’m talkin about somethin snappin at your heels, but you can’t get away. Bein apart from everybody else. bein alone. There’s a wall there. Like you’re inna glass box, a bee inna jar, dreamin about flowers, smelling your own … death. People look at you, it’s through somethin. You touch somebody, there’s somethin over your head.

LINDA. I don’t get you.

SAVAGE. I’m tryin to tell you somethin, but it’s not easy.

LINDA. So tell me anyway.

SAVAGE. I’m a virgin.

LINDA. What?

SAVAGE. You heard me. You’re just astounded. I’m a virgin.

LINDA. Why you tellin me a lie?

SAVAGE. In the beginnin, it was just bad luck. I’m not like you, and I got a big mouth, and well, it’s easy not to lose it at first. You’re scared, they’re scared, somebody says: Boo, and everybody runs away. At least that’s the way it was for me. To start with. But then it became a thing. Most everybody I knew lost it, you know, over a certain period a time, and there I was, still in the wrapper. It woulda been easy to lose it then. But it became a thing, you know? I felt different. I felt like I was holdin out for somethin. Not some guy, not just some guy. I felt like I was holdin out for somethin, sayin no, no, I’m not takin that life just cause it was the first one I was offered. So here I am. I’m thirty-two. And I’m still sayin no, no. And I still only got offered the one life, and I still don’t want that one.

LINDA. You’re a virgin?

SAVAGE. Yeah.

LINDA. Wow.

SAVAGE. Say somethin.

LINDA. What’s it like?

SAVAGE. It’s like holdin your breath, only you never have to let go. No, that’s not what it’s like …

LINDA. I never knew anybody grown up who never, you know … I feel like you know somethin I don’t know.

SAVAGE. Well, I know you know somethin I don’t know.

LINDA. Yeah, but everybody I know knows what I know. Except you. It’s like common knowledge. But what you know, it’s like a secret. How does it feel?

SAVAGE. I feel strong. Like I’m wearin chains and I could snap ’em any time. I feel ready. I go to work and I feel like I could take over the company, but I just type. I go home and I see my mother in her chair and I feel like I could pick her up with one hand and chuck her out the window and roll up the rug and throw a big party. Everybody’s invited. I go to the library and I wanna take the books down off the shelves and open all the books on the tables and argue with everybody about ideas. I wanna think out loud. I wanna think out loud with other people. You know what’s wrong with everybody? Too smart. I know it sounds crazy. I know. But it’s true. Everybody’s too smart. It’s like everybody knows everything and everybody argued everything and everything got hashed out and settled the day before I was born. It’s not fair. They know about gravity so nobody talks about gravity. It’s a dead issue. Look at me. My feet are stuck to the fuckin floor. Fantastic. But no. That’s gravity. Forget it. It’s been done it’s been said it’s been thought, so fuck it. It’s not fair. I’ve been shut outta everything that mighta been good by a smartness around that won’t let me think one new thing. And it’s been like that with love, too. You’re a little girl and you see the movies and maybe you talk to your mother and you definitely talk to your friends and then you know, right? So you go ahead and you do love. And somethin a what somebody told ya inna movie or in your ear is what love is. And where the fuck are you then, that’s what I wanna know? Where the fuck are you when you’ve done love, and you can point to love, and you can name it, and love is the same as gravity the same as everything else, and everything else is a totally dead fuckin issue?

LINDA. That’s what it’s like to be a virgin?