Nocturne

So for my Arts & Society: Theatre course, we were required to first read and then attend a performance of the play Nocturne, which was being performed here on campus. Now if you ever intend to see or read this play, please stop reading as the entire story will be explained in the rest of this post and I would hate to ruin it for anyone. First so you understand this play, it is a monologue play meaning one character tells the story rather than multiple characters interacting to tell you the story as in a movie. It is also a memory play so it is very fragmented and the story is told like your mind remembers the events so there are many random things brought into the play as that is how the mind forms memories. The play starts with these words, "Fifteen years ago I killed my sister." The narrator is given no name only social designations (son, brother). Then he goes on to tell exactly how he "killed" his sister. He was driving down the road on the way home from work and he decided that instead of going directly home, he would pass his house and go to his favorite place to sit and think. He was jamming to some music when all of the sudden his sister ran out from their driveway in front of his car. He tried to stop, but couldn't (We later learn that the breaks had failed). He swerves and over-corrects and hits a tree. He breaks a few ribs and is injures, but manages to get out of the car and go to see that it was indeed his sister whom he had run over and in fact, he had decapitated her. He ends up in the hospital and his mother comes to see him and she tells him about the brakes and that he is being charged with involuntary manslaughter, but she says it as if she wishes that wasn't all he was being charged with (He says). That is the last thing his mom says to him ever. She is later admitted to a mental hospital because she is unable to cope with the grief. His father has a similar problem coping, but he handles it by attempting to kill the narrator by putting a gun in his mouth. The mother stops the father from shooting him and he leaves the house and runs away. He ends up in New York where a lady gives him an apartment to stay in and he gets a job at a bookstore where he is able to take a lot of books. He uses the books and some twine to make himself furniture. He later buys a typewriter which he doesn't use for two years. He eventually moves to another apartment and buys real furniture. He then uses the typewriter to write a fiction version of his life story which he names Nocturne. He meets a girl who helps him get it published and who he starts dating for a while. He realizes he cannot be intimate and he parts ways mostly due to embarrassment. One day he receives a letter from his father with his father's own shortened version of his life story and a note saying that he has testicular cancer and is dying and that the narrator should come see him. There is also money attached for him to take the train. The narrator does go see his father and his father dies that night. The narrator returns home with the thoughts of getting back together with the girl and writing again.


Note: There are more elements which I have not touched on including the piano and the tie ins, but I decided not to make it too long.