Rick!

By Tony Moore.

Published by Moore Books SA

ISBN: 978-1-921918-00-1

Genre: Drama

Cast: 3f 4m

Settings: 1

Approximate Length: 2.5 hours including interval

Synopsis: In 1987 he was the coolest guy in school. All the guys wanted to be him, all the girls wanted to be with him. He was Rick!
At one of the last parties of the year he got into his car and left.
He left his friends.
He left the party.
And he left this world.
Did someone help him on his way?

Now, 20 years later, the concert band members are reuniting to remember school days. Happy days for all. Or so they should have been...
They all had cause to kill him ... and maybe one of them did.

History: Rick was first produced in Adelaide at The Studio, Holden Street Theatres in September 2007 by Spotlight Theatre Company.

Performance Rights and copies of the script can be obtained from this website. Please see the Services page.

RICK!

Excerpt

WARNING! This excerpt contains adult concepts and strong language.

Not suitable for children.

PHIL: I want to know how this turned into an attack Rick night.

DEAN: Sweetie, if I had my way they would all be attack Rick nights. He wasn’t a very nice person you know.

ANNE: What are we talking about?

JENNY: Dear Rick’s tactics that got him included as co-writer on all of Steve’s songs when he didn’t help write them.

ANNE: Yes, I remember that happening. He threatened to walk out on the band if Steve didn’t do it and he didn’t want to lose Ricks voice so he agreed. Rick wanted the fame and I would think a half share of the money if there ever was any.

PHIL: He didn’t do that. He wouldn’t have. He was Steve’s friend.

DEAN: Darling Warwick didn’t have many actual friends you know. In fact, apart from you, I can’t think of any.

ANNE: Well this is interesting. I mean this coming out after all this time. Why, I wonder, did none of this come out back when he died?

PHIL: Because it’s all lies. You’re making it all up.

MANDY: Why would we do that this far down the track? None of us have anything to gain now. It all happened too long ago.

PHIL: You were all jealous of him and now you just want to bad mouth him to destroy his reputation because of my book. You’re all afraid that people will start to believe me.

JENNY: Don’t be silly Phil.

PHIL: He was my best mate. He was …

MANDY: … a violent and unpleasant bully. Why didn’t we all admit to this years ago?

DEAN: Because I bet we all thought we were the only ones who felt that way and assumed that everyone else loved him. They all seemed to. (Pause. Dean has an obvious struggle with something he is trying to say.) He raped me you know.

There is a long pause.

PHIL: (Hesitantly) He can’t have, he wouldn’t have. He wasn’t gay.

DEAN: That doesn’t matter. Nearly all penetrative rapes of men are carried out by heterosexual males. Rape isn’t actually about sex you know Phil, it’s about power. He was drunk, horny and had just been thwarted. You will no doubt remember that night Mandy.

MANDY: You mean it was the night that … (She shudders and can’t continue.)

DEAN: That’s the night I mean. The night that Steve stopped him from … well, from raping you. He had, unusually for him, totally failed to pick up a girl from the crowd that night so he picked on you. He stopped him getting you so when he left the gig he was sore and battered and feeling a little small. He needed to relieve his frustrations and prove that he still had power over the rest of us.

JENNY: And he picked you?

DEAN: I just happened to be the first available object. My effeminacy simply defined the punishment. Had it been Phil, a beating would probably have been sufficient. If it had been one of you girls? It probably would have been similar to my fate only perhaps a little politer, a little less violent. He was extraordinarily good at picking the appropriate … mode of attack for each victim. He was a real artist in his own way; he probably should have been born in the Middle Ages, he could have found fulfillment as a court torturer or maybe worked for the Inquisition. He knew just how far to go as well; he very nearly put me in hospital but not quite, clever of him wasn’t it? Funnily enough it was my first experience as the recipient of penetrative sex. Nearly put me off for life.

JENNY: Excuse me.

She leaves the room to go to the bathroom.

DEAN: Interesting, it usually has that effect on men, not women.

ANNE: Did you report it to the police?

DEAN: No, let’s face it. Rick was the great sportsman, the great heterosexual and the great musician. I was the slightly effeminate little outsider who nobody really liked. (The others all look at him.) Well other than you lot of misfits and losers. Who would have been believed? It doesn’t matter any more. He’s dead and I have closure, my therapist has been encouraging me to reveal it to someone from those days and somehow it seemed appropriate to tell you people here and now. Years of therapy have brought me to this point and now I’m a happy man and desperately in need of a huge glass of wine from that cask that you have defiantly not been opening for the last ten minutes.

PHIL: I don’t believe you. (He is close to tears and obviously having enormous trouble controlling himself.) He can’t have been like that to everyone. I thought … I thought … (He screams) FUCK!