tigers be still

Nothing can be perfect timing, but let me tell you, Tigers Be Still written by Kim Rosenstock came into my life at just the right moment in time. Although I’ve never seen a performance of this script, not even a video, reading this script was just as fulfilling.

Following the story of Sherry, an unemployed and depressed graduate, Rosenstock introduces us to a mediocre suburbia which gets turned upside down when a tiger from the local zoo gets loose, and Sherry - simultaneously - decides to get her life together. The women in her life - her sister Grace and her mother Wanda (who is never seen during the play) cannot seem to get out of bed or be productive enough to do anything. Sherry’s boss Joseph, who happens to be in love with Wanda, hires Sherry at the local elementary school as an art therapist, and also gives her responsibility over his troubled teenage son, Zach. He recently lost his mother in a car crash, on where he was driving the car, and struggles at his minimum wage jobs. The plot centers around Sherry attempting to help them all while bettering herself, and she soon finds her purpose within the relationships she’s created.

The tiger is both a literal and metaphorical symbol throughout the play. Although never seen, his danger creeps in the shadows as a presence which looms heavy amongst the characters. There is a danger of existence for these people, which symbolically emphasizes the possibility of death, love lost, and personal failures.

Rosenstock often plays with the theme of absence. Sherry’s father is inexistent in her life. Although Sherry’s mother lives upstairs, we as the audience never see her. Grace is tormented by the breakup of her boyfriend, while Zach struggles with the indefinite presence of his mother. Never is the tiger seen, yet he is able to send an entire town on a nervous lockdown. For the audience, we see the absences firsthand and are capable of understanding it by quite literally experiencing it. This play dangles the alternatives of danger and liberation for everyone, even after the piece is over.

Sherry bears the weight of helping those around her while struggling to help herself. Although a seemingly simple plot, the script is endearing with witty humor, likable characters, and a strong sense of faith.

I had the privilege of working with this script during my final college showcase. It just felt so right that the script focused on a post-graduate young woman trying to make something of herself, because that’s exactly how I felt (and still feel) when approaching the moments I received my degree and entered the job force. My scene partner and I used the opening scene: moments after Sherry has directly spoken to the audience about her great plan to get her life together, she introduces us to her heartbroken sister, Grace.

The scene dances around Sherry begging Grace to get off the couch. It is her first day as an art therapist, and after working at the elementary school, Zach is to come over to her home office and receive a therapy session. Grace struggles to get off the couch because she is highly depressed, irritable and a little drunk (the couch is her emotional support). The moments are fast, aggressive, and devastatingly sisterly and I highly recommend this scene for two female actors who enjoy comedy. Shoutout to my girl Tori, she really encouraged me to give this play a try (and she’s one of the best actors I know).

I have big hopes that one day I will get to direct this or be involved with it in its entirety. Because of Rosenstock’s work with both the theatre and television, I can not help but notice her screenplay-like tendencies which give this script’s settings the possibilities of taking place anywhere and letting the moments move fast and intimate, as if we could get a close-up camera angle on an actor’s face. I think with certain direction, this play could drive an intersection of multi-media and theatre in a live-viewing experience.

My favorite moment? 

Scene 22: The Escape

Zach: This is how it happens. I wait until my dad has gone into his room for the night and then I grab the suitcase that’s been sitting under my bed, packed, for months. 

Then I go to the kitchen to grab a box of cookies and leaning up against the leg of the table I see the rifle. And for the first time it hits me: My dad has a rifle. And that’s not ok. He needs someone to take it away. So I do that. I walk out of the house I’ve lived in my whole life with a rifle, most of my belongings, and a box of cookies and I have no idea if I have the courage to go any further than the town pond, which is where I’m standing, looking at the ducks when I hear it: a soft rumbling, a growling.

And I turn around. And there it is. The tiger. At the town pond. And I’m, like, armed, you know. And I think –I can be the guy who defended the town from the tiger. And I’m about to pull the trigger when everything just becomes really, really still. I stare into the tiger’s big, yellow eyes and I swear it’s like he wants me to shoot him. He’s tired. And alone. And lost. And I think: yeah, sure this tiger’s dangerous–but like if you really think about it, who isn’t? And he squints and stares at me in this sad, broken way and in that moment, for him, I choose life.

I slowly lower the gun and as I do the tiger glares at me like “Oh great. Thanks for nothing, asshole.” And he just turns around and walks away. So then I’m just standing there, thinking to myself, “Now what?” When suddenly I drop the rifle and it goes off at my feet and at the sound of the gunshot I run–I run as fast I can, suitcase and everything. I run until I’m at the bus station and then I get on a bus and then I get on another bus. And that’s how I escape.