Act I, Scene I
Interior. JENNY and her BROTHER are in her bedroom, the afternoon sunlight streaming in through a window. JENNY holds a candle - it's white with coffee beans on the bottom.
Jenny: [shoving candle towards her brother] Eat it.
Jenny's Brother: No. [furrows eyebrows, turning away]
Jenny: [continues trying to shove it in her brother's face] Eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it!
JENNY backs her BROTHER into a corner with the coffee end of the candle pointed at his mouth, brandishing it like a sword.
Jenny's Brother: [nervous laughter] Stop it Jehhhh-nee or I’ll enable my force shield to turn your bones into dirt!
Jenny: [sighs, stops pressuring her brother] Okay fine. [pause] Let’s light this and then blow it out. Let’s do it like twenty times in a row. It’ll be just like our birthday.
Jenny's Brother: Why twenty? That’s too many times.
Jenny: Fine, twenty-eight it is.
Jenny's Brother: No. That’s more than twenty.
Jenny: Okay, okay, fine. Fifty-five, if you insist.
JENNY'S BROTHER sticks out his tongue and rolls his eyes. The two of them walk out of Jenny's room and enter the living room. JENNY'S BROTHER immediately crashes onto the couch. JENNY sets down the candle on the coffee table in front of the couch before rummaging around to finally find a matchbox.
Jenny: [approaches the candle, to her brother] Stay back.
JENNY'S BROTHER obeys, staying seated on the couch as JENNY lights the candle with a match.
Jenny: [blows out the match, taking a seat on the couch] You first.
JENNY'S BROTHER obeys her once again. He gets off the couch, crouches down on the ground, closes his eyes, and leans in close. He leans too close, his hair touching the flame, curling and changing color immediately. He scrambles back onto the couch before JENNY covers his face with her hands and pulls out the burnt ends.
Jenny: [rubbing the burnt ends between her fingers, softly] Let’s not tell mom.
JENNY picks out more of the burnt strands. She and her BROTHER begin to eat the burnt strands from her cupped hand, on the couch. She has an arm around him. He fidgets, wiggling his feet.
The lights dim as the scene changes.
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The opening scene to Jenny Zhang's "The Evolution of My Brother" is a simple and straight-forward scene that can easily be adapted into a stageplay, as seen above. I imagine the stage to have a bed on one side to signify that it's Jenny's bedroom and then the other side of the stage has a couch and coffee table for the living room. Light should only be where the characters are to bring attention to them, meaning the area is dimmed if the characters aren't there (for example, when Jenny and her brother move the living room, the bedroom area will now be in the dark). The only props are the candle and a matchbox.
Interior. JENNY and her BROTHER are in her bedroom, the afternoon sunlight streaming in through a window. JENNY holds a candle - it's white with coffee beans on the bottom.
Jenny: [shoving candle towards her brother] Eat it.
Jenny's Brother: No. [furrows eyebrows, turning away]
Jenny: [continues trying to shove it in her brother's face] Eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it!
JENNY backs her BROTHER into a corner with the coffee end of the candle pointed at his mouth, brandishing it like a sword.
Jenny's Brother: [nervous laughter] Stop it Jehhhh-nee or I’ll enable my force shield to turn your bones into dirt!
Jenny: [sighs, stops pressuring her brother] Okay fine. [pause] Let’s light this and then blow it out. Let’s do it like twenty times in a row. It’ll be just like our birthday.
Jenny's Brother: Why twenty? That’s too many times.
Jenny: Fine, twenty-eight it is.
Jenny's Brother: No. That’s more than twenty.
Jenny: Okay, okay, fine. Fifty-five, if you insist.
JENNY'S BROTHER sticks out his tongue and rolls his eyes. The two of them walk out of Jenny's room and enter the living room. JENNY'S BROTHER immediately crashes onto the couch. JENNY sets down the candle on the coffee table in front of the couch before rummaging around to finally find a matchbox.
Jenny: [approaches the candle, to her brother] Stay back.
JENNY'S BROTHER obeys, staying seated on the couch as JENNY lights the candle with a match.
Jenny: [blows out the match, taking a seat on the couch] You first.
JENNY'S BROTHER obeys her once again. He gets off the couch, crouches down on the ground, closes his eyes, and leans in close. He leans too close, his hair touching the flame, curling and changing color immediately. He scrambles back onto the couch before JENNY covers his face with her hands and pulls out the burnt ends.
Jenny: [rubbing the burnt ends between her fingers, softly] Let’s not tell mom.
JENNY picks out more of the burnt strands. She and her BROTHER begin to eat the burnt strands from her cupped hand, on the couch. She has an arm around him. He fidgets, wiggling his feet.
The lights dim as the scene changes.
-
The opening scene to Jenny Zhang's "The Evolution of My Brother" is a simple and straight-forward scene that can easily be adapted into a stageplay, as seen above. I imagine the stage to have a bed on one side to signify that it's Jenny's bedroom and then the other side of the stage has a couch and coffee table for the living room. Light should only be where the characters are to bring attention to them, meaning the area is dimmed if the characters aren't there (for example, when Jenny and her brother move the living room, the bedroom area will now be in the dark). The only props are the candle and a matchbox.
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