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Sunlight on Brownstones

Posted by DCA Theater on December 22, 2009 in January-June 2010 Season, The (edward) Hopper Project

Written by Merrie Greenfield, actress and co-author of The (edward) Hopper Project , playing January 15-February 21 at the Storefront Theater.

This was first written in 2007, one of the more frustrating pieces for me. At the time, Jen Ellison, who conceived of the show, had us choose a painting from print-outs on a table. I realized I’d never seen this work in my Hopper research. The dichotomy of the image itself presented an interesting problem. On one side, the brownstones, which immediately remind me of my grandparents’ and father’s home in New York around this time period. Then the indications of city life disappear and drop off into nature without warning. Just across an empty street we see nothing but blue sky, a hint of clouds, green trees, the suggestion of rocky hills.

Edward Hopper, Sunlight on Brownstones (1956)

I imagined it as Brooklyn, or what I know/remember of it…particularly how it might have been in 1956. Even the subjects seemed at odds in a subtle way. The man is relaxed, leaning against the door frame holding a cigarette, either confident or successfully pretending. The woman is casually sitting on the stone railing, but her arms and her stiff back suggest tension, almost as if it’s an act. They’re both staring off into…something. Maybe they had just been simultaneously hoping/dreading they would see the other person. Perhaps both hiding what they really wanted to say to the other. One or both wanting to make a move but also terrified of doing it. I pictured the attraction and frustration of someone who knows you extremely well - so well, they get under your skin. Those people know what pleases you, but also which buttons will drive you from zero to furious in under a minute. Once someone knows where those buttons are, it’s usually far too tempting to avoid pressing them.

As for the inclusion of Richard’s backstory, it was a sort of a coping mechanism. Each Write Club meeting at the Uptown Writer’s Space (R.I.P.) meant I walked home along Broadway. In the window of a community center along the way was a public service print ad I could not keep myself from avoiding each time I passed. It’s a picture of Jacqueline Saburido. She is a courageous burn victim who selflessly works to raise awareness of the risks of drunk driving.  In 1999, at only 21 years old, she was riding in a vehicle struck by a drunk 17-year-old. She became trapped inside. The car caught on fire, was extinguished, and caught fire again before she could be freed. Literally, the poor woman’s face was lost, burned away. The ad is a huge picture of what remains, in contrast with another picture showing her, beautiful, smiling, before the crash. The tagline says something along the lines of “Not everyone dies in drunk driving accidents.” It is nothing short of harrowing. Passing by it all the time, whether I looked at it (usually) or not, it followed me home and borrowed in my brain. I couldn’t stop thinking about her, how she must feel inside a face now functioning as a warning. I discussed it with my boyfriend, who is sensitive in the best way possible. Just as haunted by the photo, he didn’t even want to discuss it.  I decided if I was going to have to try to ignore that photo so much, I’d have to turn it around in my brain. I decided to take on the impossible task of writing the situation into a comedic scene. So I wrote Kate and Frank’s reprehensible reactions to their friend’s plight. It’s also a great litmus test. You can always tell the sickos by the people who laugh the loudest at the jokes about Richard.

This scene went through many revisions, at the behest of others. Originally I wanted to do a romantic scene in which nobody kisses, fates are left hanging, much like Hopper’s paintings. So first, no kiss. Then people wanted them to kiss. Then they wanted them to kiss at the start of the scene. Then back to no kiss. The most surprising factor was learning folks usually root for these characters. (Except for a dear friend who attended a read-through and amusingly told me she positively abhorred this scene. I still haven’t told her I wrote it.) I’ve only just recently started to like the characters more, maybe because of the way actors read it in callbacks and rehearsals. Throughout much of the writing process, I’ve thought Kate and Frank were just selfish jerks, or at least behaving like ones. Probably not the best way to go about writing something. I guess we’ll see how the audience reacts when they’re filtered through two charming actors. They still make fun of a burn victim, after all.