Some People
Premiere 2009 WaterTower Theatre Out of the Loop Festival
Project X, Dallas
written designed directed
Some People script pdf
It's Thornton Wilder meets David Lynch, with a dose of Strindberg expressionism …There are fine performances, straddling realistic and stylized comedy, as befits each scene. Riccio is clearly a playwright worth watching. Something like this might be written off as an interesting experiment, but Riccio actually makes emotional connections with the audience.
Mark Lowry, Theatre Jones
Some People holds a funhouse mirror up to modern society. Vulgarity serves Riccio’s avant-garde vision as high seriousness mingles with crude nonsense. The production by Project X: Theatre is a multimedia affair that zips from one absurd moment to the next.
Manny Mendoza, KERA’s Art and Seek
Some People excerpt, Act 2
MORGAN (To the NARRATOR) When I first met Frank I thought the world was wonderful and everything was going to be perfect. Something changed, right in front of us something happened to us, I’m not sure what. Do you feel it? Something is happening right now … things are not perfect are they?
NARRATOR Are you all right?
MORGAN No … No. I thought I was. I need something. Do you have something for nerves? Anything. (She looks at her shaking hands) I have to stop drinking coffee.
NARRATOR I have just the thing! Here, try these.
(He pulls out a pill vial, opens it and hands her several pills. As MORGAN takes them the NARRATOR moves around her shaking the pill vial as if a shaman’s rattle. After a few moments of this MORGAN feels better.)
Feel better?
MORGAN Incredible, what are those, something new?
NARRATOR How about a massage?
MORGAN Okay, but you have to wash your hands.
(The NARRATOR uses a hand sanitizer as FRANK focuses on MORGAN and the space around her. He senses the presence of the NARRATOR.)
FRANK (To MORGAN) Hey, now wait a minute! … You’re talking to him now, aren’t you? What’s he saying?
NARRATOR I’ll tell you…At one time all things, animals, plants, humans, sprits—they were all one, moving freely between their worlds. Form was transitory. Then, the world flipped…animals remained animal…plants remained plants…sprits spirits…humans humans. The world became thick…nothing moved between worlds. Now…the world is thin again.
(NARRATOR snaps his fingers and the lights go to black.)
MORGAN Hey! What happened to the lights?
NARRATOR The dark is another kind of light.
FRANK I’ll check the breaker box.