NPX Round-Up: A Sign You Were Alive by Rebecca Kane

A heartbreaking magical-realism play that deals with father-daughter dynamics, plus three other plays I'm interested in right now!

Having trouble wrapping your head around something? Or explaining it? Or perhaps articulating exactly how a situation effects a person or community? Well, for 3 payments of free 99, you can utilize the power of allegory and metaphor!!

Writers and other storytellers have been doing it for eons, so why not YOU??

All jokes aside, we know how these literary devices can assist in conveying an emotion and/or situation in a way that exact realism can’t always accomplish. Naturalism, or realism, can be brutal in its truth telling, but unless you yourself have experienced something, the emotional reality isn’t always as impactful or clear. This is where those literary devices, along with genres such as magical realism, fantasy, sci-fi, and more, come in handy.

(Along with perhaps more experimental and/or abstract forms of writing— but that’s a topic for another time.)

This play uses vampirism— yes, classic vampirism, no sparkles here— as an allegory for…well, I can’t tell you. It’d spoil the ending! But trust when I say it is used extremely effectively. I was practically in tears by the end and I was only reading the play. I can’t imagine the mess I would’ve been if I was watching it!

Here’s a summary of A Sign You Were Alive by Rebecca Kane from NPX:

In the near future, or maybe right now, Chelsea is infected with something that looks like vampirism, or maybe it just is. Her father pulls out every trick in his dad book – and learns some new ones – to help her get through the trauma and a new life that maybe isn’t what we know of as life at all.

Content warnings for: blood, mentions of death and illness

This play opens with a short monologue from the father, James, as he asks for animal blood at the butcher counter. He gives an excuse, saying it’s for making “blood pudding”, and gets the hell outta there.

At home, he talks to his daughter through her bedroom door. She never responds— but he continues trying to communicate nevertheless. He puts the blood in front of her door for her, and she eventually takes it. It’s made very clear without the use of the word “vampire” that that is what his daughter, Chelsea, is changing into. For the first scene, she basically only communicates in grunts and hisses.

As she begins to emerge in the next scenes, we see her and James awkwardly side stepping a few gruesome facts: one, that this “vampirism” is raging outside, being called a pandemic by the news that we hear a few snippets of; two, that the animal blood does not seem to sate Chelsea as much as she would like; and three, that by “harboring” his vampiric daughter, James has put himself in grave danger— from those that would hurt him for doing so, as well as from, perhaps, Chelsea herself.

As I was reading, I felt I knew what this was an allegory for— something to do with the COVID 19 pandemic. After all, what James and Chelsea experience during the play was awfully familiar to me, what with the constant news blasts about the pandemic, lockdowns, and general unrest. The only part that was really missing to me as I was reading was why vampires? Chelsea loves all vampire media, as is shown through the posters in her bedroom and the movies and shows she and James consume during the play, so it seems almost ironic that she is one of the victims of this pandemic. Trust me, it all makes sense in the end, which is why the reveal/plot twist is so effective.

While you would think this play would mostly concern the supernatural illness spreading throughout the country, it mostly serves to give a sense of doom or urgency in the background of what is really a story about a father doing his damnedest to help his daughter through something incredibly traumatic. There are tense moments where the stress gets to them both, lovely and silly moments where they really bond, and mixtures of both at the same time. What really struck me as well done in this play was this relationship and how natural it felt. It really read like actual conversations between a father and daughter, from how sometimes emotions burst out out of nowhere to the little details that showed James’ devotion to Chelsea. James clearly knows nothing about vampires or vampire media, but he makes such a clear effort to understand and have fun with these movies and shows because he loves Chelsea. And near the end, when it seems that it has been discovered that he is “harboring” a vampire, he does everything to try and get Chelsea to escape and leave him.

Honestly, I didn’t see the plot twist coming at all. I think that’s in part because there’s no real reason to believe that there will be one— due to the nature of the “vampiric” illness, our belief is totally and utterly suspended in every way. So, vampires exist in some way in this world. Cool— I’m prepared as an audience member to just believe you, because weird shit is true in this play. So when the plot twist comes around…well, we almost don’t believe it. In fact, I read the last scene twice because I was unsure what the hell I had just read.

I’m not a mystery writer, and I don’t often feel the need to have a plot twist in my play— but I feel like this play just gave me insight into how to write one on easy mode. If the story takes place in a world where XYZ weird or impossible thing is true, then why can’t ABC be true as well? Seems to making turning things on their head a little bit easier for those of us less experience in doing so in our work.

I wish I could articulate better what exactly made the dialogue in this play so realistic and expressive! To me, it felt like Kane must’ve watched a real life father and his teenage daughter and just wrote down everything they said to each other. I mean, eavesdropping is something usually encouraged by creative writing teachers for a reason (to make more realistic dialogue) so it seems like that could be the answer. Or, perhaps, Kane has a great memory for how she and her own father perhaps interacted when she was younger. Either way, I’m going to have to keep digging to figure out if there is a tried and true secret to phenomenally smooth and realistic dialogue in theatre.

Here’s my review of A Sign You Were Alive on NPX:

A stomach turning read in multiple ways-- I could feel the sense of impending doom that permeated the play throughout, making even the silliest moments a little bit sad. The relationship between James and Chelsea was so realistic, and the dialogue never felt fake at all. I felt a strong sense that this play was an allegory, and was both heartbroken, surprised, and somehow relieved when the reveal occurred at the end. I almost cried just reading this play-- I think a staged version would break me...and that's why I need it to happen!

Have you read this play? Have an opinion? Let me know in the comments!

Here’s three more plays that have intrigued me lately:

• Sanctuary by Alyssa Haddad-Chin (Samuel French Off Off Broadway Finalist— YES GIRL!!!)

• A very different kind of truth by Erica Smith

• Cat Audition by Martha Garvey

Want me to read one of these plays? Want me to read one of yours? Message me here on SubStack or reply to this email and I’ll add it to the list!

Happy reading!

~Brynn