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    Chimera
    Chimera
    Chimera
    Ebook118 pages1 hour

    Chimera

    By Wendy Lill

    ()

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    About this ebook

    What makes Chimera so compelling is that Wendy Lill has lived almost all the roles the play dramatizes: NDP critic for both culture and persons with disabilities, she came to politics after a career in community health care and as a reporter for the CBC.

    This play arose from her experience as one of the parliamentarians who passed a Canadian law in 2004 concerning human reproductive technologies. She recalls being at a conference where a spokesman for a pharmaceutical company boasted about the array of new pre-diagnostic tests being developed to detect anomalies in fetuses. “I was sitting in this room with many people with disabilities and I realized that what he was saying is that quite possibly a lot of these people would not be around today. They wouldn't have been born.”

    The ethics of stem-cell research—in particular the creation of crossspecies “chimeras,” the mixing of genetic material from humans and animals, is a hotly debated topic with political, scientific, moral and spiritual dimensions. While such experiments could hold the key to curing many diseases, to their detractors they conjure up everything from visions of divine retribution to sci-fi nightmares from B-grade horror films. To explore this controversy, Lill created a chimera of her own: a hybrid play that’s part Parliament Hill exposé, part examination of the efforts to regulate genetic engineering.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTalonbooks
    Release dateSep 15, 2007
    ISBN9780889227712
    Chimera
    Author

    Wendy Lill

    Wendy Lill was born in Vancouver in 1950 and was educated in both London and Toronto, ON. She lived for many years in Winnipeg, MB, and now resides in Dartmouth, NS, with her husband Richard and two children, Joe and Sam. She has written for magazines, radio, television, and stage. Her plays have been produced extensively on Canadian and international stages. Her play All Fall Down examines the roots of intolerance and hysteria and their effects on love. Sisters received the Labatt’s Canadian Play Award at the Newfoundland and Labrador Drama Festival. Primedia Productions brought out television versions of two of Lill’s plays, Sisters and Memories of You, both of which Lill scripted. (Sisters won a Gemini in 1992). Lill has four plays nominated for a Governor General’s Award for Drama: The Glace Bay Miners’ Museum, All Fall Down, The Occupation of Heather Rose, and Corker. Talonbooks has also published her Chimera, Messenger, and The Fighting Days. Between June 1997 and June 2004, Wendy Lill was the Member of Parliament for Dartmouth and the Culture Communications critic for the federal New Democratic Party (NDP).

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      Book preview

      Chimera - Wendy Lill

      Act One

      Light up on ROY RUGGLES, dressed in jeans and a sports jacket, wearing a pair of swimming goggles. He is holding a well-thumbed paperback edition of The Origin of Species.

      ROY:

      In this story, only the strongest, the fittest, the fiercest survive. Only the wily remain standing when the dawn breaks. The Origin of Species. Charles Darwin. Wrote it about a million monkeys ago. Friend of mine gave it to me, thought I needed some winter reading. (opens book, flips through and reads) If we could but dimly see ... if we could turn our imaginings to this teeming awesome race, the true nature of this struggle ... (closes the book) Charles Darwin. Now there’s a guy who knew all about stalling. He stumbled upon the very essence of life, but decided to keep it to himself. Didn’t want to tell his friends they’d come from pond scum, not angels. Couldn’t bear to break his devout wife’s heart. So instead of broadcasting his news to the world, he stuffed it in a drawer for fifteen years and went off to study butterflies. I mean it’s one thing to want to pick your spots ... but fifteen years? Come on. That’s a helluva long time to sit on a ... (stops, takes a deep breath) But this isn’t Darwin’s story. It’s mine.

      Lights change.

      1/1 MINISTER’S OFFICE

      Six months earlier. Light up on RICHARD DOYLE entering with a pile of mail and reports, already on the phone.

      DOYLE:

      Hey Leah. What’s up? Vaccines. Really? Linked to ADD and ADHD? Leah, we went to the seminar, we read the books, we made a decision and now because of some flyer that came through the mail you’re not going to get Victoria vaccinated? I gotta go. PMO’s on the other line, (switches lines) Good morning, Jay. (listens) No, not back yet. She went on a tour of a biotech lab in Orleans and then was heading straight to the press conference to launch Science on the Hill ...

      1/2 THE HOT ROOM

      ROY sits down at his desk in the House of Commons newsroom, The Hot Room. Disheveled, he begins plowing through a stack of press releases.

      ROY:

      (reads) Improvements to the RCMP pension plan. How about a decent pension plan for the rest of us? (another) MP, Winnipeg South—Curfews for teenagers. I could get behind that ... (another) Ban transfats in beer. That’s going over the top. (another) Finding birth parents. Leave ’em buried, (throws the press releases aside and starts searching for something) Where the hell is the government directory?

      1/3 MINISTER’S OFFICE

      DOYLE:

      Really? You thought it was too bright? I thought it was rather bold ... but in a good way ... good bold. It’s a great colour on her. He wants women, Jay—that’s the new mantra, and women like ...

      ROY finds the directory and punches in number.

      ROY:

      Come on, come on, come on ...

      DOYLE:

      Gotta go, Jay. Media incoming. No problem. I’ll talk to her. (switches lines) Minister McGuire’s office.

      ROY:

      Roy Ruggles here. Mirror.

      DOYLE:

      Hey, Roy! I hear you landed—

      ROY:

      So how’s the dark side treating you? How’s life as a glorified butler?

      DOYLE:

      Got a new baby and a mortgage. Works for me. What can I do for you, Roy?

      ROY:

      I want an interview with her.

      DOYLE:

      Her? Are you referring to the Minister?

      ROY:

      Yeah. Her. Basic profile. An hour will do. Can we do it by the canal, after Question Period?

      DOYLE:

      You don’t want much, do you?

      ROY:

      Nice picture. Peace Tower in the back.

      DOYLE:

      I’ll get back to you.

      ROY:

      I’ll be waiting by the phone, (slams down phone) Jerk.

      DOYLE:

      Charming as ever.

      CLARE enters in a bold but stylish suit, with feather detail. She drops a pile of materials onto DOYLE’S desk, begins checking her BlackBerry.

      DOYLE:

      How was the tour?

      CLARE:

      I don’t know a gamete from a blastomere. And I look like hell in a hairnet. Other than that, it was fine. Anything I need to know?

      DOYLE:

      You’ve got an awards dinner at the Summerside Rec Centre next Saturday. The Mayor and the MLA will sit with you. You need to phone Canada Pension for constituent Mary Long. Chronic pain, broke her hip at work, been waiting three years for Disability. She’s a Liberal. And for QP, we’ve prepared answers on gun control, same-sex marriage and RCMP pensions. That should cover it. And here’s a press release patting ourselves on the back for passing Bill C-13, which came into law one year ago today.

      CLARE:

      Which is?

      DOYLE:

      Bill C-13, the Human Reproductive Technology Act.

      CLARE:

      I’ve got to get a handle on these laws.

      DOYLE:

      You will. (hands her the release) The Act took ten years to pass because of its controversial nature. It covers all the new repro technologies: in vitro fertilization, surrogacy, cloning, cross species, stem cell research ... The right-to-lifers call it the Murdered Embryo Act.

      CLARE:

      Right. Doyle, could you get a gardening company over to my place? It’s starting to look like a jungle.

      DOYLE:

      Done.

      1/4 FANNING’S OFFICE

      An Opposition Backbencher’s office. There is a large cross on the wall. GEORGE FANNING is practising his question for Question Period.

      FANNING:

      Monsieur le Président, mon question est pour ... (tries lowering his voice) Monsieur le Président, aujourd’hui, j’ai un question pour la nouvelle Ministre, (clears his throat, straightens up) Mr. Speaker, today I have a question for the new Minister. We have watched almost in a stupor ... we have been stupefied by her rapid rise in the ranks ...

      1/5 MINISTER’S OFFICE

      DOYLE:

      There’s another request for a New Minister interview. From the Mirror.

      CLARE:

      Enjoying the preview?
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