Requirements & Synopsis
2 M, 1 F, and a large “monster” puppet, doubled by the actor playing Farley. Two settings. Victor is back, now being tormented by a school bully named Farley, while his younger sister Tara has fears of her own, embodied by a giant, one-eyed monster who lives in her dresser drawer. Tara learns from Victor a technique for overcoming the Monster, and then goes on to make friends with it. And Victor takes a comment of Tara’s as a cue to how to deal with Farley, and even make friends with him.
Night Light is the most popular and frequently-produced of the four “Not So Dumb” plays. By 2013, Green Thumb Theatre estimated that more than 260,000 young people had seen the play in various productions across North America.
Critical Responses
“Witty and wise… That the Manitoba Theatre for Young People is presenting the 1986 drama for the third time – at the unprecedented urging of local teachers – underscores the continuing need for Night Light to illuminate a painful reality of Canadian youth… Night Light offers important validation to kids.”
– Kevin Prokosh, Winnipeg Free Press, 2004.
“Beautifully written… You’ve got to find a way to get kids to see this thing, because it’s really worth seeing… The play strikes a kind of resonant chord pretty well in everyone who’s likely to see it… This is a kind of Canadian classic… A complicated issue…dealt with in a very intelligent way.”
– Robert Enright, CBC Radio, 2004.
Excerpt
TARA and VICTOR’S father is in hospital for a minor hernia operation, but TARA is concerned. Kosmo is her little robot doll. VICTOR has just reassured TARA that Daddy’s going to be fine, and has exited her bedroom.
(TARA is left sitting alone on the bed.)
TARA: He’ll be fine, Kosmo. It’s nothing. He’ll be home soon. They’ll get rid of these germs that got in there. He’s just a tiny bit sick – ’cause those germs are growing, that’s all – growing an’ growing an’ growing – an’ climbing up out of the place where they cut him open – (As she speaks, the MONSTER rises up out of the dresser, its eye closed.) Kosmo! There it is again! An’ it looks like a germ! (MONSTER opens its eye. TARA screams:) Victorrr! Victorrr!
MONSTER: Grrrr.
TARA (screams): Victor the Monster’s here an’ it’s staring at me I’m scared Daddy help me I’m scared Victor I’m scaaaared!
VICTOR (runs in, carrying a book): Tara, for Pete’s sake will you be quiet?
TARA: There! On the dresser! The monster!
VICTOR: Oh, it’s those stupid hands again?
TARA: It isn’t just hands this time, there’s a whole face!
VICTOR (staring straight at MONSTER, who cheerfully stares back): Tara, you know there isn’t really a monster there, don’t you?
TARA: Yes there is so!
VICTOR: There is not, there’s nothing there.
TARA: It’s right in front of you! It’s staring you right in the face!
VICTOR (nose to nose, eye to eye, practically touching): Well, I don’t see anything.
TARA: Well, I do!
MONSTER: Grrrr.
TARA: What am I gonna dooo?
VICTOR: All right, look, don’t start wailing. I got this book out of the library –
TARA: Aw, Victor, I don’t want some dumb book.
VICTOR: It’s about what to do when you’re scared. You wanna know how to keep the Monster from hurting you?
TARA: Yeah.
VICTOR: It says you should draw pictures of the Monster.
MONSTER (approvingly): Mmmm.
TARA: Pictures? Why?
VICTOR: I don’t know.
TARA: Okay.
VICTOR: Okay. So, uh, what colour is it?
TARA (takes papers and felts, spreads them out, starts drawing): It’s kind of an ugly greeny browny colour.
MONSTER: Hmph.
VICTOR (looking over her shoulder): Yeah? Okay. Uh, what’s its skin like?
TARA: It’s all scabby, wrinkly, lumpy an’ very gross.
MONSTER: Ahhhh.
VICTOR: Eugh. So, uh, what colour eyes?
TARA: It only has one eye. In the middle.
(MONSTER bats its eyelashes.)
VICTOR: Really? That is bizarre. What colour?
TARA: It’s got all red streaks in the white part, and it’s sort of green but mostly black, and it has thick eyelashes.
(MONSTER bats its eyelashes.)
VICTOR: Does it have a mouth?
TARA: It has a red mouth an’ big white teeth.
MONSTER (shows its teeth): Grrrrr.
TARA: Oh, Victor, it’s growling and showing its teeth what do I do!
VICTOR: Um, uh – draw them.
TARA: Draw the teeth?
VICTOR: Yeah.
TARA: ’Cause maybe it’s showing its teeth ’cause it wants me to draw them?
VICTOR: I dunno.
TARA (drawing): Okay.
MONSTER (batting eyelashes): Purrrr.
VICTOR: Stopped growling?
TARA: Yeah.
VICTOR: Good. (Admiring picture:) Hey, that’s pretty good.
TARA: No it isn’t. It’s yucky, ’cause the Monster’s yucky.
MONSTER: Grrr.
VICTOR: Is it finished?
TARA: Yeah.
VICTOR: Right. So now you tear it up.
TARA: What?
MONSTER: Huh?
VICTOR: That’s what it says in the book. It says now you’re s’posed to get mad at the Monster and tear up the picture.
MONSTER: Hmph!
VICTOR: ’Cause the book says you can’t be mad and scared at the same time. So if you get mad at it and tear it up, you won’t be as afraid of it. So go ahead, tear it up.
MONSTER: Grrrr.
TARA: I can’t!
VICTOR: Yes, you can. Slap it around.
(She slaps at the picture. The MONSTER reacts as if slapped.)
MONSTER: Grrraaarrgh!
VICTOR: Punch it in the mouth! (TARA punches the MONSTER’s picture. The MONSTER reacts.) Poke it in the eye! (TARA stabs the picture with a pen; MONSTER reacts, putting a hand over its eye.) Now: rip it up!
TARA (doing so): You mean bad monster I’m gonna tear you up an’ rip you up an’ tear you into a million billion trillion pieces until you are dead and gone and far away forever!
(As she does this, the MONSTER feels the tearing personally. Torn and flayed and in pain, it sinks into the dresser and is gone. Pause at the end of all this, with torn pieces of paper fluttering down and TARA catching her breath.)
VICTOR: All right. That was neat. So what happened to the Monster?
TARA (looks): It’s gone.
VICTOR: Really?
TARA: Well, it might be hiding in the dresser. You go check.
VICTOR: Okay, I’ll check. (Crosses to the dresser, rummages about in the drawers.) Is it getting its hands all over me like last time?
TARA: No.
VICTOR: Come and see. Come on. (TARA gets up and crosses hesitantly, hanging onto Kosmo.)
VICTOR (head and arms in dresser drawer): Uh oh – Oh, no –
TARA: What? Victor, what?
(A hand comes up out of the drawer and grabs VICTOR by the throat. He makes loud choking sounds:)
VICTOR: Grrraaarrr! Glllgggkkk! Help! Help!
(TARA begins shouting. VICTOR stands up away from the dresser, revealing that the hand is his own. He starts to laugh.)
TARA: Oh, very funny, Victor. (But this amuses and emboldens her: she crosses to the dresser and looks inside, but is still tentative about reaching in.) No Monster.
VICTOR: No Monster. It worked. Jeez, I didn’t think it would actually work.
TARA: Now you gotta do Farley. You gotta draw a picture of Farley an’ tear it up.
VICTOR (takes a handful of torn paper from his pocket, tosses it): I already did.