scene 3 Flashcards
trash can scene
Cue line-Chris: “And who can live up to that?”
“Stop! Jack, please don’t throw away your box!”
Chris: “Mind your own business, Holly.”
“Why don’t you mind yours? I know you think the box has just caused you problems, but-“
Jack: “Problems with my friends, my parents-everyone!”
“But Jack, it only means you’re not using it right.”
Chris: “What an idiot. Using it right? It’s a box!”
“No, it’s not just a box. It’s your box.”
Jack: “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“If it’s your box, you get to decide what goes in it.”
Chris: “You can’t pick the expectations other people have for you.”
“is that what you think the box is? Other people’s expectations? Come and see…I promise I don’t bite… Look, if I haven’t made my point, I’ll be quiet and let you throw your box away, all right? I won’t interfere. You get to decide…. This is the program for the very first theatre show I was in. I was a tree. I was so dissapointed.”
Jack: “Then why keep the program?”
“Because that was only the beginning. Here’s my second show and my third. Now I have a whole stack of programs in here. I want to be a professional actress someday, and these programs remind me that I’m working toward that…My grades. They’re not quite where I’d like them to be, but I keep a close eye on them. I need A’s in all my classes to go to a performing arts school in New York. The school counselor also says I need to be involved in lots of different activities.”
Jack: “That’s why you’re running for student council?”
” Yes. But I’m also doing it because I think it would be a lot of fun.”
Jack: “And what about the things from your friends?”
“It’s my box remember? If anyone gives me something I don’t want, I give it back. And yes, sometimes I do throw it away. Someone who I thought was my friend gave me a cigarette once. But there’ve been other things,too, things that don’t seem so bad.”
Jack: “Like what?”
“My dad keeps trying to push me to go to business school. I know he means well, but…”
Jack:” It’s not what you want.”
“No. And sometimes it’s hard to give back the school brochures he keeps handing me. But I have to give them back because they don’t belong in my box. I get to decide.”
Chris:” But it’s an expectation, don’t you have to take it.”
“That’s not what these are.”
Chris:” Of course they are. When my sister… when she…Look. It all started with the…the…”
“The obituary?”
Chris:” I couldn’t carry a box for both her and me. So I threw everything away. I threw all of the expectations everyone had for me away.”
” I guess it would be easy to confuse the two-“
Chris:” What two?”
” Expectations… and hopes. The boxes were never meant to hold other people’s expectations of you Chris. The things in your box from other people are their hopes for you, not their expectations. And from their hopes and your own- you create your own plans, your own goals and dreams. That’s what your box is, a pathway for your journey through life based on your plans, goals, and dreams. I put things in my box that remind me to keep moving forward.”
