Sweat Flashcards
Promotions and Competition
CYNTHIA: “Why the hell not? I’ve got twenty-four years on the floor.” / TRACEY: “Well, I got you beat by two. Started in ’74, walked in straight outta high school.” … CYNTHIA: “I’m giving up more than a job, I’m giving up all that time I spent standing on line waiting for one damn opportunity.”
Taking care of one another
JASON: “It’s nice that you take care of him.” / OSCAR: “That’s how it oughta be.”
Giving up can be okay
BRUCIE: “It’s tough for me to say, I’m union to the end, but this don’t have to be your fight.”
Hopelessness and lack of control
STAN: “Getting injured was the best thing that ever happened to me. Got me out of that vortex.”
JESSIE: “I guess I got caught in the riptide, couldn’t get back to shore”
Stands in the downpour - “And I hadn’t had that feeling of being outta control since my mother died.” (Brucie about hopelessness after losing his job)
Stagnation
STAN: “Gimme a break. That place hasn’t changed since I walked in there in ‘69. Not a lightbulb, not one single nut or bolt.”
TRACEY: “We’ve been having the same conversation for twenty years.”
Excuses and poor employer-employee relations
CYNTHIA: “Listen babe, they’re always looking for reasons to let us go.”
Nativism
STAN: “You [Oscar] crossed the line.” | DOUBLE MEANING
BRUCIE: “[This old white cat]’s a scratch in the vinyl, going on and on about us coming here and ruining everything. Like I’m fresh off the boat or some shit.”
Hope (the new generation)
BRUCIE: “You [Chris] got options that I didn’t.”
Inheritance
STAN: “Three generations of loyalty to the same company. This is America, right? You’d think that would mean something.” ACT 1, SCENE4
Left standing
CYNTHIA: “Call me whatever you need to call me, but remember, one of us has to be left standing to fight.”
Institutional problems
STAN, SHOUTING AT JASON: “Talk to Olstead, his cronies. Fucking Wall Street. Oscar ain’t getting rich off your misery.” A2S6
Shame
EVAN: “It’s the shame that eats us away until we disappear.” A2S7
