Citizen's Patrol

by Merideth M. Taylor


Synopsis

News Flash: "Neighborhood Watch Enlisted in Terror War" (Washington Post, 3/7/02)
Pogo: "We have found the enemy, and he is us." (Walt Kelly)

In a pleasant suburban middleclass neighborhood not far from our nation's capital live the Jacksons: Jack, Jackie, and teenage son Chris. They have invited their neighbors, including an African American couple, the Holmes, to join with them in forming a Neighborhood Watch-like group in an effort to bring the war on terrorism home to their neighborhood. [The first scene encompasses the organizational meeting and establishment of characters and relationships.] It is clear that Jackie is the zealous leader of the pack and that the Holmes are somewhat skeptical. Jack is a go-along guy, more interested in showing off his antique gun collection-especially the Civil War era pistols. Son Chris, not present at the meeting, is a simmering time bomb obsessed with violent video games and Neo-Norse mythology, but his parents seem oblivious of the danger lurking within the bosom of family.

The seeming normalcy of a typical dysfunctional American Family story begins gradually to disintegrate. In the second scene, the xenophobic tendencies of the group lead them to make a citizen's arrest of a Middle-Eastern looking man (Ahmed) found "loitering" in the neighborhood. Under Jackie's leadership, the group decides to bind and gag him and delay handing him over to the authorities until they can arrange for the media coverage they desire (which includes a promised visit by Ed McMahon). As the end of Act I approaches, Chris sits on the sofa next to Ahmed, who is still bound and gagged, alternately watching TV-including Ed McMahon's ads praising Neighborhood Watch for joining the war on terrorism-and playing video games. Chris gets up, walks casually to his room, and comes back moments later wearing a black trench coat and carrying a black briefcase. He walks to the door, sets the briefcase down, and turns dramatically to face Ahmed. He grins as he pulls open the coat to reveal a belt of dynamite and grenades, then turns and disappears quickly out the door.

When the Jacksons return, Ahmed's desperate attempts to communicate lead them to remove his gag and they learn that he has been tailing Chris for the FBI. Frantic attempts are made to locate Chris-to no avail. In the final scene, Chris suddenly reappears, still undetonated. At this point, the fourth wall is completely shattered, and, for at least a scary moment, the other actors (and audience) are not quite sure if Chris is Chris or the actor who plays Chris. Multiple planes of "performance" emerge. Images from surveillance cameras focused on the audience may be projected. The final scene revolves around talking Chris/actor down, bringing characters, actors, and audience into a realization of the fact that fear and hate are the common enemy. As a coda to the relatively happy resolution, Jackie, frantically cleaning up, picks up the fallen grenade and somehow accidentally pulls the pin. "Oops" she says in a tiny voice. BLACK OUT.

Extreme situations, action treading the fine line between the tragic and the ridiculous, and an acting style that borders on the over-the-top, bring a dark humor to this treatment of nasty problems lodged in our national psyche. Citizen Patrol, in bringing the very real dangers of domestic terrorism, paranoid vigilantism, and jingoism into the living room of the more-or-less typical dysfunctional nuclear family satire, will give audiences an opportunity to explore these scary problems in the relative safety of their theatre seats.

Characters

Jackie Jackson: Fortyish, Mary Kay saleswoman, realtor, white
Jack Jackson: Fortyish, government accountant, gun collector, short hair, white
Chris Jackson: Their less-than-stable 17 year old son
Del Holmes: Retired postal worker, veteran, African American
Janice Holmes: School principal, grounded, younger than her husband, African American
Ahmed Jones: Young FBI agent, Middle Eastern American
Ed McMahon (mediatized or live)

Note: Could be reduced to fewer characters if necessary (i.e. remove Jack or Del and Ed).

Time

The present

Place

A suburb of Washington, DC

The set: a comfortable, contemporary middleclass living room. It looks cozy enough as audience members walk into the theatre, but the surveillance cameras trained on the audience may tip them off from the start that they can expect the unexpected.

Note: Text from actual Neighborhood Watch-type citizen groups organizational rules, guidelines, and tactics, readily available on the internet, need very little exaggeration to serve as a rich resource for dialogue.