Description: A guy, let’s call him Mad Tom, walks into a bar after signing his divorce papers, and promptly loses his mind- aided and abetted by a beautiful woman named Charity and a smart ass bar tender named Janus .

First Produced: 2005
Date Added: 6/15/2011
Content Advisory: Strong language
Keywords: Comedy  Drama  Divorce  Single Set  Surrealism/Absurdism  Small Cast Size 
1 Act, 60 Minutes
2 Females, 1 Male

NOTE: Some Unfortunate Hour is fully protected by copyright law and is subject to royalty. All inquiries concerning production, publication, reprinting or use of this play in any form should be addressed to Scott D. Edwards of Harden Curtis Associates; email: scottedwards@hardencurtis.com; phone: 212-977-8429; mail: Scott D. Edwards, c/o Harden Curtis Associates, 850 Seventh Avenue, Suite 903, New York, NY 10019..

Original Production Information

Some Unfortunate Hour was first presented by hope theatre, inc., as part of the New York International Fringe Festival in 2005 at Ace of Clubs, with the following cast and credits:

Tom: Dan O’Neill

Janus: Jodi Dick

Charity: Ashley Wren Collins

Director: Tim Errickson

Sound Design: Darin Hallinan

Stage Manager: Lauren Arneson, Amanda Rosenberg

Soundtrack: Robbie Gil

Review by Martin Denton

Sometimes we call our poets wise philosophers; sometimes we call them crazy. Case in point: Poor Mad Tom O'Bedlam, latest creation of the intensely poetic imagination of playwright Kelly McAllister and central figure of the new play Some Unfortunate Hour. I'm going to let Tom speak for himself:

I just want to learn how to love right. You know? The way we were told it was supposed to be? I know it’s out there... I think I knew it once, for a moment... a blink of the eye, really... a flash of thunder in my sometimes almost yesterdays, back in those days—the days better than the good old days, better than just sentiment and self congratulatory bullshit... I felt a brief connection with the thing, you know? The great, black thing out there, the void... and then it vanished, and its sad, lonely echo was drowned out by arguments about how to behave at birthday parties, how to behave when overcome with supposedly insane jealousies... I remember that other time, and I mourn.

Tom tells this is Charity, a beautiful smart woman he meets at a bar late one night; Some Unfortunate Hour tracks the life of their desperate courtship in just over an hour (in real time), bringing us and them to profound and glorious heights of hope and happiness and to harrowing depths of sadness and hurt.

Tom is reeling from a divorce that became official this very day. His issues with the ex-wife he will only refer to as She Who Shall Remain Nameless notwithstanding, what Tom really mourns is what feels to him like the death of romance, in all its myriad shapes and meanings. When Charity lets him talk to her—after an initial encounter that frankly makes him appear like the madman he fears he is—he is dumbfounded. When she lets him lead her around the floor in a tentative, plaintive waltz, he is at once elated and terrified.

McAllister's writing is lyrical, sharp, and brutally funny. The play's structure and tone reminded me of Tennessee Williams's Small Craft Warnings; like that play, Some Unfortunate Hour puts its protagonists into a confessional spotlight on stage to let them tell us their secret yearnings, filtered here through Tom's consciousness. And, also like the Williams work, this play is imbued throughout with the sad pragmatism that comes with maturity.

It's been mounted in a classy production by hope theatre, inc., with a terrific (uncredited) authentic-looking bar setting, expert sound design by Darin Hallinan, and tight, sensitive direction by Tim Errickson. The play is punctuated with a beautiful, evocative score by Robbie Gill (these individual songs are worthy of their own soundtrack recording).

As Tom, Dan O'Neill gives one of the finest performances I have ever seen at any FringeNYC festival. He looks like an ordinary Joe, but when Tom's injured psyche gives way to romantic anticipation, as it occasionally does in this sweet, sad play, the warmth from his overheated hopeful heart lights up the entire theatre. Jodi Dick is splendid in the relatively small role of the bartender, Janus, who acts as confessor and chaperone to Tom and Charity. Ashley Wren Collins is less assured in the admittedly difficult role of Charity—she gives us the character's intelligence and humor, but she hasn't quite got a handle yet on the quirky remoteness that will ultimately fuel Tom's climactic, ferocious catharsis.But I saw the very first performance of Some Unfortunate Hour, remember; Collins will grow in the role as this vivid, rich play continues here and, hopefully, after FringeNYC.

reviewed at the 2005 New York International Fringe Festival

Excerpt from Some Unfortunate Hour

TOM

It comes down to two choices, when you get down to it. You can either be Asshole Happy Clown, or Idiot Sad Clown. Asshole Happy Clown is happy because he thinks people suck—that we’re just a bunch of assholes. And he is constantly proved right. So he smiles, not so much because he’s glad the world sucks, but because, asshole that he is, nothing makes him happier than being right. Even if it’s about something terrible. Idiot Sad Clown is the optimist of the pair. He thinks—no, believes—in the inherent goodness of people. He holds out great hope for us all. (both women gasp) And he is continually heartbroken. People do the stupidest shit imaginable, on a constant basis—both to themselves and to each other. They lie to each other. They take advantage of each other. (TOM stands up, and is confused for a moment) They don’t tell you what’s really going on inside, even if you ask them again and again. “What’s going on?” “Nothing, everything’s fine.” They leave you. With little to no explanation. They say things like, “This package was broke when you bought it,” whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean. Who says shit like that? Broke when you bought it? Not only is that fucked up in its own right, it implies a belief that most of us packages aren’t broken. That most of us are just fine. Which is crazy. I promise you, there are no unbroken packages. None of us are without a dent or two or twelve. Broke when you bought it? Jesus fucking Christ! When I got married, what I had hoped for—what I prayed for, in my lapsed Irish Catholic way - the three things I was looking for in my wife were, in no particular order: Faith, Hope, and/or Charity. What did I get? The complaint department at Sears! I got the fucking Maytag Repairman! Looking for a wife, I got some old turd telling me that he has the loneliest job on the face of the Earth. Which is bullshit. The loneliest job on the face of the Earth was, until this afternoon, according to a certain paper I signed down at the courthouse, held by me. Oh my dear God. I’m the Maytag Repairman! Ah, Jesus, I don’t want to fix washing machines. I want—No, I hope—to one day be called upon to repair some lost soul. Of course, I don’t know how to do that, so part of me is happy that the phone never rings down in the soul department at Sears—(TOM’s cell phone rings. He takes it out, looks at the number, pushes cancel, puts phone back in his pocket)—but still, I’d like to give it a try. Just once. And for real, not for make-up. Did you know that most of life is a game of make-up? It is. We make up these characters, these people who we’d like to be—and we spend our lives playing our ideas of ourselves. And that seems crazy to me. Faith, Hope, and Charity. The three Weird Sisters. The Three Amigos. That’s all.