Playwright’s Note

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This play that you are about to see here tonight, Ruins, I guess, was an attempt for me to articulate my unease about sex, dating and romantic relationships for people in their twenties and thirties, specifically in New York. Is unease the right word? I don’t know; disgust, malaise, anxiety, fear or loathing could all work.

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I don’t think I’m alone in this. Why else would television shows such as Sex and the City, Blind Date, Temptation Island and… (well, the list goes on) be so popular? Entertainment centered on the real and fictitious sexual humiliation of others seems to be the norm nowadays.

I see a lot of people who are lonely but not alone. I see attractive and successful men and women in their twenties, thirties and even forties going out to the singles’ bars and taking out personal ads. I see my peers having copious amounts of sex but completely dissatisfied with their romantic lives. I see both people deathly afraid of intimacy and commitment and people who would rather be in a miserable relationship for the rest of their lives than be confrontational or alone.

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I also see a generation that has the potential to be a very emotionally and physically violent one due to this universal unease and frustration.

Maybe we as New Yorkers are so commitment-phobic and trapped in this state of arrested development because we’re overloaded with options, perpetually playing that “What If?” game (I’ve always called this the “Call Waiting” syndrome, where no matter who you’re on the phone with, that other call may be more important).

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Maybe we can’t trust others because we can’t trust ourselves, simply because, no matter how much we try to kid ourselves into thinking we don’t have a self-centered agenda when meeting someone, we do in fact have a self-centered agenda.

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Whether we like it or not, we have no choice but to play the respective roles of predator and prey.

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Anyway, if any of you here tonight feel angry, hurt, abused or cheated in any way by this show, I’ll most likely be at the Raven on East 12th and Avenue A, sitting in the corner and having a beer. Feel free to talk to me, yell at me, ask me things, or give me a piece of your mind.

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Hell, if you get through this and want to talk to me I just may buy you a beer.

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Up on his guard,

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James “Ya Trust Me?” Comtois

Brooklyn, NY, 2002