Set Design School

Content Warning #2

Take a sharpie and cross out all of the stage directions.

Some of us professionals do that. It doesn’t mean we never read them. Just not on the first read.

That approach is strongly recommended for Checking Out. Can we dispense with the warnings relating to the home health aide, Gilbert, if you just read the dialogue?

These are the bulk of his lines:

The stage directions say that Gilbert is obviously gay. Whatever that means, there isn’t anything in the lines or action that seem to need that information. I don’t know why that was important to the playwright.

Maybe the reason he included that was to see a queer person onstage? Maybe. Maybe being gay is additional Tsuris (trouble), but Gilbert responds with ‘us black people know what Tsuris is.’ With that response, it negates or backseats additional Tsuris for being gay.

At worst, the playwright thinks that obviously gay = funny. Let’s reserve judgement and keep that stage direction inked out.