Everyone’s had something they’ve loved and lost. For Jinx Beasley, it was a bike.
In Farmingville School’s recent production of the original play The Contest, by best-selling author and Farmingville parent Rich Cohen, Jinx’s quest to restore his vehicle turns into something far deeper — an appreciation of friendship.
The play opens with the sound of a violent wreck as Jinx (Aaron Cohen) stumbles onto stage dragging his mangled bike. His friends (Isabel Griffith, Brett Hall, Lexi Serby, Tristan Taranto) surround him sympathetically as the Angel of Bikes Gone By (Alison Foley) sings a powerfully schmaltzy song Kiss His Bike Goodbye. Jinx realizes that he must get $50 and fix his bike.
In quick, hilarious exchanges with each of his family members, Jinx attempts to get the $50 by asking his twin little brothers (Alex and Nathan Blaha) who’ve been saving in a piggy bank for years — they deny him, explaining the bank is their Swiss bank account, their catastrophe center, not Jinx’s; and his big sister (Bella Lussi) — she also refuses, citing Jinx’s daredevil tendencies. “Giving you money would be like putting gasoline into a death machine,” she says.
Finally, Jinx’s parents (Liam Keppler and Isabelle Voellmicke) deny him the money because “that’s not how the world works. I go to work and make money. That’s my life. And, that’s my job. School is your job…You don’t get your money by asking your little brothers or by winning a lottery or by entering a contest.”
Having come up empty handed, Jinx decides to enter a costume contest to win the $50 to fix his bike. His friends, Mike Dorn (Tristan Taranto) and Amy Ecker (Lexi Serby), work together to create a homemade costume — a futuristic ninja warrior. But the only person convinced of the greatness of the costume is Jinx.
Along the way, kids from Farmingville’s fourth and fifth grades dressed in wild and wonderful costumes, dance and sing and announce to the audience what they are dressed up as and what they would do if they win the $50 prize money: “I am a shark and if I win the $50, I will buy myself some fish because I am a lazy hunter!” (Mary Hage); “I am a talking box and with the $50 prize money, I am going to see my cousin the talking trash can!” (Bella DeSantis); “I am a 70s hippie and I’ll buy pop rocks, a lava lamp and groovy clothes with my prize money!” (Kelly Chittenden); “I am Lady Gaga, and with my prize money, I will buy myself more meat for my meat dress!” (Jane Redmond).
There are also the Shangri Las, (Julia Grey, Eliza Morris, Megan and Katie Rapaglia), a group of girls who sing for giant crowds of cheering fans (and blessed the Farmingville audience with a harmonious rendition of Going to the Chapel); Blake Renn (Matthew Sherter), a pilot who hubs a small regional airport (“The jump to O’Hare is a bear!”); Freddy Magill (Ava Critchell), a scientist who aims to “split the quark and split the surly bonds of time”; and Trey Zoller (Erik Janzon), a Kentucky gentleman and “man of leisure” who imagines winning the prize money and spending it on a new racehorse for the Derby.
Of course, there is a twist. Jinx does not win first prize, but second for dressing as an iPad, and thus goes home with a juicer. After a hard lesson, the play culminates with what local parents are already referring to simply as Jinx’s monologue, perhaps comparable only to Hamlet’s soliloquy. “This whole thing has taught me a lesson. Suffering comes from attachment. And I became too attached to that bike. Things come and things go … it’s people, that’s what really matters. The rest is like so much left over bologna.”
The play’s underlying message has strong Buddhist echoes. It’s about the perils of attachment and the struggle to escape existence’s fiery wheel. How about that for an elementary school play? It was magic!
Judges Will Richards, Bianca Amundson and Evie Llyod-Tunstall consider Kevin Busby’s Powerful Baby costume.