7 Stories is a play

Play (theatre)

A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...

 created by Canadian playwright

Playwright

A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

 Morris Panych

Morris Panych

Stephen Morris Panych is a Canadian playwright, director and actor.Morris Panych was born in Calgary and grew up in Edmonton. He studied at Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, and the University of British Columbia...

.

Plot

The protagonist (a well dressed man) is standing on the ledge on the seventh story

Story

Story or Stories may refer to:*Story, a recounting of a sequence of events* Narrative* Bedtime story, a traditional form of storytelling, told to children to prepare them for sleep* Organization story, a narrative used in organization studies...

 of a tall building, contemplating leaping to his death. He is interrupted by the colorful residents of the seventh story who are too caught up in their own lives to notice the man or question his being on the ledge of the building. The persons who interact with the man do so by opening or appearing at one or more of seven windows on the seventh storey. For the majority of the play, the people talking with the protagonist have most of the dialogue

Dialogue

Dialogue is a literary and theatrical form consisting of a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people....

. The man hasn't much dialogue until near the end, when he explains that his daily routine was thrown off when he had a dream the night before of his everyday mediocrity, after which he woke up and lost track of what day it was.

Production

The play has a set

Theatrical scenery

Theatrical scenery is that which is used as a setting for a theatrical production. Scenery may be just about anything, from a single chair to an elaborately re-created street, no matter how large or how small, whether or not the item was custom-made or is, in fact, the genuine item, appropriated...

 that is quite confined for actors to work with. Actors must try and work with a set in which they must play their parts in a window.

Characters

• Man: The protagonist
  Protagonist
  A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
  
   of the play, he is a well dressed gentlemen who contemplates jumping from the Seventh story. He often holds conversations with the residents of the building, and has the least dialog during each one until the last, in where it's revealed he had a dream from before that he was conducting his daily routine, and he finally woke up with revelations of how things of everyday life are not how they appear to be. He explains his confusion on what day it was and how his daily schedule was thrown off, until he felt lost and was compelled to stand on the seventh story of the building he now stands on.

• Charlotte: A young married woman living in her apartment on the seventh story. She is having an affair with Rodney, and after a slump in the relationship she attacks and threatens to kill Rodney. Charlotte is revealed to be a poet and free spirited idealist.

• Rodney: A lawyer having an affair with Charlotte, who constantly bickers with, threatens and even harmed Charlotte. Rodney is often politically correct about everything that comes his way. During a slump in the pairs relationship, Rodney then attempted and succeeded in running over Charlotte with his car. After which the pair found refreshing and appears to rekindled their relationship, albeit in a rather unorthodox way.

• Jennifer: A guest at a party being held in a room on the seventh story. She is quite air headed, talkative and uninterested in those who don't make much conversation (As shown when the man is silent after her statement of wanting to leap from the building and what a thrill it would be).

• Leonard: A psychiatrist who acts paranoid and provocative. He works at a local sanatorium for long hours, resulting in him being very tired, irritable and unable to hear things clearly.

• Marshall: A gentleman about to be married to a rich heiress. He used to be an actor (though he claims he wasn't a particularly good one) and revealed himself to be a homosexual. He also knows of the whole situation between Charlotte and Rodney, stating it a rather tragic love story. After hurrying out a play to be onetime for a date with a sailor and in which a near incident that resulted him meeting the heiress, he decided to forfeit his current life and identity for the one the woman he was to marry believed was the life he had. He states that other people, friends and fellow actors, are in on the whole charade as well.

• Rachel: A deeply religious woman. Rachel often plays godly roles for people on the sixth and fifth stories, dropping appliances, eviction notices and money and other things, influencing peoples life's in one way or another. She also believes people are incapable of acting on their own without influence of either god or the devil. She reveals to the man that in her past, she was given many medical illnesses and her sick mother committed suicide by drug overdose, claiming it was gods work in both cases. The man rebukes the latter claim saying the suicide is not an act of god but a human act that is of itself and defies all predestination. On which she then challenges him, saying the devil
  Devil
  The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...
  
  sent him.

• Percy: A guest of the party that takes place on the seventh story. He constantly follows fads and main stream activities, then tries to get out of them when everyone else does. He also claims to have as many friends as he does sweaters, and of which he sorts those "friends" into order of people he "likes" or "don't like".

• Michael: An artist who lives on the seventh story. He's sensitive to everyone and everything around him and is obsessed with colors and decorating to perfection. He often feels (at least when it comes to art, color and decor) that he is superbly intelligent.

• Joan: A woman who is seemingly a life partner of Michael's, and is constantly giving up her possessions for the sake of Michael's creative feel. She claims that Michael is so sensitive to his surroundings, that certain colors in a room make him sick. But she continues to follow his lead despite the expense and frustration.

• Al: The man who is responsible for throwing the party on the seventh story. He is also the only person who even cares why the man is on the ledge in the first place. He frequents parties because he doesn't want to miss a good one, even those that don't turn out so great. He likes parties but states it's the dislike with the people who attend them that is the worst part, stating the actual event is a crushing disappointment. When he throws parties, he often try to shorten them by serving little food, playing music too loud and in extreme cases, try and start a small fire.

• Lillian: A elderly lady who has lived a long, interesting life. She once had a Pigeon named Albert. She is also quite wise and kind. She also enjoys reflecting and talking about her life. She tells the man of a time in her life in which she was in Paris to see the Mona Lisa and met a man who was very distraught about something, and it remains unknown what upset him. He talked to her in French, happily at first, but soon depressed,until he finally climbed to the ledge of a bridge, crying as he did. At that point she then uttered the only praise of French she ever learned. The young French men responded positively and went on his way a new man as if determined to live by this philosophy. The man then reveals that what she said in French was simply "The grapefruit is on the table". She replies saying that its not a bad philosophy to live by. She eventually succumbs to old age later on in the play.

• Nurse Wilson: A nurse who cared for Lillian. She considers herself a humanitarian but is in fact anything but friendly. She is in fact quite callous and blunt. She dislikes people, though it is more individual people then people as a whole she dislikes, or so she claims. Lillian reveals that Nurse Wilson only acts callous and uncaring because of working at a job where people are sick, suffer, and die. Thus thinking she has to pretend to have no feelings.

• The Four window people: Four generic characters who watched the man from a building across from the building that the man stood on, saying they were watching the whole time. They are briefly introduced when the play takes a supernatural turn when the Man jumps from the ledge and flies to the other building with the aid of his umbrella. They then begin to speak to each other on the meaning of the whole scenario, and what statement was trying to be made. It is believed that these four individuals would represent the audience watching the play, which would break the fourth wall in a very interesting way, but they are treated as if they were a part of the play (which of course they are). The introduction of these four make a paradox, in which Morris Panych had shown the audience members what other people in said audience could be thinking, resulting in an interesting (if at least not confusing) symbolism.