MONOLOGUES – FEMALE
Theatre II -- 2013-14
LOVE, LOSS AND WHAT I WORE by Nora and Delia Ephron. “The Shirt,”
Pam, on losing her favorite shirt.
PAM. Last summer I lost my favorite shirt. Or to be more accurate, my favorite
shirt vanished into thin air. When I got home from being away for the summer and
I unpacked my bags, the shirt simply never materialized. I have replayed the
sequence of events in my mind several times, and I have theories about what
happened to it, but the fact remains that the shirt just ceased to be. The really sad
part was that this came at the end of a summer when that shirt gradually revealed
itself to be the perfect shirt. It was flattering (I always felt pretty in it), I liked the
color and the cut, it went with all my favorite pants, it was casual and dressed
down but not crappy and falling apart, it was comfortable. It was one of those
shirts you have to make yourself NOT wear, because it seems every day’s outfit
would be improved by it. And as silly as it may sound, I am generally happier
when I have clothes like this in my life, when there’s something I know I can put
on and feel good in. Something to fall back on. When I realized the shirt was
gone, I couldn’t think of anything else I owned that served remotely the same
function, and I felt cheated out of something truly rare and precious.
I realize that I sound like I am talking about death, or about lost love – and maybe I
am. It’s probably worth noting that my relationship with my boyfriend was ending
just at the same time I lost the shirt. But I could have sworn to you at the time that
I was not transferring my feelings about the loss of my boyfriend onto the shirt, but
was actually mourning the loss of the shirt itself. The main lesson to be learned
from this experience came from the purchase of eight different shirts, which each
had some likeness to the lost shirt, whether it be in color, cut, material, casualness.
But none of them in any way replaced it, and I eventually had to resolve to be
thankful for the time I had with the shirt and move on. At least I know what I’m
looking for.
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AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY, by Tracy Letts. Karen, 40, talking to her sister
on the day of a family funeral about having found a good husband.
KAREN. The present. Today, here and now. I think I spent so much of my early
life thinking about what’s to come, y’know, who would I marry, would he be a
lawyer or a football player, would he be dark-haired and good-looking and broadshouldered. I spent a lot of time pretending I had a husband and I’d ask him about
his day at work and what was happening at the office, and did he like the dinner
that I made for him and where were we going to vacation that winter and he’d
surprise me with tickets to Belize . . . Then real life takes over because it always
does – and things work out differently than you’d planned. I created a better
husband than any man I’d ever met. And you punish yourself, tell yourself it’s
your fault you can’t find a good one. I don’t know how well you remember
Andrew . . . Here’s a guy I loved so intensely, and all the things he did wrong
were just opportunities to make things right. So if he cheated on me I’d think to
myself, “No, you love him, you love him forever, and here’s an opportunity for
you to make an adjustment in the way you view the world.” And I can’t say when
the precise moment was that I looked in the mirror and said, “OK, moron,” and
walked out, but it kicked off this whole period of reflection. How had I screwed it
up, where’d I go wrong, and before you know it you can’t move forward, you’re
just suspended there, you can’t move forward because you can’t stop thinking
backward, I mean, you know . . . years! Years of punishment, self-loathing.
And finally, one day I just said, “No, it’s me, it’s just me, here and now, with my
music on the stereo and my glass of wine and my cat, and I don’t need anything
else, I can live my life with myself.” And that’s when I met Steve. That’s how it
happens, of course, you only really find it when you’re not looking for it, suddenly
you turn around and there it is. Here he is, you know, a good man and he’s good to
me and he’s good for me. The best thing about him is that now what I think about
is now. My focus, my life, my world is now. I don’t care about the past anymore,
the mistakes I made, the way I thought, I won’t go back there. And you know
what the kicker is? We’re going to Belize on our honeymoon.
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LOVE, LOSS AND WHAT I WORE by Nora and Delia Ephron. “The
Bathrobe,” Rosie, on how her mother’s early death affected her fashion sense.
ROSIE. The truth is, I have no fashion sense – never did. For many years I
blamed this on my mom’s death. Then again, I blame pretty much everything on
that, my weight, my addiction to television, my inability to spell. In my fantasy
world, had my mother lived, I would be extremely well-dressed. I would know
what went with what, and everything I tried on would fit. Mom and I would shop
together at the places that moms and daughters go – a department store, an outlet
mall, the flea market. I would wear a lot of tasteful make-up too. We would lunch
someplace while shopping. It would be at a café where we would have salad and
like it. We’d laugh about how great our lives turned out and make plans for the
things we were still going to do. But that’s all a dream, because my mother did not
live. She died when she was 39 years old. (Beat) The fact is that no item of
clothing has ever moved me in any way – except one. After my mom died, my
father took his five motherless children to Belfast, Northern Ireland. I guess he
thought we could best recover from the trauma of her death by living in a war
zone. The IRA was nowhere near as scary as what had just happened to our lives.
When we returned, we found her side of the closet empty. All her clothes were
gone. (Beat) A few years later my dad got remarried to a lovely woman. She was
a schoolteacher named Mary May. After the wedding she moved in. That first
morning she was there, I was eating breakfast with a few of my siblings when my
new stepmom walked down the stairs and into the kitchen. She was wearing a
long burgundy velour three-quarter sleeve zip bathrobe with a thick vertical white
stripe down the center, surrounding the zipper. No one said a word. We all looked
at each other then back at Mary as she happily made her way to the stove to put on
the kettle. My mother had had the same exact bathrobe – in blue. Electric blue.
What are the chances of that really? The unspoken rule in my house was that my
mom’s name was never mentioned after her death. But that morning, I knew that
rule was about to be broken. My siblings left the kitchen. I was alone with Mary.
“Mary,” I said. “My Mom had the same bathrobe in blue.” “Oh,” she said. And
that robe disappeared. Gone. Sent away to the same place my mother’s clothes
went, I assume. (Beat) To this day that bathrobe is the only piece of clothing I
can actually see in my mind. I have no visuals of prom dresses or favorite sweater
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or shoes I couldn’t live without. Clothes are just something I use for cover, leaving
room for one electric blue memory.
EYE OF THE BEHOLDER, by Heidi Decker. Fiona, a wealthy, elegant girl
who relies on her beauty to open all of life’s doors.
FIONA. I didn’t make the world. Mama always told me, God made the world and
it is how it is. People like me are born this way. These looks are God-given . . .
and if God decided to make me better than some people, it is not my fault. She
warned me all the time when I was a child, and she was right. The world has
always been filled with people who are jealous of people who were born better.
Like . . . like royalty and peasants! Look all through history! It’s all the same. It’s
decided when you’re born, and that’s it. (pause) I have worked very hard to
maintain this. People have no idea what it’s like to be me. And those people who
get all that surgery to try to look like people like me . . . well, that is just the
saddest thing. It’s like people who buy themselves a royal title. Oh, it seems
impressive at first, until you get in a room with someone who’s the real thing.
My Mama was very brave. She took a huge risk when she had me. (pause,
sincere) Well, what if I had turned out that I wasn’t like her? Can you imagine?
My mama is what is known as a classic beauty. She and my Daddy were so brave .
. . who know how I could have turned out. I mean, the doctors can only do so
many tests . . . beyond that, you have to just have faith that God will keep you.
Mama says she cried and worried and prayed for months. She even had a couple
of prayer vigils with the women in her bridge club . . . and . . . here I am. Mama’s
reward! I inherited just about everything from her. Well, except one thing.
(pause) I’m not so brave.
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LOVE, LOSS AND WHAT I WORE by Nora and Delia Ephron. “The Prom
Dress.” Stephanie, reflecting on two different prom experiences.
STEPHANIE. My junior prom dress was powder blue and white. It was ribbed,
with tiny ribs and a white waistband, and a white band around the bottom kind of
like Cinderella, with a big powder blue bow. The problem was my date. He rang
the bell, and I opened the door, and there he was, in a powder blue tuxedo with a
white frilly shirt and a powder blue bow tie. We matched. It was totally
mortifying. I didn’t rally like him, but I was sort of the last to be asked to the prom
– not the very last but one of the last, so I didn’t really have a choice in the date or
what he wore, and I had a really horrible time at the prom, and afterwards we went
into a field and tipped cows. (Beat) My senior prom was completely different.
My prom dress was black and short, it was in that sort of Madonna 1980s style, her
“Like a Virgin” phase, tight on top and then it went out in a black net pouf and
black lace gloves. My date was also short, but dark and handsome, and we ended
up drinking champagne and making out in his car, and it was great. But here’s the
thing – I’ve never really known for sure which of those two people I am – the girl
who almost doesn’t get asked to prom at all or the girl who gets to go with a really
cute guy. Every time I thought I knew which one I was, I turned out to be the
other. Which is one reason why I think I got married, to, like, end the confusion.
RUINED, by Lynn Nottage. Mama, about how she has made her way in the
Congo.
MAMA. My Papa work too much, always want more, no rest. He drove his farm
hard, too the forest grows a man will never starve. You’re in the Congo. Things
slip from our fingers like butter. When I was eleven, this white man turned up
with a piece of paper. It say he has rights to my family land. (with acid.) Just like
that. Taken! And you want to hear a joke? Poor old Papa bought magic from a
friend, he thought a hand full of powder would give him back his land. Everyone
talk diamonds, but I . . . I want a powerful slip of paper that says I can cut down
forests and dig holes and build to the moon if I choose. I don’t want someone to
turn up at my door, and take my life from me. Not ever again. But how does a
woman get a piece of land, without having to pick up a gun?
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This pebble. It doesn’t look like anything. Stupid man, give it to me to hold for a
one night of company and four beers not even cold enough to quench his thirst. He
said he’d be back for it and he’d pay me. It’s a rough diamond. It probably took
him a half year of sifting through mud to dig up, and he promised his simple wife a
Chinese motor scooter and fabric from Senegal. And here it is, in my hand, some
unfortunate woman’s dream. What will I do with it? I don’t know, but as long as
they are foolish enough to give it to me, I’ll keep accepting it. My mother taught
me that you can follow behind everyone and walk in the dust, or you can walk
ahead through the unbroken thorny brush. You may get blood on your ankles, but
you arrive first and not covered in the residue of others. This land is fertile and
blessed in many regards, and the men are not the only ones entitled to its bounty.
You men kill me. You come in here, drink your beer, take your pleasure, and then
wanna judge the way I run my “business.” The front door swings both ways. I
didn’t force anyone’s hand. I didn’t come to this place as Mama Nadi, I found her
the same way miners find their wealth in the muck. I stumbled off of that road
without two twigs to start a fire. I turned a basket of sweets and soggy biscuits into
a business. I don’t give a damn what any of you think. This is my place, Mama
Nadi’s.
ARE YOU ALL RIGHT IN THERE? By David-Matthew Barnes. Gina, a
high school student musing at a party about her life in small-town America.
GINA. I’m sorry. I’m just kind of emotional right now. I think it’s graduation.
I’m graduating in a month and I can’t wait to get out of here. (pause) My home
town. My friends. My family. (pause) I hate these people. And I feel so . . .
guilty for it. I must me the most horrible person in the entire world. I hate this
party. I hate my best friend. I hate my boyfriend. (pause) But I really hate
Brittany Tyler. She’s evil and and she has a bad haircut. (pause) I am so horrible.
Something is seriously wrong with me. I have lived here for all of my life. I
should be proud of where I come from. I should look back with fond memories
and kind thoughts – but I just can’t wait to leave. (pause) I don’t know why. It’s
like this . . . feeling. I wake up in the morning and just chokes me. It’s the same
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house and the same people and the same school – I just can’t take it anymore. I am
only seventeen. I should be happy. I should be sweet. I should do a lot of charity
work in the community. (Panics) What if I’m nuts? What if I need serious help –
like therapy or something medieval like that? My aunt went to therapy for six
months and she totally gained thirty pounds. She blew up like a house. (pause)
This party is pathetic. I could be at home right now, curled up in bed and reading
Wuthering Heights. Instead – I was standing in the living room and this foreignexchange student kept staring with this weird look on his face. He comes up to me
and says, “Oh, you are such a beautiful American girl!” So I looked at him – and I
told him that he smelled. So he started yelling at me in his native language and he
freaked me out. I thought he was psychotic. Then he walked away as if it were
supposed to shatter my heart into a million tiny pieces. (pause) Pul-leaze, Don Juan
– either go home or grow. So he slithered his way around the room until he found
Leslie. She thinks she’s cool because she went to Paris last summer and made out
with some French guy at the Eiffel Tower. I’ll tell you how I really feel about
Leslie. She has the personality of a cheese grater. She’s been a cheerleader since
she was in diapers and she thinks we should worship her because she knows how
to jump in the air and do a cartwheel. Trust me – I have been to a football gam and
I have seen the girl dance. It’s not pretty. She should consider buying herself a
little bit of rhythm before she goes to college.
THE BELLES OF THE MILL, by Rubin Ladutke. Bridget Gallagher, an
Irish mill worker, addressing Congress in 1912.
BRIDGET. Representative Berger and members of the Committee. I am Bridget
Eileen Gallagher, from Ireland. I am eighteen years old. When I was fifteen, my
mother took me to Cork and put me on a boat to America. She told me there was
nothing for me in Ireland. And she was right. I was so excited to be going to
America. Terrified too, o’ course. When I first got off the boat, I felt like I was in
a different world from everyone and every place I’d ever known and loved. I’ve
never felt so alone in my life. And I was right to be scared. I don’t mind hard
work, but there’s a difference between hard work and slavery. You all may think,
you may have been told, that this strike is just a group of troublemakers who want
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to destroy the city. But it’s not true. The strikers I’ve met have as much of a stake
in Lawrence as the mill officials and politicians do. More, even. We’re the ones
that live there, and ship there, and worship there. Meanwhile, not a single one of
the mill officials, from second hand on up, live in Lawrence if they can afford not
to. (pause) Do you know what it’s like inside of a mill? Have you ever had to set
foot in one of those hellholes? Day after day, I can hardly get the sound out of my
ears. Thread flying through the air. Thread working it’s way into my lungs. I
once saw an older woman – she must have had years of experience – get her dress
caught in the machinery. I rushed to turn it off, but it was too late. She died right
there, on the floor. They came and carried her out, and the boss told us just to keep
working like nothing had happened. And we did. We were afraid of losing our
jobs if we stopped for five minutes. It could just as easily have been me. You get
tired, and the machines go faster and faster, and there’s no chance of a break. If we
want fresh water, we have to pay ten cents a week for it. And then ‘tisn’t even cold
or fresh. Ever since I came to Lawrence I work six days a week in the mill. Death
is all around me, death and pain and suffering. It has been since I first came to
Lawrence, and I see no end to it. (pause) I love this country for what I’ve always
known it could be. But working in the mills kills your hopes and dreams, and even
your spirit. Do you love this country as much as I do? Aye, of course you do.
You must. Nobody could live here and not realize what an amazing, wonderful
place it is. You must see that strike had to happen, and that something has got to
change. We’ve done what we can. Now it’s up to you.
RAGE AMONGST YOURSELVES, by Amy Beth Arkawy. Tess, struggling
in a group therapy meeting to find a place where she belongs.
TESS. Being adopted . . . is about feeling like you . . . I mean feeling like I don’t
belong anywhere. (Pause, embarrassed) I sound like I’m on Sally Jesse Raphael
or something. Let’s just forget it. It’s not important anyway. It’s ancient history.
It’s got nothing to do with anything, anyway. It was bad enough not to look like
them. But I didn’t even think like them or . . . (laughs) smell like them. It’s
crazy, but for the longest time, I actually tried to smell like my mother. I’d sneak
into her closet and wrap myself up in her old fisherman’s sweater just so her smell
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would rub off on me. But it never worked. (laughs) It was this blend of Chanel
Number Five, cigarettes, and wintergreen lifesavers. It was sickening, really.
(pause) See, how nuts is that? I wanted to walk through the world engulfed in a
nauseating aroma just because it reminded me of my mother.
The thing is, I don’t think they ever really wanted me, which sounds stupid
because when most people adopt a child it’s because they really do want one but
can’t have their own. I think my parents adopted me because it was the right thing
to do. Like they were proving to the world, to God, maybe, that they were good
people. But they never seemed to want me around. I think they went on a cruise
ship up the Nile three days after they brought me home. (pause, a laugh) It must
have been three weeks. Three days wouldn’t look good. It’s like they traveled all
the time. When I was fourteen they sent me to Emma Willard – it’s a boarding
school. And then they stayed home. Now they keep asking why I don’t visit more
often. How messed up is that?
PAST TENSE FEMININE GENDER, by Le Wilhelm. Alma, a young woman
welcoming a new century on New Year’s Eve, 1900.
ALMA. It’s a beautiful night. Not a cloud in the sky. Looking out the window
you see a million stars. I don’t know if I have ever seen a finer night than this.
There’s snow on the ground and the light from the moon and stars reflects off the
white land. I’m all dressed up because it’s New Year’s Eve. This dress was made
a company in Philadelphia. It’s my first dress that I’ve ever had that wasn’t made
by my momma. I like it a lot, but I like a dress that’s made by my momma too,
‘cause I get to watch it being born. And I get to try it on and even make
suggestions sometimes when she’s in a good mood.
In just a few seconds it will be a brand new century!! You can probably hear them
downstairs. That’s where the party is going on. I snuck up here to the attic room
so I could be by myself. I love it up here. I always go here when I want to be
alone. I also like to look out the window at the hills and the river. Tonight I’m up
here waiting for the twentieth century to arrive.
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Because it’s a new century, everyone has been acting strange, real excited and
planning big parties. Well, that’s what most people are doing. Some folks in town
have said that this is the end of time. My parents don’t believe that’s going to
happen and neither do I, so they’re having a party. I feel kind of sorry for all those
people who believe the world’s going to end ‘cause when it don’t, I guss they’re
going to be terribly disappointed and feel downright foolish. I know I would! If I
had gone around telling everyone the end is near, and then the end doesn’t end. I’d
feel like an idiot.
You probably think it’s odd that I don’t want to be downstairs at the party with my
friends and family where all the fun’s going on. I just want to be by myself. So I
can remember it. I want to be able to remember when the twentieth century
dawned. I know it’s just a date on the calendar . . . but still it’s a new century . . .
my century – it’s when I’m going to love most of my life . . . and no one knows
what’s going to happen . . . all kinds of changes . . . all sorts of wonderful things
that I’m going to be a part of. I’m curious and I’m scared . . . and I’m excited . . .
FUDDY MEERS, by David-Lindsay-Abaire. Claire, a woman strugging with
memory loss.
CLAIRE. You remember that dog? Skinny old thing Mr. Cuthart kept tied up in
the front lawn all day? Daddy always said he was going to report him. Remember
she just sat in the sun, biting at her scabs? Cuthart didn’t even give her any water.
So I’d sneak down the road with my squirt gun, and spritz water into her mouth
and she’d bark. And one day, when Cuthart was downtown, I untied her and let
her run around a little. But she darted straight into the road, just as Daddy’s pickup
was coming around the curve, and he didn’t see her, so he plowed into her. Daddy
and I came through the back door, and Nancy was hanging out of his arms like a
set of broken bagpipes. And he spread her out on the kitchen floor and she was
breathing real hard. And the pain was humming off of her like I could hear it.
And she just let the pain take her over. And that’s all she was. This pained thing.
And Daddy was bent over her, talking to her real quiet. And all of a sudden Nancy
stood up, like it was a new day, and she started running around the kitchen like she
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wasn’t half-dead, barking and clicking her nails against the floor tiles. And we
were all shocked because Nancy was like a puppy all of a sudden, not that bony
heap on the floor. She was this fireball for about three minutes, until she got tired
again, and curled up beside the sink and went to sleep and died like it meant
nothing. You remember how all that happened to her? It’s funny how almost
everything else is gone to me, and that sad old dog just came into my head.
THE DARK PARENT, by Victor Bravo. Carol, a woman whose daughter has
disappeared.
CAROL. It’s been six weeks since I last talked to my daughter. She’s still the
foremost part of my life, and for that, she’ll forever hold power over me. I teach
children piano and drama every day and often see her face in one of their faces, or
hear her voice in one of their voices. Maybe I’m naïve, but I refuse to accept the
end of her. I refuse to accept the arbitrariness of a violent world. So strongly do I
feel her alive, that the telephone, an otherwise inanimate object that I’ve always
hated, has become the center of my world at home. No matter what I’m doing, it
always seems to draw my attention. I wait for it to ring. Periods between rings are
transitional, unreal times. And when the person on the other end is not her I chat
amiably, set the receiver down, and wait for it to ring again. In very weak moments
I pray to the phone. The phone has become my god. (pause) My husband stayed
in New Orleans another week after I returned to Texas. He called Detective
Sorenson everyday to see if anyone had made an attempt to claim the car. No one
had. He made the rounds of clubs and restaurants, believing intensely with each
new morning that this was going to be the day he found her. That was his way of
exhausting all possibilities. He doesn’t understand the possibilities are endless.
He wants to believe she’s alive, but darkness has always won with him. So, he’s
returning to the French Quarter next weekend to ask people his heartfelt questions
and show them her picture. (pause) I can’t do that. Now, I do what he used to. I
stare out the window into the driveway at three in the morning, waiting for her to
pull up. I stare dreamily, until her car, blurry, creeps alongside the front garden,
and her face, tired but glorious, catches the porch light as she climbs out and walks
toward the house. And I don’t think it’s silly at all.
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HAZING THE MONKEY, by Marcus A. Hennessy. Sally, a young unhappy
wife in Iowa.
SALLY. Two years ago, you begged me to marry you. I’m the one who made the
commitment to stick with you for the long haul. Because I believed in you. I had
faith in your ability to provide as a man, even though at the time you were just
some drunk singer in a dead-end band. Look, we are in this thing together.
TOGETHER! You know what I mean? This is a partnership. You know how
much time and energy and love I’ve spent on this partnership? A butt-load pardon
my French. I got you off the bottle. I save you from the perils of liquor. And I
pulled you out of your hopeless dreams. That took one helluva lot of work, pardon
my French. And I helped you to get a job. A real job. You don’t know what I
went through with Fred and that pig of a sister-in-law to get you that first interview
two years ago. She hates you. But I convinced her to give your application to the
right people, and you got the job. Because of me. BECAUSE OF ME!
There’s a lot of crap you don’t know, Roger, pardon my French. So here we are,
hun, living in a mobile home in a mobile home park in the middle of Iowa, and I
hate it! I absolutely hate it! I said I liked it because you liked it. Maybe I fudged
with the truth, forgive me dear Lord. Think about it, Roger. A mobile home in a
mobile home park in Iowa! You know what we are? Do you?
WE ARE A BULLSEYE FOR TORNADOES! That’s what we are! Tornadoes
will go out of their way to hit us here. We’re easy pickin’s. You never see a highclass neighborhood ravaged by a twister. Those houses are built solid. No, no, it’s
always a swath of destruction through some mobile home park where everything’s
built cheap and flimsy. I can’t tell you how many stormy nights I just prayed and
prayed that the twisters would stay clear of this place long enough for us to get out
and into a solid home. And my friends, people I know from the church, they see
me working at the store and they smile at me and I can just see those thought
balloons over their heads like in the comic books . . . “Oh look, there’s pretty Sally
Youngblood. She’s such a nice girl and she has such a nice husband but they live
in a mobile home. They’ll be gone soon. Such a pity.”
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ICARUS, by Edwin Sanchez. Altagracia, a woman whose face is noticeably
deformed and whose spirit is noticeably amazing.
ALTAGRACIA. When I was a mere slip of a girl I went to my high school prom.
This is not gonna bring up any evil high school memories, is it? I had no intention
of going, but my mother found out the theme was Mardi Gras and that everyone
had to wear a mask. She became like a woman possessed. It mattered so much to
her that I let myself be talked into it. Let her spend money we didn’t have on this
beautiful red velvet dress, let her make this gorgeous mask of feathers and sequins.
I even let her pay my cousin to take me. She took a Polaroid of us and she waved
us off. I thought my heart was gonna pop out of my chest. There I was outside the
gymnasium door, and on the other side, everyone who had ever made my life hell
for the past twelve years. The doors open, and all eyes turn to face the fairy
princess.
Not a single person recognized me. Not a soul. I was the mystery girl. If I could
bottle any moment in my life, that would be it. Then somebody figured out who I
was. And they all looked away, like they were embarrassed for me. Like I had
been caught trying to pull something off. But I fixed them. I took over the prom.
I got in the middle of the dance floor with my arms spread out, taking up as much
space as I could and started spinning around. And while I was out there no one
else dared to dance. They didn’t have the guts to look me in the eye. It became my
prom, all mine. (pause) Sometimes, you just gotta make people feel
uncomfortable. Make the golden people look away.
MARCUS IS WALKING, by Joan Ackerman. Caitlin, a woman prone to
panic attacks while driving.
CAITLYN. Did you know that one out of eight women have panic attacks? One
out of eight. That’s a lot of panic. I know it’s all in my head but I can’t control it,
it’s like the road freezes in a freeze frame, things stop moving as a video, and my
mind jams into this . . . ozone . . . warp and it’s exhausting like I’m towing a car
with my brain and I can’t breathe and I get disconnected from my body and I think
I’ll pass out. I never have passed out but I think I will. If there’s a breakdown lane
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it doesn’t happen; if there isn’t one, it’s . . . god, it’s indescribably awful. The
weird thing, I’m more afraid of the fear than I am of actually getting into a car
crash.
Maybe something in my brain knows something I don’t know; maybe it’s
protecting me and being very sensible, very rational. I mean, up until this century
human beings didn’t go faster than, what, five miles an hour, unless they were
flung up on an ox or a horse or something, pitched out a castle window. For
centuries, for millennia, humans have traveled very, very slowly. When you think
about it, going sixty miles an hour, going forty miles an hour is a profoundly
unnatural thing to do. Insanely dangerous. Maybe some part of my brain realizes
this and says what the heck are you doing out in the little tinny metal box that can
crumple like gum foil in an instant, flying, hurtling through space alongside of
hundreds of other people in little tinny metal boxes, many of whom are complete
idiots, morons entrusted with these death machines. It’s insane. Really, people
have panic attacks in very logical places – elevators, airplanes, cars – dangerous
places. Maybe it’s not panic, maybe it’s preservation of the species, common
sense, it’s “Get your body out of here. It’s a very, very stupid place for you to be.”
VEGETABLE LOVE, by Tammy Ryan. April, a troubled woman who is
mourning the death of her father.
You know what scares me? Not human catastrophes like relationships and nuclear
war – we can avoid those if we’re smart – we probably aren’t, but if we were – we
have some measure of control over those decisions – some human’s finger is on
the button, and it’s up to him or her – it’s up to us in a larger sense – to decide if
we are that stupid or not. And that’s pretty frightening too, actually, now that I’m
talking about it – but not in the everyday sense. I’m able to live on some level of
denial about that. But what punctures through the everyday veil of denial – what
really really scares me in waking moments and in sleep – like now – is Mother
Nature. There’s no way to protect yourself from a really big earthquake – or an
out of control tornado, or a hurricane – or a – a typhoon. I mean, there’s no
reckoning with that kind of power. Struck by lightning? It can happen at any time.
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And if we venture out further – like imagine Outer Space: billions of meteors
cruising like ballistic missiles, missing us by inches? How do we know? You
know what wiped out the dinosaurs? A rock. A big one. It’s insane. We can be
wiped out by the mindless whim of Mommy Nature skipping stones across the
galaxy. She smiles at us from out of Hallmark Cards, but Mommy gives away how
terrifying she can be with every move she makes. I mean, do you realize what
kind of force has been unleashed in you? To set life in motion? ZAP! Like
lightning striking. Do you know there’s only fifteen minutes in a month when a
woman can get pregnant? It all comes down to a difference between one moment,
really, and another, for every person that’s alive. It’s a miracle. That kind of
power is impressive – and absolutely horrifying.
REASONS TO BE PRETTY, by Neil Labute. Steph, a woman upset by
something she heard her boyfriend has said about her appearance.
STEPH. He hurt me, he really did, you know? I mean, I can take a lot, pretty
much, anyway, but I'm, like, my face? That's jerk. It just is ... (Beat.) Not that I
think I'm some beauty — an old-fashioned glamour gal or anything, I don't — but
I'm not bad, ya know, not bad at all ... and even if I was, ugly, I'm saying, even if I
was not cute or close to that, unattractive by world standards, don't I wanna be with
someone who finds me beautiful? I think so. It's not like a math equation or
anything, it is fairly simple — you can't be with a guy who finds you unpleasant to
look at. Not that, but even on the fence ... How can I? Knowing that he's sitting
there at dinner across from me but he's always reaching for something, the salt or
whatever, or looking around the room, and why? 'Cause he doesn't wanna make
eye contact. That would suck, completely suck if you were that woman and that
was gonna be me — I'm saying once I knew how he felt about me, that was what I
had to look forward to. Listen, it's weird, I know that, because I don't count looks
as my top thing in a guy, not at all — look at Greg. He's got a good face, really, not
knockout but very OK, yet I never used to even think it to myself, I mean, envision
him in that way. Sometimes, a friend or, like, some cousin of mine visited a few
months back and she whispered to me at a family thing we were at, a barbecue,
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"God, he's cute. He's so cute!" And I looked over to where she was pointing,
expecting to see a boy from the neighborhood — and she's pointing at Greg. Just
right there, my boyfriend, who's over at the grill and laughing and making burgers
for all of us ... and he was, too. With the sun going down — you know how it
shoots a ray out sometimes around something, like a halo, almost — it was doing
that and he was bathed in this light for a second, in this splash of gold and creamy
light, and I thought, "Yeah, he is. He really is a handsome man," but, see, that still
isn't any big deal to me. Even though he is ... in his own way ... it's not the thing
about him that first made me like him. Uh-uh.
Not saying this is full of profound insight or anything but any woman I know, like,
my age or younger, she's gonna be super upset if she heard what I did. That her
boyfriend thinks her face is "OK." You can't swallow that down and find a way to
come up smiling or anything, you know what I'm saying? There is just no good
way to take that! (Beat.) Why do we feel that way, though, I wonder? Is it maybe
TV or magazines or something, our moms telling us that we're pretty no matter
what we look like ... I'm not sure. I just know that women throw everything they've
got into their physical being, and a main part of that — the main part — is the face.
(Beat.) I go nuts if I still break out on my chin or anything, carry tweezers in my
purse, and I'm not even, like, all crazy about it like a lot of my friends are ... and
every one of them, the ones that I've called, at least, they all said to dump him.
They did. Because if he's willing to say that, even to a friend, then you can bet he's
probably thinking even more than you know about. Can you imagine what he's
actually feeling about my legs or arms, anything ... OK, yes, I'm thinking about all
the rest of it, too, of course I am! I can't even start to go there without wanting to
throw up. I always felt like my face was one of my better parts and he's talking
about me like I'm some old Buick out in the backyard that he keeps thinking about
fixing but just can't get to it. (Laughs.) "Meant as a compliment," he says to me,
like that should calm my nerves or something, so ... forget that. I mean, really. I'm
realistic and I know me as a person — I don't have that much going for me, not
really. Not all educated and smart or anything, and not gorgeous, not like some
girls — but I like what I've got and I'm gonna protect that. I am. Yeah. (Beat.) I
mean, wouldn't you?
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PROOF, BY David Auburn. Catherine, a woman whose mathematician father
lost touch with reality at the end of his life.
CATHERINE. I lived with him. I spent my life with him. I fed him. Talked to
him. Tried to listen when he talked. Talked to people who weren’t there . . .
Watched him shuffling around like a ghost. A very smelly ghost. He was filthy. I
had to make sure he bathed. My own father . . .
After my mother died it was just me here. I tried to keep him happy no matter what
idiotic project he was doing. He used to read all day. He kept demanding more and
more books. I took them out of the library by the carload. We had hundreds
upstairs. Then I realized he wasn’t reading: he believed aliens were sending him
messages through the Dewey decimal numbers on the library books. He was trying
to work out the code . . .
Beautiful mathematics. The most elegant proofs, perfect proofs, proofs like music .
. .Plus fashion tips, knock-knock jokes – I mean it was nuts, OK? Later the writing
phase: scribbling nineteen, twenty hours a day . . . I ordered him a case
of notebooks and he used every one.
I dropped out of school . . . I’m glad he’s dead.
SAINT JOAN, by George Bernard Shaw. Joan, who confronts the men
condemning her at a hearing.
JOAN. Yes, they told me you were fools and that I was not to listen to your fine
words nor trust to your charity. You promised me my life but you lied. You think
that life is nothing but not being stone dead. It is not the bread and water I fear:
bread has no sorrow for me, and water no affliction. But to shut me from the light
of the sky, and the sight of the fields and flowers, to chain my feet so that I can
never again ride with the soldiers nor climb the hills; to make me breathe foul
damp darkness, and keep me from everything that brings me back to the love of
God when your wickedness and foolishness tempt me to hate Him. All this is
worse than the furnace in the Bible that was heated seven times.
I could do without my war horse, I could drag about in a skirt. I could let the
banners and the trumpets and the knights and soldiers pass me and leave me behind
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as they leave the other women, if only I could still hear the wind in the trees, the
larks in the sunshine, the young lambs crying through the healthy frost, and the
blessed blessed church bells that send my angel voices floating to me on the wind.
But without these things I cannot live; and by your wanting to take them away
from me, or from any human creature, I know that your counsel is of the devil, and
that mine is of God.
PROMEDY, by Wade Bradford. Beatrix, the 17-year old president of the
student body. after her "ex-friend" deviously cancels the prom.
BEATRIX. Young women need the Prom. It's a rite of passage as sacred as
getting your driver's license or buying your first bra. There are only a few things in
life that are guaranteed to be glorious and memorable and sparkling with gowns
and cummerbunds. Prom is the quintessential teenage experience.
Think of the unlucky grown-ups and the elderly who lament the day they decided
not to go to the Prom. It is a key ingredient to a happy and meaningful life. Prom is
short for Promenade, a slow, gentle walk through a shady glen, and this beloved
ceremony symbolizes our journey from the shadows of adolescence to the bright
sunshine of the adult world with all its freedoms.
And it may be the only chance I'll ever have to dance with a boy. Maybe I'll never
have someone get down on a knee and offer me a diamond ring. Maybe I'll never
walk down the aisle with a smug look of bridal triumph. But it is my right, and the
right of every plain, frumpy, book-wormy, soon-to-be librarian to have one night
of Cinderella magic. Even if we have to go with our cousin, or our gay best friend
from tap class, we will have a Prom. And you will help me.
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