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 The Best
Women’s Stage Monologues
of 2003

edited by D. L. Lepidus

MONOLOGUE AUDITION SERIES

A SMITH AND KRAUS BOOK

 Published by Smith and Kraus, Inc.
177 Lyme Road, Hanover, NH 03755
www.SmithKraus.com

© 2004 by Smith and Kraus, Inc.

All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition: April 2004

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that the plays repre-
sented in this book are subject to a royalty. They are fully protected under the
copyright laws of the United States of America, and of all countries covered by
the International Copyright Union (including the Dominion of Canada and the rest
of the British Commonwealth), and of all countries covered by the Pan-American
Copyright Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention, and of all coun-
tries with which the United States has reciprocal copyright relations. All rights,
including professional, amateur, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public read-
ing, radio broadcasting, television, video or sound taping, all other forms of me-
chanical or electronic reproductions such as information storage and retrieval
systems and photocopying, and the rights of translation into foreign languages,
are strictly reserved. Pages 101–104 constitute an extension of this copyright page.

Cover illustration by Lisa Goldfinger

Cover design by Julia Hill Gignoux

The Monologue Audition Series

ISSN 1067-134X
ISBN 1-57525-333-X

NOTE: These monologues are intended to be used for audition and class
study; permission is not required to use the material for those purposes. How-
ever, if there is a paid performance of any of the monologues included in
this book, please refer to the Permissions Acknowledgment pages 101–104
to locate the source that can grant permission for public performance.
Contents

FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

THE ANASTASIA TRIALS IN THE COURT OF WOMEN (2),

Carolyn Gage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
ASTRONAUT, M. Kilburg Reedy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A HOMEGIRL, Yvette Heyliger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
THE BEAUTY INSIDE, Catherine Filloux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
BLACK THANG (2), Ato Essandoh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
BLUE (2), Charles Randolph-Wright . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
BOILING PEOPLE IN MY COFFEE, Jonathan Yukich. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
THE BRIDEGROOM OF BLOWING ROCK, Catherine Trieschmann . . . 21
CABO SAN LUCAS (2), Lisa Soland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
CHAIN MAIL, Frederick Stroppel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
CHRONICLES, Don Nigro. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
THE CIRCUS ANIMALS’ DESERTION, Don Nigro. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
COELACANTH (2), Frederick Stroppel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
CONCERTINA’S RAINBOW (2), Glyn O’Malley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
DOPPELGANGER, Jo J. Adamson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
ETTA JENKS, Marlane Gomard Meyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
FAIRY TALE ROMANCE, M. Kilburg Reedy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
THE FOURTH SISTER, Janusz Glowacki . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
GALAXY VIDEO, Marc Morales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
GHOST DANCE, Mark Stein and Frank Condon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
HIGHWAY ULYSSES, Rinde Eckert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
IN THE WRECKAGE, Matthew Wilson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
LAESTRYGONIANS (2), Don Nigro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
THE LUCKY BELIEVE, David Cirone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
THE MAYOR’S LIMO, Mark Nassar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
NEW YORK WATER, Sam Bobrick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
THE NINA VARIATIONS, Steven Dietz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
NO NIGGERS, NO JEWS, NO DOGS, John Henry Redwood . . . . . . . 59
OMNIUM GATHERUM, Theresa Rebeck and
Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
ORANGE LEMON EGG CANARY (2), Rinne Groff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
OUT TO LUNCH, Joseph Langham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
THE PAVILION (2), Craig Wright . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
PLAYING HOUSE, Brooke Berman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
ROCKET MAN (2), Steven Dietz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
SALLY’S GONE, SHE LEFT HER NAME (2), Russell Davis . . . . . . . . . 73
SECOND LADY, M. Kilburg Reedy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
SHOOT, David Cirone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
SMASHING (2), Brooke Berman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
STRING FEVER (2), Jacquelyn Reingold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
TILL WE MEET AGAIN, Colin and Mary Crowther . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
TRISTAN (2), Don Nigro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
WAITING (2), Lisa Soland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
YOU COULD DIE LAUGHING (2), Billy St. John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
A YOUNG HOUSEWIFE, Judy GeBauer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Foreword

When Smith and Kraus first asked me to take over their exemplary mono-
logue and scene book series, little did I know what I was getting in for.
I have sifted through hundreds of plays in search of wonderful mono-
logues for actors to use in class or for auditions and then managed, by
hook or by crook, to get the rights to print them in this book. Here you
will find a wide variety of excellent monologues, for a wide range of per-
formers — though the majority of the pieces I have chosen are for ac-
tors under forty as I believe these are the actors with the most pressing
need for new monologue material.
Here are fantastic pieces by well-known playwrights such as Don
Nigro, Steven Dietz, and Janusz Glowacki, as well as just-as-fantastic
monologues by exciting new voices such as Rinne Groff, Brooke Berman,
Lisa Soland and Yvette Heyliger.
If you’re an actor, or acting student, who prefers to work on mate-
rial from published, readily available plays, I venture to say that you won’t
find a monologue book more useful to you than this one. Also recom-
mended: the 2001 and 2002 books, which I also edited.
Thanks to Marisa Smith, Eric Kraus, Julia Gignoux, intern Erin
Meanley, and all the agents, publishers and playwrights who allowed me
to reprint these wonderful new monologues.
So, actors: You’re going out big-game hunting, eh? Well, here are some
fine arrows for your quiver. Don’t forget to mention Smith and Kraus
when you’re accepting your Oscar or Tony Award!

— D. L. Lepidus

vii
The Anastasia Trials in
the Court of Women
Carolyn Gage
Dramatic

Marie/Clara Peuthert (thirties to forties)

A group of women are staging a trial involving the story of the Grand
Duchess Anastasia. Five women are put on trial for their failure to
recognize Anastasia after she escaped the massacre of her family.
Marie, the bailiff, here is playing a witness.

MARIA/CLARA PEUTHERT: Look, I don’t run a hotel. The Grand Duchess

wasn’t paying any rent — and she wasn’t doing any of the work, ei-
ther. Picture it: Here she is, the richest Goddamn woman in Europe,
with ten million rubles rotting in some Goddamn account in the
Bank of England, and all she has to do is get the right people to say
she’s Anastasia. But does she cooperate? Who’s out pounding the pave-
ment? Clara Peuthert! Who’s out talking them into imperial muck-
a-mucks? Clara Peuthert! And if you think it’s easy for a woman who
looks like me to walk up to some grand duke and convince him I’m
best friends with the Tsar of Russia’s daughter, who I happened to
meet in the lunatic asylum — well, think again. But I did it. I got
them to come see her. And you know what happened? You know
how the Grand Duchess of Russia received her visitors? Like that!
With a Goddamn blanket over her head! And you know what else
she did? She wouldn’t speak any Russian. I’m trying to prove she’s
the Tsar of Russia’s daughter, and she won’t say a word of Russian.
German, English, yeah. But Russian? — Nyet! And she knows how
to speak it all right. You should hear her in her sleep. She talks all
night! So how hard can it be to just show a little courtesy, a little
smile, a little “spasiba” when someone brings you a present? How hard
is it to take a Goddamn blanket off your head and let them look at

1
 you? Is that so Goddamn much for me to ask when I’ve been slav-
ing my whole Goddamn life away, working fourteen-hour days, killing
myself with work for Goddamn near forty years! Is that really so God-
damn much to ask? Hell, yeah, I threw her ass out. And I’d throw
it out again!

2
The Anastasia Trials in
The Court of Women
Carolyn Gage
Dramatic

Jenny (twenties to thirties)

A group of women are staging a trial pertaining to the strange story of

Anastasia Romanova. Here one of the women lays into the others.

JENNY: Yeah, well, I came here tonight so sick I didn’t think I could per-
form, and none of you gave a Goddamn about that! You — (To
Marie.) with your politics (Marie sits.) or you — (To Lisa.) with your
precious script, or you — (To Melissa.) with your critics, or you —
(To Diane.) with your big ideas about changing the world! Nobody
gave a damn about me, so long as I didn’t mess up your show. (To
Athena.) And then Athena here — my pal — she tricked me into
giving up the lead, so she could have it. But I’m still sick, and I still
lost a lead role and I probably won’t draw it again, and making all
of you go sit in those chairs over there isn’t going to make me feel
any better or give me back my chance to play the attorney. And if I
tell you all that you’re fucked and inhuman and selfish — you know
what? I’m out of a theater company. And Diane is having a hard time
figuring out whether or not Anastasia isn’t going to get it anyway,
so who gives a shit? If she’d figured out what the score was in 1922,
she might have made a new life for herself, but it was people like
you — people trying to work off their own guilt — who kept her
trying to be a Grand Duchess for fifty years, when there wasn’t even
any imperial Russia anymore. Don’t you get it? It’s gone. It’s over.
The kingdom we had as little girls, that we thought was ours, is fuck-
ing gone. It’s gone. It went when the babysitter put his hand up our
nightgown, it went when uncle made us suck his candy, it went when
daddy climbed on top of us. It’s gone. It’s fucking gone and it’s never

3
 coming back, and all the fucking courtrooms and trials in the world
aren’t going to bring it back. Never. It’s gone. It’s fucking gone. It’s
gone. It’s gone. It’s gone! (She begins to choke with rage.) I don’t want
your help! I want to be somebody other than a fucking victim be-
fore this whole thing’s over and it’s too late. (A long pause.)

4
Astronaut
M. Kilburg Reedy
Dramatic

Commander Michelle Griffith (late thirties to early forties)

Commander Griffith, USAF, is addressing the press in a hall at the

Kennedy Space Center following a successful pioneering mission to
the moon.

COMMANDER GRIFFITH: It’s hard to describe. You’ve seen pictures of the

moon, but nothing prepares you for what it’s like. The word desert
isn’t enough to describe it, there’s nothing like it on Earth. The only
color visible is our planet in space, impossibly far away, a swirl of
blue and white. The water planet.
You feel so exposed. With no atmosphere, there is nothing to
shelter you from the endless space. Nothing to interrupt your view
until your eyes reach the horizon and the planet seems to drop off
abruptly into emptiness. (With a smile.) Not even a Texas prairie
mesquite tree, and those damn things can thrive anyplace, on a lit-
tle sunshine and a helluva lot of nerve. (Serious again.) Before I left
I spent a day out there with the Land Rover. I was collecting speci-
mens from different rock formations and soil samples from all over
the northern hemisphere of the moon. Sealing them into sterile plas-
tic bags. (Picking up bag of dirt.) The soil, it was dry. Like powder,
ashes. Ancient volcanic rock, pulverized to dust by thousands of years
of solar wind and micrometeorites. In some places the dust is thirty
feet thick. No moisture, no life. (Recalling, with some surprise.) It made
me think of my mother. I wanted to smell the dirt in my hands, the
way I’d seen her do. (Sets down the bag.) When I left, they were just
starting to build the first greenhouse. Soil analyses show that moon
dirt is tillable. In time, we hope that the lunar colony will be self-
supporting, actually capable of producing the food to feed its pop-
ulation. Can you believe that? (She picks up the bag of dirt again.) I

5
 brought a bag of it back with me. I wish . . . (Pausing in thought.)
I wish I could take it to her and say, here, Mom. If anyone can do
it, you can. Let’s see what you can grow with this. (Lights fade to
black.)

6
Autobiography of
a Homegirl
Yvette Heyliger
Dramatic

Roanetta (early thirties)

Roanetta is an attractive, light-skinned, middle-class, African-

American woman, educated and well-bred, who struggles to recoup
her self-esteem due to the challenges of living in American society.

Set in 1983, this is a bittersweet play about Roanetta’s epiphany when,

in a twenty-four-hour stretch, her child’s father shows up with his
white fiancée, and in an historic coup, the first black women is
crowned Miss America.

SCENE: Therapist’s office, New York City. Roanetta grapples with the
consequences of the life she has chosen (as opposed to the way she
was raised) due to the choice she made to have a child and raise that
child on her own terms.

ROANETTA: Well . . . I needed to talk to someone. Someone who didn’t

know me — or all of the associated people involved. I’ve never been
in this position. I don’t even know anyone who has been in this po-
sition, at least no one who will admit it. You see, I don’t come from
this. I grew up in a middle-class black family: baby grand piano, ori-
ental carpets, Haitian art, two cars, and cocktail parties, who’s who,
who ain’t who, and who wants to be who. I don’t come from this. I
went to church. I learned that God was a white man, with a long
white beard, peering over a cloud, watching me like a hawk! You can
believe he got his fifty cents every Sunday, yes he did! You see I don’t
come from this.

7
 I went to a private school until the fourth grade. I learned French
there from a little French poodle puppet named Fifi. I served toast
and tea from strawberry teacups at tea parties for my playmates on
rainy afternoons. I was a Girl Scout. (She raises her right hand, mak-
ing the Girl Scout sign, as she repeats the “Girl Scout Promise.”) “On
my honor, I will try: To do my duty to God and my country, to help
other people at all times, to obey the Girl Scout laws . . . A Girl Scout
is loyal . . . A Girl Scout is thrifty . . . A Girl Scout is clean in thought,
word, and deed. And there are others — ten in all, I think. You see
I don’t come from this.
I went to Charm School. You know — to learn how to sit, how
to stand, how to walk, how to talk, how to eat, the social graces.
Ladies don’t fart. Did you know that? I never farted. Not once. Hon-
est! I did “poot,” however. But I don’t think that’s the same thing —
is it? You see, I don’t come from this.
I went to Barbra Streisand movies and to museums on the week-
ends, or to the ballet. I know every Johnny Mathis album by heart.
I saw him in concert once! You know, if you close your eyes, you
can’t tell the difference between the record and the real thing! Hear-
ing Johnny Mathis live was just like listening to a photograph! It was
picture perfect. You see I don’t come from this.
I went to boarding school in upstate New York with daughters
of owners of big corporations, you know, “old money,” and daugh-
ters and granddaughters of politicians, girls who had never even been
around a black person before. I was a debutante — wore a white dress
to my cotillion. I danced the waltz, just like Cinderella — one . . .
two . . . three, one . . . two . . . three. I went to college, spent the
summer abroad in France. “Bon jour, Mademoiselle!” “Bon jour,
Monsieur!” You see, I don’t come from this, this WELFARE!
I had no one to talk to, no frame of reference. No one in my
family was ever on it. I had no frame of reference. Do you think I
like being on welfare? Do you think it’s easy for me? Walking through
those doors was the hardest thing I ever had to do. Me who writes
poetry, who takes art classes, who listens to classical music, who reads
the “Arts and Leisure” section of the New York Times on Sundays,
sipping a mimosa and eating a croissant. Me, the light-skinned,

8
middle-class, bourgeois, spoiled, broken black woman standing on
one leg, who wanted to breast-feed. But the hardest part was the
fear — fear I would end up like those other welfare mothers, hang-
ing out of windows waiting for the mailman to bring my check,
going nowhere, life passing by, baby after baby, different fathers, no
books, only TV sets. I mean that’s the stereotyped welfare mother,
isn’t it? You see, I wasn’t going to let Craig talk me into throwing my
baby in the trash. But, I’m not going to give up my dreams either.
I’m in graduate school! Welfare is not my career; it’s not my goal. I’m
going to be a professional writer some day. I just need some help right
now. That’s what welfare’s for, isn’t it? To help you get on your feet?
I know what you think. You think I should go back home and
live with my parents — or be chained nine to five to a secretary’s
desk with my baby spending its days with someone who is not its
mother, no! I want to be there to see baby’s first steps, to hear baby’s
first words, to feel baby’s little mouth sucking my milk from my
breasts. Is that wanting my cake and eating it too?

9
The Beauty Inside
By Catherine Filloux
Dramatic

Latife (late twenties)

Latife, a city lawyer, decides to defend Yalova, a fourteen-year-old

girl, the victim of an attempted honor killing in rural, Southeastern
Turkey.

LATIFE: When I was a little girl my own mother died. She died in a car
crash — if you ever go to Istanbul you’ll see that traffic lights are
only there for decoration. They say my mother was the type to stop
at them. So . . . I was raised by men. My father, two brothers taught
me how to excel, study hard, debate at the dinner table, defend my
honor. I went to the best university, was lauded by my teachers,
lauded especially by my father and my brothers who always seemed
giddy that I, a woman, their creation, succeeded so well, worked out
so right. (With self-deprecation.) Now I am a senior lawyer, but there
is no place to debate at the dinner table about people like you.
Your fate is unthinkable to those who raised me. These men
would never understand how in your belly will be your life, your-
self, how that woman who walked out the door is still your heroine;
how the canal you traveled down is both your road to freedom and
the rope to hang you. That silvery mirage you speak of, just out of
reach . . . I will fight with what I have been given by those men who
honor me so highly. For them it’s all for common markets, but that’s
not what it is for me. I will have to fight this their way, the way my
own father taught me, for you, Yalova. Now let me go get the doctor.

10
Black Thang
Ato Essandoh
Comic

Keisha (black, late twenties to early thirties)

Keisha is recounting her experience with trying to rent a horse-drawn

carriage for her wedding. She is talking to her friend and roommate,
Mattie, who is white.

Mattie and Keisha’s apartment. Keisha is stuffing invitations. Mattie’s

doing yoga.
KEISHA: So I met the horses last night. Champ and Lucky Lady. You know,
to pull my bridal carriage. So now is the time I find out that Omar’s
grandmother is deadly afraid of horses. Some childhood trauma she
had when she was like two when her pet rabbits got trampled to death
by a wild stallion. . . .
Yeah, apparently it was pretty bad. Cause there were like 150
baby rabbits in the litter and somehow they got into the stable and
the stallion was in heat so it just freaked out — and there were like
bloody rabbit ears, and fluffy tails all over the place. And suppos-
edly rabbits make the most awful screeching sound when they’re
dying. It’s supposed to sound like a child crying or something like
that. . . .
Yeah. But you would think that after what, seventy-eight years
she would have gotten over something like that. Right? I mean come
on, she was raised on a farm. She eats fried chicken for Christ sakes.
I mean what? Chickens don’t make horrible noises when they’re get-
ting slaughtered? I bet they do. So they bring out Champ and Lucky
Lady, you know, the horses? And my grandmother-in-law-to-be to-
tally freaks out. I mean freaks out. And it was really scary and kinda
sad because she’s autistic and just had a stroke, so only half of her
face works, so it’s like a total Dustin Hoffman–Rainman kind of freak-
out. I mean she starts banging her head screaming “Bunny!” “Bunny!”

11
 “Bunny!” which totally freaks out Lucky Lady who proceeds to take
the biggest grossest shit I’ve ever seen right in front of us. I mean
ten pounds of shit just drops out of this horse’s ass. Just like that.
And I’m like: “Is this normal?” And apparently it is? Horses shit with-
out warning! Dogs squat, cats excuse themselves, but horses? No
warning just “Sploosh!” Can you imagine if that were to happen dur-
ing the ceremony? So to hell with the horses I’m renting a limo.

12
Black Thang
Ato Essandoh
Seriocomic

Mattie (late twenties, early thirties)

Mattie, a white woman, is talking to her friend and roommate Keisha

(who is black), about a dream she had about the black man she is
dating, whose name is Sam.

Mattie and Keisha’ s apartment. Keisha is trying on her wedding dress.

MATTIE: OK so there I am on the turnpike. Just me and Mr. Pugglewuck
who’s driving because it’s his turn to drive. And we’re driving, flip-
ping through the radio stations. And all of a sudden “Relax” by
Frankie Goes to Hollywood comes on! You know that song? (Singing.)
“Relax! Don’t do it! When you wanna sock it to it! Relax! Don’t do
it when you wanna come! Huh!” I love that song. So does Mr. Pug-
glewuck and it’s so funny because we had just been saying ten min-
utes earlier how cool it would be if we could hear that song. And
there it was! I love when that happens. So anyway it’s me and Mr.
Pugglewuck and we’re driving, and singing and blowing bubbles.
Roasting marshmallows in the campfire we’ve got going in the glove
compartment. And we’re eating kumquats and Skittles and it’s funny
because Mr. Pugglewuck who’s always been a little on the compul-
sive side, likes to color coordinate his Skittles before he eats them.
So he’s got them lined up on the dashboard, you know red, orange,
yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet and he’s eating them one by one.
And that’s when I notice that the Skittles are lined up in the exact
order of the colors in the visible light spectrum. So I go: “Hey Mr.
Pugglewuck! ROY G BIV! Get it?” Which I thought was pretty hys-
terical but apparently was completely lost on Mr. Pugglewuck cause
he kinda just looked at me and blinked. Which, at the time, I thought
that was kinda rude. So I was about to say something when I no-
ticed that instead of arms, Mr. Pugglewuck had fins . . . And that’s

13
 when things started to get a little weird, Mr. Pugglewuck was actu-
ally the Mr. Pugglewuck. The sea lion my mother bought me when
I was three when my parents and I went to Sea World one summer.
Mr. Pugglewuck was my most favorite toy, who I lost on the beach
when we went down to the Keys a few years later.
And according to my parents I almost drowned trying to swim
out to sea in order to find Mr. Pugglewuck who, apparently, I as-
sumed had run away because he was homesick. I was in a coma for
three hours. I of course have no recollection of this. But that’s not
the point. The point is that what I hadn’t noticed until after I woke
up is that anytime Mr. Pugglewuck spoke . . . it was with Sam’s
voice. . . .
What do you think that means?

14
Blue
Charles Randolph-Wright
Seriocomic

Peggy (thirties to forties)

Peggy, the matriarch of a black family, is warning her son Reuben

about a girl he is seeing.

PEGGY: This one just smells of money. This is the kind of coat you wear
down Fifth Avenue. It called out my name — “Peggy! Peggy!” And
before I knew it, my credit card had leapt out of my purse, and was
dancing down the counter. I tried to stop it, I really did, but charge
cards have a mind of their own . . . And you should have seen that
new salesgirl’s face. A Black Woman with an American Express card
from Kent, S.C. almost gave her a heart attack. She held up the
cheaper coat and said, (Imitating her.) “Should I ring this red one
up?” And I said, “Should I wring your red neck?”
Oh, yes I did. She picked the wrong person to mess with today!
First, she choked on her gum, then laughed a little nervous laugh,
then started fanning herself, complaining about how hot it was. Help-
ful hint — white people often complain about the heat when try-
ing to stop that word nigger from jumping out of their mouths —
honey, they complain about the heat . . . So I smiled and simply
said, “I’ll take both.” I thought she was going to pass out right then
and there. Angel, let’s not tell your father about the coats. He doesn’t
need that information. We’ll simply apply my favorite new quote:
“You must not lie, unless you must.” Isn’t that divine? Did your
brother go with your father to get the body?
He’s out with some tramp, isn’t he? I know he’s been seeing some-
body, and he’s hiding her from me. Find out who she is.
Oh, Reuben, don’t let these little lowlife Carolina tramps fool you
like they’ve fooled Sam. You see, we Clarks often prepare questionable
types next door in the funeral home, that’s different. In business we

15
 don’t discriminate, but in life, we have a choice. Which means I never,
ever want to see you bringing somebody common into this house.
Lord have mercy, what kind of children would you have? Hair all
nappy — (Looking at her watch.) Look at the time. I need to change,
and pretend to cook. (Peggy starts to exit, then turns back to Reuben.)
Baby, you must find out who this tramp is. Don’t protect your
brother. Someone must de-tramp this family. When your mother asks
you to do something, you do it, you understand?

16
Blue
Charles Randolph-Wright
Dramatic

Peggy (thirties to forties)

Peggy, the matriarch of a black family, is talking to her son, Reuben,

about his father, her husband, Samuel, an undertaker, and about a
fling she had years ago with a singer named Blue, who might be
Reuben’s real father.

PEGGY: It was February 1966. We had a big snow that year. And much
like you, I could not handle all these dead people one more second.
Your father and I had been having problems. He couldn’t see me any-
more. He could only see the families and the ministers and the pall-
bearers and the soloists and on and on and everybody but me. And
I couldn’t handle the pressure of being Mrs. Samuel Clark. So we
decided to separate for a while. But the Clarks don’t fail at anything,
so it was a mandate that I told no one we were separating, and I went
back to Chicago. Everyone here was told that my mother was ill. I
tried to get my life back, but I wasn’t the Fashion Fair model any
longer. I was a failed wife, and a mother with a four-year-old. And
one night I met Blue, and he saw me. I wasn’t a failure. I was a model
again. I was beautiful. Blue was gone on one of his tours, and Samuel
called me, and asked me to come home. I missed Samuel, and I re-
alized that I really did love him because Samuel actually treated me as
his partner, something Blue could never do. Samuel did see me — as
his equal. I had to go away to see that. Blue was only a sound on a
record. Samuel was something I could hold onto. So I came back
home. I didn’t know I was pregnant . . . You have to say something.
You can’t just sit there. When I found out I was pregnant, I was dis-
traught. I wanted to die. Samuel simply said, “He’ll be my son. I
want no one ever to know.” Samuel used to drive me insane with
how easily he dealt with things. He doesn’t like drama, and I thrive

17
 on it. Things don’t seem worth it when you don’t fight for them. But
when that nurse put you in my arms, and you looked at me, I knew
everything would be divine, because you were divine. We brought
you home, and you became a Clark. But I was also determined to
teach you about your real father. That’s why I told you everything I
knew about him and his music. And Samuel let me do that. He let
me do that. He loved you that much.
Your father could not have been “the” Samuel Clark if we had
told anybody the truth . . . One day, and I hope it’s not too far away,
because I couldn’t bear it, you will forgive me. I won’t ask you to un-
derstand. I just ask you to forgive me.

18
Boiling People
in My Coffee
Jonathan Yukich
Seriocomic

Dorian (forties to fifties)

CONTEXT: Still mourning the death of her son, whose corpse remains
on the living room couch, Dorian speaks with her husband about
imaginary people in her morning coffee.

DORIAN: Sometimes I think there are boiling people in my coffee. I know

it’s odd, but, I tell you, I wonder. Small persons, tiny beings . . . in
my coffee. Invisible to the eye, they are. Invisible to all the major
senses. Very small, these people. Very, very small. Small brains, small
hearts, small toes. Like Swift’s Liliputians, except smaller. Itty-bitty.
Total size equals a tenth of an atom. A mere tenth, Donald. A sin-
gle tick-tack would crush millions. Shrimp would consume entire
villages in massive gulps. Ants would use them as bowling balls. We’re
talking small, Donald. These are not big people. They are micro-
people. Yes, micro-people . . . in my coffee. Boiling. (Speaking to her
coffee.) Hello, micro-people! I know you’re there! Don’t speak. Con-
serve your energy. I realize you must be in a great deal of pain at the
moment. After all, you are boiling. I must apologize. You’re so tiny
that I didn’t notice your micro-community in my coffeepot. There-
fore, naturally, I filled it with water and let it heat. You’re so weak
that I didn’t hear your tiny screams, so small that I couldn’t see your
S.O.S. If I had, you may rest assured, I would have stopped. Cer-
tainly, I would have stopped. Donald could do without his coffee
for a day while you relocated, but I had no idea, you see. None at
all. Until now. Oh, the agony you must be going through. I’ll drink
no more. I’m sorry for the friends and family I’ve already consumed,
but I’ll drink no more. No more! A ban on coffee in this household!

19
 I hereby disclaim all coffee in this household! (To Donald.) Hang-
ing tideless in our boiling coffee, our micro-people plead for a sym-
pathetic superior. Will you show mercy, Donald, or will you vanish
them with vengeance? Will you put your mug down and grant them
liberty or will you sip their civilization into oblivion like the arro-
gant ass face that you are? Will you assert your obligation to them
or do you even care? Will you climb higher and higher, mightier and
mightier, bathing with indifference? Or will you assert your obliga-
tion? Do you even know your obligation, Donald? Oh, please say
you do! (Donald nods.) Then assert it! Sense their piercing cries, heard
only by the coffee dolphins! Sense their melting hearts, beating with
heated anguish, longing for a coffee cruise ship! Ever hopeful, they
are, until their last merciful gasp! Assert your obligation, Donald!
Confirm their faith! Hear their screams! “By the power of God,” they
call, “By the power of God!” They plead for your obligation! “By the
power of God! By the power of God! By the power of God!” Save
them! You’re obligated, Donald! By the power of God, save them!

20
The Bridegroom
of Blowing Rock
Catherine Trieschmann
Dramatic

Elsa (forties)

This drama takes place in a rural community in North Carolina in

1865. Here Elsa, the family’s matriarch, describes a run-in she had
with some Union soldiers.

ELSA: They ain’t said a word but pushed me from the door to the floor.
They looking for something to eat, they say. Say they calling on be-
half of the Union government, that Abraham Lincoln hisself said we
oughta be taking care of their needs. One of ’em sticks his foot up
my skirt, and that’s when Jeremiah got mad. He ain’t never stood
for nobody to put claim on what’s his, so he grabs me up, says there
ain’t nothing in the house for them and either they leave or he’ll shoot
them out the door. They all laugh mighty hard at that, and whilst
one of ’em holds me down, the other two take out a rope, tie a noose
’round Jeremiah’s neck, and string him up high on the beam run-
ning down the center of the house. That rope ain’t pulled tight
enough to kill Jeremiah, but they leave him hanging there ’til his face
turns blue, kicking him, cussing him. Soon as I think he’s sure as
dead, they cut him down. Say they want to know if ’n he’s ready to
tell them what they want to hear. I tell ’em straight, there’s chickens
in the barn they can eat raw for all I care, but it’s high nigh time for
’em to leave me and boy in peace. Reckon their hunger got the bet-
ter of their meanness, ’cause they all left for the barn, leaving Jere-
miah and me on the floor. Then Jeremiah whispers Laurel’s name,
and I remember I sent Laurel to the barn for eggs. So being as there
ain’t no choice, I take Jeremiah’s musket from my quilt trunk, aim
out the front window and shoot one of them three men dead square

21
 in the back. I’m reloading when the other two come through the door.
The first takes no pause, jest rams his musket blade through Jere-
miah’s heart. The second takes the musket from me and hits me ’cross
the face. Don’t know why he ain’t kilt me. I wish he had.

22
Cabo San Lucas
Lisa Soland
Dramatic

Grace (thirties)

Grace was abandoned by a fiancé as they were about to leave for a

Cabo San Lucas honeymoon. After taking an overdose of sleeping
pills, her house is burgled by two incompetents. By this point in the
play, the pills are really beginning to take effect. Guy, the remaining
robber, is on the phone trying to call an ambulance for Grace.

GRACE: (Grace finds the gun in the couch and holds it on Guy, almost steady.)
Put down the phone. You’re not calling anyone. You’ve got your whole
life in front of you. Those were the words you were trying to say to me
earlier but you couldn’t, but it’s true for you, Guy. You really do.
(Beat.) And it’s obvious you have no criminal experience prior to this
evening . . . so I’m not going to let you throw away your future just
because I have none. I’ve made my choice. (She crosses to left arm of couch
and sits. Her words are beginning to slur.) I know — “Suicide is a per-
manent solution to a temporary problem.” But that’s where they’re
wrong. My problem is not a temporary one, you see? This has been
going on for a very long time. I have always felt alone my entire life.
If the world was different somehow, slower maybe . . . Jeez, I don’t know.
(Finding the right words, with strength.) If people could see someone who
isn’t like them. (Beat.) Well, anyway, that’s why I can do this. I’m an
exception. (Beat.) And I don’t think I know more than God. In fact, I
know I don’t because I have no earthly clue why He would create such
a world — a world like this. (Lifting the gun back up, she holds it steady
on Guy once more, continuing to press her point.) Listen, I am one, tiny
little puzzle piece in this world. I don’t pretend to know all the pieces
but I know mine. My piece. And if I was meant to “be” then I would-
n’t be able to do it, right? To end it. That’s what I figure, I mean, if by
God, we were not allowed to take our own life, then it would be im-
possible for me to do so. Am I right?

23
Cabo San Lucas
Lisa Soland
Dramatic

Grace (thirties)

Grace was abandoned by a fiancé as they were about to leave for a

Cabo San Lucas honeymoon. After taking an overdose of sleeping
pills, her house is burgled by two incompetents. By this point in the
play, the pills are beginning to take effect. Guy, the remaining rob-
ber, has just asked Grace why she’s “through with this living thing.”

GRACE: I’m tired. Tired of everything. (Continuing.) Taking a shower,

brushing my teeth, eating. Facing the day. Everyday things. I’m so
freakin’ tired of them. They do nothing but remind me that I’m by
myself. (Beat.) I mean, I’ve been alone my whole . . . pretty much,
my life. But it got harder as I got older. I watched all my friends get
married and have children and their lives just get so busy. Have you
no idea how busy everyone is? So busy. The whole world. Buzzing,
buzzing, buzzing. And they have to let you know how busy they are.
(Calling out to Guy.) Have you ever noticed that? They have to let
you know how busy they are so it really sinks in how truly insignif-
icant you are to them and it’s just because you’ve set different pri-
orities than them. Priorities like sitting and talking and listening and
doing nothing . . . nothing but being with each other. But heck, your
priorities don’t matter because there’s no one really to do your pri-
orities with, but yourself, because everyone else is so . . . buzzing.
No one really sees each other any more. (She responds to the cold
and continues to explain.) No one really sees you! No one even really
looks. No one has time to look. And even if they do? Even if by some
strange accident, yours and another person’s eyes meet in this busy world
. . . they still don’t really see you. Take you in. Not really. (Looking
out.) I see them. I see them and I see the pain. And I see them not
being able to see me. (Very vulnerable.) It’s like I’m not even here.

24
Though I feel so . . . here. It gets confusing. (Beat.) I wanted to go
to Niagara Falls for our honeymoon. Niagara Falls. (Growing deeper
in her sorrow.) But he said it’s trashed now. It’s not like it used to be
in the fifties, when people married for life. “For life.” (Stumbling,
she makes her way to photo of her with ex-fiance and the fake water-
fall.) That’s what he said, “For life,” and it ended between the pro-
posal and the marriage vows. Could you ever do such a thing to a
person?! (She sits on small table Stage Right, to steady herself.) People
ask about it, why it ended, and I don’t know what to say to them?
How to explain? (Becoming upset.) And even if I do, they don’t hear
my answer. They don’t hear what I say to them. They only hear what
would have happened if it was happening to them, in their life. But
not to me. Not me in my life. Their life. You see? (She stands with
photo and looks into it as if it were a mirror.) I’m just a reflection of
them in their lives. I don’t exist. They don’t hear me, Guy, and I don’t
exist.

25
Chain Mail
Frederick Stroppel
Seriocomic

Danielle (twenties to thirties)

Danielle is trying to calm down her husband, Nicky, who has be-
come obsessed to the point of paranoia about his mail.

DANIELLE: Have you been sitting here all afternoon brooding about this?
And you didn’t go back to work?
Nicky — it’s only a letter.
Did you at least call in? Nicky, you have a job, you have a re-
sponsibility to let them know if you’re not going to be there.
I’m worried about you. You know, you’re really starting to upset
me.
Look, I know how this can happen. You get into a mood, some
small thing sets you off, you can’t deal with it — it’s happened to me.
Remember the other day, I wanted to shave my legs, and I couldn’t get
the package of disposable razors open, and I just freaked — re-
member? I was a basket case. And what did you say? “It’s no big deal.”
And it was no big deal, you were right. So let’s look at this logically.
There’s nothing official about this letter. It’s not from the I.R.S., it’s
not from the draft board, not jury duty . . . Not certified, there’s no
proof that you received it. So there’s no penalty for opening it. What
could it possibly be? Maybe it’s an invitation. Maybe it’s a surprise —
a good surprise. Or maybe it’s junk mail, and they didn’t put a return
address because they were afraid you wouldn’t open it. Or maybe it’s
X-rated material, something we can laugh at. Whatever it is, it’s just
a letter. It’s just a piece of paper. It can’t hurt you.
Look, it’s not completely anonymous — there is a postmark.
“Rochester, New York.” There you go.
How can it be a fake?
Don’t you have a cousin who lives outside Rochester?

26
Chronicles
Don Nigro
Seriocomic

Dorothy (twenty-four)

Dorothy Armitage, age twenty-four, speaks to us from the Gothic

old Pendragon house in east Ohio near Christmas in the year 1920.
Dorothy had a fever when she was a child, and now can’t hear any-
thing or speak clearly to the others in the play, but we, the audience,
have the privilege of sharing the perfectly clear monologue narration
that runs in her head as she leads us through this play. She is funny
and stubborn and everybody loves her, and because people tend to
forget that she’s around sometimes, she knows a lot. The family has
gathered from various places for Christmas, in part because
Dorothy’s father Matthew Armitage is dying. The people she speaks
of here are her step-brother Davey Armitage, a poet with a tragic love
life; her sister Lizzy, who cooks and cleans with a passion to hide her
grief at the loss of her child, and who bosses Dorothy around a lot;
their clumsy younger sister Molly, who is a disaster in the kitchen;
her parents, who are estranged for reasons Dorothy can’t understand;
her uncle Rhys, whose return to the house has precipitated a crisis;
and her younger sister Jessie, a beautiful bundle of energy that
Dorothy just adores; and the housekeeper Sarah, who keeps the fam-
ily together and is perhaps the only sane person in the house. Dorothy
is trying to understand her family by telling us about them.

DOROTHY: Isn’t Davey a sweetheart? He’s very sad, though. I know he’s a
poet, and poets are supposed to be kind of melancholy, but some-
times I wish he was more shallow so he could be happier. It’s about
that woman he was in love with, that dancer. I don’t know the de-
tails. Everything around here is a little mysterious. I suppose I bet-
ter get in the kitchen before Sarah and Lizzy kill Molly. That wouldn’t
be the first person murdered in this house, to hear stories. But which

27
 stories are true, and which aren’t, is hard to say. Father and Mother
are not deeply into reminiscing. If there ever was a time to sort all
this messy history out, it’d be now, because everybody still alive is
here for once, except for Rhys. I have this fragile set of memories of
Rhys being here when I was a very small girl — that would have been
around 1901, when Molly was just a baby, and Jessie wasn’t born
yet. What’s wrong between Father and Mother has something to do
with Rhys, but I’m not sure what. There’s layers and layers, as the
boy said looking in the chicken coop. I wish there was some chil-
dren around so I’d have somebody to talk to. Maybe I can coax the
cat out from behind the ice box. The cat is the only sensible person
in this house, and Molly goes and pours pudding all over him. I don’t
know. When I try to think back to what happened when Rhys was
here, it’s all blurry, like rain on dirty windows. The sounds are in my
head, but they’re all twisted up with the pictures. Well, here I go. If
I’m not back in an hour, you’ll know Molly accidentally brained me
with the butter churn. That girl needs help.

28
The Circus Animals’
Desertion
Don Nigro
Comic

Becky (eighteen)

Becky Armitage, age eighteen, is in her slip. She getting ready to go

out to the carnival one October evening in 1945, in the upstairs room
at her Aunt Moll’s house where she lives with her two little girls, both
the illegitimate children of a traveling carnival man Romeo DeFlo-
res, who keeps impregnating her in the house of mirrors and then
leaving town. But Becky is haunted by the ghost of her dead hus-
band, Albert, the town librarian, who married her to give her chil-
dren a father, but who went mad and hung himself in the barn when
he realized she was still going to the carnival to meet Romeo. Becky
is a pretty and charming but lost girl whose mother Jessie died when
she was born. She doesn’t mean to hurt anybody, but her nervous
and rather scatterbrained approach to life gets her and the people
who love her into trouble a lot. She’s singing a forties swing tune that
she seems to be making up as she goes along, when Albert’s ghost
appears.

October 1945. Evening. Becky in her slip, getting ready to go out.

BECKY: (Singing absently to herself a forties swing tune, not very recogniz-
able.) Boogie woogie. Boogie woogie. Boogie woogie. Doodliop do
me on the jive, Clive. Doodliop do me on the woo woo. (She is doing
her lipstick in the mirror. Albert appears behind her. He is dead, rum-
pled, pale, and a bit greenish, but looks otherwise much as he did in
life.) Woo woo woo. Doodliop do me on the woooo woo. Doo doo.
Doodliop do me on the — (She sees him in the mirror.) AHHHH-
HHHHHHH. (She jumps, falling off her stool and smearing lipstick
across her face.) Will you stop doing that? I mean it, Albert. You’ve

29
 got to stop sneaking up on me like that. You’re not dead. Well, OK,
you’re dead, but you’re not here. Well, you’re here, but not really. See
what you did? I look like Old Weird Bertha who lives at the dump
and has a pet rat. (She begins wiping off lipstick and repairing her
makeup.) Don’t talk to me.
You’re not sorry. You like scaring me. Why am I even talking to
you? I am not going to be crazy, Albert, do you understand? I am
not going to be a crazy person. I’m going to be perfectly normal, or
as near to that as I can fake, and I’m not going to waste my time
talking to my dead husband any more. Christ, I used to make fun
of you for talking to yourself all the time, and now I’m doing it, only
what’s worse is, I’m talking to myself and there’s somebody here, and
he’s dead.
The babies spent the day with Aunt Liz. They’ve been driving
me berserk. Lorry screams and throws things all the time. She throws
her food at me, she throws alphabet blocks at me, and when I change
her diaper she throws shit at me. And June is all over the place now,
and she’s so weird. I mean, she’s not exactly bad, she just — does
bizarre things. She keeps trying to crawl out the window, and this
is the second floor, and she hides in her closet and I have to go look-
ing for her. The other day I had the window open and I walked in
here and she had a bird on her head. A little bird, it was a wren or
something, sitting right on top of her head, and June was just look-
ing at it in the mirror and saying “Birdy, birdy.” Weird. And Uncle
Clete is driving me crazy with his dumb jokes and his welding in
the garage and slapping me on my butt in the kitchen, and if I hear
“The Star Spangled Banner” played one more time on the tuba, I
swear, I’m going down there and stuff that instrument up Billy’s rec-
tum. And I keep seeing my dead husband every place. Other than
that, things are just peachy.

30
Coelacanth
Frederick Stroppel
Dramatic

Frances (thirty-one)

Frances has taken her brother, Lee, on a whale-watching boat. Here

she is talking to someone else on the boat (unseen), about her brother,
who is retarded.

FRANCES: He loves Mary Poppins. The little dancing penguins? He imi-

tates them. He can imitate anything. He’s got a talent. So it’s funny
how things turn out. You think you’re going to be one thing, you
turn out to be another. I went into teaching, I don’t know what hap-
pened. You just never know. I remember when Lee was born, he was
the most beautiful baby — he’s still beautiful . . . He’s mad at me
now. Are you mad at me? (Lee doesn’t answer.) Well, he was the most
beautiful child. He had this glow about him, he made you think he
was going to do something remarkable when he grew up. Just gave
you that feeling. Of course, as it turned out . . . What happened,
when he was five years old, we were over at my aunt’s house, and he
jumped into an empty pool. He didn’t fall, he actually jumped. And
landed on the side of his head. Crazy thing to do. (To Lee.) Why did
you do that, you silly? (Aside.) He was unconscious for half an hour,
and then they put him in the hospital. And he was never right after
that. Never right. Although, personally, I don’t — (Lowers her voice.)
I don’t think that’s what caused it. I think that’s why he jumped in
the first place, because there was always something not right about
him. Just my theory, but it makes sense. Because you read about most
people, when they get hit on the head, it knocks something loose,
they start killing people. That’s how you get serial killers. And he’s
not a serial killer. He’s just my little brother. (Beat.) But he’s all right
now. Things are stable. It was a little rocky when my Mom died. They

31
 were very close. He lived in that house all his life. But we had to sell
it to pay more bills, so he’s living with us, my husband and me, for
the time being. It’s working out fine. Eventually he’ll get his own
place. That’s the most healthy thing. Right, Lee?

32
Coelacanth
Frederick Stroppel
Dramatic

Frances (thirty-one)

Frances has taken her brother, Lee, on a whale-watching boat. Here

she is talking to someone else on the boat (unseen), about her brother,
who is retarded.

FRANCES: (Fondly.) Look at him. Popeye the Sailorman. He’s so happy.

He’s a happy person. For years I kept thinking that the real Lee was
buried somewhere inside, that someday he’d come out — you know,
like a groundhog — or that maybe we could somehow reach through
to him. But with time you come to realize, this is the real Lee. No
one’s trapped inside, screaming to get out. He’s right there, that’s him.
Perfectly happy. (Sighs.) It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Some peo-
ple have everything, all the breaks in the world, and he has so little.
I mean, not that I’ve had everything. Not that my life has been a box
of Lucky Charms . . . But it makes you wonder.
He can drive you crazy. I worry what’s going to happen to him.
He’s so sweet, so trusting, and God knows, this isn’t the world for
that kind of attitude. I just wish he could stay with us forever, but
that wouldn’t work. I mean, Ray — my husband — he’s good, he
makes allowances, but he has a limited amount of patience. And I
don’t blame him, it’s not what he bargained for. It’s not what any of
us bargained for. It tears me up inside — everything he’s been
through . . . People can be cruel. Kids. Kids can be fucking cruel.
When he was just a boy, they would throw rocks at him, and say the
most disgusting things . . . No compassion at all. Once he had an
accident in his pants, and they started calling him “Leak” instead of
Lee. Then it was Leak the Freak, Leak the Geek . . . The Missing Leak.
I tell you, every time I hear someone talk about the innocence of chil-
dren . . . (Laughs.) Of course, the thing is, he doesn’t even remember

33
 those things. Honestly, he doesn’t. I’m the one who has to re-
member. I have these horrific memories, and he’s just over there,
watching the clouds . . . People don’t realize, the real hardship is
on the family. He doesn’t know what he’s missing. I do, I know the
life he could have had. I’m the one who suffers. You see how I have
to clean up for him, get him his food . . . help him get dressed. He
can dress himself, but the clothes he picks . . . ! So who’s going to
take care of him if I’m not around? We used to hope he’d maybe get
a girlfriend, someone he could be with . . . There was this one girl
at the church where we go, he had a little crush on her, used to fol-
low her around, and she was very sweet and understanding, a lovely
person, really, but of course, she couldn’t, there was no . . . And it
almost got to be a problem. We had to keep him home for a while.
Let’s face it, you’re not going to find someone normal for him . . .

34
Concertina’s Rainbow
Glyn O’Malley
Dramatic

Maureen (forty-one)

This is a direct address to the audience. Maureen is starting to feel

her age.

MAUREEN: (To the audience; ebulliently at the top; confidential.) All right!
There was a lot of sex. Between the “Day of His Walking Out,”
and, well . . . (She winces.) . . . a few months ago. I don’t mean
just with anyone, but I don’t mean with the same man either. If
sex is power, then you could say my turbines were spinning at a
pretty . . . high . . . voltage. (Slight pause.) You run into the arms
of men. Your last “hurrahs!” You’re forty-one and still can do! You
work up a jolly sweat that dries as you head out the door. In the mir-
ror, painting your eyes, you blink amazed, and pleased at how un-
needy you are. Finally, you’ve learned something after all you’ve been
through. But, no. One day in the shower you watch a rivulet pool
in a crease you can’t remember being there. Drying your hair, you
notice the inside of your arm . . . jiggle . . . loosely . . . and you think
of lilies wilting on their stalks. You drop your towel, and race sop-
ping wet into your bedroom, your living room, the alcove where the
table sits. You snatch the bouquets you’ve bought for yourself out of
every vase. Over the garbage disposal, as it chews them to pieces, you
realize that you weren’t prepared for how blatantly cold . . . not just
life, but . . . you . . . have become. Then . . . void; darkness, like this
. . . (She indicates the shadows at the edge of the light.) . . . on the other
side of the kitchen window, and in the house as the night settles
down, and you don’t flick a switch on. You don’t go on your hot date
of the moment . . . (We hear a telephone ring.) You don’t answer the
ringing telephone. You do nothing, but let it come. You haven’t moved
from your silent, stainless steel sink. You wait for your reflection in the

35
 window to comfort you, but it doesn’t come. You speak to yourself,
or . . . whomever . . . because you want to believe that there is some-
thing more than just you rattling in your head. You . . . yearn —
which I guess is a prayer — that some . . . inner light will flare up,
that you’ll see who’s reflected back with a new . . . clarity. But no
“inner light” . . . comes. You stand there: hair a dried mop; para-
lyzed; lines, deepening between the absence out there beyond the
kitchen window of your new Co-op overlooking the back scruff of
Florida, and . . . you.

36
Concertina’s Rainbow
Glyn O’Malley
Dramatic

Maureen (forty-one)

This is a direct address to the audience. Maureen is starting to feel

her age.

MAUREEN: (To the audience.) Not very often, maybe with a job or . . .
or . . . marriage . . . you feel you are ascending; life is pushing you
forward and you know there’s no going back. You say “Yes!” instead
of all the gnawing nos you’re used to blurting out with one well-oiled
qualification after another. Instead, you say, “Yes!” before you real-
ize the word has flown from your mouth! Then the world is racing
past your two wide-open eyes while the “committee” in your head
convenes, and the gavels pound and the “don’ts” get shriller and
shriller! But “Yes!” has bugled out of you. Your own steam has trum-
peted that single monosyllabic from your lungs, and your heart right
there between them is booming! And it’s the first time in years you’ve
ever felt it pound like that! The first time in years you knew it was
the center of your engine! The first time in years you’ve felt so alive!
You don’t care because you do care so much. “Yes” takes you to the
airport. “Yes” takes you on a plane. “Yes” takes you into Economy
because Business Class is sold out and you have to be there! (She buck-
les herself into her seat.) “Yes” is right there in the click of your seat
belt — the engines whine, the Earth does move and the ascent you
feel inside is happening! And . . . and . . . and . . . oh dear God in
heaven hold my hand . . . YES!

37
Doppelganger
Jo J. Adamson
Seriocomic
Young Woman: a passenger on a cruise ship, twenties.

When the ship’s photographer offers to take her picture, the young
woman ruminates on her appearance.

YOUNG WOMAN: A thousand things go through my head as the photog-

rapher checks the light. Is my lipstick glossy? Cheeks luminous?

Figure voluptuous. Eyes bright, teeth pearly? Hair, curly? Will I pro-
ject the correct image?

Young woman vacationing? Young Miss Contemplating? Ingenue Vis-

its Atlanta. Society Deb. On Verandah. Young Beauty Soaks Up Sun.
American Miss Visits Venice. Austrian Lass Studies Sunset. Fraulein
Heinler Smiles at Photographer. Mademoiselle Cline Boards Luxury
Liner.

Focus your lens on my tight skin

I was born for the close-up
The sun is my friend: I open like a flower
Count compliments that blossom in the
Summer of my hours

Come to me. Come on. Photograph the light around my cells. The
shadow of my smile. Soft focus me to the edge of eternity. I’m the
infinite closing of your iris shot.The particle in your eye that won’t
wash out.

Feel me to the whorls of your fingers

Preserve the dream emulsion in your soul
Embalm the Celluloid daylights out of me and

38
I’ll look good in tomorrow’s photogravure.
(Young Woman assumes different poses.)

How do you want me?

It’s a rhetorical question.
Fetching? Perhaps
Whimsical, capricious, coquettish to be sure
Here’s Pert, Saucy, Bewitching . . . Alluring

I give you, Tantalizing, Teasing, Tempting, always.

I am by instinct.
Toss of head, angle of chin, curve of neck
Always right
Up to the orgasmic dissolve

We work well together

Where do you stop and I begin?
I await your separation
In safe-light suspension
O.K., I’m ready
Click the shutter
(Young woman becomes flustered, unsure.)

I’m all aflutter

You’d think I’d be used to this
Each time is like the first virgin thrust
One more minute,
My makeup’s running, nose shiny . . .
No! I’m beauty’s perfection
The stuff dreams are made of

“No sweat” as they say,

Click the shutter while the feeling rises
Take the wave at its crest

Now! Fire when ready, Sir

I’m at my best

39
Etta Jenks
Marlane Gomard Meyer
Dramatic

Etta (early thirties)

Etta has come to Hollywood in hopes of becoming a star, but she

has found that it is not as easy as she had thought. Here, she is talk-
ing to her boyfriend, Burt.

ETTA: I think my throat is closing up. Those French fries were so dry. I
think they’re caught . . . like a lump in my throat. I think those fries
got caught in my throat. I wish I had a Coke. I saw this science ex-
periment once, where they put this tooth in Coke, and over a pe-
riod of a few weeks or days . . . or maybe it was just one day, it
completely fell apart. Just disappeared. I guess that could happen with
a whole set of teeth if we were to sit around with a mouthful of Coca-
Cola day and night. I wonder how it would work, the teeth comin’
out, would you swallow and then what, would they come back in . . .
somehow? God, I’m stupid.What am I supposed to do? I thought by
now I’d at least have some kinda extra work, somethin’ . . . I met this
girl, Sheir, at the lunch counter? I thought she was pretty weird but
she came out to be nice and she said that one way to break into
movies is to have a videotape of yourself made. Performing a scene
with someone or maybe doin’ a monologue. But the problem is, it
costs. I wonder how I could get five hundred dollars? I had four hun-
dred, but that’s just about gone. I wonder if I could find somebody
with one of those video cameras you use at home? (She nudges Burt, he
looks at her.) Do you know anybody with a . . . home movie camera?

40
Fairy Tale Romance
M. Kilburg Reedy
Seriocomic

Woman (thirties)

The speaker is in the midst of reading a bedtime story to her six-year-

old daughter.

WOMAN: Oh, don’t say that Heather. He’s not a jerk. Well, your mommy
is right, it’s not very grown-up to pout, but he only does that be-
cause he’s afraid of getting hurt. He doesn’t mean to be a Beast. It’s
a curse his wicked stepmother put on him, and now he doesn’t trust
women. But if Beauty loves him enough, he’ll learn to trust her, and
then he won’t be a Beast anymore, because he’ll know that she’ll never
leave him.
The Beast gave Beauty a ring, and told her, “Put this on your
finger when you go to sleep tonight, and it will take you home. If
you decide to return, pull it off your finger, and you will be instantly
returned to my palace.”
When Beauty awoke the next morning, she was in her old room
at home. She was overjoyed to see her father and sisters again. Soon
the week was up, but Beauty did not return to the Beast’s palace.
Every day she said to herself, “Tomorrow I will go back,” and every
evening she said, “Just one more day.”
Then one night she had a dream that the Beast lay dying in the
garden that she knew so well. She was very upset and immediately
pulled the ring off her finger before she went back to sleep. In the
morning, she woke up in the Beast’s palace.
Beauty was so frightened by her dream that she went to look
for the Beast. She searched the palace and the grounds until at last
she found him, lying in the garden. He was scarcely breathing.
“Ah, Beauty,” said the Beast, “You see what has happened be-
cause you abandoned me. You are just in time to watch me die.”

41
 “Oh, please don’t die, Beast,” Beauty said. “I promise never to
leave you again. I’ll do anything to save you.”
“Will you marry me, Beauty?” asked the Beast.
What do you think, Heather? Should she say yes? Beauty is the
only one who can break the spell. She’s the only one who can see
past his horrible, Beastly exterior to the hurt little boy inside. She’s
the only one who can heal his wounds and make him happy.
You really think she should? But what if he doesn’t turn into a
Prince? What if she marries him and he’s still the same old Beast,
day after day for the rest of their lives?
What do you think happens in the story? That’s right.
Beauty kisses the Frog, and he turns into a Prince. Wait a minute,
that’s not the same story. On second thought, yes it is. Beauty swal-
lows her misgivings and kisses the Frog/Beast, and the next thing you
know he’s bringing her flowers, and telling her he loves her in eight
different languages, and calling her when he says he’s going to call,
and asking her how her day went.
The next thing you know, he’s actually listening to her for a
change, and he really seems to care what’s on her mind. Pretty soon
she’s relaxed, and having a wonderful time. He laughs at her jokes.
She doesn’t have the horrible anxious feeling that if she pauses for a
moment to collect her thoughts, he’ll jump in and change the sub-
ject.
Finally she starts to feel a little guilty because she’s talking so
much, and she says to him, “So how are you? Tell me how you are.”
And he says . . . (She laughs, unbelievingly.) . . . he says, “Oh, that’s
not important right now. Go on with your story.” (Sadly; to Heather.)
Now how’s that for a fairy tale?

42
The Fourth Sister
Janusz Glowacki
Comic
Tania (twenties)

This dark comedy takes place in contemporary Moscow, a hellhole

of graft and crime. Tania lives with her sisters, her brother, and her
father in a small apartment. Her mother has recently escaped their
miserable life by dying. Here, Tania addresses her mother who, we
hope, is in a better place. Tania is holding a helium-filled baloon. Note:
Russian accent unnecessary.

TANIA: Mom! (Looks up.) Mom! I can’t believe that you’ve only been up
there two weeks and you already did it. The hell’s over. And I know
it’s because of you. What? The one that started when Father read in
the paper how much Baryshnikov makes and forced me to take dance
lessons after school. Mom, you know that I have two left feet, and
I hate it. I mean, I wouldn’t mind having talent for classical dance.
But there’s no way in hell. And Father’s stubborn, and you know how
he gets when he’s stubborn. But with God’s help, he started drink-
ing again, and he didn’t pay and they threw me out. Father’s hiding
it from me because first, he’s embarrassed, and second, he’s afraid I’ll
kill myself. Hahaha . . . (She does a happy pirouette.) And I cried from
joy. So I bolted to the Hotel Rosija to celebrate. But when the waiter
noticed I only ordered tea, he publicly made fun of me and physi-
cally threw me out. So here’s my request. That I go back there. But
you know, Mom, high heels, fur coat. And then I’ll cuss him out. I
wrote down all the details. (She kisses the balloon and lets it go. The
balloon goes up in the air. Then, Tania suddenly remembers something
and jumps up to catch it. But the balloon is too high already. Annoyed:)
Aaa, well, shit. Aaa. Again I forgot about the visas because I was sup-
posed to ask about the visas because they refuse to give them to us.
And Uncle Vanya invited us to Brooklyn. So why don’t you take care
of that since it’s easier for you. But I’ll put that in the next balloon,
details and all. Actually, I think it’s better this way. In the last bal-
loon, I stuffed it with so many requests, it went down instead of up.

43
Galaxy Video
Marc Morales
Comic

Angry Employee (twenties to thirties)

The speaker is asking the manager of a video store for her job back.

ANGRY EMPLOYEE: I met you for a short time five days ago when I came
into work. It was my first day. I was in the Folk Song Musical sec-
tion fixing tapes when I noticed four tapes that were in the wrong
place. Fort Apache, the Bronx, Empire Records, War Games, and The
Way We Were. Are any of those films folk song musicals? I don’t think
so. Then this woman comes over to me and asks if we had that movie
that had that guy in it who was in that movie with the girl who was
in that movie with that guy. (Pause.) At that moment I decided that
I hated people. So I turned myself inward to search for an answer
for what to do. I can do stuff like that: I take yoga. Quit. That was
the answer. Quit. So I quit. To myself, and I walked out. I went to
my therapist Doctor Kubrick, and I asked him why? Why do I hate
people? He replied, “Because you hate yourself.” Wow. I do hate my-
self. But why? Why do I hate myself? I turned myself inward once
again to find the answer. (Pause.) My art, I have been neglecting my
art. I am an artist. I draw little stick people. I draw them well. But
I’ve been neglecting them lately because of my yoga, and work. I love
drawing my little stick people. You should always make time for those
things that you love to do. (Pause.) I am better now. May I have my
job back?

44
Ghost Dance
Mark Stein and Frank Condon
Dramatic

Mrs. Blaine — a young woman, intelligent, energetic, and, as women were

in 1891, completely buttoned.

The jail in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Mrs. Blaine has come from
the East, along with many others, to attend the trial of Plenty Horses,
charged with the unprovoked killing, at point-blank range, of an
Army lieutenant. Secretly, however, Mrs. Blaine, the daughter-in-law
of Secretary of State James Blaine, is using the trial as a cover to hide
from the press the fact that she is really there to get a divorce. (Based
on actual events.)

MRS. BLAINE: My name is Mrs. Blaine. (Awaits some acknowledgment; none

comes.) I know a lot of women have come by to . . . view you. I’m
not one of them. I think it’s very rude, in fact, to say the least. (Then:)
God, I sound like my mother-in-law. No wonder you’re not re-
sponding. I’m here because your attorney was hoping you might talk
to me. Or, more to the point, that I might convince you to talk to
him. (Her jest gets nothing.) The reason being . . . my father-in-law
is James Blaine. (Awaits a response; none comes.) James Blaine, the Sec-
retary of State? I don’t know if Indians read newspapers. (Awaits a
response; none comes.) I only mention my father-in-law because your
case, Mr. Plenty Horses, has aroused considerable interest. (Awaits
a response; none comes.) Maybe not from you, but from others. (Still
nothing.) If you want me to leave, just say so. (Nothing.) Or don’t.
(Nothing.) How about this? If you say nothing, I’ll take that as a sign
that you want me to go. And I will. (Nothing.) OK. (Starts to leave,
but then:) Oh all right, maybe I am like all the others, but good God,
man, the Secretary of State! Does that mean nothing to you?! (Noth-
ing.) Why did you shoot the lieutenant? (Nothing.) Do you even
know? (Nothing.) I suppose even if you did, why would you tell me

45
 when you won’t even talk to your attorney. But if it was connected,
in some way, with what took place at Wounded Knee, my father-in-
law, perhaps, can help. Behind the scenes, of course. A word here, a
favor there. I don’t know if that makes any sense to you or not. Pol-
itics? I find it fascinating but I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.
(Nothing.) My mother-in-law, though never to my face, says I’m an
opportunist. That’s why I married her boy, y’see. And maybe she’s
right, in a way, I don’t know, who isn’t an opportunist?! (Stops, real-
izing she is becoming unhinged.) I’ll be frank with you, sir. I don’t know
why it should make any difference to me whether or not you hang.
For all I know, you deserve to. But I can’t help but tell you I think
you have a chance! (Confidentially now.) When I arrived at my hotel,
and saw all the spectators gathering for your trial . . . Do you even
know about that? Women especially. Which, no one wants to admit
it, but when women show an interest . . . (Realizing she’s starting to
get unglued again.) Well, that’s another matter. (Takes a moment to
collect herself.) Why did you shoot the lieutenant? (A moment then:)
I don’t know why. I need to know.

46
Highway Ulysses
Rinde Eckert
Dramatic

Waitress (thirties to forties)

Our hero, Ulysses, is on a journey through America. Here, he gets

an earful from a truck-stop waitress.

WAITRESS: You aren’t going to kill yourself, are you? You see, there’s an
eclipse in about a half an hour. You know the moon comes between
the Earth and the Sun. Anyway. Last time there was an eclipse this
guy blew himself away and we all had to stay after for the police,
and today I got to get the kids ready or they’ll miss the bus. I finally
saved enough to send them to camp, you see, and I’m off in two
hours. I can’t stay late. He just needed somebody to pay attention,
you know . . . but I suppose the eclipse didn’t help him very much. Are
you a scientist? I mean does it give off harmful rays that could do that?
You know some strange Sun/Moon stuff. D’you know science? . . . He
must have felt isolated, that guy. Me? I could use a little isolation,
what with the kids, and the family, that idiot brother going broke
modifying his cars, my mother with her coupon fixation, the back-
yard chicken business of Dad’s — all those complaints from the
neighbors. God they get diseases. And my unlucky sister with her
enormous, unemployable boyfriend. You a vet? He was a vet. That
guy who killed himself? In just two hours when I get off I put the
kids on a bus and head up somewhere for two weeks alone, no kids.
Maybe on a mountain sitting by a stream or in it, splashing naked
in a stream in the mountains, just below the tree line — some moun-
tain stream pooling under rocks, protected by leafage. I’ll take off
my clothes and sink into the cold till I’m numb — till I can’t feel
my body.

47
In the Wreckage
Matthew Wilson
Dramatic

Amy (twenties to thirties)

Amy alone in a sparsely furnished contemporary apartment.

AMY: Little Bastard. I’d say it to his face. I would so. If he was here, I’d
say, “You’re a real bastard, you bastard. You’re a real son of a bitch.”
That’s what I’d say. If he was here. Probably he’d start laughing. He’d
laugh and say, “Oh, come on, I’m not so bad,” and I’d say, “Yes, you
are, you are so bad, you little bastard, you little son of a bitch,” and
then he’d stop laughing. He’d stop because he would know that I was
serious this time. He’d know that because I’d say it to his face. If he
was here.
I know what would happen next. He’d be silent a long time.
He’d just stare at me while he tried to figure it all out. Then he’d
look at me and say, “Now listen . . . ” but I wouldn’t be listening.
Not to him. Not this time. Maybe in the past, but not anymore. I
wouldn’t have to listen to him anymore. He’d say, “Listen, I won’t
sit here and have you call me these ridiculous names.” I know he
would say that. That’s the sort of thing he always said. Then I’d tell
him, “You will, you will absolutely listen to me. You’ll listen this time.”
Oh, it would be so sweet. So sweet to finally say that to him. I’d do
it, too. Don’t tell me I wouldn’t. I’d say it right to his face.
That’s when things would really heat up. He’d start screaming now.
I’m sure of it. He’d start with the screaming, the accusations . . . He’d
tell me it was all in my head. My imagination. Some nerve. Like he
lived inside my head. He doesn’t live inside my head. Because that
was his way, you know. It was always me. It was never him. It was
never his problem. The room was never too cold for him. It had to
be too cold for you and could someone please turn up the heat be-
cause this other person is freezing to death. Like he could know if I

48
was cold. He doesn’t live inside my body and he shouldn’t say those
things. I wouldn’t let him. I’d say, “It’s not in my head, you bastard.
You little son of a bitch. It was never in my head, it was always you.
Stop saying in it was in my head. You don’t live inside my head, do
you? You don’t know what goes on there.” I’d say that to him. Damn
right. He wouldn’t know what to do, what to say. He wouldn’t know
what hit him. I can see it now. Inside my head. Because it was him,
it really was, it was . . .
Oh, I don’t know. I guess I don’t know.
No, I do know and I’m right, and, and, and . . . IT WAS HIM.
Little Bastard. That’s exactly what I would say. If he was here.
Then he would lose it. He’d really lose it. He’d start tearing
through the apartment, knocking things over. He’d keep on scream-
ing, but I wouldn’t back down. I’d tell him to take a hike. I’d tell
him he was a leech, that he sucked the life right out of people, I’d
tell him the whole world didn’t revolve around him and his prob-
lems and I’d say it to his face. I’d look him right in the eye and tell
him to quit sucking the rest of the world down in his little sinkhole.
He’d yell and scream and throw things around the room and I’d stand
my ground. I wouldn’t give in no matter what and he’d go nuts and
he’d put his fist through the window again and it would really be
something.
Wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t that be something? That would really be
something.
If he was here.

49
Laestrygonians
Don Nigro
Seriocomic

Jessie (eleven)

Jessie Armitage, age eleven, who lives with her parents and her sis-
ters in a big falling apart old house in east Ohio in 1913, writes to
her older brother John Rose, who is at this point an actor in a tour-
ing Shakespearean company in Britain. Jessie is a very bright little
girl with a sense of humor and a great capacity for love. She adores
her family, and she loves telling John about them. John is her favorite
person in the world, and she misses him very much. She speaks her
letter to us as if we were John — we don’t see her writing.

JESSIE: June 27th, 1913. Dear Johnny. It’s very hot today, and there’s a
thunderstorm coming, which I love, although everybody thinks I’m
crazy, and Mother is afraid of storms, but sometimes I sneak out and
let it rain on me until I’m soaked. When Lizzy catches me she scolds
me like the dickens and tells me I’ll get pneumonia but I just giggle
at her and pretty soon she starts giggling, too. Lizzy has a nice laugh
when she does that. I’m eleven but I act more like I’m eighteen than
she does. Mother says I’m very preconscious, but I think I’m as con-
scious as the next person. She is well and sends her love, but as usual
she and Papa barely speak to each other. Honestly, they’re so grumpy
sometimes. What’s wrong with them? And Molly keeps snipping at
me but Dorothy is my best friend because I blurt out all the things
she’d say if she could talk. We all miss you very much. I still remember
the night you left, but I wish I had a picture of you now, as that was
many years ago when I was just a tiny little innocent child of six.
Now I’m almost grown up and you’re playing beggars and dead
bodies and crazy people. I loved your story about how the cow
kept mooing in the field while poor Mr. McDuffy was trying to
be King Lear. I’m reading all the plays you’re in. Molly said I just

50
pretend to understand them so I acted Juliet’s whole death scene for
her and I was so good she cried. Molly is such a powder, I love her
a lot. She’s very pretty and boys like her. Boys don’t chase Lizzy much,
I don’t know why. Personally I think boys are stupid and should be
locked up until they’re old like Papa. Please come home and visit us
soon and don’t forget me and send me your picture. Love, Jessie.

51
Laestrygonians
Don Nigro
Seriocomic

Jessie (twenty-one)

Jessie Armitage, age twenty-one, who lives with her mother and sis-
ters in a big falling apart old house in east Ohio in 1923, writes to
her older brother John Rose, a leading man in silent movies. She is
a smart, funny, beautiful, magical girl, convinced that she has some
special destiny waiting for her, and deeply in love with her brother
John, who stays away from home and drinks too much, trying des-
perately to avoid beginning the physical relationship with her that
neither of them can help wanting. She speaks the letter to us as if
we were John — we don’t see her writing as she speaks.

JESSIE:Jessie, 25 July 1923. Dear Johnny. It’s so hot. On Saturdays I go

to town with Jimmy Casey to see your movies at the Odessa The-
atre. You’re like a handsome ghost in these movies. They’re not very
good, but you have this dark, lost quality that makes them better
than they are. I feel bad for you, because I can see pain in your eyes,
while the ghosts move across the screen and old Mrs. Dooley plays
the piano, which is badly out of tune. I imagine you in Hollywood,
engaging in orgies with starlets. I go out with lots of boys but the
only one I like is Jimmy Casey, who is quiet when I want to be quiet
and crazy when I’m feeling crazy, but I see the others so Jimmy won’t
think he’s anything special to me. He came back dangerous after the
war, and I like that. Mother and Lizzy want me to marry somebody,
probably not Jimmy, but I don’t want to. They think I’m a loose
woman, and I enjoy encouraging them in this delusion, but despite
the wild reputation I’m getting, I never let boys do anything. They
want to, but I scare them away with my mouth. Mother is sad and
lost since Papa died. Lewis is a good husband to Lizzy, but since
she lost her baby she’s very crabby, and looks down on me for running

52
around. Molly’s going to marry that rascal Cletis. I look at all these
boys and see that I’m wasting my life with them. Nobody compares
to you, Johnny. I’m still mad at you for running off and not even
saying good-bye. I let Jimmy touch my breasts sometimes when we
go swimming naked in the strip mine, and one night we went pretty
far, but I don’t want to. It’s not that I’m a nice girl. I don’t want to
be a nice girl. It’s that I’m waiting for something. I can’t help feel-
ing like I have some special destiny. Please come home and see us,
I think about you all the time, especially at night. When it’s very hot,
I sleep naked in your room. I miss you always. I really need to see
you, Johnny. Please be safe, and don’t drink so much. Love, Jessie.

53
The Lucky Believe
David Cirone
Dramatic

Jackie (thirties)

After a tragic accident where his car strikes and kills a young boy,
up-and-coming business executive Michael Ambrose wanders down-
town in a state of shock and — on a whim — catches a Greyhound
bus, abandoning the demands of his job and his marriage and trav-
eling aimlessly around the country. Weeks later, his wife Jackie tells
her sister, Sandy, about her feelings as she dresses for a “friendly” din-
ner date with her supervisor.

JACKIE: You ever have one of those dreams? You know, one of those . . .
where you wake up and you know it was a dream, but it sticks with
you? (No answer.) I had this bad one this morning! Right before I
woke up, I dreamt he called me up, and I was in the car, driving,
and he said, “I have something to tell you.” And I knew — I knew
what he was gonna say, right away. He said, “I’m getting married.”
And I said, “Good luck, call me in five months when it’s over.” And
he laughed. And then I knew — you know how in dreams you know
things, like so completely certainly? I knew he was serious. And I
said, “You’re serious,” and he said “Yes.” And I said — I’m like try-
ing to make a turn in the car and I’m screaming at him, “You suck!
I hate you!” And then there was just silence. And I woke up like that.
I was in a bad mood because of this dream. I was just pissy all day.
At the bank, I totally bitched out this teller that had forgotten to
check this batch of checks for endorsement, and they’re no good,
but they’re already in there, so we have to do all this paperwork,
and man . . . I don’t know, it just stuck with me all day. Fucking
bad day. And all because of him and he’s not even here. (Buttoning
up the dress.) Just . . . fucking . . . not . . . right. (Turns to Sandy.)
There. Look at what I’ve done to this one.

54
The Mayor ’s Limo
Mark Nassar
Seriocomic

Martel (midtwenties to late thirties)

Martel is a street hooker with a sassy attitude. She has been brought
into the detective’s room of a police precinct and asked what she may
know about a case the detectives are working on.

MARTEL: I’m in the club with my friend Boop. Well, her name is Aida
but we call her Boop ’cause she looks like Betty Boop, ya know the
cartoon. She’s got that nose . . .
All right! All right! Shhhhh. Shut up. So, anyway, we’re supposed
to be working, but we’re in this club and we did enough blow to fill
the set of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and we didn’t have any-
more. Now, Boop starts cryin’ ’cause we got no money and we’re sup-
posed to be workin’. If we come back with nothin’, Reggie’s gonna
kick our asses. So, Boop’s hysterical. I’m ready to kill the bitch. And
then this chump steps up to the bar . . . checkin’ me out. The dude’s
so looped he don’t even know we’re hookers. He breaks out his wal-
let to buy a drink. It’s stuffed with money. Hundreds are fallin’ out
and shit. (Sings it.) “Money . . . money . . . money . . . money . . .
MON-ney.” I start small talkin’ with the guy. He thinks he’s gettin’
over. So, I get on it right away. I look ’em right in the eye and I say:
“Honey, let’s stop bullshittin’ each other. I’m hot for you and you’re
hot for me. Let’s get outta here . . . let’s go to my place . . . ”
All right. All right. So, I say: “I’m hot for you and you’re hot
for me. Let’s get outta here.” And let me tell ya, this motherfucker
was ugly. He was fallin’ all over himself to get outta there and be with
me. So, we’re outta there . . . I tell Boop ta stop cryin’ and meet me
at the Big Bar. We get in this guy’s BMW . . . sucker’s got a BMW.
I tell ’im where to go and he starts driving. I say to him: “I can’t take
it anymore, you gotta let me jerk you off.” He couldn’t whip it out

55
 fast enough. He was already spottin’. I start strokin’ him nice and
slow. I didn’t want him to blow too fast. I had his dick in one hand
and I had his wallet in the other. I tell ‘im: “Honey, when you come,
I wanna hear you moan. I wanna hear you.” Well, when he was
moanin’, his wallet was goin’. Then I did the old pull-over-and-let-
me-get-some-cigarettes routine and I was outta there. Fifteen hun-
dred dollars in cash, credit cards, the works. Now that’s movin’ . . .
Guy probably didn’t know what hit him. I’m tellin’ ya, men are weak
and stupid. And thank God, ’cause that’s how I make my livin’. So,
there’s my proof. Men are weaker and stupider than women. Has
nothin’ ta do with givin’ birth.

56
New York Water
Sam Bobrick
Comic

Linda (twenties to thirties)

Linda is talking to an ardent suitor named Albert. Here she eluci-

dates why any relationship with him could not possibly work out.

LINDA: You see, Albert, I am an ultra, altruistic, dedicated Liberal, and

you, it seems, you are a lowlife, scum-sucking, piece-of-vomit Con-
servative. Oh, Albert, had we only been of different races or religions,
I know it would have been semi-smooth sailing for us all the way. But
there are too many issues to overcome. Fair housing, the homeless, equal
opportunity employment, taxing the piss out of the rich . . . Slowly,
our lives will become entangled with these unsolvable problems, and
whatever love and passion there was between us will go right down
the crapper.
It will never work, Albert. We are who we are. I’ve learned long
ago that it isn’t us that molds the city. It’s the city that molds us. The
necessity to be it, to breathe it. The necessity to eat at this year’s restau-
rant, to see this years musical . . . to permit ourselves to live in ver-
min infested, high-rent dumps, fearing constantly for our lives. The
degradation of having to journey day in and day out, in the stink-
ing, reeking, overcrowded public transportation, filled with dis-
traught, miserable, short-tempered, Gothamites, frightened to
death to make eye contact with one another, each trying to justify
this horrendous existence just for the privilege of being able to walk
into the intimidating Metropolitan Museum two or three days a year
and laud the fact that they don’t have museums like this in Peoria.
It doesn’t make sense anymore, Albert. That I know. But it is our
heritage and duty to pass it on.

57
The Nina Variations
Steven Dietz
Dramatic

Nina (early twenties)

The Nina Variations is a fascinating series of riffs on the characters

of Nina and Konstantin Treplev in Chekhov’s The Sea Gull. Here
Nina is telling Treplev about a terrifying dream she has had.

NINA: I dreamt you killed yourself and no one would tell me. I asked
them — I asked your mother and Masha and Dorn, everyone —
and they all said you’d gone away. That you’d returned to the city.
That you were working on a new play. Why would I dream that?
(She looks at him. He looks at her, but says nothing.) And, in fact, when
I returned to the city, I saw your name on a marquee. A new play
of yours was to open. Your photo was in front of the theater. And
next to it, the title of your play: Nina. And I bought a ticket, and
went in and sat down, and I watched the play. And there were peo-
ple in it. And things happened in it . . . quietly, like small quakes
within a life. And there was love. Buckets of love. And I rushed back-
stage and I cried as I embraced the actors. And I asked: “Where is
the author? Where is Konstantin Gavrilovich?” And the actress who
had played the title role — the woman who had been your Nina —
took me aside into a small room. And she took my hand. Looked
in my eyes. “The fact is . . . ” — she said — “Konstantin Gavrilovich
has killed himself.” (Long silence.) Why would I dream that?

58
No Niggers, No Jews,
No Dogs
John Henry Redwood
Dramatic

Mattie (late thirties)

Mattie, a black woman, is talking to her husband about her love for
him.

MATTIE: (Silence. Fiery.) For better or for worse. That’s what we said
eighteen years ago, and I meant it. I knew that there was going to
be times when things would be bad . . . when each of us would be
tested by God and man . . . when our marriage would have to face
forces as powerful as a tornado sweeping across a tobacco field. But,
I believed that if we just held hands and stood facing that tornado
together, that we might bend . . . bend all the way down until our
foreheads were almost touching the ground, but as long as we kept
holding on to each other hands, we would not break. And I knew
there would be times when each of us would have to face that world
out there alone, but that we could stand up to anything . . . any-
body, because the spirit of the other was with us. And when you came
in here mad and whipped by that world out there, I stood there and
said, “Give me your rage. Bring it on home to me. That’s what I’m
here for.” Because I knew that if you tried to let that rage out out-
side of this house, out there in that world, those white folks would
kill you. Every colored woman knows she has to be strong to be able
to take on the rage her man can’t let loose anywhere else. And I was
strong. And I took it on . . . absorbed it . . . head on . . . point
blank. (Softly.) And then I put my arms around you and pulled your
head to my bosom and told you that it was all right; that I knew
you were the man that world out there was afraid to let you be; that
I never asked you to be a Superman, just my man. Then I cried for

59
 you . . . cried the tears that you were too much of a man to cry. And
I did it with all the love I could muster up from the very bottom of
my being. Now I’m asking you to hold my hand and face this tor-
nado with me . . . (Mattie puts her hand out to Rawl.) . . . to have
faith in my love for you; to help me care for and accept the respon-
sibility that the Lord has given to grow inside me.

60
Omnium Gatherum
Theresa Rebeck and
Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros
Comic

Julia (thirties to forties, black)

Julia is a guest at a sumptuous dinner party. Having excused herself

to use the bathroom, she returns to regale the other dinner guests
with a description of its incredibly opulent décor.

JULIA: Well, first of all, it’s very, how shall I put it . . . Big. And My God!
All those endless mirrored walls and ceilings and then on the floor,
what was that? . . . Which is all back-lit, you know so everything
just sort of glows. . . . (Charged, a little angry.) Girl, you have to see
it! I mean, it’s big! . . . There I was, all by myself, you know, and I
suddenly became aware of this kind of infinite chorus line reflection
of me in every single mirror! I mean, I was just surrounded by ME,
hundreds of “ME’s” just sitting there. And, well, I started to feel sorry,
so sorry, like I wanted to apologize but I didn’t know to whom.
(Suddenly.) I mean, it’s really less of a bathroom and more of a shrine
to our own shit, isn’t it? . . . I was down there and I thought of my
mother and the little excursions we’d take to Bloomingdales. We’d
go up to the eighth floor where there were these little mock rooms,
all decorated to the hilt, and she’d oohh and ahhh, I mean this was
way better than a trip to the museum for her, it was more like an
archeological foray into white people’s lives only you didn’t have to
make small talk and pretend you were cozy. See, she wished that all
that luxury could be mine one day, ’cause that was a sign of real
achievement to her. But for me, hanging out in that ballroom you
call a bathroom, well, it just made me feel so far away from her and
so far away from anything real — look, no offense, Suzie, but don’t
you think having a gloriously appointed bathroom is the strangest
barometer of fulfillment you could ever imagine?

61
Orange Lemon Egg
Canary
Rinne Groff
Seriocomic

Henrietta (twenties to thirties)

Henrietta was a magician’s assistant, and she is dressed as such. I

use the word was because Henrietta is a ghost. In this monologue,
addressed directly to the audience, she talks about magic and love.

HENRIETTA: It’s easy to get stuck. I got stuck the same way it happens to
any other person: by accident. I was studying to be a nurse . . . hey,
I could have been a nurse. One day after classes, my friend, my fi-
ancé, if you’re a stickler for details, took me to see a Magic Show.
Boy oh boy, this magician. He did the usual tricks, the usual stuff —
billiard balls, cards, ummmnn, cigarettes, the classics — but it was
my first time. I had never seen, I, I, I, had never even heard of a
profession like that. I was knocked, completely. I was sitting like
this . . . (She makes a slight open-mouthed expression.) That’s proba-
bly why he chose me, called me to the stage. The stage! Plus he liked
to call on girls in the audience who had their boyfriends in tow. Their
fiancés. Stickler. He said pick a card, any card. (Whispering.) The
Queen of Hearts. I held it close to my breast. (Full-voice again.) He
told me to sit on it. Excuse me? He provided the chair. “Wait,” he
said, “Face up,” and he reached his hand under my thigh. He pulled
the card, without looking at it, naturally, flipped it, and slid it back
under. Then he asked me to part my lips. Okey-dokey. “Open your
mouth wider.” Yeah, sure. My fiancé’s watching this. He took a small
telescope and slipped it inside my open mouth, just a bit, just enough
to give me the taste of metal. When I laughed, my teeth came down
on it. “Careful,” he said. “Be careful.” I looked into his eyes. He gazed
down my throat, saw straight through every part of my insides, and
he guessed my card. He knew my card all right.

62
Orange Lemon Egg
Canary
Rinne Groff
Seriocomic

Henrietta (twenties to thirties)

Henrietta was a magician’s assistant, and she is dressed as such. I

use the word was because Henrietta is a ghost. In this monologue,
addressed directly to the audience, she talks about magic and love.

HENRIETTA: And that’s what I mean by “stuck.”

Wires? Is that what you’re thinking? Or magnets. Or mirrors.
But where would the mirrors be, sharp guy, and why didn’t she crash
through them when she came in? How could she perform the wire
rigging so quickly and impromptu? In the middle of a restaurant?
How in BeJesus’s name do you think magnets could help the situa-
tion?
Give over. Give over. Trust me: You might as well give over.
I’ve got a mark on my back, too, more horribler than hers, be-
lieve me, but I was raised in such a way . . . call me old-fashioned,
but it’s not polite to strip. I may have worked the theaters, but I was
never a roundheel and I won’t be displaying any telling marks on my
torso any time soon.
Picture it: the Hypnotic Balance. A scantily clad girl — and this
was between the world wars, mind you, when deshabillé, that’s what
they call it in France, still meant something — perfectly balanced
and serene on a sturdy, protruding, spikey shaft. Great spins me
around, chanting spells in my ear. It still gives me goosebumps. Com-
mitment, faith, trust — why not? — love. There I said it. Don’t move,
don’t even blink or the spike just might thrust right on up through
you. Don’t you want to see that? Don’t you want it? Love.

63
Out to Lunch
Joseph Langham
Seriocomic

Waitress (twenties to forties)

A waitress is talking to the busboy about her annoying customers.

Lights follow Waitress to the Busboy who doesn’t respond to her.

WAITRESS: garsh, will they ever leave? how long have they been here? is it
still Sunday? i’m not even sure it’s Sunday anymore. i think it could
be Monday or Tuesday. who knows it may be the next Sunday for
all I know. they have been here for so long, it could already be three
Sundays from now. it’s always the same, don’t they have food at their
houses? don’t they have coffee? i hate campers, do you know what a
camper is? it’s people who come in here and stay here until the frig-
gin’ judgment day. they can see that we have a line of customers out-
side. they know that this is the busiest day of the week. they don’t
care. all they think of is their friggin’ selves. you know what i hate
worse than campers? nothing. i really can’t think of anything. i think
i’d rather have red hot metal toothpicks shoved under my fingernails,
then stick my hands in a bucket of lime juice, and rinse with boil-
ing salt water, do you see? do you see how much i hate campers? i
would give up this miraculous manicure if they would just leave. see?
see my nails? they are perfect. (She looks at her own nails admiringly.
then shock.) holy frig! I BROKE A GALDANG NAIL! i bet i broke
it on the coffeepot. or on the dessert stand. (She begins to sob.) it’s
them. it’s all their fault. they broke my nail and they don’t care. and,
to top it all off, do you know what the worst part of them is? they
don’t tip. don’t they know i only get paid $2 an hour? don’t they
know i have rent to pay? and manicures! how can i fix this nail if
they don’t tip? they take up your table for a friggin’ decade and
then leave you doody! and now . . . and now . . . they want more
coffee.

64
 do you hear me? have you heard a word i said? are you deaf?
can you speak english? hello? hello? (She walks around the Busboy leer-
ingly.) my, my you are a big one. i bet you are the biggest busboy in
the world. nice tush honey. (She pats his tush. He doesn’t react.) i’ll meet
you back in the walk-in right now, big boy. i’m not wearing any panties.
you can have your way with me on the butter buckets . . . hello? ah
frig you!

65
The Pavilion
Craig Wright
Dramatic

Kari (thirties)

While attending her high school reunion, Kari has run into her first
love from high school, Peter, with whom she shares a tender mem-
ory of happier times.

KARI: Do you remember that day in the spring of junior year . . . ? It was
really hot . . . and you came and got me out of study hall and we
skipped out and went to The Sandwich Hut for a crunch cone? And
we walked down here by the lake, and I told you I was hot, and you
picked me up. Do you remember that?
You picked me up just like in a movie and you kinda dipped me
back into the water so I could get my hair wet. And when you did
that . . . I saw the sunshine upside down making . . . glittering lit-
tle bubbly patterns on the water, like I was on a Ferris wheel, kind
of, and, boom! It was like all the feelings in the lower parts of my
body swooshed back up into my head, and as you lifted me up out
of the water, I tilted up and all my thoughts, swoosh, all my sensi-
bility rushed down into my underwear and I looked at you and you
looked so handsome, Peter, I just suddenly knew it was the right time.
And I felt so silly because just like ten minutes before I had said all
that stuff to you about how I was always going to be a virgin, and I
just didn’t see why people thought sex was so important. And we
walked back to my house holding hands and your hand was shak-
ing so hard. God. (Brief pause.) To be held like that, at that age; to
see those shining things; and to walk that mile with you right down
the middle of the street . . . I don’t want to lose that. I don’t want
the universe to start over. I just want to let it go. I want to let it go
on. OK? OK?

66
The Pavilion
Craig Wright
Dramatic

Kari (thirties)

Kari is attending her high school reunion, where she has run into
her high school boyfriend, Peter. Neither’s life has turned out the way
they had hoped. Here, she is telling Peter about her husband, Hans.

KARI: Listen to this and maybe you’ll find a way. This morning, Hans was
inside me, right? — just listen, he was inside my body. If there’s any-
body else on Earth I can tell this to, it’s you. I get one life, right, and
one body, and this morning Hans was inside it. And we were all fin-
ished, but he was still on top of me and I could tell he was think-
ing about something. So I said, like a dope, “What are you thinking
about?” And he said, “A really difficult hole.” And it wasn’t even a
joke. That’s what I live with. Me and that, alone every night in a split-
level pro shop with beds for the human beings to rest on in between
rounds! On a good day, it’s bearable. On a bad day, you don’t know.
He’s so mad, Peter. In his mind, he rescued me from the jaws of ill
repute, right, because you’d dumped me and I’d had an abortion and
“oh God,” right, and he brought me out to be the Baroness Von Nine
Iron of the most beautiful executive golf course in Becker County!
And he did rescue me, kind of, see, that’s the real problem, he did!
And he was really sweet about it too, I mean, I can see his point, be-
cause I had been really lonely ever since you broke up with me, and
Hans was so chivalrous about it, he took me out around town like
it was all perfectly normal even though everybody always looked at
us funny. One time he took me to The Voyager and he announced
to the whole bar that we were getting married and he bought every-
one a round of drinks. And Arne Neubeck was really drunk, like he
always is, and he came over and said to Hans, “You just made the
biggest . . . fucking . . . mistake of your life.” And Hans punched

67
 him so fast and so hard, he knocked the wind out of that entire room
and I got a dozen roses the next day from Arne with an apology. So
Hans was really sweet, and he rescued me, and all he ever wanted
from me in return, the way he sees it, all he ever wanted from me
was a “motherfucking baby” . . . and I wouldn’t give him one, and
I won’t give him one, and his parents are all pissed off at me about it,
but he’s too nice to leave me and I can’t change, it’s just . . . bad!
It’s such an awful bad home.

68
Playing House
Brooke Berman
Dramatic

Wendy (midforties to early fifties)

Wendy is a very strong and practical healer. Here, she describes how
she found her calling.

WENDY: This is how I became a healer. I went to Hell and I came back
with a gift. I came back able to see into people and objects and the
Earth and to move things inside of them. But, first I was in Hell.
Like you. And, it was bad. I didn’t get out of bed for a long time. I
pretended I was a bear and that it was winter, and I hibernated. I
went on food stamps and unemployment, and I sold things. Just to
support my sleep habit. But I trusted and did what my insides told
me to. I took naps all the time, every day. And I cried a lot. In bed,
in the bathtub, in Central Park, in the A & P buying groceries. Ac-
tually, I never shopped at the A & P, but you know what I mean,
right? Anyway, miraculous things began to occur. While I was asleep,
the light got in and moved things inside of me. It was amazing. The
healing occurred while I was not conscious. I woke up and had this
gift. And I’d always had it only I couldn’t find it before. But once I
found it, I could use it to help people. To set them on their path. I
believe in change. I believe in healing. I believe you can make great
progress in this life.

69
Rocket Man
Steven Dietz
Dramatic

Louise (early forties)

Louise is in love with Donny (with whom she works as a surveyor)

whose wife, Rita, has left him for another man. She seeks solace in
religion. That’s the first act. The second act, in which this mono-
logue occurs, is about how everyone’s life might have been different,
had Donny made different life choices.

LOUISE: It’s odd. When I look back, I remember it as the night I couldn’t
pray.
I left Donny standing there in his attic, and I drove home.
The house was dark.
I sat in my favorite chair.
I closed my eyes.
And I tried to pray.
But my mind kept racing — as though I were trying to sleep, the
same relentless pounding in my head — and, try as I might, I
couldn’t quiet it.
I couldn’t hear the sound of my own thoughts.
I turned on the lamp, looking for something to read.
And there beside me was Donny’s portfolio.
I opened it.
And — one by one — I spread his designs and drawings all over the
floor.
I sat for hours staring at them.
Alone, in my house.
Surrounded by worlds.
When Rita called the next morning, I was still sitting there.
And I closed my eyes.
And I prayed.

70
Rocket Man
Steven Dietz
Dramatic

Rita (early forties)

When we first met Rita, in the first act, she was estranged from her
husband, Donny. Here, they are back together because the second
act of this fascinating play is about the “what-ifs” of life as in, what
if we took a different path rather than the one we in fact took. Here,
Rita is talking to her husband, Donny. Apparently, their lives’ ac-
tions are heading what we in our universe would call “backwards.”

RITA: I have maps, Donny. I have a LOT of maps. I’ve been collecting
them since the day we got married. And I saved these maps so that
one day — when we plan our honeymoon — we can decide where
we want to go —
A honeymoon is the last act of a marriage — one final adven-
ture before we’re swallowed up by youth. It’s a culmination, Donny.
And maybe that’s what we need. A “practice honeymoon.” A trip to
look at our lives before we get any younger.
A chance for you to start over. Now, look at these and decide.
I’ll go anywhere you want — but we’ve got to go somewhere. We’ve
got to get you out of this house.
Here’s the itinerary. Tell me what you think. OK. I thought we’d
start with the arboretum you did — your first big job — laid out
like the stars in Orion. Then we’ll visit the gardens you did back
East — the Corona Borealis. Then the park that won all the awards
— based on Aquila — “The Eagle.” And we’ll end up at that pro-
ject you abandoned, the design that was going to be your crowning
achievement: the Steps to the Sea. They never hired another archi-
tect, you know. They’re still waiting for you — just like I am.
Donny, you sit in the café, day after day, staring out the win-
dow, scribbling away on napkins — it’s like you’re drifting away, and

71
 I’m trying to make sense of it. One year ago, you stopped working.
And you never told me why. You said maybe, someday, you’d start
again — but when? If you wait any longer, you’ll be too young —
you’ll have too little time left. (Moving to him, looking in his eyes.)
There’s a window, Donny. A window of time for everything in our
lives. And if we let that window close, that part of us is gone. I wish
you’d say something because I really want a cigarette and I’m too mad
to kiss you.

72
Sally’s Gone, She Left
Her Name
Russell Davis
Dramatic

Sally (teens)

Sally, a very passionate teenager, is talking to her mother.

SALLY: No, come on, Mom. I’m not waking Dad. (Pause.) Mom, I’m sorry.
I get restless. In this house. I do. I don’t know how you can stay so
quiet like this. I just feel like blurting. I don’t want to turn out this
way. What we are in this house. This way of thinking. This is not
the way we should be, you and I, in this world. All comfortable.
While Dad gives shelter. No, I get restless thinking like that. Mom,
I do. I want something more. I want what Grandpa had. What made
him poor. I want how he painted.
Like that girl.
I want to be the girl Grandpa painted.
More than anything I know I want to be like that picture. Some-
thing like that picture.
Then I’d get to wear that wide headband she’s got around her
head.
And that white gown that’s so light you can see the nighttime
through it.
It floats. Like a veil.
I want to run out like that in the middle of the night. To the
ocean, more than anything I know. Far away from any town, or teach-
ers, family, or house. Just run up and down. Yes. Visit the moun-
tains and hills. Wander the wilderness. Hear my voice cry. Clap my
hands and sing. Because I think if I could do that, be some kind of
little girl spirit all over again, do that and not miss all the stuff, every-
thing in my life, the people, things to do, then I would be happy.

73
 Happy in a way for sixty years or so until I die. Go off to some other
world. Wearing nothing but this same white gown and a headband.
Except on my head I’ve embroidered: “Sally’s gone.”
That’s right. Sally’s gone.
And she left her name, so don’t try calling after her.
She’s left her name.

74
Sally’s Gone, She Left
Her Name
Russell Davis
Dramatic

Sally (teens)

Here Sally is talking to her brother about their mother, who has been
acting disengaged, to say the least, since she got out of the hospital.

SALLY: I miss Mom coming into my room at night. Telling us about Dad.
How she met Dad. And what her parents thought. (Pause.) I miss
Mom’s stories too. What she made up. About that little girl. Who
had a moat. She saw a moat all around her. Between her and the rest
of the world. Her own body even. Like she was locked up by her-
self, all alone in her mind. There was nothing she could do to cross
that moat. Nobody to rescue her. And when she became a woman,
no man on Earth, no prince of this world, could win her. The more
they tried, the deeper her moat.
Until she decided to go off in the middle of the night. Sneak
away from her land. Go to the end of the Earth. When the Earth
was still flat. And rest herself, sit on the edge of the Earth, maybe
drop off. Disappear. And nobody would know, or be to blame. But
on her way she ran out of roads. And saw what looked like a sleep-
ing beast. Between her and the edge of the Earth. And just as she
was about to sneak around, this beast woke and grabbed her. Began
to shriek. Each time the beast shrieked, a piece of the Earth broke
off until she was about to fall herself. But someone must have caught
her. Because she woke up. In an enchanted forest. And in this for-
est she could see there was no moat. (Pause.) Ragatelle. I loved to
hear about Ragatelle. Who saw a moat. Mom’s stories about the sleep-
ing beast. Ragatelle’s adventures in a forest. The wizard she met. How
Ragatelle never had to go back to the land she came from. Where

75
 she could see that moat. (Pause.) I think when we were all in that
car and Mom got hurt, I don’t think it’s because Mom banged her
head like that against the car door. Whereas the rest of us were fine.
Just walked away. I don’t think some door which closed on her put
Mom in a coma. No. Because I remember coming to the hospital,
thinking how can Mom’s body, or what she thinks, be so flimsy? How
could Mom leave us alone like this? Why is it my mom who has to
see some sleeping beast? My mom who hears this shriek? How can
I ever possibly understand, how can it be explained now, what I might
have to someday see myself at the end of this world? (Pause.) Oh, I
know Mom’s out of the hospital now. Sees a doctor. Has therapy. But
I don’t think they know what’s up with Mom. How to put her
back. I think Dr. Heisel just likes her. He calls. Misses her when
she doesn’t make an 2. But he doesn’t know about Mom. How she
looks ahead. How she can see right past. What feels so solid to all
the rest of us.

76
Second Lady
M. Kilburg Reedy
Seriocomic

Mrs. Erskine (forties to fifties)

Mrs. Erskine is the wife of a vice-presidential candidate, talking to

a large group of women and reporters at a political banquet.

She picks up the beginning of her speech again, puts on her glasses, and
reads.

MRS. ERSKINE: “The League of Women Voters can provide the leadership
needed to develop the National Community. Throughout your his-
tory you have met each challenge of the cause of democracy. I offer
you another challenge, perhaps the greatest one you have yet faced.”
(She puts down her glasses, then cracks up laughing.) I could just
about die of embarrassment saying things like that. I can hardly keep
from blushing sometimes.
(Becoming quite giddy.) Do you want to know the funniest thing
about it? I happen to know that this speech was originally written
for the Rotarians. My husband just inserted “League of Women Vot-
ers” wherever “Rotary Club” appeared. Were you feeling flattered and
pleased to know that you have consistently “met each challenge of
the cause of democracy”? Sad to say, those glowing words of praise
were never meant for you at all.
(She turns to the photos behind her.) I don’t know how they keep
a straight face. I really don’t. And they all do it, you see, all those
men. Republicans do it more than Democrats — they seem to be
born with a nose for the historical impact of a phrase. But most De-
mocrats pick it up, too, after they’ve been around for a while, and
they start to talk just the same.
Even Joseph will sometimes say things to me in a tone of voice
that makes me think he is half expecting me to write it all down. He

77
 gets this very intense look in his eyes, and he’ll say something like:
“I’m going to change the face of this country’s social welfare system.”
It makes me want to look around the room to see if anyone else
is there. Of course no one is, but who is he talking to when he says
things like that? Not only to me. I get the feeling sometimes that
I’m there to be a witness. That I’m supposed to carry his private words
and deeds with me until it’s time to pass them on to posterity. (On
the word “posterity,” she throws a paper airplane she has constructed from
the first page of her speech.)

78
Shoot
David Cirone
Dramatic
Rachel (eighteen)

Rachel, the school’s most notorious tough girl, arrives at her friend’s
house, her grocery store uniform covered in blood. She confesses that
her attempts to reconcile with her alcoholic mother have finally come
to an end.

RACHEL: I tried moving back in and giving her space and saying “yes” all
the time, and she’s still beating on me! You know? Always gotta have
her hands on me, like my shoulders, my hair . . . And today — today
after work, she came up to me, she didn’t even let me in the fuck-
ing door, and her breath . . . there was like a ton of beer on her breath,
and I knew what it was gonna be like so I said fuck it, let me just
go over Nik’s, you know? I’ll shower later, whatever. She’s talking to
me, and I’m like “whatever,” and I turn around and she punched
me — the bitch punched me, right in the back! And I’m like, I’m
thinking I’m not twelve anymore, why is she fucking around?
Doesn’t she know? She’s only like up here on me, and I’m . . . I still
can’t believe she punched me, and I sorta fell down the steps and she
threw her drink at me, and now I’m covered in her stinking alcohol,
and I just wanna get in there and change cuz there’s no way I’m com-
ing over here or going anywhere smelling like her, and when I go
past her, she grabs me right here, where she fucking bruised me. And
she threw me onto the couch and — you know I hate that fucking
couch and how it smells and when I hit it, the arm — like where
you put your arm — came off again. And when she pushed me again,
I smacked her with it. And she kept grabbing me, so I swung at again,
I had to keep hitting her until . . . (Pause.) . . . until she backed off.
So she just cursed at me and went into the room and passed out.
(Pause.) And I’m thinking — it’s over. After all those years of trying
to stay out of it, that it wasn’t . . . It wasn’t gonna ever work out.
(Pause.) So I just got the fuck outta there.

79
Smashing
Brooke Berman
Comic

Clea (early twenties)

Clea has traveled to London with her friend Abby to provide moral
support for Abby, who plans some sort of revenge against a novelist
who made his sexual liaison with her when she was a teenager into
a best-selling novel. Clea also has a Madonna fixation, to put it mildly.
Here, she is going on about Madonna to Nicky, a night clerk in a
fleabag hotel where she and Abby are staying.

Clea sits at the lobby desk where Nicky works. She can’t sleep.
CLEA: She makes it OK for a girl to be ambitious. To want. She takes things
we think of as “bad” — ambition, sex, Catholicism — and reinvents
them . . .
NO TALENT? How can you say no talent!? I’m going to pre-
tend you didn’t say that. What about postmodernism and appro-
priations? Gender iconography in the late twentieth century? She
didn’t just do yoga. She did Kabbalah. She did burning crosses. She
vogued.
And she did Evita. The Argentines freaked, but controversy feeds
her whole deal.
The tabloids say, Madonna: Has She Gone Too Far? But I say,
Is there such a thing? Is there such a thing when you are Madonna
and the world is your oyster because you never let anyone tell you
who to be or what to do or what your limitations are? No. No. There
is no such thing. Get into the groove. Open your heart. Express your-
self, don’t repress yourself. Music makes the people come together.
The Bourgeoisie and the Rebel.
Yes. We have a lot in common. Her and me, not you and me
though maybe you and me have a lot in common too, I don’t know

80
yet, but her and me, she and I, we have a bond. We’re both from
Detroit. And that’s not all. The list goes on and on.
Loads of very creative people come from Detroit. Like
Madonna and Diana Ross and me. And cars are made there. So you
see. We are deeply connected by our Root Geography. And, OK this
sounds fantastic but it’s true — we were tigers in another life and
she scratched my eyes out. It’s OK though.

81
Smashing
Brooke Berman
Comic

Clea (early twenties)

Clea has traveled to London with her friend Abby to provide moral
support for Abby, who plans some sort of revenge against a novelist
who made his sexual liaison with her when she was a teenager into
a best-selling novel. Clea also has a Madonna fixation, to put it mildly.
Here, she is going on about Madonna to Nicky, a night clerk in a
fleabag hotel where she and Abby are staying.

CLEA: Well, waiting for Madonna to give birth. But also, see, I’m actu-
ally her illegitimate secret daughter from the early days in Detroit
and I need to let her know that I exist, which I plan to do when I
find her in downward facing dog at the yoga center. Or at her house,
when I slip a note with my half of the secret locket, the one my
adopted mom gave me when I turned eighteen, to her doorman.
No, I’m totally lying. Really, really what happened is: (In one
big gulp.) Jason Stark, he’s this writer Abby lost her virginity with
when she was sixteen, he wrote a book about her and called her in
the middle of the night to let her know that the book has come out
and it’s like, essentially all about how much she sucked as a person,
but how he wants her anyway, and he needs her to be with him be-
cause he’s losing his mind or something, and I’m here because I am
her best friend. But Abby was retarded and didn’t tell Jason we were
coming so we got here and he was, I don’t even know where he is,
but I don’t have any money, I mean, I have like ten pounds or some-
thing for the whole weekend, after paying for this place. So, he has
to show up soon so I can eat. Abby doesn’t eat, but I like need to.

82
String Fever
Jacquelyn Reingold
Dramatic

Lily (late thirties to forties)

Lily (played by Cynthia Nixon in the original New York production)

is here talking to her estranged husband Matthew, who left her to
find himself, and who she hasn’t seen in a long time.

LILY: (Out/in her head.) I have tried to move on it’s not like I haven’t tried
I have. It’s a mystery. I mean, it’s bottomless. Makes no sense. I want
to touch you so bad my hands are shaking, and I can’t eat, I’m starv-
ing and, well, out of my mind, really, which makes me think there’s
not that much difference, you know, between us, I keep mine hid-
den, well so do you, but not a day goes by Matt that I don’t crave
you that I don’t have to have you that I wouldn’t stick you up my
nose or in my arm, if I could only crush you into a powder, melt
you in a spoon or drink you from a cup. You are in brightly lit close-
up and there’s nothing else and no matter how you’ve changed or
how you really look I see the answer, I see this house, I see what I
saw when we first met, even if you’re frowning I see that smile those
eyes that promise that said being close to you would make it better.
I keep thinking you’re still him, not someone else, not one of those
people you feel sorry for. And I can’t put the two together. (To him.)
So, I want to know why I’m here. I want to know what’s going on.
Let’s talk.

83
String Fever
Jacquelyn Reingold
Dramatic

Lily (late thirties to forties)

Lily is having drinks with her father. She is telling him about a man
she is dating, a physicist whose specialty is “String Theory.” In learn-
ing about this arcane theory in physics she has been helped to make
some sense of her life.

LILY: I think it’s strings, too. I think it is. I think I love that it’s strings.
That it’s a symphony, that it’s incomprehensible, that it makes sense
and it makes no sense, that every time you think you have an an-
swer you end up with another question, that we’re made up of fila-
ments that vibrate in hidden dimensions that no matter how hard
you look you can’t see, that it matters, that the tiniest vibrations mat-
ter, and that that people think about these things, that Frank does,
and that even though I can’t for the life of me understand even a frac-
tion of it, I can understand something that I didn’t use to. That meet-
ing Frank has changed the way I see things. And that I want you to
get along. Cause I love you, Dad, and I want it to work. And I re-
ally like him. I liked him instantly. OK? And I want you to see that.
Cause it matters. What’s happening here, matters.

84
Till We Meet Again
Colin and Mary Crowther
Comic

Wife (any age)

A young woman has asked an older woman what it’s like being married.

WIFE: It’s like sharing your bed with a red hot limpet who commandeers
three-quarters of the mattress — and the duvet — while you cling
desperately to the very edge. You freeze and he sweats. Halfway
through the night, when you’ve just sunk into unconsciousness be-
neath six inches of permafrost, he wakes up, flings the bedding on
the floor, complains he’s far too hot and insists that you — you, please
note — should get up and open a window to let the rest of the Siber-
ian gale — on to your side of the room. Then he screws himself into
a tiny ball with his bottom stuck right over your side. And starts to snore.
Not a gentle snore — with a regular rhythm you can half-pretend is a
lullaby, oh no. You suddenly find you’re in a pigsty with one little
piggy going snortle, snortle, another little piggy going snuff, snuff.
Total, blissful silence from the third piggy-wiggy. Till the fourth
little porker breaks out with a trumpet blast. At that point, you
realize, your feet are like slabs of ice. His are like red hot irons. You
think, I’ll have a bit of that heat. So you stretch out, very gently, ever
so carefully, place your cold feet on his hot feet and he jumps and
kicks and then it’s like having a mule in the bed. And thus, more
stunned than asleep, you finally close your stinging eyes, in a coma
of exhaustion . . . when the alarm goes off. It’s time to get up. Only
you can’t, ’cos you’re frozen stiff and your joints have locked and your
head’s splitting open. So, take your choice, love. Sleeping with a man’s
like sleeping with a limpet, a pig, or a mule. And sometimes, all three.

85
Tristan
Don Nigro
Dramatic

Bel (forty)

Bel Rhys Rose, age forty, a fragile woman who has at various times
in her life been moderately insane, appears in a white nightgown, a
small light before her, as if illuminated by candlelight, in the Gothic
old Pendragon house in east Ohio, in the year 1887. Bel is actually
telling us about her own death. Bel is the daughter of a mad carni-
val operator turned preacher, was assaulted on a tent organ as a girl,
married by her dead brother’s best friend mostly out of pity, gave birth
to dead triplet. She has managed to raise her son and counterfeit
something like sanity for a number of years until a mysterious lost
girl, Alison, shows up on the doorstep in a rainstorm. This girl
reminds her of an old love of her husband’s, and Alison’s presence
in the house preys upon Bel’s mind and leads her to have the homi-
cidal thoughts that will lead to her own death.

Bel, in a white nightgown, in the midst of darkness, a small light be-

fore her, illuminating her face as if from a candle.
BEL: Night in the dark old house. All in the dark the dragon’s foul tongue
speaks to me, whispers to go to her room. I slip out of bed, careful
not to wake my foolish husband, and creep up the steps with my
candle before me, all ahead and behind is darkness. The door to her
room is not locked. I open it carefully and go in. Sound of the tick-
ing clock by her bed. An owl in the tree by her window. At the foot
of her bed I shine the candle down upon her. Oh, she is so lovely,
sleeping there, I can hardly breathe. She looks so innocent. I want
to hold her in my arms and comfort her, but the dragon whispers
in my ear that she is the sorceress come back to kill us. Burn the witch,
whispers the dragon. Burn the witch now. His breath is fire in my
head. I hesitate, I resist. Innocent child. Dreaming of her lover, she

86
cannot see his face. But I must be strong. Then another voice comes
from the doorway, and it startles me, as anything that’s not inside
my head can startle me, and I turn briefly and there is Sarah, in her
nightgown, Sarah, who hears everything in the house, whose job has
always been to keep me out of trouble, my faithful protectress since
she was a little girl, who heard me creeping up the steps or saw the
light from the candle flash under her door as I passed by, and as I
turn, the candle drops from my hand, not on the bed of the sleep-
ing girl, but onto my own nightgown, and in a moment everything
is on fire, I am burning, breath of the dragon, burning from below,
and somebody is screaming, it must be me, and then Sarah is scream-
ing and then Alison is screaming and Sarah’s trying to get me to roll
on the floor, but the dragon whispers that the pond is cool and dark,
so I smash through the ancient windowpane and roll down the steep
roof, burning, and fall to the roof below it, burning, and then off
again onto the grass, and then I am running and falling, stumbling
and crawling toward the water, and the dragon’s breath is roaring in
my ears, and then there is the water and the ecstasy of darkness clos-
ing over me and the dragon has taken me into his mouth has en-
tered into me and has devoured me deep under the water, and the
burning is gone, and there watching me in the water I see the eyes
of the lost beloved dead I have come to join, and everything is lost,
and somehow it is all quite perfect.

87
Tristan
Don Nigro
Dramatic

Bel (forty)

Bel Rhys Rose, a recently dead woman of forty, wanders the Gothic
old east Ohio Pendragon mansion that was her home, a ghost now,
observing with great interest the passions and disasters of the living
people all around her, and attempting to understand the relation-
ship between the living and the dead. Her son Rhys has just had a
terrible quarrel with her husband Gavin, who fell and hit his head.
As the others fuss and worry, Bel, now released to some extent from
such passions, watches them and tries to understand.

BEL: Having had such a wonderful opportunity to observe the living so

closely after my untimely but spectacular demise, I’m finding my-
self more and more both fascinated and appalled by their almost com-
plete inability to focus on what actually matters in any given situation.
Once you’re dead, this is no longer a problem. You can focus re-
markably well from inside a coffin — I mean on the basic themes
and images, the central line of action in the complex and multileveled
theater, upon what’s left when the body decomposes and all else, quite
literally, falls away. Now, look at this, for example. The woman comes
between, the son nearly kills the father. I know this story. I’m sure
it must have been in one of my crazy father’s books, before we fed
it to the goat, or maybe we saw it that time we went up to Cleve-
land to hear that woman with the huge ass shrieking opera. We live
out these patterns. Our lives are an infinitely complex series of in-
terlocking plays, stretching back and forth through time and infin-
ity, the major characters of one play being the spear-carriers in
another. We play in comedy one night, tragedy the next, sometimes
both at the same time. I’ve allowed one of these men to ejaculate
into my body, and been kicked in the stomach from the inside by

88
the other one, and then pushed him out into the world amid the
damnedest screaming bloody mess you ever saw, but I pity most the
women, who carry the massive burden of life inside them, all to be
lost, all lost. It’s rather beautiful, when viewed from a certain aes-
thetic distance, but when you get up close you can’t see anything.
Life is too close while we’re living it to make any sense out of. Death
gives us a much better perspective, but by then it’s too late to do a
damned thing about anything. And that’s the beauty of it. All lost
things are beautiful, and all beautiful things are lost. What a shame.
And yet, how interesting.

89
Waiting
Lisa Soland
Seriocomic

Cindy (twenty-one)

Cindy is a twenty-one-year-old college student who is sexually ac-

tive. Youthful in age and in her level of wisdom. Talks with a perky,
rhythmic stream of consciousness. At rise, an older woman Linda,
is waiting to use the bathroom.

CINDY: (Enters and crosses to Linda.) You waiting? [(Linda nods.)] Oh. OK.
(Cindy steps into line close behind Linda and appears uncomfortable.
A long silence as Cindy and Linda wait.) I’m usually not this impa-
tient. It’s just that I’m getting a urinary track infection and when I
get those it hurts to wait. I mean, really hurts. I’m very sorry. (Con-
tinuing.) I also don’t think very clearly when I’m in this kind of pain.
I mean, it’s an icky kind of pain. (Beat.) I shouldn’t have waited this
long to try to find a bathroom. I shouldn’t have waited this long to
see a doctor. (Quickly and loudly.) God, what is taking this woman
so freakin’ long? What’s up with that? Why can’t women just pee and
get the hell on with their lives. (We hear the toilet flush from inside
the woman’s bathroom. Quickly covering her own mouth with her hand.)
Oh God, she probably heard me. (Beat.) That’s another symptom
of an approaching urinary track infection — I have no control over
my mouth either. (Loudly, as if to woman in bathroom.) Just have to
pee, that’s all. Just have to pee. (Beat.) The last time I got one of these,
I was nearly hospitalized ’cause I waited too long to go to the doc-
tor. I was trying to heal it “homeopathically.” With cranberry juice.
That’s what they tell you to do. I drank so much freakin’ cranberry
juice that I developed sores on the inside of my upper lip from the
acid. Who would have known. Too much of a good thing. Never
again. ’Course I say never again and here I am. (Beat.) It was on Valen-
tine’s Day. My friend, Eric finally took me to campus emergency

90
’cause I couldn’t physically drive, or stand up straight, for that mat-
ter. My boyfriend at the time, was out with his mother, so he said.
(Beat.) They I-V’d me and everything. My white blood count was
sky high and they told me I had a kidney infection and it was bad.
(Thinking back.) They scolded me. Do you believe it?! A twenty-one-
year-old woman and they’re talking to me as if I’m some kind of kid.
(Beat.) They asked me if I was a dance major and I said “no.” I guess
dancers get them because of the tights they gotta wear. I said, “No,
just starting another relationship.” (To self.) Just starting another re-
lationship. (Beat.) I get them when I start sleeping with a new part-
ner. I guess my body isn’t used to it or something and I get them,
but he finally showed up. (Beat.) My boyfriend. (Explaining.) The
one at the time. (Continuing, with a pleasant memory.) And he had
this big ol’ heart-shaped box of Lady Godiva chocolates and I was
starved, so we sat there and ate them together while the nurse came
in and out poking me. And he kept telling me all these stupid jokes
I had already heard a million times. (Beat.) From him. (Beat.) I mean,
what’s up with that?! (Beat.) It’s like they don’t even remember they
told you them and it makes me feel like I could be anybody. Just
anybody lying there in the emergency room. (Beat.) I tried to laugh
but I kept thinking, “This isn’t funny. Why does he keep trying to
make me laugh?” (They wait, then to Linda.) Very painful. I get them
all the time. It sucks really. I don’t know what’s up with that. (Beat.)
They tell you if you pee just before you have sex, or just after sex,
that that will take care of the problem. I guess it’s some sort of
“healthy preparation,” but it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work. I’ve tried
it. I’ve tried everything. (Blackout.)

91
Waiting
Lisa Soland
Dramatic

Linda (thirties)

Linda, thirty to forty years old, is married to Steve, a paraplegic in

a wheelchair. Due to her husband’s handicap, she has seen a darker,
unaccepting side of humanity. She is mainly talking to Truman, an
eighty-three-year-old man who has innocently asked about their life
together.

LINDA: (Out of the silence, she begins to speak.) You know, the pain never comes
from where you expect it to come from. If it did, then it would be easy.
Life would be easy. But it doesn’t. It comes from where you don’t ex-
pect it. It sneaks up behind you when you’re not looking and it takes
your heart and stretches it in directions you . . . really wouldn’t want
it to go. (Beat.) You see, you’d expect me to be sad about him, that he
can’t walk or do anything for that matter, because this is . . . a life of
action. It’s an active world. (Sarcastically.) Hell, everything worth while
requires action. Right? So you’d think I’d be in pain about that. There’s
hiking, camping skiing, traveling, sight-seeing . . . But I’m not. That
doesn’t bother me. (To Steve.) It doesn’t bother me, honey. It never
has. (Continuing.) And if I was like most pigs I’ve seen, like that . . .
(Almost insinuating Cindy’s breasts.) . . . “perky” co-ed we . . . experi-
enced earlier, I would be upset because my husband couldn’t please
me sexually but believe me, that’s not it either. You do please me ALL
the time. (After a breath.) It’s standing behind you, that bothers me.
That’s where the pain comes, from behind you. (To Truman.) Steve en-
ters a room, and I enter behind him and I watch them. (To Steve.) I
watch people, watch you, and I can’t tell you how that hurts my heart.
I just can’t tell you. It’s the pain where you don’t expect it. (Getting to
the core of it.) They live a sickening shallow existence because they be-
lieve what their eyes tell them and they never trust what they cannot
see. They cannot be patient, they cannot be silent and they can not hear
the subtle beating of their own hearts.

92
You Could Die Laughing
Billy St. John
Comic

Lucinda (fifty to sixty)

Lucinda, a has-been stand-up comedienne, has been invited by a mys-

terious TV producer to audition for a new series.

LUCINDA: You want to know about me? Sure, I’ll tell you. Lucinda Tate’s
the name. My life is an open book. It’s titled: “In the Garden of Love,
I Keep Picking the Stinkweeds.” I’ve had every kind of spouse: the
louse, the grouse, the souse, and the mouse. The louse was my first
husband, Irving. We had the ideal marriage — for about ten min-
utes. I should have realized something was wrong when he and my
maid of honor both disappeared from the reception for over an hour,
but I was young and naïve. It was two years before I came to realize
that Irving was chasing anything in a skirt . . . and I had a closet full
of slacks. I showed Irving the door; my mistake was letting husband
number two, George, come through it — George, the grouse. He
groused about everything — my cleaning, my washing, my ironing,
my cooking . . . my cooking . . . my cooking . . . Hey, I never claimed
to be Betty Crocker. Heck, I can’t even keep up with Mrs. Paul. Even-
tually, I gave George some coupons for fast-food restaurants and sent
him on his way. That brings us to husband number three, Benny
the souse. Benny had a drinking problem. I don’t joke about Benny
because that kind of problem is no laughing matter. I just mention
him to keep the record straight. I’m happy to say he later got help
and is doing well. My fourth and latest husband Willard was a mouse.
As in timid? How timid was he, you ask . . . Willard was so shy he
blushed at the sight of a plucked chicken . . . so shy that at parties
he’d stand very still in a corner and hope people would mistake him
for a statue . . . so shy that he kept his socks on when he trimmed
his toenails. As you can tell, I’m an out-there kind’ a gal, so Willard

93
 and I were not what you’d call compatible. I was fire, he was ice, and
whenever I got near him, he started to puddle. When he eventually
asked me for a divorce, I had to agree it was a good idea. Actually,
he didn’t “ask” me, he left me a note in my shoe. We untied the knot
and went our separate ways. So, Stanley, if you still want a date, look
me up when we get back to the states. I’m in the Yellow Pages under
“Desperate.”

94
You Could Die Laughing
Billy St. John
Comic

Helena (thirties)

Helena, a catty, sarcastic comedienne, has been invited to audition

for a new TV series by a mysterious producer. Here, she is performing
for the others who have also been invited.

HELENA: Nice characterization, Corky. Me, I don’t do characters. I just

talk . . . about my views, my experiences, my life in general. Hey —
let’s be specific — I usually talk about what it’s like to be a single
woman in a couple-driven society. Actually, I don’t mind being sin-
gle all that much — it’s my mother who takes another step closer to
Looneyville each time I pass another birthday unmarried. In my early
twenties, she introduced me to handsome, smart young men with
bright futures. Now she encourages me to walk down any dark alley
I come across in hopes I’ll meet a street person who’s not too picky.
For a while she called a different pizza place every night and had them
deliver a pizza to my house. She said if one of the delivery men and
I hit it off, at least I would marry a man who made sure I never go
hungry. She finally quit after I told her I had gained fifteen pounds,
and the only unattached delivery people I had met were a sixteen-
year-old boy named Ralph and a woman named Brenda. I’m still try-
ing to work off those pepperonis which went right to my thighs.
Mom still hasn’t given up, though. Every night she calls and asks me
the same question: “Darling, did you meet Mr. Wonderful today?”
“No, Mom, I met Mr. Super-ego, Mr. Mama’s Boy, and a couple of
Mr. Potato Heads.” She says that where men are concerned, my stan-
dards are too high. Well, I’m sorry, but I insist that any potential hus-
band of mine must be able to read words with more than five letters,
eat soup without dribbling on himself, and be able to breathe with-
out the help of a respirator. If those standards are too high, then Mom

95
 will just have to deal with it. I’m happy to say that last week I met
a single guy who met two out of the three criteria. Who knows? —
if my luck continues to improve, I just might meet the man for me
any day now.

96
A Young Housewife
Judy GeBauer
Dramatic

Daisy (early twenties)

In a surreal soliloquy of passion and violence, a young farm wife tries

to come to terms with having murdered a drifter. Aghast at what she
has done, she is afraid to tell her hot-tempered husband. As she walks
home from the deed in a panic, she tries to makes sense of what’s
happened. She is on a country lane that runs between an unused barn
and her house.

DAISY:I’ll tell
Daniel I’m worried. I’ll
tell Daniel he
should find some
time to go down the
hill to the old barn. I’ll
tell Daniel I think
something’s amiss there. He’ll tell
me I’m being a worrywart. He’ll
ask me what I think is amiss. I’ll
tell him I’ve seen something
moving around in that
old barn. He’ll say it’s just the
bell cow or something.

But what if he comes to look?

He’ll see it. Oh,
he’ll see it. He’ll see,
he’ll find it. I’ll
say nothing. I’ll
not mention it at all. He’ll

97
 come home for dinner and
I’ll say nothing.
I am lonely, lonely.
And that’s why.
And that’s all of why.

But I’ll have to

tell him because I
can’t just . . . pretend . . . you can’t
leave something dead in
an old barn and just
pretend it’s not there.

He touched my hands.
Touched my hands with
his rough hands.

Kissed each finger.

How hot it’s getting.

I must keep out of the sun.
I must somehow get home now.

He kissed each finger.

He kissed this little scar.
with his rough lips.
I shouldn’t have let him.
I should not have let him start.
I should have set down that plate
and walked away.
Told him
to eat and be on his way.

I should not have stayed to watch him eat.

Because he spoke to me softly

98
and because he was tender
and so tired,
and because he was so hungry
and mostly he was so lonely.
And he was passing through is all,
just passing through.

He never meant it to happen. He

wasn’t that sort. I didn’t mean
it to happen. He put aside the
plate. I touched the plate and
he touched it, too, in the
same spot at the same time. His
fingers touched my fingers.

I could tell Daniel that much.

But how can I explain why that
bread knife is in his ribs?
I can’t even explain that to my own self.
He didn’t plan to touch me,
I know he didn’t, anymore
than I planned him to. There
was no thought to it. It’s how
you come together some way. No
rhyme or reason. His hand
touched my hand and we
came together some way.

But why did I let him?

What with Daniel and all,
why did I let him? Why
did I let him make me feel
that way?
Why did I put that knife in him?
If I could explain that,
then I know Daniel would understand.

99
 I hurt him for some reason.
A kind of passion took hold of me
and it took me so fierce
I couldn’t shake it. I couldn’t
get free. I needed to slow it down,
I needed it to subside a little.
And so I hurt him. I only needed
it to stop, so much feeling at once,
It scared me, it was so strong in me.

I’d have liked to know his last name at least.

100
 RIGHTS and PERMISSIONS

THE ANASTASIA TRIALS IN THE COURT OF WOMEN. © 1992, 2003 by Carolyn Gage.
Reprinted by permission of the author. Published in an acting edition by Samuel French, Inc.,
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THE BEAUTY INSIDE. © 2003 by Catherine Filloux. Reprinted by permission of Playscripts, Inc.
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101
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102
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103
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104