Birdbath by Leonard Melfi

Note: if you want to read or see this play, do so before reading/watching the following.  Many spoilers ahead.

This is the story of two messed up people.  They are messed up in ways that almost mesh, but not quite enough.

The play was developed at La Mama, performed at Theatre Genesis, and on Broadway in "Six From La Mama" at Circle-in-the-Square.  It's a two-person, one-act play about Velma Sparrow, age 26, very talkative and very nervous, and Frankie, a lost poet in his 20's. 

Velma trembles uncontrollably when she's nervous(almost the entire show).  She also talks a lot.  Frankie doesn't.  So we learn a lot more about Velma than we do about Frankie.  We learn that Velma is unsuccessful around men- she's never had a valentine and that she has an incredibly overbearing mother who criticizes her for being to skinny, then yells at her to stop eating because she'll get fat.  We hardly learn anything at all about Frankie until the final scene which takes place in his apartment.

They met playing the "game of glances" at the restaurant they work at.  Frankie doesn't like it there.  They walk to the subway together, Velma shares much of her life story, Frankie half-listens but seems sort of annoyed.  He invites her to his place anyway.

Once they get there, Frankie starts drinking.  Velma gets nervous- she shouldn't be there... what would her mother say?  Frankie starts to loosen up, he sings, he tries to get her to dance with him.  It works.  It's awkward.

Finally, Velma mentions a topic that Frankie has lots to say about- girls.  First, that all the girls he's been with get jealous of the time he spends at his typewriter.  He had a serious relationship with one girl- Carrie, but she wanted to get married and he didn't and that was that.  He wants to dance with her, to touch her, to hold her.  Velma doesn't want that.  It freaks her out.  Finally, he tries to embrace her and she pulls a knife screaming at him.  This leads into the monologue...

Note:  I've chosen to give her a long beat before the monologue to put the knife away and calm herself down.  (I don't perform this beat when I do the monologue.)  This way, when the knife comes back at the end, it can be a reveal and I think it makes the monologue more dynamic.  But, starting the monologue with the knife still at his throat could also be very interesting....

When . . . we got up this morning, my mother and me, we had coffeecake and caviar for breakfast. It was a big surprise. My mother said that we were havin’ the treat even if payday was three days away yet. She said it was sort of special celebration. My mother said that she was leaving for the mountains this afternoon. She was going to a resort with a man. Harriet, my mother’s friend who lives in the next apartment, she told my mother that there were a whole lot available man at this certain resort up in the mountains, the Catskills, I think, and my mother said she was goin’ no matter what, and that I must send her money every weekend until she has some luck. She said that I couldn’t go because I would scare the men away, that I would ruin her chances, and that I was really such an ugly girl, that I looked like the mother and she looked like the daughter . . . and then she said that was why were having the treat early: to celebrate! The coffeecake and caviar . . . and then she asked me to cut her a big piece of the coffeecake and to cover it with a whole lot of caviar . . . and so I started to cut the coffeecake with this here knife, but . . .
It’s my mother’s blood! I didn’t know what to do. I don’t . . . know why I did it! I don’t even really remember that much, Frankie. When I got in the subway to come to work afterwards it was jist like nuthin’ happened, nuthin’ at all! But do you know? I thought, I thought when my mother asked me to cover her piece of coffeecake with a whole lot of caviar, I thought . . . my mother . . . she thinks my head is a hammer! That’s what she thinks! AND IT ISN’T! IT ISN’T! Tell me, Frankie, please tell me that my head is not a hammer!