Ashville, by Lucy Thurber

Hi all, I’m Hannah Roze and I’m thrilled to be joining Eileen and Shannon in MonoBlogging!

For my first week, I am sharing a piece cut together from Lucy Thurber’s ASHVILLE. (For the record: I cut it together, it’s not a true monologue!) The character is CELIA, and the piece is cut from scene eight.

ASHVILLE is one of my absolute favorite contemporary plays and Lucy Thurber my favorite contemporary playwrights. If you want to play girls with grit—intelligent, strong, down to earth, yet vulnerable females struggling against their roots— you should read Thurber’s plays, Especially the cycle of plays called THE HILLTOWN PLAYS, of which ASHVILLE is the second. (When completed all five plays were produced in rep in 2013, simultaneously in four different downtown theaters including The Rattlestick—that’s how good Lucy Thurber is!!

ASHVILLE is set in the springtime in rural Massachusetts, (where the playwright herself grew up,) on the porch and inside of a Row House that is divided into three apartments, with identical layouts. In one apartment resides:

CELIA, 16, a high school student.

SHELLEY…36, Celia’s Ma, a waitress.

Sometimes JAKE and HARRY sleep over.

JAKE…19, Celia’s boyfriend/fiancé, a construction worker.

HARRY…Shelley’s current hook up, a bum.

Inhabiting a second apartment, are:

JOEY… Jake’s older cousin, a construction worker.

AMANDA…24, a waitress, Joey’s longterm girlfriend.

The two really love each other in a lasting way.

And in the last apartment lives:

JOE…30s-mid 40s, he deals pot and is obsessed with Ulysses by James Joyce.

They are all blue collar, working people, stuck in their hometown. Best anyone can hope for is a good job and a good marriage.

This is the world Celia wants to escape.

And there is something special about Celia. There’s this hope and potential everyone senses and gravitates to, like moths to a light in the dark. She is just starting to turn men’s heads with wild curly hair and great ass. She is bright: won’t go out till her homework is done and is going to graduate high school. She doesn’t smoke like everyone else, but when she does goes out she will drink and tries an ecstasy pill.

But she is repressed, drowning in numbness. She swallows her own thoughts and feelings to be the “good girl” she is expected to be. To be the caretaker of the depressed, jealous Shelley and good girlfriend to her oblivious boyfriend, Jake.

Then: Shelley hits Celia. Celia goes over to Joe’s, gets drunk and lets him go down on her—but that’s their secret. The next morning Jake proposes; he slips a diamond ring on Celia’s finger without waiting for her answer. That night she is supposed to go out with him and the neighbors to celebrate their engagement, but ends up in a hysterics and instead runs off with Amanda. Amanda, her older, cooler, pretty neighbor, her mother’s rival. The woman Celia has secret feelings for. After a whole night running around town, avoiding their boyfriends, when it is so early it is late, the two are on the porch watching the sky and talking. And Celia makes her move:

CELIA: I want to tell you something. No. I want. I want to really tell you something. I have things to say but when I try to say them I feel like-like nothing, you know? I pick my words very carefully-I try to say what I mean- Do you see me? I want you to see me-Do you? I get touched but nobody touches me. I get kissed and I clamp on hard. I clamp down hard, I-I walk and talk. I eat, I…I want, I want someone to touch my back, to run their hand down my back…I want, I want! God, look at the sky…it’s so filled with light…And I feel…I actually feel…feel happy! Come on let's go some place else. I'll drive. Come on. We could go to New Mexico. I read in my geography book that the land is flat and the sky is big. We could get a hell of a suntan out there. We could sunbathe with our shirts off. Would you wanna do that? Sunbathe with me, with our shirts off? Would you like to see my breasts? What? This is going nowhere. Do something. Make something happen. I've been waiting all night. You said you loved me-You told my mother you loved me-I want to feel something too-I want-Fuck-You think I’m pretty. Give me a Kiss [me]. I know you want to. [Because] You’ve been staring at my mouth all night. You're gonna kiss me. You know you’re going to kiss me. You just want to talk a lot first. Don’t lie. Why are you making me make all the moves? You're older. You’re more experienced. So, Stop torturing me! [Please]