The Whale by Samuel D. Hunter

I’ve done something VERY unconventional here- I’ve created a monologue from lines in different parts of the play.  I’m talking different scenes, different acts, dozens of pages apart.  So, if you think that’s a terrible idea, feel free to skip on over to the next post.  But, if you’re going to stick around, I bring you

THE WHALE

By Samuel D. Hunter

The play takes place over the course of five days.  It follows Charlie, a morbidly obese (we’re talking 600 lbs), very close to death, gay man.  He’s a teacher- when we meet him on Monday, he finishes the class, turns on some gay porn, and begins to masterbate.  He begins to have trouble breathing- he’s panicking and he can’t stand up.  The porn won’t stop playing.

Enter Elder Thomas, a Mormon missionary.  He immediately wants to call an ambulance.  Instead, Charlie makes him read aloud an essay.  We learn later that the essay was written by his daughter, Ellie, when she was in 8th grade.  Charlie hasn’t seen his daughter in fifteen years.  His marriage ended in divorce- his wife, Mary, fought hard for custody and won..

Charlie and Alan, his lover, were both Mormon, and began seeing each other against their parents wishes.  Alan was so troubled by this that he would hyperventilate every time they drove past the church.  One day, his dad asked him to please come to the church that day- he had written a sermon just for him.  Alan came out of the church a broken man.  He stopped eating completely.  He was taken care of only by Charlie, and his sister Liz, who discovered his body.

Liz has been Charlie’s nurse.  Throughout the play she yells at him, fusses at him, nags at him- she’s the first to tell him he has to go to the hospital. He refuses.  It’s not until the end that Liz completely loses it, because Charlie is doing the same thing Alan did, and there is nothing she can do about it.

At the end of the play, we finally learn about the sermon that caused Alan to break down and literally starve himself to death.  The sermon was about Jonah and the whale- a story about a man who turned his back on God.

If you want to see how this is all revealed- please check out the play.  For now, I’m going to switch gears and focus on Charlie’s daughter-

ELLIE

She shows up at the beginning of the week to see her father for the first time since she was two.  She is cruel… at best.

Charlie wants to know why she isn’t at school.  Turns out, she’s suspended- “I blogged about my stupid bitch lab partner.  She told her stupid bitch mom and the vice principal said it was “vaguely threatening.”  Ellie has a blog, a “trash site” where she posts pictures of her friends and her mom and insults them.  It’s like a blog, but the only thing she ever talks about is how much she doesn’t like people.  She’s failing.  Personally, socially and academically.  

Charlie wants to help.  First, he offers to help her pass her classes.  Then he offers to pay her to spend time with him.  One hundred and twenty thousand dollars to be exact.  Everything he has.  She quickly agrees.

Later on, Ellie meets Elder Thomas.  She’s horrible to him (like she is to everyone), but he sticks around.  Whether he feels a genuine connection, is intrigued by her cruelty, or thinks he can help her is anyone’s guess.  She hates him,, but she sticks around because “everyone else I know is even less attractive, interesting, and intelligent than you.”

She gets him to smoke pot.   He takes a hit, she takes a picture.

Later on, there’s a huge confrontation between Charlie, Liz, Ellie, and her mom (Mary.)  Mary knows immediately that Charlie’s promised Ellie all of his money.  It turns out, Charlie has put almost all of his earnings from teaching into a savings account for Ellie.  Liz had no idea.  She’s been doing his shopping from a bank account which holds less than seven hundred dollars.  She’s furious- they could have afforded all the medical care he needed, but he still refuses to even go to the hospital.  As the fight concludes, everyone exits, leaving Charlie and Mary alone for the first time in fifteen years.  They talk about Ellie- Mary says that she’s an evil girl.  Charlie thinks that getting to know her has been amazing.  She has a “strong personality” he says.  In this scene we learn why Charlie is so intent on helping Ellie in some way- “I need to know I did one thing right in my life.”

Next, we learn that Ellie posted the pictures she took of Elder Thomas smoking pot- she told his parents where he was.  “And my parents saw the pictures, and they called the church here in town, and they told them where I was staying, and I can’t figure out whether she was trying to help me or hurt me… I thought my parents were going to disown me, and you know what they said?  They said they loved me, they cared about me,and they wanted me to come home.”  Charlie believes that Ellie was trying to help him.  He has to believe it.  “Do you ever get that feeling? He says to Liz, “that people are incapable of not caring?”  I believe that is the key to Ellie.

THE AMBULANCE IS COMING THEY’LL TAKE YOU TO THE HOSPITAL  YOU SHOULD HAVE GONE AWHILE AGO

I FAILED  ARE YOU JUST TRYING TO SCREW ME OVER ONE LAST TIME BEFORE YOU DIE  I DON’T CARE THAT YOU’RE DYING  I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU  DO YOU WANT ME TO FAIL OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL  IS THAT WHY YOU DID THIS

YOU’RE JUST LIKE MY IDIOT TEACHERS YOU THINK BECAUSE I DON’T GO NUTS OVER SOME STUPID LITTLE POEM IT’S BECAUSE I’M TOO STUPID TO UNDERSTAND IT  MAYBE I DO UNDERSTAND IT  MAYBE I UNDERSTAND EXACTLY WHAT THIS POEM IS ABOUT  BUT I JUST DON’T CARE BECAUSE IT WAS WRITTEN BY SOME SELF-INVOLVED MORON AND EVEN THOUGH HE THINKS THAT HIS “METAPHOR FOR THE SELF” IS DEEP AND SHIT IT’S ACTUALLY JUST SOME STUPID LITTLE POEM AND IT DOESN’T MEAN ANYTHING  HOW ABOUT THAT

I’M A SMART PERSON  I NEVER FORGET ANYTHING  IN THE LIVING ROOM WITH THAT OLD RED COUCH AND THE TV WITH THE WOOD FRAME  AND YOU WERE ON THE FLOOR AND MOM WAS SCREAMING AT YOU AND YOU WERE JUST APOLOGIZING OVER AND OVER YOU WERE SO PATHETIC  I REMEMBER THAT

CAN I HAVE ONE OF THOSE DONUTS

I CAN’T BE HERE RIGHT NOW  I HAVE TO GO  I CAN’T  THE AMBULANCE IS COMING THEY’LL HELP YOU  YOU’RE GOING TO THE HOSPITAL  YOU JUST NEED SURGERY OR SOMETHING  YOU ASSHOLE  YOU FAT FUCKING ASSHOLE DAD PLEASE