Anna Ziegler's 'Life Science'

Hi!

It's Eileen!

I'm back!

And I have three awesome plays coming your way- stay tuned!

Today's monologue is from -

LIFE SCIENCE 

BY ANNA ZIEGLER

Anna Ziegler is an amazing playwright.   Her other plays include "BFF," "Boy" (which was just Off-Broadway at Keen Company/Ensemble Studio Theatre), and "Actually" (which will be performed in the Williamstown Festival this year.)  "Life Science" is one of her lesser known plays.

Typical teens trying to determine what they mean to the political world and trying to cope with everyday teenage troubles.  Dana, Leah, and Mike are all Jewish, and are trying to figure out what that means to them.

DANA  17. Asks big, slightly inappropriate questions at slightly inappropriate times.  "An alpha girl, very pretty, and outwardly confident."  Pretends to be less smart than she is.

LEAH 17.  Feels 19.  "talkative, high-strung, a little nervous, very intelligent.  The kind of slightly geeky girl who has a handful of cool friends but isn't quite cool herself."  A self-proclaimed sad and thoughtful person.

TOM Asian.  Adopted. "Quiet but not a dork, even-keeled, modest measured, smart.  A respected loner."

MIKE "A bit of a jock, but no dummy even though he thinks he is.  He's popular and attractive."

The play begins with Leah and Tom discussing the political climate in the middle East, Antisemitism, and Jewish identity.  Well, Leah talks, and Tom just listens.  The scene quickly shifts to the most awkward sort-of date ever.  Leah's drinking.  Tom is not.  They sort-of like-like each other.  We also learn that Dana and Mike went out for eleven months and nine days, Mike wanted to sleep with her and she wasn't ready, but it's obvious that Dana still likes him.

Everyone thinks that Dana is having a "mid-life crisis"- she has decided not to go to college.  Then, she sees a news report about a twelve-year-old boy named Abdul from Lebanon whose parents were killed.  She is inspired to adopt him.

Leah and Tom make out.  It's awkward at best.  Leah says things like "your parents go away alot... don't they love you" and just as they're about to kiss "Has anyone ever told you that you look a little... I mean, young for your age?"  And then after they kiss "Did you know, you kind of... no offense or anything, but you kind of kiss like a fish? ... I wouldn't call it good.  It felt a little... inexperienced."  Leah reminds me a lot of Lucy from Charlie Brown.  Despite all of this, Leah wants to date Tom.

Neither one of them has dated before, so her idea is that they date for one year, just to have the experience.  But before he answers, Tom falls asleep.  Leah then has a short monologue where we begin to understand her problem- despite everything and everyone around her, she feels completely alone.  (This is a great monologue, though a little short- the one we'll be looking at comes a bit later in the play.)

Everyone judges Dana for wanting to adopt Abdul.  She has taken steps forward and has begun the adoption process.  Leah especially thinks she's crazy.  They fight.  It ends with

DANA. So you're afraid of who you are?

LEAH. Yes!

DANA.  Well, good.  So am I!

Dana and Mike have a fight in art class.  Mike thinks that if she wasn't ready to have sex with him, how could she possibly be ready to adopt a child.

Leah is sitting in the stairwell freaking out about college applications.  Mike begins to comfort her and quickly kisses her.  Leah immediately goes to text Tom.  She accidently texts Dana.

Leah tells Mike he kisses really well.  Mike tells Leah she's pretty.  Leah tells Mike she's imagined this happening since about the fifth grade.  Mike has trouble finding words for the way he is feeling.  Leah comforts him- "You're lonely. that's all."  They have a deep conversation- the kind of conversation that Leah has been trying to have all along.

Leah and Dana have back-to-back monologues.  We'll be looking at Leah's.  (Dana's is great, but harder to understand outside the context of the show.)  Leah is apologizing to Tom.  Dana is at her interview to see if she is a fit parent for Abdul.  But, during the interview, she has a change of heart. "From what I've heard, people become their parents; they become the parents their parents were, whether they want to or not and I just can't... inflict that on Abdul.  I just can't.  I mean, look at me.  Look at me."

Next we see a split-stage.  Mike and Dana on one side, in bed together.  They've just had sex.  Leah and Tom on the other side, making ammends.  Dana reads Mike a letter from Abdul.  She feels terrible.  Leah and Tom talk about more typical high school topics- fear of college, fear of sex, wanting to be ready for all of it.  Mike tells Dana he had sex with someone else when they were broken up, then he tells her he loves her.  She's not okay.  And that's it- that's the end of the play- a crazy conction of stereotypical high school drama, morbid thoughts, and mature existential life questions all through the lens of a couple of teenage friends.

Now, for the monologue.  Leah is apologizing to Tom.  (In the play, she is leaving him a voice mail.  I perfer to perform it as though he's standing in front of me.)

LEAH

I have an iPod Nano.  I have a Dell laptop.  I have a Samsung cell phone.  I have a J. Crew credit card.  I have eleven applications out at eleven schools.  I have a younger brother and two anxious parents.  I'm not sure who I am and what I'm meant to do.  I'm sorry that I got confused.  My mom says confusion is just this natural human thing, and unavoidable, but my dad thinks it's the mark of a weak person and I really don't want to think of myself that way, as a weak person.  Do you think I'm...?

No, what I'm trying to say is... there are just so many things... My mother was crying last night because what if I don't get into college, and what if I do?  And Dylan's obsessed with the Civil War now and his room is filled with these awful daguerreotypes and you look in these soldiers eyes and just see how they don't know this is the last picutre that they'll ever have taken of them, that tomorrow they'll be thrown onto this battlefield and they'll never come home again.

Um.  What I really mean is... I didn't mean it when I said I only wanted to go out with you temporarily.  I'm sorry for saying that.   I think it was a kind of... weak thing to say, or do to you, because I'm realizing more and more that words are acts, or deeds or whatever... and I wish I could have used mine better, impressed you more by saying the right things.  No.  I wish I could have earned your respect.  So maybe you'll give me another chance to do that?  I don't know.  I mean, it would be great if you called me.  I mean, if you wanted to call me.  But.

Okay.  So... Bye.

You Can't Take It With You by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman

This is my mom's favorite play.  Every time I do this monologue it is dedicated to her.

The Vanderhof's are crazy.  Their "living room" tells you everything you need to know about this family.  "The room we see is what is customarily described as a living room, but in this house the term is something of an understatement.  The ever-man-for-himself room would be more like it.  For here meals are eaten, plays are written, snacks collected, ballet steps practiced, xylophones played, printing presses operated- if there were room enough there would probably be ice skating... This is a house where you do as you like, no questions asked."  And yes, we see all of those things happen (and lots more) over the course of the play.

The family is happy.  They all do what they like, oblivious to the restraints (especially the financial ones) that the rest of the world allows to dictate their life.  Alice is the most "normal" one of the family (although how "normal" can you really be, growing up in a family like that?)  She has a job, and most importantly, a boy.

She is dating Tony, the vice-president of the business she works for.  And of course, his dad's the president.  And of course, the time has come for the families to meet...

Tony, listen.  You're of a different world.  A whole different kind of people.  I don't mean money or socially, that's too silly.  But your family and mine?  It just wouldn't work, Tony.  It just wouldn't work.

I love them Tony.  I love them deeply.  Some people could break away, but I couldn't.  I know they do rather strange things, but they're gay and they're fun and I don't know... there's a kind of nobility about them.

Tony.  Your mother believes in spiritualism because it's fashionable and your father raises orchids because he can afford to.  My mother writes plays because eight years ago a typewriter was delivered here by mistake.  And look at grandpa, thirty-five years ago he just quit work one day.  He went up the elevator and came right down again.  He just stopped.  He could have been a rich man, but he said he wasn't having any fun.  So, for thirty-five years he's just collected snakes and gone to circuses and commencements.

Could you explain grandpa to your father?  You couldn't Tony, you just couldn't!  I love you Tony, but I love them too.  And it's no use, Tony.  It's no use.

The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde

HI.
IT’S SHANNON.

Okay, we’ve got another good one this week (admittedly I don’t put plays I don’t like on here, but this is still way way up there), by one of the greatest English writers of all time: Oscar Wilde. The comedy of all comedies, the farce of all farces, the epitome of what it means to be quippy and British and hilarious.

That’s right ladies, this week we’re doing:

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

by Oscar Wilde

This play is a classic farce, depending on the mixing up of identities and names and ending in wealth, marriage, and love for all involved. It revolves around the young, wealthy bachelor who was found in a handbag at birth (though adopted by a rich lord we never see), Jack Worthington. Jack lives a double life: In the city he is known as Earnest, drinking and gambling and courting a young woman named Gwendolen with whom he is in love. In the country, he goes by Jack, and sets a proper example for his beautiful young ward, Cecily. Whenever he wants to switch between lives, he cites his alter-ego: Cousin Jack in the country gets sick whenever he needs rest, and his brother Earnest gets into trouble whenever the city calls. All goes well until Jack’s best friend Algernon (Algy), cousin to Jack’s beloved Gwendolen, confronts Jack about a cigarette case addressed to “Dear Uncle Jack” and discovers Jack’s double life. Upon hearing of Cecily, Algernon immediately travels to Jack’s residence in the country, where he introduces him self as the prodigal brother Earnest to the already-enchanted Cecily (and her governess, Miss Prism). He proposes to Cecily, and she accepts him immediately. Jack arrives, having proposed at last to Gwendolen (who “has always longed to be married to a man called Earnest”) and determined to end his dual life. His plot is to announce his brother dead, but upon discovering Algernon masquerading as his brother, is forced to reevaluate. They go inside to dress. Gwendolen arrives, fleeing her mother who has refused to accept her engagement, and confronts Cecily with the news that she has been engaged to Earnest Worthington (Jack). Cecily rebukes her with the information of her recent proposal to Earnest Worthington (Algernon). Just as the argument between the girls gets heated, the men enter and their true identities are revealed. Lady Bracknell (Gwendolen’s terrifying mother who has completely rejected Jack’s proposal), enters and demands Gwendolen’s return to the city. Algernon requests permission to marry Cecily, which Lady Bracknell gives. Jack, as Cecily’s ward, witholds permission for Cecily to marry Algernon unless he is permitted to marry Gwendolen. Lady Bracknell does not give that permission, and the party is at a standstill. Suddenly, Lady Bracknell spots Miss Prism (Cecily’s governess, remember). She demands the return of the baby Miss Prism lost years ago, her brother’s child (Algernon’s brother). Miss Prism confesses that she left the baby in a handbag. Jack leaps up, realizing that he was that baby, and retrieves the handbag. Lady Bracknell accepts Jack as her nephew, grants him permission to marry her daughter (because nobility and inbreeding), he grants Cecily permission to marry Algernon, and everyone is happy. And then, wanting to know his true name, Jack rushes to the catalog of generals (and their families, apparently) and finds out that his name was Earnest after all.

All are happy, the play ends.

Whew that was a long summary. It’s all very intricate and complicated and witty and ridiculous. It’s a satire of the upper class, and an endless stream of perfect, quippy one-liners that make the plot so much more than my summary (despite its length) could possibly imply, so I heartily encourage you to read it. No matter who you are, it will make you laugh.

There are two brilliant parts for girls in this play:

Gwendolen and Cecily

and their scene together is one of

the best girl/girl scenes

in all of literature.

(seriously, take a look at if you’re ever doing scenework)

But today we’ll be looking at

GWENDOLEN

This is the proposal scene, where Jack (or as Gwendolen knows him, Earnest) is proposing to her. Gwendolen knows this is coming, but is delighted anyway.

(JACK: Miss Fairfax, ever since I met you I have admired you more than any girl… I have ever met since… I met you)

GWENDOLEN: Yes, I am quite well aware of the fact. And I often wish that in public, at any rate, you had been more demonstrative. For me you have always had an irresistible fashion. Even before I met you I was far from indifferent to you. (Jack looks at her in amazement) We live, as I hope you know, Mr. Worthing, in an age of ideals. The fact is constantly mentioned in the more expensive monthly magazines, and has reached the provincial pulpits, I am told: and my ideal has always been to love someone by the name of Earnest. There is something in that name that inspires absolute confidence. The moment Algernon first mentioned to me that he had a friend called Earnest, I knew I was destined to love you.

JACK: You really love me, Gwendolen?

GWENDOLEN: Passionately!

JACK: Darling! You don’t know how happy you’ve made me.

GWENDOLEN: My Earnest!

JACK: But you don’t really mean to say that you couldn’t love me if my name wasn’t Earnest?

GWENDOLEN: But your name is Earnest.

JACK: Yes I know it is. But supposing it was something else? Do you mean you couldn’t love me then?

GWENDOLEN: Ah! That is clearly a metaphysical speculation, and like most metaphysical speculations has very little reference at all to the actual facts of real life, as we know them.

JACK: Personally, darling, to speak quite candidly, I don’t much care for the name of Earnest… I don’t think that name suits me at all.

GWENDOLEN: it suits you perfectly. It is a divine name. It has a music of its own. It produces vibrations.

JACK: Well, really, Gwendolen, I must say that I think there are lots of other much nicer names. I think Jack, for instance, a charming name.

GWENDOLEN: Jack? … No, there is very little music in the name Jack, if any at all indeed. It does not thrill. It produces no vibrations…. I have known several Jacks, and they all, without exception, were more than usually plain. Besides, Jack is a notorious domesticity for John! And I pity any woman who is married to a man called John. She would probably never be allowed to know the entrancing pleasure of a single moment’s solitude. The only really safe name is Earnest.

Isn’t it lovely? The British accent (perfect RP if you can wrangle it) is absolutely essential -- if you try to walk in with this monologue in an American accent (or anything else), people are going to look at you funny. Wilde has a very specific style, and unless you’re trying to specifically go against it, I’d recommend toeing the line as close as possible. That said, it’s absurd and fun.

As always,

read the play, post your version of the piece, and have fun!

This has been

SOMEONE MONO-BLOGGING

and again,

I’M SHANNON

ENJOY!

"Melancholy Play" by Sarah Ruhl

HI.

IT’S SHANNON.

Remember that League of Theatre Women Working In New York Right Now that I talked about in the Lucy Thurber, Killers and Other Family blog? Well, this lady is another one of those, probably one of its most famous and founding members. If you’ve never read one of her plays, you’re wrong: go to a bookstore, buy a copy of all of her plays, and read everything she’s ever written right now. Her style is very distinct -- a realm of melodrama that very few writers since Chekhov have actually managed to pull off -- and well worth having in your arsenal.

So without any further ado I present

MELANCHOLY PLAY

by Sarah Ruhl

This is a melancholy little play about melancholy. It’s slightly absurd (or maybe ‘heightened’ is a better way to put it), and highly compelling. It tells the story of Tilly, a bank employee whose melancholy is so severe that everyone she meets falls in love with her -- her therapist, her hairdresser, her tailor, her hairdresser’s girlfriend -- but she’s so melancholy she can’t love them back, or at least not in the way that they wish to be loved. Then, one day, on her birthday, she gathers them all together and feels so much love for how beautiful they are during a game of duck duck goose that she becomes irreversibly happy, and they’re all distraught because the Tilly they loved has gone. Then the hairdresser who was in love with her, Frances, drinks the precious vial of Tilly’s last melancholy tears turns into an almond (okay this one I can’t actually explain, you literally just have to read the play for this to be justified) and they all gather together and travel to the land of melancholy. The end.

… That was a terrible summary. But trust me, it’s amazing.

Sadly

(get it? Melancholy?)

we’re going to be looking at

TILLY

Tilly is melancholy. That’s her defining trait. This is a monologue delivered to Frances and Joan (the hairdresser and the hairdresser’s girlfriend), after Frances has fallen in love with Tilly and brought Tilly home to meet Joan (a nurse). This is a monologue done entirely without irony, or if there is any, it’s a self-reflective sort of irony from Tilly’s perspective, not the actor’s. Sarah Ruhl’s notes in this play say “do not be afraid of sincere melodrama” and I think this monologue is very much the height of that. We have to find Tilly’s melancholy as sexy as Frances and Joan do, or else the play as a whole doesn’t function.

TILLY: That’s funny. Everyone is always asking me: Tilly, are you still in therapy? I say something like: I had a bad day. And they say: Tilly, are you still in therapy? I go to therapy and my therapist falls in love with me. I have to be careful.

JOAN: How so?

(Tilly moves towards the audience

her speech becomes a public speech

stirring music from Julian)

TILLY:

I’m not particularly smart.

I’m not particularly beautiful.

But I suffer so well, and so often.

A stranger sees me cry --

and they see a river they haven’t

swum in --

a river in a foreign country --

so they take off their trousers

and jump in the water.

They take pictures

with a water-proof camera

they dry themselves in the sun.

They’re all dry

and I’m still wet.

Maybe my suffering is from another time.

A time when suffering was sexy.

When the afternoons, and the streets,

were full of rain.

Maybe my tears don’t come from this century.

Maybe I inherited them from old well water.

(the music stops)

Wait.

Am I acting weird?

...So good, and so difficult to pull off.

I wish I’d seen the original production of this play in 2002. But alas, I did not. Enjoy everyone! This will not  be the last Sarah Ruhl play I post up here I’m absolutely certain, but if you’re digging her style, definitely check out some of her other works: Eurydice, In the Next Room (The Vibrator Play), Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Clean House are some of her Broadway-running, Pulitzer Prize nominated plays, and I recommend her translation/adaptation of Uncle Vanya, as well.

Yeah.

Miss Ruhl is the real deal.

Anyway! Good luck! Enjoy! And if you use this monologue read the play and post for us! We’d love to hear from you!

Thanks so much!

Once again, this has been

SOMEONE MONO-BLOGGING

and

I’M SHANNON.

ENJOY!

This Is Our Youth -- Kenneth Lonergan

HI.

IT’S SHANNON.

You know that monologue you have that’s your fallback? That piece that you could probably do backwards because it’s been through like 40 auditions with you and you keep using it even though you tell yourself “I really need to get a new one” of these? (Which is probably why you’re on this site, let’s be honest) You know that one? This one’s mine. Which is kind of cheating but it’s a great young-adult contemporary female monologue which are few and far between, so… fuck it? Let’s go.

THIS IS OUR YOUTH

by Kenneth Lonergan

The play is about Warren Straub, an Upper West Side white kid struggling to figure out how to struggle against a system that has given him everything… in 1982. At the opening of the play, Warren buzzes his way into Dennis ‘Too-Cool-For-You-And-School’ Ziegler’s apartment. He’s just stolen $20,000 from his dad, packed up his prized toy collection, and made a run for it. Dennis convinces him to loan him a large part of the money for a drug-dealing scheme involving several thousand dollars worth of cocaine (it is the 80s, after all) and a night of high living for himself, Warren, his girlfriend, and his girlfriend’s friend Jessica, who Warren’s been crushing on. He and Dennis argue, smoke up (marijuana), and await the girls’ arrival. Before the girls get there, Dennis leaves to go buy the cocaine needed for their scheme. While he’s gone, Jessica arrives, without Valerie and edgy about being set up with Warren. She and Warren start to talk, bond over Warren’s antique toy collection, and Warren proposes that they make a night of it -- go to a fancy hotel, get some room service, and have sex until the sun rises. Jessica agrees, and they leave. End Act One. Act Two starts up the next day with Dennis pouncing down Warren’s throat for leaving, and then Jessica arrives, senses that Dennis knows about what happened between her and Warren the night previous, and confronts Warren about it as soon as Dennis leaves. He admits to telling Dennis, and Jessica is upset. To make it up to her he offers a gift and she asks for his most prized possession: his grandfather’s baseball cap. He consents (sort of to spite her “just kidding” response), she returns it, and leaves. He spills the cocaine Dennis had bought the previous night, and Dennis comes back in, not even upset about the cocaine because a man named Stuey, who had been living their same lifestyle, had died of a drug overdose and he’s in shock.

And that’s the end of the play. It’s very colloquial, everyone is very articulate and talks very fast and has a lot of opinions about everything that happens. Warren is awkward (played by Michael Cera in the recent Broadway production, for example), Dennis is domineering, and Jessica is high-strung.

We’re looking at

JESSICA

In this scene, Jessica has returned to see Warren: it’s the morning after they had sex, and she’s feeling insecure about it. When she arrives, Dennis lets on that he knows something, and as soon as he leaves, Jessica freaks out on Warren and confronts him for telling Dennis about their night together. She’s perturbed because she told Valerie that they hadn’t had sex and doesn’t want to lose her tenuous friendship.

WARREN: No! Will you just let me finish my-

JESSICA: (on ‘let’) But honestly, Warren? I don’t really care who you told, or what you told them, because peope are gonna think whatever they’re gonna think and you know what? There’s nothing I can do about it.

WARREN: What people? What are you talking about?

JESSICA: I don’t know, but whatever it is I must be wrong because of the way you’re yelling.

WARREN: You’re not anything!

JESSICA: Well, it really -- I should just really learn to listen to my instincts, you know? Because your instincts are never wrong. And it was totally against my instinct to come over here last night, and it was definitely against my instinct to sleep with you, but I did and now it’s too late. And now my Mom is totally furious with me, I probably ruined my friendship with Valerie, and now like Dennis Ziegler thinks I’m, like, easy pickins, or something --!

WARREN: Nobody thinks anything --

JESSICA: And it’s not like I even care what he thinks, okay? Because I don’t actually know him. Or you. Or Valerie for that matter! So it doesn’t really matter! I’ve made new friends before and I can make more new friends now if I have to. So let’s just forget that the whole thing ever happened, you can chalk one up in your book or whatever --

WARREN: I don’t have a book.

JESSICA: -- and I’ll just know better next time! Hopefully. OK? (pause)

There you have it! Short, sweet, and to the point, and easy to pin an objective to -- a little different from the four-minute tirades we’ve been doing a lot of recently.

Remember to read the play and post a video of YOUR monologue if you end up choosing this piece! I highly recommend it -- it’s great to put you in that ‘teen’ spot, and has gotten me cast time and time again.

Once again, this has been
SOMEONE MONO-BLOGGING

and

I’M SHANNON.

ENJOY!

Molly Smith Metzler's "Elemeno Pea"

HI.
IT’S SHANNON.

That whole opening thing seems to be a theme, doesn’t it?

ANYWAY. This week, I will be posting something altogether different from last week, since variation is the name of the game… except for, you know, the (mostly caucasian) young-chick thing I can’t do much about. So in an effort to change it up, I’ve got a contemporary comedic piece:

ELEMENO PEA

by Molly Smith Metzler

The play takes place in the course of two very eventful hours in the lives of Devon and her sister, Simone. Simone, an aspiring writer from outside of Buffalo, New York, has ascended from the lower-class world into the absolute top echelon of society -- Martha’s Vineyard. At the opening of the play she is working as the personal assistant to Mrs. Peter Kell (but we can call her Michaela), the (tenuous) second wife of a millionaire. Simone has brought Devon with her to her guest house on the Kell’s Vineyard estate for a long-overdue girl’s weekend, but Devon starts to question what aspirations and integrity Simone might be compromising for the substantial “perks and benis” of her position. Sure enough, Michaela herself bursts into the guest house and crowds the room with issues of her own, frantic about the possibility of losing her husband and his money (which she has signed away in their pre-nup). She even goes so far as to offer Devon money to cut her weekend with Simone short and leave the estate, because she “really needs Simone right now.” Michaela’s presence, as well as the presence of Ethan, Peter’s friend and Simone’s boyfriend (also, a salmon-colored-pant-wearing moron), turns Simone into someone Devon doesn’t recognize and Devon holds no punches in telling her so. Michaela’s underlying secrets come to light, including the consequences and cause of her husband’s ire: Peter has imminent plans to divorce Michaela for aborting their son after she discovered the child would be born a dwarf. The play ends in Simone severing her contract with Michaela (now all but destitute) to leave with Ethan and give up her dreams of being a writer. Devon and Michaela adopt a hesitant truce in allowing Simone to make her mistake.

The character WE’RE looking at today is

MICHAELA

This monologue is Michaela’s entrance, which excitingly enough means we don’t actually have to know much about her (other than what she tells us in the speech) before attacking this piece. Key to the monologue is that she’s talking to Simone, her best friend/personal assistant to whom she has gifted the guest house for the weekend. It’s the weekend after Labor Day, which to Michaela means that the seasons are changing, bringing on a great sense of melancholy. She and Peter had gone to counseling to work out the issues brought on by the abortion and had apparently improved their strained relationship, but it’s my interpretation that though Michaela’s fear of abandonment by Peter is the desperate kind of fear people tend to deny, she knows their divorce is coming — which raises the stakes of Peter’s abrupt departure from the airport that much more.

And… that’s pretty much it!

Here’s the monologue!

(I had scheduling problems with recording this week so this will be a little late but I don’t want to keep this monologue from you so here you go!)

MICHAELA: Phil wouldn’t take the jet out until the fog cleared, and Peter got all Peter about it and said he would therefore drive himself back to the city in his stupid Jaguar to which I said “honey, the fog is supposed to clear in less than an hour, why don’t we just go to Rafaella’s for oysters and by the time we’re done, it will be perfect” to which he said, “why do always try to take my balls?” and he slammed my car door shut and peeled out and left me standing there. I’m nauseated, can you get me some ice for the back of my neck?

SIMONE: Wait… I don’t understand, he?

MICHAELA: Yes! He left me at the airport. Just standing there on the tarmac with Phil and our packed jet. It was totally humiliating. I just turned around and started running.

SIMONE: (nothing about this lady is athletic) You… ran?

MICHAELA: Along the beach! Can you believe it? Totally exhilarating. I went up to the top of that lighthouse and shouted FUCK YOU PETER!! And then I kept running.

SIMONE: You ran here from the airport? That’s like six miles, Michaela

MICHAELA: I know! I know! I didn’t know where I was even running to. I just pounded the sand, you know? And then I got your video, and I couldn’t tell what the video was saying without the sound, but it seemed like you were inviting me over and so I thought, yes, I’ll pop by the guest house and I see now that it’s a good thing that I did because I specifically DID NOT WANT WHITE.

SIMONE: Let’s just slow down, okay? What’s white?

MICHAELA: (pointing to the flowers) I asked for blue! Blue hydrangea. Labor Day’s over! I said to the florist over the phone, I said, No White! If you give me white… if you fucking give me white… and did she listen Simone?

SIMONE: ...No?

MICHAELA: NO! I obviously should have done the flowers myself but for some asinine reason I thought it was more important to accompany my husband back to New York because for some asinine reason, I actually thought I… I thought we… (breaking) … And he just….

SIMONE: Okay Michaela, let’s take a big big deep breath.

MICHAELA: Why don’t I have any shoes on? I’m losing my mind now….

SIMONE: You’re not losing your mind, Michaela. Your shoes are on the floor by the door, see? You took them off/when you came in -

MICHAELA: (crying) And my makeup’s a mess now and I don’t even have my makeup bag. All my stuff is… who knows where? In the jet, I guess? I don’t even…

SIMONE: You have extra makeup bags in/all of the cars --

MICHAELA: We have to text him. Will you text him from your phone and tell him that you haven’t seen me? I want him to worry about where I am -- I want him to think I was abducted by sailors.

SIMONE: Absolutely, we can text him later. But right now you/have to calm down --

MICHAELA: Who does that son of a bitch think he is to peel out and leave me standing there with our pilot?! I am premium pussy! Isn’t that what that psychic told me, Simone?! Isn’t that what she told me? She said, YOU ARE PREMIUM PUSSY, MICHAELA!

SIMONE: You are premium pussy, Michaela! That is what you are!

DEVON: Okay. Simone? I’m… gonna find something to say now. I… am speaking.

(beat. Michaela acknowledges Devon for the first time since she’s entered.)

MICHAELA: (with formality and warmth)  Oh my God, Devon. You must be Devon. Oh, I’m so terribly sorry, please forgive me. (formal, taking her hand) I’m Mrs. Peter Kell, but you may call me Michaela. On behalf of Peter and I, welcome to Martha’s Vineyard.

--

As you can see, this monologue is actually a scene that I’ve basically cut another character out of -- creative license on my part, but Michaela is so focused on her own story the whole thing has a pretty good flow to it, and I think the monologue as a whole is hilarious. Michaela has another good one (angrily refuting Devon about the abortion itself), and Simone and Devon both have pretty good ones, so if you’re interested in what you see here, check it out! And as always, if you decide to give this piece a go (read the play first and), please comment below with a link of it! We’d love to see your interpretation!

This has been

SOMEONE MONO-BLOGGING

and again,

I’M SHANNON

ENJOY!