Best Monologues from the Best American Short Plays, Volume Three Read online

  [She touches his hand.]

  It’s a joke—we’re not in tune with anything—the instruments are in tune—the people who bring the instruments to life—I didn’t know what each performance was costing him—what resources he was calling upon for each—each—what do they call it on an airplane? A reserve tank? He was running on his reserve tank. I believe they have them on racing cars—and what happens to racing cars? Well, he was out—his reserve tank was out—his wheels were blown out—he was running on rims—I’m finished, Maestro, he said—I must never attempt to play again—I laughed a comforting laugh—“Rest,” I said—“I have rested,” he answered. “I have rested two months—since my last concert—and a month before that—rest is not the answer—I am finished.” Well, what did he need? He was in perfect health—his concentration was there—the talent . . . unquestionably—the technique—impeccable—no personal problems—no drugs—alcohol—what then?—I said to him, [. . .] step back—not down—do not step down—step back—“Where?” he said—Back, I said—back to the comfort, to the family—take a chair—He was not insulted—he was not shocked—“I don’t know if I can even function in a third chair”—Of course you can—step back—He did—I found him a chair in a certain Midwestern symphony—my own group was full—a small, obscure, out-of-the-way—he performed—he supported—he looked to either side of him—he saw friends—he looked straight ahead, he saw someone else’s behind—ha-ha—sweating—not their behind—they—the soloist—he did not sweat—he played—play—that’s what we begin doing, isn’t it? —We play the violin—the fiddle—like we play hide-and-seek—we play—we play—and then as we become skilled—the play becomes—As we become brilliant—ha-ha—the pressure—to stay brilliant—to become more brilliant—the competition—the success—notoriety—celebrity—the demands of the public—Manolete—the great Spanish bullfighter—he would let the bull come closer and closer to him until after each natural—his suit of lights was slightly torn . . . closer and closer—he said, “They keep wanting more and I have no more to give.” Meaning the public . . . and the critics—and his own need to . . . surpass—So he gave the—extra inch—and it was—too much—of course—and this was a poor Gypsy boy who once used to sneak into pastures at midnight—with an old rag—to play with the bulls—play—You’re not playing, Helena—You are performing—admirably—flawlessly—except for the flat of . . . what?—Joylessness—You are—[. . .] We can’t blame it on love, Helena, love should bring out the best in us—in our art—love should nourish our talent like the rain nourishes a flower—a seed—springing it to life—to full blazing life—colors—petals—leaves. [. . .] And you can’t compare music to a flower. Heartbreak can be heard—It makes a beautiful sound—loneliness—it stimulates—practice—we turn to our instrument—for solace—comfort—no, Helena—love is the inspiration—unrequited love is the inspiration—loneliness—pain—think of Beethoven’s pain—Satie’s pain—Chopin—the études are written in blood—how many times did Brahms consider suicide?—daily—moment to moment?—Is suicide the answer? It’s an answer—for some—but only the last answer.

  Darren Canady

  excerpt from

  You’re Invited!

  from

  The Best American Short Plays 2010–2011

  setting

  An upscale kitchen in an upscale home.

  PAUL And what is so wrong with being nice? What is so wrong with a few nice people, getting together, eating some damn cake, and pretending for just a few hours that they actually enjoy each other’s company? I don’t think it’s asking too much for people to put on a happy fucking face, haul out some manners and good breeding, and do it all in the name of a four-year-old having a happy goddamned birthday. Pretend, dammit! Nice people do it all the time. I’m nice—I do it! I pretend that I want you here, in my house, choking down my four-hundred-dollar cake and guzzling down the summer punch I made from mint leaves from my own garden. Because that’s what nice queers do! We invite the half-Jew, half-black family, and the antisocial single mom to the party because they’re oughta be some goddamned solidarity even if you’re all raging jackasses and vicious bitches, which I can’t tell you you are because I’m the nice one and could a few other people please join me in being fucking nice?!

  Mac Wellman

  excerpt from

  The Sandalwood Box

  from

  The Best American Short Plays 1995–1996

  setting

  In the rain forest of South Brooklyn.

  BUS DRIVER Ever seen a bus before? This is a bus. Don’t just stand there quaking. We in the bus business don’t have all day. We live complex lives. We dream, gamble, seek, deserve a better fate than Time or Destiny, through the agency of the Unseen, allows. So get aboard if you are going to. If you dare. There, there in the valley, someone is playing a saxophone among the peonies. His heart is broke. There’s no poop in his pizzle, and surely the will of the Unseen shall bear witness and lift him up from the abyss of his . . . of his wretchedness, to the bright air above where lizards, snakes, and the mythic tortoise are . . . glub, glub . . . My basket of sandwiches flew off into the cheese that is the north end of the thing in the hot ladder. Groans and slavver. Spit and questions marked on the margin. A sale of snaps, larval coruscations. Sweet drug of oblivion. On a global scale. Flowers of unknown radiance, snarls of snails, all of a coral wonder. Just in time for the man who discovers himself stubbed, in an ashtray. Put out. All the work of the Unseen, like a wind in the sail of our hour, midnight, when we encounter the Adversary, anarchic and covered with hairs, in the form of our good neighbor’s discarded sofa, left out for the garbage man to pick up. He would like to discover the truth about what can do no harm only if it is kept, safely under lock and key, in its cage, with no poop in its pizzle, aware of us but dimly, us lost in the crunching despair of our endless opening up before the doings of the Unseen, in all our sick, sad, pathetic innocence. Innocence that is only the half-cracked euphemism for our woe, which possesses not even the required token for the train, or bus. Nor even the train to the plane. Not even the faith to enact that pizzle.

  Brent Englar

  excerpt from

  Snowbound

  from

  The Best American Short Plays 2010–2011

  Note:

  This monologue may be performed by either a male or female actor.

  time

  The present; late January. During a blizzard.

  CLIFF [Late twenties.] What if in death your soul is reunited with the souls of those you love—not merely reunited, but joined. So that by loving another person, and being loved in return, your spirit—your consciousness—is enlarged. By loving, you become a more complete person—and now I’m speaking literally—two souls become one, and the resulting person, when this soul is reborn— [. . .] The resulting person carries the accumulated wisdom of two people. And when this person loves and is loved in return, the souls join again, they’re reborn— [. . .] and the resulting person carries the accumulated wisdom of three people, or four, or sixteen, or however many lovers joined in death to create life. So that our purpose in living is to love, and in a perfect world, as we achieve our purpose, we move inexorably toward that moment when every soul that has ever existed is joined together in perfect love. And this is heaven. And this universal soul, bound by love, encompassing all creation, is God. [. . .] Enforced pain, suffering—call it what you will. When we hurt another person—whether intentional or no, I haven’t decided—we lose a piece of our soul. When we die, if on the whole we have hated more than we’ve loved, we return a less complete person—our soul is less capable of love. [. . .] What if a person deserved it? What if—the end result is the same. In an imperfect world we move inexorably away from other people until finally each soul is cut off behind an insurmountable barrier. Love is impossible. And this we call hell.

  Lisa Soland

&n
bsp; excerpt from

  Spatial Disorientation

  from

  The Best American Short Plays 2012–2013

  character

  JOHN John F. Kennedy Jr., thirty-eight years old, walks with a cane.

  time

  July 16, 1999, at 8:00 p.m.

  place

  Essex County Airport in Fairfield Township, N.J.

  setting

  We are in the terminal of the Essex County Airport, on the night of July 16, 1999, at about 8:00 p.m. The moon has just risen above the horizon but barely casts any light onto the ladder, which can be seen off in the distance, upstage left, representing the steps one must take to board JFK Junior’s private plane.

  JOHN You know, everyone thought my father was some great visionary—able to see into the future and claim what human ingenuity could accomplish if we all put our minds to it. After the Bay of Pigs, he conveniently announces that the United States is going to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, and people are shocked. They think he’s nuts. But July of 1969 rolls around and Neil Armstrong places his foot onto the surface of the moon.

  [He rises and crosses downstage, looking out window.]

  That moon. What people don’t know is that my father had access to special knowledge that could be obtained by someone like my father, in a family, like my family. He knew that the space program was more than capable of putting a man on the moon when he made that speech in May of ’61. He had the information, which made him . . . powerful really. Powerful. He wasn’t so much a visionary as he was a man who knew how to acquire truth. And the truth was what made my father powerful.

  James Armstrong

  excerpts from

  The Rainbow

  from

  The Best American Short Plays 2012–2013

  time

  The present. Labor Day. Around noon.

  place

  Bryant Park in New York City. There is a picnic blanket spread on the ground with a knapsack on top of it. Nearby is a metal table with two chairs.

  JACK It’s about a lot of things really . . . Men, and women, and love, and sex, and jealousy, and the coming together of people from different parts of the world, and there’s marriages, and struggles, and blasphemy, and faith, and this teacher who has a really creepy relationship with one of her students, but then the girl grows up, and all of these people that you’ve been following, all these different story lines, they all lead up to this one young woman, and you want, you want so badly for her to find happiness, and there’s this guy, and you think, yes, this is it, this is happiness, and everything is finally going to work out, and it doesn’t, and it can’t, and you know that it can’t, so she’s left alone at the end, and she looks out over the city, and it’s hideous, and it’s just sprawling its filth all over, and she looks up, and there’s this rainbow. And it doesn’t make it all okay. But there’s this rainbow. And you think . . . yes . . . this . . . is worth it . . . Life . . . is worth it.

  • • •

  JACK I had this . . . relationship. It lasted for a while. And then it didn’t. But it was one of those things where . . . sometimes you spend so much time with one person that . . . when they’re not there anymore . . . you just don’t know what to do. Because sometimes it was really good . . . and even when it wasn’t good . . . there was still somebody there. But then they’re not. Or not as much. And you get lonely. And you realize maybe some of the other relationships in your life . . . maybe you didn’t tend to them as much as you should have. So it was a while ago . . . but . . . I guess I’m still getting over her.

  Murray Schisgal

  excerpt from

  The Hysterical Misogynist

  from

  The Best American Short Plays 2007–2008

  scene

  The patio of the East Hampton Golf and Tennis Club. At the rim of the club’s outdoor dining area, an isolated, round, white, Formica table with four red-canvassed deck chairs. On the table, a small vase filled with seasonal flowers, a bottle of chardonnay in an iced bucket, a pitcher of water, wine and water glasses, condiments, and the half-eaten remains of lunch. Tennis racquets and containers of tennis balls lie about.

  pre-rise sound

  Offstage a main-court match is in progress. We hear a tennis ball being whacked back and forth. The crowd of spectators responds with shouts and applause to a well-played volley.

  sound

  Fades out, gradually, before . . .

  at rise

  EMANUEL “MANNY” BROOKS, wearing tennis garb, is slouched in a deck chair, disheartened if not depressed.

  time

  Summer. Midday.

  MANNY Philip . . . [Tormented.] She called me a misogynist, a man who hates women! She hurled that hideous m-word straight at me, without fanfare, without even telling me what she thought of the play. I was ready to explode!

  [Incredulously.]

  Me, a misogynist? A man who has been married twice, to women! Me, a misogynist? A man who has two grown daughters, both women! Me, a misogynist? A man who adored his mother, a woman! Me, a misogynist? A man who has worshipped women since puberty, a man who has placed women of every conceivable temperament and disposition on a lofty golden pedestal. Me, a misogynist? A man who has loved women, the smell of them, the touch of them, the sight of them, all the days and nights of his life? And not only did I have two wives, two daughters, and a mother, each and every one of them a woman, but I’ve had dozens and dozens of girlfriends: social girlfriends, professional girlfriends, sleepover girlfriends, live-in girlfriends, engaged girlfriends, married girlfriends, each and every one of them a woman! A woman whom I treated with respect, dignity, and sensitivity! Am I lying? Am I making it up, imagining it? If so, free me from this dark cave of self-deception in which I have imprisoned myself since puberty! [. . .] Conscience compels me to . . . Please. Permit me to plead my case. You’d grant that much to a rapist, a pederast, a homophobic. Why not a misogynist, a man who hates women? I have been a working playwright and screenwriter for some thirty years. I’ve had success and I’ve had failure. The awards, the applause, and shouts of “Bravo” I received were a verification of my achievements and a faint whisper of immortality. The failures I endured? They were comparable to having a knife thrust and twisted brutally into the arteries of my heart and along with it a burning, raging fever of degradation and humiliation. Equally upsetting is the awareness that, during the course of my career, there have been actors, directors, and producers who have found working with me an unpleasant ordeal. In my defense, let me say that I am not one to place congeniality and camaraderie above the quality of the work that’s being done. I am not a pet playwright to be dismissed with a squeeze and a pat on the ass. The quality of the work, at any given moment, is what counts, nothing else, not the company, not the reviews, not the receipts at the box office, not the specious applause of a fawning audience. No one has ever accused me of duplicity. I never put word to paper in order to denigrate and demean a fellow human being or to satisfy a fashionable prejudice. I write not from imagination, but from experience. I write, primarily, to find out what makes me tick as a corporeal being and, yes, to take issue with the sacrosanct conventions of our morally bankrupt society.

  [Vigorously.]

  To be denounced by your wife as a misogynist, which, nowadays, is a battle cry to castigate, to ostracize, to persecute the offender, as the Christian was persecuted during the reign of the Roman emperor Nero, as the Jew was persecuted during the Spanish Inquisition, and as the black man has been persecuted for decades in these United States of America.

  [His voice resonates.]

  I am not . . . nor have I ever been . . . a misogynist . . . a hater of women. I swear on the souls of the women I loved who have passed on and on the heads of my two priceless daughters! [. . .] Can you imagine the consequences if I, an esteemed playwrigh
t and screenwriter, a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Writers Guild, the Actors Studio and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, was publicly accused of being a . . . a . . . a misogynist? [. . .] Do you think I’d be able to raise money to do a play of mine . . . ? Forget Broadway. Forget Off-Broadway. Would I be able to raise money to do a play of mine . . .

  [Stammering.]

  . . . Off-Off . . . Off-Off . . . Off-Off-Off . . . Off-Off-Off-Off-Off-Off-Broadway?

  Craig Pospisil

  excerpt from

  Dissonance

  from

  The Best American Short Plays 2010–2011

  setting

  A room in a funeral home used for memorial services.

  FITZ [Mid- to late-forties.] People misuse the word harmony. They say it when they mean consonance, where all the notes complement each other and blend together smoothly. And consonance is sounds great. But after a while, it’s really boring. There’s no tension in music like that. Nothing to be resolved. Dissonance may not sound pretty, but it’s alive. I always like playing music that moves back and forth between consonance and dissonance. It means something’s happening. That life is struggling to go on, to lift itself up.

  [Slight pause.]

  Harmony isn’t angelic choirs or perfection. Some of the best harmony has an element of dissonance. It’s there, lurking behind the other notes, grounding the piece in reality. I think that’s why we like it. It’s beautiful, but a little ragged too.