MONOLOGUES – FEMALE
Theatre II -- 2013-14
LOVE, LOSS AND WHAT I WORE by Nora and Delia Ephron. “The Shirt,” Pam, on losing her favorite shirt.
PAM. Last summer I lost my favorite shirt. Or to be more accurate, my favorite shirt vanished into thin air. When I got home from being away for the summer and I unpacked my bags, the shirt simply never materialized. I have replayed the sequence of events in my mind several times, and I have theories about what happened to it, but the fact remains that the shirt just ceased to be. The really sad part was that this came at the end of a summer when that shirt gradually revealed itself to be the perfect shirt. It was flattering (I always felt pretty in it), I liked the color and the cut, it went with all my favorite pants, it was casual and dressed down but not crappy and falling apart, it was comfortable. It was one of those shirts you have to make yourself NOT wear, because it seems every day’s outfit would be improved by it. And as silly as it may sound, I am generally happier when I have clothes like this in my life, when there’s something I know I can put on and feel good in. Something to fall back on. When I realized the shirt was gone, I couldn’t think of anything else I owned that served remotely the same function, and I felt cheated out of something truly rare and precious.
I realize that I sound like I am talking about death, or about lost love – and maybe I am. It’s probably worth noting that my relationship with my boyfriend was ending just at the same time I lost the shirt. But I could have sworn to you at the time that I was not transferring my feelings about the loss of my boyfriend onto the shirt, but was actually mourning the loss of the shirt itself. The main lesson to be learned from this experience came from the purchase of eight different shirts, which each had some likeness to the lost shirt, whether it be in color, cut, material, casualness. But none of them in any way replaced it, and I eventually had to resolve to be thankful for the time I had with the shirt and move on. At least I know what I’m looking for.
AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY, by Tracy Letts. Karen, 40,talking to her sister on the day of a family funeral about having found a good husband.
KAREN. The present. Today, here and now. I think I spent so much of my early life thinking about what’s to come, y’know, who would I marry, would he be a lawyer or a football player, would he be dark-haired and good-looking and broad-shouldered. I spent a lot of time pretending I had a husband and I’d ask him about his day at work and what was happening at the office, and did he like the dinner that I made for him and where were we going to vacation that winter and he’d surprise me with tickets to Belize . . . Then real life takes over because it always does – and things work out differently than you’d planned. I created a better husband than any man I’d ever met. And you punish yourself, tell yourself it’s your fault you can’t find a good one. I don’t know how well you remember Andrew . . . Here’s a guy I loved so intensely, and all the things he did wrong were just opportunities to make things right. So if he cheated on me I’d think to myself, “No, you love him, you love him forever, and here’s an opportunity for you to make an adjustment in the way you view the world.” And I can’t say when the precise moment was that I looked in the mirror and said, “OK, moron,” and walked out, but it kicked off this whole period of reflection. How had I screwed it up, where’d I go wrong, and before you know it you can’t move forward, you’re just suspended there, you can’t move forward because you can’t stop thinking backward, I mean, you know . . . years! Years of punishment, self-loathing.
And finally, one day I just said, “No, it’s me, it’s just me, here and now, with my music on the stereo and my glass of wine and my cat, and I don’t need anything else, I can live my life with myself.” And that’s when I met Steve. That’s how it happens, of course, you only really find it when you’re not looking for it, suddenly you turn around and there it is. Here he is, you know, a good man and he’s good to me and he’s good for me. The best thing about him is that now what I think about is now. My focus, my life, my world is now. I don’t care about the past anymore, the mistakes I made, the way I thought, I won’t go back there. And you know what the kicker is? We’re going to Belize on our honeymoon.
LOVE, LOSS AND WHAT I WORE by Nora and Delia Ephron. “The Bathrobe,” Rosie, on how her mother’s early death affected her fashion sense.
ROSIE. The truth is, I have no fashion sense – never did. For many years I blamed this on my mom’s death. Then again, I blame pretty much everything on that, my weight, my addiction to television, my inability to spell. In my fantasy world, had my mother lived, I would be extremely well-dressed. I would know what went with what, and everything I tried on would fit. Mom and I would shop together at the places that moms and daughters go – a department store, an outlet mall, the flea market. I would wear a lot of tasteful make-up too. We would lunch someplace while shopping. It would be at a café where we would have salad and like it. We’d laugh about how great our lives turned out and make plans for the things we were still going to do. But that’s all a dream, because my mother did not live. She died when she was 39 years old. (Beat) The fact is that no item of clothing has ever moved me in any way – except one. After my mom died, my father took his five motherless children to Belfast, Northern Ireland. I guess he thought we could best recover from the trauma of her death by living in a war zone. The IRA was nowhere near as scary as what had just happened to our lives. When we returned, we found her side of the closet empty. All her clothes were gone. (Beat) A few years later my dad got remarried to a lovely woman. She was a schoolteacher named Mary May. After the wedding she moved in. That first morning she was there, I was eating breakfast with a few of my siblings when my new stepmom walked down the stairs and into the kitchen. She was wearing a long burgundy velour three-quarter sleeve zip bathrobe with a thick vertical white stripe down the center, surrounding the zipper. No one said a word. We all looked at each other then back at Mary as she happily made her way to the stove to put on the kettle. My mother had had the same exact bathrobe – in blue. Electric blue. What are the chances of that really? The unspoken rule in my house was that my mom’s name was never mentioned after her death. But that morning, I knew that rule was about to be broken. My siblings left the kitchen. I was alone with Mary. “Mary,” I said. “My Mom had the same bathrobe in blue.” “Oh,” she said. And that robe disappeared. Gone. Sent away to the same place my mother’s clothes went, I assume. (Beat) To this day that bathrobe is the only piece of clothing I can actually see in my mind. I have no visuals of prom dresses or favorite sweater or shoes I couldn’t live without. Clothes are just something I use for cover, leaving room for one electric blue memory.
EYE OF THE BEHOLDER, by Heidi Decker. Fiona, a wealthy, elegant girl who relies on her beauty to open all of life’s doors.
FIONA. I didn’t make the world. Mama always told me, God made the world and it is how it is. People like me are born this way. These looks are God-given . . . and if God decided to make me better than some people, it is not my fault. She warned me all the time when I was a child, and she was right. The world has always been filled with people who are jealous of people who were born better. Like . . . like royalty and peasants! Look all through history! It’s all the same. It’s decided when you’re born, and that’s it. (pause) I have worked very hard to maintain this. People have no idea what it’s like to be me. And those people who get all that surgery to try to look like people like me . . . well, that is just the saddest thing. It’s like people who buy themselves a royal title. Oh, it seems impressive at first, until you get in a room with someone who’s the real thing.
My Mama was very brave. She took a huge risk when she had me. (pause, sincere) Well, what if I had turned out that I wasn’t like her? Can you imagine? My mama is what is known as a classic beauty. She and my Daddy were so brave . . . who know how I could have turned out. I mean, the doctors can only do so many tests . . . beyond that, you have to just have faith that God will keep you. Mama says she cried and worried and prayed for months. She even had a couple of prayer vigils with the women in her bridge club . . . and . . . here I am. Mama’s reward! I inherited just about everything from her. Well, except one thing. (pause) I’m not so brave.
LOVE, LOSS AND WHAT I WORE by Nora and Delia Ephron. “The Prom Dress.” Stephanie, reflecting on two different prom experiences.
STEPHANIE. My junior prom dress was powder blue and white. It was ribbed, with tiny ribs and a white waistband, and a white band around the bottom kind of like Cinderella, with a big powder blue bow. The problem was my date. He rang the bell, and I opened the door, and there he was, in a powder blue tuxedo with a white frilly shirt and a powder blue bow tie. We matched. It was totally mortifying. I didn’t rally like him, but I was sort of the last to be asked to the prom – not the very last but one of the last, so I didn’t really have a choice in the date or what he wore, and I had a really horrible time at the prom, and afterwards we went into a field and tipped cows. (Beat) My senior prom was completely different. My prom dress was black and short, it was in that sort of Madonna 1980s style, her “Like a Virgin” phase, tight on top and then it went out in a black net pouf and black lace gloves. My date was also short, but dark and handsome, and we ended up drinking champagne and making out in his car, and it was great. But here’s the thing – I’ve never really known for sure which of those two people I am – the girl who almost doesn’t get asked to prom at all or the girl who gets to go with a really cute guy. Every time I thought I knew which one I was, I turned out to be the other. Which is one reason why I think I got married, to, like, end the confusion.
RUINED, by Lynn Nottage. Mama, about how she has made her way in the Congo.
MAMA. My Papa work too much, always want more, no rest. He drove his farm hard, too the forest grows a man will never starve. You’re in the Congo. Things slip from our fingers like butter. When I was eleven, this white man turned up with a piece of paper. It say he has rights to my family land. (with acid.) Just like that. Taken! And you want to hear a joke? Poor old Papa bought magic from a friend, he thought a hand full of powder would give him back his land. Everyone talk diamonds, but I . . . I want a powerful slip of paper that says I can cut down forests and dig holes and build to the moon if I choose. I don’t want someone to turn up at my door, and take my life from me. Not ever again. But how does a woman get a piece of land, without having to pick up a gun?
This pebble. It doesn’t look like anything. Stupid man, give it to me to hold for a one night of company and four beers not even cold enough to quench his thirst. He said he’d be back for it and he’d pay me. It’s a rough diamond. It probably took him a half year of sifting through mud to dig up, and he promised his simple wife a Chinese motor scooter and fabric from Senegal. And here it is, in my hand, some unfortunate woman’s dream. What will I do with it? I don’t know, but as long as they are foolish enough to give it to me, I’ll keep accepting it. My mother taught me that you can follow behind everyone and walk in the dust, or you can walk ahead through the unbroken thorny brush. You may get blood on your ankles, but you arrive first and not covered in the residue of others. This land is fertile and blessed in many regards, and the men are not the only ones entitled to its bounty.
You men kill me. You come in here, drink your beer, take your pleasure,and then wanna judge the way I run my “business.” The front door swings both ways. I didn’t force anyone’s hand. I didn’t come to this place as Mama Nadi, I found her the same way miners find their wealth in the muck. I stumbled off of that road without two twigs to start a fire. I turned a basket of sweets and soggy biscuits into a business. I don’t give a damn what any of you think. This is my place, Mama Nadi’s.
ARE YOU ALL RIGHT IN THERE? By David-Matthew Barnes. Gina, a high school student musing at a party about her life in small-town America.
GINA. I’m sorry. I’m just kind of emotional right now. I think it’s graduation. I’m graduating in a month and I can’t wait to get out of here. (pause) My home town. My friends. My family. (pause) I hate these people. And I feel so . . . guilty for it. I must me the most horrible person in the entire world. I hate this party. I hate my best friend. I hate my boyfriend. (pause) But I really hate Brittany Tyler. She’s evil and and she has a bad haircut. (pause) I am so horrible. Something is seriously wrong with me. I have lived here for all of my life. I should be proud of where I come from. I should look back with fond memories and kind thoughts – but I just can’t wait to leave. (pause) I don’t know why. It’s like this . . . feeling. I wake up in the morning and just chokes me. It’s the same house and the same people and the same school – I just can’t take it anymore. I am only seventeen. I should be happy. I should be sweet. I should do a lot of charity work in the community. (Panics) What if I’m nuts? What if I need serious help – like therapy or something medieval like that? My aunt went to therapy for six months and she totally gained thirty pounds. She blew up like a house. (pause) This party is pathetic. I could be at home right now, curled up in bed and reading Wuthering Heights. Instead – I was standing in the living room and this foreign-exchange student kept staring with this weird look on his face. He comes up to me and says, “Oh, you are such a beautiful American girl!” So I looked at him – and I told him that he smelled. So he started yelling at me in his native language and he freaked me out. I thought he was psychotic. Then he walked away as if it were supposed to shatter my heart into a million tiny pieces. (pause) Pul-leaze, Don Juan – either go home or grow. So he slithered his way around the room until he found Leslie. She thinks she’s cool because she went to Paris last summer and made out with some French guy at the Eiffel Tower. I’ll tell you how I really feel about Leslie. She has the personality of a cheese grater. She’s been a cheerleader since she was in diapers and she thinks we should worship her because she knows how to jump in the air and do a cartwheel. Trust me – I have been to a football gam and I have seen the girl dance. It’s not pretty. She should consider buying herself a little bit of rhythm before she goes to college.
THE BELLES OF THE MILL, by Rubin Ladutke. Bridget Gallagher, an Irish mill worker, addressing Congress in 1912.
BRIDGET. Representative Berger and members of the Committee. I am Bridget Eileen Gallagher, from Ireland. I am eighteen years old. When I was fifteen, my mother took me to Cork and put me on a boat to America. She told me there was nothing for me in Ireland. And she was right. I was so excited to be going to America. Terrified too, o’ course. When I first got off the boat, I felt like I was in a different world from everyone and every place I’d ever known and loved. I’ve never felt so alone in my life. And I was right to be scared. I don’t mind hard work, but there’s a difference between hard work and slavery. You all may think, you may have been told, that this strike is just a group of troublemakers who want to destroy the city. But it’s not true. The strikers I’ve met have as much of a stake in Lawrence as the mill officials and politicians do. More, even. We’re the ones that live there, and ship there, and worship there. Meanwhile, not a single one of the mill officials, from second hand on up, live in Lawrence if they can afford not to. (pause) Do you know what it’s like inside of a mill? Have you ever had to set foot in one of those hellholes? Day after day, I can hardly get the sound out of my ears. Thread flying through the air. Thread working it’s way into my lungs. I once saw an older woman – she must have had years of experience – get her dress caught in the machinery. I rushed to turn it off, but it was too late. She died right there, on the floor. They came and carried her out, and the boss told us just to keep working like nothing had happened. And we did. We were afraid of losing our jobs if we stopped for five minutes. It could just as easily have been me. You get tired, and the machines go faster and faster, and there’s no chance of a break. If we want fresh water, we have to pay ten cents a week for it. And then ‘tisn’t even cold or fresh. Ever since I came to Lawrence I work six days a week in the mill. Death is all around me, death and pain and suffering. It has been since I first came to Lawrence, and I see no end to it. (pause) I love this country for what I’ve always known it could be. But working in the mills kills your hopes and dreams, and even your spirit. Do you love this country as much as I do? Aye, of course you do. You must. Nobody could live here and not realize what an amazing, wonderful place it is. You must see that strike had to happen, and that something has got to change. We’ve done what we can. Now it’s up to you.