CLOSING NOTICES - (Four Dramatic one acts - various ages, doubling permitted.)
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FERRY ANGEL (Drama 2f, 1m)by Lori Jean SigristSet on the Staten Island Ferry, an angel intervenes in the life of a distraught passenger contemplating suicide.
'CLOSING NOTICES' (Drama, 2m)A disgruntled playwright / actor holds his audience, including the Theatre critic he hates, hostage during opening night of his one man retrospective!
HALRYDER (drama 4m,1f) Based on true events, an inventor who comes up with a device which allows a car to run on tap water is confronted by the government and big oil.
TEN MORE WEDNESDAYS (Drama, 2m, 1 f)Alicia has a secret that is revealed after a visit from her brothers college classmate. Order this play on Amazon books: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1687871698 For licensing inquiries on this and other titles, please contact: Brian ShermanIPEX Theatrical Artistsp: 646-355-8050e: info@ipexartists.com SAMPLE DIALOUGE: This Book Contains the following one act plays:
CLOSING NOTICES by Joe Simonelli
FERRY ANGEL by Lori Jean Sigrist
HAYRYDER by Joe Simonelli
TEN MORE WEDNESDAYS by Joe Simonelli
CLOSING NOTICESByJoe Simonelli
(Based on an idea from Michael Chartier)
CHARACTERS
Albert Caton - A Playwright/actor
Ethan Walker - A theatre Critic
THIS PLAY IS PERFORMED IN ONE ACT WITH NO INTERMISION
SETTING: A theatre in New York city. It is Opening night of Albert Caton’s one man show.AT RISE: An empty stage save for a stool center stage and a small potted plant which sits on another smaller stool stage right.
(author’s note: The character of Ethan Walker is seated in the third row of the audience as the play starts)The house lights go down as a recorded message reminds the audience to turn off their cell phones, take notice of the fire exits, refrain from flash photography ect. Then, with a recorded (or live) fanfare it is announced ‘Here is that well know actor and playwright in his new one man play titled ‘Stage Door Memories’,Albert Caton!
(Albert enters as spot light follows him to the stool center stage)
ALBERT. Thank you ladies and gentleman, I’m Albert Caton and this performance is fondly titled, stage door memories. A remembrance of my life in the Theatre… Ah, show business, isn’t it great!The smell of the grease paint, the lights, the orchestra warming up in the pit. Or in the case of tonight’s performance my stage manager Frank, doubling on piano just off stage! I tell you, this is the life. I mean you really know you’ve made it in show business when you ask for flowers on the set and get a potted plant on a stool that was purchased from the Deli across the street from the theatre. So how did I wind up where I am today? A bare stage, well practically a bare stage, in front of you nice theatre goers? I guess you would say that the acting bug got me way back in the second grade when I volunteered to sing a song in front of the class. I’ll never forget, it was Alan Sherman’s ‘Hello Mudda, Hello Father” remember that one? Music starts and a few strains of “The rights of spring” start playing as he sings a few verses.
“hello Mudda, hello fadda, here I am at camp Granada, camp is very entertaining, and they say I’ll have some fun if it stops raining.”
That was a great song. Sister Mary Jeneine decided she loved it and dragged me to every classroom up through the fifth grade to sing in front of the other kids. When she informed my mother of this fact my mom was flabbergasted as I hardly said two words at home. When my father heard about it he was even more amazed and being a good Italian American from Brooklyn he decided to immediately put me to work in the family business. So he handed me a violin case and told me to get into the car….wait a minute, I know what you’re thinking, it wasn’t that kind of a family business. My old man was a musician. Had his own Wedding band in Brooklyn, the Arnie Caton Orchestra! He shortened his name for business purposes, his real moniker being Arnold Albert Catania! I inherited his middle name and the rest is history. So anyway, here I am, this seven year old kid being schlepped along to all these big Catering halls around Brooklyn and singing my one number each night. A very popular song at the time, Winchester Cathedral!
Can I have a few bars maestro!
The music starts as he sings a few bars. (he hold his nose for effect or uses a megaphone as this was the ‘Rudy Vali’ style in which the song was recorded)
Winchester Cathedral, your bringing me down, you stood and you watched as, my baby left town, you could have done something, but you didn’t try, you stood an you watched as, my baby walked by….
The tips they threw at me! I mean, here I am, this seven year old kid and the people from the wedding are throwing singles and five dollar bills at me….not bad for the mid 1960’s! And I got to dine on prime rib and wedding cake all the time. Yeah, I think my old man was on to something with this show biz deal. And he got paid to do it to boot! I also have him to thank for a very high cholesterol level but who thought about that in nineteen sixty six.
Then came senior year of high school and the school play, “West Side Story’! I was cast as Riff and had the time of my life. My old man wasn’t too thrilled because the performances conflicted with the wedding gigs and I couldn’t be in two places at once. And I wasn’t getting paid to be performing in or writing plays… yet. Oh yes the playwrighting, the main thing I’m known for. You might be curious to know how that started. Well I guess I started writing shows when I was twelve years old and working as a junior counselor at summer camp. They needed someone to put on puppet shows for the younger kids so me and my friend Pete Polasky volunteered for the job. All we had was some old hand puppets, most of them based on whatever cartoon characters were popular in those days. Our muse was an old puppet stage, a few hand puppets and our imaginations so we started writing our own scripts based on the characters at hand. Only we set them in the real domestic situations that we knew. Yogi bear was an alcoholic, Huckleberry hound was the effeminate kid from up the block. We even threw in fake commercials long before it was popularized on Saturday Night Live. I remember having a puppet holding a toy house from a monopoly set and saying “You’re in good hands with All State” before dropping the house off the stage and uttering ‘oops!’
We started getting real popular, we even had a third kid, Billy Spooner, collecting a dime admittance fee at the door for a free show. Eventually camp management shut us down but even then I saw that show business could be a profitable venture….if the show was any good. Of course in summer camp you didn’t have theatre critics to pan your show and shut you down.No. The audience pretty much told you if the show was any good and kept coming back for more. Not so in the big cities. Not so when you’re a New York playwright and actor. See, to make it in New York you have put on a few small shows off -off Broadway and see if they catch on! Not easy to do, Not easy to keep a show running off-off anywhere much less the big apple. You gotta sink your life savings into the venture. Maybe your marriage breaks up cause your wife things you’re a crazy dreamer and wants you to stay home and nine to five it. You probably have to live at that theatre and wait tables at some greasy spoon in the city because you can’t afford to pay both the theatre rent and an apartment plus the alimony payments to your ex. So you sleep on the prop couch on stage and wash in the theatre restroom. And you never give up. You keep the show going till it finds it’s audience and the word of mouth spreads. You’re doing just great. The critic from the village voice shows up and he has no choice but to love the show because he see’s how much the audience is laughing and enjoying it and who is he to buck the system. So you move it to a bigger venue off Broadway and finally it’s getting out of town runs!….
(He pauses and looks out into the audience)
yeah, the New York critics, they can make or break you in this town. You can be a successful playwright one day, five great plays in a row, then you try to break away from the formula and write one different play. I don’t know, maybe it’s hubris, maybe it’s catharsis but you write one that’s just a little unsettling. You’re trying to provoke your audience for a change, maybe like you did with the mock commercials in the puppet shows when you were a kid. Maybe you need to write this one for therapy, for your own sanity…and it isn’t pretty, it isn’t a laugh out loud comedy, it’s more like David Mamet meets Eugene O’Neil but it’s a tough economy out there and nobody wants to come to the theatre to be depressed and hear about all your veiled childhood issues. Not even the New York critic, who’s supposed to know better and not judge pieces for their commercial value but for their content. Like they did back in the nineteen fifties and sixties. Ah but in two thousand eleven Broadway theatre is big business! Who knows what the critic’s motivation really is? How did he get that critic’s job anyway? What qualifies him. Is he the city desk editors first cousin. Did he teach a few theatre courses at a community college? So you put this play on and it gets panned. It gets roasted. And even though you’ve had five hits in a row before that, no one cares. Nobody wants to hear it, especially big Broadway producers who only care about the bottom line. So they just keep recycling the old standard musicals from the golden days of the fifties and sixties and occasionally they’ll fashion a new musical from an old television show we all grew up with and are familiar with because after all, it’s the baby boomers who can afford to buy tickets and go to shows in New York city! I hear they are now working on the musical version of the Munsters and Machales Navy! You know there’s no big trick to being a Broadway producer. All it takes is money and marketing. Hell, if they were talented enough to write the plays they would but they don’t have the talent to do that so they depend on the playwright! It’s all one codependence, the producer depends on the playwright who depends on the critic who depends on the producer or else he’d have nothing to review. But wait a minute? What happens if the critic pans a show but the people still keep coming and love the show? Is the critic held responsible for giving a hit show a bad review? Does he have to take a mea culpa in his next column? Is he called on the carpet by his editor because he’s obviously panned a show that the people love? Does he or his paper lose any credibility? Does he get fired and his wife leaves him because he obviously screwed up on this one and the show keeps selling out? Or is it no, harm no foul because, hey, the shows still a hit so what are you complaining about? And he just moves on to the next review? You see I’m funny that way….
(to director off stage)
HEY CAN WE TURN UP THE HOUSE LIGHTS FOR A MINUTE!
(as house lights come up)
You see I’m funny that way and I don’t think that a critic should be able to screw up and give a bad review to a good show and have a playwrights life work and financial security go right down the goddamn drain. I think he should be held accountable for his screw ups. So a once successful playwright isn’t reduced to doing vaudevillian reminiscences of his career in front of eighty senior citizens in order to put some fucking food on the table!
(the house lights come down)
Turn those fucking house lights back up! I rented the theatre, I’m wrote the show, I’m calling the shot’s….so to speak.
(lights come back up as he comes down from the stage)
Well lookey here, look who we have in the audience tonight. Right there, third row on the aisle so he can make a quick getaway if he has to…it’s that noted New York City critic Ethan Walker.Why Ethan, what brings you to our tiny venue way downtown here in the village. Should’nt you be up town reviewing the new F-troop musical? You see Mr. Walker didn’t like my last play very much folks. As a matter of fact it was doing just fine till he showed up that night. The crowd was enjoying it. Pretty good house every night until he showed up. No he didn’t like it very much and he said so in his newspaper column the next day. Even though the night he saw the show the audience gave the cast a standing ovation and they took three curtain calls he didn’t like it very much. So the audience’s read his column where he said I had lost it and was ‘delving into subjects’ that no one wanted to hear. …
(to the critic as he walks down the aisle towards him)
Is that about right Mr. Walker…or should I call you Ethan? Remember when we met after you loved my first show and you said, Al, just call me Ethan, no need for formality! So guess what happened after the crowds stopped showing up for my last show Ethan? Silly me, could I just pack up my tent and go home? No, not me, not stubborn old Al Caton….no I had to prove you wrong and keep that show going. After all, I knew the audience loved it before you showed up, why should one skewed review from a jaded critic who probably had a fight with his wife that night before coming to the theatre, oh that’s right, you’re not married…although you are seen around town with an escort once in a while…well who, or whatever you had a fight with that night I wished you would have left it home and not taken it out on my poor show. Cause you know what I did Ethan, silly guy that I am, I poured every last cent I had into keeping that show running…my second wife thought I was nuts too. She divorced me over it. Ah no great loss, she was an actress, plenty more where she came from right? So here I stand, and there you sit Ethan, ready to pass judgement on me again, ready to drive the final nail into my coffin. Hey maybe it’s for the best, I can stop doing these third rate retrospectives on my foundering career and get back to some important work like writing…although you’d probably pan that too wouldn’t you?
(to stage manager)
Hey can we get a spotlight on Mr. Walker…maybe he has something to say, a statement to make in his defense…
(Ethan gets up to leave)
Where are you going Ethan, sit back down, the show’s not over yet.
ETHAN. It is for me.
(Albert removes a pistol from his pocket and shoots it in the air)
ALBERT.I said sit down. I told you I was calling the shot’s tonight! ….Hey that’s pretty funny, you like that gag Ethan. You write that one down?
ETHAN. About the caliber of your last play.
ALBERT. Caliber of my last play? Oh I get it, caliber, gun, you made a joke.
ETHAN. Not as bad a joke as this charade of a play is. And if you think you are going to intimidate me with a prop starter’s pistol you are sadly mistaken.
ALBERT. Oh is that what you think this is Eth? Is that what they call you for short? Eth? Come on we’re buddies, do you think I would pull a cheap vaudeville stunt like a fake starters pistol. Keep an eye on that potted plant stage right…I’m a pretty good shot, been practicing.
(He moves back on stage and fires at the prop vase with flowers and it explodes –{rigged with a piece of monofilament pulled by stage manager})
See. Real bullets Eth! Now sit down will you? These people paid good money to be here.
(to audience as he makes his way back to Ethan)
By the way, anyone wants to leave early feel free but I ain’t giving no refunds today! And that goes for my staff backstage and anyone else in this theatre. If I so much as hear one police siren wail outside the theatre then the critic gets it right where it will hurt him least, the heart! So you want that on your conscience, feel free to leave. What say you Ethan?
ETHAN. The old disgruntled artist holds his boss or secretary or the local theatre critic hostage. I think it’s been done before. Not very original.
ALBERT. I like that! Snarky even with a gun pointed at his head. Not even a semblance of fear or humility. Well I tell you Eth, I’m telling the old’ hold em’ hostage’ story a little differently. After all, there are only seven usable plots to use when telling a story right? Now was that seven or thirteen, I always get that wrong. Well certainly no more than thirteen usable plots I would guess. And we all used them numerous times over and over right Eth! From the Greeks through Shakespeare right up till the present, we’re all recycling the same basic plots. Boy meets girl, boy fucks around behind girls back, father gets pissed and murders him, sometimes a ghost shows up…..no, come on, you know it has nothing to do with the plot Eth, IT HAS TO DO WITH HOW YOU TELL THE STORY! The play’s the thing, right Eth?...so how do you think I should tell the story huh? Should I be the crazy playwright who held the critic hostage to get a little recognition before he ‘shuffles off this mortal coil?” The brooding playwright who holds nothing but contempt for the whole industry because they won’t recognize his talent. He holds contempt for everyone! The producers, the actors, the agents the theatre critics but most of all himself. Why? Because he writes good stuff, solid stuff, that he knows people like cause he’s put the show on out in the sticks and the hick audiences love it. (to audience)To you New York audiences the hick audience’s being anyone who doesn’t live on the upper east side of Manhattan. God forbid the audience in Brooklyn, Or Rumson New Jersey like it. What do they know? But the producers will sure take their out of town money won’t they? Their cash is as green as the cash on the upper east side. But what do the hicks know about theatre? The hicks will watch anything won’t they. They’ll watch crappy reality television shows about guys hunting alligators or people driving trucks over snowy mountains or god forbid, talentless daughters of high profile shyster lawyers who defended former athlete murderer’s in court!
ETHAN. And your point is? I didn’t create reality television, I review theatre, why am I the one being persecuted?
ALBERT. Oh I’m sorry Eth. I’m a psychotic playwright holding a theatre critic hostage during the opening night of his retrospective play. Was I supposed to be making a cogent point? I thought I was supposed to be ranting on what will likely be the final performance of my life. Hey, maybe this is the point Eth. Yeah, I think I know the point. Maybe the point is that in your review the least you could have said was hey, “I may not of enjoyed the show but the night I was there I knew the audience did.’ At least Albert Caton’s play was better than sitting on your asses at home watching some reality television show about guys who build motor cycle s or finding big foot or former mafia wives. Former mafia wives!?! FORMER FUCKING MAFIA WIFES EHTAN! Is that what our society has come to. Former fucking mafia wives or guys who catch Alligators are more valued than playwrights and artists? What the fuck is going on here Ethan? Is that what’s passing for culture now? No wonder the fucking country is going down the fucking drain!
ETHAN. Okay, you’ve had your rant now do you think you can let me and these nice people leave. Unless you have something more up your sleeve for act Two. Maybe sawing an audience member in half.
ALBERT. Don’t gimmee any ideas Eth, I’m hungry for publicity right now! But I appreciate the effort and I can’t let you go just yet because the program says one hour and fifteen minutes with no intermission and I think it’s barely been fifteen by now. Gives me another hour. Now how am I gonna fill anther hour Eth? Huh. Any Ideas? Come on Eth, you’re a critic, a dramaturge, surely you can think of something?....Aw, cat got your tongue. Don’t worry. I just thought of the answer. I’m not going to fill the rest of the hour, you are….(to audience) How about it folks, do you want to be entertained tonight by Ethan Walker, esteemed theatre Critic from the New York Sentinal!?!..... Gee, they don’t seem too enthusiastic Eth. Maybe you aren’t as popular as you think. Or wait, maybe they haven’t heard of your theatrical talent aside from being a critic. By god I don’t think they have! Alright Ethan, you got me….you were set up tonight. You see I got wind you were going to be here tonight from my producer. You know producer’s can’t keep their big moths shut when a critic is attending a performance. So I knew you’d be here and I kind of altered the show a little. Tweaked the script a little in your honor! I think you should be flattered actually Eth. Here I am giving up the spotlight, foregoing it for you. Tonight, I shall be the critic and you shall be the performer.
ETHAN. I’m a critic, not a performer. I never claimed to be.
ALBERT. But you’re being too modest Eth. You see I’ve done a little research of your life and it turns out you actually wrote a few plays of your own. Well one actually, which you never got published, but what the hell, it’s the thought that counts. Well guess what? Through the magic of the internet I was able to obtain a copy of your play. Sooner or later everything in the cloud becomes available to the public. A real shame, people get cheated out of royalties. But that’s another subject for another day. I bet the guy in the swamp boat gets a nice paycheck for being on T.V. though doesn’t he Eth. Ah, but I am digressing again.
(He pulls out a few pages of a script from his jacket pocket)
Here it is Eth, your bette noir. Your one opus to the literary world. “Forsaken Beloved” I highlighted a speech for you Eth. And not bad either. I liked this speech Eth. Thought it was pretty good. The rest of the play must have sucked but this soliloquy about the one that got away was pretty good. Make a pretty good audition monologue for actors I would bet. Why don’t you step up here on stage and do it for us Eth?
(He walks up to him and points the gun at his head)
Come on, don’t be shy… give it a shot…poor choice of words on my part. Give it a try. You did some acting when you were younger didn’t you? That’s what your bio said. Theatre Major.
ETHAN. I won’t. I can’t…
ALBERT. You can’t? Oh Ethan I’m ashamed of you! Shame shame! Do you know what my faher’s famous words where to me as a child. His pearls of wisdom to his little bouncing baby boy? He sat me on his lap and said to me, remember my son, ‘there is no such word as can’t.” He said it to me over and over again Eth. Whenever I said to him dad, I can’t do it, he came right back to me and said over and over, Albert, ‘there is no such word as Can’t.’ That’s what he said over and over. That’s probably why I’m up here on this stage today. I remember those words resonating in my brain and I said fuck it. Who says I can’t write plays, and get them published and produced, sure I can. There is no such word as can’t! …Of course I wish he would have said ‘kid, if you’re going to write plays put a blind horse in it, or a goat, or a bunch of alcoholic’s and you’ll win a Pulitzer prize’ but he didn’t say that. All he said was ‘there’s no such word as can’t…’So come Ethan Walker, step up on stage and under that spotlight and let’s hear it! Let’s let the whole audience hear it. Come on guy…..Eth, it’s not a request. Get up there or I’ll shoot you through the fucking eyes. I’m the one holding the gun, I’m going to have some satisfaction tonight….Ah don’t worry Eth, just read it and it’s over…you all get to leave…it’s a small price to pay. You’ll probably be a hero tomorrow, you saved a whole theatre by doing a selfless act like reading the crap you wrote a long time ago. I have to go up there and say my crap, it’s only fair that you say yours….
ETHAN. You can’t make me do this.
ALBERT. What’s the big deal. You go up, you say the freakin soliloquy and we all go home and watch the swamp show. Well you guys do, we all know when you start to leave I’m going to put a fucking bullet through my brain but what’s one less marginal playwright among friends. That’s what you called my last play right Eth, marginal at best. So read the piece, I shoot myself and you guys go home. Actually that’s a great ending for a play. The actor kills himself for real. That would pack the house for a long time. Too bad I can only do it once. Come on now, let’s go. Don’t make me shoot my piano player to prove to you I really mean it, he’s working for scale.
(Ethan begrudgingly walks towards the stage)
Now you’ve got the spirit! What do you say folks, give him a hand….see they love you.
(Ethan stands center stage and Albert hands him the speech)
You want to do this sitting or standing Eth? Ah hell, you’ve been sitting all night. Why don’t you just stand.
“LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, WELL KNOWN CRITIC EHAN WALKER WILL NOW GIVE YOU HIS RENDITION OF A SOLILIQY FROM HIS PLAY ENTITLED…
(to Ethan)
What’s the title again?
OH YES, I REMEMBER …”FORSAKEN BELOVED”
(Three beats.)
Come on. Let’s go Eth, the audience is waiting…oh wait, you need some set up, they don’t know what this play is about.
(to audience)
This pompous, misogynistic actor is agonizing over the sexually compulsive, low self esteemed middle aged thrice married suburban trollop that got away.
(to Ethan)
That about do it Eth? Okay, begin.
ETHAN. Sure, okay. I’ll read it. If that’s what it will take to end this little foray into the depths of your manic sub conscious. But before I do can I let the brooding playwright in on a few of my insights?
ALBERT. Sure Eth, be my guest. But they better be good insights, don’t forget, I’m holding a gun to your head.
ETHAN. What, you think I didn’t have to work hard to get where I am? You think it was easy?
ALBERT. Well your father was one of the theatre critics for the New York Times the last forty years, I’m sure that might have something to do with it.
ETHAN. Sure he was. And you think it’s easy to follow that kind of act? To live up to that kind of expectation? Look at all the famous entertainment ‘Juniors’ in history. Hank Williams Junior, Frank Sinatra Junior, look who they had to live up to. Think it was easy for them. You know I remember being in Atlantic City in the mid eighties, walking the boardwalk. At one of the big Casino’s Frank senior was appearing at a hundred dollars a pop while his son was down the block at some flea bag getting ten bucks a seat. But the kid didn’t give up, did he? What did he have to prove? Probably had plenty of money from his father. Why would he suffer that kind of humiliation? Hey, aren’t you just trying to live up to your father? You said he was a well known Orchestra leader.
ALBERT. On no you don’t Eth, we’re not going there. I deal with my issues on my terms not yours. I’m running the show here.
ETHAN. Oh, hit a nerve have I?
(Albert back hands him and Ethan Falls to the floor of the stage as his glasses go flying)
ALBERT. SHUT UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP! (regaining his composure)(In a low guttural tone)Now get up and read that fucking speech.
ETHAN. (gets up and takes the speech)My glasses….
ALBERT. (looks downstage, retrieves glasses and hands them to him)Here.
ETHAN. (to audience in a meek restrained tone)This character is trying to explain to a woman he just betrayed why he acts the way he does by telling her about a previous relationship.
(starts to read piece hesitantly…gradually gaining confidence and giving tour de force performance)
“I thought I found the right woman once. It was five years ago, between my two lousy marriages. The nuttiest woman I ever knew. She was an artist that I met at a writer’s conference. We went out for coffee after the seminar and kind of hit it off. We both discovered that we each had a ton of baggage, had some things in common, and we decided to make a date for that weekend. We slept together the first night. I thought it was a one night stand, maybe she did too, I don’t know. But then we met the next afternoon. It was a beautiful autumn day. We took a walk in the park and talked about all our shit…but most importantly, we made each other laugh. I’ll never forget that day. It was the day after my birthday. Ever since then I always called her my birthday present. She even inspired me to start writing again…Yeah, we made each other laugh that day all right. And we laughed for another year and a half.And when the laughing stopped, the birthday was over. Nobody’s fault, maybe mine a little. Maybe I ignored her too much at the end, probably I did. She said I was too self absorbed. At first when she told me it was over it didn’t sink in. You never believe it. But when it did, boy, when it did, it’s like your guts are ripped right out. You can’t eat, you can’t think, you don’t focus at work. I begged her not to end it. I promised her things I knew I couldn’t deliver but she wouldn’t buy it. Then, after one last ditch effort to make it work, on the last day I knew I’d ever see her in my life you know what I said to her? (beat) I told her I was going to predict our future for the next twenty years. We’d each meet new people, they’d charm us, we’d charm them, then in a few months when the thrill wore off we’d leave. We’d repeat the pattern five or six times between ten or twenty one night stands. Maybe we’d even get so desperate that we’d marry the wrong person again just to stop the loneliness. And in the end, after twenty years of hurt and heartache we’d say to ourselves, why didn’t we just try to keep getting each other to laugh?...
(he puts down the paper, takes off his glasses and puts them in his jacket pocket)
Can I go now?
ALBERT. I’m sorry about that Ethan. You really knew that woman didn’t you? I know you did because I’m a playwright and you always write what you know.
ETHAN. Yes, I really knew her.
ALBERT. What ever happened to her?
ETHAN. She gave up.
ALBERT. Yes, she gave up on you.
ETHAN. No, she gave up on everyone, she committed suicide shortly after we broke up….can I leave now.
ALBERT. I’m sorry to hear that.
ETHAN. Are you really? Are you really sorry to hear that? Or are you even capable of a feeling like sorrow or pity? Or are you just a sociopath who only cares about his own happiness to the detriment of everyone else. His own pleasure, his own ego. What’s the matter, you need a good review to prove your good enough? Well who are you trying to convince, us, or yourself. And why does it even matter. What’s a review. A bunch of words, one man’s opinion, Am I supposed to pretend to like everything I see just to keep everyone happy? Yes, you hit the nail on the head, I remember it cleary. I reviewed your show on the fifth anniversary of her suicide. I wasn’t in the mood for someone else’s misery I was too busy dealing with own.
ALBERT.BUT YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE OBJECTIVE! YOU ARE PAID TO BE OBJECTIVE!
ETHAN.WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME! I’M HUMAN! (beat) I’m human.
ALBERT. Where is your fucking integrity? You knew the audience liked that show. You could have mentioned it. Mentioned somewhere in that fucking review. At least given me that much satisfaction…You call me a sociopath…just why did that woman you based that character on commit suicide huh? What did you do to her that you had to try so desperately to beg her to come back? I know women, they are very forgiving, to a fault, so it had to be a doozey. What promises did you make to her that you didn’t keep huh. Big theatre critic. You promise to marry her and renege at the last minute? Huh. This is just getting good.
ETHAN. I’m leaving. You want to shoot me, shoot me.
ALBERT. Okay by me.(He puts the gun to his head and cocks it at which point Ethan Stops)Reconsidering huh. Good move.
ETHAN. I wrote a song for her okay. Actually two songs. Had them recorded.
ALBERT. That would sure cause me to commit suicide.
ETHAN. Then she found out.
ALBERT. What, what did she find out.
ETHAN. That I recycled them, that I had written them for someone else first then had them re-recorded with her name.
ALBERT. Bravo…what a plot twist….and I’m the one writing the plays.
ETHAN. I didn’t know she would harm herself, I didn’t know she would take it so hard.
ALBERT. Like hell you didn’t you bastard. Oh now I’m beginning to see it. Sure, you charm them don’t you? Like to charm them then hurt them. No, not just hurt them, break them. There’s a name for your type you know. Misogynist. That woman loved you didn’t she? Deeply. But you couldn’t handle it couldn’t you. You couldn’t handle the intimacy of someone who really loved you. Who gave herself to you heart and soul. Just what the hell happened to you in childhood? Just what did your mother do to you?
ETHAN. That’s none of your goddamned business.
ALBERT. So now it’s out in the open. The cats out of the bag. The big bad charming misogynist who likes to hurt women. But not anymore I’d venture. Not after what happened to that poor woman. No, now you break playwrights hearts don’t you. You take your frustration out on them don’t you? You heartless bastard. Cause the only way you can feel anything at all is to hurt someone else and take some perverse pleasure out of it.
(He puts the gun down on the stool)
No, I’m not gonna shoot you. You’re already dead. (To audience)
The shows over folks. I think you may deserve a refund after all.
(He walks off stage)
'CLOSING NOTICES' (Drama, 2m)A disgruntled playwright / actor holds his audience, including the Theatre critic he hates, hostage during opening night of his one man retrospective!
HALRYDER (drama 4m,1f) Based on true events, an inventor who comes up with a device which allows a car to run on tap water is confronted by the government and big oil.
TEN MORE WEDNESDAYS (Drama, 2m, 1 f)Alicia has a secret that is revealed after a visit from her brothers college classmate. Order this play on Amazon books: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1687871698 For licensing inquiries on this and other titles, please contact: Brian ShermanIPEX Theatrical Artistsp: 646-355-8050e: info@ipexartists.com SAMPLE DIALOUGE: This Book Contains the following one act plays:
CLOSING NOTICES by Joe Simonelli
FERRY ANGEL by Lori Jean Sigrist
HAYRYDER by Joe Simonelli
TEN MORE WEDNESDAYS by Joe Simonelli
CLOSING NOTICESByJoe Simonelli
(Based on an idea from Michael Chartier)
CHARACTERS
Albert Caton - A Playwright/actor
Ethan Walker - A theatre Critic
THIS PLAY IS PERFORMED IN ONE ACT WITH NO INTERMISION
SETTING: A theatre in New York city. It is Opening night of Albert Caton’s one man show.AT RISE: An empty stage save for a stool center stage and a small potted plant which sits on another smaller stool stage right.
(author’s note: The character of Ethan Walker is seated in the third row of the audience as the play starts)The house lights go down as a recorded message reminds the audience to turn off their cell phones, take notice of the fire exits, refrain from flash photography ect. Then, with a recorded (or live) fanfare it is announced ‘Here is that well know actor and playwright in his new one man play titled ‘Stage Door Memories’,Albert Caton!
(Albert enters as spot light follows him to the stool center stage)
ALBERT. Thank you ladies and gentleman, I’m Albert Caton and this performance is fondly titled, stage door memories. A remembrance of my life in the Theatre… Ah, show business, isn’t it great!The smell of the grease paint, the lights, the orchestra warming up in the pit. Or in the case of tonight’s performance my stage manager Frank, doubling on piano just off stage! I tell you, this is the life. I mean you really know you’ve made it in show business when you ask for flowers on the set and get a potted plant on a stool that was purchased from the Deli across the street from the theatre. So how did I wind up where I am today? A bare stage, well practically a bare stage, in front of you nice theatre goers? I guess you would say that the acting bug got me way back in the second grade when I volunteered to sing a song in front of the class. I’ll never forget, it was Alan Sherman’s ‘Hello Mudda, Hello Father” remember that one? Music starts and a few strains of “The rights of spring” start playing as he sings a few verses.
“hello Mudda, hello fadda, here I am at camp Granada, camp is very entertaining, and they say I’ll have some fun if it stops raining.”
That was a great song. Sister Mary Jeneine decided she loved it and dragged me to every classroom up through the fifth grade to sing in front of the other kids. When she informed my mother of this fact my mom was flabbergasted as I hardly said two words at home. When my father heard about it he was even more amazed and being a good Italian American from Brooklyn he decided to immediately put me to work in the family business. So he handed me a violin case and told me to get into the car….wait a minute, I know what you’re thinking, it wasn’t that kind of a family business. My old man was a musician. Had his own Wedding band in Brooklyn, the Arnie Caton Orchestra! He shortened his name for business purposes, his real moniker being Arnold Albert Catania! I inherited his middle name and the rest is history. So anyway, here I am, this seven year old kid being schlepped along to all these big Catering halls around Brooklyn and singing my one number each night. A very popular song at the time, Winchester Cathedral!
Can I have a few bars maestro!
The music starts as he sings a few bars. (he hold his nose for effect or uses a megaphone as this was the ‘Rudy Vali’ style in which the song was recorded)
Winchester Cathedral, your bringing me down, you stood and you watched as, my baby left town, you could have done something, but you didn’t try, you stood an you watched as, my baby walked by….
The tips they threw at me! I mean, here I am, this seven year old kid and the people from the wedding are throwing singles and five dollar bills at me….not bad for the mid 1960’s! And I got to dine on prime rib and wedding cake all the time. Yeah, I think my old man was on to something with this show biz deal. And he got paid to do it to boot! I also have him to thank for a very high cholesterol level but who thought about that in nineteen sixty six.
Then came senior year of high school and the school play, “West Side Story’! I was cast as Riff and had the time of my life. My old man wasn’t too thrilled because the performances conflicted with the wedding gigs and I couldn’t be in two places at once. And I wasn’t getting paid to be performing in or writing plays… yet. Oh yes the playwrighting, the main thing I’m known for. You might be curious to know how that started. Well I guess I started writing shows when I was twelve years old and working as a junior counselor at summer camp. They needed someone to put on puppet shows for the younger kids so me and my friend Pete Polasky volunteered for the job. All we had was some old hand puppets, most of them based on whatever cartoon characters were popular in those days. Our muse was an old puppet stage, a few hand puppets and our imaginations so we started writing our own scripts based on the characters at hand. Only we set them in the real domestic situations that we knew. Yogi bear was an alcoholic, Huckleberry hound was the effeminate kid from up the block. We even threw in fake commercials long before it was popularized on Saturday Night Live. I remember having a puppet holding a toy house from a monopoly set and saying “You’re in good hands with All State” before dropping the house off the stage and uttering ‘oops!’
We started getting real popular, we even had a third kid, Billy Spooner, collecting a dime admittance fee at the door for a free show. Eventually camp management shut us down but even then I saw that show business could be a profitable venture….if the show was any good. Of course in summer camp you didn’t have theatre critics to pan your show and shut you down.No. The audience pretty much told you if the show was any good and kept coming back for more. Not so in the big cities. Not so when you’re a New York playwright and actor. See, to make it in New York you have put on a few small shows off -off Broadway and see if they catch on! Not easy to do, Not easy to keep a show running off-off anywhere much less the big apple. You gotta sink your life savings into the venture. Maybe your marriage breaks up cause your wife things you’re a crazy dreamer and wants you to stay home and nine to five it. You probably have to live at that theatre and wait tables at some greasy spoon in the city because you can’t afford to pay both the theatre rent and an apartment plus the alimony payments to your ex. So you sleep on the prop couch on stage and wash in the theatre restroom. And you never give up. You keep the show going till it finds it’s audience and the word of mouth spreads. You’re doing just great. The critic from the village voice shows up and he has no choice but to love the show because he see’s how much the audience is laughing and enjoying it and who is he to buck the system. So you move it to a bigger venue off Broadway and finally it’s getting out of town runs!….
(He pauses and looks out into the audience)
yeah, the New York critics, they can make or break you in this town. You can be a successful playwright one day, five great plays in a row, then you try to break away from the formula and write one different play. I don’t know, maybe it’s hubris, maybe it’s catharsis but you write one that’s just a little unsettling. You’re trying to provoke your audience for a change, maybe like you did with the mock commercials in the puppet shows when you were a kid. Maybe you need to write this one for therapy, for your own sanity…and it isn’t pretty, it isn’t a laugh out loud comedy, it’s more like David Mamet meets Eugene O’Neil but it’s a tough economy out there and nobody wants to come to the theatre to be depressed and hear about all your veiled childhood issues. Not even the New York critic, who’s supposed to know better and not judge pieces for their commercial value but for their content. Like they did back in the nineteen fifties and sixties. Ah but in two thousand eleven Broadway theatre is big business! Who knows what the critic’s motivation really is? How did he get that critic’s job anyway? What qualifies him. Is he the city desk editors first cousin. Did he teach a few theatre courses at a community college? So you put this play on and it gets panned. It gets roasted. And even though you’ve had five hits in a row before that, no one cares. Nobody wants to hear it, especially big Broadway producers who only care about the bottom line. So they just keep recycling the old standard musicals from the golden days of the fifties and sixties and occasionally they’ll fashion a new musical from an old television show we all grew up with and are familiar with because after all, it’s the baby boomers who can afford to buy tickets and go to shows in New York city! I hear they are now working on the musical version of the Munsters and Machales Navy! You know there’s no big trick to being a Broadway producer. All it takes is money and marketing. Hell, if they were talented enough to write the plays they would but they don’t have the talent to do that so they depend on the playwright! It’s all one codependence, the producer depends on the playwright who depends on the critic who depends on the producer or else he’d have nothing to review. But wait a minute? What happens if the critic pans a show but the people still keep coming and love the show? Is the critic held responsible for giving a hit show a bad review? Does he have to take a mea culpa in his next column? Is he called on the carpet by his editor because he’s obviously panned a show that the people love? Does he or his paper lose any credibility? Does he get fired and his wife leaves him because he obviously screwed up on this one and the show keeps selling out? Or is it no, harm no foul because, hey, the shows still a hit so what are you complaining about? And he just moves on to the next review? You see I’m funny that way….
(to director off stage)
HEY CAN WE TURN UP THE HOUSE LIGHTS FOR A MINUTE!
(as house lights come up)
You see I’m funny that way and I don’t think that a critic should be able to screw up and give a bad review to a good show and have a playwrights life work and financial security go right down the goddamn drain. I think he should be held accountable for his screw ups. So a once successful playwright isn’t reduced to doing vaudevillian reminiscences of his career in front of eighty senior citizens in order to put some fucking food on the table!
(the house lights come down)
Turn those fucking house lights back up! I rented the theatre, I’m wrote the show, I’m calling the shot’s….so to speak.
(lights come back up as he comes down from the stage)
Well lookey here, look who we have in the audience tonight. Right there, third row on the aisle so he can make a quick getaway if he has to…it’s that noted New York City critic Ethan Walker.Why Ethan, what brings you to our tiny venue way downtown here in the village. Should’nt you be up town reviewing the new F-troop musical? You see Mr. Walker didn’t like my last play very much folks. As a matter of fact it was doing just fine till he showed up that night. The crowd was enjoying it. Pretty good house every night until he showed up. No he didn’t like it very much and he said so in his newspaper column the next day. Even though the night he saw the show the audience gave the cast a standing ovation and they took three curtain calls he didn’t like it very much. So the audience’s read his column where he said I had lost it and was ‘delving into subjects’ that no one wanted to hear. …
(to the critic as he walks down the aisle towards him)
Is that about right Mr. Walker…or should I call you Ethan? Remember when we met after you loved my first show and you said, Al, just call me Ethan, no need for formality! So guess what happened after the crowds stopped showing up for my last show Ethan? Silly me, could I just pack up my tent and go home? No, not me, not stubborn old Al Caton….no I had to prove you wrong and keep that show going. After all, I knew the audience loved it before you showed up, why should one skewed review from a jaded critic who probably had a fight with his wife that night before coming to the theatre, oh that’s right, you’re not married…although you are seen around town with an escort once in a while…well who, or whatever you had a fight with that night I wished you would have left it home and not taken it out on my poor show. Cause you know what I did Ethan, silly guy that I am, I poured every last cent I had into keeping that show running…my second wife thought I was nuts too. She divorced me over it. Ah no great loss, she was an actress, plenty more where she came from right? So here I stand, and there you sit Ethan, ready to pass judgement on me again, ready to drive the final nail into my coffin. Hey maybe it’s for the best, I can stop doing these third rate retrospectives on my foundering career and get back to some important work like writing…although you’d probably pan that too wouldn’t you?
(to stage manager)
Hey can we get a spotlight on Mr. Walker…maybe he has something to say, a statement to make in his defense…
(Ethan gets up to leave)
Where are you going Ethan, sit back down, the show’s not over yet.
ETHAN. It is for me.
(Albert removes a pistol from his pocket and shoots it in the air)
ALBERT.I said sit down. I told you I was calling the shot’s tonight! ….Hey that’s pretty funny, you like that gag Ethan. You write that one down?
ETHAN. About the caliber of your last play.
ALBERT. Caliber of my last play? Oh I get it, caliber, gun, you made a joke.
ETHAN. Not as bad a joke as this charade of a play is. And if you think you are going to intimidate me with a prop starter’s pistol you are sadly mistaken.
ALBERT. Oh is that what you think this is Eth? Is that what they call you for short? Eth? Come on we’re buddies, do you think I would pull a cheap vaudeville stunt like a fake starters pistol. Keep an eye on that potted plant stage right…I’m a pretty good shot, been practicing.
(He moves back on stage and fires at the prop vase with flowers and it explodes –{rigged with a piece of monofilament pulled by stage manager})
See. Real bullets Eth! Now sit down will you? These people paid good money to be here.
(to audience as he makes his way back to Ethan)
By the way, anyone wants to leave early feel free but I ain’t giving no refunds today! And that goes for my staff backstage and anyone else in this theatre. If I so much as hear one police siren wail outside the theatre then the critic gets it right where it will hurt him least, the heart! So you want that on your conscience, feel free to leave. What say you Ethan?
ETHAN. The old disgruntled artist holds his boss or secretary or the local theatre critic hostage. I think it’s been done before. Not very original.
ALBERT. I like that! Snarky even with a gun pointed at his head. Not even a semblance of fear or humility. Well I tell you Eth, I’m telling the old’ hold em’ hostage’ story a little differently. After all, there are only seven usable plots to use when telling a story right? Now was that seven or thirteen, I always get that wrong. Well certainly no more than thirteen usable plots I would guess. And we all used them numerous times over and over right Eth! From the Greeks through Shakespeare right up till the present, we’re all recycling the same basic plots. Boy meets girl, boy fucks around behind girls back, father gets pissed and murders him, sometimes a ghost shows up…..no, come on, you know it has nothing to do with the plot Eth, IT HAS TO DO WITH HOW YOU TELL THE STORY! The play’s the thing, right Eth?...so how do you think I should tell the story huh? Should I be the crazy playwright who held the critic hostage to get a little recognition before he ‘shuffles off this mortal coil?” The brooding playwright who holds nothing but contempt for the whole industry because they won’t recognize his talent. He holds contempt for everyone! The producers, the actors, the agents the theatre critics but most of all himself. Why? Because he writes good stuff, solid stuff, that he knows people like cause he’s put the show on out in the sticks and the hick audiences love it. (to audience)To you New York audiences the hick audience’s being anyone who doesn’t live on the upper east side of Manhattan. God forbid the audience in Brooklyn, Or Rumson New Jersey like it. What do they know? But the producers will sure take their out of town money won’t they? Their cash is as green as the cash on the upper east side. But what do the hicks know about theatre? The hicks will watch anything won’t they. They’ll watch crappy reality television shows about guys hunting alligators or people driving trucks over snowy mountains or god forbid, talentless daughters of high profile shyster lawyers who defended former athlete murderer’s in court!
ETHAN. And your point is? I didn’t create reality television, I review theatre, why am I the one being persecuted?
ALBERT. Oh I’m sorry Eth. I’m a psychotic playwright holding a theatre critic hostage during the opening night of his retrospective play. Was I supposed to be making a cogent point? I thought I was supposed to be ranting on what will likely be the final performance of my life. Hey, maybe this is the point Eth. Yeah, I think I know the point. Maybe the point is that in your review the least you could have said was hey, “I may not of enjoyed the show but the night I was there I knew the audience did.’ At least Albert Caton’s play was better than sitting on your asses at home watching some reality television show about guys who build motor cycle s or finding big foot or former mafia wives. Former mafia wives!?! FORMER FUCKING MAFIA WIFES EHTAN! Is that what our society has come to. Former fucking mafia wives or guys who catch Alligators are more valued than playwrights and artists? What the fuck is going on here Ethan? Is that what’s passing for culture now? No wonder the fucking country is going down the fucking drain!
ETHAN. Okay, you’ve had your rant now do you think you can let me and these nice people leave. Unless you have something more up your sleeve for act Two. Maybe sawing an audience member in half.
ALBERT. Don’t gimmee any ideas Eth, I’m hungry for publicity right now! But I appreciate the effort and I can’t let you go just yet because the program says one hour and fifteen minutes with no intermission and I think it’s barely been fifteen by now. Gives me another hour. Now how am I gonna fill anther hour Eth? Huh. Any Ideas? Come on Eth, you’re a critic, a dramaturge, surely you can think of something?....Aw, cat got your tongue. Don’t worry. I just thought of the answer. I’m not going to fill the rest of the hour, you are….(to audience) How about it folks, do you want to be entertained tonight by Ethan Walker, esteemed theatre Critic from the New York Sentinal!?!..... Gee, they don’t seem too enthusiastic Eth. Maybe you aren’t as popular as you think. Or wait, maybe they haven’t heard of your theatrical talent aside from being a critic. By god I don’t think they have! Alright Ethan, you got me….you were set up tonight. You see I got wind you were going to be here tonight from my producer. You know producer’s can’t keep their big moths shut when a critic is attending a performance. So I knew you’d be here and I kind of altered the show a little. Tweaked the script a little in your honor! I think you should be flattered actually Eth. Here I am giving up the spotlight, foregoing it for you. Tonight, I shall be the critic and you shall be the performer.
ETHAN. I’m a critic, not a performer. I never claimed to be.
ALBERT. But you’re being too modest Eth. You see I’ve done a little research of your life and it turns out you actually wrote a few plays of your own. Well one actually, which you never got published, but what the hell, it’s the thought that counts. Well guess what? Through the magic of the internet I was able to obtain a copy of your play. Sooner or later everything in the cloud becomes available to the public. A real shame, people get cheated out of royalties. But that’s another subject for another day. I bet the guy in the swamp boat gets a nice paycheck for being on T.V. though doesn’t he Eth. Ah, but I am digressing again.
(He pulls out a few pages of a script from his jacket pocket)
Here it is Eth, your bette noir. Your one opus to the literary world. “Forsaken Beloved” I highlighted a speech for you Eth. And not bad either. I liked this speech Eth. Thought it was pretty good. The rest of the play must have sucked but this soliloquy about the one that got away was pretty good. Make a pretty good audition monologue for actors I would bet. Why don’t you step up here on stage and do it for us Eth?
(He walks up to him and points the gun at his head)
Come on, don’t be shy… give it a shot…poor choice of words on my part. Give it a try. You did some acting when you were younger didn’t you? That’s what your bio said. Theatre Major.
ETHAN. I won’t. I can’t…
ALBERT. You can’t? Oh Ethan I’m ashamed of you! Shame shame! Do you know what my faher’s famous words where to me as a child. His pearls of wisdom to his little bouncing baby boy? He sat me on his lap and said to me, remember my son, ‘there is no such word as can’t.” He said it to me over and over again Eth. Whenever I said to him dad, I can’t do it, he came right back to me and said over and over, Albert, ‘there is no such word as Can’t.’ That’s what he said over and over. That’s probably why I’m up here on this stage today. I remember those words resonating in my brain and I said fuck it. Who says I can’t write plays, and get them published and produced, sure I can. There is no such word as can’t! …Of course I wish he would have said ‘kid, if you’re going to write plays put a blind horse in it, or a goat, or a bunch of alcoholic’s and you’ll win a Pulitzer prize’ but he didn’t say that. All he said was ‘there’s no such word as can’t…’So come Ethan Walker, step up on stage and under that spotlight and let’s hear it! Let’s let the whole audience hear it. Come on guy…..Eth, it’s not a request. Get up there or I’ll shoot you through the fucking eyes. I’m the one holding the gun, I’m going to have some satisfaction tonight….Ah don’t worry Eth, just read it and it’s over…you all get to leave…it’s a small price to pay. You’ll probably be a hero tomorrow, you saved a whole theatre by doing a selfless act like reading the crap you wrote a long time ago. I have to go up there and say my crap, it’s only fair that you say yours….
ETHAN. You can’t make me do this.
ALBERT. What’s the big deal. You go up, you say the freakin soliloquy and we all go home and watch the swamp show. Well you guys do, we all know when you start to leave I’m going to put a fucking bullet through my brain but what’s one less marginal playwright among friends. That’s what you called my last play right Eth, marginal at best. So read the piece, I shoot myself and you guys go home. Actually that’s a great ending for a play. The actor kills himself for real. That would pack the house for a long time. Too bad I can only do it once. Come on now, let’s go. Don’t make me shoot my piano player to prove to you I really mean it, he’s working for scale.
(Ethan begrudgingly walks towards the stage)
Now you’ve got the spirit! What do you say folks, give him a hand….see they love you.
(Ethan stands center stage and Albert hands him the speech)
You want to do this sitting or standing Eth? Ah hell, you’ve been sitting all night. Why don’t you just stand.
“LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, WELL KNOWN CRITIC EHAN WALKER WILL NOW GIVE YOU HIS RENDITION OF A SOLILIQY FROM HIS PLAY ENTITLED…
(to Ethan)
What’s the title again?
OH YES, I REMEMBER …”FORSAKEN BELOVED”
(Three beats.)
Come on. Let’s go Eth, the audience is waiting…oh wait, you need some set up, they don’t know what this play is about.
(to audience)
This pompous, misogynistic actor is agonizing over the sexually compulsive, low self esteemed middle aged thrice married suburban trollop that got away.
(to Ethan)
That about do it Eth? Okay, begin.
ETHAN. Sure, okay. I’ll read it. If that’s what it will take to end this little foray into the depths of your manic sub conscious. But before I do can I let the brooding playwright in on a few of my insights?
ALBERT. Sure Eth, be my guest. But they better be good insights, don’t forget, I’m holding a gun to your head.
ETHAN. What, you think I didn’t have to work hard to get where I am? You think it was easy?
ALBERT. Well your father was one of the theatre critics for the New York Times the last forty years, I’m sure that might have something to do with it.
ETHAN. Sure he was. And you think it’s easy to follow that kind of act? To live up to that kind of expectation? Look at all the famous entertainment ‘Juniors’ in history. Hank Williams Junior, Frank Sinatra Junior, look who they had to live up to. Think it was easy for them. You know I remember being in Atlantic City in the mid eighties, walking the boardwalk. At one of the big Casino’s Frank senior was appearing at a hundred dollars a pop while his son was down the block at some flea bag getting ten bucks a seat. But the kid didn’t give up, did he? What did he have to prove? Probably had plenty of money from his father. Why would he suffer that kind of humiliation? Hey, aren’t you just trying to live up to your father? You said he was a well known Orchestra leader.
ALBERT. On no you don’t Eth, we’re not going there. I deal with my issues on my terms not yours. I’m running the show here.
ETHAN. Oh, hit a nerve have I?
(Albert back hands him and Ethan Falls to the floor of the stage as his glasses go flying)
ALBERT. SHUT UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP! (regaining his composure)(In a low guttural tone)Now get up and read that fucking speech.
ETHAN. (gets up and takes the speech)My glasses….
ALBERT. (looks downstage, retrieves glasses and hands them to him)Here.
ETHAN. (to audience in a meek restrained tone)This character is trying to explain to a woman he just betrayed why he acts the way he does by telling her about a previous relationship.
(starts to read piece hesitantly…gradually gaining confidence and giving tour de force performance)
“I thought I found the right woman once. It was five years ago, between my two lousy marriages. The nuttiest woman I ever knew. She was an artist that I met at a writer’s conference. We went out for coffee after the seminar and kind of hit it off. We both discovered that we each had a ton of baggage, had some things in common, and we decided to make a date for that weekend. We slept together the first night. I thought it was a one night stand, maybe she did too, I don’t know. But then we met the next afternoon. It was a beautiful autumn day. We took a walk in the park and talked about all our shit…but most importantly, we made each other laugh. I’ll never forget that day. It was the day after my birthday. Ever since then I always called her my birthday present. She even inspired me to start writing again…Yeah, we made each other laugh that day all right. And we laughed for another year and a half.And when the laughing stopped, the birthday was over. Nobody’s fault, maybe mine a little. Maybe I ignored her too much at the end, probably I did. She said I was too self absorbed. At first when she told me it was over it didn’t sink in. You never believe it. But when it did, boy, when it did, it’s like your guts are ripped right out. You can’t eat, you can’t think, you don’t focus at work. I begged her not to end it. I promised her things I knew I couldn’t deliver but she wouldn’t buy it. Then, after one last ditch effort to make it work, on the last day I knew I’d ever see her in my life you know what I said to her? (beat) I told her I was going to predict our future for the next twenty years. We’d each meet new people, they’d charm us, we’d charm them, then in a few months when the thrill wore off we’d leave. We’d repeat the pattern five or six times between ten or twenty one night stands. Maybe we’d even get so desperate that we’d marry the wrong person again just to stop the loneliness. And in the end, after twenty years of hurt and heartache we’d say to ourselves, why didn’t we just try to keep getting each other to laugh?...
(he puts down the paper, takes off his glasses and puts them in his jacket pocket)
Can I go now?
ALBERT. I’m sorry about that Ethan. You really knew that woman didn’t you? I know you did because I’m a playwright and you always write what you know.
ETHAN. Yes, I really knew her.
ALBERT. What ever happened to her?
ETHAN. She gave up.
ALBERT. Yes, she gave up on you.
ETHAN. No, she gave up on everyone, she committed suicide shortly after we broke up….can I leave now.
ALBERT. I’m sorry to hear that.
ETHAN. Are you really? Are you really sorry to hear that? Or are you even capable of a feeling like sorrow or pity? Or are you just a sociopath who only cares about his own happiness to the detriment of everyone else. His own pleasure, his own ego. What’s the matter, you need a good review to prove your good enough? Well who are you trying to convince, us, or yourself. And why does it even matter. What’s a review. A bunch of words, one man’s opinion, Am I supposed to pretend to like everything I see just to keep everyone happy? Yes, you hit the nail on the head, I remember it cleary. I reviewed your show on the fifth anniversary of her suicide. I wasn’t in the mood for someone else’s misery I was too busy dealing with own.
ALBERT.BUT YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE OBJECTIVE! YOU ARE PAID TO BE OBJECTIVE!
ETHAN.WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME! I’M HUMAN! (beat) I’m human.
ALBERT. Where is your fucking integrity? You knew the audience liked that show. You could have mentioned it. Mentioned somewhere in that fucking review. At least given me that much satisfaction…You call me a sociopath…just why did that woman you based that character on commit suicide huh? What did you do to her that you had to try so desperately to beg her to come back? I know women, they are very forgiving, to a fault, so it had to be a doozey. What promises did you make to her that you didn’t keep huh. Big theatre critic. You promise to marry her and renege at the last minute? Huh. This is just getting good.
ETHAN. I’m leaving. You want to shoot me, shoot me.
ALBERT. Okay by me.(He puts the gun to his head and cocks it at which point Ethan Stops)Reconsidering huh. Good move.
ETHAN. I wrote a song for her okay. Actually two songs. Had them recorded.
ALBERT. That would sure cause me to commit suicide.
ETHAN. Then she found out.
ALBERT. What, what did she find out.
ETHAN. That I recycled them, that I had written them for someone else first then had them re-recorded with her name.
ALBERT. Bravo…what a plot twist….and I’m the one writing the plays.
ETHAN. I didn’t know she would harm herself, I didn’t know she would take it so hard.
ALBERT. Like hell you didn’t you bastard. Oh now I’m beginning to see it. Sure, you charm them don’t you? Like to charm them then hurt them. No, not just hurt them, break them. There’s a name for your type you know. Misogynist. That woman loved you didn’t she? Deeply. But you couldn’t handle it couldn’t you. You couldn’t handle the intimacy of someone who really loved you. Who gave herself to you heart and soul. Just what the hell happened to you in childhood? Just what did your mother do to you?
ETHAN. That’s none of your goddamned business.
ALBERT. So now it’s out in the open. The cats out of the bag. The big bad charming misogynist who likes to hurt women. But not anymore I’d venture. Not after what happened to that poor woman. No, now you break playwrights hearts don’t you. You take your frustration out on them don’t you? You heartless bastard. Cause the only way you can feel anything at all is to hurt someone else and take some perverse pleasure out of it.
(He puts the gun down on the stool)
No, I’m not gonna shoot you. You’re already dead. (To audience)
The shows over folks. I think you may deserve a refund after all.
(He walks off stage)