Collections - 13. Chapter 13 -- Of Cabbages and Unsolicited Scripts

Yep, I've been at it again: reading scripts for the local regional theater. Why? It's cheaper than going to the dentist. You might enjoy these. Or you might prefer root canal work. In any case, some dialogue samples from the mouths of drooling playwrights:

THE H TRAIN TO BROOKLYN--"I feel I've been puked on. Left out to dry in the rain. Run through the ringer. Unwanted. Unloved. An orphan in a basket on someone's doorstep...All my life people've been jumping on me, so what's one more body? Jump on. Have fun. Go ahead, you want to bite me? Kick me in the stomach?...I feel like I've been thrown out of a speeding car. I've got tire marks on my forehead

IN THE BELLY OF THE WHALE--"Ever since you came here, you've locked your-self in this room. You won't even go down the hall and speak to those other crippled men you have so much contempt for. Why, Mr. Kessler? Are you afraid to find you might have something in common?"

SISTER, MAY I?--"Ever since I've known Sister was coming to tea, I've had this fantasy. I keep picturing Sister sitting on a throne. There are clouds around her. And it's judgment day. We come up to her one by one and give an accounting of ourselves. She tells us if we're on the right track and if we're not, we get another chance, see?"

KATE'S RIDDLE--"My life has not been empty. My life has been wonderful ...until today. I have two wonderful children: my son, the Jesuit, Father John. (She crosses herself.) And my daughter, the confused mother of my two wonderful grandchildren."

WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS (Formerly titled: PREEMIES)--"At twenty-six weeks the babies usually weigh about two pounds." "What do the fathers hand out? Tiparillos?"

INSIDE HOPE MISSION--"Oh, the wonder and glory of death. To let our unconquerable spirits escape into the boundless ether to return again one day in who knows what glorious finery! We will be together again and in that day of gathering we will begin to build the city on the hill!

LORENZACCIO--"My youth was a lily. My heart was calm, and I was good, Filippo. But to my eternal misfortune, I wanted to be great.

TOMATOES & BEER--"I am, maybe, one sheet to the wind at this time. At the most, one sheet and a pillowcase. Maybe a sheet, a pillowcase, and a handkerchief. Okay, okay...a sheet, a pillowcase, a handkerchief, and a handi-wipe."

PARRISH MEADOWS--"This here's a piece of ebony...I'm an artist. I'm gonna take this piece of nothin' and make it into somethin'. (Pause) That's what artists do."

FRIENDLY FIRE--"Oh you going to die all right. We all going to die. It's just a question of how many fingers you want to have when you die."

PSST! HEY, MAC, WANNA BUY A CHEAP COMPUTER?--"I'd rather fool around with a new computer than a new girl any day. At least a computer does what you want it to."

MARIA: A MELODRAMA--"This is the first tear of happiness I have ever shed. I can breathe freely. You are not mad. For once in my life I have been treated like a fellow creature."

ROUTINES--"I really don't discuss those things much. Sex doesn't really interest me. Certainly not other people's sexual proclivities. I suppose you're a fairy or a queer. Funny, there must be people at work who discuss these things but I can't think now what they would say. I don't like to think of you that way. You are my brother."

TARES IN THE FIELD--"It made me sick! I couldn't breathe! I pulled away and ran outside. I kept running until I couldn't run anymore! I knew I had to get out...do something, anything but stay there. She never loved me. She loved God!"

CONTRETEMPS--"Wrongo Boyo! I also know from this same `circle' of friends that Jessica sacrificed a loving relationship with a stunning brunette because of you. Needless to say the brunette was a `she'. And as for telling Melinda, I already have!"

COCKTAILS--(Rising, with anguish) "Oh, James, James, James, don't you think I want to marry you? Don't you think I've loved you for years?"

SEE THE USA--"One day the Barbarians will come. You'll cry! You'll threaten, scream, plead! You'll talk. They destroy. They kill. The Horde!"

GALATEA'S HANDS--"I reached up and twisted the leather straps around his throat. I pulled them tighter and tighter, and I screamed at him, `I'm a man first! I am an artist! A man!' And blood started coming from his nose."

CRYING FROM THE EARTH--"Cynthia Starr was young...her whole life ahead of her and yet it was snuffed out...like a candle in the wind. Snuffed out in a moment of debauchery and alcoholic lust. What a pity!"

UNCOMMON ASHES--"Lot of good you can do. You're dead...Oh, Jesus! And I'm talking to you!"

THE ANGEL'S TEAR--"You're an ungainly poet, oh apple of my eye."

GLOMAR--"The giant silver machine thunders out of the night for me! Hooray! Hooray!"

A GOD IN RUINS--"Note: The play is designed to be performed without an intermission. If one is desired, it should occur during the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation."

GOLDIE--"You dummy head. You goddamn dummy head! Nearly shot your sister. I don't believe it! A dummy head for a son."

A DISCARDED ROSE PETAL--"Mama ... Mama ... Who am I? ... What am I? ... Oh, God!"

I LOVE YOU, BILL BUCKLEY--"You've grown up, Phil! Was it conservatism?"

DIPLOMATIC CHARNELS--"I'm working for a moron. He's working for morons. Morons are in charge around here. Goddammit! If it wasn't Friday I just might cripple someone."

ACID--"So what do you want to do, turn yourself in? Swear you've reformed, cop a plea, then you could make the college lecture circuit warning everybody about the evils of drugs. You could even take along some of those rats that starved to death pushing the cocaine button as an example. Hold it up by the tail and wave it around."

THE MISSISSIPPI MEMORIAL LIBRARY--"I want you so much, and seeing that love in your eyes makes me want to give in. But I'm so much in love with you, Melanie, that I don't trust myself to say `yes' now. This is why I couldn't tell you who I was before now. I wanted to keep my love out of the tangle of games you play with yourself and everybody who crosses your path."

CROSSROADS--"Only place for me is on my bike. Pumping the wheels. Spinning along side of the river. Sweating and pumping. Only thing I'm up against is the wind. No one's stopping the river or telling where it's got to go. It's home free."

"If we shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended, that you have but slumb'red here while these visions did appear..." or "With a ho nonny, nonny and a hey, hey, hey..."