"Spilled Milk"
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
I've finally put up Joan's monologue from my original work Spilled Milk. Spilled Milk is a ten-minute play that has been available for purchase as part of the Heartland's Rejects Collection for more than a year, but today I finally got up the nerve to put Joan's monologue in the database.
JOAN:
I mean, what the fuck is wrong with you? A guy tries to assault you while you're passed out, and you think, "I know. I'll send him upstairs to my best friend." Why? Why didn't you kick him out of my fucking house? You could have screamed bloody murder and woken up my parents. You could have threatened to press charges. What he did was assault. What do you think would have happened if you hadn't woken up? He could have raped you. And you... you sent him back to me. How generous. How benevolent. Why didn't you fucking warn me? Why did you wait until the next morning to tell me what he did? Why didn't you tell me right then? God, Helen. I mean, think about it. You send this guy, this guy... who has just violated you... up to my attic. What do you think would have happened if I had said no?
"Like Dreaming, Backwards" - Four New Original Monologues
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
I'm working on a play called Like Dreaming, Backwards about a the suicide of a young college student named Nell. It's not finished yet, so the play is not available for purchase just yet, but I thought I'd share the monologues I've been working on. Below are excerpts, to read the complete monologues, click on the character's names.
Nell.
The first time I tried to kill myself, I was ten. When I woke up the next morning, I was so relieved. I was so happy that I hadn't succeeded. I didn't tell anyone. And for a while, I was happy to be alive. Now, when I wake up after taking every sleeping pill in arm's reach and washing it down with a bottle of wine, I'm never, ever relieved. I feel trapped. I feel desperate. I feel like even more of a failure. And I have even wondered if the reason that I can't kill myself is because I'm already dead and in Hell. Depression is a living Hell. There's no better description than that. But your physical drive to live can undermine your mind's desire to die. Your instincts to breathe are hard to overcome. You can't bear another second of misery - but your heart just refuses to stop beating. It has some nerve.
Yale - Nell's classmate.
I didn't know her last name until I saw the article in the paper. It said that she was a sophomore and a journalism major. She was from Joliet. She had a younger sister in high school, named Carolyn. I don't know why I remember everything about that article. Her picture... was in black and white and it was right under the "I-D-E" in "suicide." I don't know why I'm telling you this. The picture was small, it didn't look like a school picture, it looked more like a candid shot. She was sort of smiling, but she looked somehow... suspicious. I have a strangely vivid memory... of her face.
Natalie - Nell's friend.
I met her freshman year, in Introduction to British Literature. We made each other laugh. She was... bitter, and cynical, but still, really nice... I knew she had depression... but... it was weird. We had so much fun together. I never really made sense of that. That night, we saw a play. And then we went to a midnight movie. I was nodding off through the last half of it, I'd gotten up early that morning to go running. And, I keep wondering... if there was something... in the play, or in the movie, some trigger, or... some reason. Something that could... set her off, you know? Something I missed. I just keep trying to look for clues. For answers. She had survived so much. Why that night?
Leah - Nell's mother.
She had chronic depression, ever since she was twelve. Her father had depression, too. And her sister. And I was on antidepressants for a while, when I was her age. She was very high-functioning. She went years without any real incidents. She had control of it when she was in high school. And then, all of a sudden, things just... fell apart. She... spiraled. I asked her to move back home, but she said no, over and over again. She was hospitalized last summer. But I really thought that she'd get past it. I thought, "It's just a matter of time before she finds the right medicine, or the right therapist... and things will go back to normal."
Playwright's Note from "What Is This Everything?"
Saturday, March 22, 2008
"At the time in my life when I wrote this play, I had two choices. I could jump out the window. Or I could write the play. I wrote the play."
-- Patricia Scanlon, What Is This Everything?
I didn't find any monologues in What Is This Everything, but I really liked the Playwright's Note. It reminds me of things that I've said about plays.
