Shorter, Faster, Funnier

by Eric Lane

  (NL #1, #2, #3 think about this a second, then all crack up laughing.)

  NL #3: Hey, asshole. I’m a Mormon. I know what Joseph Smith looks like.

  JS: What does he look like, Neil LaBute the Mormon?

  NL #1: He’s six feet eight inches, is two hundred years old and has a white beard.

  JS: Is that so, Neil LaBute the Mormon?

  NL #2: Yeah I’m Mormon I should know!!! Don’t you read Entertainment Weekly? If you did you wouldn’t be asking such stupid questions.

  JS: Well I’m Joseph Smith you idiot.

  NL #3: Prove it, asshole!

  (JOSEPH SMITH waves her hands around. NEIL LABUTE #1, #2, #3 look on in awe.)

  NL #1: Whoa. That was incredible.

  NL #2: I never seen anything like it. Deep shit.

  NL #3: Only Joseph Smith, our beloved founder, could do that.

  JS: Now Neil LaBute, are you going to stop embarrassing Mormons? I don’t care if you make porn-slasher films with Mel Gibson, as long as you say you’re an atheist.

  NL #2: Oh, we couldn’t do that.

  JS: Why not?

  NL #1: We’d lose all our credibility.

  NL #3: By saying we’re Mormon we can do whatever we want and people believe we’re sincere.

  NL #2: Without any religious affiliation we’re fucked.

  JS: I don’t care! All you have to say about people is that they fuck their neighbor’s husbands and wives. And that’s it! That’s all you have to say?

  (Silence. All the NLS look at each other.)

  NL #1, #2, #3: Yeah.

  JS: Don’t you think that’s fucked-up?

  NL #1: No.

  NL #2: It’s real life.

  NL #3: It has deep meaning. People screw each other. We’re like, reporters of the human condition.

  NL #2: Like, hey Joseph Smith, we just added child molestation.

  NL #1: How about that?

  JS: I’m excommunicating you from the Mormon Church, Neil LaBute.

  NL #2: Why don’t you join us, Joseph Smith?

  NL #1: Wouldn’t you like to be a screenwriter and playwright, Joseph Smith?

  NL #3: Sure you would. People will think you’re so cool.

  (Pause. JOSEPH SMITH contemplates this.)

  JS: Really?

  (NLS nod.)

  Blackout!

  (JS sits at the table. Takes out a white pad.)

  Lights up!

  So I think Betty is pretending all along to be sweet and naive, but at the end of the film she ties Alice up and fucks her in the butt with a riding whip.

  NL #1: Way to go Joseph Smith!

  JS: Hey! I can write a movie!

  NL #2: And you are exposing the underbelly of human nature!

  NL #3: Just wait until you try and write a play!

  (Blackout—this time, for real.)

  END OF PLAY

  LIFE WITHOUT SUBTEXT

  Michael Mitnick

  Outside of the restroom.

  Park Avenue Armory. New York City.

  A blond, slight, young girl of seventeen, DELLY, leans against a wall opposite …

  BEN, also seventeen, in a blue blazer and tie.

  BEN: In terms of punch, I think this is tremendous punch.

  Or if I’m actually talking in punch terms, this is the punchiest punch in the oh my God I hate myself.

  Your hair is really straight.

  (DELLY doesn’t respond.)

  I should probably apologize.

  I’m sorry.

  I’m sorry.

  (Silence.)

  I don’t know why I’m apologizing. I don’t know why I’m talking. When I planned this—

  None of this would …

  I’m sorry I asked you to talk near the bathrooms. I should have said “on the veranda” but I honestly don’t know if there’s a veranda door that’s open. Plus what the hell. I should have said “hall” but that’s not very … the band is so loud, but I just needed to …

  Who knew a trumpet could be so loud.

  OK I’m Ben.

  (Silence.)

  Oh God is that creepy? I hope not. Oh shit. When I said “creepy” did it first bring it to your mind? The notion that this might be—

  You probably want to be getting back …

  (Silence.)

  You are so, soooo pretty.

  (Silence.)

  Is that creepy? I don’t care. I honestly don’t care if it is creepy.

  And fuck you if you honestly have a problem with honesty.

  I’M NOT IN CONTROL OF THE TRUTH.

  If this is the world I’m in. And if I can’t be honest about what I feel deeply inside of me, then fuck it. Can I say “fuck” around you? Do you care about things like—

  (Silence.)

  What I mean is that if I can’t be honest, and put everything I feel out on the proverbial table then I don’t even care about anything anymore …

  You are so, so pretty.

  That sounds shallow but it’s not. I don’t know you. Except to know that I feel things that I thought were hooey and balderdash and other words that expired like sour milk in 1944.

  (Silence.)

  I understand if you want to walk away. I’m Ben.

  I don’t go here.

  Or to your school. Is what I mean. Soooooo. Oh God if I heard myself right now. If I were you. In that white dress and. Your hair is so straight. Did you. You probably spent like hours on that. Probably. I’m wasting your evening. I’m sorry. No actually. No. I’m not sorry. I’m a human being. This is how great things happen. This is how amazing things in life happen. If you could recognize how great stories start, this would be it. I’m sorry.

  I don’t go here. I go to public school.

  (Silence.)

  I’m sure you get this all the time but. Listen. Um. I’m Ben.

  The only way that I can convince you of anything is to say that I’m a VERY CYNICAL PERSON.

  (Silence.)

  That should tell you everything.

  What I mean to say is that I don’t believe in love. I don’t. I honestly don’t.

  I believe in self-delusion.

  I don’t believe in God.

  I believe in some miracle of physics that spawned life and I believe in the miracle that I was born when I was and you were born when you were born, after microbes and caves; through religious hatred and early science. Through dark ages, renaissance, restoration, and gilded age. Through all that B.S. and wars and shit so that we could stand in a hallway and I could say that …

  Urgh. OK. Here goes:

  I JUST DON’T CARE.

  I fucking. Excuse me. I honestly fucking don’t. You’ve awakened something in me oh my God I sound like a fuckin.

  Excuse me.

  I don’t go here.

  I go to P.S. 122 and I saw you walk into a Duane Reade and then I did and then I saw you buy a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup and shampoo and my connection to you from that moment OK there is no way for me to convey this without sounding like someone I would like to murder slash report to the—

  I’m Ben.

  This is going to sound like. Urg. OK. So I love you.

  I do. I honestly fucking do and I don’t care. Why aren’t you walking away? I had all these plans of things to say if you were going to walk away. But you’re not so …

  I don’t believe in love. My parents married because they met each other in the three years where you better meet someone or else you’re not gonna have your own kids.

  I don’t believe in “meant to be.” I honestly believed there are like one hundred people. No. Like. Four hundred people out there who you’d honestly marry. And you just sort of fall in love slash settle. But when I saw you. I dunno.

  You made me feel things that I didn’t think it was possible in life to actually feel. Honestly. You awakened something in me. Something I thought only happened in fiction.

  I saw you and life came to life this sounds sooooo stupid.

  So stupid.
<
br />   I’m Ben.

  If someone told me that I’d have to run through a field for days and days and never stop. If someone said I’d have to run in order to see you one last time or just pass away immediately, I’d run. I swear to … whoever. I’d run.

  I feel something and it is weird and I’m honestly looking at it like a science experiment because it makes NO SENSE. But … I’ll just say it.

  When I saw you something clicked ON inside me that I never, NEVER, felt.

  Never.

  And I honestly don’t care. I honestly don’t give a fuck if you walk away. Excuse me. I don’t give a. OK. I don’t give a SHIT if you walk away because I’m being Honest.

  You gave me reason to feel like I’m alive. That my eighty-six years or whatever were worth it because I felt like there was something more than what comes from me. Something I can’t control that moves my emotions.

  I love you.

  Boom. I said it.

  OK. URGH.

  You can go. Honestly, you can walk away and I’d not judge you whatso …

  I DON’T CARE IF I’M CRAZY. I HONESTLY DON’T CARE IN THE VERY CORE OF ME. EVERY PRIORITY I EVER HAD—

  Why do you keep getting prettier?

  (Silence.)

  I’m not profound. I know it.

  And if I’d honestly taken three minutes to sit on the steps and smoke a cigarette and plan out something slick to say then maybe this would be different but I INTENTIONALLY didn’t. OK? I INTENTIONALLY didn’t because this is as much about my future happiness as it is about my faith in the universe.

  I’m not religious.

  I saw you buy shampoo and I fell apart.

  I’m Ben.

  (Silence.)

  I’m pretty stupid. I’m not going to a fancy college like you. I’m a third-tier kinda person. And you know what. I’m FINE with that. Because instead of your rat-race existence. Instead of being like … “Oh. I didn’t go to DUKE.” I’m gonna feel like shit just because a bunch of assholes who lived before me established a hierarchy. OK listen. There’s this guy who lives in my building who used to be associate manager at the Strand. He didn’t go to college. I’m pretty sure he didn’t graduate from high school but if he did who cares. He’s read so many books and he’s so much smarter than that assfuck who teaches economics at my high school who graduated Harvard class of ’68 and is sadder than a Sacajawea dollar coin.

  I’m not creative and I’ll probably do, like, eight jobs before I realize what I want.

  I bet my grandfather saw my grandmother and had all these same cynical thoughts. All the stupid like supercomputer—oh—we’re at the apex of technology everything that can be invented has been invented. I’m just a jerky poor kid from Brooklyn who doesn’t want do anything but sneak into Garrick Gaieties and draw naked pictures of showgirls and throw a baseball around and everything’s cynical and I was born too late and old people are a real intrusion on my epic thoughts but …

  I feel like I’m part of something bigger now.

  And I’m sure your dad owns, like, the Discovery Channel but …

  I NEED TO STOP TALKING.

  I’m Ben. I don’t believe in religion. But I believe in you.

  (Silence.)

  If I were you and someone said that line to me I’d not only walk away, but I’d honestly devote my life to humiliating him.

  I will honestly take a photo of myself with my cell camera and post it on a Web site devoted to morons who mess up potentially and devastatingly romantic situations.

  (Silence.)

  I delivered groceries for four weeks to old ladies on the Upper East Side to pay for this blue blazer.

  I don’t have very much money.

  But.

  I think you’re so pretty and you make me feel something I didn’t know wasn’t fictional.

  You made me believe there’s order. Or disorder. Or … something more than selfish discontent.

  DELLY: I’m Delly.

  (BEN smiles.)

  BEN: I’m Ben.

  (Silence.)

  Do you want to dance?

  (DELLY shrugs.)

  I’m worried you won’t live up to what I thought you were.

  DELLY: Don’t worry. I’m better.

  (They clasp hands and exit.)

  END OF PLAY

  LONG DISTANCE

  Jane Shepard

  Long Distance was first seen at Vital Theatre in New York City on February 17, 2000, written for and featuring Stewart Clark, and directed by Sir Frank Pisco.

  A seedy little apartment. Can be represented by an old armchair and side table.

  ROY enters, high energy, and talks to audience as he puts down his things, takes off his coat, and dons an old bathrobe …

  ROY: Do you know what happened today? Oh! I couldn’t wait to tell you! You will die! Do you know who I saw? Fatima Farterweigh! From the third grade, the one in the class picture caught for all eternity touching her tongue to her nose?!—Oh! I cannot get over that! Not for a thousand years and all the yen in yigamoo! Can you imagine the humiliation?! I combed my hair at least twelve times for that picture, not a pasty hair out of place! I lived in terror a tweak would have fallen down, and Momma would point and Alvin would scoff and I would live a condemned life!

  But Fatima! Fat Fatima! Oh, not fat, I shouldn’t say fat, that’s mean, um … Pudgy—no, not pudgy—plump! Generous. No! Rubenesque. Okay, that’s not it but let’s pretend it is so we can get on with it, okay? Okay! Rubenesque Fatima Farterweigh, embedded into that picture with Brillo hair and her tongue up her nose, one eye going this way and one eye going that! Oh! It frightens me, it chills me, burned into my memory!

  So! I am walking across the plaza this afternoon, and this, this petrified photographic image is transformed before memory’s eye into a living, breathing, grown-up Fatima Farterweigh! Standing before me, frowning, just like she was in third grade, all pimply—ew, do third graders even have pimples?!—and do you know what she did? She pointed at me and shouted, “You!” And I tried to pretend that I hadn’t seen her, but it didn’t work very well because I was so surprised I was just staring, and she shouted, “Roy!”

  And, I have to tell you, I said, “Me? No!” And she absolutely screamed, “Roy Gannoy!” And—what could I do? She chased me across the plaza screaming, “Roy Gannoy the Bubble Boy!” I shouted back, “I don’t know you, and for God’s sake, Fatima, stop screaming!” Oh! Can you believe it? I am so lame! But I was absolutely cornered!

  And Fatima Farterweigh goes, “You’re Roy Gannoy, that boy who talked to himself and blew bubbles all alone on the playground!”

  Well. I just turned to her and said, “And you’re Fat Fatima who’s going to fart-her-way to fourth grade!”

  And she stopped, and said, “But that was mean.”

  And I said, “So were all of you!” Yes I did. I said that. That put a crimp in her bonnet.

  She says, “I remember you now, you were always mean.”

  And I said, “No, I was witty.” This is a common misconception. If you’re a man you can be witty, but if you have ironic insight as an eight-year-old, you’re mean.—Although, apparently, if you blow bubbles or talk to yourself at any age, no one will ever, ever forget it!

  And do you know what Fatima said then?

  She smiles and goes, “Do you still talk to what’s-his-name?”

  “No, Fatima, I don’t see anyone from third grade, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “No, not a student! That thing you did, your little playground friend!”

  I said, “I don’t talk to anyone.”

  “No, your special friend.”

  I did not know what to say. I do not know what to say to people like that, to this day, I don’t, period, good night. She leers and says, “The one you always talked to on the playground. You’re the one who had an invisible friend.”

  Okay, fat girl, the cat is out of the bag! Do you still pick your pimples?! Do you still eat your boogers?! Are you
still inflated with enough hot air to blow yourself to fourth grade?! Yes, apparently you are! Well, of course I didn’t say that. I didn’t say, “Fat Fatima Fart-her-way to fourth grade hair like a Brillo pad sucking snot out of her sinuses in the school picture, eyes doing this: ga ga ga!” No! I didn’t say that!

  And then she, she who has to shop for clothes at the Hindenburg factory, says, “I was mean too. I just didn’t know how to tell anybody I liked them. Did you?”

  Fatima Farterweigh … I shrugged. I said, “I never liked anybody.”

  She says, “Oh, that’s sad.”

  Can you imagine? I said, “No. It’s not. It’s witty.”

  And she said, “No, Roy, that’s sadder than me.”

  I said, “But, you’re Fat Fatima Fart-her-way to the fourth grade, walleyed and licked your nose in the picture and everybody hated you, even me.”

  “I know,” she said. “But I liked you.”

  (Silence for a bit, as he noogles around, not sure how to respond.)

  Well … I could have told her I guess. I could have told her about you. I could have said, Fatima, girl who turned out to actually like me … I don’t need to be liked. Because I no longer have that invisible friend that I talked to. Now I go home, and put on my robe, and talk to an entire room full of them!

  I have masses at my disposal whenever I need them!—I’ve made up more people than you will ever know in your life, I’ve talked to more different kinds of people—Oh, I talk with friends, family, me and Momma gab up a storm! She loves gossip now the way she never did when she was alive! Sometimes I sit Alvin down right here and read him the riot act about the way he treated me and Momma and, let me tell you, in this house, this time around, he’s sorry! And how he and Momma should have had a little brother for me, even a sickly one, I would have watched out for him. And I talk with my little brother.