Shorter, Faster, Funnier
Page 14
Mm-hm! It’s not everyone who gets to decide whether or not they have a baby brother. Sure, he can be a pest—when he’s in his teens, he’s unbearable! Doesn’t listen to a thing I say. I tell him. But he’s a good boy basically. And when he’s not, I make him a neurosurgeon! Yes!
And I am so not a jealous big brother. I’m the kind that attends his medical graduation and gives the talk!
(Behind chair, as podium.)
“No brother could be more proud than I, to look upon the young man sitting here today, and know that that little hand, that I taught to tie shoes, will be used in the service of mankind. Congratulations, Gary.” Gary, after Gary Cooper.
When Gary’s not around I hold salons! Oh yes, right here in my room! In my robe! People love to gather here, excellent meals, always casual. Henry Kissinger, Truman Capote, Dorothy Parker, Britney Spears—Don’t laugh, Britney is very much underrated. And cute as a button! I admit, Truman and Dorothy make merciless fun when she’s out of the room. I smooth things over.
(Looking out over all the audience.)
Debutantes, dilettantes, dignitaries. Common hairdressers, businessmen, poets, those with hard traveling. All of you. There is no lack of a listening ear in this room! Is there? I could have told her all of that.
And for a moment, for a fleeting moment, it passed through my mind to do it. To tell her everything! Just … let it all rip, even bring her home, introduce her around! It was funny, I must say, the urge, the funniest sort of … bubble. I suppose I might have told her that I had sort of liked her too.
All I said was, “I have to go now.”
To her, you understand, I will always be Roy Gannoy the Bubble Boy. The kid who talks to himself and has no friends. A product of their limited minds.
So! Fatima, in her coat—she had this horrendous, oh-dear-God-what-did-you-hit-with-the-truck, dead fur thing on! Yes. And this, this slightly crooked front tooth when she smiled. And pudgy hands. Very soft. Pudgy, quite soft hands, that shook yours firmly, not mean, just firm. And she said, “Well, I have to go back to the stand anyhow, we’re selling long-distance cards, because it’s a better deal than Verizon, you don’t need a long-distance card do you?” And I told her I didn’t.
She said, “Good-bye, Roy.” And she walked away across the plaza. A waddling wave of green and yellow muumuu. Soft green. And soft yellow. Back to her long-distance cards.
So! That was my day! I absolutely had to tell you before I popped! Oh! What a weird, weird venture! Never touch your tongue to your nose when a camera is anywhere in the vicinity, that’s all. You will never escape it. I am so glad to be home. With you. All comfy.
I still … I feel … the funniest kind of twinge still. Curiosity I think. Which is natural. Ironic, really, for me. In passing. I just … I wonder, in retrospect is all, what exactly the cost of long distance is these days.
(He sits staring vaguely into space. Lights fade.)
END OF PLAY
MARY JUST BROKE UP WITH THIS GUY
Garth Wingfield
Mary Just Broke Up with This Guy was originally produced as part of Dating Games (an evening of Garth Wingfield’s one-act plays) by Winged Angel Productions at Theatre Row Studio Theatre in New York City on June 10, 2003. It was directed by Laura Josepher. The set design was by Sarah Lambert. The lighting design was by Susan Hamburger. Sierra Marcks was the stage manager. The cast was as follows:
MARY Karin Sibrava
HER DATES Michael Anderson
CHARACTERS
MARY: Twenties or thirties.
HER DATE: Roughly the same age as Mary.
TIME
Current day.
PLACE
A coffeehouse.
PRODUCTION NOTE: The man should use no costumes or props (hats, glasses, etc.) to distinguish between each of the various characters. They should all be realized as simply and theatrically as possible.
“De do do do, de da da da,
is all I want to say to you.”
—The Police
A woman sitting alone on a chair in a coffeehouse. She glances around occasionally, fidgets, sips from a latte. On a table in front of her is a buzzer like you’d find on a game show.
A man enters, looks around, then approaches her.
DATE #1: Are you Mary?
MARY: I am. It’s nice to meet you … Alex.
DATE #1: Likewise.
MARY: You want a coffee?
DATE #1: I grabbed the waitress when I came in. She’s getting me a latte.
MARY: (Smiles.) Oh, that’s what I’m having.
DATE #1: (Smiles, sits.) Oh. (A little awkward.) So. Here we are.
MARY: Uh-huh.
(A little beat.)
I’ve got to admit I’m a little nervous.
DATE #1: Actually, me too.
MARY: I just broke up with this guy I’d been seeing for a while. Tony. Was his name. But you don’t want to hear about him. I’m kind of rusty at the whole dating thing is all.
DATE #1: Yeah, Sally mentioned something about that when she called. So you and this guy were together for what …?
MARY: Six years.
DATE #1: Wow.
MARY: Yeah.
DATE #1: That’s a long time.
MARY: I know. But enough about him. He’s ancient history. You know Sally from Cornell?
DATE #1: Yep, we met the first day of freshman year, if you can believe that. She’s great, isn’t she?
MARY: The best. Everyone at work adores her. And it’s kind of funny, actually, because she’d mentioned you a while ago, months ago, I think. She announced at lunch that she had this great single friend named Alex she was just dying to fix someone up with. Of course, I was with Tony at the time so I didn’t pay much attention. But now … here we are.
DATE #1: Life’s weird like that, isn’t it?
MARY: It is.
DATE #1: So how long ago did you and Tony break up?
MARY: Tuesday.
(A little beat.)
DATE #1: Sorry?
MARY: This past Tuesday. But it’s okay, it’s not like I’m on the rebound or anything.
(He shoots her a strange look.)
That must sound insane. I mean, yes, on some level, I probably am on the rebound, but … (Trying to sound very sincere.) It was over for a very long time before we actually ended it.
(He starts to laugh.)
What?
DATE #1: I appreciate your attempt to … you’re adorable.
MARY: Well, okay … thanks.
(Then.) Y’know, this is so much easier than I thought it would be.
DATE #1: What do you mean?
MARY: You just seem so … normal.
DATE #1: I guess that’s a good thing.
MARY: Are you kidding? You hear these stories. And I am sort of picky.
(Faux serious.) Please tell me you don’t smoke.
DATE #1: I don’t smoke.
MARY: Thank God. Because I could never date a smoker. I mean, I smoked. For years. Never gonna go there again.
DATE #1: Good for you.
MARY: (Winces, expectantly.) And I’m hoping … you like dogs … because I have one.
DATE #1: I haven’t petted a dog in weeks. I can’t wait to meet yours.
MARY: And I really like going to the theater. Mostly off-Broadway stuff.
DATE #1: Oh, then you should see the new John Patrick Shanley.
MARY: I saw it! I loved it!
DATE #1: Oh my God, so did I!
MARY: You’re kidding?!
DATE #1: I’m not!
MARY: What a coincidence!
DATE #1: (Blurts, almost over her last line.) I’m gay!
(Beat.)
MARY: I’m sorry …?
DATE #1: (All in one breath.) Sally has no idea—it would kill her if she knew. She was completely in love with me in college, before she met George and he became an orthodontist and they fell into their loveless marriage in Hackensack. Promise me you won’t say a word.
DATE #1: But you seem really fun. We should go to the theater!
(A beat; then Mary reaches over and presses the buzzer: BUUUUUUUZZZZZ! The man stands.)
DATE #2: (More assertive.) You must be Mary!
MARY: I am. It’s nice to meet you … Tom.
DATE #2: Yeah.
MARY: You want a coffee?
DATE #2: I just grabbed the waitress. She’s whipping me up a chai.
MARY: A what?
DATE #2: A chai. It’s like this infused tea thing.
MARY: (Not as comfortable with this.) Oh … I’m having a latte.
DATE #2: (Equally unsettled, sits.) Oh …
(A little beat. She relaxes a bit.)
MARY: (Less nervous than last time.) I’ve got to admit I’m a little nervous. I just broke up with this guy I’d been seeing for a while. Tony. Was his name. But you don’t want to hear about him.
DATE #2: Yeah, you mentioned something about that when you answered my personal ad. So you and this guy were together for what …?
MARY: Six years.
DATE #2: Wow, that’s significant.
MARY: I know.
DATE #2: And when did you break up?
MARY: Like … a while ago …
DATE #2: Gimme a ballpark.
MARY: Um … three months?
DATE #2: (Fast.) Damn, so you’re totally on the rebound.
(A little beat.)
MARY: No, I’m not. At all. And maybe it was more like four or five months, it’s hard to remember.
DATE #2: Wait, you can’t remember when you broke up?
MARY: Not specifically.
DATE #2: And you were together six years?
MARY: That’s right.
DATE #2: Something’s not tracking here.
MARY: You asked me to give you a ballpark …
DATE #2: I remember exactly when I broke up with my last girlfriend, Tanya, and we were only together for like—
MARY: (Overlapping, embarrassed.) It was last Tuesday, okay? Two Tuesdays ago. And I’m really … gonna go kill myself or something now.
(BUUUUUUUZZZZZ!)
DATE #3: (Smoother.) I’m guessing you’re Mary.
MARY: That’s me. It’s nice to meet you … Darren?
DATE #3: Yep.
MARY: You want a coffee?
DATE #3: I just grabbed the waitress. She’s whipping me up some pasta.
MARY: (Not understanding his order.) I’m having a latte.
DATE #3: That works for me.
(A little beat. He sits.)
MARY: (Bored, slow, as if saying a script for the zillionth time; not nervous at all.) I’ve got to admit I’m a little nervous. I just broke up with this guy I’d been seeing. Tony was his name, and blah, blah, blah …
DATE #3: (Eyes her askance.) You don’t seem nervous.
MARY: (Snaps out of it.) What?
DATE #3: At all.
MARY: (Covers.) Well, I … hide it well, I guess.
DATE #3: Apparently. (Then.)
So yeah, you mentioned your ex on the phone. You and this guy were together for what, six years?
MARY: Right.
DATE #3: And when did you break up?
MARY: (Without missing a beat.) Months ago. I could give you a specific date, if you want. October eighteenth—there. I’m so not on the rebound.
DATE #3: I didn’t say you were …
MARY: I’ve moved beyond him. Completely.
DATE #3: Great.
So … you wanna fuck?
(BUUUUUUUZZZZZ!)
DATE #4: (More intense.) Your personal ad. What you wrote was really cool.
MARY: You thought so?
DATE #4: Yeah, especially the part about rats.
MARY: Aren’t they somehow repellent and exhilarating at the same time?
DATE #4: Totally. (Very fast and dark.) This one time I had a rat in my apartment—and it was a big fucker too—and it tormented me, man, landing with a boom on the floor in the middle of the night and making me do somersaults of fear off my futon at two a.m. So what I did was, I cornered it and trapped it and called my friend Edgar, and I was all, “You’ve gotta come over here, man.” And he was all, “But why?” And I was all, “Just get your ass over here.” So he did, and I doused the little furball in gasoline, and we kicked back and drank beers and watched that motherfucker BUUUUUUUUUUUUUURN!! (Then, completely normal.) So your ad said you liked sushi.
(BUUUUUUUZZZZZ!)
DATE #5: (More earnest.) I’ve seen your personal ad on Nerve-dot-com for weeks now, and I’ve always meant to respond.
MARY: It hasn’t been there that many weeks …
DATE #5: You wrote some nice things.
MARY: Oh. Thanks.
DATE #5: Especially the part about God.
MARY: Um … I didn’t write about God.
DATE #5: And I think that’s a problem, don’t you? (BUUUUUUUZZZZZ!)
DATE #6: (More bookish.) So how many times have you gone to Date Bait?
MARY: That was my first time. I’ve never done anything like that before.
DATE #6: They all say that.
MARY: No, really, it’s true.
DATE #6: (Not believing her.) Uh-huh …
MARY: Standing up in front of all those people. It was horrifying.
DATE #6: It gets easier. And why did you write down my number?
MARY: I don’t know … I thought you were cute. You’ve got great eyes. A very piercing green.
DATE #6: Yeah? I thought you were cute too.
MARY: (Smile.) Thanks. (Then.) Also, you said you like dogs.
DATE #6: Right.
MARY: I love dogs.
DATE #6: Oh, I was just saying that.
MARY: What?
DATE #6: Gets ’em every time. Women love guys who love dogs. I mean, it’s not like I hate dogs or anything. I’m just more of a cat person.
(Then, afraid he’s offended her.) Do you have a dog?
MARY: (Covers.) No … (Then.) Do you have a cat?
DATE #6: A couple. Well, seventeen. Mind if I smoke? (As he pulls out a pack of cigarettes.) I really hate when people give other people shit, for smoking in public. If I wanna smoke, I’ll smoke. Besides, it’s sexy!
MARY: I feel like I should be giving you the benefit of the doubt here, but …
(BUUUUUUUZZZZZ!)
DATE #7: (More suave, off the cigarettes.) Would this bother you?
MARY: Well, a little …
DATE #7: Oh, then I don’t have to. I’m trying to quit anyway. It’s such a disgusting habit.
MARY: Isn’t it?
(Before he puts away the cigarettes he pulls a Ziploc bag from his jacket pocket—it’s filled with something we can’t quite make out.)
DATE #7: Quick question: How do you feel about that?
MARY: What’s that?
DATE #7: My own hair. I’ve been collecting it since 1986. I have sixty-seven jars. Is that a disgusting habit too?
(BUZZZZZ!)
DATE #8: (Picks up the cigarettes again.) Oh my God, you hate I’m a smoker!
MARY: That’s okay.
DATE #8: No, seriously …
MARY: It’s really okay …
(He puts away the cigarettes.)
DATE #8: I smoke. It’s so gross. Is that a deal breaker?
MARY: (Weak smile.) No …
DATE #8: Thank God. So tell me what you do.
MARY: I’m an editor. At Time Out.
DATE #8: Fun.
MARY: Yeah, but it pays nothing. And you?
DATE #8: (Sexy leer.) Certified public accountant.