by Eric Lane
KEVIN: I knew you were coming around! I could tell!
DANIEL: Get away from me, okay? Leave me alone forever, starting right now.
KEVIN: What are you talking about? We have a date to go on, cowboy.
DANIEL: Are you insane? No! No, we do NOT!
KEVIN: After all that WORK?! Do you have any idea how DIFFICULT that was, thinking on my feet like that? I totally forgot little Amber's name there for a full thirty seconds.
DANIEL: There is no way in hell I am ever going on a date with you, Kevin …if that is your real name.
KEVIN: It's actually Hernando, which is pretty ironic. (Off DANIEL'S look.) THAT WAS A JOKE!!
DANIEL: See, that's why I won't go out with you. That is my point exactly. Aside from the fact that you're a complete freak—and that's high on the list of reasons why I won't go out with you—there's also this little problem of me having no idea who you really are! Or what you might pull!
KEVIN: Oh, come on …
DANIEL: Come on what? We could get to some restaurant, and you'd tell me that you're really a woman. Or that you're Vietnamese. Or that you're a VIETNAMESE WOMAN! Or, or I'd get you home, and then you'd try to rob me, and this whole thing would turn out to be some extended con!
KEVIN: It's not a con.
DANIEL: You conned me into saying I'd go out with you!
KEVIN: I did not.
DANIEL: You did! You lied to me repeatedly!
KEVIN: I didn't lie—fine, you want to know who I am?
(DANIEL rolls his eyes.)
KEVIN: I'm a guy who's been coming to this bar on Thursdays for months, who noticed you weeks ago and thought you were certifiably cute, only you've never even seen me. You looked right through me. And fine, maybe I'm nothing special. I know that. But I've seen you making gay eyes at Latin men who are far, far less nothing special than I am. And that pissed me off, frankly. So when you left your card at the ATM machine, it seemed like I was being given this chance. And …I just wanted you to see me for a few minutes. For one conversation.
DANIEL: AND YOU COULDN'T JUST SAY, “HI, I FOUND YOUR ATM CARD?!”
KEVIN: Sure, but how unoriginal would that have been? And I didn't lie to you, for the record. I surprised you. I kept you guessing. And for a while there, near the end, you were pretty intrigued by me, I could tell. You were dancing right alongside me. And I still happen to think you're certifiably cute.
DANIEL: Just…stop making all this shit up, okay?
KEVIN: I won't make up any more shit. I promise.
DANIEL: And never make me drink a Bacardi Breezer in public again.
KEVIN: I won't.
DANIEL: Beyond that, I just…I don't even know what I'm supposed to say to you.
KEVIN: How about we just…let's just…(Turns to him, anew.) Hey.
DANIEL: (after a pause) Hey.
(The lights fade on them.)
DEER PLAY
Mary Louise Wilson
Deer Play was first performed at Actors& Writers in Olivebridge, New York, on October 2, 1999, with the playwright directing the following cast:
MADGE: Nicole Quinn
MABLE Sarah Chodoff
LOCAL MAN Joe White
DEER David Smilow
ACT ONE
(Two actresses meet in Joe Allen's Restaurant.)
MABLE: Madge! Darling!
MADGE: Mable! Darling!
MABLE: It's been ages!
MADGE: Ages!
MABLE: YOU. Look. Fabulous.
MADGE: What is that you're wearing? I love it.
MABLE: (alarmed shout) You cut your hair!
MADGE: Don't look at my nails!
MABLE: What are you doing now? Are you in anything?
MADGE: In the country, Darling! Up in my little cottage.
MABLE: I will never forget you in “Put Down That Hammer.”I can't believe that was three years ago.
MADGE: I adore it up there, surrounded by nature—
MABLE: —You were Brrrillliant in that.
MADGE: You can't imagine how glorious it is—the air! The trees! Deer grazing in the meadow!
MABLE: Are you up for anything now?
MADGE: I've taken up gardening, Darling! Oh yes, I'm a huge gardener.
MABLE: Were you seen for that new play “Closet”?
MADGE: I'm seeing about being seen….
MABLE: YOU should be seen. You're perfect for the mother.
MADGE: I've just become so terribly taken up with gardening. I'm devoting all my time to it.
MABLE: I had three callbacks. My agent said they loved me but they went in another direction.
MADGE: I'm so preoccupied with tilth and aerating and mulch and bone meal….
MABLE: Oh! I saw “Spatula”last night. Brrrillliant. Absolutely Brrrillliant.
MADGE: You know what the single most important element in gardening is?
MABLE: YOU should have played the mother. You would have been Brrrillliant.
MADGE: Soil. Rich, friable soil.
MABLE: I can't believe you weren't submitted for that.
MADGE: That, and a really deep hole.
MABLE: Are you listening to me?
MADGE: (She comes unstoppered.) Of course I am, Sweetie! I'm just so involved—I've turned my whole property into a perennial bed, you know.
MABLE: Really.
MADGE: Yes! I'm creating my own little Sissinghurst, a deliciously disordered jumble of flowering and foliage plantings, punctuated by topiary. I'm going to send climbers up the trees and twine clematis around the phone wires.
MABLE: You don't say.
MADGE: Pots and pots and pots of annuals and herbs everywhere and giant urns dripping nasturtiums and tons and tons of roses! My floribundas are in bud, my rugosas are about to explode, my Frau Dagmar Hartopp is a repeat bloomer, you know.
MABLE: NO.
MADGE: Yes! She's doing fabulously this year. I discovered that she likes a bit of whole wheat flour sprinkled around her ankles. You know, my absolute favorite rose was always the Sparries-hoop but now I have to say it's the Schneezwerg.
MABLE: Schwooznerz …
MADGE: Schneezwerg. It has beautiful hips. I've planted Alchemilla mollis everywhere, and eupatorium and Campanula persicifolia, the white variety of course, and geranium “Johnson's Blue”and Phlox paniculata, two kinds, Eva Cullum and Dodo Han-bury Forbes. Phlox must never get its feet wet! On the other hand, Alcea rosea detests rich soil. What Alcea rosea loves is a wall. I've been worrying all week about my Hydrangea anom-ala petiolaris. It's got something. I'm going to erect a sweet little potting shed among the lilies—(During the last two sentences, MABLE's eyes close and her head slowly lowers into her salad.) Mable? You're in the radicchio.
(End Act One.)
ACT TWO
(MADGE: and MABLE arrive in the country.)
MADGE: Here we are!
MABLE: We're here?
MADGE: This is it.
MABLE: Darling! It's beyond cute.
MADGE: Come on, get out of the car, come, come, come, come, I want to show you the garden.
MABLE: (MABLE points.) That is your cottage?
MADGE: That is my cottage.
MABLE: TOO adorable. The little windows!
MADGE: Come on, leave your bags—
MABLE: I'll just drop them inside—
MADGE: NO.
MABLE: I'll just use the ladies—
MADGE: NO! First, my gardenzia—The lilies were just on the verge of bloom when I left last weekend…. See, over here I've filled the entire area with Eupitor—wait. Wait a minute. Wait a little minute. What's missing here? My LILIES! My lilies are gone! They can't be. They were just here. Where'd they go? OhmyGodmyGodmyGod my lilies! My beautiful lilies!
MABLE: What are all these stalks here?
MADGE: (grief-stricken) And my MALVA! What in hell happened to my malva? And my verbascum! And my (huge gasp) my CONEFLOWERS! They're all deCAPitated! (Moaning.) My Astrantia “Margery Fish,”my filipendula, my
Coreopsis verticillata! my Platycodon grandiflora! Nibbled, nibbled, every goddamn one of them!
MABLE: Looks like a truck drove through here.
MADGE: (Agamemnon is dead.) Oh horror, horror! Oh, oh, oh the pity of it! My eupatorium! My thalictrum! My Alchemilla mollis! And look! My digitalis, my lysimachia, my darling dianthus, my Cimici—Cimifi—Cis—my Snakeroot—I can't, I can't—
MABLE: What do you say we go inside and have us some gin?
MADGE: And my ROHOHOHSES! Oh no no no no no, not my darling roses! No, no, no, no …not my little ones…
MABLE: Don't go there, Madge….
MADGE: My Constance Spry, my Blanc de Double de Coubert, my Moyessii!—eaten, eaten, thorns and all…Oh my precious darlings, who did this horrible thing to you? Who? Who? Oh woe, oh woe-is-me …
MABLE: Madge? Madge, come back. I'd like to wash up.
MADGE: (mumbling, stumbling off) Blow winds, crack your cheeks….
(End Act Two.)
ACT THREE
(MADGE: and LOCAL MAN stand in the garden.)
LOCAL MAN: Okay, lady, whaddaya want me to do?
MADGE: Look at this! Look at this, this devastation.
LOCAL MAN: HO! Looks like the deer done had a four-course meal.
MADGE: DEER did this?
LOCAL MAN: Well it weren't your Aunt Mary….
MADGE: But I feed them! I put hay out in the field for them!
LOCAL MAN: Lady, if you got a plate of oatmeal in front of you and you look across the way and see a T-bone steak sitting there—
MADGE: Well, I want you to fix it so they can't have my T-bone. My flowers.
LOCAL MAN: Lady. You can't do nuttin'about deer.
MADGE: There must be a repellent of some sort!
LOCAL MAN: Oh yeah, but after a while the deer don't care, it don't make no difference—
MADGE: I want you to put up a fence. A ten-foot fence.
LOCAL MAN: (chuckling) Lady, deer can jump a twelve-foot fence. From a sitting position. Deer can squoze theyselves underneath. Deer can flatten theyselves and slide through itty-bitty cracks one inch wide. Deer can shinny up fifty-foot flagpoles—
MADGE: All right allright allRIGHT!
LOCAL MAN: The only answer for deer is L-E-A-D BOOM! L-E-A-D.
(End Act Three.)
ACT FOUR
(MADGE:'S house)
(MABLE'S voice is heard behind MADGE:'S stockade fence.)
MABLE: Who-hoo! Madge? Madge? It's me. Mable. May I come in?
MADGE: (low monotone) Suit yourself.
MABLE: The gate is locked.
MADGE: Oh—wait—
MABLE: Was that river there before?
MADGE: It's a moat.
MABLE: I was antiquing in the area so I thought I'd stop by on my way back to the city.
MADGE: Yuh.
MABLE: Where in the world have you been all these months? You disappeared! What have you been up to?
MADGE: Oh—gardening…
MABLE: You know I got a leading role on “All the Worlds of Our Days”?
MADGE: I say “gardening,”more like “The Terminator”—
MABLE: I play a murderess who's having an affair with the presiding judge.
MADGE: The enemy is out there and the enemy is Bambi.
MABLE: The judge turns out to be a lesbian—
MADGE: I lugged bags and bags of hair clippings up from Elizabeth Arden's and threw them all over the roses—I think some of Diane Sawyer's hair was in there—
MABLE: Then she catches me in bed with my attorney—
MADGE: That worked for about two weeks, until they grew to like hairs in their food…. Then I tried rotten eggs…yellow slime all over the daylilies…that kept'em away for a day or two…. Then I hung bars of Irish Spring soap from everything …the stench was so bad it kept me away….
MABLE: The attorney leaves me for his former wife's stepdaughter—
MADGE: I tried sprays and pellets and goo and mothballs and mesh and cages and—
MABLE: Unbeknownst to me, I marry my father—
MADGE: First they ate the tulips, then the daylilies—just gobbled them up—
MABLE: He finds out, he poisons me, I die horribly—
MADGE: Gobblegobblegobble—
MABLE: And I come back as my twin sister.
MADGE: Then the phlox and the hollyhock and the campanula, then the roses, then the deer-resistant plants, then the Christmas trees—
MABLE: I didn't know they ate Christmas trees—
MADGE: I was pretty proud of my garden. …I labored long hours there—
MABLE: We all wanted to see your garden—
MADGE: Digging planting watering ferting pinching pruning weeding deadheading—
MABLE: Well, it's late, I better be going—
MADGE: Mulching root-pruning spraying separating propagating—
MABLE: It's a long drive back—
MADGE: Their number is legion, you know—last night there were forty of them standing on my front lawn. Forty! I counted.
MABLE: You really ought to get out more.
MADGE: Every morning there they are staring at me through the kitchen window. Just standing there, staring. And chewing.
MABLE: Go shopping! Join a gym!
MADGE: Two of them were spotted in Home Depot last week. In Lawn Furniture.
MABLE: Are you seeing anyone these days?
MADGE: Who the hell is there to see?
MABLE: There must be somebody—
MADGE: Oh Mable, the last time I uncrossed my legs bats flew out!
MABLE: Madge, dear—
MADGE: DON'T CALL ME THAT!
MABLE: Sorry, sorry.
MADGE: Excuse me a minute.
MABLE: Where are you going? (MADGE: goes over to her dahlia bed, pulls her pants down, and squats.) Madge! What are you doing???
MADGE: What does it look like? I'm protecting what's left of my dahlias.
MABLE: What if someone saw you!
MADGE: I have to drink gallons of water every day.
MABLE: Get up. Pull your pants up!
MADGE: I only do this when I run out of coyote urine.
(End Act Four.)
ACT FIVE
(MADGE:'S house. At night.)
(MADGE: sits in her nightie on her porch steps in the moonlight watching several deer devouring her garden.)
MADGE: Look at them…. Mangy beasts…chewing away…. (Calls to them.) Enjoy your meal, boys! …Dig in. …When you've polished off my Lab-Lab vine, why don't you give my nice Helianthus angustifolius a taste? Got to get your greens! Look at them looking at me. I could be yodeling, dancing the fandango, they couldn't care less. Either they're extremely nearsighted or they're brain-dead. (Yelling a little.) You stupid stupid animals! You've ruined my dream! You've destroyed everything I loved! …(Sees a large male deer standing apart from the others.) Look at this one, staring at me. What are you staring at, you big idiot?
DEER: You.
MADGE: What?
DEER: I'm staring at you.
MADGE: You're talking?
DEER: Your smell is strange. Provoking.
MADGE: Don't come any nearer!
DEER: You two-legs fascinate me.
MADGE: Aren't you afraid of me?
DEER: Are you afraid of me?
MADGE: Well, you are quite—large up close….
DEER: I am a very big buckeroo.
MADGE: God! Your BREATH!
DEER: Your daylilies are the yummiest I ever tasted. What do you put in them?
MADGE: Say, I've always wanted to ask, what is all that snorting you boys do?
DEER: Feel my antlers.
MADGE: No. I hate you! Go away!
DEER: But, we're in the middle of dinner here.
MADGE: Yeah! Right! What's the special tonight? The Ranunculus Ragout? The Daisy Melange?
DEER: You know, when I see you in your garden down on all fours pawing at the dirt, I get ideas.
MADGE: B
eat it.
DEER: Go on, feel my antlers.
MADGE: Oh all right, but then you really must go. (Sheputs her hand on his antlers.) They're quite amazing. Very—horny. (Shocked, embarrased giggle. Your antlers are. Hornlike. Excellent equipment. (More embarrassed giggles.) Oh dear.
DEER: You called?
MADGE: Cut it out.
DEER: Stroke my flank?
MADGE: No. Hey! Don't put your muzzle there.
DEER: Come into the woods with me.
MADGE: Don't be absurd. You're a deer.
DEER: Lie with me.
MADGE: No! I can't. It would never work out.
DEER: Come on.
MADGE: Oh God, your eyelashes! Don't look at me like that.
DEER: Come on.
MADGE: Your smell! I loooowuuuuuuuve it! (The word “loathe” surrendering into the word “love.”)
(As they walk off into the woods.)
DEER: You're so dainty and hairless.
MADGE: I didn't shave my legs….
DEER: I know where there's a secluded flower bed….
(Music swells.)
EL DEPRESSO ESPRESSO
Laura Shaine Cunningham
El Depresso Espresso premiered June 2001, as part of Evening “A” of The Hospital Plays at the HB Playwrights Foundation in New York City. The play was directed by Guy Boyd; the set design was by Michael Schweikardt; the lighting design was by John Lasiter; the costume design was by Mary Margaret O' Neill; the sound design was by Jon Kadela; the production stage manager was David Apichell. The cast was as follows:
MO Patrick Darragh
LIV Elizabeth Bunch
DR. YOSHIMURA: Toshiro Yamamoto
DR. OBOLENSKI Christine Farrell
CHARACTERS
MO: A man, youngish, very depressed (should be able to do Irish inflection, slight).
LIV: A woman, youngish, very depressed (should be able to do Jewish inflection, slight).
DR. YOSHIMURA: Handsome Japanese doctor.
DR. OBOLENSKI: Beautiful Russian doctor.
PROPS: Draped coffee cart, Starbucks containers.
MUSIC: Cajun, zydeco cassettes.
(The depression clinic of a well-known New York City hospital. Midnight. A drizzly, dreary spring night. Outside, police and ambulance sirens shrill the call of the city-wild. The sterile room has a sign: “YOSHIMURA-Obolenski Depression Clinic.” There are a row of plain chairs, a movable screen, and a draped medical cart. As the lights come up, we see MO, a depressed young man, slumped in his chair, a crumpled cigarette pack in his hand. His head is low, his hands drag toward the floor. He occasionally fondles himself. He is in a deep melancholia. LIV, a young woman, also depressed, enters, in a tentative, diffident manner, backs out, reenters, finally addresses MO. She holds a newspaper advertisement, crumpled in her hand, and also a pack of cigarettes.)