GONE MISSING
BY STEVEN COSSON AND THE CIVILIANS
The play was created from interviews with real people about lost objects. The DANCER is an exuberant young guy, lively, fast-talking and sometimes explosive. HE seems like someone who might be a DJ or plays in a band, and it’s a little surprise when the audience finds out that HE’s a dancer. HE’s talking to his interviewer, who is a close friend.
SCENE
New York City
TIME
The present
DANCER: I left my cell phone in the cab when I got out. So later—I was soooo exhausted, so I just totally spaced on the phone, you know?—I called the number later, when I got home and nothing and I called and called and called and I just kept getting voice mail voice mail you know? Then finally the phone picks up and I hear these girls talking in the background, you know. This one girl is like, “Girl, you and that stupid phone you found” or something, and I could hear rustling and stuff because the phone was in her pocket or something and so I started screaming, you know, I was like (Cupping his hands around his mouth and whispering a scream.) Heeeeeey!!! HeeeeeeeeeeeeeY! Helloooooooooooo! You know and I was making all this high-pitched noise you know, so she would hear me so I’m like oooooooooooooooooo! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Heeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyy!!! This is my phone HEEEEEEEEEEEY! And I am so fucking exhausted dude. I’m just so tired. Heeeeeeeeyyyy! And then I hear it just like rustled and shut off. And I’m like FAAACK! I had this image of these two girls fucking hanging out in Central Park, walking through the park in school uniforms with my phone in their backpack. . . . No, they’re not sexy, just, you know . . . regular school uniforms and I mean this image is soo clear to me. And I’m like FAAACK! And I call back and they don’t answer. So a couple of days later or something I try again and this woman answers and I’m like HELLO HELLO, This is my phone and I lost it in a cab please don’t hang up! And she was like, “Yeah, I just got out of this rehearsal . . . I’m a dancer. Do you know where Capezio’s is?” you know, and I was like, “I’m a dancer too.” So she left it for me at Capezio’s. Oh and the worst part of this whole story is that two hours after I got it from Capezio’s, I was fucking running up the stairs and I tripped and fucking cracked the whole phone. It was in my pocket and I—-my hip landed on it and broke it. I had a huge fucking bruise.
HEIRLOOM
BY ANDY BRAGEN
A young MAN meets up with his ex-girlfriend to return her belongings.
SCENE
Union Square Park, New York City, near the thrice-weekly farmers’ market. A series of benches are visible. A young MAN with a duffel, and a plastic bag full of vegetables HE has just purchased, addresses a woman on a bench.
TIME
A midsummer afternoon. The present.
MAN: So I guess I’ll start with an apology. A blanket apology. We can get into specifics as we go along. There are specifics I know, long-seated matters that. . . .. anyway . . .
(HE holds up a tomato.)
Straight from the Farmers’ Market. Consider it a peace offering. Want a bite? You sure? Your loss.
(HE takes a bite out of the tomato.)
They call these heirlooms, meaning they haven’t been crossbred into red tasteless oblivion. Not so pretty, and not so durable, no good for trucking in from Mexico, but texturous and tasty, a tomato worth the money—I made a pitcher of gazpacho the other day—remember my gazpacho? This one was twice as good as usual—really incredible flavor—I used the super-ripe ones from the bottom box—only a buck a pound after 5PM—if we stick around for a bit we can buy some—quite a savings. I would’ve made you a batch if you’d come by, but with you insisting on a “neutral location,” and me having to lug this duffel, well, I wasn’t as inclined as usual to sacrifice my Tupperware.
Mother was asking about you—I said that as far as I know you’re well, and she responded “as far as you know?” and I said well, yes, that’s right, truth is we’re not exactly speaking, that truth being, truth be told, a kind of a white lie since I am in fact speaking, right now, as we speak, but of course you, bless your black heart, are here, and that does count for something. I guess.
Speaking of textures, I ironed your clothes. Folded them too. Socks, underwear, bras, skirts, tops—everything, starched, folded and ironed. I was careful and thorough, lingering—it took me half the night. Very educational—sometimes I iron my own, but it’s just a quick pass-over, kind of like my cooking, just good enough, but nothing worth sharing, but when you’re doing it for someone else—I think you’ll be happy.
About those calls—I do want to apologize—they weren’t necessarily intentional, which is not to say that they were unintentional, but rather that I got a bit ahead of myself. Two years from now, when all of this will be forgotten and enough assholes will have passed through your life that your memory of me will be almost fond, that will perhaps be a better moment to call—and I assure you I will call, from wherever I may be. But I suppose that now it’s not entirely appropriate, right, though truth is, knowing you, even though it was 3AM, I am SURE that you were up, watching the phone as it rang, and I know you knew that it was me, suffering, in grave despair, and for you to ignore such a plea is, to my mind, well, callous. Carrot?
(HE munches on the carrot.)
Tasty—you sure you don’t want a snack? You can never eat enough carrots. And then of course there’s the other night—and apologies are due for that too—he looked like a nice fellow—strong—though maybe a bit old for you, I saw the bald spot, and even from the doorframe I could smell his feet—anyway, here are the keys—last copy I swear it.
You can keep mine—it’s okay. Though like Mother always used to say, best if you call first, as you never know, you really never do know, what with all this organic food, me too, I could be strong too. Thanks are due to you for this—you who taught me the difference between kale, chard, and collards—and now—as I’m sure you can see from my skin tone, those complex nutrients course through my veins. Here, feel my texturous arm. My blood is racing. And maybe it’s the leafy greens or maybe it’s you—cause you still do affect me—your scowl, your tapping foot, your light sheen of sweat—I love your sweat, always have. Don’t worry, soon enough it’ll be cool—the day, it will pass, the week, the month, summer, the year, two years, and then your phone will ring—happy birthday, I’ll sing. Happy birthday. Pick up this time, okay?
IMAGINE
BY REBECCA BASHAM
DAVID, a man in his 40s, speculates about assassinations after attending a political address. HE looks like an investment banker—very prim, proper and pulled together.
SCENE
A cocktail party
TIME
The present
DAVID: Have you ever thought about an assassination? I mean, have you ever really thought about it? We’ve heard the poetry, the sound bites, the memories of JFK—a whole generation remembers exactly what they were doing, exactly the moment that those black-and-white impressions of a life ending zoomed their way into houses and hearts—We’ve heard their voices: I was at school; I was at work; I was cooking; I was, I was, I was. We’ve heard death knells through the memories of our predecessors and their cameras whirring, always whirring, I have a dream, and then sleep came too soon. I was 13 and John Lennon was 40. He was shot outside the Dakota on the Upper West Side. Manhattan—so much a part of American mythology to millions who’ve never seen it. His was a life imagined; a life ending wrongly, unjustly. And we can hear them, participants in all of these lives gone from us, their voices questioning, Who could have? Why did it come to this? How can we live in a world where? And I was always one of those voices—wrong to take a life—so surely, so concretely. Until now. Why has no one even tried? He’s there—sneaking into our homes through digital encoding, pouring through the drains, sweeping under the door through the cracks as surely as the germs he uses to frighten us, grinning that shit-eating grin in our faces as if to taunt us—He’s taunting us. I’ve never killed. I’ve never
been unstable. I’ve never even considered owning a gun or any kind of a weapon. I never thought I could even think about killing. But I do. Each and every time I hear his voice lying to me, to everyone—every time I hear another sentence lead to murder, lead to hatred, lead to ignorance—every time, I wonder why no one has done it yet—hasn’t even attempted—it’s been done before. Think about it.
THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF MOST THINGS
BY ALBERT INNAURATO
In the scene from which this monologue is taken, MICHAEL CRENSHAW meets the love of his life, a girl named Golda (he will change her name). In the play HE is a man in his mid-40s, although here, because it is a memory play, MICHAEL is in his teens. HE and Golda (who wants to write) are trading theatre-in-the-schools stories.
SCENE
The Freshman Orientation Mixer at Harvard
TIME
The early seventies
(MICHAEL listens to a pop ballad.)
MICHAEL: Strange the power of cheap music. Is that Cole Porter or Noël Coward? But then is there a difference? I was almost in Private Lives once. Not at Groton where I was enrolled. You see, Golda—oh, that name, let me tremble un peu! (HE trembles theatrically.) We might have to change that. My slightly younger sibling, Cynthia, was at Andover. The Drama Teacher there, Mr. Shingles, was doing Private Lives. Thirty-six women auditioned. No genital males did. I determined to try out. True actors are hungry! We were between plays at Groton. And Groton, you see, ill-fated Groton, is a bastion of the higher stand-up-comedy type writing of, say, Neil (not Noel) Simon. So I hitchhiked to Andover. You know:
(Sings a bit from the Janis Joplin hit “Me and Bobby McGee.”)
Janis Joplin is just like Callas, only hoarser. I met her once. She threw up on me. I was thrilled. At Andover, I auditioned for Mr. Shingles, fat and hysterical, not entirely my style. Later he was fired and sent to jail for binding the hockey team in Saran Wrap. Don’t ask. Of course, I got the part. In fact, I got both male parts. Cynthia was cast in both female parts. It would be an early postmodern Private Lives with intimations of incest. But one of her classmates, a jealous girl named Wysteria Wicket . . . I’m serious, why do you laugh? Do you think perhaps I’m Ivy Compton-Burnett in preppy drag? (Back to his story.) Wysteria Wicket turned me in. I claimed asylum as a political refugee from Groton. I was returned there for disciplinary action. I was barred from all Neil Simon plays for the foreseeable future. Later, as we were watching my father and younger brother play tennis while my beloved sister watched and wept—Dada wouldn’t play with girls—my mother said to me: “You are a disgrace, Michael Crenshaw, a noisy, unpopular scamp. And since Dada plans to disinherit you, you may well need Neil Simon or equivalent to live as an actor.” “You know, Mama,” I replied, “though I realize Neil Simon is the only commercial playwright we have in the foreseeable future of these early seventies, I feel confident that TV-type writing will lose its power, that a society in which most people have gone to college and fought for civil rights and objected to pointless slaughter and illegal bombings in a far-off place called Vietnam, will transcend that type of entertainment and start to value the arts.” Her eyes teared, she squeezed her face shut. She sneezed. Hay fever.
JIMMY JIM JIM AND THE M.F.M.
BY MERON LANGSNER
Manipulative without being malicious and suffering perhaps from a bit of a Napoleonic complex, JIMMY JIM JIM is trying to comfort his friend, the M.F.M., who has been arrested after participating in a violent bar fight.
SCENE
The visiting room of the county penitentiary
TIME
The present
JIMMY JIM JIM: You hanging in there, Machine? You’re looking a lot better.
You still look like shit, but it’s better than the last time I saw you.
I mean, you wake up fucked up locked up locked down beat down and hung over an you just wanna get out go out go home kick back and watch the game but you got shit to deal with, am I right? Am I right?
They treatin you all right in here? As well as can be expected I mean.
I don’t suppose you remember the other night much.
One of your blackouts. Shit.
I dunno what the public defender asshole told you. He looks like a dick by the way. I seen it all though.
Course I seen it all, I was there wit you.
It was like this. We come into the place and we’re drinkin, cause it’s Friday. It’s Friday so we’re drinkin the good stuff. Heineken. No, no Friday was a few days ago. They didn’t tell you much at all, did they? Fucked up I tell you. But back to the bar.
They announce there’s gonna be fightin and we ignore it. Be cool to watch though.
You remember that right? Right?
Then they say, five hundred bucks.
Five hundred bucks is a lot of Heineken.
And more than that, guys are pulling out their paychecks and placin bets.
So we’re drinkin. And we’re thinking.
Five hundred bucks.
People are placin bets and I’m thinkin. Why not put my boy’s talents to use, right? I mean, five hundred bucks. I stand up and say, “We call my boy here The M.F.M. That’s short for The Motha Fuckin Machine. We used call him just The Machine, but it did not do him justice.”
I’m workin the crowd.
And you sign up to fight.
I say to the guys in the bar, “The Motha Fuckin Machine . . . runs on tequila.” We’re drinkin free now so signing you up is already paying off.
You drink a lot of tequila, Machine.
You should watch that you know. Don’t get mad, Machine. Gettin mad gets you where you are today. I’m tryin to help you out, y’know? Like advice. Yeah. Advice.
And now it’s time.
They got a ring set up in the middle of the bar. I guess they do this a lot.
I doubt they’ll ever do it again though.
It’s your turn. We have another shot of tequila for good luck.
I don’t know anymore, Machine. Maybe we shouldn’t have done it.
Looks like you’re fightin Joe College. What the fuck is this kid doin out here? He’s even got a fuckin Harvard sweatshirt on. Well fuck ‘im, he wants to come out and play wit the big boys, let ’im.
I offer him a shot of tequila. You know, sportsmanship.
Says he doesn’t drink.
Joe College asshole.
Can you see out of that eye yet, Machine? He got you pretty good that first time.
He pulled that Bruce Van Damme Lee shit. Men ain’t supposed to spread their legs like that. It ain’t natural. I never seen that before.
I never seen the Mother Fucking Machine go down before either.
You’re down. And the kid is dancing. Dancing. Like Muhammed Ali bouncing around.
Then you get back up.
He’s dancing.
He tries that Ginsu Jinsu crap again.
That don’t last long.
You musta broke his nose that time. I dunno what else.
He goes down. I think it’s done.
Then. It’s the scariest thing I ever saw.
He gets up.
Crying.
And he’s on his feet swinging on the Mother Fucking Machine and sobbing like a baby.
Kid had balls. I give him that.
You’re both on the ground. And then the Machine is on top of him and he ain’t movin.
He’s still breathin, but he ain’t movin.
‘Cept when you hit ’im.
He’s done.
You didn’t have to keep hittin him, Machine,
It’s the tequila. I seen that happen to you before. But never like that. Blackout. You don’t even remember, do you? Do you?
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