Lavinia Speaks
By Jennie Redling
Lavinia Lewis: woman, twenties, African-American, hiding behind smiles and a fragile self-control
Seriocomic
Lavinia Lewis is a struggling actress who, among several part-time jobs, teaches children television-commercial technique. Meanwhile, her father is ill and watching his lack of desire to recover, Lavinia sees her own lifelong inability to fight for herself. Her buried anger begins to explode in silent mental tirades and verbal eruptions at the most unexpected and inopportune moments. Here, she comes into the classroom after just losing an audition because she wasn’t “Black” enough.
LAVINIA: Ubiquitous? Tell us what you had for breakfast this morning — was it real food? Ubiquitous? I’m talking to you. (Pause. She seems bewildered.)
I’m sorry, Jennifer. I forgot your name for a second. I’m sorry — don’t cry, Jennifer, please? I apologize. Of course I know your name, honey, there’s nothing wrong with your name, nothing at all.
Yes, there is something wrong with your name. It no longer represents anything — it’s become a faux name spawned by some 1970s movie about a dying college girl that persuaded your mother you might evoke the glamour and distinction she lacked — a notion shared by umpteen million other American mothers — so there is now such an epidemic of your name that you and countless others are, ironically, straddled with a designation that signifies the essence of unoriginality. Your name doesn’t do its job. Its job is to set you apart. Your parents must have families — a host of souls with names to call upon or if not at least a modicum of imagination — surely it’s not asking so much.
The Cock of the Walk
By Melissa Gawlowski
Kristy: a woman in her late twenties
Comic
Best friends Kristy and Becca are discussing their very different opinions on men. After Becca talks warmly of her boyfriend, Kristy speaks of a less pleasant encounter and tries to set her friend straight about gender relations.
KRISTY: And then — God. Then he was all, “C’mon, flash those hog taters over here!” Men revel in finding new names for sexual anatomy. I think it’s a hobby. But I kept walking. Well, I glared a little. — What, do you never read those E-mails? Women get assaulted getting groceries, I’m not confronting him and playing Russian rape roulette. Men are pigs. That’s all there is to it. They eat, sleep, and think of new places to stick their dicks. Look, I know you choose to be shackled by the patriarchy, and that’s fine.
I just prefer to avoid any potential penile oppression. And I know what you’re thinking. You think you can hang around a man a while and start to understand him, what goes through his mind. But you can’t — it’s impossible — because you don’t have that certain little appendage yourself. We are the subjugated. We can only imagine what it’s like to hold the power. You can think you know your cocksure friend, but in the end, Becca, he’s packin’ a loaded gun. And to him, we’re just an empty holster.
Dreaming of a White House
By Leanna Hieber
Erin: female, twenties
Comic
Erin attempts to get on a plane to visit her new lover. Her ex-boyfriend Dave has tracked her to the airport to propose marriage, his reasoning being that he wants to run for president and needs her on board.
ERIN: You need me like you need … another hole in your head. You must already have one because it’s quite clear precious brain cells are leaking out by the thousands. Dave. I want to be a singer. I want to wail about all those red flags in that big white mansion. But I don’t want to be inside it. And I WANT those crazy, kinky forays. And I want them to be INdiscreet! Thus, “Political housewife” does not enter the equation. Being the hand on your back; supportive from the shadows; the smiling wife waving princess waves in presidential motorcades — NONE of that appeals to me.
I want to live a protest-song-rock-star kind of life unchecked by popularity polls. And you say “what better way to live than by confronting that which makes you want to puke?” That statement was half intelligent, half Keanu Reeves. That’s your problem, Dave. Half the time you’re on the ball, half the time you’re a boy who can’t act.
And now you want me to keep you in line? Well I’ve tried for years, you don’t listen. You think I want to make a career out of it? And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. (Beat, then with sudden fury.) And why the hell is it always the woman’s job to tell the man when he’s being an asshole?! Figure out for yourself what makes you a dick! Why is that my job?!!
Paralyzed July
By Kevin M. Lottes
July Moore: a woman in her late twenties
Dramatic
July is in love with a soldier who has returned home in a wheelchair. A bombed wall collapsed on his back, damaging his spinal cord, paralyzing him from the waist down. Before he left to go to war, July promised him she would wait for his return. After considering the effects of his condition on the rest of her life, she is torn about whether to leave him or love him.
JULY: I have tried to make this work with you like this, but I have to be honest with you, the legs you lost from that wall collapsing on you is the wall that’s standing between us right here and now. There are things I have to have in order to … Carl, I want to dance on a Friday or Saturday night; I want to make love to someone I can wrap my legs around if I so feel like it — and you better believe I feel like it. I feel it all the time, but I can’t do anything with it. It just clams up into a single hug, and well, hugs are great and all, a little peck on the cheek — but you need the whole body, mind, and soul to get something like that satisfied and that’s what this all boils down to, Carl — I can’t get satisfied. I’m all pent up. If you were to open up my insides right now you’d think I was the one nailed to a chair for the rest of my life! And that’s just the thing — I’m not! I’ve got the rest of my life ahead of me and my God I’m not spending the rest of it nailed to a chair! As long as I can do something about it — I may sound cold and selfish, but come on! I need what I need!
Headwork
By Keith Huff
Jenny: twenties
Seriocomic
Jenny has had a rough life. Pregnant at sixteen, she gave her first child up for adoption. Now she’s pregnant again and still in search of a rewarding career … and a husband. In this scene, she’s doing a customer’s hair and taking full advantage of her captive audience.
JENNY: It’s a lousy scam. The guy who signed me up to secretary school? He was this Greek guy with this Afro. Home perm or something. He did it himself. Got the back and sides all flat. So this Greek guy with hair the shape of a cheese wedge, he takes me to lunch to like, you know, sign me up to be this lousy secretary. But does he take me to Mickey D’s? No, he takes me to this place called the Boneless Ox or the Syphilitic Parrot or something. I don’t remember. They got tablecloths, napkins, mirrors, candles, the works. So I sit down thinking — (The cheese-head, he’s pushing in my chair for me.) I’m thinking, nice place, maybe he’s got more than secretary school on his mind. Greeks are like that. They get tanked up on that oom-pah wine they make outta pine trees. I been to Greektown a lotta times. Tanked up, they dance with anybody right there in the restaurant. Other guys, even. So I’m thinking, you know, see what the wedge-head is drinking with lunch and maybe I’ll like get some indication. ’Cause I can’t say I never in my lousy life entertained the thought of being a kept woman. I got interests. Ways of keeping myself busy. Not just bonbons and soaps, neither. No, like books. I like books. I’d read some books. And home decorating. I like rearranging things. And shopping. You wanna home decorate, you gotta do the shopping. Kids, too, I’m thinking. I’m good with kids. I like them, they like me, it’s a mutual thing, and the Greek guy ain’t drastically ugly. Not like car-wreck ugly or anything. He had Mick Jagger lips, sure, but I thought a decent haircut and a outfit not so polyester, the man had potential.
Sky Lines
By David-Matthew Barnes
&nb
sp; Sarah: nineteen
Seriocomic
Angered over gossip she has heard about herself, Sarah attempts to put her two neighbors, Maggie and Venita, in their place. The year is 1965. She is standing on her fire escape.
SARAH: I imagine Paris is lovely this time of year. Have you been there? (Quick pause.) What am I thinking? Of course you haven’t been there. The two of you haven’t been anywhere. In fact, neither one of you would know culture if it fell down and hit you on your empty heads. It’s a shame, really, how both of you live these miserable lives. Boo hoo hoo. Blah, blah, blah. That’s all I ever hear out of the two of you. Margaret, perhaps you felt that having a baby would give your husband some much-needed ambition. After all, driving a forklift for a meager living down at the docks will never make you wealthy. And Venita. Poor, sweet Venita. You married a man and allowed him to shame an entire race of people, not to mention the history of our country. It’s difficult for me to imagine how you sleep at night with what you have done. I just pray that you never have children. If there is a God, he will make you barren. It is evident that it is my duty to uphold the dignity of this neighborhood by being a woman of high morals, good virtues and maintaining my sophisticated sense of style. You two little classless vultures will spend the rest of your lives rotting away on your balconies, staring at an empty sky. You don’t even have the decency to decorate. Is it too much to ask either one of you to put up a flower box? Of course it is. (To Maggie.) You’re too concerned that you might miss an episode of As The World Turns. (To Venita.) And you, you’re too consumed with self-pity, wallowing in it like — like shit. That’s right, I said a dirty word. You think you know me? Well, let me tell you something. It takes a lot of work to look like this. It isn’t easy to be a perfect wife. But, at least I try.
Sky Lines
By David-Matthew Barnes
Maggie: nineteen
Comic
Fed up with her snobbish neighbor, Maggie confronts the woman, face-to-face. The year is 1965.
MAGGIE: Listen here, missy, with your overgrown sun hat and fake plants. That’s right, I said fake. There isn’t any water in that rusted watering can. You might fool everyone on the block with your high-and-mighty routine, but I see right through you, Sarah Isleton. You’re not from Harmonville. You grew up on the south side of town, the wrong side of the tracks. In a house with a tin roof on it. Your father lost his job at the factory and since then your mother has had to wait on tables at a greasy spoon just to put food on the table. You clung to Jimmy like electricity because he was your ticket out of the squalid little life that you led. He was your one hope, your one shot at the big time. Even though the son of a bitch is dumber than a box of rocks, you laid down for him because he knew how to catch a football. He was your Kennedy, but you are certainly no Jackie and you never will be. No matter what you say or what you do, you’ll still be that dirty little girl from that run-down shack of a house who tried to marry her way out of a life of poverty. I make no excuses for who I am or where I come from. My Simon might not be much of a man and I have to scrape and save just to get by, but at least I live an honest life, which is more than I can say for you. You prance around here like some sick version of Doris Day, all sunshine and lovely and ever clever, like you’re waiting for the God-damned Beaver to come home! (Inside her apartment, Maggie’s baby has started to cry.)
Window of Opportunity
By Barbara Lhota and Janet B. Milstein
Julia: early twenties, newly engaged
Dramatic
Julia, early twenties, recently engaged to David, has learned from her longtime good friend and roommate, Duncan, that he is in love with her. In this speech, she tries to convince him to move on with his life.
JULIA: You know what? This is bull. You had four years to fall in love with me, Duncan. You had four years to act on it. For whatever reason, you didn’t. Now, someone else is crazy about me and you’re suddenly smitten? That doesn’t give you even the slightest pause? (Beat.) I know you, Duncan. Your whole life has been about competition. Getting the best grades, sweeping the track team finals, competing with other freelancers for the best story. You know what I think? I found someone who loved me, and you got scared that you’d be alone. So suddenly, you’re in love with me too, right? Listen, what I have with David is right, Dunc. I can feel it. And I won’t jeopardize that for something I’m not sure of. Sometimes things happen for a reason. (Beat.) Come on now, pick yourself up sir, and get back on the horse. You’re a braver man now than you’ve ever been.
The Audience
By Kathleen Warnock
Kelly Springer: early twenties, rock musician
Dramatic
Kelly and her friends are waiting to get into a rock show. A car has just driven by and they’ve had bottles thrown at them and been cursed at.
KELLY: Yeah! Big men throwing bottles out of cars … so tough! I know those guys. They dissed me in the parking lot in high school. They yell shit at me when I walk into an open mike with my electric guitar. Won’t even let me touch an electric guitar in the music store. “Girls play acoustic.” I don’t even OWN an acoustic. When my band has a gig, nobody lets us use their drum kit. They do it for each other. I’ve had guys fuck with the sound board so we sound like shit. You ask someone to jam, he thinks you’re asking him to fuck. Last band I auditioned for, they wanted me to wear a thong! I’m not gonna live in my parents’ house and work as a waitress the rest of my life! I’m gonna move to New York, and find me a band. People keep telling me it’s dangerous, but I think it’s more dangerous to sit at home and curse the bitches who don’t want to break a nail playing a guitar, and the boys who want a hummer instead of a musician. Fuck THAT. I’ll take New York any day.
Swap
By Barbara Lhota and Ira Brodsky
Nina: twenty-four years old
Comic
Nina and Kate are roommates and good friends. Recently, Kate has begun dating Nina’s former boyfriend, Josh.
NINA: Well, I admit I am a hair jealous. He has a job. He didn’t have a job at some fancy Geometric Research company when I dated him; in fact, he had no job at all when he was dating me. Maybe I’m just second-guessing my judgment. I mean, I thought Josh was a lazy, good-for-nothing loser when I dumped him. I’m not trying to be insulting. It’s the truth. It’s like when you’re a kid and you have pork chops and you hate them. You tell your mom you refuse to eat them — ever — and then your best friend comes along and loves them. Wouldn’t you want to try the pork chops again? Wouldn’t you want them back to see? Oh Jeez, you wouldn’t, would you? (Waves it off.) You’re such a martyr. I’m simply saying that Josh seems a lot cuter and nicer since you started dating him. I can’t help it. And don’t you think it was rather selfish of him to pick my best friend? Anyway, I guess this just means I respect you. Josh is kind of attractive and cool now that I see him through you. (Beat.) Oh no, do you think he acted like a loser to get out of dating me? (Kate shrugs.) Don’t shrug! The least you can do is disagree with me! He did, didn’t he? (Kate doesn’t react.) Ohhhh. He was too cowardly to get out of it in the normal way by just dumping me! So he went into an entire act of being a huge loser so I’d dump him! And I did!
VULNERABLE/HURT/EXPOSED
Key West
By Dan O’Brien
Brigid: twenties
Dramatic
Brigid has come to Key West in search of her estranged father, Niall. Late at night, in a back room of her father’s dilapidated house, Niall asks Brigid if she was ever angry that he was not a part of her childhood.
BRIGID: It was a comfort most of the time. No matter how bad things were, and they were bad most of the time, I always knew there was a reason. There had to be a reason, you know? … I had that fantasy that all kids have, I guess, that their parents aren’t their parents — and I fixated on my father. I would fantasize, going to bed at night, that you or someone like you — my real father — was out there. Somewhere. And if I could just hold on and be pati
ent enough, if I could wait and listen and look — for clues — maybe one day I’d find you …
Or you’d find me…
I thought I was crazy. I didn’t have any proof —.
I used to wonder if you’d forgotten me. Because if you knew how much pain I was in — you’d come and save me. Right? — But you never came — why? Didn’t you care? And if you didn’t care — if my own father didn’t care about his own daughter — what was I, then?
So I went looking for you — everything I did wrong, and I did a lot of things wrong, was my way of trying to find you. I thought — without thinking — if I just fucked up bad enough, you’d come and punish me. Or we’d meet in a ditch somewhere, under a bridge or in jail, and you’d be just as screwed up as I was, but it wouldn’t matter because we’d be together, finally, and I could punish you … (She’s crying softly. After a moment.) Did you ever love me at all?
St. Colm’s Inch
By Robert Koon
Camille: twenty-eight
Dramatic
Camille, a Quebecoise farm wife, has come to California to pack up the estate of her deceased sister. She is speaking to her sister’s ex-husband, with whom she has had a contentious relationship. She speaks with a French Canadian accent.
CAMILLE: You told me that the things you did, you did because of Marie. This is for Marie, also, what I say.
I was supposed to have been a boy. My name, you know it is the name of a man, Camille, in French it is not a woman’s name. And it would have been better if I had been. A boy. Or if I had been beautiful, like Marie. Marie, she was very beautiful. But I was me.
And Marie … when we were girls, I wished I could be like Marie. I speak English better than anyone in our town. It is because of Marie. She would read to me. It is a happy memory. It is my happy memory.
Audition Arsenal for Women in their 20's Page 5
