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Feb. 14th, 2005 10:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
3pipeproblemWe had a monologue assignment for playwriting, and who could I do but Alan?
This was enormously fun to write. I think I'll have to do an Alan-Brad scene later just because I'll get to see it performed in class.
(Sunday morning—churchgoing time. A man in his early forties, dressed in a suit and tie and a large black coat, walks through a cemetery, alone. He stops to examine a tombstone more carefully.)
ALAN
(reading)
“Asleep.”
(laughs quietly)
I may have to appropriate that.
(he looks at the gravestone, which is practically at his feet, then glances around for a place to sit)
You’d think they’d have benches here. Well, you wouldn’t. I would.
(with fastidious precision, he unbuttons his suit jacket, smoothes it out, and takes a seat on the ground)
I’m going to get my pants dirty. There are people willing to pay good money to see me with my clothes in a less-than-pristine state.
(he pauses and sighs; the faint ringing of church bells can be heard in the distance. He glances away from the headstone, trying to locate the source of the sound, then at his watch, and finally returns to regarding the grave.)
Sunday. I’ve always had good timing. Or bad, I suppose, if you ask the person my timing’s been inflicted upon.
(he sighs again)
I don’t know what I’m doing here. Playing odd man out in a lot full of people with bad timing. There’s something to be said for bad timing, I’m sure. I just can’t be trusted to say it.
(he considers and continues thoughtfully)
I’m resentful of people with bad timing. If good timing is effortless--which mine is--bad timing must require a great deal of work.
(Suddenly he has difficulty regarding the tombstone, as though it’s an actual person. He drops his eyes to the grass.)
Graham Greene wrote this short story—more than one, actually. Probably. I wonder if you’d read it. I wonder if you thought him pompous to the point of intolerability. Like a precise, British soap opera. Soap operas have no business with precision. They’re designed to be one giant morass, characters splayed out, more often than not atop each other.
(returns his gaze to the headstone)
Graham Greene wrote a short story. A boy’s father dies, and it isn’t the death so much as the circumstances that bother him. A pig falls on his father—don’t laugh, that’s what upsets him. How on Earth do you move on from your father being crushed beneath a giant, pink mass of a farm animal?
(shrugs, raises his eyebrows)
All right, I admit it’s rather funny, particularly when you’re in the midst of an English class taught by a woman bearing a vague resemblance to a pig—particularly her snout-like nose--and your best friend is gesticulating wildly in the hopes of calling your attention to this fact. His father was crushed by a pig and I employ the word “gesticulate” in everyday conversation. I think that’s an excellent basis for a relationship. Better than a catchy tombstone, at any rate.
There must be a technical, legal limitation to the span of time one’s considered an orphan. Not that the boy’s mother died. Not that anyone would remember if she had, Mr. Greene included, because you’re not going to top meeting your ultimate demise at the hands—hooves?—of a pig. There comes a time when everyone you know’s an orphan. Perhaps it applies only to children, those liable to be put to work in factories. Perhaps it applies only to those we feel compelled to feel sorry for.
(he absently begins to brush away leaves that have collected around the headstone, sweeping them into a neat pile)
Do you know what happened at my mother’s funeral? That may not be rhetorical—you might have witnessed its devolution from heartrending tribute to scuffle between myself and my…third cousin twice removed from the premises. What are your dates?
(he regards the headstone with interest, reading the years for the first time)
1947. You may have seen it, but I doubt you remember it. Which is fortunate. I hate hearing the same story twice. That’s all a funeral is: the same story over and over and over again. I doubt God pays attention anymore. In fact, it’s always been secret my hope that during funerals God’s in the back row making out with Marilyn Monroe or whoever suits his godly tastes.
(he swallows, continuing more quietly while tracing the letters on the headstone, only half aware he’s doing so)
The man conducting the service—and that’s all he was, a man—he said the same things you read in books, you hear on television. But this was my mother and he didn’t seem to have even the slightest conception of who it was he was dubbing “the Lord’s faithful servant” and guaranteeing eternal bliss.
(he looks down and laughs)
I was thrown out of my mother’s funeral, more than anything, I think, because of the steady stream of blood that couldn’t seem to cease flowing from my nose after my cousin’s rather liberal application of his fist to it. I didn’t go to my father’s funeral. I knew better and there was a Bruins game on.
(In one sweeping motion, he runs his hand over the surface of the headstone, as if to clear it of dust. Then he stands, regarding it from this new angle)
I wonder if cemeteries are interchangeable. They’re the same. I wonder if I could come in here with a nice—no, not nice, extravagant, since we have my guilt to factor in—bouquet of lilies, set them by your very attractive headstone and say, “I miss you.” I wonder if that would be enough.
This was enormously fun to write. I think I'll have to do an Alan-Brad scene later just because I'll get to see it performed in class.
(Sunday morning—churchgoing time. A man in his early forties, dressed in a suit and tie and a large black coat, walks through a cemetery, alone. He stops to examine a tombstone more carefully.)
(reading)
“Asleep.”
(laughs quietly)
I may have to appropriate that.
(he looks at the gravestone, which is practically at his feet, then glances around for a place to sit)
You’d think they’d have benches here. Well, you wouldn’t. I would.
(with fastidious precision, he unbuttons his suit jacket, smoothes it out, and takes a seat on the ground)
I’m going to get my pants dirty. There are people willing to pay good money to see me with my clothes in a less-than-pristine state.
(he pauses and sighs; the faint ringing of church bells can be heard in the distance. He glances away from the headstone, trying to locate the source of the sound, then at his watch, and finally returns to regarding the grave.)
Sunday. I’ve always had good timing. Or bad, I suppose, if you ask the person my timing’s been inflicted upon.
(he sighs again)
I don’t know what I’m doing here. Playing odd man out in a lot full of people with bad timing. There’s something to be said for bad timing, I’m sure. I just can’t be trusted to say it.
(he considers and continues thoughtfully)
I’m resentful of people with bad timing. If good timing is effortless--which mine is--bad timing must require a great deal of work.
(Suddenly he has difficulty regarding the tombstone, as though it’s an actual person. He drops his eyes to the grass.)
Graham Greene wrote this short story—more than one, actually. Probably. I wonder if you’d read it. I wonder if you thought him pompous to the point of intolerability. Like a precise, British soap opera. Soap operas have no business with precision. They’re designed to be one giant morass, characters splayed out, more often than not atop each other.
(returns his gaze to the headstone)
Graham Greene wrote a short story. A boy’s father dies, and it isn’t the death so much as the circumstances that bother him. A pig falls on his father—don’t laugh, that’s what upsets him. How on Earth do you move on from your father being crushed beneath a giant, pink mass of a farm animal?
(shrugs, raises his eyebrows)
All right, I admit it’s rather funny, particularly when you’re in the midst of an English class taught by a woman bearing a vague resemblance to a pig—particularly her snout-like nose--and your best friend is gesticulating wildly in the hopes of calling your attention to this fact. His father was crushed by a pig and I employ the word “gesticulate” in everyday conversation. I think that’s an excellent basis for a relationship. Better than a catchy tombstone, at any rate.
There must be a technical, legal limitation to the span of time one’s considered an orphan. Not that the boy’s mother died. Not that anyone would remember if she had, Mr. Greene included, because you’re not going to top meeting your ultimate demise at the hands—hooves?—of a pig. There comes a time when everyone you know’s an orphan. Perhaps it applies only to children, those liable to be put to work in factories. Perhaps it applies only to those we feel compelled to feel sorry for.
(he absently begins to brush away leaves that have collected around the headstone, sweeping them into a neat pile)
Do you know what happened at my mother’s funeral? That may not be rhetorical—you might have witnessed its devolution from heartrending tribute to scuffle between myself and my…third cousin twice removed from the premises. What are your dates?
(he regards the headstone with interest, reading the years for the first time)
1947. You may have seen it, but I doubt you remember it. Which is fortunate. I hate hearing the same story twice. That’s all a funeral is: the same story over and over and over again. I doubt God pays attention anymore. In fact, it’s always been secret my hope that during funerals God’s in the back row making out with Marilyn Monroe or whoever suits his godly tastes.
(he swallows, continuing more quietly while tracing the letters on the headstone, only half aware he’s doing so)
The man conducting the service—and that’s all he was, a man—he said the same things you read in books, you hear on television. But this was my mother and he didn’t seem to have even the slightest conception of who it was he was dubbing “the Lord’s faithful servant” and guaranteeing eternal bliss.
(he looks down and laughs)
I was thrown out of my mother’s funeral, more than anything, I think, because of the steady stream of blood that couldn’t seem to cease flowing from my nose after my cousin’s rather liberal application of his fist to it. I didn’t go to my father’s funeral. I knew better and there was a Bruins game on.
(In one sweeping motion, he runs his hand over the surface of the headstone, as if to clear it of dust. Then he stands, regarding it from this new angle)
I wonder if cemeteries are interchangeable. They’re the same. I wonder if I could come in here with a nice—no, not nice, extravagant, since we have my guilt to factor in—bouquet of lilies, set them by your very attractive headstone and say, “I miss you.” I wonder if that would be enough.
