For the World is a Stage

I'm taking a drama class.  Really I'm only taking it because I need a fine arts credit, but I have done a lot of theater in the past.  I had some bit parts in plays, before I realized I have the biggest stage fright ever, which is odd since I tend to have long conversations with total strangers.  I usually hit a point once I've been drinking that I call "way too social drunk" during which I HAVE to have a small conversation with everyone I can find.  Maybe that was my problem with theater, I was never drunk.

Ugh, that was a strange tangent.  Anyway.  I enjoyed working behind the scenes doing lights and sound and building sets, so I thought this class wouldn't be terrible.  And it isn't... terrible.  I can't even really say anything bad about the professor, she seems like the nicest most precious lunatic ever.  She wants us to write a three-page, one scene play with three characters, and I'm having problems coming up with something school-appropriate.  I have a few pages written, but I think I'm going to have to scrap it because most of it revolves around fucking in a bar bathroom, and I'm not certain if she'll make us perform these.

So the other day in class she asks us to write a one page monologue, and gives us 20 minutes in which to write it.  I am AWFUL at writing under pressure, seen here, and I don't think I was the only one struggling to make a character, find a struggle, solve the struggle, and put it all into the words that the character would use in 20 minutes.  People looked panicked, one guy put his pen down, folded his arms and refused to write anything, and I saw a guy ACTUALLY wadding up paper and throwing it away when he gave up on an idea.

Today we got our papers back, and she held mine up and said loudly to the rest of the class, "Now THIS is what a monologue is supposed to be!"  So to keep the feel of this paper that is so absurd, but apparently the best anyone could come up with, I have forgone all editing attempts and I'm just going to post this as I wrote it, in 20 minutes in class.  (Hilarious, I'm acting like I have an editing process at all.)  Enjoy.

Untitled Monologue

Time: Late June
Place: Dallas, TX
Setting: A dark wood-panelled study
Character: Sandra, 50, wealthy and well-mannered, nervous, fashionable

(Sandra is standing by the wet bar, gripping a glass of scotch, and speaking to husband, John, who is in armchair.  She is pacing.)

"I can't do this anymore.  I'm exhausted, I never get enough sleep, Julie needs to go to boarding school, my neck feels like someone beat me with a sledgehammer, and I don't love you anymore.  Oh god, did I just say that out loud?  I suppose I wouldn't have said it if I didn't mean it.  Let me try that again, I-DON'T-LOVE-YOU-ANYMORE.  Wow, it just flows off the tongue, doesn't it?  I was talking to Michael about it the other day, have I mentioned we're having an affair?  Oh god I've had too much scotch.  But I can't live in this soulless prison of a marriage anymore.  I want to be free and not have to go to any of your insipid dinner parties anymore, I want to peel this fake smile off my face and stop pretending that everything is fine.  I want the armoire.  Yes, yes, I know we haven't even spoken about the d-word yet, but once I talk to my attorneys, and you talk to yours, and I throw a few dishes, I want us to be ok as friends and I want that god-damned armoire.  It was my mothers.  You haven't said anything, but I guess I haven't given you the chance.  This is for the best, John.  Julie will understand, she sees us fight every day.  She still loves you, you know.  You were always a good father even if you were a boorish husband.  Leave me now.  I need to have another drink."