Monologues

Sun 8.15.22

Digging through the files of my Manhattan Seeress days I came on the four monologues I performed in my auditions for parts in show biz.  Depending on the role I sought to attain I would execute one of the monologues:

THAT’S PROBABLY HOW IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE: 

A part of me is strong and beautiful, I move through life with sure knowledge of my destiny,  and a part of me is small, fragile and insecure.  That’s probably how it’s supposed to be.  One has a heart as big as the Atlantic Ocean, exposed in disparate measures of pleasure and pain, to love, beauty, to mystery, wounding, fear and sadness.  But always, one is alone in the vast emptiness of the universe, a fluttery bit of energy.

In time the hand of death reaches into the heart and brings an end to what’s been falsely held, to suffering and sorrow, and I am born anew, a child of hope and potential.  I have no formula to apply, no firm answers, just a yearning, always a yearning.

THE CAULDRON:

Let’s own up to it, none of us know what the fuck we’re talking about, whether it be religion, poetry, love or politics.  All we have is conversation.  We meet in banal settings and expound on the happenings of the world at large.  We know nothing of these matters, but it comforts us to believe we have a handle on them.

I try my best to speak profoundly on a myriad of topics of which I have little interest, because it amuses me, a sort of electronic story game.  The characters are improbable, the plot absurd; like the man who knowingly goes to a crooked poker game says, 

“It’s the only game it town!”

Sad but true, we do regurgitate the same inanities to each other, applying our own particular bigoted twist to the cauldron.  Be honest, you know it’s true.  In your cocoon, your safe little nest, what do you possibly know of the great passions, of hatred, lust, greed and dominance that propels these events, the degradation and shame, the insatiable will to power?

We are merely voyeurs, the lot of us.  It’s the human race’s existential dilemma – intelligence unable to self-correct, to assure its survival.

We are children in a garden of toys, some of them risky.

RIZZOLI’S BOOKSTORE:

A grad student, living on the Lower East Side, I’ve come to hear my old friend from Maine, André Dubus, give a reading at Rizolli’s Bookstore.

It's been a few years since I've seen him, and I've read about the car accident, how he almost died, and is now crippled.  I don't know what to expect; the place is packed and the only seat I can find is way in the back.  I would've liked to have a few words with him, but with this crowd it won't be possible.  

He is cosseted by an entourage that helps him and his wheelchair up on the stage.  His sweaty face is bloated and red; he speaks slowly, the same message about the human heart and the ways we love each other, or not.  André will die soon; I can see it emanating from him.  Although his hold on life is tenuous, he remains the storyteller with a last fabulous tale for us.  No one coughs, fidgets, or makes noise, as we take in a story written in hell.  

Walking home afterward, I think of my own situation.  André Dubus, who's writing was much appreciated within the writing community back at Stonecoast, but unknown to most of the country, is now a star in the firmament of writers.  Through dark, blighted commercial streets, boarded up for the night, I walk past graffiti splattered walls, iron gates, an occasional rat scurrying along.  

He was always a star, for Christ's sake.  Do you have to get run over by a truck going 70 miles an hour on the highway to get someone's attention?  

TARTUFFE:

Dorina: Her case is nothing, though, beside her son's!  To see him, you would say he's ten times worse!  His conduct in our late unpleasantness had won him much esteem, and proved his courage in service of his king; but now he's like a man besotted, since he's been so taken with this Tartuffe.  He calls him brother, loves him a hundred times as much as mother, son, daughter, and wife.  He tells him all his secrets and lets him guide his acts, and rule his conscience. 

 He fondles and embraces him; a sweetheart could not, I think, be loved more tenderly; at table he must have the seat of honour, while with delight our master sees him eat as much as six men could; we must give up the choicest tidbits to him; if he belches, ('tis a servant speaking) master exclaims: "God bless you!"--Oh, he dotes upon him!  He's his universe, his hero; he's lost in constant admiration, quotes him on all occasions, takes his trifling acts for wonders, and his words for oracles.

The fellow knows his dupe, and makes the most on't, he fools him with a hundred masks of virtue, gets money from him all the time by canting, and takes upon himself to carp at us.  Even his silly coxcomb of a lackey makes it his business to instruct us too; he comes with rolling eyes to preach at us, and throws away our ribbons, rouge, and patches.  The wretch, the other day, tore up a kerchief that he had found, pressed in the 'Golden Legend', calling it a horrid crime for us to mingle the devil's finery with holy things.

Try them out in front of a mirror, or better yet to an audience of your choosing.  I found them fun to perform.