FUCK BUDDY: THE MONOLOGUE by Asher Wyndham

20 SOMETHING, any gender, race or body type. Heavily dressed for a winter storm: big hat with pom-pom or a trapper’s hat (the one with the flaps), mittens (not gloves),scarf, big boots, big coat.

Sniffles throughout.

 

Place: A cold apartment of a recent fuck-buddy.

 

Time: A brutal winter night.

 

20 SOMETHING.

Answer this one question.

After weeks of ghosting, why text me,

        (Looking at smartphone)

“come over watch some stupid cat videos on YouTube”?

Why?

(Imitating the other person:)

“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”

Why ghost me?

Don’t know?

Don’t give me “I was busy, uhh, community college stuff.”

Don’t tell me again “I’m reading some David Foster Wallace, really.”

No one finishes David Foster Wallace!

You rhino ­horny?

Orrr is there another reason?

Yes, I’m hot—even in the dead of winter, even in this—

                        (Meaning the entire winter getup.)

But you can get hot from your smartphone while taking a dump.

—Why do you want me in this cold room again?

Hunh, lazy eyes?

Do you wanna have some rough sex to see if there’s…not love…a, a “Deep Emotional Connection”?

Or…?

—ZIP IT!—I’M TALKING!

Do you wanna cuddle after screwing, compare childhoods, traumas, student debt, what what what!?

—Paws off, don’t touch, gimme…

                        (“a moment.”)

I…I wanna bang you, I do, over and over again in your pathetic futon until my head falls off—don’t touch.

…I miss your nipples…and the scaly, dry skin on your elbows…and your Fruit Loops breath…your atrocious IKEA furniture…        

                        (STOMPING.)

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

WHY DO YOU WANT ME HERE!?

Is it because you’re tired of being lonely…just like me?

You’re the worst fuck buddy!

(Takes off and slams one mitten.)

—Shut up, you always talk too much.

(The other mitten. And then unzips coat.)

Take off your slippers, noww.

You know I hate it when you wear ’em in bed.

(Untangles scarf.)

You know what’s happening, so take off the Big Foot slippers.

(Takes scarf off.)

We’re having hate sex—

(Slaps the floor with the scarf as if it was a whip.)

I’m going to give you the best hate sex, ever.

(Takes a bottle of lube from the winter coat pocket.)

Butter up.

                        (Tosses the lube.

                        Then tries to remove a boot which is quite difficult to get off, during:)

In the morning I’m not making you scrambled eggs, you are.

I’d like also veggie-­fruit-­mix with chia seeds, please.

Can you get off your dino ass, please, and help me with these boots?

                        (Still trying to get those boots off. End of monologue.)

 

More information: Please email the playwright if you use this piece for an audition: asherwyndham(at)yahoo(dot)com

 

Check out his plays on New Play Exchange: https://newplayexchange.org/users/3039/asher-wyndham

 

 

Prologue, from Henry V, by William Shakespeare

PROLOGUE – Henry V by William Shakespeare (Act I, Scene I)

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
Leash’d in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire
Crouch for employment. But pardon, and gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that have dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object: can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest in little place a million;
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work.
Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder:
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide on man,
And make imaginary puissance;
Think when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i’ the receiving earth;
For ’tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there; jumping o’er times,
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history;
Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

Monologue curated by Classical Monologue Dramaturg, Rory Starkman.

Dramaturg Notes: This speech opens the play of Henry V by William Shakespeare. Though Shakespeare wrote roles intended for females, historically all of the roles in Shakespeare’s plays have been performed by men/AMAB people (assigned male at birth). Typically, Shakespeare’s Chorus roles are not indicative of a specific gender and are suitable audition pieces and roles for non-binary actors. This speech sets the tone for the play by describing the greatness of the content the audience is about to witness; the war between England and France. However, the Chorus here begs for the audience to lend their imagination to the piece since, after all, this is a play within a theatre as opposed to the great battle and story which the players are attempting to re-enact.

 

Alex, from The 1st Annual Head-Shaving Olympics, by Sam Mauceri

ALEX. (they/them) Um, body-wise I don’t really feel any dysphoria. I mean, every now and then I’ll feel this weird separation from specific parts of my body, but usually I’m just more frustrated with how the rest of the world interprets my body. Like, the social aspect of it is where I feel dysphoria. I feel not like myself almost every time I’m “maam’ed” or “Miss’ed”. Every time a dude shouts at me on the street, because I know he’s harassing me because he thinks I’m a lady. Every time I’m in the doctor’s office and they call me by my full birth name, because I haven’t had the energy to change it. Every time I resign myself to not looking harder for a gender neutral bathroom. Every time I’m walking around and existing and knowing what people think they’re seeing, but knowing that they’re wrong, but also knowing that there’s no good way to tell them.

Context: This monologue is from the 20-minute comedy The 1st Annual Head-Shaving Olympics. Alex is a non-binary person who is comfortable with their femininity, but sick of being misgendered as a woman. In an attempt to become more visible, they decide to shave their head and imagine themself training for the Head-Shaving Olympics. In this monologue, Alex is at the Non-Binary Qualifiers, trying to convince the judges that they are non-binary enough.

More information: 

Email: samlmauceri@gmail.com

New Play Exchange: https://newplayexchange.org/users/16881/sam-mauceri

Pasquale, from Couples Costume, by Sam Mauceri

PASQUALE (they/them). If you don’t end this relationship now, you’re going to get trapped in the Holiday Barricade. Think about it. Right now it’s October and you’re committed to a couples costume. Once the planning happens, there’s no way to bust out of that one without looking like a complete jerkwad. Think you’re free after that? Nope! Then it’s Thanksgiving, when you’ll have to meet the parents. Next is Christmas-slash-Hanukkah-slash-Kwanzaa. You’re going to buy each other gifts and you have no way of knowing if they’ve already gotten you a gift so you CAN’T break up. Then it’s New Year’s Eve and who have you made plans to smooch when the ball drops? Dominique. Next you run up against Valentine’s Day which has the same gift conundrum as your preferred winter holiday. There is simply no way out before that one. It’s either now or February 15th.

Context: This monologue is from the 10-minute comedy Couples Costume, which features 4 non-binary teenage characters. Pasquale is trying to help their friend Charlie rally the courage to end their relationship with Dominique.

More information: 

Email: samlmauceri@gmail.com

New Play Exchange: https://newplayexchange.org/users/16881/sam-mauceri

Andrey, from Three Sisters

From Three Sisters (1900) by Anton Chekhov (as translated by Elisaveta Fen):

ACT FOUR

[Andrey laments to a fellow Council Member]

Oh, where has all my past life gone to? – the time when I was young and gay and clever, when I used to have fine dreams and great thoughts, and the present and the future were bright with hope? Why do we become so dull and commonplace and uninteresting almost before we’ve begun to live? Why do we get lazy, indifferent, useless, unhappy?… This town’s been in existence for two hundred years; a hundred thousand people live in it, but there’s not one who’s any different from all the others! There’s never been a scholar or an artist or a saint in this place, never a single man sufficiently outstanding to make you feel passionately that you wanted to emulate him. People here do nothing but eat, drink and sleep… Then they die and some more take their places, and they eat, drink and sleep, too, – and just to introduce a bit of variety into their lives, so as to avoid getting completely stupid with boredom, they indulge in their disgusting gossip and vodka and gambling and law-suits. The wives deceive their husbands, and the husbands lie to their wives, and pretend they don’t see anything and don’t hear anything … and all this overwhelming vulgarity and pettiness crushes the children and puts out any spark they might have in them, so that they, too, become miserable half-dead creatures, just like one another and just like their parents!

*Andrey is traditionally cast as ‘male’. They begins the play as an aspiring academic, but ends up marrying, having children, and working for the Town Council. Here they openly laments to a fellow council member, who is hearing impaired.

Monologue curated by Classical Monologue Dramaturg, Rory Starkman.

DRAMATURG NOTES (from all three pieces):

Though all three of these characters are traditionally cast as ‘male’, nothing in these monologues indicate that they need to be male. Each monologue reads as a philosophical soliloquy, and though traditionally it has always been males who were thought to philosophize (and even still there is a disparity within university philosophy departments, which tend to be overrun with people assigned male at birth), the ability to think out loud and express one’s thoughts and emotions is not a gendered aspect of living. In de-gendering/un-gendering these monologues from 1900, the idea of philosophical thought in performance can move further out of the male realm and into a more non-binary theatrical space.

Vershinin, from Three Sisters

From Three Sisters (1900) by Anton Chekhov (as translated by Elisaveta Fen):

ACT THREE

[An excerpt of the monologue delivered by Vershinin*]

And when my little girls were standing in the doorway with nothing on but their night clothes, and the street was red with the glow of fire and full of terrifying noises, it struck me that the same sort of thing used to happen years ago, when armies used to make sudden raids on towns, and plunder them and set them on fire… Anyway, is there any essential difference between things as they were and as they are now? And before very long, say, in another two or three hundred years, people may be looking at our present life just as we look at the past now, with horror and scorn. Our own times may seem uncouth to them, boring and frightfully uncomfortable and strange… Oh, what a great life it’ll be then, what a life! [Laughs.] Forgive me, I’m philosophizing my head off again… But may I go on, please? I’m bursting to philosophize just at the moment. I’m in the mood for it. [A pause.] You seem as if you’ve all gone to sleep. As I was saying: what a great life it will be in the future! Just try to imagine it… At the present time there are only three people of your intellectual calibre in the whole of this town, but future generations will be more productive of people like you. They’ll go on producing more and more of the same sort until at last the time will come when everything will be just as you’d wish it yourselves. People will live their lives in your way, and then even you may be outmoded, and a new lot will come along who will be even better than you are… [Laughs.] I’m in quite a special mood to-day. I feel full of a tremendous urge to live… [Sings.] “To Love all ages are in fee, the passion’s good for you and me” … [Laughs.]

*Vershinin is traditionally cast as ‘male’. This moment happens as Vershinin arrives at the house of the Three Sisters after helping to put out a fire in their town. Though married to someone else, Vershinin is in love with one of the sisters, Masha. In the play, she is present for this moment.

Monologue curated by Classical Monologue Dramaturg, Rory Starkman.

DRAMATURG NOTES (from all three pieces):

Though all three of these characters are traditionally cast as ‘male’, nothing in these monologues indicate that they need to be male. Each monologue reads as a philosophical soliloquy, and though traditionally it has always been males who were thought to philosophize (and even still there is a disparity within university philosophy departments, which tend to be overrun with people assigned male at birth), the ability to think out loud and express one’s thoughts and emotions is not a gendered aspect of living. In de-gendering/un-gendering these monologues from 1900, the idea of philosophical thought in performance can move further out of the male realm and into a more non-binary theatrical space.

 

Chebutykin, from Three Sisters

From Three Sisters (1900) by Anton Chekhov (as translated by Elisaveta Fen):

ACT THREE

[Chebutykin enters; walking firmly and soberly they crosses the room, stops, looks round, then goes to the wash-stand and begins to wash their* hands]

The devil take them all… all the lot of them! They think I can treat anything just because I’m a doctor, but I know positively nothing at all. I’ve forgotten everything I used to know. I remember nothing, positively nothing… The devil take them! Last Wednesday I attended a woman at Zasyp. She died, and it’s all my fault that she did die. Yes… I used to know a thing or two twenty five years ago, but now I don’t remember anything. Not a thing! Perhaps I’m not a man at all, but I just imagine that I’ve got hands and feet and a head. Perhaps I don’t exist at all, and I only imagine that I’m walking about and eating and sleeping. [Weeps.] Oh, if only I could simply stop existing! [Stops crying, glumly.] God knows… The other day they were talking about Shakespeare and Voltaire at the club. … I haven’t read either, never read a single line of either, but I tried to make out by my expression that I had. The others did the same. How petty it all is! How despicable! And then suddenly I thought of the woman I killed on Wednesday. It all came back to me, and I felt such a swine, so sick of myself that I went and got drunk…

Context: *Chebutykin is traditionally cast as ‘male’. He is a 60-year-old army doctor. This moment occurs after the other characters talk of how he is “hopelessly drunk… as if he’d done it on purpose”.

Monologue curated by Classical Monologue Dramaturg, Rory Starkman.

DRAMATURG NOTES (from all three pieces):

Though all three of these characters are traditionally cast as ‘male’, nothing in these monologues indicate that they need to be male. Each monologue reads as a philosophical soliloquy, and though traditionally it has always been males who were thought to philosophize (and even still there is a disparity within university philosophy departments, which tend to be overrun with people assigned male at birth), the ability to think out loud and express one’s thoughts and emotions is not a gendered aspect of living. In de-gendering/un-gendering these monologues from 1900, the idea of philosophical thought in performance can move further out of the male realm and into a more non-binary theatrical space.

 

Burbank, from A Singular They, by Aliza Goldstein

BURBANK. I step into the shed and he’s already there. “Well, hi,” he says, and I say, “Well, hi.” He doesn’t kiss me. He doesn’t touch me. He says: “Take off your shirt.” I do. He stares, and I feel cold. He says, “Wow, your chest looks like a boy’s,” and I say, “Is that okay?” And he says “I kind of like it.” He takes off his pants but leaves his sweater on. His underwear is purple, with white trim and a white waistband. He is staring at my shoes. I step on the backs to take them off. My corduroys hit the ground. There is floral print on my granny panties and I wish I’d worn a different pair. He touches me for the first time, hands on my arms to lay me down on some plastic patio furniture, a cheap Adirondack lounge chair. I feel every bump in the fake wood grain. I kind of want him to kiss me but he doesn’t. “Is everything okay?” he asks, and I lie and say, “yes,” and unclench my hand from around the condom. Trojan. Ribbed for her pleasure. He slides the waistband of his underwear down below his penis and strokes it like a lover – I wish he’d touch me like that instead. I open the condom and he shows me how to put it on him and I think maybe he’ll kiss me now, but he doesn’t. Instead he takes off my underwear and says – “I’ve never been with a girl who doesn’t shave before.” And he spreads my legs, and he stares, and I worry that he’ll be grossed out. Then he says – “Okay.” And I say “Okay,” but I’m not sure anymore, but I remember what Dierdre said and I have to do it. I want him to touch me somehow, but he still doesn’t. Instead he lowers his weight onto me, uses one hand to position himself, and I think about what I want that hand to do but he doesn’t keep it there, he puts it back on the arm of the chair. Then it’s shove-

(Burbank gasps.)

And then a harder shove. Two more times. Then he pulls out, and asks – “Can I stick it in your ass?”

(Beat.)

I say no. I get dressed. I look at my phone. Twelve zero five. Happy fucking new year. He goes inside and tells his girlfriend he thinks he’s gay.

Context: From the full-length A Singular They. Monologue occurs around halfway into the play. Burbank’s best friend has arranged for Burbank to lose their virginity with a classmate at a New Year’s party, on the assumption that getting laid will cure Burbank’s teen angst.

More information: leezagoldstein (at) gmail (dot) com

Julie-Anne Reyes, from Nolita, by Nina Ki

Julie-Anne Reyes. Fourteen. Filipinx.

JULIE-ANNE. I first met her in the line for the bathroom, at a party. Isn’t that weird? I tend to meet a lot of people in the bathroom line, though. I always talk to them and stuff– I mean, you’re waiting around together, right…?? Just something to kill time. Nolita always said that was weird, but I thought it was fun. …That was her name. Nolita.

(pause)

It was one of those things that were so charming about her. Nolita wasn’t her real name, in case you were wondering. She didn’t really tell anybody her “birth” name, not even me. She chose Nolita after that book about the nymphomaniac and the child molester, who wrote that again? Vlad– Vladimoor– I don’t know. Some Russian guy. Anyway, she put “no” in there just to change it up. She liked that kind of thing. Changing it up. It was one of the things I admired most about her. She did it to me too, you know– she changed me up. I mean, I’m there one second, you know, completely into guys (I think), and then the next– I don’t know. I’m having dates and stuff. Like ice cream. Getting ice cream, I mean, Nolita liked this one place called Moo’s.

(pause)

Moo’s Ice Cream. Funny name. But Nolita liked it. Ice cream wasn’t even that good, and there weren’t that many flavors– only Strawberry, Vanilla, and Chocolate. But she liked that the old lady who ran it was a “halfie,” I mean, she said half Chinese half white, like her, and mostly she liked the name. She just– I don’t know. She liked it. And she made me like it, too. She changed me.

(pause)

If I could compare the whole experience– the whole experience of being around her, I mean, I would liken it to a natural disaster. She was a natural disaster. Like a hurricane, or a tsunami. Or, no, an earthquake. Yeah. An earthquake. She made the ground shake under me, made everything collapse and fall down so I have to build everything back up. But she was my natural disaster… or she used to be.

(pause)

She kissed me first, you know. For the record. Right outside of Moo’s, one day. Fucking rocked my world. I don’t even think she was gay before that. She just wanted to do it, so she did. She was that kind of person, you know. Nolita. I loved it, loved her, you know, but sometimes it drove me crazy. Really crazy, like she made me feel so– shook up inside. You know? …She broke up with me yesterday. Just said, I’m sorry, Honeybun. She called me that. Honeybun, like the pastry thing. Now every time I walk by a bakery I want to cry. But she said, it’s not working out anymore and she’s got to go do her thing. Just like that. One day it’s working, the next day it’s not. Fucking changing it up.

(pause)

I’m sad, ateh. I’m really sad. I don’t know what to do. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do. It’s the first time I ever really loved someone, you know? And a girl? Does that like– mean I’m gay? Even if Nolita’s not around, anymore? What the hell does that even mean? Do I go look for boys or girls, now? Both? Neither? But I shouldn’t even say that. The only person I want, is her. I mean, really. That’s all I really want, to go hold her hand and maybe kiss sometimes, or even go to that stupid place. Moo’s. What a stupid name. What do you do, ateh? What do you do after that, when they’re gone? After they change you up, and go? Do you know? Can you tell me?

More information: ms.ninaki (at) gmail (dot) com

 

ADULTING WITH YOU, by Ayla Sullivan

WADE. Honey, listen, I know I haven’t been the most, like, available person to you these past few months. My depression naps aren’t even naps anymore, they’re just me pretending that sleeping for sixteen hours at a time is something I can get away with; the neighbors keep threatening to call social services because they think we’re neglecting a screaming baby every time I have, like, a gentle, I mean really mild, panic attack when the dishwasher makes the, you know, the (inhuman screeching buzz no dishwasher would ever make) sound; and you know I see you give me those pity eyes, which I know you don’t mean to look like that and I’m not saying I don’t appreciate you being so supportive because you are my purpose and my muse and all that shit, which is to say I think you would be really proud of me today.

For one, I took a shower. I know. It’s basic, but I took a shower at 9 AM. Which you know means I naturally woke up at 8 and grumbled to the stillness of our apartment about existence and, like, if anything I do even matters and if I can mentally prepare myself for Jeff to call me his “Golden Girl of espresso sales” no matter how many fucking times I tell him to stop calling me something so patronizing and gross and when I got out of the shower and I saw myself I didn’t disassociate and wish I saw something better. I just saw me and I saw someone who lives somewhere they are loved and where the shower water is the perfect temperature.

And then, Babe, I listened to three podcasts today. Different ones! On the way to work, on the way home, fucking just casually when I was walking around Target. Yeah, I fucking went to Target today too. I looked in—not just the dollar section—I went to the motherload. I went to every home and bath decoration section because I was thinking about us. And thinking like how great it would be if I could get us those gold terrarium things with the succulents and like antlers for some reason because every nice catalogue home has those gold antlers for some reason and, and, and, what I really want to say is that I’m like a real fucking person because of you. Like, holy shit, you’ve got me…domesticated.

More information: aylaxc.sullivan (at) gmail (dot) com