A play I'm fix'n to submit.

Two friends and I are joint writing a seven page three-act play called Razor Butterfly Apple. Why, you might ask? Well, Kristen and I were at Red Moon's Hunchback (stellar!) and we were waiting for the show to begin and she said "razor butterfly apple," not randomly but the back-story to how we reached this point in the conversation is long and incomprehensible, so suffice it to say we arrived at "razor butterfly apple."

And I said, "What a great title for a play."

And in the deep background of both of our brains, a gunshot rang and we were off: Structure: 3 acts. Length: 6-7 pages. Characters: two girls and a potentially talking willow tree. I claimed apple. Kristen took butterfly because razor was too obvious. This took about 2 minutes. An email to Liz later secured our third. And our guerrilla playwriting project had begun.

This was all last night. The first draft is already done. I have found my people.

I will post the completed terrifying mess when we have "finished" it.
The length of 6-7 pages was actually determined by a festival that a local company holds every year called Sketchbook, and it is our intention to submit it after we dramaturg the shit out of it. And once I start writing, all I kind of want to do is write, so I wrote another piece to submit (we can enter three each because they are short).

I am posting this play with the following disclaimer:
This is NOT autobiographical.
The character in this monologue play is NOT me, though we share some thoughts.
And most importantly: mom, I do NOT think you look old at all.

WHEN IT’S ALWAYS 3

ACTOR

I am ignoring the large dark elephant in the room. So are you. I'm distracting myself by talking to you, and you're distracting yourself by watching me, listening to me, wondering if I am going to go up on my lines, wondering if I am going to crack under the pressure. But the truth is when I'm up here is the one time that I feel no pressure because I have ceased to be me. I have taken on my merry little role, my character, which in this play is a reluctant nihilist, just as you have taken on your polite little role as audience. We don't do this because we have to, we do this because we need to. To distract ourselves.

Because in the back of the room behind the seats resting comfortably by the door ready to slide behind us as we exit is a truth that we don't want to think about. And if I'm not doing my job or if I'm doing a shitty job, he'll sneak into the seat next to you and prop his elbow on the arm of your chair and start breathing silently into your ear and you don't even realize it but all of a sudden you thinking about how old your mom looked when you went home for her 60th birthday. You're thinking about how you can't remember high school anymore and how when you look back at your childhood you are seeing yourself in the third person. Thoughts usually reserved for the eerie quiet of 3AM when you haven't been able to fall asleep because you can't quite reach that annoying little itch somewhere between your skull and your chest and suddenly the flood gates crack and you're drowning.

You roll over and cling to the person next you. You try to think about anything else. What you have to get done at work tomorrow: oh I have a lot to get done I have to xerox that report for administration and coordinate that meeting with management and utilities and if I can sneak it in my nephew's birthday is in two months and I wonder if that toy store has an internet site, or if Amazon.com has it, or if Ebay has it.

ACTOR looks around content and then it fades and s/he is freaking out again.

You think about what you are going to eat for breakfast oh bacon sounds good bacon sounds great maybe I should make some bacon right now oh but I am so tired I can't move there's no way I can move I’m just going to fall asleep.

ACTOR looks like s/he is asleep but then is freaking out again.

Hey baby hey sweety: sex come on come on kiss kiss kiss wake up sweety I am going to rock your world baby if you would only wake up baby oh hi did I wake you well now that you're awake...

That's why we fuck so much, and when we're not fucking we're masturbating and if not that then we are thinking about fucking or masturbating. Or we are watching a tv show in which people either presently fucking or in the process of securing a person with whom they can fuck. Because sex is not just a recreational past-time: it is a defense mechanism. Because the evolution that is corsing through us is telling us that we need to procreate and so when we are having sex we have tricked our brain into thinking that we are actually achieving something.

And despite all that practice, we all think we're dissatisfied with our sex-lives; but we're really just dissatisfied with life. The whole mechanism. We say that we're unhappy with our sex life because we can fix that. We can buy another toy, call up another friend, try doing it on the roof in the rain...

Catharsis is a term that is thrown about a lot in the theatre. As a good thing. As a thing that cleanses us. A thing that makes us feel like we have achieved something just by watching a play. Like we have achieved what the actor has achieved even though we're just sitting there. Like when an asshole character gets his comeupins, we feel like we gave it to them. We feel like justice has been served and that we somehow served it. Or some character in need got helped, and we feel like we helped them.

But then we don't give any money to the homeless guy outside trying to sell you a Streetwise. Catharsis is the queengoddess of all distraction because you feel like you’re the opposite of distracted: you feel like right now at this very moment you are hyperaware of all of the realities of truth and beauty because it has just been presented to you in an easy-to-digest coated blue pill on a silver-spoonful of sugar. Like we were in a cave and we had been looking at shadows, but we can now turn around and look at the candle. And we are so happy, so fucking gleeful, that we don't even think to look past the candle outside the cave.

Or maybe we do look past it, but it's too fucking dark out there to see anything.

It’s not just cathartic for you all either. When I experience something up here, I almost really experience it. It’s like life without the risk of death. I can't die when I'm up here. (DEATH comes up behind him/her) My character can die. (S/he dies) In any number of ways (S/he dies again). But I will always (S/he dies again) come back (dies again). It's like a shield. Or like a bodyguard. And as long as I have my guard up, I'm safe. And this stage is safe because we made it

The lights hiss and pop and go dark as if a fuse just melted. In the dark, ACTOR remains basically still. Then ACTOR improvises. S/hee can wait a while if s/he wants. But then s/he tries to strike up a conversation. Maybe about her/himself. Maybe about the festival. Maybe about some local bit of news that everyone knows about. S/he is making small talk because if s/he doesn't then s/he will start freaking out...the improv should end with the following line:

The irony of it all is/

All the lights burst on and during the darkness as many DEATHs as you can costume have slipped into the audience, in the aisles, in empty chairs, standing directly in front of people. Hopefully there will be screaming. And no catharsis.

End of Play