The Rainbow Connection, or Irony Rules Supreme

Dramatis Personae:
Deborah, 19

Lights up on DEBORAH at the wheel of a navy blue BMW sedan. She is caught in traffic and clearly irritated by it. Suddenly, a smile envelops her face, a type of smile that makes the cheeks feel as if they've been hit by a pleasant, tropical sun. She picks up her phone and dials a number.

DEBORAH.
Hey, I had to call you!

Pause.

Oh no, is now a bad time?

Pause.

It's nothing, it's just the most beautiful, the biggest rainbow I've ever seen.

Pause.

Yeah! I'm sitting in the most horrendous traffic, but then I look up and I see, you know, magic. And it just makes you think that life is really so, I don't know - it's like you're not in one place at one time, you know? I'm not just in traffic, in a car on pavement - I'm in the sky too, riding the arch of a rainbow. It's just crazy because I always thought life, your consciousness or whatnot, was a piecewise function, you know, constant then jumping from y-value to y-value. But now I see it's not a function at all, it's more miraculous than math - two y-values at the same time, but still working in some system perfectly.

Pause. Nervous laugh.

Oh, yeah, it made more sense in my head.

Pause.

Yeah.

Pause.

You know? I'm starting to think Sartre got it wrong: hell is being caught in traffic on I-95.

Pause.

Don't get it? The play No Exit?

Pause.

Yeah, anyway, I should let you go.

Pause.

Take care!

She hangs up. Lights fade.

END.

Psychology and Religion - this time with feeling

Dramatis Personae:

A Puddle

A Boot

A Voice

Lights up on a PUDDLE among other puddles after a rainstorm. These puddles are formed by actors lying on their backs. There is a tranquility in the puddles, each in their own isolated world. This peace lasts for a few moments. A BOOT enters and walks among the puddles, being careful not to step in any of them. This boot is formed by an actor in a pair of boots - the character of the boot refers to one of the boots in the pair. The boot is also serene, though a latent agitation can be observed within it by the most discerning eyes. The boot enjoys a few moments of peace. Then the VOICE.

VOICE.

Puddles are meant to be jumped in.

Obediently, the boot jumps in the puddle - or the actor playing the boot places a single boot on the stomach of actor playing the puddle. The puddle reacts with a splash - or with arms and legs strewn in different directions in an expression of pain. Continued pained movement from the puddle, a struggle to stay balanced on one leg from the boot.

VOICE.

You will not splash.

The puddle tries hard not the react to the boot and the boot tries hard not to put too much pressure on the puddle, but they cannot help pain or physics. They think the voice is disappointed in them. The lights fade.

END.

A Lesson in Growing Up

Dramatis Personae:

This Girl - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkWAhuXtalw&feature=related

Lights up on a little GIRL picking daisies and counting the petals as she pulls them off.

GIRL.

1, 2: The reason you can't let your parents know everything about you is because they can't allow harm to come to you. They will (they must!) prevent it.

3,4: But having harm come to you is necessary to be human. Humans are roses: we have to have our dead heads chopped off in order to grow new ones.

5,6: I am my own parents. I'm too terrified to do violence to myself - too terrified that nothing will grow. And then I'll have nothing: not even a dried up rose.

7,8: I ran away today. I hopped a fence and ran across the biggest field I'd ever seen.

9, 10: I think I'll be a tragedy.

A countdown. An explosion.

END.

A Visit to New York City

Dramatis Personae:

Woman, a large, black woman

Girl, a skinny, chic, white girl

Lights up on a crowded subway car headed uptown. The WOMAN and the GIRL are both sitting, separated only by the small aisle. They both are listening to music on identical, new iPods.

WOMAN.

What are the odds!

GIRL.

(Taking off her headphones) Excuse me?

WOMAN.

I said, what are the odds that, of all the people in New York, we would both have the same iPod and would be sitting in the same subway car, listening to it at the same time!

GIRL.

Um, do you live in the 21st century or are you and your neon jacket just on a brief vacation from the 90s?

WOMAN.

Do you need a mother or are you just provoking strangers to parent you for the hell of it?

Silence between the two until the girl gets off at the next stop.

END.

First Play

Dramatis Personae:

The Author, female

Lights up on the AUTHOR sitting on a bed typing on a Macbook in a bedroom illuminated only by a single lamp with a pink shade on the bedside table. Her typing is erratic - the product of some instruction but mostly a sort of made up system that she has adapted from years of frantically trying to write people's words verbatim. An iTunes library on shuffle accompanies the hard tapping of keys - a mixture of show tunes, opera, classical, pop, rock and movie soundtracks. For a moment, she breaks into reverie.

AUTHOR.

Imagine when I could speak without my fingers. Imagine a time when a voice vibrated through folds in your throat instead of a wire.

Pause.

But why should I imagine? The point is the words of speech, right?

She continues typing.

Not the voicing of nostalgia.

Lights fade, but the tapping plays on.

END.