A monologue from the play by Lucas Hnath
NORA (forties – fifties)
This happens.
All the time.
And people are miserable.
Yes, yes, we want to be intimate with another person,
to know another person,
to love that person deeply,
and to be naked with that person—
but why do we need a marriage for that?
And why does it need to be with just one person
and for the rest of your life?
Seems so sad.
And we know it’s sad—we know it—
we know it and we feel it
and we go and we reach
outside that contract of marriage,
all the time it happens,
men and women—
we fail to be faithful because deep down we ache for more,
because this ache is in the core of who we are—
but we stomp it out,
and we beat ourselves up
for failing to be something we never were to begin with.
And so I say, well just end it.
End marriage.
And it will end. I know it.
In the future,
20, 30 years from now,
marriage will be a thing of the past,
and those in the future
will look back on us,
and they’ll be in shock,
in total—just awe—
at how stupid we are,
how backwards our thinking,
how sad it is
that we put ourselves through
this completely unnecessary
process of self-torture.
20, 30 years from now,
people will have many spouses in a life,
even many spouses at once.
There won’t be lines drawn between couples,
and there won’t be jealousy because there won’t be anything to be
jealous of.
