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A monologue from the play by Don Nigro
PARKER (twenty-seven)
The play takes place in the offices of Vanity Fair Magazine in the year 1920.
Dorothy Parker is leaving in a dispute over her sometimes devastating but hilarious theatre reviews, and her friend and coworker, Robert Benchley is leaving with her in protest.
Dorothy is supposed to be training the young Edmund Wilson to replace her and Robert Benchley as assistant editors there.
Here, she and Mr Benchley are having a very good time entertaining the young Wilson.
Actually, I am quitting, but it feels like being fired, and it’s all Billie Burke’s fault. Do you know Billie Burke?
I wrote some rather nasty things about Billie Burke in one of my theatre reviews, which is one of the thoroughly disgusting and totally pointless jobs you’re going to be stealing from us.
I am a horrible woman. I take pride in it. But I’m a good writer. Whereas Billie Burke,on the other hand, is a horrible actress.
At least in her current unfortunate theatrical manifestation. She might be quite a wonderful actress in some other manifestation at some later date.
And if so, I’ll be more than happy to say so. But in this one, she’s really stinking up 42nd Street. Which didn’t smell all that good to begin with.
Unfortunately, Billie Burke is sleeping with Flo Ziegfeld. And Flo Ziegfeld is a good friend of Conde Nast.
And Conde Nast owns Vanity Fair. So when Mr. Ziegfeld read that I said Billie Burke had all the onstage charisma of a can of oysters, he was understandably upset.
So he called up Conde Nast. And when Conde Nast, who is a pompous d*ckhead, told Mr. Crowninshield that I must under no circumstances ever be allowed to compare Billie Burke to a can of oysters,
I protested that I’m a theatre critic, and it’s my job to say horrible things about people.
So Mr Crowninshield told me I couldn’t write any more theatre reviews, and I told him in that case I’d have no choice but to resign in protest.
It’s not that I enjoy saying horrible things about people … All right, I do enjoy saying horrible things about people.
But only if they’re funny. I suppose I really am a horrible person. But that’s why you love me. Mr. Benchley really does love me.
Which is why he very gallantly also resigned. And Bob Sherwood, in support of both of us, also resigned.
It was the worst massacre since General Custer met Crazy Horse. Do you know Bob Sherwood? The playwright.
It’s actually rather confusing. Robert Benchley. Robert E. Sherwood. Sherwood Anderson. Maxwell Anderson. Elsa Maxwell.
Nobody can keep them straight. They’re all pretty much the same person. But Mr. Benchley and I agreed to stay on long enough to train you.
Purely out of the goodness of our hearts. And because we need the money. Mr. Benchley and I have no money. We’re writers.
So, here’s how things work here at Vanity Fair. Over there, you can see a pile of unsolicited manuscripts, roughly the size of Mount Kilimanjaro.
As these unsolicited manuscripts come in, you need to carefully log in this record book the title of the piece, the name of the author, and the date received.
Do you follow me so far? Mr. Benchley often follows me in the street. He drinks all day at work and then gets lost on the way home.
I try to lose him but often I fail. It’s like being stalked by a stray dog.
Anyway, once you’ve carefully written down all that information, you take the manuscript, go over to the window, and throw it out, like this.
(She hurls a manuscript out the window.) You see? It’s all in the wrist.
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