A monologue from the play by Brian Parks
MARIAN (fifty-sixty)
Marian’s husband David had written a novel that the publishing house he works for rejected. Here, Marian is mocking David after he just announced that he wants to host a dinner party for some homeless people while they are having dinner with guests.
She is speaking to both David and the dinner guests.
It’s a bit cruel, don’t you think? (indicating the people at the table) Inviting your best friends to an event they in no way wish to attend? Have the party! But how does one top it next year?
Perhaps with an asylum theme! what could be more lively than a cocktail party for the insane? The ebb and flow of conversation. About the brilliant Farsi spoken by the voices in their head.
How the South would have won the Civil war if they’d gotten a little more of that promised help from the sea gods. I can see them all mingling, holding their cocktails with one hand, their pants up with their other.
A couple meets-cute, then sneaks to the bedroom and jams hands into each other’s crusty privates, discovering, in the process, small crawly creatures previously unknown to entomologists!
And the fashions! what are the hem lines this year in the gutter? The make-up—soot really brings out the cheekbones! what kind of ring does Tiffany design for the finger normally reserved for picking cat-food out from between molars?
The party will be massive on the gossip pages! “Last Friday, noted editor David Northrup was the proud host of a non-book party for his not-printed literary masterpiece,
an event celebrated with a strongly aromatic crowd of his un-published peers, unless the police blotter counts as a print run.” Ah, that phantom called art! If you want to write, write something useful.
Miscarriage condolence cards! A huge, untapped market! “Our sympathies on your half-formed loss.”
