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1100 Playwright Interviews

1100 Playwright Interviews A Sean Abley Rob Ackerman E.E. Adams Johnna Adams Liz Duffy Adams Tony Adams David Adjmi Keith Josef Adkins Nicc...

Stageplays.com

Jul 28, 2007

monologue from the opening of a new play

I have a face like a bowl of worms.  Squirming around the ticks, the scars, the moles.  It's disgusting.  A face like this.  It's absurd, without meaning or purpose. And I honestly can't say if I'm an experiment gone awry or if I was just born this way.  I have no origin.  I have no memory.  I can only remember you.  The way you looked at me, the first time you saw me, it was like you saw the bowl underneath the worms.  It was like--  Your face was like a china plate.  Perfect.  Whole.  Pristine.  And you looked at me, the way you looked at me—

The patient had died.  That much I remember.  His wife was wailing but I couldn't hear her.  Because you were there and everything else melted away.  "Let's have a drink," you said with your face like a plate.  And we drank and we drank and we went to your place and we made love like normal people.  And it continued that way for days, weeks, years.  I can't say for sure.

I'm not sure I can pinpoint the second, the moment you grew tired of me.  I can't pinpoint the moment I became what I am.  Your body was like liquor and I couldn't get enough of it, couldn't spend a night without you.  I didn't know you weren't drunk on me.  I didn't see the signs.  I should have seen--  How could I have missed the diagnosis?  How could I have avoided the bald shock, the morning discovery, to wake up and find your note.

And now I can't remember anything except you. You will pay.  Everyone will pay.  You will all pay dearly.

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