Wednesday, November 04, 2015

Writing Challenge - All Women


Challenge: Erase maleness from your mind- whatever that means... if it means anything!  All of your characters are women. They only talk about other females or gender neutral things. Electrical outlets only require two female ends to work- and somehow they work better. This is not a "gender neutral" play. This is a play comprised of women.

AUTUMN ROSES

I’ve been noodling over a nearly all-female riff on Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, called Autumn Roses, and this was a good excuse to play around.  In order to Bechdel it up, it shouldn’t be a scene where they’re talking about the late husband or the new trophy husband so – instead we have Olive (Sonya) talking to her crush the doctor, Esther (Astrov) about both her, and her aunt Constance (Vanya)

                          OLIVE
Doctor, you shouldn’t drink so much.

                          ESTHER
Esther.

                          OLIVE
Esther, you shouldn’t drink so much.

                          ESTHER
You shouldn’t be judgmental of other people’s habits.  You don’t know the reasons behind them.

                          OLIVE
Why do you drink?

                          ESTHER
Why shouldn’t I drink?  It’s a sociable thing to do.

                          OLIVE
You drink to excess.

                          ESTHER
In your opinion.

                          OLIVE
It’s not just my opinion.

                          ESTHER
But it’s you I’m talking to at the moment.

                          OLIVE
All right.  In my opinion.

                          ESTHER
Why?  Because you don’t drink?

                          OLIVE
I don’t see the point.

                          ESTHER
Then you’re not paying attention.

                          OLIVE
There’s so much to take in, so much to do, so many people to connect with, why dull your senses?

                          ESTHER
There.  You’ve hit it.

                          OLIVE
Don’t you care?

                          ESTHER
I care a great deal.  I drink to care less.

                          OLIVE
But all the time --

                          ESTHER
All the time, even with all the time I spend with my patients, all the time I spend trying to cultivate the forests, there is always that time - the time you can’t sleep.  Your mind won’t let you.  You have to fill it with something.  So why not something pleasant?  Something to lull you to sleep?  Something to give you some comfort?  What is wrong with that?

                          OLIVE
People can provide comfort.

                          ESTHER
People also provide a great deal of the things that keep me awake at night.  If you truly care for people, and I do.  I have to, or I couldn’t do my job.  If you truly care, there is no down time.  There is no off switch.  And eventually they just wring you out.  There’s nothing left.  You have to fill it, that place you once were, the part of you that wasn’t inextricably tied up in everyone and everything else.  The part of you that did things and produced things, instead of just watching and assisting others.  The part of you that you could point to and say, “This is me.  Apart from what I do, apart from who I know, this is who I am.”  That part of you is gone, and it leaves a space.  A space that has to be filled with something, otherwise it becomes an ache.  Something you’ve lost that keeps you awake in the dark wondering when and how and where you lost it.  It may have been ground down and turned into vapor, it may not have taken up much space in your existence by the end, but when it’s finally, truly gone, you will miss it.  You start to wonder why you still have limbs and teeth and a beating heart.  Why not just distribute what’s left of you among those who appear to be fully functional?  But you’re still here.  Still have to rise and walk, still have to eat in order to keep your hands moving. And that, my dear, is one of the reasons I drink.

There is silence between them.

                          ESTHER (cont’d)
I shouldn’t come here.

                          OLIVE
Don’t say that.

                          ESTHER
I bring it all with me.  I infect this house.

                          OLIVE
Don’t be ridiculous.  You don’t bring disease with you.

                          ESTHER
Not disease.  Something worse.  The rest of the world.

                          OLIVE
The rest of the world is not something to be kept out.

                          ESTHER
You only say that because you haven’t been out there.

                          OLIVE
Everyone keeps insisting I lead this sheltered existence.  I know more than most of you give me credit for.

                          ESTHER
You’re not out in the middle of it every day like I am.

                          OLIVE
The world comes to us.  We have workers.  They lead very different lives.

                          ESTHER
Yes, but at the end of the day, they leave.  And you shut the door.  You don’t exist on the same plane with the rest of them. 

                          OLIVE
Which is precisely what you seem to be arguing for, limited exposure.

                          ESTHER
Yes.  It’s the reason I come here.  To escape.

                          OLIVE
But you can’t.

                          ESTHER
No.

                          OLIVE
And you think you’re polluting us somehow.

                          ESTHER
Yes.

                          OLIVE
Maybe when you drink.

                          ESTHER
It’s not the drink.

                          OLIVE
Well, if it makes you like this --

                          ESTHER
I’m not like this when I drink.  Not normally.

                          OLIVE
So it’s me.

                          ESTHER
Yes, I suppose it is.

                          OLIVE
I make you cross.

                          ESTHER
No.  No, you make me wish --

                          OLIVE
What?

                          ESTHER
You make me wish things were different.

                          OLIVE
Different how?

                          ESTHER
That I could stay.  That the world outside didn’t exist, didn’t need me.  That things out there were just as ordered and regular and comforting as they are within these walls.  That there’d be no need to leave.

                          OLIVE
You’re always welcome here.  You know that.

                          ESTHER
Yes.

                          OLIVE
We don’t shut the door.  Not to you.

                          ESTHER
And I appreciate that.

                          OLIVE
Drink if you must.  But please leave Constance out of it.  She’s not like you when she drinks.  She descends into a funk so deep it’s impossible to pull her back out again.  Even after she sobers up, the cloud continues to follow her through her days.

                          ESTHER
The infection.

                          OLIVE
That is one you can protect us from.

                          ESTHER
Moderation.  Everything in moderation.  Can we meet halfway at moderation?

                          OLIVE
Moderation is good.

                          ESTHER
For a start?

                          OLIVE
It’s not my intention to deny you anything.

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