Ask the Playwright: Submission Two

Dear Rose,

I heard that you got your MFA in Writing. Could you possibly show us an awesome monologue or two written by your mentor?

Sincerely,

Letters from Idunno, Idaho.


Dear Ida,

I'da be happy to! Rob Caisley is an excellent writer, a wonderful teacher, and a connoisseur of animal sound effects. Here are two gems from his play, Kissing.

SCENE 6: Helen
HELEN, alone. A pool of light on her. She’s wearing a wide brimmed
straw hat, sunglasses. She carries a colorful beach
bag.

HELEN
Perhaps it’s my insecurity. Or something
biological or I don’t know, psychological. But I have this
aversion. This rather profound distaste for having
anything in my mouth that is not, you know, food. Even
though I know it’s supposed to be make you feel flushed
with—what do they say?—the “warm-fuzzies”—you
know, because of the neurotransmitters, the oxytocin or
whatever it is that’s released when you kiss. But I just
cannot stomach the idea of anything more assertive in
my mouth than a spoon.
(Beat.) In high school, this boy ... Alan Crane, he was this
sweet boy. His father owned the Chevrolet dealership in
town, and Alan was allowed to drive the cars around the
parking lot when they had to wash them. So he started
driving, you see, becoming quite accomplished at it,
before anyone else in our class—which was—you know,
it set him apart. He was on his own planet. And one day
he asked me out. A matinee of The Godfather, I think. For
an hour he’d had his arm around me, making me feel
special and admired—and we came out of the cinema,
climbed into his car and he awkwardly lunged at me,
and kissed me, very absurdly but very innocently, on the
cheek. More of a peck than a kiss, actually. But when I
turned to him—and I really can’t recall what it was I was
about to say—he lunged again and kissed me squarely
on the lips, and his tongue flashed in and out of my
mouth just once, very quickly, like an adder, and it was
the—I remember the saltiness, the popcorn taste—
I remember like it was yesterday ... and I shot him this
look—which must have been so full of disgust and
hatred because of his reaction to it. The color simply
vanished from his face, and his jaw began to tremble. He
took me home and he never called me again. I
discovered later from a friend of a friend that he’d said of that look: he would never be able to be around me again
without feeling he’d damaged me in some way.
(Pause.) There’s a tribe, isn’t there? In Africa. I’m not
suggesting anything white or superior or anyway
dismissive about it, but they just don’t kiss. They don’t
like it. They think it’s foul. They actually think it’s
funny. What I’m trying to say: maybe I’ve been living
with the wrong tribe all these years.


SCENE 4: ANDY
Small pool of light fades up on ANDREW. He has a backpack
slung over his shoulder, jeans and a well-worn T-Shirt that
reads “One Size Fits All.” Over this—the sound of the softball
game continues: the crowd cheering, the “thwack” of the bat
smacking the ball out of the park.


ANDREW: I was in Baltimore. This was back in college.
I’d met this chick right at the end of the semester—the
opening of some senior student art show on campus.
Her name was Bethany. She was a sculptor—worked
with a lot of junk, you know?— automotive parts, scrap
steel, colored glass—she had this exhibit that was
nothing but wine bottles, hood ornaments, shards of
broken mirrors and this twelve foot by twelve foot black
and white blow up of her ass with the words OBJECTS
ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR spray painted
across it in red.
I had no fucking idea what it meant, but she was totally
hot and spoke like three languages, and we ended up, as
people do, spending the night together.
(Beat.) Nothing actually transpired—we didn’t actually
do it, okay—we were so utterly smashed on cheap
Canadian whiskey, and—well, we passed out.
(Beat.) When I woke up the next morning, my hand was
glued to her boob, and she was—let’s just say, a little
under the weather. She puked for almost forty minutes.

At the end, it was just these little trickles of grey saliva,
and she looked like absolute shit. But the weird thing—
out of the blue, her forehead still resting on the scummy
rim of the toilet—she said, “You wanna come to my
folk’s place for Thanksgiving?”
I thought at the time, okay, that’s a little weird, but I’m
like: why not?
(Beat.) So there we are. Baltimore. You gotta love a city
that goes from having the rather bewildering and dull-asdishwater
slogan: “The City That Reads,” to the
ridiculously over-inflated “The Greatest City in
America.” But there we were. Eating turkey. Giving
thanks. Fucking fantastic.
And the next day, she drags me downtown to the
Museum of Art. They’ve got Rodin’s The Kiss on exhibit.
You know, she’s this—you know she’s an art student, a
sculptor, and this is the chance of a lifetime.
(Beat.) This statue, I gotta tell ya—it’s terrific—it’s
really—it’s so erotic and sensuous, you just can’t help—
okay, the way the guy has his hand placed just so on the
woman’s hip. Wow! Five minutes tops—taking in some
of the finest culture the Western World has to offer—and
Bethany tugs on the pocket of my pants and says—(you
think I’m makin’ this up)—she says, “If I don’t get you
outside in the alley in five seconds I am gonna scream!!!”
(Beat.) Well. So. What d’ya do? You don’t debate a
thing like that. You don’t mull.
(Beat.) Quick as you please we’re in the alley, amid the
dumpsters and the piss-filled puddles and she plants this
kiss on me. This kiss. This girl. This amazing moment.
Ya take it to the grave. And she tasted like ... she said it
was cinnamon lip gloss.
(Quick beat.) And then she started crying, which totally
freaked me out. And when I asked her what was wrong
she said: “I’m just so maladjusted.” Her words, not
mine. “I’ve done this terrible, terrible thing.” And I said
what are you talking about? And she said, shut up and
kiss me again. (Beat. Smile.) And I did.