MADISON'S LAMENT

My description of Fenway: Last of the Bohemains continues with the character of Madison.  I named the character Madison after the VJ from MTV Kennedy, who was this right wing, hipster that was all the rage for a while back in the day.  Get it?  Madison and Kennedy are both former presidents.  Oh, the cleverness of me!  Anyway, Kennedy always seemed a little nutty to me- like she was trying to prove something, and was sort of pissed off at the left for some unknown, personal reason that had nothing to do with politics.

Madison is the beautiful trophy wife of a right wing pundit named Big Jon.  Their marriage is not exactly the portrait of marital bliss   She once was a headstrong young woman in love with her college professor, Moss- but that was seven years ago.  She has since rejected the politics and idealism of the left for the supposedly more down to earth thinking of the right.   Now, Moss has come into her life again.  And to make matters worse, her step-daughter Sunny has just confessed to being in love with Moss.   Here she is talking to herself.

MADISON

This is hopeless.  Of course he wouldn't think of her like that, she’s just a kid...Why don't people ever end up with the ones who'd make them happy?  Why am I talking to myself?   It's this place.  Drives everyone crazy. A crumbling commune full of faded hippies and forgotten dreams.  Then along comes Moss- the passionate artiste who quotes Wordsworth by heart and actually lives in the real world...I bet he makes love with his entire being.  Oh my God.  What the Hell am I talking about?  This is nuts - I'm crazy! What am I thinking.  No! No!  NO!  (pause) He does something to me, though. Fenway's right.  I should do something wild.  Shake things up. Who am I kidding?  That'll never happen.  Will I tell my husband how I feel?  Of course not.  Do I go to Moss and confess that the last seven years of my life have been a complete and total disaster?  Never.  So what will I do?  Fearless modern woman that I am, I stay in my little cage.  Brilliant.  Fear may be over-rated, but it scares the shit out of me.  But then again, sometimes he looks at me, and...God Damn it!  I wish I had never heard of Moss or this island or Big Jon Humphrey!

That's Carrie Brewer as Madison and Jack Halpin as Moss in the production of Fenway staged by Boomerang Theatre Company and Impetuous Theatre Group.

You can buy a digital copy of Fenway at Indie Theater Now for less than two bucks- 

so what are you waiting for?  

GET YOUR THEATRE ON

FENWAY- AN AMERICAN VANYA

My play Fenway: Last of the Bohemians, just got published online by Indie Theatre Now. This is the fifth play I've had published on that most indispensable site, and I couldn't be happier.  Of course, the voices told me to cut an entire scene last night.  Woke me up, in fact.

What voices?  The ones that tell me what to do from time to time.  I know, that makes me insane.  I'm cool with that.  It's not like they're  telling me to go on a shooting spree or anything like that.  No, they just wake me up from time to time and tell me what to write.

What scene did they tell me to cut?  The first scene of the play.  The entire freakin' scene.

What's left?  A leaner, faster show- the product of several readings in NYC, a reading by Seattle Playwrights Collective, a production by Boomerang Theatre Company & Impetuous Theatre Group, and a workshop reading by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.  As I wrote in my last entry, it's based on Uncle Vanya, by Anton Chekhov- but it's one hundred percent American- dealing with the rise of conservatism, and the struggle of the liberals to cling to their ideals in an increasingly hostile world.  It's also kind of funny.

Here's an excerpt- Moss, the local environmentalist who also works as a doctor at the methodone clinic is talking with Rita, hippie chick with pot brownies, about how old he feels:

MOSS

I fight the good fight, try to stop them from destroying the planet- they lock me up.  You know what I am?  The Lorax.  I speak for the trees- and it's made me little and ugly and alone.

RITA

Have a brownie.

MOSS

I don't want a fucking brownie! (pause) I pulled a triple shift at the clinic last week.  Junkies to the left of me, junkies to the right...this one- he was fourteen.  Isn't that crazy?  We live in a world that has fourteen year old junkies.  He went into cardiac arrest.  Fourteen years old, addicted to junk, and going into cardiac arrest. And I...I did everything right- everything!  I shot him up with adrenaline- pounded his chest, blew air into him...I just wanted to force him to stay alive, to maybe somehow become a normal little boy...but he was more determined than I was.  Fourteen years old.  You should have seen his face-  his sweet, sad, dead little innocent face. Like a fallen angel. (pause)  I don't think I was ever fourteen.

RITA

Have a brownie.

Yes, I want you to buy a copy.

And yes, more excerpts will be coming soon.