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MARCH, 2023
ILLARIA So he ran out that night and I tried to make peace with it but his meditation practice began to evolve. He began to draw faces on his meditation potatoes. In the 1950’s Mr. Potato Head was done with actual potatoes and plastic accessories to add facial features, hands feet, even hats. He found those from various sellers online. Then he decided it would be more conducive to his practice to make the potato look female. He glued brown yarn to the potatoe’s head, gave her long eyelashes and put lipstick on her plastic lips to create this feminized spud. And he gave her a name: Arlene. And he didn’t stop at Arlene. He created a whole collection of meditation potatoes. There was Jennifer and Rachel and Frannie and Charlene and … oh I stopped trying to remember all the names in my husbands potato harem. Hanukkah came around and while my husband was out, I decided to make Latkes. Goodbye potato mistresses! I removed their plastic appendages then I Skinned them, I shredded them, and dropped them into boiling hot hot oil. Ohhh yesssss!!!! My husband sits down to dinner. His eyes grow wide. “Latkes! My favorite! This must have taken you hours. You shouldn’t have!” I’m like “Oh, I just couldn’t help myself. I know how much you love potatoes. And I just thought: its Hanukkah. You deserve to feast on your special potatoes that you love so much.” He mumbled “thank you” as he scarfed them down and after he pats his full full belly and says “wow. amazing. you know how I’d like to show my appreciation? ” he looks at me so sweetly and for a moment I felt a pang of regret and then he says “by meditating. when I meditate I feel so much love for all beings. and I know that when I’m my best self it makes everyone around me happy. I bet its thanks to the great mood I’m in from meditating that you felt so inspired that you made me this incredible dinner. Am I right?” “oh yes dear, I say, you’ve never been righter.” Then he exited to the study. For a moment: silence. Then he emerges looking confused. "Where are my meditation potatoes?" he asks. “Why, you ate them” I say. He breaks into a sort of coughing gagging fit that ends in quiet sobbing. “Are you ok?” I ask. He looks at me, like a scared, lost child and utters one word: “why?” I answer: “Because its Hanukkah.” His pupils seem to lose focus. “But I spent hours making each of those potatoes perfect. they were irreplaceable. I was going to cover them in a special shellac to preserve them. Did you cook all of them?” I nod. “Even Arlene?” he asks. “Even Arlene” I say solemnly. I thought he would yell or be angry but he just looked sort of pathetic. Broken. “I feel a little dizzy like I might pass out” he said. “Why don’t we go to the supermarket” I say. I show him the bucket of plastic appendages. He lets out a whimper. “You can rebuild.” He nods. He follows me to the car. I drive us there. We get a carry basket and pick up a few things we need and he picks out a ten pound bag of potatoes. “I think we need more,” I say. “If we had forty pounds of potatoes just imagine how much love you’d feel all around you.” I take each bag off the shelf and put it in his arms. As we head toward the check out line I look over at my husband and I can’t help but let out a little laugh. “Your arms are shaking dear. Here.” I slip the car keys in his pocket and say “I’ll check out and pay for those and everything else. You take those to the car.” At the checkout line I put the few things down I have in my basket. The cashier asks me “is that everything?” I look over at my husband exiting the grocery. “Yes this is everything” I say and then I point at my husband “i think that man is stealing potatoes”. The cashier gets on the phone by the register and the next thing I know a bigger guy at the front of the store is tackling my husband. I slip out quietly and get an Uber home. So here I am. With you. (Takes out a feminized potato from her purse) Arlene. CONTINUE READING HERE. JANUARY, 2022
ILLARIA I tried to destroy my husband’s life. Because he started meditating. With a potato. I tried to destroy his life because I thought it was weird to meditate with a potato. And also because I was jealous of the potato. See my husband has always meditated, but the issue in our marriage started when he was trying to get into this certain type of meditation called loving kindness meditation. Loving kindness meditation is where you try to evoke feelings of safety and comfort and friendliness and love toward yourself and others. My husband was struggling with it and his meditation teacher asked him: what do you love most in the world? And his answer wasn’t “my wife” it was “potatoes.” When my husband first told me this, I asked him to please explain himself and he said: CONTINUE READING HERE. DECEMBER, 2022
In the hallway outside Dr. Fredrick's laboratory. Angela exits the laboratory. Chance follows after. CHANCE The entire human race is depending on us…kissing. On the lips. Every time you kiss me, every neuron of my brain ignites with electricity. And your brain is doing the exact same thing. We are not being hit with a spark of love here. We are being electrocuted. And Dr. Fredricks is still trying to make sense of the data. Well I’m telling you, you don’t need a PhD to figure out what’s going on here. We have accidentally stumbled on a one in a million. life altering, game changing, transformational, I’ll just say it, love. In all Dr Fredricks years of research, all the studies she’s run, she’s never seen the brains of two people kissing light up like this. What we are feeling is an anomaly in the human experience. And personally being inside that anomaly here with you, it is a god damn beautiful thing. [Monologue continues here]
The "I Ate the Divorce Papers" monologue has taken on a life within the theatre community, particularly amongst young theatre people, that I could never have imagined. For some it's been a great resource, for others like an over-played pop song it haunts them and just when they think they'e escaped it, it comes back into their life. Having a little fun with that premise here with "I Hate the Divorce Papers." Enjoy! - Gabriel Davis-
(Monologist is eating at a restaurant. Perhaps on a date with a young man in financial services) I hate the divorce papers. Please get that ketchup away. I don’t know, flag down the waiter. As a little girl I used to love ketchup. Now I can’t look at it without thinking of that monologue. You know that monologue “I Ate the Divorce Papers”? The one that basically haunts every theatre kid’s life. Some guy posted it on the internet and now no matter what monologue you’re looking for online, that’s the one you find. You could type “To Be or Not To Be” into Google and you would get back “To eat the divorce papers or not to eat the divorce papers.” Not! Please Not! You can’t escape that monologue. I begged our theatre teacher to ban that monologue from our school and … he did! It was heaven. People started doing Moliere and Marlowe and Mamet. Williams and Wild and Wilder. Finally. But then over the summer, that theatre teacher who banned “the divorce papers” won the lottery. So he was gone. And guess what came back? That’s right everyone went right back to chewing the scenery by “eating the divorce papers” and I was so sick of it. And then my worst nightmare happened. My boyfriend was like, “I’m going to audition for Juilliard with ‘I Ate the Divorce Papers’.” [Monologue continues here.]
This 433 word roughly 4 minute monologue explores Victoria's strong desire to move in with her fiance ... so long as her mother can come! If you need a two minute version of this monologue, you can cut it after the line "You and I ... and mother" below. -Gabriel Davis
(Victoria stands in front of her fiance, Greg, who is relaxing in bed. He was hoping for a laid back night in, instead he gets this) VICTORIA Moving in with you is a big step. Which is why I’ve decided … to bring my mother. Hear me out. I have dreamt about what it would be like here with you. Waking in this bed every morning bathed in your love. Gazing into your baby blues yearning for something hot: cappuccino. But who will make it? My mother. That’s who. Would it be weird having my mom here? I mean not unless you make it weird. Its not like she’d come between us. Like if mom comes in and we’re spooning it’s not like she’d squeeze in the middle. She’d take an end. I’m kidding. She wouldn’t sleep in our bed. She’d be on the floor holding my hand. Joking! Mother’s not keeping me warm at night. You totally are. After mother tucks me in. No cmon! If she were here we’d hardly notice her. She’d spend most of her time in her room making scrapbooks of my accomplishments. I’m not joking about that part. She loves her scrapbooks. And I can just imagine the scrapbook she’d make of our wedding, which, I might add we can’t afford without a solid plan to save money. Like splitting rent three ways. (Singing) “Just the three of us. We can make it if we try. Just the three of us. You and I .. and mother.” [Monologue continues here.] Recently an actress reached out about my monologue “Yoga Fart” saying she loved it and really wanted to audition with it except for one issue … the farts. She was told auditors may find the topic to be in poor taste. Though that part is probably subjective and varies by audition, it got me to thinking: how can the monologue play on the character Amy’s discomfort with the act and the word "fart". What if she had to build up to actually uttering the word head on? They say to writers, use the "f word" sparingly. That's just what's been done here! - Gabriel Davis (author Yoga Fart)
AMY: I … passed gas in Yoga class. It was loud. And I didn't die. My heart started pounding but it did not explode. I thought I would be devastated but I was not. Instead something unexpected happened. I laughed. At first a little giggle and then a full blown belly laugh. In fact, I laughed so hard that I … passed gas again. And again, and again. Embarrassing, no? No. No. I could feel people staring but I didn't care. I thought I would care. Feel my palms grow clammy, my chest tighten. No. I felt a lightness, wonder, awe. Who knew I had so much air inside me. My body had deflated but my spirit had inflated! I waited for the self loathing to come. But there was only... Stillness. Silence. Then in that silence, a little voice. I love you. Your body is amazing. I realized, this was why I'd come to yoga in the first place. No, not to release my wind publicly. To release my wind publicly and survive it. I know, it's unladylike. But in the depth of this indignity, I had found my greatest strength. Here I was looking my fear in the face And believe me, I had feared this moment. I had played it out in my mind. And it always ended with all the ladies around me pulling hidden rocks out of their lululemon attire and stoning me mercilessly. But not much happened. Here I was staring fear in the face and realizing...it was a bunch of hot air. And i could release it! I breathed in deep, so deep another loud exclamation of my new found freedom erupted from my behind. "Excuse me," the woman behind me said. "But could you step outside for a moment. Some of us are trying to practice yoga..." This should have destroyed me. It should have sent me whimpering out of the room. But I felt my calm breath, heard myself say: "Excuse me, but I am practicing Yoga. There are 84 known asanas. This is the 85th. The … fartnassana. Thank you very much. Yoga pioneer right here.” Then something amazing happened. A little noise erupted from another corner of the room. A few other people giggled, then laughed, and then more noises erupted. And it was beautiful. A symphony of fartnassanas. I was free, they were free. And I realized in that moment...I was free of you, too. You can't hurt me anymore. New comedic monologue for teens by Gabriel Davis. Female, age range 13-18.
Synopsis: Zora is the leader of the space club. When her friend Ellie falls for Jake, Zora focuses the space club's attentions from the stars to something more terrestrial: Prom! Zora addresses Ellie. They are in a classroom used for the space club's after school meetings and the members of the space club are present. Ellie has been reluctant to go after Jake. In this monologue, Zora pledges that she and the entire space club will serve as Ellie's "mission control" on her daring mission to go to the prom with Jake. Read the monologue here. (Monologist stands in front of her husband)
Last night, in your sleep you called out: “save this marriage!” When did you start thinking that? Listen, as my mother says the key to a happy marriage is let go of the past and embrace a new beginning. Like she’s done with my father and step fathers. That’s why we need to save this divorce! “Save this marriage”!! You told me you were committed to our divorce. Are you actually considering ... giving up on it? Don’t you dare give into those feelings that we’d be better off together... continue reading here. |
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