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Updated 7/31/03

MONOLOGS FOR OLDER MEN

(The times given
are informed guesses)

#1 (1:30 minutes)

(415 B.C., Athens, just before dawn on The Eve of Embarkation for the invasion of Syracuse. It is the 17th year of The War Against Sparta, the City is alive with rumor and plotting. ALCIBIADES - at 35, Athens' most brilliant young general has come to enlist his cousin, Leogoras, in his own cause)

ALCIBIADES: Why so nervous, cousin? (laughs) Has Androcles told you I have dangerous ambitions? (smiles indulgently) Androcles and I have different angles of vision - we see the world from different vantage points. He stands down here - (to dramatize Androcles' earth-bound footing, he stamps his foot) - upon the merchants' docks, amid the masts and spars of commerce. The world he sees from here is huge. At his back, Sparta presses him from the land. To seaward, distant horizons conceal from him dangers which he senses, feels, knows are there -- lurking -- accidents of Fate which we call War. To contend with this, he strives to keep on a firm, fiscal footing. And from here that is a sound view. But come with me to higher ground - (takes a step as though goin "up" and again stamps his foot for emphasis) - up to Olympus and let me fit the whole vast world into your godlike eye. From up here, the great swelling ocean looks like a small puddle. And on that puddle, nations send out fleets of tiny ships - like nutshell navies, launched by boys after a quick rain - to sail in ever-widening courses until, inevitably, they collide with one another - the world has shrunk to the hailing distance between two hostile war galleys. There is no room for mercy in this narrow world. There are no "accidents of Fate" - conflict is inevitable, peace an illusion. Unless we dare to claim the sea as ours --- and rule it as we would the land.

#2 (1:45 min.)

(An Abandoned Subway Tunnel Off Times Square, NYC. The Time Is Now. TERRY, a nondescript man of uncertain Age - he could be 30, 40 or 50 - comes on, seething with pent-up rage)

TERRY: (glares out and across Audience) I know you're out there ... something unspeakable ... something -- evil. Once I thought there was nothing out there but Space - nothing, stretching out to the end of Time. But I have come to the conclusion that you are there -- steering us, steering me - where you will -- where I did not want to go! (a thought strikes him) Or - maybe you're like one of those people in the TV commercials -- Somebody just off Camera. For days I've had this feeling there is a Camera -- -- watching me. Yes! So here goes: Announcing - The World's First Anti-Infinity commercial! I have had it - you hear me! I HAVE HAD IT WITH INFINITY! Went to the goddam moon - the view from there would scare the living guts out of you. Doesn't get any better farther out. I read where you say the whole thing kind of curves around and circles back - - just couldn't let the mother alone, could you! Thought it up so BIG you can't stand the emptiness around you - stretching on, and on and -- so you've decided to make it spirally -- and point it all back at me! Well, you're not trapping me in your infernal Void - no, sir! Too scary - - - no shadows, even - no horizons - empty -- nothing in it but you. And you're not going to surround me with it, either. That is no longer tolerable! To fill it, I will conjure up -- my Spirit! Yes! I will fill your Void with my soul! Fill it with such a burst of joy in merely being, your emptiness will echo with my life!

#3 (1:40 min.)

(Summer, 1970. The Morgan Yard, a Missouri Ozark Mountain-top family graveyard. MAYOR HESSELTINE - in his late 50's - tells young Army Lt. Bonheur about Carrie Morgan, who has mined this graveyard with dynamite to prevent the Lieutenant and the Army from taking possession of it)

HESSELTINE: Lieutenant, what d'you think I been talkin about all the way up here to this mountain top. (taps newspaper ad) Carrie Morgan says in this ad she'll shoot anyone tries to take this buryin ground, an The Righteousness of the Lord could hold out here forever. That's what you'd be up against if you take this lady head-on. Carrie Morgan don't do nothin' without gettin' the Lord's point of view, first. (holds up hand to stop the Lieutenant's skepticism) Lemme try to tell you. This is earthquake country. Well, now, a couple year ago, there was a small tremor right here in Indian Landin. To ever'buddy outside Indian Landin, that's what it was - a tremor. To Carrie Morgan it was the sign she'd prayed for. Y'see, her daughter Letty - out in California - had just took sick an called Carrie to come take care a the kids whilst she was to hospital. Wanted Carrie to fly. Now if they's one thing Carrie's afraid of, it's flyin. So when she hung up from talkin to Letty, right there in her restaurant she looked up at the ceilin an said - like His face was right there - "Lord, my daughter Letty out in California says she needs me. You know my disposition about flyin. So if you want me to fly, fetch me a sign, else I take the Greyhound." Well sure as I'm standin here, the ground began to tremble an' growl under our feet - you ever stood on quakin ground, you know it's like the Lord's growlin' from the bowels of the earth at you, personally. So Carrie was convinced. The rest of us in the restaurant -- well, by the next day I won't say ever'buddy in Indian Landin thought the Lord had spoke directly to Carrie Morgan - but you wouldn't find many would say flat-out He didn't. As for her mebbe ownin up to bein' wrong - well, Carrie Morgan would be the first to admit it if she was wrong. (beat) It's just that so far, such an occasion has never arose.

#4 (1:35 min.)

Adapted From THE MORGAN YARD © 1999 Kevin O'Morrison

(Summer, 1970. The Morgan Yard - a Missouri Ozark Mountain-top family graveyard. MAYOR HESSELTINE - in his late 50's - has been bluntly reminded by Orpha Morgan Reinhart, one of the larger contributors to his political campaigns, that who pays the piper calls the tune. And she has done this in front of 18-year-old Jesse Morgan, her nephew and Carrie Morgan's grandson)

HESSELTINE: (looks from Orpha to Jesse) Politics is a funny business. I should a quit in '56. That's when the State Committee turned me down for Congress. (beat) I'd wanted to go East. Wanted to go out there an tell those High an Mighties about what we got out here that belongs to 'em all - out here in the Wilderness - (he means "Wilderness" pridefully) - That was why I was in politics - back then. With a little money brought in for somethin besides the Arms Depot this country could a been made to shine. (something is welling up in his vitals) Most people don't know it but just over to Clark Forest there's still mebbe 20-25 varieties a trees! Our country's rich in nature - why, why - just looka there - (points) - there's a honey locust, a red-bud, there's a hackberry, an' there's an American elm! They're purt' near gone most places else. And plants! Why in season, we got - (ticks them off) - Columbine, Sweet William, Bloodroot, Wild Rose, Verbena, Asters, Trumpet Vine, an, an - Lord, this country's so rich - take birds! Why of a spring afternoon I've counted more'n 50 varieties just passin through! (modest) I kindly like to do a spell a bird-watchin' when I can get away from politickin' - (remembers his theme) Howsomever, in 19 an 56, the State Committee allowed that - (it's still worm- wood in his mouth) - that the Arms Depot was what the District an' the State really needed. An' they already had a man in Washington takin' care a that. I should a quit then. But --(wry) -- I tole myself - in Indian Landin at least, I was indispensable - but you've just shown me that even that ain't true. (beat) Reckon I'll go get me some whiskey. (he goes)

#5 (1:30 min.)

Adapted from A PARTY FOR LOVERS © 1999 Kevin O'Morrison

(Vito Vitale's Master Bedroom in A NYC East Fifties Brownstone, First Saturday In May, 1973. VITO and MANO, his 53-Year-old son, operate a Landmark Bar-Restaurant. It is the early morning-after Vito's 83rd Birthday Party and MANO addresses Alan, his future Brother-in-Law)
MANO: Well, Al - so you're gonna marry Sis. I always knew - one day she'd grow up, realize who she is. (winks) Took her longer'n I figured, but she wants her cut of the estate. Only one problem: (he ticks off the points like an executioner) Pop dies - the IRS takes its cut. What's left, we split - Ma, Rita, Ferg, Fano, Sis, Me - and we're lucky to pay the taxes. In the 30's, Vito's Place on West 52nd is world famous - Swing Alley! Joint is jumpin' all night to 4 a.m. In '48, West 52nd Street was all bein' torn down for offices. So we move the restaurant here to East 55th Street. (points beyond terrace) In '48 this is a solid block of 4-storey houses. Not offices, houses. Gardens, small shops, people lived here - it's a neighborhood. Nights - they come to our restaurant, they walk home. No more. Since last couple years there's just us. Rest of the block - down or coming down for High Rise offices. Lots of new customers - for lunch! Nights they take the train home --- to goddam Westport, Rye, Greenwich! Nights you don't even have ghosts in these streets! But Pop won't see it. So - you keep right on livin' till the end. The problem is -- what do you do with yourself till your sentence is up, right?

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