Foster - Self-Help

Place: A dressing room at the Moonglow Dinner Theatre. The dressing room is represented by two chairs and a make-up mirror. HAL and CINDY SAVAGE are preparing to go on for a performance. HAL sits in one chair applying make-up. CINDY is reading a book. They are both wearing bathrobes.

VOICE (off) Mr. Savage and Mrs. Savage? Five minutes please. HAL Thank you! CINDY Thank you! HAL Closing night. Thank God. Five weeks on the same stage with Mitchell Quinty is like having Laurence Olivier for a dentist.

CINDY What a steaming load of horse manure. HAL What? CINDY This book. Listen to this. (She reads.) Youve got to have faith in your ability to achieve worthy rewards. You can dwell in the misery of life, or you can choose to say, life is good. HAL What book is that? CINDY Oh, some self-help book that Mitchell loaned me.

HAL Mitchell reads self-help books? The man should be reading an acting primer. And Ill tell you this right now. If he grabs my ass before we go on tonight, Im going to break his nose. CINDY He grabs your ass? HAL Hes grabbed it every night for the entire run. He says its for luck. CINDY He never grabs my ass.

HAL Yes, well, I dont think hes hoping to get lucky with you. CINDY (reading) Focus your energies, funnel your abilities, and channel your desires. Oh, please. HAL Which reminds me. Did I tell you what the director said to me on opening night? He said I didnt seem focused. Focused? You try playing Felix Unger to a gay Oscar Madison.

I dare you! CINDY You know, I could write this drivel. HAL What? CINDY This self-help malarkey. Its just a bunch of generalities. Its common sense rhetoric. Listen to this. Do not be concerned about where you are.

Its where you are going that counts. HAL Yes, well, I know where Im going. To the nearest telephone to fire our agent for landing us in a show with Mitchell Quinty. CINDY Have you spoken to Ruby today? HAL No. She was supposed to call and let me know if I got that part in Edmonton. CINDY And if you do get it, you go off to Edmonton and I go home and we dont see each other for six weeks.

HAL I dont like the thought of it anymore than you do, sweetheart, but its the nature of the business. We have to go where the work is. CINDY Work. When we dont get it we complain because were broke, and when we do get it, we wind up being separated for weeks at a time. Now, this guys got the right idea. HAL What guy? CINDY This self-help guru.

He does seminars, sells books, tapes. And he makes millions. HAL Yes, but is he fulfilled? CINDY (looking at the cover) He sure looks fulfilled. Hes got a nice tan too. Must have got that on that tropical island he owns. Hal, I think were in the wrong business.

HAL Look, Cindy, this fellow may own a tropical island, but does he get the satisfaction of a warm round of applause from an appreciative audience every night? . CINDY He plays to sold out auditoriums two hundred nights a year. HAL Well, screw him then. CINDY You know, we could do this. HAL Do what? CINDY This self-help nonsense. I could write it and we could do it together.

HAL Cindy, were actors. CINDY And thats exactly why we could do it. Making people believe in a fantasy? Were naturals for it. HAL Sorry, love. As much as this particular show has been a harrowing experience, my heart still belongs to the theatre. Shes my mistress.

I could never leave her. I mean, we owe everything we have to her. CINDY Hal, were at the Moonglow Dinner Theatre on the outskirts of Flin Flon, Manitoba. Our entire wardrobe is stuffed into two hefty bags in the trunk of our nine year old Ford Tempo. Meanwhile, we live in a one bedroom apartment over a Thai Kosher restaurant and everything we own smells of curried makah. If theatre is our mistress, I say lets dump the bitch.

HAL No, I couldnt. And neither could you and you know it. CINDY Wed get to spend more time together. HAL Cindy, we have been working together for the last five weeks. CINDY Yes, but imagine doing that fifty-two weeks a year. Every year.