Lawrence Harbison - The Best Mens Monologues from New Plays, 2019

Dramatic

ALAN BECKMAN, 40s50s

ALAN BECKMAN, a grieving father, tries to explain why his son took a gun to school, two years prior, to the father of the boy who took the gun away from him and killed him.

ALAN Perception versus reality. The threatthe perception of dangerwas so strong, that his instincts overrode common sense. Because perception is based on instinct. And instinct is what keeps us alive. [Beat.] Your son is a bully. He had no other choice. Theres a German word. A chess term. Zugzwang. Its when you make a move that you dont want to makea move youre forced to makewhen you have no other options left. Zugzwang. [Beat.] I told him he had to be a man. The day before. Of course, I had no idea what was really happening. I... [Beat.] I told him the world didnt tolerate cowards. The only way to deal with any situation is to face it head on. I told him he had to be a man. [Beat.] Even now, I want so much to hate your son. I want so much to hate you. I just dont have the strength any more. Theres a pain. Its everywhere. It starts in your soul and radiates out. I keep thinking its going to stop, but it doesnt. [Beat.] People mean well. They tell you they love you and they send their prayers and after a while, you just want to scream keep your goddamn prayers, I dont want them. They dont help. And one day bleeds into the next. And you think, maybe today is the day it stops hurting. But it doesnt. [Beat.] In the two years since Matty, theres been what, sixty-two school shootings? How is that even possible? And I know what those parents are going through. I understand what theyre feeling. And part of me wants to reach out to them, but the reality is that all I really feel is Good. Now you know what this is like, too. And then its one day past, and then two, and then a week, and the news cameras go home, and the talking heads on TV start talking about something else. And before you know it, its done. Its over with. Its a footnote. [Beat.] Hes a footnote. [Beat.] But the pain never stops. [Beat.] Its funny, nobody talks about what happens after. After all the attention has died down. When the world goes back to not caring. No one considers you or the life youre supposed to live after.

Dramatic

STOKES, late 40s60, African American

STOKES is the night shift supervisor at a police station. He is talking to KENDRA, an African American woman whose son, Jamal, is missing. Her estranged husband, SCOTT (who is white) has just lost control and shoved the police officer who has been trying to figure out what has happened to Jamal, and then resisted arrest. STOKES and the other officer have handcuffed SCOTT, and the other officer has taken him away to book him. KENDRA has called STOKES an Uncle Tom.

STOKES Ill tell yatwo minutes with you, I know your whole adult life. I know you got a husband carries around a picture of you on his phone. Every time he say some fool ass racist thing, he pull up that picture and go

[Pretending to hold up a picture on a phone.]

Oh no. Not me. Cause looky here at my Black wife. [Beat.] I know how you could never explain to him that pain in your heart... That pain that claws out your contentment cause every public service announcement for hepatitis C and every malt liquor billboard got someone who looks like your baby boy in it. Or why your son was the tallest, smartest kid in the third grade but the teacher never seemed to call on him no matter how high he raised his lil brown hand. Cause thats a pain your man could never quite understand. So you tried to kill that pain by making your son proud and telling him to live the American Dream. Teaching him to assert his rights instead of how to survive as a Black man in this country. One thing I know for sure about this incident already. Just like almost every other one of em: If the young brothers woulda just shut their mouths and done what they were told, none of us would be here tonight. Thats what I suggest you dosit tight and shut up.

[He turns to go.]

Oh. And sistah... Next time you call a Black man a Tom? Itd play a whole lot better if that Black man didnt just drag your White husband out the room in handcuffs.

Dramatic

SACCO, 30s

In the 1920s, SACCO, an Italian immigrant and an anarchist, is in prison awaiting execution for murders he and his friend VANZETTI insist they did not commit. He is trying to explain to the journalist JOHN RHYS PENDRAGON why he initially lied to the police about what he was up to at the time of the robbery in which the murders were committed. He is passionate, angry, and, whatever else he might have done, the victim of highly unjust and deeply prejudiced legal system. He has a young wife and children and knows he is soon going to be executed.

SACCO Do you know about what they do to my friend Salsedo? A good man. An anarchist, like me. A decent man. He always told the truth. It was a matter of honor with him. So they pick him up for questioning. No particular crime. They say on suspicion hes been involved in radical activities. That means being Italian in the wrong neighborhood. It means anything they dont like. They take my friend Salsedo up to the top floor of a building one night. In the morning, girls going to work find Salsedos body on the sidewalk, his brains splattered out like a rose. This was a man who never in his life committed no crime except to use his brain to think a little bit different than the people in charge, so they throw him out a seven story window. They say he must have slipped, maybe he try to flap his arms and fly home to Italy, because everybody knows Italians are all crazy. This is what they do to my friend Salsedo, who always told the truth. They say his crime was having radical literature. Books. My friend had books. His crime was, he had books. What kind of a country is it where they kill you because you have books? We got all these books and pamphlets, that we give to people, to teach them about our cause. But when we hear what they did to Salsedo, we think we better get rid of these things, or they kill us, too. But theres a lot, so we need a car to go and dump them someplace, and this man Boda has a car. So we go to the garage to get the car, but the lady say the car aint ready, we got to come back later. And on the streetcar, coming home, the police arrest Vanzetti and me. Now, what are we supposed to do? They throw a man out a window just for having the sort of books were trying to get rid of. So we supposed to tell the police thats what we want the car for? What are we supposed to say to them? We supposed to tell them the names of our friends so they can throw them out windows, too?

Dramatic

VANZETTI, 40s

In the 1920s, VANZETTI is an Italian immigrant, an anarchist, who with his friend SACCO has been sentenced to be electrocuted for murders he insists they did not commit, after a trial presided over by a highly prejudiced judge. Now he is in prison awaiting his execution. He is a quiet, apparently gentle man who loves to read, and here he tells the journalist JOHN RHYS PENDRAGON and Pendragons young daughter, ANNE, about his attempts to understand America and why Americans seem so desperate to kill him.

VANZETTI I been reading American history. In America, you got the Puritans and the Pioneers. The Puritans, they think having money means God loves you. You got no money, its your fault, you get what you deserve. Puritans like to be above and look down their nose. Now, a Pioneer, thats different. Hes a Puritan with no money. The Puritans, they spit on him and cheat him, look down their nose at him, so he goes West and kills Indians and steals their land, then cuts down all the trees and rapes the land so nothing grows there no more. The Pioneers say, God gives you what you take. Everything is here for us to take and use and kill. God put it here for that. But your Puritans and your Pioneers they agree about some things, like art, for example. For both your Puritans and your Pioneers, art is something which is at best a hobby to waste your time with when youre not doing something important, like killing people or stealing their land or jacking up the rent, but at worst, art is a terrible thing, will corrupt their children, because art is a thing that asks questions, art is an investigation into truth, and these people sure they already got the truth, and the only kind of exploration they like is the kind makes money and kills people. Conquest. They want to control everything you read and say and hear and think, because they know God is on their side. And if youre different, if you look different or talk different or think different or ask questions, they make a nice speech about what a great country it is and then they kill you. You can learn a lot about America if you study history. They want to kill us because were Italians. We like art. We like nature. We like women. We like to talk and argue and trade ideas, investigate the world, ask questions all the time. Why this? How come that? They got to kill us. They got no other choice. In America they got no questions. Just answers.