Ten Questions

I think my family might be the only ones who read this blog... HELLO FAMILY! That doesn't make me totally pathetic, does it? Oh well. Too late.

Anyway, in preparation for my final audition for Guildhall, I've done my ten questions for all three of my monologues. It's one of those that you do, and then you just hope it seeps into your performance (as Alan Cumming said in a recent interview on Fresh Air, "I'm a big fan of seepage"). I'm not even sure if anyone other than me would know that I've done this work, but it's methodical and thorough and makes me feel prepared. Maybe that's why it's useful, more than anything.

I spent a very long time on these ten questions, so I thought I'd post an example; this is for my monologue from Summer and Smoke, the character of Alma. As a precursor, I would like to say that these are written in a kind of stream of consciousness style, and I don't really pay much attention to grammar or structure. I read the play, take notes, and then sit down and write.

Just thought it might be interesting to someone, and if not, it at least is a record for my sake. Click read more if, as the name suggests, you would like to read more.


1. Who am I?
Alma Winemiller, 26 years old. Born in 1890. I was underweight when I was born, and sickly even then. My parents coddled me for that reason, and I was kept inside mostly and away from other children, except on occasion when people would visit the rectory to visit with my father. I went to church, and religion was a very huge part of my life. In the evenings, my father would read to me from the Bible, and I’d go to sleep with images of angels and heaven in my head. Because there were frequently important people in our house, I was always forced to be quiet and contained. My mother would have me serve the tea to the guests, and I loved when I did everything perfectly – not a drop of tea spilt on the saucers. My mother would give me a sugar cube and a big hug, and tell me what a good little lady I was. I used to sit and listen to the adults talk for hours, as long as I didn’t make sound. I enjoyed feeling like an adult, which meant that I frequently didn’t get along with the other kids my age. I always knew Johnny; the doctor would visit our house when I was tiny to check on me, make sure that I was progressing properly, and Johnny would always come with him. His father would explain what kind of things he was looking for in me, and Johnny would half listen while he thundered around the house, clearly wanting to be outside playing with his friends. They would frequently call for him while he was with his father, and eventually he would let Johnny go play with them instead of being stuck in the house with me. I would always hear them outside playing while I practiced my piano and my singing, which I loved doing. I pretended like I was in a choir of angels when I sang. Although I would always be drawn to the window eventually, to watch Johnny and his friends played. Even though I loved my music, watching them filled me with an intense longing. They were so strong and looked as though they were having so much fun. Once, I walked out into the garden instead of practicing my music, ostensibly to visit the stone angel statue I loved so much, and Johnny raced past me with smudges of dirt on his face and his favorite red sweater on (I knew it was his favorite because he always wore it, so by now it was ripped and perpetually dirty). He stopped when he saw me, and asked me if I wanted to play with him and his friends. They were going to have a race. I politely declined his offer because I needed to practice, and he laughed and asked if I had to play that boring old music all the time. Then my mother called for me from the porch. She was angry that I had left the house and was wandering around in the “dangerous” garden. She yelled loudly at me, until she started crying and hugged me to her, repeating that she loved me and she didn’t want me to be hurt (my mother frequently had these kinds of wild fits). Before I went back into the house, I looked back and saw Johnny still there; he had seen the whole thing. I felt so embarrassed, and my cheeks turned bright red, but I saw in his eyes that he felt sorry for me and that he was sympathetic. And that made me feel somewhat better. So, occasionally when my mother wasn’t paying attention, I would sneak out of the house, stand in the garden and hope that Johnny would race by. And sometimes he did, and he would always ask me to come play, and I would always decline, and he would make a joke and leave. Or sometimes, he wouldn’t come by, and I would stand there and stare at the stone angel and hear the vague sounds of him and his playmates in a vacant lot nearby, racing around. If it had been too long since I’d seen him, I would walk up to the street and look down to the lot and watch them race around, making sure he never saw me. We ended up going to school together, and sometimes he would walk home with me, although sometimes I would see him with other girls, walking them home. He was always so nice to me, though, when all the other kids mostly ignored me except on Sundays when their families would come to the rectory and they’d have to pretend to be my friends. He laughed and joked with me like no one else would. Sometimes I would make up ailments so that I could go to the doctor’s house. I loved both him and his father, and it was always a joy to get out of my house and visit with them. Especially in high school, when my mother’s fits became more and more regular until finally one hot summer evening she completely broke down. She was bedridden for days with an addled brain and barely able to sleep. The doctor almost lived at our house then, and Johnny visited more. I felt bad, but I was almost happy that my mother was sick. Until we found out that it was permanent – she was almost like a petulant child again, and would always be that way. Something went wrong in her brain. Then my responsibilities tripled. I had to be a mother to my own mother, as well as help my father run the rectory. I stayed home most days from school and helped around the house. I had to organize and host all the social events that my mother usually handled. My childhood was gone, and my dreams of going off to music school were over. I started taking on music pupils to help my father pay for everything, especially since my mother had a habit of running off and buying things on credit from the local stores, especially ice cream or lavish outfits. I barely saw Johnny anymore. I ended up forming a group of friends, most of whom were older than me, but all that were stuck in our small town for one reason or another. Johnny went off to college. That is when my illness really hit me, although the doctor said he didn’t have a diagnosis for it. I was constantly out of breath and felt faint; my heart would beat so fast sometimes that I thought I would die. My life was small, contained, boring, the same. Johnny would come back for the summers and I would see him for a bit, which always brightened up my life. I lived for those summers and for his college vacations. I always heard rumors of him gambling or being with women, but I forgave him those faults. I knew he was such a good person really; he was so kind to me. I wouldn’t allow anyone to disparage his actions. And I stayed close to his father, who was also so very kind to me and my mother. 

2. Where am I?
In the doctor’s office, which is a room in the house next door to me. I just had to pass through the small garden that separates our two homes. I could see it from my living room window, and I saw that John was there and immediately rushed over. I’ve been there countless of times, and it hasn’t changed at all since I was a child. It is frozen in time, and holds so many happy and painful memories, fear and sadness and joy. 

3. What time is it? 
It’s 3:05 p.m. in December. It is raining a little, about fifty degrees out. I rushed over without a proper coat, so I’m a little cold and damp but at the same time overheated and flushed. 

4. What's around me?
Everything is unchanged; it’s a room I’m so familiar with that I could find my way around it in the dark. This time, everything seems clearer though, and exaggerated. The light is touching everything. I walked down the four steps to the door that leads into the office, on the way brushing the railing that Johnny was constantly jumping over as a child (and even now) – athletic, graceful, full of energy. The room has a window that faces my house, through which I frequently watch Johnny as it faces the window in my living room. There’s a leather couch. On the back wall is a chart with the human anatomy, and a folding screen in front of which is a table with all of the doctor’s instruments and bandages and pills. On the other wall is a desk covered in papers, and a phone, with a leather swivel chair behind it. There is also a doorway to the rest of the house, which is always shut. 

5. Who's around me?
It’s only Johnny and I in the room. This is the first time we’ve been perfectly, privately alone. Usually when I come to visit, his father is upstairs or somewhere else in the house, but since he’s gone it’s only us. Johnny is strong, and broad, and tall. He looks older, more reserved, but in him I see the summation of all the memories I have of him, from childhood to now. I haven’t seen him in about a year and a half, since last summer. I haven’t even looked into his house in that time either, as I’ve kept the blinds over the living room window shut. I wanted to shut him out, although slowly over the past few months, I’ve heard of all the good he’s doing in his clinic, carrying on his father’s works. And I’ve started yearning for him again, my love increasing as my strength did. I haven’t been lovingly touched in a year, only swatted by my mother or coldly patted by my father. The room is small, so it’s unavoidable to be close to him. I can feel everything between us, this energy. I’m hyper aware of everything he does, everywhere he goes. In this room, this small space, is everything I want, everything I need to have, everything I’ve been shutting out of my life for the past year. If I leave this room and don’t have what I want, that it’s for me. That’s all. It’s over.

6. What are the given circumstances (and what just happened)? 
Johnny’s father was shot, and it was partially my fault. Johnny left. I retreated from the world, and my emotional pain translated into a physical one. I didn’t bother to get dressed for year, and spent my time wandering around my house in my nightgown. Some days I wouldn’t get out of bed. I did the absolute bare minimum to keep the house running. I wouldn’t see anyone. After about a year of this, I began to hear that Johnny was a changed man, that he was doing good work. My love for him slowly began to creep into my heart again. One horrible night, I was weak with a fever and could barely breathe. I spent most of the night feeling that this was it, I would die. I had nightmares of my funeral, of Johnny, visions of my wasted life. As day broke, so did my fever, and I made a decision. I would live. I could not, would not, let myself die in a whimper, unfulfilled. I would wait for Johnny to return, and I would try to get the only thing I ever wanted – his love. After that night, I began to strengthen. I started getting dressed in the morning, and seeing people. I knew that Johnny would be back in a few months, and I was determined to be beautiful and strong for him. He finally arrived in town, and before I got up the courage to see him, I saw Nellie, who had just returned from her finishing school for her vacation. She looked so lovely, so full of life and presence. It was so good to see her; I always loved her and at the same time somewhat envied her strength and vitality. But she was impossible not to like; she demanded it of you. She also had a screwed up mom, in a different way from mine but it definitely made me feel kinship towards her. She gave me a present, a beautiful handkerchief, and on the tag it said “From Nellie and Johnny.” Then, I knew. I knew that he had fallen in love with her and they were engaged, that this all had happened while I was too scared to leave my house. She relays to me all the nice things he’s said of me, and rhapsodizes about how much he admires me. This gives me some hope. Once Nellie leaves, I know what I need to do. This is my last chance to see Johnny, and my last chance to win him before he’s married and it’s too late. I waste no time. I put on my nicest dress, try to put some color in my cheeks. I open the blinds and see that he’s in the office, alone, and I take my chance and rush over to him. We exchange small talk, updating each other on our lives, reacquainting, slightly awkwardly. He doesn’t bring up Nellie, and this gives me hope that he is harboring something for me. He gives me an exam, which was the one way I would ever allow myself near him. It brings it all back in a flood, and I’m overwhelmed and joyous to be near him again, thinking his touch must mean that he reciprocates too. This gives me the courage to kiss him. I feel like I could faint, and at first I don’t even notice that he’s not kissing me back. But I realize. He’s not. It’s a rejection. He apologizes; he doesn’t think of me that way. I was his spiritual awakening, his purification. That is how he thinks of me. Not as a woman with flesh and blood and lust. Every word he says stabs me. He’s speaking about the old me, the past me, not the person I’ve chosen to become. That I’ve chosen to become because of him, for him. I still push. Is it impossible now? I’ve changed, I’ve changed. See that I’ve changed. 

7. What do I want?
I want Johnny. I want his love and his physical self.  

8. Why do I want it? 
He is strong. He is handsome. He is sexual. He’s the only man I’ve been physically attracted to in my whole life, the only one I can imagine having sex with and want to have sex with. We grew up together; I have always loved him. Every day. He represents everything that I wanted to be, and everything that I was scared of, especially now that he’s grown up and is more stable and more responsible, now that he’s risen to the challenge of carrying on his father’s legacy and has become the kind of man I always knew he could be, but that was somewhat lost in his drinking and gambling. He’s so full of life, and he makes me feel that way too. He teases me and embarrasses me, and it gives me a chance to stand up and assert myself, to flirt, to be interesting and alive and important. And he makes me feel worthwhile. And he was always a bit of a challenge. He challenges me. He is my only escape from my walled in world.  

9. What do I do to get it?
Speak truthfully. I set aside my pride and my misgivings, my fear, and I tell the truth. All of it. Everything I’m feeling and have felt for him but never said. I flirt. I refer to our childhood, to how long we’ve known each other. I remind him. I give him examples of how much I love him, to prove it and to prove myself. I explain why I haven’t said anything before. I flatter. And I ask. I ask openly, plainly. 

10. What's in my way? 
My own fear, my pride. The fact that he’s engaged to Nellie. The fact that we’ve totally reversed roles, and now he only loves me in a spiritual sense and I’ve come to realize I want him physically as well. He doesn’t want to hurt my feelings, so he’s not being completely forthright or at least, not easily. The fact that our relationship has always been set up where I’m the weak patient and he’s the strong doctor, so he’s still fettered by that though I want to be treated like a strong adult. My own past is in my way, the fact that for years I rebuffed his physical advances and seemed above that side of things.