Cell Phones, Beepers, and Other Electronic Devices

-- Written six years ago --

"Cell Phones, Beepers, and Other Electronic Devices"

CAMILE: Look at this! Would you look at this? One intermission. I know for a fact this play is three hours long. They expect us to get by with one intermission?

CLAUDETTE: Well, what do you know? Helen Richardson has gotten herself another lead role. You know, I don’t understand why they think she’s so great.

CASSANDRA: This is so wonderful. I mean, isn’t it just wonderful to be spending a night in an actual theater? It’s so cultured.

CAMILE: Now, if it were two hours and thirty minutes, they could get away with only one intermission. I could survive that. But with three hours, the play should be broken up into three parts, and you should have a break after each part!

CLAUDETTE: God knows she has no believability. She talks like an actress saying lines. (Imitating HELEN, very overdone.) Well look at me, talking like an actress.

CASSANDRA: Doug thinks I wasted my money getting a season subscription. But then again, Doug’s idea of culture is a movie where somebody’s head gets shot off by Bruce Willis. Well, I said, at least our children will have ONE cultured parent to guide them.

CAMILE: The intermission is the oasis of a play. If the play’s good, it comes quickly and sometimes you don’t even need it. But if the play is bad, you need the intermission just to keep you sane, because leaving would be totally inappropriate.

CLAUDETTE: Now if I was a director here, I would take great pride in NOT casting Helen Richardson. She would show up for the audition, and I would say, 'Sorry Helen, you’re not getting into MY play just because you’ve been with this theater company since the Great Depression.' Imagine the look on her face…(Laughs to herself.)

CASSANDRA: Now I don’t plan on getting stuffy, mind you. I said right off the bat that if there was anything I didn’t like, I wasn’t going to pretend to like it just so as to go along with the high-brow crowd. For instance, that absurdist drama they’re doing here next month; I already know I’m going to hate that.

CAMILE: Sometimes I get so claustrophobic watching plays. Just knowing that an actor is right there saying lines, trying so hard to keep themselves in the moment, and none of it is real! It makes me just want to storm the stage and scream at the top of my lungs--’LIARS!’

CLAUDETTE: Some might say she’s just doing period acting, but I’ve seen enough of the shows she’s been in to tell you that’s just not true. She keeps the same voice and physical movement for every character she does--every single time. Sorry Helen, but I happen to know there was more than one period in the entire canon of theater.

CASSANDRA: Shakespeare I never understood. I liked that one about the guy who broke his kingdom into three parts and gave the parts to his three daughters, but to be frank, I didn’t see what the big deal was. Let him try breaking a Sony Play Station into three parts; then I’d understand why he went crazy.

CAMILE: Is my cell phone off? (She checks it.) It’s off, okay, I just needed to check again, because sometimes you think it’s off but then you hit the ‘On’ button again by accident, thinking you were just checking to make sure it was off, and then somebody calls you during the middle of the show even though they know you’re watching a play or a musical or something, because they just want to leave you a message, and why they can’t wait until you’re out of the show--I don’t know! I should check my phone again.

(She does.)

CLAUDETTE: I was taught that an actress was somebody who could become a different person each time she took on a new character. I learned to figure out beats, and minor beats, and goals, and motivation, and subtext. Do you think Helen Richardson still puts all that work into her characters--my ass, she does.

CASSANDRA: Now my friends Connie and Barbara went to see this art exhibit in New York, but I couldn’t go because I had the middleschool's bazaar. Well, they said that the entire exhibit was comprised of naked pictures taken by a man of himself--well mainly his hoo hoo, if you know what I mean. I’m sorry, but it is not worth a four hour drive to New York City just to see something I can see on my anniversary every year for free.

CAMILE: I hate that theater is live. Anything live makes me nervous because anything can go wrong. I wish they would just tape it beforehand and show it to us on a big screen, because really, who would know the difference?

CLAUDETTE: You want to laugh? I hear she teaches on the side. Let me tell you something, if Helen Richardson tried to teach me anything about acting, I’d break out my copy of classic Greek dramas and show her how Medea is SUPPOSED to be played, thank you very much.

CASSANDRA: Of course, this isn’t my first time seeing a play. My mother used to take us kids to see the Rockettes every year at Radio City. Now those girls are what I call performers.

CAMILE: Oh God, I hope there isn’t any audience participation. There is nothing more humiliating than being participated with during a play. One time an actor tried to converse with me in character, just to get a laugh I suppose, and I kneed him right in the crotch, because I hate audience participation.

CLAUDETTE: I wonder if she’s married. I pity the poor man that has to show up at every one of her opening nights and smile like he’s married to somebody with talent. Maybe he’s blind or something…

CASSANDRA: I can’t even get Doug to come see Disney on Ice with me and the kids. He thinks ice-skating is queer. Of course, put a stick in one of the skater’s hands, and tell him to bash another guy’s forehead in, and all of a sudden ice-skating isn’t so queer anymore, is it?

CAMILE: Why do they always start plays late? It really doesn’t matter does it, because no matter how late you start the show there will always be somebody who comes in ten minutes after the lights go down. It’s like they wait out in the lobby until they know the show has started and then say to whoever they’re with, ‘We’re going in, and remember, we’re in the front row!’

VOICE: Ladies and gentlemen, please turn off all cell phones, beepers, and other electronic devices. Thank you.

CLAUDETTE: Come on, Helen. Do your worst. I’m ready for you.

CASSANDRA: This is so exciting. I should call the kids and see if they want me to pick them up anything after the show. Where’s my phone?

(She searches for her phone. The lights go down.)

CAMILE: How long until it’s over? God, I can’t take the suspense. Help me!

(A CELL PHONE RINGS. CAMILE SCREAMS.)

CLAUDETTE: Daddy, it's me--Helen's done it again!

CASSANDRA: How exciting…

The End