This is the incomplete text of a rough draft of a monologue I sketched out for the Roger role in Banger’s Elixir which we are still looking to cast.

We’re really interested to see what nuances an actor can bring to this role. We don’t want the audience to like him (although he should be entertaining/intriguing?) and we’re not out to justify his misogyny, but we don’t want them to hate him either – we would like to perhaps find some complexity of compassion. Maybe it’s his suffering we identify with, his loneliness. Some might want to help him break free from his cage of negativity because there is something about this guy that is compelling. His intelligence?

I guess ultimately, the idea is – we have to live in the world with people like this, who might rub us the wrong way or who we don’t like or agree with, so what do we do with that? -ali

On Being an Asshole
Roger: My ex-wife made me go to a therapist right before she divorced me. We were maybe 15 minutes into the first session and the lady stared me down and after a very intentional pause asked, “Do you want to be an asshole?”

You know, I really don’t mind. If that’s what it means to be myself, then OK. I’m an asshole. I’m a human fucking animal. Not a god. I’m not perfect. I have no ambition to be anything more. Tell me why “my* choice to be an asshole is *your* problem again?

That therapist – Jodi – she made us call her Jodi – kept digging. Like there must be some reason I turned out this way, because she clearly does not approve. Meanwhile Sandra’s looking at this Jodi like she wants to fuck her, like she’s that happy this woman, someone, is finally calling me out on my shit. Her suffering was being validated. Therapy was like free super bowl tickets to her.

Tell me about your mother. That’s the biggest fucking cliche, right? Neither of them would believe me when I said there’s nothing to tell. Ma was quiet. Did what she needed to do. Took care of my brother and father and I. Didn’t make a fuss. Never tried to be something that she wasn’t.

Therapy is one of the outer layers of hell, man. If I knew Sandra was just going to divorce me anyway I never would have agreed to that bullshit. Why did I even marry the bitch? It was easier than having to renegotiate every day. For disease-free sex, for clean socks. Sandra never wanted to be a wife. Just a mother. Once she found out that wasn’t going to happen. She lost interest. In everything. Except those weird looking bonsais – you know those dwarf Japanese plants or whatever? They’re all over the fucking house. Were. They even have a club. The bonsai people. It’s gotta be a cover right, like they’re swingers or something?

You say I’m am asshole, I think I’m just being honest. Saying the things that all men think, they just don’t say it out loud. So maybe that makes me a pig or a prick. You think I should care what you think? Yeah, good luck with that.

I don’t hate women. There’s nothing like a hot one at the end of a cool day. I’ll take one first thing in the morning. They look nice sometimes. Smell nice before they slather too much makeup and hairspray and shit all over themselves. But I don’t want them to be my friend. You gonna hang out and watch the game with me? Come on. Bring me the fucking guacamole and then go back to doing one of those girly things you ladies do so well.

Who said any of us have to care about anybody else in this life? I take care of my own and you take care of yours. What’s so wrong with that? I don’t owe you anything.

I’m comfortable with what I believe. I don’t want to have an open mind. I don’t want to be vulnerable. Fuckin’ Jodi talk. It’s OK to be vulnerable. I don’t need some priest to talk to God for me and tell me what kind of person I’m supposed to be. Supposed to want to be. This is what it is and this is all you’re gonna get.

Yeah, I know … thank god we didn’t have children.

After the sound of impossibly cheerful birds
the first that hits you upon waking is the disappointment
crushing in slowly with greater and greater force
a trash compacting of the soul.
At what point do you stop fighting back?
give in to the truth of your own mediocrity.
That life is not now and never going to look like that Pinterest board you labeled “fantasy”
And if by a miracle of fate it does, you will still not be satisfied –
there will be things you forgot to pin.
It’s not about what you do or don’t deserve.
It’s just that this is all you’re going to get.
Will giving in this resignation lead to despair or could it bring relief,
an unexpected happiness?
You don’t know, so you remain undecided.
Ready to leave your own life as soon as something better comes along.
You keep looking ahead, just in case it’s around the next corner
You are breaking your own heart;
Afraid to commit to yourself.

-ag
6/16/15

photo by alicia grega

Scranton Fringe Festival has announced the schedule of performances at The Leonard Theatre on Adams Avenue in Scranton where our Banger’s Elixir will be presented:
Friday, Oct. 2 at 6 p.m.
Saturday, Oct. 3 at 5 p.m.
and Sunday, Oct. 4 at 3:30 p.m.

We are so happy to be sharing the space with such good company and so many good friends including The New Vintage Ensemble crew and a very special Scranton StorySlam

Check it out:
scrantonfringe.org/2015/06/09/2015-scranton-fringe-festival-the-leonard

Banger’s Elixir is an absurdest play imagining the people who might compose clickable spam subject lines, literally working for peanuts, locked into an exploitative 21st century American capitalist wage slavery system. The spam lines were collected from real email received by playwright Alicia Grega over a period of years since the piece was first conceived as a performance art piece in 2010. It later evolved into a 20-minute play whose subject invites exploration of the dark underbelly of human motivation.
(Rated R)