A Play in Three Acts, by Janice Erlbaum
ACT ONE:
A man and a woman are in an office.
MAN: You've been kind of bitchy around the office lately, and by "lately" I mean "always since I met you." Do you need to get laid?
WOMAN: No, what I need is to stab your piggy eyes out with a pair of sharp scissors. Why don't you go back into your office and jerk off to Asian girls in bondage while totally mismanaging and squandering millions of dollars, as usual?
MAN: You're so fucking fired, you frigid cunt.
WOMAN: And I will be suing your balding, low-sperm-count-having, Asian-bondage-jerking ass right about...(looks at watch)...now.
ACT TWO:
Woman stands alone on a stage.
WOMAN: This is a story about forgiveness. This is a story about cruelty. This is a story about stories that start "this is a story." This is one of those stories. This story will not so much have a moral as it will leave you will an ineffable sense of futility, which is what you really want from a story. Futility. Accept it. ACCEPT IT! AAAAACCCCCCEEEEPPPPPTTTT IIIIIITTTTTT! Nope, still nothing. See, futile. This is a story about rage, and humiliation, and the humiliation of being in a rage. This is the love-hate story of rubber and glue, because when you hate, then a thousand hates are hated back at you, or something, and then you hate ten thousand hatey hates, and it's still futile, because there's no winning except giving up and that's not winning, that's giving up.
ACT THREE:
Man sits in front of a computer in his boxer shorts.
MAN: Uggghh...oooohh...you know, I wish I had acted differently so many times in my life. But since I can't go back and change my past actions, maybe I can make some kind of karmic amends. Maybe I can change my life for the better, and be a better human being. And I could start by acknowledging some of the things I said and did in my past, things I said and did out of fear and spite and hatred of women. Maybe I could...
Flaming asteroid bursts through wall, hits Man in testicles.
MAN: AAAAAUUUUUUGGGGGHHHH! TOOOOO LAAAAAAAAATE!
brilliant.
Posted by: aisha | Feb 22, 2006 at 08:40 AM
Ow, my sides.
Posted by: Jennifer Glick | Feb 22, 2006 at 09:28 AM
uh-oh. so now i know what my problem has been these many long months: a thousand hates hated back at me. dang!
when o when will i evolve?!
Posted by: broken ladder | Feb 22, 2006 at 10:06 AM
I think this is my favorite play ever written. Particularly the hatey-hate part. If I ever have to prepare a monologue, that will be it.
Posted by: Éireann | Feb 22, 2006 at 01:05 PM
PLEASE do it sometime. At least for your polisci class, or something.
Posted by: girlbomb | Feb 22, 2006 at 11:33 PM
Thanks for making me pee myself. Gonna buy your book!
-Noel
Posted by: Noel Derecki | Apr 17, 2008 at 11:47 PM
I absolutely could not put your book down ( Girl Bomb). It was like reading a very similar story of my life . I find it very admireable that you had the courage to write this story about your life growing up. My days of addiction, heart ache and seperation from my family are days I don't like to remember most of the time. But yet they have made me a very stronge person. I have been told by numerous people that I should right a memior myself of my story and the obstacles I have overcome . I was very inspired by you. I look forward to reading your latest book (Have you found her).
Posted by: Kelly Ryan | Apr 18, 2008 at 03:27 PM
Hahahaha I love the "hatey hate" part. Hilarious.
Posted by: Katy | Jul 11, 2010 at 01:49 PM