I M STUCK IN A ROUND OF SERIOUS DRAMATIC INTERPRETATION AND I REALLY HAVE TO PEE

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1 INTERPRETATION AND I REALLY HAVE TO PEE By Bradley Walton Copyright MMXIV by Bradley Walton, All Rights Reserved Heuer Publishing LLC in association with Brooklyn Publishers, LLC ISBN: CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that this Work is subject to a royalty. This Work is fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America and all countries with which the United States has reciprocal copyright relations, whether through bilateral or multilateral treaties or otherwise, and including, but not limited to, all countries covered by the Pan-American Copyright Convention, the Universal Copyright Convention and the Berne Convention. RIGHTS RESERVED: All rights to this Work are strictly reserved, including professional and amateur stage performance rights. Also reserved are: motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio broadcasting, television, video or sound recording, all forms of mechanical or electronic reproduction, such as CD-ROM, CD-I, DVD, information and storage retrieval systems and photocopying, and the rights of translation into non-english languages. PERFORMANCE RIGHTS AND ROYALTY PAYMENTS: All amateur and stock performance rights to this Work are controlled exclusively by Heuer Publishing LLC. No amateur or stock production groups or individuals may perform this play without securing license and royalty arrangements in advance from Heuer Publishing LLC. Questions concerning other rights should be addressed to Heuer Publishing LLC. Royalty fees are subject to change without notice. Professional and stock fees will be set upon application in accordance with your producing circumstances. Any licensing requests and inquiries relating to amateur and stock (professional) performance rights should be addressed to Heuer Publishing LLC. Royalty of the required amount must be paid, whether the play is presented for charity or profit and whether or not admission is charged. AUTHOR CREDIT: All groups or individuals receiving permission to produce this Work must give the author(s) credit in any and all advertisement and publicity relating to the production of this Work. The author s billing must appear directly below the title on a separate line where no other written matter appears. The name of the author(s) must be at least 50% as large as the title of the Work. No person or entity may receive larger or more prominent credit than that which is given to the author(s). PUBLISHER CREDIT: Whenever this Work is produced, all programs, advertisements, flyers or other printed material must include the following notice: Produced by special arrangement with Heuer Publishing LLC. COPYING: Any unauthorized copying of this Work or excerpts from this Work is strictly forbidden by law. No part of this Work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means now known or yet to be invented, including photocopying or scanning, without prior permission from Heuer Publishing LLC. HEUER PUBLISHING LLC P.O. BOX 248 CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA TOLL FREE (800) FAX (319)

2 2 INTERPRETATION AND I REALLY HAVE TO PEE I M STUCK IN A ROUND OF SERIOUS DRAMATIC INTERPRETATION AND I REALLY HAVE TO PEE A Ten Minute Comedy Monologue By Bradley Walton SYNOPSIS: What if you drank three large sodas while you were competing in a forensics tournament? What would it be like to sit through a heartwrenching round of serious dramatic interpretation as your bladder got fuller by the minute? Worst of all what if you were the last person in the room to perform? Could you funnel your anguish into your performance and win the round? CAST OF CHARACTERS (1 either; gender flexible) NARRATOR (m/f)... Who is competing in a forensics meet and just drank a lot of diet soda AUTHOR NOTES Prior to our first competition this year, some of the veteran members of my forensics team were giving advice to our newcomers. Among the bits of wisdom that they offered: Go to the bathroom before the start of each round. And just like that, I had a script.

3 BRADLEY WALTON 3 AT RISE: The NARRATOR, dressed for a forensics competition, on a bare stage. NARRATOR: A teenage girl dressed in a black suit stands at the front of the room. Her long red hair is pulled back in a conservative braid. She speaks eloquently about losing her little brother in a car accident, and never realizing how much she loved him until it was too late. I am sitting in a round of serious dramatic interpretation at the state forensics tournament. The girl speaking is the first contestant in the room. I will be the final contestant. As I listen to her, I become aware of two things: Although she is performing a work of fiction, I am genuinely moved. Also, there is a faint pressure in my bladder, and this concerns me because I will be stuck here for an hour; it is possible that the three 16-ounce diet sodas I drank at lunch may have been a mistake. The speaker concludes her performance and takes her seat. I applaud politely, as do the other contestants. There is a bottle of water on my desk. I decide that it is probably best if I think about liquid as little as possible, so I set it down on the floor beside me, out of sight. An older teen in a white shirt and blue tie now moves to the front of the room. His piece opens with rainfall as a metaphor for the lost innocence of his character s childhood. I hope that this metaphor will not be repeated, because I do not want to think about rain. The mental image of falling water is something I should avoid if I am to make it through the hour. Unfortunately, I am a captive audience. The metaphor of rain pops up again in the performance. And again. I begin to count, hoping that the act of counting will take my mind off of the image itself. This backfires, as each rising number seems to psychologically increase the intensity of the sensation in the lower portion of my body, and the metaphor occurs a staggering twelve times. This is both surprising and impressive given that the script is less than ten minutes long and most of the action takes place in a desert.

4 4 INTERPRETATION AND I REALLY HAVE TO PEE In spite of the harrowing escalation that has occurred during the second speech, my bladder pressure remains at a manageable level. There are three performances left before I speak, and the likelihood of another infinitely repeated rain metaphor is low. I am confident I will persevere. I am also thirsty. In addition to three sodas, lunch also consisted of two slices of greasy pizza and a bag of salty potato chips. This probably had something to do with why I drank three bottles of soda in the first place. That, and my desire to support the school s community service club. They were selling concessions as a fundraiser to help build a playground for disabled children. I felt the cause was worth supporting. I see now that I was a fool. I should have dropped an extra dollar in their donation box rather than buy the third drink. I promise myself never to buy diet soda to support a playground for disabled children again. Emboldened with this resolve for the future, I pick up my bottle of water, unscrew the lid, and take a tiny sip. The liquid restores a glimmer of vitality to my mouth, and without thinking, I take a large gulp. Before I can swallow, the realization of what I am doing hits me like a rain metaphor. If I swallow the liquid, it will surely add to my misery as the round progresses. I must spit it out. Except there is nowhere to spit. The window is too far away. Also, it is closed. The contestant sitting in front of me is wearing a sweater that looks soft and absorbent, but releasing the contents of my mouth upon it would surely be frowned upon by the judges as unsportsmanlike conduct. Spitting on the floor or even back into the bottle would probably be considered gross. I could pretend to cough and spit the water onto my own clothes, but I don t want to look like I wet myself. I could also pretend to cough and spit the water someplace else, but even this strikes me as an unwise course of action. As I struggle with my quandary, I become aware that some of the other students in the room are looking at me strangely. It dawns on me that this may be because of the large quantity of water I am holding in my mouth; I have aqua-chipmunk cheeks. One of the judges looks at me. And so, having no other alternative I swallow. I will be regretting this in about fifteen minutes. I just know it.

5 BRADLEY WALTON 5 A short, brown-haired boy is next. He speaks of the uncertainty of life and the capriciousness of nature. The mention of nature makes me uneasy. My fears prove well-founded when, two sentences later, the narrator shares that his grandfather s house, the refuge of his childhood, was washed away in a flood. Instinctively, I squeeze my knees together. I do not relax them until the performance is finished. When I finally do, I wish I hadn t. The soda, the water, and the thought of a flood have done their damage. I feel like I just sat through a 64-oz. movie while drinking a three hour soda. I am vaguely aware that something about this last thought was not quite right, but I decide not to pursue a mental correction for fear of the further discomfort it might inflict. My entire body clenches as I brace myself for the next contestant. Like the first speaker, his piece is about the death of a younger sibling. It does not lead off with a rain metaphor or a flood, and I am thankful for this blessing. We are nearly a full four minutes into the performance before it is revealed that the sister in the script died in a boating accident. The narrator describes in vivid detail the ocean filling the hull of the boat. My bladder gives an empathetic shudder. Or perhaps the vibration comes from my knees knocking together. It s hard to be sure. DO The final performance before mine has nothing to do with water. At least, I don t think it does. I am preoccupied suppressing the highpitched whining noise trying to claw its way up from the back of my throat. But whatever the piece is about, it is so sad that everyone else is crying, except, of course, for the speaker, who would be disqualified if he cried during his own performance. I look at the glistening droplets of water throughout the room, and I want to cry, too. NOT COPY

6 6 INTERPRETATION AND I REALLY HAVE TO PEE The fifth speaker concludes and sits. The room is silent for a moment, then one of the judges calls my name. I stand. The liquid in my bladder shifts. I sit back down. The student sitting next to me gives me a funny look. I wish I could punch him. He has a happy bladder and I do not. I want him to feel my misery. I want everyone in the room to feel my misery. And then it dawns on me there s no better place for sharing misery than a round of serious dramatic interpretation. I shall pour my anguish into my performance. I will make my competition wish they had to pee as badly as I do. By the time I am done, there shall be a new unwritten rule of forensics: Always drink three diet sodas before your round. This will be my legacy. I stand again, determined to channel my misery. I take one step, then another. They are small steps. It occurs to me that I may be waddling, so I attempt a larger step. Unfortunately, my legs begin to shake and I nearly lose my balance. Small steps it shall be. Finally, I make my way to the front. Everyone is giving me a slightly perplexed look. I realize that I am (Hunches over slightly.) hunched over. I attempt to stand up straight, (Straightens back, then immediately hunches back over.) but the muscles in the center of my body are clenched too tight. Good posture is not an option. I must give the performance of my life in order to make this work. And so I remind myself once more to channel my misery, and I begin to speak. The NARRATOR begins to perform HIS/HER monologue with a slight quiver of both voice and leg. As HE/SHE continues speaking, there is a gradual increase in vocal strain and fidgeting, so that by the end, HE/SHE is doing a full blown pee-pee dance.

7 BRADLEY WALTON 7 The night is cold. But the void that was once my soul is colder, still. The atrocities I have wrought upon the world have stripped me of my humanity. All that is left to me is my self-loathing. But is this very self-loathing a sign that I have humanity within me still? Is it a bridge to the person I once was? This is a question that haunts my every waking hour, even as my dreams are filled with the anguished cries of the betrayed, the forgotten, and the martyrs. (Begins sobbing.) I have paid a heavy price to learn that there are things no one is meant to do. (Breaks character, still sobbing.) I m crying, aren t I? Darn it. I guess that means I m disqualified. I would like to apologize to the judges, and I want you to know that I m not crying as part of my performance. It s just that I really, really have to pee. So if we re all done here can I please go to the bathroom? THE END