Two Shakespearean Actors Richard Nelson Act i, scene 7. A private drawing room in a New York hotel. One a.m.

May 1849. William Charles Macready (sos) is the great English actor who is on tour through America with his theatre company. He is vain, arrogant and quite evidently not in his prime. He is performing his version of Macbeth at the Astor Place Theatre at the same time as the premier American actor Edwin Forrest is presenting his version of the Scottish Play at the Broadway Theatre. There is an intense rivalry between the two actors and a radical difference in their approaches to the actor's craft and technique. Macredy gives primacy to the voice and text, while Forrest favours emotion and character. Macready is also twenty years older than Forrest. At a party given by the playwright Dion Boucicault, Macready and Forrest are holding forth on their respective approaches to acting. Macready, who has been drinking heavily, launches forth with this speech when prompted by Forresfs direct question of'Why do you act?'.

MACREADY. It's hard to explain really. Where shall I begin? (Beat.) You see - as Descartes has said inside us all are these - . He called them animal spirits. (Beat.) Which are really, what other people call - passions. (Short pause. FORREST nods.) And they're all - these spirits - they're bordered, they're all sort of fenced in. (Suddenly remembering.) You could also call them emotions. (Beat.) Anyway, they're fenced in. But when one of them escapes from the others - . And is not quickly caught by - . I don't know, spirits who do the catching, like sheep-dogs catch - . (Beat.) [FORREST. Sheep.] That's right. Like sheep-dogs catch sheep. Anyway, when one escapes and is not caught, then it becomes a very deep, a very - . A very passionate - . (Beat.) What?! (Beat. Remembers.) Feeling! Feeling. (Shortpause.) So what an actor does -I believe - is this: philosophically speaking - . I haven't studied enough philosophy - . I'd like to study much much more, but - . Well - . People like us who are busy doing - ! But, as I was saying, the art of the actor - . (Beat.) What was I going to say? I was about to say something that was very clear. I remember. The art of the actor is like ripping down the fences. (Beat.) And tying up the sheep-dogs. (Beat.) And letting the spirits loose. A few at a time. Or more! Depending on the part. Letting them roam for a while. (Shortpause.) So, that's what I love about acting. (Pause).) I don't know how clear I've been.

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Perhaps the question of why he acts has never been asked of Macready. He certainly

doesn't have a series of pat answers. Talking about passions, emotions and feelings does not come easily to him. He's all penned in. He sounds as if he's wandered into alien territory. Every phrase is an avoidance. He's an actor without a script. Onstage he is normally eloquent and fluid. Here he is halting and searches for the right words which never come. Though drunk he desperately tries to sound sober.

The Colored Museum George C. Wolfe Premiere: Crossroads Theatre Company, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1986 Publisher: American Theatre magazine Setting: A stylized museum An ensemble of two men and three women portray a gallery of living "exhibits" in what the playwright describes as "a museum where the myths and madness of black/ Negro/colored Americans are stored." The following exhibit is called "Permutations." (Lights up on NORMAL JEAN REYNOLDS. She is very southern/country and very young. She wears a simple faded print dress and her hair, slightly mussed, is in plaits. Between her legs is a very large white egg.) NORMAL My mama used to say, God made the exceptional, then God made the special, and when God got bored, he made me. Course she don't say too much of nuthin no more, not since I lay me this egg. Ya see it all got started when I had me sexual relations with the garbage man. Ooowee did he smell. Not, not bad. No! He smelled of all the good things folks never shoulda thrown away. His sweat was like cantaloupe juice. His neck was like a ripe-red strawberry. And the water that fell from his eyes was like a deep, dark, juicy-juicy grape. I tell ya, it was like fuckin a fruit salad, only I didn't spit out the seeds. I kept them here, deep inside. And three days later, my belly commence to swell, real big like. Well my mama locked me off in some dark room, refusin to let me see light of day 'cause "What would the neighbors think." At first I cried a lot, but then I grew used to livin my days in the dark, and my nights in the dark. . . .

(She hums.) And then it wasn't but a week or so later, my mama off at church, that I got this hurtin feelin down here. Worse than anything I'd ever known. And then I started bleedin, real bad. I mean there was blood everywhere. And the pain had me howlin like a near-dead dog. I tell ya, I was yellin so loud. I couldn't even hear myself. Noooooooo! Noooooo! Carrying on something like that. And I guess it was just too much for the body to take, 'cause the next thing I remember . . . is me coming to and there's this big white egg layin 'tween my legs. First I thought somebody musta put it there as some kind of joke. But then I noticed that all round this egg were thin lines of blood that I could trace to back between my legs. (Laughing.) Well, when my mama come home from church she just about died. "Normal Jean, what's that thing 'tween your legs? Normal Jean you answer me girl!" It's not a thing Mama. It's an egg. And I laid it. She tried separatin me from it, but I wasn't havin it. I stayed in that dark room, huggin, holdin onto it. (She hums.) And then I heard it. It wasn't anything that coulda been heard round the world, or even in the next room. It was kinda like layin back in the bathtub, ya know, the water just coverin your ears . . . and if you lay real still and listen real close, you can hear the sound of your heart movin the water. You ever done that? Well that's what it sounded like. A heart movin water. And it was happenin inside here. Why I'm the only person I know who ever lay themselves an egg before so that makes me special. You hear that Mama? I'm special and so's my egg! And special things supposed to be treated like they matter. That's why every night I count to it, so it knows nuthin never really ends. And I sing it every song I

know so that when it comes out, it's full of all kinds of feelings. And I tell it secrets and laugh with it and . . . (She suddenly stops, puts her ear to the egg and listens intently.) Oh! I don't believe it! I thought I heard . . . yes! (Excited.) Can you hear it? Instead of one heart, there's two. Two little hearts just pattering away. Boom-boom-boom. Boom-boom-boom. Talkin to each other like old friends. Racin toward the beginnin of their lives. (Listening.) Oh no now there's three . . . four . . . five, six, more hearts than I can count. And they're all alive, beatin out life inside my egg. (We begin to hear light drumming, the heartbeats inside Normal's egg.) Any day now, this egg is gonna crack open and what's gonna come out a be the likes of which nobody has ever seen. My babies! And their skin is gonna turn all kinds of shades in the sun and their hair a be growin every which-away. And it won't matter and they won't care 'cause they know they are so rare and so special 'cause it's not every day a bunch of babies break outta a white egg and start to live. And nobody better not try and hurt my babies 'cause if they do, they gonna have to deal with me. Yes any day now, this shell's gonna crack and my babies are gonna fly. Fly! Fly! (She laughs at the thought, but then stops and says the word as if it's the most natural thing in the world.) Fly.

Night Luster Laura Harrington Premiere: New Dramatists, NYC Publisher: New American Library (in 100 Monologues: An Audition Sourcebook From New Dramatists) Setting: Urban streets and a call girl's apartment Roma is an aspiring singer and songwriter who keeps getting involved with abusive men but never loses hope. Here she talks to her best friend, Mink, a call girl, about her self-image and dreams of success. ROMA I don't think people see me. I get this feeling sometimes like I'm invisible or something. I can be standing there in a room and I'm talking and everything, and it's like my words aren't getting anywhere and I look down at myself and jesus, sometimes my body isn't getting anywhere either. It's like I'm standing behind a one-way mirror and I can see the guys and I can hear the guys, but they can't see me and they can't hear me. And I start to wonder if maybe I'm ugly or something, like maybe I'm some alien species from another planet and I don't speak the language and I look totally weird. But I don't know this, you see, because on this other planet I had this really nice mother who told me I was beautiful and that I had a voice to die for because she loved me so much, not because it was true. And I arrive here on earth and I'm so filled with her love and her belief in me that I walk around like I'm beautiful and I sing like I have a voice to die for. And because I'm so convinced and so strange and so deluded, people pretend to listen to me . . . because they're being polite or somethingor maybe they're afraid of me. And at first I don't notice because I sing with my eyes closed. But then one day I open my eyes and I find out I'm living in this world where nobody sees me and nobody hears me.

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(Beat.) I'm just lookin' for that one guy who's gonna hear me, see me . . . really take a chance. I mean, I hear them. I'm listening so hard I hear promises when somebody's just sayin' hello. Jesus, if anybody ever heard what I've got locked up inside of me . . . I'd be a star.

Sarita Maria Irene Fornes Premiere: INTAR, NYC, 1984 Publisher: Performing Arts Journal Publications (in Maria Irene Fornes: plays) Setting: South Bronx and other New York locations, 19391947 Sarita is a spirited young woman from the South Bronx. She is thirteen years old at the start of the play. Her best friend, Yeye, is reading her cards to find out if Sarita's boyfriend, Julio, loves her and if he is cheating on her. In the next scene, Julio has left and Sarita is fourteen and pregnant. Refusing to marry the old man of her mother's choice, she continues her anguished affair with the unfaithful Julio. After three years of heartbreak, Sarita writes him a suicide note and heads for the top of the Empire State Building. An American soldier named Mark prevents her from jumping and falls in love with her. They are married, but Sarita cannot leave Julio alone. Here she prays in front of an altar in her mother's living room. She is nineteen years old. SARITA If one has one love in one's lifetime, only one, and one has been true to that love, does one go straight to heaven? for being true? (Short pause.) I hope so. Because here it's hell. (Short pause.) I just want to know if you know about this? (Short pause.) Is this your idea?Or is the devil doing it? (Short pause.) Give me a sign. (Short pause.) Say something. (Short pause.) Go on.

(Short pause.) Do something. (She palms her hand as if there were a small person in it. She lowers her voice.) Good Lord, child, somebody made a mistake. I put you in for an easy life. You're my favorite kid. Don't worry about a thing, honey. I'll take care of things. (Using her own voice.) Oh, God! Thank you God.God. I am serious. I cannot breathe. I'm burning. I'm turned inside myself. Do you know what I'm saying?I feel my life's leaving me. I feel I'm dying. God, I want to love Mark and no one else.