Laughing Wild and Baby with the Bathwater by Christopher Durang

Author:Christopher Durang
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic

Seeking Wild

A space in which a talk is about to be given, i.e., a lecture hall, a stage, or a room. There is a dark curtain mid-stage. In front of the curtain stage right is a chair next to a table. On the table is a water pitcher and a glass. Stage left is a columnlike stand (a pedestal), on which there are three crystals: a large, jagged, clear crystal; a chunk of amethyst (which is purple); a piece of citrine (amber-colored).

Hanging on the curtain (upstage center) and dominating the stage is a very large handpainted canvas poster of an Egyptian Eye. The poster may be patterned after the Eye of Ra (or “Horus card”) found in the book The Way of Cartouche. It is a large eye, with a primitive, bold look to it. Beneath the eye there is a small line (where “circles under your eyes” would be on a person) underneath which “hangs” a stylized, primitive design, possibly forming little icicles or teardrops.

After a few beats, a MAN enters. The MAN is dressed well, maybe even a little trendy. He is dressed up to give a talk, to share his new thoughts. He carries with him a few file cards that he has made notes on. He smiles at the audience briefly, checks his first note card quickly before beginning, and then speaks with earnestness and purpose.

MAN: I used to be a very negative person. But then I took this personality workshop that totally turned my life around. Now when something bad or negative happens, I can see the positive. Now when I have a really bad day, or when someone I thought was a really good friend betrays me, or maybe when I’ve been hit by one of those damn people riding bicycles the opposite way on a one-way street, so, of course, one hadn’t looked in that direction and there they are bearing down on you, about to kill or maim you—anyway, I look at any of these things and I say to myself: this glass is not half full, it’s half empty.

No—I said it backwards, force of habit. This glass is not half empty, it is half full.

Of course, if they hit you with the stupid bicycle your glass will not be half full or half empty, it will be shattered to pieces, and you’ll be dead or in the hospital.

But really I’m trying to be positive, that’s what I’m doing with my life these days. (Reads from a note card.) I was tired of not being joyful and happy, I was sick of my personality, and I had to change it.

(Off the card; back to speaking extemporaneously.) Half full, not half empty. I had to say to myself: you do not have cancer—at least not today. You are not blind. You are not one of the starving children in India or China or in Africa. Look at the sunset, look at the sunrise, why don’t you enjoy them, for God’s sake? And now I do.

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