Collective Plays

Life in an Alternate Universe

Act 1

Scene 1

As the curtain opens the audience is confronted with the messy, aging living room of a two-bedroom apartment. There are two couches, (A regular couch and a love seat), a chair, and various tables with scattered paraphernalia. (Including a phone, herbal teas, medicines, an ashtray, packages of half opened cigarettes, papers, inexpensive jewelry etc) Riddled on the floor are dirty laundry, magazines, and any other device left to the imagination. There is one exit out of the apartment, (The main door) and the only other visible doorway is that which leads into the master bedroom. It is 10 pm. Shirley enters carrying a bottle of pills. She is a thirty-five-year-old manager of a Vancouver Restaurant, "Enges" (Pronounced En gies) She has had quite the day at work. (This is the norm because of her Personality). The scene begins.

SHIRLEY: (Sitting on couch, sickly. Opens the pill bottle and quickly pops one in her mouth, swallows it with little thought)

Enter Cedric at doorway

CEDRIC: Mom? (Immediately notices the mess of the place, examines it with the disgust)

SHIRLEY: (Scrambles to hide pills in her pocket) A minute.

CEDRIC: Whatever are you doing? (Picks up a magazine and puts it on a bookshelf)

SHIRLEY: Have some blasted patience! (Disposes pills in purse)

CEDRIC: I managed to fix your old beater.

SHIRLEY: Thank you doll! I'm sure getting tired of having to take the public transit system to work. You meet such strange people on the bus. Why just today a fellow by the name of Jim wanted me to examine his hemorrhoids. He thought I was a doctor I suppose, and when I tried to explain to him that my knowledge of anal difficulties was indeed limited, he pulled down his pants and gave me the full, uncensored, red polka-dotted moon.

CEDRIC: That's entirely inappropriate. (Continues impulsively cleaning the place)

SHIRLEY: Naw, it was a hoot. (Shirley takes a cigarette package out of her purse)

CEDRIC: God I hate it when you smoke.

SHIRLEY: If I didn't smoke, I would've killed you by now. Stop organizing my magazines!

CEDRIC: (Ignores her, shuffles through magazine articles) "Guilty Pleasures" "Erotic Dancing" "A Gateway to the Bedroom" Honestly mom, shouldn't you hide these under your bed or something?

SHIRLEY: I'm a firm believer that things should be easily accessible, like my toiletries for instance. Do you remember when you rearranged those? What a fiasco. I had to phone the grocery store, pleading for a rush delivery of tampons. You can't even imagine how embarrassing it was for me to run to the door in my silky undergarments, bleeding like a wounded boar, demanding the delivery boy to just open up the package and give it to me. Oh boy did that kid's face go red.

CEDRIC: He asked you out, didn't he?

SHIRLEY: Yep. That kid couldn't have been much older then you are now.

CEDRIC: Is that why it didn't work?

SHIRLEY: No. He looked like your father.

CEDRIC: (Looking to the floor, changing the subject) Did Enges treat you well today?

SHIRLEY: (Fiddling with her cigarette) Cedric, believe it or not I had an amazing day.

CEDRIC: What happened?

SHIRLEY: I got nominated for the hottest manager of the year award. My only competition was Jake Fendelten, a fat balding man with half his teeth missing, and a bushy lopsided uni brow.