Lodestar Quarterly

Issue 8 • Winter 2003 • Featured Writer • Drama

Marla's Devotion

Linda Eisenstein

Scene 9

Scene 9

While MARLA does some version of her devotion, recorded voices speak from the radio inside MARLA's head.

Note: All of these, except the last one, can be different versions of MARLA'S and JOEY's voices.

ANNOUNCER (O.S.):
We now interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you messages from the radio inside Marla's head. Our topic for this evening: Can this semi-committed, non-traditional relationship be saved?

beep

VOICE 1
Marla ought to get a job. She doesn't have enough to do. She spends way too much time being self-involved.

beep

VOICE 2
I disagree. That Joey is shacking up with the blonde bimbo. If Marla doesn't want to lose her, she better get rid of a few pounds.

beep

MARLA
Shut UP.

VOICE 3
I think Marla and Joey need some heavy-duty counseling.

beep

VOICE 4
No way. These two are a definite break-up. They obviously don't belong together.

beep

VOICE 5
Two women aren't going to be happy together no matter what. It's against the laws of God and Man.

beep

MARLA
Get out of my head!

VOICE 6
Joey needs to learn how to control her temper. She acts just like my father. The bastard.

beep

VOICE 7
I don't think we know enough about them to make any judgments. I can barely get up in the morning without crying myself.

beep

VOICE 8
I think that Marla and Joey need to experience a weekend of intimacy. Take a long, hot soak in a heart-shaped tub, with the scent of lavender in the water. Walk in the woods, smell the pine needles. Have a massage. Give each other some quality time. Here at the Caribbean Oasis we have weekend packages beginning at a very reasonable $259.95 that would renew...

beep

VOICE 9 (MARLA'S MOTHER)
Marla, are you going to answer the phone? This is your mother. Marla, pick up, I know you're home. For heaven's sake, Marla, are you on the floor again? Your...friend called me, Marla.

MARLA
Oh, my God.

MARLA prostrates her way over to the phone.

VOICE 9 (MARLA'S MOTHER)
She's worried about you. And so am I. Marla? Marla?

MARLA
(picking up the phone) Mom? How are you? (beat) No, I'm fine, Mom. Really. Uh-huh. No, it's not like that. Yes, I am still doing those. Yes, I know she said...No. No, Mom, I don't need to come home right now. (takes a big breath) But thank you. Thank you for offering. It's very sweet of you. Yes, I know you want the best for me, Mom. Mom, don't cry, okay? Really. Things are fi...No, no, actually -- they're not fine. Things are a little hard right now. Uh-huh. But I am dealing with them. The best way I know how. (beat) Yes. I love you, too, Mom. Okay. Yes, I'll tell her. Thanks, Mom.

MARLA hangs up. A beat.

MARLA
She called my mother. She called my mother?!?

She immediately dials the phone, begins to pace.

Lights up on JOEY, on the other side of the stage, holding a cellular phone.

MARLA
You called my mother?!? Joey, why did you call my mother?!?

JOEY
Baby, I don't have time for...

MARLA
You get home! You get home right now! What the hell are you doing calling my mother!!

JOEY crosses into MARLA's space, immediately segueing into their evening argument.

JOEY
Yeah, I called Arlene. What am I supposed to do? You've been acting so weird.

MARLA
I'm acting weird!? What about you? You're never here. And when you're here you're not here! And when you are here you're angry all the time. All the time!

JOEY
You're goddamn right I'm angry. You wanna know why? Let's hear about Joey's wonderful day at the office. My wonderful world. Where a woman has to keep her husband away with a restraining order. And he still beats her within an inch of next Tuesday. And nobody does shit. Where a dyke loses custody of her kid to her lunatic-fringe mother-in-law who inhales cigarette smoke and goes to a snake-handling church and believes in hitting the kid with a two-by-four because God told her to. And nobody does shit! Who's gonna fight those wars, huh? You oughta be goddamn grateful that somebody is in there punching while you're out here getting all soft and holy and full of space. You better pray that everybody like me doesn't get tired of fighting, and gives up to open a bed and breakfast and eat organic oatmeal. Or people like you are gonna be up shit creek without a paddle.

MARLA
But why does it have to hang over us like this? All that anger.

JOEY
It's better than being all spaced out!

MARLA
No it isn't! It's choking the breath out of me. It's like I'm breathing in fumes, the whole place is on fire. My God, I have to get close to the ground, just to be able to breathe!

JOEY
Well, pardon me. I just can't put it down, OK? It lives under my skin. And it pays the bills. Which do, by the way, need paying.

MARLA
Oh, you're saying I'm not productive. I'm not a productive member of this household.

JOEY
You said that, Marla, I didn't.

MARLA
My mother wants me to come home, maybe I should.

JOEY
Oh yeah, sure, that really makes sense. That'll certainly make you feel better, living at Arlene's.

MARLA
She offered.

JOEY
Being bundled off to the Methodist sodality, getting introduced to eligible guys with pocket protectors, sounds swell. Come on, Marla. What's happening around here?

MARLA
Death is what's happening here! I'm dying!

JOEY
What are you saying? Jesus, Marla, what are you saying?!

MARLA
I'm dying. We're dying, Joey. Our relationship is dying and my mother is dying and we're all dying and I'm afraid. I'm afraid all the time. I can't hold on to things, they keep swimming around. I can't freeze them into place. And half the time, I tell you, half the time when I get down, I don't want to get up. I just want to lie there with my face pressed against the floor and cry.

JOEY
Oh, you don't mean dying dying, Jesus, Marla, you scared the living shit out of me. You're talking metaphoric death.

MARLA
No. Literal. It's literal death. With every breath, we're one breath closer to our death, that's a fact, Joey.

JOEY
You're not dying, Marla.

MARLA
Yes we are. We ARE! Our culture just denies it. The Tibetans know better. When their mothers die, they save the skull and sleep on it for a year as a pillow.

JOEY
Arlene isn't dead, Marla.

MARLA
Imagine that. Sleeping for a year on your mother's skull.

JOEY
She's at the Mall of America, shopping until her feet bleed.

MARLA
You have to wait until it dries out, I guess.

JOEY
Jesus, Marla, is this what you think about all day? You can't go around thinking shit like that! Jesus, I'm calling Dr. Bernstein, you need to go back to her, OK?

MARLA
I won't. This way is better.

JOEY
Bullshit. You need to be on some serious meds, Marla.

MARLA
Everybody we know is on some kind of stupid drug. Does that sound rational? Does that make sense? Everyone gulping anti-depressants, Lithium, Prozac, just to hurl themselves through their ridiculous days? No, thank you.

JOEY
You don't have to feel this way. It's okay to get help, babe.

MARLA
There's something terribly wrong with our culture, Joey.

JOEY
We can't live this way!

MARLA
There goes your face again, Joey. You've got that soap opera look.

JOEY
What? What look?

MARLA
That look. Where you've labeled something and come to a pat conclusion and it makes you feel all better. Because all the ambiguities are set aside. Just like on some stupid soap opera. Like, if our life was a soap opera, right before the commercial break, the music would get all big and soppy. And I'd say "I'm dying" and the audience would gasp. And they'd all find out it was a brain tumor and they'd know, ah, That's the reason she was acting so weird. It would all be revealed. And everyone could breathe easy. They could go, oh, it was a brain tumor, that explains it. Or, oh, she's depressed. Like putting a label on it makes anything different or simplifies or explains your life in any way. Or, oh, oh, we get it, she found out her lover has been sneaking off to a motel with some blonde bimbo in pink toenail polish. That's why she was doing all that weird stuff. And they could breathe easy then.

JOEY
Oh, baby...

MARLA
But here? In real life? It's not that simple. You have to decide to breathe easy. When you decide that your life isn't about some external thing, some terrible thing that somebody else is or isn't doing, when it's really about how you are thinking.

JOEY
Baby, I'm sorry.

MARLA
How you think and breathe in and out each day and construct a world out of your thoughts...Well, that's a different story. That's a whole different plot, see.

JOEY
Marla.

MARLA
You can't read it the same way. It doesn't have a hero or a villain in it. Or a miracle cure. We're not living in a soap opera, Joey. Are we?

JOEY
No. No, we're not.

MARLA
We're just trying to live...trying to live... (begins to cry a little) a life that has some kindness in it.

JOEY goes to her. Holds her through the next.

JOEY
Sh-sh-sh. Honey. She doesn't mean anythi...

MARLA weeps. A long pause as JOEY holds her.

MARLA
This. This is doing me a world of good.

JOEY
I'm sorry.

MARLA
A world of good, Joey.

JOEY
Okay. Sh-sh.

MARLA
It makes me less afraid. It's funny. I said I'm afraid, and I am, but at the same time I've never been less afraid in my life.

JOEY
I love you, Marla.

MARLA
I know. I know.

JOEY rocks her. The weeping, finally, subsides. A beat.

MARLA
You called my mother?

JOEY
Yeah. We actually had a surprisingly nice talk, me and Arlene.

MARLA
Huh.

JOEY
We had something to obsess about together. Thinking about you. As the Crawling Lesbian.

MARLA
That's good. That way when I go back to being an ordinary garden-variety lesbian, with a lawyer lover, she'll actually be relieved.

JOEY
Does this mean you're stopping? Not that I'm asking you to, you understand.

MARLA
No. I'm still getting a lot out of it, actually. You know, you really ought to try it yourself, Joey.

JOEY
Oh, no no no.

MARLA
Really. Once wouldn't kill you. Just give you a different perspective.

JOEY
A worm's-eye view.

MARLA
A caterpillar's anyway.

JOEY
One caterpillar at a time is enough around here.

MARLA
Caterpillars turn into butterflies.

JOEY
They fly away, is that what you mean? Flap their wings and take off for parts unknown.

MARLA
Are we talking about you, or me?

JOEY
Marla: I'm not going anywhere. I don't know about you, though. You're changing.

MARLA
Yes. Yes, I am.

JOEY
And when you turn into something too different -- I think you're going to want a different view.

MARLA
I do. I have longed for a different view. That's why I'm down here. (beat) You might like it. It really doesn't hurt that much. (beat) Especially with kneepads. (beat)

JOEY
A couple of times, okay? But I don't have to be a believer, you're not gonna make me one, okay?

MARLA
I don't want to make you anything. Just try it out a couple of times. How could it hurt?

JOEY tries it once.

JOEY
Jesus. This is like pushups. I feel like I'm in the army or something.

MARLA
No hurry. We're not trying to build up our muscles, really. Just our intentions. That's hard enough.

JOEY
Okay, so --

MARLA
Look around. It's kinda cool isn't it?

JOEY
I really don't like all the looking down. I'd rather look up, I think.

MARLA
So stop for a minute and roll over.

JOEY rolls on her back.

JOEY
God, that's better. What's that on the ceiling? Cobwebs?

MARLA
I haven't really been looking up there lately. My attention has been elsewhere.

JOEY
No shit. (pause) Mine, too.

JOEY and MARLA lie on their backs, looking at the ceiling. Their heads are close together.

JOEY
I don't really feel like getting up.

MARLA
Me neither.

JOEY
I should, you know, I gotta...

MARLA leans up on one elbow.

MARLA
Shh. Take your time.

JOEY looks at MARLA a long time. SHE strokes MARLA's hair.

MARLA smiles. Lights start to fade.

MARLA
Take your time.

End of Play

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Table of Contents:   Marla's Devotion

Linda Eisenstein's plays and musicals have had over 100 productions throughout the world. Her award-winning plays include Three the Hard Way, The Names of the Beast, Marla's Devotion, Discordia, Star Wares: The Next Generation, and Rehearsing Cyrano. Her plays and monologues have been published by Dramatic Publishing and appear in anthologies by Smith & Kraus, Heinemann, Penguin, and Vintage Books. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in Blithe House Quarterly, Kalliope, Whiskey Island, and Anything That Moves. She lives in Cleveland, Ohio.

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