Lodestar Quarterly

Issue 8 • Winter 2003 • Featured Writer • Drama

Marla's Devotion

Linda Eisenstein

Scene 1

Scene 1

A spot on MARLA.

MARLA
People will do just about anything to change their lives.

Anything! It's true. We'll cut our hair, or switch to contact lenses. We'll change jobs, change majors, change partners. Move to a different city, a different neighborhood, a different apartment. Buy new furniture, new clothes, new labor-saving appliances. Try new diets, go vegetarian, cut the fat, do aerobics, take up a new hobby, a new religion, a new beverage.

And the funny thing is? Almost anything works. Almost anything will change your life. For a while. A very short while. It's the Hawthorne Effect. Add anything new, and stuff automatically begins to happen to you. Oh, sure, progress is jagged, it's like, two steps forward, one step back, but it is definitely progress! And you think: Wow! I'm on a roll! My life is so different now! New lover, new haircut, new job, new attitude, new shape, new religion, new apartment, new major, new wardrobe: New Improved Me.

Then -- a little while later -- you hit this plateau. And you look around and say: that's weird. I recognize this place. It's like, after all that motion, you've managed to put yourself right back in the same old place, right where you started. And you say: how the heck did I get back here? It's like, all that progress, all those changes, were a dream. It's the same old you, in the same old situations -- only your MasterCard balance is definitely higher. (pause) I really, really need to change my life. I gotta find a method that actually takes me somewhere. Somewhere different. So I guess I'm gonna have to learn to walk a different way.

MARLA takes a deep breath, then begins to perambulate somewhat oddly. She takes two steps forward -- breathes -- then bends, kneels, then lies down prostrate, her arms stretched forward. She then rises and takes two more steps, lies down prostrate, etc. She rather resembles an inchworm.

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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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