i l you is a two-act dramatic play with one female
and two male actors.
It has one set which is the living room and
kitchenette of the apartment of Andrew and his mother, Gladys.
During
a seemingly casual evening, Andrew, a disturbed, middle-aged, repressed
homosexual, is in the company of his mother, Gladys, who is old and deaf, and
his younger friend, Jonathan, who is a flamboyant homosexual. It is a difficult evening for Gladys and
Jonathan for Andrew is a difficult man.
Gladys and Jonathon know this; have come to live with it and at the same
time honor their own commitment to enjoy life, to love life. Unbeknownst to Gladys and Jonathan, they
are witnessing the final, few hours preceding the final act of Andrew’s life.
The following is an excerpt.
GLADYS
(As if to the world)
Flaworse.!
JONATHAN
Call me perverted. I'm boffo
for old men.
ANDREW
Well, I'm not attracted to anyone.
You know that.
(Jonathan indicates a square inch with his
hand.)
JONATHAN
What I know about you would fit on toilet paper that size. Just big enough to wipe a flea's butt, but
that's still more 'an most people know about you …… but that's not good enough
for me. Our time together is too
important.
GLADYS
Flaworse.
ANDREW
How pathetic! Why and how others hold on to life as dearly as they do. As if it were a blessing! I know it only as a....
JONATHAN
A punishment? Is it any wonder
then that you're not able to give or accept love?
ANDREW
I do not love anything.
JONATHAN
Is that a fifties' thing? That
you won't let yourself feel?
GLADYS
(To Andrew) Flaworse!
ANDREW
(to Gladys) What about flowers!?
JONATHAN
(To Gladys.)
Flowers are pretty.
GLADYS
Daeed!
JONATHAN
Dead?
ANDREW
What flowers are dead?
GLADYS
Flaworse hoin taebol.
ANDREW
Oh these on the table.
GLADYS
Daeed!
ANDREW
The flowers on the table are dead.
Yea, so?
JONATHAN
(To Gladys.) I'm
sorry.
GLADYS
Taeenk yuo. Whaet doo?
ANDREW
What do you mean, "what should you do"? If they are dead, throw them away.
GLADYS
Waeest mawnee.
JONATHAN
Waste of money!
GLADYS
(To Jonathan) Knot
reeitch.
JONATHAN
Not!?
GLADYS
Reeitch.
JONATHAN
Rich? Oh, BINGO! You're not rich! You're right. It’s a
waste of money. (pause) I'm sorry.
About the flowers.
GLADYS
(To Jonathan) Yuo
har gwood boyee. (To Andrew) Hee's ah gwood
boyee.
ANDREW
(to Gladys)
Oh, yes, he's a good
boy and so smart. (to Jonathan) Now you
figure out how to keep flowers from dying!
JONATHAN
No problem. Plasticize, Buck
Rogers!
(Andrew crosses to the table, picks up the
vase of dead flowers and carries it to the trash can in the kitchen where he
dumps them, then dumps the water from the vase into the sink and dries the
vase, leaving it on the counter next to the sink.)
JONATHAN
(To Gladys) Plastic flowers are better,
you know. Plastic. Plastic flowers.
GLADYS
Plaseteec Flaworse.
Plastic flowers never die. (to himself in
second voice) And each sunrises.
GLADYS ANDREW
Rieet. Plaseteec naeva dieee. (to
himself in second voice) So many
suns!
(to Gladys) I'll tell you a secret.
(Gladys and Jonathan huddle together like two spies.)
I love him and I keep thinking I might (to himself in second voice) When all that each sun
want to marry him but sometimes...
illuminates is more
of this empty, bruised feeling,
GLADYS
ANDREW
Bee caerefool. dying the slow, bleak, pathetic death of the aborted.
JONATHAN
(Gladys points to her scar.)
JONATHAN
The scar? Did Andrew do that?
GLADYS
No. Hausband.
JONATHAN
Your husband? (pause) He broke my
arm. Andrew, I mean. Not your husband. It was an accident. We
were drunk and at this party and I was talking a lot to this other guy when
Andrew got mad and pulled my arm hard to get me up to dance with him. It was an accident. Honest.
It was. We were drunk.
GLADYS
Bee caerefool.
JONATHAN
Oh, I'll be careful but it was an accident. Almost like it was my fault.
I shouldn't have been talking to that guy. It was an accident. (pause) Besides, he
can change. Can't he? I mean if he loves me enough and I think he
does then he'll change for me. Right?
GLADYS
Saeme Aaee theenk maeyee hausboond.
JONATHAN
You thought you could change your husband.
GLADYS
Fieend anoother maen aend fuorget.
JONATHAN
Yes, I suppose I should just find someone else but I love him. I Love HIM.
GLADYS
Tuo baed. Mee saeme laove heem.
JONATHAN
Yes, it's too bad. We both love
him …. (pause) Plastic never dies. It's forever, thank god. Plastic melts, of course. When it gets too hot, it melts. But if you keep the plastic warm enough long
enough, you can mold it into another form, making it become what you want it to
be. By swirling and twirling all the
colors, you can even create different colors, new ones, even one that's never
been seen before but it never dies!
It’s plastic! You can still see
it! Touch it! Hold it! Understand
it! Why, if I melted down some plastic
flowers right now, the red roses would mix into the yellow daisies and the
yellow daisies would mix into the purple mums and all mixed up together you
would see all kinds of new colors. New
patterns and colors! It changes but
it's still alive so to speak. It just
changes its form into something else, sometimes better. Prettier even, sometimes, and that's the way
it should be. Don't you think?
(Andrew returns to the living room area.)
JONATHAN
(loudly to Gladys)
Nope, plastic flowers never die.
Just rinse them off. Shake them
out. And put them back in the vase.
GLADYS
(To Andrew) Aee tale yuo! Noh waeest mawnee.
JONATHAN
(to Gladys) Can I sleep here tonight?
GLADYS
Yaees!
ANDREW
No!
JONATHAN
(to Andrew) Too late.
ANDREW
You can't stay.
JONATHAN
Why not?
ANDREW
Not tonight.
JONATHAN
And why not tonight?
ANDREW
I'm…….I told you. I'm tired.
JONATHAN
So am I. Besides, I'm too drunk
to drive.
ANDREW
You took the subway here.
(Gladys shakes her empty water glass mid
air.)
GLADYS
Mwar.
JONATHAN
And I'm too drunk to take the subway back. I'm so drunk that I'd be a easy target for every thug out
there. I mean easier than usual.
ANDREW
I pity any "thug" who would even try to start something with
you.
JONATHAN
(singing) But baby, it's cold outside.
ANDREW
All right, you can stay.
Anything to keep you from singing again. But I’m warning you. I
can’t be responsible for what might happen.
(Gladys is still shaking her empty water
glass mid air.)
GLADYS
Mwar.
ANDREW
But you're sleeping on the couch.
JONATHAN
Frost warning?
GLADYS
Mwar.
More!
Pallees.
(Andrew absentmindedly takes the glass and
holds on to it.)
JONATHAN
Then again, what would be the point of staying? We can't have sex and we can't talk about
anything important.
(Unnoticed by either Jonathan or Andrew,
Gladys gets up and crosses to the kitchen with her painter's roller brush and
photo album in hand. Upon arriving in
the kitchen, Gladys hauls a kitchen chair up to the top of the table and climbs the ladder to the top of the table
where she sits on the chair and begins painting the wall again.)
ANDREW
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
JONATHAN
We can have sex?
ANDREW
We can talk.
JONATHAN
Oh, yea, you talk. You talk about ideas, ideals, philosophy, psychology, and
history. I mean, for all your talking
about ideas, ideals, what do you understand about people? Not as a species. As individuals. Nothing! That's
what!
ANDREW
And your point is what exactly?
JONATHAN
Well, you never talk about anything real. You never want to talk about
you. Tell me more about your father.
ANDREW
My father!? Why not yours?
JONATHAN
Boring. Besides, I'm not the
one who's screwed up. Something
important’s going on with you tonight.
ANDREW
There is nothing real or important about me that … would change
anything. Make a difference. Nothing
except the exchange of ideas, the sharing of philosophies, the study and
understanding of history.
JONATHAN
What about feelings? Feeling
love and joy, pain and sorrow and sharing those feelings?
ANDREW
To what end? For what
purpose? What is gained from indulging
in illusion?
(Andrew and Jonathan freeze and the lights
fade as a spot comes up on
Gladys who is still sitting on a chair at top of the table. She turns to the audience and speaks.)
Jonny's confession to me has got me thinking about things. I worry for him. It's not a happy road he's on and it's a dangerous one and so I
can't not warn him of that danger even if it means I got to talk bad about my
own son. And it's got me to thinking on
Andy and his ways. Oh, I don't mean him
being queer. Good lord, in comparison
to all the other stuff a old woman's been through that's a no thinker. Can't now even remember the time when it
would shock me to hear such a thing as a man wanting to marry another man. Funny.
No, I mean his meanness is so peculiar. I keep thinking that the size of his meanness is so much bigger
than it should be. Would be in any ole
normal person. It's so big that, well,
someone's going to get hurt real bad someday and I don't know who it is I worry
for the most. The other person or
Andy. (pause) I guess I gotta say
that to be truthful I think on the other person more. They ain't gonna deserve what he just might do to them no matter
what.
(indicating her scar) I
never did deserve this but Mack, Andy's father, always thought I did and much
worse to hear him tell it. It's always
a sad thing to me when a person loves someone who just isn't worth it. I divorced
him, Mack, back in ‘61 and there was never a happier day. He married again and he beat her worse than
he did me. She died as a matter of fact
and I hear that he killed her with a beating but they never did do nothing to
him. That was always my biggest
fear. That he'd kill me and get away
with it. And if the truth must be told,
in the back of my mind, I always thought he'd come back to finish me off. He promised to. I worry for Jonny.
Andrew's got his a father's ways.
(Lights fade to black.
End of Act One.)
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