Making an Effort

I got into a bit of a heated debate with a dear friend the other day because I insisted that he was too attached to his iPhone.  His argument was that I was envious of his instant connection to the outside world, and that I would do better to enter into a more stable relationship with technological devices, instead of shunning them. 

An endless debate no doubt.  Yet here I am.  Making an Effort.  

So...

Myself:  

Amanda Dorothy Weir
Playwright, Theatre Artist, Educator

What more is there to say?  What more is there to know?

Except, have patience with me as I navigate this form of communication, new to me, old to so many.

Here is an excerpt from my play Unfamiliar Comfort(s) which received a production at Here Arts Center's Living Room Series in August of 2006 in NYC. 

Scene 9

(Lights up on Tramp 1 and Tramp 2 on a street corner.)

Tramp 1

Subsequently I don’t see the importance of all this bullshit.

Tramp 2

What do you mean?

Tramp 1

Everything and nothing all together, all together bullshit.

Tramp 2

Could you be a little more specific?

Tramp 1

Like burning an American Flag.

Tramp 2

Excuse me?

Tramp 1

They make the flags these days out of some polyester, synthetic, non-burning material. Try as you might, you can’t burn it, might melt, but not burn.

Tramp 2

So?

Tramp 1

So what if you need to burn it, break the law, there’s just no other way to express, burn the flag. The good old red, white and blue. How you going to do it? It won’t burn, just melts. I’ll tell you what you’re gonna do, your gonna have to climb up in your grandmother’s dusty, moth ridden attic and search through all the boxes of discarded, hidden away nostalgia until you find the flag they put over your uncles coffin, the flag that the good ole U.S. government gave him for dying in the World War Vietnam. A flag for a life, is that the way it goes? That flag will be made out of Virginia cotton, American made and hand stitched in the Philippines by a child in a sweatshop with only three fingers. Only three cause he lost the rest, working in an ammunition factory making cell phones for the president of Chickin Lickin Good finger sandwiches. He was only seven.

Tramp 2

Only seven sandwiches?

Tramp 1

Only seven when he made the sandwiches that lost him his fingers in that ammunition cell phone factory, made in the USA that is, all because the flag won’t burn, melting flags is all we got, big old melting pot of racist, bigots, and open-minded environmental liberals driving SUVs to work everyday.

Tramp 2

Work? I thought this was about flags?

Tramp 1

That’s right working flags, that’s what they are.  Flags going to work in their SUV’s, working are Sturbuckian, Greasy Macs and the WalK Mart that was just built over on highway I Don’t Give A Damn, just as long as those red neck Indians don’t get a say and we’ve got enough guts to go and steel their oil and kill off the ones who are screaming for peace. Cause that just won’t do, god damn hippies, with their peace and their pot, big pot of liberal junkies from Texas, can’t trust a damn one of them, always trying to make my money, and spend it on starving children in East Who Cares Anyway, I’ll show em who’s starving, Me! I’m starving. Can’t you see I’m skin and bones, melting away, yes I’m melting, I’m melting just like that wicked witch American Flag.

Tramp 2

Are you okay?

Tramp 1

Don’t touch me, just let me melt, melt away and leave my bones where they lie. Next to the broken cell phone with a thousand unused minutes, and the pool of red, white and blue synthetic, bubbling goop.

(During this last part of the monologue, Tramp 1 proceeds to melt as though acting out the death scene of the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz. Tramp 2 is left to pick up the scrap of the melted flag that lies on the ground and pound the keys of the broken cell phone.)

Tramp 2

(Yelling into the cell phone)

Help, my friend, she she’s melted, I think the government killed her. (Long pause) No I don’t want a cookie.

(Lights down on the tramps and their street corner.)

 If you are in the Providence Area.  Check out new works by the Brown MFA Playwrights.  

This Festival Runs through Feb. 13th.  Do yourself a favor and go and see some good theatre.  

(Yeah, it does exist.)

 Writing is Live Festival Brown University

So There was my effort.  However minimal.  More to come.