excerpts from
Props
from
The Best American Short Plays 2005–2006
[Lights fade up on ANDREW sitting in a chair directly across from KERRI. Her back is to the audience. He appears to be putting makeup on her.]
ANDREW I’m not sure why I talk to you. I think maybe it’s because I feel safe with you. At home somehow. I’m not sure what I’m going to do about all of this. There is no clear-cut answer to this sort of thing. I mean, how do you let go of something that you know is bad for you but has been your life? How is it that you can ignore it when someone says things to you that really hurt? How can you just accept that pain and hope things will change?
[Laughs.]
Why am I asking you all these questions? It’s not like you can answer.
[Looks at his watch.]
It’s three o’clock in the morning and I’m still working. Well, I guess that’s the price one pays for perfection, right? Shit, I need some sleep.
[Moves over to her and puts his hands on her shoulders. She slumps over against his chest.]
Whoa. Don’t get fresh now.
[As he props her up, it now becomes clear to those watching that KERRI is a puppet.]
Why would anybody ever ask someone to create a replica of another human being, huh? When I signed on for this job, I thought they just wanted a mannequin, but no. They asked me for the most life-like prop I could make and that my dear is how you were born. God, I’m tired. Who talks to inanimate objects in the middle of the night?
[Puts up his hand with a slight giggle.]
Guilty. Seriously, though, I really must be going. Thanks again for listening to my woes and soon enough you’ll be ready to go onstage and you won’t have to listen to my boring stories anymore.
[Pause.]
Wow. This is really sad. I almost looked at you as a real person there for a minute. I guess it’s because I talk to you. Maybe I need help. Oh, I don’t know.
[Sits back down.]
Or maybe I’m just looking for an excuse not to go home to an empty bed. That’s so terrible. I shouldn’t try to stay at work all night, just because I can’t face being alone. I’m such a loser.
[Laughs.]
That would be why I’m still in the woodshop at this time of morning. Oh well. Good night, Kerri. You debut in a few days.
[ANDREW sits in the chair looking at his creation. His eyes grow heavy until he falls asleep.]
[Slow fade down.]
• • • •
ANDREW SHUT UP, SUSAN! I am not a failed experiment. I was able to create all of this myself? I don’t consider that failure. As long as I can remember I have wanted to do things for others. Help others! Maybe it’s part of this programming you’ve been describing or maybe it’s something else, but I have never once thought about myself. I have had this constant need to make sure someone else was happy. Namely, you Susan. I made you happy and I refuse to believe that I didn’t. There’s a difference between my love and yours. You wanted to make something for yourself that would serve only you and then toss it aside when you were done. That’s not love, that’s greed. You created the piece but had no respect for the piece itself! I am the artist. I have respect for the entire process, including the raw material and whatever I create . . . I accept. If you don’t respect your work, it will turn on you. When you sculpt clay on a wheel, if you push too hard, the entire thing folds and you have to start over. Is it the clay’s fault? Or is it that the artist didn’t understand how delicate it was? Was it that the artist had no respect for the clay and tried to make it do something it didn’t want to do? I clung to you for so long, because I thought you would eventually come to respect me and that one day you would be an artist instead of a goddamn carpenter. I am your day, but it is not my fault that this fell apart, it’s yours. You’ve never, ever been able to admit that YOU ARE WRONG! THIS IS WRONG! I DO NOT NEED YOU TO EXIST! EXIST! I EXIST! And I am no longer yours. You say you made me? You say you created me? You’re my fairy godmother? You put the pieces together and left! You just expected the pieces, this fucking prop, to find love and being real on his own. And I’ve finally found love and it is in the things I create. It is not with the person who I was never good enough for! I am the best day, and you are a lousy artist! I don’t need to replace you because, because I will not become you. I love myself and there is nothing you can do about it. You can light the match again! You can destroy everything in this shop including me and I will still exist. There is nothing that says that you are not a construct of my mind. There’s nothing that says that you are not the failed experiment. That my love, no matter how good it was, could ever make you real. It’s over, Susan, and whether you want to accept this or not, I EXIST!
• • • •
ANDREW Love? Love! Susan, I thought that’s what I had, what I felt, but I don’t know what’s happening to me. I mean, do we connect? Am I worth anything to you? Or is this another one of your famous silent moments? The time when you hold back so you won’t hurt me? Well, it hurts more when you don’t say anything! When you leave me alone with the silence and my own mind. Don’t give me time to think, Susan. I’m begging you! The worst thing in the world is to give me time to think. I would never do this to you! I would at least try to talk. Can’t you at least try? Please? God. . . . Fine. Don’t say anything. You know exactly what you said to me and why I’m so hurt and you know exactly why I left you. You can’t say it for yourself, and you know what? That gives me hope. It means that maybe somewhere you have some semblance of a conscience about all of this. I miss you more than I can stand, Susan. I wake up in the morning and bury my head in the pillow until I can stop coughing up tears and face the day. I walk through the streets looking at every girl who looks even remotely like you. I taste your kisses in the food I eat, but I cannot get beyond what you’ve done. You screwed up! Not me! You can’t admit to it but you screwed up! It tears at every waking moment I spend on this earth but I need to rip you out of my life. As messed up as that is I WILL NOT PLAY THIS FUCKING ROLE ANYMORE! I do not belong to you! I’m learning what it’s like to stop loving you. And until you can admit to what you’ve done, you do not belong in this shop or in my life.