36 Rumson Road premiered at Home for Contemporary Theatre and Art in New York City as part of their Midnight Madness Festival in 1991. It was directed by the author with the following cast:
| JONI | Michael Houston | |
| SONIA | Jeanne Dorsey |
JONI GRILLO and SONIA DINUNZIO, two middle-aged Realtors with great outfits, sit at a local bar drinking very sweet whiskey sours.
SONIA: So be it fate …
JONI: You’re not looking good.
SONIA: There’s nothing I can do.
JONI: What is it?
SONIA: 36 Rumson Road.
JONI: What?
SONIA: The house won’t sell.
JONI: I thought you sold it.
SONIA: I can’t sell it.
JONI: It’s written all over your face.
SONIA: It’s a lovely house. A gorgeous house. I can’t sell it. For love or money. I can’t sell it. I don’t know what it is. I tell you the leak coming from the garage is very minor. It’s a terrible thing you know. I put my heart into the place.
SONIA: I do. It’s a beautiful house.
JONI: But you can’t sell it.
SONIA: I don’t get it.
JONI: Sonia, you’re so stuck on this house it’s terrible.
SONIA: I love the house. I love the house.
JONI: The house is great. Why doesn’t it sell?
SONIA: She tells me the kitchen. The kitchen needs redoing. What’s wrong with the kitchen? The kitchen is great. The kitchen is gorgeous in the house. They don’t like the brown tile. They don’t like the brown tile all over the house.
JONI: The house has brown tile?
SONIA: There is a lot of brown tile in the house. There are a lot of brown tones in the house. As I said, a Tudor is a darker house. The whole thing is darker in a Tudor. It can take the brown.
JONI: Of course.
SONIA: Do you want your fruit?
JONI: Lemme keep the cherry. I thought the house was listed with Marlene?
SONIA: No. No way. I got the listing. I bled for that listing.
JONI: I know you, Sonia.
SONIA: And you know what I think of that place. A showplace. I want to tell you I’ve been to hell and back just to get the whoosies to make up their minds to put it on the market. Marlene—let’s face it—is the kind of broker who wants a property to just land in her lap. You and I know it doesn’t work that way. I mean where’s the craft in that?
JONI: Sure.
SONIA: Listen—soon as I heard the Blaumsteins were relocating, I cornered the wife in the Grand Union. The frozen-food aisle. Maneuvered the skinny bitch over to the Sara Lee section and slammed her up against the frozen fudge layer cakes. She’s helpless. I’m casual. I start up a conversation. Ease her into domestic talk. Turns out she doesn’t know what to do. She’s torn. She loves the house. She’s in love with the house. She’s heartbroken about selling—but hubby’s relocating. Should she keep it on the off chance they’ll be vacationing in Monmouth? She doesn’t know. Hubby wants to sell. He’s unyielding. They’re fighting. She’s in tears. What to do. I toss a few Sara Lee crumb cakes into her cart. We share a laugh. I wanna say, “What would you like to do with the house—what would you like?” I mean she’s driving me crazy. I’d like to say, “Sell it, sell it!” but a term keeps running through my mind—a phrase—I can’t put my finger on it.
JONI: Is there a phrase such as “Stuff it up your ass”?
SONIA: Exactly. So here’s what I tell her. I take her aside. I look her square in the face. I say, “Keep the man not the house.” I say, “Keep the man.”
JONI: Beautiful.
SONIA: Keep the man.
SONIA: And boom—I get the listing.
JONI: And after all that it won’t sell.
SONIA: You know why? I’ll tell you why it doesn’t sell. You know why? The house doesn’t take a good picture. You know why? It’s got the garage in front. That’s the garage. (She demonstrates with hands.) And that’s the house. I have pictures from every angle. I paid ninety-four dollars for those pictures. Shit. I paid for what? For shit. You’re never gonna get a good shot. It’s all blocked by trees.
JONI: You see the shots Jerry got of Mystic Manor? Gorgeous.
SONIA: You know why he gets ahead? He gets good pictures. Every time. The house could be a pile of sticks and the shots come up beautiful. You see the shots he got of Winkle Circuit? Beautiful. He got the blue with the cranberry shutters. Beautiful. (SONIA is by this point overcome.)
JONI: What is it? What is it?
SONIA: What is it? I’ll tell you what it is. I can’t get a good picture. That’s it right there. I’m fucked. I’m fucked on the visuals. I’m screwed on the visuals.
JONI: Well it doesn’t help the door is beaten in when you go to show the place.
SONIA: No, no it does not. Who’s gonna buy a place with the door beaten in? They come to see a house, the door’s beaten in, they think it’s a bad neighborhood. They think vandals.
JONI: You wanna know what I think?
JONI: I think Marlene.
SONIA: I think Marlene too. It’s dog-eat-dog, Joni. I got to tell you that between her and me, it’s dog-eat-dog.
JONI: Sure.
SONIA: You know what she did to the poodle?
JONI: What poodle?
SONIA: That open house we threw? She comes, spends the entire afternoon gobbling up our cheese and with fifteen minutes to close up, finds the garage and locks a poodle in it. She imprisons this poodle in the garage—without food, without water, knowing it could be days before the house is opened up again. A teacup poodle. This big. Arthritic. She knows it’s not going to last.
JONI: Where’d she get it?
SONIA: It’s hers! The woman has no values.
JONI: She killed her own dog?
SONIA: She suffocated her poodle. Just to get me. She locked it in the garage without food or water, so it would die and stink and rot and—
JONI: The house won’t sell.
SONIA: Exactly.
JONI: It’s good you have a sense of humor.
JONI: Who doesn’t?
SONIA: Frank was telling me—the other day he says to me, “Sonia, lighten up. Sonia, you’re no fun anymore.” He says, “Let’s go to the track—blow some cash.” So we go to Monmouth. Nothing. It’s no fun. No fun. (Pause.) I wanna be somewhere. You know, Jone—I wanna be somewhere with my life. I should be on top. I got this house too much on my mind.
JONI: Frank thinks you’re no fun?
SONIA: So listen. We go to the Red Oak for a Greek salad—something light in the summertime—we go to sit down in the booth, and I happen to notice that there’s crap all over the seats. I say, “Frank, we can’t sit here, there’s dirt all over the seats.” You know what he says? Listen to this. He says, “Sonia, we’re fucking dirty people, we can sit on fucking dirty seats.”
JONI: Did you tell him to stuff it up his asshole?
SONIA: Joni, I’m a fun girl.
JONI: You sat?
SONIA: Of course. There are still good times to be had.
JONI: Absolutely.
SONIA: Now Marlene. She would not sit on those seats. For love or money. You see what I’m saying—she’s not a sport. She’s not a good time.
SONIA: No. No, not because she won’t sit on dirt. Because she won’t sit on it even as a joke—you see?
JONI: Oh sure—as a joke. As a joke I’d sit on anything.
SONIA: Exactly. That’s because you, Joni, are fun. You’re a fun person. I’m a fun person too.
JONI: You’re a very fun person. You just have this house too much on your mind.
SONIA: You know what it is? I can’t get a good picture. That’s what it is. I’m fucked on the visuals. (Pause.) Joni, you think I put on a few?
JONI: No.
SONIA: Frank thinks I put on a few.
JONI: I don’t see it.
SONIA: We bleed our guts for these houses.
JONI: We do.
SONIA: We bleed our guts for what? For what. For Marlene to come and beat the door in. For Marlene to come and leave her dead poodle in the garage to die and stink and shame me. For Marlene to come. (Pause.) It’s a shame, though. I looked at you the very first time, I said, “There’s a girl who likes to laugh, to have a good time.”
JONI: Sure.
SONIA: It’s a crying shame. Two girls who love to laugh. We bleed our guts. And you know, Joni, what the biggest crime is—you know what the real shame is? We’re not getting any younger.
(Blackout.)
END OF PLAY