The Vine: April 7, 2010
Dear Sars,
Here’s another mystery for you and the Nation. I’m racking my brain trying to remember the title of a play that I read maybe ten or so years ago. I don’t remember the playwright’s name, either.
It’s a very short play — just one scene, if memory serves. The only characters are two women, who are eating in a diner; I think they’re best friends.
One of the women starts telling the other that she’s not happy in her marriage. She’s considered having an affair, but doesn’t feel right about cheating on her husband. So she proposes to her friend that instead, they should have an affair with each other. I remember a line like, “We’re both women, so that wouldn’t be cheating. It would be experimenting.”
I’m not certain, but I think it turned out that the friend had been in love with her all along, too.
I know that isn’t much to go on, but like I said, it’s a really short scene. I’m sure it was part of an anthology of short plays. I know I read it in a book (as opposed to a loose script), if that helps.
Any help would be hugely appreciated! I’ve Googled this every way I can think of. I’d really like to read this one again…it made quite the impression on my 16-year-old self.
Jessica
*****
I have a question that I am hoping either you or the rest of the Nation can help me with.Back when I was in junior high, my English class read and analyzed a poem that I remember loving but now cannot come up with the name of.
What I remember is this — it is written as a monologue in the voice of the lord of the manor who is giving someone (a writer? a friend?) to tour of his house.He is describing, for his companion, a picture that was painted of his lovely wife (whom I think was younger and blond?) in great detail, while also giving clues that he may have killed her out of jealousy. We never hear from the guest and, I think, the poem ends with the speaker inviting him to tour the grounds with him.
I would love to re-read the poem, and maybe even more by the same author, but I am not even sure how to start looking for it.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
K
*****
Hello!
I was in a contemporary one-act play in 1973 which I think was called Superman, or had the word “superman” in it. I cannot remember the author.
There were two characters — Superman and a woman. During the scene she slowly took away his power by the way she talked to him, until he was crushed.
Does this ring a bell with anyone?
Luna
Tags: Ask The Readers popcult
The poem sounds like “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning (which I clearly remember studying in junior high as well!): http://www.poetry-online.org/browning_robert_my_last_duchess.htm
I believe the poem is Robert Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porphyria%27s_Lover
Or perhaps Browning’s “My Last Duchess.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Last_Duchess
(That’ll teach me to hit “submit” so quickly!)
The poem is My Last Duchess by Robert Browning. You can read it here- http://tiny.cc/mjiqb
K —
I’m sure I won’t be the first to post this, but it’s “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning. The kicker is that the person to whom the narrator is speaking is the father/guardian of the young woman who will be the Duke’s next wife. Creepy.
But what is the play?? It sounds like an update or reworking of a Chekov one act with two women, one of whom does all the talking and the other merely reacts in various silent ways, and it’s slowly revealed that the silent woman is having an affair with the chattering woman’s husband.
Well, okay, it’s really not like that at all, but it made me think of that. Thank God I spent all that money on my BS in theater…
…And the one-act play “Superman” is by Jules Feiffer (I think he adapted it from one of his cartoons). You can find it through Dramatist’s Play Service in a book of one-acts called “Feiffer’s People”. Yay theatre!
I thought the play was going to be one I read in my mom’s Norton Anthology when she’d gone to college, but in that one, the woman realizes her friend (or sister?) is having an affair with her husband. If anyone knows the name of that, I’d be appreciative. The other character has no lines.
For Jessica: I remember that play too. I read it in college in 2004 or 2005, so it was published before then.
I don’t remember the name or author, but it was either in one of the “Women Playwrights: The Best Plays of ((Year))” volumes or it was in an Eric Lane edited anthology, probably in Take Ten or Take Ten 2, since I just looked in the Plays for Actresses volumes and it wasn’t there.
Thank you, everyone! That is _definitely_ the poem! And still just as good as I remembered it.
-K
Luna, I think you’re looking for “Superman” by Jules Feiffer. Looks like it’s in a compilation available on Amazon:
http://bit.ly/aRiNBJ
Ooooh – Using Beth’s info, I think I found Jessica’s play: Anything for You by Cathy Celesia in Take Ten: New Ten Minute Plays. Plot Blurb from Small-Cast One-Act Guide website: Two longtime friends meet in a cafe for lunch. Lynette reveals her hidden desires to Gail. She proposes an affair, with each other. Gail is put in an awkward situation as it is revealed that she has secretly always been in love with Lynette. Here’s the link to the page where I found the info: http://tinyurl.com/ydfhkps
It’s definitely Anything for You. A classmate of mine directed it when I was in college.
To Jessica: It’s not Roman Fever, is it? In Roman Fever there is nothing about one woman telling the other to have an affair with her husband, but (maybe you are remembering it differently?) there is this revelation at the end that that friend HAD an affair with her husband long ago, before he got married.
Yep, I third Anything for You–a close friend of mine performed the scene in college as well and I recognize the characters’ names. She played Gail, not that it matters. :)
Thank you! You guys are awesome!
@ Elisa – I thought “Roman Fever” too at first, except of course in that story the women didn’t have an affair (or want to have one – it was obvious how much they disliked each other).
These all sound so interesting! I’ve got new things to look up & read now.
Yes! It is definitely “Anything For You.” Thanks, everyone—you guys rock!
Jessica – OMG, I directed that play for a class in college! Bkwrm7 is correct. “Anything for You” from the first Take Ten anthology.
(Tragically, one of my coworkers absconded with my copy several years ago. It had all my notes in it! I want it back!)
@ Whitney,
you’re right. I think in the poem, the lord of the manor sort of says something like “I’m saying this with all my best intentions, I just want you to know what I expect from your daughter”. I remember analyzing the poem for a college level english class, and we sort of all agreed that the narrator was probably the sort of man who’d wed a woman who could be young enough to pass for his granddaughter, and would then become enraged when she dared look at men her own age.
@ Jen S (and maybe Alana too?)
I think you’re actually thinking of August Strindberg’s The Stronger.
It can be read in English here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/8499/8499-h/8499-h.htm#2H_4_0009
As an unabashed Robert Browning fan, may I recommend for your further reading “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister,” http://tinyurl.com/y2ngmf8, where one monk can’t stand goody-goody Brother Lawrence and plots his downfall. Find an annotated version to get just how eeeevil the narrator is….
Cat_slave, yup, that’s the one! Our theater class had run Miss Julie into the ground and two classmates of mine performed this for a final. Ahh, Strindberg, so relaxing.