The Fox on the Fairway by Ken Ludwig (2010)

TW: Crude Humor

SYNOPSIS

 Justin has just been hired by Quail Valley’s country club where his girlfriend works and decides it’s the perfect time to propose and Louise is ecstatic to receive Justin’s grandmother’s ring. The true plot of the play begins with Bingham and Dickie getting ready to finalize the rosters for this year’s “friendly” golf competition between the rival clubs. Dickie talks Bingham into a betting his wife’s beloved antique shop along with $200,000 while Bingham thinks he has a sure thing only to reveal that Quail Valley’s star golfer left to join Dickie’s Crouching Squirrel that morning before Bingham could realize the betrayal. Just when it seems Bingham has lost before the competition has begun, Pamela, a board member, sees Justin hitting perfect ball after perfect ball and they fix the books to have Justin represent Quail Valley in the competition. Scene Two begins with a rain delay where Justin has a 12-point lead and it’s revealed that if anything upsets him, he’ll throw the game out of misery. Of course, this insight comes from Louise just after she’s lost his grandmother’s ring down the toilet and Justin finds out only a few minutes later. He goes from being upset to forgiving Louise, but makes a small joke at her expense that she takes personally and calls off the engagement believing he doesn’t trust her. Enter, Muriel, Bingham’s wife that’s only now finding out her shop is being used as collateral. He’s able to march a despondent Justin to the green, but he breaks away just in time to hit the ball into the lake. Bingham and Pamela conspire to get Justin and Louise back together and rekindle a bit of their high school romance along the way. Nothing they do works, but Louise and Justin find their way back to each other anyway and in excitement Justin uses a gold club to hit a cardboard box, not realizing it contains Muriel’s expensive and very dense antique vase. Justin’s arm is broken and at their wit’s end Pamela and Bingham turn to Louise as a joke only to find out she quit playing golf because she kept beating Justin. She’s about to play when Dickie brings up the rules and unless Louise is kin to an existing club member, she would have to endure the year long waiting period. The foreshadowing has been grown throughout the play that Louise is adopted and Pamela has a familial birthmark in the shape of a purple flower, which of course Louise also has. Turns out Dickie got Pamela pregnant when they were in high school. Just as we think Louise is going to save the day, a heavily medicated Justin returns to fulfill his duty. He’s found the ring and struggles with Louise to take the club so he can finish the game only for the ball to be hit on accident and win the game anyway.

CHARACTERS

Justin – 25, Offbeat, Bundle of Nerves with Unruly Hair, Sweet, Anxious

Louise – 23, Knockout, Leggy, Good Natured, Little Ditzy

Bingham – Mid 40s

Pamela – 39, Beautiful, Tanned, Very Sophisticated

Dickie – Mid 40s

Muriel – Sturdy Woman

POSSIBLE MONOLOGUES

 Louise has a lot of pseudo monologues. Her first where she explains why she makes flowery monologues about what happens would probably make the most sense out of context, but it still loses a lot of what makes it funny. Her closing monologue is more of the flowery language, but I personally don’t think it holds much meaning outside the play.

 Bingham’s first monologue is also hilarious, but I don’t know how well to would hold. He’s explaining how the tournament starts and who Dickie Bell is and really laying it on thick about how much he detests the guy, just as Dickie walks in and Bingham quickly switches to a pleasant greeting. He’s got another where he’s threatening Bingham to play well in the tournament, but the better monologue is later when he’s trying to get Justin to focus and relates golf to religion.

PERSONAL THOUGHTS

 I played Louise in a community theatre production in 2014 and still have fond memories of the play. It’s a hilarious show to watch and be a part of as any farce should be and was specifically written to honor the English farce traditions that surfaced in the 1880s. If bawdy jokes and sexual innuendos aren’t your cup of tea, this is not the play for you. There are few jokes that aged poorly – one about having hearing like a Cherokee Indian and one about drunk Irishmen, but otherwise it hold up well considering the play is only a decade old.

In fact, producing this play now might be rather topical with arguments in the sports world about which women can compete in which sports competitions. Louise doesn’t volunteer to golf for Quail Valley because she thinks it’s a men’s tournament when it’s actually mixed. Bingham explains that women are allowed to play, but tend to not be able to score as well. The point is mute though because Louise never makes a clean stroke, but my take is that the argument about women’s sports should be to let women play. If they’re worried about unfair advantages there are better ways to provide equity to the players than excluding and invalidating trans women and cis women with high testosterone levels.

Rasheeda Speaking by Joel Drake Johnson (2015)

TW: Racism, Xenophobia, Gaslighting, Islamophobia, Incest Mentioned, Child Molestation Mentioned, Suicide Mentioned, Threat of Gun Violence

 

SYNOPSIS

            Moments before Jaclyn returns from a 5 day leave her boss, Dr. Williams, promotes the only other staff person to office manager with the expressed purpose of keeping tabs on Jaclyn. Dr. Williams wants to fire Jaclyn, but HR won’t let him without due cause, especially since she’s the only person of color in the office. When Jaclyn enters she’s quick to sense that she wasn’t missed since her plants are all withering and work has just been piling up on her desk. She also senses the growing tension between herself and the others, understanding that Ileen’s promotion is a superficial tactic to reinforce that the two office workers are not equal, which is only made worse since Ileen and the doctor had the morning meeting without Jaclyn. The doctor also accuses her of being late when she’s actually right on time. The New Group’s production even let’s the audience see Jaclyn waiting outside the office until it’s exactly time for her work day to begin. Not being in loop, Jaclyn was surprised when the patient Rose arrived for her appointment before the normal hours and in a fluster recited the rules and various check points that the elderly woman missed which was interpreted as rude by Ileen and Rose. Jaclyn proceeds to gaslight Ileen by rearranging things on her cluttered desk and she also openly discusses that she believes the doctor isn’t comfortable around Black people to Ileen, making her uncomfortable. Throughout the play Ileen becomes so frazzled that she brings a gun to work out of fear that Jaclyn might become violent despite no evidence that the thought had ever crossed the woman’s mind. That’s when she quits and confronts the doctor about manipulating her to get to Jaclyn. They’re talking loudly when we hear a toilet flush and it’s revealed that Jaclyn was at the office long before they arrived. She’s brought morning pastries and made the coffee and is extra kind to everyone while playing as if it’s common knowledge that Ileen was leaving the office to make room for the new hire, which was actually meant to be Jaclyn’s replacement. She even goes so far as to quietly ask if Ileen was really going to shoot her. The show ends with Rose’s third visit. The elderly woman doesn’t recognize Jaclyn with her sweet as honey façade and both the doctor and Ileen are left stupefied.

 

CHARACTERS

 

Dr. David Williams – Youngest Character, White

Ileen Van Meter – Visibly Older than Doctor, White

Jaclyn Spaulding – Middle Aged, Black

Rose Saunders – Elderly, White, Frail

 

POTENTIAL MONOLOGUES

            Jaclyn tells lots of stories an is the only character with true monologue, but most of them are telling stories about characters that never appear and tend to be prejudiced against her so called Mexican neighbors. She does have an early monologue that could work with lines from the previous dialogue added in. It’s when she’s explaining that the doctor treats her differently from Ileen, as if the presence of a Black person threatens the freedom of White people. Her truer and moist poignant monologue is about her experience taking the bus everyday. There are young White businessmen that’ve made a game out of pointing out middle aged Black women on their way to work – women they have dubbed Rasheeda as a generic name. When Jaclyn gets off the bus she hears them call her Rasheeda number five.

 

PERSONAL THOUGHTS

            This is my second time reading this play and still I’m left undecided on how I feel about it. While Jaclyn’s character comes off as sympathetic in the end, there’s several things that make her easy to dislike. In The New Group’s production she’s decidedly rude to Rose when she doesn’t check in at the proper table. When I read the text it seems more ambiguous to me, as if Jaclyn has gotten in trouble for letting patients do things out of order before and she was simply trying to do her job as instructed after starting her work day with a rude awakening. She then proceeds to tell Ileen about the Mexican family next door and how they don’t always speak “Mexican” but the 14-12 year old daughter was pregnant by the 25 year old cousin and eventually hangs herself in a very matter-of-fact manner the way I interpret the text. One of her complaints about the men calling her Rasheeda is that it’s a Muslim name and those people set off like bombs. While the doctor and Rose are clearly racist, Jaclyn is also undoubtedly bigoted herself. It’s not a cut and dry story about mean White people plotting to fire a dutiful Black woman that they’d otherwise get along with if it weren’t for race. It’s obvious Jaclyn’s being plotted against, but the text doesn’t exactly make us want to cheer for her either.

            Then there’s Ileen’s character. In my second read though, I found myself questioning who’s narrative we were supposed to be following. Ileen is demure but polite until the end of the play and even then she’s just doing what her husband and sons are demanding of her. She points out herself to the doctor that firing Jaclyn would come off as racist, but denies anything against the doctor when Jaclyn asks. Jaclyn does gaslight Ileen about moving stuff on her desk, while at the same time having told her she was going to do it before ever touching anything. Jaclyn is clearly the more organized of the two, a skill you’d want in an office manager. Ileen plays neutral as much as she possibly can but while Jaclyn propels the action of the play, it’s Ileen that’s in every scene as we watch her grow more and more nervous around Jaclyn and Ileen is the one that brings us into our climax by bringing in a gun, though it’s never seen. Ultimately it’s Ileen that loses. The doctor and Jaclyn both keep their jobs while Ileen quits.

            The play doesn’t feel like one that’s making a statement, or at least not one that I agree with. Are we supposed to be happy that Jaclyn keeps her job at the cost of her personality? At the end when Rose asks her about the rude Black lady Jaclyn just says they had to let her go, she was too angry. As a Black person, being forced to code switch to that extreme to keep your job is a very bitter ending even though it’s framed as her pulling a fast one on the system. It’s not. She bends over backwards to appease every potential need of the White people around her when it would have been more powerful for her to coerce Ileen and Dr. Williams into writing her glowing recommendations to a better job with coworkers that weren’t afraid of her. This play is a tragedy whether you focus your attention on Jaclyn or Ileen, but I can’t be made to pity someone that was talked into racism.

 

 

 

Five Women Wearing the Same Dress by Alan Ball (1993)

TW: Abortion Mention, Child Molestation Mention, Marijuana Smoking, Cocaine, Homophobic Slurs

 

SYNOPSIS:

                None of Tracy’s bridesmaids want much to do with the wedding and now that they’re in the reception phase the women have retreated upstairs to Meredith’s (Tracy’s younger sister’s) room. Frances, the religious cousin, is the only one of the bridesmaids that idolizes Tracy. Meredith grew up in Tracy’s shadow and her admiration soured into rebellion. Trisha was close with Tracy when they were kids and Trisha was a bad influence, but grew distant after graduation. In fact, in college Georgeanne had a breakdown caused by the stress of going through an abortion by herself because the would-be father was Tracy’s current boyfriend and taking her to a frat party that day. The last of the bridesmaid’s is Mindy, the groom’s older sister, who also happens to be an out and proud lesbian. Act I ends with the girls realizing that none of them are actually friends with Tracy, let a lone close. In Act II the girls get closer with each other and share more about their regrets in life while also calling each other out on their hypocrisy. Frances arranges a date with a bartender and even has a taste of champagne which she believes is sinful despite being 21. The drama of Meredith refusing to acknowledge that she was molested as a child, Mindy’s angst about her lesbianism being weaponized against her, and Trisha’s avoidance of any kind of commitment are acknowledged, but not unpacked. The play ends with Tripp taking a photo of the five bridesmaids taking a moment to be their authentic selves.

 

CHARACTERS:

Frances – 21, Implied to be White, Sweet Faced

Meredith – 22, White, Athletic, Freckled Shoulders

Trisha – Early 30s, Strikingly Glamorous

Georgeanne – Early 30s

Mindy – Mid-Late 30s, White, Attractive, Slender

Tripp – Late 20s, Charming, Not Overly Handsome, Definitely Sexy

 

POTENTIAL MONOLOGUES:

                The first true monologue belongs to Georgeanne where she explains why seeing Tommy Valentine is so triggering to her and could easily be combined with two subsequent lines to make a 2-minute monologue or so. The original text contains profanity, but the monologue works with or without it.

                Mindy has lines about not wanting to ruin another on of her brother’s big moments, but the monologue doesn’t hold up outside of context since the funny thing about it is that she’s talking about trivial nonsense while the other girls were talking about whether or not Georgeanne should get divorced. She’s got a better one in the second act about beauty pageants and how contestants are the same as drag queens, but it’s stretched over a few lines. She’s got another one about the high crime of the beauty industry that works well between two lines and one stolen from Georgeanne. Mindy’s last monologue is self righteous fury at how she’s been treated throughout the wedding process, but ends with her afraid she’s going to throw up. It’s doable though.

                Frances has her own monologue when Tracy is considering in vitro
, but it’s very fire and brimstone despite her never actually saying that the other characters are going to hell. Think Fox News. After the monologue Tracy essentially calls Frances a hypocrite for demanding her religion be respected while not respecting that the others aren’t religious and Frances nearly starts crying when she’s told that they either needed to agree to see each other as equals or Frances could leave.

                 The only thing like a monologue for Meredith is her recounting her crush on Tommy Valentine and how he came into her room when she was twelve or thirteen. Personally I can’t think of an audition that would call for this particular type of material since most of them dealing with this subject matter would provide their own excerpts.

 

PERSONAL THOUGHTS:

                This play is pro LGBT+, but it’s dated. The homophobic slurs mentioned seem to be used less like slurs and more like the characters not knowing better words to use. “Dyke” is still being debated in 2021 whether it’s a slur or has been reclaimed as well as “queer” which in this case is being used as a form of being, not a descriptor. “F*g” to my knowledge is about as accepted in the queer community as the N word is among Black people, meaning it changes from person to person in the community but is generally seen as an insult when used by anyone outside of it. Still, those are how I perceive those words in 2021 as a member of those communities, and I’m not as well versed in queer history to definitively say how these words would have been perceived in 1993.

                I say all that to say that I read this play waiting for Meredith to come out of the closet, which she doesn’t but there’s a moment when she’s talking about her childhood trauma and she snaps at Mindy when she offers to get Meredith in contact with some of her friends. Mindy is talking about therapists, but it feels like Meredith is implying she doesn’t need help from the queer community and just after that Mindy launches into her rant about predatory lesbians. Regardless, I very much still enjoyed the play and would be interested in what it would look like if Alan Ball ever decided to modernize it. I’m just a big fan of comedies that deal with dramatic material.