THE HAIRY APE

by Eugene O’Neill

MILDRED
Please do not mock at my attempts to discover how the other half lives. Give me
credit for some sort of groping sincerity in that at least. I would like to help
them. I would like to be some use in the world. Is it my fault I don’t know how?
I would like to be sincere, to touch life somewhere. [With weary bitterness] But
I’m afraid I have neither the vitality nor integrity. All that was burnt out in our
stock before I was born. Grandfather’s blast furnaces, flaming to the sky, melting
steel, making millions – then father keeping those home fires burning, making
more millions – and little me at the tail end of it all. I’m a waste product in the
Bessemer process – like the millions. Or rather, I inherit the acquired trait of the
by-product, wealth, but none of the energy, none of the strength of the steel that
made it. I am sired by gold and dammed by it, as they say at the race track
– damned in more ways than one. [She laughs mirthlessly.]

1THE BOYS

by Gordon Graham

MICHELLE

All this stuff. The coroner’s report, and all the details of what happened, and
those pictures of the boys that make them look like the worst crims you ever
seen. They don’t look like that. No one looks like that. [Pause].Whatever
happened to that girl. However terrible it was. It wasn’t the boys who did it.
Whatever evidence they might think they’ve come up with. Seems like they want
to make people imagine ‘em doing it. This stupid drawing, with all the arrows
going from McDonalds to the junkyard, and the drain, and where they found the
car. Where they found the clothes. Where they found...[Pause.]That’s why those
pictures of the boys are like that. Like no one has ever looked. Because they
want people to think to themselves, ‘It’s only scum who do things like that, not
decent ordinary people like me’.
No, there’s something weird going on with all this. Like something’s gone wild,
out of control. And they think the only way they can stop it is to take everything
out on Brett and the boys. This wild thing that’s happening now, they think the
boys are it, so they want to destroy them. Like if they wipe them off the face of
the earth, life’ll go back to how it used to be.
2AFTER DINNER

by Andrew Bovell

MONIKA

Poor Martin. If only I was a little quicker. To have held him in my arms before he
went. But how was I to know? How was I meant to know he was about to die?
Men don’t have strokes when they’re thirty-eight years old. It wasn’t my fault. It
wasn’t my fault, was it? Have I told you how Martin died? We’d finished our
dinner. Martin was in the lounge room watching television and I was in the
kitchen doing the washing-up. I’d nearly finished the pots when I smelt this most
vile smell. So I put the dog outside. But the smell didn’t go away. I searched high
and low through that kitchen. Martin couldn’t stand unidentified smells. Then I
realised that the smell was coming from the lounge room. I went in, and there
was Martin sitting bolt upright in his chair with his nostrils quivering, and the
most terrible look on his face. He’d be horrified if I told you, but Martin had lost
control of his bowels. Something he normally never would have done. ‘Martin, is
everything alright?’ I said. ‘No dear’, and they were his last words. He closed his
eyes and slid off his chair. The poor man. He was such a clean person when he
was alive. So sad that he had to die in such shame. Thank God we didn’t have
any children. And God knows we tried. Still... where would I be now if I had
children? Not here, not out on the town having such a good time.

U2NCLE VANYA

by Anton Chekhov

Act 3

YELENA (alone)

It’s the worst thing in the world when someone is suffering in secret and you
can do nothing to help. (Pondering.) He doesn’t love her, that’s obvious but is
that a good reason not to marry her? She isn’t beautiful but he’s only a country
doctor and he’s not young. She’ll make a lovely wife; she’s got a good mind, she’s
thoughtful, unspoilt....No, that’s not it. She’s not...(Pause.) I understand her, poor
girl. The tedium of this place. No human beings, just grey mists hovering, the
only words you hear banalities from which you can vaguely distinguish arrivals,
departures, someone’s drinking, someone’s asleep....Then he appears, utterly
unlike everyone, beautiful, intriguing, compelling —like the moon against a dark
sky...To yield to his allure, to lose control is .... Perhaps I’ve also been swept away
— a little. Yes. I’m bored when he’s not here. And if I think of him I smile. Uncle
Vanya says Rusalka’s blood flows in my veins. ‘For once in your life, let yourself
go....’ Perhaps I will....Perhaps I’ll flyaway, free as a bird, far from you all — forget
you ever existed, any of you. But I’m a coward, I’m trapped inside myself.... My
conscience would torture me ... He comes here every day....and as soon as I think
of why, I accuse myself, I feel I should fall on my knees in front of Sonya and beg
her to forgive me, I ought to weep...2
THE LIBERTINE

by Stephen Jeffrey

Scene 12

BARRY

You have no understanding, do you? You have comprehended — just — that I

am tired of being your mistress and your solution is to conscript me into
becoming your wife. It is not being a mistress I am tired of, John. I am tired of
you. I do not wish to be your wife. I do not wish to be anyone’s wife. I wish to
continue being the creature I am. I am no Nell Gwyn, I will not give up the stage
as soon as a King or a Lord has seen me on it and, wishing me to be his and his
alone, will then pay a fortune to keep me off it. I am not the sparrow you picked
up in the roadside, my love. London walks into this theatre to see me — not
George’s play nor Mr. Betterton. They want me and they want me over and over
again. And when people desire you in such a manner, then you can envisage a
steady river of gold lapping at your doorstep, not five pound here or there for
pity or bed favours, not a noble’s ransom for holding you hostage from the thing
you love, but a lifetime of money amassed through your own endeavours. That
is riches. ‘Leave this gaudy, gilded stage’. You’re right, this stage is gilded. It is
gilded with my future earnings. And I will not trade those for a dependency on
you. I will not swap my certain glory for your undependable love.3

CRIMES OF THE HEART

by Beth Henley

MEG

Oh, Lenny, listen to me, now, everything’s all right with Doc. I mean nothing
happened. Well, actually a lot did happen, but it didn’t come to anything. Not
because of me, I’m afraid. I mean, I was out there thinking, “What will I say when
he begs me to run away with him? Will I have pity on his wife and those two half-
Yankee children? I mean, can I sacrifice their happiness for mine? Yes! Oh, yes!
Yes, I can!” But...he didn’t ask me. He didn’t even want to ask me. I could tell by
this certain look in his eyes that he didn’t even want to ask me. Why aren’t I
miserable! Why aren’t I morbid! I should be humiliated! Devastated! Maybe
these feelings are coming—I don’t know. But for now it was...just such fun. I’m
happy. I realized I could care about someone. I could want someone. And I
sang! I sang all night long! I sang right up into the trees! But not for Old
Granddaddy. None of it was to please Old Granddaddy!
T4HE SEVEN STAGES OF GRIEVING

by Wesley Enoch and Deborah Mailman

Scene 2

MURRI

Have you ever been black? You know when you wake up one morning and you’re
black? Happened to me this morning. I was in the bathroom, looking in the
mirror and I thought, “Nice hair, beautiful black skin, white shiny teeth...I’m
BLACK!” You get a lot of attention, special treatment from being black. I’m in this
expensive shop and there’s this guy next to me, nice hair, nice tie, nice suit,
waving a nice big gun in the air and the shop assistant says, “Keep an eye on the
nigger... eye on the nigger.”OK, so I went to try on a dress and the shop assistant
escorts me to the ‘special’ dressing room, the one equipped with video cameras,
warning to shop lifters, a security guard, fucken sniffer dog...‘Get out of it’. Just so
I don’t put anything I shouldn’t on my nice dress, nice hair, beautiful black skin
and white shiny teeth...Now I’m in this crowded elevator, bathed in perfume, in
my nice dress, nice hair, beautiful black skin and white shiny teeth...‘Hey which
way’.
(The Woman sniffs the air)
Somebody boodgi and they all look at me! Now I go to my deadly Datsun, looking
pretty deadly myself, which way, lock my keys in the car. Eh but this Murri too
good, she got a coat hanger in her bag! Fiddling around for a good five seconds
and started hearing sirens, look around, policeman, fireman, army, fucken UN
and that same sniffer dog. Just to make sure everything’s OK.
(Holding the audience at gunpoint)
‘Who owns the car, Ma’am?’“ME.”So I’m driving along in my deadly Datsun stylin
up to that rear vision mirror. Car breaks down. Get out. Started waving people
for help.
Started waving people for help. Vrooom!
Started waving people for help. Vrooom!
Next minute I see this black shape coming down the road — fucken sniffer dog.
Finally get home, with the help of the policeman, fireman, army, fucken UN. Still
looking deadly in my nice dress, nice hair, beautiful black skin and white shiny
teeth. Aunty comes in, “Eh Sisgirl, nice dress, can I borrow it?” ‘Mmmm’.
Thinking that tomorrow will be a better day, I go to bed. Kicking that sniffer dog
out. Still with the sound of sirens in my head. Snuggling up to my doona and
pillow. Morning comes, I wake up, looking in the mirror. Nice hair, beautiful
black skin, white shiny teeth.

I’M STILL BLACK! NUNNA!