Next script on my script shelf:
Next play in my little unalphabetized pile of Samuel French plays is Standing on My Knees – Acting Edition
Another favorite with actors because of the long great two-person scenes throughout the play – this play opened in 1982 – and it starred Pamela Reed. I’m not sure about this, but I think this was her first major part – I always wonder: What happened to her? I mean … I am sure she is still working, and someone can go do an IMDB lookup, and I’m sure she’s doing stage … but sometimes I wonder why a larger level success didn’t come to her. I think she’s kind of wonderful, I really do. And this role in Standing on my knees is one of those plum parts for an actress – Not only is it a good part, with good scenes, but the character is schizophrenic and has just been released from a mental institution! Awesome! Actors love to play crazy people.
So we have Catherine – a poet, and a schizophrenic. She hears voices. She has just been let out of the institution and she is trying to integrate back into society. She’s kind of successful as a poet – she has an agent who keeps talking to her about “when’s the new book coming out?” – or “Have you been writing again?” Catherine can barely make it through the day at this point. She comes up against people’s fears and prejudices about mental illness … Her friend Joanne wants her to bounce back … her friend Joanne also feels like Catherine has always been a little too intense, too much … Catherine plods along, taking her drugs, she starts dating someone (poor guy, he doesn’t stand a chance) – and eventually, she can’t live with the fact that the anti-psychotic drugs dull down her imagination, kill her nighttime dream-life, and seems to kill the creative process. So she goes off the drugs, starts writing again, and falls off the deep end. The voices take over. She has her creative process again, she’s able to write … but at what cost?
All the parts in this play are great.
I’ll excerpt a scene between Catherine and Alice, her agent. Alice is the one who “discovered” Catherine’s poetry and she has ushered her into literary success. Catherine is now out of the hospital for only a couple of weeks, and Alice has lunch with her, basically to ask her: “Are you ready to get back to work again?”
Alice can’t deal with mental illness … although that will become clear once you read the scene. She tries to just talk about it as though it was a normal hospital stay, and Catherine kind of can’t take it. It’s a very sad uncomfortable scene. Alice tries to make small talk, Catherine can’t put up a good front – it’s too soon, she’s still recovering … Alice makes blunder after blunder …
Oh, and just so you know … the play isn’t written in a linear way. The writing itself tries to reflect Catherine’s madness – how voices blend together, how time skips around, how transitions don’t make sense …
From Standing on My Knees – Acting Edition
[A spot fades up on Alice sitting at a table in the bare stage area with the remains of lunch and a bottle of German wine. Catherine starts to get dressed. A pause, and then Catherine and Alice both start speaking at once]
ALICE. You want some –?
CATHERINE. [overlapping] How’s business?
ALICE. What?
CATHERINE. Hm?
ALICE. [laughing] You want some more wine?
CATHERINE. No.
ALICE. Coffee?
CATHERINE. Caffeine makes you crazy.
ALICE. Oh. Dessert?
CATHERINE. No.
ALICE. This is a good place, don’t you think? German food.
CATHERINE. How’s business?
ALICE. Oh, good. The Woman’s Guide to Baseball‘s a big hit. Still understaffed, still have to type my own letters, pain in the ass. God, you look good.
CATHERINE. I feel good. All that healthy hospital food. [Catherine, dressed, goes to the table and sits]
ALICE. [after a beat] So.
CATHERINE. Hm?
ALICE. What was it like?
CATHERINE. [pauses, shrugs] You saw me.
ALICE. Yeah, Jesus, I’ll never forget it.
CATHERINE. I don’t remember a lot of it. Time flew.
ALICE. Because of the drugs? Thorazine, right?
CATHERINE. Plus a lot of vitamins. Megavitamins. “Orthomolecular Therapy.” But mostly Thorazine.
ALICE. The Thorazine make you feel like your brain’s gained fifteen pounds?
CATHERINE. It does slow everything down.
ALICE. Yeah? Can I have some? [A beat, looks away] Okay, okay. [Another beat] The hospital’s all right, isn’t it? I mean, it’s not … Cuckoo’s Nest, padded isolation chambers, sadistic nurses, a huge institutional toilet?
CATHERINE. No, it’s nice. There’s a real sense of … community.
ALICE. Yeah? The other patients interesting?
CATHERINE. Yeah.
ALICE. You miss ’em?
CATHERINE. Yeah.
ALICE. You glad to be out?
CATHERINE. No.
ALICE. [after an uncomfortable pause] Ed’s fine. Some tiny town in Iowa commissioned him to make a huge bronze football for the civic center. He quit bein’ a vegetarian, we don’t talk much. Wants to go to Mexico. Beer is better there. You’re makin’ me nervous, babe.
CATHERINE. I make everybody nervous, I know. I feel like I should be wearing a big scarlet S.
ALICE. [nervously, too loud] SchizoWoman!!
CATHERINE. Alice.
ALICE. [looks around sheepishly] Shit. [A beat] Well, I’m jealous, you know that. You get to go lock horns with evil psychiatrists, commune with the supernatural. I have to live with Ed.
CATHERINE. [laughs] God.
ALICE. I know my curiosity is morbid and you hate me for being the gringo I am. [A pause. Alice continues, not looking at Catherine] So how you coming on the book? Working on it? Thinking about it, at least?
CATHERINE. Thinking about it a lot.
ALICE. Well …
CATHERINE. But I haven’t been working on it, Alice.
ALICE. Well, why not?
CATHERINE. Alice, I’ve been very ill.
ALICE. [laughs nervously] Doesn’t that help?
CATHERINE. I can’t work on the book right now.
ALICE. You wanna write it off? I’d really rather not. That’s a lot of expensive staff time down the —
CATHERINE. Take it easy.
ALICE. [after a pause] You’ll start working on it now.
CATHERINE. No.
ALICE. Why?
CATHERINE. Alice.
ALICE. Why?
CATHERINE. I was working on the book when I … flipped.
ALICE. So? The book made you crazy? [laughs]
CATHERINE. [voice thick, looking away] I don’t …
ALICE. You gonna stop writing? That’s what you’re saying?
CATHERINE. I have to.
ALICE. [laughs again] You kidding? You’ll never — [stops, looks at her] It’s your best book. I don’t believe you’re gonna —
CATHERINE. Alice. Stop it. Just — [suddenly stands up]
ALICE. Hey. You okay?
CATHERINE. Gotta go.
ALICE. Oh shit, babe, don’t pay any attention to me, I’m fucked up. You’re fucked up, Ed’s fucked up, everybody I care about’s–
CATHERINE. I’m not fucked up. I’m sick. [short pause. Then Alice bursts into laughter. Catherine takes money from hger pocket, puts it on the table] Here. [starts to go]
ALICE. Catherine. [Catherine stops] It was gonna be your best book. The best one we ever did. It was gonna be beautiful. [Stands] Take care. [Exits
