Self-Help

Norm Foster

• Publisher: Playwrights Canada Press
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781770913929
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Canadian Drama
• Index: Literature

A married pair of second-rate theatre actors cast themselves as nationally renowned self-help gurus. Their lives unravel in a farce as they try to conceal a body and hold on to their falsely won fame.

ACT ONE

Scene 1

Time: Eight years ago.

Place: A dressing room at the Moonglow Dinner Theatre.

The dressing room is represented by two chairs and a make-up mirror. HAL and CINDY SAVAGE are preparing to go on for a performance. HAL sits in one chair applying make-up. CINDY is reading a book. They are both wearing bathrobes.

VOICE: (off) Mr. Savage and Mrs. Savage? Five minutes please.

HAL: Thank you!

CINDY: Thank you!

HAL: Closing night. Thank God. Five weeks on the same stage with Mitchell Quinty is like having Laurence Olivier for a dentist.

CINDY: What a steaming load of horse manure.

HAL: What?

CINDY: This book. Listen to this. (She reads.) “You’ve got to have faith in your ability to achieve worthy rewards. You can dwell in the misery of life, or you can choose to say, life is good.”

HAL: What book is that?

CINDY: Oh, some self-help book that Mitchell loaned me.

HAL: Mitchell reads self-help books? The man should be reading an acting primer. And I’ll tell you this right now. If he grabs my ass before we go on tonight, I’m going to break his nose.

CINDY: He grabs your ass?

HAL: He’s grabbed it every night for the entire run. He says it’s for luck.

CINDY: He never grabs my ass.

HAL: Yes, well, I don’t think he’s hoping to get lucky with you.

CINDY: (reading) “Focus your energies, funnel your abilities, and channel your desires.” Oh, please.

HAL: Which reminds me. Did I tell you what the director said to me on opening night? He said I didn’t seem focused. Focused? You try playing Felix Unger to a gay Oscar Madison. I dare you!

CINDY: You know, I could write this drivel.

HAL: What?

CINDY: This self-help malarkey. It’s just a bunch of generalities. It’s common sense rhetoric. Listen to this. “Do not be concerned about where you are. It’s where you are going that counts.”

HAL: Yes, well, I know where I’m going. To the nearest telephone to fire our agent for landing us in a show with Mitchell Quinty.

CINDY: Have you spoken to Ruby today?

HAL: No. She was s...