The Patient Gloria

Gina Moxley

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781786828330
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Studi di genere

Inspired by the 1965 films Three Approaches To Psychotherapy (The Gloria films), The Patient Gloria is a provocative meditation on therapy and female desire. In a political context where misogyny is the winning ticket, Gina Moxley re-examines the canon of psychotherapy with an upfront mash-up of re-enactment, lived experience and feminist punk gig. It's an experimental extravaganza. And it's therapeutic. It's very therapeutic.

Part I

SCENE 1

The set includes a therapist’s couch, chair, plants, coffee table. Cool, mid-century vibe. A chair for GLORIA and a table for mic and ashtray.

GINA is sewing at GLORIA’s table as the audience enter. LIV is draped across the couch. On clearance…

GINA: Can you see me? That any better? Can you see me now? You can? Wow. Yes. Miraculous. You should not be able to see me at all. Seriously, I’ve been fading for years and am technically invisible by now. Recently, I got on a completely empty bus, first person on it, and then a man got on at the next stop and sat on me, didn’t see me at all. That’s how invisible I am. Ancient. But you can see me. Odd. Oh. Right. Maybe it’s the shirt and tie? Huh? Ah. Or the dick? Is it this? That’s what you see, is it? Listen, it is as much a surprise to me as it is to you to find myself here making a dick. Sewing. I’m about to play three men – yeah, because I want to – so I felt I needed to get a true feeling for the apparent sense of authority and entitlement that comes with this lump of meat, of manhood. Since I’ve always been good with my hands I thought I’d make myself a nice, muscular dick to help me get into character. For some people it’s the shoes, in this case I need a bit of anatomy. This dotie dick here I made from memory, well, memories – cumulative. It’s just tights stuffed with cotton wool and some bird seed – for gravity, gravitas.

And a bit of an elbow patch from an old cardi there for the scrotum. It’s actually in danger of turning into our President Michael D. Higgins. Wuzza wuzza wuzza little Miggledy Dickeldy. I mean that with the greatest respect by the way. It is Presidential. Wow. Whoa, the heat, the power. There’s no controlling this beast. Now I get it. Now I understand corruption, porn, cycling. Only kidding. Snowballs. Lookit, women’s sexual organs are so hidden we don’t even realise ourselves what’s going on half the time. We didn’t even have a name for down there when we were growing up. But in a lie detector test it transpires that we are turned on by way way way more than we would ever otherwise admit to. Isn’t that right Liv? Sorry, this is Liv O’Donoghue by the way. Liv will be playing Gloria. Liv? LIV? Actually, she already is Gloria. Yes, I can promise you every other woman here is pulsing with rampant desire this very minute. Can you hear it?

Music – operated by GINA hitting a pedal.

Jesus, the deafening thrummmmm of unbridled, slithery carnality, of boldness, of smartness and couldn’t-give-a-fuck-ness. Can you smell it? Oh ho ho my sisters. I know what’s going on with you lot.

LIV/GLORIA comes downstage. JANE comes onto the stage.

Oh it’s getting hot in here. When we were making this show we felt a responsibility to show the infinite variety of women, we thought we needed a role model with us, like a dominatrix or an orthodontist, maybe a dog groomer. Nah, then we thought we’d represent females of different ages. So we thought about having a child in the show but you know what? Between police clearance, chaperones and my ambivalence about motherhood we thought fuck that, give us a rock ’n’ roll model instead. Yeah, so here’s the fabulous Jane Deasy. Go Jane, you be you. Do be doo. Let it out. Rip it up. Get it on.

JANE rips into ‘Shitlist’ by L7.

GINA and GLORIA dance.

AV title: ‘The Patient Gloria’.

GINA on the couch. GLORIA at her table on mic.

GLORIA: California, 1964. Love has vacated my life. I pack my three kids in the car and head west. After a lot of broken crockery – guilty – I leave my husband, marriage and the Catholic Church. I’m a single woman. Thirty. Flirty. Chain-smoking. Broke and horny. I get a job as a waitress. Working for tips. I’m in therapy with Dr Everett Shostrom. He has the idea to make some teaching films with three eminent psychotherapists for use in psychology classes in schools and colleges all over the country. He asks me to be the actual patient engaged in therapy on screen ‘before your very eyes’. The poster girl for psychotherapy! I thought, sure, Gloria, you can do this. You know this shit. Pardon my French. And I have to admit, I really liked smart men. A lot. Guilty.

The crew were really kind to me, like I was some kind of star. Heck, I was, I had to go through that three times. I’d seen the set earlier, looked so real, just like a therapist’s office. First I was meeting the very famous Dr Carl Rogers, author of On Becoming a Person. I guess that’s what I wanted, to be more me. Happy with me. Learn to live with myself. Wasn’t it? He was like the godfather of counselling. He didn’t know it yet but he would be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize years from then.

She moves away from the table and mic. Gets ready for therapy.

Is it hot in here? Alrighty then, got my problem all prepared. Ready for guidance. Solutions. Get rid of some goddamn guilt.

AV title: ‘Three Approaches to Psychotherapy’.

SCENE 2

Every time SHOSTROM speaks, GLORIA and GINA face an offstage monitor.

SHOSTROM: (Voiceover.) Psychotherapy is such a personal and private process that it is a mystery to most people who have never gone through it. The following series is a unique effort that allows us to sit in on what is ordinarily a very private therapeutic experience. An actual patient was courageous and considerate enough to allow herself to be photographed while actually engaging in therapy with three different therapists. A film like this, with three therapists distinguished by their different orientations, has never been made before. The series will be divided into three separate films. In the first film we see Dr Carl Rogers, founder of Person-Centred Therapy, interviewing Gloria.

GINA places the dick on the chest of drawers.

SHOSTROM: (Voiceover.) Now, here’s Dr Carl Rogers.

AV title: ‘...