The Angel in the Trees and Other Monologues

Dan O'Brien

• Publisher: Salamander Street Ltd.
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781913630652
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

A lapsed academic haunted by her past, and by an ambiguous angel, in the backwoods of the American South; a Midwestern widower dreams of returning to the Ireland of his youth; a heartsick cabbie auditions for his ex in a pub-theatre in Cork City; a schizophrenic grapples for freedom from the mother in his mind; three voices of the COVID-19 pandemic seek long-distance resolution and reunion. In these and other monologues, selected from over two decades of work, award-winning American playwright Dan O'Brien illuminates, in heartbreaking and unwavering fashion, the humanity of lost souls longing to be heard."Dan O'Brien is a playwright-poet who, like a mash-up of Seamus Heaney and Dashiel Hammett, puts the audience in the middle of an unfolding mystery promising both revelation and terror, and delivering an equal measure of both." Robert Schenkkan "O'Brien is an outstanding wordsmith and a sharp observer of character." Variety "emotionally gripping, psychologically astute...a bracing and absorbing piece of theater." New York Times (Critics' Pick) on The Body of an American"A masterpiece of truthfulness and feeling" The Guardian on War Reporter "utterly riveting...frequently exhilarating" The Washington Post on The Body of an American

MIDNIGHT RADIO

VOICE

Are you there?

Are you listening?

This thing on?

Listen, now; those things you’re hearing? They’re not true.

Or they might be true, you just don’t know; those things you’re hearing are just your head. Inside it.

Nowhere else.

Inside is strange; a mysterious – you have a very active mind …

What is it – tell me – you think you’re thinking?

What is it you think you’re hearing now?

What do you think is happening to you?

Who cares what I think; what do you?

You don’t know, do you … Poor boy …

You’re just a boy; you shouldn’t be up this late …

It’s a comfort to you, I know; to know there are people like you, awake this far into the night …

(Their eyeballs disappear; their eyeballs turn to glue.)

Some people are lonely, and some are sick.

That’s just how life is.

Let me tell you what’s happening:

I’m older than your father is.

One day you’ll find yourself in that small town where I am from, and you won’t even know that you’re there; that I’d been there, born there, grown up there, as they say; but you’ll feel it in your bones.

Your bones grow while you sleep, you know.

They’re meant to.

So sleep … or you’ll remain a child forever …

You’re a traveler; I know …

Let me tell you how it is:

What have you got against people?

What have you got against things?

What are you afraid of ?

Microbes, the invisible divisible.

Your hands in hot water, gloves of frothing soap; the hot water makes the soap fall off, fall away into the drain down to the pipes down to the sea, away, imagined …

You can only imagine the sea …

You’ll see the sea one day …

Have you? already?

I’m impressed.

– Where are your hands right now?

Show me:

Put them on your desk.

Your pillow, I meant.

You know what I’m saying: unlace them.

Who do you think you’re praying to?

Why?

You’ve got demons, son: that’s clear …

Inside. Your head.

Metaphorically speaking. They could be anywhere; this house, this body.

You know what that is?

A metaphor is:

True; and not true.

It is, and it’s not.

It happened; yet not really … Not yet.

It is magic.

Everything you are afraid of has already occurred.

Think about it …

Let’s consider this, then, the facts, shall we?

How many brothers and sisters do you have?

That many? That’s too many …

And which one is it that sleeps inside your room? That one over there: is he older?

He’s no good, is he? No. No use.

And how many parents?

That’s a tricky question …

We all of us have two …

(Even I know that.)

I myself have no children, you see.

I wanted to but, you see – .

I’m older than your father, like I said. Your father is a boy in men’s clothing.

I’ve had affairs – count them – of the heart; I was a free spirit ever since my youth, but mainly now I’m not.

No children that is except you. You’re mine. All mine. All who are listening now …

You understand?

You see?

Don’t you trust me implicitly?

You must not trust me implicitly. That was a trick question. Do you know who I am? from whence I speak? You imagine, I suspect, a small room in a dark building somewhere on the island of Manhattan. Not so far off.

(In the Garden there were two trees: two humans too.)

Let’s get back to you:

Something is wrong in this house, in your head; and you do not know what it is.

You know, and do not know.

That’s called metaphor.

Something in the family like a – . Like a what?

What’s that noise? There.

Now, listen:

Hear it?

Someone is moving about inside the house after you all have gone to bed, to sleep; someone is awake at this hour of the night standing up there on the attic steps, or walking down the hallway, at the door to your – no: he’s past now farther down still, down the hallway to the – someone has closed the bathroom door …

I think I know who that is …

But you tell me.

Because I know you know now too.

Look around: I’m not stupid, and neither are you. But you’re in the dark, so to speak, on certain issues. And the sooner you learn the truth, the sooner we can get on with whatever it is we’re meant to get on with.

The good work. Like this. My nighttime ministry.

You got it?

Now listen:

We’re going to take a few callers here soon, maybe, if I feel like it, but – I’m from a family myself. A big one. And for the record I know what it’s like to be small. Of the many unhappy multitudes. Which is why I dedicate my life to what I do: language is first nature. A duck to water. My mother’s tongue. It’s like I’m no body these days, anymore. Ha ha. A mouth, a brain, and some voice some people find comforting, soothing. Some do not. Others are scared of me. I don’t know why. It hurts my feelings. Some people do and others do not. It bothers me sometimes, to be so unpopular that I have to speak at night … But how else could I be here with you?

You ought to be sleeping, you know; like children …

Why?

Your bones grow while you sleep … Like I said …

What’s keeping you awake? Let Daddy help you …

It’s your brother, I know: cat’s out; the other one, who does not sleep in your room … who sleeps above your head, in the attic.

He’s the one you hear in the house. He’s very ill, you know.

No one thinks so. No one speaks it: he’s tried to murder someone. Did you know that? He threw himself out the window of his room in the attic over your head – and no one ever speaks of it. He tried to murder himself. But he’s alive.

Not a bruise! Not one broken bone!

Angels caught him as he fell … says your mother (who doesn’t like church).

The trees, caught him as he fell … The fanning branches of the snowy evergreen; the bed of snow … (You skeptic. You’re too young to believe.)

But how do you know?

But:

How do you know he fell at all?

That’s right. You heard me:

How do you know something happened at all the way you think it happened?

You weren’t there.

Remember: you’re just a boy.

You did not see him fall. – You would have liked to have seen that: it would have been a riot. It would have left you mute. A saint. It might have made birds nest in your hands. It could have made your heart implode.

What you did see … was him walking up out of the trees, out from under the evergreens where he’d fallen. He fell. The snow was on his back …

But how do you know?

(You take it on faith.)

How do you know he took his own – tried to take it … ?

You don’t: you were not there. You don’t know. So shut up.

And murder is such a shame, the condition of wanting to murder one’s own self, one’s body, your mother has impelled you to shut up; and your father has kept quiet too, even unto you.

So say nothing too.

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