THE TABLE OF INCONTINENCE --A Dark Comedy in One Act and Two Scenes

SETTING: The event room in a library in New Orleans, Louisiana during Mardi Gras. (2010) The room is bare except for a long wide oaken table with folding chairs and a small pantry  built  into right wall. This is the room where seven elderly (70s to 90s) ladies and a teaching instructor, Ruth, meet once a month for a course in Creative Writing. All seven ladies reside at the Pleasant Acres Rest Home.They cannot control their bladders and must wear special absorbent underwear (or adult diapers). This condition becomes apparent in certain trying psychological circumstances when a lady needs to express self-pity, by referring to her medical condition, but in no way constitutes a major element of the play. The word incontinence (involuntary control of urination) in the title not only denotes the main characters urological condition and the table they occupy, but is a pun--in this farce ostensibly about reading and writing literature--on the literary term, Table of Contents.    
     
     
SCENE ONE    
     
The ladies have arrived and are thumbing through their notebooks and syllabus while trying to get comfortable in their chairs.    
     
RUTH: (seated at head of the table) Pencils sharpened and talent at the ready? Diapers Secure?    
     
(the ladies consult each other and nod at Ruth)    
     
RUTH: O.K. Shall we begin? As you probably know, the American writer, William Faulkner, is considered a regional writer. That is to say a Southern writer.      
     
LAUREL: (to Joyce across from her) Joyce, when you and your husband were traveling around the world, did you ever visit Khartoum?    
     
RUTH::(reprimanding) Laurel!    
     
JOYCE: (ignoring Ruth) No we didn't. I don't think we did. No we didn't.    
     
RUTH: Ladies, please!    
     
RUTH: Today we are going to concentrate on the symbols in Faulkner's novel The Sound and the Fury. Please turn to page 18 in your syllabus.    
     
DORIS: ( to Vera sitting beside her)Vera, did you and Frank travel a lot?      
     
VERA: Frank was a sick fuck. In and out of jail. In and out of mental hospitals. But I wasn't going to start over. Not at my age. No prospects. Besides I didn't want any. Men are too much trouble.    
     
RUTH:  (nearing the end of her ropes) Ladies please open your syllabus to page 18.    
     
VERA: No, to answer your question Dora, we did not travel---anywhere.    
     
RUTH: ( raising her voice in barely controlled frustration) Future Jane Austens this is not a social gathering !    
     
SISSIE: Like hell it isn't! I think we only come here to get out of our stuffy boring rooms in that prison called Pleasant Acres Rest Home.    
     
JOYCE: It's not that  bad, except when that sleek white station wagon pulls up outside and we hear the two men marching down the hall again to gather up one of our friends who decided to take an eternal nap.    
     
(noise off of Mardi Gras horns and merriment)    
     
VERA: Listen to all the fun they're having. We should have cancelled today.  Who wants to stay cooped up when Mardi Gras is in full swing?    
     
BELLA: I agree with Vera.    
     
RUTH: ( rising throwing down her pencil onto the table,  starts to leave ) I've had it!      
     
GLADYS: ( rising) Wait ! Literature is more important than life! Oh god I'm flooding! All this excitement.    
     
RUTH: You know the ropes Gladys, pretend it's not happening.    
     
GLADYS: And pray there's good absorbency!.    
     
(the ladies settle down again, meek supplicants)    
     
DORIS: Ruth, did you read my poem "Ode to a Twinkie?"    
     
RUTH: Yes I did Doris. I thought it was pretty good, but needs work. There's talent there, raw undeveloped but you have potential.    
     
DORIS: That's what I was told when i was 10. I'm 91 now. How long is it going to take?    
     
RUTH: Just keep reading those writers magazines and keep revising. I've taught you girls the drill: revise revise revise rewrite rewrite rewrite.    
     
DORIS: I want to know what everybody thinks. May I read it aloud, Ruth?    
     
RUTH: Of course. Feedback is vital.    
     
DORIS:  I just happen to have it right (fishing in her bosom) here.    
     
BELLA: (mockingly) She just happens to have it right there in her ample bosom.    
     
Doris: (ignoring Bella ) Here it is: "Ode to a Twinkie"    
     
You mushy yellow hued block    
I ate you in 4th grade,  high school and      
that one year of college and ever after almost every day    
Praise be stomach gift, Soul's enthusiasm, Secret pal!    
yum yum    
     
(no reaction)    
     
DORIS: May I read it again. Maybe I wasn't loud enough.    
     
RUTH: No that was fine Doris    
.      
VERA: It seemed somewhat wordy to me.    
     
JOYCE: I couldn't really see a picture of that Twinkie she was describing.    
     
LAUREL: With a little revising maybe...    
     
DORIS: Maybe not. Maybe it's time to throw in the towel and grab a deck of cards for a rough game of solitaire to kill the lonely hours.    
     
Sissie: You hush up! You're too hard on yourself. You girls remember Mimi? She had to drop our group because of her massive stroke. The stroke affected her hands causing them to shake uncontrollably like you wouldn't believe. But that didn't stop her from her dream of becoming famous. I hear people are paying good money to own some of her original art.  She paints these abstract things like Jackson Pollack, you know. All because of that massive stroke causing her hands to shake and flail about uncontrollably. Even some critics are calling them masterpieces.      
     
LAUREL: She was always so odd. She wore those horrible bleached levis with  those itty bitty sequins all over them, remember?    
     
BELLA: And those cowboy boots with spurs. One day they snagged my pantyhose and I kicked her right back in the shins good and hard!    
     
SISSIE:You didn't!    
     
BELLA: Honey, I swear!    
     
VERA: Where's our coffee and donuts today?    
     
 RUTH: Smitty passed on. I didn't want to tell you.    
     
GLADYS: What??? Not old immortal Smitty! How? When? Where?    
     
RUTH: I don't have the full details, but  it was last week.  All I know they said it was congestive heart failure brought on by an overdose of Viagra.    
     
VERA: What's Viagra?    
     
DORIS: A pesticide for lawns, I think.    
     
SISSIE: No, no, no, dopey! A sex pill for men It makes them virile.    
     
JOYCE: Who's taking his place?      
     
RUTH: No one not yet. I bought a baker's dozen at Dunkins. They're under the table and some coffee paks.  We can heat water in the pantry.    
     
GLADYS: Smitty! I can't believe it!    
     
LAUREL:  I remember how he used to shine his coffee cart up till it shined like the sun on Easter morning.    
     
JOYCE: Beautiful description. What a way you have with words, Laurel. Don't you dare stop writing.    
     
LAUREL: That's my problem, Joyce. I can't stop writing!    
     
JOYCE: I remember how on our birthdays he'd break out in song and sing so nice and close up to the birthday girl.    
     
LAUREL: He had a good voice too.    
     
VERA: I'll say.    
     
SISSIE: Especially when he got into his Jolson schtick, is that what they call it? When he danced and sang just like Al Jolson. So thrilling. The gates of Heaven opened for me every time I heard him break out with "Swanee."  
     
RUTH: Yes, a real card he was.I'll miss him.    
     
GLADYS: He was married, right?    
     
VERA: To the same woman for 45 years till the big C caught up with her ovaries and she died one day in the arms of her gynecologist.    
     
BELLA: oooooooo! Gonna have to steal that for my next romantic novel.      
     
GLADYS: (dreamily) Smitty is going to have a  full-fledged  biography and I'm going to be his biographer!    
     
VERA: Bella was especially smitten by Smitty.    
     
BELLA: Are you out of your mind? I thought he was a snobbish,sycophantic,two-faced...    
     
VERA: There have been rumors ...    
     
BELLA: Rumors? He kissed me once, on Mardi Gras, on the cheek, that's all. Get real!    
     
JOYCE: I think Sissie had a thing too.    
     
SISSIE: I admit it. Who wasn't under his spell?    
     
GLADYS: He loved Mardi Gras,put on his clown face, marched in the parade every year. He looked a clown prince.    
     
JOYCE: One time he was an elephant.    
     
BELLA: I don't remember that. A cat once. I hated his crazy "Meows! Meows!". He thought he was funny. Just plain pathetic that's what he was.    
    
SISSIE:  He's probably not dead at all. Probably in the Bahamas having the time of his life carousing, drinking, dancing, everything.      
     
RUTH:  Everybody join hands and lets say a silent prayer for Smitty.    
(they join hands bow their heads)    
     
( the ladies end their silent prayer)    
     
RUTH:  O.K. We'll take a short break now,  you can grief counsel among yourselves. Help yourselves to some donuts. I'll fix the coffee.    
     
SISSIE: This is Mardi Gras for God's sake! And I'm going to join in. See you guys later. Toodle-oo (she merrily exits the street door leading outside)    
     
(the rest of the ladies start exiting through the main door leading into the center of the library)    
     
JOYCE: (to Vera) Have you got some cigarettes on you?    
     
(Vera nods yes, pulling Joyce to her as they exit together)    
     
BLACKOUT    
     
end of scene one    
     
     
Copyright by Ronald Jones (alias candycrier)  2010/2016