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Meet Again was a finalist in the Sonoma County Repertory SCRipts Festival and the New Dramatists L. Arnold Weissberger Award. It has had staged readings at The Playwrights’ Center Hothouse Festival, Minneapolis, MN; Golden Squirrel Theatre, New York, NY; and Misfits Ensemble, Los Angeles. |
MEET AGAINA romantic comedy that takes a playful, sexy look at reincarnation. Six characters fall in love with unexpected people in unexpected lives. Beneath the confusions, the play asks what are our boundaries, what are our identities, sexual and otherwise, and what are we here for, after all, whether we're here once or many times? 3m, 3f. Minimal set. 2 hrs.
"Insightful and delightfully wacky," Jason Fogelson, New York Shakespeare Festival. SCENE 1 (TAYLOR sits, cross-legged, hands on knees, palms up, eyes closed, in a shaft of light. Lights come up to define a larger area, as the shaft of light remains unchanged. JOANNA bursts in.) JOANNA We’re late! (The shaft of light vanishes. TAYLOR doesn't move.) Are you still meditating? (He opens one eye.) You've been in here for hours. (He opens the other eye.) Where do you go? TAYLOR Beyond space and time. (He closes his eyes, tries to meditate.) JOANNA Sometimes I’m afraid I'll come in and you'll have changed—gotten thin, or bald...or turned into a wolf.... TAYLOR That was when I was doing shamanic traveling, a couple of years ago. When I turned into animals. JOANNA When those people came over and you beat drums and the police came? TAYLOR The shaman flies on the drum to other worlds. JOANNA Do you get frequent flier coupons? TAYLOR Yes. JOANNA Or all I'll find is a pile of ashes. You'll have been incinerated by your whatyoucallit. TAYLOR Kundalini. JOANNA Zap. TAYLOR It happens. JOANNA Aren't you going to change? TAYLOR Into a wolf? JOANNA We're going to the Grahams' party. (He begins to change.) What do you do in these other worlds? TAYLOR Learn things. JOANNA Geography? TAYLOR It's beyond words. JOANNA Algebra? TAYLOR Wisdom! You learn wisdom. JOANNA I miss you when you go away. TAYLOR In the realm of the mystics, we're one. JOANNA Then why don't you hear me when I call you? TAYLOR Because you're calling in this reality and not the mystics' reality! JOANNA Then give me the phone number to the mystics' reality so I can talk to you now and then! TAYLOR All you have to do is meditate! JOANNA I don't have time to meditate! TAYLOR You'll come back relaxed! JOANNA Like you? TAYLOR Yes! JOANNA I worry about you, going off...to other realities. TAYLOR It's like going on vacation. JOANNA I don't think these psychic furloughs are good for you, Taylor. You come back confused. TAYLOR That can happen. JOANNA You come back nervous. TAYLOR Only when I'm interrupted! JOANNA I don't intend to interrupt you. It's just that sometimes we need to be in the same time zone. Think of me as an air traffic controller, talking you down through the fog of transcendentalism. TAYLOR Meditation is simply paying full attention to one thing at a time. (He dresses very slowly, very methodically.) If you pay complete attention to whatever you're doing—I think it was Gurdjieff who said it—you can awake yourself from the trance that is our everyday reality. (He continues to dress with agonizing absorption. Finally she can't stand it. She grabs his tie and ties it, straightens his collar, etc.) JOANNA This is reality! TAYLOR There are many realities. JOANNA Do you eat in the other realities? Get a paycheck? Pay the bills? Do you make love in other realities? SCENE 2 (The Grahams' party. TAYLOR stands alone, glass in hand. CANDACE, a somewhat ethereal woman, snaps TAYLOR out of his reverie.) CANDACE Bored? TAYLOR I'm not sure. No, I don't think so. CANDACE Thoughtful. TAYLOR I'm afraid I was blank. CANDACE That's a very advanced state. |
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