Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center of New York City , livre ebook

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78 pages

English

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"I've been single for so long, I've started having sexual fantasies about my vibrator," riffs Karla for her captive, cancer-ward audience. The patients-her mother, who's recovering from surgery for ovarian cancer, and her roommate behind the curtain, aren't laughing-or even awake-but there's someone else in the room . . .In Halley Feiffer's " painfully irresistible" (The New York Times) new play, a foul-mouthed twenty-something comedian and a middle-aged man embroiled in a nasty divorce are brought together unexpectedly when their cancer-stricken mothers become roommates in the hospital. Together, this unlikely duo must negotiate some of life's biggest challenges . . . while making some of the world's most inappropriate jokes. Can these two very lost people learn to laugh through their pain and lean on each other when all they really want to do is run away? In A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center of New York City, Halley Feiffer slays in a work that's dark and disturbing and yet totally hilarious. The acclaimed world premiere at MCC Theater featured Beth Behrs, Erik Lochtefeld, Lisa Emery, and Jacqueline Sydney, and was directed by Trip Cullman.

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Publié par	ABRAMS BOOKS
Date de parution	17 juillet 2018
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781468317169
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0550€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Praise for the plays of Halley Feiffer
A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE GYNECOLOGIC ONCOLOGY UNIT AT MEMORIAL SLOAN KETTERING CANCER CENTER OF NEW YORK CITY
A daring romantic comedy Feiffer is one funny playwright.
-Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times
Funny Thing makes a convincing case that hard laughter is an absolutely appropriate response to those moments when life seems like too bad a joke not to respond otherwise an exposed nerve of a script.
-Ben Brantley, The New York Times
Feiffer s work always has guts powerful But for all the farcical, caustic humor in the piece, this lovely play really is about a coming together in the spirit of shared humanity.
-Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune
I M GONNA PRAY FOR YOU SO HARD
Viciously funny brutally effective. Feiffer takes a tough look at the forces that can bring us to our knees.
-Adam Feldman, Time Out New York
A bone-chilling punishing drama.
-Charles Isherwood, The New York Times
Blistering, blackly funny.
-Joe Dziemianowicz, New York Daily News
One minute you re laughing, the next you re cringing the play sticks in your head like a crazy nightmare.
-Elisabeth Vincentelli, New York Post
Funny, scary, and completely over the top in its own right goes straight for the jugular through the heart.
-Robert Hofler, The Wrap
Provocative, sensitive, shocking and often very unsettling polished and probing. One of the best plays I ve seen this season.
-Rex Reed, New York Observer
Exhilaratingly toxic.
-Joe McGovern, Entertainment Weekly
A hard-hearted stunner.
-Michael Schulman, The New Yorker
Halley Feiffer s ferocious, explosive dialogue in I m Gonna Pray For You So Hard is in a class of its own.
-Lee Kinney, TheEasy.com
It s a fearless piece of work, riveting and hilarious.
-Robert Feldberg, Bergen Record
HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS AND THEN KILL THEM
Ms. Feiffer is building a reputation for fearlessness.
-Neil Genzlinger, The New York Times
Thank God for the warped creative mind of playwright/actress Halley Feiffer, who harnesses the weird to full, gory effect in How to Make Friends and Then Kill Them, an uproarious and deeply unsettling new dark comedy Equally laugh-out-loud funny, jaw-droppingly gross, and thoroughly sad Feiffer s unique, refreshing voice is one to which attention should be paid.
-David Gordon, Theatermania
Disturbingly funny.
-Joe Dziemianowicz, New York Daily News
Feiffer has a commendable eye for the absurd.
-The New Yorker
A wicked comedy Feiffer is an expert comic actor with an appealingly skewed sensibility.
-Elisabeth Vincentelli, New York Post
There s great stuff here dark and weird.
-Helen Shaw, Time Out New York
HALLEY FEIFFER is a writer and actress. Plays include I m Gonna Pray For You So Hard (World Premiere Atlantic Theater Company, Outer Critics Circle Nomination), Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow (World Premiere Williamstown Theatre Festival, MCC Theater), How To Make Friends and Then Kill Them (World Premiere Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre), The Pain of My Belligerence (World Premiere Playwrights Horizons) and this play (World Premiere MCC Theater), the West Coast premiere of which she starred in at the Geffen Playhouse. Her plays have been produced around the country and in the UK. Acting credits include the Broadway revivals of The Front Page and The House of Blue Leaves (Theatre World Award) and numerous off-Broadway productions including Tigers Be Still (Roundabout, Drama League Nom.). TV film includes recurring roles on HBO s Mildred Piece and Bored to Death and the films The Squid and the Whale , Gentlemen Broncos and He s Way More Famous than You , which she also co-wrote. TV writing credits include The One Percent (Starz), Purity (Showtime), Mozart in the Jungle (Amazon) and original pilots for FX and TNT. She is a producer on the Showtime series Kidding , starring Jim Carrey.
ALSO BY HALLEY FEIFFER
How To Make Friends and Then Kill Them
I m Gonna Pray For You So Hard
Copyright
CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that performance of the Play is subject to payment of a royalty. The Play is fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America, and of all countries covered by the International Copyright Union (including the Dominion of Canada and the rest of the British Commonwealth), and of all countries covered by the Pan-American Copyright Convention, the Universal Copyright Convention, the Berne Convention, and of all countries with which the United States has reciprocal copyright relations. All rights, including without limitation professional/ amateur stage rights, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio broadcasting, television, video or sound recording. all other forms of mechanical, electronic and digital reproduction, transmission and distribution, such as CD, DVD, the Internet, private and file-sharing networks, information storage and retrieval systems, photocopying, and the rights of translation into foreign languages are strictly reserved. Particular emphasis is placed upon the matter of readings, permission for which must be secured from the Author s agent in writing. Inquiries concerning rights should be addressed to ICM Partners 730 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10019. Attn: Di Glazer.
This edition first published in the United States in 2018 by The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc.
141 Wooster Street
New York, NY 10012
www.overlookpress.com
For bulk and special sales, please contact sales@overlookny.com , or write us at above address.
Copyright 2018 by Halley Feiffer
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.
ISBN 978-1-4683-1716-9
Contents
Praise for the plays of Halley Feiffer
About the Author
Also by Halley Feiffer
Copyright
Preface
Production Credits
Characters
Scene 1
Scene 2
Scene 3
PREFACE
It s technically spring but it feels like winter. That terrible time of year when the holiday decorations are long since gone and the ever-increasing afternoon light fools you into feeling hopeful that the blood-chilling cold will fade overnight like magic, as it sometimes does. But it hasn t yet. And I m home from college - not because I m on break, but because my mother has cancer.
I m twenty-one years old. Emotionally, I m oh, eleven? I don t know it yet but I m an alcoholic. (I ll make this fun discovery and get sober three years later.) At this point, I m drinking a bottle of cheap wine by myself every night just to make the very cruel voices in my head go to sleep. Luckily, I fall asleep with them. I wake up every morning and the voices are back. Luckily, I know I can drink again that night. It s a good system, I think. Or, good enough. Reliable, anyway. Oh, who am I kidding? It s all I know.
I m in an impressive amount of denial about how unhealthy I am, how basically doomed I am, how I m swapping out my dreams for $7 lukewarm ros that comes in a box. (Don t knock it til you ve tried it!) (Actually, knock it - don t try it.)
My mother has the best sense of humor of anyone I know - an uncanny ability to find the funny in almost any situation, the darker the better. One time she threw a Stalag 17 theme party. No occasion - she just loves the movie Stalag 17 . She made a cake with a POW camp on top, complete with barbed wire and little toy soldiers standing guard as other toy soldiers try to scale the fence and escape into war-ridden Germany. She invited her friends and my friends. Our friends were confused. Mom and I yucked it up.
But Mom isn t laughing now. She s asleep in her hospital bed. I m glad she s asleep. She s exhausted. She s had an awful week: a hysterectomy a few days ago to treat cervical cancer, which unexpectedly revealed masses of ovarian cancer, too. We re waiting for more tests results, to determine essentially what kind of life Mom will lead from here on out: one in which she ll have to succumb to vicious rounds of treatment to end up ultimately very likely okay - or one in which she will have to start saying her goodbyes.
I ve taken the bus over here from the apartment I grew up in on the Upper West Side, every morning since the procedure. I try to arrive early, since my mother told me they wake her up around five. I stay with her until she falls asleep. My sister is still a kid - ten years younger than me - and my father is charged with caring for her while I care for Mom. I am trying to be helpful, however I can be. And I don t know how I can be. Because the only tool I have for soothing myself is $7 box-wine ros .
What s that? My mother s roommate on the other side of the curtain. What is she saying? Muttering in her sleep. The painkillers make her somewhat delirious, I think. She s in worse shape than Mom. She s older - maybe seventy. Bald, from chemo. Years of it, maybe. Alone. Where s her family? No one s visited her yet, the entire time I ve been here. Maybe she s been here so long - maybe in and out, so many times - that they ve all grown tired of coming. How sad. I don t know. I m just making stuff up. Mom is sleeping, and I m thinking of stories. I wish I could actually write down stories. But I can t. Because I m drunk or hung over all of the time.
A noise - a voice, on the other side of the curtain. A nurse? A visitor! The roommate does have a family. Could it be - what if it s - oh God, wouldn t it be funny- am I a terrible person if I - oh God, I wish it were her son! Her cute, college-age son - maybe older - just a bit older - someone I could flirt with - sneak off with - kiss a little