Men characters
BORIS LERMONTOV (30s+, Lermontov the character is a white cis man but the actor who plays Lermontov is NOT)
There are plenty of things I don’t like about myself…
I wasn’t always so dashing, you know.
So in charge, so admirable.
As a child I was a gifted student.
It pains me to say this experience drastically changed my life moving forward.
Looking at the children playing along the street as I trudged to school,
I always yearned for how well-liked,
how carefree they were.
Unbeknownst to them, all the tragedies in the world fell on my shoulders through years of studying, through years of being told how clever I was.
Oh it was abominable!
The intolerable burden!
But I pulled myself up!
I worked and worked to get to where I am.
While others stole ideas
the same pieces produced over and over again on every stage
I paved a new path.
I created new work, all on my own.
I discovered the composers, the designers, the dancers.
I. built. this.
I built this by myself!
I Alone Built This
It Is My Success
I refuse to take it easy, to be less hard-working.
I am a perfectionist and I expect no less from every person who works for me.
I don’t ask anything of them I wouldn’t do myself.
I push us!
I make us better.
We are more popular than ever,
more tickets sold during this run than…
well, you…
I suppose you heard.
But I do…
But there are things I don’t like about myself.
Sometimes…
sometimes when I’m sitting in the box watching a piece…
you know,
people keep looking to me,
offering a little wave,
trying to catch my attention,
and I feel so big
...and I feel so small.
I’m very grateful for what I have.
I’m white.
I’m cis.
I’m a man.
I’m…
(Perhaps to someone off-stage:)
straight?
I think I’m straight, am I straight?
...It seems likely I’m straight.
I know how this seems
I know I’ve had opportunities.
And I know I need to step back when it comes to issues that don’t pertain to me, let others manage those…
things.
I know it’s not my responsibility…
Uh. Place. I know it’s not my place.
I make space when others need to express themselves.
I value everyone at my company!
I am grateful for what we have,
what I’ve been able to build.
But, yes, there are things I don’t like about myself…
...Sometimes when I’m in my drawing room…
Sometimes when I’m in my drawing room
I look at the broken mirror over the mantle.
The mirror I broke.
And I think…
and I think of the dancer I lost.
And as I stare at my reflection,
broken and separated by the cracks in the glass,
I wonder...
if I could transform myself,
who would I be?
...Does it have to be this way?
But this is the way it is, I suppose.
I’m the one who makes the decisions.
And I do know what’s best for the company, after all.
But there are things I don’t like about myself.
ERYSICHTHON OF THESSALY (any race, late 40s)
CW: lots of hunger/eating talk and mentions of tracking food (no calories/weight talk)
Images in my mind:
a floating head telling the story of what happened to its body OR
a group of actors make up the whole of a person who begins to eat themselves OR
just a guy, just a fella, chatting, this is so normal, just so totally normal, and eating his own hand is the culmination of the Absolute Normality of this dude
My mother once told me I have two basic traits:
-
I’m always hungry
-
I only want what I can’t have
Is it any surprise I would end like this? I was cursed from the very beginning. I have been given every luxury known to humankind, and none of it has ever been enough.
My nutritionist, who is also my therapist, who is also my god, told me to start notating everything I eat so I can tell which foods make me hungrier, make me feel worse, which foods I’m allergic to…
Monday breakfast: eggs toast bacon sausage hash browns steak waffles fruit
I’m still hungry, I don’t feel worse, I haven’t had an allergic reaction
Monday lunch: chicken onion bell peppers red cabbage carrots in a peanut sauce
Still hungry, don’t feel worse, but, actually it’s a little hard to breathe and I’m itchy, so itchy
Monday dinner: now all I want is peanuts, peanut crusted chicken, peanut sauce, peanut butter, peanut butter cookies, peanut butter chocolate pie, chocolate covered peanuts
My therapist who is also my nutritionist who is also my god told me to stop focusing on what I can’t have and start focusing on what I do have. My chef hates cooking with peanuts now.
Former chef. I don’t have chefs anymore.
I have paid a ransom, everything I own for bites of inaccessible, exclusive delicacies. I am passionate and dedicated to consumption, what would you sell your mother for? Your daughter?
But when food crosses my lips it also crosses the border between what I can’t have but want and what I can have but don’t want. I am unsatisfied.
I’m getting to the end of this food journal.
I’ll have to get a new one soon.
Do you think I should start writing down each type of meat I eat? Like light or dark, wing, thigh, breast? Or is just chicken, beef, human okay?
I never thought about it with other meats, I usually just write the animal, sides, and seasoning but… there’s enough of me. I could probably write a book of recipes for each appendage… right?