Parallelogram
4 Men, 2 Women
Two Acts, 64 pages
In a hotel in Savannah, Guy and Gay Manley are on vacation with their friends Sid and Sandra Kicker. Unfortunately, in the room next door, playwright Arthur Wright is working to finish his latest masterpiece. He's behind on a deadline, and he's having trouble coming up with, well, anything. And it seems the main obstacle is that he is writing about these four friends. In fact, he is writing everything that happens to them. But Guy is not cooperating, he's rebelling against the author. For some reason, he believes he has an existence independent of any play that Wright might be writing. Parallelogram is a struggle of competing realites, and things get very funny, and very weird.
Cast of Characters
- Guy Manley. An independent man, bordering on being a rebel. He can be very argumentative, accepts nothing on face value, a natural skeptic.
- Gay Manley. Guy's wife, a non-confrontational romantic who wants things to be perfect instead of how they are (an anti-existentialist). An idealist, who suspects things are already perfect, we just can't see it, but need to accept it.
- Sid Kicker. Friend of the Manleys, a pragmatic realist, ready to take advantage of whatever situation presents itself, or at least cut his losses.
- Sandra Kicker. Sid's wife. She is in a constant state of emergency, a human Brownian movement from one crisis to the next. An excitable, sexy woman.
- Arthur Wright. The Writer. A prim and proper man who is a control freak, and proud of it. In the beginning, his voice is as neat and clipped as he is. As he begins to lose control of the play, he loses control of his voice and his appearance.
- Joe Wasserman. The Stage Crew. Wry, world-weary. Also does "Radio Announcer".
Running Time. Approximately 1 hour, 20 minutes
Set. Single set, two hotel rooms, side by side
Read an excerpt.
