Immortal Fibsters by Eileen Siedman

This Play is the copyright of the Author and may not be performed, copied or sold without the Author's prior consent

SET: Cloud Nine

TIME : The Hereafter.

CHARACTERS:

Alma Mahler-Werfel (nee: Alma Marie Schindler)
Nellie Bly (nee: Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman)
Marilyn Monroe (nee: Norma Jeane Baker-Mortensen)

ALMA
(Stands center stage dressed in 1890s garb)
(German accent; speaks slowly and precisely) My dear ladies. We
have been brought together to determine which of us was the most
immortal, the most legendary of her time. (Smiles) Of course, it
was I. Alma Mahler-Werfel.

NELLIE
(Stands stage right dressed in her traveling garments)
(Strong voice; competitive) No contest. It was I! The
incomparable Nellie Bly. World famous and influential.

MARILYN
(Stands stage left in a tight-fitting dress)
(Breathy; confident; laughs) Are you kidding? I was a movie
star! The most famous woman in the world.
(Moves downstage. Preens)
Everyone knew Marilyn Monroe. My picture was everywhere.

NELLIE
(Snide) I used my brains, not my body. My stunts were world
famous! Everyone knew Nellie Bly. They called me a dare-devil.
The woman who defeated powerful men. I defied the odds. I was the
best!

ALMA
(Lifts a mirror from her pocket; admires herself)
They called me the most beautiful woman in the world. I was the
best! My game was power. Illusion and manipulation. That is the
key to power.

MARILYN
(Shrugs) I never cared about power.

ALMA
(Laughs) That's a lie! You called it control. What is the
difference? We each invented an irresistible persona. And why
did we do it?

NELLIE
For power. For control. For influence. Men control the
world, and we controlled the men!

ALMA
(Brags) My men were all geniuses. Writers, artists and
composers. I would consider nothing less. (Laughs) How I
loved men! And how I shocked them. They dared me to be
outrageous.

NELLIE
(Competitive) My men were go-getters. Successful business men.


MARILYN
(Soft and breathy) My men were famous and creative. Except my
first husband. He was a sweet man. I was only sixteen. I
didn't want to get married but I wouldn't go back to the
orphange or to another foster home. (Frowns) Not another
foster home!

NELLIE
(Laughs) We were always acting. In public and in private. We
were phonies. Pretending to be someone else—someone smarter and
better looking so people would pay attention to us. Take us
seriously.

ALMA
(Proud) My Papa was famous and very rich. Emil Jakob
Schindler. He was a marvelous landscape painter. I was a
musical child prodigy. Such a happy childhood. But when Papa
died my selfish mother married Carl Moll. (Angry) I hated both of
them. All my life I hated them. Especially mother.
MARILYN
(Sad) I never knew my father. Mother said he was one of her boy
friends. Some guy named Baker. I never knew for
sure. She made up stories. She lied. My mother was weak and
helpless. (Shivers) Insane most of the time. She scared me.

NELLIE
(Tough) My father was a wealthy judge. He died when I was six
years old. Then my weak and useless mother married a drunken,
violent bastard. I never forgave her. (Angry) I testified
against him in court when I was fourteen. She finally divorced
him. She was stupid! And selfish. I hated her.

MARILYN
(Soft, breathy, hesitant) Men liked my breasts. My skin was
very soft. My body was my asset—and my liability. My ticket
to escape from frightened, lonely despair.

NELLIE
(Proud) Mother dressed me in pink. That's why they called me
Pinky. I was acting. Always acting. Pretending became my life.
(Angry) Thanks to my supid mother, Father's estate was robbed
and squandered. There was no money for school, so I went to work in
a sweatshop. I had to support the family. I replaced my father.
It made me strong.

MARILYN
My first marriage was a joke. We hardly spoke to each other. We
weren't angry. We just had nothing to say. I was bored to tears.
I always wanted to be someone else.

NELLIE
I became someone else. A journalist. Quite by accident.

ALMA
(Snide) Who did you sleep with? The publisher?

MARILYN
(Giggles) Men were always pushovers. . .


NELLIE
(Shocked) It was nothing like that!

ALMA
(Sneers) No need to lie about it. We know about such things.

NELLIE
(Offended) It's the truth. There was a writer, Erasmus
Wilson. He wrote a vicious anti-female piece in the Pittsburgh
Dispatch. Every woman who read it was furious. I was so
angry I wrote him a nasty letter and signed it Lonely Orphan
Girl.

MARILYN
(Sad) . . . I was a lonely orphan girl. . .

NELLIE
The editor was so impressed he hired me on the spot even though
I couldn't spell! (Giggles) Confidentially, I wasn't a very
good writer. But I knew how to dig up the dirt. The editors
fixed up the writing.

MARILYN
(Laughs) I know what you mean. I had all those hair dressers,
photographers, fashion designers, makeup artists, acting
coaches. . .

NELLIE
It was an exciting game. And a dangerous game. Then the
editor dared me to do an under-cover story about the Insane
Asylum for Women on Blackwell's Island. They called it stunt
journalism—pretending to be someone else to get the story.
That took real nerve!

MARILYN
(Competitive) More nerve than posing stark naked for a
calendar with only the radio on? I needed 50 bucks to get my
car out of hock. That picture opened my cage. Norma Jeane was
free!


NELLIE
(Disparaging) A sexy body diverts attention from your
intellect. My plain looks and small breasts were an asset, not a
distraction. Once I even pretended to be a boy. I fooled 'em!

ALMA
(Proud) The newspapers called me the most beautiful woman in
the world! It was my face. My voice. My personality. Not merely
my breasts!

MARILYN
(Defensive) I was more than breasts and you know it. (Sadly)
I wanted to be a real actress. Not just a body. I tried so hard.
But men only wanted my body. I didn't care about money. I
just wanted to be wonderful!

ALMA
(Sighs) I was a composer—a talented pianist. But Mahler
insisted that I set my music aside. (Shrugs) So I nurtured his
talent instead. (Grins) And the talent of other men as well.

MARILYN
But your own musical talent. How could you just stop?

ALMA
(Laughs) I had another talent! Attracting special men.
Geniuses. Loving them. That was my talent. Appreciating and
prodding my geniuses. Protecting them. Encouraging them.
Promoting them. Even saving them from death and disaster!

NELLIE
But did you love them? Or did you pretend to love them?

ALMA
Love them? I adored them!. In my own way. Even the Jews. How
do you call it? Reflected glory. Still, I was important in my
own right. Not for my music. For my ability to manipulate men. I
was the most famous hostess in the world. I gave the
most wonderful parties. I married the most superior men!
(Laughs) My Jews were different. They were geniuses. Not like
the others—the Kikes.
MARILYN
(Shocked) That's a terrible word!

ALMA
(Shrugs) Hitler was right, you know.

NELLIE and MARILYN
(Shocked) Hitler was right?

ALMA
Of course he went too far. Trying to kill them all without
separating the good Jews from the bad ones. My beloved
Germany became a lunatic asylum when Hitler and his Nazis took
control. They managed to fool the whole world until their war
nearly destroyed the planet. It was the Jews, of course. Always
the Jews.

MARILYN
But you married two Jews. Mahler and Werfel.

ALMA
(Firm) They were different Jews. Geniuses. Mahler was a
great composer. Werfel was a brilliant writer. I never hid my
anti-semitism. But I saved my little Werfel from the Nazis. He
would have died in a concentration camp but I smuggled him out
of Germany. He lived to write "Song of Bernadette." (Smiles)
It was a great success.

MARILYN
(Thoughtful) I didn't read the book but I saw the movie. How
could a Jew write about Christian miracles?

NELLIE
It's like acting. Pretending to be someone else. Imagination!
You pretended to be Marilyn Monroe. I pretended to be Nellie
Bly. Alma pretended to be a loving wife and mother.

ALMA
Exactly! We created our own reality. And the world bought it.


NELLIE
(Sighs) Reality. Poverty drove me to work in a terrible factory.
We were very young women—children, really. Slaves. We never
earned enough to live on. We worked long hours in dark ugly
smelly rooms with dangerous machines. (Shudders) The bosses were
cruel and rapacious. I hated it. That's why I jumped at the
chance to expose the horror of the women's Insane Asylum. The
editor dared me to do it.

MARILYN
I know about those places. Mother and Grandma were in and out
of loony bins. (Shivers) I was locked up, too, for awhile. They
heard voices. (Beat) So did I—sometimes. . .

NELLIE
It was my first assignment. I pretended to be unhinged. There
was no other way to expose what they were doing to those poor
women on Blackwell's Island.

ALMA
Gottinhimmel! Weren't you afraid?

NELLIE
I was scared to death the whole time. I practiced in front of a
mirror the night before. Like this!
(Makes faces in front of an imaginary mirror)
I had to to look like I was crazy. I fooled the doctors and
everyone else who examined me. Later, when I told them I was
sane, they didn't believe me! And I wasn't the only one!
Thank God my editor had arranged for me to be released after
ten days. I was free, but the others weren't so lucky.
(Cringes) My God! What I found on Blackwell's Island. Such
cruelty. Pure sadism.

MARILYN
(Remembering) I worked at the Radioplane war plant and my
husband joined the Merchant Marine and went to war. (Smiles)
When that darling young photographer took my picture at the plant,
he set me free! Norma Jeane and the camera fell in love.

NELLIE
(Proud) I did it! I exposed the bastards! My front page articles
were a sensation. Nellie Bly did it again! It was a crazy idea
but it worked. I wrote a book about it. A best seller! "Ten
Days In A Madhouse."

MARILYN
I signed with a modeling agency. Later, when I landed a job in
the movies, the big shots changed my name to Marilyn Monroe. I
wanted Jeane Monroe, but they liked the M, M.

NELLIE
In the early days, no one used his real name for a by-line. The
editor had a contest to pick a name for me and some one on the
staff suggested Nellie Bly. You know. Stephen Foster's song.
He gave it the name of a little black slave girl. Ain't that the
cat's whiskers? (Giggles)

MARILYN
(Shrugs) Norma Jeane Mortensen just disappeared. It was fun at
first, pretending to be Marilyn Monroe. I fixed her hair and
bleached it blonde. Like Jean Harlow. I took good care of her
face and her body. She became rich and famous with many lovers
and two more husbands. But all the men wanted Marilyn, not Norma
Jeane.

ALMA
(Sneers) You had a Jewish husband and a Catholic husband. Who
was the better lover? (Shrugs) I didn't have much luck with my
Jews.

MARILYN
(Shocked) I never thought about them that way. They were just
men. I knew a lot of men. So many men. (Sad) I was unhappy and
depressed most of the time. I took too many pills. Drank too
much. I wanted to die. They locked me up, just like Mama and
Grandma. It was a nightmare. All that publicity. Those awful
pictures of me crying. No makeup. Messy hair. I couldn't
pretend. . .


ALMA
(Proud) I was very strong. The men were weak. They loved me
but they resented me. I held the reins. I was always demanding
and bad tempered. Always in control. I hated the French and the
English and the Jews. That is why I spoke German, only German.

NELLIE
I found power! Real power. My articles forced New York to
spend millions to improve Blackwell's Island and those other
hell holes. They got rid of the incompetent, sadistic
employees. When people understood what went on behind those
walls they did something about it. So what if I wasn't a good
writer. I was a good journalist. I found my calling.

ALMA
I becme engaged to Mahler when I was 23. He was 43. I was
impatient for sex. I wouldn't wait until the wedding but
Mahler was afraid he couldn't, you know, perform. I was an
ignorant, passionate virgin. I was hot for him and I insisted.
(Beat) Of course he was right.

MARILYN
You mean he couldn't get it up?

ALMA
(Shrugs) He warned me but I wouldn't listen. Naturally, I was
extremely disappointed. But I became pregnant anyway!

MARILYN
You did?

ALMA
(Shrugs) I did. Mahler was a brilliant composer and a lousy
lover. After the wedding, he made me promise to stop
composing. I stifled my musical ambition. (Angry) I always
resented it, but I did what I was told. After all, I was so young
and he was the maestro. A genius!



NELLIE
(Laughs) I received dozens of marriage proposals. No one knew
about my lovers. Know yourself, but don't ever let the world
know you. That was my motto.

MARILYN
(Tearful) How I wanted a baby! I had miscarriages and
abortions, but no babies. They might have made a difference in
my life. It was endometriosis. My body was so beautiful on the
outside. So ugly on the inside.

NELLIE
I loved children but never had any of my own. That's why I did
what I could for those poor, neglected slum children. My heart
went out to them. I did what I could to make them happy.

ALMA
I had two daughters with Mahler. (Sighs) Maria died when she was
only five years old. Scarlet Fever. (Smiles) Beautiful Anna was
so much like me. She had many lovers. And five husbands.
(Laughs) A chip off the old block! My Anna was a talented
sculptor who looked after me in my old age.

MARILYN
(Sighs sadly) Old age? I never lived to old age. I wonder what
I might have looked like. I never knew if any man would want me
as an old lady. I was afraid to be old. . .

ALMA
My lovers were all great artists. My flirtations were
notorious. Men worshipped me. I was celebrated for my
affairs with famous men. They wanted me and the attention
they received from our—association. (Laughs) Even after I
grew older and—plumper. Food and drink were always very
important to me. I gave marvelous parties where I met and
seduced famous talented men. Mama knew about my love affairs.
And my abortions. (Frowns) That was our birth control.
(Shudders) So many abortions. . .

[end of extract]

Discount Price $7.99 Add to cart