Sanctuary Much by Gregory Lawrence Stewart
ACT I
SCENE I
THE MARILYN PROJECT : HOW ELLIS AND LEONARD FIRST MEET
LIGHTS FADE IN
ELLIS 33 and LEONARD 29 spill into the street with others (played by
the rest of the cast) who have been to see "The Marilyn Project" a
David Gaard play preformed at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery on the
lower East Side of New York City.
ELLIS
Hi.
LEONARD
Hi. Why do you look so proud? Are you one of the producers I don't
know about?
ELLIS
What?
LEONARD
I was soooooo distracted in there.
ELLIS
That was something wasn't it?
LEONARD
Not by the play, by you, and all this.
("all this" is ELLIS's body. LEONARD waves his hand in a circle
above ELLIS's chest.)
ELLIS
I saw the way you were watching everything including me.
LEONARD
You did?
ELLIS
You know all the lines don't you?
LEONARD
Oh God. Was I mouthing the words again?
ELLIS
In certain parts.
LEONARD
Was I saying them out loud?
ELLIS
No.
LEONARD
Thank God. I can loose myself at these things then there you were
looking all… the way you are, with all this…
(wave over ELLIS'S chest again)
ELLIS
I don't stand out in a crowd.
LEONARD
Oh yes you do. You're like bursting with pride here. Who could miss
it?
ELLIS
I'll take that as a compliment.
LEONARD
I'm Leonard. Leonard Dahl.
ELLIS
Ellis. Ellis Nylan.
LEONARD
No. I was born and raised here in America.
ELLIS
I said I'm Ellis Nylan.
LEONARD
Yes. Well are you the whole island or just a part of it?
ELLIS
You misunderstood me.
LEONARD
You're just the Italian part, right?
ELLIS
Nylan, not island.
LEONARD
I know what you said. I just couldn't help myself.
Ellis laughs
LEONARD
What's funny?
ELLIS
You are.
LEONARD
Oh crap. I was trying to impress you but I'm coming off like a clown.
ELLIS
Impress me?
LEONARD
Attempting to, obviously not succeeding.
ELLIS
Give yourself some credit. How did you know I was Italian?
LEONARD
Art History. You look like all the paintings. I think it's because
I want to go to Rome and see the actual art I studied in College so
badly that I'm becoming a homing device for Italians.
ELLIS
I'm a California Italian, not a New York Italian nor an Italian
Italian just off the boat from Italy.
LEONARD
Don't worry. I don't expect anyone to take me to Rome. What did
you think of "The Marilyn Project?
ELLIS
The play?
LEONARD
I thought it was a lecture on Icons in America.
ELLIS
I know what you mean.
LEONARD
So did you like it?
ELLIS
It was interesting the way they had the audience sit above the stage
and look down into it like an amphitheater, but the mirror image of
having two casts doing the play simultaneously was too distracting and
slow for me. I liked the Marilyn in one of the casts.
LEONARD
Which one?
ELLIS
The one who's dress actually fit.
LEONARD
That was a problem. The other Marilyn was replaced and the new Marilyn
had to wear the same costume so it looks too baggy on her. You can't
have a Marilyn who's cloths don't fit. That's a violation of all things Marilyn.
ELLIS
You know the cast?
LEONARD
The Marilyn you liked is Gloria Maddox. She's been my acting coach
at the Terry Schrieber Studios for two years now.
ELLIS
So this wasn't just going to a play for you.
LEONARD
Going to a play is never just going to a play for me. Gloria's
students have an open pass to see everything they do here at the St.
Mark's Church. She really looks like Marilyn doesn't she?
ELLIS
Yes.
LEONARD
She actually looks more like Norma Jean, you know, the real Marilyn
before she got famous. I think that's why they cast Gloria. She's
true to both sides of the Icon.
ELLIS
Don't you mean coin?
LEONARD
Let me see? Ah, no. I got it right. Icon. Both sides of the Icon.
ELLIS
I just meant the phrase is usually…
LEONARD
I know what the phrase is usually. Do you want to live in a world
where everything is just usual?
ELLIS
I just meant…
LEONARD
I'll bet you see Marilyn as a sad sordid life of drug abuse and all
the wrong choices when you should be seeing her as a brilliant icon
shaman who brought pure sensuality into our culture.
ELLIS
I just consider icons to be more like the Saints, people like that,
not movie stars.
LEONARD
And Marilyn is not a saint. Alright. We're done here.
ELLIS
Wait a minute.
LEONARD
I never say the right thing.
ELLIS
I'm having a good time. Wait.
LEONARD
Oh. Well, me too. For a minute there. I thought I'd lost you.
ELLIS
I'm not going anywhere. It's early.
LEONARD
Let's stop at Phoebes and have coffee &kalua. Sometimes Allen
Ginsberg's there at the big round table reading poems with Elizabeth
Swados and the La Mama group.
ELLIS
Okay.
LEONARD
Really? You're sure? It's something I like to do. Maybe Gloria
will be there. Sometimes people I know from the plays come in and
it's fun, but that's just me.
ELLIS
Actually I was thinking of something a lot more intimate than that.
LEONARD
You were? Oh. Then forget Phoebes. I knew this was going to happen
when I saw you sitting over there tonight. It was that look you have.
That certain something.
ELLIS
I have a certain something?
LEONARD
Yeah. Either that or it's all this.
(hand wave over Ellis's chest)
LIGHTS FADE OUT
SCENE II
MOVING INTO THE APARTMENT AT 227 SULLIVAN STREET
LIGHTS UP FULL
227 Sullivan Street Apartment. 1A. Three weeks later. LEONARD and ELLIS enter.
LEONARD
See it has a loft and everything. Well a little everything.
ELLIS
Yes very little.
LEONARD
We don't need a lot of space. Our landlord's an x-police officer
and no I did not sleep with him to get the place.
ELLIS
I didn't think you did.
LEONARD
Look, we can build bookcases all across this wall for your books
and…what's wrong? You look…what's this?
ELLIS
Don't you think we should christen the place.
LEONARD
What, right here on the drop cloth? What if the painters come back?
ELLIS
They can watch.
LEONARD
Only three weeks with you and I'm already a pervert.
ELLIS
The painters are the perverts, not us.
LEONARD
Lock the door. I don't think I want to share this with the painters
nor anyone else.
ELLIS locks the door and they start ripping off each other's clothes.
LIGHTS FADE OUT
SCENE III
YOU'RE TEARING ME APART
LIGHTS FADE IN
Nine months later. ELLIS and LEONARD come in to their apartment after
being at a party drinking. They launch into a game they play where
they do the "What a dump!" scene from Edward Albee's "Who's
afraid of Virginia Wolf". It's a kind of drinking game to them
that they plug different movies into every time. It is meant to
indicate they both have more than a bit of the dramaturg in them.
LEONARD
"You're tearing me apart." Hey. What's that from?
ELLIS
What are you talking about?
LEONARD
What's that from Mr. Know-it-all.
ELLIS
Leonard.
LEONARD
What's it from for God's sake?
ELLIS
What's what from?
LEONARD
I just said it. "You're tearing me apart." Huh? What's it from?
ELLIS
I have no idea?
LEONARD
Duffus. Ya big Duffus. Some damned James Dean picture. Some God damned
Warner Brothers saga.
ELLIS
Leonard. I don't remember things like that. Warner Brothers,
really!
LEONARD
Nobody's asking you to remember anything about Warner Brothers, just
one little fish story, that's all. James Dean is this loner…
ELLIS
He's a fish that's a loan shark?
LEONARD
No. He's alone. A loner. He doesn't mix well with other people,
that sort of thing, and he has this spricklie peanut head hair cut all
throughout the picture and his father is Raymond Massey or something…
ELLIS
Somebody.
LEONARD
Somebody… and he want's to go to Monterey all the time, because
he's found his prostitute madame mother, that actress who learned
everything from Uta Hagen?...and hung out with Grace Kelly before
Grace drove off a cliff and crashed her car?
ELLIS
What actress? What car?
LEONARD
I can't remember for Christ's sake. What's the name of the film?
I want to remember the name of the film. He decides to go to this man
from Monterey anyway to get his madame prostitute mother to loan him
money to plant beans.
ELLIS
So she's the loan shark.
LEONARD
No! She's his mother. She has a successful "McCabe and Mrs.
Miller" style business in Monterey and he wants to grow war beans
because his Bible thumping father Raymond Massey lost all his money
trying to ship frozen cabbage heads in a train.
ELLIS
"The Man from Monterey". It's called "The Man from Monterey".
[end of extract]