EXCERPTS from
“You Don’t Bring Me Dead Flowers Anymore”
(or “Marriage Counseling??? Over My Dead Body!!!” )
by Jeannette Jaquish © 2007, 2009
“In K-mart yesterday, he almost got my whole scalp in his mouth!”
~ a parody combining zombies with couples’ counseling ~
An easy, hilarious, low tech, short play with LOTS of physical acting, by Jeannette Jaquish
COST: $10 first performance, $5 additional, or $30/year.
CAST of 11: two couples & one therapist. PLUS : 6 Shills with no lines in the audience.
SET: Three sturdy chairs.
LENGTH: About 10 minutes.
RATING: One line is slightly PG and could be edited out.
Sorry. No photos from the performances. Zombies ate the photographer. She was delicious.
CAST
Counselor – Arrogant, always blames the wife
1st Husband Charlie – Sullen, grumpy, lazy
his Wife Jennifer – Exasperated
2nd Wife Stephanie – Exasperated, desperate, assertive
her Zombie Husband Ralph – hungry, sneaky, persistent
Shills – 6 Actors in the audience, dressed normally
(You can swap the genders if you like. The gag is that the lazy spouse in the first couple acts very much like the zombie spouse in the 2nd couple.)
SET
Marriage counselor's office.
Three chairs, two for patients, one for counselor. Counselor's chair angled towards patients' chairs.
RALPH’S BEHAVIOR: Ralph spends the whole scene trying to grab his wife and bite off chunks. He tries different tactics, from grabbing an arm and trying to bite, to sneaking up from behind, crawling toward her feet, reaching from under chair to grab her feet, all the while with a slack stupid, nearly drooling face. She has been dealing with him so long she shoves and spins him away, without even thinking about it, with barely a glance to keep track of him, as she carries on her conversation with the counselor. When she shoves him he tumbles and falls and crawls back. He is dead -- he's all messed up, and has poor balance and gets confused and flops around a lot, stumbles, falls, crawls, making zombie groaning and hungry sounds constantly.
The counselor doesn't take Stephanie's complaints seriously at all , and seems to blame her, and politely ignores Ralph's appalling behavior.
EXCERPTS from
You Don’t Bring Me (Dead) Flowers Anymore
or "Marriage Counseling??? Over My Dead Body!!!"
by Jeannette Jaquish ( c) 2007, updated 3/2009)
Counselor sits angled toward first couple; chairs, of course, cheat out to the audience.
COUNSELOR So to wrap it up. Charlie opened up and revealed that he does appreciate all that you do around the house...
CHARLIE Yeah, sure.
COUNSELOR And Jennifer understands now that she needs to tell Charlie what he does that bothers her, instead of using silence to signal that she is unhappy.
JENNIFER OK, I’ll work on that.
CHARLIEgrunt
COUNSELOR And both of you have practiced making positive suggestions in a non-blaming format.
JENNIFER What do you mean, “Yeah, sure”? Do you appreciate what I do around the house or not?
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LINES SKIPPED
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COUNSELOR Oops! Look at the time! Off you go.(hustles them out)Others are waiting for their counseling. Work on those positive rejoinders! Come on in..(looks at clipboard)Stephanie and Ralph .... Caron-de-lay?
(STEPHANIE pulls RALPH in, switching hand grips as he tries to bite each hand, shoves him into a chair.)
STEPHANIE Close enough. Listen, Doc, you gotta tell me what to do with my husband here.
(Shoves him back into chair as he tries to stand and grab her.)
COUNSELOR Well, we could start off with a conversation that includes him.
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LINES SKIPPED
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COUNSELOR Violence is never appropriate, Stephanie!
STEPHANIE He was going to bite your hand. He does stuff like that all the time now!
COUNSELOR I doubt that, Stephanie. Maybe you are projecting your own frustrations. Ralph, I apologize for asking, but were you going to bite my hand?
(RALPH shakes his head no with a Bambi-eyed look of innocence.)
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LINES SKIPPED
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STEPHANIE Natural? This is beyond natural! He won’t stop grabbing me. He’s always trying to maul me lately.
COUNSELOR Stephanie, a man has needs. If you are giving him the cold shoulder instead of wifely affection, he might get a little... desperate. A little “grabby”. When was the last time you had a romantic evening together?
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LINES SKIPPED
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COUNSELOR Ralph, do you think you can start using words again? (trying to be silly and light-hearted) You know, English words? Words in the dictionary words? Do you think, Ralph? Ralph?
RALPH Yeah, sure.
COUNSELOR Anything else, Stephanie?
STEPHANIE(snort of exasperation) Oh, brother. Well, how about him always lunging at me and trying to bite me? I can’t go anywhere with him anymore. In K-mart yesterday he almost got my whole scalp in his mouth. I had to hit him with a can of paint, and then I had slobber in my hair. I had to go to the toilet paper aisle and open a package of paper towels to wipe it off, right there in the aisle. People were looking.
COUNSELOR I can imagine your humiliation, Stephanie. Ralph, your physical public display is embarrassing your wife. Do you hear the shame in her voice?
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LINES SKIPPED
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COUNSELOR I think we have a window of opportunity here, Ralph. Would you like to tell Stephanie something from your heart? How about telling her what you really love about her?
RALPH (clumsily stands and says with great feeling) Her brains.
STEPHANIE Oh, Ralph! You’ve never ever said that before!
(She goes to him and hugs him. He instantly attacks, both fall, her screaming.)
COUNSELOR(rising chuckling) Hey, you two. This isn’t a hotel room. I don’t think we need the rest of the hour. In fact, I think we don’t need the rest of your weekly counselings. You can pay at the desk on your way out. I’ll just leave you two alone. (Exits)
(STEPHANIE stops screaming as if dead. RALPH stops, stands and stares at her stupidly, waiting. After about 10 (long) seconds, (RALPH can look at his watch) STEPHANIE slowly stands and looks at him, smiles sweetly, stupidly . . .)
STEPHANIE Ralph not eat all of wife.
(RALPH chuckles embarrassed and shyly)
STEPHANIE(nudges against him) You like me.
RALPH (blushes nods, clumsily puts his arm around her)
STEPHANIE(stupidly distressed, looks into his face) I hungry. You hungry?
RALPH(serious and intense, looks in her face) Oh, yeah.
STEPHANIE(looking deeply into his face) I understand. So hungry.
(After a touchingly sweet look of understanding between them, they stupidly look around, then suddenly realize there is an audience.)
RALPH Meat . . .
STEPHANIE Eat it.
(STEPHANIE & RALPH stumble aggressively into the audience ravenously licking their lips at each audience person they pass, until they each reach an actor shill whom they attack. Shills A & B scream, then die. STEPHANIE & RALPH move on, chase two shills, C & D, from the room, but pause to hold hands as they EXIT after them.
The eaten shills, A & B, now zombies, rise and chase two other shills, E & F, out , until ALL HAVE EXITED.)
BOWS
Many ways to do this. One way is for the actors to bow like real people, but COUNSELOR is last to come out and bow and suddenly the other actors turn back into zombies and attack him/her and drag or chase the screaming COUNSELOR offstage.