Mike Mariano

1. Begin with an attack on the conventions of the fourth wall. No one’s ever done that before!
2. Make an awkward introduction and insult the audience.
3. Quickly temper with self-deprecating remarks.
4. Add grandiose gesture of universal significance. (Make sure it contains no actual universal significance.)
5. Begin hypothetical story about a child growing up.
6. Make it clear this child is you.
7. Segue into awkward details of your sex life.
8. By now your audience is bored. Tell them they are bored.
9. More insults.
10. Rob your non-hypothetical child of his/her innocence.
11. More sex life.
12. More childhood.
13. Use both to ask a basic question about existence.
14. Don’t answer it.
15. Sulk.
16. Add profanity to taste.

Congratulations! Now you’re a theatre genius!

Don’t Believe Me?

I recommend reading Eno’s monologues Thom Pain, Lady Grey, and Mr. Theatre in that order, as published. I did so a month ago and was inspired to jot the following:

Like pulling a quarter out of your ear and dropping it down a sewer grate. Then saying “I meant to do that.”

If your reputation as a genius playwright is based upon your tendency to pretend to fail, then fail again, then fail repeatedly, can you ever not succeed?

mikemariano.com presents:

True Playwright Confessions

Fellow playwright/blogger Mac Rogers has returned to the subject of Harold Pinter. The last time he did so he followed it with a short play, You Look Really Hot, about two secretaries.

Mac’s play by itself is a twisted mindgame. One of the secretaries says something so brazen so matter-of-factly that it turns the other’s worldview (or at least office-view) upside down.

But in my mind, I can’t help but hear Mac’s pivotal lines spoken not by the secretary, but in the voice of Casey Kasem.

Casey Kasem Well let me ask you this: given the outfit that you’re wearing, how difficult would it be for him to get some of his fingers into your snatch?

(Pause.)

Monica I’m sorry, did you—

Casey Kasem … Specifically, with those clothes you have on, how difficult would it be for him to get two or three of his fingers into your nasty snatch?

How did I mentally cast Casey Kasem? Perhaps there’s something inviting about a reassuring radio voice dropping vulgarities? Or that he gets to count digits from two all the way up to number three? I don’t know.

So now that my confession has ruined You Look Really Hot for everyone, go see Mac’s current play, Hail Satan!

As an obnoxious middle school student, I once made it my mission to craft the worst joke ever. I wanted a punny riddle so painfully dumb that it would inspire despair in all other joke tellers. This is what I created:

Q: What kind of bus sails across the ocean?

A: A Colum-bus.

A useless riddle to begin, followed by the thud of an obtuse punch line. Perfect.

In this new century, able to take the paranoid step in search of the joke, I see that others have independently replicated my creation. But my own use of it has had unintended consequences.

On Monday, Columbus’s own holiday, my sister honored the explorer by jadedly reciting the joke. A perfect retelling. But this prompted my mother to note that she uses Colum-Bus with her elementary school students. Every Columbus Day (no holiday for her), she writes on the blackboard, “What kind of bus sails across the ocean?” The children shout out sincere, futile answers (“The Magic School Bus!”), then my mother reveals the awful pun and discusses the holiday.

I’m a little concerned; my mother’s students are taking Colum-Bus seriously. They may be learning their federal holidays, but if it damages their senses of humor I want no part of it.