My Friend’s Obsession
by
Joseph P. Rogers
Cast of characters
RACHEL (a woman living in an apartment)
MOLLY (a woman who visits Rachel)
EMILY (an athletic woman who lives in the apartment across the hall from Rachel)
Setting
This one-act play (with one scene) is set in an apartment filled with statues of angels and saints.Scene
A woman is seated in her apartment reading a book.There is a knock on the door.The woman places her book on the coffee table, then walks over to answer the door.RACHEL (opens the front door): This is a pleasant surprise. Come in, Molly.
MOLLY (enters): Hello, Rachel. You’re looking well. What’s new?
RACHEL: New hairstyle, new phone, new book, some new statues.
MOLLY (scanning the room): Ah, yes, the statues. It’s been over a year since I’ve been here. I was hoping that the statues were gone.
RACHEL: You don’t like them?
MOLLY: Two or three would be nice. Heck, four or five would be fine! But they’re all over the place. How many do you have?
RACHEL: I’ve never counted them -- about two hundred, I’d guess.
MOLLY: Hmmm. That’s a conservative estimate. Three hundred would be a better guess.
RACHEL: I suppose that you’re right.
MOLLY: Angels, archangels, and saints galore. There’s Saint Joan of Arc with her sword. And that must be Saint Francis of Assisi with the wolf. Who is that man with the books?
RACHEL: Saint Thomas Aquinas.
MOLLY: Oh, of course -- the Summa Theologica. In any case, Rachel, I didn’t intend to come barging into your place and start criticizing you. But you need to get control of this obsession with religious artifacts.
RACHEL: Really? I think that the place looks rather nice.
MOLLY: Your place is an iconoclast’s nightmare. … I’m sorry. That was too harsh.
RACHEL: I like to surround myself with religious reminders. They remind me that we are part of a supernatural realm -- a communion of saints.
MOLLY: Yes, I understand. However, most persons would not understand. This place looks like St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
RACHEL: It’s not a cathedral; it’s a realm of possibilities.
MOLLY: Possibilities?
RACHEL: Of what it is possible for me to become. To become a wonderful person like the ones portrayed in these images. I want to be the best person that I can possibly be. I want to become my true self.
MOLLY: Just don’t get carried away, dear. I worry about you.
RACHEL (smiling): All right. I’m just about out of space anyway. I don’t plan to add any new statues. However, I suppose that I have room on the walls for a few more paintings and icons.
MOLLY (sighs): Oh, Rachel!
(MOLLY notices the book on the coffee table and picks it up.)
MOLLY: Oh, you’re reading A Confederacy of Dunces. That’s probably the funniest novel that I ever read!
RACHEL: Yes. Ignatius Reilly is quite a character.
MOLLY: Where are your other books? (MOLLY spots a bookcase that has several saint or angel statues on top of it.) Oh, there they are!
(MOLLY goes over to the bookcase and begins scanning the titles.) Have it. Have it. Want it. Want it. Have it. Want it. Have it. Want it. Want it. Have it. Have it. Have it. Where are your other bookcases, Rachel?
RACHEL: That’s about it.
MOLLY: You don’t have any other books?
RACHEL: On the lamp table by my bed, I have G.K. Chesterton’s novel The Man Who Was Thursday.
MOLLY: Ah, Chesterton -- the Prince of Paradox. “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.”
RACHEL: Right. He has many great books like The Everlasting Man. I also like Chesterton’s Father Brown mysteries.
MOLLY: I enjoy almost any well-written mystery novel. I have most of the classics in my collection: all the Sherlock Holmes stories, all of Mary Higgins Clark’s mysteries, and all of Agatha Christie’s novels. Both of her main detectives, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, are wondrous creations.
RACHEL: I agree.
MOLLY: I notice that you have a Terry Brooks novel in your bookcase. I have all of his novels. I love his magic kingdoms and the swords of sorcery of Shannara. I’m quite a fantasy fan. I have all of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time novels. Have you read them?
RACHEL: No.
MOLLY: You’d love them. Women are the main wielders of the One Power. The messianic figure is a man, but that’s neither here nor there. It’s the best fantasy series that I’ve read since Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.
RACHEL: That’s high praise.
MOLLY: I assume that you’ve read The Lord of the Rings?
RACHEL: No, but I saw the movies.
MOLLY: Oh, Rachel! You must read the books. And you should read all the books of Tolkien’s friend, C.S. Lewis.
RACHEL: I have read his Chronicles of Narnia.
MOLLY: His space trilogy is wonderful, too: Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength. I very much enjoy good science fiction!
RACHEL (smiling): I’m not surprised.
MOLLY: Besides fiction, I have a lot of history books, art books, cookbooks, pop-up books, picture books, how-to books, self-help books, sports books, biographies, autobiographies, and lots of other books.
RACHEL: My goodness! Where do you keep so many books?
MOLLY: Oh, I find the space or make the space. I’ve purchased bookcases for all the rooms in my house, and I’ve installed shelves in spaces where a bookcase won’t fit. I would prefer to keep all my books in the house, but I have had to move a few hundred out to the garage. I’m considering purchasing some portable storage units for the backyard.
RACHEL: Nancy Drew and the Case of the Curious Compulsion
MOLLY (laughs): That’s a mystery that Nancy will never solve!
RACHEL: You’re right about that!
MOLLY: My college roommate, Colleen, was a music fanatic. I like music, but she was fanatical about it. There was always music playing in our dorm room. Colleen didn’t like wearing headphones, so she usually played music from the speakers on her computer.
RACHEL: Oh, no!
MOLLY: Fortunately, our musical tastes were compatible, so she didn’t annoy me too much, although some quiet time would have been nice.
RACHEL: I would think so.
MOLLY: We both liked pop music like Katy Perry and Meat Loaf, especially his song “I would do anything for love.” And, in December, we mainly listened to Christmas carols.
RACHEL: Any classical music?
MOLLY: Oh, yeah. Mozart, of course. And we were both Beethoven fans -- we were like Schroeder from the Charlie Brown comics.
RACHEL: With love-sick Lucy draped over Schroeder’s piano while he played Beethoven’s symphonies.
MOLLY: Colleen’s music would also often take us down a country road with Brad Paisley, Blake Shelton’s “Honey Bee” and Taylor Swift’s “Love Story.” Then sometimes her music would take us on spiritual journeys with Casting Crowns, 4Him, or Amy Grant. “Love has Come” was one of our favorites. Colleen and I often sailed out onto the islands with Jimmy Buffett and the Beach Boys and mellowed out there for a while.
RACHEL: And I’m guessing that you were accompanied on the beach with Miss Louisa May Alcott and her Little Women as well as by Miss Jane Austen and her friends Emma, Elizabeth Bennet, and Mr. Darcy.
MOLLY: Of course. Then, after drinking our pina coladas on the beach, my friends and I all boarded Prince Caspian’s Dawn Treader and sailed back home.
RACHEL: To once again travel the road that goes on forever. I always liked the song “God Bless the Broken Road.”
MOLLY: The broken road that leads straight to true love. It occurs to me that most of Colleen’s favorite songs had a love theme.
RACHEL: Love is the common theme of our little obsessions. I focus on religion because there I find love incarnate and love eternal. You focus on books because in the world of ideas, in the imagination, in the Word, you find completeness. We are only complete when we love and are loved in return. Love makes me into the person that I have the potential to be -- into the best version of myself."
MOLLY: Saint Paul wrote that we should abide in "faith, hope, and love -- but the greatest of these is love.”
(There is a knock on the door.)
RACHEL: I seem to be Miss Popularity today.
MOLLY: Indeed.
(RACHEL walks over and opens the door.)
RACHEL: Emily! Come on in!
EMILY (enters): Thanks.
RACHEL: Molly, you remember Emily, my neighbor from across the hall. She came with us to the fundraiser for the public library.
MOLLY: Of course. It’s good to see you again Emily.
EMILY: You too.
RACHEL: What’s up?
EMILY: My expenses are way up -- and that stupid car still won’t start. Last week I bought a new starter for it, and it won’t start! Can you believe that?
MOLLY: Back at my place, I have some good car repair books, but I don’t suppose that will help you with your immediate problem.
EMILY: No, but thanks! At the moment, I’m in urgent need of a ride to Forest Park Community College.
MOLLY: I live near there, Emily. I can give you a ride.
EMILY: Oh, thank you so much!
RACHEL: What college class are you taking, Emily?
EMILY: I’m not taking a class. I have my first fencing tournament in the college gym this evening. I’m competing in foil and saber!
RACHEL: Emily, I thought that you were studying taekwondo. Just last week, I saw you out in the yard doing karate kicks and punches.
EMILY: Oh, I am studying it. I go to taekwondo class three times a week and to fencing class twice a week. And, almost every day, I go to the park to either ride my bike or jog.
MOLLY: My goodness! You must be in very good shape.
EMILY: I’m getting there! I also go to spin class as often as I can. And I play on a softball team, and I’m planning on joining a flag football team.
RACHEL: Wow!
EMILY: When I find the time, I’m going to take some golf lessons and tennis lessons.
MOLLY: Good luck with finding the time.
RACHEL: That’s a lot of sports, Emily.
EMILY: Yes, but it’s not like I’m obsessed or something.
RACHEL: Of course not.
MOLLY: As Tiny Tim would say in one of my favorite novels, A Christmas Carol , “God bless us, everyone!”
RACHEL: Amen.
MOLLY: I guess that we’d better be on our way.
RACHEL: If you have room for a second passenger, I’d like to watch Emily’s fencing tournament.
EMILY: Thanks, Rachel! You and Molly are great friends!
MOLLY: Okay, ladies. Let’s hit the road.
(RACHEL, MOLLY, and EMILY exit.)
THE END
