TALK ABOUT GOD, FIVE CENTS

 

(Reviews follow the text)

 

A Play Where Ordinary Folks . . .

Just Talk About God

 

 

Tom Noe

 

 

Copyright © 2011, 2022 by Tom Noe

All rights reserved.

tomnoe2@gmail.com

 

 

Synopsis

 

A chilly day in late November or early December, inside a small tent in Town & Country Shopping Center, Mishawaka, Indiana. A sign outside the tent invites people to come inside, sit down, put a nickel in the basket and simply “talk about God,” no holds barred. So they do. Around a card table are a folding chair for the actor and a high-backed, empty chair for the listener (never seen). In a series of monologues, wide-ranging and sometimes impassioned, people strive to express their personal experiences of God or of the absence of God. Among them are a veteran who still anguishes about not risking his own life to save his buddy, a woman who hopes to contact her dead husband, a former minister who alienated his son from religion, a Muslim Notre Dame student who has rejected the faith of his parents, and a gung-ho high school graduate just back from a semester at a Texas Bible camp. The play works something like The Moth Radio Hour on NPR. These are all ordinary folks, but unexpectedly poignant and profound. After they say their piece, they leave the tent.

 

Staging

 

The single set represents the inside of a small tent like those used at art fairs. Stage rear is a break in the back curtain for entrances and exits. One high-backed chair and one folding chair are separated by a card table, which has a small wicker basket or glass jar on it. The high-backed chair faces away from the audience, as if to conceal its occupant. It is always empty, but actors should give the impression that a woman is sitting there listening, an invisible participant. In all respects the characters should appear to come from the surrounding neighborhood: shoppers at the mall. Local accents should be used. Very occasionally, outside noises are heard: people talking and laughing, cars honking, etc. When the back curtain is opened, Muzak or, depending on production date, Christmas music might be overheard from the mall outside, or music can be used between all the monologues as a consistent feature.

 

Cast

 

A minimum of five actors (with doubling/tripling) up to a maximum of one actor for each monologue (about 25). They are elderly, middle-aged, middle 20s, preteen, etc. Doubling can be managed by a full costume change or simply by a symbolic change of scarf, raincoat, etc. One character appears three times and is not doubled. The others appear only once.

 

The author encourages some actors to create their own personal monologues similar to the rest and to add them to the production if 1) the cast and director agree that they work well dramatically, and 2) they are absolutely true and come from personal experience. No more than two of these personal monologues can be added per performance. If more than two actors want to do their own monologues they can be rotated during the run. The cast may decide to rehearse and present the play without a director.

 

Recommended playing time (without added monologues) is about 95 minutes. Emotional peaks, how to enter, whether or how long to sit down or pace around, leaving, paying the nickel, etc., may be either scripted or changed or ad-libbed from performance to performance. Actors may trade monologues among themselves from time to time. Experienced actors should divest themselves of their tricks of the trade: polished and sonorous voices, confident bearing, dramatic gestures, certain movements that never occur in real life, etc. The best policy is to imitate real people they know.

The play has a very unusual format, and according to the rules it shouldn’t work. But in production the audiences are rapt. Everyone is touched. Audience members say they experience a new respect for the genuine feelings and thoughts of other people who differ from them. Which is the point.

 

PRELUDE

 

(The lights come up full, and the whole or partial cast enters one by one and faces the audience. The prelude can be spoken partially in unison and partially as individuals, or perhaps in succession with some words overlapping.)

 

ALL

I was over at Town and Country Shopping Center on Tuesday and I saw this little square tent, a white one, like the ones you see at the art fair down in Leeper Park on the Fourth of July. Somebody set it up on the sidewalk outside Sally Beauty Supply. The sign on the front said, “Talk about God, Five Cents.” Then the dates, November 28th to December 19th. That’s got to catch your attention. Nothing unusual about the tent, just the sign, but it was big enough for several people to be in there. I thought it was publicity for something. Or somebody collecting money for a charity, for Christmas. That mall got a little seedy after the Walgreen’s closed down, but now it’s rebounding. (Pause.) So, people are passing by this tent. Everybody but me is ignoring it. I look in my (pocket/purse/bag) to see if I’ve got any change left. I had a nickel, so I opened the flap and went in. If I hadn’t had a nickel I probably would’ve skipped it.

 

(All exit, or they may exit individually after speaking.)

 

Some selected monologues:

THREE

 

(A middle-aged woman enters. Right after making her most outrageous or offensive statements, she stops, puts on a fake sweet smile momentarily, as if to say, “I’m so cute and good that I couldn’t possibly mean what I just said,” then loses the smile and resumes talking. She does this regularly.)

 

Okay, you asked for it. My story. First of all, you’d think this whole town was full of Mormons, like it was a kind of like Mormonville, because all my life it’s been me against them, me against all these “nice” people telling me how to behave. Telling me how to be nice like them. For my own good, oh sure. Ever since I started crossing the street by myself. I know they’re not Mormons but I call them that. Look, if I decide to drink myself down into a puddle on the floor, that’s my own business, not theirs. Sometimes I tried that—like when my husband was out at the strip clubs again, after he promised me up and down he wouldn’t, and after he already passed his VD on to me. Anyhow, now he’s calling me up again. Stops by this morning, accidentally on purpose. Been sending me stuff. Bribing me with the lingerie, the Fendi handbags, the European spa coupons, Cosmo this and Cosmo that. You wouldn’t believe the crap! What I need is a garage sale. No, I need to kick him out on his ass again. I should have shot him, back in the day. I’ve got my gun and I still use it. I’m so sweet you don’t believe me, do you? Well, you ought to. No, what I really needed then was a single red geranium, like from a Japanese garden, but that came later. So, when I found out the place he moved when I kicked him out, I carpet-tacked his driveway. I’m so nice! He wanted all the furniture! I just locked him out. Not something you do here in Mormonville. He slept in the front yard one night to make sure all the neighbors felt sorry for him. So I had a little talk with every one of those neighbors. End of story. But we’re all so nice in Mormonville. Nice, nice, nice. No, I’m just kidding. I used to shoot, but now I just watch: birds, deer out in the fields. We’ve got raccoons at night. I haven’t hunted in years. When I pick up a gun it’s like this giant tide pulling me away from everything ugly and small and defeated. Away from him. Away from all the crap! In Mormonville they make you into a foreigner in your own body. “Clean up your yard or we’ll call the feds.” Okay, right, what does all this have to do with God? Good question. Why did I even come in here in the first place? “Talk about God, Five Cents”? Just so I can waste a nickel? It’s really so I can reveal my sensitive caring personality. Ha! My mentor says, “Submission is not our mission.”

 

(Pause for listening.)

 

Absolutely. I know that now. The goddess of women is fighting with the god of men. It’s all about authority. I hope that’s part of the message you’re sending people. They have the authority of god. This [gesturing to the tent] is a very good idea, right in the middle of corporate and commercial hell. It’s the contrast. It’s the message. Like a nomadic tent in the wilderness. Make straight the way. No, even god has to fight for what he gets. Okay, I’m ranting. Cool down. “Touch deeply. . . . Touch deeply.” My mentor gave me that chant for the authentic woman I was . . . I am. No, this morning he drops by, uninvited, all miserable and drooping at the mouth and I actually start feeling something for him. Better than cutting his balls off! I could have done that too. I’ve got the equipment. He looks so sad without that pasted-on light-bulby smile. And he always had visitation but he missed his children growing up, teaching them to ride a bike, singing Happy Birthday, and he can never get that back. So, every day I stand up and lift my arms and release up in the air all the past and everything he’s doing to me now. God is love. God is love. And, in a way, I do love him again, but as a broken human being. I respect him as the failure he is. Everybody deserves respect, right? Ha! People like us, the listeners, we’re the way for so many others. I feel like we’re sisters. Thank you so much for doing this. It means a lot.

 

FOUR

 

(A man pokes his head through the flap but doesn’t enter.)

 

I’d like to do this, but there are some things . . . I need to think it out more, and there’s somebody I need to talk to. You’ve still got five days left, right? Ha—”left, right.” That didn’t come out right. I mean . . . (Shakes his head.) At any rate, I heard this gentleman talking at the Pizza Hut. He was in here a couple days ago. He was all lit up, talking about this. How you made him think. I don’t need an appointment, right? I was watching outside and you don’t seem very busy—one or two people an hour.

 

(Pause for listening.)

 

Like I say, give me a couple days, maybe Thursday? Okay.

 

FIVE

 

(A woman in her 20s enters. She is a little hard to understand. Sometimes she mispronounces a word that she learned after going deaf.)

 

I can read lips, so just keep facing me, okay? I’ve been deaf since I was twelve so it’s less of a deal for me than it probably is for you, so just relax. I remember how to talk good enough that most people don’t know I can’t hear. I sign to get along with deaf people and I talk so I can get along with everybody else. I speak English and Spanish plus signing. I’m not paranoid about signing, like some deaf people, but I think ASL is where it’s at for the future. Well, enough about me. (Laughs.) There’s this thing that happened. Two years ago I was down in Colombia for the summer. This was a program out of Gallaudet University to help set up services for the indigenous who were deaf, especially kids. I mostly traveled to the cities, but some days I got out to the villages. That’s what I liked the best, in the rain forest up in the high valleys, everything so incredibly green except for the white houses and the red roofs. I’m glad I’m not blind. Wild fruit everywhere. They mostly ignored it and let it rot, I guess they were so used to it, or bored eating it. Anyhow, this one village was a day’s hike, and across some rope bridges you wouldn’t believe—just beautiful. So I got to the village and did my survey for the government, which is who I was working for. But the next day was Sunday and it was the first time in years that a priest was coming up the mountain to say mass. I’m Catholic, and everybody in the village was Catholic, sort of, from years before, but a lot of them didn’t have much religion left, or they went back to some of the old religion, cutting open chickens and all that. Young people never been to mass at all. I figured it wouldn’t hurt me none to go to mass, so the next afternoon I crowded into this little broken-down church with everybody else, holes in the roof, and this old priest who looked like he’d topple over if you sneezed on him showed up with his own vestments and chalice and so forth, self-contained, so it was a real mass, same prayers and everything. Something like a cross between native language and Spanish. The chalice was sitting out on the altar and he was preaching or saying something, some prayers. I don’t know. I had a lot of trouble understanding him, but this one time when he lifted his head I saw him say that this was the body and blood of Christ and it would give you eternal life if you ate it, something like that. And all these peasants—they mobbed the altar! It was like a brawl. The ones in front grabbed the chalice and the hosts, shoved everybody else out of the way. Then people were arguing and screaming, I mean screaming, and the ones in the back didn’t want to get left out—as if God could run out of eternal life—so they pushed forward, and it was a riot. The priest yelled and he tried to rescue the container with the hosts, but people were passing it around to their families and kids. The wine didn’t last long—this one old guy tried to drink all of it. Maybe he was a big sinner, I don’t know. I held back and watched the whole thing. But I guess if I heard that sure enough all I had to do was drink some wine or eat some bread to get my sins forgiven and live forever, wouldn’t I fight for it? Wouldn’t I stomp on a hundred little kids to get my life back for all eternity? What would that be worth? It’s not the same back here. People seem pretty dull at mass, like nothing’s happening. But in that church I felt like something did happen, and it’s still there, like a little bite of pain in my guts. Is God like a pain in your guts, something that you got to have or else you die? I don’t have that kind of desire. Maybe I should have beaten up a few peasants. (Laughs.)

 

(Pause for listening.)

 

Do you comment on what people say in here?

 

(Pause for listening.)

 

Okay, I guess I had more questions than answers. Thanks.

 

SIX

 

(A college-age man enters. His Pakistani accent is sometimes hard to understand. He is excited and moving constantly.)

 

When my father drops me off here for college he tells my landlord, “I leave my son in God’s hands and in your hands.” This is how he talks—it is God who is always doing everything. God conquers everything. God arranges everything. But he is finding out God cannot make a son. The landlord knows I am from Pakistan and we already have emailed back and forth about me being Muslim. My father won’t let me to live in a dorm or apartment with people my age. Immoral. But my landlord is older, he is almost retired. A Christian, yes, but no danger to religion. No drinking, no dating. My father makes him agree to watch me but he never watches me. We come over from our village, close to Afghanistan border, maybe four years ago, when I am then 16. I’m a U.S. citizen since last summer. My father teaches dentistry. Our way is for sons to follow in the father’s footsteps. Two of my brothers are dentists and one in school, still back in Pakistan. My uncle is dentist. His sons are dentists. Summers I used to clean up for my father, the teeth he pulled, the blood, which disgusts me. I hate it. I can’t touch these things. I know I could not be a dentist, but I could never tell him that, or my mother. I study to be dentist for two years because he is my father and it is his decision, but last semester I tell my father—this is crazy—that I am going to be some kind of engineer. He is silent for a long time. It is the worst thing I ever say to him. My own father. I hate it to say this. I tell him I apply here to college at Notre Dame and am accepted. Now I major in political theory, but then, I tell him engineering because it is at least science. I cannot tell him political theory. Too much lying. Terrible for me I lie to my father! He says what will I do for college, I have no money, but already I have scholarships and loans. He asks me if I have prayed to God. I pray every day, at the times for prayer, even now, in my landlord’s house. He doesn’t know if he can interrupt me (Laughs.) when he sees me on my prayer rug. I don’t believe there is a God, but I can never stop praying. Sometimes I think I’m Pakistani Muslim, and sometimes American. The U.S. is very strange. When my landlord buys food it is my duty to carry the bags in for him, because he is an elder, but he won’t let me do this. Very strange. I stand when he comes into my room but he doesn’t like this. Very different. In my village in Pakistan, every boy has the same haircut, wears the same clothes in school, memorizes the same texts, prays the same. Here is many different choices. But I will never stop praying. If my father asks me again if I pray, I will say yes, not lie. If I lie about that, it will kill him, or he will not speak to me again. I would be dead to him. So this reason is why I can never get married. Our way is for the parents to choose the wife. Already I insult my father by not becoming a dentist. I cannot insult him more by choosing my own wife for me. This would be too much. He would cast me out. So I can never get married. I will do this for his sake. Now we talk on the phone again, but for months no one in my family would talk to me. My own brothers! I love them. I love my father so I do what he wants. In Pakistan are rules for everything. When I am talking to my cousins in the street, if I spit the wrong way I insult them. Okay, if God cares about this so small thing, yes, he would care whether a son follows his father’s profession. Today I don’t think about that. But bad for me I shame my father. He is now very careful when he speaks to me. Perhaps he would be sad to cast me out, I do not know. But he speaks to me with purpose, because he is trying to make me understand our ways, not just follow them. He says something and then waits to see if I will disagree. I hate that. Like I am a bad person, an evil person. I don’t disagree with him, I’m not that kind of person, but now he is suspicious. He thinks maybe the devil has put some strange thoughts in my head, and maybe I think this too, but I feel nothing like that. I only want to make my own choices. All my American friends do this. I make for my friends bootleg DVDs of the big movies before they come out at the theater, because I know people. If one Pakistani gets a movie, the next day all the Pakistanis in the U.S. have the DVD if they want it. My father thinks this is wrong.

 

(His cell phone rings. He answers and talks back and forth in Urdu for six seconds.)

 

He is my cousin from Karachi, but he lives here now. I will not get married, because I am already such a bad son and I cannot disobey my father twice in his life. It will be hard. Maybe God understands. My father wants me to believe in God, so I believe, and I pray, even though I know there’s no God. I have to go now.

 

 

EIGHT

 

(A middle-aged woman enters.)

 

Do you believe that there are three persons in one God?

 

(Pause for listening.)

 

Okay, then. That’s what they always told me. Good for you. Keep at it.

 

NINE

 

(A man, 26 enters, obviously a loser.)

 

My name is Jonah, can you believe that? When I saw your tent, right away I knew it was really meant for me to come in here. This is so cool. This is so perfect. You just want me to go ahead and talk, right? Like about God? That’s what I thought. Man, it is just so perfect. And the weather today. It all fits. My girlfriend said something super-great was going to happen today. So, because of my name I’ve always been pretty spiritual, you know, especially in grade school. Like I know when things are going to happen sometimes. So when I got to high school I told my friends to call me Judas. We were doing a lot of tabletop dungeon crawls and I was always the meat shield, so I needed an excellent name. In ninth grade I read this legend somewhere, that Judas—you know Judas, right? That Judas—before he met Christ, was on his way to move to Israel and they threw him off the ship and he was swallowed by a whale, just like Jonah, and the point was that the whale didn’t know what he was doing or he would have kept Judas swallowed up inside there. Makes sense. But that made Judas and Jonah the same person, like mirror images in time, and that made me a mirror image of them too, because my name is Jonah.

 

(Pause for listening.)

 

No, really. So all my friends started calling me Judas when we were together, cause nobody names a baby Judas anymore, I must have been the only one in the whole state—

 

(Pause for listening.)

 

Yeah? Sure I can.

 

(A longer pause than normal, listening.)

 

If that’s what you want. Hey, it’s your tent. You make the rules.

 

(Pause for listening.)

 

Lady, I don’t aim to make trouble for anybody. Not me or you.

 

(Pause for listening.)

 

No, that’s cool. I understand. Cool as can be. No problem. No problem.

 

TEN

 

(A man, 44, Army camo, enters.)

 

This is it. December, 1983, a village a few miles outside of Oddur in Somalia. An eight-year-old boy snuck up on me when I was sleeping. Stabbed me in the chest, but he hit a rib so it just basically stuck me and bled a lot and made me mad. He died hard. I mean, he just wouldn’t let go, he was hard to kill. His arms were everywhere, and yelling, and he wouldn’t let go. It took a long time. I didn’t think about God. All I thought was, this is really shitty. Few people really know what that means. On the carrier coming home—the long way back, lots of time to think—I renounced any notion of a god.

 

So I’m not sure I answered the question. Was there a question?

 

(Pause for listening.)

 

Okay, that’s it then.

 

ELEVEN

 

(A middle-aged man enters.)

 

How long have you been doing this?

 

(Pause for listening.)

 

Working for somebody? Some church?

 

(Pause for listening.)

 

I was watching for a while and nobody came in, so I figured I’d see what was going on. Plus it’s cold out there. So I just ante up my nickel and we talk about God?

 

(Pause for listening.)

 

Do you give out some advice or something? You’re bound to know more than I do. Do you answer questions?

 

(Pause for listening.)

 

So what do I get for my nickel? How long?

 

(Pause for listening.)

 

What if I can’t think of anything, do I get a refund? (Laughs.) Okay, so I just sit down? I’d rather stand, okay?

 

(Pause for listening.)

 

Don’t you say something to get me started?

 

(Pause for listening.)

 

Okay, I’m pretty sure there is a God, but not one that’s paying much attention to us down here. But I do think he’s a person, not a big cloud. He doesn’t seem to be around much, but actually I can tell you about this one time I thought God and the devil really were fighting it out over my soul. Do you get a lot of Baptists in here?

 

(Pause for listening.)

 

I’m not surprised. Talking this way would seem pretty weird to us. So, we believe life is a battle with the devil for your eternal soul—and I can see that. It makes sense. This was my junior year in college. I was in debate and I ran into one of the other debate guys on my way to the library. He said, “Hey, Brian, you’re a good student, aren’t you? Do well on your papers?” “Sure,” I said. He said he had a business proposition. This guy was my friend, by the way. But turns out he ran a little operation on the side, swapping papers from one school to another. His clients—he called them clients—might need a paper in a hurry. He kept a file of some standard papers for basic English and history intro courses. If I gave him one of the papers I’d already written for a class and it fit what somebody needed at a different school, it was $100 bucks, which was a boatload of money back then. Tuition was $600 a semester. Well, he asked me to think about it and let him know the next day. That night I couldn’t sleep. All the students had to sign this thing “not to tolerate cheating in my fellow students.” But the kicker was, the president of the student justice council was my roommate. So, for me it was more than just going against my own beliefs, it was going against Matt. Every time I saw him, I’d be thinking about how I was cheating behind his back. So, it was all night. Like a battle. I figured if I turned the guy in for cheating they’d kick him out. This was during Viet Nam, and if you lost your student deferment you could land an all-expense-paid flight to Southeast Asia and get your sorry ass blown to crap in a rice paddy. Excuse my language. I talked myself into this whole nightmare scenario: I’d turn him in for cheating and he’d go to Nam and get blown away his first day on patrol. It was happening every day. On the news they showed people younger than me coming back in coffins. I could picture him lying in that coffin, rolling down the conveyer belt off the plane like some UPS box. Simple equation. I turn him in: he’s dead. So like I said I couldn’t sleep all that night, and then the next morning I looked at Matt and somehow our eyes locked, and without even thinking about it I said, “I talked with this guy yesterday.” I told him everything. He asked was I sure and I told him I was. I called the other guy that night to let him know I turned him in, cause we were friends. I didn’t expect that to last, obviously. He cussed me out and said he’d send people over to beat me up, but that didn’t happen. Maybe I deserved to get beat up, turning in my friend. Matt told me later it was the worst case the justice council ever worked on. The guy admitted everything. About 40 people got called in. This was just before first semester ended, so they didn’t let him take his finals, and kicked him out for spring semester too. I worried about him, even prayed for him. Nobody knew what happened. Matt couldn’t find out. Records were sealed or something. But a year and a half later in fall semester I saw him on campus again. His seat in the stadium was two rows down from mine, so I saw him before the first game. We ignored each other, I mean, hell, maybe I ruined the guy’s life. But before the second game he came up and sat down next to me. Then he says, “I want to thank you for what you did. I was headed in the wrong direction. I spent spring semester at home and then took a year of classes at a community college. Met a great girl and we got serious. I look at things different now.” Man, I couldn’t believe it. It was just what the preacher said when I was a kid: you do the honest thing even if it hurts, and people will thank you for it later. Except usually they don’t, usually they beat up on you or they key your car. Well, this time it worked. Anyhow, that night when I couldn’t sleep, that was the battle. God and the devil fighting over my soul. Good on this side and evil on the other. Not that I’ve been Mr. Perfect since then. If it was even the right decision—I mean, he still had to graduate late, and the new girlfriend didn’t work out. So, like, I never wanted to be his divine judge, or anybody’s judge. Nobody’s ever turned me in for the bad things I’ve done. (Laughs.) Mostly I never got caught, but if somebody turned me in I wonder if I would thank him.

 

(He puts a nickel in the bowl, takes it out again, puts it in again, starts to leave.)

 

And also I guess I’m a little worried because nowadays God and the devil don’t seem to be fighting over me anymore. So maybe one of them already won, and I just don’t know which one.

 

 

Tom Noe

Playwright

tomnoe2@gmail.com

 

My goal is to tell great stories about interesting people. I’m more intrigued by the perennial themes of human experience (egotism, love, sacrifice, faith, friendship, hypocrisy) than by current topics ripped from the headlines (addiction, diversity, racism, abuse, loneliness). My plays often show ordinary people in harsh and conflicting situations where their faith in God makes a difference in what they decide. Sometimes they succeed; sometimes they fail.

 

 

 

REVIEWS

 

Audience blog comments after the Chicago run:

Katy Walsh in Chicago Now: “My expectation was set on low. And I was blown away.”

Anonymous: “I’m going back to this show.”

Gabrielle Caputo in Around Town, Arts Alive Review: “spectacular theatre production and some food for thought.”

Zac Thompson in Chicago Reader: “The characters’ stories aren’t out of the ordinary, but Noe movingly conveys how full of mystery the ordinary can be. Even the believers allow as how God is elusive and our longing for him can feel like a ‘little pit of pain’ in the gut.” (Seven plays premiered in Chicago the same month, and Talk about God was the only “recommended pick” in Chicago Reader.)

John Lordan, actor and playwright: “Beautiful work, beautiful.”

(No negative comments were posted.)

 

Curtis Treat, Director, Stained Glass Theatre

“When we first received your play I was skeptical. A show that was just monologues did not sound like it would work, but once I got the entire cast together the play clicked for them. A couple of people told me they didn't want to come when they heard about the show, but they were so glad they did. After all three performances people were talking and thinking. The play really made the audience think. I really loved doing this show. I’m glad you proved my initial thoughts wrong.”

 

Bev Smith, director

"The Barn Swallow production of your play is one of my favorite plays. Many more will now have a chance to see it in Michigan City, and be touched. I'm putting it on my list of things to do. Hope you enjoy the show, as I assume you will be going. I'd like a recap if you do. Also, I'd like to share this correspondence with our board. Thanks!"

 

Eric Bosler, a teen actor from the Barn Swallow performance, six months later: "I'm still thinking about your play."

 

Bobby Komendera, director, Footlight Players

"Thank you so very much for your masterpiece of monologues. The company as well as myself and the membership of the Footlight Players of Michigan City are in your debt. We worked, dissected, pored over and enjoyed the effort of your work. Write on!"