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monologue mania day # 150 by janet s. tiger burning diaries (revised (c) july 12, 2014

7/12/2014

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Monologue Mania Day # 150 by Janet S. Tiger Burning Diaries (revised) July 12, 2014 Special Note - Today am involved in That 24HOUR Thing at the San Diego Fringe Festival - have to write a ten-minute play...in 24 hours!  Mine is due tomorrow at 8am, and will be produced, with actors off book! - at 6pm Sunday night, July 13 - -  and it's FREE!  Click here for more info
 

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Monologue Mania   Day # 150  Burning Diaries (revised)  by Janet S. Tiger  July 12, 2014      

Thought I would add to yesterday's piece - which makes the two different, but related.  Which works better?  Would love to hear from actors.            

                BURNING DIARIES (revised)
                      
by Janet S. Tiger      from © 4/30/83  (1983)  all rights reserved tigerteam1@gmail.com                     


(A woman enters.  She is carrying a metal basket which she puts on the floor)

I burned my diaries yesterday.  It wasn’t as easy as I thought – the fire would die out on the thickness of the pages, and I had to use almost a book of matches to finish the job.
            I thought by the action I could make the time disappear…shrink back into the void.  I thought that by the red glow of the flames I could wipe away the things I could remember – not just what I wanted to forget, but all of it.
            In time, as the years go by and the relatives and friends who lived and know the truth, (or their version of it) pass away, the past will be gone, and I will be happy.
            Why did I do it?  Because I don’t want the me I am to be seen by anyone else unless I want it to be seen, and so, I erased the tapes of my life.
            I burned my diaries yesterday.  It wasn’t as easy as I thought – the fire would die out on the thickness of the pages, and I had to use almost a book of matches to finish the job.  Of course, perhaps the flames went out because of the tears…..             What did I do that was so bad that I want no one to know about it?

             (She picks out a page that is is crumbling and crushes it, sprinkling the remains.)

            What heinous crime did I commit?   Did I cheat on that test?  Did I bear false witness against my sister when it was really me who at the last cookie?  Did I lie when I stole that those quarters from my father's drawer?

              Did I sow the seeds of discontent when I said my friend's love had made a pass at me?  Did I commit.....murder when I had that abortion?  What is my worst crime?  Did these things happen, or are they the wishful dreams of a person in a too boring life?

             You tell me - now that it is all in ashes.......what was so bad that I had to...burn these diaries?

            (She leaves the basket and exits, turns back)

Or do you already know?

            (She exits.  The end.)
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Janet S. Tiger    858-736-6315
www.JanetSTiger.weebly.com
Member Dramatists Guild since 1983
Playwright-in-Residence
Swedenborg Hall 2006-8
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    Janet S. Tiger’s award-winning plays and monologues have been produced internationally and are currently in popular anthologies in the United States and Canada.

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