Play #80 - Caller, Are You There? by Kitty Dubin
Dr. Linda Messenger is a harsh radio shrink known for having very specific ideas about how a family should work. She is pretty unforgiving. Parents, she says, should never be away from their children until they are in their teens. Even when her caller, Paul, asks for her blessing to leave his 3 and 4 year old children while he and his wife go on a vacation he just won to Hawaii, she tells him he is just being selfish. Her next caller is a woman named Anne whose adoptive mother just passed away, and she is not looking for her birth mother. Dr. Linda is disgusted with the idea, blindly criticizing anyone who would give up their child. But Anne blurts out that she believes Dr. Linda to be her mother. Dr. Linda assures her this is absurd, and she hangs up. Another caller comes on, asking for advice about his wife wanting to go to her high school reunion alone - Dr. Linda quickly declares his wife a slut and moves on to the next caller. This is Anne again, disguising her voice with a heavy southern accident. But quickly she does reveal herself, and gets Dr. Linda to listen at least a little, though she still refuses the connection. On her commercial break she calls her husband, quite rattled by the exchange, and when she comes back, she reads a letter from someone who could quite clearly be Anne's mother... though she doesn't actually read anything. She just recites the news. And finally, once she is off the air, she agrees to take Anne's call.
It's a little bit contrived, but if played earnestly, could be a sweet little play. And I like the old school feeling of a radio show. I know there are still plenty of radio shows, and I know they're not really old school, but they do have an old feeling.
Dr. Linda Messenger is a harsh radio shrink known for having very specific ideas about how a family should work. She is pretty unforgiving. Parents, she says, should never be away from their children until they are in their teens. Even when her caller, Paul, asks for her blessing to leave his 3 and 4 year old children while he and his wife go on a vacation he just won to Hawaii, she tells him he is just being selfish. Her next caller is a woman named Anne whose adoptive mother just passed away, and she is not looking for her birth mother. Dr. Linda is disgusted with the idea, blindly criticizing anyone who would give up their child. But Anne blurts out that she believes Dr. Linda to be her mother. Dr. Linda assures her this is absurd, and she hangs up. Another caller comes on, asking for advice about his wife wanting to go to her high school reunion alone - Dr. Linda quickly declares his wife a slut and moves on to the next caller. This is Anne again, disguising her voice with a heavy southern accident. But quickly she does reveal herself, and gets Dr. Linda to listen at least a little, though she still refuses the connection. On her commercial break she calls her husband, quite rattled by the exchange, and when she comes back, she reads a letter from someone who could quite clearly be Anne's mother... though she doesn't actually read anything. She just recites the news. And finally, once she is off the air, she agrees to take Anne's call.
It's a little bit contrived, but if played earnestly, could be a sweet little play. And I like the old school feeling of a radio show. I know there are still plenty of radio shows, and I know they're not really old school, but they do have an old feeling.
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