The Actor's Monologue


"I am Robert Lyton Cohen.  You must recognize the name?  Perhaps it is
our present setting, it is so without the characters I've played.  If I were
to encounter you on a sidewalk, or waiting in front of the men's room in your
favorite Denny's, you would recognize me, because those are settings native
to my characters.  I, you see, am quite a different person.  I care for the
Italian, anything Italian. `Quando vicino di Roma,' as they say.  That we are
not near Italy is of no consequence; I plan to go there next year, it's just
that I've been busy, so busy!  I hope to go by way of Constantinople.  I have
heard that Constantinople's ancient walls are in an architectural museum in
what used to be East Berlin, & that they are blue.

&&&

"I never really had a father, you understand.  He was blown-up in a
boiler room when I was six-months on my way.  My mother told me that he was
an odd man.  Apparently, whenever he was disturbed he would do the most
extraordinary things.  She said that he had never seen a boiler blow, &
that he had always wanted to.  My mother was fabulous.  She knew what would
happen, so she went shopping when he said he was going to the basement.
She always had such foresight, & her face was always red.

&&&
"Why am I in Bishop?  Why, I'm on my way to my film location, of course.

It will be a dashing production, I'm sure.  I play this man who is obsessed
with rocks.  He likes the shapes of rocks, & the hardness of rocks.  He has
thousands around the apartment he shares with his wife, who is a ballet
dancer.  He likes to position his rocks around the apartment, & his favorite
thing about them is how they don't move.  He is fascinated by their inanimacy.

His wife is always taking his rocks, & hiding them because he likes to put
them on the floor in her studio.  He often takes her toe-shoes, so that she
will not move his rocks, but she simply buys new ones.  One night he gets
very angry, &, realizing the futility of taking her shoes again, he takes
her feet away, & hides them instead.  Her feet were yellow.

&&&

"Take a good look at me.  All of these people I've told you about are
dead now.  I shared the same environment with all of them.  I survive.  How
much of me can you really see?  How much do you fill in?  I am very largely
comprised of water; so are you.  I can see what you are thinking.  You think
that I am very troubled, perhaps insane.  Here, I will remove my sunglasses.
My eyes are strange, aren't they?  What you need to do now is think in the
only truly logical way.  Believe what you see, but be logical.  Don't create
what isn't there.  I see that you understand me now.  I am clear."