Playing Myself: An Excerpt

This is an excerpt from a play I'm writing called "Playing Myself" and truth be told it is partly autobiographical in many ways. The play itself is bold and brazen in the way that I know people can be. The character Game is made of many people I call my friends and family.

ACT 1

[Sound: Keziah Jones : Afrosurrealismfortheladies]

Scene One: Game Is Deep

[Video Montage of Cragslist ads, Chat Room signs, Personal Ads, W4W is the intro sequence to sound. Montage stops on pic of “deja” The pic should be a personal pic, of the “deja” at the beach revealing without being crass]

[Game is standing and Belly is sitting in her “apt” There is a computer on a desk]

[Game takes out a deck of cards and flicks one at the pic of deja on the computer monitor. She begins the monologue matter of factly]

I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear
I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center. I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and you enter
it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.

[Beat]

Game: What Nigga What?

[throwing the email down and strutting ]

Belly: that’s for you?

[nodding clearly feeling it]

Game: naw, That’s for her.

Belly: I know right. Did she hit you back?

Game: Yup, she sent me more pics.

Belly: where’s this one from

[picking up the printed out email]

Game: Blackplanet

[busy online]

Belly: from from

[Looking towards game]

Game: NC State, Tarheel, Smart Girl. She can appreciate that.

[matter a factly ]

Belly: No stupid, the poem.

[shaking head]

Game: oh. That’s Margaret atwood.

[quickly]

Belly: Damn, G. You get deep on bitches.

Game: [shaking a knowing finger at belly] I get deep on sistas I fuck bitches.

[End scene]

Summary: Playing Myself is a play about a young masculine woman nicknamed Game for her tenacity and prowess with the same sex. The play documents her pursuit and promiscuity in search of true love. This quest takes her into the world of online dating, personal ads, chat rooms and phone ad’s. Only through her best friend belly Can her motives be clearly seen and understood. Everything else is just game. Belly and Game’s exchanges result in deeper understanding of each other’s masculine gender, sexuality, and beg the answer to many other subjects on sex, relationships, and health.