Self-Help

By Norm Foster

A married pair of second-rate theatre actors cast themselves as nationally renowned self-help gurus. Their lives unravel in a farce as they try to conceal a body and hold on to their falsely won fame.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Playwrights Canada Press
• Release date: Aug 1, 2004
• ISBN: 9781770913929

Norm Foster

Norm Foster has been the most produced playwright in Canada every year for the past twenty years. His plays receive an average of one hundred and fifty productions annually. Norm has over sixty plays to his credit, including The Foursome, On a First Name Basis, and Hilda’s Yard. He is the recipient of the Los Angeles Drama-Logue Award for his play The Melville Boys and is an Officer of the Order of Canada. He lives in Fredericton.

Book preview

ACT ONE

Scene 1

Time: Eight years ago.

Place: A dressing room at the Moonglow Dinner Theatre.

The dressing room is represented by two chairs and a make-up mirror. HAL and CINDY SAVAGE are preparing to go on for a performance. HAL sits in one chair applying make-up. CINDY is reading a book. They are both wearing bathrobes.

VOICE: ( off ) Mr. Savage and Mrs. Savage? Five minutes please.

HAL: Thank you!

CINDY: Thank you!

HAL: Closing night. Thank God. Five weeks on the same stage with Mitchell Quinty is like having Laurence Olivier for a dentist.

CINDY: What a steaming load of horse manure.

HAL: What?

CINDY: This book. Listen to this. ( She reads .) You’ve got to have faith in your ability to achieve worthy rewards. You can dwell in the misery of life, or you can choose to say, life is good.

HAL: What book is that?

CINDY: Oh, some self-help book that Mitchell loaned me.

HAL: Mitchell reads self-help books? The man should be reading an acting primer. And I’ll tell you this right now. If he grabs my ass before we go on tonight, I’m going to break his nose.

CINDY: He grabs your ass?

HAL: He’s grabbed it every night for the entire run. He says it’s for luck.

CINDY: He never grabs my ass.

HAL: Yes, well, I don’t think he’s hoping to get lucky with you.

CINDY: ( reading ) Focus your energies, funnel your abilities, and channel your desires. Oh, please.

HAL: Which reminds me. Did I tell you what the director said to me on opening night? He said I didn’t seem focused. Focused? You try playing Felix Unger to a gay Oscar Madison. I dare you!

CINDY: You know, I could write this drivel.

HAL: What?

CINDY: This self-help malarkey. It’s just a bunch of generalities. It’s common sense rhetoric. Listen to this. Do not be concerned about where you are. It’s where you are going that counts.

HAL: Yes, well, I know where I’m going. To the nearest telephone to fire our agent for landing us in a show with Mitchell Quinty.

CINDY: Have you spoken to Ruby today?

HAL: No. She was supposed to call and let me know if I got that part in Edmonton.

CINDY: And if you do get it, you go off to Edmonton and I go home and we don’t see each other for six weeks.

HAL: I don’t like the thought of it anymore than you do, sweetheart, but it’s the nature of the business. We have to go where the work is.

CINDY: Work. When we don’t get it we complain because we’re broke, and when we do get it, we wind up being separated for weeks at a time. Now, this guy’s got the right idea.

HAL: What guy?

CINDY: This self-help guru. He does seminars, sells books, tapes. And he makes millions.

HAL: Yes, but is he fulfilled?

CINDY: ( looking at the cover ) He sure looks fulfilled. He’s got a nice tan too. Must have got that on that tropical island he owns. Hal, I think we’re in the wrong business.

HAL: Look, Cindy, this fellow may own a tropical island, but does he get the satisfaction of a warm round of applause from an appreciative audience every night? .

CINDY: He plays to sold out auditoriums two hundred nights a year.

HAL: Well, screw him then.

CINDY: You know, we could do this.

HAL: Do what?

CINDY: This self-help nonsense. I could write it and we could do it together.

HAL: Cindy, we’re actors.

CINDY: And that’s exactly why we could do it. Making people believe in a fantasy? We’re naturals for it.

HAL: Sorry, love. As much as this particular show has been a harrowing experience, my heart still belongs to the theatre. She’s my mistress. I could never leave her. I mean, we owe everything we have to her.

CINDY: Hal, we’re at the Moonglow Dinner Theatre on the outskirts of Flin Flon, Manitoba. Our entire wardrobe is stuffed into two hefty bags in the trunk of our nine year old Ford Tempo. Meanwhile, we live in a one bedroom apartment over a Thai Kosher restaurant and everything we own smells of curried makah. If theatre is our mistress, I say let’s dump the bitch.

HAL: No, I couldn’t. And neither could you and you know it.

CINDY: We’d get to spend more time together.

HAL: Cindy, we have been working together for the last five weeks.

CINDY: Yes, but imagine doing that fifty-two weeks a year. Every year.

HAL: It would be too much to hope for. All right, my love, time to go.

Beyond this door, our playground awaits.

CINDY: Playground. Then why do I feel like the cat’s always peeing in our sandbox? Hal, I really think we should give this self-help idea some serious thought.

HAL: Sorry, Cindy. The only thing that would make me leave the theatre right now would be if this show were held over and I were forced to act with Mitchell Quinty for one more agonizing night. That, my dear, would be the last straw.

VOICE: ( over an intercom ) Places please, for the top of act one. Places please. Thank you.

HAL: Now, let us away. We have tarried long enough so as to make our audience breathless with anticipation.

CINDY: I hope they’ve finished their cheesecake.

Lights down. The music begins for Scene 2 so that the scenes almost overlap.

Scene 2

Time: Seven years later.

Place: A sold out auditorium.

The stage is very softly lit. We hear the pre-recorded voice of an announcer over a dramatic and spirited piece of music.

ANNCR: ( over ) Ladies and gentlemen, fasten your seatbelts and open your minds because you are about to experience the power of ‘The Savage