c. 1861-1872
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Meet Charlotte Branney. She’s scrappy, bounding in energy, and is fully quasi-illiterate. She is able to crawl under men’s legs and slip her hands into their pockets, retrieving the finest of treasures. Knowing the alphabet up to the letter “D,” Charlotte may be useful in obtaining office supplies at a very low cost to us. At no cost, actually. None at all.
Posted in News | Tagged news, Summer Interns, The Good Ear Review | Leave a Comment »
I, as editor-in-chief of this webby-sited literary journal, question those who so favour the All Hallow’s Eve celebration. Do they need to somehow make merry the macabre due to their own inner psychopathelogical tendencies? Do these poor unfortunate creatures need to “dress up” in demented “finery” to “convey” their spirit “for” this bizarre and unnatural revelry of the “un-alive”? What kind of twisted, depraved, grody, divergent, and, frankly, camp unfortunates need to adorn themselves with such unorthodox and disturbing costume?
Urchin! Come! And bring the bin liners!
Here at The Good Ear Review‘s cosy set of mahogany cubicles, we are fortunate to have such a creature in our midst. My staff, under my direction, have adorned the office urchin to dress as something—we don’t quite know what—but something that is at once spastic, sad, and flamboyant.
Can you guess what he is dressed as? We can’t. But no matter! Enough! Enjoy yourselves on this hideous of holidays. I don’t understand any of you.
Best,
Tristram Stjohn Bexindale-Webb,
Editor-in-Chief and Port-drinker
Posted in News | Tagged All Hallow's Eve, Halloween, Halloween costumes, The Good Ear Review, the urchin | Leave a Comment »
Dear Country Estate Owners:
I am currently looking for a well-appointed garden shed or cave for hermetic possibilities on your property.
I require very little upkeep as I am partial to voles. I am suitably apoplectic, adequately eccentric, and erudite in my mutterings.
I philosophise.
Let me be your living lawn ornament.
I can be reached at… I am not reachable.
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by Kimberly Mercado
Setting:
Interrogation room
Character:
LIORA, 20s, is a multi-racial young woman with a soothing southern drawl that evokes innocence.
LIORA sits in a chair on a bare stage.
LIORA
That night child Jamal kept goin’ on an on about who knows what. I just made sure I looked like I’s listening real good. Frowning real hard like I’s thinkin’ with him. Except, I had a real hard time with that. I didn’t tell ‘im that or nothin’. But what’d he expect? We were in the middle of something else, you know gettin’ it on, and I’ve never been any good at doing more than one thing at once. Besides Jamal wuz never much for talkin’, especially when he’s in the middle of… um…
(Embarrassed) …Grindin’ and poundin’ like boys do. But that night child he kept goin’ on and on while he’s on top of me looking straight at me and what he said… Wait — I wanna make sure I get it right… “Liora, e-ve-ry human… person –” Yeah that’s what he said, “human person… when their life’s gone to crap realize suicide’s right there for one’s taking. Most try to shake their heads straight cause it’s a sin to go against God’s law but then for others, its God calling on ‘em.” And then as he come inside of me, Jamal shouted to the heavens above.
(Imitating Jamal, she shouts) “As God is my witness, I’m no coward.” I couldn’t keep my eyes off him even if I wanted to. Jamal’s hands found themselves around my neck. Grunting like a bull in heat. His dark eyes stared down at me while his sweat kept dripping on my forehead and his hands got tighter and tighter around my neck. Continue Reading »
Posted in Monologues | Tagged drama, Kimberly Mercado, Monologues, new writing, plays, playwright, playwriting, theatre | 3 Comments »
A fantasy on poems by Jacqueline Kolosov
by Norman A. Bert
Setting:
Outside an apartment, on a little balcony, 12 stories up.
Time:
Late at night.
Character:
PETE, 50s
PETE is in his pajamas, sitting in a plastic chair, smoking.
PETE
I get back from lunch, drowsy. Wander through those three rooms. My world. Mine? That’s a good one. Pictures of strange, long-necked women. Watch for the hidden camera, the reaching hand—what makes people think they can touch the paintings? Gotta remember to pick up the eggs, the tortillas—means taking the slow way home. Jesse. Who did he think he was, saying that to our mother? Then I notice her. Where did she come from?
Blue scarf. Foreign. Maybe European.
And then he expects you to fix his car. After a comment like that. Must be the water pump.
She’s slow, this one. Gonna be here a while. Methodical. One picture at a time.
Then the kids come in with their teacher. Third graders? Giggles. Pointing. More giggles. What was that teacher thinking? Didn’t she know about the nudes? She’s gonna catch hell from the parents. Serves her right. Continue Reading »
Posted in Monologues | Tagged comedy, drama, Modigliani, Monologues, new writing, Norman A. Bert, plays, playwright, playwriting, theatre | Leave a Comment »
by Deidre Dowling
Setting: An artist’s studio in Paris, France
Time: Christmas Eve in the late 19th century
Character: JOANNA HIFFERNAN, 25 years old, artist and model. For six years Joanna was the Irish mistress of painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler.
JOANNA
Do I want him to come? Well, I do…and then maybe I don’t… I’m expecting “the curse” an I feel like a piece of stretched elastic…and I’m that mad at him. Who the hell does he think he is ranting and raving at me like that? Maybe he has some little whore’s melt lined up somewhere whose only too happy to put him up these last few nights
(She vigorously brushes her hair) The best thing my Da did for me—the red hair…the only thing…the drunken ole shite! Though, it has to be said…I’ve never met the like of him…and he does stir me up so! His lovemaking isn’t all talk like some I could mention! I suppose you can’t blame the fellas back home, what with the priest and their mammies breathing down their necks and them afraid they’ll be hauled before the parish priest and condemned from the pulpit for immoral and debauched behavior with a girl of “uncertain” character! If it wasn’t for me Ma, I’d have been carted off to one of those homes for women—where they keep you in slavery washing sheets and scrubbing floors. What would the good people of Ballyjamesduff make of me now? I could be living at home with nothing better to do than saying a Novena to the Blessed Virgin. I wouldn’t go back if they paid my fare and threw in a hundred pound! Glory be to God, I’d go out of me mind and be sent off to the looney bin like Mary Henderson! Continue Reading »
Posted in Monologues | Tagged artist's model, comedy, Deidre Dowling, drama, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Joanna Hiffernan, Monologues, new writing, plays, playwright, playwriting, theatre | Leave a Comment »
Dramatists—do not canter but rather gallop to your computery micro-chipped typewriters and create an arresting monologue. Polish it, spit on it, and submit it to The Good Ear Review for our consideration. Click here for submission guidelines.
"I am the best judge of all things." Which is why Mr. Bexindale-Webb (knighthood pending) had appointed himself the review's Editor-in-Chief – and has been thus for the past 147 years. He is the brainchild behind The Good Ear Review and without him many urchins would be acquiring their Chimney Maintenance Certification instead of fetching his house slippers and proofing complex sentences.
EBEDIAH CANDY'S MEMENTO MORI PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDIO & APOTHECARY
"As long as you're stiff, you'll always be in focus!"
