What I Did Before Bingo, short version
A monologue from the full-length play, Free Space
By Tara Meddaugh
(c) 2004 Tara Meddaugh
DETAILS
Cast: Female (or male)
Age range: teen-adult
Genre: Dark Comedy/Drama/Absurd
Running time: Approximately 1 minute. For longer (2.5 minute version), click here.
Setting: A living room
About the play, Free Space:
Amelia spends her days under the watchful eye of her mother, doing the same nothing she has done for years. Yet when Bingo arrives at her local community center, a talking Bingo chip convinces Amelia that forming her own game is the way out of this life and away from her controlling mother. However, as her mother begins acting like her newly arrived sister, and the chip becomes increasingly dominating, Amelia discovers her new life is nothing as she imagined. Learn more here.
About the monologue, What I Did Before Bingo:
Tonight, Amelia has lost her valued volunteer position at the local community center, helping with Bingo Night. Now her mother has just wrestled away all of Amelia’s precious bingo chips, as she sees them as a sign of depravity. Her mother informs her that a new sister has taken Amelia’s bedroom so she must sleep on the living room floor that night. Amelia is dejected after a night of losing Bingo, the one thing that brought her joy and hope in her isolated world. She lies down to sleep on the floor when she realizes her mother did not take away all of her bingo chips. Dejected, Amelia hears the voice of the one bingo chip who got away…This chip offers just the encouragement and hope Amelia needs to venture into starting the next chapter of her life—her own Bingo Game.
__________________
AMELIA
Yes, I think I understand Bingo more than them too. I’m glad you noticed. Some of them still think that if you’re prettier or smarter or people like you more—that you have a better chance of winning…But you don’t.
(pause)
Well, it’s hard to remember really, what I did before Bingo. I know I just saw it last week, but I guess I didn’t really do too much before it. I just…I stared out the window with my mother…but besides that….oh—I guess I used to look at the stars by myself sometimes. Is that doing something?
(pause)
Because if I squinted my eyes hard enough, I could see myself on one of those stars. And I’d—END OF EXCERPT
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