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2 LILA VICARIOUS LILA VICARIOUS A Ten Minute Comedy Monologue By Jerry Rabushka SYNOPSIS: Tune into Lila Vicarious, the girl on TV who always does it better. She ll take someone s talents that one step further, forcing them to step it up or stay behind. Now she s got everyone doing it, and suddenly the entire school is playing a high stakes game of being someone else, but losing themselves and their friends in the process. Our speaker has a choice: should she be perfect at living somebody else s life, or go back to her own flawed self? Plus, the best geometry joke ever! CAST OF CHARACTERS (1 female) FEMALE MONOLOGUE (f)... High school aged. SETTING: At school.
JERRY RABUSHKA 3 FEMALE MONOLGUE: I guess I was watching too much TV. Too much TV, too much pop music, too much social media, not enough homework. What a recipe! I know a recipe for creamed spinach that tastes better than that one. The problem with watching too much TV is you start to believe everything you see. The dead can walk. England isn t boring. Everyone has money and lives for their job. Witches and vampires are really cool. Not to mention men are always handsome, well groomed, and they close their mouths when they eat. Women are beautiful and that s all that matters. It was a wonderful world about people who weren t me. There had to be a way around this, and I finally found it. Mom, can I have some plastic surgery? I want to look like Lila Vicarious. (As MOM.) No, and who s Lila? Mom was hopelessly out of date. (Responding.) She s this girl on TV who lives through everyone else, but improves upon their lives. She s really pretty and she s very, very pink and purple. I want to look like her. (As MOM) Is she a princess? Everyone s a purple princess these days. No Mom, she s a regular girl. Sort of. My birthday s coming up and I think with seven operations we can get the process started As you can imagine, the answer was still no. (Explaining the TV show.) If Lila saw you dance, she would learn your steps. Then she d do it better and you had to step it up. Somehow, you learned something from it. Not sure what, other than Lila was a copycat and a thief. If you had a boyfriend, Lila would be a better version of you and get your man. Then you had to outdo her to get him back. You learned to be the best girlfriend ever, while the guy you liked sat back and watched girls fighting over him.
4 LILA VICARIOUS (As a SELFISH BOYFRIEND.) Wow like uh like you really know how to like cook chicken wings. But I like extra sauce. Not too much buffalo, just a little, and then some honey mustard. Just a little mustard, honey. Just a (Getting more demanding.) No not like that you re ruining my sauce. My sister cooks better and she s five. Then Lila swoops down on a paper moon and she s like (perky, to a TV audience) here, let me make the sauce just how he likes it. Here s a recipe that will keep him coming back for more! Another recipe of doom. And he s like (Pretending to chomp a chicken wing.) Thanks, Lila! Then she pushes his real girlfriend out of the way and gives him the stuff herself and I m sitting there screaming at a fictional girl over chicken wings and I don t even like chicken wings! But, I wanted to be her. Plastic surgery out, I just needed to be better at everything than everyone else. Or at least, all my friends. They were all on the same path. Same recipe. Same disaster. (Parodying Lila, preparing to address the TV audience.) Hi, this is Lila Vicarious. I dress in pink and purple and I have unnaturally perky curly hair, all designed in a TV studio. If there s one thing I do, it s better. They look at me and think she always does it better. Not so you ll feel bad about yourself, no no no, not that, but so that you can learn from me, that no matter what you do in life, it can always be done better. You can either pass me up, or (Condescending with fake sympathy.) satisfy yourself with second best. So each episode, you ll have that choice. (Like a slogan.) Do it better, or don t do it at all. Lila turned our entire school into a game of chicken that no one could wing. Everyone tried to be better than everyone else at everything. You had to be that other person, but take it to the great beyond. It took our individuality and mashed it into an overcooked sweet potato pie until everyone you knew was living somebody else s life, but mashed.
JERRY RABUSHKA 5 Still, no one was Lila. No one could replicate that combo of pink, purple, and pert. She trademarked it, copyrighted it, patented it, and registered it and no one could get near it. No one could be better than Lila at being Lila. But no one knew who Lila was. Or what. Or if. That s why I wanted surgery. I could beat her at her own game. (As MOM.) I won t have you watching that show any longer. But Mom, all my friends watch it! I ll be ostracized. Like an ostrich, but the wrong size! (As MOM.) They re not your friends. They ve stolen your boyfriends. They ve stolen your Starbucks mug. They ve even stolen your geometry textbook. You have no proof. (As MOM.) Exactly! And, somebody stole your father. (Thinks it over.) I thought he was on a business trip. Apparently someone is being a better daughter than me, and dad s really likin it. (As DAD.) Honey, you did all your homework? You mopped the floor? Sure, you can have all your girlfriends over for a sock hop. I don t even know what a sock hop is. (As DAD.) Maybe you and your mother should learn to sock hop and I ll come home. Now, get those socks, and start to hop. Sock to the hop, and rock til you drop. (Dejected.) Thanks, Lila. Everyone had conquered my life. On the other hand, I was a real champ at doing everyone else.
6 LILA VICARIOUS (Pretending to be other people, vicariously.) My name is Ginny and I like to bake sweet potato pies. But I add an extra teaspoon of cinnamon, (With disdain.) that the real Ginny couldn t be bothered with. My name is Ari and I got the lead in the school play! (Quoting various lines.) To be, or not to be! All the world s a stage. I ve always depended on the kindness of strangers. (Loud, shock your audience!) Stelllaaaaa! Lila was perfect. Like a pink and purple pansy in Pennsylvania, where it never got hot and the pansy never wilted. Finally, though, I asked a question over all her social media until she couldn t ignore it. Until everyone asked the same question. (Still as herself, but a much more theatrical version.) Lila, what do you do, so we can improve on it? So we can be Lila Vicarious and then live your life but always do it better, better, better, and soon you ll be the best version of you there is, except for me, because I ll take being you to the highest mountain in the Himalayas, and- (As LILA.) Hold it right there! Lila was incensed. Nobody tells me how to run my show! I m just a TV character, and you re for real, yet I write your life? If you choose to emulate me, that s your fault. You and your rotten-potato pot of pansies. You took a learning experience and let it make you stupid. Don t turn the light on Lila! She was calling me a follower! I was so upset I missed an episode of Twilight. (To LILA.) Lila, I want you off the air! (As LILA, almost laughing.) You want me off the air. I m not going anywhere. Change the channel, if you dare, you ll never get me off the air. I knew for the good of everyone that we had to watch something else. Or read a book. Oh, not that. Perhaps we could just be ourselves again, but my crew wasn t having it.
JERRY RABUSHKA 7 (As a FRIEND, kind of screechy.) Be myself? I have more fun being you. Except I don t, because you like fixing cars and geometry and stuff. What is wrong with you? Then there was my boyfriend. He was dating someone else who was playing me much better than I was. (As HIM, rambling on and barely making sense.) I like her, but she s not you. She had me convinced, he said, that she was you. (Try do to this all in one breath.) She was a different kind of you, the kind of you I wish you could be if you could make all the changes I want you to make but I don t tell you because then you ll say I don t accept you how you are and you go stomp off and tell all your friends that boys are stupid and insincere and and (Take a loud deep breath.) And we broke up. I can t get her off the air, so I m stuck living in a world of impressionists. The only thing I can do to bring things back to how they were is to be someone else entirely. (Gets a great idea!) Then, when no one s looking, that s when I can be me. (Realizes that ) Only when no one s looking This is Lila Vicarious, and don t forget to come back next week and see who I can do better. See you then! No thanks, Lila. I ll be fine. THE END