Like Dreaming, Backwards by Kellie Powell

By
Kellie Powell

Monologues:
Nell
Leah
Natalie
Yale

SUMMARY:

Nell, suffering from depressive psychosis, is encouraged by hallucinatory "messengers" to commit suicide. These messengers take the forms of a childhood friend, a former lover, and her dead father. The play also illustrates the grief experienced by those Nell leaves behind, including her best friend and her mother.

CAST:

4 Women, 3 Men. (Doubling of roles is possible.)

APPROXIMATE LENGTH:

30 Minutes.

PRODUCTION HISTORY:

Inspired by Orazio Salati's painting Draconic Apparition; written for and produced by KNOW Theatre's 6th Annual Playwrights Festival, Binghamton NY, July 2009.

Performed at Alabama State University, April 2011, directed by Angel Moore.

PURCHASE:

An electronic copy (PDF) of Like Dreaming, Backwards can be purchased and downloaded for $7.00.

EXCERPT:

NELL I'm ready for my message.

DECK No, you're not. But when you are, you will slit yourself into pieces, and breathe fire. And everything will cease, and there will be nothing.

NELL There's really no chance? No chance that things might... change for me? That they might get better?

DECK Do you want me to lie? You're weary. There are circles under your eyes. How do you stand up, when every muscle aches to give out, and your body begs to collapse? How have you managed to go on fighting your own mind and body all these years?

NELL I have swam upstream. I have wrung my hands and knocked my head into the four walls of this room. Every breath I take makes my stomach lurch, my chest ache, my lungs sting.

DECK You never had a chance.

NELL Thank you.

DECK That doesn't make you angry?

NELL No. It's unfair, but it's good to hear.

These Aren't My Shoes Productions