The Dianalogues
By Laurel Haines

The play is a series of monologues all related to the late Princess Diana. This monologue is titled "Princess for Life." A Princess Diana impersonator has just left a crowded party. She is smoking. At the beginning, she has a dainty voice and a British accent.

PRINCESS DIANA:

Every once in a while, I need to take a drag on a cigarette and remember who I am. I swear to God, if one more person tries to kiss my hand I think I'll scream. I shouldn't complain. It's a good living. It's just that I get in the middle of these parties with everybody wanting something from me, and wanting me to be something I'm not, and it used to be fun, but now it just tires me out.

Jesus. I can't stop talking in this stupid accent. Bleah!

You know what just happened in there? I got propositioned. They think I'm a hooker. I guess they think if I'm willing to dress up like this I'll do anything. He was a short man. Kept trying to jump up and grab my tiara. It's hard to stay demure and British when soemone's ramming their head into your breasts. So I had to get out of there. He wanted me to go home with him and play Royal Court. Believe me, there was a time when I would have taken him up on it. In leaner years. But I've gotten rich off this gig. I couldn't stop, even if I wanted to. I can't do anything else. Oh, I can act, but nobody wants me to do that anymore. Just her.

I mean, really... Sometimes I look in the mirror and I'm not sure what I see. I've played this woman every weekend for the past eighteen years. I think I might play her for the rest of my life. I walk like her, I talk like her, I dress like her. I have more of her clothes than my own. Of course someday I'll get too old to play her. That's the problem with impersonating someone who's dead. You change while they stay the same.

I don't know what I'll do when this is over. I figure I have another five, ten years in me. Dead icons are the best business. Marilyn, Elvis, you wouldn't believe it, but Nixon is a big one. I heard about a woman in Bel Air who will hire six or seven Nixons at a time, just for herself. Don't ask. I guess I could go back to temping. (She shudders.) Or telemarketing. I'll still have her voice. Maybe there's a 900 number that would hire me. (Breathy and British.) Oh, yes, baby, you really move me, you make me feel so wild, so unrepressed, so Scandinavian. Be my Master of the Horse! Be my Master of the Horse! (Back to normal voice.) And then I'll take out my dentures.

You know what they should do? They should make an old folks home just for us. So people can come and laugh at us as we get old. Sure, I'm sure there's some freaks out there who would want to see what Diana would have looked like at seventy. Or James Dean at ninety. Not to mention anyone who still thinks Elvis is alive. There's probably weirdos who would take care of us for free. They can come and feed us creamed corn and push us around in our golden wheelchairs. (She is half-laughing, half-crying.) Oh God, that's sick.

Order The Dianalogues published in Women Playwrights: The Best of 2003, from Amazon.

This monologue brought to you by The Monologue Database.