Session 5 Transcript

 LORI: Previously in Session 4

BRIA: I snapped –

these three guys were shouting down the block behind me.

Then they started with the “Hey!” and they got closer and closer

one of them grabbed my arm and that was it for him. It went straight from his arm to his heart and he let go and stumbled back. But his asshole friends didn’t even notice. Their friend is dying behind them and they just keep coming for me. The Defense just snapped its fingers and boom, three dead bros on the sidewalk

 KACEY: I think this is a situation where your defense did the right thing, Bria.

 BRIA: They probably had girlfriends – wives. Certainly they had mothers.

KACEY: We were. all default nice before, Weren’t we?

 BRIA: Pathologically.

LEILA: Compulsively.

 MARI: Habitually, with a polar default to sarcasm.

 KACEY: Strangely – the things that can save these men’s lives are the things that are hardest for us to do and hardest for them to accept.

 MARI: I took one of those self defense workshops where they teach you how to kick guys in the balls, and poke them in the eyes a while back.

 KACEY: Do you think you could teach us this step, Mari. I feel like if we all learned it, we might not have to use the Defense.

 MARI: Like, knee a man, save his life sort of thing?

 MARI: Let’s do it all together. Step. And knee! 1, 2, 3. That’s good. Good. You got it. It’s like a kick line for kneeing dudes in the balls.

 LEILA: That was exhilarating.

Theme music begins

JACKI: Recorded live at Jalopy Theatre in Brooklyn

Messenger Theatre Company presents

The Defense

This is Session 5

 KACEY: Quickly, quickly come in.

LORI: I’m sorry everybody!

KACEY: Just come on in as quickly as you can. We’ll talk about everything in a second.

MARI: Damn, Lori!

 BRIA: Wow.

KACEY: In, in. Is that all of us?

LEILA: You, Bria, Me, Lori and Mari. Yep. We’re all here.

KACEY: Thanks Leila. Let me just close up this door and ….here we are.

 LORI: I’m sorry.

KACEY: Let’s just sit down and take some deep breaths first.

LORI: Okay. Sorry.

KACEY: Deep breaths. Especially you, Lori.

LORI: Deep breaths. Yes. Okay.

KACEY: Just in and out for another couple of seconds. Just – wooooo.

LORI: I’m sorry.

KACEY: You have nothing to be sorry about. Your Defense is the newest of any of us here and it is the most vulnerable to men’s bonehead behavior. I think we were all just doing our best to modulate our own Defense.

MARI: 100%

BRIA: Yep.

LEILA: Working really hard out there.

LORI: Oh. Good.

KACEY: And the fact is – he got lucky it was you – because yours is the only Defense that wouldn’t kill him. If it weren’t for you, he’d be dead. So think of it as saving his life!

LORI: Wow. Okay. Sure. I just feel bad for losing control.

KACEY: Don’t. He was terrible.

MARI: Really infuriating.

LEILA: And patronizing. That’s always the thing that triggers me.

BRIA: “Girls. Girls.”

MARI: “Girls. Patience is a virtue, you know.”

 BRIA: “Business takes time.”

MARI: I might need to go back out there, make a tiny ash pile.

ALL: Don’t. No. Mari.

MARI: Just kidding! If I saw that little man now, I would for sure just laugh at his silly tiny face and call him Mike the Mouse.

BRIA: Mike the Mouse. Heh. Man. Kacey. I am all adrenalized.

LEILA: Me, too.

LORI: Likewise.

MARI: Not me! Just kidding. I am totally AMPED UP!

KACEY: Should we take some more deep breaths?

MARI: Do we have to? I feel much more like storming the Bastille or something.

KACEY: There are some theories that that’s why the Defense evolved, so that women could rise up together, form a sort of army.

MARI: Get out of here.

KACEY: Yep. It’s a theory.

BRIA: Who do they think we’re rising up against?

KACEY: The powers that be.

BRIA: Like, the government?

KACEY: In some cases.

MARI: Probably just…men. Wherever they’re in power. Which is everywhere.

BRIA: I don’t know how I feel about being part of some uprising army.

KACEY: We’re not forming an army. It is simply a theory some in the Defense community are exploring.

MARI: I’d totally join an uprising army with you ladies, by the way. Just so you know if that’s where we’re headed, I’m along for that ride.

BRIA: I am not.

MARI: We can leave you at home to mind the children and knit us sweaters.

 BRIA: Aw, thanks.

MARI: All skills are important in a war.

KACEY: We are not in a war, let me be clear. It is only a theory about why so many women evolved such extraordinary defenses.

 MARI: Sure, sure. I hear you saying theory but I’m thinking… good idea!

BRIA: Hard disagree.

MARI: I know.

KACEY: Lori, we’ve let your experience sort of drop away here.

 LORI: That’s fine. I’m really still sort of shaking and processing and I don’t know. So it’s actually very helpful to not talk about me for the moment.

 KACEY: Ok. Well. You let me know when or if you feel like you want to return to it.

LORI: Thanks.

KACEY: Do we have any other things to address? Leila, you okay?

LEILA: I’m a little shaken up, I guess by what happened with Mike out there. Can we lose this uh? That crash you heard once we got in here was very likely the light fixture that was above him.

KACEY: I don’t think it got him, though.

LEILA: No. No it didn’t. But it was rocking quite a bit and if he hadn’t been smalled, it would have.

KACEY: I’m not surprised. That’s what I was saying to Lori – that if it hadn’t been her, it would have been one of us.

LEILA: Yes but it would have literally been me. It was in process and then gravity took over.

KACEY: And he’s fine, Leila. He’s fine. Small but fine.

LEILA: I just. I thought. Like, I feel more in control when I’m with the group, usually – but in this case, I was not.

KACEY: If there’s one thing I’ve seen in my years with the Defense – it is very variable. It feels as though it’s just the weather sometimes. Like – some of us are more potent in low pressure systems and some in high. Some Defenses emerge in the rain, some in the sunshine.

LEILA: But I’d have thought I’d be more in control with this support system around, not less.

KACEY: This is new territory for each and every one of us. No one could know how we’d respond – and you know how much more sensitive the Defense is in new situations.

BRIA: That’s really true.

KACEY: Some would celebrate your “loss” of “control”, Leila. It’s not a failure or success. Sometimes I think my defense kicks back in when I’m trying to control it just to remind me that it’s there and that I am a powerful creature.

LEILA: Yeah! Powerful creature!

KACEY: So. Just to remind you, if you’re judging yourself or your success based on your ability to control yourself, that is your choice and not the preference of the group. Control is not the goal.

MARI: That sounds like it should be one of the affirmations.

KACEY: I’ll add it to the list. But I do think it bears repeating. Control is very nice but it is not everything. Personally, I enjoy letting go of it sometimes.

LORI: It is – releasing, I guess.

KACEY: How are you doing, Lori? You coming back to us a bit?

LORI: Yeah. Sorry. Thanks. Yeah. That was. I just. You know how you just disappear a little?

KACEY: Absolutely.

LORI: I just. Yeah. It’s – thanks for that stuff about control. It’s – I was feeling really guilty.

BRIA: I know that feeling.

LORI: It’s, like, I just keep thinking of his poor children or his mom or whoever it is who will have to deal with him now.

MARI: They’ll probably find him a whole lot easier to manage now. Maybe you did them a favor.

LORI: I suppose.

MARI: I mean. That guy was a patronizing tool. You don’t think he wasn’t exactly the same with the women in his life?

LORI: I’m sure he was.

MARI: So now they can put him in the dresser drawer when he acts up.

LORI: Ha!

MARI: Or the vegetable drawer – to help him cool down.

KACEY: Vegetable drawers are always funny.

MARI: Always.

KACEY: Lori, you wouldn’t be worried about him or his family if you didn’t have a rather acute case of empathy.

LORI: Acute case?

KACEY: Funny phrasing, sorry. I mean you have a lot of empathy. Which is a good and beautiful thing. And most of us do. It’s part of the reason the early Defensers realized we’d need support groups. Because the empathy is a gift but It can also make you suffer unnecessarily.

 LORI: In worrying about that guy’s kids, for example, when I don’t even know if he has any?

 KACEY: Precisely. And that’s why I used that funny phrasing – because empathy can really feel like a liability rather than a gift.

 LORI: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally.

BRIA:  Just like The Defense.

KACEY: Leila? How’s all that tracking with you?

LEILA: Yeah. Sorry. I was thinking about that light down in the hall.

KACEY: Would you feel better if you went and picked it up? Put it aside somewhere?

LEILA: Maybe.

KACEY: We could help you, even. Maybe once we’re done here?

MARI: I’ll totally help.

LORI: Me, too.

BRIA: I will too.

LEILA: Thank you. Yeah. That’s a really nice idea.

KACEY: Right. Okay. We had a rather unexpected start. Thanks to tiny Mike.

MARI: Mike the Mouse!

KACEY: Mike the Mouse. Bria, we haven’t addressed any of your stuff in a while.

BRIA: I’m okay. Nothing happened. Just thinking about Mike the Mouse. 

KACEY: There’s a lot to think about there.

BRIA: Or a little.

MARI: Mike the Mouse!

LORI: Mike the Mouse!

MARI: Lori, the Mouse Maker!

LORI: Nice. Nice one.

LEILA: I have a question.

KACEY: Let’s hear it.

LEILA: You remember when Lori was talking about that guy taking up three seats on the subway the other day?

BRIA: Yeah.

MARI: The one she didn’t small, even though he would definitely have been better off small?

LEILA: Yeah, that one. Well, I’ve had three incidents exactly like that this week. Three guys taking up three seats on the subway. What is going on?

LORI: I should have smalled the first one. Now they’re taking over.

LEILA: It feels that way.

KACEY: Did your defense kick in?

LEILA: No. But I kind of wanted it to. I really just wanted to knock some sense into those guys, you know? Like, I don’t think they should die just because they’re overly entitled seat greedy individuals. But if I could just, say, drop a little awareness on them – or, like, just have the Defense knock them out or something.

MARI: That sounds like a nice compromise.

LEILA: I don’t need those guys dead but I would like them to be a little more considerate, you know?

KACEY: You want a constructive Defense.

LEILA: Yeah! Or, like – HALF a Defense.

MARI: Half a smoosh.

LEILA: Yeah! Just something that wasn’t so extreme.

MARI: Like if I could just ash half a man.

 LORI: Which half?

MARI: I think it would have to be the bottom half – or they’re out a brain and a heart.

BRIA: You could do it lengthwise.

LORI: I would like to see that. And I guess I could do a half a small but somehow I feel like that would make it worse.

MARI: And Bria could stop half a heart.

BRIA: They’d be half-hearted! And I’d do it half-heartedly.

MARI: And mine would be Half-Ash!

LEILA: Oh, don’t do anything half-ash, Mari!

MARI: I am not a half-ash kind of girl.

LEILA: No but seriously – how are these guys ever going to learn if the Defense is so extreme?

KACEY: The Defense is not a teaching tool. Though I certainly share your desire to have a less extreme response. I think The Defense is the way it is because its only purpose is to protect you and a half-assed –

MARI: Half-ashed.

KACEY: - response might not save you. Someone who wants to harm you might be just as dangerous with half a heart or half ashed or just temporarily conked out. Your defenses are extreme because they are the only way to assure your safety.

BRIA: I’d like to give them a choice to do the right thing.

KACEY: They have the chance to do the right thing all day long. It’s when they choose to do the wrong thing that your Defense takes over.

BRIA: Can’t we teach them somehow?

KACEY: Change them? Fix them?

BRIA: Yeah.

KACEY: Many have tried. I bet there are even some people in this room who’ve tried. Anyone in here ever have a Project for a boyfriend?

 LEILA: So many fixer uppers.

 KACEY: And how did those turn out?

 LEILA: I made some progress. I did some good work.

 KACEY: I’m sure you did.

LEILA: I left each one better than I found him, I think.

KACEY: Well done.

 LEILA: Thank you.

 KACEY: Now imagine trying to fix any of the men your Defense took care of.

 LEILA: I’d rather not.

 KACEY: It’s called The Defense, not a repair shop.

 BRIA: But I believe in second chances. And third chances.

 KACEY: I do too – but I think by the time they get to you, a lot of these guys have blown through hundreds of chances. It’s really just with us, they run into their last chance.

 BRIA: I don’t like being their last chance.

 KACEY: I know you don’t. But I think it’s important to remember that it’s either their last chance or your last moment and personally, I’d rather have you here than them.

 LEILA: I would, too.

 MARI: Especially if they showed up here! Can you imagine? A couple of last chancers? How would our defenses decide?

 KACEY: Back when we used to meet in big groups and some jerk thought he’d try us, we used to keep a little tally.

 LEILA: Like a competition?

KACEY: Of a kind – we could see whose Defense was quickest on the draw. Very silly little game.

LEILA: But who won?

 KACEY: The undisputed champion was this woman whose defense just opened up the ground underneath somebody, and then closed it up behind him. Fast on the draw and so neat and tidy!

 LEILA: I’m jealous.

 KACEY: We all were.

 LORI: Who would win in this group?

 BRIA: You, I think.

 LORI: Yeah?

 BRIA: Well, you won today.

 LORI: But that’s only because you all were trying not to and I’m the one who lost control!

BRIA: I wasn’t trying too hard, honestly.

 LEILA: I was trying but that lamp fell anyway. I think it’s you, too.

 LORI: I’m the winner!

 MARI: Congratulations!

 LEILA: Oof. Now I’m thinking about that lamp again.

 KACEY: Let’s wrap up and go do a clean up, clear it out of your head. That seem ok to everyone?

 BRIA: Absolutely.

 LORI: Helping is healing.

 MARI: Is it?

 LORI: I think so. I think it’ll help me.

 LEILA: I know it will help me.

 KACEY: Affirmation?

 ALL: I am safe but I’m not safe for everyone.

 MARI: Especially Mike the Mouse!

 KACEY: Let’s go clean up a light.

*

Theme music begins

 The Defense is a production of Messenger Theatre Company.

 It is performed by Marcella Adams as Leila, Amber Jessie as Mari, Cosmic Kitty as Bria, Kristen Vaughan as Kacey and Toni Watterson as Lori.

 The writer/director is Emily Rainbow Davis.

Sound Design by Matt Powell

Sound Engineering by Daniel Massey

Sound Assistance by Angela Santillo

 Stage Management by Ella Lieberman

 The Producer is Melvin Yen.

 The Defense theme is by Scott Ethier.

 I’m Jacki Jing

 I am safe but I’m not safe for everyone.