THE ISOLATION BOOTH TEN-MINUTE PLAY By Ian McClintock Copyright MMV All Rights Reserved Heuer Publishing LLC, Cedar Rapids, Iowa The writing of plays is a means of livelihood. Unlawful use of a playwright s work deprives the creator of his or her rightful income. The playwright is compensated on the full purchase price and the right of performance can only be secured through purchase of at least three (3) copies of this work. PERFORMANCES ARE LIMITED TO ONE VENUE FOR ONE YEAR FROM DATE OF PURCHASE. The possession of this script without direct purchase from the publisher confers no right or license to produce this work publicly or in private, for gain or charity. On all programs and advertising this notice must appear: "Produced by special arrangement with Heuer Publishing LLC of Cedar Rapids, Iowa." This dramatic work is fully protected by copyright. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission of the publisher. Copying (by any means) or performing a copyrighted work without permission constitutes an infringement of copyright. The right of performance is not transferable and is strictly forbidden in cases where scripts are borrowed or purchased second hand from a third party. All rights including, but not limited to the professional, motion picture, radio, television, videotape, broadcast, recitation, lecturing, tabloid, publication, and reading are reserved. COPYING OR REPRODUCING ALL OR ANY PART OF THIS BOOK IN ANY MANNER IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN BY LAW. PUBLISHED BY HEUER PUBLISHING LLC P.O. BOX 248 CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA 52406 TOLL FREE (800) 950-7529 FAX (319) 368-8011
THE ISOLATION BOOTH By Ian McClintock SYNOPSIS: Waldo and Vernon are two neighbors who were never meant to live next door to each other. Waldo, a sensitive, introspective technophile meets up with Vernon, the gregarious, unconstrained, extroverted jock. Waldo can t stand Vernon s antics and Vernon is too oblivious to see the impact on Waldo. But when Waldo ends up in therapy, each of them takes the time to look back on their time together as neighbors. Hilarity ensues when each recounts their times together in this rapid-fire and witty play that is guaranteed to bring down the house in laughter. CAST OF CHARACTERS WALDO...Vernon s neighbor. VERNON...Waldo s neighbor. - 2 -
AT RISE: WALDO sits on a stool center stage. He s a nice, friendly, Mr. Rogers-type person, the sort of person you d trust to babysit your children. He dresses neatly to reflect his lifestyle. VERNON is slouched in a chair, off to WALDO s left. VERNON s a typical American neighbor; the sort of middle-class, middle-aged guy. He s wearing a flannel shirt, torn jeans, a backwards baseball cap and is chewing on a toothpick while reading the sports page - the works. He s not very bright. These two are neighbors and WALDO is in an isolation booth as part of his therapy because of it. WALDO: The more observant among you may wonder why I m sitting all alone in a booth. (He pauses for a long moment.) Therapy. That s right, goody-two-shoes Waldo needs therapy. Do you want to know why? Do you? It s because of Vernon. VERNON: So I move in next to this guy Waldo, right? He seems kinda - - I dunno. He s okay, I guess. Just kind of a square, that s all. But he s okay. WALDO: It started when Vernon moved in about a year ago, and I already need therapy because of him. I mean, Vernon has got to be the worst neighbor one could possibly ask for. I hated him from the start. And I ve never hated anything before. But this man and his boorish behavior made something snap up here. (Taps head.) After three months, I wanted to reach down his throat and rip his lungs out. VERNON: We got along pretty good. WALDO: He s always playing his music loud, throwing parties, showing up drunk at my house at two in the morning because he thought it was his. I ve asked him to stop this, nicely, and I ve even called the police anonymously once or twice, but nothing s helping. VERNON: Waldo s not much of a partier, but at least he s nice about leaving me alone. I mean, sure he s asked me to keep it down or whatever once or twice, but I can tell he doesn t really mean it. I - 3 -
mean, if it really bothered him that much, he d like, call the cops or something. (VERNON shifts in his chair.) I just hate it when the cops come and bust up a good party. I wonder who calls them on me? WALDO: Oh, and don t get me going on how he always wants to borrow my things. The day after he was finished moving in, he came over and asked if I had a circular saw he could borrow for something he was working on. In the interest of being sociable, I let him borrow mine. I never saw it again. VERNON: The day after I got moved in, he let me borrow this great saw. What a pal. (VERNON suddenly looks a little guilty.) Of course, I never wound up giving it back to him. But after it caught on fire and I dumped water on it to put it out, I really didn t think he wanted the thing back. WALDO: He has these two huge German Shepherds he keeps on leashes in his backyard. Now, I m not an animal hater, but these dogs will bark at anything, or sometimes nothing at all. I m afraid to do my yard work because whenever I go out back, they re always barking and snarling at me. VERNON: I wish he d keep his backyard mowed. It s startin to look like a jungle out there. Maybe it s for the better, though. Whenever he s outside, he bothers Bubbles and Fluffykins. I get the feeling he doesn t like them much. WALDO: One time, one of the dogs got loose and tried to attack me. I barely made it into my house, and even then I had to fend the thing off with a broomstick. It bit right through it, no joking. I still have it. VERNON: (Laughing.) This one time, Bubbles got off her leash and she wandered over into ol Waldo s yard. Well, he starts yelling and screaming bloody murder, and Bubbles thinks he wants to play. So he s running around like a scared little boy, and Bubbles is chasing him around, having a great time. (He sits back, wiping imaginary tears from his eyes.) Oh, that was a great day. WALDO: I could have died. - 4 -
VERNON: Hilarious. WALDO: Another time, he was cutting down a tree in his yard. VERNON: I asked him if I could borrow a chain saw. WALDO: So after lots of careful measurements and calculating, he cuts the tree just so - and it falls onto my back porch. VERNON: I didn t even think of that. It s hard to cut down trees when you re holding a drink in your hand. WALDO: It cost almost $3,000 to fix all the damage. VERNON: Hey, I told him I was sorry. What more could I do? WALDO: I sent him a bill, but I never heard back from him. (Infinitely sarcastic.) It probably got lost in the mail. VERNON: Not that there aren t things about Waldo that tick me off, too. I m just not rude enough to point them out. WALDO: And this guy is the rudest man I ve ever met. VERNON: I always try to be as courteous as I can. WALDO: He left his garbage bags on my lawn. VERNON: (Sighs in disappointment.) Some people you just can t please. WALDO: I mean, just the other day he came over. (They reenact the conversation.) VERNON: Hey Waldo, buddy, can I use your leaf blower? WALDO: Actually, no. You can t use my leaf blower because I let you borrow my leaf blower last autumn, and you still have my leaf blower. VERNON: No way! I never borrowed your leaf blower. WALDO: Your exact words were, Hey, nice leaf blower! Can I borrow it? VERNON: (Turning back to the audience.) I guess some people just can t share. WALDO: I guess some people are just criminals who ll rob you blind. VERNON: When I remembered I sold it, I thought about telling him. But I figured it might be better if I didn t open up old wounds. WALDO: He never admits when he s wrong. Like this one time - - VERNON: It s not my fault his house caught on fire. - 5 -
WALDO: I don t even want to think about it. VERNON: I thought there was a burglar in his house, right? Ol Waldo was gone for the weekend, so I figured it was up to me, as his friend, to go over there and take care of it. WALDO: I leave home for one weekend and Vernon burns it down. VERNON: I figured if I went inside, the burglar would have the advantage. So I set a fire on the front porch to smoke him out. (He shrugs.) Who would-a figured porches would burn - even if they were made of wood? WALDO: He set a fire on my front porch. There s no story to rationalize something like that! VERNON: It s not my fault fire spreads. WALDO: He almost burned my oldest son alive. VERNON: Turns out it was just his kid house-sitting. But at least I tried to do something for him. WALDO: I wish he would never try and do anything for me ever again. At least I got money out of him that time. VERNON: I loaned him some money to help him get back on his feet. I figured that it was the least I could do to be a good neighbor. WALDO: He s seriously the worst neighbor ever. VERNON: After that, things weren t so good between us, you know? But Waldo started acting all weird. Like, tweaked out. WALDO: I couldn t sleep at night because of him. I was afraid he d kill me in my sleep by accident. VERNON: I told him that if he was feeling a bit stressed out, maybe he oughta go see a therapist or something. I didn t really mean it. WALDO: If that jackass has ever made one useful statement in his life, it was that. I did go to see a therapist. And my therapist said the first thing I should do is distance myself from this man. VERNON: He stopped talking to me. How do you like that? WALDO: (Sarcasm.) Oh, my therapist was a genius. I could have figured that out on my own. But that didn t help. I kept seeing Vernons everywhere I looked. - 6 -
VERNON: He started acting real strange. Kept to himself a lot, locked his doors all the time. Not, uh, not that I d know they weren t locked normally. WALDO: I wondered if he could get in through the windows. VERNON: He boarded up his windows. Tell me that ain t strange. WALDO: (Freaking out.) What I needed was to get away from humanity. Because everyone was Vernon. EVERYONE. VERNON: He started throwing things at me if I went anywhere near his house. I mean, some of those things were dangerous. I don t like having hammers thrown at me, normally. (Pause.) But I needed to borrow a hammer anyway, so it worked out all right. WALDO: So that s when my therapist suggested I try this isolation booth. I m supposed to stay in here for four hours, cut off from everyone and everything. No Vernons. VERNON: I thought I d tell Waldo s therapist about some of the stuff he was doing, because this guy was seriously going wacko. That s how I found out he was doing this isolation booth thing. Really messed up treatment if you ask me. WALDO: I ve been in here for almost the whole four hours now. I think it s helping. Vernon s not really a bad person, he s just - - just too stupid to be a good one. VERNON: Well, I figured things were kinda tough for him, so I thought I d hang around and make sure he was okay when he came out. I mean, hey, what re friends for? WALDO: I kind of miss people, now. Being alone with your thoughts for four hours is really - - well, lonely. VERNON: I kinda like Waldo and all. It d suck to see something bad happen to him. (Pause.) Maybe he ll be all right after this. WALDO: I feel a lot better now. I should take the boards off my windows when I get home. (Laughing.) That s just - - just a silly thing to do. It s not like Vernon s stalking me or anything. VERNON: It s not like I m going to break into his house, or anything. What kind of neighbor would I be if I did that? A terrible one, that s what. - 7 -
WALDO: (Glancing at his watch.) Well. That s about four hours. I m hungry. (Rising off the stool.) Time to go home to some peace and quiet and fix myself something to eat. He walks to his left, opening an imaginary door, and stops as he sees VERNON, who rises to greet him. VERNON: Waldo! How ya feelin, buddy? WALDO stares at VERNON for a long, silent minute. Then he whimpers, turns and re-enters the isolation booth, leaving VERNON looking very confused. WALDO curls up on the stool and sucks on his thumb. THE END - 8 -