A Note to Actors
Doreen is a woman of absolute sincerity. She believes deeply in the importance of her ceramic creations and sees divine meaning in the most ordinary objects.
Her story contains humor, but Doreen is never intentionally funny. Her emotions are genuine, and her convictions are unshakable.
Don’t play the joke. Play the truth.
DOREEN
Years ago, back when I was in high school, my daddy got real sick. For the longest time, Dr. Underwood couldn’t figure out what it was.
Well, one day when I got home from school, my mamma was cryin’. And I just knew right then what it was.
My daddy had caught the cancer. Yes. He had just up and caught the cancer. You know how much I loved my daddy, so you can imagine how crushed I was.
Anyway, Mamma said he was gonna have to get an operation, and Dr. Underwood couldn’t even be for sure that it’d work. Well, he made it through the operation—just barely. They had to jump-start his heart twice, and for about two or three days they wouldn’t let me in to see him.
Well, it just so happened that I was takin’ a ceramics class at school. I had been workin’ on this mug that was in the shape of a big cow. Oh, it was beautiful. Its tail made the handle, and you drank out of its back, and if you cocked it just right, you could even drink right out of the nostrils. It was extraordinary.
I’ve still got it somewhere. When he died, I got it back.
(Beat.)
Anyway, the day I finished it was the day they let me see Daddy. I decided I’s gonna give
Daddy that mug to sorta raise his spirits. I walked into his room, and he was all hooked up to these tubes, and there was stuff goin’ in his arms and up his nose, and he looked worse than Death eatin’ a cracker. And he looked up at me, and when he saw that cow mug, his eyes just sparkled. I sat it down on the table next to his bed and told him I’d made it just for him. Then I reached down and gave him a kiss. He couldn’t say nothin’ ’cause he had this big hose-thing in his throat. But from that day on, he started to get better. I kid you not.
Later, he told me that he had been layin’ there just knowin’ he was gonna pass on. He said he’d been thinkin’ about when he was a little boy livin’ on a farm, and he was rememberin’ all the mornings he’d get up and milk the cows. And right then’s when I brought in that cow mug! Strange but true!
He said he knew that was a sign from God that he was gonna make it. And my reaction was instantaneous! I knew that God had chosen me to spread the message of hope and faith through ceramics.