DONNA KAZ is the author of UN/MASKED, Memoirs of a Guerrilla Girl On Tour, which follows her surprising 25 year journey as a survivor of domestic violence and subsequent member of the feminist activist group, Guerrilla Girls.
Donnakaz.com, Ggontour.com, @donnakaz.
Thanks to Donna Kaz for allowing NYCPlaywrights to publish this excerpt from her monologue STAMINA.
Thanks to Donna Kaz for allowing NYCPlaywrights to publish this excerpt from her monologue STAMINA.
CLARA
What if you don’t want to be inspired? What if you just want to lay down and die?
SIMONE
Help me get my foot out, Clara.
CLARA
I can’t. I’m in the process of freezing to death.
SIMONE
You are not.
CLARA
Wiggle your foot back and forth. Back and forth and up and down and side to side.
SIMONE
What a pair we are.
CLARA
Feeble, octogenarian twins who miscalculated the final assent on Everest.
SIMONE
Or two, women who are stronger because we’re together. I know that I got this far because
you urged me on back there when I was falling behind. I am here because you believe in me. I cannot do this without you.
CLARA
Hey. What’s that?
SIMONE
What’s what?
CLARA
Down there. Those lights.
SIMONE
Head lamps. Those assholes from Altitude Expeditions are coming up now. This place is going to be a bottle neck in about ten minutes.
CLARA
The same ones who nicknamed us the old hags of the Himalayas?
SIMONE
The very ones.
CLARA
I hate those guys.
SIMONE
Forget them. We will beat them to the top. Then who will be old hags?
CLARA
Unfortunately, we still will. We could still die on the descent, Simone.
SIMONE
Who cares. The summit will still count!
CLARA
Someday, I hope women won’t have to prove anything. Every time one of us does something remarkable it will be, “Oh look, she just did that. Again!”
SIMONE
Yes. But not before we pave the way.
CLARA
We are so far from home, Simone. And so close to heaven.
SIMONE
The view is spectacular up here.
CLARA
Breathtaking.
SIMONE
I’m sorry if I pushed you into this, Clara.
CLARA
Oh no. I came this far of my own free will.
SIMONE
So why not just a little further, Clara?
CLARA
What about your foot?
SIMONE
My foot is free.
CLARA
You are strong.
SIMONE
Thank you, Clara. Now, belay on. Climb ready. Clara?
CLARA
Belay on.
SIMONE
Climb ready?
CLARA
Climb ready.
SIMONE
Climb on, Clara.
CLARA
Climb on, Simone.
(CLARA and SIMONE put their oxygen masks back on)