Adapting "Go Ask Alice"

For my Theatre Lab class this term, we have been focusing on adaptations and how to adapt any nondramatic text to the stage.

I have chosen to adapt a published diary entitled Go Ask Alice which chronicles a 15 year old's experiences on hard core drugs in the '70's. I first read it in junior high and I remember it having such an impact on me and my friends as it was among the darkest books we'd ever read at that point in our lives.


I just thought I'd share the opening bit with you. I hope you like it.

Go Ask Alice

ANONYMOUS

MOTHER

FATHER

JILL

BILL

RICHIE

BECKY

Black box theatre with vaum coming through the center of the audience.

All bleep sound effects are indicated by [***].

Light up on Anonymous USC

She’s 15, but could look older as she has been through quite a lot for the short time she has lived.

ANONYMOUS

Alice found Wonderland down a rabbit hole.

Beat

She found its wonders in a liquid that said “Drink Me”.

And in a substance that said “Eat Me”

Red light is cast on a small white pill DSC in front of Anonymous.

She looks at it. A look of fear mixed with curiosity comes across her face as she begins to take small steps towards it.

We can hear and eerie hum all around.

ANONYMOUS

With everything she consumed, she changed. She’d become a giant, or as small as a bug. And when she was either high or low, that’s when bad things would happen.

She gets down on all fours and begins crawling to the pill, cautiously.

ANONYMOUS

She’d fall. And have to bring herself back up again.

She picks up the pill.

Only to fall once again.

She eats the pill.

Lights change.

Anonymous is backlit so all we see is her silhouette and not her face.

Hum stops with a loud drum beat.

ANONYMOUS

Only Alice can understand what I’ve been through.

Beat

My name is ***.

This is my story.

Lights up on her face once again.

She’s young, awkward, and naïve.

ANONYMOUS

September 16^th.

Yesterday I remember thinking I was the happiest person in the whole earth, in the whole galaxy, in all of God’s creation. Could that only have been yesterday or was it endless light-years ago?

I was thinking that the grass had never smelled grassier, the sky had never seemed so high.

Now it’s all smashed down upon my head and I wish I could just melt into the blaaaa-ness of the universe and cease to exist. Oh why, why, why can’t I? How can I face Sharon and Debbie and the rest of the kids? How can I? By now the word has gotten around the whole school, I know it has! Yesterday I bought this diary because I thought at last I’d have something wonderful and great and worthwhile to say, something so personal that I wouldn’t be able to share it with another living person, only myself. Now, like everything else in my life, it has become so much nothing.

Beat as she stands up.

Boys. Suck!

I really don’t understand how Roger could have done this to me when I have loved him for as long as I can remember and I have waited all my life for him to see me!

Yesterday when he asked me out I thought I’d literally and completely die with happiness. I really did! And now the whole world is cold and gray and unfeeling.

Mother enters USR looking for Anonymous.

Sees her, folds her arms and says:

MOTHER

(mouthing name) ***

ANONYMOUS

And now my mother is nagging me to clean my room.

MOTHER

Sweetheart, it’s a complete mess. Please clean it up.

ANONYMOUS

Mom!!

MOTHER

I know I’m nagging, but that’s what mother’s do. Just think; when you’re finished we can plan Dad’s birthday, and then yours.

ANONYMOUS

Joy.

MOTHER

Hey. (gently turns Anonymous to face her) What’s wrong with my girl?

Anonymous softly replies:

ANONYMOUS

Nothing.

MOTHER

Are you sure?

ANONYMOUS

(turning away)

Yes.

Mother reluctantly leaves.

ANONYMOUS

My insides are just shattering.

Father enters USL.

FATHER

(mouthing name) ***

ANONYMOUS

Hi, Daddy.

FATHER

I’ve got some good news for you!

(hugs her from behind)

ANONYMOUS

That’s a laugh.

FATHER

I’ve been asked to become the Dean of Political Science at the University of—

(whispers name in her ear)

Anonymous’ face changes into one of complete ecstasy.

FATHER

Now go clean your room like your mother said.

Exits.

ANONYMOUS

Wonderful news, Diary! We’re moving! Isn’t that exciting? Maybe it will be like it was when I was younger. Maybe again he’ll teach in Europe every summer and we’ll go with him like we used to. Oh those were the fun, fun times!

I’m going to start on a diet this very day.

I will be a positively different person by the time we get to our new home. Not one more bite of chocolate or nary a french fried potato will pass my lips till I’ve lost ten globby pounds of lumpy lard. And I’m going to make a completely new wardrobe.

Who cares about Ridiculous Roger?

Beat

Confidentially, Diary, I still care.

I guess I’ll always love him.

Last summer at Marion Hill’s slumber party someon brought in a Playboy magazine with a story in it about a girl sleeping with a boy for the first time and all I could think about was Roger.

I don’t ever want to have sex with any boy in the whole world ever…ever…I swear I’ll die a virgin if Roger and I don’t get together. I couldn’t stand to ever have any other boy even touch me.

I’m not even sure about Roger.

Maybe later when I’m older I’ll feel differently.

Lights begin to slowly fade into harsh bright colors; red, green, blue.

Eerie hum slowly fades up under the following.

Jill and Bill enter through the vaum and walk up to Anonymous as if they were tigers encircling their prey.

ANONYMOUS

Mother says that as girls get older, hormones invade our bloodstream…

Jill and Bill each take one of Anonymous’ arms, injecting her with invisible heroine needles.

Anonymous feels the euphoria and closes her eyes.

…making our sexual desires greater.

Jill and Bill kiss, lick, and bite her hands, arms, and take over her body.

Eerie hum grows as Jill and Bill’s ravaging becomes more and more violent.

Just before it’s about to reach climax, school bell rings.

Neutral lights come on and Jill, Bill, and Anonymous freeze.

ANONYMOUS

I keep thinking about our teacher in gym teaching us modern dancing and always saying that it will make our bodies strong and healthy for childbearing, then she harps and harps that everything must be graceful, graceful, graceful.

I can hardly picture sex or having a baby as being graceful.

Jill and Bill let go and stand with their backs to the audience.