Allusions and Illusions
A Collection of Plays, Short Fiction, Fragmented Memoirs, Poems and Songs
By Colleen Kellogg
Photographs and Paintings by Colleen Kellogg
Colleen Kellogg is a jazz, blues, folk and pop singer-lyricist, award winning playwright, artist and aspiring screenwriter. She recorded her album “Unrequited” in 2006 and 2008. You can buy her digital album on iTunes, Amazon and Google, or listen to it on Facebook and Reverb Nation. She has written about 1,000 songs and poems combined and is working on creating new albums, memoirs, plays, screenplays and graphic novels. Her plays have been published in magazines and conferences throughout the United States.
Photo of Colleen Kellogg - 2014
Allusions and Illusions
is dedicated to Ross with Love.
Table of Contents
Allusive Plays
American Afterlife – A Ten Minute Play
All-American Woman – A Ten Minute Play
Existential Dilemma – A Thirteen and a Half Minute Play
Ascended Masters and Goddesses – A Fifteen Minute Play
Morningstar Allusions
Last Call – A Ten-Minute Play
I AM/I WILL – A Ten-Minute Play
Coming to Being – A Ten Minute Play
Let the Devil Speak - Flash Fiction
Comfort in the Arms of B_ - Short Story
Illusions of Love and Life – Monologues and Plays
Row, Row Monologues
-Ross
-Lada
Jamie Can’t Talk Now – A Ten-Minute Play
Bad Hair Day – A Ten-Minute Play
The Daymare –A One Act Play
Driving Sideways – A One Act Play
Fragments – Short and Fragmented Mini-Memoirs
Family
The Big Dance
The Sky Has Taken Over
The Moon and Me
Life is But a Dream
Divine Love Dance (Sense of Place Essay)
Scantily Clad
2015
Universe
Allusive Plays
American Afterlife
An Almost Ten-Minute Play
American Afterlife by Colleen Kelloggalludes to characters in the plays Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, and Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet, as well as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story “Winter Dreams.”
Cast of Characters
DEXTER.....a confident, intelligent, and wise, businessman (50)
WILLIE.......a lowly, down on his luck, failed businessman (65)
HOPE......... an angel, supermodel, and receptionist (looks 29)
DAVE....an overly confident, impatient, crooked businessman (50)
SHELLY.........a naïve, loveable, crooked businessman (late-70s)
TIME: Infinity
PLACE: The Abyss. Heaven. Bardo. Limbo.
SETTING: The scene takes place in a waiting room in Heaven or Bardo/the transitional state between death and rebirth.
(LIGHTS UP.)
(Beyond Space and Time.)
(The Abyss. Heaven. Limbo. Bardo. Waiting room with clouds. A line of people dressed in white, filing off stage. A reception desk made out of clouds and warm icicles. Hope, f, ageless, mans the desk.)
(WILLY Loman, m, 65, sits down on a seat made out of clouds. He holds a ticket in his hand with the number 999K on it. He hangs his head in his hands, wiping off tears with his palms.)
(DEXTER Green, looks like a dashing young 50 year old, swings a golf club around, without a golf ball. He raises his hand to his eyes and peers out at the audience.)
DEXTER
(to Willy) Great weather we’re having up here, eh? The clouds are as white as snow.
(Willy looks up at Dexter and smiles through his tears.)
(In storms DAVE Moss, wearing a white suit and white fedora hat, while carrying a white briefcase.)
DAVE
(raising hands) I want to be reborn a rich man! STAT! Don’t give me any bullshit about it. I got short changed on the last deal, and you know it!
HOPE
Dave? Dave Moss?
DAVE
That was me. I’m thinking Velasco Javier, something. Something rich and foreign.
(Willy rises from his seat.)
WILLY
Now, wait a minute, Hope! I was here long before he was. I’ve been patiently waiting my turn. Why does he get to --
DAVE
(flustered, fast-paced) You know why I get to go first? Because I’m the machine. I AM THE –
(SHELLY Levine, m, late70s, walks by wearing a long white robe, and a red hat with a black feather, a super model angel on each shoulder.)
SHELLY
Now Moss, you know that I’m the Machine, and not you, which is why I get to go first.
HOPE
Let Shelly Levine through. He gets to go first.
(Willy shakes his number and sniffles.)
WILLY
This is not fair! I’m well-liked! I should go first. I’ve been here long enough.
HOPE
Don’t fret Mr. Loman. Your new home should reflect the person you want to become, not the person that you were. You need a loving home that will allow you to balance past Karmic patterns.
DEXTER
(swinging golf club) Somewhere in the Alps, where I can go skiing and climb fourteeners.
(Shelly waves to Moss, snidely, and exits with the angels.)
DAVE
That man’s a thief! I tell you!
WILLY
Aren’t we all?
(Dexter gathers next to Willy and Dave.)
DEXTER
Not all of us have to be thieves. Some of us actually work hard for a living. By the time I was twenty-seven, I was the richest man in my region, owning a large chain of Laundromats. I tell you, work hard and you can achieve greatness.
WILLY
(sniffling) I believe that! My brother walked into the jungle a boy, with no money to his name, and then walked out a rich man and owner of a diamond mine.
DAVE
(waving arms, to Dexter) Bullshit! No man becomes rich quick, without being a bit dishonest. You never stole a lick?
DEXTER
Not a dime!
DAVE
You lying scumbag!
HOPE
(smiling) Now Dave, if you don’t watch your tongue, you’ll be next.
(Dave pounds fists onto Hope’s desk.)
DAVE
(glowing) I want to be next! Dammit!
HOPE
(smiling) You just may be.
DAVE
Where’d Shelly go? Where’d that lying bastard get to live out his next life? I want to be somewhere warm, sunny, and tropical. And I want to be rich! Filthy rich!
HOPE
Shelly Levine has been reborn into a warm, sunny...desert land. He’ll become a vulture, in his next life. If you don’t watch your tongue, you’ll become a desert rat.
(The Super Model Angels return.)
DAVE
No Freakin’ Fair!
HOPE
Angels (pointing to Dave)...Take him away.
(The Super Model Angels grab Dave, and start to leave with him.)
DAVE
I said FREAKIN’! Freakin’… Not --
(The Super Model Angels silence Dave’s mouth with their hands and exit with him.)
HOPE
It pays to do the right thing.
WILLY
I’ll wait over here.
(Willy grabs a chair and places it near the front of the stage. He lets out a big sigh.)
DEXTER
Your next life might not be as bad as you might think. I was a penguin once. Had a lovely penguin mom, penguin wife, kids. It wasn’t half bad. I feel like I met my full potential then.
(Willy puts his right foot on the chair.)
HOPE
Feet off the chairs, Loman.
WILLY
(putting out hand) What’s your name, son?
DEXTER
(shaking hand) Dexter Green, at your service. At everyone’s service. I’ve served so many people. Even as a rich man. Who has ever served me?
WILLY
Wouldn’t you have people waiting on you, hand and foot?
DEXTER
Life is a strange thing, Mr. Loman. That’s your name, right?
WILLY
(saluting) That has a ring to it. But you can call me Willy.
DEXTER
Do you ever wish you could redo the same life, but a different way?
WILLY
(waving 999K number) Every day. Or, however long, I’ve been up here for. Even in my old life.
(Dexter swings the golf club and pears over audience.)
DEXTER
I thought money would buy happiness.
WILLY
(resting foot on chair) Doesn’t it?
HOPE
(pointing with a feather pen) Feet, Mr. Loman.
(Willy takes his foot off the chair and kneels on it, instead.)
WILLY
(peering out at audience) Doesn’t it? Doesn’t money buy happiness?
DEXTER
Not at all. It’s lonely being rich. I wish I had love. If I could relive my life, I would reevaluate my priorities. I don’t know how, but being a penguin I was so much happier than being a rich entrepreneur. Life just made sense then. Did you ever have love?
WILLY
(standing up) I did. I loved Linda. I loved my boys. I loved my whole family. But what’s love without money?
DEXTER
Then you missed it. You missed the point. Just like me. It went flying over my head, like a golf ball. I still can’t find that golf ball. What’s a golf club without a golf ball?
WILLY
It’s nice to swing.
DEXTER
In my next life, I want to get it. I want to get the point. I will wait here, in Limbo, or Bardo, or wherever we are, until I figure out just where I’m supposed to be.
HOPE
Willy!
(Willy turns his head back and forth between Hope and Dexter.)
WILLY
Yeah, Hope?
HOPE
It’s time.
WILLY
(Staring at Dexter) Time for what?
HOPE
For your new life.
WILLY
But I’m not ready. I don’t know what I want, anymore.
HOPE
(putting arm around Willy) Don’t worry. We’re placing you with a loving family. They have two boys. You’ll be their third. Good morals. Steady income. A house in the country with a vegetable farm. You’ll grow up on a ranch, working with your hands.
WILLY
Now that’s the life.
(The angels gather Willy and take him off stage.)
(Hope takes a pink golf ball out of her gown and hands it to Dexter. He grasps it with dear life.)
DEXTER
Thanks, Hope. Hope. Hope is a good name.
HOPE
You’ll find what you’re looking for, when you least expect it.
(Hope heads back over to the reception desk. Dexter follows.)
DEXTER
Say, what are you doing when you get off, tonight?
HOPE
Tonight? Hmm. Well, I’m skiing in the morning. Care to join me? The slopes here are divine.
DEXTER
Sounds like heaven, to me.
HOPE
It really is. You know, if you play your cards right, you could be reborn into the God Realm.
(Dave Moss runs onto stage.)
DAVE
BULLSHIT!!! He gets to be reborn a God, and I’m reborn a desert rat?
HOPE
Fine. Angels. Send him to the Asura Realm.
DAVE
What’s that?
HOPE
Jealous Gods.
DAVE
Just as long as I’m a God...
(The angels take him away.)
HOPE
It’s been a long day. How about a walk?
DEXTER
Sounds divine. So who were you, in a past life?
HOPE
I was a penguin. Do you not recognize your wife?
DEXTER
(double take) Wow...It’s been a long time. But I never lost hope.
HOPE
You’re such a cornball, Dexter. But you’re mine. You will love the next life. I swear.
(They exit.)
(LIGHTS OUT.)
(THE END.)
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