Imagining Brad
Imagining Brad
The action takes place in Nashville, where two women meet after church and strike up a conversation. One is Dana Sue Kaye, a brassy, voluble bleach-blonde, who chatters on about her wonderful, perfect husband – her high-school sweetheart and the “best looking man in Tennessee.” The other is Brad’s wife (Valerie grown), a shy, soft-spoken newlywed who has just moved down from Philadelphia and is as close-mouthed about her husband as Dana Sue is forthcoming about hers. In time, however, it is revealed that Brad is a grotesque freak: armless, legless, blind and bedridden; while Dana Sue’s husband is unmasked as a depraved, brutal wife abuser who, in truth, has made her life a hell. Ironically it is actually Brad, the helpless “bag of flesh,” who can feel but not inflict hurt, who is really the “perfect man” and, as the play ends, Dana Sue is sorely tempted to accept Brad’s wife’s invitation to move in with them and share his protection.
The Valerie Of Now
A monologue in which a precocious teenager, Valerie, faces the twin crises of a birthday party and her first menstrual period. Chatting on the telephone, or to herself, Valerie contemplates the injustice of having to deal with the fears and excitement of momentous physical change even though, outwardly, she is still very much a little girl. And, in addition, a darker note is sounded with the suggestion that Valerie has also been subjected to molestation by her father.
Author’s Note
Imagining Brad, in its brief history, has provoked various responses. One young man threw a chair at me after a staged reading. A certain critic wanted to burn the theater down. Others have been touched. One middle-aged woman with tears in her eyes said, “I was abused when I was a little girl. I’ve never been able to laugh about it. Thank you for letting me.”
The play is delicate. If you perform it with compassion for these women, with no negative judgement, with no feeling of superiority, then you will have let them live and the let the audience care. If these women are portrayed as different from you or me, if they are commented on or made into caricatures, then the audience is given permission to dismiss the play and the questions it asks.
The set can be simple. Most important, Brad must never be seen. He is to remain imaginary.
The Valerie of Now was presented as a prologue to the Circle Rep production of Imagining Brad. The plays are inner-related; however, each work stands by itself. Imagining Brad is most effective when performed alone.