Cause and Effect

So a little over a year ago I wrote a little 20-minute play called Cause and Effect, which was about two kids sitting in a psychologist's waiting room and was really an experiment in dramatic arcs and which I never expected to go anywhere. And it didn't, but my friend Caleb who is so often my co-conspirator on everything fell in love with one of the characters and begged that he get to play him, one way or another.

Fast forward to last Friday night.

"ALIZA, I NEED A MONOLOGUE FOR FORENSICS COMPETITION."

"OKAY, WHEN?"

"Well, competition's tomorrow... so tonight. I was wondering if I could cut together something from that play about the pyromaniac kid?"

"Okay!"

I was out at the time and he had a copy of the play saved on his computer, so I let him go ahead and get started (note: this is terrible form and as a playwright who expects to be treated professionally, I should never have let him do this, but Caleb is one of my best friends and I knew I'd be getting final say on how the piece worked when I got home, so there was no harm in letting him do the basic assembly.) Later, when I got home, he showed me what he had so far and I realized I was going to need to do a bit of footwork - Cooper's arc in the original one act is the less intense of the two characters, but his intermediate monologues are better. So I did some adjusting, wrote him a new ending, and sent him on his way.

So how did Caleb do with his competition monologue that we tossed together in, oh, half an hour, tops?

"I'm reading instead of memorized, which I think I'll get knocked down two places for... So I'm aiming for third."

So what does this brilliant, overmodest child do? HE TAKES FIRST. What the hell, Caleb. So of course my reaction is to demand he send me a video of his award winning performance, or barring that, a re-creation. What's he do?

"Okay so I was going kind of fast because acting for my parents makes me nervous and I'm in my pajamas but HERE."

Oh Caleb....

Anyways, that's how this dastardly duo stole first at forensics competition.