Some god direct my judgment! Let me see–I will survey th’ inscriptions back again.

What says this leaden casket? ‘Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.’

Must give — for what? for lead! hazard for lead? This casket threatens; men that hazard all

Do it in hope of fair advantages. A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross;

I’ll then nor give nor hazard aught for lead. What says the silver with her virgin hue?

‘Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.’ As much as he deserves? Pause there, Morocco,

And weigh thy value with an even hand: If thou be’st rated by thy estimation,

Thou dost deserve enough; and yet enough May not extend so far as to the lady;

And yet to be afeard of my deserving Were but a weak disabling of myself.

As much as I deserve? Why that’s the lady! I do in birth deserve her, and in fortunes,

In graces, and in qualities of breeding; But more than these, in love I do deserve.

What if I strayed no farther, but chose here? Let’s see once more this saying graved in gold:

‘Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.’ Why that’s the lady! All the world desires her;

From the four corners of the earth they come To kiss this shrine, this mortal breathing saint.

The Hyrcanian deserts and the vasty wilds Of wide Arabia are as thoroughfares now

For princes to come view fair Portia. The watery kingdom, whose ambitious head

Spits in the face of heaven, is no bar To stop the foreign spirits, but they come

As o’er a brook to see fair Portia. One of these three contains her heavenly picture.

Is’t like that lead contains her? ‘Twere damnation To think so base a thought; it were too gross

To rib her cerecloth in the obscure grave. Or shall I think in silver she’s immured,

Being ten times undervalued to tried gold? O sinful thought! Never so rich a gem

Was set in worse than gold. They have in England A coin that bears the figure of an angel

Stamped in gold — but that’s insculped upon; But here an angel in a golden bed

Lies all within. Deliver me the key. Here do I choose, and thrive I as I may!

Kim confesses to her friend (and sometimes-lover) Shanehat she has been in love with him for several years.

KIM: I wanted those moments – few and far between as they were… I wanted whatever time and affection you could give me. No matter what it cost me. I felt like you found comfort in me. And maybe I wasn’t your first choice, you know? But I was glad that I was somewhere on the list. I let it happen again and again, more times than I can even count.

You wanted to keep things casual, you wanted to keep me at arm’s length. It didn’t matter. I love you anyway. I’ve seen the best and the worst of you… and I love you. I love your kindness, and your strength. I love the way you can tell me what I’m thinking. I love the way you tell a story, drawing me in. I love you for all the times you convinced me, with a stupid joke, or even just a look… to stop taking myself so seriously and just enjoy my life. Nothing could ever make me regret the way I feel about you. What I feel for you isn’t a negative thing. It makes me better, it makes my life better. That’s what I’ve been trying to say: That love is never wrong.

CAPTAIN: Come in, and we’ll talk. I heard you out there listening. It is late, but we must come to some decision. Sit down. [Pause] I have been at the post office tonight to get my letters. From these it appears that you have been keeping back my mail, both coming and going. The consequence of which is that the loss of time has as good as destroyed the result I expected from my work. In consequence of all this I have intercepted letters addressed to you. It appears from these letters that for some time past you have been arraying my old friends against me by spreading reports about my mental condition. And you have succeeded in your efforts, for now not more than one person exists from the Colonel down to the cook, who believes that I am sane. Now these are the facts about my illness; my mind is sound, as you know, so that I can take care of my duties in the service as well as my responsibilities as a father; my feelings are more or less under my control, as my will has not been completely undermined; but you have gnawed and nibbled at it so that it will soon slip the cogs, and then the whole mechanism will slip and go smash. [Pause] I have worked and slaved for you, your child, your mother, your servants; I have sacrificed promotion and career; I have endured torture, flaggellation, sleeplessness, worry for your sake, until my hair has grown gray; and all that you might enjoy a life without care, and when you grew old, enjoy life over again in your child. This is the commonest kind of theft, the most brutal slavery. [Cries] I thought I was completing myself when you and I became one, and therefore you were allowed to rule, and I, the commander at the barracks and before the troops, became obedient to you, grew through you, looked up to you as to a more highly-gifted being, listened to you as if I had been your undeveloped child. You always had the advantage. You could hypnotize me when I was wide awake, so that I neither saw nor heard, but merely obeyed; you could give me a raw potato and make me imagine it was a peach; you could force me to admire your foolish caprices as though they were strokes of genius. You could have influenced me to crime, yes, even to mean, paltry deeds. Because you lacked intelligence, instead of carrying out my ideas you acted on your own judgment. But when at last I awoke, I realized that my honor had been corrupted and I wanted to blot out the memory by a gread deed, an achievement, a discovery, or an honorable suicide. I wanted to go to war, but was not permitted. It was then that I threw myself into science. And now when I was about to reach out my hand to gather in its fruits, you chop off my arm. Now I am dishonored and can live no longer, for a man cannot live without honor.

BACHELOR: To wed, or not to wed;–that is the question:

Whether ’tis nobler in a man to suffer
The slings and sorrows of that blind young archer;
Or fly to arms against a host of troubles,

And at the altar end them. To woo–to wed–
No more; and by this step to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand hopes and fears
The single suffer–’tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To woo–to wed;–
To wed–perchance repent!–ay, there’s the rub;
For in that wedded state, what woes may come
When we have launched upon that untried sea
Must give us pause. There’s the respect

That makes celibacy of so long life;
For who would bear the quips and jeers of friends,
The husband’s pity, and the coquette’s scorn,
The vacant hearth, the solitary cell,
The unshared sorrow, and the void within,
When he himself might his redemption gain

With a fair damsel. Who would beauty shun
To toil and plod over a barren heath;
But that the dread of something yet beyond–

The undiscovered country, from whose bourne
No bachelor returns–puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of!
Thus forethought does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And numberless flirtations, long pursued,

With this regard, their currents turn awry
And lose the name of marriage.

MICHELLE: Hi. My name is Michelle (SHE does a crazy gesture and noise that somehow mocks suicide.) Just kidding. No, really-thrilled to be here. What do you want to know? What do you want me to say…

(Silence)

Oh, wait, that’s right. This is not a conversation-it’s a session. This is my first time to share, with complete strangers how I feel…Well, I feel like talking about trees. How do you feel about them? Wait. Please, don’t speak..let me. My fascination stems from this one tree. (SHE silently mouths “stems” again to emphasize the irony.) Rough crowd. (A pause) Well, its gigantic and right outside my bedroom window. Some nights I feel like it wants in. Wants into my perfect pink-and-white-striped room. My room is perfect, not because its everything I want. Its just perfectly planned, the pillows, the balloon shades, the pictures, the bed, the window seat, my stuffed animals. I have even more animals under my bed. I have guilt about suffocating them…I feel…it doesn’t matter. They don’t match. (A pause) They really don’t. Well, it cant fall now because I just predicted it. What you think is going to happen – never does. It’s a relief. You cant know it all. I just feel like in my movie that’s what will happen. There’ll be a huge thunderstorm with lightning, my tree will explode, and I’ll be crushed. I can see myself split in half. I don’t want to be surrounded by all those people who would need to be there if I got crushed. I am over groups. No offense.

(She reaches for the phone and dials)

HALEY: Hey, its me. No, not yet, he’s coming over tonight. B.J. stop it! I’m too nervous right now you cant make fun of me. Yes. Ha ha. Yes of course I got rid of her, she’s spending the night at Emily’s. No, honey, he more than assumes, its been stated specifically, the plan is that he comes over, we order Chinese take-out and then actually do the deed on the living room floor before the food even gets here. (she laughs)What? I guess.

(She checks her phone. Moves nervous)

A little. (Beat)A little, just a little, don’t make it a big thing, it’s a little. OK. An hour. Hes almost an hour late, but-oh don’t do that silence thing. He’s a busy guy, sometimes he’s late. Im not going to turn into one of those psycho girlfriends who thinks the worst when a guy’s a little late.
(Beat) Shit!

You think I should call him?- Yes I have his cell. –Stop it would you?- Yes Ill call him, I will, I will. Yes, Ill call you back of course Ill call you back.

(She hangs up the phone)
(To herself) Jerk.
(She paces, picks up the phone and dials)
HALEY: Yeah, Hi, Lewis? Uh, Its Haley, I was just wondering what happened to you. So, just give me a call when you get this, or maybe Ill see you first. You’re probably on your way. Okay. Bye.

(She hangs up, embarrassed at herself.)Shit. Shit.

(She goes out into the hallway, nervous, and returns holding a phonebook in her hands, sits on the bed and opens it.) be here be here be here-yes.

(On the phone) Oh. Hello! Hello, I was wondering, is, um Lewis there?(Beat) Uh, Haley.

(She looks up at the ceiling, suddenly trying to hold back tears.)

Yes, Hello Lewis. I uh, was wondering what happened to you, I think we said eight o’clock, and- Uh huh. Oh, Uh huh. (Beat) Yeah, of course no, Im not- angry Im just disappointed, that’s all. But not, uh…Listen can I just ask, does that have anything to do with the woman who just answered the phone? (beat) You did, yes you told me about her but you said that had , that that had “gone south” and-

(Haley listens, nod her head)

Oh, Oh! You’re living together. No, Im sorry, I didn’t understand that . I thought “went south” meant, “went south”. (Quick beat). Im not –accusing, Oh God that’s so- Listen its fine, I don’t. I just thought something else was going on which was obviously my mistake. But I do, you know, I just don’t quite understand why you didn’t call. I mean, it sounds like you came to this decision sometime before this very instant. (Beat) So my point being, were you ever going to call and tell me about it? I mean, Ive been waiting here for an hour and a half, expecting you to come over for some big romantic- and you clearly had no plans to come and were you just going to let me figure that out on my own in the most humiliating way possible?  Okay, Yeah, I guess I am angry, I-

(She stops, not trying to lose it, takes a deep breath).

You know what? I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I have to go. And don’t come into my restaurant even if someone as stupid as me calls you and invites you, don’t even think about it, because you know what? We don’t serve lying deceitful cheating fucking cowards!

LEE: I don’t know.

Being married… Its like…Its like chewing the same damn gum over and over and over for the rest of your life. Sometimes, sometimes you need some new gum!

(Pause)

Some Juicy Fruit. Huh?… Some Bazooka! Boom, Pow! Fidelity, hey, for my money Im all for it. But its not the same thing as monogamy.

This is a common mistake. Monogamy—its demeaning, its an imposition on nature. Nature abhors a wedding. Its blackmail! The whole thing. And that’s all it is.

(Pause)

And they work it so the only fucking thing harder’n bein’ married is getting divorced. Know how easy it is to get a divorce in Egypt? You walk up to her and say:”I divorce thee, I divorce thee, I divorce thee”. Three times. Boom!

That was like in olden times. Tijuana, you get a divorce for what, fifty bucks. Here? Christ. Here its easier to fake your own death. My wife, we litigated like wolverines…You think you know somebody? You’re say your married to her, you live with her? So what. You divorce somebody you see shit you never seen before.

(Pause, he drinks, thinks.)

…People are vicious fucks. You know? People are savage, flesh-eating vicious fucks…and I happen to have a high opinion of people.