Last semester I took a playwriting class with Paula Vogel, for which I wrote a few short pieces that utilized a sort of “verse” form based on character count. Each line had to have the same number of characters, including spaces, and no enjambment was allowed, which is to say, no line could carry over to the next. This second rule was not always faithfully observed, which is to say, though each line ended with a period, in one or two cases it could just as well ended with a comma. 

Below is a “song” from a play based on The Medea which I called “The Media.”  It starred Jack Nicholson as a sleazy fashion photographer and Kate Valk as his model, a woman in love with him but just as passionately resentful of his sleeping around.  In this bit, she contemplates cutting his johnson off to get back at him. 

If, for whatever reason, you are interested in reading this play, send me an email, I’ll send it on to you. 

Kate: Often I’m the last to know when it’s time to work or time to relax.
   I usually only act those things, it’s not something I ever control.
   Jack, he’s done so much for me, and made me more than I ever thought.
   He’s made of this homely trailer park girl a woman the press adore.
   Even fear, sometimes, I’m afraid, yes, when they think I’m in a mood.

   But, but this can’t go on, I know that this can’t, this can’t go on.
   I know what Jack is hiding – not hiding, for in fact he tells me all.
   That is his motive for honesty – to remind me that he’s free, I not.
   But this can’t, this just can’t go on, it’s not in my deepest core.
   I cannot play the other woman, I cannot be the star orbiting alone.

   When I am the face in one his photographs, I am white as an albino.
   I am delicate as a porcelain china doll, or languorous as an anaconda.
   But inside I am black, black, and hard as granite, and tightly wound.
   I can see the things that are happening to me, but I make no sound.
   Like him, in service to art, I retreat – inside – stare blindly out.

   But, but this can’t go on, I know that this can’t, this can’t go on.
   I know that he has a soul, but it is divided between – oh, is it two?
   There’s so much humiliating doubt not knowing where his passions lie.
   If his words to me are eruptions of love, or rehearsals to televise.
   Do I only live in his photographs – can I choose when to live or die?

Suddenly, her wistful mood disappears.

   That’s why I’ve devised this cutting tool, easy to conceal in my palm.
   One little slip of this wire saw, and his little pecker will be mine!
   I’m going to get that lively Johnson, boy-o, and feed it to the dogs!
   Jack won’t be able to jack any more – he’ll be talking like a dwarf!
   Next he comes to venerate me, I’ll reply with caresses – and cut it off!

   Oops!