General Corporation...

My addition to the girl power motif. I wanted to show how mundane power can be, that even when you think you don't have it, you could. Or other people think that you have it--which is the same thing as actually having it. Shakespeare's girls are thrown into extraordinary situations, but that isn't the only type of girl power. Some girls have to settle with the mundane, underwhelming kind, especially in this modern world. And so, mine does.

Office sounds are heard. The melodic hum of a copier scanning meaningless memos. Co-workers mumble about their children. Someone spills coffee onto themselves, loudly. Each cast member creates a rhythm with various office supplies. The rhythm builds as a Ticonderoga-yellow light illuminates the cyclorama, casting shadows over the set which is a series of cubicles, with a secretary’s desk front center and a water-cooler stage left. A woman walks out and gracefully climbs onto the secretary’s desk, she looks out at the audience.

Spot up on Miranda, who is the woman on top of the desk. The beat fades but does not die.

Miranda: I went to Brandeis. Seriously, I don’t mean to sound pretentious, but I have a degree in fucking business from Brandeis. So after I graduate, they set me up with this internship, big company, they tell me I’ll be running it someday. Great career opportunities. I get here, and they’ve given my job to some CEO’s brain dead, spoiled rotten, nephew. I moved myself all the way out here, I’m broke, and stranded! I call Brandeis, you now what they tell me to do?

The phone rings cutting off her line, when the phone rings the beat stops. She hops off the desk and into a chair behind it. She answers the phone. Stage lights come up on the office.

Miranda: Hello, General Corporation, Miranda speaking. No he’s not in yet. No he won’t be in for another hour. Yes, I’ll tell him. You too.

She hangs up the phone, looks defeated. It rings again.

Miranda: Hello, General Corporation, Miranda speaking. Hold on, I’ll transfer you to computer aid.

She hangs up the phone, looks defeated. It rings again.

Miranda: Hello, General Corporation, Mir-

Enter Valerie, out of breath, and holding two coffees.

Valerie: Hey!

Miranda shushes her, she is still on the phone.

Valerie: Oh, sorry.

Miranda hangs up the phone. It rings again.

Valerie: Put it to voicemail. I’m serious, no one needs to talk to anyone this early in the morning.

Miranda: Val, it is 10 o’clock.

Valerie: Yea, no one needs to talk to anyone this early in the morning. Here’s your coffee. Bossman in yet?

Miranda: Of course not. He’s probably cleaning tequila off of one of his cashmere sweater vests. Anyway, why should the person running the office be here at the same time as his workers?

Valerie: God bless corporate America.

Miranda: God bless Starbucks.

Valerie laughs and fades back to her cubicle. Jeremy enters, holding two coffee cups.

Jeremy: Mornin’ Miranda. I got you a co-

He sees Miranda’s coffee.

Miranda: Sorry, Val…

Jeremy: Yea, dumb of me. Everyone has coffee at this hour.

Miranda: It is 10 o’clock.

Jeremy: Yea, everyone has coffee at this hour. I was already late, I would have felt bad walking in looking refreshed with you looking so-

Miranda: I look like I’ve been working in a job a hate for a year, you can say it.

Jeremy: I was gonna say tired, but you know, you always look good.

Miranda smiles. Beat.

Miranda: Did your alarm not go off again?

Jeremy: Define “not go off” ?

Miranda: Did the little black box on your night table not beep at the appropriate time?

Jeremy: Was that definition from Webster’s sarcastic dictionary?

Miranda: Sorry, I-

Princeton, the boss, enters.

Princeton: (Looking at Jeremy.) Why aren’t you upstairs?

Jeremy: I came down to ask Miranda about sick days. She practically has the whole manual memorized-

Princeton: Why are you holding two coffees?

Jeremy: I am, look at that, two, well, it is your lucky day Miranda, here.

Princeton: Miranda, did I miss any calls?

Miranda: One sir, I left a post-it on your desk.

Princeton: Don’t I budget out money for this branch to have high speed internet?

Miranda: I don’t know anything about the budget sir.

Princeton: Use email next time. This is a corporation, not a Ma and Pa’s general store. I’ll be in my office.

Princeton exits.

Jeremy: Jerk.

Miranda: He wouldn't know a corporation if it latched itself to his ass.

Jeremy: Very becoming language.

Miranda: I just don’t understand how I put up with it. Every night I play out these great speeches in my head. I tell him how I would run the company, I really stick it to him. I throw in some stuff about his awkward bald patch, the insults I have dreamed up are truly vicious. Then I come in here and I just do what I’m told. What is wrong with me? I can’t even tell someone I hate, who I should have no connection with--that I think having a gerbil as an office pet would do more for the company than he ever has.

Jeremy: Nothing is wrong with you, except that gerbils are incredibly unsanitary. I mean, what can you do? Whatever you say, he just wouldn’t care.

Miranda: I know, I’m the most expendable person here. I answer the phones, I hand out the memos-

Jeremy: You’re not expendable!

Miranda: I’m a secretary. I five-year-old with a pleasant demeanor could do my job.

Jeremy: Okay, so you’re expendable, but think about all the stuff you know. All the stuff you tell me. If you were expended--

Miranda: Expended?

Jeremy: It sounded more eloquent than fired.

Miranda: Fired?

Jeremy: I’m not saying that you will be, I’m saying that if the company knew what you knew, knew all those little secrets you’ve been hearing since you started working here, they’d give you a corner office with a view and a zip line--just to keep you from revealing all the stupid mistakes the company makes on an everyday basis. Hell, everyone in this office should be terrified about what you know about them.

Miranda: I don’t know anything about anyone. I answer the phones.

Jeremy: I bet you don’t even think about it, but you open the office and you are the last to leave. You see it all!

Miranda: I see that I work with some of the most boring people in Michigan.

Valerie: (from her desk) And that is saying something! Woops…

Jeremy: How can she hear us?

Miranda: Oh, shit. Oh, no, no, no…

Jeremy: What?

Miranda: I put your extra coffee on the conference call button.

Jeremy: And the conference call button…

Miranda: Arranges wedding bouquets, it conference calls Jeremy!

Jeremy: The entire office?

Miranda: The entire office.

Jeremy: And Princeton?

Princeton: (from offstage) Miranda, can I see you in my office?

Lights out. Curtain closes. Two leather chairs are set in front. Princeton fills one.

Lights up. Miranda enters.

Miranda: You heard the call?

Princeton: Oh, yes.

Miranda: If you could just not tell any of my future employers that would be great. I’ll go get some boxes from shipping-

Princeton: Miranda, you’re not fired. I wouldn’t want you to think you were that, what's the word, " expendable".

Miranda: You’re kidding right? I compared you to a gerbil, the entire office heard. I completely undermined your authority. Are you keeping me here as a punishment?

Beat.

Miranda: Oh my god, you really think that I know something? Jeremy, the guy who took a week off to try and prove that there was a tunnel under the grassy knoll, has really get you going? What is there to know? It isn’t like this is some big, evil corporation. We sell lawn-mowers for chris’sake.

Princeton: The sale of lawn-mowers is a lucrative business.

Miranda: For the past year I have been answering the telephone, sending out emails, planning cook-outs and for what? The hope that someone would realize that I deserve your job? I was so caught up in getting what I thought was mine, I forgot that we’re selling lawn-mowers in Michigan. I wanted some kind of power over my life, for something to go my way…

Lights out. Spot up on Miranda. The office beat resumes.

Miranda: And things did go my way because I am not selling lawn-mowers in Michigan. Why didn’t Princeton fire me? Power is a funny thing. When he thought I knew something, I still would really like to know what that something is, I gained the power. But the kind of power you get because someone is afraid of you, that’s not the kind of power I want. I want the kind of power you just don’t see anymore, the kind that comes with confidence in your own strength and other people’s confidence in your personality.

Phone rings.

Miranda: Can someone else get that?

Lights out.