NUMB
 a short play by Anne de Mare

NOTE: Both ten minute and full one act versions of this script are available.

 Finalist
 The 1998 National Ten Minute Play Contest, Actors Theatre of Louisville

 Production History
 Ten Minute Version - SoHo Rep; Ten Minute Play Festival; July 10 - 11, 1999
One Act Version - The Ontological Theater; Downstairs Series; January 13 - 28, 1996

 Character Breakdown (2 women, 1 man)
  • WENDY - a desperate woman.
  • GLADYS - another of the same.
  • THE POLAR BEAR - male.


    •  A Brief Description of the Play

     One act. One iceberg. Two women (frozen stiff).

    Wendy and Gladys, the frozen heroines of NUMB, are stuck in an iceberg with no hope for the thaw. A nearsighted polar bear roams the landscape around them, unaware, for the moment, of their precarious existence. They cling onto and turn against each other in series of desperate attempts to define their horrific situation in more manageable terms. The plot is simple - one of them lives and one of them dies. They remain, to the end, two sides of the same person, struggling to push past the unacceptable reality at hand. As a playwright, I believe in making theater of humor and consequence, and am fascinated with how quickly our sense of morality can shift with the circumstances. In NUMB I have worked to expose the ever-changing image we possess of ourselves, and how that image astounds, protects, confuses, and eventually condemns us. I used elements of the familiar and the fantastical to create moments of perversely heightened crisis, putting my characters face to face with the unresolvable issue of who they always thought they were and who they have become. I believe that somewhere along that frantic, remarkable and impossible line lies the truth of who we are.

    Running Time: 30 minutes / 10 minutes.

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    © copyright 1999 by Anne Catherine de Mare