[TRANSCRIPT]

[Motioning to a table, laptop, projector, set up onstage] “Um…can we get this shit out of the way please?

“I just feels like there’s a lot of like, weird energy in the room, and I kind of just wanted to play a song and just dance for a minute…? Would you guys wanna dance with me?

“Can you play that Greenhornes song, ‘There is an end’? It’s by The Greenhornes, it’s called ‘There is an end.’ …‘cause that’s the thing about life, is that it ends. Kafka said that.

“I’m serious. Everybody dance for a sec.

[Cynthia dances, sexily, to an entire Greenhornes song. Some audience members dance along. One audience member throws money at her feet. Cynthia gives a front row audience member a lapdance. At the end of the song she pulls up her shirt to expose her bosom. When the song is over, Cynthia grabs a chair from the side of the room, kicks her microphone cord out of the way, slams the chair down in the middle of the stage and sits on it.]

“I always wanted to be a dancer. Or like a singer, like famous, y’know. It’s a bit hard at the moment because I’m a fugitive actually. Kind of undercover—a little bit discovered [gestures at Sean flirtatiously]—but otherwise undercover, y’know.

“Have you guys heard of a place called the Center for Difficult Womyn?” [Audience member: “Yeah.”] “Yeah? What do you know about it?” [Audience member: “I hear it’s really helpful.”] “Really helpful huh? Well that wasn’t exactly my experience.

 “I was up there for two years. No Internet, no cell phone service, no friends, no boyfriends, no fucking, no smiling, no laughing, no crying, no Adderall, no drugs, no knives and no guns. It wasn’t a very fun time, you know what I mean? But that’s what you get when you burn down your parents’ house while they’re still inside.

“But I decided I wanted to escape, you know what I mean…you know, get back to reality. [laughs] So my boyfriend smuggled an Australian passport into my birthday cake—my birthday came early that year, you know [laughs]—and then I took it and I snuck into the trunk of these two lesbians that were released, and they drove me to the airport, and I was going to go to Australia to be with my boyfriend…and then something happened, you know…he wasn’t available to receive me anymore, do you know what I mean? [laughs] Something came up. Whoops!

“So I took all of the money, and then I was just walking around New York City, trying to figure out…where I could go…all alone…on the run…

“I was at this bar in the East Village, and I met this guy called Riccardo. He’s Italian, and he was really greasy, and he had lots of money. And he lives in an apartment on Avenue D and Second Street, this big glass building, you know…and I was like ‘Do you have a girlfriend? Are you single?’ And he was like [miming Italian accent] ‘For you I could be!’ So… [laughs] I live there now. Riccardo likes to get his dick sucked. I can provide. You know.

“Actually recently after I sucked his dick I went to grab my phone to check on social media, and I was like—God I love to do that, after like, fucking, or sucking a dick, just like…some people like to smoke cigarettes but I just like to check my social media, you know what I mean? [Someone laughs] Thank you.

“So…the problem is, is that I don’t have my own account because 1) I was without Internet for two years, and 2) I’m on the run, so I can’t exactly be appearing on Facebook, you know what I mean.

“I mean I go on social media—I use my best friend Roberta’s account, you know. She doesn’t use it anymore. She died on the operating table three years ago getting liposuction—can you believe that? That fucking bitch! My mother paid for that too, can you believe that? My rich-ass, vain-ass, Greenwich, Connecticut mother, couldn’t handle that her only daughter’s best friend was a fat girl, so she paid for her to get liposuction, and she fucking died. I was mad after that, and that’s why I burned down their fucking house while they were still inside. [laughs] My mother isn’t that vain anymore, now that she has burns to 75% of her body. [Audience member: “Whoa…”] Thank you.

“Anyway…so I would use Roberta’s account because we swapped passwords years ago—she gave me her real one, I didn’t [laughs]—you know. It’s good for lurking—that’s like a new term in the past two years, ‘lurking,’ you know—but it’s bad for liking. I liked something once as Roberta—it didn’t go down too well. [laughs] People don’t like to receive a notification from a dead girl.

“So I shared all of this with Riccardo and he was like [mimicking Italian accent] ‘Oh, you should join-a my social media platform!’ And I was like…who is this guy, that I just moved in with? You know, and he was like “’ello!” And I was like, “…Hello?” And he was like “’ello!” …Is this guy crazy? Like…

“And he showed me this like…dank, like…just this stupid social media platform that was like hyper-styled, and like, for like, hip people who, like, ride bicycles and shit.

“So I joined it—there was like five people on it, and I was like, perfect—this is the place where I can really be myself online, you know…not be bothered.

“And then immediately, like, this guy [motions to Sean] like fucking adds me, and I’m like… ‘First of all, how did you find me?’ And he’s like a friend of Riccardo’s, and I’m like that’s convenient, and I was like ‘What’s your name?’ and he was like ‘You’re pretty sexy,’ and I was like ‘Thanks…what’s your name?’ And he was like ‘Sean Joseph Patrick Carney,’ and I was like ‘Do you really need four names, you fucking asshole?’ Wow.

“But I saw this as like a point of leverage, ‘cause I was like oh, Riccardo’s probably a jealous man. Okay.

“So we had Sean over for dinner, we had such a night time—we were flirting the whole time…and then the next day Riccardo took me out shopping and I got three handbags, two Chanel dresses…and a ton of cocaine. [laughs] It was like being back in Greenwich, you know? It was like the good ol’ times…

“Yeah, and then I was like Sean’s actually kinda cute. You only live once—New York, right? So we went here, we chatted, and then we went to that couch back there—you know that couch, that’s fucking soaked with pheromones, and all sorts of shit…and depending on who you asked, we either held hands, sweetly…or we fucked like dogs.

“Yeah…and after that he was like ‘You know, you’re a pretty good performer, you should perform at my comedy night!” and I was like “Comedy, okay…I wouldn’t mind some exposure, you know what I mean…” So here I am.

“But yeah this isn’t my first variety show, actually. While I was up at the Center for Difficult Womyn we’d get bored a lot. I had this show every Thursday night at midnight, in exchange for contraband—the girls would come in and give me what they had, you know, a couple of Adderalls, cigarette—and I would do impressions of all the facilities manager, you know what I mean? I called it Cynthia After Dark, you like that? Maybe that’s the name of my new Broadway show when I get famous? You know…

“My favorite person to do was Ruth. Everybody loved Ruth. But Ruth was a special case—it’s the kind of thing that, you know, you had to have a lot of Adderall for me to really get into Ruth, you know. Ruth did my entrance interview, actually—I didn’t have an exit interview, obviously, because here we are!—but yeah, she was a chain smoker, and had had a tracheotomy a couple years prior, and so she didn’t have a voice—she would [miming putting an electrolarynx to her neck to speak] talk like this, you know, and she was really fucking menacing, you know what I mean.

“So like I go in, and I’m kind of scared, ‘cause it’s like, I’ve like…perhaps done something wrong in my life, maybe…and my parents were too rich and vain to actually send me to prison, so they’re locking me away upstate—I’m feeling a little bit bit vulnerable. And Ruth smiles sweetly with me, and I’m like I think it’s gonna be okay, I have Ruth, you know. And we go into a room and we sit down, and she smiles at the other facilities managers, and then she closes the door, and she’s like [miming electrolarynx to neck] ‘Listen here, bitch face.’ And I’m fucking scared, you know, and she’s like ‘I know your type. You’re a fucking so—so—’ And she had a stutter too that poor fucking bitch! “…sociopath.” And I was like ‘Ruth whatsoever do you mean? We barely know each other.’ And she was like ‘Listen, you don’t want to get better, and you don’t feel any re—re—morse for what you did to your parents. So if you wanna make it here, you better be fucking nice to m—me.’

“And I was like ‘Okay Ruth. Okay. It’s a real shame that you don’t care about me because I think I could care about you a lot, Ruth—you know you seem like a really sweet woman, you know. I heard you on the phone outside to two young girls…? Were they your daughters Ruth? Are you a mother to two sweet, vulnerable young daughters? I noticed you’re not wearing a wedding ring, Ruth. Are you doing this alone? Are you a single working mother, earning like a minimum wage, taking care of lunatics like me, trying to make it work? I’ll take note of all of that Ruth, you know, ‘cause I wanna support you. So just know that everything that you write down on that fucking clipboard, it’s gonna affect my relationship with you, and your relationship with everyone else in your life, okay?’

“And that was my entrance interview, you know! So I would like do these impressions of her and the girls just like fucking loved it, [laughing] you know what I mean? Yeah.

“I mean I literally had Ruth like washing my feet by the end of it, you know. Like there was one night…it was like…you know I’d been there for eighteen months and I was going insane…like I didn’t much contraband left, I hadn’t seen my boyfriend in a year and a half, and none of the other girls would sleep with me anymore. It’s like a girl has needs…So I like stole the fucking cell phone of like, one of my facilities managers, and I spent half the night walking around every inch of that fucking property looking for half a bar of service, you know. And I found it in the middle of a fucking lake—I had my arm up with the cell phone like the Statue of Fucking Liberty, you know what I mean? And that’s when I liked that guy’s status, I was so excited, and I was like oh shit I’m Roberta, whoops! [laughs] you know, and texted my boyfriend, and we started making like escape plans, you know. I just couldn’t do it anymore.

“So I came back inside—I was like walking back inside and I was like so excited and trembling that I stepped on some broken glass, you know what I mean—I was like oh shit, and then I was—I like threw the phone to the ground, so no one would know that I took it, and I just clutched my foot and was like ‘Ruuuth, Ruuuth, please help me Ruth, please, I need your help, Ruth…’ you know, and they woke up poor old tired Ruth—she’d been staying there, taking care of us—and she washed my fucking feet in front of everybody there, while I just looked into her eyes and was like ‘Remember that entrance interview Ruth? You’re my best friend now. Yup.’ Felt pretty good. [laughs hard]

“You know, like I try and think about what Ruth said, you know what I mean, I try and think like, ‘Oh, sociopath…’ I think it’s like a made-up word, you know. I think in the end, like, we all have our secrets—it’s just a question of who figures them out first, and what they do with that information, you know what I mean? That’s what I like to think.

“I feel there’re a lot of secrets in this crowd, you know what I mean. Like I see a guy back there that hasn’t had sex in about three months and he’s ready to fuck anything that moves, you know. And this girl here, she’s kind of depressed—she’s thinking really negative thoughts about her mother, and she fucking hates me. She’s ready to get up and leave, you know what I mean.

“But you—[motions to man in front row, laughs] you’re my favorite. I’ve been feeling some crazy sexual energy for you all evening, you know. And it’s funny ‘cause it’s like, it’s like, in situations like this with Mister Purple Shirt here, it’s like the deed’s already done, you know what I mean. I mean I’ll get up, I’m gonna walk to that back room, I’m gonna do a line, I’m just gonna sit there for about fifteen minutes, and before that time is over, you’re gonna open that door, go in there, unzip your pants, and put your fucking dick in my hand, and I’m gonna have you by the fucking balls. Okay. Thanks everyone. [Puts down mic, stands up and walks to back room.]