A Dish Best Served Cold – A Revenge Fantasy in 10 Minutes
- 10 minutes
- 2M; Max/Min 2
Auditions, Classroom Use, Mental Health Issues, 2-Character, Colleges, Competitions, Highly Theatrrical
$7.97 – $35.00
A man is lied to when he volunteers for a psychological experiment on the role of pain in learning. His experience leaves him scarred. Twenty years later, he confronts the psychologist who conducted the experiment. To inflict revenge? T0 get an apology? Does he even know why? Do we?
Play Details
Overview
Emil Firenze is a former volunteer for a psychological experiment based on the infamous Milgram experiments conducted years ago. He was told it was to study the effect of pain on the ability to learn and to inflict an electric shock on a “volunteer” who was wired to a machine that gave him increasing doses as he gave more wrong answers. The volunteer, in fact, was an actor and was wired to nothing.
The experiment left Firenze scarred and guilty and he returns to confront Sig–the psychologist who conducted the experiment he participated in. But why: What does he hope to gain.
From the Play
FIRENZI
Breaking and entering? I thought you were the expert at that. Breaking and entering. Isn’t that what all you psychologists do? Break into the psyche of patients? That’s what you did to me,
SIG
(dialing)
You said you weren’t a patient—
FIRENZI
I wasn’t. We met long after you came to the university, I was a volunteer . . . in your experiment. You remember it, of course.
SIG
I haven’t done any experiments in a long time.
FIRENZI
Not surprising. You got a lot of bad press after the one I volunteered for – and not only because it was so derivative. I understand Dr. Milgram was not impressed.
SIG
On the contrary. He had nothing but kind words for me. Now, I think you’d better move along—Mr. . . . Uh . . . Mr. . . .
(Sig picks up the phone and begins to dial.)
FIRENZI
You really don’t remember me at all, do you? How unfortunate for you.
(Firenzi rises and clicks off the phone cradle. He pulls out a gun and points it at SIG. )
I’d rethink that call if I were you.
(SIG puts the phone back.)
SIG
What do you want?
FIRENZE
The truth
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