| | Author: | Odelia Samara Younge | | EMail: | diamondbraid@gmail.com | | ICWP Member?: | No | | Nearest Large City: | Indianapolis, IN | | Country: | USA | | Play Title: | "My Own Worst Enemy" | | Runtime: | 31-60 minutes | | Synopsis: | The idea for “My Own Worst Enemy” first came into my mind one day when I was watching some of my classmates at school, and I noticed just how much most of my classmates had changed. Many of them had changed from wonderful individuals with so much dreams and hopes for the future to almost heartless beings with single minded roads in their minds. This change made me feel sad, and since I love to write, the idea started to come to me about what would happen if someone were to come face to face with their worst enemy, only to find out that they are their own worst enemy. I also asked myself what kind of steps would lead up to such a discovery and how would that person deal with their discovery. After much thought and writing, “My Own Worst Enemy” was born.
The protagonist and antagonist in this play is Pansy Davis. I used the same person to play both mirror Pansy and real Pansy so that the audience could feel even more the connection between them in the beginning. The other person is used later to draw the distinction that real Pansy has become different from her old self. I used the new person as the same person as the character of Rachel, who is Pansy’s secretary who is fed-up with Rachel’s treatment of her, because Rachel has some of the same kind of qualities as mirror Pansy because of her treatment by real Pansy.
Pansy Davis is one of the owners of a business which I chose not to make a part of the play at all, and she is quite ruthless. The beginning of the play finds her trapped inside a mirror and in the mirror world. She is tricked into there by her mirror image who takes over her life. As Pansy stays in there more, she realizes how people view her and she becomes disgusted by her own actions. The exact amount of time that Pansy is trapped in there before the beginning of the play is never revealed to the audience so that they can draw their own conclusions. Two of her workers at her business are Gary and Greg. They are both as fed up as Rachel by their treatment. I doubled up on the characters of Gary and Greg as well. I chose the person that plays Gary to play the character of Mr. Davis as well to show a connection between her anger with her father and her anger with Gary. I chose Greg and Paul to be the same person to show the connection between resentment there too.
While Pansy is in the mirror world we see glimpses into her life that start to show the kind of person she was, wanted to be, and eventually what she became. She relives all these moments as well. One of the hardest things for her to deal with was when her youngest self she revisited said that she couldn’t recognize her. This started to open up the thought to her that she has became nothing of what she wanted to the point that she doesn’t recognize herself as what she is. The insights into her mom’s death, father’s treatment of her, and rejection of love, all add to the final setting of the play. In this final setting Pansy decides to take back her life. When confronting her mirror image she realizes they don’t look alike anymore because she has changed. She also confronts her feelings for her fiancé Ted, who still believes that they can work things out after she changes her life. In the end she comes face to face with her childhood counterpart and smiles when she hears that she has finally truly looked at herself and saw someone she wanted to know | | Male: | 3 | | Female: | 4 | | Max. Cast: | 11 | | Min. Cast: | 7 | | Media: | Stage | | Genre: | Light Drama | | Theme: | Inner Struggles | | Web Page: | | | First Name: | Odelia | | Last Name: | Younge | | Notes: | |
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