Rumours

Rumors
from the play "Rumors" written by Neil Simon

(In this play, several affluent couples arrive at a party in an highly upper-class
house in New York. When they get there, they discover that there are no
servants, the hostess is gone, and the host has shot himself through the
earlobe. The host, Charley Brock, is deputy mayor of New York, so they all
want to keep it quiet. However, when the police arrive, they decide someone
has to be Charley. So in this scene, Lenny is pretending that he's Charlie and
making up a story for the police entirely off the top of his head.)
Lenny: Okay... let's see... the story... as it happened... as I remember it... as I'm
telling it... oh, God... Well, here goes...at exactly six o'clock tonight I came home
from work. My wife, Myra, was in her dressing room getting dressed for the party.
I got a bottle of champagne from the refrigerator and headed upstairs. Rosita, the
Spanish cook, was in the kitchen with Ramona, her Spanish sister, and Romero, her
Spanish son. They were preparing an Italian dinner. They were waiting for Myra to
tell them when to start the dinner. As I climbed the stairs I said to myself, "It's my
tenth wedding anniversary and I can't believe I still love my wife so much." Myra
was putting on the perfume I bought her for Christmas. I purposely buy it because
it drives me crazy! I tapped on her door. Tap tap tap. She opens it. I hand her a
glass of champagne. I make a toast. "To the most beautiful wife a man ever had for
ten years." She said, "To the best man, and the best ten years a beautiful wife ever
had." ... We drink, we kiss, we toast again. "To the loveliest skin on the loveliest
body that has never aged a day in ten wonderful years." She toasts, "To the gentlest
hands that have ever stroked the loveliest skin that has never aged a day in ten
wonderful years."... We drink, we kiss we toast We drink, we kiss, we toast...By
seven o'clock the bottle is finished, my wife is sloshed, and I'm completely
toasted... And then I smell the perfume. The perfume I could never resist... I loved
her in that moment with as much passion and ardor as when we were first
newlyweds. I tell you this, not with embarrassment, but with pride and joy for a
love that grows stronger and more lasting as each new day passes. We lay there
spent, naked in each other's arms, complete in our happiness. It's now eight o'clock
and outside it's grown dark. Suddenly, a gentle knock on the door. Knock knock
knock. The door opens and a strange young man looks down on us with a knife in
his hands. Myra screams. (he begins to act out the story) I jump up and run for
the gun in my drawer. Myra grabs a towel and shields herself. I run back in with
the pistol, ready to save my wife's life. The strange young man says in Spanish,
"Yo quito se dablo enchilada por quesa in quinto minuto." But I don't speak
Spanish, and I never saw Rosita's son, Romero, before, and I didn't know the knife
was to cut up the salad and he was just asking should they heat up the dinner now?
So I aimed my gun at him, Myra screams and pulls my arm. The gun goes off and
shoots me in the ear lobe. Rosita's son, Romero, runs downstairs to tell Rosita and
Ramona, "Mamasetta! Meela que pasa el hombre ay baco ay yah. El hombre que
loco, que bang-bang"-the crazy man took a shot at him. So, Rosita, Ramona, and
Romero leave in a huff. My earlobe is bleeding all over Myra's new dress.
Suddenly we hear a car pull up. It's the first guests. Myra grabs a bathrobe, and
runs downstairs to stop Rosita, Ramona, and Romero, otherwise we'll have no
dinner. But they drive off in their Alfa Romeo. I look out the window, but it's dark
and I think someone is stealing my beautiful old Mercedes, so I take another shot
at them. Myra runs downstairs to the basement where we keep the cedar chest.
She's looking for the dress she wore last year for Bonds for Israel. She can't find
the light, trips down the stairs, passes out in the dark. I run downstairs looking for
Myra, notice the basement door is open and afraid the strange-looking kid will
come back, so I lock the door, not knowing Myra is still down there. Then I run
upstairs to take some aspirin because my ear lobe is killing me from the hole in it.
But the blood on my fingertips gets in my eyes and by mistake I take four Valium
instead. I hear the guests downstairs and I want to tell them to look for Myra. But
suddenly, I can't talk from the Valium, and I'm bleeding on the white rug. So I start
to write a note explaining what happened, but the note looks like gibberish. And
I'm afraid they'll think it was a suicide note and they'll call the police and my friend
Glenn Cooper was coming and it would be very bad for his campaign to get mixed
up with a suicide, so I tore up the note, and flushed it down the toilet, just as they
walked into the room. They're yelling at me, "What happened? What happened?"
And before I could tell them what happened, I passed out on the bed. And that's the
whole goddamn story, as sure as my name is -- Charley Brock.
Background
Rumors premiered at the Old Globe Theatre (San Diego, California) on September 22, 1988. [1]
Rumors opened on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre on November 17, 1988
Plot
and his wife, Myra. Unfortunately, things are not going quite to plan. All the kitchen staff is gone,
Myra is missing, and Charlie has shot himself in the head. Chris calls Charlie's doctor, but before
Chris can tell him what has happened, Ken dictates that she not inform the doctor of anything
that has happened, for the bullet only went through Charlie's ear lobe. It appeared that he had
taken some Valium, and was falling asleep as he fired the gun, managing to miss his head.
Chris gets off the phone with Dr. Dudley just as the doorbell rings. Chris opens the door and lets
in Lenny (Ron Leibman) and Claire Ganz (Jessica Walter), also friends of the Brocks. Lenny and
Claire have just been in a car accident, and Lenny calls his doctor, who also happens to be Dr.
Dudley, to ask him about his neck. Claire and Lenny exchange rumors that they have heard
about Charlie and Myra, both convinced that one is having an affair. Finally they confront Ken,
who lets them in on the situation. Lenny declares they should call the police, but Ken disagrees.
Before they can agree on anything, another car shows up. Ken goes back upstairs to Charlie's
bedroom, and Claire opens the door to let in Ernie Cusack (Andre Gregory), a psychologist, and
his eccentric wife Cookie (Joyce Van Patten). Claire, Chris, and Lenny engage the Cusacks in
conversation, not telling them about the situation with Charlie.
Suddenly, a gunshot is heard. Ken comes out of the upstairs bedroom and requests Chris'
presence, while Lenny distracts the Cusacks, then goes upstairs to check on the problem. It
turns out Ken was taking the gun away, tripped on Charlie's slippers and accidentally fired the
gun, which has made him almost deaf. As the Cusacks prepare dinner, the final guests arrive,
Glenn (a politician running for State Senate) and Cassie Cooper, who have a very strained
relationship and argue constantly. Act I closes as the Cusacks come out with a steaming dinner,
Cassie furiously berates Glenn for making her drop a crystal in the toilet, Chris trips on a
telephone wire, Lenny's neck goes out, Cookie has a back spasm, and a very deaf Ken sits in
absolute confusion.
Act II begins as dinner ends, the Cusacks and Coopers having been told the entirety of the
situation. The guests decide to place blame for the situation on Ken. Cassie attempts to make
Glenn jealous by blatantly flirting with Ken, indirectly clearing Ken's ears in the process. A
mysterious woman, who Claire and Chris assume to be Myra, calls the house asking for Glenn.
Things get serious as a police car pulls up the driveway. The guests furiously debate what to do,
and decide to pretend that they hadn't noticed anything was wrong (they "had the music on too
loud to hear the gunshots"). Just to be safe, the men decide for Lenny to play Charlie if the
policeman asks for him, and for Ken to play Lenny. The policeman, Officer Welch, enters and
interrogates them, and quickly gets suspicious as their story unravels. It turns out the policeman
was just investigating Lenny's car accident, and no one is in trouble, but Glenn accidentally
reveals the gunshot situation just as the officer begins to leave.
Now angered by what he has learned, Welch demands to see Charlie, and a disgruntled Lenny
comes downstairs to "explain everything." Lenny, at first unsure what to possibly say, eventually
gets carried away in his monologue and invents a ludicrous, rambling, and brilliant explanation
for everything. Welch, partly out of exasperation, buys the story and leaves the house. The
guests, elated at their escape, begin to troop upstairs to speak with Charlie and find out the story
once and for all, but are delayed when an incredible development occurs in the basement.

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Rumors

from the play "Rumors" written by Neil Simon

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