“A Telephone Call" is about a woman who waits anxiously for a man to call. She counts to five hundred by fives, seeks God's help, and wishes the man were dead, only to change her mind. "After all," she says, "it's silly to go wishing people were dead just because they don't call you up the minute they said they would. Maybe the clock's fast."
In 2011, Suzanne Dawson first performed this famous monologue in ELTC's world premiere The World of Dorothy Parker, created by Gayle Stahlhuth. For ELTC in 2021, Suzanne is performing her favorite Parker monologues, stories and poems, including "A Telephone Call."
Parker (1893-1967) was a sharp wit, whether the medium was short stories, poetry, screenplays, plays, or play or book reviews. In one of her classic Broadway reviews – about Katharine Hepburn – Parker wrote, "She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B." The first edition of The Portable Dorothy Parker was selected by Alexander Woollcott in 1944 as the fourth in a series of volumes intended for soldiers overseas. It has never been out of print.
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