How sweet life could be if he were free?

But deep down? It’s all insecurity.

Some husbands are wound up way too tight.

Some of dem on that jealousy tip night

And day:

HUSBAND ELRIDGE

The thing about women is they

Act a certain way up until the day

You wed. Then it’s a whole other story.

New becomes old. Fresh becomes boring.

The pink cammy gets switched for grey cotton …

All that tear-your-clothes-off sex? Forgotten.

ALVITA

And so on. He’ll say:

HUSBAND ELRIDGE

When a man buys clothes

He gets to try stuff on before he goes

And buys it. With wives? You roll the dice and see!

ALVITA

Honestly, sometimes this man made me

Want to scream. And he’d try to turn it round.

He’d say:

HUSBAND ELRIDGE

The truth is you love the sound

Of men singing your praises. You call

Yourself a feminist but you want all

The compliments all the time. If you say

How does this look? am I free to lay

It on the line? Come on now. We both

Know my duties. I’ve got to swear on oath

You look like Angela Bassett. All

The time. For your birthday you want a ball.

You want me to hire out Camden Palais

And pay for it all. Then you want me to say

I love all your girlfriends, even that one

Claims she’s a ‘life coach’ but lives with her mum.

There has been much laughter in the pub and music and re-enactment during ELRIDGE’s speech but now the lighting becomes stark and everything is silent as ALVITA offers her rebuttal.

ALVITA

Husband Number Four, you lied. Tell these

Good people how sometimes nothing could please

You. When the green-eyed monster took over

You weren’t yourself. You forgot we were lovers.

You’d rant and rave. You thought poor young Ryan

The student kid – the freckled Scottish one –

With his dark red hair and his tiny bum

RYAN, who’s the kid filming, raises a hand to the audience, to be acknowledged, but we get no sign that there is anything between him and ALVITA.

You’d say I’m eyeing him like I want some

Of that? Please! Not if you died tomorrow!

Meanwhile, you won’t even let me borrow

The keys to the Subaru! You act like

What is yours is not also mine. You psych

Yourself out, stressing about who owns me,

While you keep your junk under lock and key.

And try to keep me home. But we don’t own

Each other. I don’t check up on your phone,

Or use GPS to see where you are.

But seems you’d like me locked up in that car!

You should be saying:

ALVITA gets behind ELRIDGE and uses him as a ventriloquist’s dummy so her voice seems to come out of his mouth while she controls his movements.

ALVITA (AS ELRIDGE)

Alvita, you do you.