Talking About the Weather

Jean-Pierre Martinez — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 15:50:04 +0000

A Monologue by Jean-Pierre Martinez

Isn’t this weather a bit peculiar? Dressing up has become a daily puzzle. Are we on the upswing or in for a downward spiral? Does bothering with outfits even make sense anymore? They call it “seasonal weather,” but does it warrant a chat? Regardless, we’ve got places to be, conversations to have, come rain or shine. If only we’d trust our instincts more often. We’d prefer lounging at home, snuggled up in bed, daydreaming about sunshine and rainfall. Yet, they claim we spend a good thirty years of our lives asleep. So just imagine. If we slept in. In any case, in life, we spend quite a few years talking to ourselves. And talking to oneself. When we’re children, we talk to people who should have existed. When we’re old, we talk to people who no longer exist. In between, as adults, we’d rather listen to ourselves talk. The other person is only there to echo back. We talk to walls that have no ears. We talk to dogs that can’t speak. We shout at the deaf, and we talk to the blind in sign language. Everyone talks at the same time. And when there’s nothing left to say, everyone listens to themselves at the same time. We talk to ourselves because we’re afraid of the dark. We also talk into the void, trying to fill it. If we’re lucky enough to have something to say to ourselves, we can talk to ourselves. Lend a sympathetic ear to ourselves. Listening to what we have to say is just as important as listening to what others have to say. So we talk to ourselves, and we listen to ourselves talk. But we don’t tell ourselves everything; we lie to ourselves. And when we’re very convincing, we even end up believing we’re someone… Thirty years sleeping. Life is a dream, at least half of it. The other half is a lie. With a few moments of truth that aren’t always good to tell. It looks like it’s clearing up, doesn’t it? It’s going to be a beautiful night. Look, we can see the stars. It’s like they’re talking to us. I’m sure there’s someone up there. People who talk to each other. People who talk to themselves. People who tell stories to themselves and end up believing them. People who also talk into the void. At night, sometimes, I listen to these celestial inhabitants. Do you think that one day we’ll be able to talk to them? Talk about the weather and talk about the rain?

All the texts available on this website can be downloaded for free. However, performance rights, which constitute fair compensation for the author’s work, are a legal obligation. Whether you are an amateur or a professional, you must request authorization to perform the play and pay the corresponding royalties for the production.

To get in touch with Jean-Pierre Martinez and ask an authorization to represent one of his works: CONTACT FORM.

A sketch from the collection Like a fish in the air
Link to the collection for free download (PDF)

Find all of Jean-Pierre Martinez’s plays on his website:
https://jeanpierremartinez.net

L’article Talking About the Weather est apparu en premier sur La Sketchothèque.

The Small Hours

Jean-Pierre Martinez — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 15:19:01 +0000

Monologue by Jean-Pierre Martinez

The small hours, are you familiar with them? One, two, three, four… By five, we’d already be free from trouble. Just a bit of patience, with the radio softly playing in the background. But instead, we wake up and peer out the window. Not a glimmer of light. We strain our ears. Not a bird’s song. The diurnal creatures are still asleep, the nocturnal ones are already in bed. No hope of an imminent tomorrow. We are in the deepest darkness, in the land of no man, the night of the wakeful sleepers. Of course, making the effort to rise and move about is an option. But it seems premature. Almost unnatural. To see the night before having seen the daylight… So we must turn back. Cross the border again. Return to where nothing can reach us yet. Where nothing can wait for us. Where no one can hear us. The beyond is on this side of an eternal reversible. I count to a hundred. Backwards. Ninety-nine, ninety-eight… Hoping that before the end of this countdown, I will have stopped counting. On nights of great insomnia, I start at seven billion. Six billion, nine hundred ninety-nine million, nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine others before my turn comes in this vast open-air waiting room that is the world of the living. How long to peel away one by one all these existences that are not mine, to recognise myself in this crowd and find my sleep? One night to know who we are. What sets us apart from others. A lifetime to discover everything that is not us. To die. To blend into the indistinct once again. To sleep. To let go. With the fear of waking up as someone else. In a darkness that would be a hopeless nightmare without the prospect of morning. What keeps me alive, what keeps me awake, is the fear of sinking through a bad night into the wrong sleep, eternal fatigue. Insomnia is an unending race against time. A temporary victory. Four, three, two, one… Suspended between the drowsiness of the night and the harshness of awakening, the small hours trickle away the counted time of insomniacs.