Happy Ending vs Grimm Ending

                              Happy Ending vs. Grimm Ending
                         Written and Directed by Seth Vandenburg

(Black, Happy Ending comes on stage right and Grimm Ending comes on stage left. They both face the audience. Lights come on. Grimm Ending has a dark frown on her face. Happy Ending just looks so happy and perky that it gives her the ditzy blonde personality)

Grimm Ending: (dull) Hi, I’m a Grimm Ending.

Happy Ending: (perky) And I’m a Happy Ending! (gaily) Yay!

Grimm Ending: (bored) The fairy tales I represent stick to the original versions written by the Brothers Grimm.

Happy Ending: (perky) The fairy tales I come from are so happy and pretty and cute and cuddly and fluffy and just oh, so wonderful!

Grimm Ending: (dully) Dark magic, gruesome characters, blood, vomit, and morbid events are abundant. Even in the mind.

Happy Ending: (perky) Life is beautiful, the world is wonderful, and dreams always come true if you believe!

Grimm Ending: Life in the Grimm fairy tales reflects the events that happen in life with only small bits of fantasy. (looks at Happy Ending) Unlike “Little Miss Princess Pony Fluffer Nutter” over here, who spends too much of her time in her own head, away from the truth of reality. (whispers to the audience) It’s very hollow in there, just to let you know.

Happy Ending: (perky, singing to herself) A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down…</i>

Grimm Ending: (blunt) VERY hollow. (dull, looks to Happy Ending) So tell me about the characters in your stories.

Happy Ending: (perky) All of my stories have a tall, dark, handsome… rich</i> prince who comes in and rescues the fair damsel in distress… (looks wistfully away)

(Grimm Ending raises her eye on her perky counterpart as she spoke. With a questionable glance)

Grimm Ending: Uh… Happy? Happy?

(Happy Ending then snaps out of it and looks back to Grimm Ending)

Happy Ending: (coming to) Huh? Wha?

Grimm Ending: Stay with us now. It’s just a fairy tale.

Happy Ending: Yes, but doesn’t EVERY fair maiden dream of her handsome prince?

Grimm Ending: (looks to the audience) Is there a fair maiden in the house?

(Happy Ending then gives Grimm Ending a dirty look on that)

Grimm Ending: (turns back to Happy Ending) So tell me, why is it all your stories end with the handsome prince getting the pretty girl and living “happily ever after” in the big fancy castle, while everybody else gets SQUAT?

Happy Ending: (still perky) But it’s a PRETTY castle!

(Grimm Ending turns her head to the audience slowly, giving a questionable raise of the eyebrow. Happy Ending just stares at Grimm Ending with that still perky and creepy smile. Grimm Ending then turns back to Happy Ending)

Grimm Ending: (bored) Oooooookay, but why does everything have to be pretty?

Happy Ending: (happy) Stuff is pretty so everyone of every age will love the stories! After all, we don’t want to scare kids with creepy and horrifying stuff!

Grimm Ending: (dull) So what you’re saying is that you’d rather give kids comfort and tell them lies about life being easy so that reality can hit them hard in the face?

Happy Ending: (shrugs) Better happy and traumatized then never happy at all.

(Happy Ending then starts examining her finger nails like a blonde would)

Grimm Ending: (bored, looks to the audience) So a Happy Ending would rather be false then stick to the truth. How typical. (looks to Happy Ending) Which reminds me, what happens after they lived “Happily Ever After?”

Happy Ending: (looks to Grimm Ending, pausing from looking at her nails) That’s just it. They lived happily ever after. It pretty much sums the whole life up.

Grimm Ending: So living “Happily Ever After” means they’re never heard of again, huh? They got married, and that’s it?

Happy Ending: (nods, still looking at her nails) Pretty much, yeah.

Grimm Ending: (sarcastic) Some fairy tale. So much hard work, and all for a stupid wedding in which nothing happens later on. Oh wait, let ME assume what comes next. The happy couple moves to the castle, they end up getting arguments day by day for the rest of their marriage, about 10 kids are seen running around the floor-

Happy Ending: (turns to Grimm Ending) Isn’t 10 going a little overboard?

Grimm Ending: Ever heard of the little old woman who lived in a shoe?

Happy Ending: Is that even a fairy tale? I never heard of it.

Grimm Ending: Close enough.

(Just then, a bell sound is heard as Happy Ending then looks frantic)

Happy Ending: (frantic) Oh no! It’s already midnight! I’m late for the ball!

Grimm Ending: (to the audience) A lot of stuff happens at midnight, doesn’t it?

Happy Ending: (to Grimm Ending) This isn’t a topic, I’m REALLY late!

Grimm Ending: (looks to Happy Ending, sarcastic) Going to your pumpkin carriage driven by enchanted mice?

Happy Ending: (frantic) What do I look like? Cinderella?!

(Happy Ending then runs off stage right, but loses her slipper on the spot. Grimm Ending just stares at the slipper)

Grimm Ending: ……. (raises up a finger to the slipper) …I’m not touching that.

(Black out)

                                        THE END