My Father tell you all about me? Pope Ro...

My Father tell you all about me? Pope Ronnie? Charmed life? How great I am? That’s how he is with you. You should hear him with me, you’d sing a different tune pretty quick, and it wouldn’t be “Where Is the Devil in Evelyn.” I was twelve years old and all the newspapers had headlines on my twelfth birthday that Billy was coming to town. And Life was doing stories on him and Look and the newsreels because Billy was searching America to find the Ideal American Boy to play Huckleberry Finn. And Billy came to New York and called my father and asked him if he could stay here–Billy needed a hideout.

…through…

My only triumph was he could never find a Huckleberry Finn. Another company made the picture a few years later, but it flopped. My father thinks I’m nothing. Billy. My sergeant. They laugh at me. You laughing at me? I’m going to fool you all. By tonite, I’ll be on headlines all over the world. Cover of Time. Life. TV specials. I hope they use this picture of me–I look better with hair– Go ahead–laugh. Because you know what I think of you? (gesture) I’m sorry you had to hear that–pay seven or eight dollars to hear that. But I don’t care. I’ll show you all. I’ll be too big for any of you.

For full extended monologue, please refer to clips or the script edition: John Guare, The House of Blue Leaves, Samuel French, 1968, pp. 35-37.