Set Design
The stage should be as circular as possible to convey the impression of looking through a wide-angle lens. If possible it should be a hemisphere. The set is of a bedroom, the focal point being a single bed with its headboard toward the back of the stage. The rest of the room should "encircle" this prop. It should be possible to construct special furniture to enhance this exaggerated effect.

Notes on character
A girl of slender build with short, cropped hair. She should have an androgynous look to her but she should be clearly female in dress.



The curtain rises to the girl sat on the end of the bed facing the audience. The stage is barely lit. She has the remote control to a camcorder in her hand which she is looking down at. Her hand is in her lap. For several seconds she sits in silence and then inhales deeply and then exhales slowly. She looks up and switches on the camcorder(which is the audience). As she does so the lights come up. The camera "running" she composes herself.
       

WILMA: Hi. [Smiles awkwardly] Hi Mum ... Dad ... and anyone else who's out there in videoland. It's me and if you're watching this then I guess something pretty bad's happened to me. I'm dead or wired up to one of those ventilators or something equally horrid in some hospital. If I died then I hope I died quickly. I hope it was quick. Not just for me but for you too. [Her mind wanders a little] I hope it was quick. I don't mean to be morbid.

If any of you don't know me and I know there're a lot of you people out there in videoland who don't know me then Hi to you too. This isn't just a family thing. You can stay. And so can your friends. Stop the tape and go and get them if you like. It's what I want. And that's what a will's all about isn't it? What we want. [Pause. Waiting] So, if we're all sitting comfortably then I'll begin. My name's Wilma Wilson. How do you do? [Pause for imaginary response] I'm just dandy thank you. Let me fill you in a bit about myself. I'm seventeen years old, a Cancer, if these things matter to you, but only just. I'm five foot five inches small, a honey-blonde — or so my dad insists. I have a cute birth-mark on my left buttock and hammer toes like my father. Sorry Dad.

[She pauses for breath. Puts her hand to her chest. She's still quite nervous. It's clear she's gathering her thoughts] This is my will. Wilma's Will — I know it sounds so childish and gooey but I never picked the name. Sorry Mum ... Dad. It's simply impossible not to think about Wilma Flintstone when you hear it. I mean, how many famous Wilmas have there been in history? [She thinks] Not many I can tell you. There's Wilma Rudolph only no one's ever heard of her. Apart from my gym teacher. I always liked Katherine, with a K. Anyway, this is my will. My last will and testimony. It's probably not legal or anything but it's mine and I'm going to do it my way. I might get a couple of you to sign the label or something when I'm finished. I'll have to think about it. Anyway, if you did you'll know if you did. I can't decide stuff like that right now. I'm not sure how secret I want this to be.

I looked up ‘will’ in the dictionary. Hang on. [She gets up, goes over to the dresser where the dictionary is and brings it back. She finds her place. It is marked] Right: one, ‘The mental faculty by which one deliberately chooses or decides upon a course of action,’ two, ‘A legal declaration of how a person wishes his or her possessions to be disposed of after death.’ Well. I don't have much to dispose of but I've made a list for what it's worth. That's not why I've decided to make this tape. I'm not sure if I want some record that I've made an impression, a tiny dent along the way or what. Or simply a record that I've been here. People keep talking about will power and how great it is and stuff well I didn't want to die and so I guess my will to live can't be all that great. Not if you're watching this. I'm either dead or dying. So all the things I would have willed won't happen. I won't get married. I won't have kids of my own. It's sad, but that's life.

If that's what a will is, what is it not? Well mine's not a cry for attention. I'm not planning suicide and I'm not trying to lay guilt traps for you all to trip over. I just want to share what I am. Who I am. I've no great insights into life, the universe and all that jazz but I have experienced seventeen years of it — it's all up here [She touches her head] or here [She touches her heart] or liberally distributed about this skinny little frame of mine. [Slightly aside] God, that sounds crap.

As for why now? Why today and not next week? Or next month? Why not on my birthday? [Pause] Well the truth is I don't know why today. Maybe today was just the right day. Not that I'm into fate or anything. I've been thinking about this for weeks, months really, not this, the way it's ended up, but something. I tried a Dear Diary but it took too long to write. I could never be a writer. I can't get the words down fast enough and, when I did, it was never the right words if I could even read my scrawl when I'd finished. And, when I read it over I could always think of better words, fancier ways of saying things and nothing I actually wrote down seemed like the kind of thing you would commit to paper. I don't know what the difference is with this. I just know it feels more right. There's no going back and scoring things out. It's more like life. More me. [Realises she's losing her thread a bit] Why today? In practical terms, this is the first day I've been alone in the house for long enough so that I can do this and get all the gear stashed away before anyone ever notices I'd borrowed it. You've all gone to Gran's and I feigned illness; periods come in really handy — sometimes. Why do you think I took such an interest in how to operate this stupid thing Dad? [She waves the remote at the "camera"] You had me pencilled in as the next Steven Spielberg, well, this is my magnum opus and also my swan song so let's make the most of it.

As for why? I'm sure old Sir Isaac'll be churning in his grave to tell you why. I know I did physics. I understand the concepts of action and reaction but I also remember all that junk Mr Reynolds used to talk about the "mechanics of movement" — that was his pet phrase. It's nice to know there's some sense to chaos for all that. But to look for one reason, the [She does "inverted commas" in mid-air] Rosebud in my life... no, I don't think so. Life's not as simple as cinema. Everything's two-dimensional there, paper problems with celluloid solutions, all MFI flat-packed and easy to assemble: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy stumbles over girl in the dark and confesses his undying love — Fin. I hated Citizen Kane. Can somebody out there tell me PLEASE why it's the greatest film ever made? I just don't get it. I made a will because there were enough little reasons to, not one cosmic answer, just lots and lots of bits bobbing around in the past that won't sink to the bottom of the pond, flotsam.

[She straightens her back and announces formally] The reading of the will. [She harumphs] I, Wilma Wilson, being of sound mind and body, do hereby declare this will open and God bless all those who sail in her. [Pause for imaginary laughter] I've never been to a real one, a will-reading or whatever they call it. I've seen them on the television naturally. We get to see everything on the TV. That's our window to the world isn't it? God bless the BBC. Plays usually. Agatha Christies. That sort of period thing. The estranged relatives gathered in the family solicitor's office all looking for their slice of the pie, if not a double portion with cream. "And to my eldest son Neville, I bequeath half my fortune, my golf clubs and the Bugatti he so coveted all his life."

People take wills seriously. I suppose death is a serious business. But I'm seventeen and we're not supposed to have a serious bone in our bodies. How can we take death seriously when we don't take life seriously half the time? Well I do … take life seriously. I don't care to be reduced to a stereotypical adolescent thank you very much. I'm me, myself, I. I think about things. I have opinions. I care about the state of the country not just the state of my nail-polish. [Checks her nail polish] But it's still true. People take wills very seriously. Because it's the law. Because it's expected. Out of misplaced — or even well placed — guilt or duty or something. Because there might be something in it for them. I thought the law was an ass but I guess it has its uses. Perhaps on reflection I'd better find a couple of witnesses. [She looks around the room and comes across two soft toys] Edward and The Lump [An elephant and a bear] You'll do nicely. Elephants never forget. I don't think the same can be said for bears. Especially stuffed ones.

So, to my best friends, Sarah and Louise I bequeath my records and make-up, to my little sister my clothes and jewellery (apart from the Celtic ring) and half my books (you were going to get them sooner or later but I guess it's better that they be bequests instead of hand-me-downs), to my brother, the other half of the books (he should get the non-girlie ones) and all my art stuff for when he gets old enough to appreciate it. To my mother and father, my diary (it's kept down the back of the top drawer in my dressing table), my poems are there and my letters from James. James should get those back. And the ring. There’s a lock of my hair there too from when I was alive. It's in that locket I got down the market last Winter and said I lost.

And that's all the things I have to bequeath. I don't have a kidney card or anything but if someone needs my kidneys then fine. Or my eyes or heart. It's kind of morbid but these things need to be said. I guess it's one way to live on.

When my daughter was seventeen she was rather keen on acting. I don't think she ever seriously thought she might make it as an actress but was happy enough to enjoy the experience for as long as she could. She never asked me to write anything specifically for her — I don't really think she saw me as a playwright — but an idea came and the next thing I knew I'd written a monologue.

She liked it. Well, I think she liked the idea of it. The piece was really beyond her and her interests soon drifted away from acting anyway. But I was still pleased to have written it.