Scene 5 – Set 5 (Mike’s Club “HATS”) – Song #26
The lights return to bright. Mike and Jenny are sitting down at a table by themselves.
MIKE
How have you been?
JENNY
Fine. And you?
MIKE
Good thanks. What's up?
JENNY
Mike, something happened today. I made a promise to someone and… well… anyway, I want to share a new perspective with you.
MIKE
What are you talking about? What promise? To whom? What happened?
JENNY
Just listen for a minute. Romance novels, soap operas, movies and even our family and friends give us the same romantic notion – true love is like a magic carpet that lifts us over the rocky road of life.
MIKE
Yeah?
JENNY
Well, if we marry because we feel love then, if we no longer feel the love, we have the right to get divorced.
MIKE
This is the big revelation?
JENNY
Let me explain. We enter marriage with the expectation our love will help us surmount all obstacles. But the truth is, although our love remains constant, the FEELING of love does not. Hunger and thirst and being tired and emotions like joy and fear come and go like the high and low tides. No sensation or emotion is constant. The FEELING of love comes and goes as well, sometimes for years at a time depending on circumstances.
Extended pause as Jenny gives Mike time to assimilate what she just said.
You see, when two people get married they need to know this. They need to know their good feelings WILL go away. They also need to know the good feelings will return eventually.
MIKE
I think I get what you're saying. Marriage is not about promising to love one another. Marriage is about promising to stick it out when the good feelings of love are temporarily absent. Right?
JENNY
Smart guy.
MIKE
I’ve been such a fool. I felt sorry for myself when I stopped feeling the magic in our relationship. I took my disappointment out on you and searched for those good feelings elsewhere. If I knew this was normal and the good feelings would come back some day, I would have acted differently.
JENNY
I’m the fool. I pushed you away from me after having the children. It wasn’t your fault I felt that way, yet I blamed you. I didn’t know. I’m sorry.
MIKE
Me too. Can you ever forgive me?
JENNY
What’s to forgive? We didn’t know.
MIKE
With what I know now, I swear, nothing will tear us apart.
Jenny reaches over and Mike takes her hand. The music to Song #26 – “Dream Come True” – begins. The lights change to indicate a change in reality. The other players freeze in the background. Jenny and Mike leave their chairs and sing to the audience through the middle part of the song. They retake their seats for the final verse.
JENNY
I remember meeting you.
First I thought it was deja vu.
I pinched myself and then I knew.
You were my dream come true.
MIKE
All my life I dreamed of you.
I thought that I was dreaming too.
I pinched myself and then I knew.
You were my dream come true.
JENNY & MIKE
All my life I knew there was more.
All my dreams seemed so real.
You are who I was dreaming of.
Words can’t say how I feel, when you’re near me.
JENNY
You were what I dreamed you’d be.
I was sure I was fast asleep.
I pinched myself and then I knew.
You were my dream come true.
JENNY & MIKE
I could never have asked for more.
All my dreams have come true.
You are who I was dreaming of.
Still I’m dreaming of you, dream come true.
MIKE
Sometimes I still can’t believe.
You’re too much like a dream to be.
I pinch myself till I turn blue.
You are my dream come true.
JENNY & MIKE
Still, my dream come true.
Jenny and Mike embrace. The lights dim to dark. End of Scene 5, ACT III.