Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
written by William Rose
Matt: Now it became clear that we had one single day in which to make up our minds as to how we felt about this whole situation. So what happened? My wife typically enough decided to simply ignore every practical aspect of the situation, and was carried in some kind of romantic haze which made her in my view totally inaccessible to anything in the way of reason.
Now I have not as yet referred to His Reverence, who began by forcing his way into the situation, and insulted my intelligence by mouthing 300 platitudes and ending just a half hour ago by coming up to my room and challenging me to a wrestling match.
Now, Mr. Prentice, clearly a most reasonable man, says he has no wish to offend me, but wants to know if I'm some kind of a nut. And Mrs. Prentice says, that like her husband, that I'm a burnt out old shell of a man, who cannot even remember what its like to love a woman the way her son loves my daughter ... and strange as it seems, that's the first statement made to me all day with which I'm prepared to take issue. Cause I think you're wrong. You're as wrong as you can be.
I admit that I hadn't considered it, hadn't even thought about it but I know exactly how he feels about her, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that your son feels for my daughter that I didn't feel for Christina. Old? Yes. Burnt out? Certainly. But I can tell you the memories are still there -- clear, intact, indestructible. And they'll be there if I live to be 110. Where John made his mistake I think was attaching so much importance to what her mother and I might think. 'Cause in the final analysis it doesn't matter a damn what we think the only thing that matters is what they feel, and how much they feel for each other. And if it's half of what we felt ... that's everything.
Kudos and much thanks go to Mikko for the donation of this monologue, it is very much appreciated.