Dear Annie

Dear Annie [1]

Series
Work In Progress
Original Broadcast Date
1986
Cast
Joe Frank
Format
Serious Monologue, 1 hour
Preceded by:	Cocktails Before Dinner
Followed by:	Dreamland

"I tell myself she's too young for me, that that's our problem, the difference of fifteen years between us."

"Dear Annie" is the name of a program Joe Frank produced as part of the series Work In Progress. It was originally broadcast in 1986.

Synopsis

• Monologue: contemplating his younger lover Annie and her childlike habits. Correcting her verbal errors. Wrestling and laughing together. The idea she might outlive him seems impossible and hilarious to her. He presses the issue. Her birthday: he feigns death, an old joke he likes to play.
• Joe writes a farewell letter to Annie. We hear him typing as he composes.
• More on Annie: she uses vast quantities of toilet paper. She's one of those annoying people who cruises in the left lane, a huge pet peeve of Joe's. Arguments and scenarios over seat belts. More arguments. At a club in Malibu on New Years Eve. When she cries, it makes him feel like he wants to be with her forever.
• The breakup letter to Annie again.
• More stories of sad, frustrated Annie. He imagines her suicide.
• On their early arguments over the social issues caused by their age difference.
• The letter to Annie again.
• Annie kissing Joe goodbye at a restaurant. Annie's cycles of rage and apology. Wanting to break up but being unable to--there's always a reason he can't leave her. Remembering he time he almost ran away from home as a youngster. Self-consciousness eating alone at a restaurant. Lonliness. Annie shopping for apartments. All his conflicting emotions about her: love and hate, pride and shame. On the nature of love. "To me, love is inviolable, sacred. This is why I don't feel up to it." Imagining his apartment without her stuff.
• Remembering closeness and physical intimacy with Annie.
• The letter again, fading out as the show closes.

Interesting Facts

This program contains no music, except the use in one or two places of stringed instruments to produce what is later referred to in Joe Frank programs as a "drone". In later programs a drone is produced using a synthesizer/sampler, has a more vocal sound, and is a key feature of many programs.

Commentary

Please see guidelines on commentary and share your personal thoughts in this section.

Spblat

Joe says he doesn't know if he has ever experienced true love, but the descriptions in this program betray to me that he has.