help me resolve my play

[le_poete_mourant]

Well, I'm stuck on how to end a play that will be produced in a couple months.  The read-through is Monday and Tuesday, though, So I have to finish soon.  It is a suggestive set play, for a black box theater.  Here's the basic plot:

First, we see a talk-show host (a radical conservative who stands for everything I disbelieve) and his guest.  He is just finishing talking about why gay marriage is destroying America.  Then his teen daughter calls in as he moves on to abortion.  He goes to commercial; she tells him she is pregnant and is going to have an abortion.  He gets mad at her, tells her not to do it.  They hang up angry.  He discusses his life with his guest, a psychologist and long-time friend.  She meets a girl who has recently lost her father; they discuss their relationships with their fathers.  I switch back and forth between the two pairs; they both stay on stage and alternate.  The connection occurs when two characters both speak the same line.

So here is where I am stuck: how do I end this play?  I want to finish with some sort of direct contact between the father and daughter, but I do not want a "happy ending."  I'm just trying to collect ideas right now, anything helps. 

[elspeth]

It depends on the background to the characters... it's hard to suggest an ending on a sketch of the plot! For instance, why is the host so anti-abortion? Does he have a lurking reason (his parents didn't want him? A previous girlfriend aborted his child ad he did't want her to?) or is it a religion thing? Why does the daughter want an abortion? Is it a one night stand/unsuitable boyfriend/she just doesn't want kids/trying to score off her controlling father/not really pregnant at all, just trying to get him to pay attention/the child has a disability/she has some health problem that would make pregnancy dangerous?

And as for the girl who's lost her father, I presume you mean lost as in dead? If so what did he die of? Or lost as in, she's adopted and can't locate him? Or he's in the forces and missing in action? Or lost as in he's done a runner for some unknown reason of his own? Or they are estranged for some reason and now she wants to extend the olive branch he's out of reach?

If you don't want a cliched happy ending (hurrah! Wish more writers did that!), you at least have to provide an understanding of why there isn't going to be one. Is the father so entrenched in his views he can't let it go even though his daughter has a good reason in her terms for the abortion? Or has the daughter been behaving badly all her life and he's indulged and forgiven her but abortion is just a bridge too far? And the second pair, is the daughter going to have to accept she can't build bridges now her father's dead? Or that she'd pushed him into breaking off the relationship with her and she has to understand that in his head there's some things he can't forgive even in his own daughter?

Hope some of that helps!

[pianistimo]

yes. as elspeth says - the more details that we know - the more we can piece together a story that is not cliche'd.  no one wants to go to a play where they know the ending.

here's all the typical endings:

the girl gets the abortion and dies from hemmorage.
the girl gets the abortion and is fine and goes on to marry and have more children - and saves her relationship with her father - or hates him forever.
the girl gets the abortion and has nightmares a lot - some women do, some don't - and miss the 'child' they see in their dreams.
the girl's father won't consent - but she does/doesn't get the abortion. 
he does grudgingly consent - and in fact, goes with her but tries to talk her out of it until the last minute. 

the girl isn't pregnant at all.


maybe some unlikely scenarios:

the girl was in the hospital for some other procedure and was accidentally given fertility pills instead of pain medication.  she is a virgin - but used the wrong towel when her boyfriend came to visit.  she is now pregnant with sextuplets.  the abortion clinic can only abort single prenancies - so she has to go to an unscrupulous doctor who uses coathangers.  she gets majorly intoxicated right before the procedure and changes her mind and goes to 'babies r us' and spends the money on strollers and baby clothes.  her boyfriend starts saying 'oh, this is cute!' and holds things up to himself for her to see.  she ends up laughing the entire day before breaking into a cold sweat that evening over the situation. 

her parents decide to send her to an amish farm to learn how to handle this many children.  she learns that there - when babies are born they are not only assigned a name - but a task (no matter how young).  they are cleaning up their cribs at three months.  when the father realizes how much his daughter has learned - they all scrape enough money to buy them a back house and an old car.  they use dresser drawers for cribs for all of them when they are born.  people end up donating items when they hear of the couple's needs.

time warp - 50 years later - a couple is sitting on the couch with 100 children behind them.  children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren.  they are all eating corn - because that's all they can afford.  but, they are all smiling.  all started out with a dirty towel.