31 Plays in 31 Days, #1 - “Nefarious Plan”

Okay, here we go. Let’s try some Dream Machine episode six, since I know a little more than zero about it right now.

A big part of episode six is going to be about Ryan’s alienation from his family. He and his ex-wife Veronica, née Waters, had a very acrimonious divorce and have not been in much contact since their separation except to occasionally fight over something. I’ve been trying to work out a timeline of their relationship, to figure out what the significant moments were.



Here’s my tentative thoughts. They were relatively young when they met, when he was up and coming in the film industry and she was making a name for herself as a fashion model. Let’s say around 1994. They were both pretty wild partiers, and though Ryan wasn’t an addict yet, they still used plenty of drugs. Their careers were on the rise and they were happy and had a lot of fun. They were in a committed relationship, but had no plans to get married until Veronica got pregnant with their daughter Meryl, born in 1996. They had a son Marlon (yes, they named their kids after Meryl Streep and Marlon Brando) four or so years later, in 2000.

Veronica got clean for the kids, pivoting away from modeling to found a lifestyle brand she still runs to great success today. But Ryan’s drug use gradually got worse, as he encountered career stumbling blocks and struggled with the demands of being a husband and father. They had a bunch of good years together, I think, but things started to crumble as his addiction took over his life. He’s described in scripts so far as a “fifteen-year heroin addict,” who’s been clean for about one year, which suggests he got into the hard stuff around 2004, but I think he was already pretty deep into other stuff before he reached that point. I’m not exactly sure how long their marriage lasted— between ten and fourteen years —but it definitely broke down several years before their actual split. By the point they crashed they despised each other, chiefly due to Ryan’s lousy behavior, which extended to not being a very present or supportive dad to his kids.

At the time Dream Machine picks up, Marlon is openly hostile with resentment toward him, and Meryl has cut him out of her life in entirely, banning him from her wedding when she got married a couple years ago and refusing to speak to him. Now that he’s clean and pulling his life together, Ryan would like to do something to repair these relationships. But since they’d heard the rehab song and dance from him before, they’re not optimistic. However, this is the farthest he’s come on that path ever, and he’s hoping that will make a difference. But he’s got to get over some more of his own bullshit first.

Here’s a scene with him and his son Marlon, who’s still in contact but doesn’t cut him an inch of slack. There’s not enough here yet, but it’s meant to display Ryan’s bad habits in relating to people that he will have to work on through the course of this episode.

Let out commence with the banged-out garbage!

( Day #1 - Nefarious Plan )