Friday, October 03, 2003

 

Put up a couple of links to playwrights, plus my friend's new blog of opinion and fiction. Opinion tends toward politics and fiction tends toward erotic. Politica? Erotitics? Go see.

posted by Dan 1:56 PM
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Private Interview, 7:15 pm

For Scene 1, click here.
For Scene 2, click here.

(A bedroom. Attractive décor -- this room belongs to someone who has a sense of design. That’s JOANNE’s doing. She’s sitting on the bed, dressed in a draping, elegant robe, as for a romantic encounter. She’s in her early sixties.)

JOANNE
C’mon in!

BRIAN (offstage:)
I don’t need to come in.

JOANNE
Sure you do. Relax.

BRIAN (offstage:)
Annie, I gotta go.

JOANNE
What am I supposed to do with all your stuff then?

BRIAN (offstage:)
What stuff?

JOANNE
All your shirts. Your belt. You’re sloppy.

BRIAN (offstage:)
Sloppy. I ain’t sloppy. I’m stupid, grouchy, I been fightin’ the junk, but I ain’t sloppy.

JOANNE
You always leave your t-shirts here.

BRIAN (offstage:)
I got lots of experience at this stuff. I don’t make mistakes. I don’t leave evidence.
(JOANNE reaches behind the bed, pulls out a red t-shirt.)
Where’d you get that?

JOANNE
You left it under the bed, after the last time you committed the perfect crime.
(BRIAN enters, but stays near the door. He reaches out toward JOANNE.)

BRIAN
Thanks.

JOANNE
Come and get it.

BRIAN
I don’t think so.

JOANNE
Then maybe I won’t give it to you.

BRIAN
Annie -

JOANNE (reading off the shirt:)
“Beautiful Downtown Stockholm”...ever been?

BRIAN
Stockholm? Yeah.

JOANNE (looking at the shirt:)
Wow, looks like there’s a deli and a kitchen cabinet store. Ah, scenic New Jersey.

BRIAN
What?
(JOANNE shows BRIAN the shirt.)

JOANNE
This picture of Stockholm.

BRIAN
Oh. Right. Stockholm, New Jersey. I thought you meant the other one.

JOANNE
What other one would I mean? This’s your shirt. It says Stockholm.

BRIAN
I thought you meant Stockholm, Sweden.

JOANNE
When did you go - ?

BRIAN
With my girlfriend, Annie. With my girlfriend. Couple years ago. Can I have the shirt now?
(She throws it at him.)
Thanks. Anything else I forgot?

JOANNE
Probably in the closet.

BRIAN
Like what?

JOANNE
Look for yourself.
(BRIAN goes to the closet and searches it.)
It doesn’t get any easier, you know, it never gets easier.

BRIAN
What?

JOANNE
This. The returning of each other’s property. The ending.

BRIAN
Look...look, it’s better, right? We had a good run, but now...especially now, things are finally starting to cook for you, you don’t need me ‘round, right? People get after you for what you say on the radio, but they really come after you if they found out about us.

MORE...

ABC News, October 3rd, 2003: Tough Times; Rush Limbaugh Ends One Public Problem and Faces Another

posted by Dan 1:50 PM
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Monday, September 29, 2003

 

A Far Cry (Part 1)

(Midday. A covered patio lounge in a small, exclusive resort, in Hawaii. Upstage are several arches; beyond them is the beach. Long, translucent curtains hang in the arches. They billow from the intermittent breeze. At one end, the arches give way to a low wall. It has a planter of tropical ferns mounted on top.

JOSH sits at a table. He’s in his mid-thirties, wearing a button-up cotton shirt, shorts, and sandals. He watches a television, mounted high in a downstage corner. It’s facing away from us, but we can hear commercials and “Judge Judy” on it. JOSH isn’t watching with the usual apathetic stare, but intently.

ANDREA stands by the planter, looking through one of the arches at the beach. She’s wearing a bathing suit with a light robe over it, barefoot. She too seems to be waiting for something. She taps her nail against the terracotta of the planter, tap tap tap tap...

Behind the low wall, hidden from us, we hear a TODDLER singing.)

TODDLER
The wheels on the bus go round and round,
Round and round, round and round,
The wheels on the bus go round and round -

ANDREA
Sh, honey, shhh, please.

JOSH
Order a drink.

ANDREA
It’s -- what -- it’s 11:30.

JOSH
Like that matters. We’re on vacation.

ANDREA
Of course it matters.
(She looks at TODDLER.)

JOSH
He’s a strong boy. He’s a monster.

ANDREA
It’s not that. It doesn’t feel like a time to be...

JOSH
Well then. Go for a swim.

ANDREA
No.

JOSH
The two of you can use the pool.

ANDREA
I’m afraid.

JOSH
I know.

ANDREA
Yes, and you.

JOSH
No.

ANDREA
Oh come on.

JOSH
I’ve been preparing for this for a long time. In my dreams. Late at night, in bed, I’m imagining -

ANDREA
You’re imagining it in bed when we’re - ?

JOSH
No, after that. When you’ve been satisfied. When I’ve been satisfied. When you’re sleeping. Then I imagine it. I imagine the whole thing going off in my head, from the first bomb to the last. I have it all in here. Up here. In the noodle. I’ve played it out thousands of times.

ANDREA
So how has it measured up? Your -- what you played out. Is it accurate?

JOSH
Hard to know. CNN seems to be off. Just the local station.

ANDREA
I don’t get that.

JOSH
Well, there may not be much to say. They may not be getting much information from the mainland. There may be no more mainland to get information from.

MORE...

posted by Dan 12:50 PM
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