Writing in the Dark

PROLOGUE

The stage is bare save for children’s chair stage left with a porcelain doll sitting in it.

(Boy and Girl enter stage right. Girl is marching after Boy. Boy is sucking on a lollipop and has his hands hiding in his pocket. He removes and replaces the lollipop throughout the conversation. As the children talk, the stage crew sets the scene. They roll out sofas, chairs tables, carry teapots, books, etc. The stage is set to look like a living room but the center is left untouched. The children interact with the props as they appear on stage, moving around.)

GIRL: That’s mine.

BOY: (Takes the lollipop out of his mouth and waves it at her) Seriously, being possessive isn’t attractive.

GIRL: I don’t give a rat’s ass about being attractive. I claimed ownership on that thing long ago. Don’t you know the basic properties of capitalism?

BOY: (Grabs a book off a stack that a crew member carries and keeps walking, looking at the cover.) Of course I do. I’m not a communist. I just think that nothing matters and you shouldn’t give more value to something by ownership.

GIRL: Well that’s a nihilistic outlook. There are meanings behind our actions, behind our desires. Someone has to pull the trigger.

BOY: You mean something? (Drops the book on a table rolling by.)

GIRL: (Picks up the doll and plays with her for a bit.) My point is, for every action there is a reaction–

BOY: Thanks Sir Isaac – I thought it was a knife….

GIRL: But there is a motivator for that action. (Puts down the doll) A drive of some sort. A want. A need. A desire. Sometimes our desires drive us too far. Maybe even over the edge –

BOY: …Or maybe bat? (Sits in a rocking chair) You’re off your rocker.

GIRL: I’ll rock you with my fist.

BOY: I’d like to see you try. You suffer from a passive aggressive personality disorder.

GIRL: Excuse me? (Picks up a book)

BOY: You know it’s true. You walk around spouting nonsense about taking action but you never do anything. You just talk the big talk about resistance and revolution, which is only more annoying.

GIRL: (Hits him upside the head with the book)

BOY: OW!

GIRL: Passive my ass.

BOY: All right you’ve made your stupid point.

GIRL: No I haven’t.

BOY: What were you even talking about? The affair? That cliché ran its course years ago. I mean really people, find something, ANYTHING more original for a conflict. What is this, The Women?

GIRL: No, I wasn’t talking about the affair, you Neanderthal. Maybe I have a little more class –

BOY: Oh boy, if you have class then I’m the Tsar of Russia.

GIRL: He doesn’t exist anymore.

BOY: Thank you Captain Obvious. I salute your sound knowledge of current affairs.

GIRL: I commend your ability to not think before you speak. It’s a real idiocratic talent.

BOY: Jesus, take a joke there, Edith Wharton. So what about the affair anyways? It happened, got exposed, got nuclear, nothing we didn’t already know.

GIRL: Well actually I don’t think that THE affair was like others and most definitely did not fit the cliché – but I’m talking more about an act of crime.

BOY: Crime, shmime. You’re about to break a hip Agatha Christie.

GIRL: (Sits on a sofa that a crew member is rolling, stays on as it moves across the stage) Cease your ignorance for minute to let me finish. With a crime, there must be a punishment. Dostoyevsky said it best.

BOY: Dostoyevsky was a drunk. (Stands and walks to stage left.) …Perhaps it was poison?

GIRL: I mean, (Sighs and jumps off sofa mid-roll and faces the audience) look at what just happened. (Beat.) Look at what’s become of it. It’s like waiting with stale bated breath for the other shoe to drop. It’s absolutely agonizing having to wait. I mean, waiting for the punch line is one thing but waiting for the point to be made? Waiting for the answer; that has bound to produce deep internalization. It must eat a person alive like little emotional maggots. It must claw at them each day and the longer time goes on, all that waiting. It must be daunting.

BOY: You’re pretty ugly when you psychoanalyze.

GIRL: (sharp look to boy.) Honestly, you’re acting like a five-year-old.

BOY: I am a five-year-old.

GIRL: Doesn’t mean you need to act like it. (Pause.) I’ve worked hard for that, give it back. I have very few pleasures in my life.

(They begin to walk off stage left, the boy looking back at the girl)

BOY: Oh fine. We’re going to be late for our nap anyway. Here’s your stupid lollipop.

(Lights out.)