Take Ten II
Page 19
SHRAINE: YOU can never step into the same river twice. MIRA: You sound like a fortune cookie.
SHRAINE: But it's true. She might show up again. But the second chance is never the same as the first one. It'll be different.
MIRA: I'm not interested in living a story where you don't get a second chance. I mean, what kind of angel or guardian or guide is that? Who is only interested in the people who'd jump into the flames the first time.
FRANKIE: Jump into the flames? Mira, all you had to do was buy her a ginger ale. Keep her from leaving. That's hardly incendiary.
MIRA: You weren't there. If you'd seen her, you'd know. The waiter would've needed asbestos gloves.
SHRAINE: what's this about angels? It was a come-on. A unique one, I'll admit.
MIRA: chimera, maybe. One of those impossible creatures. SHRAINE: “It means you are one of us.” Sounds dubious to me.
FRANKIE: Like a cult. “Klaatu barata nictu: We come from the sky, and rule over your sorry asses.”
SHRAINE: And so can you, for only forty thousand dollars, six-to-eight years of reprogramming, and colon cleansers.
MIRA: weren't there! You didn't experience it. It's hard to describe, an epiphany. They mostly happen inside your head. There isn't much to look at. You, you're in another dimension. Your own thoughts are going eight hundred miles per hour, you're mutating from longing to confusion to shyness to lust to guilt to hope and back again, and it doesn't look like … anything. Somebody watching you only sees you blink.
SHRAINE: okay. We'll take it on faith.
FRANKIE: Yeah. She's a knockout, a killer. You see her, boom!, your pulse does the mambo,
SHRAINE: get the shakes—
FRANKIE AND SHRAINE: usual!
(They laugh. Lights down on FRANKIE and SHRAINE. They exit.)
MIRA: Not for me. This was… she was… (Lights up on JEWELL. Smiling, engimatic.) I was always attracted to women who could fly.
JEWELL: Move them. Come on.
MIRA: I always wanted to feel the rustle of feathers against my face.
JEWELL: I can always see it on somebody. Potential. It's my gift.
JEWELL: I can always see it on somebody. Potential. It's my gift.
JEWELL: I can always see it on somebody. Potential. It's my gift.
JEWELL: I can always see it on somebody. Potential. It's my gift.
JEWELL: I can always see it on somebody. Potential. It's my gift.
MIRA: So I looked in the mirror. To see what she had possibly seen, in me. To tell the truth, it didn't much look like somebody who could fly. But if I squinted my eyes, just the right way, I could almost see them. Catch a glimpse of them. Shimmering. She was right, though. I definitely needed to practice.
JEWELL: Otherwise wings won't do much for you. Except make you stand out.
MIRA: They do do that. Because even though she'd gone—when I looked around a corner, I thought I recognized another one. He was just standing there, but… something. Maybe there were more of them than I thought.
JEWELL: More of us.
MIRA: So I kept trying, trying to feel them, feel the buds?—but they must have been in that place on your back that you can't quite touch yourself. Where the itch always is.
JEWELL: That spot that only someone else can reach—the one that's hard to find on your own.
MIRA: And I looked in the mirror, again—hoping to see something really different. Like one of those other creatures, turning into themselves. Not really. And yet—if I stood the way I'd seen her stand … and breathed a particular way …
JEWELL: Almost…
MIRA: Almost! I could almost feel the stirrings. Hear the rustling of something opening. (She stretches. There is a sound. Some thing.) Ah … (A crackling? A humming?) Practice.
SINNERY OF A SUNDAY OR, THE QUEEN OF EIDERDOWN
Honour Kane
CHARACTERS
RASHER HOWLIN: The young leading man.
DOLLY THE MOTT: The ingenue.
SETTING: Rural Ireland. During World War II. Rasher and Dolly the Mott are members of a tribe of traveling actors. Tonight they are staying in the Widow Twankey s digs. This is a rundown room-to-let which can be as slovenly or as sparse as the set designer wishes.
(In the Widow Twankey's digs.)
(A greasy iron bed, creaky and screeky battered and worn.)
(RASHER HOWLIN—all a gangle in the doorway —with a sugar sack slung over his shoulder.)
(In the twatterlight, he's watching DOLLY THE MOTT—seated on the bed.)
(She wears a huge fur coat and is rolling silk, black-market stockings up her legs.)
RASHER: Tormenting Jayz. Her-legs her-legs her-legs. Her-legs and-legs and-LEGS. (To DOLLY) What're you selling, my-damn-morsel?
DOLLY THE MOTT: Stop groaking at me with your goo-goo googeldies. Get into me drab room and have a fag.
RASHER: Hardly drab, for aren't YOU in it? Tricked out in your fine toggery.
(DOLLY tosses him a packet ofcigs, he pockets it.)
DOLLY THE MOTT: HUP, said the ONE fag, not the whole packet.
(RASHER puts a ciggy behind his ear.)
RASHER: For later.
DOLLY THE MOTT: Light's going so. Strike up me cangles. And would you ever hand me over that cuppa cha … And me biscuit tin.
(As RASHER lights her candles, DOLLY slips lipstick onto her smile. RASHER tosses the biscuit tin on her bed. When he hands DOLLY a teacup and saucer, he brushes her sleeve.)
RASHER: Did that used to move?
DOLLY THE MOTT: What, this dead animal?
RASHER: Well, did it?
DOLLY THE MOTT: Mister, this used to hop.
(Pinky out, DOLLY delicately sips her tea.)
RASHER: I do like the style of you. You are a born hacktoress, did you know.
DOLLY THE MOTT: Thanks very much I'll tell her. Help yourself to a can of tea, Rash.
RASHER: Ahhh, she knows me name. DOLLY THE MOTT: Bikkies?
(DOLLY offers the open biscuit tin to RASHER, but he's busy taking a sip from the tea can. RASHER splutters tea all over.)
RASHER: What to hell is that?
DOLLY THE MOTT: The Lap Sang Soo Chong.
RASHER: Oro, what does Lap Song Chew when she's home?
DOLLY THE MOTT: Don't be slaggering me Chinese tea.
RASHER: Has the desperate taste of a chimbley.
DOLLY THE MOTT: What're you after slummerboy?
RASHER: Tell me, have you seen sign of our wages?
DOLLY THE MOTT: You know yourself like, with that hellbag Basher Anarchy. He runs this company like a whoor to ride—
RASHER: (over) When's paynight? I need me thirty-five bob.
DOLLY THE MOTT: Double dog shag that twaggler Anarchy. Only offered me twenty-three. ME. Not that you'll see one sixpence. It's shift for yourself, boy. Shift for yourself.
RASHER: You alus seem to have a shilling, need a houseboy?
DOLLY THE MOTT: Have you no ready money?
RASHER: Living foot to mouth. It's the days of bread and tea.
DOLLY THE MOTT: Whyncha ask the proprietresssss. Old Widow Twankey for a bob-a-job?
RASHER: v Tusky oul slapper pitched me this sugar sack. Said, “you can sleep in me cowstall if you muck out the toilet.”
DOLLY THE MOTT: There's room going in my bed.
RASHER: No.
DOLLY THE MOTT: If you like.
rasher: Woo-woo.
(RASHER does an Injun wardance, whooping and twirling the sugar sack.) DOLLY THE MOTT: Cowboys and Injuns, Lads.
(RASHER tosses the sugar sack offstage and launches himself onto the bed, laughing.)
RASHER: WAIT. What'll we tell the Twankey oul cow?
DOLLY THE MOTT: That you're me brother. (Silence.) Name me your wishes.
RASHER: I wish. I wish.
DOLLY THE MOTT: Wish what?
RASHER: I wish for you.
DOLLY THE MOTT: Yeah?
RASHER: Yeah you. You allover me. I want your mouth.
(A kiss —a really good one. DOLLY brushes RASHER ' S lap.)
DOLLY THE MOTT: The joy, oh the joy Inish Mouth and Inish Trousers. For that is the biggest and best article I have EVERY felt.
RASHER: Really?
DOLLY the mott: Would I lie?
RASHER: Hope not.
DOLLY THE MOTT: Do you not know?
RASHER: Know what?
DOLLY THE MOTT: You've a mickey long as me ar-um.
RASHER: So?
DOLLY THE MOTT: Oh rat me, you're not even a nearly-man.
RASHER: Am I now.
(RASHER peels off the fur coat… a slinky slip.)
DOLLY THE MOTT: You're miles too young.
RASHER: Give me your mouth.
DOLLY THE MOTT: Don't snatch after me.
RASHER: Give me your-all, your-all. I want your all.
DOLLY THE MOTT: Don't mess me about.
RASHER: Your boo-kakas are gorgia.
(RASHER reaches one finger towards DOLLY.)
DOLLY THE MOTT: What, these lickle boo-kakas? They aren't the real.
(DOLLY takes two tangerines from her bra.) RASHER: Where'd you get the little oranges?
DOLLY THE MOTT: Galway. (DOLLY climbs under the quilt, and roots around.) I've sardines, crackers, a Five Boys chocolate bar.
RASHER: What would you be needing Five Boys for, when you've got me?
DOLLY THE MOTT: Would you eat this? RASHER: I don't eat that.
DOLLY the mott: What?
RASHER: Sugar. What else have you under?
DOLLY THE MOTT: I'd have the world, it you'd give it me. Get in, get under.
(RASHER climbs in under.)
RASHER: My own. My queenie. You. Are a queen. You're my Queen of Eiderdown.
DOLLY THE MOTT: Oh this is esplanade. (There's a bit of rollicking here.) Down a little bit so again Rash. Downlie. Downlier.
(RASHER rolls on a book.)
RASHER: Ow, what's this?
DOLLY THE MOTT: That's me book. Ah it's a grand play, let's read it.
(DOLLY pops up and opens the book.)
RASHER: No.
DOLLY THE MOTT: My One Husband or The Constant Nymph.
(DOLLY sits up to read. RASHER pulls her back down.)
RASHER: No-no-no.
DOLLY THE MOTT: (over) You NO-NO-NO.
RASHER: Back to your boo-kakas and your underdown.
DOLLY THE MOTT: We're reading it. I'm Tessa. And you're Gangly.
RASHER: Oh, am I?
DOLLY THE MOTT: No, the part. YOU will play Gangly. Love the end, oh I love the end when I die. Tragick-ully Of consumption or something. And you say … Well here it is, have a go. (DOLLY pushes the book into RASHER ' S hand.)
(Acting.) I am going to live. (DOLLY dies tragick-ully. RASHER looks and looks at the book in his hands.)
Gewan stupid.
RASHER Can't. I can't. (RASHER cries. DOLLY pulls him into her lap.)
DOLLY THE MOTT: Ah love. Ah love. I'll learn you. And soon you'll be running out pens and filling up copybooks.
Here you go, listen. The last lines is, “Tessa's got away. She's safe. She's dead.” Isn't it only beautiful.
First I'll teach you Farquhar. Then I'll teach you to farquhar. Give me your mouth.
RASHER: Dolly my Dolly.
DOLLY THE MOTT: Not yours.
RASHER: Mine mine mine.
DOLLY THE MOTT: I said NOT yours you beasting DubSlummer.
RASHER: Mind your mouth or I'll mind it for you.
DOLLY THE MOTT: That I wouldn't mind. (A kiss. RASHER climbs into her mouth.) More. The more. (RASHER can't breathe.)
RASHER: I lost my breath.
DOLLY THE MOTT: Well, FIND it.
RASHER: Let me let me … Catch me … Me breath.
(Something's wrong. “Is he sick,” DOLLY wonders.)
DOLLY the mott: You smell.
RASHER: What, rotten?
DOLLY THE MOTT: Sour. Your heart's a kettledrum. What's going on at all at all?
RASHER: Touch of the catarrh. And. The excitement. Me being a nearly-man and all.
And you? You, a symphony of skin, freckles, and hair. And hair. The long throat of you.
DOLLY THE MOTT: None of your flipping tongue.
RASHER: More of yours, girleen.
(RASHER climbs up her body. DOLLY draws the boy down.)
DOLLY THE MOTT: Find me. Come on.
RASHER: Let me in.
DOLLY THE MOTT: Come into me, now.
RASHER: The tight of you.
DOLLY THE MOTT: Press in. Press on. Press up.
RASHER: Your legs your legs your legs. Letting me in. Letting me up your sleeky-legged lane.
DOLLY THE MOTT: You brute beastial. You're too many for me. Blow out me cangle, Rash. RIP RIDE ME.
(RASHER takes her down, thrashing.)
RASHER: Gloria Patri, Dolly. GLORIA PATRI.
THE SNIPER
Anthony David and Elaine Romero
CHARACTERS
ZAK ELONI: Twenty-three years old. A sniper. Lives in Tel Aviv.
IRIT YERUSALMI: A Morrocan Jew. A journalist.
TIME: The present.
PLACE: Tel Aviv. A hip microbrewery.
SETTING: The bar.
(ZAK, a twenty-three-old Israeli, sits at the bar drinking. He wears a khaki green military uniform. An ashtray full of cigarettes, a couple of empty glasses of Guinness, and a worn newspaper sit next to him on the bar. He drinks and smokes. Eerie techno-pop music plays in the back ground. He opens the newspaper and begins reading it, then sets it down. He can't seem to resist picking it up again. Something about the newspaper seems to increase his drinking and smoking. IRIT enters. ZAK doesn't notice her at first. She sits on the stool next to him.)
IRIT: They didn't tell me they were going to print that. ZAK: I can't believe you'd dare come in here after this.
IRIT: Look, my editor hacked my computer; I'm the victim here, too.
ZAK: You didn't tell me you were a journalist.
IRIT: I told you I was a writer.
ZAK: Yeah, but…
IRIT: You knew you were talking to a writer.
ZAK: I thought, I don't know. I didn't know you had a real job.
IRIT: People in my neighborhood do have jobs.
ZAK: I don't care if you're Moroccan.
IRIT: (flirtatious) That's what I thought.
ZAK: But you used me. I thought we liked each other.
IRIT: It was a good story. You don't understand. A story like that—a story like that—you just don't understand.
ZAK: We made love.
IRIT: I made the front page.
ZAK: (sarcastically) Your editor hacked your computer. And I'm in it up to here. Do you know what they'll do to me?
IRIT: Happens all the time. We put a name to it.
ZAK: But I'm the name here. And my commander is pissed. There's talk of a court-martial.
IRIT: They've never court-martialed anyone for shooting an Arab kid.
ZAK: (a loud whisper) It's supposed to be—an accident. You make me out to be a cold-blooded killer.
IRIT: Shooting kids from behind a concrete barrier two hundred feet away makes you a cold-blooded killer. And no one cares anyway.
ZAK: DO you?
(She picks up the paper.)
IRIT: It made the front page. You don't know where I come from. You don't know what it's like to be a Moroccan Jew in this country. (Short beat.) Do you—care?
ZAK: What do you want from me? It's my fucking job. They give me orders. If I were a bus driver, I'd drive people from Jerusalem to Haifa.
IRIT: It wouldn't require two years of training. You're the member of an elite unit. You, Zak, are not a bus driver.
ZAK: Sometimes I wish I were, but I'm damn good at what I do.
IRIT: Killing kids? (ZAK shrugs.) If you're so proud of your job, why are you mad at me?
ZAK: It's just the way it reads. I keep reading it over and over. And, I just don't like the way it sounds. I mean,
I didn't say that. You weren't taking notes. You didn't have a tape recorder.
IRIT: Are you denying the fact that last week you picked off a thirteen-year-old?
ZAK: He was fourteen.
IRIT: Do those Palestinian kids have their ages tattooed on their foreheads?
ZAK: That's not fair. My grandfather is a survivor.
(IRIT gets quiet.)
IRIT: What does he think about this?
ZAK: He wasn't supposed to know. And tonight, when I get home, you know what he's going to have in his hand. This newspaper. And there's no chance he's not going to have it, because he's meticulous. He reads that paper cover to cover every day—has for fifty years. He'll be ashamed. He just thought I was a member of an elite unit.
IRIT: You are a member of an elite unit. ZAK: I was.
IRIT: If there's a court-martial, now that'll make the front page. But it's not gonna happen. Besides, what's the difference between killing a kid from thirty thousand feet or two hundred feet?
ZAK: I still see them. (Beat.) The kids.
IRIT: What kids?
ZAK: I have to look at them to shoot them. And I remember. (Under his breath.) I'm not a cold-blooded killer. I don't want to be a cold-blooded killer.
(She rubs against him.)
IRIT: I don't think you're a cold-blooded killer. It's a complex thing. You can't blame yourself. (He pulls away. IRIT starts to rub his shoulders.) Last night was amazing.
ZAK: Pretty amazing.
IRIT: Wanna dance? (They do, soft and close. They start kissing.) Let's go back to my place.
ZAK: Why not?
IRIT: (referring to the newspaper) Zak, don't worry about this stuff. Tomorrow the paper will be about somebody else's news. Grandpa can wait until tomorrow to chew you out … if he can remember. (He pulls away. He gets up to leave.)
ZAK: I'd better go face him.
IRIT: I really don't understand why you care about what he thinks.
ZAK: I love him. And I know how he feels about people who do this. And now that he knows that I do this—I did this—I don't know if he's going to survive that. His heart's gonna break. And I'm gonna know I did it.
IRIT: I did it. I wrote the article.
ZAK: I did it. I've gotta accept responsibility.
IRIT: Are we going to fight over who's guilty here?
(She laughs. ZAK does not respond initially.)
ZAK: I don't know what I'm going to say to him.
IRIT: Wanna practice?
ZAK: What do you mean?