Pedestrians

Dramatis personae:

Ellie, 19

Darryl, 44

Lights up at the corner of two busy multi-lane streets - there'll be no jaywalking here. A man, DARRYL, in an old and dirty green down jacket with a burnt orange beanie on his head, holds a rectangle of cardboard as he stands, waiting for the walk light to turn on. A young woman, ELLIE, in a black wool peacoat with a pink scarf around her neck and gray Ugg boats on her feet, approaches with a Starbucks coffee cup in each hand. She presses the walk button and then stands waiting beside him. He is barehanded; she wears black gloves that match her coat. It is very cold outside. They stand, shivering in silence as the walking button buzzes to let them know it is not safe to cross yet.

DARRYL.

Bourgeois.

ELLIE.

I'm sorry?

DARRYL.

Nothing's more bourgeois than double-fisting mocha lattes.

Pause.

ELLIE.

I'm not bourgeois.

DARRYL.

No? But whoever's paying for your clothes is.

Pause.

ELLIE.

I'm sorry.

DARRYL.

Why are you sorry? You can't help it what you're born into. You can help it that you're obviously a liberal and take offense to me calling you bourgeois.

ELLIE.

Right.

Pause.

DARRYL.

What, nothing? You spend how many dollars to sit in a classroom expanding your brain and you got nothing? But that's your job right? So your spare time is spent, how? In front of the television?

ELLIE.

I'm sorry - can I help you somehow? Do you need anything?

DARRYL.

Yes - come on, take a shot. You just gonna take this? Offer some rebuttal. Some accusation. Participate.

The buzzing stops, replaced by a clicking ticking away the seconds to cross.

ELLIE.

I'm sorry - I need to go.

DARRYL.

You're sorry, you're sorry - go! Go!

ELLIE hurries across the street into an armchair - later.

ELLIE.

And I saw him and all I kept thinking was, "dear God, I hope he doesn't ask me for money."

Pause.

Oh, I would give it to him - that's not the problem. Because I didn't want to talk, you know? I didn't want to have to do the odd shuffle, the odd moment where we invest ourselves in each other only to be mutually disappointed, you know what I mean? And then have to wait there for the light to turn red.

Pause.

What happened? Nothing. Saved by the bell.

Lights fade.

END.

"Dead Coral Found Near Site of Oil Spill"

Dramatis Personae:

Clinical Social Worker

Patient

Lights up on two comfortable chairs, occupied by the CLINICAL SOCIAL WORKER and the PATIENT, with identically crossed legs.

CLINICAL SOCIAL WORKER

We're coming close to the end of our time.

PATIENT

Oh, okay. You know, I was really looking forward to this all week. I curled up in bed on Friday night and just thought, "I'm so sad."

CLINICAL SOCIAL WORKER

I'm afraid this might have been a bit of a let down.

PATIENT

Yes, but I guess I anticipated that. Everything in life you build up in your head and then...

CLINICAL SOCIAL WORKER

So - when are you available next week?

PATIENT

Oh, yes. Fridays are usually best for me. I don't have class.

CLINICAL SOCIAL WORKER

How does Friday the 17th at two work for you?

PATIENT

Sounds great.

CLINICAL SOCIAL WORKER

Well, great. I'll see you next Friday.

PATIENT

Okay, yes. Goodbye then. It was nice meeting you.

CLINICAL SOCIAL WORKER

Nice meeting you too.

Light on CLINICAL SOCIAL WORKER fades as the PATIENT stands up and gathers belongings. Light follows the PATIENT as he/she exits offstage. PATIENT stops, breathes in and on the exhale the lights fade.

END.

The Ivy League

Dramatis personae:

Female Student, 19

Male Student, 19

Lights up on the FEMALE STUDENT dancing on pointe shoes while simultaneously playing Ravel on the violin and reading Chaucer. She whispers to the audience.

FEMALE STUDENT.

I'm a fraud. This is the only song I know on the violin, I've only just begun pointe and Geoffrey Chaucer puts me to sleep.

The MALE STUDENT enters SL on a unicycle while playing polo and alternatively talking on the phone in fluent Spanish and playing Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" on the harmonica. He rides in circles around the Female Student.

MALE STUDENT.

Can you reconcile T.S. Eliot's preoccupation with, and perhaps aspirations for, sainthood with his supposed anti-Semitism?

He rides off SR.

FEMALE STUDENT.

You lose the magic when I tell you the truth. The illusion snaps off the invisible spiderweb threads holding it up. You think that I'm a remarkable person before you learn I'm only remarkable as long as the talent act lasts.

The Male Student enters from SR.

MALE STUDENT.

Doesn't St. Ignatius Loyola's admission that predestination is compatible with Catholicism make the Reformation and its bloody aftermath seem a bit absurd?

Pause.

I think that the tragedies of history are just God's big joke. Which might be why I'm an atheist.

Pause.

FEMALE STUDENT.

Want to get wasted and make bad decisions that we have to hide from the newspapers years from now when we run for political office?

MALE STUDENT.

Sure.

END.

"Russia, Crippled by Drought, Bans Grain Exports"

Dramatis personae:

Seamus, 21, Irish

Linda, 20, American

Lights up.

SEAMUS.

The world is fucked up. Talk about a hackneyed expression. If it ain't a drought, it's a forest fire or a dam bursting. I can't take you to a restaurant for fear the produce wasn't locally farmed or the animals were abused. I can't buy you a ring for fear I'll commit the moral transgression of fueling civil war in Africa. I can't take you on a road trip across Europe for fear of contributing to our dependence on oil.

LINDA.

I want no gifts. Not the gift of time nor the gift of rightfulness. I want only to live unconsciously with you.

SEAMUS.

But are we the products of our context or our present circumstances?

LINDA.

I don't know. Kiss me.

They kiss as the sun continues to blaze and burn the ground into the night.

END.

Hamlet: Abridged and Universalized

Dramatis personae:

Hannah, 19

Lights up.

HANNAH.

My name means gift of God. Ha!

Pause. A spell.

"I am myself indifferent honest;

but yet I could accuse me of such things that it

were better my mother had not borne me: I am very

proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at

my beck than I have thoughts to put them in,

imagination to give them shape, or time to act them

in. What should such fellows as I do crawling

between earth and heaven?"

Pause.

Will you tell me, please?

END.

The Rainbow Connection, or Irony Rules Supreme

Dramatis Personae:
Deborah, 19

Lights up on DEBORAH at the wheel of a navy blue BMW sedan. She is caught in traffic and clearly irritated by it. Suddenly, a smile envelops her face, a type of smile that makes the cheeks feel as if they've been hit by a pleasant, tropical sun. She picks up her phone and dials a number.

DEBORAH.
Hey, I had to call you!

Pause.

Oh no, is now a bad time?

Pause.

It's nothing, it's just the most beautiful, the biggest rainbow I've ever seen.

Pause.

Yeah! I'm sitting in the most horrendous traffic, but then I look up and I see, you know, magic. And it just makes you think that life is really so, I don't know - it's like you're not in one place at one time, you know? I'm not just in traffic, in a car on pavement - I'm in the sky too, riding the arch of a rainbow. It's just crazy because I always thought life, your consciousness or whatnot, was a piecewise function, you know, constant then jumping from y-value to y-value. But now I see it's not a function at all, it's more miraculous than math - two y-values at the same time, but still working in some system perfectly.

Pause. Nervous laugh.

Oh, yeah, it made more sense in my head.

Pause.

Yeah.

Pause.

You know? I'm starting to think Sartre got it wrong: hell is being caught in traffic on I-95.

Pause.

Don't get it? The play No Exit?

Pause.

Yeah, anyway, I should let you go.

Pause.

Take care!

She hangs up. Lights fade.

END.

Psychology and Religion - this time with feeling

Dramatis Personae:

A Puddle

A Boot

A Voice

Lights up on a PUDDLE among other puddles after a rainstorm. These puddles are formed by actors lying on their backs. There is a tranquility in the puddles, each in their own isolated world. This peace lasts for a few moments. A BOOT enters and walks among the puddles, being careful not to step in any of them. This boot is formed by an actor in a pair of boots - the character of the boot refers to one of the boots in the pair. The boot is also serene, though a latent agitation can be observed within it by the most discerning eyes. The boot enjoys a few moments of peace. Then the VOICE.

VOICE.

Puddles are meant to be jumped in.

Obediently, the boot jumps in the puddle - or the actor playing the boot places a single boot on the stomach of actor playing the puddle. The puddle reacts with a splash - or with arms and legs strewn in different directions in an expression of pain. Continued pained movement from the puddle, a struggle to stay balanced on one leg from the boot.

VOICE.

You will not splash.

The puddle tries hard not the react to the boot and the boot tries hard not to put too much pressure on the puddle, but they cannot help pain or physics. They think the voice is disappointed in them. The lights fade.

END.