February 18 Play: BUYING SLEEPING BEAUTY

49: BUYING SLEEPING BEAUTY - by Ed Valentine
© February 18, 2010 * ed@edvalentine.com

LIGHTS UP: SLEEPING BEAUTY, asleep in a glass coffin. Her chest lightly moving.

A CARNY BARKER on a small podium by her.

BARKER:
Selling tickets!
Come one, come all!
See the Sleeping Beauty, See the Sleeping Beauty!
The likes of her you’ve never seen in your Natural Born Life!

(A well-dressed woman and her SON enter.)

SON: She’s beautiful.

MOTHER: But asleep.

SON: She’s the girl of my dreams.

MOTHER: She’s the girl of HER dreams, that’s for sure.

SON: When she dreams, I bet she dreams of castles. And carriages. And doves.

MOTHER: When she dreams, I bet she dreams of dreaming. She dreasm she’s asleep, dreaming of herself dreaming. The soul of narcissism, in my opinion.

SON: She’s the one for me.

MOTHER: If that’s how you like them.

SON: She’s the one for me.

MOTHER: It’ll never go anywhere.

SON: She’s the one for me.

MOTHER: What will people say?

SON: Mother.

-

MOTHER: You’ve worn me down. (CALLING TO BARKER:) Mister? I’ll buy her, glass coffin and all.
(Hands BARKER a wad of bills.)

BARKER: Why, thank you! Thank you, Ma’am! Now I can retire to Boca Raton! WHoo-hoo!

(He cheers and runs off. The pair are alone with the casket. SON touches the casket.)

SON: Thank you, Mother.
Thank you very much.

(Lights fade.)

END OF PLAY.