January 4 Play: IN THE MOONSLIGHT

4: IN THE MOONSLIGHT - by Ed Valentine
© January 4, 2010 * ed@edvalentine.com

LIGHTS UP: Full moon visible outside. A WOMAN sits in a hardbacked chair in a shaft of moonlight that falls from a high window.

The woman has a distraught, destroyed appearance. Obsessively pulls at a loose strand of hair. Her focus: far away, squinting.


WOMAN
She goes towards the light.
He goes away from the light.
She goes closer to the darkened field.
He goes into the field.
She says, why have you come here, and where are you going?
He says: nothing.
She answers, give me an answer.
He answers nothing.
Give me an answer.
Give me an answer.
Give me an answer.
Give me an answer.
Give me an answer.
Give me an answer.
Give me – He says, the old words don’t work.
He slurs it.
She stops.
She says, wait: did you say ‘the old words don’t work’ or ‘the old worlds don’t work’?
He stops.
He says: does it matter?
-
-
-
And with that he begins to walk away from the light again,
into the darkened field.
He walks away from the light.
He walks away from the light.
She never sees him
Again.

(She quiets. Stands. Regards the audience directly for the first time. Then walks backward into darkness. Silence for a moment.)

END OF PLAY.

January 3 Play: VERSAILLES

3: VERSAILLES - by Ed Valentine
© January 3, 2010 * ed@edvalentine.com

LIGHTS UP: Versailles. Hall of Mirrors. A table piled high with cakes. Two WOMEN sit, wearing absurdly tall candy-colored wigs.


1: Tea?
(Pours.)
You ask about my husband. My husband is off riding today.

2: “Riding.”
(Stifles a snicker.)

1: Meaning?

2: “Riding.” So you think.

1: -

2: So he tells you.

1: So that’s how we’re going to play this, is it, dear?

2: Play? I don’t know what you mean. Play?

1: (Mocking, mean:) “Play? I don’t know what you mean. Play?”

2: No need to –

1: You know exactly what I mean.

2: I’m simply trying -

1: You are trying. You try my patience. Good day.

2: You needed to know, if you didn’t know.

1: Good day, Madame.

(2 rises.)

2: Good day, yourself.

(2 goes to leave. 1 stops her with her voice.)

1: He IS riding. I laugh at your insinuations, your feeble attempt to – to… He IS riding.

2: But whom is he riding? That is the question.

1: GET OUT.
(1 flings a bouquet from the table at 2. Misses. 2 exits. A beat. 1, flustered, rings a bell-pull.)
Marie? Marie?

(MARIE, a maid, enters.)

MARIE: Madame?

1: Where is my husband?
(MARIE looks away.)
Where?

MARIE: Riding, Madame.

1: Where?

MARIE: Riding. Riding.

(1 sits, crushed. Long fade out.)


END OF PLAY.

My review of "Nine"

Click the following for my new post on EXTRA CRITICUM: a review of "Nine." In short: "Awesome! Go."

January 2 Play: UNDER THE SAND

#2: UNDER THE SAND - by Ed Valentine
© January 2,2010 * ed@edvalentine.com

LIGHTS UP: A desert. A cactus. Under a moon. A MAN scrabbles through the sand. A COYOTE watches.


MAN: It was here, I know it was here.

COYOTE: You sure it was here, amigo?

MAN: By the cactus. Yes!

COYOTE: It’s a big desert. There’s a lot of cactus.

MAN: Still.

(MAN digs. COYOTE watches.)

COYOTE: How do you know I didn’t eat it? Dig it up, eat it up, swallow it whole?

MAN: You didn’t.

COYOTE: I could’ve.

MAN: But you didn’t.

COYOTE: How do you know.

MAN: You still look hungry.

COYOTE: Don’t go by that, pal! A coyote’s always hungry.
(MAN keeps digging.)
When you find it, I’ll snatch it from your hand.

MAN: Oh will you?

COYOTE: I will, I’ll snatch it in my teeth, clamp down, and run across the desert. I’ll run across the desert with that thing in my mouth, spouting gouts of blood until I’m far away from you.

MAN: Maybe, maybe not.

COYOTE: Then I’ll eat it. Then I’ll howl. Like this:
(Howls.)
And you’ll be there. Bereft.

MAN: I’m gonna find it anyway.

COYOTE: Maybe, maybe not. You close?

MAN: Mm?

COYOTE: Are. You. Close?

MAN: Closer and closer and… ah.
(He digs out a wet bleeding pumping human heart.)
I knew it! I knew it was here! So.

(Regards COYOTE. COYOTE regards him. MAN takes out a knife. Very serious, low, mean:)

COYOTE: I admire your tenacity. But I’ll take that now, compadre.

MAN: I’ll fight you for it.

COYOTE: To the death?

MAN: To one of our deaths.

COYOTE: Well then, be as it may.
(Standoff. A long one.)
GO!

(They lunge. Lights out.)


END OF PLAY.

Happy New Year! And... Play #1: TIDINGS

Trying something new.  Happy New Year!

1: TIDINGS - by Ed Valentine
© January 1, 2010 * ed@edvalentine.com

LIGHTS UP: A WOMAN sits, surrounded by papers. Piles, mountains, mounds, of papers. Her hands are smudged with ink and she types furiously on a calculator.

WOMAN: O. O o o o o O. Carry the seven seven times seven and on and on and…

(Types. Types. Murmurs. The paper spews out wildly from the calculator. WOMAN screams. Then, a small blue ANGEL descends.)

ANGEL: Tidings!

WOMAN: Yes.

ANGEL: And –

WOMAN: Yes?

ANGEL: Tidy-ings.

WOMAN: Yes? YES.

(She shoves the huge stacks of paper offstage in 3 great shoves. The stage is clear. The sky-scrim is blue night. The ANGEL smiles.)

And?

ANGEL: Yes. Now it can begin.

(Clears throat, shakes wings. Sings:)

Aaaah!

(The ANGEL is joined by other ANGELS. Or maybe just their voices.)

ALL ANGELS: AAAAH!!!

(They sing the sun up. The dawn brightens. A new year begins.)


END OF PLAY.

While I'm posting links...

...Here's Tom Wolfe in a thought-provoking column from last summer's anniversary of the moon landing.  

What NASA needs now is the power of the Word. {snip} At this moment, that remains the only solution to recovering NASA’s true destiny, which is, of course, to build that bridge to the stars.

Gail Makes a Funny.

Gail Collins today in the NYTimes: 

"Really, for ultraconservatives, the last year has been one sign of the apocalypse after the other. Soon, the rivers will run red with Starbucks Raspberry-Flavored Tazo Passion Shaken Iced Tea. Owls will give birth to two-headed frogs who shriek the lyrics to Lady Gaga songs."

Don't know why I found that laugh-out-loud funny in Starbucks this AM, but there you go.