Короткие пьесы Ансельм Людмила

LET’S GET MARRIED

CAST:

MICHAEL: Thirty years old, he is in T shirt, shorts, and slippers.

JULIA: Thirty five years old, she is dressed to the nines.

Sunlight streams into Michaels neatly maintained apartment. A large brass ships bell hangs on the wall as well as some nautical scenes and stuff. There is a sofa with at least one throw pillow on it. Michael is hurriedly choosing a necktie. He lays the tie on a chair where already neatly is hung a white shirt and business suit

Knocking at the door.

MICHAEL: Come in! It’s unlocked!

JULIA: (enters and surveys the scene)

MICHAEL: Hi, Julia!… I’m sorry! Today will be fast… I have a business meeting.

JULIA: Well, well!

MICHAEL: I have a business appointment in an hour. I’ve already shaved and showered. (Motioning to a closed door) Ah…I’ve pulled down the bed covers…you can undress in there, while I find some black socks.

Julia, pouting, plunks her self down on the sofa.

MICHAEL: Julia! What’s the matter?

JULIA: With me?….Nothing! Absolutely nothing.

Julia resolutely makes herself more comfortable on the sofa using the throw pillows. Michael comes to Julia. He tenderly strokes her hair. He moves a few strands of hair away from her ears

MICHAEL: You want me to undress you, just like I did after we met on the “Dating Show”?

JULIA: No… I don’t want…

MICHAEL: Remember, we just had to decide so fast… had to rely just on “chemistry”. Man did I think it was a dumb TV show! But Tom and Ann persuaded me to go…and now look! Almost two whole years together. What a good match we turned out to be.

JULIA (cynically): Ya’ think so?

MICHAEL: You don’t agree?…You’re mad because I have to hurry out!

JULIA: What do you think? I only come here three times a week, and now you have scheduled something more important than me… Where are you going, anyway?

MICHAEL (condescendingly, slowly): I explained. I-have-a-business-meeting…

JULIA(suspiciously): You’re sure? This is really “a-business-meeting”?

MICHAEL: Really Julia…I have missed you.

JULIA (cynically) I didn’t notice.

MICHAEL: You don’t believe me…I’ll prove it to you…take your clothes off.

JULIA: Earlier you’ve never had “business meetings”. Now practically every time you have a “business meeting”!

MICHAEL: Earlier, I didn’t have such difficult and important situations, as I do now…I have more responsibility… Now let’s move on to our “business”.

JULIA: Now you talk about “our business”…earlier you called it different.

Michael tries to hug Julia. Julia pushes him away

MICHAEL (surprised): Hold up! What is this?

JULIA: Don’t touch me… Do you remember the “Sacred Trip” you talked about right as we walked off the TV set?

MICHAEL: I didn’t really know what I meant by “A Sacred Trip”… Just wanted to get the sex going…

JULIA: We giggled together while we scrubbed the make up off… You stuffed the roses the show host gave us in your vest pocket and we went for coffee with Ann and Tom.

MICHAEL: I remember how long we had to talk and moon at the restaurant before they decided it was time to go.

JULIA: Our journey started as we flouted from the sofa to your bed…

MICHAEL: I was floating….drifting… to you…

(Pause)

JULIA: Me too. (Beat) Now it’s turned into an obligation… We never sit on the sofa…You never light candles. Right to bed… Our trip lasts only fifteen minutes.

MICHAEL: Julia, that’s a terrible way to talk! We are fine together.

JULIA (cynically): You’re fine!

MICHAEL: You don’t get any kind of pleasure?…Some..?

JULIA: Cosmic flood?… Ecstasy?… Vibrations?… Needling Sensation?…Well….

MICHAEL: Well…what more can I do?

JULIA: Value me more… Why don’t you ring the ships bell anymore?

MICHAEL: I will ring it… on my own yacht…

JULIA: Yacht!… Where…?

MICHAEL: Soon we will really be floating on the waves. I’ve always dreamed of sleeping on a boat…

JULIA: Where is the money… for this yacht?

MICHAEL: I’m saving for it!

JULIA (exasperated): You have no house, and you are saving for a floating palace!

MICHAEL: Why do I need a house?

JULIA: Don’t you want a family? Children?

MICHAEL: I don’t want all that… until…

JULIA: Until what? Michael, how old are you?

MICHAEL: Thirty.

JULIA: I’m thirty-three. I’m a woman…

MICHAEL: I see…

JULIA: You don’t see any thing! I want my own home… I want…ch…

MICHAEL: I didn’t know…

JULIA: When I hint about “home and hearth” you always change the subject…

MICHAEL: I just never understood your gist.

JULIA: Remember when we went to the zoo? There were those little baby monkeys. They had such cute expressions. They were so inquisitive and had such pleasure… Rolling around with each other. Hugging their mother….They even seemed to look at me with devotion…love…

MICHAEL: They didn’t make that much impression on me…Monkeys are monkeys…

JULIA: I wanted to take them in my arms. Right then, in the zoo, I knew how much I wanted to be a mother. To hug my babies. There is nothing so joyful as to think of a happy, sweet smelling, and warm baby. You felt nothing watching the baby monkeys?

MICHAEL: No… Nothing.

JULIA: Michael, how long do I have to wait? We have been together long enough.

MICHAEL: Not enough!

JULIA (exasperated): Two years is not long enough? Let’s stop and look at our relationship. You first of all love sex…

MICHAEL: Love without sex doesn’t exist. We really show love through sex.

JULIA: You think you’re a good lover?

MICHAEL: Sex is my specialty… Yes, I think most of the time I’m a good lover…

JULIA: But you don’t even know my hot spots!

MICHAEL: Well…your… we never….

JULIA: You think my erotic zone is my ears? Why are you always playing with my ears?

MICHAEL (also angry): You have never objected…

JULIA: I have a lot of patience…You don’t know anything about me, and you don’t want to know!

(Pause)

MICHAEL: What more do you want? I spend a lot of thought and energy on work. I expect a better job…. Better pay… I’m working longer. I’m working my way up the ladder. It’s hard to find this little time to spend with you.

JULIA (bitterly): And I thought in the end you would ask me to be your wife!

MICHAEL: What kind of a wife would you be? You don’t like to cook. Every time you spend a weekend here I have to clean up for an hour. You don’t even rinse your glass. Every time you want a drink you take a new glass from the shelf.

(Pause)

I’ve decided that if you get pregnant, I’ll marry you…

JULIA: How could I have become pregnant with you? I had no confidence that you’d marry me! And now you say you want to live on a boat!

MICHAEL: Well maybe… I…

JULIA: Michael, my time for kids is slowly slipping away. I’m really getting stressed about it…

MICHAEL: I don’t have those problems…

JULIA: You men don’t understand mothering. All women want to get married!

MICHAEL: Not all! My girl friend before you was dead sure she didn’t want to get married.

JULIA: Why did you break up?

MICHAEL: She cheated on me… and not just me… I have to admit she was sort of like a leaf just blown where ever nature and excitement took her…

JULIA: So since I was on the TV show you thought I was like her too? Sort of a prostitute?

MICHAEL: Well… you went to bed with me quickly… I think all women are like prostitutes… “Under their skin”…

JULIA (crying): What? What did you say?

MICHAEL: It’s not me; it’s a rhyme of Rudyard Kipling… But he thought that all women are lesbians. “The colonel’s ladies and Judi O’Grady are lesbians under their skin”…in their souls…something like that…

JULIA (bitterness mounting): Thank you for your gratis opinion about women.

MICHAEL (smiling): Just kidding!… (Looking at his watch) I have to go!

JULIA: So I have to decide what I want!

MICHAEL: What do you mean?

JULIA: To stick with you…or to find another…

MICHAEL (now angry): You blow this all up! I’m a bad lover and bad potential father just because I want a “quickie” now and then?

Julia quickly lies stiffly down on the sofa shoes and all.

JULIA: You still want me to undress?

MICHAEL: You could at least take your high heels off before you lie on the sofa!

JULIA: (artificial surprisingly) Do you really want me to take off my shoes?

MICHAEL: You’re toying with me!

JULIA: So you toyed with me! You still want me to undress?

MICHAEL: You’ve ruined any desire now.

JULIA: And….. I have no desire for you…I’ll go…

MICHAEL (shouting): Get out! Go! Find another!

JULIA (calm down): I’ll go. Even if you call me like last time, I’ll never come back!

MICHAEL: I don’t want to see you again! Go to the zoo and adopt a baby monkey!

Julia throws the sofa pillows on the floor. She kicks over the chair with Michaels clothes on it.

JULIA: So now you clean up for the last time after me!

MICHAEL (shouting): Go!… Go…get out! Bitch!

She takes off her shoes and throws her shoes at Michael who deftly ducks them.

JULIA: These are from all women! You son of a bitch! Impotent!

Julia runs out the door crying. Michael picks up a vase to throw, but then he sees the ship’s bell. He yanks the bell off the wall and throws it on the floor. He kicks it thru his thin slippers. It makes several loud clangs. He hurts his toe. He sits on the sofa in pain holding his toe. Bare foot Julia enters the apartment again

JULIA (surveying all): Michael, I heard you rang the bell! Did you call me?

Pause

Are you crying?

MICHAEL: You hurt me… Just sit down…

JULIA: Michael, I’m so sorry. I hate to fight…I feel so badly… It’s as if we descended into Hell…

MICHAEL: Me too…

JULIA: Michael, now I hope you understand me better…

MICHAEL: Yes… I understand you…

(Pause)

But Julia… please; tell me, where your hot spots are…

JULIA (cold): I don’t know…

MICHAEL: Julia, please…

JULIA: My ears…

THE END

MOTHER’S DAY

CAST:

PETER: 8 or 9 years old, he has a band aid on his forehead.

MICHAEL: 25–30 years old. He has a beard about five days old.

Family room in upscale home. PETER, sobbing, sits at a table drawing. MICHAEL enters, briskly.

MICHAEL: Peter, have you seen my electric razor?

PETER: No…

MICHAEL: Why are you crying?

PETER (angrily): I already told you! Zack pushed me down the stairs at school!

MICHAEL: Right. We started to talk about it in the car, and then we ran into that gridlock at 5 corners. Do you know why Zack pushed you?

PETER: Mr. Allen said to draw a picture of our mothers for Mother’s Day. Zack said I didn’t have a mother. So I pushed him.

MICHAEL: Your mama…

PETER: Papa said he’d talk to me about my mama sometime soon. I don’t know who my Mama was…

MICHAEL: Why she “was”? She’s alive…

PETER (surprised): You have seen my Mama?

(MICHAEL pulls up a chair and sits confidentially near Peter)

MICHAEL: Your Dad told me about her…

PETER: What did he tell you?

MICHAEL Well… She goes to collage. She lives in a big city far away. Your Dad is paying for her college.

PETER: Why?

MICHAEL: Because she’s your Mama.

PETER (shaken, holding back tears) Is he paying money for me?

MICHAEL: Well, sort of…

PETER: How come Mama doesn’t come see me?

MICHAEL: They agreed that you would not see or meet each other.

PETER: He paid money so that she will never see me?

MICHAEL: He loves you very much… He loves you so much he wants to have you all to himself.

PETER: If Papa loves me, why he isn’t home more?

MICHAEL: He’s an engineer. He has to travel around to different cities. He visits many different businesses that need his knowledge. Some times he gets to ride in a helicopter. When you are older he’ll probably take you with him.

PETER (Stars crying): I want him home. Not just you…

MICHAEL: Peter, you know… You know. I had never seen my real parents…

PETER (stops crying): Why?

MICHAEL: Tom’s mother and father took care of me like a son. It’s called “adoption.”

PETER: Who’s Tom?

MICHAEL: Tom, you know him, we go to Mac Donald’s every Wednesday with him. Tom is just like a brother to me. (Pause) Tom’s parents both worked very hard. My adoptive father usually came home late after I had gone to bed.…

PETER: You had a brother, but I’m all alone…

MICHAEL: Tom was mean to me for a long time. He used to hide my sneakers. He snuck bites from my desert. (Pause) Adoption made me different. It was a dirty word back then. Tom told all the kids on the block and at school. They tackled me hardest when we played pick up football. I had to be tough. (Pause) Peter, you see your father more often than I saw my adoptive father… Soon your Dad will come home, have dinner with you, read to you and tuck you in. (Pause) Now tell me where you have hidden my electric razor.

PETER (sulking): Didn’t hide it.

MICHAEL: It’s always on the shelf in the bathroom, and now it isn’t there. I guess, you want to play “hide and seek”…

PETER (still sulking): I don’t want to play any games with you. I want my Papa. (Pause) He bought me like a loaf of bread!

(PETER starts crying. MICHAEL tries to hug him but is pushed away.)

MICHAEL: We have talked about a lot… about a lot big things… adult things… It’s all new to you… I’ve been completely honest with you… and I love you.

PETER: I want Papa…

MICHAEL: He’ll be home soon for dinner… Let’s try not to upset him… He’ll be tired. Papa doesn’t know that you know so much. (Pause) This has been hard for me. I’m tired too. (Pause) And now if you don’t want to play “hide and seek,” tell me where my razor is.

PETER: Why do you want your razor?

MICHAEL: I’d like to shave and shower, and put on a clean shirt, neaten up for dinner…

PETER: You haven’t shaved all week and now that Papa is coming home you want to shave!

MICHAEL: Jake likes me clean-shaven…

PETER: So you and Papa can kiss each other?

MICHAEL(stunned): What have you seen?

PETER: I saw how you and Papa kissed… I never saw him kiss my other babysitters… Every babysitter left after awhile, and another one came. Why are you always here?

MICHAEL: Papa entrusts you to me. We agreed we’d see how you and I got along.

PETER: You’ll be here, even when Papa is home?

MICHAEL: We all will be sort of like a family.

PETER: A family?

MICHAEL: Not a family like your friends Andy or Zack has with their parents… It would be another sort of family…There are a lot different kinds of families nowadays…

Our family would be a better family than you having one babysitter and then another babysitter. We will all get to know each other better.

PETER: It means you’ll live with us always?