Heartless (eBook)

All stage directions are from the actor's POV toward audience. Simple set--black surround--bare-stage feel except for some stark furniture: single bed mid-stage left, placed horizontal, foot of bed facing stage left. Another single bed mid-stage right, placed vertically to audience, head of bed facing upstage. Between the beds, downstage center, is a round glass- topped table with two white metal patio chairs placed opposite each other, on either side of the table, left and right. The sense of the set is that it's essentially an outdoor patio with the two beds receding into nebulous interior territory. The whole visual arrangement is framed by tall palm trees. Extreme downstage left, looming out into the audience like a ship's prow, is a raised 'lookout point' that drops off clifflike into a black void. The upstage area sweeps slightly uphill, then drops off radically into another black void. The extreme upstage edge is raised high enough so that actors can leap off it and disappear into some sort of unseen netting or, conversely, make sudden appearances into the playing area.

As lights go to black, a woman's (mable's) piercing voice is heard screaming someone's name.

mable's voice: (Screaming, offstage right.) ELIZABETH!!!

(Lights snap up bright. Two figures appear. roscoe, a man, mid-sixties, sits up fast in the stage right bed, facing the audience. At the same time, in stage left bed, sally, a woman in her early thirties, rolls over so her back is to audience, wrapping herself tightly in a sheet, mummy style. Pause. roscoe gets out of his bed quickly and stands, facing sally's bed. He wears green boxer shorts, a plain white T-shirt, and white socks.)

roscoe: (Disoriented.) Sally?

(roscoe moves slightly toward her bed, then stops.)

sally: (Keeping her back to audience.) I'm sleeping.

roscoe: Did you scream?

sally: No.

roscoe: I thought I heard a scream.

sally: Go walk your dog.

(roscoe turns, moves toward stage right--stops--turns back toward sally, confused.)

roscoe: When I woke up I couldn't figure out where the windows were. I thought I was still in some motel somewhere--

sally: (Without turning.) You were mistaken.

(roscoe turns again and exits stage right. sally immediately rolls toward audience on roscoe's exit. She sits up in her bed, naked from waist up. A long surgical scar snakes down from between her collarbones to her navel--bright pink and very prominent. She looks around the space and toward stage right, then stands, wearing white underwear, grabs a gray linen blouse, throws it on, buttons it partially while crossing downstage to stage left chair at table. She sits in chair, facing audience directly, pulls her legs up, wrapping her arms around her shins, and stares out across audience, as though seeing something in distance. Pause. Then the voice of roscoe offstage right, speaking to his dog in high-pitched falsetto. No sounds of dog whatever. sally just listens--looks out over audience.)

roscoe's voice: (To dog--off right.) Shall we take a walk? What do you think? A little walk? Piss and poop? Tinkle, tinkle. Yes? Shall we go? Oh--happy dog! Happy, happy, happy dog! Here we go! Poop and piss! Jumping, jumping! Happy, happy, happy, happy dog! Let's go--here we go! Yes--happy, happy, happy, happy--

(roscoe's voice fades away off right. Pause. sally just sits and stares out in the same posture. She speaks calmly to some invisible partner in same direction as audience.)

sally: You should've told me it was going to be like this. You could've warned me. 'Course, how would you know? You were the same as me. Right? Young. Babies, really. What were we...