playwriting

Last semester I took a playwriting class with Stephen DiMenna. One of our assignments was to write a five-page one-act based on an Edward Hopper painting, and I chose this one. Below is the one-act I wrote - it's sort of strange, but it was the first thing I thought of when I looked at the painting. It also kind of goes with the creepiness of Hopper's paintings.

***

The set is a typical living room which looks typical but should have some sort of empty or lonely atmosphere. Somewhere on the set should be the words, "Qui si convien lasciare ogne sospetto; ogne viltà convien che qui sia morta."* A girl, Grace, is kneeling on the windowseat, her back to the almost to the audience, and looking earnestly out of a bay window. She is about seventeen. Her sister, Amanda, is older, about 19 or 20, and sitting in a wing-back chair, facing the audience.

Amanda
Just get away from that window. He's not coming.

Grace
He's coming this time. I know he is.

Amanda
He's not, Grace. Please just know that. He's not.

Grace
He is. You'll see. Because this time I readied everything properly. You told me last week he wasn't coming, and I believed you. So the living room went to hell, the bathroom had the toilet with a ring in it . . . It was bad luck. I let you jinx me.

Amanda
I don't think the toilet's ring, present or not, has any large effect on the universe and its happenings. That was gross, by the way. If you're going to clean it, clean it for the two people who live here, not because of some fantasy guest who never shows.

Grace
I did clean it this time.

Amanda
Only because . . Forget it.

[beat]

Grace
[almost whispering]
He's coming this time.

Amanda
I know. I know. You're right, he is.

[long pause]

Amanda
I saw him a few days ago.

Grace
You did not.

Amanda
I did. Only for a second, but I did see him.

[long pause]

Grace
How did he look?

Amanda
Same as always. Only lighter.

Grace
He lost weight?

Amanda
No, you asshole, he just looked . . . less burdened.

Grace
Ahh. Emotionally lighter, then.

Amanda
Jesus Christ, yes, emotionally lighter, Poet.

Grace
I'm glad. He never looks that way . . . You don't think . . .

Amanda
What?

Grace
You don't think that means he's not coming?

Amanda
What would his emotional well-being, light or heavy, have to do with that?

Grace
Just that . . well, he needs us. And you need people to lighten the load. The emotional one. And if it's already lightened for him, emotionally, then . . . Well, then maybe he doesn't need us anymore, so he's not coming.

Amanda
Grace, you fucking moron, he's not coming because he NEVER comes. Not this week, not last week, not three Tuesdays ago, not Saturday a month from now. You're ridiculous.

Grace
[voice breaking]
I'm not. He doesn't need us anymore, so he's not coming, and I wasted my time getting everything ready again.

Amanda
Well, at least we're not living like a bunch of squatters.

[Grace continues crying]

Amanda
Grace? Grace? Come on. How is it any different? It's always the same - whether you cry now or not, it's the same.

Grace
It isn't. Because this time I was ready.

Amanda
For something different to happen. You weren't ready for the same.

Grace
Either way.

Amanda
No. Not either way. It'll be fine. We can't get any worse off than we are now. I mean, what happens because, for the seventh week in a row, he hasn't seen us? How do our lives change from the other seven?

Grace
It's been eight.

Amanda
Even more so, then.

[pause]

Grace
Where did you see him?

Amanda
[stalling]
When?

Grace
When you saw him. Three days ago. That was Wednesday, right? He golfs on Wednesdays with a man named Patrick. Remember? He came to see us with those awful pants on. He wears those awful pants . . . Though I guess they can be in style now . . .

Amanda
I remember the pants. He wasn't wearing them.

Grace
No pants?

Amanda
Well, pants, of course, but not the golf ones. I think he was wearing jeans.

Grace
But where? Where did you see him?

Amanda
Same place as always.

Grace
Why didn't you tell me?! I could've been there!

Amanda
It wasn't a visit, Grace, not like how you want. I think he was just passing through. Maybe to go see someone else.

Grace
So through the window, then.

Amanda
Yes. I saw him through the window.

Grace
Funny. How he's always through there, even if he's just passing through, and not visiting.

Amanda
[outburst]
Why, Grace? Why is it funny? We eat the same thing every day. We wear the same thing, we play the same board game, we even think the same fucking thoughts, and for the past seven, excuse me, eight weeks, we have had the same fucking conversation by this window. And so why would the window itself change? There's no reason. That's what I'm trying to explain to you about him not coming. That it's the same thing as the food, the clothes, the board game, the thoughts. It's just going to turn into one more thing we can expect.

Grace
Its not true.

Amanda
It is. You'll see. Unless waiting by the window is going to be the new routine to add to our day, in which case I will be sorely irritated.

[pause]

Grace
I can't do that. Wait by it. Every day. It's different when you arrive and have your routine, and it hasn't changed since the first day. But to give someone something and take it away . . . that's not right. It just . . It isn't fair. That can't be how it's done here.

Amanda
Well. Maybe we're not where we thought we were.

Grace
[quietly]
How do you mean?

Amanda
I just . . . I'm missing something. I know I can't remember. But. There's something . . [frustrated] I don't know, I just can't stand this!

Grace
It'll be fine, Amanda, it will. We just have to wait.

Amanda
[continuing on, almost to herself, pondering]
So we can't leave. We can change something. We have to. At least to . . . to see all of our options . . .

Grace
What?

Amanda
So we don't leave any stone unturned, so to speak. [snort] That's poetry. We need to see if we're missing anything. Maybe there's something we could have done forever ago that would changed everything. And we've just been too stupid to notice.

Grace
What's your diagnosis, Doctor?

Amanda
Well, Poet . . I want to break that window.

Grace
It'll just fix itself. Like when I tried to hang wash outside instead of in the basement.

Amanda
The other window did, yeah. The inconsequential window. But this one's important. This one has meaning. And maybe . . . maybe the context around it is different.

Grace
Like a metaphor?

Amanda
Yes, Poet, thank you. Like a metaphor. Maybe we need to find a metaphor.

Grace
Maybe.

[long pause]

Amanda
So . . . I want to break it.

Lights fade.