Людмила Ансельм - Короткие пьесы
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
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?
MICHAEL: Maybe….I like to read to you… I like to play with you… I love you. (Pause) We’ll get different kinds of power from each other… Like Harry Potter has powers beyond anybody else…
PETER: What kind of powers?
MICHAEL: Who knows? So much happens that we don’t understand…
(PETER has been getting more and more unsettled.)
Peter, what do you want to ask me about? What’s the matter?
PETER: I don’t it like when you pick me up at school!
MICHAEL: Why not?
PETER: When you started to come, the mothers and babysitters hurried my friends away. (Pause) Yesterday Andy and Zack didn’t let me play with them. Today they pushed me around and called me “fairy!”… I want a babysitter like all the other kids.
MICHAEL: I’d better talk to your teacher…
PETER (Beginning to cry): No! No! You can’t go to school… No don’t talk to Mr. Allen
MICHAEL (nervously): Peter, OK… Don’t cry… I only want to help you… Soon your Dad will come and he’ll see your tears… I promise not to go to school…
PETER (Stops crying): I can take care of myself. (Pause) I think your razor is in my room…
(MICHAEL, relieved and smiling, exits. PETER pushes the old drawing aside and starts a new drawing.
MICHAEL (beginning to cry): Peter! I don’t see it!
PETER: Where are you?
MICHAEL: I’m by your table.
PETER: Cold.
MICHAEL: Now I’m standing near your bed…
PETER: Warmer!
MICHAEL: Here it is. It was under your pillow!
(We hear the razor running as PETER concentrates on drawing. MICHAEL returns with the razor running he shouts over the razor noise.)
Up to your old tricks again? I won’t have time to shower… I’ll just change my shirt then I’ll set the table.
(He turns the razor off.)
I have a nice pot roast and in the oven. What do you want for dessert?
PETER: Key lime pie.
(MICHAEL suddenly peers at PETER’s drawing.)
MICHAEl: What’s this?
PETER: It’s you.
MICHAEL: But I shaved off my beard.
PETER: I drew it from memory.
MICHAEL: Why my portrait?
PETER: To take to school and give to Mr. Allen. (PETER is watching Michael with a smile)
MICHAEL: What for?
PETER: I’ll tell him… you are kind of my mother… do you think the teacher will understand me?
MICHAEL: Mr. Alen will understand you, but your friends will not understand.
PETER: I don’t know what to do?
MICHAEL: Don’t cry. I have idea. Your father has black hair, but you are blond. I think you are like your mother. You could paint your face with long hair and say to Mr. Alen that this is your mother.
PETER: This is idea, thank you. And you could take your portrait for the idea.
MICHAEL: Thank you, I will nail it in my room… I love you…
THE END
FATHER’S DAY
DADDY: 40 years old
SARA: 15 year old daughter
DADDY sits at kitchen table. He just wearing socks. He’s sipping a beer, he appears sort of depressed. There is a news paper, but he is looking at a picture of a middle aged woman. There is a pile of neatly folded laundry on the edge of the table.
There is the sound of footsteps. He sighs kisses the picture and puts the picture down. SARA flounces in texting on her cellphone. She throws off her backpack full of books.
DADDY: Hi Princess… Why Late? Heavy backpack!
SARA: Bio today. That book is the heaviest. Field hocky went late..
DADDY: I was missing you!
SARA: You’re missing Mom.
DADDY: You’re getting pretty. Like your Mom. All the men used to look at her.
SARA: Daddy! Mom again?
DADDY: She died two years ago tomorrow…
SARA (looking at the photo of her mother) I know…. I still have dreams about her.
DADDY: I wish you knew more about her.
SARA: (running stage left) I want a Coke. (finds one). When are you going to start buying me some beer? (Sara finally looking at the pile of clothes). Wow! You’ve been doing laundry! (prepares to leave again)
DADDY: Went to Market Basket too. We were running low…out of Diet Coke…… Where are you going?
SARA: To the library. (sneaks a pill from the backpack and swallows)…Ashley will help me with Geometry.….
DADDY (sees her take the pill): I thought we had stopped the pills… What’s going on? I thought you were better.
SARA: I am… Today, Mr. Gordon said that both boys and girls have more active hormones…. We’re not children anymore!
DADDY: But lying in bed all day. Refusing to go to school… That’s more than hormones… I’ll make another appointment with Doctor Knowles.
SARA: No! No! I don’t need a doctor! No! I’m cool!
DADDY: Your cool mood frightens me even more… Knowles called me afterwards and said you appeared somewhat manic depressive…
SARA: Manic Depressive?
DADDY; Your very good moods suddenly turn to black depression for no apparent reason.
SARA: Daddy, I have nothing like that!
DADDY: Sara, why are you so moody? What’s going on? I’ve been thinking it was because of you’re mother’s death.
SARA: (looking at her mothers picture) I still think about her… I get sad… (looks at her father) But Mom is not my problem. Daddy, I’ve really got to get to the library.
(Starts to get up and puts on lipstick)
DADDY: Tell me what you think the problem is… I want to know.
SARA: I’m in a hurry…
DADDY: Tell me, and then you can go.
SARA: Why do you always want to talk when I’m in a hurry?
Daddy: Tell me! (Pause) Help me…
SARA: OK… because of Skip…
