Thursday, August 26, 2010

Man of the House

(Wednesday night. Spotlight opens on LUKE who is sitting in his recliner in the living room watching TV. The television program is paused as he waits for his wife VALERIE to finish a telephone conversation. An image of the actor making an unpleasant face is frozen on the TV and LUKE cannot decide whether to stare at it or look away.

After staying idle for too long, the TV goes into power save mode and now just shows a blank screen. VALERIE, still talking on the phone, ignores a bell ringing in the kitchen. WALTER, a spry looking beagle, patiently waits by the back door to be let outside after ringing his bell. LUKE looks at VALERIE motioning for her to let the dog out. VALERIE ignores LUKE. Exasperated, LUKE gets up to let WALTER out. As LUKE is getting out of the recliner, he hears a loud popping sound coming from the bottom of the chair. LUKE gets on the floor in order to look for an obstruction beneath the chair. Meanwhile, the bell rings again and WALTER lets out a pitiful moan.

LUKE lets WALTER out and retrieves a flashlight to further investigate the recliner. He immediately hears WALTER barking at what he can only assume is a neighborhood cat and shakes his head in disgust. Back in the living room, LUKE directs VALERIE, still on the phone, into the chair so he can check for the popping source with someone in it. VALERIE rocks back and forth while LUKE presses his head against the carpet shining the flashlight underneath the recliner.

LUKE notices a spring rubbing against the wood in the inner workings of the recliner. LUKE flips the chair over on order to see if the problem can be easily remedied. LUKE sweeps away the collection of dust and pet hair with his hands only to find that the metal bracket holding the spring to the chair has broken. He points at his discovery in order to show VALERIE, still on the phone, who gives him an "I told you so" look for letting the kids play on the chair.

Defeated, LUKE flips the chair upright and goes to let the barking WALTER back into the house. WALTER darts ahead of him as LUKE walks back to the living room. Entering the room, LUKE sees that WALTER is now in his recliner and VALERIE, off the phone, has the remote and is now watching one of those pregnancy shows on Discovery Health. LUKE goes to bed.)

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Cletus & Marta

A large sonic boom is heard, shakes the dining room where Cletus and Marta,  Appalachian peasants, are eating boiled peanuts and potatoes by candle light.
Cletus looks at Marta with big eyes and Marta shrugs as if to say she doesn't know what that boom could have been.  Cletus takes his rifle and axe off the mantlepiece, face shadowed and flickering in the candlelight, and opens the front door and exits.
Marta swallows hard and puts down her spork.  She yells for Cletus.  A gunshot is heard and Marta throws her plate at the door, suggesting that she doesn't like Cletus being an axe and gun owner.
Cletus opens the door and steps in, breathing hard, letting the axe and rifle fall to the floor, and proudly holds out the small head of a pygmy tribesman for Marta to see.
Marta looks at it with a disgusted frown.
A thunderstorm starts outside.
Cletus hurls the head onto the wooden table with the satisfied look of someone who killed an evil gnome alien creeping around the forest.
Marta's arms fly up in disbelief and goes stage right and tears a flyer from the cork board and throws it at him.
Cletus looks at the flyer.  He can't read, but his eyes devour pictures of a circus tent, an elephant vs. mouse show, a man-voiced woman operetta, a crab-filled wheel barrow race and .... pygmy tribesmen baring all!
Cletus looks at the head on the table and then at Marta.  Marta explains with her eyes that the circus managers would notice the missing pygmy and consequently investigate, and did he know how much it cost to transport a pygmy to Appalachia?
Cletus closes his eyes, wondering why people just didn't stay where they were born.
Grumbling, he goes back outside in the rain to retrieve the small body and throws it to his goat while Marta pokes the pygmy head with Cletus's spork.
Marta's eyes lock onto the window opposite her.  She thinks she sees something.   The pine trees are moving in the rain and wind.   Then she jumps up, hand to heart, for she sees a spritely pygmy dart past.  She screams for Cletus.  She runs like an ape to the door and bolts it.  
Cletus bangs on the door, crying.
Marta opens it quickly and he enters, an arrow piercing his heart.  Cletus falls on the floor with a heaping thud.  Marta pulls out the arrow as Cletus mumbles something about being such a rotten husband all those years and he begged her for forgiveness as he becomes motionless after a whole body twitch.  
Marta closes his eyes with a solemn hand,  then swings open the door and calls out joyously 'TIM KTAK!'
A pygmy enters, eyes darting around for danger, and she picks him up, draping him over her shoulder like a bride.  Marta exits, the pygmy's face beaming and giggly the final and parting visual.
It is implied that they live happily ever after with the traveling circus.

Monday, August 16, 2010

"Bored" Games

Saturday evening. Spotlight opens on a small wooden kitchen table with a scrabble board set up for two players. Spotlight widens slowly to include two kitchen chairs occupied by an older woman, Sandy, and her daughter, Sarah. They sit quietly studying the game board and the tiles in front of them from opposite sides of the table.

After a few minutes of silence, Sarah begins to drum her fingers impatiently, as her mother touches one tile, then another. At last, Sandy carefully chooses a tile and begins to place it on the board. She hesitates, then slowly withdraws the tile, placing it carefully back on her rack. Sarah sighs loudly and pushes away from the table, scraping her chair noisily against the tile floor. Her mother looks up, distracted momentarily, then returns to the game.

Sarah walks over to a small kitchen cart. Spotlight widens to follow her movements. She removes a bottle of wine from an ice bucket placed on top of the cart, and begins to open the bottle with a clumsy cork screw. The cork squeaks as it loosens and pops from the bottle. Again her mother is distracted, but simply smiles, shakes her head, and returns to the game. Sarah pours a small amount of the golden liquid into a wine glass, looks over at her mother, rolls her eyes dramatically, and fills the glass to the brim. She returns to the table, sipping noisily, and slumps into the chair across from her mother.

Sandy touches another tile and Sarah leans forward in anticipation, but again her mother withdraws her hand and places it under her chin, looking up and smiling across the table innocently. Sarah looks pointedly at her watch. Her mother simply shrugs. A full minute of silence passes between them. Again Sarah pushes back her chair and begins to wander about the immediate stage as if appreciating the kitchen decor. She ambles slowly over to the area directly behind her mother. Sandy bends protectively over her tile rack shielding the letters from her daughters view.

Insulted by the implication that she had been trying to cheat, Sarah stomps back to her side of the table, grabs the bag of unused tiles and shakes them vigorously in front of her mothers face. Startled, her mother jumps up overturning the table and spilling the game board and the tiles onto the floor.

The two women stand face to face glaring at each other until both suddenly break into uncontrollable laughter. Sandy goes to the kitchen cart, removes the wine bottle from the ice bucket, clinks it against her daughters half empty glass, and begins to drink straight from the bottle. With a wicked gleam in her eye she raises the bottle in a mocking salute and states triumphantly. "I win."

My appologies to Jeff for breaking the no dialog rule.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

August topic: My life as a stage direction.

Take any aspect of your life - your daily schedule, a hobby, a recent telephone conversation, an incident that happened to you the other day - and describe it as a stage direction in a play. No dialogue.

Here's an example:

(Sunday evening. SPOTLIGHT POPS on JEFF, who is sitting in a recliner in his bedroom typing on his computer. He's having difficulty concentrating. He's on a writing deadline, yet his attention is diverted toward a show on the TV - a series set in New York City in the early 1960's advertising world. His arm is still sore from spraining it on Friday and he can't seem to zero in on the best way to simulate a rainstorm for his play reading in the fall. He hears his brother's dogs barking. Someone must be at the door. The knocking continues and no one answers the door. JEFF gets up and runs downstairs and finds the house empty - mother, father and brother - gone. He goes out onto the porch and finds his parents and brother milling around, pointing to the street. A car ran off the street and hit a light pole. That's why the dogs were barking. JEFF goes back into the house. He still has that writing deadline to finish. And the TV show. And that arm still aches...)

Sort of like that. But more exciting. Make sure you italicize your stage directions.