Людмила Ансельм - Короткие пьесы

MA: So?

BOB: I don’t know the last part of the alphabet, so I built a pyramid out of the blocks…

MA: I’ve got a son who doesn’t want to learn and I have to go to school!

… Have you started that report you have to hand in Tuesday?

BOB: No, but…

MA: Emma won’t call you!

BOB: Why?

MA: When I was a little girl I studied hard and liked boys who were good in school. And you are just a… You just have to learn…

BOB: All you say is study, study… you forget that now it’s spring…

(For change the theme) Ma, tell me better how you met my father…

(Pause)

MA: That was a long time ago… in Russia… I don’t remember.

BOB: But I want to know something about my father…You loved him?

(Pause)

MA: Yes, I loved him…

BOB: Was he your first love?

MA: First, no! When I was in school there was the boy that I liked, all the girls liked him too…

(Pause)

BOB: Did he like you?

(Pause)

MA: No.

BOB: So nothing happened?

MA: Something…

BOB: What?

MA: I wrote him a letter saying how much I liked him… and he told everybody that he was my “Heart Throb”.

BOB: And then?

MA: The whole class laughed at me.

BOB: And you?

MA: I cried.

BOB (sympathizing): All saw you cry?

MA: I cried at home… But I went to school after that… And learned all my lessons…

BOB: What happened after that?

MA: I graduated that spring and went to work…

BOB: And? Where did you meet my father?

MA: We worked in the same place.

(Ma laughs to herself)

BOB: Why are you laughing?

MA: I just remembered how we met.

BOB: How?

MA: We all ate lunch in the same cafeteria. When I saw him the first time I thought, “He’s for me”, but he walked right by. He didn’t notice me. So I set out to try. I jumped in back of him in line. He put a bowl of soup on his tray. I quickly hit his tray with mine. His soup spilled all over his tray. He glanced at me and wanted to swear, but then I took the exact same soup as his. We sat at the same table and traded soups. That’s how our friendship started.

BOB (laughing admiringly): You were quick! And then?

MA: He asked me to a movie…

BOB: Afterwards?

MA: He asked me to walk in the park… We sat on a bench and kissed…

BOB: Then?

MA: After a couple of months I moved into his apartment.

BOB: Why?

MA: I was pregnant with you.

BOB: Why did you split up? I want to know why I don’t have a father now. What happened? He cheated you?

(Pause)

MA: Firstly he сheated you…

(Pause)

BOB: How?

MA: The cad had no interest in you and… me… You were born in a Maternity Hospital. All the fathers waited at a big window to see their babies. I waited with you in my arms all week, but he never came to see you… It turned out that he had met another woman!

BOB: What did you do?

MA: When I was let out of the hospital I went right home to my parents not to his apartment.

BOB: You saw him?

MA: Soon he got a job in another factory. I never saw him again…

(Pause)

BOB: Ma how did you live through it?

MA: You helped me…

BOB: How?

MA: You were always with me…

BOB: And what was happened then?

MA: And then… I grab you in my arms and went to America…

(Pause)

BOB: Ma, did my father ever give you flowers?

MA: Yes! I remember once we walked past a fence in front of beautiful lilacs. He climbed over the fence and pickled me a bouquet. Bowing, he gave them to me. I put them on my bedside table. Oh how wonderful the lilacs smelled.

BOB: That’s why you love lilacs?

(Pause)

MA: Probably… then…

BOB: Ma! Look out the window!

(Ma pulls back the curtains)

MA: Oh! What beautiful stars!

BOB: I was afraid so.

(Peter sits almost crying)

MA (sympathizing): BOB, call Emma and find out what happened…

(Peter dials and waits)

Peter: Hello! Hello Emma. Why didn’t you call me? We agreed to see “Spiderman” tonight…

(Peter listens. Then slowly puts the receiver down. He sadly sits down)

MA (sympathizing): What’d she say?

(Pause)

BOB (almost crying): She forgot…

MA (indignant): She forgot! When I was a little girl I never forgot to go to a movie…

(Looked at BOB)

BOB, I’m sorry!

BOB: Oh Ma! I feel hollow! Like there is nothing left in the world for me? Nothing seems real although you are acting like nothing happened.

(Pause)

MA: OK! Give me the phone I’ll call Aunt Gail.

(Pause)

BOB: Don’t call Aunt Gail.

MA: I still can’t use the phone?

BOB: Ma, I took $10 from you.

MA: How could you… after I gave you $30 for the movies and popcorn?

BOB: I’ll give you all the money back.

MA (angrily): You know what that’s called? Why did you take $10 more?

BOB: I wanted to buy Emma a bouquet of flowers on the way home from the movies…

(Pause)

Here… I don’t need it now.

(BOB hands 4 ten-dollar bills to Ma. She doesn’t take the money. With eyes full of tears she hugs BOB)

MA: Give me 10 dollars and the last money leave yourself… You would go to a movie with another girl…

BOB (teary): I would like to go with Emma…

MA: Don’t be so sad… There are a lot of girls around you… I believe you will find another…

(Pause)

BOB (very sadly): Ma, why does no one loves us?

(Pause)

MA (crying): BOB, I love you… We love each other… Come closer… I’m so happy that you are my son, that I have you…

(BOB hugs Ma. They are sitting close on the sofa. BOB switches on music. They quietly listen to music)

THE END

ANNA— wife. Middle aged Woman, brunet.

MIKe – husband. Middle aged man.

ELLEN— mistress. Young woman 20–30 year old petit, blonde (or black hair ref. pg).

Time current. 4 AM…

A simple doorframe and threshold stands between a garage door and a room with a couch.

Enter drunk Mike from the door to garage, shoes in hand he is trying to sneak into the house silently, but his way is suddenly barred by Anna who, with legs apart, and each arm outstretched straight right and left from her sides forming a cross in front of the door frame.

ANNA (shouts): Stop right there! (Quieter) Where you have been? Its four o’clock.

MIKE (slurred, dully): Something sin-gu-lar-ly unusual happened.

ANNA: What unusual story now?

MIKE: Let me in.

ANNA: I repeat… what’s so unusual; I haven’t slept at all.

MIKE (with growing enthusiasm): Anna, you know…there was a tornado!

ANNA (admitting Mike): A tornado…here?

(Mike takes off his jacket, walks into the room and sits on the couch His jacket falls on the floor)

MIKE: A tornado can be a very small, whirlwind. (Waxing eloquent). It sucks you up, and up and it carries you to heaven knows where. It just lifts you, and doesn’t let you go…

ANNA: Ok, Ok… Mike, and where were you so blissfully carried?

(Pause)

MIKE (eagerly): I was lucky. I was in the car; the storm went right across in front of me… A tree fell across the road. I turned around and started to come home another way… But, I kept getting lost.

ANNA (mockingly): And how much time did you spend lost?

MIKE: A couple of hour’s maybe.

ANNA: Suppose then that you left work at eight, drove a half-hour, got in the storm, and were lost two hours. You would have been home long ago…

MIKE: But the tornado made a flood… (muddling his words). I was afraid. The car died… Finally the water went down and the car started.

Mike falls asleep

ANNA: What road? The only road that goes near a lake that I know of is in the Littleton area.

MIKE (sleepily): There…I…was… once in Littleton…

ANNA: (shaking Mike by the shoulders) What did you do there? How come you were in Littleton?

MIKE: Let me sleep… in three hours I have to be at work…(snores).

ANNA: Why were you in Littleton? I won’t let you sleep! Why were you there?

MIKE (eyes closed): Ah you… know? It’s the same… just… Oh, think what ever you want…

(Mike falls asleep. Anna covers Mike with a blanket, and picks up his jacket from the floor. A cell phone falls from the jacket pocket. Anna picks up the cell phone. She neatly lays the jacket on the sofa beside Mike. She then falls asleep, beside Mike with the phone in her hand… Pause, lights change… the phone rings. Anna awakens opens the phone and listens. Ellen’s voice is heard on the cell speakerphone.)

ELLEN: Mike, Mike, hello.

ANNA (into the phone): Hello…

ELLEN (non-paused): Who? Who is this?

(Pause)

ANNA(not very confidently): Police…The Police…

ELLEN (shocked): Who?

ANNA: Police! We have just come to an accident… This phone was lying on the ground.

ELLEN: Accident? (Crest fallen) What happened?

ANNA: Toyota…red…hit a tree.

ELLEN (worried): Driver… The driver? How’s the driver?

ANNA: A man… slumped… window’s open…We’ll soon find out.

ELLEN (crying): He left me an hour ago. He promised to call when he got home. He had a couple of beers.

ANNA (gloating): He can’t call. He is motionless…

ELLEN: I’m really sort of to blame. He didn’t want to come. I really…

ANNA (very interested): Where didn’t he want to go?

ELLEN: To Littleton. Where is the accident?

ANNA: Half way between Acton and Littleton.

ELLEN (muttering to herself): Why did I make him come? I wanted a decision! (Suddenly stops crying). I’m getting in my car. I’ll be there in a minute.

ANNA (insistently): What decision?

ELLEN (suspects she is talking to MIKE ‘s wife. She suspiciously and slowly says): Divorce.

ANNA (changed tone of voice): What divorce?

ELLEN: I’ve been driving. I’m between Acton and Littleton. So far there is no accident.

ANNA: I ask you, what divorce?

ELLEN (she wants to keep Anna talking. Now a much more confidant tone): Listen! He has thought about a divorce for a long time. He hasn’t been able to decide, and then this evening he said, “Many can’t divorce their grandmothers, but I’ll try to night”. What do you say about that?

ANNA: What grandmother?

ELLEN: That’s what he calls… y… his wife…grandmother…

ANNA: Why?

ELLEN: She is older than him…