(A couple sitting on a sofa facing away from each other, looking at a blank screen. The room is a bit dark and there is some light shinning from the window.)
Kate: Oh yes, I love watching a blank screen. It makes the television look…much nicer.
Jay: Well darling, it wasn’t exactly my fault. I’m missing my football, I wonder what the score is now.
Kate: Of course it wasn’t. It wasn't you who poured your glass of beer on the television. Now it's broken, so can we go out to dinner, then?
Jay: Hmm…no I think I want to stay here.
Kate: And do what? You can’t even watch football. It’s a good thing you can’t though because that is all you ever do.
Jay: And all you ever do is look at yourself in the mirror.
Kate: Looks like you love the blank screen more than me.
Jay: Wow, this is really interesting. Never thought looking at a blank screen would be so amazing.
Kate: Hmm...yes dear, so wonderful. Isn't it? Do you love me?
Jay: Yeah I love you.
Kate: Look at me and say it then.
Jay: Don’t you just love looking at this blank screen? I think it’s so much better than watching football.
Kate: Hmm…Yeah. But I thought football was your life. Guess it’s not anymore, is it?
Jay: You still want to go out to dinner?
Kate: Yes. (pause) Actually no, I don’t feel like eating.
Jay: Oh okay. We’ll just stay here.
Kate: I don’t feel like sitting here, on this sofa and watching a blank screen with you.
Jay: Do what you like, darling.
Kate: Alright. I’m going to bed. Are you coming?
Jay: Yeah, I’ll be there in a few minutes.
Kate: Suit yourself. Your football is not going to come on.
Jay: I know, darling. Watching the blank screen, makes me happy.
Kate: Oh…goodnight.
Hey,
ReplyDeleteI like the premise with this. Again you have an object at the focus of your drama, so good stuff there, and your dialogue sounds natural without being boring. You establish the scene quickley too, which is ace.
Maybe a line or so of direction, to give us more of an introduction to the scene, would work well. Just something about the place and the appearance of the protagonists. Your use of indicators and the rest of your formating is flawless as far as I can tell. Well done.
Nice work with the shifing voices of the two protagonists - I like that you open the woman's enjoying the blank screen at the man's expense to the man's enjoying it and ignoring her at the end. It's subtle and well thought out. As in you previous work you show an adeptness towards narrative devices that is really impressive.
I think that although your not over explaining things works well, you could include a little bit more around the part where Jay says 'it wasn't exactly my fault.' You could set out in a line or two the fact that the TV broke - maybe (and I'm assuming this is the direction you're hinting towards) you could have him a bit inquisitive about how she found the TV broken.
Just for picky things:
- I don't know if you're being told differently, and fair enough if that's so, but I would try not to use any semi-colons, colons or anyhthing else that would freak an actor out.
- I think maybe the fact that he loves the blank screen more than her is made too explicit with the 'yes I do' line (unless it's an aside, and then it's funny, and really cruel). I think you could take the evasiveness you've shown later with the 'don't you just love looking at this blank screen?' and use something similar towards her question.
-You've put 'makes me feel relax' which I know you would have spotted, but just in case :)
My only other suggestion would be to maybe include something about the staging of the scene, specifically whether the actors are facing towards or away from the audience - whether we are the TV or whether we're watching the blank screen with them (maybe whether we can see the actors at all, or whether they're on the audience, and a blank screen is on stage).
That's some stuff to try anyway, but know that you've produced another strong piece. As ever well done, and good luck with the next text. Take care,
Andy
Thank you so much for the comments you made, Andy. :)
ReplyDeleteI really liked your piece I don't know what you were complaining about K.
ReplyDeleteI love the set-up here; you have created a wonderful scenario for your 'tiny play', and it has SO much potential.
ReplyDeleteWhat you've written would be EVEN better with a slightly more surprising/powerful ending though, as your conclusion left me slightly disappointed, after such a strong scene up to then...
Dear Angel
ReplyDeleteThis concept works well – it’s interesting to throw us straight into a scene that follows AFTER a dramatic event (ie the tv being broken), it immediately makes the audience curious about what the lead-up to it was, and start imagining what happened previously.
It gives a good sense of what the problems are in this relationship, that there are a lot of things in the background that are being brought up here, eg he thinks she’s self-obsessed, she thinks he doesn’t care about her. This mostly comes across in subtle ways, rather than just making the characters say ‘you’re vain!’, ‘you don’t love me!’ etc, which is good. A few bits where I think you could be even subtler, trust that your audience will figure things out, e.g. ‘now it’s broken’ – once we here he’s poured beer on it, we get why they’re sitting there in front of a blank screen. I think it's good to resist the urge to 'tidy things up' for the audience too much - it's always nice to have some loose ends that we can play with in our heads! So for example I think Jay's last line would make a more powerful ending than the response of 'oh. goodnight.' which seems a bit of an anticlimax.
You might consider putting in a few directions in terms of tone – for the most part it’s pretty obvious when the characters are being sarcastic, but if you want to play with the tension of the scene more you could add things like for example ‘Kate (trying to keep her cool):….’ Or ‘Jay (through clenched teeth):’, ‘Kate (almost shouting)’ etc.
Keep it up!
Claire
Thank you so much for the comments.
ReplyDelete