[ A young 23 year old man sits on the steps outside his house while his older 37 year old wife leans on the window to the right of him ]
Heather: So what are your plans for today then Hun?
Mark: The same as the last two months. Get up, eat , go to bed.
Heather: Stop exaggerating. Thought you wanted to go out somewhere.
Mark: Well I wanted to go out but I guess I can’t.
Heather: Why not?
Mark: You bloody well know why!
Heather: No I don’t!
Mark: To go out somewhere you need somewhere to go and someone to go with. In this isolated place I have no friends and I see you every minute of the bleeding day so no point going anywhere with you is there.
Heather: There’s no point getting angry at me. You wanted to move out here just as much as I did.
[ He gets up and takes a few paces forward ]
Mark: No I didn’t. It was you who wanted to move out here. I just wanted to make you happy but you’re still complaining.
Heather: Darling I am happy.
Mark: No you’re not. You’re constantly nagging me.
Heather: Im just trying to make sure your happy too.
Mark: Well im not. I hate this place. I cant even get a decent job out here. You’ve got your job that’s the reason we moved out here to get closer to your job. That’s the only reason.
Heather: No we moved out here to start the family we were planning for three years.
Mark: A family of what; cows?
Heather: No need for the tantrums.
Mark: Tantrums? You sound like my bleeding mo…
Heather: Your what? Carry on!
Mark: Fine. You sound like my bleeding mother. Always nagging me and telling me what to do and what not to do.
Heather: Well maybe if you acted more like a man instead of a lousy kid I wouldn’t have to treat you like one.
Mark: Oh god now you sound like dad.
Heather: Well one of us has to be the strong one.
[ He walks back to his wife and leans on the window next to her ]
Mark: You know what… Dad was right. You are to old for me. I don’t think i love you anymore . I dont think i ever did.
Heather: Oh don’t be silly. Just because you’re angry doesn’t mean you need to say things you’re going to regret.
Mark: The only thing I regret is lusting after you. The older woman.This isn’t how I want my life to be. The dogs the only one thats happy. Looks like he’s having the time of his life. I want to be like him. Free.
[ He stares at his wife, sighs and walks inside the house with his head hanging down ]
Hi Yaz
ReplyDeleteI really liked the domestic intensity of tis. I thought that you didn't need Mark's lines to LOOK different to Heather's, because at first, I thought he was thinking those lines, not saying them. Having them angled like that seemed in an odd way to quieten his voice.
The big thing in this for me is keeping the tension going - which you do throughout, mostly. You do not need to have Mark tell Heather she nags him - just show this by what she says. The same when she says he is a kid - just show him behaving as a kid by what he says. We will then realise that she behaves as a mother and he as a child by what they say to each other. You actually do this when you have Mark say that he hates where they live and they only moved there because of Heather's job and she replies that they moved out there to start a family.
And when he accuses her of sounding like his mum, well you have another opportunity to show this to him and to us by what she says to him, not by having him telling us this fact.
And your ending can be made stronger if he realises and makes obvious to the audience that he doesn't love her any more, but doesn't tell her.directly. It could be as if the realisation just hit him.
I think if you looked at showing us these realisations instead of telling them to us then you will have a much stronger piece of work.
Hope this helps
Best wishes
ann g
I agree completely. I found this eminently readable and quite compelling, and the unbearably taught domesticity of the whole scene was very strong indeed.
ReplyDeleteBut transforming this into something exceptional would come from SUBTLETY. Hint at things rather than feeling the need to say them explicitly - be it that she nags him or that he loves her no more. I think it was the poet Auden who said, "Poetry is the art of SUGGESTION", but I reckon that all writing works best at that subtle, insinuating level, otherwise we feel the work is being done for us by the writer, and no one, really, likes that...