Three One-Act Plays Read online

  That makes the news story perfect, doesn't it? The adulterous couple, the poor husband and wife—two perfectly innocent bystanders.

  HAL

  You're crazy.

  DAVID

  That's what they said about the Son of Sam.

  HAL

  Yes—so—they were right.

  JENNY

  He's flipped out.

  HAL

  But you can't kill us —we didn't do anything. I never cheated. I could have—and believe me, I wanted to.

  SANDY

  You did?

  HAL

  Well, face it, Sandy, you can be a cold fish.

  SANDY

  Me?

  HAL

  That's right—she is the opposite of Jenny—will not ever try anything new.

  SANDY

  Well, maybe if you'd romance me once in a while instead of doing everything so fast.

  HAL

  I'm only trying to get it done before the headache sets in.

  DAVID

  Shut up! Who let them in?! It's unfortunate you wandered in, but that's life—full of ironies—some of them pleasant, some rather ugly—I've never thought life was a gift—it's a burden— a sentence—cruel and unusual punishment—everybody say your prayers—

  (They huddle together as he cocks his shotgun. Suddenly they hear a noise and a man comes down the stairs. The man is tied up and gagged, apparently having gotten loose from a chair. His arms are still tied and he makes muffled, gagged sounds.)

  DAVID

  (noticing him)

  Oh no—

  SHEILA

  Oh Christ.

  NORMAN

  I thought—

  SHEILA

  Oh brother.

  JENNY

  Help! Help!

  (Hal and Sandy—one or both run to the man and take off his gag.)

  DAVID

  Don't do that—don't—oh—

  MAX

  OK—the party's over.

  SANDY

  Who are you?

  JENNY

  Who tied him up?

  DAVID

  It was Norman.

  SHEILA

  This sinks us.

  HAL

  Aren't you Mr. Krolian? I'm Hal Maxwell. I sold you this house a few years ago. Sandy, it's Max Krolian—

  MAX

  (referring to ropes)

  Get these off me.

  HAL

  (untying him)

  What's going on?

  MAX

  These wild animals—I created them—then they turned on me.

  DAVID

  Ah, you're incompetent.

  MAX

  They're from my pen.

  SANDY

  What is this?

  JENNY

  The game's up—why don't you tell 'em the truth?

  HAL

  What?

  NORMAN

  He had an idea for a play—which he was writing—

  SHEILA

  He invented us.

  DAVID

  From his fertile imagination.

  SHEILA

  He wrote half the play.

  MAX

  That's right—and I couldn't figure out where I was going with it—it wasn't coming—

  DAVID

  He was blocked.

  MAX

  Sometimes an idea seems great, but after you work on it for a while it just doesn't go anyplace.

  SHEILA

  But by then it was too late. We were born.

  DAVID

  Invented.

  MAX

  Created. I had half a play.

  HAL

  You always had a flair for creating wonderful live characters with fascinating problems and great dialogue.

  NORMAN

  So then what does he do?

  JENNY

  He gave up the idea.

  NORMAN

  He threw the half-finished play in the drawer.

  DAVID

  It's dark in the drawer.

  MAX

  What else could I do? I had no finish.

  DAVID

  I hated the goddamned drawer.

  SHEILA

  I mean, picture you and your wife in a drawer.

  JENNY

  There's nothing to do in a drawer.

  NORMAN

  It sucks.

  SHEILA

  Then Jenny got the idea that we push it open and escape into the world.

  MAX

  I thought I heard the drawer opening—by the time I turned around they were all over me.

  SANDY

  What did you think you'd do once you broke out?

  SHEILA

  We hoped we could figure out some way to finish his third act.

  NORMAN

  So we could have a life every night in theatres—forever.

  JENNY

  What's the alternative? To be half-finished in a dark drawer?

  DAVID

  I'm not going back in the drawer! I'm not going back in the drawer! I'm not going—

  (Norman slaps David.)

  MAX

  I've thought and thought—I can't figure where it goes.

  HAL

  Well, let's analyze what we've got … she discovers her sister is having an affair with her husband.

  MAX

  Who are you?

  HAL

  Hal Maxwell—I sold you—

  MAX

  The accountant?

  HAL

  I've always wanted to write a play.

  MAX

  So does everyone.

  HAL

  Why are they having an affair? What's wrong with their marriage?

  NORMAN

  I'm bored with Sheila.

  SHEILA

  Why?

  NORMAN

  I don't know.

  MAX

  Don't ask me. I'm written out.

  HAL

  Why does any husband get bored with his wife? Because with time they get too familiar. The excitement wanes—they're always together around the house—they see each other undressed—there's no more mystery—now even his secretary is sexier to him—or the next-door neighbor.

  JENNY

  That's not realistic.

  HAL

  How would you know? You're not even well written. It's very realistic—it happens all the time. Take it from me.

  SANDY

  It does?

  HAL

  I mean, freshness in marriage has to be worked on—otherwise, there's no music in a relationship, and music is everything.

  SANDY

  What if the husband was once romantic but he gradually takes the wife for granted? What used to be a relationship full of imaginative, charming surprises is now just a life together by the numbers, with them having sex but not making love.

  HAL

  I'd hardly find that a believable conflict.

  SANDY

  I think many women would identify with it.

  HAL

  Too far-out.

  SHEILA

  I think it sounds very plausible.

  JENNY

  Very close to the bone.

  SANDY

  Very.

  DAVID

  And you think it can just evaporate? Even if at one time they loved one another?

  MAX

  That's one of the sad truths of existence. Nothing in this world is permanent. Even the characters created by the great Shakespeare will, in millions of years, cease to exist—when the universe runs its course and the lights go out.

  DAVID

  Jesus, I think I'll just go back and watch Tiger Woods. The hell with it all.

  NORMAN

  That's right. What's it all mean if the cosmos breaks apart and everything finally vanishes?

  JENNY

  That's why it's important to be held and squeezed now—by anyone willing to do the squeezing.

  SHEILA

  Don't try to jus
tify screwing my husband on existential grounds.

  HAL

  What if you and David were also having an affair?

  MAX

  I thought of that, but then it starts to become silly.

  JENNY

  But if life is anything, it's silly.

  DAVID

  That's right. The philosophers call it absurd, but what they really mean is silly.

  MAX

  The problem is, it implies everyone is unfaithful, but it's not accurate.

  HAL

  But it doesn't have to be accurate if it's funny. Art is different from life.

  MAX

  Art is the mirror of life.

  HAL

  Speaking of mirrors, I always wanted to put a mirror on the ceiling over our bed, but she wouldn't go for it.

  SANDY

  It's the dumbest thing I ever heard.

  HAL

  It's sexy.

  SANDY

  It's adolescent. I want to make love, not watch two images of each other having intercourse—from that perspective I'll just see your behind going up and down.

  HAL

  Why do you always ridicule my needs? Then you wonder why I sit and daydream about Holly Fox.

  SANDY

  Just don't tell her your mirror idea, she'll burst out laughing.

  HAL

  If you must know, we've done it in front of a mirror.

  SANDY

  In your fantasies.

  HAL

  In your bathroom.

  SANDY

  What?

  DAVID

  Aha! This is a juicier story than ours.

  HAL

  Not that I loved her or that we had an affair or anything. It was a one-shot deal.

  SANDY

  You and Holly Fox?

  HAL

  What are you acting so surprised? You've accused me of it jokingly for two years.

  SANDY

  I was joking.

  HAL

  There are no jokes. Freud said that.

  SHEILA

  That's my line.

  SANDY

  Besides, you always swore she didn't appeal to you.

  HAL

  That's right, I swore—I held up my right hand—I'm an agnostic.

  NORMAN

  Be reasonable, Sandy. No husband admits to having slept with another woman.

  SANDY

  He just did.

  MAX

  That's why my wife left me. That's why I bought your house to live alone and keep out of the rat race of romantic relationships. I was having an affair with my wife's mother.

  NORMAN

  My God—why isn't that in our story—it's great.

  MAX

  Because no one would believe it. Her father was a well-known film star—well, I don't have to tell you—he divorced her biological mother and married their au pair girl—so my wife now had a mother ten years younger than she.

  JENNY

  A stepmother.

  MAX

  It's semantics—meanwhile I was boffing her.

  DAVID

  So you're also cheating on your father-in-law.

  MAX

  That's OK because he was a shoe fetishist who could only get aroused if Prada was having a sale.

  SHEILA

  This does strain credulity.

  MAX

  My wife's mother kept a diary. Very graphic. Our intimacies— our lovemaking. Details. Names. She thought it romantic. One night my wife said to her, I'm going to the Hamptons tomorrow—I need a good book for the beach. Thinking it was her leather-bound volume of Henry James, she mistakenly gave her the leather-bound diary. I was with my wife when she read it on the beach. A change came over her—a physical change— like when the full moon comes out in a Wolfman movie.

  HAL

  So that's where you got the idea.

  NORMAN

  What'd you do?

  MAX

  What could I do? I denied it.

  NORMAN

  What'd she do?

  MAX

  She tried to drown herself. She ran into the ocean but only succeeded in getting stung by a jellyfish. It made her lips swell up. Suddenly with those big lips she looked sexy, and I fell back in love with her. Of course, when the swelling went down she got on my nerves again.

  HAL

  Well, I wasn't having an affair—mine was a onetime thing. At our New Year's Eve party. Everyone was downstairs drinking, partying—I happened to walk past your bathroom upstairs, Holly was in it and asked if we had any Q-tips, so I went in to help her find them, closed the door and did it with her.

  DAVID

  Why did she need Q-tips?

  JENNY

  What's the difference!?

  NORMAN

  Who cares about the goddamn Q-tips?

  SANDY

  They'd been making eyes at each other for months.

  HAL

  That's pure projection. You were the one with big eyes for her brother.

  SANDY

  If you were more perceptive you would have known I had no interest in Ken Fox.

  HAL

  No?

  SANDY

  No. If I ever would have strayed at all it would have been with Howard Nadleman.

  HAL

  Nadleman? The real estate agent?

  SANDY

  Howard Nadleman knows how to make a woman feel her sexuality.

  HAL

  What does that mean?

  SANDY

  Nothing.

  HAL

  You had a one-night stand with Howard Nadleman?

  SANDY

  No.

  HAL

  Thank God for that.

  SANDY

  We had a long romance.

  HAL

  You had a romance with Howard Nadleman?

  SANDY

  Yes, I did.

  HAL

  Don't deny it.

  SANDY

  As long as we're coming clean, I may as well be honest too.

  HAL

  A minute ago you said, “if I ever would have strayed at all,” implying you never strayed.

  SANDY

  I can't live this lie anymore. With all due respect to you, I've been sleeping with Howard Nadleman.

  DAVID

  Go, Nadleman!

  HAL

  Don't make me laugh.

  SANDY

  I've always loved you, Hal—you know that. But what does a person do when the romance fades—when the passion drains away and you still love and respect your spouse—you cheat on him.

  NORMAN

  That's what I was trying to explain to Sheila.

  HAL

  How many times did you sleep with Howard?

  SANDY

  Do numbers ever really tell you anything?

  HAL

  Yes, I'm an accountant.

  SANDY

  Let's put it this way—I don't go for psychoanalysis.

  HAL

  You mean—all those Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays—

  SANDY

  There is no Doctor Fineglass.

  HAL

  And I thought your depression was lifting.

  SANDY

  It was.

  HAL

  But a hundred and sixty dollars an hour?

  SANDY

  That was for the hotel rooms.

  HAL

  I was paying for your hotel rooms three days a week with Howard Nadleman all year?

  SANDY

  Didn't you notice it was strange I had the only shrink who didn't take August off?

  DAVID

  It turns out their life is the farce, not ours.

  SHEILA

  The farce, or is it tragedy?

  NORMAN

  Why is it tragedy?

  SHEILA

  It's a sorry situation—two people who must've loved one another at one time—obviously still do—but the initial excitement drains from the
ir marriage …

  JENNY

  But no one can sustain that first rush of excitement.

  DAVID

  That's right—we settle in—the sexual passion is replaced by other things—shared experiences—children—beastiality.

  HAL

  Is it still going on with you and Nadleman?

  SANDY

  No—remember some months ago he suffered a brain concussion?

  HAL

  Yes—he's never been the same—how did it happen?

  SANDY

  The mirror on the ceiling over the bed fell on him.

  HAL

  Oh God! Him and not me!

  DAVID

  I'll tell you why their situation is farce—because they're pathetic. They lack tragic stature. What is he, an accountant? And she's a housewife. This is not Hamlet or Medea.

  HAL

  Oh please—you don't have to be a prince to suffer—there's millions of people out there every bit as tortured as Hamlet. They're Hamlet on Prozac.

  SANDY

  And jealous as Medea.

  MAX

  Therefore, what can I conclude? Everybody has their dark secrets, their longings, their lusts, their awful needs—so if life is to continue one must choose to forgive.

  NORMAN

  And that's where our play should go. So I took a momentary fancy to your sister—big deal—so maybe you should write it so that Sheila and David once spent a passionate night together—so we all learn each other's pathetic shortcomings and we forgive each other.

  JENNY

  Yes. And the audience laughs at all of us and they escape from their own sad lives for a brief moment and then we kiss and make up.

  MAX

  Forgiveness—it gives this little sex farce dimension and heart.

  SHEILA

  That's right. Who am I to judge others and throw away years of closeness and love because my husband the dentist was drilling my sister?

  JENNY

  We'll change—we'll make amends. Where there's life there's hope.

  SANDY

  But how is forgiveness different than just sweeping all your problems under the rug?

  MAX

  It's much grander—it takes a bigger person—forgiveness is divine.

  JENNY

  And maybe it's the same but it sounds better.

  MAX

  I like it—it's funny, it's sad, and best of all, it's commercial. Come—let's go to my study so I can complete the third act while it's all fresh—I feel my writer's block lifting. The key word is “commercial”—I'm sorry, “forgiveness”—the key word is “forgiveness.”

  (They go upstairs together. The Maxwells look at each other.)

  HAL

  I don't think I can forgive you, Sandy.

  SANDY

  No. Nor I, you.

  HAL

  I don't know why. I know Max Krolian is right—he's a deep playwright.

  SANDY

  It's easy to forgive in fiction—the author can manipulate reality. And as you say, Krolian's a clever craftsman.

  HAL

  I can't believe you had a long affair with Howard Nadleman— he was probably getting even with me for the audit.