Alysse Aallyn

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  • Rough Sleep – a play by Alysse Aallyn

    In the Dream Lab

    CHASE

    I flew! I did!

    (Waving his whole arm like a five year old)

    Me, me, me!

    CORSO

    (Repressively)

    I think Mr. Pettigrew is trying to speak.

    ZANE 

    (Acts out his dream)

     I was walking down a concrete tunnel with metal ribs. It seemed to be shifting like it was alive. It was hard to keep my feet. I felt like maybe it was on a giant truck where they shift the room around to make you fall – like at Great Adventure. There was water on the floor that looked diseased so I tried to keep out of it but it kept splashing on me.  I know I’m going to get sick just like my dad warned me. When I got to the end of the tunnel I was in an abandoned dump at the end of the world – signs everywhere saying things like, TOXIC WASTE and EXTREMELY HAZAROUS. The filled with gushing water and I couldn’t get back.

    RAD

    Abandon hope those who enter here.

    (CORSO gives him a squelching look)

    ZANE

    Something horrible was stalking the dump.  Every now and then it darted past.  I think I saw fur? I’m scared of fur. It was BIG. I could hear breathing. Maybe a bear – but when it stepped near the light I saw it had scales that glittered. It was coming right after me, kind of loping, with its back legs higher than its front.  In that second I realized I had created it – like it was the most terrible thing I could think of come to life.  I just took off running.  I knew I couldn’t outrun it – it had too many legs. I saw a chain-link fence, but I couldn’t get over that, so I went inside this shack to hide and maybe make a barricade. Most of all I was scared of anybody seeing what a coward I was – just another big talker who’s unable to cope. It was dark in there – and the floor was all torn up – I wanted to go back but – the thing was forcing me inside. It was peering in the windows so I ducked down, I stepped on a rotten board and pitched into the water. Toxic, disgusting water – smelled like sulfur – I could feel it poisoning me, rotting me, boiling me from the inside out. My skin was falling right off my bones.  Then somebody said, “Wake up” and I woke up.

    (CORSO looks bored and politely incredulous)

    CORSO

    Charming.  Our research project becomes a video game.

    ZANE

    (Rubbing the inside of his leg)

    I was never so glad to wake up. Man, I was really running. It felt like running in flip-flops.  My adductors are killing me and my paraformus feels like a rubber band.

    CORSO

    (Dismissive)

    Anything to be learned from this puerile meandering?  Could it be that the concept of “flight” itself creates a concept of falling and the context of humiliation and pursuit? I certainly wish you were all more imaginative. I see I need YEARS of work with you children to exorcise these primitive fears. Nobody has time for that. Oh, well.  Too late now. It is only in the course of the research that we discover how it should have been conducted.

    CHASE

    Flight creates pursuit?  That’s a good one!

    ZANE

    But I had the strangest feeling like…like I was watching myself. Like I was both inside and outside me. Like maybe I was the animal too.

    SOLIZ

    And I was the crowd. I felt that too.

    KOO

    Me, too.  I definitely did.

    CORSO

    (Silky-voiced)

    Ah, lucid dreaming. At long last, something informative. Do share.

    CHASE

    You said I could go next.

    CORSO

    Research makes no promises, Mr. Quinn.  Miss Loflin?

    KOO

    It was…so terrible.  I need to get rid of it so I can forget.    

    `        I was working in some kind of, mortuary.  These body bags were coming at me down a conveyor belt and I had to unzip them and take out the body pieces.  I was unzipping, unbuttoning, zipping and unzipping, but the bodies were so smashed I couldn’t even look at them. So disgusting — you couldn’t tell they ever had been people.  I thought there was people and garbage and animal parts all smashed together to trick me.  To make fun of me.  Someone was laughing at my expense. And some of those bags contained the remains of multiple people – a mess nobody could reassemble – a mass of legs and arms and guts. I thought this was a horrible job and I remember thinking, “Nothing is worth this. I should leave college plead bankruptcy and go work at my dad’s dealership.” I wanted to throw up the whole time.

    (Gagging)

     But I also felt guilty for not helping them. The heads were alive and they looked at me so pleadingly. Then in one bag I found my boyfriend Bo. He was looked accusing – I couldn’t convince him he was DEAD and I was helpless. and I just KNEW he was going to tell everyone I was responsible. Just it was all my fault! I just zipped him back up. Zipped him right back up. 

    (Gulping water, half crying)

    Then the next one was ME. I unzipped myself. I looking at my own body. I was dead and I was mangled, and I just hadn’t realized it.

    (KOO’s gasping and sobbing) 

    I just – lost it. Take me – take me –

    TAKE ME OUT OF HERE.

    (SOLIZ tries to comfort sobbing KOO.)

    SOLIZ

    So maybe Bo IS your soulmate and in your next dream you take him out of the bag –

    KOO

    I’m not going back there!  No, no, no, no, no!

    CORSO

    Please, Miss D’Accosta, no sophomoric interpretations. Good guinea pigs stay out of each other’s heads.

    JAZZ

    Wouldn’t soulmates be in each other’s heads?

    CHASE

    Me, me, me! Is it my turn now?

    CORSO

    By all means, Mr. Quinn, since you’re so eager to share.

    CHASE

    (Very smug and bad-ass)

    I flew all right. Right through the air. No pursuit, no humiliation, no falling – don’t I get an A?  It was like being in a wind tunnel. I went to your apartment; Doc. Didn’t bother with the locks – sailed right in through the front door.

    CORSO

    If this was a true out-of-body or remote viewing experience you’ll have to tell us something you could only have seen today, something that wasn’t there when you helped me move in.

    CHASE

    (Making a show of deep thought)

    Well, there were a lot of papers about a bankruptcy filing and restraining orders.  Is that the sort of thing you mean? Shouldn’t we run right over and look? Oh, and there was a sex tape featuring you and Nurse Howk on your bed.  Your bed had black sheets. She’s one smoky tomato, that girl. She has a piercing on her hoo-ha.  Shouldn’t we call her in and investigate?

    CORSO

    Mr. Quinn, you are fired again!  I knew you were a mistake! Off to the locker rooms with you. This minute. And don’t come back!

    CHASE

    (rises slowly, protesting) 

    Awwww... And I thought we were gonna be like so free.

    CORSO

    Every chance you are given, you destroy. I’m sure one of the alternates will be thrilled to assume your position.

    CHASE

    (Chucks him under the chin)

    You can always find somebody to “assume the position” but you’ll never find anyone like me.

    CORSO

    (Swats his hand away)

    Let’s hope not.  Get out, now.

    CHASE

    Can’t I listen to the others? I swilled your damn koolaid.

    CORSO

    No. You are incorrigible and disruptive.  You are leaving or I call security and this class is OVER.

    CHASE

    But I want to hear the others!

    CORSO

    (Upends recliner, dumping CHASE on the floor. Speaks into his earbud)

    You should have thought of that sooner.  Security!

    CHASE

    Oh all right. Jazz, I’ll be waiting for you to tell me what I missed.

    (He exits slowly, hangs out behind the door.)

    CORSO

    I do apologize for that. That is one troubled youth. He is a thief, an impostor and a poseur. No good deed goes unpunished there, I assure you. His alternate will be more cooperative. Miss Suzino? Mr. Bliven? Chop-chop! No more stalling.

    RAD

    (Looking panicked.)  

    It’s Borden. And – I don’t remember anything.

    (CORSO inspects him closely to see if he is lying)

    CORSO

    Hmmm. Come, come, Mr. whatever.  The others have been brave. Your clothing is strangely disarranged.

    SOLIZ

    Aren’t your pants on backwards?

    RAD

    (Gulps, blushes painfully)

    I know you’ll fire me and I don’t really want to leave but I just don’t remember. It’s just a blank.

    CORSO

    Fire you for amnesia? Hardly! I am much more likely to administer truth serum or attempt a little private hypnosis. Overcoming resistance is my raison d’être.

    (Looks at his watch.)

    We just don’t have the time.  How about if I give you one more chance, next week?

    RAD

    Th – thanks.

    (Is he relieved? Traumatized?  Hard to tell. CORSO stretches out on CHASE’s abandoned futon, very relaxed, crosses his hands behind his head.)

    CORSO

    You are hardly a “still water”, Mr. Bli – er, Borden. Perhaps that is why I am more relieved than otherwise to find you run so deep. Miss Suzino?  We are waiting. 

    (JAZZ’s face show she is desperately trying to think up a story.  Coming up empty)

    JAZZ

    I was blind. At first I couldn’t see.

    CORSO

    (Sighs luxuriously)

    Oh, Miss Suzino.  Blindfold games! Who among us hasn’t played them?  You always interest me so extremely! Pay attention, Mr. Bruden!  This is how it’s done!                        

    RAD

    Borden.

    CORSO

    Simmer down, class. Let Miss Suzino speak.  Poor little Jazz.  When she enrolled in this experiment she’s all, “I can’t dream” 

    (mimics her voice unflatteringly) 

    Now it’s “I can’t see!”  Whatever next? We’ll just have to do what we can to open your eyes.

    JAZZ

    I felt people rushing past me. I stumbled down steps into a basement. It smelled like dirt and death.   Someone kicked me – I fell over a body. A dead body.

    CORSO

    More falling. This is a tragic class.

    ZANE

    Anything chasing you?

    CORSO

    Please, class, I’ll ask the questions.

    JAZZ

    There was blood.

    SOLIZ

    But the blood was yours. Sorry. Just saying. 

    CORSO

    (Slams his notebook shut – rises) 

    Checks in your mailboxes the first of the week!  See you all next Saturday! Remember – no talking about what goes on in dream lab!

    RAD

    (Glad to escape)

    What happens in dream lab stays in dream lab!

  • Rough Sleep – a play by Alysse Aallyn

    Back in DREAM LAB – CORSO calling with baton and headphones)

    CORSO

    Children! Come back! Playtime is over! Wake up, children! Don’t get lost in NeverNeverLand!

    (CORSO conducts Flight of the Valkyrie. JAZZ and CHASE are sucked apart to opposite sides of the stage.  Lowlights come up on Dream Lab. CHASE falls back on his recliner. Other students thrashing and moaning. JAZZ falls to floor, CHASE struggles to her side to help her up) 

    JAZZ

    (Retching)

    I think I saw death.

    CHASE

    And I saw the face of evil.

    CORSO

    (Appearing with a roll of paper towels and a bucket of water bottles – lights up all the way, music down)

    Rough sleep?

    CHASE

    Yeah. But was worth it.

    CORSO

    I’m talking to Miss Suzino. Gave yourself a bloody nose there, sport.

    (CORSO hands out bottles of water)

    JAZZ

     (feels her face)

    I did? Is it my blood?

    KOO

    I’m definitely going to throw up.

    CORSO

    First times are always the worst times. Care for a basin?

    KOO

    No, I want a bathroom.

    (Staggers off futon, SOLIZ reaches out to her)

    SOLIZ

    I’ll help her.

    (They lurch off behind Ladies Locker)

    CORSO

    Any more foreheads require mopping? Allow me to audition my Florence Nightingale impersonation. I’ve been universally praised for my bedside manner.

    JAZZ

    (Mopping herself)

    Maybe I’m the one who died.

    CORSO

    Forget the safe word?

    RAD

    There’s a safe word?  Now he tells us.

    CHASE

    How about “Stop”. Or “No”?

    CORSO

    The problem with that is behind the fear lies the wish.

    CHASE

    Behind the wish lies the demon. So there is no safe word.

    CORSO

    How about “I quit”?  Is that what you’re trying to say, Mr. Quinn?

    CHASE

    You first.

    CORSO

    (They glare at each other. Horrible retching noises from locker room)

    Now, now, now. Just when we were getting along so well.

    (ZANE has stood up and is lurching around as if sleepwalking.)

    CORSO

    Mr. Braden, assist your colleague back to his launching pad.

    (RAD stands up, goes to ZANE, wakes him, and leads him to his futon to sit.  SOLIZbrings a green-faced KOO out of the Ladies’)

    RAD

    My name is Borden.

    CORSO

    Now wasn’t that fun? Good times. Upchucking can hardly be an unusual experience for you, Miss Loflin. 

    SOLIZ

    Don’t give her so much next time. She’s little. She can’t get the same dose as everyone else.

    CORSO

    I wish the guinea pigs would stop wrestling with me for control of this experiment. I make the decisions around here. The doctor knows what he’s doing.

    SOLIZ

    Sorry.

    CORSO

    Now I posit the ultimate question.  Anybody “fly”?  Did we achieve liftoff?

    SOLIZ

    I think I fell. It seemed so real. Maybe it was only a dream.

    CORSO

    Only a tear in the fabric the universe, a burp from the hippocampus, a haiku from the collective unconscious, an oracle of future empowerment? Speak to us, Miss D’Accosta. Tell us everything.

    SOLIZ

     (Stands up to act out events she describes)

    I was in the elevator at Hadleigh – for some reason I was in a big hurry.  I remember looking at my watch but my watch had stopped.  It was an analog watch without any hands. The elevator opened on the top floor and I rushed out.  All these people were staring at me and they started to laugh. I realized I was naked. I couldn’t get back in the elevator – the doors had melted. The floors were melting and the whole building lurched to one side.  I panicked. I was thrown against people and I hate people touching me but I was helpless. No soulmates, just a gang. I’m scared of gangs. They were herding me. But there was the window so I jumped right through, thinking, maybe I can fly. I felt the glass tearing apart my body. At first I felt this great release.  A sense of excitement. Like I can do anything I want, like I got away with it. I was trying to move my arms and legs – it seemed like slo-mo – so I pumped and pumped – moving more frantically – but I knew all along it wouldn’t work. It doesn’t work with swimming. You’ve got to find the peaceful center but there was no peaceful center.  So I fell – knowing you’d be disappointed and maybe flunk me but hoping my crushed body could tell the scientists something.  That second before I hit I was – it was the most disgusting feeling – suspended, staring at the chalk outline where I my corpse would be.  I remember thinking, “I hope we get a second chance” but all I heard was laughter. Others were getting it. Others were doing it. Splat! Face-first into the pavement. I felt my face pushed into my brain, my spine crumbling – body turning inside out, I became “the visible woman” with her organs on the outside. That was right before my organs exploded like water balloons and there was nothing left.   I was completely gone and so there was nothing left to go to heaven, no welcoming light, no happy faces. Just sadness and loss; a night of blackout drinking.  That couldn’t have been an out of body experience. It was more like a nightmare. Right? 

    (SOLIZ’s face is sweaty, anxious. CORSO, hand to chin, considering)

    CORSO

    A classic shame dream. You felt humiliated by your naked body – a very nice body I might add – as if by some unwilling revelation of your essential self. A common anxiety dream, I assure you.  Hampered by cultural imperatives your attempted  “escape” was disguised as self-punishment; you  “looked down”, ergo tumbled and fell. Almost Greek in its simplicity.  I especially liked the note about the handless watch.  Very Dali-esque.

    RAD

     I’m all for naked dreams.

    JAZZ

    Our naked selves aren’t our essential selves.

    CORSO

    (Looking at her very displeased. Those guinea pigs again)

    How so, Miss Suzino?

    JAZZ

    I mean, everyone’s naked body is alike.  Choices reveal our essential selves.

    CORSO

    Spoken like a fashion major. How jejeune.

    CHASE

    I know what she means. It’s why people get tattoos.

    CORSO

    Says a tattooed denizen of the underclass.

    ZANE

    Everybody’s naked body is not alike! I wish!

    RAD

    (Trying so hard to be ZANE’s buddy)

    Right! I mean, if only!

    JAZZ

    I mean generally.

    CORSO

    We split hairs.  Nevertheless you expose the dangers of word selection, Miss D’Accosta. Forget “flying”. Who went elsewhere? Absolutely elsewhere?  Just tell me that.

    (ZANE reacts visibly.)

    CHASE

    I did!

    (Waving his whole arm like a five year old)

    Me, me, me!

    CORSO

    (Repressively)

    I think Mr. Pettigrew is trying to speak.

  • Rough Sleep – a play by Alysse Aallyn

    (JAZZ shakes head impatiently and crabwalks out of Dream Lab down the steps toward audience. 

    JAZZ

    Where is this place? It smells like death. The end of everything.

    (A dead body falls from rafters ands hangs by its elbows obstructing JAZZ’s path – she struggles with it)

    JAZZ

    Hey! Watch where you’re going! Get out of my way!

    (Feels up the body in a panicked way)

    JAZZ

    Oh, my God, I’m so sorry! Did I bump into you? Are you all right? Are you OK?. What’s wrong?

    (She wrestles & dances with swinging corpse, batters it like a punching bag.  EnterCHASE who pulls her away. His eyes are open)

    CHASE

    What is this – a morgue?  Come on, we’ve got to get out of here.

    JAZZ

    (Can’t leave her partner)

    Someone died and I’ve gone blind. 

    CHASE

    You’re not blind.  Open your eyes. Just don’t look behind you.

    (Turns her, kisses her.  She resists at first, then leans into him as the kiss deepens.  She opens her eyes, feeling his face)

    JAZZ

    It’s you.

    CHASE

    What are you doing in a morgue?

    JAZZ

    This is the basement. 

                      (Turns, sees corpse)

    Aaagh!

    CHASE

    Leave her. She’s past help.

    JAZZ

    Did she fall?

    CHASE

    Not with her head bashed in.  Come on. We’re urgently required elsewhere.

    (Hustles her past the orchestra pit and back up on stage)

    JAZZ

    Shouldn’t we call somebody?

    CHASE

    We’ve got to keep moving. Something’s stalking us. 

    JAZZ

    That’s just my boyfriend. He won’t go home. Keeps threatening me.

    (Grabbing CHASE frenziedly)

    Maybe the dead body is me!

    CHASE

    It’s some old lady past her sell-by date.

    JAZZ

     Where are you taking me? Won’t we get into trouble for leaving?  Where are we?

    (SCENE III – Lights go up on CORSO’s APARTMENT set. Door stands between JAZZ, CHASE and a room of bed, bureau, chairs. Ambiance created by candles, tossed books and clothes)

    JAZZ

    Where did this come from? Did we like – soul travel?  

    CHASE

    (laughs)

    Maybe that bastard Corso really hit on something! The irony – you can’t imagine. Flying! Couldn’t you feel it? While we were kissing. 

    JAZZ

    All I know is you dragged me somewhere I don’t want to be. Where is this?  YUCK!  Smells like old socks in here.

    CHASE

    Better than your morgue. This is Corso’s place. 

    JAZZ

    How do you know?

    CHASE

    I helped him move in.

    JAZZ

    But why are we here? Is lab over? Maybe we won’t get paid.

    CHASE

    (Opening drawers and tossing clothes and papers)

    There are more important things than money.

    JAZZ

    Said by someone who obviously has some. Are we dreaming?

    CHASE

    Together? In my dream you would be more cooperative.

                               JAZZ

    And in my dream you wouldn’t waste time dragging me to Professor Corso’s bachelor hideaway.

                               CHASE

    We’re real. It’s Corso’s razzle-dazzle that isn’t real.

    JAZZ

    Why? How do you know? I need that money and those credits.

    CHASE

    The closer you get to it the further it will recede.

    JAZZ

    You don’t talk like a soulmate. I don’t think you care anything about me.

    CHASE

    I don’t know you. I’ve got obligations, is all.

    JAZZ

    You’re wasting precious dream time pawing through Dr. Corso’s private stuff when we should be getting to know each other.

    CHASE

     In my experience opportunities like this are one time only. 

    JAZZ

    It just doesn’t feel the way I expected.

    CHASE

    Don’t be so self-referential.

    JAZZ

    You literally CAN’T be my soulmate. I thought Corso lived on a farm in the country.

    CHASE

    His wife kicked him out.

    JAZZ

    She did? Aren’t you going to have to put everything back?

    CHASE

    He’ll never prove it was us – we’ve got the perfect alibi.

    JAZZ

    Why is my soulmate a criminal?  Lucky me. I really can pick ‘em. So what are you searching for?

    CHASE

    Evidence. What he’s really up to.  Don’t ever believe the magician’s misdirection. He’s the king of mind games. Look at this.

    (Flourishes paper)

    JAZZ

    What’s that?

    CHASE

    Bankruptcy filings! Divorce filings!

    JAZZ

    What’s THAT have to do with anything?

    CHASE

    A desperate Corso is a dangerous Corso. 

    (Throws her a scrapbook)

    See if there’s anything in here.

    JAZZ

    (Studying the pictures)

    “First mass, 1978!”  He did say he used to be a priest.

    CHASE

    True. Imagine Corso absolving people!

    JAZZ

     He told me the church expelled him.

    CHASE

    True again. The best lies always contain some truth.

    JAZZ

    For falling in love, he said.

    CHASE

    Bzzz! Not! Lie!

    JAZZ

    No pictures of his wife in here. I wonder what she looks like. All these pictures are of him.

    CHASE

    The prince of fauxmance cares only about himself. He married her for cash.   Look, here’s a picture of you. You must be his type.

    JAZZ

    That’s Bettie Page. People are always saying I look like her. I ‘ve never worn a leopardskin bra.  He certainly was a buck-toothed, buzz-cut wunderkind.  Must have had work done.

    CHASE

    Sold his soul to the devil, is what happened.

    JAZZ

    If this is astral projection – how come I still have a body?

    CHASE

    (Looks up briefly)

    You don’t like your body?  I like your body.

    JAZZ

    That’s not it…I just figured we’d be essences. I was looking forward to floating around like an essential spirit.

    CHASE

    But how would we recognize each other? Dante recognized the spirits that he saw in hell and heaven.  Makes sense to me. All things considered, I’d rather have a body to experience things with.

    JAZZ

    I get that. But why do some bodies wind up dead? I keep thinking about that poor old lady –

    CHASE

    (Still looting)

    Here’s a restraining order. He’s not allowed to come within a thousand feet of Evangeline Corso.

    JAZZ

    Wow. Have you ever met Mrs. Corso?

    CHASE

    Twice.  She was very nice the first time.  Obviously older than him, but an interesting talker.  But the second time she started screaming about eco-terrorism, about how something was poisoning her, how she was suddenly allergic to everything.  He had to pull her off me.

    JAZZ

     Corso, you suspect?

    CHASE

    Big time. He’s the only terrorist I know.

    JAZZ

    You can add Bex to that list.

    CHASE

    I doubt he equals Corso’s sheer lethality.

    JAZZ

    Give him time. You really have it in for Corso.

    CHASE

    He had it in for me.

    (The TV has its back to us. When CHASE bumps it, blue light flickers on)

    JAZZ

    Look at this.  Seems like Corso and the Howk are having a Thing.

    CHASE

    Are you surprised?  She really throws down, if you know what I’m saying. I was there at the same time as Soliz and she came on to both of us.

    JAZZ

    Some people are like that. It’s all performance art. 

    CHASE

    This look like performance art to you?

    (JAZZ jumps)

    JAZZ

    That’s disgusting! Turn it off.

    (TV off)

    Nobody really wants to be strangled. That must be a performance, for sure. Because don’t we know she’s still alive?

                               CHASE

    Do we?

                               JAZZ

    (She sits down on bed to watch him loot)

    Think we’ll remember this when we get back to normal?

    CHASE

    I’m pretty sure you and I have different definitions of normal.  I can’t tell you what will happen.  I’m a first timer, too. We have to play it the best we can.

    JAZZ

    If this is a dream, maybe we’re making it up as we go along.

    CHASE

    If you’re not a psychology major, you don’t know about the maze-solving worms.

    JAZZ

    (JAZZ puts chin on hand)

    You’re right. Never heard of it. Do tell.

    CHASE

    They taught these worms to solve complex mazes, you know, by giving them rewards.  And then they ground them up and fed them to these other worms.

    JAZZ

    What a mean thing to do!

    CHASE

    Except the new worms knew the maze first time.

    JAZZ

    So that proves…what?

    CHASE

    Memory is chemical.

    (Taps his head)

    JAZZ

    So Corso’s going to grind us up and feed us…to the alternates?

    CHASE

    Trust me.  He would if he could.

    (Pulling out drawers.  JAZZ tosses CORSO’s messy sheets)

    JAZZ

    I can’t believe we’ll get away with this.

                      (Jumps to her feet)

    Yuck! I’m wet. I sat in their wet spot! It’s blood!

    (Looks in a panic at her hands, wipes them on her pants, touches her cheeks, increasingly upset.)

    Yuck, yuck, yuck!  There’s blood on this sheet and now it’s on me!

    CHASE

    Sssh. You’re not really here.

    JAZZ

    You just said we were!

    (She throws the papers he’s gathering in the air, he grabs her and starts kissing her)

    Now you’re getting it on you.

    CHASE

    I’m getting you on me. I’m starting to think you really are my soulmate. 

    JAZZ

    (Kissing him back)

    So please get me out of this disgusting place. 

    CHASE

    I’m sorry I’m so bad at this. It’s just that I can never forget. 

  • Rough Sleep – a play by Alysse Aallyn

    (Perceptual Studies Student Lab at College . Enter CORSO in Burberry, cap and scarf)

    CORSO

    Sorry I’m late.  I’ll make it up.  Time’s our bitch, but that’s what we’re here for – get on top of it.  I see you’ve met my teaching assistant, Mr. Quinn. 

    (Indicates CHASE) 

    CHASE

    I thought you fired me.

    CORSO

    But you’re so charming as my warm-up act.  Who could resist you? Consider yourself re-hired.

    ZANE

    (Pointing at CHASE)

    Ringer! Ringer!

    CORSO

    (Opens a door)

    Welcome to Paradise. After you.

    (Lights up on  DREAM RESEARCH LAB ;  six recliners arranged in a circle – lockers to either side– students study their environment. Glittering disco ball lowers from ceiling shedding fractals. Padded floor; students step gingerly.  At center of recliners a black chalice on a tripod emits dry ice smoke)

    CORSO

    (Slams door aggressively)

    Now you’re committed.

    RAD

    My folks always said I’d end up committed.

                               ZANE

    And in a padded cell.

    CORSO

    God forbid you should fall down in your dream-throes and sue the institute that birthed your intellect.

    CHASE

    Where are the sensors?

    CORSO

    Everything’s wireless these days, poor Mr. Quinn! What are you worried about? Nobody would dare to censor you. 

    KOO

    (Gestures at the disco ball)

    Is that a camera?

    CORSO

    The Eye of History.

    (Claps hands)

    Chop, chop, little ones – Enough rubbernecking.  Time’s a-wasting.  Male locker room there, females that-away. Discard outerwear and belongings. Let’s get going.

    (As CHASE passes him, CORSO says dryly)

    The old razzle dazzle?  REALLY?

    (Banging of locker doors)

    CHASE

    We’ll see.

    CORSO

    We certainly will. Now, if you children would arrange yourselves male, female – thusly.

    RAD

    Like some antique dinner party?

    CORSO

    Sacred geometry.  We need all the energy we can harness. We are immersing ourselves in the flip side of reality- the Unseen. 

    (JAZZ and CHASE are side by side. CORSO distributes mugs)

    CORSO

    Tea time!

    CHASE

    What is this stuff?

    CORSO

    Sorry, Mr. Quinn, research is not a democracy. All that’s guaranteed is, you sleep on cue without allergic overdrive.

    ZANE

    I’m not allergic to Nurse Howk, either. Yowza!

    RAD

    (Shaking his hand as if from a burn)

    I know, right?

    CORSO

    Drink up and settle down.  I am collecting mugs so I will know who’s been naughty and who’s been nice.

    JAZZ

    Yuck! This stuff tastes like bark.

    (RAD barks like a dog)

    CORSO

    Shotgun it, Miss Suzino. Knock it back. Isn’t that the college way?

    .        (CORSO collects mugs, turning them upside down to be sure they’re empty)

    Musical selection?  Classical or non-classical?

    ZANE

    Anything so long as it’s not classical.

    CHASE

    Anything – so long as it’s classical.

    (They glare at each other. CORSO laughs)

    CORSO

    The bulls do clash! Ocean sounds it is!

    (He conducts the music) 

    Everyone hold hands and close eyes please. Let the bonding begin!

    CHASE

    (Muttering)

    Bondage, more like.

    CORSO

    Mr. Quinn!  Must I gag you? That can be arranged!

    (CHASE finally closes his eyes, rocking back and forth to get comfortable. Lights go down to twilight level on DREAM LAB.  CORSO ascends on TOWER LIFT, wearing earphones and holding a conductor’s baton)

    CORSO

    Welcome to cosmic dreaming. You will dream at such a depth your mind will burst the bonds of selfhood and explode free and untrammeled into the universe. Free from the chains of time, from identity itself, we uncover the truth the quotidian obscures;  we are one. Think on it. Think what it would means to be freed from debt, obligation, relationship, guilt, regret or loss. There are no mistakes.  Without identity you are released from suffering.  Everything you have ever wanted we can achieve together, effortlessly, and in abundance. Desires and longing are the fuel that rocket us to the stratosphere of rarest air. Once we merge in the great Oneness, we will dream uniquely and together.  

    (CORSO turns a page on his music stand)

    Learning to harness our dream, we will control it, uniting our powers generously to become a potent force of reckoning. Prepare yourselves for the ultimate luxury – surrender – lost in the imaginative union that has always been your birthright.  Time to claim and master your entitlement. In our relaxation mass consciousness will seize control…But you must be quick! The garden door is closing and you’ll be left behind… See, the stars are out. The world inside and the world without await your signal – longing to merge.  Only the clatter in your head prevents the natural fruition of your indissoluble longing. 

    Doesn’t it feel good leaving the world behind? The universe itself is lost beneath you now.  Now flesh itself melts away as invisible imperfections open themselves to perfection. Accept the freedom you are offered. When you open your eyes, you will be gazing down at the husk of your unwelcome, banished self.  

    (CORSO’S spot is extinguished, spot rises on JAZZ who stands up eyes closed, feeling out in front of her like sleepwalker.  She feels her way to the edge of the stage. No other students stir.  CORSO’s voice orates as if from space.)

    CORSO

    Now the room itself vanishes, your earthly fears becoming someone else’s problem. Release those worries.  Look how tiny they seem, as they disappear over the horizon. 

    (JAZZ shakes head impatiently and crabwalks down the steps toward audience. 

    JAZZ

    Where is this place? It smells like death. The end of everything.

  • Rough Sleep – a play by Alysse Aallyn

    CHARACTERS

    Jazz Suzino – female college student – edgy, artistic

    Chase Quinn – male college student – angry wrestler

    Koo Loflin – female college student – petite cheerleader

    Soliz D’Accosta – female college student – chip on her shoulder- ethnic – smart transfer student

    Grady “G-Rad” Borden –male, black “in the closet” college student

    Zane Pettigrew – male college student – jock biz major

    Dr. Richard Corso – “Lord of Perceptual Studies” – charismatic older man with plummy, stagey voice

    Zoya Farrell – older female – tiny, hopeful but easily discouraged – Chase’s mom

    Cutter Farrell – older male – Chase’s mean, scary cold-eyed dad

    Bex – male youth – Jazz’s scary biker ex

    SCENE I – WAITING ROOM (i.e. circle of chairs) outside DREAM RESEARCH LAB.  Visible DOOR to one side. Students – edgy, impressionable JAZZ , angry suspicious,  punked out wrestler CHASE, King-of-the-World jock business major ZANE,  RAD (Black, light-sprung guy with ornate dreads and gay overtones) SOLIZ (pretty, smoky, hot, ethnic, resentful) KOO (tiny blond cheerleader, very anxious  alternately sprawl and rock on uncomfortable “waiting room” chairs)

    JAZZ

    (Fanning)

    God, it’s hot in here. I’m melting.

    CHASE

    (Offering a hand)

    And I’m Chase.

    JAZZ

    (Blushing – takes his hand)

    I mean, I’m Jazz.  Hi.

    SOLIZ

    (A tad hostile)

    Who’s named Jazz?

    JAZZ

    (shrugs)

    Short for Jasmyn. Mothers – Disney – what can you do?

    RAD

    You got that right. My parents call me Grady. Grady Borden! Get a brother killed on the street.  I go by Rad. Or G-Rad.

    (He and Zane trade complicated fist bumps & bicep grabs)

    SOLIZ

    Shouldn’t it be “Raid”?

    CHASE

    Let people have the nickname they want.  And you are?

    SOLIZ

    Soliz.  I should be a third year but I transferred so I’m only a sophomore. That’s all the credits they would give me – and I graduated junior college. 

    RAD

    Hey, I’m a transfer too!  They turned me down straight outta high school.  I mean, is this place a snob factory or what?

    CHASE

    I just assumed we’d all be psych majors but I don’t recognize anyone. 

    (Points)

    ZANE

    Zane. Business major. 

    (He waves)

    KOO

    I’m Koo.  Like koo–kool. I was a communications major but they gave me such a bad internship I really couldn’t hack it. Now I’m uncommitted. I don’t know what to do. Everything available you hear bad things about.

    RAD

    (Points to KOO)

    I know I’ve seen you.  Top of the pyramid, right?

    KOO

    (Shrugs –  happy at the perks of fame)

    I’m the flier. My feet never touch ground.

    RAD

    You’re the one goes with that quarterback? Am I correct?

    KOO

    Bo Boyd. Yes.

    RAD

    Woo-hoo! Humptious!

    (Fanning)

    Hells YES it’s hot in here!

    (Takes off his bomber jacket stunned by KOO’s hotness)

    CHASE

    It would be just like Dr. Corso turning up the heat to make us squirm.

    (Waves up at presumably unseen camera)

    Hi, doc!

    ZANE

    That’s a sprinkler, dog.

    CHASE

    You better believe there’s a camera in here someplace. He needs to collect his little trophies. Bargaining chips. His little icons.

    RAD

    So he turns up the heat till we boil?  Like frogs in the experiment?

    KOO

    What frogs?

    RAD

    The frogs that were too stupid to get out of the hot water. ‘Cause it happened so slowly.

    SOLIZ

    Those frogs were in search of a paycheck.

    ZANE

    They never boiled any frogs!  That’s for sure an urban legend!

    CHASE

    Listen to the marketing major! Always first with the non-facts.

    ZANE

    Well at least we know we’re not going to get boiled.

    CHASE

    Did you read what you signed? He can do any goddam thing he wants to us.

    KOO

    Well he can boil me if he pays me.  You should see my VISA bill.

    RAD

    (Sycophantically trying – and failing – to be ZANE’s best buddy)

    Like there’s a difference between psychology and marketing. Am I right? Everyone’s trying to sell you something.

    JAZZ

    Am I the only freshman?

    CHASE

    You’re a freshman?

    JAZZ

    I’m an old freshman. Took me awhile to get here.

    KOO

    If you’re a freshman you must live in Hadleigh!

    JAZZ

    Is that bad?

    KOO

    It’s pathetic is what it is!  Hadleigh has sick building syndrome. And  the girls are at the top where the bad air collects and it’s like the worst.

    CHASE

    All the poor little freshmen jumping out their windows!

    JAZZ

    Those windows don’t even open!

    ZANE

    They don’t open now because of all the suicides.

    KOO

    Because of the sick building syndrome!

    (BEX – big, mean, long haired, motorcycle jacket & boots, appears on the opposite side of the door and starts hammering)

    BEX

    Jazz! Jazz! Jazz!

    (Embarrassed JAZZ slides out the door and closes it carefully after her.  BEX grabs her immediately)

    JAZZ

    Omigod, Bex, what are you doing here?  You have to go!

    BEX

    Don’t answer my texts, don’t answer my emails – You’re forcing me to stalk you. Your choice, babe. MY LIFE.

    (JAZZ tries to detach)

    JAZZ

    You’ve GOT a life. You need to get back to it. We broke up, remember?

    BEX

    So that’s it?  Kicking me to the curb?

    JAZZ

    You knew I wanted to go to college. I was lucky to get this scholarship.

    BEX

    So now you’re too good for me, is that it? Now you’re hanging out with that old guy who looks like your granddad!

    JAZZ

    (Pushing him away)

    He’s my advisor. So stop with the paparazzi scheme, Bex, stop spying on me and posting the pictures. Scram.  Go home.

    (Manages to get behind the door – slams it in his face – barricades it shut.  BEX marches offstage with a look of determination – like – he’s not quitting)

    RAD

    (Clueless)

    Thought you were making a break for it.

    CHASE

    Need help with that?

    JAZZ

    Nah. No.

                      (She sits down but nervous glance at door)

    RAD

    It’s crunch time, am I right?  Better get out now! More for us!

    ZANE

    Did you hear we all have alternates?

    RAD

    No. No way!

    ZANE

    Way. These are juicy gigs.  Paid research jobs – I mean, it never happens.

    CHASE

    Makes you wonder what he’s up to.

    ZANE

    Just making sure we show, is all.

    CHASE

    And here we are.  Why did you show up? 

    (points at JAZZ)

    JAZZ

     I’m sort of hoping it’s true. The soulmate thing.

    RAD

    The wha-?

    JAZZ

    Skydancers. Dakinis, they call them. Dreampower.

    KOO

    Didn’t you read the book?  You were supposed to read the book. Soulmates can soultravel. Like, everywhere.

    RAD

    There’s an urban legend right there for sure.

    ZANE

    It’s the remote viewing thing that I want.  Weapon of the future. Business of a lifetime.  Defense contractors throw mad money at that stuff.

    RAD

    Mad money! 

    (High fives with ZANE.)

    SOLIZ

    Astral projection? Out of body experiences? Impossible. I hope it doesn’t work because I need the sleep. I’ve got like, two other jobs.

    ZANE

    Sleep’s a luxury. Too luxurious for us bottom feeders – this is hustle time.

    KOO

    Think everyone’s got a soulmate?  Each one of us?  Out there somewhere?

    RAD

    What’s Bo Boyd say to THAT?

    KOO

    Maybe it’s him. 

    (Not like she believes it)

    CHASE

    What is the likelihood we’ll find soulmates AMONG EACH OTHER? Six strangers? Seriously!

    JAZZ

    Maybe soulmates create each other.

    CHASE

    This here is exactly why Dr. Corso chose non-psych majors!  Soulmates! Out-of-body experiences! It’s the old razzle-dazzle!  Cover story. Dr. Corso’s the king of bullshit. That’s not what he’s interested in at all! They never tell you what they’re really testing.

    RAD

    Well, then, what do you think he’s testing?

    CHASE

    Beats me. But I sure would love to know.

    JAZZ

    He’s testing our dreams. I never dreamed before I came here.  And ever since I moved in I’ve been having these fantastic dreams.

    KOO

    It’s that sick building. I’m telling you.

    ZANE

    It’s the drug the nurse gave us.  You know, at the Health Center? The tolerance test? Whatever that stuff was. My dreams were crazy, too!

    RAD

    Who can forget Tolerance Test with Nurse Humptious! God knows what she did to me while I was out of it. Probably me-tooed this poor homeboy.

    ZANE

    Yeah, she got you in trouble and now she’ll have to marry you.

    CHASE

    Whatever it is…Corso knows.

  • Trials Inspire Fiction – by Alysse Aallyn

    GREAT TRIALS INSPIRE FICTION

    A trial is a cutaway of its time and place, a look not just into mores and modalities but secrets and sewage. Two of the most interesting trials I have seen – and I watched every day – were Beth Carpenter’s trial in New London, CT and Michael Peterson’s in Raleigh, N.C. (both 2002, both for first degree murder.)

    Each trial exposed the inner workings of a family (two families in the Carpenter case) and were so enormously influential for me that I wrote fiction about them.

    Both trials revealed levels of shocking hypocrisy so deep we could have been in Victorian London; these accused would do anything to get what they wanted while maintaining social appearances.

    At the time of his wife’s death Michael Peterson was gay sexting on hotmilitarystud.com; and although he insisted his wife knew about his affairs her daughter (who lived with them) did not think so. But the real shock in this case was that an identical death was exhumed from his past – another woman who died on bloody staircase. Both skulls revealed seven blows to the top of the head.

    The first woman’s daughters – whom Peterson acquired along with her assets – thought she had died of an aneurysm. What would it feel like to see their mother’s real skull revealed in court for all the world to see? That was the genesis of Depraved Heart, though I changed everything else to create my own world.

    In the Carpenter case, Beth came from a family of strivers who felt soiled and humiliated by their other daughter’s marriage to a part time stripper tow truck driver. Beth was accustomed to ordering her boyfriends around – two of them testified that she took over their cars and bank accounts as soon as they showed interest. Her boss, Hayman Clein, a successful Connecticut real estate attorney, fell for her attractions and became her virtual slave. When she asked him to find her a hit man, he offered up his coke dealer – and the three of them went down for the crime. That this simple ask keeping her own hands clean made Beth a murderer too is something she should have known – she also was a lawyer.

    I used aspects of her overpowering character to create my Queen of Swords.

    It’s a truism that real life needs to be toned down for fiction: no one would believe it.

  • The Dalingridge Horror – a play by Alysse Aallyn

    (Leonard & Virginia Woolf in the Conservatory at Dalingridge Hall)

    VIRGINIA
    If only I could trust you.

    LEONARD
    You can.

    VIRGINIA
    But these drugs turn my brain to cotton wool. There’s a pattern behind the cotton wool, if only I could find it. Did you know the Duckworths, that incestuous race, were cotton merchants? Coining money from the cotton wool that packs me now. If only I could fight back! But my will is so fragmented. My theory is that we all live so dishonestly, unconsciously, disconnected and detached. You are such a stranger! Everything about you is different. That must be why I married you.

    LEONARD
    Tell me everything, Virginia. Tell me what you fear, so we can kill it.

    VIRGINIA
    Where does one begin? Last night I looked in the mirror beneath a pitiless light and suddenly a dreadful animal face showed itself behind me. He bellowed, he stared, his nostrils flared. The pig’s snout broke the mirror until my thighs ached. How could one forget the thrusting of that ugly snout, the snout that meant starvation, pain and death? The purple foaming stain. Somehow it was all my fault. Roars of laughter at my expense. Dream or was it a memory? All that’s left is hopeless sadness. Being dragged down into a pit of absolute despair. Powerlessness. Paralysis. That’s what I remember.

    LEONARD
    Begin at the beginning.

    VIRGINIA
    The beginning is insomnia. I lie awake at night listening to a senile old man gasping, croaking vile indecencies. I thought it was Father, having a fit of the horrors. But the nurse said it was only a cat. Or perhaps the beginning was the whooping cough. I think I knew happiness before I became so ill. The grownups laughed with me, not at me. Whooping cough steals the breath – none of us could breathe. The atmosphere was tangled, matted with emotion. All the children came down with it, all of us gasping. Mother ran from bed to bed until her skin was paper thin and the bones stood out. I used to wonder if Mother had traded my life for hers, until I remembered she preferred the boys. Women serve, men are served.

    LEONARD
    But all of you recovered.

    VIRGINIA
    They threw me into a tank with Gerald, the alligator. Drowning. I knew I must not sink. Couldn’t get my head above the whirlpool.

    LEONARD
    Go on.

    VIRGINIA
    They covered the mirrors when Mother died. I was thirteen. Vanessa was sixteen, Thoby fifteen. Stella was twenty-five, quite grown up. George was twenty-seven, Gerald twenty-four. Adrian was twelve. No one told me what was happening. I was taken to her bed to say good bye but Mother seemed reproachful, so condemning and stern. She said, “Hold yourself straight, little Goat.”

    LEONARD
    Why were you called Goat?

    VIRGINIA
    I was Goat because I couldn’t control my purple rages. The others hated that he talked to me and gave me books. He didn’t allow Stella to read Cousine Bette but said it couldn’t harm me, because I had read Gibbons on the fall of Rome.

    LEONARD
    Did everyone have nicknames?

    VIRGINIA
    Adrian was Wombat, Nessa was the Saint. Thoby was the Goth because he fought. Mother advised self-control to everyone but Father. My mother had two characters, I think. Her real self, and the Angel in the House. Stifler and the life-giver. And to this day I have the oddest feeling that I’m two people, too.

    LEONARD
    Are you talking about the poet Coventry Patmore’s Angel in the House?

    VIRGINIA
    Yes. Wasn’t she so popular? Singing, “Sacrifice. Sacrifice yourself.” I caught her by the throat and killed her. It was self-defense. I had to kill her or she would have killed me.

    LEONARD
    Your mother died of pneumonia, Virginia. Don’t feel guilty, Children are disgustingly violent, every one of them. It’s a wonder anyone lives to grow up. I’ve decided brute strength is the enemy of thought – that’s why bullies rule and why we must all be pacifists and abjure force, even though it goes against our natures. Tell me, was this “angel” thing why Nessa was called Saint?

    VIRGINIA
    No. That was because she was too proud to tell a lie. We hid from Father in the garden, and when he demanded, Didn’t we hear me calling? We all said No. Only Nessa said Yes. I told her she was an old fraud.

    LEONARD
    Goat is the worst name, I think.

    VIRGINIA
    No, that was Stella! She was the Cow, because she brought the milk.

    LEONARD
    These nicknames are strangely degrading.

    VIRGINIA
    I named myself Miss Jan. I so longed to be someone else. Laura was the worst of us but she was called Her Ladyship of the Lake.

    LEONARD
    How old was Laura and why on earth was she called that?

    VIRGINIA
    Laura was exactly Gerald’s age. But she was gone by the time mother died. Sent away, because she wouldn’t mind. Father said she was the Giver of the Sword because she forced him to punish her. Then she screamed so he had to punish her more. When Maitland was writing Father’s life he said that everything about Laura would have to be suppressed. Everyone hated Laura.

    LEONARD
    Why did you hate her?

    VIRGINIA
    Temper tantrums. We all had temper tantrums, but hers were worse. Father was still having them, but Mother could calm him.

    LEONARD
    So, Laura went to an asylum?

    VIRGINIA
    When I was ten. Until then she lived with a governess at the top of the house. At night, we heard her howling like an animal.

    LEONARD
    Did your parents ever say what exactly was the problem?

    VIRGINIA
    Mother said she was wicked. Father said she was perverse. Thoby thought she wouldn’t stop touching herself. I read all Father’s letters when I helped Maitland with his book. Father begged Mother to marry him to help with Laura.

    LEONARD
    But she couldn’t help, could she?

    VIRGINIA
    Abominable system, family life. It goes from ignorance and indifference to denial and contempt, open attack and ultimate destruction. None of it was Mother’s fault. She was always visiting the poor and making them clothes. I always thought the poor knew how to enjoy themselves better than we do, because we are cooped up, day after day while they walk out freely.

    LEONARD
    Did you ever visit Laura?

    VIRGINIA
    Once I went with Stella. Laura spoke only gibberish. The only comprehensible sentence was, “I told him to go away.” I couldn’t go back because that was where I saw the deformed men.

    LEONARD
    I don’t understand why Stella was The Cow. Wasn’t she a young, beautiful girl?

    VIRGINIA
    I thought her lovelier than Mother. She was so pale, so white, she looked like cow parsley by moonlight. I don’t think Mother loved her, really. She was Mother’s loyal handmaid. Stella taught us our letters. She was supposed to look after Father when Mother was gone, and Mother was absent a lot.

    LEONARD
    Where did your mother go?

    VIRGINIA
    Nursing the sick. Mother loved nursing the sick, she said they were easier than the well. She seemed always so far away, in her mind. When we spoke to her she looked through us as if she didn’t see us. While Mother was gone, Stella stood in for her.

    LEONARD
    Didn’t Stella have a life of her own?

    VIRGINIA
    She turned down proposals, I know that. Mother didn’t want her to marry. Cousin Jem was obsessed with her – we children were frightened of him.

    LEONARD
    Cousin Jem? Wasn’t he the mad cousin?

    VIRGINIA
    Yes, but before he was locked up, he conceived a passion for Stella. He would run into the house, shouting, while Stella fled up the front stairs. He pursued her, bellowing, right to the nursery where he speared our toast on his swordstick. I thought he looked like a tormented bull. Father said to tell him Stella wasn’t home, but Mother said she could never bar her door to Jem. She said she loved him and he needed us because he was banned from all his clubs. Once he abducted me and Mother.

    LEONARD
    He abducted you?

    VIRGINIA
    Yes, funny, I’d forgotten it till just this moment. I suppose that’s how memory works. He took us to his rooms because he wanted me to pose for him. Mother didn’t want to go, but she couldn’t stop him. As he painted, he declaimed his own poetry:

    “if all the harm that were done by men
    were doubled and doubled and doubled again
    squared and raised to the power of ten
    there wouldn’t be nearly enough, not near
    to keep a small girl for a tenth of a year.”

    LEONARD
    And you were a small girl.

    VIRGINIA
    I was. The smallest. I never saw the picture.

    LEONARD
    How did you get away?

    VIRGINIA
    Did I get away? I don’t remember. I always stammered when I told him Stella wasn’t home so he knew I was lying. When he grabbed me by the collar I thought of the Ripper Man who had been in all the papers. This is what they must have felt, those women, when they were grabbed by Ripper Man. I’m afraid I wet myself and Nurse was angry. She punished everything I did, but I never listened to her. Nurse claimed all emotions like fear, dread, disgust – come from desiring the wrong food or not moving one’s bowels. Children must accept whatever’s given. If you show a preference, then that’s the very thing you’re not allowed to have. It’s as bad for a girl to cry for what she wants as for a boy to land a blow. Yet we did both, because Nurse was nobody.

    LEONARD
    Cousin Jem was taken away to the madhouse. That was a good thing, surely.

    VIRGINIA
    Where he starved himself to death, and that’s what I shall do if ever you lock me up in one of those places.

    LEONARD
    Go back to your mother’s death.

    VIRGINIA
    I didn’t know what had happened until I saw the nurses crying. I thought they were pretending and we should laugh at them but everyone pulled a face. I went to kiss Mother but she was cold as iron. I never touch iron without thinking of her. Father caromed off people and walls, seeking anyone to wail against. It was like being shut up in a cage with a wild beast.

    LEONARD
    My family was rigidly quiet when my father died. Stiff upper lip, get on with it, try harder, everyone must buckle down. That sort of thing.

    VIRGINIA
    A family is a conspiracy, driven by uncontrollable lusts. I saw a man sitting with mother’s corpse but the others saw no one there. We became unmoored, entering a time of hopeless suspense, muddle, mismanagement, battling the stupidity of those in power. It was as if a finger had been laid upon our lips, sentencing us to a sultry, opaque miasma that choked us and blinded us. Father shouted at Stella if she didn’t stock his writing paper or ordered too much fish. I knew it really was because she couldn’t tell him he was a first-rate writer, as mother always did. Stella had no mind and nobody respected her. Poor father was haunted by fears that he only had a third-class mind.

    LEONARD
    And did he, do you think?

    VIRGINIA
    His ego crippled him. Self-assertion is so loathsome. Father began writing The Mausoleum Book. About death. He wailed from the top of the stairs, “We perished, each alone.” Nothing is to be dreaded so much as egotism. Stella tried her best to rescue us. I wasn’t kind to her because she dragged me to the dentist and ordered all my clothes. I couldn’t bear standing for inspection while being stuck with pins. She was made me wear stays for the first time. Then Stella fell in love.

    LEONARD
    With Jack Waller Hills. Did you like him?

    VIRGINIA
    I did then, but I realized later he was a terrible old Fascist. He used to say, “the weak are wrongdoers who foul the nets.” I know he meant me, that I was a weak wrongdoer. In the end, he was a typical man who liked to have his way. He always put his great hoof down. But at first, he seemed the only truth-teller we had ever met. I was thirsty for knowledge, and he knew things. He taught me how to sugar trees for moths, how to collect and mount butterflies, how to take pride in killing beautiful things. He told me everything about sex, about “street love”, common love, why it is that women can never walk alone. I was so shocked. I asked, What about honor? He said men never think of honor, that they had women constantly, so all their talk of purity is nonsense. Every man has his whore. Every woman except the cheap ones must be locked up tight. Yet they call women fallen! Men are the whores. It makes no sense to me.

    LEONARD
    It does sound mad.

    VIRGINIA
    The night Jack proposed a tramp broken into the garden. Thoby threatened him, shouting at him to go away. We were always frightened of tramps – it seemed they could get in anywhere. I was afraid one had invaded the house and was lurking and leering, waiting to pounce. But it was only Jack. When Father found out about the engagement he tried to stop the wedding but Stella had her own money so he could do nothing. He postponed the wedding until Stella agreed to buy the house next door so that she could still take care of him. During all this Nessa and I were forced to chaperone. You can’t think how awful it is to sit between a couple whispering and trying to touch. I was so angry at Stella I broke my umbrella in half.

    LEONARD
    Child chaperones? Whatever will they think of next?

    VIRGINIA
    I know! I often think I’m the only one who isn’t crazy! Stella and Jack convinced the aunts that Nessa and I could accompany them properly to Bognor but immediately we got there they sent us two out into the rain so they could be alone. We were soaked to the skin!

    LEONARD
    Was there no one who could speak for you?

    VIRGINIA
    The old aunts were the worst of the lot. They curdled our brains with their falsehoods and their pieties. The wedding was the most horrible ordeal. Nessa and I resolved to be Stoic and show no emotion, as if it were nothing touching us. If ever you show feelings you are treated like a beast at the zoo and will never escape the cage. Thus we were buried beneath obligations, under torrents of uncomfortable clothes, awkward visits and unspeakable rituals. I think we are to be congratulated, you and I, that we sidestepped that whole mess so neatly.

    LEONARD
    Yes, the registry office is so much better. It’s over so fast. But after the wedding?

    VIRGINIA
    The happy couple went to Italy, and we were left alone with Father. He was awful to Nessa, how I hated him! He shouted at her as he’d shouted at Stella. But Nessa stood up to him, she was a rock, she didn’t care. That’s when she summoned up her supreme indifference. It’s the bane of all who love her.

    LEONARD
    But Vanessa had no money of her own.

    VIRGINIA
    No. If Stella hadn’t given us allowances we would have had to beg Father for every penny. And then Stella and Jack came home early because Stella was ill.

    LEONARD
    What was wrong with her?

    VIRGINIA
    Violet Dickinson told me Jack must have hurt her with his violent lovemaking. That he broke her somehow. But Violet was just a spinster, so what could she possibly know? The doctors called it appendicitis but you know what cretins they turned out to be. They couldn’t operate because of the baby – she was pregnant, of course. On the night she died, I was sleeping in her new house – in her dressing room in fact –

    LEONARD
    You were sleeping in Stella’s dressing room?

    VIRGINIA
    Yes, I’d been so ill, you see. I always got ill when people went away. But Stella was dying so they sent George to fetch me. George the over-fed pug dog, fat as a louse, beady-eyed as a rat. He wrapped me in Stella’s fur cape and carried me back to Father’s house.

    LEONARD
    And then?

    VIRGINIA
    Stella died and Jack was left bereaved. Now we had two widowers wailing. The men in our family hardly waited for the bodies to be buried before turning to their next victim. I remember Jack holding my wrist on one side so tightly he left bruises, and George holding me on the other side. I was trapped, you see, I couldn’t get away. George won so Jack settled on Nessa. They actually wanted to marry! I couldn’t believe it. I told Nessa, you can’t be serious! She said, “So you’re against me too,” and gave me a look that broke my heart. But she knew they couldn’t marry because of the Deceased Wife’s Sister’s Act.

    LEONARD
    They could have married in France.

    VIRGINIA
    That’s what they say about everything, that “the French get away with it.” Luckily it all blew over because Nessa was granted a place at the Slade. Then I was quite alone. George pounced immediately and began ordering clothes and jewels to release me into society. I was the sacrificial offering to his violent gusts of passion and his mean little piggy brain.

    LEONARD

    And then?

    VIRGINIA

    And then Father began to die and I went mad a little. After he died, I went mad a lot.

    LEONARD

    Well, it isn’t any wonder, from what I’ve heard. If you are mad then so am I.

    VIRGINIA
    You can’t think how long I’ve waited for those words!

    (she reaches out a hand to him – he clutches it and kisses it)

    LEONARD

    Dearest! You will always be my only love!

    (they gaze at each other, both trembling with pent-up emotion)

    VIRGINIA
    But darling, if Dr. Craig consigns me to deepest darkness you will have to marry someone else. You can’t waste your life waiting for me.

    LEONARD
    That won’t happen. Craig says our future’s what we make of it.

    VIRGINIA
    Oh, honey mongoose! Let’s make a pact right now to rise above the nay-sayers. You have given me all the best things I have ever had in life, rescued me from the cliff edge again and again. You have been absolutely perfect to me, and I have been disgraceful to you. You work so hard and I do nothing. It’s all my fault. I was mad and angry before I met you and I am madder and angrier right now. I want you to know that I do want to cuddle you but I don’t know how to show it. In spite of my vilest imaginings I’ve always known that I love you and that you love me.

    (he leans his face towards her, she awkwardly moves closer and they kiss delicately)

    LEONARD
    Virginia, I promise not to ever push you any farther than you want to go.

    VIRGINIA
    Oh honey! And I promise to follow all your rules; early bed, milk for breakfast; just so long as I can always read and write.

    (they embrace)

    LEONARD

    If ever you cease writing I shall divorce you immediately.

    VIRGINIA

    (laughing awkwardly as if she has forgotten how)

    It’s a bargain. Oh, darling, shall we really have our own press and print all our own work?


    LEONARD
    Yes, and some of your friends if they are good enough. You decide.

    VIRGINIA

    And can I have a bulldog, too? I’ve always wanted a bulldog pup.

    LEONARD

    Certainly, my pet.

    VIRGINIA

    And can we live in London? A new house all our own?

    LEONARD

    Not London but perhaps some leafy suburb.

    VIRGINIA

    Leonard! Suburbs!

    LEONARD

    Think of the bulldog, Virginia. He must have a healthful life.

    VIRGINIA

    You’re right of course, Leonard. You are always right.

    LEONARD

    Bulldogs need a place to roam.

    VIRGINIA

    Fresh air and food. Lots of good red steak.

    LEONARD

    May I order dinner now, Virginia? Surely, it’s time.

    VIRGINIA
    Yes, Leonard.

    (She clutches his hand fiercely while with his other he rings the bell) CURTAIN – END

  • The Dalingridge Horror – a play by Alysse Aallyn

    VIRGINIA
    I should never have married you. Women see the worst of men, how cruel they are at home, how they believe in ranks and ceremonies, how they demand praise and management. We bring out what’s bad in each other. We should live separately.

    LEONARD
    Virginia, I admit I have been a brute. I told you that before you married me. I have faults, vices and beastlinesses. I am lustful, a whorer, a gazer after women, a vicious man who has loved the refinements of vice. I have seen the filth of the brothel, know that it is filth and still I’ve lain with the ugliest whore. I have been selfish, jealous, and cruel. You are the most beautiful, most magical among women. Yet I must have you, and not some inferior female who would enrage me with her inferiority and submission. I am terminally and unconditionally in love with you. God, the happiness I’ve had being with you and talking to you – mind to mind and soul to soul. I don’t care so much for the physical part. You are the best thing I have ever had in my life. I will never be content, now, with second best.

    VIRGINIA
    And here am I, a failure, childless, no writer and insane. You confessed your sins before we married, but I knew I was insane with a mad sister and a madder uncle and yet I married you.

    LEONARD
    Tell me the truth. Why did you marry me, the penniless, trembling Jew?

    VIRGINIA
    Perhaps only because you were my beloved brother Thoby’s best friend. He said, I’ve met a man so violent, so savage, he trembles with contempt for the whole human race. And that was you.

    LEONARD
    Thoby was so beautiful it was difficult to speak with him of iniquity or despair.

    VIRGINIA
    Thoby had the kind of beauty that defends itself from caress.

    LEONARD
    And you’re the same. With such gestures one falls in love for a lifetime.

    VIRGINIA
    Thoby and I were so close until he went away to that school, where the boys fought and buggered. When he came back he was so different, harsh and cruel. He beat me. I just stood there and let him pound me with his fists, feeling the most awful sadness; why hurt another person? He showed off by abusing me. I refused to surrender the space we used to have, but he said, Girls must give up. That’s what it means to be a girl. It was essential for the fellowship of men that I be kept out. Because you were his greatest friend I hoped the best of him lived on, in you. But you are nothing like him.

    LEONARD
    The Goth was always a law unto himself. He didn’t acquire friends, he annexed worshippers. You and Vanessa looked so like him our Circle called you “Visigoths.” Misses Virginia and Vanessa Stephens, so beautiful that dogs turned to look at them in the street.

    VIRGINIA
    Trust me, it’s not that pleasant having dogs turn to look at one in the street. So, you married me, thinking I was like Thoby and you were disappointed.

    LEONARD
    Virginia, you must stop thinking everything is your fault. We were primed to fall in love because of our friendships, but we actually fell in love because we saw each other’s true selves.

    VIRGINIA
    I saw how shocked you were when you realized you had married a madwoman.

    LEONARD
    Life may be an obstacle race but that doesn’t mean one would want the obstacles removed.

    VIRGINIA
    I should have told you!

    LEONARD
    Did I tell you my tremor is hereditary? My father had it, too. Should I have confessed that? We didn’t want to talk about our families. We wanted to revel in each other’s hopes and dreams.

    VIRGINIA
    When we talked, I forgot everything except the joy of our conversation. Originality and freedom, purity and restraint, we discussed it all. Here’s someone who cares, I thought, about the hidden pockets of emotion, someone who wants to work like a steam engine at uncovering the truth. I needed to know that when I weep, I am not the only weeper. You almost persuaded me we could change the world with just our two brains.

    LEONARD
    Nothing’s more important than the two of us united.

    VIRGINIA
    Yet somehow here I am, locked up in a madhouse.

    LEONARD
    Virginia, this isn’t a madhouse and you are not insane. But we need the doctor’s permission for you to leave. We must figure out, the pair of us, how you can assume control. I don’t believe in guilt or apologies. I know what it is to be driven beyond endurance but I know I can avoid the whirlpools if you help me, Virginia. Let me help you learn how to assume control.

    VIRGINIA
    What’s the use of men talking to women, we’re too different. We must hate and fear each other. Women can’t even step outside their doors with any safety. If you could strip off my skin you would see my nerves gone white with fear of you.

    LEONARD
    You’re talking to the member of a despised race rooted out as pests wherever we settle. My nerves should be white with fear of your kind. It’s a fetid, sordid world. Yet we two are somehow different. In Ceylon, I took out my gun to put an end to the utter foulness, the stupid blind vindictive foulness of everything. You see, we have that in common.

    VIRGINIA
    You did? You really tried to shoot yourself?

    LEONARD
    I thought that the only reason one doesn’t commit suicide is that one is either a selfish coward or already dead and rotten. The one thing that saved me was a vision of you, the beautiful Miss Stephen who wrote like an angel and quoted Plato. I longed to meet you. But I was so afraid of making a fool of myself my very soul and stomach trembled.

    VIRGINIA
    You stayed alive because of me?

    LEONARD
    I did. So you must return the favor. Lytton Strachey and I wrote long letters back and forth. He argued against suicide and insisted that I propose.

    VIRGINIA
    Lytton asked me to marry him once. Thank God, I didn’t. The very idea of his criticisms would have kept me from writing anything.

    LEONARD
    He understood all that. He said the only person who was right for you was me.

    VIRGINIA
    But he didn’t know about my spoiled, ruined body.

    LEONARD
    You have a perfect body!

    VIRGINIA
    Currently being stuffed like a Strasbourg goose, thanks to you. Strapped down, force fed, shot with drugs.

    LEONARD
    All because you refuse to eat. Let me order dinner right now and feed it to you. How about that?

    VIRGINIA
    I’m not hungry. Oh, let me die, Leonard! Let me go! Find a girl who can love you properly! I failed in the bedroom – you made that perfectly clear.

    LEONARD
    Perhaps copulation is inherently degrading. Really, horseback riding is more pleasurable.

    VIRGINIA
    But there’s children to look forward to, surely.

    LEONARD
    I don’t want children and if you really read The Wise Virgins, you’ll know why.

    VIRGINIA
    But we won’t raise them in a strict Jewish home!

    LEONARD
    There’s your prejudice again! It wasn’t the Judaism, it was the endless striving for dominance of tiny minds. How I hated it!

    VIRGINIA
    Father shrieked and screamed that we were sending him to the poorhouse with our expensive household bills. I brought him a catalog of King’s College classes for Ladies but he said he couldn’t spare me because it was my turn to pet him, soothe him, cut his meat! I wanted to write, but I couldn’t keep it private. Once I had a diary with a lock but Thoby stole it, so I pasted my secret pages into a book.

    LEONARD
    After my father died we really were headed for the poorhouse. My brother had to work to support the family.

    VIRGINIA
    Don’t you think every family is a lonely caravan, absolutely private, silent and unknown? I see us wedged in together, surrounded by vast space we couldn’t cross. It seemed impossible to break through the dark cloud and shed light on those shrouded, curtained rooms. Censors, visionary figures everywhere admonished us. Father told me no intelligent being had any right to believe in God, but when I was six years old, I dreamed that I was God.

    LEONARD
    And your mother?

    VIRGINIA
    Mother said there couldn’t be a God because no just God would have killed the splendid Herbert Duckworth, her first husband. She loved him so. She never told my father she loved him.

    LEONARD

    Never?

    VIRGINIA

    Never. I wrote stories in which clever, courageous children rescue their families and bring hope to the sick. Do you believe in God, Leonard?

    LEONARD
    No one believes in God. Virginia, we must refuse to be determined by our pasts. Our parents had too many children to cope but we won’t make the same mistake. Don’t you want to be free, Virginia? With so many mouths to feed, freedom’s never possible.

    VIRGINIA
    I know you’re only saying that because Dr. Hyslop insists the mad should never propagate.

    LEONARD
    I swear I’m not. Nessa has children – and with all her lovers looks to spew many more – wouldn’t that be enough for you?

    VIRGINIA
    (turning away)

    Surely loneliness destroys us. Futile and infertile – aren’t those more than adequate reasons for self-murder?

    LEONARD
    We’ll never be futile, not us. You’ve written a wonderful novel, Virginia. I know you’ll write many more.

    VIRGINIA
    Received by my family in complete silence.

    LEONARD
    They’re barely literate. My whole point is that family shouldn’t matter. I’ve freed myself – I never see my mother if I can help it. Remember how upset she was to be excluded from our wedding? Surely an ambitious person’s gaze should widen, take in more?

    VIRGINIA
    Take in who? Society, like the Countess of Carnarvon? Publishers like Gerald?

    LEONARD
    How about other modern thinkers, trying to do what we are doing? Finding new ways to be, see, think, do, connect. Roger Fry with his “significant form”. Maynard Keynes with aggregate demand, E. M. Forster’s clever novels. The literary impressionism you attempted in Voyage Out.

    VIRGINIA
    Forster isn’t clever. He thinks women should be banned from the London Library Board and never allowed on the grass at Cambridge. How on earth can dry, dusty books ever make up for real, live children?

    LEONARD
    Was your childhood really anything you’d care to revisit, Virginia?

    VIRGINIA
    Yes, yes, yes. If I could only tell you, or anybody. Oh, the magic summers at St. Ives! Lost, gone forever. Paradise before, catastrophe after. Now whatever it is I want I cannot tell. I was born with extraordinary capacities for feeling, but you say bury my emotions or they will never let me out.

    LEONARD
    Not bury them, Virginia. Manage them. We need to convince the world that you are fine and well. Let’s get to the bottom of the ideas that torment you. How many years was that paradise of childhood, really? Two or three? We have our whole, long, fruitful lives ahead of us.

    VIRGINIA
    It was paradise before the deaths began.

    LEONARD
    There’s no escaping death, Virginia.

    VIRGINIA
    You intimate that children would drive me mad?

    LEONARD
    They would certainly stop you working. Can you see a house filled with nannies, nurses, servants, their followers and lovers? Cockney quarrels and endless Bedlam difficulties? You once described your nursery as a cage where you were forced to perform compulsory tricks.

    VIRGINIA
    And what do you call this damnable house? Cousin Madge says you’re mean and think of nothing but money.

    LEONARD
    Madge is an idiot. Let’s resolve to cut all idiots on principles of health.

    VIRGINIA
    If that were only possible! Here I am in George’s house, sentenced to eternally hawking Gerald’s books!

    LEONARD
    But George isn’t here. And there are other publishers in the world besides Gerald.

    VIRGINIA
    Worse ones, doubtless. Did you read Gissing, or even Meredith?

    LEONARD
    Then we’ll publish our books ourselves.

    VIRGINIA
    (turning to face him)

    Could such a thing be possible?

    LEONARD
    Of course, it is. You know your Women’s Cooperative promotes apprenticeships. I think the Working Man’s College teaches printing.

    VIRGINIA
    Oh, imagine if that were so! How I’d love to print! I used to bind books, I liked that. The tools were so beautiful. Papers from Italy, leathers from Africa. The smell alone was heavenly.

    LEONARD
    Don’t these doctors recommend handiwork?

    VIRGINIA
    Tat-work! Or crochet!

    LEONARD
    Let’s defeat them, then. Can’t we, together, push the world our way? Or at the very least carve out a tiny corner where we can live and thrive?

    VIRGINIA
    If only I could trust you.

  • The Dalingridge Horror – a play by Alysse Aallyn

    (Scene 4. The conservatory. VIRGINIA sits unmoving before a tea-table. Enter LEONARD.)

    LEONARD
    I see I am in time for tea. May I join you?

    VIRGINIA
    I can’t stop you.

    LEONARD

    (daringly pulls his chair to the table)

    How are you feeling?

    VIRGINIA
    Like a helpless baby on the shore of life, turning over pebbles. The ocean tosses me pebbles and I turn them over, one by one. I’m naked, a child, and no one helps me.

    LEONARD
    I want to help you. May I pour? Lovely cakes.

    (he pours two cups, carefully serves her a cake, takes one himself, munches and sips)

    Delicious. Sir George keeps an excellent cook.

    VIRGINIA
    His brain is in his stomach. Or rather, he has a stomach instead of a brain but no one’s noticed. I’m afraid the tea is cold. They won’t let me have a spirit lamp in case I set the place on fire, like mad Mrs. Rochester in Jane Eyre.

    LEONARD
    The tea is perfect. Oolong, I notice. May I sugar yours?

    VIRGINIA
    You’re certainly sugaring everything else. Why are you in such a good mood?

    LEONARD
    I’m happy to see you looking so well. What have you been thinking?

    VIRGINIA
    That I want to write a novel about silence. Depression interests me. One could make a game of assembling the fractured pieces, capturing the things people don’t say. How deeply they drive themselves into me, those things people daren’t say aloud! It seems everyone is in agreement that the truth of women must be suppressed. Repress, control. If I am going to write all this I will need a different word than novel or people won’t know what to expect. Elegy, perhaps?

    LEONARD
    You were born to write, Virginia. Your book is beautiful. I mean The Voyage Out.

    VIRGINIA
    My book? My poor sad, dull novel which shall certainly be abused? A whole made painfully from shivering fragments. “The spring, bare and bright like a virgin fierce in her chastity, scornful in her purity, was laid on fields entirely careless of beholders.” I tried to speak truth but I collapsed under the burden of my failure.

    LEONARD
    You can’t think how I envy you your spring of fantastic imagination.
    It’s beautifully written. But it’s so very sad. Tell me, why must Rachel die before the wedding?

    VIRGINIA
    Because the fiancé is based on Clive and who would ever want to marry him?

    LEONARD
    Nessa did.

    VIRGINIA
    He kept his real face very well hidden. The things he says about me to others! Adrian showed me the letters!

    LEONARD
    He’s angry because you refused him. Clive’s a monster. We’re in complete agreement. What if we eliminated monsters from your life? What would you write next?

    VIRGINIA
    It’s not possible to eliminate monsters. Look at this new war they’re brewing. War is a stupid, violent, hateful, idiotic, trifling, mean, ignoble display. Why should I dare to love you when you will only fight and die, trodden underfoot in some soggy foreign field?

    LEONARD

    You won’t get rid of me that easily. Dr. Craig has given me a dispensation because of my tremor.

    VIRGINIA

    So you’ve seen Dr. Craig. Is he as stupid as the others?

    LEONARD

    He thinks we need to design a healthy life. I think so too. And because your healthy life is writing, I want to hear about what you’ll write next.

    VIRGINIA
    (dreamily)

    I want to write about the islands of light swimming through the grass. I want to show the peace, the unity in the smallest flower – but whenever I try the great ugly beast on the beach stamps and snorts.

    LEONARD
    What beast?

    VIRGINIA
    He is chained, but he pulls at his chain. I’m so afraid – he might escape.

    LEONARD
    Is this a memory, Virginia?

    VIRGINIA
    What have we but memory? Women are the beggars of every family; memory is our only treasure, the only dowry we inherit. Tell the truth, said father. But mother said sometimes a lie is better than the truth, because of feelings. You must spare people’s feelings, but only if they have the right feelings. What if their feelings are false to begin with? My feelings were never the right ones. Father was my writing teacher, did I tell you that?

    LEONARD
    And what was his recipe?

    VIRGINIA
    He said only write the truth and say exactly what you mean.

    LEONARD
    If only that were possible! You saw how I botched my turn.

    VIRGINIA
    But the truth is that when father died, I hated him. I was so relieved to be free of the exacting tyrant, the histrionic, self-pitying, violent, deaf, alternately loved and hated father. We all were. We fled that house, from a crypt slimy with fungus, disgusting with mold, gushing a sour stench of decay.

    (A catch in her voice)

    How we rejoiced! But in truth we had graduated from a life of suppressed rage into one of perpetual mourning. In my fantasies, Father confesses and repents his crimes, asking my forgiveness. But he could never do that, really. Everyone saw him as the pinnacle of reason and privilege, yet he felt ill-used by everyone he knew, even by life itself. I wonder, was he haunted by a devil, by some demon? Was it not he, himself, but something sitting on his shoulder that pecked at us so fiercely?

    LEONARD
    Naturally he grieved when your mother died. He must have altered greatly then.

    VIRGINIA
    My mother’s death was the greatest disaster that could possibly have happened. Father sat through countless meals groaning aloud about how he wished to die. Do you know, it is my worst fear that I will become like him. It is a fate more to be feared than madness, to my mind. He is inexplicable. Extraordinarily gifted, godlike, yet somehow childlike. There was an infantile fixation! Bubbling up from some dark place, I suppose, below the level of conscious thought. But he was protected by society, as we were not. In the privacy of our home he seemed unbound by any of the laws of ordinary people. Yet he desired constant pity! We were the ones forced to be self-controlled and coolly analytical, plotting ways to get around him. But when he shouted at Nessa I hated him so much I could have killed him myself. Our punishment came when Thoby died. Violet and Vanessa also were stricken with typhoid but only the sheltered males perished.

    LEONARD
    Thoby’s death wasn’t punishment. Thoby died of a typhoid germ. If these men are fragile as you say, how could your father be the brute you dreamed of, stamping on the beach?

    VIRGINIA
    All you men are brutes, with your gaming, your competitions, your subjugation and your wars. Men use knives, to cut things, to sacrifice, while women use needle and thread, to sew them up. But nothing’s as good once it’s been repaired. When my father threw a fish into the bottom of the boat, I felt I suddenly was that fish, flopping, gasping, drowning in the very air all had sworn was safe to breathe. I had more in common with waves and seabirds than with that man.

    LEONARD
    Now Virginia, you mustn’t get excited.

    VIRGINIA
    The great secret is not to feel. Strong feelings create an abyss between oneself and others. No one ever says anything they really mean. I am bored by men and their silly violence and wars. I detest the masculine point of view. I am bored by heroism, virtue and honor. Men’s acquisitive instincts cause them to desire other people’s fields and goods, to make frontiers and flags, battleships and poison gas, to offer up their own lives and their children’s lives. Why should I submit to them, why endure a lifetime of unpaid service to their shoddy interests?

    LEONARD
    I agree we are a disgusting species. But man’s only locomotion is logic and reason. We must never give up.

  • The Dalingridge Horror – a play by Alysse Aallyn

    (Curtain. Lights up on Scene 3, CONSULTATION ROOM of DR. CRAIG. LEONARD sits, head in hands.)

    DR CRAIG
    Glad to see you, Mr. Woolf. I am eager to hear your opinion of the progress of our patient.

    LEONARD
    Virginia and I have been talking and I must admit she does not sound altogether mad to me.

    DR CRAIG
    My dear fellow, insanity of the mind merely means whatever derangement disables a person from thinking the thoughts, feeling the feelings and doing the duties of the social body in, for, and by which he lives. Insanity is nothing more than a want of harmony between the individual and his social medium. That individual sadly becomes a social discord of which nothing can be made.

    LEONARD
    She speaks frequently of her home life where her brothers took advantage of her.

    DR CRAIG
    You are referring to her delusions. You will have noticed that patients, particularly intelligent ones, are very cunning as they seek to involve their caregivers into sharing their beliefs of persecution and misfortune. It is much better not to allow oneself to re-hash a history that must remain forever uncertain but to forcefully insist on a calming, healthful daily regimen starting now.

    LEONARD
    Surely, you’ll agree that being resentful of bad treatment hardly constitutes insanity.

    DR CRAIG
    My dear sir, your wife is under doctors’ care because she tried to take her own life. We are obviously not dealing with a healthy person here. No, taken by themselves, delusions do not necessarily indicate insanity but when they are found in conjunction with broad evidence of failure to conform one’s general conduct to the ordinary rules of life and society such a diagnosis must be made. Clearly such an obligation places great responsibility on the keen insights and experience of professional men rigorously educated to the highest standard and admitted by the demanding qualifications of the Royal Society of Medicine. As a man of the world you must know that is always very common for weaker beings to resent those on whom greater fortune has been showered and to feel their gains are somehow ill-gotten. This resentment stirs up a host of fantasies that must be very firmly rejected. Successful work never leads to this disorder but unsuccessful work shows a very different etiology.

    LEONARD
    But in the case of Virginia’s upbringing –

    DR CRAIG
    Mr. Woolf, in every case the instinctive impulses of children must sooner or later clash with the social regime, to the infant’s sorrow and momentary discomfiture. Elders must be recognized as the authority in such matters or chaos would result. Therefore, no airing of childhood wrongs can ever constitute a fruitful line of inquiry.

    LEONARD
    It seems the situation was so severe that Dr. Savage was consulted at the time –

    DR CRAIG
    My good fellow, it would be better for you to face the fact that delusions never require any other support than the conviction of the deluded. A man may believe, for example, that his head has been opened, his brains removed and some other substance substituted. That is a very common delusion, I can assure you.

    LEONARD
    Virginia is an intelligent woman. I believe she must be handled intelligently. I may even say she has a touch of genius. In fact, I believe she is the only true genius I have ever met.

    DR CRAIG
    Are you arguing that geniuses are in some way above or beyond the law, Mr. Woolf? I certainly hope you are not.

    LEONARD
    Her family was considered the highest intellectual intelligentsia of their day. It seems obvious to me –

    DR CRAIG
    What is obvious to me, is that the degree of education and the social status of the person whose conduct is under consideration are indeed important facts, for habits that would be decidedly eccentric in the upper classes may pass unremarked in the lower reaches of society. The sex of the patient is even more critical to diagnosis. Outbursts of emotional weeping in men, for example, are a symptom of grave import but among women occasion no remark. Any woman’s effort to escape her true femininity places her moral hardihood at peril. Imagine some up to date woman adopting a divided skirt under the belief that it is a healthier form of apparel and permits greater freedom of action. Very well. But should she indulge in so subversive a notion as to think that male attire is even more hygienic and to actually carry her belief into practice, the arm of the law will at once reach out to warn her. If the warning is not heeded, society will place her in safekeeping until she has learned to conform to the ideas of the majority. This is the situation in which your wife finds herself at the current time. Before her marriage, I am given to understand that your wife frequented a rather louche artistic bohemia. Now that she is a married woman you have acquired a unique opportunity to place her feet on a more secure footing. I understand you have rejected the possibility of committing her to an asylum but want to give her another chance in the wider world. It is accordingly crucial that you not indulge her in useless analysis of who or what was at fault in her upbringing but encourage her to commit to a fresh new life, with you, where she submits to a healthful pattern which you will lay out for her.

    LEONARD
    What you say makes a good deal of sense, but Virginia has always had her own ideas about everything. Her reading alone, even from childhood has been voluminous. I think I can say that she’s read everything and everybody.

    DR CRAIG
    Now I think you are laying your finger on a much likelier culprit in your wife’s hysteria than the boyish behaviors of exuberantly boisterous, youthful males. Most women’s minds are simply not capable of absorbing and processing the histories and theories of men who lived in more pernicious times. As a Cambridge graduate you do not need me to point out which books might be especially dangerous. We may even disagree on which authors have a nihilist or even Bolshevik bent. But if you are committed to keeping your wife out of the asylum you must make it your life work to supervise your wife more closely in future. I understand there is family money?

    LEONARD
    Some money. We will both need to seek employment.

    DR CRAIG
    I think you will find your wife far too fragile for the hurly burly of economic exchange. These patients are frequently considered brilliant in conversation. But on inspection this seeming brilliancy will be found in large measure to be due to the unconventional nature of their chatter. Patients such as your wife are often considered more entertaining when ill than when in health for through loss of control they make remarks which the healthy would fear to utter. A sane person is inhibited in both speech and action. I think you must reconcile yourself to having a saner, healthier but possibly duller wife who partakes of a less unsettling society.

    LEONARD
    But can it ever be right to subject an intelligent person to regimes designed for the mad?

    DR CRAIG
    My dear sir, there is really no distinction between physical disease and mental disorder. Mrs. Woolf must learn to practice equanimity and you are the best judge of how to assist her in that course. In any given individual where nothing more than exaggerated and uncontrolled normal characteristics may constitute mental disorder, we realize how narrow is the margin between those whom we call the sane and the insane. You are her husband. Have faith in your power to exercise benevolent dominance. It is a husband’s obligation.

    LEONARD
    But Virginia is so sensitive! I am concerned –

    DR CRAIG
    I cannot suggest too strongly, my dear sir, that you focus more on your wife’s bowels than on her brains. Constipation is not only a common symptom of the insane, it is the rule rather than the exception. Another symptom which appears early and which stands out in strong relief, is hypersensitivity. To me this is the symptom of all symptoms which may occasion unsoundness of mind.

    LEONARD
    Virginia becomes so excited when I approach her –

    DR CRAIG
    I will prescribe Hyoscynamine. It is a wonderful relaxant which has given excellent results in quieting the most difficult patients.

    (Lights out.)