EVAN I am utterly becalmed. What I dread most is silence, The latest form of impotence. I need stringing up and tautening. This is the Revenge of love. Its revenge on me.
EVA I am suffused with love because I am free. My work becomes our child, Our extension. Immortal. Still, Something vanishes when you’re not there.
EVAN Elayna broke her hip. How irreplaceable she is to me. Our brand of married happiness is entirely unsung. I shrink to leave her even for a day.
EVA I’m sorry it wasn’t fatal. Am I so dispensable to you? You love no one. If you turn against me I’ll die in a week because I have no one looking after me.
EVAN Turn against you! Agonizing! In spite of the hangover of humiliation I broke down all reserves so we could be together. A very happy day and I was sorry to leave you.
EVA Wed & sad. Past distress muffled by age & habit. Today we meet formally as if at a garden party. A promise unfulfilled. Miracles happen but The gift of love is guilt & pain.
EVAN You looked so ill I was nagged by fear I bored you. I long for the happiness of old age, Guilt free, pain free, fear free.
EVA I invited Elayna to lunch.
EVAN I am not best pleased. Your ghost will haunt me till I die. The day you come to like each other It will be poison to our love.
Elayna rarely admits depression. I have had not just love but loyalty. You force ruthlessness. It is a good thing your throat is sore Or you would never stop talking.
EVA Are you sending me your signet ring? I want something solid to remember you by. A last communion. Dodging death, I fight off this Paralyzing loneliness.
(EVA fades away. EVAN is alone.)
EVAN Is the flaw in love a flaw in me? I never should have married. My heart jumps with pain like a hooked fish. I am rudderless. Upon your death My ring comes back, All your contrivances revealed.
Now that you are gone, I find you everywhere. It’s hard to take in the fact that We will never see each other again; Never, never, never. You are gone from me forever.
I walk the streets and weep. Is this delayed shock? Boredom or despair? I will never cease to feel this pain till I cease feeling anything. For the last three nights, I dreamed of you.
Did I anger you, neglect you? It’s too late to pray – I await your final book with horror. I need to know I was your life. Please come back one last time For just an hour. If you ever thought you loved more than I You are now Revenged.
EVA Allen’s buried. Without husband, I re-experience my youth. Oh, the bafflement of the young! I broke off my first Engagement because I loved too much And cast about for a spouse I could Control. I believe you did that, too.
EVAN I experienced our parting as unbearable. I had to run away – Your rush of talk was like someone bursting into tears. I felt like an executioner robbing you of sleep. Without you My nose began to bleed and It’s been bleeding ever since. We must love each other less to become more tranquil.
EVA I am a witch and you should fear me. I glow with contempt and boredom and fury. I don’t understand why I can’t experience life by your side. We share the same senses, The same vein of joy. Our life together is timeless, continuous.
EVAN Your letter fraught with dynamite. I can never be alone, it is me and the gin bottle. I am home nowhere now – except with you.
EVA Please don’t get yourself into a state – But Edgar has proposed, forcing me to face the fact That I literally cannot live without you.
EVAN I dread you will succumb to Edgar. You called him “sweet” and “cozy” and “brilliantly entertaining” And I am none of those things. Did you bewitch him? I ask in my persecuted voice. It would be your ultimate justice, sending me to hell. We lose each other by inches. Aren’t we doing that already?
EVA I can’t show Edgar the brutal candor Behind my loving kindness. He mistakes the hostess for a person. I arrange my flowers in symbols of you And everyone’s too stupid to notice. To bed alone again tonight. I wish Elayna would die. Then we should be equals.
EVAN I must refuse your guilt. I feel a shift in the angle of vision Further from you than ever. A foreboding so final it seemed the end. Your pleading for our life dissolves my will.
EVA I am gnawed by an aching hopeless wish. Loneliness leads to breakdown, Becomes dementia. I batter Around the rooms of this castle, Brightly-plumaged, Knocking into furniture, A tragic bird who’s trapped indoors. Even dizzy with drink I maintain the frigidity Of an Edwardian hostess Intolerant of scenes at meals. Without you life’s a half-lit room.
EVAN I’ve become a character in your melodrama An absurd scalawag of romantic vice. Let’s reject this Hopeless dilemma.
EVA What could be more beautiful than our ten days in New York, Among perverted architecture. No loss of illusion there, rather an increase. I’m in the midst of a dreary financial crisis, Having breakdown on my feet. I hope I don’t sound too shocked and sad. You are life to me as nothing is. My fingers still tremble, Touching you after 17 years.
EVAN This is the Eva I first met, first knew, first loved. We waited it out and didn’t lose each other. I was sane or mad to doubt you & myself. We are like two people sweating blood I dread losing you But Elayna’s power still holds me. One of you may do me harm.
EVA Thanks for the cash, I hope it doesn’t embarrass you too much. You are a reviver and a balm. We shall be in Paris together before we die.
EVAN If you want me to be unselfish, let me be unselfish. You are my greatest friend. I’m Trying to keep off the drink while you’re here, Otherwise I know I’ll wreck everything. Three manhattans makes me crazy. Your feverish cheer does not seem solid. Is this the wreckage of our love? Once frightened of your clinical eye Now I’m more frightened of my own. I’ve matriculated in Your fearful university.
EVA We sheer away in horror Scenting fumes of evil As we lose control. Defeat and exhaustion, alarm and despondency. Demoralized and sad. Slam down the lid on pain and resentment: I have taken against your family. Let’s dance. To sit In silence denigrates our love.
EVAN My heart aches for you. We talked for the first time in weeks About hurt and resentment. I could manage my life if it weren’t for you And you could manage yours if it weren’t for me. You infect me with your despair and I flee to my wife To release the pressure. Her quickening influence works my imagination.
EVA I hate that you travel the world without me. You pervade that place as God pervades our hearts. I obsess that you’re in places where I’m not. I could not live without seeing you. Yet Our visit may turn sour.
EVAN Everything except your beautiful self rusts Or dies or goes away. My love only seems dead; it’s alive underneath. If you die I shall never forgive you.
We need ideas that are less about ourselves.
EVA My rage is based on my assumption Of togetherness and my Secret fear you’re being got at when We could be so snug together.
EVAN I hurt Elayna tonight But there’s no help for it. She cares for me and I only care for a life apart. A clean break, an amputation Makes me frantic and guilty. She says we have a happy marriage only because She willed it. This smell of death and decay Makes me long for sex. Could you help me find a girl – any girl you choose – Or will you call me a sex mad degenerate? Panic makes my hands shake. I thought of Elayna and I wept.
EVA I received your sad, wild letter. I accept that you can’t free yourself. Do you accept it? I feel so very near you. I accept that you make sex Desperately with strangers – Do you accept it? Can anyone love such a cold-blooded person?
EVAN How silly I am, I thought I reconciled to our ending, Expecting a collapse of tension & illusion. But it’s a prospect I just can’t face.
CHARACTERS (4) Charmayne: a beautiful, powerful woman just at the drop off point into middle age Whitney: a stubborn, determined girl on the cusp of adulthood who doesn’t give a damn about her looks Eight: mysterious male beachcomber, late 20’s The Guardians of the Past: (can be played by a single actor) Dr Quantreau: elderly male in fishing regalia Mrs. Preece: bug-eyed, spry, elderly woman Mr. Butterbatch: an old man leaning on his broom; a fount of knowledge Mrs. Davish: motherly, grave-tending woman
SCENES:
A “beach cottage” exterior in the Hamptons & beach
The basement “stacks” of a community college library
Hamptons beach
Empty strip club “Guilty Pleasures” in the early morning
Hamptons
Dead Lake Cemetery
SCENE 1 (Morning. The seaside. Corner of a Hamptons-type “cottage”, boulder, hammock, patio set, easy chair, beachplum. WHITNEY forcefully banging on the door.)
WHITNEY This is MY story and she DOESN’T get to tell it! Charmayne!! Charmayne!!
(Through the French windows above the front door we see a man and a woman waltzing together. CHARMAYNE, expensively dressed for glittering “sport” opens the doors and leans out over the balcony. Man hovers in background. All we can see of him is his lithe figure, a glitter of gold necklaces and a shirt open to the navel. )
CHARMAYNE Go away little Whitney. Can’t you see its time for my fencing lesson?
(Making cha-cha moves)
WHITNEY Is that what you call it?
CHARMAYNE That’s what everyone calls it. You’d do well to engage in a little exercise plan of your own.
(WHITNEY resumes hammering on door which CHARMAYNE eventually opens carrying a pair of old-fashioned sabers, one in each hand. Door closes behind so WHITNEY can’t see in)
CHARMAYNE (Swinging the swords in her hands)
Really, Whitney. Hasn’t anyone ever told you how unattractive it is to make a pest out of yourself?
WHITNEY Why can’t I go in?
CHARMAYNE (Briskly) Because it’s my house now, Whitney. I don’t want you to see it till it’s done. It’s going to be a work of art. This morning I had the carpet men; this afternoon I had the drapery men, and this evening…(sniffs the air)
WHITNEY That’s a lot of men.
CHARMAYNE One shouldn’t be afraid of these things, Whitney. And this evening… Who knows what the evening holds? En garde!
(She treats WHITNEY to a frightening display of swordswomanship. WHITNEY tries to remain calm)
WHITNEY I didn’t come to see your games.
CHARMAYNE These aren’t games, poor little Whitney, these are the skills of life. Look! I’ll show you a few moves!
(Tosses a saber at WHITNEY who ducks – it clatters away.) Oh, Whitney, you’re no fun. You really need to step more boldly in the world.
WHITNEY (A little sad, childishly punctured. She’s easy game)
I’m here, aren’t I? I like fishing. And skeet shooting.
CHARMAYNE Both of those can be done from an easy chair! Where’s the challenge in that? Why not crouch in a dark basement under a garden hose waiting for rats to skitter past if that’s all you’re going to do.
WHITNEY Seriously, when am I going to see inside? I just wondered…you know, about the family things…
CHARMAYNE There are no family things I like everything new. Antiques are a fraud perpetrated on the unwary. Don’t you remember we agreed you’d give me twenty-four hours notice before showing up?
WHITNEY I doubt we ever agreed about anything.
CHARMAYNE I’m afraid your lack of planning doesn’t constitute my emergency.
WHITNEY I’m giving you twenty-four hours notice now, then.
CHARMAYNE I’m so sorry, no can do tomorrow. How about Thursday?
WHITNEY (Like she’s never heard of it)
Thursday!!
CHARMAYNE (Silky)
Do try to squeeze it in. Young people fetishize spontaneity. When you’re all grown up I’m sure you’ll realize everything worth having comes through careful planning. Shall we say “tea?” Cinq à sept is my favorite hour. Ta ta, then.
Alysse Aallyn 