Alysse Aallyn

Tag: #Tango

  • The Demon Lover – a play for two voices by Alysse Aallyn

    6. ENTREGARME – SURRENDER


    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.

  • The Demon Lover – a play for two voices by Alysse Aallyn

    THE DEMON LOVER

    I. ABRAZO – THE EMBRACE

    EVAN

    I like women willful, late
    For appointments,
    fond of showy clothes and society, vague, drifting, dreamy,
    yet of course all of that is tiresome.

    Love mingles with irritation.
    But I don’t like competence, intellectual honesty, intelligent sensuality.
    Women who turn on me saying,
    “You don’t love me.”

    What good is it to have been so happy
    when it ends so painfully?
    I am a “crook”, a “torturer of women”,
    “Murderer.” She makes me feel a monster.

    Below the surface of the will
    I feel deep animal distress, as if I had wives
    Hidden away somewhere; perhaps
    That is why I had to marry
    My present wife.

    EVA
    If you start “trying to be good”
    that will really come between us.
    It’s too unattractive. What are you up to?

    I dream of a small house in Burgundy but
    You must help me pay the rent.
    Having a home is a form of egotism.
    My beautiful one, you could make me so happy.

    Selfishly I want you here
    So I don’t have to hallucinate your nearness.
    What’s that wife of yours –
    What do you call her –
    Elayna –
    Thinking in her frozen chamber?

    I’m feeling sorrow at our growing separation.
    Can’t we pull out of the world’s battle and live in retreat?
    Grant me one last happiness
    Before the sufferings of
    Pain and old age.

    EVAN
    I can’t keep up with life’s ambiguous futility.
    Is happiness just “freedom from pain”?
    Life is unendurable without you.
    People here are flirtatious but not sexy.
    it’s so boring here
    I’m hardening my heart to give up my home.

    EVA
    I find your misery gratifying.
    This power of enjoyment comes from being an artist,
    It is the secret of my strength.
    When I was younger I used to
    Accommodate everyone –
    Now I’m recalcitrant.

    It hurts because the sword runs through both of us.
    You’re never out of my thoughts, but
    Sadness dulls one.
    Honestly, I always risk failing you,
    Failing you in outstandingness.

    You are extraordinary, I am extraordinary,
    we have been extraordinary together.
    Specimens under glass.

    The agonizing force of missing you
    Is sweeping over me.
    We have eternity connecting us,
    Backward & forward but I just
    Can’t get anyone to believe it.

    EVAN
    Would my death simplify things?
    My wife struggles with carrying the conversation
    While I stare glumly at the rain.
    We go to an expensive little restaurant
    And pretend we are on a date to really talk.
    My double life begins the moment
    I say “Are you in love with me”?
    And really mean “Am I in love with you?”

    EVA
    That woman’s killing you.
    Imagine if you were dead and your wife
    Wrote a book explaining you
    To everyone! That’s true suffering –
    Fodder for the mealy-mouthed.

    EVAN
    My wife won’t be writing any books
    About me or about anything. You’re the one
    To write the book. And
    I feel safe in your witch-like hands.

    EVA
    Except I’ve told you over and over
    You’ll outlive me. Because
    You’re a killer.
    Or your wife is.

    You look younger than I’ve ever seen you.
    Have you gone queer? I fear
    I’ll die of my addiction –
    We always do.
    We prefer it.
    Will you write about me?