Alysse Aallyn

Tag: Theatre

  • Rough Sleep – a play by Alysse Aallyn

    (BEX appears in a spot on the TOWER LIFT, holding a pair of binoculars and a shotgun.  Scans the stage)

    CHASE

    (Holding JAZZ close)

    You’re making me feel incredibly powerful 

    (They kiss with increasing urgency. BEX appears to focus on them. He racks his gun angrily, climbs down, his spot dissolving.  JAZZ and CHASE’s “shadows” explode hugely against the back wall, seeming to rise up in the air)

    JAZZ

    Feel that?

    CHASE

    I do. Don’t fight it.

    JAZZ

    Who’s fighting it?  You’re the one fighting it.

    SCENE X – SWAP MEET. (When the lights come up the curtain has fallen and JAZZ and CHASEstand outside it, hand in hand, staring into the audience.)

    JAZZ

    Where are we?

    CHASE

    Looks like a swap meet. But all they’re selling is Christmas stuff.

    JAZZ

    That’s weird.

    CHASE

    Especially since I hate Christmas.

    JAZZ

    Who could possibly hate Christmas?

    CHASE

    It never lives up to its billing.

    (RAD appears, pushing a shopping cart. Sets up a table and starts laying out junk)

    RAD

    Hi, guys! Long time no see. You in the market for a knickknack?  Ganja? Electronics?  Jewelry? 

    CHASE

    Is this your gig?

    RAD

    Gotta have a side hustle – gotta get the scratch. You’d be amazed what some people just throw away. How about a nice Christmas cactus? I did have a shotgun but I sold it.

    CHASE

    You sold a shotgun? Who to?

    RAD

    Biker dude from out of town. He said if it didn’t work he would come looking for me.

    JAZZ

    Does it work?

    RAD

    Let’s hope so. Just passing on whatever I find.

    CHASE

    We don’t want anything.

    JAZZ

    Speak for yourself. I’d love a Christmas cactus. 

    (RAD reaches into the depths of his cart and produces an unflowering – apparently dead plant – JAZZ takes it)

    CHASE

    Great. It’s dead.

    JAZZ

    It is not. It only blooms once a year.  Says here, this one’s going to have three blossoms.

    RAD

    Can’t go to the party without a present.

    CHASE

    What party?

    RAD

    Isn’t life a party?

    JAZZ

    So far. 

    CHASE

    More like a bribe for the deadboat captain. So we poor ghosts don’t get shoved into steerage.

    RAD

    That’ll be a hundred bucks.

    CHASE

    A hundred bucks!

    RAD

    This is a rare, one time offer. Not shown on TV. I’ve got bills.

    JAZZ

    Blood money, remember?

    CHASE

    If that’s what you want. You got giftwrap?

    (RAD  produces pink foil and a massive ribbon)

    JAZZ

    Wow. This says “Happy Birthday.” Do we know anybody born in December?

    CHASE

    My mom.

    JAZZ

    Oh, my God! Hide!

    (She drags CHASE down the stage steps to cower behind the stairs. BEX appears with a shotgun, racking the slide. RAD hastily packs up. Both exit offstage)

    JAZZ

    See that?

    CHASE

    He’s gone now. Let’s find the party.

    JAZZ

    Anything to get away from here.

  • Rough Sleep – a play by Alysse Aallyn

    (At Hadleigh Hall, a body lies under a tarp)

    SOLIZ

    They’re not letting anyone in. Do you know who lives in Room 824?

    JAZZ

    Actually, I live there.

    SOLIZ

    Oh, you do, do you? Well, some guy fell out your window.

    JAZZ

    Just like your dream!

    SOLIZ

    (threateningly)

    I don’t know what you’re talking about.

    CHASE

    Some guy? Who?

    SOLIZ

    Unidentified.  You can’t see him, he’s under a tent.

    CHASE

    Can’t Jazz collect her stuff?

    SOLIZ

    Come back later. It’s chaos over there.

    (SOLIZ frees them from tape; JAZZ and CHASE lurch off downstage)

    JAZZ

    This is Soliz’s dream. I remember if she doesn’t.

                               CHASE

    Except this was a guy.

    JAZZ

    Let’s hope it was Bex.

    CHASE

    So now you’re pro-violence?

    JAZZ

    Who’s saying I pushed him? It would be so unlike me.

    CHASE

    So, no going home for you.

    JAZZ

    Hadleigh was never my home.

    CHASE

    Well, you can camp out at my place while we figure out what to do with this new corpse.

    JAZZ

    Makes me harder for Bex to find. On the other hand when he does, he’ll just get madder.

    CHASE

    We’ve got enough problems without worrying about satisfying his unsatisfiable psyche. We’ve got three dead bodies!

    JAZZ

    And God knows how many crime scenes. Explain exactly why soulmating requires detective work?

    CHASE

    Maybe nature is one big crime scene. Red of tooth and claw.

    JAZZ

    You and your classical education.

                               CHASE

    Voilã! Here we are at my place.  

    SCENE VIII – Lights go up on CHASE’S APT – disheveled male bedroom/kitchenette

    JAZZ

    This is definitely a crime scene.

    (Throws herself into a low-slung chair)

    CHASE

    (Sitting close)

    You expected harp music? Hey, you admitted your life was a crime scene too. 

    JAZZ

    I guess I thought the point of soulmates is all the hard work would be magically be done.

    CHASE

    So no going over the past trying to understand and explain the mess? Wouldn’t that be nice!

    JAZZ

    Why can’t we just escape the mess?  The mess would no longer matter. We could rise above the mess.

    CHASE

    Your fantasy forgets about the demons. If we’ve unleashed demons –

    JAZZ

    Who’s to say we unleashed them?  I’m not responsible for Bex.

    CHASE

    Yet he’s out there, rampaging. At least I know I’m responsible for Corso.

    JAZZ

    But Corso’s using your involvement to keep his rampage going. Oh. Touché. I see what you mean.

    CHASE

    We’re dissociating. Living each other’s nightmares.

    JAZZ

    At least we’re braving hell together.

    (they touch hands) 

    CHASE

    If it’s purgatory, graduation’s a possibility.

    JAZZ

    We’re on a multiple universe scavenger hunt! 

    CHASE

    A time and space jigsaw puzzle!

    JAZZ

    We need to get to the crime scene before the crime happens.

    CHASE

    How would we know it was a crime scene?

    JAZZ

    Tell me what you know. What Corso did to you.

    CHASE

    God! You know I don’t want to talk about it.

                               JAZZ

    What specifically are you afraid will happen if you talk about it?

    CHASE

    That this whole thing would shatter right in front of me. I would wreck – whatever this is happening between us.

    JAZZ

    Maybe we’re meant to reveal, not repair, each other’s real selves.

    CHASE

    Let’s talk about your fears and malfeasance. That’s more fun for me.

    JAZZ

    Somebody increased power by sucking out ours. We’re going to reclaim it. Tell your soulmate what Dr. Corso did to you. 

    CHASE

    If you know, aren’t you ruined too? How can I stay with someone who knows this disgusting thing about me?

    JAZZ

    I guess we’ll just have to see.  We need to free ourselves to be with each other. 

    CHASE

    But there’s the difference, right there – you left Bex,  I pursued Corso. I came after him. 

    JAZZ

    You are so competitive. If you need to be “worst”, prove it.

    CHASE

    He was a teacher at my choir school. Latin, of all things. We spent an eternity on the Aeneid. God, I hate talking about this. I haven’t talked about it since I was fifteen, with the lawyers and judges.

    JAZZ

    He molested you?

    CHASE

    Between my ninth and thirteenth years. He had a way of making us compete to be “the favorite”. If you could just get on that easy street, life became golden. Finally I saw what a prisoner I was. Mustered up the courage to get the hell out of there.

    JAZZ

    Jesus.

    CHASE

    Great pillow talk, huh?  And that’s not the worst of it.

    JAZZ

    How could it get worse?

    CHASE

    I brought him other boys.  Whatever he wanted.

    JAZZ

    You were a kid.  None of this could possibly be your fault.

    CHASE

    Yet here I am. Still a slave.

    JAZZ

    But you found your soulmate.

    (They hug)

    How did it end?

    CHASE

    It hasn’t ended. I mean, the sex thing ended when Corso met my sister – my twin sister – and decided he was ready to branch out. He was like, deliver her or else.  That woke me up. I went home and refused to go back to school.  I finally told my parents.

    JAZZ

    And?

    CHASE

    They pretty much behaved the worst they possibly could.  First, they didn’t believe me. My dad has always been a total bastard making fun of me for singing in a high voice and wearing a lace collar and Mom was sort of a “the church can do no wrong” nut. You know, like, who are you going to believe, a priest or your own lying eyes?  They just couldn’t take it in.  But then a kid at school hanged himself and things started to snowball. Corso got kicked out. People started suing. My dad smelled a payday. The other families accepted settlements not to squeal. Everybody settled except my father. He was holding out for the Big Money that was going to make all his dreams come true.

    JAZZ

    Then what?

    CHASE

    What always happens with my Dad.  He was having such a good  time holding the whip, he waited too long. The minute I turned sixteen, I got legally emancipated. I could prove that Dad was hitting me – I had the sense to record him – so the judge refused to give Dad the cash. Dad declared bankruptcy and I finished high school on my own. Living at the Y.

    (Restless pacing)

    So on top of everything else, I’m singlehandedly responsible for the destruction of my family.

    JAZZ

    Scapegoating. People need someone to blame, it’s another form of hostage-taking. This isn’t your fault.  Time to forgive yourself.

    CHASE

    Oh, that’ll be easy. Walk in the park.

    JAZZ

    I’m still here.

  • Rough Sleep – a play by Alysse Aallyn

    CHASE

    Here’s more fodder for my theory that reality is totally submerged – it’s never what you think you see.

    JAZZ

    Sounds deep.

    (CHASE plays with his phone, paws through lists, makes a choice, phone to ear)

    CHASE

    Uh oh.

    JAZZ

    What gives?

    CHASE

    Howk’s work phone at the Health Center is disconnected.

    (Paws through more lists, tries another number)

    And her voicemail is full. I’m listening to it now.

    JAZZ

    You’re listening to her voicemail?

    CHASE

    Default pincode. Most employees never change it. Sounds like she didn’t show up Friday and they can’t get hold of her. 

    JAZZ

    That’s not good. Any calls from Corso?

    CHASE

    Not one. And that’s not good either. Let’s try something else.

    (Fingers phone)

    She lives at Punch Drunk Apartments.  Punch Brook’s it’s name but Punch Drunk’s more appropriate to the lowly adjuncts.

    JAZZ

    Poor Howk.

    CHASE

    Not answer there either.

    (Stands up)

    It’s a five minute walk.

    (They walk to the edge of the stage.  BEX darts out, snaps a picture of them)

    JAZZ

    Kiss me, quick.

    (Throws herself into CHASE’s arms for a long smooch. BEX exits.)

     SCENE VI – HOWK’s APARTMENT

    CHASE

    How’d you do that?

    JAZZ

    Giving Bex material for his revenge porn site.

    CHASE

    Not what I mean. How’d we get here so fast?

    JAZZ

    You said it was a short walk.

    CHASE

    Not that short. You kissed me.

    JAZZ

    You liked it.

    CHASE

    You triggered a flashback.  Maybe we’re dreaming. Maybe we’ve fallen into some weird wormhole vortex thing.

    JAZZ

    Ugh.  Just one more crime scene. What happened here?

    (She pushes a door, it falls down)

    Is this even true?

    CHASE

    Maybe it’s meta-truth. Super-truth.

    (Furniture thrown around, plants and upholstery dismembered)

    Somebody had fun.

    JAZZ

    Why’s the multiverse such a nasty place? And what’s all this pink stuff?

    CHASE

    Looks like insulation.  Somebody searching for something.

    JAZZ

    Well, they must have found it.  The bedroom’s untouched. 

    CHASE

    I don’t believe it. There’s no body?

    JAZZ

    I didn’t see one.

    CHASE

    Did you look under the bed?

    JAZZ

    You look under the bed! I’m opening this closet!

                      (Disgusting corpse falls out, suspended mid-air)

    Aaargh!

    CHASE

    That’s Howk all right. She looks – drowned. And her skin’s all eaten off with some kind of acid.

    JAZZ

    I’m getting out of here. Everywhere we go is death. 

    CHASE

    Smells like Corso. That’s Corso’s M.O. Find out what’s alive and kill it. He stinks of sulfur. My guess is he was searching for whatever she held over him. Better get the drop on him before he comes after us.

    JAZZ

    Maybe that sex tape?

    CHASE

    But that’s over at his place. 

    JAZZ

    Maybe we’re going backwards and forwards in time. A U-turn in the multiverse.

    CHASE

    Maybe he killed Howk and hid her body. Remember Zane’s dream?

    JAZZ

    The abandoned warehouse? The toxic condemned site?

    CHASE

    Perfect place to stash a corpse.  People are afraid to enter. Very Corso.  

    JAZZ

    OK you solved this one. God, you’re competitive. 

    CHASE

    History is moving us forward. It has to.

    JAZZ

    This just isn’t what the Tibetan monks promised me. The moment we considered love, death was everywhere.

    CHASE

    I prefer Dante. Dante’s my guide.  He says you go through hell to get to heaven.  

    JAZZ

    Dante! Weird subject for psych majors!

    CHASE

    There’s a lot about me you don’t know. You need a firm grip on purgatory to understand law.

    JAZZ

    I think I’m coming down with something.

    CHASE

    You’re coming down with me. Kiss me.

    JAZZ

    (Fending him off)

    What if I’m infectious?

    CHASE

    If you’re my soulmate I’m hoping you’re infectious. Maybe I could get back my soul.

                               JAZZ

    Where’d it go?

                               CHASE

    Taken hostage.

                               JAZZ

    By –

    (Their kiss triggers police car lights & sirens)

    You’re right, I feel better.

    CHASE

    Sirens when we kiss – that’s a first for me.

    (They kiss more)

    JAZZ

    Are they after us or our crime scene?

    CHASE

    We’re after them. Look where we are.

    JAZZ

    This is my dorm! Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

    CHASE

    Let’s kiss forever.

    SCENE VII – Outside Hadleigh, FRESHMAN DORM

     (Enter SOLIZ, dressed like a security guard, stringing crime scene tape)

    SOLIZ

    Hey!  Watch your step!  Respect my perimeter! O, hi guys.

    (They can’t step away – tape impedes)

    JAZZ

    What the hell happened here?

    SOLIZ

    Nobody knows. Keep moving.

    JAZZ

    But this is my dorm! I live here!

    SOLIZ

    They’re not letting anyone in. Do you know who lives in Room 824?

    JAZZ

    Actually, I live there.

    SOLIZ

    Oh, you do, do you? Well, some guy fell out your window.

    JAZZ

    Just like your dream!

    SOLIZ

    (threateningly)

    I don’t know what you’re talking about.

  • Rough Sleep – a play by Alysse Aallyn

    (CORSO doesn’t like CHASE and JAZZ’s new alliance. They walk toward steps while lights go down on DREAM LAB. CORSO exits huffily)

    Scene V – Cafe

    JAZZ

    You owe me a sandwich for backing up your lie, you lying liar.

    CHASE

    Liar? I was just being a gentleman. Don’t kiss and tell.

    JAZZ

    Somehow I doubt your motives.

    CHASE

    Never give monsters bones to make their soup.  

    (He shepherds JAZZ up the steps to SCENE V –  CAFÉ set: table and chairs are set up beneath Tiffany lamp upstage another table with two hunched unidentifiable figures in close conversation at distant table)

    Any truth you give Corso, he’ll use it against you.

    (Calls offstage)

    Two specials!  Meat on the side! And plenty of Joe.

    JAZZ

    What’s the special?

    CHASE

    Whatever it is, it’s the only thing they didn’t make yesterday. That’s why we call it “Chem Lab”. I take it you’ve never been here before? Vegan?  Gluten-intolerant? I’ll eat anything you don’t.

    JAZZ

    I’m on meal plan. I’m currently omnivorous but I aspire to someday be selective. How about your aspirations?

    CHASE

    Aspirations are good.  I’m pro-aspiration. At the moment, I aspire to anonymity.

    JAZZ

     You failed anonymity in dream lab. 

    CHASE

    I had a job to do. I did it.

    JAZZ

    Getting yourself kicked out?

    CHASE

    That was inevitable. I made it through one round, and I found out what kinds of dreams everybody’s having. Now we put it together, like a psychotic jigsaw puzzle.

    JAZZ

    Are you ever going to tell me why are you so pissed at Corso?

    CHASE

     Because he took something from me and he won’t give it back.

    JAZZ

    Maybe. What’d he take?

    CHASE

    My future. 

    JAZZ

    Can he prevent you from graduating?

    CHASE

    If he makes me a killer. Corso needs to be put down like a rabid dog. It’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it.

    JAZZ

    Please don’t even joke like that. Nobody can take away your future without your cooperation. Go be a lawyer. You’d make such a great lawyer. You argue with everybody.

    CHASE

    So help me get evidence against him and I’ll let the cops take him off my hands.

    JAZZ

    You’re obsessed.

    CHASE

    I call it goal-oriented. Russian-Irish is a volatile mixture.

    JAZZ

    It’s tunnel vision. There we were, standing right at the edge of the soulmate multiverse and where do you want to go? Corso’s apartment! What is it with men and threesomes?

    CHASE

    You went to a morgue. So what do you know about the multiverse?

    JAZZ

    You should have done the reading! Retrocausation. Many Worlds theory.  If the universe is infinite then every possible outcome must happen somewhere.

    CHASE

    So I kill Corso in some other world?

    JAZZ

    Haven’t you heard that if you look too long at a monster you become the monster?

    CHASE

    Too late. 

    JAZZ

    Are you telling me that my soulmate is a monster?

    CHASE

    I’m starting to see why we belong together. You should segue out of pre-fashion into pre-law.

    JAZZ

    I’m allergic to violence. Violence is flirtation with losing control. It gives you nowhere to go. 

    CHASE

    You referring to that big bruiser who’s stalking you?

    JAZZ

    Maybe.  He represents my official knowledge of crazy. But now it’s over and I don’t have to talk about it.

    CHASE

    “Those who make a peaceful revolution impossible make violence inevitable.” 

    JAZZ

    Oh, please. Your evidence hunt makes sense at least. Let’s do that instead. You get to find out about Corso and I get to find out about you. Where would you go first?

    CHASE

    Well, I want to go to his office but I’m afraid he’s in there. That nympho-slut Nurse Howk is probably his weak link.

    JAZZ

    Don’t slut-shame. She’s probably one of his victims.

    CHASE

    Naah. She’s a fully consenting sub-monster. Didn’t she try to ooze all over you?

    JAZZ

    She’s just living up to the archetype. It’s one of the signs of a victim.

    CHASE

    Meaning what?

    JAZZ

    Don’t you know what an archetype is?

    CHASE

    I’m a psychology major, I hope I know what an archetype is. I’m asking if you know what it is, and since I’m not getting any answers, I’m going to go see what’s keeping our food.

    (Stands up, exits.  Big, ugly, longhaired BEX looms up from darkness and pounds his hands on JAZZ’s table)

    BEX

    Is that the guy? That’s the weasel you’re dumping me for?

    JAZZ

    Bex! I told you to get gone.

    BEX

    I’m just trying to talk to you since you won’t talk to me.

    JAZZ

    (Tries to stand up but he’s pushing the table into her)

    Bex it’s over!  How many ways can I say it? Don’t you have a job to get back to?

    BEX

    And that player doesn’t?  So now I’m not good enough for you?  Is that it?

    JAZZ

     I don’t get what you’re making a big deal about – you’re the one that said we’d never be exclusive! Go find someone else to torture!

    BEX

    (Leaning in threateningly)

    You’re not the boss of me. 

    (CHASE returns with tray) 

    CHASE

    This dude harassing you?

    JAZZ

    Just go, Bex. Go home.

    BEX

    Who’s gonna make me?

    (Two figures stand up at the distant table and advance – it’s ZANE and KOO)

    ZANE

    Having trouble here?

    (BEX knows when he’s outnumbered and retreats)

    BEX

    (Shouting over his shoulder)

    Better get ready! This means war!

    (ZANE and CHASE high-five, ZANE returns to his table – KOO puts a hand on JAZZ’s shoulder)

    KOO

    We’ve all been there.

    (Exit KOO and ZANE)

    CHASE 

    (Comforting JAZZ whose head is in her hands)

    Nice guy.  I think I understand what you saw in him.

    JAZZ

    (Writhing with mortification, sits down, head on table)

    I’m so sorry. What can I say? He’s a jerk, but pickings were slim. 

    CHASE

    (Serving sandwiches and coffee)

    Hey, everyone’s entitled to at least one monster. The good news is, today’s special is meatloaf.

    (JAZZ inspects inside her sandwich)

    JAZZ

    I think I lost my appetite.

    CHASE

    More for me.

    JAZZ

    The coffee’s good. Say, Zane and Koo! Huh?

    CHASE 

    I know, right? Think something’s – going on there? Traumatic bonding?

    JAZZ

    They didn’t say anything.

    CHASE 

    We didn’t say anything.

    JAZZ

    It’s hard to say anything when you don’t know what’s going on,

    CHASE

    More fodder for my theory that reality is totally submerged – it’s never what you think you see.

  • 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

    (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.

  • 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.)

  • The Dalingridge Horror – a play by Alysse Aallyn

    (In the Conservatory at Dalingridge Hall)

    VIRGINIA
    Go away, Leonard. I can’t bear to hear you lie to me.

    LEONARD
    I’m not lying when I say I want you to get well more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life.

    VIRGINIA
    Don’t bother making me feel guilty, I already know I’m wasting your life. If only I weren’t so stupid a Mandrill, so unworthy of her poor, virtuous outsider Mongoose who is so thin, who trembles so much and who tries so hard. You have headaches too, you suffer from recurring malaria. Why should you toil so that I can be idle? I know these doctors’ bills are crushing us. Nessa sold the silver, I sold the jewelry, Thoby sold the Thackeray letters. What’s left, Leonard? Will you scheme with them to isolate me until there’s nothing left?

    LEONARD
    I can earn money writing. I’ve proved that. You can earn money writing, you’ve proved that. But to get back in the fight we must be hardy and strong.

    VIRGINIA
    I should never have married you. What kind of a wife can I ever be? Save yourself, Leonard. It’s too late for me. Let the wind blow, let the poppy seed itself, let the carnation mate with the cabbage. Let the swallow build her nest in the drawing room where the thistle thrusts between the tiles. Let all civilization be like broken china tangled over with blackberries and grass.

    LEONARD
    That you demand so much of existence, still fighting as you sit among George’s flowers, shows you’re feeling better. What we must do is keep up the strengthening. A few more days, Virginia.

    VIRGINIA
    But how can I return to you? There’s the undisputed fact of my sexual cowardice. Perhaps it’s really nothing but my terror of real life that keeps me in this nunnery. I tried telling my parents but they didn’t want to hear. Parents have forgotten their own childhood. Or they don’t want to remember.

    LEONARD
    What did you try to tell them? You can say anything to me.

    VIRGINIA
    I saw the spirits of evil as soon as I could speak, but because I was a girl child I was not supposed to know. Each child hugs its vice, brooding over the swollen vein, the bruised flesh that was white and sweet but yesterday.

    LEONARD
    I told my parents that life is unquestionably vile and humanity’s nothing but an ant heap. Parents never want to hear that.

    VIRGINIA
    That’s what I love about you, Leonard. You at least will speak the truth. Sometimes.

    LEONARD
    It’s a fallacy to think that children are happy. They’re not. I never suffered so much as when I was a child. Children never forget injustice. But here is the heart of it, Virginia. What we write depends upon what we think. What “spirits of evil” did you see?

    VIRGINIA
    Going to practice Dr. Head’s talking cure on me, are you? Is that the plan? I could make up a dozen stories – I see a dozen pictures. But when I open my mouth I am locked up and shut away. What is my true story? Something lies deeply buried. Shall I grasp it or let it mortify in the depths of my mind? I want to describe the world seen without a self. But I am afraid that there is no future. There are no words.

    LEONARD
    There are words, and there is a future we shall make. Tell me. Tell me everything.

    VIRGINIA
    When I was young, I dug furiously to uncover myself. When I discovered that I was me and not anyone else it seemed a wonderful achievement. Once I sat beside my stepsister Stella on roots as hard as skeletons, and the next day she was a skeleton. It’s strange how the dead leap out on us at street corners or in dreams. Don’t you remember that morning at breakfast when I saw my mother? You said she wasn’t there.

    LEONARD
    I saw nothing.

    VIRGINIA
    Cambridge educated everything but your eyes. What is the hope of talking to you? That was the morning was when I first became aware of the enemies who change but are always present; the forces we must fight even though we suffer terribly becoming separate bodies. Don’t you recognize the enemy advancing against us, pawing at his pavement? It is death. Death is the enemy.

    LEONARD
    Marriage is the opposing force against death. A marriage of true minds can fight all enemies. Once upon a time we shared our thoughts, and fell in love. I needed someone who could hold her own, and there you were. You are the only wife I ever wanted, the only woman I have ever loved. Please, Virginia, I want you to come back to me.

    VIRGINIA

    (dazzled)

    Oh to be a wife, to be wanted, would be so complete! Is it possible, Leonard, after the terrors, the disgusting dangers we have seen?

    LEONARD
    If it isn’t I don’t want to live either.

    (She holds out a hand to him. They clutch hands briefly)

    VIRGINIA
    Sit down, Leonard. You look silly on your knees.

    (She looks away. LEONARD sits)

    VIRGINIA
    I used to make the family laugh. They thought me clever. But when I chased the evil spirits through a hole in the escallonia hedge, I resolved to tell the exact truth and write down the phenomena I’d seen. But no one believed me, and at that moment the laughter turned against me. I said, must not we find some way to get outside ourselves, to give our brains a wider scope? My parents declared God was dead and the world empty and meaningless. Father said to be weak is to be wretched. He said that Society is a ravenous appetite, and Nature is a state of war. You’ve laughed at me behind my back, I know you have. You, my own husband, want to get rid of me, to lock me up forever and steal my money.

    LEONARD
    I love you, Virginia. Maybe it’s a bad thing to love you as much as I do – it cuts me off from the outside world. But the outside world is worthless and your world is so rich. When I went away to school for the first time I was shocked and appalled by the horrifying corruption of dirty-minded schoolboys. It marked me. Then I realized all of humanity are mean, nasty, untruthful, cowardly, and cruel. Perhaps I’ve been searching for a world that doesn’t exist.

    VIRGINIA
    Perhaps we both have.

    LEONARD
    If you will care for your health – if you will allow me to care for your health – you’ll recover. As you’ve recovered before.

    VIRGINIA
    Nessa won’t rest till I’m brought low. When she was ill with typhoid Savage wanted to put her in a home but I backed her up! I told Savage I would care for her. Now look at what she’s done to me. You betrayed our secret, telling Nessa I’m a frigid failure as a wife. She told Clive and now everyone knows. They’re all laughing, jeering. plotting behind my back. You were sent to Ceylon to break the natives and now you’ve been sent to break me. I have been derided, insulted, sacrificed and betrayed, by all of you.

    LEONARD
    Virginia, I am on your side. My eyes were opened in Ceylon. I was an anti-imperialist wallowing in the fleshpots of imperialism. But I changed. Now I support the independence movement with all my heart. All problems can be solved by science and logic, Virginia. It was I who was a failure as a husband. It was my marital duty to arouse you but you seemed so afraid of me. At my wit’s end, I asked your older sister for help.

    VIRGINIA
    Does she offer lessons in humiliation? She knows how better than anyone. Is it my fault that I hate my legs being pried apart? I should never have married you, but I couldn’t bear to remain a spinster. I was struggling at everything, and you seemed so different. You said you liked women. You said you admired women’s minds.

    LEONARD
    It’s true. Women feel more deeply, think more deeply, talk more deeply.

    VIRGINIA
    Yet men demand obedience. You want me to obey you but I never will. You know nothing about me. Did you know that before I tried to die I read a book? Would you like to know which one?

    LEONARD
    Which book did you read?

    VIRGINIA
    It was your book. Your book that I read.

    LEONARD
    My book?

    VIRGINIA
    Your book about me.

    LEONARD
    (a gratified author, in spite of everything)

    You read The Wise Virgins? What did you think?

    VIRGINIA
    So you admit it’s about me!

    LEONARD
    Virginia, please. I’d love to discuss my book with you.

    (She hesitates, turning away her face, then facing him with rage)

    VIRGINIA

    You locked me away so I’d never find out!

    LEONARD
    You were ordered rest cures long before you met me! I don’t believe in guilt or blame. Honestly, I wanted you to read my book as soon as you were well.

    VIRGINIA
    I won’t be stamped and stereotyped. You have publicly lampooned me as a frozen, dowdy, fussy, futile woman.

    LEONARD
    Not true at all. I called you my Aspasia.

    VIRGINIA
    “Cold and snowy, like the rocks.” You said.

    LEONARD
    I’m a bad writer. I agree. I’ve got nothing of your genius. I can never explain what I really want to say. If it’s any comfort to you no one else likes or understands it either. Sales are awful. All I was attempting to do was contrast the world of a poor Jew from Putney with the rarified aristocratic Olympus for which he yearns.

    VIRGINIA
    You hold my world in contempt because you can never be a gentleman.

    LEONARD
    Virginia, you hold “your world” in contempt.

    VIRGINIA
    And then the hero marries the other girl. The stupid, cow-eyed one! It’s a betrayal.

    LEONARD
    It’s just a bad novel, I’ll give you that. Don’t laugh at me. Not everyone is born with your gifts. Consider my perspective. Any rational mind must inevitably face disillusion and depression. I tried to show how poor Harry just couldn’t escape his past. He couldn’t but I think we can. I probably shouldn’t have published it but Arnold was willing and I couldn’t bear to waste all that work and all that suffering.

    VIRGINIA
    What can you, a prizewinning Apostle from Cambridge, an imperialist potentate of a subject country, possibly know of real suffering?

    LEONARD
    Virginia, I’m a Jew from Putney. All my life I’ve been spat upon. Job is the only book of the Bible I ever understood. Who ridiculed who first? I trained myself to avoid personal feeling. Admit you despised me. Your set. You made me into a joke.

    VIRGINIA
    My set despises everyone. That’s what we do. It’s self-defense, from growing up amongst the most monumental hypocrites.

    LEONARD
    You despised me personally. Be honest. You hated kissing me. You could barely bring yourself to marry me.

    VIRGINIA
    But I did it, didn’t I!

    LEONARD
    You wanted to shock them. You were competing with Nessa to see who could be most scandalous.

    VIRGINIA
    I wouldn’t dare compete with Nessa. Competition is a male thing. It’s a brutal, endless game. I think all competition should be abolished.

    LEONARD
    But it’s all you ever do! Your flirtation with her husband –

    VIRGINIA
    (cringes visibly)

    Oh God, not that. Somehow that memory turns a knife in me more than anything. How it catches at me, the fangs of that old pain. I know I lost Vanessa forever. She will never forgive me. I simply couldn’t comprehend why she married such a strange, intolerable creature with his twitching pink skin and a jerky laugh. Before Clive, Nessa and I drifted together on a sea of seducing half-brothers,
    hiding together beneath the dining room table. We spoke a special animal language.

    LEONARD
    But you were no longer children. Vanessa waited till twenty-eight to marry.

    VIRGINIA
    Who would willingly grow up? I never wanted to. As soon as you’re pushed out of the nursery, the happy moments vanish. Vanessa was the bowl of golden water that brims but never overflows. I lie prostrate at her shrine and still she won’t forgive me. When she brought home friends from the Slade they laughed at me behind the door. You can’t think what it feels like, having one’s self so thoroughly extinguished.

    LEONARD
    I do know it. That was my exact experience at both St. Paul’s and Cambridge. St. Paul’s was a disgusting brothel, but at Trinity I met G. E. Moore. He taught me how to ask the important questions.

    VIRGINIA

    And what are the important questions?

    LEONARD
    The most important question is why. Why can’t Vanessa forgive a mere flirtation? She must know by now that Clive sets out to bed every woman he meets. You at least resisted him.

    VIRGINIA
    But I did wrong. Clive and I made common cause against my sister, his own wife. Some things should be sacred.

    LEONARD

    Wasn’t it true that he respected your intellectual work more than he could ever appreciate Vanessa’s daubs?

    VIRGINIA
    Leonard! How can you!

    LEONARD

    If it’s the truth, shouldn’t we say so?

    VIRGINIA

    I tried speaking the truth, yet here I am locked up among the imbeciles. And weren’t we just arguing whether all imbeciles should be killed?

    LEONARD
    You’re hardly “locked up with the imbeciles” at Dalingridge Hall!

    VIRGINIA
    You’re wrong. In this castle beats the very heart of idiocy and evil. Aren’t you the one who said the most dangerous imbeciles are running the nation? Here I am at home among the hunters, where the miner sweats and dies and maiden faith is rudely strumpeted.

    LEONARD
    But you used to love George! He told me you’d make an adorable wife.

    VIRGINIA
    Perhaps I’ve been given too much time to think. Get a sense of proportion, the doctors keep telling me. So now I stare for the first time into the very mouth of doom. Look your last on all things lovely.

    LEONARD
    Virginia, if you don’t want to be called crazy, you really must explain yourself. Whatever do you mean?

    VIRGINIA
    George behaved little better than a brute. He never let me alone for a moment. That he was the pet of duchesses hardly excuses him. And yet it was Gerald who broke my hymen, when I was six years old. It’s a painful process. and now I freeze like ice. Give up on me, Leonard, there’s no awakening the dead. I’m ruined by incest, I’ve even desired my own sister. I’m locked up because I stew in murder, just as Laura did. I long to slice Gerald’s fat, transparent flesh, to take a rifle and shoot George directly in his smug, piggy face. Or could I bag him with a net and killing bottle? And why shouldn’t I turn on my tormentors? I suffered, I was helpless, why should I be the one forced to writhe with shame? I longed to be petted but instead was trapped in a cage with lions as sulky and angry as they were ferocious. I’m just a little monkey and little monkeys are too easily squashed and trampled. It’s too late for me, Leonard. My body is spoiled forever by George and Gerald.

    LEONARD
    (shocked)

    George? Gerald? These are pillars of society, your own half-brothers! It’s so unbelievable.

    VIRGINIA
    George drowned us in kisses, me and Vanessa. Each kiss was an amputation. I used to sign my work, “One of the Drowned.” Oh, those horrible parties! The oppressive gatherings of Stephenses ground one to a pulp. Because I wanted to discuss Plato I was told I had no conversation. George was so angry! After I removed my ball gown and stripped off my gloves and stockings, he would come into my room and lock the door.

    LEONARD
    But how can any of this be true? How could nobody have noticed it?

    VIRGINIA
    Everyone did notice it. People contrive to bend it to the conventional heroic shape because he kept insisting on the purity of his love. I saw him kissing Countess Carnarvon behind a pillar at the opera! And now she’s his mother-in-law. I asked to join the British Sex Society, dedicated to the study of parent/child incest, but they wouldn’t let me in. Now that you know, you’ll have to spit in George’s face at the club.

    LEONARD
    We don’t belong to the same clubs.

    VIRGINIA
    Then when you thank him for this execrable house, challenge him to a duel. Will he at least feel some regret? Will he take the pigeon gun and blast himself instead? Then the aristocracy will hate me because it’s all my fault. Yet is it not a noble work, letting light in upon the evil Duckworths? Probably he’ll feel nothing. Possibly some vague imbalance.

    LEONARD
    Let’s try to be objective, Virginia.

    VIRGINIA
    If only I could! What a luxury that would be! How I hunger for the objectivity of beloved Macaulay or the stern analysis of cherished Carlyle. Lockhart’s ten volume Life of Scott was the best present I ever received. Reading relieves all my pain, but they won’t let me read anything here. In spite of them I’m continuing to learn. Only life itself matters, nothing but life – and the process of discovery, the everlasting perpetual process, and not the thing itself at all.

    LEONARD

    Virginia, I am speechless.

    VIRGINIA

    Now you know how it feels. I used to think it would be enough to have someone share my loneliness. But if no one believes me, the solitude is total. The Duckworths are guilty of nameless atrocities, and you’re complicit. You locked me away here, so I couldn’t speak. As soon as I open my mouth they try to destroy me. It’s a conspiracy of hush.

    LEONARD
    If this is something you’ve only just remembered how can it possibly be true? It sounds mad.

    VIRGINIA
    I don’t think memory is always at the forefront, Leonard. There’s only so much a human being can bear. Memory comes and goes. One requires tools to think with, to make sense of one’s experience, and these tools are alternately dull and sharp.

    LEONARD
    Well, there are some things no one wants to think about.

    VIRGINIA
    It’s clearer in my mind than the bad, stodgy meal I was force-fed yesterday. Our summer place at St. Ives, in the dining room; I must have been six years old. Eighteen-year-old Gerald lifted me up to a high ledge and explored my private parts. I fought and I struggled but I couldn’t get away. I could see his face in the dining room mirror. It was the face of a demon. I’ve seen that face since, on the drooling men who expose themselves in the park. Now I no longer look in mirrors. I can’t cross a puddle. The depth looks back at me, concealing malicious, hairy arms to reach out and grab. I can’t go forward, I am stuck in the loop of the six, no power even to lift my legs.

    LEONARD
    The loop of the six? I don’t understand.

    VIRGINIA

    I was learning numbers. Six was my number. But I couldn’t close the loop.

    LEONARD

    This was Gerald you say? But Gerald is your publisher!

    VIRGINIA
    I know! If I am not a madwoman, then the world itself is mad. What was I to do? I wrote a book and my incestuous brother was a publisher! Who else would even look at my work? When I delivered my manuscript to Gerald I was in such acute despair – so near the precipice!

    LEONARD
    Did you tell anyone?

    VIRGINIA
    I told Nessa and she told Dr. Savage. Who is an idiot, as you well know.

    LEONARD
    I can’t believe it. Gerald seems so – so – well, ordinary. So completely controlled.

    VIRGINIA
    Get out of here! I’m sorry I told you. I wish I was dead!

    (She is tearing at her own throat – he rushes forward to hold her hands down, lifting her body out of the chair)

    The use of force is all you know!

    LEONARD
    Virginia, I love you.

    (He kisses her neck, she becomes a dead weight. He lowers her carefully into the chair, arranges a blanket on her knees)

    VIRGINIA
    When you touch me, I feel nothing. My body goes dead. That’s how I froze when George came into my room, night after night.

    LEONARD
    Oh, Beloved!

    VIRGINIA
    Don’t. He called me that. I don’t want to be loved, I want to be believed.