Sample The Living Room and Death

Sample

THE LIVING ROOM AND DEATH

_________________________

A Play in Three Acts

Katrin Arefy

ACT I

Scene 1

AT RISE: UNCLE, BOYFRIEND, FIRST GIRLFRIEND, GRANDFATHER, AND FIRST CHARACTER are on stage. The scene starts abruptly with UNCLE’S first line.

UNCLE

I never really liked her, but I was shocked to hear today that my boss’s wife died. I just saw her three days ago.

(At the same time the FIRST GIRLFRIEND reaches out to a plate of cookies, takes one, and eats it. No actual cookies need to be there.)

FIRST CHARACTER

And she was alive?

UNCLE

Yes!

FIRST CHARACTER

Huh!

BOYFRIEND

(To FIRST CHARACTER)

Dead people don’t die.

FIRST CHARACTER

Obviously!

BOYFRIEND

(To FIRST CHARACTER)

Yeah, I mean since you are not from here I thought I should explain.

UNCLE

She didn’t seem like she was planning to die or anything. I mean, she looked like us…I mean, pretty normal.

FIRST CHARACTER

(To UNCLE)

Coffee?

(He hands a cup of coffee to him and then offers coffee to the others.)

UNCLE

You know how coffee was discovered? An Ethiopian cattleman saw his goats eating coffee cherries, and he noticed they acted differently afterwards. They were more energetic and didn’t sleep all night.

BOYFRIEND

(To First Girlfriend)

Nous parlons de chèvres.

(To Uncle)

I just told her we are talking about goats.

(First Girlfriend takes another cookie.)

UNCLE

Yeah, so, the cattleman told the local monks about this. The monks made a drink with coffee beans and drank it so that they could stay up all night and pray! Then they shared their discovery with other Ethiopian monks, and that’s how it reached the civilized world.

BOYFRIEND

(To FIRST GIRLFRIEND)

Nous parlons de café.

(To UNCLE)

I just told her we are talking about coffee

(FIRST GIRLFRIEND takes another cookie.)

Or is it about European monks?

UNCLE

Yeah, coffee. Ethiopian, not European. Europeans import coffee. Europe imports more coffee than the United States. Do you know which country is the leading exporter of coffee? Brazil! However I have a Brazilian coworker, and he hates coffee. He said he had coffee once in his life and never tried it again.

BOYFRIEND

Odd! What does the chump drink?

UNCLE

How the hell would I know? He is a weirdo. I would freaking fire him if it were up to me.

(Agitated, UNCLE grabs a bunch of cookies and eats them quickly.)

BOYFRIEND

(To FIRST GIRLFRIEND)

Il parle de son putain colleague.

(FIRST GIRLFRIEND laughs loudly and takes another cookie.)

(To UNCLE)

I just told her we are talking about Brazilians.

FIRST CHARACTER

One Brazilian! Only one Brazilian.

UNCLE

One Brazilian or more Brazilians, that still counts as talking about Brazilians.

(Long, awkward pause)

FIRST CHARACTER

I went to a party on a boat last week.

GRANDFATHER

Oh!

(He breaks into a big smile.)

FIRST CHARACTER

Yeah, we were on the boat chatting and drinking, and all of a sudden, we heard a sound as if something had hit the boat. We all ran to the part of the boat from which the sound was coming, and there we saw a huge octopus. I mean, holy cow, it was huge. Then this guy, one of the guests, said, “I know how to catch an octopus.” Hahaha.

(FIRST CHARACTER laughs loud and long. Grandfather joins the laugh. Everyone else stares at FIRST CHARACTER.)

BOYFRIEND

(To FIRST GIRLFRIEND)

Il parle de…

(He opens his arms and acts like an octopus, not knowing how to say the word in French.)

FIRST GIRLFRIEND

Des oiseaux?

BOYFRIEND

Non.

FIRST GIRLFRIEND

Fantôme?

BOYFRIEND

Non.

FIRST GIRLFRIEND

Natation?

BOYFRIEND

Non. Je ne sais pas.

FIRST GIRLFRIEND

Je ne sais pas non plus.

GRANDFATHER

(To BOYFRIEND)

What did she say?

BOYFRIEND

She says she doesn’t know either.

GRANDFATHER

Oh!

(Big smile)

(A phone rings in the other room. FIRST CHARACTER exits stage right. Long pause. FIRST GIRLFRIEND takes another cookie.)

FIRST CHARACTER

(Enters stage right.)

It was a call from…the hospital.

BOYFRIEND and UNCLE at the same time

How is she?

FIRST CHARACTER

Doctors said that her general well-being is fine. The medicine should help her with her pain.

Uncle

She had surgery!

FIRST CHARACTER

Two surgeries.

BOYFRIEND

Two?

FIRST CHARACTER

Yes, at first she had one surgery. But then she had another surgery, so as of now, she has had two surgeries.

BOYFRIEND

What the hell! Two is a lot!

FIRST CHARACTER

I think so.

(Pause. Cawing of crows is heard.)

FIRST CHARACTER

(To FIRST GIRLFRIEND)

What do you do for work?

BOYFRIEND

She works at a company…a big corporation.

FIRST CHARACTER

(To FIRST GIRLFRIEND)

And, what do you do there?

BOYFRIEND

She is a receptionist. She has a very big desk, though. Like, from here to there.

FIRST CHARACTER

Ah! What is the company’s primary focus?

BOYFRIEND

(To FIRST GIRLFRIEND)

On parle de ton travail. Que fait l’entreprise?

GIRLFRIEND

Recherche et developpement.

BOYFRIEND

(To FIRST CHARACTER)

They do research and development.

GRANDFATHER

(Big smile)

Oh!

(SECOND CHARACTER enters. Everyone greets SECOND character except the FIRST CHARACTER because the two of them live together.)

SECOND CHARACTER

(Pointing at FIRST GIRLFRIEND while shaking BOYFRIEND’S hand.)

Your girlfriend?

BOYFRIEND

Uhum.

SECOND CHARACTER

(Pointing at the First Girlfriend)

Nice necklace!

UNCLE

Yeah, Nice necklace!

So, did I tell you that with my ex-wife, we were visiting Amsterdam, I was there partly for work, but that is a different story. We went to a restaurant there. It was my ex-wife, a friend of mine, and me. My friend used to live there when he was alive. Later he died in a car accident. So he couldn’t be living there anymore. But anyways, this woman came and started talking to us as we were eating, and it turned out that she was a local, a nurse, and she hadn’t traveled much. And she was wearing this unique kind of necklace, so I told her that her necklace looked beautiful, and she said that it was made in India!

GRANDFATHER

(Big smile)

Oh!

UNCLE

Yeah, imagine that. India, of all places!

BOYFRIEND

I have never been to India.

(Long pause. FIRST GIRLFRIEND grabs another cookie.)

FIRST CHARACTER

I read that socialists are about to win a majority in Parliament.

UNCLE

Who said that? There are still sixty percent of the Parliament who are procapitalism.

FIRST CHARACTER

But they are dying. They are old.

UNCLE

So what? Everyone dies one day anyways.

GRANDFATHER

I am not going to die.

UNCLE

(To GRANDFATHER)

No, Papa, you will not.

FIRST CHARACTER

(To UNCLE)

Everyone dies, but they die first. They are dinosaurs.

SECOND CHARACTER

Dinosaurs don’t even exist anymore! You mean rhinoceroses.

FIRST CHARACTER

No, I mean dinosaurs. Rhinoceroses can’t go to the Parliament!

SECOND CHARACTER

Anyone can go to the Parliament.

(FIRST GIRLFRIEND grabs another cookie. SECOND CHARACTER looks at the FIRST GIRLFRIEND and continues.)

Anyone who speaks our language.

BOYFRIEND

(To SECOND CHARACTER, visibly upset.)

Do you mean my girlfriend can’t go to the Parliament because she doesn’t…? You don’t like my girlfriend. You didn’t like my previous girlfriend either. Although she did speak our language. You never spoke to any of my previous girlfriends, and none of my previous girlfriends ever spoke to you. There has been this real lack of…, this like…real…like…no…like as if…like—

FIRST CHARACTER

(Interrupting BOYFRIEND)

Enough! No politics, no politics!

(Long pause.)

FIRST CHARACTER

(Continues)

I watched a movie last night. It was a documentary about how penguins survive in the Amazon forest.

GRANDFATHER

(Big smile)

Oh!

UNCLE

A large part of the Amazon rainforest is in Brazil.

BOYFRIEND

We watched a scary movie about people dying from a strange disease.

UNCLE

In Brazil?

BOYFRIEND

No, no.

FIRST CHARACTER

Documentary?

BOYFRIEND

No, of course not. It was all fiction.

FIRST CHARACTER

(Enters right. Everyone except for the FIRST GIRLFRIEND looks at him worried, but they don’t dare ask anything.)

That was…the hospital. The doctors told me that her general well-being is fine…That’s right. They said the medicine would help her. I said to tell her that everyone says hi.

GRANDFATHER

Oh, my little girl. Is she going to be okay?

UNCLE

Yes, she will be okay, Papa. She will be coming home soon, and we will have a party.

FIRST CHARACTER

I went to a party on a boat last week.

GRANDFATHER

(Big smile)

Oh!

FIRST CHARACTER

Yeah, we were on this beautiful boat, and all of a sudden, we heard a sound like something had hit the boat real hard. We ran to the part of the boat where the sound was coming from, and there we saw an octopus.

UNCLE

I have heard about that story before,…maybe I read it in the news.

FIRST CHARACTER

You did? And do you know what happened to the octopus at the end of the story?

…