| Author | Post |
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John Watts
Member
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Posted: Fri Aug 15th, 2008 05:13 pm |
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THE CRANES ARE FALLING
By John Watts
GRACE
Thirty, single living in NY for five years after leaving London. She is a free spirit who fights against conformity.
JULIE
Twenty five, living with her mother in London. She is conservative, shy and inexperienced in the ways of the world.
The setting is an efficiency apartment New York. The entrance is downstage right. There is a kitchen table with two chairs. There text books on the table, clothes hanging from the back of one chair and more books and papers piled up on the other. It is seven o’clock at on a Wednesday night in June 2008. Grace is sitting at the table reading a textbook. There is a knock at the door. Reluctantly she gets up to answer. She opens the door. Julie is standing there with a small overnight bag. She appears dazed, lost between the real and the imagined. Her speech pattern should reflect this condition.
JULIE
Hello Grace.
GRACE
What the hell are you doing here?
JULIE
I’m not sure.
GRACE
You never were. Well don’t just stand there, come on in then.
(Julie does not move.)
GRACE
It’s too late to change your mind now. You’re already here.
JULIE
The Underground in New York isn’t like London. I asked directions but nobody—
(Grace grabs the clothes on the chair and throws them on the floor.)
GRACE
It’s the Subway, and you don’t ask directions in New York. Sit down.
JULIE
There was a cheap plane ticket so I came. But the Bronx is difficult to get—
GRACE
Julie you never did anything impulsive in your life. Does Mummy know you’re here?
JULIE
There was a man on the train talking to himself.
GRACE
Does she know?
JULIE
He sat next to me.
GRACE
Did you tell her?
JULIE
The cranes are falling. He looked into my eyes and said the cranes are—
GRACE
You don’t talk to crazies on the Subway. Anyway he’s just repeating the news. There’s been a bunch of construction accidents.
JULIE
He flew away at the next stop.
GRACE
You can sleep on the sofa.
JULIE
Flapping his arms like a bird.
GRACE
I’ll get some blankets.
(Grace walks to stage left. As she does so Julie gets up and starts flapping her arms like a bird. Grace immediately runs to her pulling her arms down to her sides, then pulls her close and hugs her.)
JULIE
The cranes are falling, the cranes are falling, the cranes are…….
GRACE
It’s ok Julie, it’s ok.
(She gently gets Julie to sit down again.)
JULIE
He understood.
GRACE
You’re with me now.
JULIE
I am no longer Florence Akia’s little girl, I told her, just like you did.
GRACE
You’re not me. You can’t do that.
JULIE
I’m never coming back, that’s what you said.
GRACE
That doesn’t mean that you should—
JULIE
Mummy wanted a nice Nigerian boy for you but you wanted that Punk Irishman from Leeds.
GRACE
I wanted out of that closed box of a life.
JULIE
What about me?
GRACE
You were little miss sweetness and light always doing what you were told.
JULIE
I needed you.
GRACE
Ever since Daddy died you’ve been tied to her—
JULIE
I was only eleven. You were sixteen when his car crashed—
GRACE
So you turned to Mummy and I turned to Punk.
JULIE
You left me. You flew away.
GRACE
That was a lot of years ago. We’re grown women now.
JULIE
That man flapping his wings, I wanted to follow him but the doors closed.
GRACE
I might as well be him.
JULIE
I was on the last car watching from the rear window as the train went back in the tunnel.
GRACE
The Pied Piper of the Lexington Av Express.
JULIE
He got smaller and smaller.
GRACE
Julie listen to me.
JULIE
A little spot of light swallowed by the dark.
GRACE
Julie—
JULIE
Gone, he was gone.
GRACE
You still don’t want to think for yourself.
JULIE
Everyone is gone as soon as you find them.
GRACE
Who’s gone Julie?
JULIE
We didn’t intend to.
GRACE
I’m no good at riddles.
JULIE
It just happened. We were sitting in his car.
GRACE
Oh lord, did one of those nice Nigerian boys our dear mother wanted for us finally get you pregnant?
JULIE
Being alone, we were talking about being alone—
(Grace imitates her mother.)
GRACE
“A nice Nigerian boy, that’s what you need.”
JULIE
He understands.
GRACE
A compassionate Nigerian, Mummy’s dream, coming to life.
JULIE
Gareth Evans
GRACE
What?
JULIE
Gareth Evans, that’s his name.
GRACE
A Welshman? You broke the rules.
JULIE
From Port Talbot.
GRACE
Well at least he’s not Irish, that would have killed her.
JULIE
He listened to me.
GRACE
‘You’ve got to move up the social ladder not down’, that’s what she told me when I left. Not that being Welsh is all that different.
JULIE
No one ever really listened to me before.
GRACE
That Druid gift for listening can get you in a lot of trouble.
JULIE
Letting in the world, I was letting in the world.
GRACE
What you let in wasn’t the world. It’s an illusion, my sweet little sister you’ve got to understand.
JULIE
The moment, that’s all there is. I came to tell you.
GRACE
You came three thousand miles to tell me that?
JULIE
The moment doesn’t lie.
GRACE
But men do. What kind of line did he hand you?
JULIE
He’s a poet not a liar.
GRACE
A Welsh poet, well you finally did it big time, seduced by descriptive adjectives. When it comes to language, they’re worse than the bloody Irish.
(Julie quotes Gareth’s poetry with overly poetic tones.)
JULIE
“Life is now or life is gone. The dragon breathes no more.”
GRACE
He dumped you.
JULIE
We’re both searching for new horizons.
GRACE
Did the Welsh dragon fly away to breath fire on another sacrificial virgin?
JULIE
New horizons, I need to find new—
GRACE
Cut the crap Julie.
(Julie gets up and walks to exit)
JULIE
I shouldn’t have come the wall is still there.
GRACE
You built it! You were scared to share anything real.
JULIE
You flaunted rebellion in my face.
GRACE
I used clothes and hair the way you use language.
JULIE
Fifteen years you’ve been gone and every time you come home you find ways to make me feel useless.
GRACE
You put a guilt trip on me the minute I walked in that door.
JULIE
I just wanted support.
GRACE
Well you had a strange way of asking.
JULIE
I was always intimidated by you. You were the one who challenged Mummy. I could never do that.
(Pause)
Till Gareth came along and now we’re both out in the cold.
(Julie continues to the door as Grace speaks.)
GRACE
Do you want to end up on the subway flapping your wings to strangers?
(Julie stops.)
Let’s talk about home. I’ll make a nice cup of tea.
(Julie walks to the kitchen and puts the kettle on while Julie sits at the table in a daze.)
GRACE
Auntie Martha’s funeral, that’s the last time I saw you. I had to come home for that. She was the only one that stood up for me after Daddy died.
(Grace imitates Auntie Martha.)
“The girl needs some time. You can’t put her in the middle of this circus they call a country and expect her to follow the path of Jesus.”
JULIE
Blackberries.
GRACE
Auntie Martha was willing to—
JULIE
I was picking blackberries.
GRACE
Would you like a chocolate biscuit?
JULIE
Last August I went camping in Wales with my friend Gillian.
GRACE
It’s your only chance in the Bronx. You have to go to Manhattan and pay a lot of—
JULIE
We were walking a path by the sea on the Gower coast.
GRACE
And there was Gareth Evans was picking blackberries.
JULIE
He was sitting on the hill looking out over the sea.
GRACE
The classic cover of a romance novel, I can see it now.
JULIE
We didn’t intend to pick them, our hands were full and—
GRACE
And Sir Lancelot came to the rescue with a hand woven Welsh basket.
JULIE
It was Tesco shopping bag.
GRACE
Well you can’t put that in the novel, you’d lose every widow over sixty.
JULIE
I went back the next day and he was there.
GRACE
Looking at the sea.
JULIE
He was writing on a laptop.
GRACE
Well that just blew the image. I thought he’d be using a quill pen.
JULIE
You’re still making fun of me. You’ll never change. At least his words were caring, yours cut like a knife.
GRACE
I’m just trying to lighten the—
(Pause)
Habit, its habit. We’ve been at each other for so many years, when I hear your voice I’m Pavlov’s dog. Have a biscuit.
(Julie takes the biscuit and Grace returns to finish making tea.)
JULIE
I saw you.
GRACE
Where?
JULIE
On that hillside, Gareth, writing, sitting there writing. You were always the same, dreaming, thinking, looking over the horizon.
GRACE
You can blame Daddy for that. There aren’t any hillsides in London but he found places to go. He loved the Thames, boats going off to now where.
JULIE
I envied you.
GRACE
When I was eight he took me to Paddington Station and we played a game of. “Who comes from where”, looking at clothes, listening to accents, watching how people walk.
JULIE
By the time I was eight he wasn’t home very much.
GRACE
Our dear parents were not a match made in anyone’s heaven. A middle class Nigerian woman and a Jamaican school teacher, talk about irreconcilable differences.
JULIE
Mummy always wanted him to go into business.
GRACE
And he just wanted to teach. I used to blame her for the fights but not anymore. Using the same toothpaste with someone every morning changes things. I understand that now.
JULIE
Princess Grace, that’s what Daddy called you.
GRACE
Jet lag really gets to you coming this direction. You’re going to need a lot of sleep.
JULIE
Gareth calls me Princess Julie.
GRACE
Is this a Daddy complex? How old is he?
JULIE
It doesn’t matter.
GRACE
It does if he’s fifty.
JULIE
He’s twenty five.
GRACE
A year younger than you, well that’s a relief—I think.
JULIE
And he’s married.
GRACE
This is going to be a very long night. What does Mummy know?
JULIE
Nothing.
GRACE
You sure?
JULIE
We haven’t been getting along lately.
GRACE
This is bringing back memories. I was a lot younger than you but not pregnant, thank god.
JULIE
She still treats me like her baby girl.
GRACE
You are.
JULIE
I am not!!
GRACE
Her mind is set, frozen in a time warp. Everything stopped when Daddy died.
JULIE
I’m out of that trap. I’m never going back.
GRACE
Just don’t trade one trap for another like I did.
JULIE
Sunday dinner.
GRACE
Oh lord, don’t go there, Sunday dinner at Florence Aiki’s house.
JULIE
That’s what finally did it.
GRACE
The three aunties! The ritual, the gossip, the hours of preparation, one out doing the other.
JULIE
I enjoyed it, coming out of my room in a mini skirt and tight top with no bra.
(Grace laughs)
GRACE
Little Julie, a street girl!
(Julie imitates her mother.)
JULIE
“Where are you going dressed like that?”
GRACE
I wish I could have been there for that one.
JULIE
I made sure I gave them all a good look.
GRACE
Those faces must have puffed up like balloons ready to burst.
JULIE
I never wore heels that high in my life! The minute I got outside I put on a jacket and changed my shoes. It was lovely!
(Julie opens her overnight bag and takes out the worn book of eight year old Grace.)
GRACE
Where on earth did you get that?
JULIE
The day you left home I went to your room to touch you—somehow. I lied down on your bed and felt the book under the pillow.
GRACE
I slept with it under my pillow that last night. I could have tucked it in my bag but I wanted to let go of everything, leave everyone behind.
JULIE
When it was my turn Daddy gave me the same presents, there were always books. Inside the cover he’d write something nice—to my darling little Julie, just like in yours. But in yours he’d always add a poem written just for you.
(Julie turns to inside the back cover of the book and reads the first line.)
A Nice Cup of Tea—
(Grace cuts her off and continues the poem.)
GRACE
Swirling confluence
Tinkling spoon
Rich brown milky sweetness
Warmth to the hand
Pleasure to the palate
Satisfaction to the soul
That was his favorite and mine. Daddy thought he was Derek Walcott.
JULIE
He was, but I never shared that with him. You were his shining star.
GRACE
And you were Mummy’s golden girl, at least till now.
(Julie hands the book to Grace.)
JULIE
I thought you might like to have it.
(There is a pause as Grace takes the book, sits down and opens to the poem remembering her father.)
GRACE
Well you’ve kept it all these years, maybe you should hold on to—
JULIE
I’ve got my own poet now.
(There is a pause, then Grace gets up and attempts to break the tension.)
GRACE
Right! Well that’s enough nostalgia for one night. Let’s get you tucked in.
JULIE
“Kites without strings belong to the wind.”
(Grace stops in her tracks. Then tries to change the subject.)
GRACE
You look like you’re about to fall asleep on your feet.
JULIE
It’s the first thing he wrote inside the front cover.
GRACE
It was a simple joke about flying kites.
JULIE
He never flew kites with me.
GRACE
He stopped making them by the time you were old enough to enjoy it. He stopped writing too, but he still listened to his music.
JULIE
That drove Mummy crazy.
(She imitates her mother.)
“Mr. Double Bob, he thinks he’s Bob Marley and Bob Dylan all rolled into one.”
(Grace sings)
GRACE
“The answer my friend is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind.” He’d walk by me and smile singing those lines.
JULIE
When he’d do his Bob Marley thing, Mummy would act up for a minute then he’d start dancing—
GRACE
—and teasing her till she’d finally laugh and dance and sing with him.
(Julie sings lines from a Bob Marley song that works with the character of their father. You guys figure out which one. Maybe “No woman no cry” etc.) ?
They laugh and dance and sing a little together for a moment. Then in the moment conversation gradually returns them to the kite saga.)
GRACE
Now that felt like home on the good days.
JULIE
They get lost in all that clutter. I close my eyes and everything spins. Maybe I’m still home and this is just a dream.
GRACE
When did you sleep last?
JULIE
I don’t remember.
GRACE
This is Wednesday.
JULIE
I think it was Monday.
(Grace tries to take Julie’s hand and make her lie down on the sofa.)
GRACE
You’ve got to get some rest.
(Julie pulls away frantically.)
JULIE
I don’t want to go back there.
GRACE
You can stay here.
(Julie becomes more and more upset as she speaks.)
JULIE
If I close my eyes I’ll be gone. It’s easy for you. It always was. You’re strong Grace. I want to be strong but they won’t let me. They’re pulling me, tearing me, Mummy and Gareth. When I sleep I dream. They’re pulling my arms—the pain—the pain won’t stop.
GRACE
You’re here now.
JULIE
Screaming, I wake up screaming!
GRACE
They’re both three thousand miles away.
JULIE
Kites without strings belong to the wind.
(Grace holds Julie calming her for a moment before she speaks.)
I want to belong to the wind Grace.
(Grace gently brings Julie to the sofa and they sit.)
GRACE
One Saturday night in July when I was nine, we made kites together on the kitchen table, sticks, paper and lots of string. Mine was blue and Daddy’s was red. Sunday morning we went to the park. There was a perfect wind and for an hour we ran and laughed, watching them sour higher. Then as I turned to him, the string of his kite fell to the ground. He stood there smiling as he let the string slide from his palm to the grass. “Kites without strings belong to the wind”, he said as the kite floated into the clouds. It was gone. His beautiful red kite was gone. I held my string very tightly and pulled it back till it landed. We went home without speaking a word.
JULIE
I want that feeling too.
GRACE
I’m one with the wind no more. Maybe I never was. Three years in Leeds with that selfish bastard, then factory work, waitressing and any odd job I could get brought me back to earth. Now my feet are planted as firmly to the ground as they can get.
JULIE
Not you, not my wild sister, you’ll never give—
(Grace walks to the table and picks up a handful of books reading the titles as she hands some to Julie and drops the others on the sofa.)
GRACE
Economic Growth in World Markets, Corporate Accounting, Statistical Analysis of Corn futures, Hedge Fund Perspectives, Copywrite—
JULIE
I don’t understand.
GRACE
I’ve finished my BA in business. I’m employed for a hedge fund and I’m working on my masters. I belong to the corporate system.
JULIE
You said you were going to New York to be an actor.
GRACE
Image my dear Julie, when I’m home I’ve got an image to keep up. I came to New York to make money. I went to acting school till I managed to get my green card, got a job with a Wall Street firm and did my BA at night.
(Julie walks to the table picking up notebooks and thumbing through in disbelief.)
JULIE
It’s a trick, your playing a game. Somehow you knew I was coming. Mummy and Gareth, they didn’t know but you knew and you’re trying to keep me from doing—
GRACE
I don’t want to change the world anymore. I don’t even want to pretend that I do. I just want to find a very comfortable little corner to live out the rest of my pathetic existence.
(Julie spots a copy of, A Mid Summer’s Night Dream, under a notebook. She holds it up high, laughing as she does.)
JULIE
I knew it! A Mid Summer’s Night Dream!
GRACE
That’s just some light reading between textbooks.
(Julie searches through notebooks frantically.)
JULIE
I’ll bet there’s more. I’ll bet you’re writing poetry just like Daddy. Mummy hated that. He had those notebooks everywhere.
GRACE
I don’t write poetry, not anymore. I write reports about making money.
(Julie goes to the sofa, lifting the cushions, digging into the space under the seat cushions.)
JULIE
I know they’re here.
GRACE
There’s nothing!
JULIE
Under the cushions—
GRACE
Stop it Julie!
(Julie continues searching.)
JULIE
Just like your book under the pillow—
GRACE
You need rest!
(Julie begins to lose complete control.)
JULIE
A secret.
(Grace comes to the sofa and sits pulling Julie to her holding her arms down to keep her from searching.)
A secret Mummy.
(Grace holds her close and rocks her gently like a child.)
I have a secret.
(Julie is now delusional and talks as a child to Grace as though she is her mother.)
At night when it rains, I sit on my bed and listen. I look at my window. Tap tap tap tap—calling me—rain tapping my window calling me. I want to go to the rain—through the window to the rain. Missing, longing for something I don’t know, can’t see but it’s waiting for me, always waiting, just like Daddy, just like Grace.
GRACE
Windows let you hold the world in place.
JULIE
Do you hear the rain?
GRACE
I hear the rain and dream lonely dreams.
JULIE
Tap tap tap.
GRACE
Tap tap tap, people running to nowhere, desperate people.
(Julie abruptly sits up and speaks as her father.)
JULIE
You are precious to me Julie but I belong outside the rules.
GRACE
Did Daddy say that to you?
(Julie continues speaking as if she is her father.)
JULIE
If I stay I will be stone.
GRACE
Was that the day he left with the car?
JULIE
Listen to your mother. She knows what you need.
GRACE
Was that the day of the crash?
JULIE
I belong outside the rules.
GRACE
That’s what he always told me. I thought he only said that—
JULIE
Rules are not for dreamers.
(Grace reaches out to touch Julie as she speaks.)
GRACE
Rules are for everyone Julie.
(Julie pulls away and stands up backing away from Grace.)
JULIE
No!
GRACE
Daddy was wrong.
JULIE
No mummy!
GRACE
Mummy’s not here.
JULIE
I want my baby.
GRACE
Julie listen to me. You’re here in New York.
JULIE
I want my baby!
GRACE
It’s Grace, this is the Bronx, and Mummy’s not here. It’s just the two of us.
JULIE
My baby is moving inside. I can feel it.
GRACE
OK, the three of us.
JULIE
Someone to love, someone to love me.
GRACE
It doesn’t work that way.
(Julie takes Grace’s hand and places it on her belly.)
JULIE
There, just there.
GRACE
It’s your imagination Julie. It’s too early to feel—
JULIE
She’s talking to me.
GRACE
You already know it’s a girl?
JULIE
I can tell. I can feel her.
GRACE
That’s not what you’re feeling.
JULIE
I’m going to have my baby.
GRACE
Julie—
(Julie gets up and looks around the room.)
JULIE
Here, I’m going to have my baby here in the Bronx.
GRACE
This is not happening. I’ve got to be dreaming.
JULIE
They’ll never find me in the Bronx.
GRACE
Don’t you think I should have something to say about this? I’m finally getting my life together and my newly enlightened little sister comes marching in like an invading army and for all I know the Welsh Guard and will be here soon.
JULIE
My baby will be an American, a citizen, they can’t touch her then.
GRACE
Oh! Oh little sister, you are not as crazy as you look. That mind is clicking. You’re not acting on a whim. You’ve got it planned, or at least you think you do. But it’s not that easy. There are rules for—
JULIE
Rules are not meant for dreamers.
GRACE
We’re going round in a circle here.
JULIE
I have money. I can pay for everything we need.
GRACE
Everything you need, and this isn’t like home. The National Health won’t pay for a damn thing. Having a baby here will empty your bank account the minute that baby pops its’ head out. I’ve got to get you on a plane.
(Julie sits on the sofa and buries her head in the cushions as she yells frantically.)
JULIE
I’m not going back, I’m not going back, I’m not going back!
GRACE
Calm down, calm down! We both need to stop talking for a minute. Just a little silence, that’s what we need.
(There is an extended pause as Grace sits at the table trying to collect herself. Then Julie speaks without looking up.)
JULIE
I’m going to be sick.
(Grace immediately gets up and runs to Julie.)
GRACE
Not on my sofa.
(She carefully pulls Julie away from the sofa and takes her to the bathroom.)
In there, you can throw up all you want, just make sure you flush.
(Grace closes the bathroom door and looks around her apartment in desperation.)
Why me? The minute I think I’m free, the bloody family pulls me right back in. I’m not going to let it happen.
(Grace goes to the bathroom door and calls to Julie.)
You ok in there?
(Pause)
JULIE
Ah hu.
GRACE
You sure?
(Pause)
JULIE
Ah hu.
GRACE
It’s just morning sickness. I had the same—
(Grace catches herself, stops immediately and walks away from the door. There is a pause, and then Julie opens the door and enters.)
JULIE
You had morning sickness?
GRACE
I just meant I’ve thrown up a lot. I used to get drunk and—
JULIE
You’ve had morning sickness. I heard you say—
GRACE
It’s not morning here but London is five hours ahead so it’s really morning there, early morning anyway—
JULIE
You were pregnant.
GRACE
Is there some sort of supernatural evil force that sent you here to ruin my life?
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Mary Alice
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| Joined: | Mon Feb 19th, 2007 |
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Posted: Mon Aug 18th, 2008 09:44 pm |
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There is a beautiful poetry about this. It is difficult to say more without knowing where you want to go with it. I would be glad to see more.
Mary Alice
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John Watts
Member
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Posted: Tue Aug 19th, 2008 03:17 am |
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Thanks for the responce. Poetic sounds good but you are right there needs to be more to find the direction of the play. I have already added more but I will wait a few more days and keep working. Hopefully I will have another ten pages by then.
John
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Martin H
Member
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Posted: Tue Aug 19th, 2008 11:39 am |
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| On a quick read, a lot of power here. The crane passage is particularly fascinating. A little too much dialogue that's baldly exposition--to some extent people do retell each other their stories, but I think you lean on it a little too much at present. Intrigued to know where this is going. Last edited on Tue Aug 19th, 2008 11:40 am by Martin H
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John Watts
Member
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Posted: Tue Aug 19th, 2008 12:50 pm |
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Thanks for the comments. I'll have a look at that exposition.
John
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billh
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Posted: Tue Aug 19th, 2008 10:39 pm |
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I agree about that exposition. What you say about people telling other people stuff they already know is quite true. But, as Mark Twain said, the difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense.
There are ways to sneak exposition in.
I highly recommend Naked Playwriting by Downs and Russin.
I'd like to see more of this play.
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John Watts
Member
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Posted: Wed Aug 20th, 2008 04:46 am |
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| Thanks to both of you. I tend to front load my plays with all the exposition I, "probably" need and worry about it later, which is not a good idea but it gets me going. I agree there is too much. I have already begun to thin out the information and set aside some for later. The play is evolving and I will post a rewrite with additions in a few days. Again thanks for the feedback.
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