Category Archives: Scenes

LIFE SKETCHES (SHORT SCENES AND MONOLOGUES): “IN THE WOODS” (7) · Apr 23rd

By Bob Shuman

SCENE: In the woods. A small clearing, off a parking lot–hardly more than a triangle where two parallel felled logs act as benches.

MARY JANE, early 70’s, sits on a log.  As at the dog run, using a launcher, SHE plays fetch with the dogs, primarily with her spaniel, LANTERN (who is missing at the beginning of this scene). CHRISTIE, late 50’s (male), stands, holding the leashes of his two Jack Russell terriers, JASPER and JUNO. He is wearing a mask, which itches, so he pulls it up and down on his face.  Chilly April. Both MARY JANE  and CHRISTIE wear gloves—CHRISTIE’s are surgical gloves.  MARY JANE does not wear a mask.

MARY JANE:  I’m usually on this bench or the next one over, and there’s another, after that, that I can still get to.

CHRISTIE:  (Joking, after a long walk with his dogs.)  Very . . . sylvan.  I just wish it didn’t take a helicopter to get here.

MARY JANE:  Lantern is reverting to his two-year-old self.  He disappears—and then I don’t see him again for half an hour.  It’s very frustrating.   He’s started ranging.

CHRISTIE:  I wondered where he went.  

MARY JANE:  After a while, he’ll come check to see if I’m still here and then go off again—usually dragging back some disgusting thing from the swamp.  (Pointing.)  It’s right down there.

(Pause.)

CHRISTIE:  Natan says the run should be open again in a few weeks. 

MARY JANE:  It will be longer than a few weeks.  More like two months, if they open it again at all.    

CHRISTIE:  Dogs can go without leashes at the park until 9:00 in the morning—I think the same thing happens at night. 

MARY JANE:  That doesn’t do me any good.

(Pause.)

MARY JANE:  (Zipping up her coat, because she is cold.) Doesn’t anyone know it’s April 22? Maybe the people  upstairs still think we’re in the middle of March, too.

(CHRISTIE drops his leashes and begins throwing a ball to Jasper.  He continues to hold JUNO’s leash, and she sits by him.)

CHRISTIE:  Jasper.  Don’t you go too far away.  I don’t want you going to the swamp.

MARY JANE: They can still ticket you here, if a dog isn’t on a leash—but what are they gonna tell me?  I can’t have one?

CHRISTIE: (Muttering.)  My wife will kill me.

MARY JANE:  If these dogs were left to go wild, we’d be seeing some serious food.  

CHRISTIE: (Joking.)  Squirrel.  Rabbit.

MARY JANE:  Chipmunks. 

(Pause.)

CHRISTIE:  (Surveying.) I wondered where you took Lantern (during the last week).

MARY JANE: I used to walk here all the time when I was younger.   The only problem is it gets really dark at 7:30—all of a sudden it’s pitch black.  

CHRISTIE: Come on back, Jasper.  Don’t you go over there.

(Jasper trots back to CHRISTIE.)

MARY JANE:   I’m going to have to get Lantern an e-collar to shock him, when he goes too far, like when he was little.  I’ve been putting off ordering it. (Pause, noticing one of the dogs.) Hello, Juno.

CHRISTIE:  Welcome to the Bronx.  Epicenter of the coronavirus in the city.

MARY JANE:  And the state–and the country.

(Silence.)

MARY JANE:  Are they going to give you your job?

CHRISTIE:  Six are enrolled and they need eight to run the course.  Not having enough students in the winter was a blessing in disguise because I would have been taking five mass transit buses a day, back and forth to White Plains.

MARY JANE:  (Meaning the virus.) You would have gotten it.

CHRISTIE:  We’re lucky we don’t live farther south now. (About Jasper.) He still wants to put the ball between my feet.

(Silence.)

MARY JANE: I was watching Dark Victory, with Bette Davis last night. 

CHRISTIE: I don’t even know if I’ve ever seen it.  This mask is really itchy.

MARY JANE: That’s the way I want to go.  Three months.  Won’t be painful. She lies down on the bed–and dies.  Nice and neat.  

CHRISTIE: I should really see that.

MARY JANE: (Mary JANE is interested in the Spanish flu)   With the Spanish flu, they turned blue. Lungs filled with fluid.  Wilson didn’t do anything.  He wasn’t expected to. The only thing good about it was that you went fast. Twenty-hour hours.  But then people stopped researching it when it was over.  Let me see what time it is. (MARY JANE checks her phone.)   7:08.

(Silence.)

MARY JANE:  People don’t understand how much stress there is.  I was cooking dinner and when I was cleaning up I accidentally turned on the gas on the stove.  My next-door neighbor came over to see if I smelled anything. I had fallen asleep. I’ve never done that in my life.  Then I did it again the next night.  I’d been out with Lantern. Now the Super is at my door.  He thought I was trying to commit suicide.

(Silence.)

(Suddenly, Lantern rushes in carrying something in his mouth and drops it near MARY JANE.  Overlapping: )     

MARY JANE: Oh, my God.                                CHRISTIE: Jesus        

 

MARY JANE: What does he have?         CHRISTIE: That is so gross.

 

(Pause.)    

 

MARY JANE: It’s a bat.                           CHRISTIE: It’s a banana.

 

MARY JANE :  Bird’s wing.                 CHRISTIE: Piece of rotting meat.          

MARY JANE:  It’s a scalp! (Upset.) Get it away.  Get it away from me.   Christie, take it away.  Get it out.

(End of Scene)

Copyright (c) 2020 by Bob Shuman.  All rights reserved.

LIFE SKETCHES (SHORT SCENES AND MONOLOGUES): “AT THE DOG PARK” (2) · Mar 12th

By Bob Shuman

SCENE: A dog park in the Bronx. There are two benches. The first is near the entrance to the run—the second it toward the opposite end.

MARY JANE, early 70’s, sits on one side of the second bench in the dog run. Using a launcher, SHE plays fetch with her spaniel, LANTERN. CHRISTIE, late 50’s, is sitting on the far side of the bench and throwing a ball to one of his two terriers—the other dog sits near MARY JANE. A sunny day)

CHRISTIE: (Calling, to one of his dogs.) Come on Jasper, stop taking Lantern’s ball.

MARY JANE: What to do? I wait for this all year long–I’m not sure if  anything will change by May or June. 

CHRISTIE: I saw, on the Web, that the worst should be over by the end of  April–not that it might not recur . . .

MARY JANE: I get the same ABT tickets in the parterre–with my friend.

CHRISTIE: (To Jasper.) You have your own ball! Leave Lantern’s alone! (CHRISTIE stands.) Come on Jasper, put the ball over here!

MARY JANE: That’s all right. Just leave him. He’ll put it down when he’s ready.

CHRISTIE: Jasper!

(Jasper finally puts down the ball.)

MARY JANE: I told you. He always puts down the ball if you leave him alone.

CHRISTIE: Natan said we should just nuke New Rochelle—then our problems would be solved.

MARY JANE: And cancel 2020.

CHRISTIE: That will get rid of corona virus.

MARY JANE: The National Guard is taking food and medical supplies to the elderly.

CHRISTIE: How far away is New Rochelle? I’ve never been there.

MARY JANE: Depends on where you’re going. New Rochelle is a big place. Six schools. Two closed. Twenty-five minutes, maybe. That’s where my vet is and where I get my car repaired. We used to go to New Rochelle for the best pizza.

(Silence.)

MARY JANE: They closed Fordham. Columbia.

CHRISTIE: Saint Xavier. Courses go online Thursday.

MARY JANE: Was anyone at the school found to be infected?

CHRISTIE: Three.

(Silence.)

MARY JANE: What does that mean for you?

CHRISTIE: I can’t tutor because you have to work with the student face to face. (Pause.) They’re going on spring break anyway—it doesn’t matter.

(Pause. We hear the entry gate open and close. A small black and white dog, like on the old RCA records comes up to CHRISTIE—and he lightly begins petting the dog.)

CHRISTIE: (Changing the subject.) At least the weather’s better. That would stop the virus. That’s what happens with the flu. Knock it out. One of the workmen in our building said: “You want some Coronas? I got some.”

(Silence. CHRISTIE stops petting the dog.)

MARY JANE: (Speaking quietly.) You know Natan?

CHRISTIE: (Not hearing.) What?

MARY JANE: You see that man over there?

CHRISTIE: (To one of the terriers.) Come on Jasper—you can let Lantern have his own ball.

MARY JANE: He lives in Natan’s building.

CHRISTIE: Why is he holding a white handkerchief in front of his face?

MARY JANE: Natan often knows things about people.

CHRISTIE: (Throwing a ball.) The New Rochelle line was only a joke, you know that, right? I never know if people take things the wrong way. (Looking over at the man.) Maybe that guy is sick.

MARY JANE: His son is in quarantine.

(Silence.)

CHRISTIE: I was just petting his dog–lightly on top.

MARY JANE: Can you get it from animals?

(Pause.)

CHRISTIE: I don’t know.

MARY JANE: He seems sick. (The man is blowing his nose.)

CHRISTIE: I don’t want to wait to find out.

(The dog jumps up on the bench.)

CHRISTIE: I think I’m going to go in the other run.

MARY JANE: I’ve never gotten along with him. He takes up too much of a bench.

CHRISTIE: I want to wash my hands.

MARY JANE: I’m going to the doctor in a few minutes.

CHRISTIE: Let’s get out of here.

MARY JANE: (Suddenly.) Lantern! We’re leaving!

(End)

(C) Copyright 2020 by Bob Shuman.  All rights reserved.

ROMEO AND JULIET: THE EPILOGUE · Oct 5th

(Ethan Kuperberg’s scene appeared in the New Yorker, 9/30.)

SCENE I. Verona. Wedding Courtyard.

Fifteen years have elapsed. Enter ROMEO and BENVOLIO of the house of Montague.

 

ROMEO

Mine dear coz Ben, once boy, now groom,

Ne’er did this day runeth ’bout my head.

You settl’d down! A lion tamed, once wolf,

Now dog. Yet to thou I wisheth, mazel tov.

 

BENVOLIO

A penny heav’ly dropp’d to rent this barn,

And roving jesters, with their cost, make me the fool.

Lender no more, but borrower for years I’ll be.

O, bar most open, of thou advantage I may as well taketh.

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/romeo-juliet-epilogue