Lodestar Quarterly

Issue 4 • Winter 2002 • Featured Writer • Drama

Half-Light Dances

Brian Thorstenson

A beginning: leaping and leaning

A beginning: leaping and leaning

DARYL
...six. Or seven. I think it was...

DEREK
Before or after you wanted to be an astronaut?

DARYL
During.

It was...yes... Red Cross swimming lessons at the public pool. In the locker room, this -- circumference of men -- dripping. Puddles pooling on the concrete, collecting at their feet. This delicate roughness. All these men -- changing, rubbing towels. The quick seduction of a cross arm t-shirt strip, a pause as the torso exerts its independence before the face reemerges, surprised to be tricked once again into letting the chest boast alone.

Surprised, or casually aware.

I looked at... no... I stared, couldn't help it, stared at this periphery of men. It was... not like now... it was...

DEREK
A destination you didn't know you were looking for.

DARYL
Yes.

DEREK
The familiarity of a new road on the trip back, when the scenery goes by in double time.

DARYL
Yes. What about you?

DEREK
Oh... I don't have.

DARYL
Really?

DEREK
Really.

DARYL
Sure you do. Tell me.

DEREK
It's nothing.

DARYL
I doubt that.

DEREK gestures towards WINIFRED.

Ignore her. Tell me.
Please.

small pause

DEREK
I guess it was neighborhood boys. The bad boys. The ones with BB guns and older brothers in prison. The ones with dirty fingernails. With untucked shirts and full round lips. Boys with names like Randy and Sam and David.

My house, it was so full of -- complacency. Questions never answered. Or asked. I went looking for a point to leap, for a leap to dislodge me. I still go looking for it.

WINIFRED
So do I.

DARYL, DEREK and DIAMOND all turn to WINIFRED

Sorry. I shall become voiceless.

DEREK
No, no. Go on.

DARYL
Derek?!

DEREK
Go on.

DARYL
I think we should continue.

WINIFRED
Yes, yes. Carry on.

DEREK
A minute.

to WINIFRED

You said "So do I."

WINIFRED
Did I?

DEREK
Yes.

WINIFRED
Probably mumbling to myself.

DEREK
Probably?

WINIFRED
No. Definitely.

DEREK
Mumbling to yourself.

WINIFRED
Yes.

to DARYL

Carry on.

DARYL
My place is near by.

DEREK

to WINIFRED

What are you looking for?

DARYL
Would you like...

WINIFRED
I'm looking at you. That's all.

DEREK
Is it?

WINIFRED
Yes. Dispassionate observation.

DEREK
I said I went looking for a point to...

WINIFRED
It was nothing! Nothing at all! Inconsequential mumbling. That's all. It will not happen again. Now can we please move on?

beat

I try not to make it a habit of bringing my personal life into my work.

DIAMOND
Really!? I can't imagine that.

WINIFRED
No, I suppose you can't.

DARYL
My place is...

DEREK

to DARYL

Don't you want to know?

DARYL
My place is near by...

DIAMOND
Wait, wait, wait.

DEREK
You must want...

DARYL
My place, it's...

DIAMOND
Wait! We have to make sure she got it all down. Did you? Get it all down?

WINIFRED
Yes.

DIAMOND
The lean?

WINIFRED
The lean has been noted.

DIAMOND
And the spark? Did you get that?

WINIFRED

consulting her notes.

Umm... the spark...the spark...

DIAMOND

to DARYL and DEREK

See?

to WINIFRED

You didn't get it, did you.

WINIFRED

consults her notes

Here... no. The spark... ah yes, here it is. "There appears an intermittent spark as the two men -- names still in question -- as the two men continue their conversation."

DIAMOND
Intermittent! It wasn't intermittent.

WINIFRED
What I observed was intermittent.

DIAMOND
No milk and cookies for you! Intermittent, really. Can you believe that?

DARYL
It sometimes appears that way to untrained eyes.

WINIFRED
My eyes are anything but untrained.

DARYL
Well, unaccustomed then.

DIAMOND
It was a flame, a steady gleam. It was summer lightning.

DEREK
Always has to be the dramatic one.

DARYL
I would say it was steady.

DEREK
But lightning?

DARYL
I suppose that is a bit...

DEREK
Over the top.

DIAMOND
Over the top! Oh, it's fine for me to be over the top when you two want it, but not when I decide it's appropriate. Not when I'm defending you. On no, that's a whole...

WINIFRED
May I finish please?! I am on a time frame here.

The three of them are quiet.

Thank you. Thank you very much.
This is nice. The three of you listening.

DIAMOND
Just get on with it.

WINIFRED
"... an intermittent dazzle. Amethyst, copper, blue ice. A flickering, so hard to define. Note: make appointment with optometrist when I reach Zurich." Never rule out the deterioration of the body. All right, then. Moving on. Yes?

DARYL
Yes.

Lights shift.

***

Next Page:   A beginning: up for the view   (page 9 of 13 pages)

All Pages:   See the entire play on one page

Table of Contents:   Half-Light Dances

Brian Thorstenson lives in San Francisco. His first play, Heading South, received a Bay Area Critics Circle Nomination and was part of the 1996 Berkeley Art Centers' performance series. His play Summerland was selected for the 2000 Bay Area Playwrights Festival and the 2000 Z Festival of New Performance, and opened in New York City at Wings Theatre Company. The play is included in the anthology Plays and Playwrights 2002. His poetry has been published in Transfer and Six Thousand Five Hundred. Brian has received writing fellowships from the Djerassi Resident Arts Program and Blue Mountain Center. He currently is a lecturer in playwriting at San Francisco State University and Santa Clara University.

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