Lodestar Quarterly

Issue 8 • Winter 2003 • Featured Lodestar Writer • Drama

Now She Dances!

Doric Wilson

Setting the Table

SALOME
When do we eat?

LADY H
With Herod lost, gone, never to return?

GLADYS
Sure puts a crimp in the climax.

LANE
Gladys, away to the greenhouse.

LADY H
(To GLADYS) Pick a brave bouquet.

GLADYS exits upstage left behind the house.

BILL
(Shedding the surplice) Shouldn't we call the cops?

LADY H
And disturb their slumber?

LANE
(To BILL) The garden chairs?

BILL exits downstage right.

SALOME
I'm going in.

LADY H
You'll stay put until dinner is served.

LANE
(Formally) Dinner is served.

LADY H
Perhaps that's for the best.

LADY HERODIAS and MISS SALOME exit through the French doors as GLADYS enters from upstage left with a bouquet of exaggerated flowers.

GLADYS
(As she enters) If there was any money in the family, I'd say the old boy absconded.

LANE
(Placing the table stage center) Unless he actually apprehended the miscreant --

GLADYS
-- and they're hot at it in a motel somewhere.

SIR HEROD enters down the aisle, his costume disheveled, his swordstick bent.

HEROD
(In the aisle) Have I missed devotions?

GLADYS
Milord, you're safe.

HEROD
(Climbing onto the stage) Barely.

LANE
You caught the culprit?

HEROD
I caught someone.

GLADYS
You're not positive if it's the deviant in question?

HEROD
It was getting dark, I had to take what I could find.

BILL enters downstage right with two wicker garden chairs.

LANE
He confessed?

HEROD
Poor chap, he didn't seem to know what was happening to him.

GLADYS
I'll off to the ladies with the glad tidings.

GLADYS exits through the French doors.

HEROD
(To LANE) They're already at the table?

LANE
(Arranging the flowers in a vase) They're already in the aspic.

HEROD
(Starting for the French doors) Keep an eye on the summerhouse.

LANE
You locked him in there?

HEROD
You might see that he has fresh water.

SIR HEROD exits through the French doors.

LANE
(As a cue) Now it all begins.

BILL
(Putting an 18th-century livery coat over his T-shirt) I don't understand.

LANE
You're not expected to. (Repeating the cue) Now it all begins.

BILL
He caught the wrong man?

LANE
It is never the wrong man. (Repeating the cue) Now it all begins.

GLADYS enters from downstage left, a champagne glass in hand.

GLADYS
(Referring to the flowers) What lovely expositions and how nicely you are arranging them.

LANE
You missed your cue.

GLADYS
(Giving the glass to LANE) Here's the first champagne glass.

GLADYS exits downstage right.

LANE
(Calling after GLADYS) One glass? Surely you're not planning to bring them on one at a time.

BILL
Lane is your real name, isn't it?

LANE
Whatever do you mean?

BILL
It isn't an alias, is it?

LANE
William, have you been smoking the flora?

BILL
(Attaching a lace jabot around his neck) I'm getting mighty suspicious.

LANE
(Referring to GLADYS) As am I.

BILL
(TV tough guy) You and me, we need to talk.

LANE
And we shall. Later.

BILL
Man to man.

LANE
Absolutely.

BILL
Now.

LANE
You do pick the most inconvenient times.

GLADYS enters from downstage left, a second champagne glass in hand.

GLADYS
(Giving the glass to LANE) Here is the second champagne glass.

GLADYS exits downstage right.

LANE
(Calling after GLADYS) Stop making entrances if you're not intending to play the scene.

BILL
(To LANE) There's something fishy going on around here.

LANE
Only the caviar.

BILL
Look, pal, let's lay our cards on the table.

LANE
You first.

BILL
I'm onto you.

LANE
Are you?

BILL
I know all about the whole conspiracy.

LANE
(Alarmed) Which conspiracy in particular?

BILL
The garden path... the missing moonlight... the distressed damsel --

LANE
(Calling offstage right) Gladys, get out here!

BILL
I figured it out all by myself.

LANE
Cunning of you.

BILL
When I took this job, I didn't know I'd be implicated in a... in a...

LANE
Love scene?

BILL
If the folks back home find out... well, it'd kill mom.

LANE
It's not your love scene.

BILL
There's guilt by association.

LANE
Nobody invited you to associate.

BILL
I can't just stand by and watch it happen.

LANE
(An attempt at damage control) Trust me, William, tonight --

GLADYS enters from downstage left, a third champagne glass in hand.

GLADYS
(As she enters) -- is fraught with significance. Farce fencing force over tea, tragedy triumphantly tripping through the petit fours, life leaping over the Christopher Wren balustrade, cucumber sandwich in hand. (To the audience) This moment of purple prose was brought to you by Exxon in hopes that a nice smear of culture will keep your mind off the mess they're making of the environment.

LANE
What have you been telling William?

GLADYS
(Giving the glass to LANE) Here is the third and final champagne glass.

GLADYS exits downstage right.

LANE
(Calling after GLADYS) Gladys?! (To BILL, fearing the worst) This "conspiracy theory" of yours, has it had wide circulation?

BILL
Miss Salome, but only to warn her.

LANE
"Warn her?"

BILL
She was to be the victim.

LANE
"Was to be?"

LADY HERODIAS enters through the French doors, napkin and fork in hand.

LADY H
I slipped away from the table unnoticed.

LANE
There's a revolt brewing among the footmen.

LADY H
Squelch it. The film -- ?

LANE
(Handing the red-feathered fan to LADY H) -- is in the camera.

LADY H
(Pleased) And the camera is hidden in the handle of the fan! How fortunate for us you've had such wide experience with blackmail.

LANE
(Conscious of BILL) Milady --

LADY H
When my cad of a brother debauches my diffident daughter, we document the whole unsavory episode with my handy Instamatic, and you and I are set for life.

BILL
Blackmail?

LADY H
Faithful family retainers and faded females of fashion must fend for themselves as best as they can.

LADY HERODIAS exits through the French doors.

BILL
(Disgusted) Her own daughter.

LANE
You're to stay out of this.

GLADYS enters downstage left with a small silver tray on which are bags that look as if they might contain tea.

GLADYS
(Giving the tray to LANE) Here are the champagne bags.

LANE
(As he exits offstage right) Pity, she was a great maid in her day.

BILL
(Impressed) You were in show business?

GLADYS
(Including the audience) If only you could have been there for my debut. Oh, I'd had some experience... a bit of dusting in Act One, answering the phone in Act Two... but this was my first big break... my first big formal sit-down dinner. There were many, many courses, but the entrance was soup. Back in the wings I stood, soup in hand. Pea soup in hand. Split pea soup in hand. I tried to concentrate. To prepare. What is soup? What is the essence of soup? What are the social implications? What would Stanislavski say? I tried to recall my earliest encounter with soup. Soup du jour. Soup kitchens. Mother's soup. This soup, here, now, in the tureen I saw before me. How did I feel about this soup? How did this soup feel about me? I stepped out into the golden, fervent light. I paused. I took one step... my thoughts racing back... another step... back to years of study... another step... hard years... step... sad years... step... making the rounds... step... parts I never got... step... dinners I never served... step... years that brought me here... step... tonight... step... would they like me... step... would they understand... step... would I ever get there... step... once I got there... step... would they like the soup? I put the soup on the table. Next day I came down with hepatitis and had to leave the show.

GLADYS exits downstage right almost colliding with LANE who enters carrying a champagne bucket in a stand.

BILL
(To LANE) What happened to theatre?

LANE
Died, in your country, from overeating.

GLADYS
(Popping her head out from the downstage right wings) Something tingling with excitement is about to take place.

LANE
(Taking his position by the French doors) William, to your post.

BILL
Here's the plan. I need a helicopter, a fast car -- the kind that converts into a speed boat, some plastic explosives, an Uzi, a cigarette lighter that is really a top secret anti-satellite device. You cause a diversion, I grab the girl, we make a run for it.

LANE
You'll do nothing of the sort.

BILL
But --

LANE
To your post.

BILL reluctantly takes his position.

LANE
(Announcing) The honorable Miss Salome.

The Chinese lanterns flare, the French doors fling open, MISS SALOME stands in the doorway.

Next Page:   Act , After-Dinner Mints   (page 12 of 14 pages)

All Pages:   See the entire play on one page

Table of Contents:   Now She Dances!

Doric Wilson was one of the first playwrights at New York City's legendary Caffé Cino and a pioneer of the Off-Off-Broadway movement, writing, directing, producing and designing over a hundred productions. He was a founding member of Circle Repertory Theater and the Barr/Wilder/Albee Playwright's Unit, a participant in all three nights of the Stonewall Riot, and was active in the early days of New York's gay liberation movement as a member of Gay Activist Alliance and as a "star" bartender and manager of the post-Stonewall gay bar scene, where he opened such landmark institutions as The Spike, TY's, and Brothers & Sisters Cabaret. His plays can also be read at www.doricwilson.com.

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