Lodestar Quarterly

Issue 8 • Winter 2003 • Featured Lodestar Writer • Drama

Now She Dances!

Doric Wilson

After-Dinner Mints

SALOME
Not a very good dinner, no potatoes.

BILL
You're in danger.

SALOME
Lane, restrain your minion.

LANE
(To BILL, warning) William.

SALOME
How dark it is tonight.

LANE
You gave specific instructions --

SALOME
Let's get cracking around here. Let us commence the festivities. Let there be music!

BILL
No!

SALOME
Lane, I asked for music.

LANE
I... er... your Mamma... we --

SALOME
The footman's right. We want quietude. Save the violins for later.

LANE
(Under his breath) Not to mention the snare drums.

SALOME
Why is the door to the summerhouse locked?

LANE
Is it, miss? I hadn't noticed.

SALOME
I have every confidence in you, Lane.

LANE
I have even greater confidence in you.

SALOME
That's something a footman can't be expected to understand.

BILL
You gotta listen to me --

SALOME
Can you see me?

BILL
(Unsure) Yes.

SALOME
What do you see?

BILL
What should I see?

SALOME
An innocent lamb being led to slaughter?

BILL
Yeah!

SALOME
Never again are you to see me as mutton. Lamb is mutton. To be served. I am not a lamb. I am not a sea gull. I am not a wild duck. Nor the Christmas goose. I am none of those symbolic animals. I am a little girl. A shy little girl. Unworldly, undemanding, desperately in need of a drink.

LANE
The water is icing.

SALOME
That hardly satisfies my thirst.

As LANE starts for the bell pull, GLADYS enters downstage left with a pitcher of ice water.

GLADYS
You rang?

LANE
(Taking the pitcher from GLADYS) I would have.

GLADYS exits downstage right. During the following speech, LANE fills a champagne glass with water.

SALOME
Why must everyone complicate everything? Mamma and "Uncle" Herod sit in there all hunched over the Queen Anne table, puffing on their panatelas, scribbling figures and percentages and prorates on the damask and haggling, haggling, haggling. Do they care about me? Do they consider my feelings? They toss and throw me back and forth like dice.

LANE brings the glass and a champagne bag to MISS SALOME.

SALOME
(Reading the tag on the champagne bag) A good year. A very good year. Disappointing country. (Dunking the champagne bag in the glass of water) Why is it so difficult to find a good year and a decent country in the same bag? I recall... was it Rome? Carthage? No, that odd island in the Aegean where those martial ladies kept that athletic girls school -- he's locked in the summerhouse, isn't he?

LANE
Who, miss?

SALOME
Don't dissemble.

LANE
The prophet?

SALOME
Prophet?

LANE
Meant to say prisoner.

SALOME
Pervert.

LANE
Has that been proven?

SALOME
The "alleged" pervert. Mamma's friend. The guy with the leaflets... locked in the summerhouse.

LANE
I wouldn't know.

SALOME
You would know.

LANE
Drink your wine.

SALOME
(To LANE) Let him out.

LANE
(To SALOME) Impossible.

BILL
(To LANE) Forget the fast car --

SALOME
(To LANE) Liberate the libertine.

BILL
(To LANE) -- a bicycle will do.

LANE
Might we return to the plot at hand?

SALOME
Let him out.

LANE
No.

SALOME
Release him.

LANE
Impossible.

BILL
Miss Salome, please, no --

SALOME
Let the misogynist out!

BILL
For your protection --

SALOME
(Laughing) My protection?

LANE
-- his protection, then.

BILL
He's dangerous.

SALOME
(To BILL) Surely you can protect me from a sissy. (To LANE) Are you making me wait? I don't like to wait. When I wait, I become bored... when I become bored, I tend to look less than ravishing... Lane, I am not looking pretty. I'm very insecure, Lane. When I have reason to doubt my allure, I become nasty. Very nasty.

GLADYS
Maids never open doors, so don't ask me.

SALOME
What do you mean maids never open doors?

GLADYS
It's an Equity rule.

SALOME
Any hand that dusts a table can open the door to the summerhouse.

GLADYS
Shows how much you know.

SALOME
Your fingers itch for that handle.

GLADYS hides her hands behind her.

SALOME
You're simply pagan with door-opening tendencies.

GLADYS
No!

SALOME
Solidarity, sister, sorority.

GLADYS
Unfair!

SALOME
As one woman to another --

GLADYS
Never!

LANE
Brava, Gladys.

GLADYS
I almost weakened. I don't often get included in the female gender.

GLADYS exits USR.

SALOME
Bill?

LANE
(Warning) William --

SALOME
Brave Bill.

BILL
No way.

SALOME
Manly Bill. Tomorrow, at high tea, when I make my humble entrance, walking, without the benefit of naked trumpeters, I shall smile. That smile, Bill... blue-eyed, blonding Bill... shall be for you.

BILL
I won't open that door.

SALOME
I might even drop my glove.

BILL
(Weakening) Your glove?

SALOME
You can retrieve it for me.

BILL
(To LANE) Her glove?

SALOME
My white, right glove.

LANE
(Warning) William --

SALOME
Both gloves!

BILL
I can keep them?

SALOME
You may do with them as you please. Whatever you please. Wherever you please. With whatever pleases you.

LANE
And you'll grow hair on the palm of your hand.

SALOME
Butt out, Lane.

BILL
Both gloves?

SALOME
And one stocking.

BILL jumps from the stage, hurries up the aisle to the summerhouse.

LANE
(To BILL) No, stay away from that door!

SALOME
(To LANE) You may leave us.

LANE
You wish.

SALOME
Ten minutes alone with him.

LANE
I'd rather watch.

SALOME
A voyeur.

LANE
An innocent bystander.

SALOME
Five minutes. I'll make it worth your while.

LANE
The other stocking?

Next Page:   Act , The Prisoner   (page 13 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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