Lodestar Quarterly

Issue 4 • Winter 2002 • Featured Writer • Drama

Half-Light Dances

Brian Thorstenson

A beginning: you decide

A beginning: you decide

DARYL
It's a day of passing open doors. Wafts of coffee slap your face. Or a night passing different doors that reek of stale beer, of plywood and concrete floors.

to WINIFRED

You decide.

to DEREK, rapid fire exchange.

Fireman or Cop?

DEREK
Fireman.

DARYL
Quarterback or shortstop?

DEREK
Shortstop.

DARYL
Art store clerk? Bookstore clerk?

DEREK
New or used books?

DARYL
Used.

DEREK
Both.

DARYL
Decide.

DEREK
Art store.

DARYL
Really?

DEREK

turning the tables

Me or your ex?

Direct hit

Pause

Me or your ex?

DARYL
Would you like to dance?

DEREK
Why won't you tell me?

DARYL
You can show me the two-step.

DEREK
Start at the beginning.

DARYL
I'm sure it can't be that hard.

DEREK
That's all you have to do.

DARYL
I can't.

DEREK
You mean you won't.

DARYL
No. Not this. This isn't what I...

WINIFRED
Oh, for god's sake, this is the point...

DEREK and DARYL look at WINIFRED.

DEREK
Tell him.

WINIFRED
This is the point. To leap.

DARYL
Why?

DEREK
Why not?

DARYL
Will it change your findings?

WINIFRED
Hard to tell. Hard to tell.

Silence

DARYL

calling off stage

Diamond!

DIAMOND enters.

DIAMOND
Do you have to yell so much?! Jesus. What now? I'm in the middle of changing.

DARYL
We're making a -- departure.

DIAMOND
A what?!

DARYL
A departure.

DIAMOND
Oh, for god's sake stop repeating your self. I think her chattering affected you.

seeing WINIFRED

Why is she still here? Why are you still here?

DARYL
I thought you'd want to know. About the departure.

DIAMOND
What does it matter if I know or not. I'm not crucial.

DARYL
I didn't say that.

DIAMOND
No, she did. Missy ugly clothes science woman.
Take whatever kind of departure you want.

DARYL
You may be needed.

DIAMOND
I may be needed. Well, whaddaya know about that. Me. Needed.

to WINIFRED

I may be needed.

to DARYL

So, what kind of departure is this?

DARYL
I'm not sure.

DIAMOND
You're not sure? Well what the Hell am I supposed to do with that. Huh?

DEREK
Wing it.

DIAMOND
Wing it?! I can't just Wing it. I don't just Wing things. Now you two get your shit together and then call me. Wing it. Jesus.

DIAMOND starts to exit

DARYL
It's an ending.

DIAMOND\WINIFRED
What?

WINIFRED
You said it was a beginning.

DARYL
Pay attention. We've taken a departure.

DIAMOND
An ending? Really?

DARYL
Yes.

DEREK
Well?

pause

DARYL
He had hands like a butterfly. And a back like a redwood. We drove down the coast stopping at every doggie diner and foster freeze we could find. Picture this: a man in black, lit by pink neon; an ice cream cone upside down on the car carpet; hot palm air. We went to the ocean, stood on the beach like foreigners. He opened the car door and told me he couldn't be with me. Anymore. I tried to breath some desire into his eyes, into his forearms. But it was only a step and a hop to unrequited slobber and shake. That was the last time we spoke.

pause

Happy?

DEREK
There's more, Daryl.

DARYL
There were days, there were nights.

DEREK
And a beginning?

DARYL
There always is.

Lights shift

It was a day, that became unlike any other day.

***

Next Page:   The beginning   (page 13 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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