Lodestar Quarterly

Issue 4 • Winter 2002 • Featured Writer • Drama

Half-Light Dances

Brian Thorstenson

A beginning: unexpected singing

A beginning: unexpected singing

DARYL
It's a day of list making and errand running. A day of subways, buses, traffic. A day to stand in endless lines.

DARYL and DEREK standing in a line.

DEREK

humming and singing softly to himself

"I saw it written and I saw it say, Pink Moon is on its way. None of you stand so tall, Pink Moon gonna get you all."

DARYL turns and smiles

DARYL
I saw you. Last week. Across the street. Singing.

DEREK
Oh.

DARYL
It stopped me.

DEREK
Uh.

DARYL
I stopped and watched. On the corner. I had letters to mail. Bills actually. Past due bills. And I thought, how odd. Then I dropped my bills in the mailbox.

DEREK
I was buying tulips.

DARYL
And you were singing.

DEREK
I was?

DARYL
Or humming.

DEREK
Really?

DARYL
Billie Holiday, Nick Drake, Madonna. Maybe Annie Get Your Gun. I'm not sure.

DEREK
Humming. Doubtful.

DARYL
I didn't wave.

DEREK
Why would you? You don't know me.

DARYL
At that moment.

DEREK
Or now.

DARYL
Still, you stopped me.

DEREK
Yes, you said.

DARYL
That's when I thought -- how odd.

DEREK
Odd?

DARYL
Where did he come from?

DEREK
I was across the street.

DARYL
And now you're here. Now I'm seeing you again.

beat

In the morning, there's a boy who walks by my house, with a pastry in a white paper bag and a cup of coffee. He dresses all in blue. I think he's on his way to work. He stops opposite my bedroom window, takes a sip of his coffee, and looks up at the overcast sky. A shaft of sun breaks through, hits his watch, and lights up my face.

DEREK
Do I remind you of him? Is that it?

DARYL
Yes. No. Probably.

DEREK
Figure it out.

DEREK exits.

DARYL alone.

Lights shift.

***

Next Page:   Some beginnings: detour, rain, cigarettes   (page 6 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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