Lodestar Quarterly

Issue 4 • Winter 2002 • Featured Writer • Drama

Half-Light Dances

Brian Thorstenson

Some beginnings: detour, rain, cigarettes

Some beginnings: detour, rain, cigarettes

DARYL
It's night and we're traveling. Down the hill, past a man balancing a computer on a hand trolley, detour into the dark at the corner with the 50's diner.

DEREK enters. They cruise each other. DEREK circling DARYL.

DARYL
I've got a taste for something, a hankering --

DEREK
men with five o'clock shadows,
with heavy lids and glasses.

DARYL
Force my knees to bend.

DEREK
You're out looking,
with heavy lids and glasses.

DARYL
Armpits and ass, the slope of a shoulder,
I'm out, looking...

to DEREK

Let me linger at the back of your neck.

DEREK
Armpits and ass, the slope of a shoulder,
a beer bottle propped on a thigh.

DARYL
Linger at the back of your neck

DEREK
In the backrooms of bars
a beer bottle propped on a thigh.

DARYL
shaken, gasping

DEREK
In the backrooms of bars

DARYL
feverish, with hair and sweat,
shaken, gasping

DEREK
eyes aloof and wanting.

DARYL
feverish, with hair and sweat.

DEREK
Men in boots, men in caps,
eyes aloof and wanting.
Men with five o'clock shadows
men in boots, men in caps

DARYL

to DEREK

force my knees to bend.

DEREK stares at DARYL

DEREK
Not tonight.

DEREK exits

DARYL alone.

DARYL

urgent

It's a day...

WINIFRED
Another day!?

DARYL
Yes, another day.

WINIFRED
The same day as the previous days? Or a day distinctly its own?

DARYL
Just a day. Figure it out.

WINIFRED
I only ask for accuracy's sake.

Lights shift

To avert extrapolation.

DARYL
A day of bare/ feet

WINIFRED
Oh! I can't possibly/ proceed...

DARYL
bare feet stung by cold floors. Of a galloping skip to turn the heater knob. A day to admire the sturdiness of a tall man walking in the rain without an umbrella.

Rain.

WINFRED takes a compact umbrella out of her handbag and opens it. DEREK enters. He and DARYL stand next to each other as if under the eaves of a building.

DEREK takes out a cigarette.

DEREK
Got a light?

DARYL
Yes.

DARYL lights DEREK'S cigarette.

DEREK
Thanks.

introducing himself

Chris.

DARYL
Tom.

DEREK exits.

DARYL alone.

Rain continuing.

DEREK enters.

DEREK enters, takes out a cigarette.

DEREK
Yeah.

DARYL lights DEREK'S cigarette.

DEREK
Ta. Michael.

DARYL
Starchild.

DEREK exits.

DARYL alone.

Rain continuing.

DEREK enters. Same routine.

DEREK
Got a light?

DARYL
Umm... I think that I...

searching for matches

No... maybe in... no.
Sorry.

DEREK
It's fine.

DARYL
At this bar, around the corner, there's a boy who's always reading. Thick black glasses, a pint of beer, pack of Marlboros. Men ask him for a light. He folds the page of his book, strikes a match. The men bend into the boy, into the match, focused on the match. The boy cups his hand around the flame and stares, into these men's eyes. He might be there, the boy. Or the bar might have... at the bar there might be...

beat

Daryl.

DEREK
Uh.

DARYL
I could show you. The bar.

DEREK
Will he be there? The boy?

DARYL
He might be.

DEREK
Yes, well...

DARYL
Just one drink. That's all.

DEREK
One. No more.

DARYL and DEREK exit.

***

Next Page:   Walking one line   (page 7 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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