Silent Play

Curtains rise

A light illuminates the middle of centre stage, revealing a plain brown envelope. From off stage right comes the sound of a telephone ringing followed by the loud slamming of a door.

Stage lights illuminate the rest of the stage, revealing a wooden chair set in the corner of front stage left, over which hangs a green jacket.

A grey haired women in her early fifties races on from stage right , spots the envelope and skids to a halt. She creeps forward, looking around fugitively as if expecting to be caught. As she approaches the envelope she reaches down with a shaking hand, then snatches it up.

She pulls it towards her chest, hugging it for a few moments. Eventually she releases her protective grip of the envelope and moves her hands back so that she can read the address, silently mouthing the words.

She tears the envelope open and pulls out a hand written letter that is over several sheets long.

Tossing the envelope to one side she slowly meanders over to the chair, puts the letter on the floor, pulls on the green coat, picks the letters up and begins to read.

After finishing the first sheet she hurls it towards the audience and starts to bite the knuckles of the hand not holding the rest of the letter.

She continues reading, tossing each sheet of paper away until she reaches the end, then after throwing the last sheet towards the audience buries her head in her hands, her shoulders quaking.

All the lights focusing on the stage dim, except the one illuminating the woman.

The woman stands up quickly and kicks over the chair before fleeing the stage.

Lights dim

Lights come on and a balding middle age man strides on from stage left. He walks around the stage, observing the papery carnage, nodding his head in a self-satisfied manner. He then walks over to the chair and pulls it upright, before moving it to centre stage.

He stands still for a few moments, thinking, then strides around the stage again, picking up every scrap of the letter and placing the scraps, carefully, into the pockets of his shirt.

Ext stage left.

Lights dim.

Lights go up revealing that on top of the chair sits a bucket filled with boiling water and a knife. The woman comes on from stage left wearing protective gloves and holding what looks like a bundle of straw. She sits down next to the chair and carefully begins to turn the bundle of straw into a voodoo doll.

Once the doll is complete she stands up and plunges it into the boiling water.

From offstage right comes the muffled sound of screaming and spluttering along with the splat of water hitting the floor.

The woman yanks the voodoo doll out of the water and the offstage noises stop.

Smiling the woman pulls at the limbs of the doll, not hard enough to damage but hard enough to hurt the victim.

She then plunges the voodoo doll back into the water and keeps it in until from off stage left comes a loud thump and a hand flops onto the floor of backstage left.

Grinning the woman pulls the voodoo doll out of the water and stabs it three times in the chest with the knife.

Lights down.

Published 26th October 2017