Horatio & Esmerelda pt.3 (script)
SCENE FIVE
Harry enters hesitantly from SR and looks around.
HARRY: (To himself) I’m pretty sure I didn’t write anything about Lucy running off crying. What happened? Guess I’d better set up the next scene.
Harry drags TABLE 2 over to CSR and places it on its side to represent Esmerelda’s bedroom wall. He also moves one of the chairs a little way behind the table and faces it towards the audience. Then Harry exits SL. Esmerelda enters SR. She sits in the chair and mimes combing her hair as if looking in a mirror. Horatio enters SL and mimes throwing stones at Esmerelda’s bedroom window. Hearing the sound Esmerelda rises, walks to the table, and throws open the ‘window’.
HORATIO: Oh beauty! Oh Emma-
ESMERELDA: Esmerelda.
HORATIO: Oh Esmerelda! I apologise for the lateness of the hour, but I had to see you again. Can I come in?
ESMERELDA: My parents are asleep and I’m getting ready for bed.
HORATIO: Do they despise me, your parents, like Juliet’s despised Romeo’s? Can they not see the beauty of our love?
ESMERELDA: I have not yet told them. It’s all happening so fast (aside) without any real plot development.
HORATIO: Love strikes quickly without warning, and when it does we are as puppets to its will.
TRENT: You are. She’s not.
HORATIO: Though others (Looks at Trent) may bring their slings and fire their stones, together we shall prevail, our love shall come through.
EMMA: Woah, Horatio, Harry -
HORATIO: Shh, you need not speak; I see it all in your eyes.
TRENT: What do you see? Contempt? She doesn’t fancy you, deal with it.
EMMA: Wait a moment. Harry, just listen to me for a moment, I think this has gone on long enough -
HARRY: You’re right. You. (points to Trent) You’ve been sat there this whole time criticising, making snide comments. You think it’s easy writing, directing and starring in a play? You think you could do any better.
TRENT: (Shrugging) yeah, I’d give it a shot.
HARRY: (With a sweep of his arms) Then be my guest.
Trent puts down his notepad, rises from his seat and gets up onto the stage.
TRENT: Ok, (To Harry) you go stand over there out the way. (Harry moves US. Trent moves TABLE 2 to one side out of the way then returns to CS. To Emma) Emma – it is Emma, isn’t it? You come over here by me.
Nervously Emma walks over to Trent and stands next to him, both of them facing out towards the audience, but Emma occasionally looking over at Trent to follow his lead.
TRENT: Look at the stars. (He places a hand on Emma’s back, drawing her closer. With his other hand he points outwards and upwards.)
EMMA: They’re.. beautiful.
TRENT: (With exaggerated, powerful, electric acting) I have travelled. I have travelled. I have roamed this world, always seeking but never finding and I have seen so much: Lights dancing like fire over the ice of the North, men killing each other in the Arabian deserts, children running naked and crying through the streets of India, stone triangles scraping the skies of Egypt, and yet always those stars have hung over me, unchanging, pitiless and beautiful. Everyone who ever lived gazed up at those stars: Caesar, Galileo, Newton, all the peasants and the gentry, the kings and their servants, all the poets, and the writers and the lovers. They all looked up at those pitiless beautiful stars. And how do you think they felt, those people looking to the sky? (He looks into Emma’s eyes, holds her gaze.) Some of them saw God, some of them saw eternity, but most of them just felt alone.
EMMA: (Still lost in his eyes) Do you feel alone?
TRENT: (Nods sadly and looks down) It’s hard not to (Pause. Looking up with sudden passion) Kiss me.
Placing his hand behind her head, with the other resting on the small of her back he leans into kiss her. Their lips are centimetres apart. They can feel each other’s breath.
EMMA: What is your name?
TRENT: Trent.
He kisses her, long and passionate, as if no one is watching. When they pull away he takes her hand and they both bow twice to the audience. Trent and Emma exit SR, hand in hand.
SCENE SIX
Harry is left alone on stage shattered. Even the props are at opposite sides of the stage, leaving its centre the same as it was at the play’s opening. With a slow despondency Harry moves DS and sits on the edge, looking out to the audience, perhaps with his head in his hands and his knees drawn against his chest.
HARRY: This isn’t how it was supposed to be. This isn’t how I wrote it. I thought plays were different from real life: I thought people could get what they want, even if it was all make believe. Isn’t that what plays are about? Dreams? Fantasies? Sad people playing happy characters, lonely people falling in love? I always loved Emma, but she never noticed me. I was always sidelined by everyone else, all those confident people who talked with her and made her laugh. I thought maybe if I cast myself as the hero she would finally see me, and even if it wasn’t actually me she was seeing, it was someone I could be. I guess everyone has their own scripts though, their own motivations, and they rarely fit together so easily. (Lucy hesitantly enters USR)
Maybe I didn’t pick the right words to make her fall in love with me. Maybe I’m not a good enough writer, or I’m not a good enough actor. I wish I could be confident like that Trent guy, but I can only act confident, not be it in real life. (Lucy takes a few silent steps towards Harry. HARRY sighs.) I suppose any happy ending for me at this point would be a deus ex machina, but still, that’s all I ever wanted: to be the hero and win over my leading lady.
Lucy is almost directly behind Harry now. Harry sighs again then suddenly becomes aware of Lucy stood behind him. He turns his head, still sitting and looks up at her. She looks down at him. Their eyes lock. Neither speak. Save for the rise and fall of their chests, neither move, Lucy holding herself almost on tip-toe as if drawn up my invisible strings. Count five. Slowly Lucy holds out her hand. Harry takes it and stands up, their eyes never losing contact. For a moment they are level, then she turns away and leads him off stage by the hand.
The Curtain comes down.
Tags: boy meets girl, Brecht, Fiction, Freudian slip, Monologue, play, play-within-a-play, postmodern, soliloquy
