Interesting: they walked a bit, talked a lot, went to a café, kissed on a bench, and ended up in her apartment and made love.

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Of course! Typical Julia! Now she is in love again, birds are singing and she is all smiling again! Gone is the depression, the tears, the mourning….

Un tempo (stopping and looking concerned, almost anguished)

Why to I talk about mourning? Why do we associate love with death? Love ‘til death. Love to Death. Love of death. Death of love…

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(Looking worriedly towards the divider) Do you love me?

HE: Of course I do.

SHE: (reassured, smiling again) And you know, she was in such high spirits, she couldn’t keep to herself! And I felt so restless with the futility of my day at the office that we decided to leave earlier, and go to a restaurant for an early dinner. Martha also joined. Sounded like a plan.

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(she caught herself) But there was no plan! I promise you. I did not know… We just went for a dinner that’s all! I thought I would come home right after that, you know…

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I wonder why we go to such dinners anyways: we always end up talking about the same things: relationship, marriage, kids, girls, boys… A bit boring, really. These girls just do not know what real love is. Not like us, my love! Don’t you agree?

HE: silent

SHE: Martha, always with her grand ideas about husbands, marriage, the Family: as if she knew anything at all!

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And Julia: I do not know… Sometimes I find Julia so childish… always ready to fall in love, being desperate at every break up, than falling just as easily, in love again…

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(thinking) As if it was about falling in love instead of being in love. Instead of living it. How can she change love so easily? Once you are really in love with someone, how can you fall out of love so easily? Doesn’t it mean that the love was maybe not that deep, that serious? Doesn’t she see she is following a pattern, circling from hope to deception, over and over again?

Yes, yes, I know what you are going to say: girls like her are in need of being seduced constantly, of feeling attractive, feeling needed; so it is less about the beloved than it is about herself.

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Not like us! We love us so deeply; we care so much about each other!

(smiling again)

You love me, don’t you?

HE: Of course I do.

SHE: Anyways, we had dinner, a few drinks and then decided to go to a place with music. Somehow we did not feel like going home. Again, I am sorry I could not reach you, but I thought you would not mind. I also needed a change of …

(abrupt pause, fixing her stare somewhere far away, pronouncing in a slow motion, distant, interiorized sort of way)

… of something… of something… you know…

Yes, I need a change… a change of… something… A change of…. of what? A change of what?

(darkness)

ACT 1

SCENE 1: Each Love is a Refuge

(Dancing music is heard in the distance, the sides of the room are progressively darkened and the light focuses on the middle of the stage where a curtain comes down turning the front stage into a separé, adjoining the bar/disco, dancing light effects seen in the background. SHE exits behind the curtain. Few moments later Martha and Julia, dressed for the occasion appear through the curtain, which muffles the music as it closes behind them)

JULIA: (smiling excitedly, looking all around, incessantly) Did you see THAT tall guy in black shirt? He could not stop watching us! And his friend was handsome as well!

MARTHA: (scornful) They were watching you, not me.

JULIA: How could you know which one they were looking at?

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(girlish) OK, maybe. Maybe they were looking a bit more at me... What eyes he had!

MARTHA: (self deprecating) Nobody looks at me.

JULIA: (impatient) Stop it Martha! Why are you always so self deprecating?

MARTHA: Because!

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(desperate) Because…just look at me!

JULIA: And?

MARTHA: (almost crying) and…and… look at YOU! With your pretty face, your long hair, and… your body! You are so… so beautiful, so sexy! Every man is looking at you! Constantly! (with rage) And you do not even NOTICE it!

(Julia looks at Martha, surprised, puzzled)

You behave like a whore! Flirting outrageously with anything that has a penis between legs! How can you? How dare you? You have NO IDEA the gift you were given by nature and you… and you just…. (She falls apart, crying)

(SHE joins them, through the curtain)

SHE: What is the matter?

JULIA: She is doing her usual Martha again:

(mimicking childishly, high pitch) No one loves me!

SHE: (reproachful): Julia: stop it! It’s not fair!

(to Martha, an arm around her shoulders): Do not listen to her, Martha.

(SHE motions Julia to leave them alone. Julia leaves through the curtain).

(to Martha) You are beautiful, a very nice person, a GOOD person. It’s only a matter of time; you will also find your charming prince and live a happy family life.

MARTHA (sobbing): It’s not true! Nobody is interested in me. I am not as pretty as Julia. It seems it’s the only thing men are looking at: the size of your breast! Soon I will become too old, and I will never have a husband, I will never have children!

SHE: Of course you will! Just have faith and patience.

MARTHA: (aggressive) Oh yeah. That’s an easy thing for you to say: you are married, to a very good man, and then you leave him to move in with this other guy! Shame on you!

SHE: (god natured) My husband, a good man? (smiling) Martha: you do not know what you are talking about! After 5 years of marriage, it is just not working any longer; turns out we have totally different interests in life!

MARTHA: That’s because you are twisted! He is a good man.

SHE: He can never take a decision, where to go on vacation, what to do in the evenings or on weekends. He can not even move himself to look for a more decent apartment, or for a more interesting job. All he is really interested in is going back to his hometown.

MARTHA: The fact that he has limited professional ambition only shows he places more value on the really important things, like family. He is a good man.

SHE: We have so little in common! He is lazy. He hates going to theaters, to music concerts, to painting exhibitions, even simple strolls in the park: he just isn’t interested in anything I am interested. And he does not even read! All he wants to do is playing on his computer and take care about his plane toys.

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You know Martha, it is sad: after 5 years you realize you have nothing to talk about, nothing to share, nothing to grow together.

MARTHA: Ah! Yes, of COURSE! Because SHE needs an intellectual relationship! I really do not understand you: he is handsome, he has a job, he is bringing money home, he doesn’t drink or do drugs and he is not violent: what more could you wish from a man? He is a perfect husband.

SHE: Martha, you do not know what you are talking about.

MARTHA: I do know: he is providing safety security and comfort, and an endurable life on this earth.

SHE: Martha, you are missing the point: I know what love is! I am in love, right now! And it is wonderful! I am fulfilled and happy. We understand each other without needing any words! He loves me like no one loved me before.

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(to herself) He understands me.

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(pontificating) Love is not only about safety and comfort. One day you will understand this.

MARTHA: You are trying to pontificate about what love is or isn’t? Sorry girl, but if you are making up for yourself an elaborate story to justify your mistakes you are wrong with me. I hate self- righteousness.

SHE: What do you mean?

MARTHA: (pervert) Can I ask you a question?

SHE: Of course…

MARTHA: How were you going along sexually with your husband?

SHE: Well… not bad…I suppose… Normal, I think.

MARTHA: Then tell me, how could you cheat on him during three years?

SHE: aghast …

MARTHA: Because if I calculate right, you have been shamelessly cheating on your husband for three years, out of your five years of marriage: and I am not only talking about the cheating: you have been hiding things and lying to him, constantly, at every breath! You had a parallel life, for God’s sake! For three years!

(mean and teasing) Didn’t have the courage to tell him THAT did you? And how did it feel having sex with your lover in the morning, and then with your husband in the evening?

(angry) How egoistic from you, to sacrifice what could have been a normal, healthy family life in the pursuit of an elusive intellectual satisfaction! Who cares that he does not read books? Tell me what difference does it make? And your theater: do you think it is really useful or even interesting to go to see all your complicated, contorted plays from Camus, Tennessee Williams or Beckett? All they do is twist your brain and leave you completely depressed and confused, that’s what they do! Unhealthy, I tell you! But of course Madam has Great Expectations! Always looking beyond to what she does not have, instead of appreciating what is under her nose!

(mocking) Wow! Indeed! You DO know about love, of course! I hope you will not mind that I do not follow your example!

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(with some melancholic sweetness) What you fail to grasp is that love is about settling, nesting, about the difficult times, the older days. Love has more to do with easing anxiety, providing some certainty, and with a little discipline, predictability.

SHE: (distraught, on the verge of crying) What…. What is this? Why do you torture me like that?

MARTHA: (on a roll) To start with you should not have cheated on your husband. You should have worked on your relationship with him. Take what was good and build on that; correct and improve what needed to be improved.

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Yes, that’s it: to correct and improve. To adjust!

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And once you realize you do not love him, that you do not want to live with him any longer, you should have told him: he did not deserve to be treated like you did. Your husband is a good man, he loves you and did all he could, to the best of his abilities, to treat you well, with respect.

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SHE: (sobbing) Martha, I did not have the courage. I am a coward. I wanted to… but I did not know how to tell him. (pulling herself together) But you are wrong to say that…

MARTHA: (interrupting without noticing, still on her roll, putting an arm around SHE, looking in the distance, far away) At least he was trying. You did not even try. And you did not give him a chance to make it better. As soon as some difficulty appeared in your marriage, you just ran away. You did not even try. You did not treat him with respect. He deserved at least that: an honest behavior.

SHE: (speechless, she cries)

Darkness

SCENE 2: Each Love is a Prison

Lights come up again. SHE is still recovering from her talk with Martha. Julia enters.

JULIA: You have been crying? What happened? Are you all right?

SHE: It’s OK... I am all right.

JULIA: Please, tell me! What happened?

SHE: Nothing… I had a discussion with Martha. She told me I should not have cheated on my husband, that he is a good man, and a perfect husband.

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