The room divider

A Woman is in an apartment bustling around, going left and right, all the while talking to her partner/lover who never appears.

The scene is a one room apartment: we see the center wall in the back of the stage, facing the audience and the two side walls are escaping the stage sideways following exaggerated perspective lines. Two very small windows, one each on the left and right walls, are placed very high up, so small and unreachable that they appear useless.

In the center stage, a small dinner table for one person, with 2 different chairs (like one has been brought as an afterthought, as if to accommodate an unexpected visitor). A tiny kitchen is on the back end of the stage.

On the left, a crude library with 1 meter wide shelves, is very high, and is filled with books. The library reaches the height of the window. (One muses how you grab those books, placed that high: a sense of uselessness again). An easy chair is at the base of the library with a thin, metal, curved, standing lamp (feebly lit) with a lot of books scattered messily on the floor around it. There is also a bathtub (small, old circular tin tub from the 19^th century, as seen in the western movies), fitted with a thin metal shower pipe.

On the right-hand side of the stage a wide room divider, min 3 if not 5 panels, is placed in front of a single place bed that is visible for two 3ds of its length to the audience. The audience could think it hides the dressing area, in front of the bed.

Care should be taken that volumes are balanced throughout the stage.

Throughout the play, SHE addresses her partner/lover. We assume he must be behind the room divider. The panels are painted with abstract motives (not figurative) in modern progressive styles/techniques (dripping, automatic, projection, burning). A rough surface/texture must be given with collages, molten metal, nailed or otherwise affixed wood, metal even plastic pieces. (Tapiès, Anselm Kiefer and the like). In the center panel a series of metal triangles pierce through the surface, several centimeters, pointing towards the public. At the base of several (mainly in the center of the panel), some brownish dark colored liquid has been dripping towards the floor, now dried.

It is early morning.

PROLOGUE

Curtains open. A phone rings. We hear the welcome message from an answering machine (“Hello, we are not available right now, please leave a message at the tone”), and then we hear the voice of SHE:

SHE: Hello My Love. I am sorry to tell you so late, but I am with Julia and Martha and we have decided to go out together. I hope you do not mind. I will be coming home late. Do not wait for me. I love you. I love you, you know that! ‘Til later. Bye!

The curtains close. And reopen. SHE enters the stage wearing an evening party dress and a small rucksack/bag containing day’s clothing.

SHE: (concerned, worried, apologetic) Hello my love. How are you? I am sorry, so sorry. Will you forgive me? Do you love me?

Un tempo

HE: Of course. I do.

(Taking off her coat, scarf, then walking around the room, putting things in order; busying herself around the table, preparing a drink)

SHE: I am so sorry my love… I am so late! I cannot believe it myself! But I called… I left a message… … ah! I am sooo sorry… (nervously looking towards the room divider) are you angry?

HE: silence

SHE: I would understand, you know… it’s not like me to stay out all night like this … Please do not be angry with me!

Un tempo

(sitting, putting a blanket or a shale around her) What a day… What a night…

Un tempo

(Looking at one window) It’s dawn: almost time to prepare and go to the office.

Un tempo

(towards the room divider) Do not worry; I will prepare the coffee, and breakfast.

Un tempo. She is reluctant to move.

(to herself) How to get back to normality after such a night?

Un tempo

Pretend nothing happened?

Un tempo

(rising) Did it really happen? Did anything happen at all?

Un tempo

(she seems in a slightly confused state; maybe it’s guilt. She busies her hands. She obviously tries to suppress whatever it is, behind a screen of normality)

(active again, taking off shoes) You know, it all started at the office, actually. Ah! I do not like my new job. It’s boring, absolutely not interesting. Placing orders, calling customers, correcting other people’s mistakes… I really wonder how much longer I will be able to cope. I feel such emptiness. (rhetorically) Do I really need to go to the office today? It is… sooo… DULL! I hate it!

Un tempo

(resigned, pausing at the table) I guess, I need, to go. We need the money don’t we?

HE: silence

SHE: Yes we need the money. Ever since you lost your job.

Un tempo

I know, I know: you didn’t loose your job; you left it so you could come stay with me. My love! I will never thank you enough. I know how difficult it must have been to leave your family, your children, and come here stay with me. But you never found another job, here. It’s a problem.

Un tempo

Luckily we love each other. So much! We deserve this little nest. I would not have asked you to come here with me if there had been another solution. (pleased with herself) I know what you are thinking! (thoughtful) But all the same, we can be lucky I have this job, and earn this little money I make. Of course it’s not much, is it? But, until you find a job, that’s what we’ll have to live on.

Un tempo

Please understand, I am not blaming you or anything. It’s just that since I am working so hard to earn the money we need, I need from time to time to change ideas, to get a little time off. You understand that, don’t you?

Un tempo

Besides, you always tell me to go out, to have fun on my own. You know I do not like to go out without you. I want to stay with you. I do not want to leave you… Even for an evening…

Un tempo

(yawning, then tired) But I needed it I guess… Yes you were right; I need time for myself, from time to time.

(almost angry) It’s your fault! If you had not pushed me I would not have gone out! I would have come home, as usual… and nothing of this would have happened!

(her mouth remains wide open as if she had pronounced something horrific; she brings her fists to cover a shriek that never makes it to be heard)

(With sorrow) I am sorry. So sorry!

Un tempo

(softly) I missed you, you know?

Un tempo

Do you love me?

HE: Of course…

Un tempo

HE: Of course I do.

SHE: You do?

HE: Of course I do.

SHE: You do.

HE: Of course I do.

(she starts undressing to change into the working clothes)

SHE: (renewed confidence, but fragile) Oh! But let me tell you: today at lunch we went for walk with my friend Julia, at the office. Do you remember her?

HE: silence

SHE: she was telling me she had been meeting with this guy, again; you know the colleague from the office she had a crush on. They had dated few months ago, even made love I think, but he then started behaving strangely, avoiding her, and not even responding to her messages… At some point he had told her to stop talking to him, that he needed time. To think! Can you believe it?

Un tempo

What is it with men who always need to think? What is there to think about? Can you tell me?

HE: silent

SHE: Anyways, poor Julia… she was devastated. She had sworn, and sworn over all her tears that she would never talk, even only look at him again.

(With a sigh) And yet she did. Last weekend. Apparently his wife went out of town to her mother… so, out of the blue, he called her up. Must have told a convincing story, because she agreed to meet with him, in a park.

(Smiling to herself, bustling more actively around the room)