The Trouble With Taste
A submission to Hans for No Shame Theatre:
CAST
X: Female.
Y: Male.
Z: Male. Roommates with Y.
SETTING
Three chairs or stools. Probably a bar, possibly not.
X: You guys are roommates?
Y: Yeah. We go everywhere together.
X: Oh, that's nice.
Y: Not really. It's mostly because I can't leave him alone for more than a couple of hours. The last time I did, I got back and found he'd resorted to cannibalism. He was supposed to entertain my cousin Mike and ate him instead.
(pause)
(Z shrugs. X stares in shock.)
Z: Well! I was starving! I was in survival mode! I hadn't eaten since breakfast!
Y: There was a grocery store right next door!
Z: I told you, I didn't like their selection!
Y: Oh, for the love of...
Z: Besides, anything more than the ten things we were already buying would have taken us out of the express lane, and the other lines were really long.
X: Wait...you bought stuff?
Z: Just some condiments. Mike was a little gamey. Also, we were out of charcoal.
(pause)
Z: My only regret is that I couldn't fulfill his last request.
X: Which was?
Z: "Stop eating me."
X: You could have done it!
Z: Well, I just remembered what you said about Mike: to take what he said with a grain of salt.
(pause)
Z: Maybe I misunderstood.
(pause)
X: Well...I'm going to leave you two alone.
Y: Please don't.
3 comments:
I dig it, but it's more of a scene than a short play. I still want to stage your last one, but it'll include a narrator or director or something on stage who recites character descriptions and stage directions.
So what's the difference between a scene and a short play? I know it's hard to believe, but this is not part of a larger play that's made up of the little bits of dialogue that I entertain myself with as I walk to the Metro. This is all there is.
A short play has a solid beginning, middle, and end, structurally-speaking. Something is set up in the beginning, and that something is resolved (a very flexible term) at the end.
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