Короткие пьесы - [46]
JOSH: Yes, I have a lot of time. Now are discussions whether or not the “American Dream” is “erosing”. Already most Americans do not believe in the “American Dream” for the future. So I decided to try to analyze our situation and find something that must change. I started to write this tract…
(Peter with hands up demurring, hands saying stop)
PETER: Wrong, wrong! Why are you doing this?
JOSH: I confess that I was trying to raise a few doubts.
PETER: Doubts…?
(Pause)
JOSH: So I’ve seen the seeds of doubt!
PETER: You’re crazy! I was too shy to say at earlier. You were so insistent.
JOSH: So you don’t understand anything!
PETER: Why it’s so important to raise doubts
JOSH: From doubts we think…learn…and act. Columbus doubted that the world was flat.
PETER: Doubts then are your main problem.
(Suddenly Peter’s, now fully charged cell, bursts into the tinkling tones of a summer “Good Humor” ice cream truck (Steven Foster’s “Old Folks at Home”…way down upon the Swanee river…. Or “Home on the Range”.))
PETER: Finally! Thank God! Excuse me I have to go.
JOSH: One last request!…….We will not talk about the future, but now, current day, are you happy?
(Pause)
PETER: But truthfully I’m too busy to ponder whether I’m happy or not happy!
JOSH: I thought so. You should go now.
(Peter collects his phone and charger and walks to the door where he stops and returns to Josh)
PETER: Maybe I didn’t understand, but before leaving my advice to you is don’t try to change things. Don’t shut your light, get phone… Live and enjoy America!
JOSH (waffling his hand) Good byе! Be happy, if you… Could..
THE END
INNER VOICE
DOCTOR – psychiatrist. Doctor male. Wearing an expensive suit, and wrist watch very proper, polite, confident, pleasant, and always composed.
ANNA – Woman. Dressed in red dress with red bag. Foreign accent.
Psychiatrist’s office.Sparse Psychiatrist’s office. Ever present small clock standing on a table. The doctor is talking on the telephone eating a sandwich and thumbing thru a magazine. Suddenly a door opens and Anna rushes in.
ANNA: Doctor, I’m Anne Miller. I made an appointment last week..
DOCTOR (looking at а small clocks): You’re unusually early… (to telephone.) No, it’s not to you…
ANNA: Doctor, you must listen to me… now… My inner voice…
DOCTOR: Just a minute, I’m talking on the phone…
ANNA: Doctor, I can’t stand it…
DOCTOR: Wait, wait…(to telephone.) Sorry, Gladys I have to hang up… Yes! I’ll call you later… Bye!
ANNA: Doctor, you must listen to me…
(Doctor puts down the telephone unwillingly.)
DOCTOR: What is it Anna, that brings you in so early? Have you taken your medicine?
ANNA (ignoring Doctor): The TV just said that the scientists have identified the gene that makes people lonely.
Anna comes in, throws her purse on the table so as to obscure the small tablet clock from the doctor’s view and flops down in a chair opposite the doctor.
DOCTOR: Yes.
ANNA: I want the gene therapy medicine.
Doctor smiles pleasantly and turns to Anna.
DOCTOR: Yes, try to relax, what’s the problem?
ANNA: I can’t go out side my house. I’m hurting deep down in my soul, – ‘I feel a desperation. I’m lonely.
DOCTOR: Are you are living alone? Have you called your mother lately?
ANNA (ignore Doctor): Since I came here to the US. I feel so lonely. You can hardly imagine how hard it is to be lonely.
Doctor moves her purse so he can see the small tablet clock.
ANNA: Take that clock away!
DOCTOR: That’s not very polite… Take your purse away…
Anna takes away her purse in such a way that the tablet clock falls on the floor.
ANNA: Doctor… I…, I…
DOCTOR: Very well, go on.
Doctor glances at his wrist watch.
ANNA: My loneliness is special. I’m like the Liberty Statue: I’m standing alone, and life is boiling around me: people fall in love, go to theaters, restaurants, and I have nobody to go out with. Because no one needs me, I feel desperate and very frightened. I think about doing something drastic actions that could end badly for me.
DOCTOR: Now, now,what do you mean?
ANNA: When I see a couple, a man and a woman, walking along the street, holding hands and showing how good they feel together, I hate them, and I don’t know what to do in order not to see them… I even stopped visiting the Zoo.
Doctor: The Zoo…
ANNA: I don’t want to see almost all animals, even the most thorough predators, sharing a cage together… Especially on holidays and Sundays I literally climb up the wall… When I get up, I immediately remember how lonely I am, and all my thoughts are oriented on how to find somebody… Sometimes I can behave unexpectedly, crazy.
DOCTOR: For example? (glancing at his magazine again).
Anna jumps up and throws the magazine away.
ANNA: Enough of your “Playboy”…
DOCTOR: (Defensively) It isn’t “Playboy”. It was…
ANNA: Especially…
Doctor smiles pleasantly and puts his magazine on the floor.
ANNA: For example, when I go out into the street, I find, it easiest to start conversations with men, and then I talk on and on…
DOCTOR: Do they answer?
ANNA: Yes, they do, and we go along together for a while, then we part…