A man is employed to write the "story" of a woman’s life; it is to be her biography. The story as it develops creates a version of what its subject dreams to be the story of her life, for how she wants to live it. Then the biographer, who is a possible suitor, he is to help fulfill the woman’s dreams through the telling of her story. He is given some information by the subject, but not enough. So it is up to him to create what is going to happen in the hope that he might be able to come up with what his employer wants to hear.

The working out of the tale, creating a future, is a long seduction for which the biographer has to figure out what the conditions are that he has to fulfill in order to meet with the subject’s favour and win her affection. The imagined future between the two as it unfolds becomes romantically and sentimentally impossible and then unattainable. The created love lapses into romantic extremism.

Running parallel to the illusions of the younger couple are two older people who are defining reasonable parameters that they can agree to live by, so as to help each other and get by. Their love does not overextend itself. They take what they can get, and they get it.

The action of the play occurs within a context of environmental threat and as the characters are occupied with their small concerns they are aware of a large unpleasant fate that will finish them off. The "comfort of romantic and practical love" that they are looking for, is an escape from the larger threat.

Characters: one man and one woman mid-thirties. One man and one woman in their sixties.

Single set: two locations.

Running time 1:40.

An Ambivalent Monument

The time is at the height of a period of social decline. The protagonist has for some time been displeased with the world and the state of things. He is in need of relief from his worries. His wife invites associates of the family into the house to give him advice to see if they can cheer him up and convince him that there is no need to despair. The visits only increase his irritability.

The first visitor, an optimist, unwittingly reveals himself to be representative of everything that is the cause of so much that has gone wrong. The next visitor, an older woman, an old friend, in trying to console him is then herself so provoked by his extreme miserableness that she ends up speaking of her own regrets and disappointments.

In the outside world social disturbances are intensifying in severity and as the political situation worsens the hero begins to take into account how the small part that he has played may have added in some way to the larger conflicts around him. In the end he finds himself wondering how to conceive of an argument, moral and political, upon which he can pin his hopes or forget about them.

Characters: two women and two men in their late thirties -- early forties. One woman late sixties.

Set: Single set, two locations

Running Time 1:15

        

The Cost of Living

A person of financial means hopes to escape a state of unstable unhappiness by lightening up on excessive wealth. The man of means appears to be giving away a fortune to those who are to benefit from his largesse. But the beneficiaries wonder about receiving charity from a suspect individual who is not to be trusted. The story examines what makes believers in predatory capitalism so determined.

Characters: two women, two men 30-40.

Single set.

Running time 1:30

The Fall

A continuation of The Ascent.

A broken marriage, where for years the husband has been writing a biography to torment his wife. Another man arrives: an intruder. The woman (as the unhappy and long suffering subject of her husband's biography) — she jumps at the chance to take advantage of the intruder's advances. She gives her husband's biography of her life to the new man to read and critique.

She then wonders, if the new prospect can become an important part of the story of her life, and if her husband might finally leave her and perhaps kill himself.

Characters: one woman, two men 30-45.

Running time: 1:20

En chute

Un homme pessimiste ¹ et une femme romantique ², Marou et Nathalie, ayant récemment subi un incendie causé par la négligence de Marou, emménagent dans une nouvelle maison.

Leur relation maritale — faisant depuis des années l’objet des chroniques de Marou — a atteint un degré insoutenable d'aigreur. Malgré tout, Marou continue de rédiger la biographie de sa femme; ouvrage auquel elle n'a d’ailleurs jamais consenti.

Un troisième personnage, l’optimiste ³ Hump, apparaît et se présente comme un remplaçant potentiel du mari. Nathalie lui donne donc sa biographie à lire et ‹ peut-être ‹ à compléter. Non sans un peu d’encouragement, Hump, accepte d'emménager avec Nathalie à la condition, bien sûr, que Marou s’en aille. Marou offre non seulement de s'en aller mais de se suicider et quitte la scène pour s'exécuter.

Croyant son mari mort, Nathalie s’engage dans un deuil profond. Le nouvel homme, Hump, interprète ce deuil comme une menace pour sa vision positive du monde et exhorte Nathalie à moins de misérabilisme. Elle refuse catégoriquement.

Ayant raté son suicide, Marou réapparaît soudainement. Hump s’en va et le vieux couple se retrouve acquiesçant et regrettant de part et d'autre leurs comportements antagonistes de tout à l'heure. Ils entreprennent de redéfinir leurs attentes alors que leur nouvelle maison prend feu.

Dans le monde de En Chute, les personnages cheminent d'une illusion à l’autre. Mais ils semblent tellement souffrir de ces illusions qu'on en vient presque à se demander si la réalité (aussi cruelle fut-elle) n’y mettrait pas un peu de baume? La pièce soulève toute une série de questions. Quelle est l'ultime extrême qu’on cherche à atteindre? Et pourquoi persiste-t-on à l'atteindre sur la mauvaise voie? mais si cette mauvaise voie s'avère au bout du compte la bonne? Pourquoi toujours opter consciemment pour le mauvais choix? Et d'où vient ce besoin d'insister quand on sait se tromper? Mais peut-être aussi nous est-il impossible de faire quoi que ce soit, pour empêcher le pire.

Les personnages de En chute, réduits à se représenter le monde à partir de convictions douteuses, sont pris dans des ornières, pendant qu’une bataille fait rage entre des visions du monde qui s'opposent.

1. Disposition d’esprit qui porte à prendre les choses du mauvais côté, à être persuadé qu’elles tourneront mal.

2. Mouvement de libération du moi par réaction contre la régularité classique et le rationalisme philosophique.

3. Doctrine selon laquelle le monde est le meilleur et le plus heureux possible. Tournure d’esprit qui dispose à prendre les choses du bon côté, en négligeant leurs aspects fâcheux.

Personnages : une femme, deux hommes, 30-40.

Un décor

Durée 1:15.

One act plays

THE FLAME

Four characters, 2 women, 2 men, 25-35. One set. (Running time 50 minutes.)

Script posted on website.

RUMINATIONS

Two characters, man and woman, 20-35. (Running time 35-40 minutes.)

Scripts available on Amazon.

Ces œuvres sont mises à disposition selon les termes de l'Autorisation Publique Creative Commons.