ScriptWorks 30/60/90 - 13 August 2013

Prompt:
If you could speak in another language what would you say that you can't say in your native language?-Belinda Acosta, novelist/journalist/playwright

Response:

JEFF, 45, handsome, dressed in a tuxedo, waits at the bottom of a short set of stairs with a heavy metal door at the top.
The door opens and HELEN, 36, pretty in a lovely dress covered with a heavy coat, comes out.  Helen stops at the top of the stairs when she sees Jeff.  She smiles.
Jeff applauds Helen.  She is embarrassed for a moment, then bows deeply.
Jeff hold out his hand and Helen comes down the stairs and takes his.

JEFF
Herbie...
(he shakes his head)
...you would think that I would get used to the fact that you call your flute, Herbie.  Anyway, is Herbie all put up, safe and sound?

Helen smiles and nods.

JEFF
Good.

They start to walk together but Jeff stops after only a couple of steps.

JEFF
I’m still amazed.... Still amazed.  When you play like you did tonight, I know I can hear Herbie talking.

They start to walk slowly.

JEFF
It’s not the language that you and I speak.  It’s another language.  A language of emotion, of beauty, of a world that exist right next to this one.  A world that is clean, and cool, and simple, but...

Jeff stops and looks at Helen.  He shakes his head.

JEFF
I don’t really understand it.  Here we are in this dirty alley, with those noisy streets, and the bright lights and all the people fighting to get... to get... sometimes I don’t even know.  More money?  A bigger car?  Better seats at the game?  That sounds so arrogant.

They walk again slowly.

JEFF
(sadly)
I know a lot of them just want food for their children and they have to fight hard just to that.

They stop.

JEFF
But then I hear you play Herbie and I know that’s not the whole truth of the world.  I know that there is this other world... this other world where... where there is a truth I don’t understand and that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with starving children, and yet... I think when you bring that truth into this world, it... it feeds my soul and I want to find a way...

Helen looks up at him lovingly.

HELEN
(stuttering badly)
T... t... t...

Helen shakes her head.  Jeff waits.

HELEN
T... to f... f... feed... the... ch... ch... children.

Jeff nods.  He kisses her tenderly.  She takes his arm and they exit.
Curtain.