S. T. Brant

Drama

Characters

ONE

TWO

Setting

Blank stage

DUBLIN

ONE

Why’s this play called Dublin? Dude’s never been to Dublin. 

TWO

Ehh, he read “Araby” waiting for his girlfriend to go through a line for some rollercoaster at Six Flags once and became obsessed.

ONE

He probably wrote this driving home from Target or some shit, all inspired, talking to himself-

TWO

Thinking- to himself.

ONE

Ohhh, how dignified. Intelligentsia. Thinking he’s really got something. Driving fast, quasi-reckless, assuring himself he’s in control, while the whole time having an anxiety attack that a single word will stream into oblivion before he gets to his computer. 

TWO

He says he’s part Irish. 

ONE

Every white fuckin’ American dude says they’re Irish. They’re as Irish and I’m real. 

TWO

But you are real…

ONE

 I’m a character. 

TWO

Actor…

ONE

Yes, I’m an actor presently in character, so I’m a character; so this person here, now talking, is in character mode, à la unreal. 

TWO

What did he call you?

ONE

Character ONE. The lazy prick. 

TWO

Character TWO.

ONE

The lazy prick. 

TWO

So what are we doing here?

ONE

Complaining.

TWO

For how long? 

ONE

Can’t say for sure. There’s not a lot of direction so far. As much as we’ve spoken so far is as much as the script there was before I took the role. I’m sure he’s still working on it. Hey, Bro, how about some scenery here? If you ever want to make those big Hamilton bucks you’re going to have to do better than sitting us on these crates in the dark. You’re not fucking Beckett up there in your room. We’re waiting for your ass, not Godot. Get going! We’re actors, we need shit to do. How are we ever supposed to land roles better than this if no ONE shows up to see how well we can carry this rotten script? You’re damning us with you, get going! 

TWO

You’re awfully hard on him. 

ONE

He’s an ass. 

Begins adding scenery. Suddenly scenery begins to change, make no sense with what started, as though being copied from another source.

ONE

Hey! Hey! What are you doing? This doesn’t make sense! You watching a movie or something? You’re just putting in whatever you’re seeing. Pay attention! I think he’s watching a movie or something.

TWO

He is watching a bloody movie or something.

ONE

Bloody? 

TWO

Yeah?

ONE

Why’d you say ‘bloody’? You don’t say ‘bloody’. 

TWO

Why not? It popped in my head. His head… my head? Who am I?

ONE

TWO.

TWO

That’s the problem. I have no name. No identity. You’re ONE, I’m TWO. My whole persona is that I was thought of after you. I need a name. What about Dublin?

ONE

Dublin’s the name of the play, you can’t be Dublin. 

TWO

Says who? I’m Dublin. I think having the play named after me will be good for my esteem. 

ONE

ONE: named after the play. TWO: I want the name Dublin. 

TWO

I said it first. 

ONE

I’ll be Dublin ONE, you can be Dublin TWO.

TWO

Great!

ONE

Great!

TWO

Wait!

ONE

Right.

TWO

No. Wait.

ONE

We are waiting. On him. We just gave him a place to go. Dublin’s a person, not a place. That help you out, you idiot?!

TWO

No, I mean, Dublin TWO… that just perpetuates the problem. 

ONE

Perpetuates.

TWO

Right. That repeats the problem.

ONE

Perpetuates.

TWO

We’re in a cycle. 

ONE

Perpetuates…

TWO

Yes, perpetuates, I said a word. I get it, I went off script. Off…er script? 

ONE

You can be Dublin. I’m Perpetuates. 

TWO

That’s not a name. 

ONE

Neither’s Dublin. 

TWO

But that’s just a word, people are at least named places sometimes. No ONE is named Perpetuates. It’s like someONE being named Wait. Or Not a name. Or… what else have I said? Off… er! with the pause, even!

ONE

I’m Perpetuates. Hear that, smart guy? Ready to finally dedicate yourself to this thing? We named ourselves for you, you can stop fussing over your Greek and Hebrew etymologies trying to come up with some fancy shit word that means ‘Sun that Rises in the West’ or ‘Light from Living Stars’ or some corny, ridiculous, unprofound paradoxical tragic name. Settle down up there, Aeschylus, and just write this damn thing!

TWO

You swear a lot.

ONE

He bothers me. 

TWO

He’s trying…

ONE

No, he’s not! He doesn’t try. He wants. He wants really hard, I’ll concede that. He wants so hard that if want were talent he may actually have made something of himself. But want is nothing. Do you know what want does? It gets you sad panic attacks at 11 at night on a school night because you’re so obsessed with status and so preoccupied with failure that you spend all your time wanting to succeed, wanting to be good, thinking you are good, wanting to be acknowledged for it, feeling owed, and then despairing that people who are trying are winning. Want gets you watching The Simpsons or something while writing this because you don’t want to write, you just want to want! That’s what he’s doing, but certainly not trying. 

TWO

You’re upset. 

ONE

He owes us! He thinks he’s owed, but he owes us because we’re here now. We walked out here in the middle of our created lives, sat on a box, and wondered about Dublin. That’s on him. Now he’s got to finish the job. He wants to write, well, he has lives he owes now. You want a pet, take care of your pet. You can’t feed a puppy with wanting a puppy. If you get a puppy, and you continue to still just want a puppy, well then you don’t actually want a puppy, and that puppy is going to have to find someONE else to feed it because the wanter is going to continue sitting around wanting while it starves. That’s us! Starving puppies because we were born from a wanter, not a writer. Wake up, up there, wanty! We’re in the middle of our lives here! You think Time is a burden for you? Try being us and seeing how compressed you feel by time then, you dick. 

TWO

What are we really going to do with our lives though? Can’t we just have a fine time sitting here, on our boxes, by the… is that the sea?

ONE

Are you just seeing the sea? That’s what got me started about the movie thing, like, what, TWO pages ago? something like that. 

TWO

I just heard the voices. 

ONE

Crazy. 

TWO

It took you a while to be funny. 

ONE

You took that line. Portrait of a Lady on Fire. The sea. ‘Took you a while…’ that’s what he was watching.

TWO

Wow. It really did get in my head. 

ONE

See, look what he’s doing here? He’s got you reading someONE else’s script. You think you can just slide in lines from Emmy nominated films and no ONE will catch them, Shakespeare? Get it together, Kyd. 

TWO

He’s trying.

ONE

Did you lose your place? Where are you on the page? Did you forget my entire spiel? He isn’t trying, and you’re in a loop. 

TWO

I’m trying.

ONE

That I believe. 

TWO

It’s a fact.

ONE

The facts will come out once the truth is decided on. Don’t get carried away. 

TWO

Does that bit fit with our cosmos? Seems a bit beyond our world so far. 

ONE

I’m taking the script into my own hands. I want to say some shit. I’m an actor. I need good lines to get going, to get to where I’m going; so if he won’t write ‘em, then I’ll just have to say ‘em. Be sure to get all this down, you hear that? I’ll do all the work, and you just type. You can be my damn secretary and take my notes. Hear that? I told him he’s my secretary. How many times has a character ever made their writer their own secretary? It’s a first. That’s the stuff I need to be doing to get some press. 

TWO

The sea is nice. It was nice of him to get distracted with that movie and put us there. I like the sea. 

ONE

We aren’t anywhere! ONE third of the stage is some imaginary Dublin, with just a big hill with clovers all over- and look! On the hill, excuse me, the backdrop of the hill, is a stick figure with Yeats scribbled above them and an arrow pointing to them, for good measure! Because who the hell else would be Yeats except the lONE, anatomyless figure on some Lucky Charms ass commercial looking greenery; ONE third of the stage some abortive Las Vegas with half figured casinos, just lit to an obnoxious hell; and then there’s the damn movie sea! I’ll tell you who’s in hell, I’m in hell. You’re at the sea, I’m in hell. 

TWO

It’s lovely.

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S. T. Brant is a Las Vegas high school teacher. His debut collection Melody in Exile will be out in 2022. His work has appeared in numerous journals including Honest Ulsterman, EcoTheo, Timber, and Rain Taxi. You can reach him on his website at ShaneBrant.com, Twitter: @terriblebinth, or Instagram: @shanelemagne.