Lessons from Louise
A Short Play in One Act
© Constantine Sandis 2000
Three carpets. Mattress and pillow with magazines, pistachio shells. Two mini-pads underneath the mattress. Snacks (including an almost empty bag of pistachios), most of which are in a basket on a short table by the mattress, as is a bcx of tissues and a big bowl of mixed snacks. A noisy elephant cookie jar. Videos. Jacket. Desk. On the desk: one pint glass of water (half-full), pencils and pencil case, tidy tubs and sharpener, notebook. Bin and chair by the desk. On the chair is Louise's coat. Further back, a record Player, behind it a full bag of pistachios. Records (including Schubert's Symphony No. 3 in D major), a lamp, a bean bag. Bookcase and Books (especially of the dietary, fitness, and health kind). A spiral staircase leading outside the flat. A white towel of medium length (In the bathroom, off-stage, behind a separate door). Louise and Carmen in their twenties. Their dress is casual. The room belongs to Carmen.
The lights are out. Intro: The trumpet intro to "I've found a new baby" (Wilbur de Paris) plays as the actresses walk on stage. When the Orchestra comes in the music fades out as the lights fade in. Carmen is on the mattress eating snacks, reading a gossip magazine. Louise is sitting by the table writing. She has a pencil in her hair. Throughout the play she places a couple more. After (quite) a few seconds, Carmen begins to speak. They are both obviously bored.
Carmen: Jane Fonda or Henry Fonda?
Louise: Bridget Fonda.
Carmen: Peter Fonda or Peter Ustinov?
Louise: Peter Sellers.
Carmen: Peter O' Toole.
Louise: Roger Moore or Demi Moore?
Carmen: Beau Bridges or Jeff Bridges?
Louise: Tom Cruise or Tom Hanks?
Carmen: Tom Waits.
Louise: Tom Selleck.
Carmen: Terry Thomas.
Louise: Terry Wogan.
Carmen: Terry Wogan isn't an actor.
Louise: Neither is Tom Waits.
Carmen: Yes he is.
Louise: Well you did a name surname switch with Terry Thomas.
Carmen: That's allowed.
Louise: Not if you're also making a letter change within the name.
Carmen (takes a moment to think about it): Start again?
Carmen: It's your turn to start.
Louise: (after briefly pausing to think): John Malcovich or John Gielgud?
Carmen: Olivia Newton John.
Louise: John Travolta.
Carmen: John Wayne.
Louise: Joan Crawford or Cindy Crawford?
Carmen: Cindy Crawford isn't an actress.
Louise: Yes she is, she was in that film.
Carmen: Which film?
Louise: The one with the train.
Carmen: Who else was in it?
Louise: I don't remember. I think it was one of the Baldwin brothers. Maybe Alec.
Carmen realises that Louise is writing and that, most probably, she has been doing so for quite some time.
Carmen: What are you doing?
Louise: Nothing (she drinks a sip of water, puts pencil in her hair and closes notebook.)
Carmen: You've been writing again haven't you?
Carmen gets up and moves towards Louise. Louise doesn't reply.
Carmen: Come on, I saw you. You've been scribbling for five whole minutes.
Carmen tries to pull notebook from Louise who pulls it aside.
Louise: No I haven't.
Carmen: Show me.
Louise: No.
Carmen: Come on. I show you all of mine.
Louise opens notebook and starts writing again as far away from Carmen as possible.
Louise: I'll show you when I'm finished. (Louise has started writing again).
Carmen: You're not writing this as we speak are you? That's so sad!
Carmen returns to her place on the mattress.
Louise: No, of course not. What sort of person do you take me for?
Carmen: I'm not sure.
Louise: What do you mean you're not sure?
Carmen: Can we change the subject?
Louise: No we can't.
Carmen: Please.
Louise: No.
Carmen: Oh come on!
Louise: No. I want to know what you think of me.
Carmen: Nothing, I was only kidding. Don't worry about it. It was just a joke.
Louise: Do you want me to stop writing?
Carmen: Do what you want. Just change the subject. Please.
Louise: You change it.
Carmen (teasingly): Andrew tells me that Tom asked him if the four of us could meet sometime under the pretence of playing Midnight Monopoly. He asked him to get me to ask you.
Louise: But that's just ridiculous. I see Tom every day. Surely he could have just asked me.
Carmen (still teasingly): Oh don't be so hard on him. Perhaps he just doesn't have anything to say for himself.
Louise: He must have something to say.
Carmen: I think that is why we have been invited to play Midnight Monopoly.
Louise: Yes. I see what you mean. But still.
Awkward pause.
Carmen (who is searching through her supermarket bag offers some snacks to Louise): Cheese Puffs?
Louise (daydreaming): I'm sorry?
Carmen (holding out packet): Cheese Puffs?
Louise: No thanks.
Carmen: Twiglets?
Louise: No.
Carmen: Barbecue Hula-Hoops?
Louise: No, I'm fine.
Carmen kneels to the basket, opens it up. It is filled with snacks. She enthusiastically goes through some of them.
Carmen: Salt and Vinegar fuzzy sticks? Orange Maltezers? Cool flavoured Doritos? Champagne Crunchy Limited Edition? (she puts this aside then, almost to herself:) I think I've got some low fat cheese and onion alien discs somewhere…
Louise: No, no thank you.
Carmen: Oh I know! Pistachios! (She takes an almost empty pack and pours the remaining pistachios onto the mattress.)
Louise: I'm alright thanks.
Carmen (eating, possibly mixing snacks into a bowl): They make these snacks so good that you just can't stop until you eat them all. I wonder whether the spicy Twiglets will mix well with the Maltezers. Or should I just stick to the normal ones? I think I'll throw in some skittles for good measure. What do you think? Why don't we put some music on? So what are we going to do about Tom and Andrew? What time is it anyway? If I eat one more of these I'm going to be sick. (She eats one more).
Louise: Stop talking. Stop eating. Stop changing subject. I can't write it all down!
Carmen: Listen Louise, either it comes from within or it comes from without.
Louise: If you don't speak it will come out more original.
Carmen: If we don't say anything you won't need to write.
Louise: Of course I need to write. And if I can't write about anything other than ourselves then we will just have to remain silent and inactive. Don't do it or it will no longer be original. Don't say it, just write it down. Then you can say it. Because it doesn't matter if you say it after you have written it. In the beginning was the Word.
Carmen: In the beginning was the Deed.
Louise: In the beginning there was silence.
Carmen (holding up a pistachio, which she then eats) In the beginning there was… the pistachio!
Louise: Stupid things can seem so intelligent when taken out of context.
Carmen: What are you talking about?
Louise: Well…take you for example.
Carmen: Maybe silence isn't such a bad thing after all. We've never had silence in this room.
Silence for a few seconds
Louise: Shall we try it?
Carmen nods and makes silencing gesture. They sit in silence for an awkwardly long period of time. Carmen tries to eat a snack but it makes too much noise. More silence follows.
Carmen (whispering): Can we put some music on?
Carmen gets up and quietly heads for the record player.
Louise (whispering): Put on the Schubert.
It takes Carmen a while to find the record. She takes it out the sleeve and plays it trying to make as little noise as possible. She then brings the beanbag and some snacks next to Louise who finds the noise disturbing. She sits on it making even more noise. Schubert symphony starts playing. For the first two bars they say nothing. Carmen reads the liner notes, Louise writes.
Carmen (almost daydreaming): Do you think that one day it might become impossible to come up with an original series of notes? That all the possible combinations could become exhausted? (Louise takes the sleeve from Carmen's hands and puts the inner sleeve back inside, she then fixes the records). That there might be no more space left for originality?
Louise (enthusiastic but calm, obviously pleased with her bullshitting skills): Only repetition. There will be endless repetition. Again and again and again and again for all eternity. There will be no culture left. No spirit. Just DVD's and HELLO magazines.
Carmen: And books on CD-ROM.
Louise: Only a disaster of cosmic proportions would be capable of rectifying the situation.
By now Louise has moved by the mattress where she fixes the various magazines and videos into more structured piles. Meanwhile Carmen is snacking.
Carmen: You mean everything we value would be destroyed…
Louise: Then everything could start all over again…
Carmen: Like Noah's flood…
Louise: And the survivors, if there are any will become slaves to their fading memories…
Carmen: Forever trying to rearrange the remaining fragments into something meaningful…
Louise: But there will be too many disagreements…
Carmen: Too many theories and not enough facts…
Louise: Eventually people will just have to start creating anew…
Carmen: But in a different spirit…
Louise: Which is good…
Carmen: Sometimes great evil can be the cause of the greatest of goods…
Louise: You know what the problem is? There are only three ways of looking at things. If only somebody could find a fourth way, a fourth perspective. Three modes is far too limited. It is the only reason why friends still argue. Why anybody argues. Ever. The fourth way would capture all possible perspectives. That's all there is to it.
Carmen: I don't know what you're talking about Louise. You know you mustn't let your writing influence you.
Louise: Why not?
Carmen: That would be prejudice. And prejudice is a very ugly thing. Like fish.
Aggravated, they begin to mock each other.
Louise: Yes but don't fish improve your eyesight?
Carmen: That's just a myth.
Louise: I like myths.
Schubert's symphony is gradually getting louder.
Carmen: These discussions are getting us nowhere.
Carmen gets up and moves the beanbag back. She then starts pacing, probably looking for something. She opens the snack basket and shuts it again.
Louise: Where did you want to go?
Carmen: Don't talk so loud.
Louise: Where exactly did you want to go?
Carmen: Don't talk so loud.
Louise: Why don't you answer my question?
Carmen: Why don't you just stop shouting?
Louise: Where exactly did you want to go?
Carmen: Why don't you leave me alone?
Louise: Why don't you answer my question?
Carmen: Why don't you just shut the fuck up?
Louise: Why don't you just calm down?
Carmen: Why don't we eat a bag of pistachios or something?
Louise: We can't. You ate them all!
Carmen: Don't shout. Somebody might hear us. What will they think?
Louise: What does it matter what they think?
Carmen: Where are my pistachios?
Carmen gets up and starts looking for the pistachios among the snacks on the mattress; the music is getting louder. She is throwing around whatever gets in the way of her search.
Carmen: You hid them didn't you?
Louise: What are you talking about?
Louise gets up and goes back to her chair. Carmen has stopped looking for the pistachios. The music has become obnoxious. As the volume increases Carmen and Louise begin to shout.
Carmen: Where did you hide them?
Louise: I didn't hide them.
Carmen: No, I'm sure you didn't.
Louise: You're paranoid.
Carmen: You're a liar.
Louise: You're crazy!
Carmen: You're a bitch!
Louise: You're insane!
Carmen: You're pathetic!
Louise: Stop shouting!
Carmen: Somebody turn that stupid music off!
Louise: You turn it off.
Carmen: You're the one who put it on.
Louise: No I didn't. I merely chose it.
Carmen: Is there a difference?
Louise: Yes. You were in charge of the volume. I just wanted silence.
Carmen walks to the record player and gives it a hard kick. The record flies. The record player falls. Silence follows. Behind the record player she finds the missing pistachios. She returns to her mattress, pistachios in hand. As she sets she opens her noisy elephant cookie jar which she places on the edge of the mattress and starts eating the pistachios at a regular pace, aiming the shells at the shoe. She is to keep doing this throughout the conversation which follows until she's had enough (as indicated). For a long time the only sounds are those of the pistachios and the shells. Meanwhile Louise is sharpening her pencils, blowing the flakes away.
Carmen (still on the mattress): You thought I wasn't going to find them.
Louise: I'm telling you I didn't hide them.
Carmen: Oh yeah? So how did they get there?
Louise: How should I know? Maybe you were saving them for a rainy day.
Carmen: I think I would have remembered.
Louise: That's your problem not mine.
Carmen: I'm not stupid you know.
Louise: Ok, Ok I hid them. Alright? Are you satisfied? But I only hid the awful soft ones -
Carmen (interrupting : No it's not alright. What I do with my pistachios is none of your business.
Louise: But they were just the soft ones. You know you're not allowed to eat the soft ones. I've told you before. They're not good for you. If I'd known you were going to be so immature about it I would have thrown them away.
Carmen (in her own world): I had a dream about my pistachios. They only tasted bad because they were ripe and then they became ok.
Louise: And how are they in the real world?
Carmen: Since when did you become a dietician anyway?
Louise: Oh yes I forgot, you're the little diet expert (points to pile of diet books). How could I forget a thing like that.
Carmen: Don't do this Louise.
Louise (goes over to bookcase): Don't do what?
Carmen: You know damn well what.
Louise: I do?
Louise (reads out some of the book titles): Let's see what have we got here: 'New Biogenic Diet', '14 days to Dieting Success', 'The Diet that Does it', 'Dream Diet', and oh yes, my personal favourite (picks it out and reads the jacket), 'Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution, The no-hunger, luxurious weight loss plan that really works! The American Blockbuster! Three million copies sold'
Carmen: Louise I'm warning you.
Louise (reading off back-cover as if advertising): 'Eat luxuriously and feel completely satisfied. Experience the metabolic boost the Atkins' Diet provides. Enjoy mouth-watering gourmet recipes! Forget counting calories! Lose substantial weight without ever going hungry! Watch the fat melt away as a healthier and firmer body emerges! Simply cut-down on the carbohydrates and never get fat again'
Carmen: Yes ok we get the point. At least I don't buy books called '365 ways to keep your lover'.
Louise: That was a present.
Louise drops book onto the snack basket and goes back to her chair.
Carmen: To yourself.
Louise: Well, at least I kept my lover.
Carmen: Not for long.
Louise: Ok but I still had a lover to lose. I didn't need to steal someone else's.
Carmen (mocking Louise's voice): And I had weight to lose and I lost it. Or are you implying otherwise?
Louise: No. Not at all. I just don't want you putting it back on that's all. Remember the last time you did Atkins'?
Carmen: How was I supposed to know that pistachios have 16.4 grams of carbohydrates per one hundred grams?
Louise has started sharpening again.
Louise: Well now that you know why do you keep eating them?
Carmen: Because the nutritional information provided must be wrong. I did a calculation you know…(lifts mattress and takes out a mini-pad which she opens) given that a 250 gram bag has an average of 237 pistachios, each pistachio weighs approximately 1.054 grams, and yet according to the 16.4 gram theory this would mean that a 1.054 gram pistachio has 1.64 grams of carbohydrates! (lifts mattress and puts mini-pad back) It's clearly some kind of conspiracy. It's a cover up. I reckon pistachios are carbohydrate free.
Louise: And how do you know how many pistachios there are in a bag?
Carmen: I counted them… I was curious.
Louise: That's so sad.
Carmen: I could sue them you know.
Louise: Maybe they just don't include the weight of the shell in the nutritional information.
Carmen: Well I'm not on Atkins' anymore in any case so it doesn't matter ok? I can eat as many of the little bastards as I want to. I've switched to the weight-watchers slim-line low-stress maintenance scheme.
Louise: Since when?
Carmen (thinks about this and doesn't want to get tricked): Since I started eating them.
Louise: You mean since the day we met?
Carmen: Very funny.
Louise: Oh Carmen, Grow up, stop lying to yourself!
Carmen (mockingly): 'Oh Carmen, Grow up, stop lying to yourself'
Louise: I don't understand how you can live with yourself.
Carmen (confused): What are you talking about?
Louise: I'm talking about the reason why I bought that book.
Carmen (caught of guard): It's not my fault your boyfriend fancied me.
Louise: He wasn't my boyfriend. He was my lover.
Carmen: Well it's not my fault your lover fancied me.
Louise: Do you think he fancied you just because you somehow managed to get him drunk and then spent the whole night drooling all over him? I hope you were happy with that achievement by the way.
Carmen: I told you I was sorry.
Louise: You never could learn to control yourself could you?
Carmen: Louise please.
Louise: I would have thought that after that you would have tried to sort yourself out but obviously you haven't. You're losing it Carmen. I mean breaking that record just now. What was that all about?
Carmen: It was my record. What's it to you?
Louise: Oh now you can distinguish between what belongs to you and what doesn't.
Carmen: I told you I was sorry.
Louise: I was going to make a copy of that.
Carmen: Why don't you buy it on CD? Then you can make me a copy.
Louise: You should really stop eating those things. They're not helping you.
Carmen: Neither are you.
Louise: Yea whatever Carmen.
Carmen: I'll put them away if you stop writing.
Carmen eats as she clears her snacks away. She tries to eat as many as possible. Eventually she stops. Louise stops writing. Neither of them are sure what they should do now.
Louise (getting up from her chair, changes conversation): Maybe we were both wrong. Maybe Goethe was right. Maybe the deed does have to come first. But then we would truly have to consider ourselves as fictions (she gets up and leans on the desk facing Carmen) We will not follow the fiction; we will be the fiction! That is the fourth way! To fictionalise ones entire life! To create oneself as if one was another!
Carmen: You want your writing to have freedom.
Louise: This isn't about my writing.
Carmen: Then why wouldn't you want your life to have freedom?
Louise (with a Southern American accent): "Freedom's just another word for 'nothing left to lose'".
Carmen (taking the piss): And to secure peace is to prepare for war?
Louise (purposely pretentious, she pulls a pencil from one of the tidy-tubs and points it at Carmen): Yes but remember that the pen is mightier than the sword.
Carmen: And fact is stranger than fiction?
Louise (even more purposely pretentious): There is no difference between fact and fiction. Fact is fiction. And fiction fact. That's all ye know and all ye need to know…
Carmen: Exactly. There is no difference between the real and the unreal; between the word and the deed; between the shell and the pistachio (she holds one of each before Louise).
Louise: There are no finite limits! There are no sharp boundaries! Our transcendence is complete. This room is fiction. At last we have reached the natural apotheosis of our aesthetic predicament. We are a living cut and paste!
Carmen (getting up from mattress, acting, with increasing excessiveness, but not entirely convincingly.): All we need is a recording device, ripe pistachios and a good word processor. With these in our possession we will never have to leave this room again. The limitations are limited. Hence the possibilities must be endless! The Book is Dead! Long live Fiction! The Book is Dead! Long live The Fictitious Life! [kicks magazines and pistachios that are on the mattress, and straightens herself up..]
Louise (unimpressed): The key is to be convincing. If you're not convincing, forget it.
