A Telephone Conversation

Let Be be Finale of Seem
The Emperor of Ice-cream

a one-act play

Characters: George, Petya, Vessela and Ivan

The stage is dimly lit to create the impression of night time. There are two rooms at the opposite ends of the stage. There is some distance between them.

In the room right stage there is not much. It is a harsh room, very scantily furnished: there is a bed, a desk, and a chair at it. There are no bookshelves so that all the books are on the desk in disorderly piles. It is obvious that not every time when they are used are put back where they were previously. The books are primarily English classics but there are some modern names, too. There is a cat sleeping on the bed.

In the room left stage there are a lot of things: the bed is king-size; there is a huge built-in many-sectioned bookshelf with very few books on the rows, the latter being occupied by pots containing different anointments. There are some textbooks on the lowermost row. On the topmost one there is a stuffed bird with its wings spread as if soaring in the air, but it rather looks like a shot bird with its bill being open and the beady eyes glazed as if in a desperate cry for something irretrievably lost – its life.

In both rooms there are telephone sets. Both rooms are profusely lit.

In the room right stage there is a boy. He’s about six feet tall. He has auburn hair, brown eyes and oval form of the face. His beard is stubbled. It can be inferred that he has not shaved for a few days.

In the room left stage there is a petite girl with a lithe body and long blond curly hair that almost reaches her waist when her head is tilted backwards.

She is reading a school lexicon lying with her face down on the big bed, her legs moving scissors-like in the air. He is holding a book. He is reading “A Zoo Story” in a volume of American Drama. As he reads and turns the pages his face takes on an intense look, fretted on the text. Then, suddenly, he lets the book go of his hands and sits back on the chair. He stands up and walks around the room with the air of not knowing why he is doing it, lost in deep thought. Then he goes back to his chair, sits down and opens the book where he left off. He reads the same passage, his face acquiring a more relaxed, philosophical expression. While he has been doing all this she has been reading the lexicon leafing randomly through the pages. Every now and then she chuckles or gives a guffaw of laughter. She is still in her previous position.

He leaves the book once again, stands up and goes to the window, which is facing the audience.

Snow is falling and some snowflakes stick to the window as they fall and melt. There is a small electric fire in his room. Now and again he shakes with cold. As he watches the snow he does not shake. He seems checked in a spell-binding moment, fascinated by what he sees. Then with a decided expression he goes back to the chair which is near the window. The telephone is on his desk. He picks up the receiver, thinks a little and then puts it back on the set. Then picks it up again and dials a number. It rings in the room left stage once, then twice.

She jumps off the bed and goes to pick it up. It is a wireless on the desk. After the second ring he hangs it up again. She picks it up, a slightly bewildered look on her face.



Petya: “Hello! … Hello” (the bewildered look still on her face; then she shrugs and hangs up).

George picks up the phone again. There is no signal. It is dual and the neighbors are using it at the moment.

George: “Fuck!” he curses. Puts it back. Goes back to his chair and picks up a volume of Keats. Petya in the other room picks up the phone and dials a number.

Petya: “Hello, can I speak to Maria, please? Yes, I am a classmate of hers. OK, I’ll wait. Hey, is that you? No, I just thought it was your sister. Well, your voice is OK. Yes, I’m glad I found you in. No, I don’t mean to say that you just sleep there (she laughs). Yes, I know him. He’s been following me around ever since, yes. Do I like it? Are you nuts? No, I don’t like him. Shall I be honest with you? I think He’s crazy, nutty as a fruitcake. I really wonder why it is only crazy boys that get hooked on me. What do I mean crazy? Well, you know it means people with mental aberrations, mentally deranged, don’t you? The word means,” (and she picks up a piece of paper), “a deviation from the normal. I looked it up in the dictionary. I needed a scientific term for his state so you, normal people, don’t get confused when he’s being discussed. Do you know he’s calling me every evening? No, I don’t find that sweet. On the contrary, I think it’s disgusting, most abominably wicked. Yes, sure I know better. You better thank God you don’t have to deal with such guys. Oh, how I wish I met a really nice man with a big limo and good manners!

He’s always talking about books. Well, it’s poetry, mainly and other kinds of stupid stuff, too. You know, once I asked him if he could live on poetry and almost imagined his stupid face taking on a grave look of determination and he goes like: “It is a thing that keeps your spirits higher in a trouble. Besides, it’s a wonderful way of communing with people long dead. He says they were alive once, and loved, and had their own problems to solve. They always had hard lives mainly. Who? What’d you mean who? The dead poets, of course. Well I told him: “Listen! I don’t care a whit about them. I have my own life with my own problems to solve, and I told him it was a good thing they were dead coz if they were alive they’d still be writing more of their mind-boggling garbage, and it’d be in our textbooks, and I’d have to study it. Well, he said in this aspect I was like Huckleberry Fin. No I don’t know who he is. He’s Tom Sawyer’s closest friend? Tom Sawyer is a character from a book, too? He says I’m like a character from a book? That I don’t worry about dead people being no akin to me? Why, that’s only normal, isn’t it? If I worried about all the dead guys in human history I would waste my days away crying over their most unhappy lots. No, tonight he hasn’t called me, yet.

George leaves his book again, goes to his bed, his face brightens and he curls on it with his eye on the winter picture framed by the window. The snow has stopped falling and the crescent of the moon fills up the window frame against a starry night.

Petya: “No, we haven’t met since we finished the typing course but I was a fool to let him give me a tape to listen to. It’s … Oh, I have to look at the cover. No, it’s not important, really, and I didn’t like the band anyway. But let’s change the topic, shall we? I’m already sick of having to talk to him every evening and now I have to talk about him. Don’t you think you are a little hard on me, huh?

Oh, you’ve bought yourself a marvelous dress? How I wish I could see it! When can we meet? Is Monday OK with you? No? (Her face is sullen). Yes I see. How about some time on Tuesday? No? Yes, I see. No, I can’t on Wednesdays or Thursdays. On Fridays I’m busy all day long taking courses in programming, sewing, piano and Maths, and at the weekend … me, my family and I go skiing. Well, I’ll see you at school then, as usual. OK, bye! (She hangs up).

She goes to her enormous bed and lies down with a pondering look.

George is on his bed, too. A burgeoning smile moves a corner of his mouth and he looks again at the window. The moon is there and the starry night, too. It is very quiet. He sits up with his knees to his chin and puts his arms round them.

(Shiny happy people by R.E.M. is played out). George picks up a phone and dials a number.

George: “Hello, is Vessela in? Yes, sure I recognized your voice. Oh, I am sorry. You should take an aspirin. Oh, you already have. I’m really sorry for calling you so often. I really am, but bear with me. Tonight’s a special night for me. I have gotten a poetic lift. I have decided to write a play. The title is “A Telephone Conversation”. No, don’t worry. You won’t be in it unless, … unless you want to. No, you don’t and your only hope is that it doesn’t get published? Well, it is my utmost displeasure to inform you that I have every intention of writing it, and finishing it, and getting it published even if I have to pay for the expenses myself. You know I have this option of writing a critique on a problem from Contemporary American Drama or of writing a play that will, in some aspects capture the prevailing motifs of it. Isn’t that great? I had an idea long ago about a play with a title “A Telephone Conversation” and now all I gotta do is just sit down and act upon it, now that at least one major problem has been solved. What problem? Isn’t it self-evident – I have found audience! Of course, she’ll read it. She’s gonna have to. No, I wouldn’t call this self-confidence. I just feel I can do it and you know I even cracked a joke. I said I was going to write it with the hope that it would be included in the syllabus for the next exam in American Drama. On hearing this the Drama teacher almost laughed her head off and she doubled up so I got concerned about the physical preservation of her organism. No, sure, I’m not saying she is an animal. Well, in a sense we all are, aren’t we? I mean not in a sense, but of course you know it as well as I do: we have our pulmonary, adrenal, cordial systems; we catch diseases, we fall sick, and eventually (a pause) we die like all animals and human beings. But anyway all we know now is that a few characters are not going to profess orphanage coz they’ve found their author. Oh, I’m sorry for being so … so worked up, but I’m not apologetic. Well, if we assume that I am it is not more than usual. What are you saying? Can’t you just speak up? Oh, I’m sorry. I got so heated and caught up in philosophical reflections that I … yes, I forgot about your throat. Do you think … yes, I can finish my sentences. I’m not only good at repeating myself and finishing someone else’s sentences. Oh, you know I’ve started using this to my advantage. When someone listening to me interrupts me with a whimsical smile and tells me: minutes for commercials like you do I actually never wait that long. I upstage him and say it before that person has the time to and he or she is disarmed. You are asking me if we can hang up now. OK, we will. I’m not in a hurry. It is you who are. The ear-piece is hurting you? I see. Do you think we could … meet for a cup of coffee? (He utters the words almost by rote). Yes … I see. Simply because we have never met outside school I thought that probably we could … well, you don’t have to apologize. I’m not as dumb as I look! Bye!”

(And he hangs up with an abrupt gesture as if the receiver were a snake and he had been forced to hold it in his right hand. He walks round the room nervous and panting).

George: “Damn!” (He goes back to his chair and takes up a volume of Keats. He reads out loud): “When I have fears that I may cease to be …” (he leaves the book on the table).

George: “But I have no fears at all. Isn’t that strange? I have even begun to talk to myself and I’m not afraid! I know Petya thinks I’m crazy. Only she has never let herself go and say it. Maybe I’m crazy, after all. Then everyone else is normal. I am a freak! The only thing missing here is the raven and … and … the lost Lenore. These things that are missing here are not tangible … and yet they should be here. (He goes to the telephone, picks it up and dials a number. In a minute he is through.)

George: “Hello, is Ivan there? Hi! How are you doing, pal, same old huh? Keeping indoors because of the snow? But I saw it cease. A snow storm now, a blizzard you say? Then I’ll tell you you are a geezer, old man, not to say a gizzard. If not at anything else I’m as good a doggerel maker as I can be. (He laughs. He looks at the window. The snowflakes are whirling wildly as if in a host of suicidally minded night insects around a burning candle.)

George: (with a change of tone) “Well, I made a mistake, I admit, but I swear to God I saw it cease. It has never ceased? Not for a single second? That cannot be. Am I imagining things only? I must be getting cracked! Tomorrow I’ll be a fucking fruitcake! Well thank you for saying so but that doesn’t change the situation in the least, does it? Did I tell you about … well, never mind. Nothing significant really. Actually I was just wondering if we could meet some day during the week or maybe next week. We haven’t met for two years, after all. Oh, I see you’ve got your exercises. No, I’m not going to tell you this. This time I’ll just say goodbye. (He hangs up glaring at the telephone set)

While he has been having the two conversations Petya in the other room has fallen asleep. He turns around and faces the window. It is a wonderfully quiet night out there. The moon fills the window frame. He stares at it trying to see every detail visible to the human eye.

George: “They say if you stare, if you gaze close enough at it you can see the brim jagged. If I see that I’ll be sure I wasn’t imagining things when I saw it cease. Yes, yes I think I can see it. (strains his eyes even more). No, I can’t see anything like that. It was just my eyes. They are blurred now. (he turns around and faces the audience and it can be seen that two rivulets of tears are streaming down from his eyes. He wipes them with his hand. Goes to the desk and picks up the receiver.)

George: “Petya, please be home! (music is played: “… and I call you, I call you on the telephone. I’m only hoping that you are home so I can hear you when you say those words to me and whisper so softly. It goes down to silence. While the music is played the telephone rings three times. The music starts when George picks up the receiver. The telephone rings free. Petya moves uneasily in bed. At first she feels around her pillow, then on the desk which is close to her. Finally her hand happens to be placed on the receiver. She picks it up without opening her eyes.)

Petya: “Hello” (in a voice as if coming from another world, the world of the Never Never Land)

George: “Hi! It’s George calling. Did I get you out of bed?

Petya: (opening her eyes still lying in bed) “No, you didn’t. You just woke me up.”

George: “I’m sorry. Are you mad at me?”

Petya: “Mad as a charging bull since you are asking. You are in luck that I’m too sleepy to be able to yell, and scream, and holler like I want to till your ear-drums burst out.”

George: “I’m really sorry for … for calling so often.”

Petya: “The only way to show that you really are is stop doing it. Do you have the slightest idea what the time is?”

George: “No, but I can look now.”

Petya: “I’ll be so good as to spare you the effort. It’s 10.30.”

George: “I didn’t know you went to bed so early. Actually I remember you telling me you never went to bed before midnight.”

Petya: “I told you this?”

George: “To the best of my memory, yes.”

Petya: “Your memory is playing tricks on you then because I never said any such thing.”

George: “Well, to really prove how sorry I am I’ll tell you straight out why I called.”

Petya: “I bet ‘twas coz you felt like giving a lecture on Huckleberry and me not caring about people who aren’t akin to us.”

George: “Oh, you’ve found out about him?”

Petya: “Yes, I have. I have a net of informers working for me night and day, breaking their necks to keep me informed.”

George: “Aren’t you being a little tautological?”

Petya: “What? Are you playing smart? You want to show off or something?”

George: “To the best of my understanding of the situation, no, I don’t.”

Petya: “That is even worse. You don’t want to do something but are doing it all the same.”

George: “I’m sorry for doing things I don’t want to do.”

Petya: “Say this one more time and it’s gonna be the first time you’ll have said it.”

(George is silent.)

Petya: “Why did you stop talking?”

George: “I was thinking.”

Petya: “A penny for your thoughts?”

George: “I was wondering if we could… (he utters the next word after a pause) MEET.”

Petya: “You know I’m very busy, don’t you?”

George: “Yes, I do. But I thought that you could probably squeeze me into your curriculum.”

Petya: (laughing) “You know we are far apart. You are not my next-door neighbor. There are miles between you and me.”

George: “Even if I were your next-door neighbor there would still be miles between us but the distance could be melted.”

Petya: “How do you mean miles and what is all this talk about distances, anyway?”

George: “Let me remind you that it was you who started it.”

Petya: “Even so. What I only meant was that you couldn’t just stop by. I live at the opposite side of town. Meeting me in the center is impossible because I have no business there and the only opportunity that you have is to talk to me while I’m waiting for the bus to take me home and I have every reason to believe that you wouldn’t like that. What you would like to have instead is someone who can listen to your … how to put it?

George: “Let me disembarrass you…” (Petya interrupts him.)

Petya: “What language are you using?”

George: “English.”

Petya: “I didn’t mean that.”

George: “I know what you meant.”

Petya: “Do you?” (snappily)

George: “Yes, I do.”

Petya: “No, you don’t, you with your stuck-up, pompous literary language.”

George: “Can I finish the sentence that sparkled off all this?”

Petya: “I don’t care so you can go on anyway”

George: “You meant to say that I need to have someone to listen to my erratic reasoning.”

Petya: “Not that I’m less in the dark now but never mind. All I meant to say was that you use big words that kill the meaning. Couldn’t you simply say: “to help you out?”

George: “I sure could, but I love the sound of words, too.”

Petya: “You sound-lover, please keep in mind I’m not up to discuss any of your crazy ideas.”

(Here the connection breaks.)

George: Hello, hello. Petya, can you hear me?”

Petya: “Hello, hello.” (She hangs up)

George dials frantically her number again. The phone in Petya’s room rings once, then twice. She picks it up.

George: “The connection broke.”

Petya: “It’s tiring to listen to you. Couldn’t you simply say: the goddamned phone fucked up? That would’ve only made communication easier and more desirable?”

George: “Yes, I guess, I could. But I swear only when I’m alone.”

Petya: “I find that stupid.”

George: “Swearing is stupid if you ask me. The fact is, however, life only encourages it.”

Petya: “Did you happen to look at your watch while we’ve been talking?”

George: “I have no watch to look at. Besides, I think we should use every moment and try to turn it into a pleasant sensation coz our time’s limited, you know.”

Petya: “Yes, it is because right now it’s 11.30 which means we’ve been talking about nothing for more than ‘n hour.”

George: “You didn’t understand me but I’ve never been understood so I’ve become accustomed to it.”

Petya: “Let’s cut this short, shall we? I feel sleepy again and since you awoke me most brutally you should let me fall asleep again now to undo the evil that you’ve done.”

George: “Yes, I’ll be hanging up now, soon. I only wanna tell you one more thing if you can endure that.”

Petya: “I’ve endured more ‘n that but the thought that it’s gonna be the last of the least as you like to say will pull me through.”

George: “Yes, it’s true I like to say least but not last because I believe in the small things. I believe life is made up of small, very small little things and they should be treasured because each is unforgettable though they repeat themselves and the pattern has been set for centuries.”

Petya: “Be short, please coz I’m dying for sleep.”

George: “I just wanted to tell you that I had decided to write a play with a title “A telephone Conversation.”

Petya: “You’ve changed your mind?”

George: “Yes, I have, I changed my mind in half an hour.”

Petya: “Not that I believe you can do it. I mean write a piece a drama that is worth reading… but…”

(George interrupts her.)

George: “Excuse me for interrupting but you but plays are written to be staged. Something that is not worth reading may prove worth seeing.”

Petya: “That leaves you in the middle of nowhere for whatever you write will never be staged and you know it very well.”

George: “Yes, I know it. The most staggering thought is that I was too naïve to believe there was something I could tell to the audience, but I’m through with naiveté now.”

Petya: “I’m glad to hear you’ve grown up in practically no time. You talk sense now but anyway, tell me what you were going to write about.”

George: “Why would you want to know about something that will never be, about something that was nipped in the bud? Who cares about the still-born babies? Maybe had they seen the light of day, they would’ve grown to be people of talent and genius! How about the tens of millions of people who fell victim in the world wars? And the most recent example - Saraevo? How many of them could have written something of significance? How about the babies who were never born to have the chance to grow up, that were thrown away with the condoms or killed by the pills? How about the people who never thought they had something to say to the reader that would prevail through the centuries to come? How about the people who just lived their lives like never written books?

Petya: “Just let off the steam, will you? I’m in no mood for jeremiads if that’s the word a brain might use for such sort of bitching. The world is business and business is the world. Whoever is not doing business is wasting their precious time.”

George: “Do you think Socrates was wasting his time?”

Petya: “Was he a businessman?”

George: “No, he never did business in the sense that you used the word. His business was to talk to the youths of Athens.”

Petya: “Did he make money off that?”

George: “As far as I know he never took money for his talking to them.”

Petya: “What? Roaming the streets like the raving mad people on the pedestrian way? I’m worried about you. I guess it’s your studies that are telling on you so and if you don’t stop thinking about them in these terms the time when you’ll be doing the same is not far off.

She yawns and looks at her watch.

Petya: “Jesus! It’s midnight! Thanks God my parents are asleep and can’t overhear this. Could they hear it they’d decide I was crazy and the next thing they’d do is send me to some lunatic asylum or something. (She yawns again.) But tell me what your play was going to be about before I fall asleep.”

George: “OK, if you insist. It was going to be about the impossibility of NORMAL COMMUNICATION, the fact that people never take time off from their schedules to MEET someone and in this way confine communication to the phone only knowing that they can hang up any minute and go back to their precious business. The thing is that they expect the other person to make the first step if he or she wants to meet them but it’s never them to make the compromise. It was going to be about people crowded their lives with minor things – business and when the time comes to look back on a life lived, when everything rolls before their eyes like a film on a reel, they will know that there’s nothing worth remembering they’ve done. They will know they’ve missed wonderful moments, they will know that all their lives they’ve been nothing but cogs in a machine, in an assembly line, that they’ve reduced themselves to mechanisms that are replaced in due time – when they’ve worn out – that is when they retire…”

Petya: “Hey, chill out! Aren’t you generalizing a little too much? I don’t have this problem for instance. If I never meet someone it’s because it’s never convenient; because I’m considering not so much the time that I’ll waste but rather the time he or she will and I don’t want that to happen.”

George: “You remind me of Big Hugh the Miller.”

Petya: “Is he a character from a book again?”

George: “Yes, he is.”

Petya: “I should have guessed so. And don’t you ever dare to compare me to a character or characters from a book again! Behind a character or characters from a book, behind the reality shown there there’s only one mind – that of the author and however good he is at comprehending reality he can never put down what he has gathered as information or impressions, and what he has gathered is infinitely small compared to what he hasn’t, to life in its diversity and all.

As for the people wasting their lives, as you said, by working hard, I think that you fail to understand the mechanical progress, which is our future. All we can do is help this progress speed up. Besides, I don’t think that people on their deathbed, if that was what you were implying, are sorry for not talking night and day, around the clock, to other people.

And finally, to prove you wrong to the last, about the wonderful moments missed, about treasuring every moment, I prefer to know that there will be a few such to be treasured. Good things in life should be few so when they come they can be understood. If there were not more bad things in life we would never know about the good ones.”

George: “You are entirely wrong and your stand is refutable. Life with all its fragility and the irrevocability of death are to testify in my behalf, let alone all the other arguments that could be stated.”

Petya: “You’re a frigging dreamer and my only hope is that life you’re constantly referring to will hammer some sense into your head but I have no more time to waste in foolish talk. It’s half past twelve and I feel so exhausted. We’re gonna have to stop this.”

George: “Sure. Just let me ask you one question.”

Petya: “Go ahead but be short!” (yawning)

George: “Did you notice the snow cease?”

Petya: “No, I didn’t. I was asleep, remember?”

George: “Yes,… I remember… I see. Bye and once again my apologies for ruining your sleep.”

Petya: “Stop being so fucking apologetic! That makes me sick. Bye and forget about what’s in the books! Live in this world!”

George: “Bye.”

Petya: “And before I’ve forgotten, please don’t call me so often. It’s a huge waste of time, yours and mine.”

George: “I won’t.”

Petya: “Do you promise?”

George: “Yes, I promise, to never call you again.”

Petya: “Bye.” (He hangs up. She hangs up.)

Petya: “The frigging dreamer with his crazy ideas! Said he’d never call me again. He’d better keep his promise.” (She goes to her bed, sits down and clasps her head with her hands. George looks at the window. The winter is there in full blast. Howling wind can be heard. Dogs can be heard growling in the dark mingling with the wind. More and more it seems to him that the snowflakes are night insects whirling around a burning candle eager to put and end to their precarious existence. He watches them spell-bound, enthralled in a trance. Slowly he turns around facing the audience. Goes to his cat. Starts stroking its fur. The animal stretches its forepaws and starts purring.

George: “What will happen when you grow old and die? How much I will miss you! But I’ll never let that happen. If I go before you go I won’t be missed. You with your wonderful way of living have found the sense that has escaped me ever since I was born.”

He opens the drawer of the desk and takes out a pot containing sedatives. Pours himself a glass of water and gulps down a handful of them choked by them as they momentarily congest his throat.

After he has swallowed them serenity sweeps over his face and takes hold there. He faces the audience. (After a pause):

George:

I have been lately often told

That Good Things never last too long

That Good Things in fact are short,

Or there is something wrong.



I know I’ve got to buy it

I seem to simply have no choice.

Yet, I think I know a bit this voice inside me

That cries out NO!





The feeling of being a Misfit

The sensation of never doing the right

Of this world I must be rid

Before I have even lost the fight.



Still I want to live in this world

Tasting all my victories and defeats

Gulping down every single word

Following the fate of Keats.



I’ve always been a stranger here

And as a stranger I must leave

But somehow I have no fear

Of the spell I must weave.



I’m looking into the future

Looking forward to the day

When Good Things will last Forever

And Bad Things will have too short a date.



And this Day will surely come

When the states will be gone

When the people will be free as the Sun

And the Earth will be as One.



At this Day I’ll secretly rejoice

From the petals of a Buttercup

Having appeased the self-same voice

That now tells me to cut out this Crap.



As he says the last words things begin to spin before his eyes. Everything swims in an eddy and he needs to sit down fighting the symptoms of an oncoming eternal sleep. He tries to preserve his posture, but he can’t and tries to lie sideways, but he can’t for he loses balance and falls over to the edge of the bed and then down to the ground. His eyes blink once, then twice, and then pressed by the heavy sleep of eternity, the eyelids close firmly never to be opened again.

In the other room Petya is brushing the dust off the stuffed bird fighting sleep, too.

Music is played:

Good bye cruel world. I’m leaving you today. Good bye, good bye, good bye. Good bye all you people. There’s nothing you can say to make me change my mind. Goodbye.





Curtains fall

January 1997