Drama

A Preoccupation with Romance.

By Bethan Grant.

The Lovers

Thanos – Tall, dark and handsome.

Adonia – The Girl.

The Friends

Titania – An English rose.

Reynard – The Bastard.

The Chorus – A Greek Chorus.

A Preoccupation with Romance is written as a modern Greek myth, a love story. Thanos and Adonia are in love but it is a lack of courage from Thanos that is the ultimate reason the lovers can never come together, rather than them suffering unrequited love or the Gods wreaking havoc on an undeserving pair. Yet, the story is drawn out from Adonia’s unwillingness to leave the destructive situation, and continuing to return to it again and again physically and mentally against her better judgement. Thus they both are kept in an emotional hell, only able to daydream of possible escapes, as they continue to be in love with each other from a distance.

…………………………….

This piece was first staged as a Physical Theatre piece, but that is not a necessity. The size of the Chorus can vary from a lone figure up to five members and lines can be split how the cast wish, each taking a paragraph or having intermingling lines within speeches.

The Lovers should remain on stage throughout. 

The set can be as sparse or as elaborate as the space allows, but the sense of romance should pervade it, for example with roses and tulips entwined around the set. A bed or a table set for two could be the central focus, yet the couple should never stay on it together for any length of time. The set should look aesthetically pleasing but without being at all symmetrical.

…………………………….

The Lovers and the Chorus on stage.

CHORUS: This is the smallest story of a great love.

The greatest.

Of all the lovers

They are the least

Together.

Yet, love at first sight

An enlightened gaze in otherwise dimmed eyes.

Were it not for hope, their hearts would have broken.

But the hiccup with hope

Is that it bubbles on, never ceasing.

Constantly quivering through the bones.

Eyes stick to her frame.

Heart aches. Actually hurts.

The gentle patient waiting

Pulps the heart.

The excitement mounts

Until we realise that our hero has no courage.

……………………………….

The Lovers should be together on stage, but have an element of separation between them.

ADONIA: We met in a crowded room

He told me lies in flirtation

And I batted them back at him

An armour of friendship means

Clutching at touches,

Despite every look fitting us perfectly.

THANOS: Yes

But.

ADONIA: Always the answer.

I’d say you don’t love me

But.

THANOS: Yes, but. Exactly.

ADONIA: One night we slept entwined.

And one night he kissed me.

Once.

Only let himself once.

And planned it

And talked about it

And thought of how

And decided where

And contemplated when

But

It happened.

And it was far from perfect,

Which obviously made it all the more so.

It sounds so simple.

But. Still.

Reynard enters.

THANOS: I can’t. I think too much.

I ponder.

I’m pensive.

I’m preoccupied.

I’m philosophical.

I’m practical.

So I thought because our lives fit we shouldn’t live them together.

And because we fit in with our friends we shouldn’t be seen together.

And because we fit together we should stay away.

But really

ADONIA: It’s because you’ve got no balls.

……………………………

Titania enters.

REYNARD: But to be truthfully honest, with my heart on my sleeve, I beg you to question if is this the best thing for you? If I were you, I don’t think I would mix myself up in something that made me feel so foolishly happy. She is far too much of a whore to woo and her ‘infinite variety’ will no doubt diminish. Listen to me, mate, who in their right mind would grab this affair by the horns!

Titania takes Adonia aside.

TITANIA: And I ask you if you truly favour him? And if he is the one who favours you? I ask should you press your company upon him or leave him be for now? If he is the man you should throw away your dignity for? We still have time to tarry our lives away. It’s only a man, yet I know, you have a woman’s reason. Think more of the matter in our world than of the art that you become.

ADONIA: Agonise, all in the throat.

Trembling mind, my most moral mortal artistic matter

Cannot expel his image from inside my skull.

The ‘what if’ grates and resonates.

Love. I admit to it.

Finally, the words grace my lips

But you do me no such grace.

I just wander around with an engrossment in romance.

A hand moves across my forehead,

My own fingers bearing through my skin,

Willing to slide through the bone and into

That mortal mass controlling this sickness. Love.

It’s a hand trying to comfort.

It’s familiar.

It’s providing little comfort.

An unfamiliar hand trying to comfort.

It’s terrifyingly comforting.

With easy hunger it slides across bare skin

Leaving it standing on its toes.

Desire all the same. Different to desire I had held. A different man with

Strokes that bring

Stomach clenches, body trembles, puts mind on heat.

Racing. Tears that lose the battle and become dry.

Toes clenching, hands sliding, hips rolling.

Sweat pouring, teeth gasping at lips.

Joy.

And even if that is all terribly wonderful

I have left it for nothing from you.

CHORUS: So Thanos had to duck beneath the stars

Find his way to the bottom of the pit

The vast empty pit

That had been full of swirling love

Without a chance of overflowing

Until, dear friend, you push it from beneath yourself.

While the lovers live in their own minds

Figures drifting in each other’s daydreams

Clouding their life but never touching each other.

Scared.

Terrified.

Of each other.

No courage.

She stands and waits. She stands and stares.

They both go to Hell and back.

Come out without finding each other.

Stare death in the face,

Poisoned blood and chaotic disruption, but

Both battle alone.

They learn to stand up straight,

With only imagined arms holding them up.

So he must find the courage.

He flails about in the downpour of advice

And on the darkest night

Again being disappointed by bacchae and finding nothing

But dutch at the bottom of the bottle

The girl stays silent

But the women around him tell him to fall

Fall as far as he would love to go

And he does.

Is that why it’s called taking a plunge

Because you immerse yourself in what you want

After teetering on the edge of the pit,

Leap right down to the bottom?

And he does.

He takes her into his arms.

Leads her into an empty crowd.

People bumping bodies

But as time has told us

It’s only them they can see.

Twirls.

Twirls close.

Closer.

And that moment when suddenly it’s there.

Closer than ever before

Pulling her back for a second kiss

Bliss. Ecstatic. Radiant happiness.

That one night.

When finally the electricity materialises.

And the myths turn out to be true for her.

Eros has not left her on her own

As she had so feared.

And he leads her back to their life.

Their friends on their night during their dance.

Safe and happy still.

The story is told.

Love smudged all over their skin

And as the words float blindly in the air

The truth brings them crashing down

Further into despair then ever before

That ever thought possible by words of love.

The sly are scheming and the weak willed

Lose courage so easily.

REYNARD: You two would be perfect together. Much better then her and I ever were. Did you know that? That when we moved together it never worked. When I described what you feel, as if it were me and made her fall into me. With my words, from my lips, my lines. I wooed her with your romance that you could never give. Moves to Adonia. So that it was me that leant in there first. My hands holding her up. And now your hands can scoop up what was yours all along.

Adonia and Thanos move together.

CHORUS: The deed is done and there is no rising joy.

The betrayal is out.

Reynard’s jealous acid spills from his lips.

She fell fleetingly for him first.

Only one kiss one year ago

Burns through them, hacking them apart.

They rupture. As easily as the ash falls

From his cigarette as he desperately drags his breath

Back into his body, they fall to dust. She heaves.

Does he look for the courage?

She gives up everything.

No more pride. No more dignity. Falls to the lowest.

Takes both feet off the ground and sinks.

Looks up at what could have been.

Begs like a dog.

Cries like a man.

Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

Collapses.

She leans on his chest.

He strokes her hair.

Fills up her head with almighty hope

Only heard when his body talks to hers.

Louder stronger tonight

The hope trickles through her nerves.

But still

Only promised at that one dawn.

………………………………….

THANOS So love is Hell

And that is nothing new.

I haven’t left her

She hasn’t left me

I haven’t gone to her

I can’t do it.

I have no tongue.

What if.

ADONIA: Why do you send words to me

That make my goosebumps somersault

Why when you look at me

It screams of desire

Why do you keep me so near you

That I can’t see beyond you.

TITANIA: By my head, a coward if I ever did see one.

ADONIA: So now I wait

I will always wait

Lusting after a free and easy heart.

Preoccupied with how he could right his wrongs,

Whisking me away…

I honestly don’t know my answer.

TITANIA: He does not even serenade you. So why do you wait?

Titania exits slowly.

ADONIA: I love a man that cannot fall at my feet.

Shall I swoon

Or obliterate him from my orbit

Shall I ever know

No.

Until the moment presents itself

I cannot check absolutely, that I will live happily ever after

Until he asks. Or I finally tell myself what will happen.

I am stuck halfway between my life.

……………………………..

THANOS: When you reach the age that suddenly you are on your own

And you are encouraged to mismanage.

The stilts you’ve been leaning on fly off as if fitted with wheels and

Your head fills twice as fast with light fluffy wisdom.

At 15, like a respectful audience,

You sit in your place and absorb others, the sound

Of their misfortune clanging in your ears.

When your own ears pop it hits you twice as hard at 20.

This is supposed to be my time.

And

My friendships

I’ve always had and always will.

But when one is sly and stabs me in the back

I cannot forget

I cannot deny jealousy

And when my paranoia turns to truth.

Where else can you turn but turn your back to those

Who betrayed you.

I cannot take on trust.

True

I love

I always have done

I still do

I leave my neck bared to the slander.

But if it’s this shit now, here,

When we can rise above it.

And shovel and smear conversations full of ignoring over love,

‘till you only see a flutter poking through,

Why go any deeper in.

So now I sit in Hell

Above destruction but below argument

Above betrayal but below jealousy

Desperate to be limber in the mind,

I know what needs to be done

I feel feet pounding above my head

Other lovers wandering hand in hand

I walk eye in mind’s eye

Preoccupied.

But I can’t fall in and only because of me.

Only the Lovers are left on the stage. They sit in silence listening to Johnny Cash ‘Hurt’.

Curtain.

Bethan Grant