A Play In One Act

Dramatis Personae 

David – a performer

Angie – David’s wife

Jim – a photographer

ACT ONE

SCENE 1

Curtain up. A reception room in the wing of an Edwardian mansion. The room is as cluttered as a bedsit. Angie is seated in a leather chair reading New Musical Express. David, dressed in a floral-patterned dress and high boots, enters Stage Right, navigates his way past an ironing board and assorted distressed furniture to reach a tall mirror.

DAVID (addresses his reflection): I’m thinking of going commando.

ANGIE (still looking at the NME): Keep your knickers on, David. It’s only a newspaper photo shoot.

DAVID: I meant I’m thinking of something in a camouflage pattern. What would the effect be?

ANGIE: Plausibly lesbian.

DAVID: And currently?

ANGIE (looks up briefly): My grandmother’s chaise lounge.

DAVID: So, I should butch it up? Head-to-toe black, perhaps.

ANGIE: If you want to resemble a Greek widow scaling fish.

DAVID: You’d prefer me in trousers. Say it, Angie. You want something more traditionally masculine.

ANGIE: Now that you ment …

DAVID (cuts her off): How bourgeois. You know I’m non-binary.

ANGIE: That’s not the description they use about you down at The Dog & Trumpet.

DAVID: Barflies. They don’t recognise gender fluidity.

ANGIE: Sap.

DAVID: Are you …?

ANGIE: It’s the first fluid thing that came to mind. It flows then (pause) hardens.

DAVID (turns sideways): I can see myself as (adopting Cockney accent) well ‘ard.

ANGIE: If only I saw that more often.

She rises, crosses to David, takes his shoulders and spins him back to face the mirror.

ANGIE: Perhaps it’s the length. Too long.

DAVID (picks up the hem and raises it over his thighs): Micro-mini? Very London high fashion. Very Anoushka and Veruschka.

ANGIE: Let’s try for very Queen Mother. A sensible hemline, just below the knees with stockings held up by tight elastic.

DAVID: A little too Sainsbury’s shopper for me. The Daily Mirror is coming. I need to sparkle.

ANGIE: For a national red-top?

DAVID: Sssshhh. He could be here any second.

ANGIE: Nonsense.

Off stage sound effect: Knock, knock.

ACT ONE

SCENE 2

The set revolves to reveal a garden. David faces the audience. He practices several poses. Angie and the photographer enter Stage Left.

ANGIE: David Bowie, this is Jim James from the Daily Mirror.

Hands shake, heads nod.

JIM (gestures): Let’s use the house as a backdrop.

DAVID: Will it distract from me?

JIM: Nothing will distract from that dress. It makes you look …

DAVID: Sexually agnostic?

JIM: I was about to say like a …

ANGIE: Coffee, anyone?

Heads shake. The shoot proceeds. The photographer crouches, aims. David poses.

DAVID: Look at me and tell me what you see.

JIM: My grandmother’s chaise lounge.

DAVID: (A sigh) Jim, you strike me as a man of the world.

JIM (pats the long lens of his camera): This gives me instant access to people with outlandish talent.

DAVID: Really?

JIM: Yesterday I photographed a woman who makes dolls out of wooden clothes pegs.

DAVID: Fame of sorts, I suppose.

JIM (pulls a pen and notebook from his coat pocket): Fame, indeed. Which reminds me, Dave. Just for the pic caption. What is it that you do?

Curtain down. Theatre lighting drops.

ANGIE (disembodied voice offstage): Will it be curtains for David?

JIM (disembodied voice): One day.

DAVID (disembodied voice): Never.

THE END

Story Copyright © 2016 GREG FLYNN

Image Copyright © 1971 Daily Mirror

[Please note: the above script is pure fiction.]