I’ve always wanted to write a ghost story so this is it! The title, “Mask”, is a reference to the idea that in someway everyone is “passing” as someone or something they are not. “Passing” is usually used in the US to refer to an African American passing as white. In a larger context however we all attempt to pass ourselves off as someone or something other that what we are.
I am exploring the possibilities in this play. Usually I have a loose idea of where I’m going with a piece but this one is not based on reality so I’m flying by the seat of my pants and I’m stuck.
I would appreciate any ideas, thoughts, comments. I am posting the first two scenes as I don’t want to clog up the site with more postings. If anyone is interested in reading more to the point on about page thirty were I’m dead in the water you can email me at milkwood25@hotmail.com and I will send you the rest by email. Thanks John Watts
MASK
by
John Watts
Milkwood25@hotmail.com
TERRY LANG
Reporter for The New York
Times – African American
MARIA
The mailwoman – Caucasian American
DETECTIVE GARRET
Police detective – African American
FRED MANNING
Ethnicity indeterminate because throughout the play Fred’s face and hands should have the appearance of a mummified corpse.
BILLY
Pizza delivery guy – Caucasian American
AGNES
Fred Manning’s sister (a voice from off stage)
The stage is divided in two parts. Stage left is the symbolic living room of a house. Center stage is a symbolic front door to Fred Manning’s house in a neighborhood of small detached houses. There are two steps wide enough for three people to sit and a small porch leading to the door. The rest of the stage is bare. Up stage left is an old reclining living room chair facing upstage toward a TV set. The chair is tilted back. Next to the chair is a stack of pizza boxes as high as the chair. Scattered around the room are dozens of empty soda bottles. There is no pause between scenes.
Scene One
The stage is dark. Fred enters the stage from the house walks down the steps, crosses to stage right as a spotlight gradually comes up on Fred. His face and hands should have the appearance of a mummified corpse. His sister Agnes voice is heard from off stage. Fred acts like his very young self, age ten talking to an imaginary Agnes, age nine. A hopscotch pattern is drawn on the stage.)
AGNES
It’s your turn Fred.
FRED
Ok but if the edge of my shoes goes on the line of that box like last time, it doesn’t count cause you didn’t draw the line straight.
AGNES
Yes I did.
FRED
No you didn’t
AGNES
Did.
FRED
No you—
AGNES
I’ll do it again. There, see? Now it’s very, very straight.
FRED
Ok, ok.
(Fred takes his turn jumping.)
AGNES
Now it’s my turn and you still went on the line.
FRED
I did not.
AGNES
You did. I saw you.
FRED
That’s because there’s a shadow where my foot—
AGNES
I’m cold Fred.
FRED
I’ll get your sweater.
(Fred turns and walks back toward the house, turning back as she speaks.)
AGNES
I don’t want it.
FRED
But you said—
AGNES
The cold, it’s inside me.
FRED
You just have think about something else.
AGNES
It won’t change anything. I’m still going away.
FRED
You’ll be back. Momma has to come back.
AGNES
Never. She said never. We don’t belong. I don’t belong.
FRED
Let’s go in.
(Fred takes Agnes imaginary hand as they speak and cross to stage left climbing the porch steps and spotlight fades as they exit.)
The Million Dollar Movie is coming on any minute, it’s King Kong. You like King Kong.
AGNES
He was all-alone too.
(Spotlights come up on each of the four characters as they speak. The stand down stage spaced equally apart across the stage.)
DETECTIVE GARRET
Another looser.
TERRY
Innocent, he was innocent.
MARIA
Definately from the other side of the Universe.
BILLY
Just trying to get by, that’s all he was doing.
DETECTIVE GARRET
An absolute a looser, just like me.
TERRY
Innocent, just like me.
MARIA
I don’t belong here either.
BILLY
Trying to make it, that’s all he was doing.
ALL FOUR
Just like me.
(All spotlights fade.)
Scene Two
(The spotlight comes up gradually on Fred in his chair. The TV is on. We hear, Over The Rainbow, from the movie. After a moment the TV shuts off. Fred is still seen in a dim spotlight fully reclined in his chair.)
(Lights come up to daylight on the rest of the stage as Maria enters stage right, crosses stage left to the doorway and pushes mail into the slot. Then she kneels down and yells as she peers into the slot and Terry enters stage right.)
MARIA
Hello? HELLO!
(Maria stands faces Terry and sits on the porch step. As she speaks, the spot on Fred and the interior of the house fades to black.)
MARIA
Weird, it’s like there’s nothing on the other side of the door, kind of like that black hole idea they talk about on TV, anything that goes in doesn’t come out.
TERRY
Mr. Manning’s dead but it’s not a black hole.
MARIA
Look at the rest of these houses, nice cut grass lawns, kids bicycles, no
way around it. This place is a black hole!
(Maria gets up and walks off stage right. Terry climbs the porch steps to the door and tries turning the door knob as Detective Garret enters stage right and crosses to center stage.)
DETECTIVE GARRET
You can’t go in there.
TERRY
I was just examining the door to—
DETECTIVE GARRET
Miss Lang this is still considered a potential crime scene until I officially complete the investigation tomorrow. You have enough information for your story, so why don’t you just go back to your paper.
TERRY
Oh come on, there’s no crime here.
DETECTIVE GARRET
I’ve still got to go through the motions.
TERRY
If his neighbors had just checked in on him—
DETECTIVE GARRET
Up in Morris County, back in 2000, they found the skeleton of a fifty-six year old woman in her house surrounded by the bones of her dead pets.
TERRY
Surrounded by her pets, Fred Manning didn’t even have that.
DETECTIVE GARRET
She’d been dead for a year. This man didn’t even have pictures of people he knew, or even himself.
TERRY
There must have been something, a high school yearbook, some family shots.
DETECTIVE GARRET
Just pizza boxes and old Hollywood musicals on video.
TERRY
Can I see?
DETECTIVE GARRET
This isn’t that big a story. No one wants to read about some one that for all intents and purposes didn’t exist. Don’t you get it? No one cares.
TERRY
Doesn’t that frighten you?
DETECTIVE GARRET
I never met the man so why should I care about him?
TERRY
Can I quote you on that?
DETECTIVE GARRET
You reporters are always twisting things around.
TERRY
I’m not twisting things—
DETECTIVE GARRET
You don’t even work for a local paper. The New York Times should stick to serious stuff instead of digging into—
TERRY
He lived here all his life.
DETECTIVE GARRET
Nobody knew a damn thing about him. The old timers are gone.
TERRY
His new neighbors must have known something.
DETECTIVE GARRET
When they tried to make conversation he’d ignore them. He walked passed you like you were a tree on the front lawn, that’s what Mrs. Tyler said.
TERRY
But why?
DETECTIVE GARRET
You don’t give up do you? Look, if you want to figure out this guy come by tomorrow morning about eleven thirty, I’ll show you inside the house before I officially close this case.
TERRY
Deal.
DETECTIVE GARRET
And after that stop pestering me.
(Billy enters stage right walks passed them, smiling as he says hi and knocks on the front door.)
BILLY
Hello Fred? It’s Billy.
(Terry and Detective Garret stare at Billy and they approach the doorway.)
Fred?
DETECTIVE GARRET
He’s not there. Who ordered the pie?
BILLY
No one. Who are you?
DETECTIVE GARRET
I’ll ask the questions.
TERRY
He’s detective Garret.
BILLY
Did something happen to Fred?
DETECTIVE GARRET
He died about a year ago. When did you last see him?
(Billy sits on the porch steps holding the pie.)
BILLY
Right before I left for LA last year. I brought him his usual pie and told him I was leaving.
TERRY
They only found him last week when the girl that delivers mail got suspicious.
DETECTIVE GARRET
Apparently he had a heart attach. Not surprising since all he seemed to eat was pepperoni pizza and ice cream.
BILLY
We were sitting right here eating pizza.
DETECTIVE GARRET
How did you meet him?
BILLY
Delivering pie.
(Billy gets up and knocks on the door. It opens but we can’t see inside.)
One pepperoni with extra cheese.
(Billy turns to speak to Detective Garret and Terry.)
I got the wrong house but he loved pepperoni. I went next door and this prick said I was late and wouldn’t take it. I was mad as hell so came back here.
(Billy knocks on the door again. The door opens and Billy speaks as he hands the pizza to someone inside.)
Hi mister. You said you like pepperoni so here’s a present for you. Enjoy yourself.
(The person inside does not take the pie as Billy holds it out.)
Go ahead, the guy next door doesn’t want it and I’m not taking it back.
(The person inside takes the pie and closes the door. Billy turns stage right and gives the neighbor the finger. Then he steps down from the porch speaking to Terry and Detective Garret.)
Strange how pepperoni hooked me up with Fred.
DETECTIVE GARRET
Pepperoni can’t connect you anything.
TERRY
Detective Garret believes in facts and you just shifted the facts, opened the pizza box a little wider.
DETECTIVE GARRET
What was your relationship to Mr. Manning?
BILLY
Just someone to talk too.
DETECTIVE GARRET
Did he seem suicidal? Did he have enemies?
BILLY
Well he didn’t like his neighbors, said they were just like their front lawns. Neatly cut with no weeds.
DETECTIVE GARRET
Sounds antisocial to me. The man retires early with a buyout, sits at home watching old movies on video and eating nothing but take out.
BILLY
Hey take out paid for my college tuition.
DETECTIVE GARRET
He was watching, Wizard Of Oz, when he died.
TERRY
Good choice. I’d love to go out that way.
(Terry and Billy start singing, Somewhere Over The Rainbow, and Detective Garret cuts them off.)
DETECTIVE GARRET
Well tomorrow this case is closed and I go back to more serious matters. Goodbye Miss Lang. And your name again?
BILLY
Billy Wonka.
DETECTIVE GARRET
Wonka?
BILLY
Wonka.
(Detective Garret exits.)
I love chocolate.
(Terry and Billy sit on the front porch.)
TERRY
Detective Garret is definitely neatly cut—
TERRY AND BILLY
With no weeds.
TERRY
He said Mr. Manning didn’t talk to his neighbors.
BILLY
Fred said they smiled too much.
TERRY
Have a nice day?
BILLY
You got it.
TERRY
What do you do in LA?
BILLY
I’m back in school. Don’t let them put you in a box, that’s what Fred always said. The night after I gave him the pie he called for another one. We laughed about the prick next door and the little conversations got to be a regular thing.
TERRY
Someone you can talk too. I wish I had that.
BILLY
We’d sit out here on summer nights, I’d talk and he’d listen. I missed that in LA. I sent Fred some long letters but I guess it was too late.
TERRY
A man that writes, that’s hard to find.
BILLY
Maybe some day I could write for a paper like you.
TERRY
I’m meeting Detective Garret here tomorrow at eleven thirty. You want to see how the story plays out?
BILLY
I’ll be here.
TERRY
There’s something special about a house that’s been lived in for so many years.
BILLY
It’s a great old house.
(Terry exits stage right. Billy walks to the house climbing the steps to the porch. Billy faces the door and then leans against the door facing the audience.)
Don’t let them box you in Fred.
(Billy exits stage right. As soon as he leaves Terry enters stage left looking around to be sure no one is watching. She quickly walks to the door and uses her key to unlock the door and exits into the house as lights fade to black.)
Scene Three
(A spotlight comes up downstage center on Fred. All four actors pass through the spotlight left to right then right to left etc. as they speak. Exiting the spotlight they stand equally spaced downstage left and right.)
FRED
Neatly cut
DETECTIVE GARRET
Have a nice day.
FRED
With no weeds.
MARIA
Have a nice day.
FRED
Don’t you get it?
BILLY
Have a nice day.
FRED
No one cares.
TERRY
Have a nice day.
(Fred points a camera at imaginary Agnes playing hopscotch and takes her picture.)
AGNES
Don’t take my picture. It looks silly.
FRED
I need something to remember.
AGNES
Momma said we’re never coming back to Jersey.
FRED
You’ll be back.
AGNES
But Momma said—
FRED
It may not be soon, but you will.
AGNES
How long?
FRED
It doesn’t matter. When you come, I’ll be here.
AGNES
Even in a hundred years?
ALL ACTORS
Even in a hundred years.
(Spotlights come up on all four actors as they speak.)
DETECTIVE GARRET
In a hundred years they’ll both be dust.
MARIA
A promise is a promise.
TERRY
He waited. That’s what counts.
BILLY
We’re all waiting for something.
DETECTIVE GARRET
But it never comes.
ALL ACTORS
Even in a hundred years.
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