Playwriting Bake-Off / Abstract Script
I did this with some friends in the Playwriting BA program at the University of Houston. We took certain prompts and were given sources of inspiration to each come up with a piece, and here is mine!
Playwriting Bake-Off – Blur
Characters: One is black and white, the other is gray.
(BW circling, GREY enters.)
BW – You used to do this with me
GREY – I couldn’t anymore, but we could-
BW – You don’t anymore. You left.
BW – Even if you stay, you did leave.
GREY – I just did other things. I can show you!
BW – There’s this, and there’s not this.
GREY – There is this, and-
BW – Nothing. Nothing else.
GREY – No, I mean this and no and yes, like there's other stuff!
BW – Yes, just other stuff. That isn’t this.
GREY – Other stuff is multiple things.
BW – No. It’s just one big not-this.
(GREY tries to face BW, BW begins circling in the opposite direction.)
GREY – How do you even know?
GREY – I know other stuff.
BW – You just don't want this.
GREY – I could tell you about it the other stuff.
GREY – I won’t, because you don’t believe what you don’t see.
BW – I also can’t believe what I don’t hear.
GREY – Well you haven't believed a thing you’ve heard so far.
BW – I haven’t heard anything to believe!
GREY – So I can’t make you hear to believe, and I can’t make you leave to go see to believe?
BW – You don’t have to do any of that. Just stay here. Wouldn’t that be a relief?
GREY – It would, but only because I’m thinking so much.
BW – Alright, if you have to see to believe –
BW – Then get in the circle, then you can see that it’s better.
GREY – No. I know it isn't
BW – Hm. You say you know the in and out of it now.
GREY – Yes, but I’m scared. Where you are is worse.
GREY – I only know from what I remember. I’m scared I’ll stay and get stuck.
BW – There’s a difference?
GREY – Yes! But I’m too scared of getting stuck to try and stay.
GREY – Even just thinking of it.
BW – Well do you even stay anywhere at all? Being so grey?
GREY _ Not really. I don’t know if you can do both.
(A few beats – then, GREY enters the circle. This entrances them and they circle across from BW. Lights slowly fade until GREY jumps out, gasping like they finally got out from underwater.)
GREY – Not again! Not again!
GREY – No, because of that.
BW – How do you know it’s not because of me?
GREY – Look at you. You just look like checkers. Look you can leave!
GREY – And that was a curse.
GREY – It is a curse, especially when you’re stuck like this!
BW – You don’t know any of that. Leave!
BW – Fog! Smoke! A lump of cloud!
(GREY grabs BW’s hands, spins around with them, and then they’ve changed places. They explore this feeling. BW looks at GREY, then rams into them to get back into the circle. They orbit closer, then farther, then closer than farther from the center of the circles, in a rotating elliptical shape. Colorful lights start fading in and out, getting gradually brighter. Blackout. Lights up, GREY and BW are gone, An explosion of colorful ballpool balls spill from the sky and scatter in every direction.)
