PLAY 2
BY
ROBERT YATES
 
MAN: I have a new language to demolish.

WOMAN: You're just being negative. I can't be with depressed people; I need to be around people who are happy and creative. Who do you think I should go out with next?

MAN: Go out with me if you want.

WOMAN: Ha-ha.

MAN: I'll be the definer of a time, one whose presence, scarcely understood, haunts the memories of everyone who was there.

WOMAN: Sure you will...This is where you've taken us: an empty cigarette-end theatre.

MAN: It's a portal to the primeval city of which all ours are echoes.

WOMAN: What do you think this is? 2004?

MAN: Yes, you do have that trapped, used and discarded look.

WOMAN: It was something I had to do. Anyway, it doesn't look like you did any better.

MAN: Reaching the end of your tether can be an achievement.

WOMAN: Yes, the closing circle of going home. Last orders.

MAN: Oh, sorry, I've just seen somebody more attractive than you.

WOMAN: Me too...I remember the late nights on Trafalgar Square, head out of a taxi, puking dreams. I will never fall in love again.

MAN: Tell it to your boyfriend; I'm not interested.

WOMAN: Not even a little bit?

MAN: No, if I wanted to be treated like dirt, I'd get a job.

WOMAN: I never felt like I was with you when I was with you.

MAN: Well, like you, I like being the centre of attention.

WOMAN: Walking in East London at rush hour, dodging evangelists and advertisers, seeing through the cracks in the illusion.

MAN: You're too concerned about being nice. You're beyond all that. Or should be.

WOMAN: Your activities will be disapproved of in the press.

MAN: I certainly hope so.

WOMAN: You can be a bit of a hypocrite sometimes.

MAN: Just trying to fit in.

WOMAN: That's just like you - a contempt for the expressible.

MAN: An attempt at the inexpressible.

WOMAN: In the rarefied atmosphere of post-performance parties, where swagger rebuffs substance.

MAN: You're full of it.

WOMAN: Why don't you try being positive for a change?

MAN: You see positive; I see pretentious.

WOMAN: Then everything's pretentious and there's no point doing anything.

MAN; At the cold end of the decade: recollections of out-of-print works - a lone soldier grips his rifle, digs in against the winter war.

WOMAN: I think I might go out.

MAN: I'd rather stay in than be with your crowd.

WOMAN: Why?

MAN: I don't treat myself as a person of secondary importance.

WOMAN: My friends don't do that.

MAN: No, not to women.

WOMAN: They're professional.

MAN: Professional like commuters with nooses around their necks?

WOMAN: No: professional like assured artistry, the one clear moment of meaning.

MAN: Like a party where the women flit from room to room; the men sit in stony silence.

WOMAN: That's one way of seeing it. The male way. Why don't you move on and get on with your life?

MAN: I tried. My life kept getting in the way.

WOMAN: I went on a date last week. It was like going for an interview for a job I didn't want.

MAN: I have hidden myself in drunken lyrics.

WOMAN: That's an easy way to escape.

MAN: I know!...I know.

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