Tuesday, November 18, 2025

November Playwrighting 18: Grief, Bird, Sister play scene 3 beginning

 I really need to come up with a title for this play. Is it a full play? Not sure yet. Fleshing out the story and characters at the same time, and timid to really get stuff going, but the end of this scene did not go where I thought it would. Something is there.

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Scene 3: Lamps on in the living room with more boxes in various conditions. There are three wine glasses and a bottle of wine on the coffee table.

(SHEILA ENTERS and puts down a box. KATIE ENTERS and moves the same box. JAMIE ENTERS with an ( other box, sets it down, sees the box that KATIE just moved, and starts to move it)

                        KATIE

Ut-huh.

(points)

                        SHEILA

No, don’t listen to her. I want it there.

                         KATIE                   

That makes no sense.

                        SHEILA

My house, it makes sense to me!

                           JAMIE

Whatever.

(JAMIE sets down the box where it was and sits on the couch)

Are we done yet?

                        SHEILA

Halfway.

(groans)

                        JAMIE

If I’d known Sutton had all this crap…

(KATIE gives her a look)

Sorry, I mean stuff stored in every nook and cranny of this house, I …

                        SHEILA

Yes, what would you do?

                        JAMIE

I’d… I don’t know. This is overwhelming.

                        SHEILA

Yes, it is. You don’t need to add to it.

                        JAMIE

Sorry.

                        KATIE

Sorry.

                        SHEILA

Why are you apologizing?

                        KATIE

I was thinking the same thing. I knew Sutton had a lot of interests, but all these boxes and who knew you had so many little storage spaces in this house!

                        SHEILA

Yep, they don’t make them like this anymore. This was pre-1950 and you didn’t want anything to be left out of show, so there are spaces everywhere to shove things.

                        JAMIE

Boy, he shoved a lot in there. Wow, I mean the stuff! The boxes filled with CDs and pictures. What is this one anyway?

(hands her a picture)

                        SHEILA

Let me see. That is pre-Sammy. We are in Rome, I think.

                        JAMIE

She says it so casually, Rome. I’ve never been to Rome.

                        KATIE

And yet you’re never home when I call you.

                        JAMIE

I don’t travel to Rome, but I do get in my car and go places.

                        KATIE

I don’t.

                        SHEILA

You used to.

                        KATIE

I did.

                        SHEILA

I thought I’d never get caught up with your list of places you’d been.

                        KATIE

Then you met Sutton and went even further.

                        SHEILA

We did, didn’t we?

                        JAMIE

Pre-Sammy.

                          SHEILA

No, he went with us when he was portable.

                        JAMIE

Portable, what’d ya do, shove him in your suitcase?

                    SHEILA

No!

                        KATIE

(looking at a picture) Here, here’s him portable. Aw, it looks like he’s asleep in that big backpack thing Sutton would wear. Where are you?

                        SHEILA

Probably taking the picture. I took many of these. Sutton just liked the pictures and having them taken. I took them. He put these with his stuff because it got too many pictures to keep track of once Sammy got bigger. I threw them in boxes, and he was tired of tripping over them.

                        JAMIE

Where was this? Sutton doesn’t look happy.

                        SHEILA

No, he doesn’t. Oh, because Sammy had just broken his glasses and we were in a remote little town in Spain. It was siesta and I was trying to take their picture and Sammy was not having it. Sutton swung him up over his head because he could always get him to laugh doing that, and he said, “Take the picture quick!” I was still using film and had to finish changing it out. By the time we tried it again, Sammy had Sutton’s glasses in his chubby little hand and threw them hard on the cobblestone.

                        KATIE

Oh, no!

                        SHEILA

Oh, yes, we heard them crack just as I took this picture. He was so mad. Well, as mad as you can be at a two-year-old that you adore. Getting his glasses fixed, though, was another adventure during siesta time in Spain, with very little Spanish between us.

                        JAMIE

It is a great picture. No, I mean it!

                        SHEILA

Ok.

                        JAMIE

He didn’t always seem normal, normal and this one of him angry seems human.

                        SHEILA

No more wine for you!

                        KATIE

No, I get what she means. Sorta. Sutton was…

                        JAMIE

Not normal.

                        KATIE

She doesn’t mean, not normal bad.

                        JAMIE

Right, good, just not normal.

                       SHEILA

I’m cutting you both off.

(SHEILA scoops up the wine glasses and takes them into the kitchen)

                    KATIE

Way to go, Miss subtle.

                    JAMIE

Well, I was trying to.

                    KATIE

Why couldn’t you just come out and ask her?

                    JAMIE

I don’t see you broaching the subject.

                    KATIE

“Angry is a good look on your husband”, by the way, he’s not “normal”. Not subtle just making it weirder.

                    JAMIE

Either shut up or put up. You’re not doing any better! Your turn!

(SHEILA re-enters carrying snacks)

 

 

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