Sunday, November 09, 2025

November Playwrighting 9: Top of Act 2 Angels Weep No More

 

Act 2

SCENE 1

(Everything is exactly as we left it at the end of Act 1)

                                SARAH

Ladies, please. Drop them now, s'il vous plait!

                                GABRIELLE

This isn’t real. This can’t be real! Je vous salue, Marie pleine de grâce….uh….uh…Amen!

                                SARAH AND SOPHIE

Amen!

                                GABRIELLE

They are still here!

(SARAH pokes her with her sword)

Ouch! It is real.

                                SARAH

Are you sure/ we are awake? It seems to me/that yet we sleep, we dream.

                                PEARL

Who are the weirdos?

                                SOPHIE

Qu'a-t-elle dit ?

                                MARIE

Il n'est pas grave. What matters is that we find out why we have been summoned.

                                PATTY

As I keep saying, no one called you. I don’t know where you came from but… wait a minute… What do you think, Pearl? Is this all part of the final?

                                PEARL

What?

                                GABRIELLE

This is madness!

                                SOPHIE

Qu'a-t-elle dit?

                                MARIE

Silence! Are you part of the Alliance?

                                SARAH

I could run them through with my sword.

                                PATTY

Now look here, I’ve about had it! We demand you tell us what is going on here!

                               PEARL

You go, Patty! Be the man!

                               GERTRUDE

No, I’ve tried that, and however pleasant it is in private, it never works out in public. Though it does look like times have moved on a bit since I tried.

                                MARIE

Silence! Ces américains never know how to be good prisoners.

                                PATTY

Who do these people think they are?

                                PEARL

Prisoners? Now, look, we have rights!

                                GABRIELLE

You have no rights in France. And “these people” are France.

                                GERTRUDE

There is no there there.

                                 PEARL

Patty, this makes no sense! We should leave.

                                PATTY

That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said all day!

                                MARIE

Non, leave, you speak with authority, but ignorant. We want to know why you have summoned us. We have ways of making you talk!

                               GABRIELLE

She is ignorant.

                                PATTY

Hey!

                                GABRIELLE

They both are.

                                PEARL

Hey!

                                GABRIELLE

It isn’t an insult; it is a fact. You are not in your own country. Do you know even one of these women?

                                PATTY

Who cares who they are?

                                GABRIELLE

Tourist! You were probably just here to see Jim Morrison, like all the other Americans who come to Pere Lachaise!

(GERTRUDE, SOPHIE, AND SARAH gasp)

                                SOPHIE

Qu'a-t-elle dit?

                                GERTRUDE

I don’t remember him at my salon parties.

                                SARAH

No longer mourn for me when I am dead

Then you shall hear the surly sullen bell

Give warning to the world that I am fled

From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell.

(GERTRUDE AND SOPHIE gasp)

                                MARIE

Oui, yes, old news. Old news. Moving on.

                                GERTRUDE

Well!

                                PATTY

Since there seems to be no end to the living dead people tonight, I figured they were part of that group. But why are they on the rise? I thought they were just part of our…

                                GABRIELLE

Aha! Part of your what?

                                PEARL

No, no, no, I’m sure they haven’t seen Janis tonight!

                                GABRIELLE

You’re what? Tell us.

                                MARIE

Yes, tell us.

                                PEARL

Patty, don’t!

 

 

 

 

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