The Plays of Steve Duprey
From Train to Train
A lone woman enters a train station. It is late at night. She has been traveling alone for a very long time…looking for something, searching for a thing that she can’t really identify. Perhaps it’s the goodness of mankind…that thing that separates the special from the ordinary. She has been unable to find it. But here…in this train station…she comes upon the person who embodies everything she has been looking for…everything she has dreamed of. But he doesn’t recognize it in himself. To him, he is ordinary…just doing what he was always taught to do. Her search ends here.
About 20 minutes
One Man
One Woman
Gluttony on the High Seas
About 10 minutes
Two Men or
Two Women
(This could work either way.)
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(Lights up on the lifeboat. The two men are in tattered clothes and both sport beards that look to be about four weeks old. SKIP is awake and HARRY is asleep. SKIP spends a bit of time gazing hungrily at HARRY. He looks around…what an absurd thing to do in the middle of the ocean… to make sure no one is looking. He moves to HARRY, careful not to wake him. He lifts HARRY’S hand up towards his mouth, focusing on the pinky finger…he won’t miss that. As he opens his mouth to bite HARRY’S finger off, we hear the loud screech of an albatross. HARRY wakes to see SKIP’S mouth wrapped around his little finger.)
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SKIP - an American country bumpkin. Skinny and gaunt. Mid-twenties.
HARRY - a British socialite. A good size man, almost portly. Mid-forties.
Presumed Dead
(Lights up on MARTHA seated in a large overstuffed rocking chair and staring at the package on her lap. She’s been crying, perhaps still is crying. The package is wrapped in very old brown paper with a string around it. It is unopened and it looks like it’s been through hell. BETSY enters through the front door and removes her coat and scarf, hangs them up. She hasn’t notice MARTHA yet, since MARTHA has remained quiet. BETSY finally notices MARTHA and speaks.)
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Martha – Mid to late 70’s. Widowed for 20 years and has been living with her best friend Betsy ever since.
Betsy – Mid to late 70’s. Never married. The classic old spinster.
About 16 minutes
Two Women
