Excerpt from NOTES ON DROWNING (FOR THE MAN WHO CANNOT MAKE THE JOURNEY)

CAST

(2F, 1M)

PLACE

Adam’s bathroom

TIME

Now

1.

The old bathroom, dilapidated. Bathtub. Large mirror. A pad of paper and pen on the edge of the tub. Adam and Emma enter.

EMMA

Where is she?

ADAM

And this is the bathroom.

EMMA

You said she gets home at five.

ADAM

Isn’t it nice?

EMMA

It’s very old. — Being punctual is important, Adam. Take it from me, being late is the sort of vice that can make or break a relationship.

ADAM

I don’t mind old things. I got the mirror second-hand.

EMMA

Adam. You are not listening to a word I’m saying.

ADAM

Sure I am. I always listen.

EMMA

Talking to you is like talking into a void filled with pudding. I don’t know how you can write poetry if you lack…passion.

ADAM

I put all my passion into my poetry.

EMMA

No wonder she doesn’t come home after work. She’s probably out on a street corner somewhere.

ADAM

Emma, there aren’t any street corners in my relationship.

EMMA

Do you know, I went home last week and the minute I get out of the car, everyone is telling me Your brother has a girlfriend.—and I hadn’t known.

ADAM

I said I was sorry.

EMMA

I’m not fishing for an apology, I’m just stating a fact. And so I ask, I ask Mom and Daddy and the kids were there, the little cousins, and I ask them: what she’s like, this wonder woman, this freulein—

ADAM

You can disapprove perfectly well in English.

EMMA

—And none of them had met her.

ADAM

She keeps strange hours.

EMMA

None of them had even seen her.

ADAM

She’s shy. Is that why you came by?

EMMA

I came by to see you. To make sure that you’re healthy.

ADAM

I’m healthy.

EMMA

I know. You look great. I think it’s great. I’m very excited to meet her.

ADAM

I don’t think she’ll be back for a while.

EMMA

I was thinking that I could wait until she came back. I can make dinner for both of you. I’m a very good chef.

ADAM

Emma, what is it exactly that you’re trying to say?

EMMA

Where’s her stuff?

ADAM

What?

EMMA

Her stuff. Jewelry on the counter, tampons under the sink—I know how bohemian women live! There are no panties under your bed, the counters are bare, there’s nothing but newspaper under your sink!

ADAM

You looked under my sink? You looked under my bed?

EMMA

Someone has to! Just—lay it on me. I can take it! I’m here for you. Is she lesbian? Are you gay? You can tell me anything.

Beat. It lasts. Finally:

ADAM

She drowned herself. Tragically.

EMMA

Tragically?

ADAM

They found her dead in the bathtub.

EMMA

Oh no! Oh you poor—

ADAM

Before I ever met her.

EMMA

I’m not following.

ADAM

Just because you can’t see someone doesn’t have to mean you can’t communicate. Blind people do it all the time. Are you trying to tell me that blind people can’t have relationships?

EMMA

I’m—I’m lost here.

ADAM

We can’t touch either, but she leaves me notes. I’m writing a series of poems about Ophelia. And she leaves me things that can inspire me with the drowning parts.

EMMA

Adam, I’m not quite on board the Amtrak of your meaning. I’m still here on the platform, Adam.

ADAM

This is America, Emma. America thrives on alternative relationships. Please respect mine.

2.

The bathroom. Marie enters. She’s dead, and very pretty. While alive, she was the muse to many French poets and a Sicilian painter or two. She climbs into the empty bathtub, leans back, and hums a tune. Smokes a sexy cigarette in a provocative manner. She takes up the paper and pen. She has a thick French accent.

Marie

Notes on Drowning: for ze man who cannot make ze journey.
As for ze boddee falling from ze cliff into the ocean: Hmmm. First zer is ze amazing…splouchement! That is to say, ze noise of impact of ze boddee as it impacts into ze ocean. Now, the perspective of zis boddee. Is it happee? Is it sad?

(shrugs)

Zat is for ze poet to say.

(tender)

For you to say. Mon cherie.

(back to business)

Alors, zer are many detail zat a poet never needs to know. Ze water drawn into ze lungs, ze gasping, ze looseness of ze bowels—all these are nasty. And the face! Croutifiant! Zat is to say, ze face become like a soggy crouton. These are detail for a medical journaliste, for a Mr. Nasty. But you, cherie, are no Mr. Nasty. You are a poet of romance. What I would like you to focus upon is ze sky. As it spins overhead. Ze body in the ocean, ze face is upturned perhaps, to stare for eternity upon ze blank blue sky! Or perhaps ze face is turned down—and zer you have it, ze sustained gaze into ze heart of ze sea. Mon amour, wiz zis image, you have put your finger upon the pulse of poetry.

3.

Adam and his laptop.
Marie’s notes in front of him.
He composes his poem and reads it to himself.

ADAM

(with great passion)

“Oh Ophelia. With your focus. Upon the blank blue sky!! face upTURNED!…..orrrrrr. Perhaps turned DOWN, your sustained GAZE, into…the heart…of the sea….you have put your finger upon…the pulse…of…po-e-try.”

(enraptured)

Amazing. Gorgeous. The best I’ve ever written. Marie, you inspire me. You are my Maude Gonne. Except much better.

(He climbs into the bathtub, more intimate)

I think of you. Living here as a young woman. Before you tragically drowned. I think of you…bathing here. I think of you…your long young limbs…face upturned…

(Hops out of the bathtub and starts typing furiously)

Ophelia, Part Five. Marie, even the thought of you inspires me!

(typing)

“long…young…limbs…”

4.

Adam, sitting up in the bathtub.
Emma in the doorway.

ADAM

(defensive)

I was working.

EMMA

You were sleeping.

ADAM

I was writing. Before you showed up. On my doorstep. And started knocking. And then let yourself in.

EMMA

There are sleep lines on your face. And if I had called first, you would have pretended to be out. Which, in fact, you were doing as I knocked.

ADAM

What, exactly, are you doing here.

EMMA

You always assume that I have some kind of mean little ulterior motive. What if I just, very genuinely, care about you?

ADAM

I have never once thought you didn’t care about me.

EMMA

All right.

ADAM

I just think you’re lonely.

EMMA

I am not!

ADAM

And unemployed.

EMMA

I am self-employed.

ADAM

Well so am I, and you’re interfering with my employment.

EMMA

I want to see her.

ADAM

She’s dead, we established this, she is not, as they say, “to be seen.”

EMMA

You can disapprove perfectly well without literary allusions.

ADAM

Well. The point remains.

EMMA

Then I want to see some of her notes. I want to see what she says to you.

ADAM

Emma! Do I ask to read your love-letters?

(thinks)

Do you have any love letters?

EMMA

Of course I do!

(beat)

Adam, I went home the other day, sat down, and debated for the rest of the night whether or not I should have you committed. I don’t think you can call me unreasonable. I have had several inadvisable affairs in the past, but I have never claimed to have one with the dead.

ADAM

You make this sound like an inferior sequel to The Exorcist.

EMMA

Let me put it this way. If you don’t give me some proof that you haven’t completely lost your mind, I’ll tell mother.

A stand-off. At last:

ADAM

Don’t touch anything.

He leaves the room. In his absence, she looks around the bathroom. She sees Adam’s laptop. She turns it toward her and tries to read what he’s writing. She hears him coming back and jumps away, guiltily. He’s carrying an overflowing file folder: notes and letters, in all colors of ink, on all kinds of paper.

EMMA

And that—all that is from the dead girl?

ADAM

Her name is Marie. She’s very prolific.

(Emma reaches for the letters, he grabs her wrist)

Ah-ah.

EMMA

What, you said I could see them.

ADAM

And you’re seeing them. As a poet, I often find that one must handle words with precision. There is a universe of difference that exists between the verb To See and the verb To Read.

EMMA

Adam, you’re such an asshole.

ADAM

You’re too old to use those words and have it be youthful indiscretion.

EMMA

You don’t seem to have a problem with the words Marie uses.

ADAM

And what’s that supposed to mean?

EMMA

She wrote Fuck. Right there.

ADAM

(flipping papers face-down frantically)

No reading upside down! Cheater!

EMMA

(over him)

—“Fuckeeng” actually, “fuckeeng by ze river—”

ADAM

It’s from the French verb. Foucker.

(he says it: Foo-Kay.)

It means to embrace.

EMMA

You took Spanish in high school.

ADAM

I went to France.

EMMA

For a band trip, until you all got sent home because the band teacher was foo-kaying one of the students.

ADAM

Izzy. Yeah. She was troubled.

EMMA

She was a slut.

A moment of silent meditation on Izzy.

ADAM

Emma, get the hell out of my bathroom.

EMMA

Just one, lemme just read one.

ADAM

No!

EMMA

Just one, Adam, you have like ten million, why can’t I just read ONE?

ADAM

This is not like elementary school where I used to give you my extra valentines! We are adults now! We have private adult lives!

He gathers up the letters hastily along with his laptop and stalks out of the room.

EMMA

I’m just gonna use your bathroom!

She closes the door after him and locks it.
She starts going through drawers, looking under the sink.
As she does, a light slowly rises on Marie, sitting in the corner of the bathtub.
Marie watches Emma with curiosity, then shrugs. Picks up her pad and pen and commences writing.

Marie

Notes on drowning: for ze man who cannot make ze journey. Today, I will talk to you about ze river and ze pond. Ze river, it is sexy. It is mmm. All zis motion, zis going somewhere, all zis frisson! To la Parisienne it is ze big turn on. We spend more time by ze River Seine zan we do wiz our boyfriend.

As she writes, she tosses notes over the edge of the bathtub. Emma jumps, startled.
She looks at the drifting paper.
She looks at the edge of the bathtub but doesn’t see Marie.

EMMA

Shit. Oh shit. Oh shit!

Marie

Ze pond, it is calm. It is cold. It is ze man we will marry. It does not go anywhere. It does not do anyzing. It is dead fish. Zer is a reason that women choose to drown in ze river and not in ze pond.

Emma gingerly picks up a piece of paper. She reads Marie’s letter out loud. She butchers the French phrases.

EMMA

(reading)

“That is why you must think carefully about where your Ophelia drowns. If it is in a river, then you write about the sexy woman, the woman full of joie de vivre.

Marie

(taking over)

If it is a pond, your Ophelia is ze angry woman. Ze suffocation! Ze rebellation against ze controlling husband! She drown herself as a revolution!

EMMA

(objects)

Or, like, she could just be depressed. She could just have difficulty conducting a meaningful life. Even if she’s well-educated and speaks German and went to Italy on her band trip. Maybe she just needs therapy.

Marie

But if it is ze ocean. Oh, mon dieu. Falling into ze ocean is like making a promise to eternity. It is wedding yourself to a deep deep love, l’amour zat endures across centuries. It is an embrace zat will never betray.

EMMA

If women weren’t shamed into feelings of inadequacy for not living up to outdated expectations, there wouldn’t be the need for all this messy, ill-planned, selfish suicide.

Marie looks at Emma. She narrows her eyes. Although she continues writing the letter as before, it’s now directed at Emma.

Marie

Zis is a concept that perhaps les Americains cannot comprehend. Zey do not have ze esprit romantique as we say.

EMMA

I don’t think choking to death on algae is particularly row-mohn-teek.

Marie

(plays the winning card)

But I am certain zat you, mon cher Adam, understand. You have ze spirit of romance. You understand ze power incroyable of l’amour distancefiant! Zat is to say, love conducted over distance.

A long beat. Marie and Emma glare at each other.
Lights down, abruptly, on Marie.
Emma is alone. She tosses the paper into the bathtub.

Contact jenseptcinq[at]gmail[dot]com for the full script.