Lame Swans, scene 5 - "Complement"

Yesterday I finished adapting the scene I wrote the draft of during 31 Plays in 31 Days, "Complement," for use in my graphic novel. While I have bits and pieces of other scenes, this is the first one I've done completely. Figuring out the perspectives and the content on each panel is pretty difficult, but I'm actually pretty pleased with what I envisioned here.


SCENE 5 - "Complement"

PAGE 1

Panel 1
LISE enters the studio. Over her shoulder both JASON and MARINA can be seen already in the studio. JASON is seated on a stool, wearing glasses and going through a notebook.
LISE: Jason? I’m here—

Panel 2
Closeup on MARINA glaring scornfully.
MARINA: What’s she doing here?

Panel 3
Closeup on LISE looking disturbed.
LISE: Where’s everybody else?

Panel 4
Closeup on JASON, focused on his notes, not looking at either of them.
JASON: Nobody else today. Just the two of you?

Panel 5
MARINA advances on JASON from his right in a posture of offense. He still doesn’t look up.
MARINA: What for?
JASON: The two of you need to work on your performance in relation to each other.

Panel 6
LISE advances on JASON from the left. He is in the same pose as before, but on the far right this time.
LISE: What does that mean?
JASON: Odette and Odile need to be identical, right?

PAGE 2

Panel 1
Double-width panel. From about chest height, the girls regard each other warily. Only the top of JASON’s head can be seen as he sits on his stool.
JASON: Enough that you can be mistaken for each other, but different enough to create a contrast. Two sides of the same coin.

Panel 2
Closeup on the left side of LISE’s face only, as if it is bisected by the right side of the panel.

Panel 3
Closeup on the right side of MARINA’s face, as if bisected by the left side of the panel. It lines up with LISE’s face in the previous panel as if it were the other half.
JASON: (off-panel, across both panels 3 and 4) So I want you to work on matching each other.

Panel 4
Double-width panel. LISE moves in on JASON in supplication, MARINA has her arms crossed stubbornly.
LISE: Our styles are completely different.
JASON: I’ve observed that.
MARINA: Why would you pick us if you wanted two dancers that looked the same?

PAGE 3

Panel 1
JASON stands up and eyes them in growing frustration.
JASON: Are you even listening to me? I want the contrast too. But you’ve already got the contrast down.

Panel 2
LISE and MARINA eye each other sideways.
JASON: (off-panel) Now I need you to figure out how to complement each other.

Panel 3
JASON sits back down on his stool and consults his notes again.
JASON: Show me the mirror dance. Tell me what you each notice about how the other executes it.

Panel 4
LISE and MARINA still eye each other.
JASON: (Off-panel) Go on, already.

Panel 5
The girl look away from each other, frustrated but resigned.

Panel 6
They turn away from the camera to walk out into the center of the floor.

PAGE 4

Panel 1
LISE assumes the preparatory position, facing right. She looks a little drawn and worried.

Panel 2
MARINA assumes the preparatory position, facing left. She is the mirror image of LISE. Her expression is stern and hard.

Panel 3
LISE’s arms transition into a hide third position. Her carriage is delicate and airy.

Panel 4
MARINA is in the mirrored position of hers. She carries herself with sharp precision.

Panel 5
LISE transitions into a lunge, arms in arabasque.

Panel 6
MARINA mirrors her.

PAGE 5

Panel 1
LISE dips her upper body toward her right side, sweeping her right arm low while keeping her left arm in arabesque.
LISE: Slow down.

Panel 2
MARINA executes the same move with a snotty smile.
MARINA: Can’t you keep up?

Panel 3
JASON regards them from his seat, head tilted in consideration to the right.
JASON: It’s not a contest. What do you notice?

Panel 4
MARINA curls her lip critically as she does a chêne turn to her right.
MARINA: Her arms are a technical mess.
JASON: (Off-panel) Marina.

Panel 5
LISE pirouettes prettily to her left.
LISE: Yeah, well, good thing you’re on that side, because you can’t pirouette to your left.

Panel 6
JASON claps a hand to his forehead in disgust.
JASON: Jesus, grow up, you two. Just do what I asked already.

PAGE 6

Panel 1
Double-width panel. Shot from over MARINA’s shoulder, LISE can be seen to the left of her. Her expression softens as she actually begins to study MARINA. They raise their rear legs in an arabesque lift.

Panel 2
Double-width panel. Now from over LISE’s shoulder, MARINA is to her right and has a hard, critical look. They combre to the side toward the camera.

Panel 3
LISE springs up into relevé, arms in fifth.
LISE: She’s… very precise.
JASON: (Off-panel) Right. She finds the marks and she hits them. You find something, Marina.

Panel 4
MARINA executes porte du bras, leaning back but her eyes turned to the left towards LISE.
MARINA: She’s fluid. Seamless from one step to another.
JASON: (Off-panel) Yeah, everything flows.

PAGE 7

Panel 1
MARINA turns away in a pique turn, but her gaze remains in the same direction. She glares.
MARINA: I feel like I’m dragging myself through so you can match me.

Panel 2
LISE stops dancing in outrage.
LISE: You’re too staccato, it’s all choppy!

Panel 3
Double-width panel. They go nose to nose furiously.
MARINA: I’m not compromising myself just to make you look good!
JASON: (Off-panel) Jesus Christ, get over yourselves!

Panel 4
Double-width panel. The girls turn to face him. He regards them in disgust.
JASON: I don’t have time for this. If I wanted to do a show with just one dancer on the stage for two hours, I’d just do it myself and not bother with any of you.

PAGE 8
Panel 1
Double-width panel. JASON walks off left, throwing up his hands. MARINA storms off to the right. LISE stands awkwardly in the middle, watching MARINA go.
JASON: Go take a break, and when you come back, I expect you to be ready to work.

Panel 2
As JASON walks away toward the camera, LISE can be seen following over his shoulder.
LISE: I can’t work with her.
JASON: Oh, save it.

Panel 3
JASON sits back down on his stool. LISE comes up on his side to the right.
LISE: She hates me. She isn’t going to cooperate.
JASON: Then you make it work.

Panel 4
Closeup on LISE, whose eyes go downcast with fear.
JASON: (Off-panel): You’re the lead, the show’s on you.
LISE: Oh, God.

Panel 5
JASON takes off his glasses and looks at her, hard and unsympathetic.
JASON: But hey, you’ve got it all down, right? Just so you know, Cechetti couldn’t turn on his left side either, you know.

PAGE 9

Panel 1
JASON stands and starts to walk away left. LISE trails after. JASON looks back over his shoulder at her.
LISE: Really?
JASON: He choreographed all his pieces so that he never had to. And he has a whole method named after him.

Panel 2
JASON turns his back on her as he walks away.
JASON: Find some way to make it work, Lise.

Panel 3
Double-width panel. Lise stands alone in the studio, distraught. The top of JASON’s head is visible in the bottom of the panel.
JASON: Back in five. And this time, be a little professional.

The Stand play series - "Wildflowers"

Over the last couple weeks I wrote another ten-minute play based on The Stand. This one is probably spoilery too, so probably only those who don't want to play in future runs should read. The characters featured are Sister Flora Johansson and Violet Wood, both PCs. I like the idea of this scene a lot, though the piece itself probably needs polishing.


Wildflowers
By Phoebe Roberts

FLORA JOHANSSON, a nun, early forties
VIOLET WOOD, a wild young woman, late teens

~~~

(The year is 1849 in the northern California cattle town of Reston. VIOLET WOOD is discovered onstage. Enter SISTER FLORA JOHANSSON wearing her nun’s habit.)

FLORA: Good day there, missie.

VIOLET: What? Oh. Good day there.

FLORA: I’m Sister Flora. What might your name be?

VIOLET: I’m Violet. Violet Wood. Do you… do you want something, sister?

FLORA: I wanted to see if you had a minute to talk.

VIOLET: You want to talk to me? How come?

FLORA: It’s a small town. Hard to miss when somebody new is around.

VIOLET: Oh. Well, yes.

FLORA: What brings you to Reston?

VIOLET: Ah… me and my fellow are just passing through.

FLORA: Have any business?

VIOLET: Oh, no, no business.

FLORA: You sure?

VIOLET: Of course.

(Pause.)

FLORA: I’ll tell you what I think. I think I know you.

VIOLET: Know me?

FLORA: There’s been a lot of talk about that outlaw pair. What do they call themselves? The Killdeer Kids, was it?

VIOLET: I— I don’t know!

FLORA: I think you do. Because I think you’re the little girl half of that outlaw pair. I think you’re a wanted criminal.

(VIOLET startles.)

VIOLET: Wh-what? What’d you say? I don’t know what— h-how’d you find out? Who told you?

FLORA: Nobody needed to. It’s written in your face as plain as day.

VIOLET: I ain’t done nothing—

FLORA: Easy, girl. I ain’t going to turn you in.

VIOLET: You’re not? Then… what do you want with me?

FLORA: I just wanted to have a talk with you.

VIOLET: About what?

FLORA: About… what you do. About how you’re living your life.

VIOLET: I don’t need some sister telling me to be a good little girl and come to Jesus!

FLORA: It ain’t like that. I thought I’d ask after you. See how you was getting on.

VIOLET: How I’m getting on? What’s your angle?

FLORA: (Shaking her head.) Got no angle. Compassion for folks is my job.

VIOLET: You got no reason to worry about me.

FLORA: I wouldn’t say that. Knowing the sort of life you leave.

VIOLET: You ain’t got any idea.

FLORA: Let me take a stab.

VIOLET: Oh, go on.

FLORA: No, give me a try. You grew up in some nowhere place with a mama and a papa that wanted to keep you small under their thumb.

VIOLET: Maybe so.

FLORA: Till you met a dashing young gent who wanted to take you away from your dull old homestead to go on romantic adventures on the frontier.

VIOLET: How’d you know that?

FLORA: It’s an old story, missie. Far older than you are. And I think you ought to know that quite a few what came before you wished their story could have ended differently.

VIOLET: What are you saying?

FLORA: Just that… you might want to get out while you still can. Before you end up the same bad way.

VIOLET: Don’t you try to lecture me! You don’t know what I had to bear back in townie life! Serving rich folks and getting looked at like I’m a little nobody! My mama always keening at me over how she knew I was going to end up wicked!

FLORA: Ah, honey. That’s rough and no mistake.

VIOLET: That weren’t no life!

FLORA: I know.

VIOLET: I had to get out of that!

FLORA: Can’t say as I blame you.

VIOLET: My fellow, Ralph… he got me out of that. He saved me from it. He gave me freedom and adventures and now we’re famous! Everybody knows the Killdeer Kids! We’re somebody now!

FLORA: Still. That’s an awful lot of danger you’re taking on yourself.

VIOLET: I ain’t afraid.

FLORA: Even if there’s no danger to you, there’s bound to be danger to somebody.

VIOLET: Oh, go on.

FLORA: You got guns, don’t you?

VIOLET: Got to!

FLORA: Ever shot anybody? Ever killed anybody?

VIOLET: Ain’t nobody ever died!

FLORA: You sure about that?

VIOLET: We give them a chance to give up the loot and go quietly! Nobody has to get hurt. We ain’t murderers.

FLORA: You ain’t yet.

VIOLET: Never!

FLORA: Even your Ralph?

VIOLET: I know Ralph! He’s smart, he uses his smarts to get the best of other folks. He ain’t some roughneck killer! We’re going to do better than that. We’re going to be another Deadeye and Sally Flowers!

FLORA: (Shaken, saddened.) That’s… that’s what you want to be?

VIOLET: Sure as hell we do. You heard the stories, right?

FLORA: I know them.

VIOLET: They was the wildest desperadoes on the range! Ain’t nobody was as brave or daring or clever as them, and everybody knows it! That’s what Ralph and I are going to be.

FLORA: That’s what you want, is it?

VIOLET: That’s what we always wanted!

FLORA: Of course. Should’ve known, I guess. Everybody wants to go that way when they don’t like the rules. But what they don’t know going in is the life’s got its own rules. Just like anything else. Can’t ever get away from that.

VIOLET: I do what I want.

FLORA: That’s the trouble, missie. You end up having to do things you don’t want to. To make a dollar. To stay alive. To stay those few steps ahead of the law.

VIOLET: It ain’t like that!

FLORA: You telling me you and your boy never got stuck in a tight spot?

VIOLET: Well… no, but—

FLORA: What might happen next time if you found yourself in a corner because things ain’t going like you planned?

VIOLET: Well… I don’t know! I don’t know, all right? But what else are we going to do? Settle down and— be like regular folks somewhere? With all them rules and laws? Ralph and I can’t live like that.

FLORA: All right, all right, we’ll let than one go. Here’s another thing…how is it that you see yourself ending up?

VIOLET: Not as a nun, that’s for sure!

FLORA: Right. I suppose I didn’t see it coming for me either. But I mean when you’re an old one. Too old to go gallivanting all over the range with a gun strapped to your back.

VIOLET: Well, I can’t see us digging ourselves into some old patch of dirt and getting gray and stupid.

FLORA: You got a different plan, then?

VIOLET: We’re going to get rich and famous, we… we don’t need no plan.

FLORA: Fair enough. Suppose you won’t if you end up dead. Plenty of famous outlaws do.

(VIOLET springs up in a rage.)

VIOLET: Oh, what do you know? You’re just some old lady in a black and white bed sheet, you don’t know a damn thing about us! We’re going to end up just like Deadeye and Sally, you’ll see!

FLORA: And how do you know they ended so well?

(VIOLET stops short and turns to look at FLORA.)

FLORA: Let me ask you— when was the last time you heard about the two of them?

VIOLET: They… they ain’t dead. Nobody could’a got them.

FLORA: Maybe not. But they sure as shooting ain’t riding around like they used to! Because they all end up the same way.

VIOLET: You can’t say that!

FLORA: Oh, child. Might be you’ll get lucky. Might be all your dream will come true. But might also be that one day... nothing’s like you planned. When you thought you was going to be a dashing rogue and you feel like nothing but a cold butcher. When the man you thought loved you best out of everything shows you he’s in so deep he can’t do nothing but save his own skin. When your pretty dream of all your romance and adventure fades out into finding yourself alone and with stains on your conscience you can’t never wash clean.

(VIOLET looks at her in shock.)

FLORA: So if you want to be like Deadeye and Sally, you ought to know how you’re like to end up.

(She stands up and turns to leave.)

VIOLET: Wait one minute, there. How do you know all that?

FLORA: All what?

VIOLET: About the life. The outlaw life. And… Sally and Deadeye.

FLORA: I told you, girl. It’s a real old story. You ain’t the first one to live it.

VIOLET: Who… who are you?

FLORA: Sister Flora. That’s all.

(She exits, leaving VIOLET to watch her in shock.)