Three women walk slowly in line across the stage and shut imaginary doors on the other side.  They turn their backs to the wall and descend to the floor.  They push the walls away--hands stuck to the wall, and lie flat.  Their chests rise and fall with waves of breath. 

(On the stage are two trunks sit to the left and right of center stage.  There is a line of little stones leading downstage left from the stage left trunk.)

From stage right, enter the PUPPETEER and the MARIONETTE kissing passionately.  She holds the red rose behind her back.)

            PUPPETEER
This is such a bad idea.

(He lowers her to her backward and down on the stage right trunk, kissing her all the while.

            PUPPETEER
We shouldn’t be doing this.

(He takes off his jacket and throws it on the ground.  Resumes kissing her.  Out of the stage left trunk, crawls a little GIRL of about five, picking up each little stone.  Slowly she walks down stage and sits.

                                                PUPPETEER
You are so hot.
 
(GIRL sighs.  Marionette pushes him back a little bit.)

            PUPPETEER
What?

            MARIONETTE
Shut up.

            PUPPETEER
You are so hot.

(They resume kissing for a moment.  PUPPETEER stops.

             PUPPETEER
I need a piss.  Do you know where the bathroom is?

(MARIONETTE shakes her head.  PUPETEER walks into the audience.  He chooses someone in the audience.)

                                                 PUPPETEER
Is there a toilet in the lobby?

(The audience member will probably say yes.)

                                                PUPPETEER
Right back.

(He gets back on stage.)

                                                PUPPETEER
We shouldn’t be doing this but you are so hot.

(He kisses her again.)

                                                PUPPETEER
I’ll be right back.

(Girl signs loudly as puppeteer runs down the aisle and out of the theatre.  Marionette sits on the trunk and twirls the rose.)

                                                MARIONETTE
Hey.  Sorry about this.  You know…

                                                GIRL
That’s all right.


                                                MARIONETTE
I don’t do this very often, you should know that.

                                                GIRL
I know.

                                                MARIONETTE
It’s not like I’m making choices for you.  You can still do what ever you want when you get to be my age.  Become a nun, you’d have been great at that… will be… if you want.  I didn’t really want to do it, but you know that.  He gave me a rose.  Do you want to see it?

                                                GIRL
No thanks.

                                                MARIONETTE
And he is.  Pretty hot.


                                                GIRL
Ew.


                                                MARIONETTE
Sorry.              


(Marionette stands and paces for a moment.  She decides to sit with the girl.)

                                                MARIONETTE
Whacha doing?

(Girl looks at Marionette.  Silence.  Girl takes a deep breath.)

                                              GIRL
Making up a song.

                                                MARIONETTE
In your head?

                                                GIRL
(nods without looking at marionette)
Mm hm.

                                                MARIONETTE
Oh that’s right.

                                                GIRL
I knew you’d forget.

                                                MARIONETTE
No.  I… don’t think that.  I just haven’t thought about it.  It’s just a long since I’ve made up songs.  You’ll understand.  Can I hear it?

(Girl looks away.)

                                                MARIONETTE
Please.

(Girl shakes her head.  Silence.  GIRL HUMS A SONG.  Silence.)

            MARIONETTE
What’s it about?

                                                GIRL
You.

                                                MARIONETTE
Wow.  Thank you.  What about me?


                                                GIRL
About being a grown up.

                                                MARIONETTE
HA!  I am not a grown up.

                                                GIRL
You are so a grown up. 

                                               MARIONETTE
I am not. 


                                                GIRL
Oh please.


                                                MARIONETTE
Don’t you think I’d know better than you?

                                                GIRL
Grown up say that.

                                                MARIONETTE
I’m not!


                                                GIRL
Are too.


                                                MARIONETTE
Am not.

                                                GIRL
Are too times ten.

                                                MARIONETTE
Am not times a hundred.

                                                GIRL
Times a million.

                                                MARIONETTE
Am not times infinity.

                                                GIRL
Are too times a billion million zillion fillion!

                                                MARIONETTE
I win.  Infinity is bigger than anything. 

                                                GIRL
No.
                                                MARIONETTE
Come on.  Don’t you think I’d know than you?                                            

                                                GIRL
What’s infinity?

                                                MARIONETTE
Infinity is everything and you can’t have more than infinity.

                                                GIRL
Oh.

                                                MARIONETEE
See.  Told you.

                                                GIRL
Yeah.  Well.  Only an adult would know what infirmary means.

                                                MARIONETTE
Infinity.

                                                GIRL
You were kissing like a grown up.
                                                
                                               MARIONETTE
Yeah.  But that so does not make me an adult?

                                                GIRL
Yes it does.

                                                MARIONETTE
Are we doing this again?  I’m totally not an adult.


(Silence.) 

                                                MARIONETTE
What?


                                                GIRL
Nothing.
                                 
                                                MARIONETTE
What?

                                                GIRL
Nothing.

                                                MARIONETTE
Sorry.  (Silence.)  I’m sorry.  I won’t do it again.

                                                GIRL
Do you like kissing boys?

                                                MARIONETTE
I do.
 
                                                 GIRL
I’ve always wondered if I’d get to kiss a boy.

                                                 MARIONETTE
Oh yeah.  Don’t worry, there’s gonna be a lota boys.

                                                  GIRL
Really?

                                                 MARIONETTE
Lotsa boys.

                                                GIRL
Don’t worry, I know about sex. 

                                                 MARIONETTE
Excuse me?

                                                 GIRL
Just so you know.
                                    (Beat.)
I know everything about sex, I’m not four.  And I don’t think it’s a stork, I don’t believe in the stork, I never believed in the stork.  I’m not a little kid.  But… I believe in the spirit of the stork?  Like, a stork doesn’t come and deliver babies.  That’s stupid.  I saw a stork at school.  They are WAY to small to carry babies.

                                                MARIONETTE
There could be bigger storks…

                                                GIRL
If the stork were real, don’t you think someone would see at least one stork with a baby.  I looked it up on the Internet. Besides, when my brother was coming, I set a trap at his window for the stork.  If the stork was real, I would have caught him.  But the spirit of the stork, I believe in because I could feel it.  When people get married, the stork comes to brings them love.  And that is where babies come from.  Which is really cool, because it means most babies get to grow up with love.  Babies need that.  Do you love him?


                                                MARIONETTE
Who? 
                                                GIRL
The boy!

                                                MARIONETTE
 I mean, yeah. 

                                                GIRL
I know.  

                                                MARIONETTE
Of course I do.

                                                GIRL
I’m never kissing someone without love.

                                                MARIONETTE
Don’t worry, I never would.  

                                                GIRL
Good.  Does he love you?

                                                MARIONETTE
I don’t know.


                                                GIRL
You should find out.

                                                MARIONETTE
Okay.

                                                 GIRL
Because he should love you.

                                                MARIONETEE
I’ll find out.
                                                GIRL
It should be fun.  When I grown up, that doesn’t mean I want to stop having fun.

                                                MARIONETTE
I sure hope it’ll be fun.

                                                GIRL
Gross!  It’s okay.  I don’t mind.  I haven’t decided yet anyway.

                                    (Puppeteer enters from stage left.

                                                PUPPETEER
You have to see what I found… 

                                                MARIONETTE
You okay?

(Girl nods.)

                                                MARIONETTE

Good.

                                                PUPPETEER
Who are you talking to?

                                                MARIONETTE
You found your way back.

                                                PUPPETEER
I found this… it’s perfect.  Way better than the stage. Come on.

                                                MARIONETTE
Wait, the stage was your thing.


                                                PUPPETEER
You’re my thing… You okay?


                                                MARIONETTE
Of course.
(Beat.  Marionette gives the rose to the little girl.)
So what’s the thing with the rose? 

                                                MARIONETTE
How do you mean?                     

                                                GIRL
Thanks.

                                                PUPPETEER
Planting it in the stage like that?

                                                MARIONETTE
Well, it is yours. 

                                                PUPPETEER
You’re doing it again?

                                                MARIONETTE
Wait, what?

(Girl smiles and smells the rose as Marionette goes back to 

                                               MARIONETTE
Sorry, I’m great.  But I guess you don’t know just how great, do you…

(Marionette kisses puppeteer as Girl begins to hum her song again.)                         

                                                PUPPETEER
This is such a bad idea.  

                                                MARIONETTE
Mmm… 


(She kisses him and exits stage left.)
 
                                                PUPPETEER
You are hot.  But you know this already. Of course you know it.

(He exits behind her as the Girl’s humming comes to the final line of her song.  She sings it aloud as she lays the stones in a path to the stage left trunk.)

            GIRL
MEMORIES WILL FADE
AND DAYS WILL PASS
SO I HOLD ON THIS IMAGE
HOPING SECRETS CAN LAST.

(She opens the trunk and suddenly stops before getting in. Beat.  She drops the lid and runs off stage right. Fade to BLACK.)

I must hold onto that thought all through the night.

Winter abounds and I see me in all places, and yet, I melt.

But…that’s the thing, I feel like I do…know you

ENGLISH      I want to dream
CZECH         Japo tryeba azk exponovat
FRENCH       Je veux rêver
GERMAN      Ich will träumen
LATIN          Volo somnio

The atmosphere in the room changes and though the moment has not yet arrived I know in the next breath shift I will make eye contact and seal my fate for that night.

She opens, unfolds…peeling back layer after layer of thinly constructed flour bathed,

If you asked me that, I would tell you that I’m a lover.

ENLGISH       I want to expose
CZECH          Japo treba azk sen
FRENCH        Je veux exposer
GERMAN       Ich will ausstellen
LATIN           Volo detego

It Won't Be Long by Alex Gould.

(Highlighted Lyrics)

I lose my senses when I’m grasping for a line
When I’m huddled in a corner in the tired light
In bitterness and beauty, I’ve never learned release
I get so lost in a mirror and my restless mind
...
There was magic in my movement for that hour
And the world around me opened like a flower
It won’t be long, it won’t be long, till I make amends
It won’t be long, it won’t be long, till I understand
...
Hold me now until I fall asleep
While through the trees the moonlight plays the thief
It won’t be long, It won’t be long till I turn and run
It won’t be long, it won’t be long, till I come undone

You may be asked to collaborate with another company member and/or their piece from Challenge #1.

It begins with a memory, an image I can cling to for strength, balance and hope.  As all of my energy centers on the image itself, the memory of one perfect image, I am torn away from my beautiful haze and back into the day to day normality.  If I let it seep in too much it will take over me, and I will end up jaded and worn.  This cannot happen-to lose the look of innocence-would end all prospects for me. 

When one is taught to balance seduction with innocence-naiveté coupled with complete understanding of pleasure.  To let one in that close costs more than your dignity, your respect, it costs your insides.  In an attempt to sustain one real part of myself to hold onto the inside of my vessel I let the world around me fade away and focus on the one memory that fills my entire being with grace and restores my wonder.

The vessel I can give away – It performs, tricks the eye, and moves on command. An air mystery radiates like the sun on water as I move through the room hoping to secure a job-hoping no one will actually notice.    The atmosphere in the room changes and though the moment has not yet arrived I know in the next breath shift I will make eye contact and seal my fate for that night.

In that moment I must imagine myself back to that first memory.  Back to innocence, of moving on impulse, allowing my reactions to pour out truthfully without self-awareness.

My eyes close as his arm leads me up the stairs and I remember the sting on my cheek when I pressed my 5 year old cheek up against a pane of glass.  Only when the fog that my own body’s heat created fades do I see it.  Snow, large flakes of lace dancing from the sky.  I must hold onto that thought all through the night.  The cool breeze coming from the cracks in the wall the hot/cold glass on my face. 

I descend into two worlds one where I am an object, very much an adult, and one where I am the spectator, very much the child, in awe of the world around her.  I cannot feel the reality around me only the truthfulness of the memory that I have submerged myself in.

If I give away one bloom a night, then I keep one bud for myself.  It will bloom again and again safe inside the shut doors of my spirit. 

I am only Fifteen- but this life of giving way almost all that I have has been going on for as long as I can remember.  Past memories fade more quickly as each day passes. I must hold onto the one image to get me through. 

 
Dramaturgical Blurb:
The great French actress known as Rosay, who studied music as a child, referred to rhythm as a form of energy. She used the word to describe the way actors go beyond merely pretending to feel what the characters in a play are supposed to feel. Instead, she said, an actor must actually experience the feeling. If the courtesan was, to some degree, always acting, her success depended on how well she could act, that is, on whether or not she actually experienced the feelings she radiated. But this must have been what Rosay meant. When you find the right tempo for any activity, whether it is eating or walking, talking or making love, you have also found the capacity to feel.

In one of the posters Toulouse-Lautrec designed for the Moulin Rouge, he portrays La Goulue with an expression that is neither bawdy nor frivolous. As she balances on one leg and lifts her right leg high, she stares intently into space, as if concentrating on her art. She is clearly a woman serious about her work. Of course, even if at other moments she laughed, she had to be focused at this moment. She was earning her living. But Lautrec has captured another energy altogether in the lower half of her body. Below her waist, a froth of lace and lingerie gushes forth, as if out of a hidden source within her, threatening to fill the room.

Excerpted from The Book of the Courtesans by Susan Griffin Copyright © 2001 by Susan Griffin.