January 6 - "Actress"

Outside a dressing room in a Broadway theater. The door to the dressing room is closed.

DIRECTOR and PRODUCER stand by the door, arguing in a loud whisper.

PRODUCER

Friday. She has until

DIRECTOR

I’m not going to

PRODUCER

No, you won’t. I will.

DIRECTOR

I will work with her until she’s

PRODUCER

You better do something. It’s like watching a

DIRECTOR

Don’t say it.

PRODUCER

Black hole.

A beat.

DIRECTOR

Friday?

PRODUCER

Friday. That way the replacement can learn the role and go in on Tuesday.

DIRECTOR

But what if

PRODUCER

Let’s hope she gets there.

DIRECTOR knocks on the dressing room door, PRODUCER leaves.

VIOLET ULLMAN, 25, opens it, lets him in.

VIOLET

Hey.

DIRECTOR

Hey.

She shuts the door. Now, they’re inside the room. It’s tiny.

VIOLET

I heard your

DIRECTOR

You did.

VIOLET

Yeah. Look, am I that

DIRECTOR

Vi, I don’t want to

VIOLET

I’m working really hard, here.

DIRECTOR

I know.

VIOLET

This is a very hard role to play and I’m working so hard to - I haven’t slept since we started previews, you know.

DIRECTOR

I’m in your corner here. I cast you for a reason, Violet, you know that.

VIOLET

Do you know how bad the publicity would be if I’m let go?

DIRECTOR

We are going to work on it. Starting now.

VIOLET

Ooh, now?

DIRECTOR

What?

VIOLET

I kinda have dinner plans.

A beat.

VIOLET

I’ll cancel.

DIRECTOR

Good. Okay, go. #1.

VIOLET

Now?

DIRECTOR

Don’t question it. Go.

VIOLET

(passion-free)

O, that this too too solid flesh would melt

Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!

Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!

How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,

Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,

That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature

Possess it merely. That it should come to this!

But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:

So excellent a king; that was, to this,

Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother

That he might not beteem the winds of heaven

Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!

Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,

As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on: and yet, within a month--

Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!--

A little month, or ere those shoes were old

With which she follow'd my poor father's body,

Like Niobe, all tears:--why she, even she--

O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,

Would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle,

My father's brother, but no more like my father

Than I to Hercules: within a month:

Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears

Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,

She married. O, most wicked speed, to post

With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

It is not nor it cannot come to good:

But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.

A beat.

DIRECTOR

Okay.

VIOLET

Am I that bad?

DIRECTOR

Violet, do you know what your saying?

VIOLET

O, that this too

DIRECTOR

No. You’re playing Hamlet, Violet. What are you saying?

VIOLET

I don’t know.

DIRECTOR

Ay, there’s the rub. Okay, so, your father is dead, your uncle married your mother. You are talking about how everything in the world is just utterly futile. You’re talking about killing yourself.

VIOLET

I thought that was “To be or not to be.”

DIRECTOR

This, too. Trouble is “His canon 'gainst self-slaughter,” suicide is a sin.

VIOLET

Okay.

DIRECTOR

You really had no idea?

VIOLET

None.

DIRECTOR

Didn’t you work at all with the dramaturg?

VIOLET

Not really.

DIRECTOR

There was the first mistake. Okay, do it again.

She does. There’s some change. It’s slight but noticeable.

DIRECTOR

Well. Now we have something to work with.