One Question Too Many
Thriller, room 2, no windows
- Thriller
- Two-hander
- 4 min
- Female role
- Adult
- Advanced
Casting
11 lines- GARANCE Female role, Adult your role
- MERCIER Male role, Adult
Full text
(A bare room. A closed file between them. She doesn’t open it.)
GARANCE
You haven’t asked why you’re here. In twenty years, everyone asks. Except the ones who know.
MERCIER
You haven’t opened your file. People usually do. Except when it’s empty.
GARANCE
The 12th, between 10 p.m. and midnight. Tell me.
MERCIER
The cinema. The 9:50 showing. I can tell you the whole film, if you like.
GARANCE
Anyone can tell me a film.
MERCIER
Not the projector breakdown in the forty-second minute. Twelve minutes of darkness, full house. Check it.
(A beat.)
GARANCE
Who told you about that breakdown, Mr Mercier?
MERCIER
I… I was there. I just told you.
GARANCE
It lasted four minutes. The twelve minutes, that’s the figure from the next day’s paper. The paper got it wrong.
(Silence. Mercier looks at the door, then at the one-way mirror.)
MERCIER
I want a lawyer.
GARANCE
I know. Funny how much people want one, all of a sudden, once they’ve seen a film from start to finish.
What you can do with it
Original text written for Acto. Read it, print it, work on it in class, perform it at an audition or on a self-tape: that is what it is for, and you need no permission. For a public performance or any commercial use, write to us at contact@acto.re.
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The Alibi
You both say you spent the evening here. Together. Watching a film. That’s right. The 8:50 film.