The Dinner of the Absent
Supernatural, the empty chair
- Supernatural
- Scene for 3
- 3 min
- Female role
- Young adult
- Intermediate
Casting
6 lines- MAMIE Female role, Senior
- ÉLOI Male role, Young adult
- JUNE Female role, Young adult your role
Excerpt
(A family dinner. An empty chair, an untouched place setting, a filled glass. No one touches it.)
MAMIE
We always keep his place. For twenty years. Your grandfather used to say a table without its chair is a table that’s given up.
ÉLOI
Grandma… he’s not going to come. He can’t come. We all know it.
MAMIE
We lay the place anyway. It’s not for him. It’s for us. So we don’t get used to his absence.
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.
In these selections
The same text, elsewhere
Close to this one
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The Viewing
Double-aspect living room, original parquet. The fireplace works, the previous owners had stopped using it. No, they hadn’t. In winter. The draught jams when the wind comes off the sea; you…
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The Night Shift
You’re early. Shift change is at four. I am always on time. It’s your clocks that hesitate.
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The Double
You wanted to see me. I almost didn’t come. You don’t have coffee with your own face. I know. It’s unsettling. Believe me, on my side too.