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The Viewing

Supernatural, the house remembers

  • Supernatural
  • Two-hander
  • 3 min
  • Female role
  • Adult
  • Intermediate
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Casting

8 lines
  • AGENTE Female role, Adult your role
  • LA DAME Female role, Senior

Full text

(An empty house. The agent opens the shutters. The lady stays in the middle of the room.)

AGENTE

Double-aspect living room, original parquet. The fireplace works, the previous owners had stopped using it.

LA DAME

No, they hadn’t. In winter. The draught jams when the wind comes off the sea; you have to crack open the little kitchen window.

AGENTE

…That’s correct. It’s in the survey. Have you viewed the house before, with a colleague?

LA DAME

The third step in the hallway, does it still sing? The children called it the nightingale. They jumped over it to come home without waking anyone.

(A beat.)

AGENTE

Madam… you lived here.

LA DAME

Sixty years. I was told I could come back and see it. One last time. Before the new people.

AGENTE

“Told”? By whom, the family? The house has been empty since the estate was settled, nobody…

(Somewhere, the third step sings. Yet they are alone.)

LA DAME

Don’t sell too quickly, dear. Give her time to say goodbye. She was very much loved, you know.

(The agent looks down at her sheet: “Herbin estate, owner passed away in January.” When she looks up, the room is empty. In the kitchen, the little window stands ajar.)

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