The Vigil
Drama, around the bed
- Drama
- Scene for 5
- 4 min
- Female role
- Adult
- Advanced
Casting
13 lines- VINCENT Male role, Adult
- CLAIRE Female role, Adult your role
- JADE Female role, Teen
- GEORGES Male role, Senior
- HÉLÈNE Female role, Senior
Full text
(A bedroom. A night-light. They speak low, out of respect.)
VINCENT
We have to decide about tomorrow. The doctor needs an answer.
CLAIRE
“Decide.” As if it were a menu.
JADE
Vincent’s right. Someone has to sign. And it won’t be Dad.
GEORGES
Your father, as a boy, refused to let anyone decide for him. Even for a snack.
HÉLÈNE
He hasn’t changed. Look: even now, he’s drawing it out.
CLAIRE
Don’t speak of him in the present that judges, Mum. Not tonight.
HÉLÈNE
Thirty years I’ve lived with this man. I have the right to be tired in front of him, for once.
VINCENT
No one’s judging you. We’re all tired. That’s what a vigil is: you find out how much.
JADE
What I’m finding out is that we’re finally talking. It took this.
GEORGES
It’s often like that, in families. You wait for the last fire to warm yourselves together.
(A silence. You can hear the breathing.)
CLAIRE
Then let’s keep that fire lit as long as we can. Not for him. For us.
VINCENT
… All right. We’ll decide tomorrow. Tonight, we stay. All of us. No watches.
HÉLÈNE
Thank you. That’s the first right thing anyone’s said in three days.
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.