act The Acto app

High Water

A tragedy for three voices, in four acts

  • Chamber piece
  • Tragedy
  • 3-character play
  • 1 woman, 1 man, 1 either
  • 75 min
  • Advanced
  • Ages 12+
PDF Word Free, no sign-up

Synopsis

One night in March, the Vionne is rising faster than forecast. In the council chamber at Pontvieux, the mayor has to decide before dawn whether to open the spillway on the south bank: to flood the Aulnes plain to save the town. Her mother refuses to leave the family house, in the middle of the plain. Her brother, the levee engineer, presses her to open it without being willing to say why, and Camille, on duty tonight, has a father on the other side of the water.

The council chamber of the town hall in Pontvieux, a small town on the river Vionne, on the night of the 25th to the 26th of March, the present day.

Casting

559 lines
  • MARTHE Female role, Senior 61, mayor of Pontvieux for twenty-five years; her mother lives on the south bank, in the house where she grew up.
  • SIMON Male role, Adult 52, her brother, engineer in charge of the levee for twenty-one years.
  • CAMILLE No gender marker, Young adult 24, on duty at the town hall tonight; grew up on the Aulnes plain, where Camille’s father keeps cows.

Contents

  1. Act One: Eleven P.M.
    • Scene 1
    • Scene 2
  2. Act Two: Midnight
    • Scene 1
    • Scene 2
    • Scene 3
  3. Act Three: Half Past Three
    • Scene 1
    • Scene 2
    • Scene 3
  4. Act Four: Dawn
    • Scene 1
    • Scene 2
    • Scene 3

Excerpt

Act One: Eleven P.M.

Scene 1

(The council chamber of a small town hall. A long table, chairs, a flag. On a separate table, a radio, a landline, a large open register. On the wall, a map of the district, cut in two by a river. Rain on the windows.)

(Camille is writing in the register. Marthe stands in front of the map, her mobile to her ear. Very far off, a phone ringing and ringing.)

CAMILLE

Eleven p.m. Bridge gauge: five metres fifty-eight.

(Marthe lowers the phone. The ringing stops.)

MARTHE

She’s not picking up.

CAMILLE

Maybe she’s asleep.

MARTHE

She’s not asleep. She hasn’t slept for years. She listens to the radio in the kitchen till three in the morning. She heard it ring. She looked at the phone, she saw my name, and she put another log in the stove.

(She puts the mobile down on the table.)

MARTHE

Moulins?

554 more lines, 15 scenes

The rest is waiting in the file.

Open the PDF Word

Free, no sign-up · 40 A4 pages

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.

Everything about these texts →

The same text, elsewhere

Close to this one