Featured Playwright of June 2023
Welcome to the Featured Playwright of June 2023! This month we are delighted to have Lee Franklin and his play "Today, Tomorrow, the Rest of my Life..." .
Mr. Franklin lives in the Portland, ME area and has acted and directed in countless productions over his career, both as an amateur and professional. He graduated from UConn in 1974 with a BFA in theatre and lived/worked in NYC for nearly ten years. In just the past 4 years, Mr. Franklin has earned 1st, 2nd Place and Finalist designations for his one-act play, The Sea Nest, 1st Place and a People’s Choice Award for another one-act play, Just Playin’, as well as Finalist designations for Isaac, a two-act documentary play and The Thesis, a two-act drama. Recently produced works are the aforementioned Just Playin’ at the Tyler Civic Theatre Center in Tyler, TX, along with two of his short plays SAM at the Phoenix Stage Company in Oakville, CT and Today, Tomorrow, the Rest of my Life at the Know
Theatre in Binghamton, NY. He is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild.
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(Duplication or distribution of this script is strictly prohibited without the express
written permission of the Playwright).
Today, Tomorrow, the Rest of My Life...
By Lee Franklin
Copyright 2022
All Rights Reserved
Synopsis: One man’s reflection.
Characters: A male in his mid sixties.
Set Requirements: None, a bare stage.
Time/Place: The present.
(Playwright Note: As the setting is a bare stage, the piece would undoubtedly be
enhanced if we feel as if it plays out in black and white).
(A man in his mid sixties, dressed in a black suit with an open necked white shirt, sits at
D.S.C. in a pool of cool light. After a slight pause, he begins speaking).
It’s beautiful, bordering on erotic.
The clinking sounds in the glass.
(He motions).
Two perfectly formed ice cubes falling from just the right height, landing so as not to
break.
(He looks down and forms his hand around an imaginary glass).
The base of the glass is just the right weight as it fits like so, perfectly in your hand.
(He mimes pouring from a decanter into the glass with his other hand).
18-year-old pouring in smooth rivulets from a vintage Thomas decanter.
Swirling, surrounding, enveloping the ice as 86 proof meets the cold in complete and
utter rapture.
(He holds up the imaginary glass to the light).
And there it sits, in all of its splendor.
(He ever so slightly licks his lips).
Beckoning. Pleading with me to come inside its warmth once again.
(He lowers his hand, letting go the imaginary glass and gazes out over the audience).
I’m an alcoholic.
Today, tomorrow, for the rest of my life.
I’ve been sober three-hundred-sixty-four days, 23 hours, forty-four minutes...
(Looks at his watch).
...and 50 seconds. At the stroke of midnight, it will be one year of sobriety.
And, honestly?
I don’t know if I can make it.
Maybe you can help me?
Maybe if I could explain why?
(Shifts gears).
I was born David Christopher Blane to parents Howard and Arlene.
They were good people. Dad worked in the local brass mill and Mom taught fifth
grade English. Middle-class folks, anything but pretentious.
I was told by Mom and Dad that I was a good baby. Didn’t fuss, wasn’t colicky, slept
through the night.
Come to think of it, wouldn’t that be something now? To sleep through the night?
(Closes his eyes for a second).
Oh, how I wish...
But I digress.
(He continues).
When I was 4 years old, my sister, Amanda, was born.
I loved her with all my heart, right from the beginning.
Our childhood was filled with laughter and games. There were toys and oh, my god,
the stuffed animals.
Her favorite was this pink elephant she named Ellie. My favorite was Gus, the Panda
bear.
I don’t know...I wonder where...? I guess it doesn’t matter, anyway.
But. My. Sister. Mandy.
Beautiful hazel brown hair, big puppy brown eyes, smooth alabaster skin. We were
two peas in a pod. We talked like each other, walked like each other, loved to do the
same things together.
She was my soul mate.
And so full of life. We would tease each other mercilessly and chase one another
around the house until Mom and Dad would blow a gasket.
We’d pretend to be remorseful, of course, but underneath? We found it hard to hold
back the giggles. And for that, we found ourselves standing in corners facing walls as
our consequence.
Suppressing our giggles as we did.
We were as tight as could be, the two of us. I was her big brother. Her knight. Her
protector. She was my Mandy.
We thought that nothing could tear us apart.
Until it did.
(He looks down and reaches for the imaginary glass, but then stops for a moment,
gazes out at the audience and after a long pause continues).
It was one of those clear, starlit winter nights in New England. It had turned cold
again after a few unseasonably warm days.
There had been a light snow earlier in the evening and as I looked out my bedroom
window in my pajamas, the full moon cast a shimmering, iridescent light over the
landscape.
I could feel her warmth as she sat down next to me.
Once again, Mandy had snuck into my bedroom as she often did after Mom and Dad
went to bed.
We sat together quietly for a few moments, transfixed by the scene outside.
Then at the same exact moment, we looked at each other and without so much as a
word, we knew what we wanted to do.
You see, there was this pond...
There was this pond nearby our house where she and I loved to skate.
Mom and Dad would never know, after all, they were asleep down the hall.
We got dressed and ever so quietly tiptoed out of our rooms. Once downstairs, we
bundled up in our winter jackets, our pants, hats and boots, closed the front door
behind us and set out with our skates slung over our shoulders.
We laughed as we ran, stopping only to try and outdo each other making snow
angels in the fluffy whiteness.
When we reached the pond, we could see that the dusting had covered the ice like a
thin blanket and it seemed as if the fallen snowflakes danced and glittered in the
bright moonlight.
She laced up first, took off before me and I watched as the snow swirled up around
her as she skated to the middle of the pond. Once there, she turned back and yelled
at me, “What’s wrong with you, Mr. Clumsy, don’t you know how to tie your skates?”
I was getting ready to yell something back, but then I heard a sound. An awful,
otherworldly sound.
I saw her face, clear as could be in the moonlight and it had this look of surprise, of
bewilderment.
She looked down and around her, then back up at me. And while I’m sure it was
barely above a whisper, I heard her say, “David?”
And then she disappeared from sight.
Oh, god, oh, god, she fell though the ice! There was a century of complete and utter
silence. I didn’t know what to do.
Then she surfaced and yelled “Help! Help, me David!” I yelled back, “I’ll come out to
you. I’m coming! I’m coming!”
With one skate fully laced and the other loosely tied, I half skated, half scrambled to
within about 20 feet of her.
She kept yelling, “David, David, I can’t get out! It’s so cold! It’s so cold!”
“I’ll get you, Mandy, I’ll get you! Just hold on.”
But I had to stop. I heard cracking beneath me. I couldn’t see it because of the light
snow cover, but I could feel myself start to sink.
And then I panicked. I fell back and felt a rush of cold water on my legs and back. All
I could think was “I can’t die here! I can’t die here!”
I was somehow able to turn over on my stomach and I began to crawl as best I could
back toward the shore.
All the time, hearing my sister cry my name, “David, help me, don’t go, help me!
David, please!”
(He covers his ears).
“I can’t listen, I don’t want to die, I need to save myself.”
“David, no, no, no! Don’t let me drown!”
“Oh, god, oh, god!”
Somehow, someway, I made it back to shore, totally out of breath and all I could do
is burst out crying.
Through the haze of my tears, her calls to me began to sound muffled and distant
and I yelled to her, “I’ll be back, Mandy, I’ll go get Dad! I’ll be back!”
“No, David! Don’t leave me! David!”
“I have to, I need to go get Dad!”
I threw off my skates and didn’t stop to put my boots on. I ran like I had never run
before back to the house.
I could still hear her distant cries as I ran. I’ll never, ever forget the sound.
I got back to the house and ran upstairs.
“Dad, Dad, help, help! Mandy broke through the ice and she can’t get out!”
Dad and I raced back together, but I didn’t hear her anymore, even though we both
called out her name several times as we ran.
When we got to the edge of the pond, we could see the hole in the middle of the ice
where Mandy had fallen through. All that was there in the moonlight was a slight
rippling of the water.
She was nowhere to be seen.
My Dad got down on all fours and crawled as best he could until he could go no
further. I saw him slump down, gasping for breath.
I could only sit on the shore, crying my eyes out. Helpless. I felt so helpless.
How could this be? My beautiful Mandy was gone. And I had saved myself? Why?
Why couldn’t it have been me and not her?
Why, Lord, why?
(He takes a moment to collect himself).
That was midnight. Fifty years ago, tonight.
How’s that for a toast?
(Somewhere in the blackness surrounding him, a clock begins to slowly chime towards
midnight as he raises the imaginary glass again, slowly, ever so slowly, however, this
time, his hand is quivering. He raises it as if making a toast to the audience and stops
in the moment, a look of pain on his face. As the clock strikes 9, the light on him begins
to fade to black as we listen to the final 3 chimes).
THE END
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Thanks for reading this month's featured playwright! Come back next month for more works by talented writers.
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