Stephen Metcalfe - Writer & Director

White Man Dancing premiered at The Old Globe theatre in 1987. It was directed by Thomas Bullard.

Scene 1

DELL
I am going to die someday. I wake at night and feel the shadow pressing down. The incomprehensible foreverness of it. We end the day as we begin the day. Alone.
(a beat)
Stuart, I just don't know about this as an audition piece.
STUART
You're doing great.
DELL
I mean, I appreciate you offering to let me work with your stuff. I appreciate it. But I kinda have the feeling that when I walk in for an audition, people think I'm kind of a negative guy to begin with. Don't ask me why but this is true. And so this piece, while a very worthwhile piece, is not the right piece for me.
STUART
I was just trying to help.
DELL
I mean, the piece moves me, Stuart, it really moves me, it's just...
STUART
What?
DELL
It moves me to want to slit my wrists, that's all. Look, Stuart, what's the story. I mean, I know you, I've read all your work. You're a romantic guy, an optimist. You always think well of things in this nieve but enjoyable sort of way. It's why you're doing so well writing movies.
STUART
My plays seem to be getting away from happy endings.
DELL
People love happy endings.
STUART
I seem to be getting away from happy endings. This is going to be my most successful play.
DELL
Well, good, I hope so.
STUART
Casting, however, will be of the utmost importance. This play needs actors.
DELL
So few do.
STUART
You could be one of those actors, Dell. Having worked on this scene, you will have the inside track not to mention my favor.
DELL
A production of this play, is it definite?
STUART
It's... semi-definite.
DELL
There's interest?
STUART
There's... apparent interest.
DELL
Will this be in or out of town?
STUART
We don't know yet.
DELL
I don't want to miss pilot season.
STUART
It's a job.
DELL
I have first refusal on several national commercials.
STUART
We are talking a definite equity job.
DELL
The play needs work.
STUART
I have faith in you, Dell, have faith in me.
(a moment)
So are you interested?
DELL
Stuart, no offense but your stuff always gets done twice. The first time I usually do it for no audience for free. The second time I pay thirty bucks for a ticket so I can sit in the front row and mouth the words with the guy on stage. I'm just trying to protect myself, that's all.
STUART
I understand.
DELL
If the opportunity presents itself and I'm available, I'll consider it.
STUART
That's all I can ask.
DELL
I mean, it's not a statement I'm trying to make, it's a living. I've got to look for a job tomorrow.
STUART
You mean... a real job?
DELL
Tuesday was my last unemployment check. I'm going to miss unemployment. Every week I get to hang around in a slow moving line with all the other actors in New York.
STUART
Unemployment should have an Equity deputy.
DELL
Being broke is like being impotent, Stuart. You know it's not entirely your fault but still you don't feel like a man.
(DELL IS SILENT. A MOMENT. STUART MOVES TO THE KITCHEN COUNTER. HE GLANCES IN THE PAPER BAG.)
STUART
Hey, you went out and got some stuff, huh?
DELL
What I could. I figured I should.
STUART
No, don't worry about it.
(STUART BEGINS UNPACKING THE BAG AND PUTTING THINGS AWAY.)
STUART
The Korean-Jewish deli two blocks up Amsterdam is the best. They carry everything and they cash checks. Some of them don't speak English so you have to be careful though. I once asked for Muenster, they very cheerfully gave me headcheese. Stay away from the bodega on the corner. It's a madhouse. Toothless old ladies sitting on crates counting green bananas. Snake eyed guys with scars by the register. Dobermans with scars by the door. I've been going there for a year they still won't hand me my change.
(a moment)
Dell?
DELL
Huh?
STUART
You okay?
DELL
Probably not.
(a moment)
I don't know if Bonnie and I are gonna work this thing out, Stuart. Right now she wants me back. But I don't know if I want to go back. And by the time that maybe I do want to go back, maybe then - and I can't blame her for this though I know I'm gonna want to - she might not want me back anymore.
STUART
You still love her?
DELL
Real estate seems much more important than my feelings. I'd like a place to live.
STUART
You're not imposing. I want you to know that. You stay here as long as you want.
DELL
Till the end of September maybe.
STUART
As long as you want.
DELL
Buddies.
STUART
Unless, of course, Sandy comes back.
DELL
Sandy is thinking of moving back?
STUART
She might be.
DELL
You've talked?
STUART
Sort of.
DELL
What does that mean, sort of?
STUART
These days we're speaking different languages.
DELL
She's... implied that she might be moving back?
STUART
Not necessarily in so many words. But sooner or later I'm confident she will.
DELL
Why would you ever think this?
STUART
I read between the lines.
DELL
(it ain't gonna happen)
Stuart...
STUART
Yeah?
DELL
Look, Stuart...
STUART
Huh?
DELL
...correct me if I'm wrong here, but most of the time you and Sandy were living together, you very often gave me the impression you two weren't getting along.
STUART
Well... yeah.
DELL
So.
STUART
So I guess somewhere in between trying to figure out ways to ask Sandy to leave I must have gotten very use to having her around because when she finally did leave?
DELL
Yeah?
STUART
I begged her not to go. I didn't know, Dell. I didn't realize.
DELL
Realize what?
STUART
That loving someone is not necessarily a couple of big feelings but rather a whole lot of small, not so obvious ones.
DELL
That's good. You ought to write that down.
STUART
I already have. I mean, two people, huh?
DELL
Hey.
STUART
The days go by. Sometimes you find yourself thinking, is this my life? Is this what it is? Is this who it is?
DELL
Hey.
STUART
Lying there at night next to her, sometimes all of it, the routine, the sameness, it all crystalizes in her. Maybe if she were different, you would be different. Things would be different. Better. You wonder. But then she's gone. And it's then you realize what you had. It's then you realize that what you were feeling had nothing to do with her and everything to do with you. But now it's too late to tell her. She's gone.
(a beat)
That's good too. I better write that down.
(scribbling)
... too late to tell her... she's gone.
DELL
Moved in with the bartender she'd been screwing on the side all along.
STUART
That I don't think I need to write down.
(THE PHONE RINGS. THEY BOTH STARE AT IT, STARTLED.
DELL
If that's for me, I'm not here.
STUART
(answering the phone)
Hello?
(BONNIE ENTERS, HOLDING A PHONE)
BONNIE
It's me.
STUART
Bonnie, hi! - uh, Bon? Dell's not here.
DELL
Give me the phone, Stuart.
STUART
Bon? Guess who just walked in?
DELL
(taking the phone)
Hi, Bon.
BONNIE
Hi. How you doing?
DELL
I'm okay...
BONNIE
How was your night?
DELL
It was okay...
BONNIE
Mine was a bitch and I blame you for it.
DELL
...okay.
BONNIE
I want us to see the counsellor.
DELL
Aw, Bonnie...
BONNIE
We need to.
DELL
No...
BONNIE
Why not?
DELL
I don't want to.
BONNIE
Why?
DELL
Because I don't.
BONNIE
I already made the appointment.
DELL
Unmake the appointment. Look, I gotta go.
BONNIE
Why?
DELL
Because I'm busy. I'll call you.
BONNIE
Dell -
DELL
I'll call you!
(HE HANGS UP. BONNIE EXITS. SILENCE.)
DELL
That was... Bonnie.
STUART
Yeah.
DELL
She wants us to see a marriage counselor.
STUART
You gonna?
DELL
We already tried it once.
STUART
It didn't help?
DELL
No. Bonnie talked me into it. I mean, this guy, he shares his waiting room with about twelve other shrinks, right? So it's like a Greyhound station filled with morose guys, distraught women and schizoid kids. Is there something to read? No. Smithsonian, Scientific American, crap like that, as if these guys want us all to know how smart they are and we're not. So we go in. The counselor, he wears comfortable shoes, smokes a pipe and smiles a lot and I don't trust him. I mean, I'm looking at the walls to see if he got his degree at the University of Central Casting. Bonnie, of course, loves him. She thinks he's sensitive. Bonnie thinks anyone who agrees with her is sensitive. She loves it. She complains for 45 minutes, cries for 15 and then pays the guy a hundred bucks and tells him it's been the most positive experience of her entire life.
STUART
A hundred bucks?
DELL
Bonnie's old man took care of it.
STUART
You didn't talk at all?
DELL
The guy, he asks me to come back alone next time. So I do. I sit there. He asks me if I want water.
STUART
For a hundred bucks it should at least be a coke.
DELL
The counselor, he says to me, he says, what's wrong, Dell. It's like he thinks we're buddies and I'm going to like, confide in him. What the fuck, I tell him, I don't know, I'm unhappy. He nods as if he knows what I'm talking about. Let's try to fix that, he says. Fine with me, I say, give me the money Bonnie's Dad is paying you and I'll be a little happier by tomorrow.
(a moment)
He says I obviously have a lot of anger in me. A lot of bottled up hostility. No shit, I mean, who doesn't? The guy is one for one. And then, I kid you not, it's just what you expect, he asks me about my parents. Do I like'm, do they like me, do they get along? Like it's his business.
(STUART MOVES TO HIS DESK, OPENS A DRAWER AND TAKES OUT HIS CHECKBOOK.)
STUART
You like your parents, Dell?
DELL
Not particularly. I love'm. Lately I just don't like'm. They don't understand why I have a hard time talking to'm on the phone.
STUART
Why do you?
DELL
...they lied to me. All the time. Always pretending everything was so great between'm. Never talking about it when it wasn't. My mom running to the bedroom, crying. My Dad so pissed off he can't even see straight. And then everybody acting like it didn't happen. My parents gave me everything but honesty.
(STUART SCRIBBLES A CHECK, TEARS IT OUT, CROSSES AND HANDS IT TO DELL.)
DELL
What's this.
STUART
Three thousand. You pay me back when you can.
DELL
(a moment)
I'll pay you back when I can.
(a moment)
Stuart. Thank you.
STUART
You're going to do this play, Dell. I promise.
DELL
(happily)
I am going to die someday. I wake at night and there's a shadow sitting on my face. The day is done as the day is done. Ending. The aloneness is... alonable beyond... beyondness.
STUART
Buddies.