Status Updates From The Violet Hour: A Play

DENNY. (Overlaps.) From the instant you saw me, you wanted to undo me—
JOHN. That's nonsense, Denny—
DENNY. (Overlaps.) —because everything I have is /mine/, and everything you have is inherited—
JOHN. (Overlaps.) I can't make you understand—
DENNY. (Overlaps.) This— this /friendship/— this /mockery/—
ROSAMUND. Denny—
DENNY. This seduction—

JOHN. It would be— Cassandra—

JOHN. I must have sounded insane to you on the phone—
JESSIE. No.
JOHN. How could I not?
JESSIE. Anything that causes dread makes sense to me.

/After a moment, he hums a chorus of "Que Sera Sera"... or rather, a chorus of "Que Sera Sera" hums itself/ through /him./

Gidger? (Beat.)
We all sound alike.
I thought we were each unique.
I held our distinctions in such high regard. I thought our nuances were essential.
I can't hear them anymore.
When I read them... I don't hear them.
We all sound the same. (Beat.) We sound like the past.

JESSIE. Oh yes — the little thing you brag to yourself about.
The tiny violence that violates nothing.

JESSIE. It's not enough to be famous to a few dozen drunks in evening clothes who condescend to worship me.
I want my life known. I want to publish my life. I want to nail it into people's heads.

And those who aren't dead are young. [...] Jess...?
I feel so sure about things—
JESSIE. About what things?
JOHN. I don't know. That's the odd part.
I haven't a clue what will /happen/... but I know it will be /right/...

— you have made sadness famous.

in this tower above a canyon—

DENNY. John! (John looks up; Denny, then, quite softly and seriously:) You invented the world—why don't you know how it works?

JOHN. And you fled.
DENNY. And I fled—
JOHN. And you thought—
DENNY. And I thought:
This is what's waiting; the rest is unreal.
JOHN. But then—
DENNY. But then I saw that it had rained again, lightly, and the rain had cooled the air and puddled the street with these tiny, skittish oil paintings, and I wasn't hungry anymore, and my body didn't ache, and I thought yes—
and I thought no—
and I thought yes—

DENNY. Don't pin the failures of Walt Whitman on me, John—

GIDGER. See it? Oh, I have no interest in seeing it. Seeing it might get in the way of my opinion.
JOHN. (Affectionately.) How do the arts survive with you watching them?