Dear Elizabeth by Sarah Ruhl

Author:Sarah Ruhl
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780374711986
Publisher: Faber & Faber

ACT TWO

Part One: Skunk

LOWELL

P.S. The last part is too heatedly written with too many ands and so forth. The record is French Renaissance Vocal Music.

She takes the record.

Love,

Cal

She puts the record on.

She picks up a pen.

She tries to write.

She stops and crumples the paper.

She tries again.

SUBTITLE: 115 East 67th Street, New York, August 28, 1957

BISHOP

Dearest Cal:

I wanted to answer your wonderful letter right away … but …

She stops.

Meanwhile he climbs a ladder.

But we’ve been so busy … And I’m apt to be interrupted at any moment by my Brazilian friends returning from Bloomingdale’s.

LOWELL

Asking you is the might have been—

BISHOP

I don’t know how Lota does it, really; I hate to shop so.

A moon appears.

LOWELL

—the other life that might have been had—

He reaches the top of the ladder and tries to grab the moon.

The moon won’t budge.

BISHOP

New York is awful I think.

LOWELL

I am sure it is the will of the heavens—

BISHOP

After racking my brains I just this minute decided it is like a battered-up old alarm clock that insists on gaining five or six hours a day & has to be kept lying on its side.

LOWELL

So it is …

BISHOP

I do hope you’re feeling much, much better, Cal, and realize now that I may not have written a very cheering letter.

She is not cheerful.

With lots of love as always—

Elizabeth

She puts her head in her hands.

He jumps off the ladder.

Or appears to jump off a ladder.

But maybe he just disappears into thin air.

The record ends.

He reappears.

She looks up.

LOWELL

I want you and Lota to know that I am at last in reverse. I am taking my anti-manic pills—75 mgs. of sparine, no more than what my doctor prescribed on the bottle but too much to drive or even see people much. The effect is something like the slowing and ache of a medium fever.

I want you to know … Oh, dear, I wanted you to know so many things …

Yesterday was mostly bed and letting my beard grow. Today I feel certain that I am not going off the deep end.

One is left strangely dumb, and talking about the past is like a cat’s trying to explain climbing down a ladder. Gracelessly, like a standing child trying to sit down, like a cat or a coon coming down a tree, I’m getting down my ladder to the moon. Ask Lota to forgive me. And forgive me yourself, dear old friend. I’ll make no solo descents on you either in New York or Brazil.

He walks to her and gives her a book.

A rare volume of George Herbert that was in his family for many years.

P.S. The George Herbert! I’ve really always wanted you to have it. I’ll be mortally hurt if you don’t keep it.

BISHOP

Thank you for the book. This is the first time I’d ever gone traveling without George Herbert so it is nice to have him again—even if I feel you really really shouldn’t have given it away. I’ve been reading him a lot—

LOWELL

Thy mouth was open, but thou couldst not sing—

BISHOP

I think we should read his “Treatise of Temperance & Sobriety” out loud to each other.

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