The Actress by Peter Quilter

Author:Peter Quilter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

ACT TWO

Scene One

(On “the stage”. A second excerpt from “The Cherry Orchard” in the same setting as the first scene. LYDIA playing LUBOV, the CHARLES actor as LOPAKHIN, the PAUL actor as GAEV. The performances played facing upstage, except for LYDIA who is regularly caught in profile)

LUBOV. I’ll wait sitting here for a moment more. It’s as though I had never truly noticed what the walls and ceilings of this house were really like. I’ve never even glanced at them for more than a moment. And yet now I find myself looking at them so greedily, devouring them, and feeling such tenderness and love…

GAEV. I remember, I must have been about six years old, and one Trinity Sunday, I sat at this very window, I can see it now so clearly, watching my father going to church…

LUBOV. Has everything been packed away?

LOPAKHIN. Yes, everything has gone, I think.

LUBOV. And we shall be gone too, not even a human soul remaining behind.

LOPAKHIN. Until springtime.

GAEV. (Deeply moved, almost in tears) The train…the station…

LUBOV. Come – it’s time – we must go!

LOPAKHIN. Yes! Until the spring. Until we are together again!

(LOPAKHIN exits. LUBOV and GAEV are left alone. They fall into each other’s arms and sob restrainedly and quietly, fearing that somebody might hear them. In this embrace, which is maintained through the following dialogue, GAEV faces upstage and LUBOV /LYDIA faces downstage)

GAEV. (In despair) My sister, oh my sister…

LUBOV. And so we stare at these walls and windows for the final time… My mother would love to walk so gently and silently around this room…

GAEV. My sister, my sister!

LUBOV. My dead, my sweet, my beautiful orchard! My life, my youth, my happiness… Goodbye… Goodbye!

(Lights fade out on the scene and gently rise on the dressing room)

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