Act 1 of Counting Down The Days, by Antony Sammeroff and Finn Townsley (with subtitles for humour)

Aritist: (Excited) Oh so you’ve read Adorno’s On the Fetish-Character in Music and the Regression of Listening.

[Oh, fantatic! You're someone as smart as I am!]

Lush: Yes, indeed, I found it most enlightening, but I have to say Tea-adores reliance on outmoded views expressed in the last instalment of Marxes Das Capital somewhat retrograde. (Cooughs) But speaking of cultural theory, did you not find Sartre’s Nausea expressed a most simplistic view of human angst.

[Yes, slightly smarter, but lets talk about something I know more about than you. I'm feeling angsty but am so emotionally stunted I can only refer to it obliquely.]

Arist: I no longer remember anything of, nor can I comment on Angst. It seems so far away, distant, ever since I met the woman. 

[Sorry dude, can't feel ya, I'm getting laid!]

Lush: A Woman? Singular? Surely the plural would be far more worthy. Why, Would Byron set his heart on one? Was Alexander to be tamed? Would Huxley settle for that ragtag Laura alone? But of course not! A man of letters exists to be loved: if by one, well it is, if by more than one, why even more so. For imagine if a man should conclude to write only, arbitrarily, with the letter D. Such a stunt upon his vocabulary would that bring. And likewise, why should the language of love be so limited, if only for a woman.

[What? Just by that one chick? 99 Problems and a Bitch ain't one! Variety is the spice of life! It's good that one chick is into you, but so much better if more people want to shag you. Why would you give it all up for one woman?]

Artist: But were she a letter she would express all the syllables and more so besides. Had you had seen her eyes, like the sun and moon burning bright within that face of which the cosmos is merely an effigy, then you would surely only begin to fathom the depths of affection that well within my breast. Then you would know, that there could be no other sun and moon that could possibly illuminate, nor capture, the heart of the man that I may hope to one day call the earth that these heavenly bodies humble in their orbit.

[She's the best thing ever! If you saw her face the way I did you'd be like "I wanna tap dat" but you wouldn't even know how much I wanna get with that shit! I'm bangin' her and it's so awesome! Do you know how awesome it is? No, cos you're not bangin' her, obviously, but it's so awesome that I don't wanna bang anyone else, ever! And I just feel so lucky that she wants to bang me too!]

Lush: I have gazed upon those celestial bodies that you declare all too fare, as those common features of her face, and I feel you are too much romanced my friend and all too soon, by those baubles that sparkle, not with the light of the sun but only in the sunlight. I fear you will taste these forbidden fruits, much to your folly, and from the gates of Eden I will have to bid you a sad farewell. 

[Yeah she's got an alright face, but it ain't nothin' to write home about. One the spark dies down you'll be all like Dang! Wish I'd put bros before hoes!]

Artist: If Eden is the price to pay for bliss, then for what? When Eden holds no longer bliss, for that which we dare call Eden pales in comparison to those temptations held without, then of what is this fair paradise Eden reduced to but mere shadows upon the walls opposing the platonic form of Love. But we are excommunicated from Eden only to return to it, perhaps not in body corporeal, but in our ethereal heart of hearts, where we find that very true bliss of union with the god incarnate in man, is in the womb of that fair rose we call the woman. 

[Yeah the stuff we done like drink, philosophise, go out sarging (and bum) was pretty awesome at the time, but bangin this chick is so far beyond all that shit. Infact bangin this chick is the new drinking, philosophising, sarging (and bumming.)]

Lush: Why deny the possibilities of the infinite joys that could exist outwith, for those finite joys that must exist only it the confines of that paltry warmth that is her one. As a great man once said, “Marriage is the tomb of love.” Yes, indeed sex is a battle and love is a war, but would Sun Tzu commit himself to strike on only one front in neglect of all the other affairs of state? “The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,” and you, my friend, will forget her. 

[But there's so much more than bangin this chick to experience. You shouldn't bang her to the exclusion of everything else because when it end you'll feel totally empty.]

Artist: “This soul should fly from me, and I be chang'd
Into some brutish beast! All beasts are happy,”

[Let me feel empty, she be drainin' me dry bro!]

Lush: “For, when they die,
Their souls are soon dissolv'd in elements;”

[Yeah, and when you're dry you'll be nothing.]

Enter Victoria.

Victoria: Fare artist do you await my call? Charming lush are you yet here past the sunset? With tongue so eloquent yet step’d in vicious poison. Away! Lest thy carriage reveal thy true nature, for it is but a pumpkin dressed in grandeur awaiting the stroke of dawn.

[Hey babe, you ready to go? Oh god not you! The sarcy cunt, why don't you fuck off on home.]

Lush: Save they words sweet scented succubus. Do you not see how you have reduced this once great man, in swaddling bands, to worship in the shadow of thy visage. Will you leave him weeping at the gates of hades as you dance back into Pluto’s arms?

[Yeah you're hot but you're still a bitch. You've got him pussywhipped alright. Go to back to Hell and fuck Satan.]

Victoria: Oh how your words wound me like the sharpest bolts of slings and crossbows. Should you feel that the appeal of thy wits are of more allure than eves of mine tender bosom, then let the kind artist decide how better he should spend out those last dwindling hours of twilight.

[Harsh! Well if you think he'd rather hang around gabbin' to you then get down with this, why not ask him what he thinks?]

Artist: Let me not decide! 

[Duuuuude, unfair!]

Lush: ….Dare thee use thy womanhood to seduce? For what do you think you are but Helen come again?! Do not tempt Agamemnon to send his ships for I will besiege the gates of Troy if it means to lose Achillies a thousand times over in the pursuit. Yet till the morrow, have your wicked way, for Odin held trust enough in Loki’s better nature to let him roam free and to fall (to artist, without pause) by his own errors.

[Got him pussy-whipped, huh? You think you're all that and then some? I will go to town on you bitch! But fair enough, if he wants his hole I'm willing to stand back and let it happen.]

Victoria: (mockingly) Then let our paths not cross once more till Ragnarok ensue. Come now gentle artist, turn thy sweet fingers again through these fragile threads and sing of me once more my praises.

[See you in Hell! Come on babe, tell me how much you love me.]

Artist: Yes, a thousand times! A thousand times and yet a thousand more should it please the swooning heart which beats within thy tender breast.

[Sure, I'll do anything for you.]

Act 1 of Counting Down The Days, by Antony Sammeroff and Finn Townsley

This is the kind of thing that Finn and I do when we're up till 9am drinking rum.

Aritist: (Excited) Oh so you’ve read Adorno’s On the Fetish-Character in Music and the Regression of Listening.

Lush: Yes, indeed, I found it most enlightening, but I have to say Tea-adores reliance on outmoded views expressed in the last instalment of Marxes Das Capital somewhat retrograde. (Coughs) But speaking of cultural theory, did you not find Sartre’s Nausea expressed a most simplistic view of human angst.

Arist: I no longer remember anything of, nor can I comment on Angst. It seems so far away, distant, ever since I met the woman.

Lush: A Woman? Singular? Surely the plural would be far more worthy. Why, Would Byron set his heart on one? Was Alexander to be tamed? Would Huxley settle for that ragtag Laura alone? But of course not! A man of letters exists to be loved: if by one, well it is, if by more than one, why even more so. For imagine if a man should conclude to write only, arbitrarily, with the letter D. Such a stunt upon his vocabulary would that bring. And likewise, why should the language of love be so limited, if only for a woman.

Artist: But were she a letter she would express all the syllables and more so besides. Had you had seen her eyes, like the sun and moon burning bright within that face of which the cosmos is merely an effigy, then you would surely only begin to fathom the depths of affection that well within my breast. Then you would know, that there could be no other sun and moon that could possibly illuminate, nor capture, the heart of the man that I may hope to one day call the earth that these heavenly bodies humble in their orbit.

Lush: I have gazed upon those celestial bodies that you declare all too fare, as those common features of her face, and I feel you are too much romanced my friend and all too soon, by those baubles that sparkle, not with the light of the sun but only in the sunlight. I fear you will taste these forbidden fruits, much to your folly, and from the gates of Eden I will have to bid you a sad farewell.

Artist: If Eden is the price to pay for bliss, then for what? When Eden holds no longer bliss, for that which we dare call Eden pales in comparison to those temptations held without, then of what is this fair paradise Eden reduced to but mere shadows upon the walls opposing the platonic form of Love. But we are excommunicated from Eden only to return to it, perhaps not in body corporeal, but in our ethereal heart of hearts, where we find that very true bliss of union with the god incarnate in man, is in the womb of that fair rose we call the woman.

Lush: Why deny the possibilities of the infinite joys that could exist outwith, for those finite joys that must exist only it the confines of that paltry warmth that is her one. As a great man once said, “Marriage is the tomb of love.” Yes, indeed sex is a battle and love is a war, but would Sun Tzu commit himself to strike on only one front in neglect of all the other affairs of state? “The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,” and you, my friend, will forget her. 

Artist: “This soul should fly from me, and I be chang'd
Into some brutish beast! All beasts are happy,”

Lush: “For, when they die,
Their souls are soon dissolv'd in elements;”

Enter Victoria.

Victoria: Fare artist do you await my call? Charming Lush are you yet here past the sunset? With tongue so eloquent yet step’d in vicious poison. Away! Lest thy carriage reveal thy true nature, for it is but a pumpkin dressed in grandeur awaiting the stroke of dawn.

Lush: Save thy words sweet scented succubus. Do you not see how you have reduced this once great man, in swaddling bands, to worship in the shadow of thy visage. Will you leave him weeping at the gates of hades as you dance back into Pluto’s arms?

Victoria: Oh how your words wound me like the sharpest bolts of slings and crossbows. Should you feel that the appeal of thy wits are of more allure than eves of mine tender bosom, then let the kind artist decide how better he should spend out those last dwindling hours of twilight.

Artist: Let me not decide!

Lush: ….Dare thee use thy womanhood to seduce? For what do you think you are but Helen come again?! Do not tempt Agamemnon to send his ships for I will besiege the gates of Troy if it means to lose Achillies a thousand times over in the pursuit. Yet till the morrow, have your wicked way, for Odin held trust enough in Loki’s better nature to let him roam free and to fall (to artist, without pause) by his own errors.

Victoria: (mockingly) Then let our paths not cross once more till Ragnarok ensue. Come now gentle artist, turn thy sweet fingers again through these fragile threads and sing of me once more my praises.

Artist: Yes, a thousand times! A thousand times and yet a thousand more should it please the swooning heart which beats within thy tender breast.


Click here for awesome annotated version!

Counting Down The Days - totally need to turn this thread into some kind of something, a bit Chekhov

Pop on the kettle, I'm headed home.

• • VJ
    I'm sick of your insane demands
    

    
    
  • 
    
    

    See this is exactly why I work late honey, I've just had enough, is it so much to ask that when I come home after a hard days work to put food on the table for you and the kids and make sure you've never wanted for anything in your life that I get a nice warm cup of tea when I get home. Jeez.
    
    
  • VJ
    I've gone apeshit and buried the tea in the garden. Why do you leave me at home all day with these precocious little brats?! I hate their accents and the way they wobble around my living room. I want to be free, FREE to dance and stick class As up my bum! Is it really so difficult for youself-important patriarchal cunts to understand a these basic female needs?
    

    
    

    
    
  • 
    
    

     Now come on darling thats completely unfair, you know I tried my best to support you getting into the academy but it's hardly my fault you had two left feet, I always warned you to practice more or at least take up singing or improv classes to broaden your skill set. As for the kids it's not my fault that you were to coked up in our former years to remember your contraceptive pill, and if they're brats it's only because you always appease them and let them get their own way because you can't be bothered to put your foot down. As for their accents it was your own caprice to leave them with that Romanian house maid, she cost an absolute fortune, but did I say a word about it? No, even when she raided the cabinet for my 35 year old single malts and topped then up with water as though I'd never notice. Horrendous woman she was.
    
    Yes, you made our cold, cold, desolate bed and now I'm the one who has to lie in it. We both do darling, so we might as well make the best of what we've got.
    

     
  • 
    
    

    Alas I remember all to well those endless days when we were young, and innocent and in love and never had to ask anything more out of life than those eternal walks through the park in summer time, our hands clasped inseparably together.
    
    You used to laugh at my jokes back then, however frivolous they were. Now you just snort and make snide remarks.
    
    Ah to be back in those days, when you smiled that glorious smile I knew I gave you butterflies in your stomach, and the mere notion in turn gave me butterflies in mine.
    
    That was before you lost your looks of course. Yes, you let yourself go the moment you cleaned up trading in one vice for another. You no longer felt the need to inspire my attentions clearly, and on the rare occasion you did let me make love to you it was more like going through the motions, putting coins into a machine to keep the music playing, satisfying a basic need. No, there was no love being made then, none at all, but it was at least better than what passes between us now. How was I to guess the woman I worshipped, my sun and my moon and my very northern star, could turn out to be such a soulless, soulless, godless harpy? God forgive me for saying so.
    
    I've turned old, and I'm dull. I've lost whatever limited intelligence I once may have had, and what's more I'm hopeless. Not even I have hope for myself now. I'll never know
    the feeling of what it is to be alive again. Not likely.
    
    I'm just counting down the days now. Counting down the days.
    
    Finn Townsley If you had only listened to me Antony, back when we strolled the streets and the name Victoria had never even entered your mind. A free spirit you were back then, a little dove caught in the up drafts of lust and life. Intelligence and women abundant had you those days, and when the wine flowed free and the fragrant summer air rolled off the hills and made hearts leap and minds soar we would head out unto the town. Drink and dance we did, making much merriment and speaking of lofty things as we enriched the lives of those around us.
    
    Finn Townsley  
    But then, on that fate-full night, when your eyes locked across the room and I felt a piece of your soul go forever. Her stare captivate you my friend, and the man I knew was over come by giddy passion. "Be on your guard dear Antony," I said as we strolled lazy down the banks of the river one afternoon "for she is a pretty poison, a sweet scented devil, and I know you may for now think she is a very goddess come to earth, the Helen of our time. But be not foolish as was Agamemnon, and squander your kingdom for your bride, for there is so much promise in a spirit such as yours, and to see it drained by this harpy would truly break my heart." Ah, if I could turn back time, the things I would have shown you, but alas you were proud and reckless. You shrugged of my concern and day by day waste in front of this opiate of a woman.
    
      Finn Townsley  
    But now, what have you become my friend? The husk of a shell and nothing more, for if what I witnessed done to a great mind is love, then I shall have no part in it! Will this travesty ever again share in the sweet bounty of Eros, as the raven quoth, never more. But my friend there is still time, spare thy farthing from Charon's hand and trade it for an ale instead. Return to our haunts, dear Antony, although we are richer in years, neither you nor I are passed this hills crest yet. We will once again return to the lives of men with a future and goal, a life of freedom and pleasure. Spare not another thought on that harpy Victoria and return to the true companionship of a brother in arms.
    
    
    
    

Client and Hooker

I  "improvised" this in my writing for performance class yesterday during an exercise where you don't know where it's going - every 2 lines are meant to do what whole scene usually does. I fear it's a bit "cheesy" but then again I think here's something in it somewhere, you tell me.

CLIENT:          Uh… Nice place… What, uh, what do we do about the cash?
HOOKER:      I usually jist get them tae put it on the sideboard before we… well, ye know.
CLIENT:          Have you been… doing this for long then?
HOOKER:      Naw, no really, jist a couple months. I need the cash tae get tests done fir ma wean, ken? Find oot who his da is and if he’s… well… awright ah suppose.
CLIENT:          Really? That sounds important, maybe I could….
HOOKER:      …Naw! It’s bad enough awready… bit hanks.
CLIENT:          What? You’re too proud to accept help for your own kid?
HOOKER:      Aye I’m tae proud, I don’t want tae feel I owe any cunt anyhin, now can we jist get awn with it.
CLIENT:          No, I’m not sure any more, doesn’t feel right.
HOOKER:      Right? You didnae come here tae fuckin’ church. You said you wanted tae help, now yer gonnae cheat me oot a huner quid?
CLIENT:         You can take the money anyway, you need it more than I do, I’m off.
HOOKER:      Ye snooty cunt ye, ye sanctimonious fuck, you dinnae gie a fuck aboot me but yer conscience ya bam. Maybe ye should go tae church.
CLIENT:          Oi! I don’t need to take this, not from a fuckin’ whore.
HOOKER:      Aw showin yer true colours now aren’t ye? See what ah mean? You men are aw the same, a wummins no a wummin tae you, she’s someone tae use or someone who needs savin’, no a fuckin wummin.
CLIENT:          Look, I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean it, I was just, angry that… I was just trying to help.
HOOKER:      Well ye didnae. If ye want tae help then ye know what tae do... 

...Lets jist pretend this never happened, ok?