PAIR (excerpt) by Kate Pressman

CHARACTERS Maggie: Female, 20s, college-educated American girl working as an au pair. Jean: Female, 20s, college-educated American girl working as an au pair. Her: Female, 30s CASTING NOTE Maggie and Jean are not the same race. They shouldn’t read as sisters. SETTING A tiny room in the eaves of a Swiss chalet in the mid 1960s. Servants’ quarters constructed in a time when the class structure was utterly impregnable, bowing just slightly to post-war optimism. Two single beds. A nightstand between them. A radio. A lamp. Little else. The characters never enter or exit except were noted. The scene changes should have the feeling of film cuts. The radio is omnipresent. PRESHOW Music in French, German, Italian mid century hits and snatches commentary from soccer games of the era, commercials, news, any English is faint and BBC proper, and static, lots of static, constantly shifting as a restless listener winds the dial. If there must be a preshow announcement then it’s in the tone of a cigarette ad of the time, chopped up and interspersed with the other sounds. Preferably in French. The room goes dark. The sound contracts.