Real and Phantom Pains: An Anthology of New Russian Drama. John Freedman

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СКАЧАТЬ I don’t eat broccoli and I don’t eat carrots and I don’t eat sauerkraut

      MANIAC: It’s easy for me, I’m a vegetarian. I don’t even touch meat

      ORANGINA: I absolutely love carrots

      SNOWFLAKE: You’ve lost weight

      ORANGINA: Ten pounds in a week. I keep getting skinnier and skinnier

      LENOCHKA: There’s something criminal about that

      MANIAC: You just have a complex about it

      SNOWSTORM: But a nun’s habit would become you

      LENOCHKA: What about me?

      MANIAC: You too

      SNOWFLAKE: And me?

      ORANGINA: It would become anyone

      LENOCHKA: And a salad

      SNOWFLAKE: How about shrimp?

      MANIAC: That’s cheating then

      LENOCHKA: Can’t have café glacé

      SNOWFLAKE: Should I have a martini?

      MANIAC: Against the rules

      LENOCHKA: But you know, there’s something to that – abstaining for forty days

      SNOWFLAKE: Fifty

      MANIAC (Closing the menu): Okay, that’s it. Mineral water and black bread for everybody.

      SNOWFLAKE: Only let’s not be fanatics about it.

      (The street. SNOWSTORM leaves the café.)

      SNOWSTORM:

      Today I’m so frivolous,

      Gracious and careless.

      Melancholically dissatisfied with everything

      I sail to meet my fate at midstream

      (BUSHY-TAIL comes walking down the street, leading a dog on a leash. She carries a glossy magazine with her photo on the cover.

      SNOWSTORM heads toward her; stops by his new car.)

      Hey

      BUSHY-TAIL: I didn’t recognize you right away in that cap

      SNOWSTORM: That’s a pretty coat you’ve got. You remember that movie A Man and a Woman?

      BUSHY-TAIL: No

      SNOWSTORM: He’s a race car driver and she goes around in this coat

      BUSHY-TAIL: How’re you doin’?

      SNOWSTORM: I want to buy myself a T-shirt. I want to print a prayer on the back for everybody to read. I’ll write, “Lord, thank You, Lord, for all the beautiful things You have given me.”

      BUSHY-TAIL: That’s cool

      SNOWSTORM (Looking at the dog): That’s a pretty dog. Boy or girl?

      BUSHY-TAIL: Boy

      SNOWSTORM: Yeah... Women are more sexy than men, of course

      BUSHY-TAIL: I don’t know about that –

      SNOWSTORM: Men are more horny, but they’re not as sexy

      BUSHY-TAIL: Animals are smarter than we are

      SNOWSTORM: They don’t get hung up thinking

      BUSHY-TAIL: Yeah

      SNOWSTORM: I love animals. Like Churchill

      BUSHY-TAIL: Me too. Like Brigitte Bardot

      SNOWSTORM (Leads BUSH-TAIL over to his car. Opens the door for her): If I was an animal I’d be a bear. That’s the perfect lifestyle. You sleep half the year.

      (VOLODYA comes out of the café. Looks around. Looks at his watch. Looks at BUSHY-TAIL, SNOWSTORM, the Peugeot.)

      BUSHY-TAIL: Those little bear cubs are so cute –

      SNOWSTORM: Basically, you’ve got to love each other and be cool about it. Main thing is that nobody start a war

      (VOLODYA sees BUSHY-TAIL get into the Peugeot convertible. He takes out his pen and writes down the license plate.

      He stands and watches the car disappear into the distance as if he has gone blind and deaf and keeps going over something in his mind that he experienced long ago.)

      VOLODYA:

      Bones lay in the ground

      Gloom covers the earth

      Everything there was between us

      Has drowned in my heart

      (The café.)

      LENOCHKA (To ORANGINA): When are you coming back to work?

      ORANGINA: I’m not

      LENOCHKA: Why?

      ORANGINA: Do you really want to keep doing all this?

      LENOCHKA (Thinks): Well, yes

      SNOWFLAKE: Of course we do

      MANIAC: As if there were any other choice –

      (Kissing, BUSHY-TAIL and SNOWSTORM race down the road at a break-neck speed.

      BLIZZARD in his jail cell. He’s drawing a tattoo on his shoulder – the face of Jesus Christ in a crown of thorns.

      Dressed in a space suit, MANIAC slips an engagement ring on SNOWFLAKE’s finger.

      SNOWFLAKE in a rose dress, peonies in her hair.

      LENOCHKA is pregnant, she rubs her big belly.

      ORANGINA in a nun’s habit.

      VOLODYA still stands there by the café.

      With a horrendous crash a huge chunk of ice crashes to the ground just inches from him.

      VOLODYA lifts his head.

      The sun is warm.

      Snow is melting.

      Spring has come.)

      The End

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