Love Letter ❤️ 🐾
A five-minute play in one act
I just came upon two one-act plays I wrote years ago. I wrote these plays as a fun and challenging writing exercise after coming upon submission guidelines for a couple of short play festivals. The plays had to be one-act and no more than five minutes (or ten minutes for one festival), with minimal characters and a simple set.
My first one-act play, The Elevator, ended up being a finalist at the Fringe Festival of Marin in 2013. That was a pleasant surprise. My other play, Love Letter, was submitted to a five-minute play festival with “love letters” as its theme.
I thought I’d share Love Letter as a fun little post, since Valentine’s Day is around the corner. It’s short, silly, and fictional, but inspired by a real event in my own life. (I was the ex-girlfriend in that scenario; and it wasn’t a special day or card; it was a phone call. I’ll leave it at that.)
Happy Valentine’s ❤️ to one and all! Be they two-legged, four-legged, tripawd, winged, or gilled . . . you get the drift.
Love Letter
CHARACTERS
JOE: Mid-forties, wearing shorts and a tee shirt.
SANDIE: Mid-thirties, wearing jeans and a tee shirt.
Stage Center is JOE sprawled across a couch that faces the audience. He watches an opened laptop on a coffee table in front of him. We hear the muted sounds of a baseball game. Next to the couch is a side table with framed photos on it. One large frame, in the shape of a bone, holds a close-up photo of a dog’s face. Another frame holds a photo of JOE and SANDIE with two dogs (one dog is from the bone frame). They are on a beach and the dogs are wet and dirty.
SANDIE walks in from Stage Right, holding a pile of envelopes in hand. She goes to the couch to plop down beside him and he moves his legs so she’ll fit. She sits and starts looking at the envelopes. She comes to a red envelope and stops cold, her whole manner freezing up.
SANDIE: I don’t believe this. I don’t believe this.
JOE: What? (He is still watching the game on the laptop.)
SANDIE: She wrote a card and addressed it to the dogs. Can you believe that? Jesus Christ. Who does she think we are?
(JOE leans over to click on the laptop and the baseball sound mutes. SANDIE looks at the card in her hand).
JOE: What are you talking about?
SANDIE: Look at this. It’s a card addressed to Duke and Bunkey. She is unbelievable!
(JOE extends his arm to take it. SANDIE looks at him with anger, almost accusingly, holding the card away.)
JOE: What, you’re holding me accountable? I haven’t even seen the damn thing. Let me see it.
SANDIE: Fuck you. If she’s going to write a card to this household, I should be able to read it too.
JOE: You will! Mellow out, Sandie. You’re getting all freaked out over nothing.
SANDIE: She’s obviously not over you.
JOE: Hand it over. (He motions to SANDIE like a parent does to a child who is holding something they shouldn’t have in their hand. SANDIE hands it to him and folds her arms, intently looking at him.)
JOE: You know, it’s not that weird. I’m sure she misses them.
SANDIE: Oh, c’mon!
(JOE opens the envelope as SANDIE continues looking at him with arms crossed, defiant. He looks at the cover and kind of smiles. This infuriates her.)
SANDIE: Are you going to show me? What’s so fucking cute?
JOE: Check it out. (JOE leans over for SANDIE to look at it. She leans over to look. No smile.)
JOE: Do you see that the other pair of legs isn’t boots? It’s a pair of paws. It’s a woman’s boots next to two paws.
SANDIE: Very cute. (No smile.)
JOE: Do you want me to read this out loud?
SANDIE: Yes. I do.
JOE: Okay. (He opens the card). “Dear Duke and Bunkey, Happy Valentine’s. I miss you!—"
SANDIE: Pu-leease.
JOE: “—I think about you all the time. Your sweet faces and your silly grins. I know that you live in a new house and you go to the beach all the time. I’d love to see pictures of you—"
SANDIE: I bet she would. This is so bogus.
JOE: Maybe she does miss them.
SANDIE: Yeah right. I think we both know what she misses. This isn’t a card to the dogs. for chrissake. This is a card to you and we both know it, so don’t pretend it’s all innocent and sweet and cute because it’s fucking obvious.
(SANDIE stands up and brushes at her jeans nervously. JOE sighs and looks back at the card, reading to himself.)
SANDIE: That’s the card someone writes to a lover. Not to a dog. Get a grip. It’s like a sophisticated form of harassment.
(JOE has stopped reading the card and is putting it back in the envelope, but SANDIE grabs it from him, opening it to read it for herself, as if distrusting his disclosure of the full content.)
SANDIE: (In a whiny tone) “Tell your daddy to send me pictures?” Makes me sick. I hope you aren’t sending pictures. (Pause.) Are you in touch with her?
JOE: No. I have nothing to do with this. It’s Valentine’s Day and she’s writing to her dogs.
SANDIE: Oh my. She’s a sick girl. (She puts the card down on top of the other letters on the side table, next to the framed photos.) I mean, get a grip girlfriend. No one sends their dogs Valentine’s Day cards.
JOE: You did.
SANDIE: I did not!
JOE: You sent them a card, and you know it.
SANDIE: Don’t try to make this seem normal, Joe. She’s a twisted girl who is quite clearly trying to work it . . . and from the looks of it, she’s succeeding.
JOE: When you were still living in Ojai, you sent Bunkey a card.
SANDIE: I know I did. But it was also meant for you. Anyone knows that dogs can’t read.
JOE: Well, I think Jen just misses her dogs and this is her way of doing something about it. She wants pictures.
SANDIE: I don’t know what you’re doing here, but I don’t like it. This is a huge difference. This is your ex-girlfriend, Joe. She’s supposedly in love with someone else, but she sends you a Valentines’ Day card. It’s to you; don’t deny that.
JOE: No. It’s to Duke and Bunkey. There’s nothing in there directed to me, Sandie.
SANDIE: The whole thing.
(SANDIE opens the card and reads it again. She does this so swiftly and angrily that she knocks over the bone frame photo, so she leans over and picks it up and holds it with her other hand as she spouts out the contents of the card again.)
SANDIE: (Whiney tone). “Tell your daddy to send me pictures.” That’s directed to you, my friend. Why are you pretending this is no big deal? She sent you a Valentine’s Day card.
(JOE leans down and clicks on the laptop. We hear baseball sounds again.)
SANDIE: Turn that off.
JOE: Why? (He’s frustrated now.)
SANDIE: (Motioning with the dog frame photo). I said turn that off.
(JOE leans over and turns it off and looks up at her for the next barrage of dialog. He sees her holding the framed photo.)
JOE: (starts to laugh) Look at what you’re holding there, Sandie.
(SANDIE looks at the photo and shakes her head as if ‘so what’ and puts it down on the table.)
JOE: You made that for Bunkey’s birthday. You had her open it up with her teeth. Right? (He’s getting a kick out of this).
SANDIE: I love how you’re trying to turn this around.
JOE: Well, did you?
SANDIE: You know that’s different.
JOE: Yeah, you wrapped the present and gave it to her, with an actual bone as I recall, and had her open it. Do you think she knew what the hell was going on?
(SANDIE is trying not to cave in and smile, so she just stands there, keeping her composure.)
JOE: Come on, Sandie. It’s just a card from Jen to her dogs. She misses them. Where are they anyway? Have you seen them?
(They both look around.)
SANDIE: Aren’t they sleeping in the bedroom? (SANDIE walks to SL as if peering around to another room. She quickly walks back toward JOE, slightly anxious.) They aren’t in there.
JOE: What do you mean they aren’t in there?
SANDIE: They aren’t in there.
(JOE rises and rushes to put his shoes on.)
JOE: Shit. Did you leave the gate open when you got the mail?
SANDIE: No! I would never do that.
(JOE rushes off SR. We hear his voice off stage.)
JOE: The gate is open! I’m going to look for them! Buuunky! Duke! C’mon girls!
(SANDIE dips behind the couch and we hear tinkles and chains. She comes back up with a leash, a whistle around her neck, a chew toy, and a bone.)
SANDIE: (Starts to cry.) Aw fuck. Please God don’t let anything happen to them. Please God. I love those girls more than anything. Please God. (She rushes off SR. We hear her voice off stage.)
SANDIE: Hey sweet girls, it’s your mama! Where are you? C’mon, Bunkey! C’mon, Duke!”
(We hear a whistle and the stage goes black.)
I enjoyed this enormously! A witty slice of life that covers so much within its contained structure. Brava!!