Agony

Sekou Sesay // junior pen & graphite

Reflection Isabelle Duncan // junior // script

Warm lighting opens on an empty stage except for a divider in the middle of the room mimicking a bathroom mirror with a woman and her reflection. The woman and her reflection have olive skin and wavy black hair. Each are wearing a flowing white dress that sits still with their stagnant bodies, staring at each other. There is a vanity below the “mirror” with a hairbrush and a bottle of red wine sitting carelessly on each side of the split divider. The two subjects stare at each other.

Reflection: “Did you know?”

Woman: “I-”

Reflection: “Did you even know what you were doing? Do you ever know what you’re doing?”

Woman: (stuttering over words) “You know I- I try, I’m…sorry.”

Reflection: “God, please save it. Why can’t you be normal? Honestly, how hard is it to just sit down, have a decent conversation, and for God’s sake maybe even look someone in the eye?”

Woman: “It’s more difficult than that, you know.” (Gripping the edges of the vanity and leaning into the “mirror”.)

Reflection: (She pauses and chuckles jarringly as she tucks a silken curl behind her ear.)

“You sit alone on the subway. Looking frantically left and right to see if there is even one soul staring back at you with pity. You haven’t been out of the house, unless you go to the grocery store, in weeks. Why did your “lifelong friends” vanish? What is wrong with you? What the hell is wrong with you?” (increasing aggression)

The woman stares without blinking. The blank stare pierces the mirror into her reflection. Each of her hands are crumpled into tight fists. Her long fingernails prick her palms with the anger that is welling inside of her. The reflection of the woman is now leaning all of weight into her hands against the vanity. Her face, alarmingly close to the mirror.

Reflection: (scoffs) “I mean honestly think about it. You don’t even know what you’re doing with your life. You’re 23 years old and yet you still fall back into your childlike ways. Except you’re not even a good daughter anymore! When’s the last time you went and saw Mom and Dad? Actually took time out of your day to even give them a call. (laughing to herself) You’d think that’s the least you could do! And now what? You’ve dropped out of college, wasting all of their money on a useless dream, and you can’t even give our mother a single phone call to explain what you are going to do with your life?!”

The woman, now eyes welled up with tears and gripping at her dress, cocks her head at her reflection. Without breaking eye contact, the woman firmly clutches the carelessly set wine bottle that sat on the vanity. Without hesitation she adjusts her hands to the neck of the bottle and smashes it into her reflection. The spotlight that was once on the woman’s reflection goes pitch black and all that is seen is the single woman standing with a broken bottle in her hand. Glass shatters into pieces on the floor as red wine floods into the bathroom sink, as well as dripping down her white flowy dress.

Woman: Why would I waste my life away searching for my purpose in it?

The woman drops the bottle to the ground and silently observes as it smashes into the floor. She looks out into the audience, breaking the fourth wall, with a confused glare. The stage lights dim to darkness.