Name: SMOKESCREENS
SKU: ASC-596
Price: 5.40 AUD
Availability: InStock

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SMOKESCREENS

$5.40 – $15.00

Three short plays about love, lust, longing and loss. "In the Wings" (10 min monologue): a woman waits in the wings as her lover performs a stand-up comedy routine - but who is the real performer? "After Moravia" (15 min two-hander): six months after breaking up, a couple re-enact the scene of their first romantic encounter. "As We Read Samuel Beckett" (50 min three-hander): three lonely hearts meet monthly to read the works of Samuel Beckett - with an unexpected twist. "Smokescreens is mature, fluent and theatrical." Jim Murphy, The Age 9/6/02. "Her quirky wit and flair for energising twists, surprises and odd angles relieves the plays' pessimistic take on popular romantic fantasies." Felicity Bloch, Jewish News 10/6/02.

Form/Style: tragicomedy, drama
Length in minutes: 90
Cast: 3 total
Roles: 1 female identifying, 2 male identifying
Cast age groups: 18+
Audience age: adult
Publisher: Australian Script Centre

MONOLOGUES
PRODUCTION HISTORY

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Sally

Female | 30s | over 10 minutes
Starts on page 3

EXTRACT: You can never tell how the night will go. Scripts, rehearsals, fly out of the window. You need that first laugh, the uncontrollable burst of the bubble.... The waiting is like a death, a drowning in indifference. And when it comes - a resurrection. For him. And for me? A reprieve.

Litvinoff

Male | 30s | under 3 minutes
Starts on page 36

EXTRACT: that day I met you in the supermarket. I had been replacing my library. Two books a week that's all I can afford. Paperbacks. My father had decided that the time had come to expunge all the books in the house....Aristotle, Racine. Dickens. Kafka. Goethe. heine. Rilke - all the poets. There was no discrimination. Beckett. When I entered the room he was attacking the complete works of Shakespeare with what looked like wicked delight. The history plays.

Adult language

Rosa

Female | 30s | 3 to 5 minutes
Starts on page 39

EXTRACT: I have a psychic streak. You drink black coffee and empty the excess - so. Swirl it around three times, upend it, wait for the dregs to unveil their mysteries. Shoes - an invitation. Boats and planes - news from afar. Dogs - friends will contact you. Cats - trouble afoot.

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