SANGUINE SONATA
©2001 PADDY GILLARD-BENTLEY

PLAYERS: Vincent and Anna. An interesting couple.

SETTING:  An eclectic apartment.  A couch, coffee table and a place for drinks are the minimum requirements.

TIME:  Current day.  Pre-dawn.

Vincent enters the apartment laughing.  He falls onto the couch. Moments later, Anna enters angry.  She slams the door.

ANNA: Are you out of your mind?

VINCENT: For as long as you’ve known me!

ANNA: That man saw you, Vincent!

VINCENT: But did you see the look on his face.  Almost as surprised as when he looked down and realized he had pissed his pants.

ANNA: As soon as he figures what you did to his wife... (sigh)  Why do you always have to go for the young ones?

VINCENT: Because unlike you... they taste young.

ANNA: Bastard!

VINCENT: Ah…but the ultimate complement for the sovereign of all bitches.

ANNA: Fuck you.

VINCENT: But you’ve lost interest in that, haven’t you?  Oh you go flaunting yourself, teasing those poor men until they almost explode with desire for you and then like with me…nada.

ANNA: Oh I have men...other men.

VINCENT: But, Anna...how can you not desire me?  My lips have sipped every inch of your skin...a thousand times.

He whispers something into her hair.  Her body writhes.  He chuckles.

VINCENT: Look ma!  No hands!  (beat) I know your body better than you do.  In the beginning you couldn’t...

ANNA: Back then, you did not stink of every slut you’d ravished.

VINCENT: No...just one.  (beat) Besides...you don’t seem to mind them when you and I share the night’s spoils.

ANNA: Vincent. I can’t do this anymore.

He moves to embrace her.

VINCENT: Ah...Anna.  You always...

She puts her hand up as if to say, Don’t.  Touch. Me.

ANNA: I – don’t - want - to be with you anymore.

VINCENT: Our lives are rich.  Think of the wonderful things you’d be missing.

ANNA: Are you kidding?  Look at us! Every night the same...your carousing...your women...the fighting....

VINCENT: Anna, you and I...we are not such a bad thing.

ANNA: No...not a bad thing.  An empty thing.

VINCENT: Ah.

ANNA: Vincent...I miss being in love.  Being loved.

VINCENT: And what would you do without me?  I made you.  You can’t just...

ANNA: YES!  (beat) I can!  You know I finally understand I can, and I will. (pause) This time it’s different. I just don’t want to be.

VINCENT: Be?

ANNA: I – don’t - want - to...be.

VINCENT: Oh.  I see.

He turns away.

ANNA: Yes.  Vincent, I have never had the same passion for life that you have. I know you will never understand that.

Long pause.  He smiles. The audience knows she is wrong.

VINCENT: I want you to know, I have loved you all these years, Lucianna... in spite of things I might have done to hurt you.

ANNA: I know, Vincent.  It’s just been...too long.

They stare at each other.  Finally, Anna looks away.

VINCENT: Then I will be by your side when the sun rises and we shall bequeath our lives together to the daylight.

He gets a bottle of red wine from an ice bucket, and two glasses.

ANNA : You would do that?  For me?

VINCENT: For us.  Drink?

Anna nods.  Vincent pours two glasses of wine as he speaks.

ANNA: But you could...find...another...

VINCENT: No! No one could understand the way you do.  Perhaps life has become too consuming.

ANNA: Perhaps we are consuming too much life.

VINCENT: Perhaps. (beat)  Things between us were not always unpleasant, Bella.  We have seen wonderful things in our lives.  Been to places most people can only dream of.  We have observed history, from box seats.

He gives Anna the glass.

ANNA: Yes...we have. Salute.

VINCENT: Salute...

They clink glasses and drink.

VINCENT: Anna...do you remember the night we met?

She looks at him astonished.

VINCENT: It was very late.

She shakes her head.

VINCENT: Autumn had fallen on Venezia.

ANNA: All this time you’ve refused to talk about that night, and now you want to reminisce? To walk down memory lane?  How stupid do you think I am?

VINCENT: If this is to be our final night...

ANNA: I know what you’re trying to do, Vincent.

VINCENT: I was walking beneath Ponte Dei Sospiri.  (pon-tay day-ee soss-pee--ree) The air was crisp and cool that night, do you remember?

ANNA: I am not going to let you do this to me.

VINCENT: The mist from the Canal Grande (eel kah-nahl grahn-day) wrapped around me like a phantom cloak. (beat) And then...the hunger.

She is captured here...but still resisting.  She says no, as if it is yes.

ANNA: No.

VINCENT: I tasted a pulse.  (beat)  So I began to walk...accelerando.  Hunger compels beyond usual limitations; beyond despair.  Neither the stench of the canals nor the dark shadows of the church looming over me could dissuade me.  What does God know of hunger?

Pause.  He looks up.

VINCENT: Music.  There.  From one of the...elegant salons, and I pause.

Pause.  As they continue their accents become more evident.

VINCENT: Do you hear it? Drifting down from the open doors of the terrace...a frenzied refrain.  Someone is playing Liszt.  It might be Liszt himself who creates that well bred laughter that spills over me like a disease and only serves to taunt me.

ANNA: But you have always adored Liszt.

VINCENT: It isn’t the music. I have been in that place.  Now...I stand here listening, stealing their music...outside their salon...outside their world. (pause) The thirst augmented, demanding to be quenched.  The incessant beating of the primitive drums pounded in my head.

ANNA: It’s like that for me too.

VINCENT: It’s like that for all of us. (beat) Now...allegretto.  I find myself racing through dark tunnels - dank and musty caverns of death... always striving to prolong sinister existence.  Seeking the warmth of a beating heart.  Your heart.

ANNA: It was too late in the night for a lady to walk alone.  The streets of Venice could be perilous.  Then, I was measured by none to be a lady.

VINCENT: No...I don’t suppose you were.  I have such elegant tastes.

Vincent chuckles.  She glares.  He stops.

ANNA: I stopped. Far away, someone was playing Liszt.

He looks.

ANNA: Yes...I heard it...coming from a world more civilized than the one I knew. (pause) When I first became aware of you, your footfall was in time with mine.  I turned left thinking to take the tunnels for no one ventures there but the well-fed rats of the stinking city.  I held onto the purse that dangled from my belt.  Not to safeguard my night’s wages, but the sound of the coins seemed like a beacon through the darkness, summoning something evil.

VINCENT: It was music to me.  (beat) The cadence of my feet resound to your rhythm...double time.

ANNA: I speed up, desperately calculating the distance to the end of the tunnel.  It’s too far, but...

VINCENT: You run anyway.  The taste of your fear is on my tongue.

ANNA: Your steps increase to match my pace.

VINCENT: Your heart is calling to me.

ANNA: Panic rises with the bile in my throat.

VINCENT: The smell of fear mingles with your sex.  (beat)  Like now.

ANNA: Yes.

VINCENT: When you stop to catch your breath...

ANNA: I hear nothing.

VINCENT: Your terror is deafening.

ANNA: I have felt fear’s breath on my face before.

VINCENT: Yes.

ANNA: Its yellow rotting teeth dripping with venom.

VINCENT: Pretty.

ANNA: Its sharp talons ripping at my soul.

VINCENT: You knew.

ANNA: Yes.  I reach deep inside, to find the courage to turn around.

VINCENT: Holding your breath.

ANNA: I turn to face it...you.  When I do...nothing.

VINCENT: I embrace your confusion.

ANNA: I turn back.

VINCENT: The scream smothered in your throat.

ANNA: You are so near I can feel your rancid breath on my face.

VINCENT: Yes.

ANNA: Wondering how this splendor...

VINCENT: Can belong to a mortal man?

ANNA: Yes.  And then you smile...a smile so sweet and so vicious.  One that confirms my suspicions.

VINCENT: In that moment, you were perfect beauty to me.

ANNA: I move away from you...

VINCENT: Until the damp wall caresses your back with its rough surface.

ANNA: I have known many men with hands like that.

VINCENT: The soft colour of your cheeks...the heat of your breath.  With my eyes, I consume you.

ANNA: The intensity...

VINCENT: I can feel the warmth coming from your skin...the milky white skin of your...

The previous and next lines over lap.

ANNA: Your gaze is fixed upon the rise and fall of my...

VINCENT & ANNA: Breasts.

VINCENT: Not the rise and fall, the exquisite flutter.  The tiny waves that move across your breast. Evidence of what lies beneath. (beat) The rhythm spoke to me.

ANNA: You stare. I’m grateful when you finally tear the bodice of my dress...and place your mouth there.

VINCENT: Bel Canto.  Such sweet resistance...

ANNA: Until your teeth sink into me.

VINCENT: Flooded by the warmth I yearned for...

ANNA: You drink from my breast like a babe.

VINCENT: Every swallow exact to the rhythm of your heart...syncopation. (beat) Sanguine sonata.

ANNA: You hungrily drank my soul.

VINCENT: You were a willing vessel.

ANNA: Yes. (long pause) What made you...

VINCENT: Stop?

ANNA: Yes.

VINCENT: That night, my singular intention was to feed...one final time – appassionata.  And then await the dawn.

ANNA: Oh...Vincenzo...I-I didn’t know.  You...

VINCENT: You never asked.

She moves to speak.  He cocks an eyebrow.  She doesn’t.

VINCENT: That moment was the purest joy I have known.  I had never taken a woman that way...nor since.  When I drank the life from you Lucianna, when I felt the heat of your blood on my tongue...I tasted your soul.  I knew your fear, your passions.  There on my lips was the cheap wine you drank the day before. I smelled the bakery downstairs from where you lived.  So hungry for life, I even savoured the taste of the lover you had that evening. The melancholic songs you sang when you were alone vibrated through my body and I realized, in that moment, that I could survive this life...if I had you.

Long pause.

ANNA: And for nearly a hundred and fifty years I have been powerless to die.

VINCENT: You believed you were powerless to die.

ANNA: (pause) Vincent, will it be...painful?

VINCENT: For a moment...I expect.  Are you afraid?

ANNA: No. (beat) Yes.

Vincent glances out the window.  He smiles.

VINCENT: Soon, my Love.  The darkest hour, invariably, precedes the dawn.

ANNA: What do you think there will be...afterward?

VINCENT: Quiet sleep.

Vincent offers her his hand.  He walks to the coffee table and sits, pulling her to him.

ANNA: That will be nice.

She looks into his eyes.

ANNA: Why can’t it just be like this...us?  Why must we be ruled by the hunger?

VINCENT: It is our way.

ANNA: Vincent?

VINCENT: Yes?

ANNA: I’m not ready.

VINCENT: I know, Bella.  .

He draws her close to him and kisses her, etc.  She becomes lost in the pleasure.

VINCENT: All these years and only the moon has prevented the sun from reducing these two menacing souls to ashes.

They laugh.  She looks out the window.  She freezes.

ANNA: Vincent?

VINCENT: (mumbling) Mmmm?

She struggles to get away.

ANNA: OH MY GOD VINCENT!

He looks out the window.

VINCENT: Oh shit.

He puts his arms around her, his head against her breast, and holds her close.  The sun shines through the window.  They are consumed by smoke, or something equally spectacular.

Blackout.

~End of Play~

It is at this place where I remind you it is illegal to produce a play without the agreement of the playwright. © Paddy Gillard-Bentley

Pictures of the performance June 20003 The King Street Theatre

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