A Script for A Dire Script

[SCENE START]

**INT. REHEARSAL ROOM - DAY**

A cavernous, cold room that smells of damp plaster and old dust. Rain PATTERS against a tall, grimy window, the only source of a bleak, grey light.

The room is a graveyard of forgotten productions. A faded poster for a children's clown show is tacked to a peeling wall. A stray prop shoe lies abandoned. An old coffee cup, its contents a dark sediment, sits on the floor.

CONNIE (30s), sharp, her wit a finely-honed weapon, sits at a long, battered table. She traces a fingernail over an ink blot on a script.

TERRY (30s), his kind eyes clouded with anxiety, slumps opposite her. He wears a threadbare, oversized jumper, pulling at a loose thread on the cuff. He stares at the same script—*Beneath the Willow’s Waning Shadow*—as if it’s a venomous snake.

The rhythmic THUD of the rain is the only sound for a long moment.

<center>CONNIE</center>

> (Without looking up)

> Seriously, what even *is* the Crimson Weave?

Her voice is dry, a rustle of dying leaves.

Terry continues to pull at his jumper. His voice is a flat, deadpan drone, utterly devoid of hope.

<center>TERRY</center>

> I believe, and I use the term ‘believe’ with the utmost generosity, it’s a genetic predisposition to… catastrophic tea spillages. Or possibly a penchant for wearing too many brooches at funerals.

He pauses, taking a weary breath.

<center>TERRY (CONT'D)</center>

> Or, the dreaded, unspeakable, family curse that binds the descendants of Dame Genevieve to the abandoned manor, forcing them to reenact the ancient ‘Feast of the Fading Harvest’ every autumn under threat of… well, it’s never explicitly stated, but I assume a rather aggressive fungal infection.

Connie lets out a sharp, unladylike SNORT. She flips through the script, the pages GROANING in protest.

<center>CONNIE</center>

> No, no, that’s the ‘Willow’s Waning,’ darling. The tea spillages are a separate, equally vital plot point in Act Two, Scene Four, after Great-Uncle Bartholomew attempts to seduce the governess with a marmalade tart.

She stops on a page, tapping it with a definitive finger.

<center>CONNIE (CONT'D)</center>

> The Crimson Weave, if my meticulous analysis of this steaming pile of literary detritus is correct, is the psychic connection between the eldest daughter of each generation and the ghost of a particularly judgmental badger.

Terry slaps the table. A dull THUD. A forgotten pencil rolls off the edge.

<center>TERRY</center>

> A badger? You’re telling me… we’re doing a play where the central conflict of the family saga, the very essence of the Orinthia family’s tragic destiny, hinges on the spectral opinions of a subterranean mammal?

He fights a laugh, but it escapes anyway—a desperate, breathless HUFF. He shudders, rubbing his arms.

<center>TERRY (CONT'D)</center>

> This theatre is freezing.

<center>CONNIE</center>

> (Finally meets his eyes)

> Well, it’s either that, or it’s what happens when Oliver consumes too much artisanal Kombucha before writing. Both scenarios are equally plausible, and frankly, equally terrifying.

The name—Oliver—hangs in the air. Terry shudders again, a full-body tremor this time. The memory is a cold, slick thing.

<center>TERRY</center>

> Do you remember his note about the… the *subtlety* of the ancestral portrait?

He pushes himself up, pacing the small room. His steps SCUFF loudly on the worn linoleum. The floorboards CREAK.

<center>TERRY (CONT'D)</center>

> He said, ‘The portrait of Patriarch Orinthia must convey the weight of a thousand years of quiet desperation, without *actually* showing any desperation. It should *feel* desperate, Terry. You must *become* the desperation of the ages, in the paint strokes.’

<center>CONNIE</center>

> (Shaking her head)

> And then he demanded it be painted on a bedsheet with watercolour. Because, and I quote, ‘authenticity demands the medium mirror the family’s crumbling finances, even if their manor has solid gold faucets.’

They fall silent. The weight of the script presses down on them. Terry stops pacing, his gaze falling on the grinning clown on the old poster. At least that production knew what it was.

His voice drops. The banter is gone.

<center>TERRY</center>

> We have to salvage it. We can’t… we can’t let this be our defining moment. Our artistic epitaph. ‘Here lie Connie and Terry, buried under the weight of a spectral badger and a tragic tea ceremony.’

Connie leans forward, elbows on her knees, the script tented between them. Her voice is soft, but sharp as broken glass.

<center>CONNIE</center>

> We lean into the absurdity. We exaggerate the pauses. We make the melodrama so utterly, unequivocally over-the-top that it becomes a commentary on melodrama itself. A meta-tragedy. A post-modern family saga.

<center>TERRY</center>

> (Intrigued)

> A commentary? So, when your character, Aunt Seraphina, says, ‘The blood of the Orinthias runs thick with ancient sorrow, a river of tears flowing into the sea of forgotten vengeance,’ I don’t just say it. I… I *caress* the words? I let them hang in the air, dripping with such profound, unearned gravitas that the audience starts to question reality?

A mad spark ignites in Connie’s eyes.

<center>CONNIE</center>

> Exactly! And when Dame Genevieve’s ghost, your character, flits across the stage for the ninth time to warn us about the rising humidity and its effect on the ancestral tapestries—

<center>TERRY</center>

> —because she’s obsessed with textile preservation, apparently—

<center>CONNIE</center>

> —you don’t just *flit*. You flit with the existential despair of a woman trapped in an eternity of damp fibre. You make it a *choice*. Every nonsensical line, every baffling plot twist, we make it a deliberate, artistic choice.

A slow, dangerous smile spreads across Terry’s face.

<center>TERRY</center>

> So, the scene where Cousin Thaddeus reveals his lifelong passion for collecting antique thimbles, causing the entire Orinthia estate to shudder under the weight of his secret shame… I could play it like he’s confessing to ritualistic murder.

He demonstrates, staring wide-eyed at an imaginary spot in the corner of the room, his face a mask of profound agony.

<center>TERRY (CONT'D)</center>

> All the pauses. All the intense eye contact with the audience.

<center>CONNIE</center>

> (A theatrical swoon)

> Oh, absolutely. And when Grandmother Elspeth, my other character, discovers the family’s hidden cache of stale shortbread, which Oliver insists is the ‘true catalyst of the Orinthia downfall’…

She shudders, genuinely repulsed.

<center>CONNIE (CONT'D)</center>

> I will play it like I’ve uncovered the Ark of the Covenant, weeping tears of genuine, soul-crushing despair over the crumbling crumbs. The smell of those crumbs, Terry, that *stale, sugary, deathly* smell, it will be the scent of our damnation!

She drops her voice to a gravelly, theatrical whisper, mimicking their unseen director.

<center>CONNIE (CONT'D)</center>

> He said the ornamental cabbage must ‘resonate with the silent screams of generations of thwarted love.’ And also, ‘it needs to be crunchy.’ The crunch, he stressed, was paramount for the dramatic impact of Act Three.

Terry nods, solemnly. He runs a hand through his messy hair, a gesture of exhaustion and sudden, desperate inspiration.

<center>TERRY</center>

> The crunch. So, when Cousin Thaddeus, after his thimble confession, takes a bite of said cabbage, it has to sound like a thousand souls being crushed under a giant boot. I can do that. I can make that crunch sing with the agony of a thousand years of an oppressive family lineage.

A fresh wave of panic hits him.

<center>TERRY (CONT'D)</center>

> And the reviewers? What if they just think we’re bad actors? What if they don’t get our… our *subversive brilliance*?

<center>CONNIE</center>

> (Waving a dismissive hand)

> Then we blame Oliver, obviously. We lament his ‘bold, uncompromising vision’ which ‘unfortunately transcended the boundaries of immediate comprehension.’ It's a classic move. It’s what he *deserves* for making us suffer through lines like…

She closes her eyes, reciting from memory with perfect, pained clarity.

<center>CONNIE (CONT'D)</center>

> ‘My heart, like a forgotten well, thirsts for the dew of your unspoken affections, yet only finds the bitter sediment of ancestral grudges.’ I mean, honestly.

Terry GROANS, pinching the bridge of his nose.

<center>TERRY</center>

> That’s the line I have to say to *your* character, in the ‘forbidden garden’ scene. The garden of… what was it? Regretful hydrangeas?

<center>CONNIE</center>

> (Without missing a beat)

> No, that’s Act Four. The garden is ‘The Garden of Unrequited Parsnips.’ Remember, the parsnips symbolise ‘the root of all evil.’

<center>TERRY</center>

> Ah, yes. The parsnips. Of course.

Their eyes meet. An unspoken agreement solidifies. They are in this together.

<center>CONNIE</center>

> (Clapping her hands)

> So. Act Three, Scene Two, ‘The Disclosure of the Grandfather Clock’s Ghastly Secret.’ The one where your character, Dame Genevieve, possesses the grandfather clock and speaks through its chimes, revealing the family fortune is in… antique spools of spider-thread.

<center>TERRY</center>

> The spider-thread. Oliver said, ‘The chimes must convey the inherent *stickiness* of familial obligation.’ How exactly does one make a clock chime *sticky*?

<center>CONNIE</center>

> We will find a way.

She walks to a cleared space marked by masking tape and strikes a pose.

<center>CONNIE (CONT'D)</center>

> And the chimes, Terry, the *chimes*. They need to *lament*.

Terry muses on this. He stands. His body goes stiff. He begins to mimic the slow, mournful swing of a pendulum, his arm rising and falling in an exaggerated, mechanical rhythm. He makes a low, humming sound, attempting to emulate a ‘sticky’ lament. He looks utterly ridiculous.

Connie watches him, a faint smile on her lips. A glint of shared, collaborative joy.

Suddenly, a strange, metallic SCRAPING sound echoes from the corridor outside. It grows louder, accompanied by a MUFFLED GROAN.

Connie’s smile vanishes. Her eyebrow arches.

<center>CONNIE</center>

> What in the name of Oliver is that?

Terry stops his clock-mime, his eyes widening in horror.

<center>TERRY</center>

> Oh, gods. Please don’t tell me it’s the ancestral portrait. I can’t handle a twelve-foot watercolour bedsheet today. Not after the parsnips.

They both turn towards the door, bracing for the next wave of madness to arrive.

[SCENE END]