The Play About The Expressionless (8.6.14)

Prompt: One of your characters isn't human. Or else…only one of your characters is human.

Note, this play is based on the urban legend "The Expressionless" which is totally fake but scary as fuck. This is what "The Expressionless" looks like, FYI.

#6: THE PLAY ABOUT THE EXPRESSIONLESS

Scene One

(At rise, it is three in the morning in the middle of a desolate highway. It is pitch black outside. ARCHY, an obese transman with multiple tattoos and piercings, is center. He is listening to the radio while driving a car. The car can be represented however realistically or non realistically as needed--take that as you will. In the passenger's seat is DIONNE, his best friend. She has a super fly outfit--whatever the latest fashion is--and is eating a Veggie Cantana Burrito from Taco Bell. On the radio "Heat Wave" by Martha Reeves and The Vandellas play. Dionne is singing along.

All of a sudden, from the audience enters a tall figure (nearing seven feet). The figure is wearing a white night gown. It has a huge round head (preferably represented with a mask or a paper mache head) with curly black hair that covers their face entirely. It shouldn't look like a living entity from this world. This is the EXPRESSIONLESS. They throw themselves in front of Archy's car, screaming. It is important we never see its face. The Expressionless emanates a strange, deafening out-of-body sound. It can either be a single tone, or a noise so disruptive it would shatter the audience's ear drums)

(Archy abruptly floors it. We hear the screeching of tires. The music stops. Dionne lets out a scream so loud it could wake a deaf corpse. 

The Expressionless approaches the car. It walks like a tyrannosaurus rex with broken ankles. It stares at Archy through the driver's window. Petrified, Archy stares back. The figure hisses at them. Archy, horrified begins to have a panic attack)

ARCHY: oh my god oh my god

DIONNE: what the fuck is this is this even real

(Terrified silence)

ARCHY: what the fuck do we do

DIONNE: i don't know i don't know i don't know i like can't right now

ARCHY: like do i snap chat it or 

DIONNE: no oh my god no uhhh oh my god

(A silence)

DIONNE: ok just stand right still i'm gonna talk to it

ARCHY: ok

DIONNE: ok

ARCHY: wait what no don't do that wait i wasn't paying attention please 

(Dione unbuckles her seatbelt, and ever so slowly gets out of the car. She looks at it right its ugly fucking face. Only, its worse than she ever imagined. She lets out another blood-hurdling scream. She may start crying and/or vomitting. Archy gets out of the car about to get Dionne but then also sees its face and has the same reaction. Maybe even worse. A sudden blackout)

Scene Two

(We are in a hospital, hours later. It is around five or six am. They are talking to a nurse with short black hair. They are talking to Dionne and Archy. Dionne is sitting down in a blanket, shivering. There is a room divider, like the kinds you'd see in a hospital.

NURSE 1: so are you two gonna be ok

ARCHY: i think so

NURSE 1: are you sure

ARCHY: we can make do i'll take a cab she just has a fever im sure with some rest

NURSE 1: you're sure though

ARCHY: …we don't um, have health insurance right now i don't want to go into specifics but

NURSE 1: well with obamacare--

ARCHY: i can't afford to stay i'm sorry (to Dionne) cmon baby let's go home

(She nods. They exit. The Nurse sighs. They unfold the divider, to reveal The Expressionless, asleep in bed. The Nurse goes to change its IV, but then The Expressionless finally rises and we see its horrible face to us. It looks like a deranged china doll. It has large, hallow black pupils, a delicate nose and terrible dagger-like teeth drenched in blood. In between its jaws is a dead cat. It drops the cat on the floor. The Nurse shrieks and begins to cry like a human*, and another Nurse with a short ponytail rushes in)

NURSE #2: pat pat pat

(They then see the atrocity before them and also begins to scream. Heavy metal music blasts. A strobe light effect. The Expressionless manipulates the Nurses like puppets. The Nurses mouth the following words)

EXPRESSIONLESS: i…am…god

(A long silence. Then some slow laughter from the Expressionless, which grows into an exaggerated, menichical cackle. It rises fully to the ceiling, and a blinding light floods the stage. The Nurses rise as well. Sudden blackout)

End

*This stage direction brought to you by Dan Roeder (side note, I always see things asterixed and then nothing to follow up with it. Like if you're not going to elaborate on why you put an asterix and just put one for no fucking reason????? I also don't like it when people don't close their parenthesis