The Scary Question premiered on February 6, 2004, at Annex Theatre in Seattle, Washington, as part of their monthly cabaret series Spin the Bottle. The cast was as follows:
| LINDA | Shannon Kipp | |
| BRIAN | Wayne Rawley |
CHARACTERS
BRIAN: Linda’s boyfriend.
LINDA: Brian’s girlfriend.
SETTING
Linda’s living room couch.
NOTE
A double asterisk (**) in a line means the person with the next line should begin speaking.
AT RISE: LINDA and BRIAN are sitting on the couch, LINDA at one end and BRIAN at the other. LINDA is reading some document for work. BRIAN is flipping through his own book or magazine. BRIAN is having trouble concentrating and looks nervously up at LINDA a couple times before speaking.
BRIAN: Question.
LINDA: Hm?
BRIAN: Question.
LINDA: What question.
BRIAN: For you.
LINDA: Question for me?
BRIAN: Yes.
LINDA: Are you okay?
BRIAN: (Defensive.) Yes!
LINDA: Okay.
BRIAN: I need to ask you a question.
BRIAN: How long have we been together?
LINDA: Eight months.
BRIAN: That’s right!
LINDA: I know!
BRIAN: You like ’em?
LINDA: Huh?
BRIAN: You like ’em, the eight months?
LINDA: Of course.
BRIAN: Me too.
LINDA: Good.
BRIAN: Hell, yes it’s good!
LINDA: Okay.
BRIAN: Okay.
(They go back to reading.)
That’s not the question.
LINDA: I’m supposed to read this for work.
BRIAN: I’m distracting you?
BRIAN: Because I don’t want to distract you—
LINDA: No. That’s okay. There is something on your mind. I want to know what it is.
BRIAN: I love you.
LINDA: I love you too.
BRIAN: When did we first say I love you?
LINDA: Um, four months ago.
BRIAN: Right!
LINDA: I know—
BRIAN: You knew!
LINDA: That’s right.
BRIAN: Four months!
LINDA: You cried.
BRIAN: I was happy!
LINDA: So was I!
BRIAN: Okay!
LINDA: Okay.
BRIAN: Eight months, four months.
BRIAN: Me either!
LINDA: Good.
BRIAN: Good does not begin to describe it.
LINDA: Okay.
BRIAN: Okay.
LINDA: Okay.
BRIAN: So—
LINDA: Honey, please just ask your question!
BRIAN: I’m sorry!
LINDA: What?
BRIAN: I just—
LINDA: What.
BRIAN: This isn’t exactly easy—
LINDA: What isn’t?
BRIAN: It’s important, and I’m just not sure …
LINDA: Oh, my God. Brian. Stop it. Is it bad? You’re scaring me.
BRIAN: It’s scary. I’m scared to ask it—
BRIAN: Okay! So I’ll just ask it. Then. Okay.
(He gets down on one knee next to LINDA.)
LINDA: Brian?
BRIAN: Linda, I wanted to ask you this for so long … What would you do if the Zombies attacked?
LINDA: What?
BRIAN: What would you do if Zombies attacked. (Pause.)
LINDA: I’m sorry, **I don’t know what you mean.
BRIAN: The Zombies. If they attacked. What would you do?
LINDA: What Zombies are you talking about?
BRIAN: Any Zombies—any and all Zombies. A horde of Zombies** from the cemetery, whatever—
LINDA: Horde of Zombies?
BRIAN: What I’m asking** is this—
LINDA: This is what** you wanted to ask me?
BRIAN: Should the proper set of circumstances align, be they atmospheric, environmental, chemical, industrial, viral, biological or supernatural that caused—
BRIAN: THAT caused the crazed, unholy and recently deceased to rise from the grave in search of succulent human flesh—
LINDA: Gross!
BRIAN: Yes. You’re right. It is gross. Nevertheless—what would you do?
LINDA: Why are you asking me this?
BRIAN: Because it’s important—
LINDA: No it isn’t.
BRIAN: YES! It is!
LINDA: Why is it important?
BRIAN: Because I love you and you know what? I really do love you—and I want … I hope … that is to say, I’m ready for our relationship to … move. To the next level—
LINDA: You want to get married?
BRIAN: Whoa, wait a minute; you’re asking me to marry you?
LINDA: I thought you were asking me to marry you!
BRIAN: I was asking about Zombies!
LINDA: Brian! What do you mean next level!
BRIAN: The next level! The level—above the current level!
BRIAN: Ah-hah—Well, okay, you know, I’m not sure. I’m afraid—
LINDA: Of Zombies?
BRIAN: Well, you didn’t come to Zombie night.
LINDA: You’re mad about Zombie night.
BRIAN: I’m not mad—
LINDA: You said it was okay that I didn’t come to Zombie night!
BRIAN: It was—
LINDA: You said you didn’t mind if I skipped Zombie night!
BRIAN: (Finally, as if it has been bothering him for days.) Well, why would you want to skip Zombie night? It was awesome! We watched Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Return of the Living Dead and Return of the Living Dead II, which sucked I admit that, but Return of the Living Dead was awesome and why didn’t you want to come?
LINDA: I don’t like Zombie movies.
(Pause.)
BRIAN: Wha? **What do you—
LINDA: I don’t like Zombie movies.
BRIAN: That doesn’t register with me, that—
BRIAN: That doesn’t compute. **Don’t like them?
LINDA: No, You’re getting it right. I. Don’t. Like. Zombie. Movies.
(Pause.)
BRIAN: What?
LINDA: Brian, this is ridiculous!
BRIAN: No, it is not! No it is not ridiculous!
LINDA: They are gratuitous.
BRIAN: It happens to be a very viable genre.
LINDA: They are disgusting.
BRIAN: They ARE quite often a very pointed and highly savvy commentary on the mindless consumerism of late seventies, early eighties Middle America.
LINDA: No they aren’t!
BRIAN: Zombie movies are my life!
LINDA: No they aren’t!
BRIAN: No! That’s not totally true, they aren’t totally my life, but I love them! I love them, Linda! I love them!
LINDA: Okay! Great! I’m glad you love them! Love them! I love modern dance!
LINDA: See! See! I don’t like Zombie movies, you don’t like modern dance!
BRIAN: No! No! That’s you—That’s a diversion! That’s you trying to create a diversion!
LINDA: You have lost your mind!
BRIAN: It’s true I have! I have lost my mind. When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I ask myself is “I wonder if she is going to smile today,” and when I think that, I smile. And if I do something, in the day, that makes you smile? And you smile? And I see you smile? I die. Every time. Because, and I am being honest, I do not think there is anything more beautiful that has ever existed in the world than you smiling. All I want out of my life is to maybe see that most beautiful thing in the world just once a day. But, and I am also being honest—I have great fear about making it work with a woman that has no Zombie plan.
LINDA: A Zombie plan.
BRIAN: A small amount of thought given to a possible plan of escape should the dead rise from the grave and begin to walk the earth.
LINDA: Brian, I don’t have a Zombie plan.
BRIAN: I know. I’m sorry. I’ve ruined everything. It’s too soon—It’s too—I’m sorry. I’ll go.
LINDA: You’re leaving?
LINDA: Flamethrowers.
BRIAN: What?
LINDA: Do we get flamethrowers?
BRIAN: (Sad. She just doesn’t get it.) No. A flamethrower won’t do us any good. They’re Zombies. They’re not gonna stop just because they’re on fire. By the time they are burned enough to become incapacitated, they will already have eaten your brain.
LINDA: What about grenades?
BRIAN: Hand grenades?
LINDA: Yes.
BRIAN: No. The collateral damage would **be too massive.
LINDA: What does that mean? **Like blowing up the house?
BRIAN: Like blowing up yourself, these Zombies **are like right outside—
LINDA: Okay. So what if I’ve got a flamethrower—
BRIAN: Linda, you can’t—
LINDA: Listen, I’ve got a flamethrower, you grab the aluminum baseball bat out of the hall closet. You stand at the door—they’re around the house right?
BRIAN: Completely surrounding the house and probably breaking through the barricades we’ve set up in front of the windows at this point.
LINDA: You stand at the door, I open the door for you and you run out swinging that bat at everything that moves. You clear a path to the car, because they’re rotting, their heads come right off with one crack of the bat, so you clear a path to the car; we make it to the car. I jump in the backseat, you drive.
BRIAN: Keep talking.
LINDA: You start the car and speed off, screeching the tires with smoke coming off them and everything, I pop up through the sunroof with the flamethrower—they are all chasing us at this point right?
BRIAN: (Impressed.) Yeah. Yeah, they’re chasing us all right.
LINDA: I pop up through the sunroof with the flamethrower and torch the bastards right back into the grave that spawned them. They’ll never catch us ’cause we’re in the car. And they aren’t like superhuman or anything—
BRIAN: No, they aren’t any stronger or faster than normal humans—
LINDA: Right, so they can’t catch us, ’cause we’re in the car and they are all on fire, running around bumping into each other setting each other on fire, burning up to incapacitation, and we escape. This time.
BRIAN: That could work.
LINDA: Then you and I find the resistance movement and join up.
LINDA: Yep.
BRIAN: You would join the resistance movement?
LINDA: The world is crawling with the living dead, Brian. We have to find the last bastion of humanity and align ourselves with them. Besides, if our species is going to survive, we are going to have to learn to work together.
BRIAN: Oh, my God. That is so true. I love you.
LINDA: I love you too.
(They kiss.)
BRIAN: Do you really want to live together?
LINDA: Of course. I can’t wait. But we should. Wait. For months. I think.
BRIAN: Agreed. It’s a big step. You are so right.
END OF PLAY