THE DYING SWAN

A deceased young man lies in his casket.

Behind it, a giant screen, where we see Anna Pavlova performing “The Dying Swan.”

The young man gets up and awkwardly climbs out of the coffin. He faces the screen, back to the audience, and tries to imitate Pavlova. MARIE 2 and her mother do not see him. Although facing the audience, they are evidently watching the screen too. While talking, they never take their eyes off it.

MONIQUE

“A message of beauty and joy in living.” It was Anna Pavlova herself who said that, “Dance as a message of beauty and joy in living,” eh?

MARIE 2

Yes Mama.

MONIQUE

It’s as though she’s floating and flying, don’t you think?

MARIE 2

Yes I do.

MONIQUE

Just hanging in mid-air.

MARIE 2

Hanged?

MONIQUE

No, hanging—suspended.

MARIE 2

Oh.

MONIQUE

Like something ethereal, immaterial, so light you’d think she didn’t have feet at all, like an angel.

MARIE 2

Angels don’t have feet?

MONIQUE

I don’t know. I don’t think so.

MARIE 2

(silence)

MONIQUE

Marie?

MARIE 2

What?

MONIQUE

What effect does this have on you?

MARIE 2

Does what have?

MONIQUE

When you look at it.

MARIE 2

…Does it affect me?

MONIQUE

As though… as if you were all at once… saturated, fulfilled, as though your eyes were immediately full of beauty… of grace, and you are so sure of being a better person that you say to yourself: “It’s too much beauty. It can’t help but affect me, all this beauty; I’ve surely been touched by grace, radically transformed, helplessly transmuted into something different forever, doubtlessly a better person than I am now.”

MARIE 2

Nope. Doesn’t do that for me.

Pause while the mother looks at the coffin, as though the young man were still in it.

Mama?

MONIQUE

Yes?

MARIE 2

If angels don’t have feet, then Paul has lost them too?

MONIQUE

Yes, I mean no. Paul still has his.

MARIE 2

But you said he was an angel, and they don’t have feet, you said. So Paul hasn’t got them, right?

MONIQUE

Paul has feet. He’s sort of a special angel, okay?

MARIE looks at the spot in the coffin where PAUL’s feet lie hidden.

The dance is over and the young man lies back down in the coffin while a group of people join the two women, offering condolences, kissing, hugging, leaving flowers, etc.