ISADORA

A cable winds across bare floorboards to centre stage, where a television
throws broad, expressionistic light in complete silence. Other than this, a
large dormer window towering backstage, it is covered in strips of
polythene, neon red light flickering. Two girls, FRANZI and LOTTI are lying
beneath it on a bare red striped matress. The sides of the set are quite
clear. For example, we can see scaffolding. The general appearance is
sepia-toned and tawdry. Heavy, provincial, nineteenth century furniture. Red
Dansette radio. Belling cooker. By the sink, three or four mops, on top,
knickers. A refrigerator, heavily rusted. The light rises a little.
Periodically, trams are heard screeching by, sparks lighting the window. In
the corner, a large anonymous saint, in lurid colours, leans over the girls.

FRANZI: [Petulantly, with mock declamatory style] Sweetheart, make me up!
Work me out! Your dripping attic's got no ventilation, the windows taped up!
[Reflective and disentangling herself] My legs are whiter than these
polythene strips hung like placentas from the glass. I can't kiss you with
biscuits in my mouth! [Pause] The tallboy's sticky with yellow felt, you've
been frying so much! Your cooker's leaning out, freckled with rust like a
clapped-out commissionaire! [Suddenly frisky, loving] Metal Girl! Auditor!
Excellent Judge! [Aside] Once you put those costumes on there're more parts
than you could care to play. [Looking around] We've strayed into such grey
paddocks, Dear. Me prancing about, pinching my breasts. I'm only taunting
you - about your mother's waxings prickling the bath. Imagine your first
breath free from her stubbly cunt. [To herself] I once noted Daddy's prick
was knotted with veins, while they lay pissed, gagging for air like fish.
[Pause] There's a birthmark the shape of Chile on your calf. [Staring at the
window] The weather would ruin our hair if we let it in. Our stolid cabaret
deepens with debauchery! Let's rehearse those cheap lines from Pericles. Two
farting extras. Meanwhile, some obscure animals can grin from the eighteenth
century tapestry clawing this gothic mantelpiece. [Gesturing to the imagined
scenery] My reflection would shimmer there, Redeeming Bitch! We could take
spoons and tap grand entrances on our teeth. See, swooping velvets part over
our erratic, ruined hearts. [Walking, gesturing] The cast is lined up on
your dresser. These indolent, little bottles, smudgy tubes of make-up;
they're renegades of despair. I reckon their meaning's stunted in the
backchat of this fridge, whinnying and whinnying. [Opening it] Darling, the
meringue hasn't set yet. We could pour the yellow slop into bowls, all the
sugar bursting, little dustbowls of sex! It's like quick lime. Let's yodel
those fake arpeggios, I want to come, announcing my blonde aversion to food.
Our performance over, we could stare at the audience, checking the reasons
not to stop avidly necking. [Diffidently] Neglected, we'd click our lips
like handbag clasps. [Pause] I can taste your pussy's dull, pink yawn. Its
golden whiskers remind me of old islands, the sands lapping with didactic
blue. [A low noise, like interference] The radio's crackling with offbeat,
nasal verbs - its our new purist, DJ Fume, reporting on meetings solvent as
blood. [Dancing] We're doting on love's redolent belly, Fume. I am all you
ever wanted of it! [Prancing] Left behind, ardent, endearing! Loping about
with mascara - my rouge in little powder bruises, my eyebrows plucked in
resentful, fastidiously upturned grins. I'll keep to my in-house, doll-like
regularity. [Turning] Your knickers are dry on these mops, Lotti. Their worn
holes have tyre tracks of black blood. Resilient hems peppered with our
perfect, washed-out blossoms. A forest of drooling purples, Lotti. Harnesses
of dolled-up, brilliantined mosses. [Suddenly reflective, by the television]
They've switched videos. All these gallons of blue air. This clip's showing
some dancer fanning herself like a raving moth. A monochrome housemaid,
epileptic, hand-coloured - a billowing ash-grey naiad. She's juddering
through each frame, Lotti. Steering clear of the sheet's convoluted rapture.
[The stage dims to far off, distorted Wurlitzer music]


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