At the Movies with Kenneth and Asher a one-act play

© 2019 by the author Draft 5-31-19

Cast

Kenneth boy fourteen or fifteen any ethnicity a Raymond Babbit/Salieri/Chief Bromden/etc. type Asher boy fourteen or fifteen any ethnicity a Charlie Babbit/Mozart/Randle McMurphy/etc. type Olivia de Havilland* woman eighty-six any ethnicity the Olivia de Havilland—more specifically, the Olivia de Havilland from her interview on the special features of the Gone With The Wind DVD Naomi* woman thirties/forties Kenneth’s and Asher’s theatre teacher any ethnicity a Carolyn Burnham/Jenny Curran/Annie Hall/etc. type *May be played by the same actor Setting

Winter 2003/2004. The exterior of a movie theatre in a shopping center in South Florida, the part of it that leads to the back of the shopping center, close to the theaters’ emergency exit doors and the dumpsters. Past this area is some parking, followed by a large collection of trees, dark, illuminated only by a tall yellow streetlamp—the closest thing South Florida has to a forest.

Production Design

There’s a bench. There are a few “Now Playing” and/or “Coming Soon” movie posters in light boxes on the wall of the building. It’s Oscar season. The sun is beginning to set. It’s hot. It’s so hot. It’s so unbelievably hot. And muggy. At the Movies with Kenneth and Asher 1

Asher storms on, coming from the main entrance of the movie theatre. He has a sweatshirt tied around his waist. Furious, and not knowing what to do to vent, he rips the sweatshirt off his waist, and throws it at a bench. He sits on the bench.

Kenneth drags his feet, also coming from the entrance, head hung like a very sad old dog. Kenneth stands apart from Asher.

A long silence.

Kenneth You shouldn’t have spoken like that.

Asher Shut up.

Kenneth He was just doing his job. It wasn’t his fault.

Asher Shut up.

Kenneth He was like the same age as us.

Asher Shut up, okay!

Kenneth I understand you’re mad but I won’t stand for you talking to other people like that.

Asher SHUT! UP!

Kenneth He’s the same age as us and he works at a movie theater. It wasn’t his fault your idea didn’t work.

Asher bundles up his sweatshirt At the Movies with Kenneth and Asher 2

and throws it at Kenneth. Kenneth stands like a statue. Kenneth takes out his flip phone, about to dial.

Asher What are you doing?

Kenneth Calling my mom.

Asher No.

Kenneth I’m not gonna sit here for two hours.

Asher Please don’t.

Kenneth Why, so you can keep throwing things at me?

Kenneth flips open the phone to dial.

Asher, breaking down DON’T CALL YOUR MOM, PLEASE!

Kenneth You call your mom too.

Asher makes physical contact with Kenneth.

Asher PLEASE!!! I DON’T WANT THEM TO COME!

Kenneth freezes. Kenneth flips his phone shut.

Asher Can we sit down? Can you sit with me?

Asher sits. Kenneth sits. Long silence. At the Movies with Kenneth and Asher 3

Kenneth You can’t just throw things at people.

Asher I really wanted to see the movie.

Kenneth We’re not in elementary school. We’re in A.P. classes. You can’t just throw things.

Asher Sorry.

Kenneth But you talked to that guy like he was your slave. And then you throw something at me. I want you to understand I won’t stand for it.

Asher Stop talking to me like you’re my mom. I’m just upset.

Kenneth I’m upset too.

Asher I can still smell the popcorn.

Kenneth I think they pump it through the vents to make everyone waiting in line for the box office want to buy it.

Asher Want some?

Kenneth What?

Asher Popcorn.

Kenneth How?

Asher Um, at the concession stand. Come with me.

At the Movies with Kenneth and Asher 4

Kenneth No. They’ll kick us out.

Asher Who?

Kenneth You called the ticket taker a curse word.

Asher The ticket taker is like a lightyear away from the concession stand and there are like seventy-five-thousand people in there. I’ll be like Where’s Waldo.

Kenneth I’m not going back in there.

Asher Okay but don’t call your mom while I’m gone. Please. When I’m back, we can just walk around. Borders has good chai.

Kenneth I could be studying.

Asher They can pick us up when they said they would and we can just pretend we saw the whole movie. I read the whole synopsis on the Internet. Please don’t call her.

Asher goes inside to get popcorn. Kenneth takes out his phone, flips it open, considers dialing. He dials a few numbers. He stops dialing. He flips his phone shut. He flips open his phone. He dials a number. He puts the phone to his ear.

Kenneth Can you get butter?

He hangs up. He looks off toward the forest. The streetlamp flickers. At the Movies with Kenneth and Asher 5

From the trees comes a strange noise. Kenneth looks around to see if he is alone. He is alone. As Kenneth speaks softly, calming himself, Olivia de Havilland appears from the trees, unseen by Kenneth. This is elderly Olivia de Havilland, circa 2000s.

Kenneth Wings, Broadway Melody, All Quiet On The Western Front, Cimarron, Grand Hotel, Cavalcade, It Happened One Night, Mutiny On The Bounty, The Great Ziegfeld, The Life Of Emile Zola, You Can’t Take It With You, Gone With The Wind—

Olivia de Havilland My dear boy / are you—

Kenneth AH!

Olivia de Havilland Are you simply reciting the films that won the Academy Award for Best Picture?

Kenneth No.

Olivia de Havilland I believe you were.

Kenneth No I wasn’t.

Olivia de Havilland No need to fib, sweet child.

Kenneth Are you Olivia de Havilland?

Olivia de Havilland No.

Kenneth Yes you are, you’re her, and you’re wearing the same outfit you wear in that interview section of the special features of the special anniversary box set of Gone With The Wind.

At the Movies with Kenneth and Asher 6

Olivia de Havilland It seems you and I are both fibbers. A duo. A couple of fibbers.

Kenneth You’re beautiful.

Olivia de Havilland I’m old.

Kenneth You’re still beautiful.

Olivia de Havilland I’m nearly a hundred years old.

Kenneth There’s nothing more beautiful than something that’s old.

Olivia de Havilland Why were you reciting the names of those films?

Kenneth I don’t know.

Olivia de Havilland How do you know all those titles?

Kenneth I have a book.

Olivia de Havilland My my my.

Kenneth I know every winner.

Olivia de Havilland Do you really?

Kenneth Quiz me.

Olivia de Havilland Hm. Best Actress Nineteen-Hundred-Forty-Seven. At the Movies with Kenneth and Asher 7

Kenneth Loretta Young, The Farmer’s Daughter.

Olivia de Havilland I got you! It was I! For—

Kenneth To Each His Own. I knew you were gonna do that. You won for To Each His Own at the ceremony held in nineteen-forty-seven but technically you won the nineteen-forty-six Oscar. It was for that year in film. Nineteen-forty-six. Technically.

Olivia de Havilland Oh.

Kenneth Everyone makes that mistake. Try me again.

Olivia de Havilland Best Actress, Nineteen-Hundred…Forty-Nine.

Kenneth You. The Heiress. You’re predictable.

Olivia de Havilland One must sell one’s self, darling!

Kenneth You’re so beautiful.

Olivia de Havilland Oh darling. You are beautiful as well.

Kenneth You don’t have to say it back. I know I’m ugly.

Olivia de Havilland Don’t you ever say such a thing!

Kenneth I know I am. Quiz me more, this is fun.

Olivia de Havilland Best Supporting Actress, Nineteen-Hundred-Thirty-Nine.

At the Movies with Kenneth and Asher 8

Kenneth Hattie McDaniel, Gone With The Wind, I repeat, you’re predictable.

Olivia de Havilland She beat me.

Kenneth I know.

Olivia de Havilland Oh, I’ve got a good one! Best Actress, Nineteen-Hundred…Forty-One.

Kenneth Your sister, Joan Fontaine, for Suspicion—

Olivia de Havilland My sister, Joan Fontaine! She beat—!

Kenneth She beat you, yes. She was younger than you and she won an Oscar before you and you were mad about it.

Olivia de Havilland She was a little jerk, my sister. Still is. Smug. Entitled. Soooo nice, but you know it’s all a show, anyone can see it. Who does she think she is? I beat her in the end. I got five nominations, three awards. She only got three nominations, and only one trophy. Ha! But she didn’t deserve that award. For Suspicion? Please. That film was rubbish. Hitchcock was phoning it in. It should’ve been mine. Unfair.

Kenneth And also that year How Green Was My Valley won Best Picture, beating Citizen Kane, which like every Greatest Movies Of All Time List lists as the Greatest Movie Of All Time, so yes, life is unfair.

Olivia de Havilland You know a lot.

Kenneth More, more, quiz me more, go harder. Something less well-known.

Olivia de Havilland How about Best Supporting Actor, Nineteen-Hundred…I don’t know, Seventy-Five!

At the Movies with Kenneth and Asher 9

Kenneth George Burns, The Sunshine Boys.

Olivia de Havilland …they gave that man an Academy Award?

Kenneth Uh huh.

Olivia de Havilland They did not.

Kenneth Did so.

Olivia de Havilland Well, I have no way of knowing you’re right.

Kenneth My book’s at home. I can show you if you come over.

Olivia de Havilland I trust you.

Kenneth My mom could make us popcorn and we can watch something.

Olivia de Havilland It’s quite touching that you know all you do about this trivia, but you know that that’s all it is, don’t you dear? Trivia? Trivium. Comes from trivial. Useless knowledge. It doesn’t mean much, those awards. I mean, it felt nice to take the tchotchke—and twice, I might add, but really, it’s inconsequential. By now my two statuettes have turned almost brown from the discoloration. They no longer gleam, do you follow? They’re muted. Faded.

Kenneth How beautiful.

Olivia de Havilland A young man like you, why are you here by yourself?

Kenneth I’m here with someone.

At the Movies with Kenneth and Asher 10

Olivia de Havilland A lover?!

Kenneth No.

Olivia de Havilland Children your age like to go to the cinema with lovers.

Kenneth Well he’s not.

Olivia de Havilland Oh. He. Still. There were rumors about Clark Gable, you know. But I didn’t mind.

Kenneth He’s not my lover.

Olivia de Havilland Alright, alright. How about…best cinematography, Nineteen-Hundred—

Kenneth I don’t know the cinematography winners.

Olivia de Havilland I thought you said you knew all the winners!

Kenneth All the major winners. Picture, director, actor, actress, supporting. I didn’t memorize every winner in the whole book, I’m not Rain Man. Rain Man: nineteen-eighty-eight— best picture, best actor, best director. Best screenplay too, probably, but I don’t know those for sure, like I said. Just pictures, actors, and directors.

Olivia de Havilland So what’s in it for you, darling? Are you wishing to work in the pictures?

Kenneth Yeah—well, I already make movies. I write them. With my friend. We write things together. Well, we’ve talked about writing them, but haven’t really written anything yet. We’re taking a class about writing at school with our drama teacher, who’s really great, but my friend’s her favorite, the friend I’m here with, you can tell he is. Not me. He calls her by her first name. So, yeah, I want to write movies. Or compose film scores. And direct. Maybe act, but who wants to be an actor, really—no offense.

At the Movies with Kenneth and Asher 11

Olivia de Havilland None taken.

Kenneth Just saying the lines that other people write for you, like a little worker bee. I’d rather be a god. And control the way everything goes. Dictate everything for an audience, staring up at a screen, watching what I made. Don’t you want to quiz me more?

Olivia de Havilland Go back to listing all the winners. I liked that. It’s soothing.

Kenneth Where did I leave off? Oh! Gone With The Wind. Gone With The Wind, Rebecca—

Olivia de Havilland UGH! Rebecca! You know, my sister Joan Fontaine was in / Rebecca—

Kenneth Yes yes I know she was in Rebecca, you’re interrupting me.

Olivia de Havilland Yes yes of course, do go on.

Kenneth Rebecca, How Green Was My Valley, Mrs. Miniver, Casablanca—

Asher storms back on, with tub of popcorn. Olivia de Havilland disappears.

Asher “This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

Kenneth Shut up.

Asher People are incompetent.

Kenneth What now?

Asher They forgot the butter so I had to go back.