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Single

Ted runs into Liz during a blizzard at Squaw Valley. He, with his brother Oscar, owns the York Creek Vineyard in Napa. She is a journalist who has lost seven straight jobs as her small papers and giveaways around the San Francisco Bay area, including “S.F. LustVision”, have closed. What the couple don’t know, even after assignation and admission that they’re having a fling (which is, at first, all they want) is that she’s recently pregnant, and he’s long ago married, both conditions due to extenuating circumstances suddenly to be discovered.

When they arrive back at the York homestead after their fling in Carmel, they find – as usually happens – that events have moved quickly ahead of their expectations. Not only has Liz’s four-times divorced mother, Brenda arrived, but so has Ted’s wife Madeline, returned from Borneo. She has her own demented reasons for staying married to Ted that confuse Oscar, who has suppressed love and lust for her during the eight years of his brother’s unhappy but still extant marriage. On top of all that, Ooove, Liz’s unborn child’s father arrives, a stunning Danish god with language certainty as he slaughters English. He promises a lawyer and deputy sheriff are coming the next day with a restraining order to prevent Liz from doing anything rash, like marrying anyone else but the father of the child she carries – his.

That’s the set-up. Struggles, adjustments and crises careen along precipitously.

(The play is written in two acts, has a cast of six, and requires one set and a ski-shack Starbucks counter.)

A Scene from Single

(The front door opens and Ted leads Liz in. He carries a varnished blowfish and one of Brenda’s smaller bags.)

LIZ

Mother!

BRENDA

Call me Granny!

LIZ

Mother, not yet!
(Slams the door shut.)

OSCAR

Why is everyone slamming…?

TED

Madeline! What…?

MADELINE

Hello, Ted. Nice fish.

BRENDA

Who’s this, dear?

OSCAR

That’s my brother.

LIZ

Who’s she?

BRENDA

Oh, that’s his wife.

MADELINE

Hello, Elizabeth. I’ve heard so much about you. Congratulations.

LIZ

Mother! (To Ted) That’s your wife? Still?

TED

She is that.

BRENDA

Hello! I’m Elizabeth’s mother. Are you Oscar’s older or younger brother?

TED

I’m his only brother.

LIZ

And you’re Oscar.

OSCAR

Are you sure?

LIZ

What’s Mother been telling you?

OSCAR

About last year’s Super Bowl in Urdu.

TED

Why “Granny,” Mrs. McWhirter?

BRENDA

Please, call me Brenda.

MADELINE

Brenda’s going to be a grandmother soon.

TED

Oh. Congratulations. Liz, you didn’t tell me you had… You don’t have brothers or sisters.

LIZ

No.

TED

Ahh…

LIZ

Ahh…

MADELINE

And how was romantic Carmel, dear husband?

BRENDA

Were you in Carmel with…? Oh dear. (To Ted.) You can put that bag up in my room, if you’d be so kind. Oh dear.

LIZ

Mother, why is it that following you anywhere is like moving behind a tank in a firefight?

OSCAR

I better finish my egg. Cholesterol might help me.

MADELINE

And I’m going to take a nap — in “our” room.

BRENDA

I’ll walk you up, Madeline. I have to hang up a few things. I always think best when I’m shaking out silk, and I have presents for everyone!

(They ascend, as Ted descends. Oscar goes into the kitchen.)

TED AND LIZ

And this is your home!
Your mother is something!

LIZ

So: You’re still married.

TED

So, you’re somewhat pregnant.

LIZ

I didn’t tell you because it was, well, I thought of us as having a fling, which I deserved, a last chance before motherhood changed my world. I thought our time would be over by now.

TED

Is it?

LIZ

No, but a fling doesn’t last this long.

TED

Agreed. What we have going is longer than a one-night stand, but shorter than an affair. We’re in courtship purgatory.

LIZ

And you’re still married.

TED

I didn’t tell you because my marriage doesn’t make any difference to us, no more than you’re three-week marriage does, or whatever you have going with whoever is the father. And I’m not asking.

LIZ

Oh go ahead. I just met your wife.

TED

After Carmel, I don’t need to know. Did you love him?

LIZ

He needed me … to help him with his English. He’s Danish, as in blue. Yeah, “Ahh.” I’m a sucker for being needed, like I said. But I won’t do that with you, so don’t worry.

TED

I won’t. I don’t need you, Liz. I just want you. This is a fling.

LIZ

Or something. I think we’re safe.

TED

From what?

LIZ

You’re married to someone else, I’m pregnant by someone else. It seems we can keep knocking around in purgatory until decisions have to be made.

TED

But your pregnancy and my wife — and the Danish whatever he is — will have nothing to do with those decisions. Okay?

(They embrace and kiss.)

LIZ

I haven’t told Ooova yet – about being pregnant.

TED

How do you spell that?

LIZ

He spells it with an umlaut over a U, but I spell it with three Os because that’s how you say it, with three syllables: oo-oo-oo-vah!

TED

When are you going to tell him?

LIZ

I’m not sure. He’s very Danish, I mean he’s like a Viking god, and he has very old-fashioned ideas about family duty.

TED

Ahh…

LIZ

Couldn’t we say “Eureka” or something? “Ahh” what?

TED

That’s probably where his name comes from, those Viking horns that they blow across the fjords to call for pillage and plunder:
(He bellows into an empty brass wood–bucket)
OO-OO-OO-VAH! OO-OO-OO-VAH!

(Madeline and Brenda appear at the top of the stairs, Oscar from the kitchen, carrying a pan.)

TED

I’m learning Danish!