SARA ILYSE JACOBSON's plays have received staged readings and productions at the Capital Fringe Festival, Planet Connections Theatre Festivity, Kennedy Center Page-To-Stage Festival, Chameleon Theatre Circle, Shelterbelt Theatre, Source Festival, , DC SWAN Day, Life and Death Matters Festival, Flush Ink Productions' Asphalt Jungle, Modern-Day Griot Theatre Company, Ticket 2 Eternity Productions, Live Arts' Barhoppers, Abstract Sentiment Theatre Co., Last Frontier Theatre Conference, and Estrogenius Festival. Sara is the recipient of a 2010 Individual Artist Fellowship from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. www.sarailyse.com.
Thanks to Sara Ilyse Jacobson for allowing NYCPlaywrights to publish this excerpt from her play RENEGE.
LUKE
So you’re a reader.
VICKY
I read.
( He looks at the magazine cover)
LUKE
The New Yorker. Classy.
VICKY
I like the cartoons.
LUKE
Pretentious, yet classy.
(She checks to see if the bus is coming.)
For such an attractive woman, you sure have unfortunate taste in reading material.
VICKY
Excuse me?
LUKE
Have you ever noticed that the buses are never on schedule when it’s overcast? It doesn’t even have to be raining; a little grey sky will do it.
VICKY
Hold on.
LUKE
You disagree? I’m willing to put money on it.
VICKY
I know what you’re doing.
LUKE
Just making conversation, that’s all.
VICKY
The dig about the magazine.
LUKE
It was a joke.
VICKY
You’re doing that thing...
LUKE
I don’t know what you mean.
VICKY
That pick up technique where you insult the woman you’re hitting on, and then quickly change the subject.
LUKE
I was kidding.
VICKY
You’re NEGGING me!
LUKE
No.
VICKY
Trying to make me feel insecure.
LUKE
That’s not how it works.
VICKY
Aha!
LUKE
It’s flirtation.
VICKY
It’s offensive.
LUKE
Negging disarms the target-
VICKY
What am I, a WMD?
LUKE
Let me explain-
VICKY
You went to one of those seminars.
LUKE
Did not.
VICKY
Shelled out a couple of grand to spend two days in a Holiday Inn Express learning the Art of Seduction from some guy named Xenith or Dagger or Lothario.
LUKE (sheepish)
It was a Howard Johnson.
VICKY
Even better.
LUKE
It was supposed to make you laugh.
VICKY
It didn’t.
LUKE
Apollo said it would catch you off-guard, pique your curiosity.
VICKY
Apollo? You should demand a refund.