RUTH & ROY:

Oh, happy exchange of heart and affections
what new pleasure
what sweet pain.

They go off as they would on stage. LEWIS looks to JULIE and, like Da Ponte’s stage direction says, she enters in agitation, followed by LEWIS as Ferrando.

LEWIS:

Unkind woman, why are you running from me?

JULIE:

I’ve seen a snake, a monster.

LEWIS:

Now, cruel woman, I understand you. The snake, the monster
and all that’s fiercest in the Libyan desert,
you think I’m all of those.

JULIE:

It’s true, you rob me of my peace.

Suddenly the lights go out. The theatre is plunged into darkness.

CHERRY: Hey!

RUTH: [unnerved] It’s Doug! It’s Doug! Lewis, it’s Doug.

LEWIS: It’s not, Ruth. Calm down.

ROY: It’s probably the fuse box, I’ll go and see.

He heads off to fix the fuse. Pause.

ZAC: Hey, let’s have an orgy!

CHERRY: Want a sandwich, Lewis?

LEWIS: No, thanks, Cherry.

CHERRY: Yes, you do.

She gets up to go and give him one and accidentally bumps into the table, sending the model onto the floor.

ZAC: What was that?

CHERRY: Nothing.

JULIE: I like this. I like the dark. That’s what I hate about the wards—they’re never really totally dark, there’s always a light on in the corridor or whatever. Never true pitch black.

RUTH: I’m not keen on it. I used to have a boyfriend who tied me up and put me in a wardrobe so I wouldn’t run away. Four knots or maybe it was three. He’d sit outside the wardrobe door and tell me he’d kill me if I ran away.

JULIE: Did he gag you?

RUTH: No.

LEWIS: [amazed] He still allowed you to talk.

RUTH: He said it was the glue that held our relationship together. He left me when I slashed his car tyres. He said it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I cried for days. He just wanted me for sex. Men like sex more than women because they don’t have to clean up the mess.

CHERRY has been searching the floor for the sandwich she dropped when she bumped into the table and now, with a sigh of satisfaction, she has found the sandwich and puts it back together in the darkness…

CHERRY: Where are you, Lewis?

LEWIS: Over here.

CHERRY: [putting her foot in the bucket of water catching the drips] Damn!

LEWIS: What’s the matter?

CHERRY: Nothing!

LEWIS: Do you want a hand?

CHERRY: It’s like that game you play blindfolded. I used to be good at it when I was young. You guess where people are. [Bumping into RUTH] Damn!

RUTH: [concerned] Doug!

CHERRY: It’s me. That’s strange, I generally have a sixth sense where people are, especially people I like.

HENRY: They dddddeserved it.

LEWIS: Who, Henry?

CHERRY: I hear you, Lewis, am I getting hot?

HENRY: The men in Così. Pppppretending to be other people. And look what’s happened to them, their ggggirls have fallen for the other fffriend.