Scene Beats: One Method
By
Eugene Orlando
As most playwrights know, scenes are divided into beats. A
beat is a point of character focus and has a beginning and an end. When one is
finished another begins.
A FEATHER IN THE STREAM
BEAT ONE: Lady Laura
is elated, Lord and Lady Sommers are patient, and Lady
Opal is anticipatory.
“Papa! Mama!” Lady Laura yelled, dashing down the hall toward the
back parlor of her parent’s mansion. “It came! It came! I received a reply!”
Turning
the corner of the archway entrance, all the training in proper etiquette and
behavior of the twenty-year-old daughter of a Lord and Lady reinstated itself,
quelling her overwhelming elation. Sucking in her excitement, Laura strutted
with the grace of a Princess into the room.
Her
father and mother, Lord and Lady Sommers, sat on an elaborate French Louis XVI
sofa edged in gilt trim engaged in afternoon tea. On a separate Louis XVI chair
adjacent to them, perched Laura’s fifteen-year-old sister.
“Papa. Mama,” she said with a great deal more restraint.
Holding up the letter, she could not resist a traitorous grin. “It came. The reply to my inquiry.”
On
a squelched laugh, Laura’s sister spit tea back into her cup.
“Opal,”
Lady Sommers snapped, “you must learn to control your childish impulses. After
all, in two more years you will be coming out.”
Lord
Sommers eased his tea onto the silver serving tray planted in the middle of a
mahogany table. “What is this about a reply, my little angel?”
Laura
gathered in all her loose emotions, stuffed them back inside herself, and
continued. “The inquiry concerning my real parents.
Pray, you remember I sent posts to several
“Cherub,”
her father said, “how do you know the response is favorable? Perhaps they have
written to tell you they found no such record.”
Unable
to keep her excitement contained, Laura darted to the table and broke the seal
on the letter. “Because they were the only church to respond.
I asked every inquiry to only correspond in kind if they possessed such a
record. Pray, let me read it to you:
“Dear Lady
Sommers,
In reply to your
brief request for information on our congregation, please be advised we have
record of but one such child ever coming to the attention of this parish.
Seventeen years ago, in 1789, a child fitting the description and age of your
mention indeed did come to us. Upon recent revelation, it has been determined
she is the illegitimate daughter of King George III.”
BEAT TWO: Laura’s
demeanor changes. She loses her enthusiasm as she suspects something’s wrong.
Lowering
the letter, Laura’s heart shriveled down to the size of a prune and hardened
into a cold, dark mass. She eyed her family offering them a sour face.
Opal
spit out a brief laugh, which ended after being slapped by her mother’s scowl.
Her
father coughed. “The illegitimate daughter of George III?
It does seem a bit peculiar.”
Reviving
her finest etiquette and upbringing, Opal lowered her teacup to the silver
tray. “It is no wonder my sister behaves in a daft
manner a majority of the time.” After two reprimanding glares, one each from a
disturbed parent, Opal continued in a civil tone. “Well, read on.”
Her
nerve endings frozen numb, Laura drew her attention to the letter with the
demeanor of a person forced into a trance by a magician.
“We hope the above news does not dishearten nor
discourage you, but it is our recommendation, since coming from such a disgraceful
background, you keep it hushed up; if not for the protection of your
reputation, then for the reputation of our beloved King George, fine fellow
that he is. Good luck, Princess.”
Laura
choked on the last word as her heart flew into her throat demanding to stand on
the edge of her teeth and leap to its suicide. Her breathing strained like a
bellows in a smithy’s shop. She gazed at her father, her face screwed up in
confusion. “I do not understand. Something is wrong.”
Lord
Sommers stretched out a hand. “Pray, allow me to examine it.”
Opal
reached for a cake. “You may examine to your heart’s content, Papa, but
scandalous it will remain. You should have had two natural daughters instead of
just one. I am glad I do not have to go searching about into sordid
backgrounds of questionable heritage. I know mine.”
“Opal,”
Lady Sommers scolded. “Mind your manners. Laura is just as much a Sommers as
you or I. And you know you are under strict orders not to talk about Laura’s
background. Not even to us. I rue the day your father ever told her about it.
If word ever escaped, well, think of how it would affect your father’s
reputation in Parliament.”
Lord
Sommers swished a hand through the air. “Oh, my dear, not to
worry. Our secret at least gave benefit to a poor abandoned orphan.
There was no hanky-panky about it, as there is with some of my peers in
Parliament, the possessors of shadier secrets.”
“But what of our status in this community?” Lady Sommers
asked, easing a hand over her heart.
“Again, not to worry. We are the rock of our community. I
dare say the secret may escape someday, but these things have a way of staying
under wraps. Anyone finding out would keep it within a small circle, for the
truth of it is, to damage our house would be to damage all of Weybridge. Now, I ask you, who could do such a thing?”
Lady
Sommers fanned herself and glanced around at each. “I certainly hope you are
right, my dear.”
Lord
Sommers again turned his attention to the letter by flipping it to the
addressed side. “There you are, my cherub, you are the victim of a hoax. This
letter is not posted in
“What?”
Laura snatched the letter away in an unladylike fashion, which her father
ignored. As she gawked at it, she could not keep her tears from welling up. “I
do not understand, Papa. Who would perform such a cruel gesture?”
Opal
burst into laughter with a cake half in her mouth, which produced half gaiety
and half choking. Recovering from the gagging, she laughed so hard it seemed her
corset would split open.
Laura
glowered through her tears at her sister and tossed the letter on the table. “You, you beast! You persuaded another to write it so I
would not recognize your hand.”
Slapping
one hand over her mouth, Opal choked the laughter off and wiped a tear from her
left eye. “No, I wrote it with my left hand.”
Laura’s
eyes opened wide. Having never spawned a violent thought in her life, she found
herself amongst one then, hands wrapped around her sister’s throat, holding her
out from a window on the second floor. “How could you?”
Opal
pretended to write on imaginary paper with an imaginary pen in her left hand
spelling out her second word. “Very c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y.”
She fell into fits of laughter as Laura spun and dashed through the archway.
BEAT THREE: Laura
leaves. Scene focuses on Opal’s “dirty” deed. Remaining characters’ demeanors
change (Lord and Lady Sommers become challenging while Opal becomes defensive).
Lord and
Lady Sommers sipped their brew in simultaneous choreography. On setting their
cups down in unison, they turned to Opal who had just shed the last of her
laughter.
“My
dearest,” Lady Sommers began, “do you think it an amiable gesture to perform
for your sister?”
“Yes,
Pippin, Apple of my Eye,” Lord Sommers added, picking up his cup and sipping
from it. “You know how important it is to Laura to search for her roots.”
Opal
stretched her face into a scowl. “You, at least, do not have to hear it day in
and day out as I do. She is twenty years old and should show more concern for a
suitor.” Pointing to the letter on the table before her, she continued with
emphatic persuasion. “I say if she discovers her real past it may very well be
something unpleasant. Who is to say she is not the illegitimate daughter
of King George? Answer me that.”
“You
must put yourself in her place,” Lady Sommers purred. “Your father and I knew
when we found her a stray in
Opal let
out a childish sigh. “Well, the Baron’s son can seek all he likes, because that
sister of mine, with no history at all, has not a hand available. Her hands are
too busy searching for something else.”
Lord
Sommers laid his cup down a little too hard on its saucer causing an
inadvertent libation to spill from its rim. He leapt up and scowled down at his
daughter. “By order of this house, Opal, you are commanded to go to your sister
and apologize. And nevermore will you write such a letter of deception. Then I
want you to go back to Miss Talbot and continue your afternoon lessons.”
Knowing
better than to defy a patriarch, Opal rose. “Yes, Papa.” She strolled with royal poise to the archway,
stopped, and twirled around. “It is just too bad you thought you could not have
children, Mama. Just think; had you waited another few years you never would
have had the need to clandestinely adopt. And I would not have a sister, which
would have suited me just fine.”
Her
parents shook their heads with synchronized scowls on the faces. “Opal!”
The
youngest Lady plunged her head down to hide a smile and waltzed childlike out
of the room. In the faint distance of the hall, Lord and Lady Sommers heard a
laugh; but each thought it so faint they guessed it to be their imagination.