A Very British Love Scene
By
Jenn Le Blanc
ACT I
Scene 1
A woman sits at a table primly writing in her
diary. A man enters.
CEDRIC
Good heavens, I do
apologize, I did not
mean to interrupt
your-
CELIA
Oh, that’s quite
alright-
CEDRIC
Please know I would never for one instant-
CELIA
Oh, really, I’m only too glad to have a visit from you,
won’t you please sit down, Mr. Fielding?
CEDRIC
Ms. Primgrass, I beg you to call me Cedric.
CELIA
Do you think it quite right?
CEDRIC
We have known one another since infancy, after all, and
there are few I consider nearer, and if I may say,
dearer to my heart.
CELIA
Really, Cedric, your effusiveness overwhelms me.
Silence
CEDRIC
Capital weather, eh?
CELIA
Indubitably.
Silence
CELIA
Cedric, might I take leave to observe, if it’s not too
terribly impertinent, that your entrance onto the
balcony seemed to indicate some, well, shall we sayurgency
with regards to a possible, and I’m merely
speculating, of course, topic of- if I mayconversation?
2.
CEDRIC
Quite right. Quite right, of course. You’re so
delightfully and arrestingly observant, Ms.
Primgrass. Right. Erm. Look, I’m crap at this, will
you marry me or what?
CELIA
Good heavens, Cedric!
CEDRIC
Oh, don’t good-heavens-Cedric me, Celia, dammnit our
parents have been plotting this for ages, and we might
as well get it over with.
CELIA
Well be still my beating heart, Cedric, that was so
romantic. However could I resist you?
CEDRIC
Don’t tell me you want to be wooed!
Bollocks. Fine. “Dearest Celia, please allow me to
tell you how ardently I admire and love-”
CELIA
Bovine Scatology! Beyond the raging plagiarism, I am
forced to object on the grounds of grotesque
megalomania. Your fortune may be grand, Cedric, but
Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy you are not.
CEDRIC
Well what do you want? Romeo and bloody
Juliet? Stupid git Tristan and his dumb as dirt
Isolde? Pelleas and Flippin’ Melesande? Daft Dido-
CELIA
I confess, I never would have suspected you were
capable of literary allusion. Though the rampant
profanity seems right up your proverbial alley.
CEDRIC
Celia, allow me to invite you to shove it up your
proverbial-
CELIA
Oh that’s just grand. Leave it to you raise the level
of discourse to crude euphemism and uncouth wordplay.
Really, Cedric, how droll. Is there anything so
insufferable as the bandying of pithy witticisms
culminating in a quaint turn of phrase that, by its
very brevity and dependence on the stereotypes of
particular societal mores, provides humor while
reinforcing outdated gender norms and ignorant
preconceived notions about other cultures and eras that
we find comically stuffy?
3.
Beat.
Tea?
CEDRIC
Yes, please.
She rings the bell and a butler silently brings in
a tea service. Butler begins to pour.
CEDRIC (cont’d)
Dear Ms. Primgrass, please permit me the honor of
observing how charmingly well you look. That color
suits you admirably.
CELIA
Thank you, Mr. Fielding, you flatter me.
The Butler leaves.
CEDRIC
Yes, I bloody well do flatter you, you look like an
overstuffed arm chair whose seams burst exposing an
indecent ejaculation of lace!
CELIA
Speaking of indecent and ejaculation, how is your dear
mother?
CEDRIC
If you begin with my mother, you vitriolic harpy, I
shall leave at once!
He crosses to a door.
CELIA
Do spare me your flaccid histrionics, you know as well
as I do that door doesn’t work. It’s nailed shut from
the other side. Purely aesthetic.
CEDRIC
A false exit?!
CELIA
One of papa’s eccentric theatrical devices.
CEDRIC
How meta.
CELIA
You should see what he did with the fourth wall.
Cedric looks at audience.
4.
CEDRIC
Clever.
CELIA
And functional. It prevents one from shuffling off
this mortal coil by leaping off the balcony. The
knowledge that paying audience members would only chuck
you back up on stage to make you finish out the scene.
CEDRIC
Vermin. For God’s sake, don’t you have your own lives?
CELIA
Peeping Toms’ is what they are. Tawdry voyeurs-
CEDRIC
Oh ho! Glass houses, Celia.
CELIA
What do you mean by that, pray tell?
CEDRIC
Oh, come now. If the scribbles on the wainscoting of
the gents’ room is to be believed…
CELIA
You cad! Don’t you dare-
CEDRIC
Can’t stop now, Celia! Good gravy, it is true! Your
blush belies your practiced shock!
CELIA
I warn you, Cedric, turnabout is fair play. I’m sure I
have no idea of the origins of your filthy
insinuations, but you are fortunate that I am too
delicate a lady to elaborate on the details of the
pictorial diagram of you in the ladies’ lavatory.
CEDRIC
Please do. I’m honored to know the ladies are so
obsessed with my amorous abilities they are driven to
immortalize them in privacy!
CELIA
On privy, dear, hardly in privacy. And I will give you
the benefit of the doubt, before our dear audience,
based on the artist’s rendering, that England was
suffering a particularly nasty cold snap that year and
the figure may not have been drawn to scale.
5.
CEDRIC
Ha! The forgeries of jealousy, my dear Celia, and all
that rot. But I am flattered by the particular interest
you have taken in my “doodle.” Allow me to infer that
it is not the size of the rapier that makes the soldier
but the skill of his swordsmanship.
CELIA
Generally true. Though, you must own, it is prodigious
difficult to conquer Agincourt with a paring knife.
Beat.
CEDRIC
My dearest Celia, with your sparkling wit and
devastating looks it is remarkable that you should have
reached this very advanced age without attracting a
husband. How is it possible that I should have the
luck to find you single?
CELIA
Oh yes, dear me, whatever would I do without a
husband? Who would take credit for all my
success? Who would occupy my time with critical
matters of procreation? And where would I find an
outlet for my overwhelming urge to coddle an infantile
ego?
CEDRIC
Please give leave that I may rescind my proposal of
marriage.
CELIA
Leave most freely given. Thank you. I confess that
swallowing lemon-soaked razor blades sounds
considerably more appealing than wedded bliss with you.
CEDRIC
It would be unconscionable to prevent you from pursuing
your predestined path of bitter lonely spinsterhood
surrounded by mountains of romance novels, piles of
bon-bon boxes and the choking stench of self-pity,
knee-deep in cat hair.
CELIA
They’ve already announced the banns, haven’t they?
CEDRIC
Yes.
CELIA
Bugger.
6.
CEDRIC
Quite. See you on Sunday, then?
CELIA
I’ll be the one in white.
He begins to leave.
Thank God it’s you, though. You should have seen the
other poor bastards they thrust at me. “It felt
ungentlemanly to engage in a battle of wits with
opponents so clearly unarmed.”
CEDRIC
My lady, it is an honor to meet a worthy adversary on
the field of love.
He kisses her hand. And as a parting shot-
Particularly when she swings such tantalizing bustle.
She looks furious, until he exits through the
working door. Then she smiles glowingly.

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