WARMING HEARTS
By Joel Jensen
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SYNOPSIS: Located in the remote, desolate Alaskan tundra, Warming
Hearts Resort pushes desperate singles to the extremes of misery in order to
find love. After the resort's newest arrival, Charlie, witnesses a peculiar
hostage situation involving a suicidal romantic and an impromptu therapy
session, he learns that love is not as warm or simple as the resort would have
him believe.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
(3 MEN, 1 WOMEN, 1 EITHER, EXTRAS)
INFOMERCIAL HOST
BLAKE
CHARLIE
RONALD
DEBBY
STRIKE FORCE/COUPLES
SCENE 1
AT RISE:
Stage is dark. Spotlight on INFOMERCIAL HOST.
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INFOMERCIAL HOST: We all know that love is hard. Finding that
special somebody can be the challenge of a lifetime. (Spotlight on
a MAN and a WOMAN, miming argument.) How many songs or
poems have been written? How many hearts left broken or
empty? (The WOMAN runs offstage crying. The MAN exits
opposite, dejected.) Love is a mistress of extremes, and at
Warming Hearts Resort, we understand that real and true love is
never the product of the mundane, the banal, the pedestrian.
(Sentimental music begins to play. Spotlight on a MAN and a
WOMAN in typical business clothing standing next to each other,
awkwardly. They are attracted to each other, but cannot manage
to break the ice.) Romeo and Juliet discovered love in the midst of
hate. Antony battled Rome for Cleopatra. Achilles fell in love with
Penthesilea as she died of the mortal wound he himself had
inflicted during battle. There is passion in this world, but where do
we find it? In a cubicle? The elevator or the escalator? A water
cooler or a fast food restaurant? Sitting at a computer on some
matchmaking site, poring over compatibility stats? (The MAN
embraces the WOMAN suddenly, and they kiss passionately.
Spotlight off. Lights up. Various COUPLES, all cuddling, are
scattered around the stage. They are wearing coats and scarves
and hats.
Copyright © MMVII by Joel Jensen. All rights reserved. Caution:
Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that WARMING HEARTS is
subject to a royalty. ALL INQUIRIES CONCERNING PERFORMANCE
RIGHTS, INCLUDING AMATEUR RIGHTS, SHOULD BE DIRECTED
TO HEUER PUBLISHING LLC, PO BOX 248, CEDAR RAPIDS IA,
52406. www.heuerpub.com
They are very happy, but for all the smiles, they are very, very
cold.) Our facility, located in northern Alaska, brings utter
desolation and unliveably miserable conditions to you and
hundreds of other singles every year! With a fully operational bar
and sub-zero temperatures, complete with treacherous wind chills,
Warming Hearts Resort is the place to go to find love - - real
love - - because where can true love come from but misery?
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Lights out.
SCENE 2
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AT RISE:
Lights up. A hotel foyer. There is a receptionist’s desk at the back of
the stage and there are a few chairs on either side upstage; a few
people are sitting in them, bundled in coats, noticeably cold.
CHARLIE enters with luggage, wearing a coat. BLAKE, the liaison,
crosses to CHARLIE and picks up his bags.
BLAKE: Good afternoon, sir. Welcome to Warming Hearts Resort!
CHARLIE: It’s cold.
BLAKE: That it is, sir. Blake Eastman. (Shakes CHARLIE’s hand.)
I’ll be your liaison during your stay at Warming Hearts Resort.
Soon to be Warming Hearts Resort and Casino, if the lobbying
works.
CHARLIE: Is this lobby not heated?
BLAKE: No, sir. Well insulated, but not heated. As your liaison, I
want you to know that I am here for your benefit, to serve you in
whatever way I am capable. You see, I was once a single, just
like you, and I came to Warming Hearts, and I found love, and I
decided to spread the warmth.
CHARLIE: But it’s freezing.
BLAKE: Exactly. Would Romeo and Juliet have fallen in love if not
for the misery of hatred?
CHARLIE: I don’t know. Didn’t they fall in love at first sight?
BLAKE: Think of it this way: all of the greatest romances in history
were composed before indoor plumbing was invented.
CHARLIE: Sure.
BLAKE: What you must understand, sir - - what was your name,
now?
CHARLIE: Charlie.
BLAKE: What you must understand, Charlie, is that this cold, this . . .
misery that you are now faced with, the desolation and the wind,
these drab walls and uncomfortable beds, these are all here to
push you to a cliff.
CHARLIE: A cliff? Where?
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BLAKE: A metaphorical cliff, Charlie. The cliff, the higher ground is
that realm of comfort, a plane that we all wish to exist on. It
renders us complacent. So we get cold. The cold drives you to
the edge of comfort, the wind pushes you. And before you know
it, your feet have dragged you to the brink.
CHARLIE: Jesus.
BLAKE: And you ask yourself: jump? Do I jump? (CHARLIE is
silent.) You jump. You jump, and you fall down, down, down.
Anything that falls must land, right, Charlie?
CHARLIE: Splat?
BLAKE: What do you fall into when you jump, Charlie? Love. You
fall in love.
CHARLIE: The brochure mentioned something about that. As well
as blinding, potentially disastrous blizzards.
BLAKE: If you choose to explore the outside, please take one of the
flares we have available at all exit doors. The search and rescue
team will usually be able to see a flare if you were to lose your
sense of direction. Highly trained, of course. They double as a
strike force, just in case.
CHARLIE: In case of what?
BLAKE: Charlie, this is the brink. Love is not the only child of
misery.
CHARLIE: No fireplaces, then?
BLAKE: No fireplaces. Not on the brink.
CHARLIE: What is on the brink?
BLAKE: Wind, cold, maybe a few brambly bushes scattered about.
Snow.
CHARLIE: Shit.
BLAKE: We encourage alternate forms of heat at Warming Hearts.
Try to start by warming your heart, and take that heat and move it
into your limbs. Your extremities. And then, you take that heat
that is in your extremities and what do you do? You transfer it to
others, Charlie. You use your heat like a blanket, a safety blanket
that also warms people, and you spread it out and you cover
people, and snuggle. Warmth.
CHARLIE: Sex?
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BLAKE: You’ve got to ask yourself: Charlie, what is cold? What is it
to be cold? Where can you find the warmth? It is a lack of heat - not just any heat, a heat that you cannot find in some coat, even if
it’s insulated.
CHARLIE: How about a fireplace?
BLAKE: No! In the heart! In your heart, in the cute blonde’s heart!
The brunette’s heart! That is where you find heat, warmth . . .
love. (An attempt to soothe him.) Hot chocolate or coffee are
available once a week. (No change in CHARLIE.) Oh, and tea as
well. Green or black, so . . .
CHARLIE: What about candles?
BLAKE: No. Although scented candles might just be a good
investment - - juniper berry, rose and pine needle, that’s a good
one. Sensual. You know, Charlie, different scents have . . .
BLAKE begins to ramble on, but suddenly a commotion stops him. A
man, RONALD, holding a woman, DEBBY, hostage enters, he has a
flare to her head.
RONALD: I can feel the chains closing in on me!
DEBBY: Help! Help!
RONALD: They are everywhere, the chains! Waiting for me to slip
up and then, then they’ll shackle me down in this place forever!
Cold and fucking miserable. Damn this place. Damn all of you.
Damn these chains, man!
BLAKE: (Into a walkie-talkie.) We’ve got a code 8. Code 8, please
respond accordingly. Ronald, why don’t you put that flare down?
Let Debby go, huh? We can figure this out. We can sit down right
now and talk it out and laugh about this tomorrow. How does that
sound?
RONALD: Demands. I have demands.
BLAKE: What are your demands, then?
Pause.
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RONALD: Blankets. No. I want out. This doesn’t work; this is all a
sham. I’ve been here for five weeks now, five, and I haven’t seen
any progress.
BLAKE: Have you considered stepping to the brink?
RONALD: Where the fuck do you think I am right now, Blake?
BLAKE: How about jumping?
RONALD: I did. Yesterday. From my window. I landed in a
goddamn snowbank.
BLAKE: I mean metaphorically.
RONALD: Here’s the truth, folks. You jump from the brink and you
don’t fall into love like these bastards want you to believe. No, you
fall into a snowbank that’s colder than where you started. And it
gets in your fucking boots.
CHARLIE: Wait. You wore boots? Why would it matter if you were
killing yourself? The boots, I mean. Wouldn’t that be trivial? I
mean, what’s the point?
RONALD: Blake, you’re a prick. You’re a liar.
BLAKE: Now, let’s not say things that we don’t mean, Ronald,
please. You know just as well as I do that you’ve had some crushnotes in your mailbox, and you and me have sat down and
analyzed some signals you’ve been sent.
DEBBY: I was sending you signals, Ron. Just now, right before you
took me like this. Why else was I so close to you that you could
grab me like that? I have very quick reflexes, you know. If I hadn’t
wanted you to grab me with passion, I wouldn’t have let you.
RONALD: What?
DEBBY: I thought you were going to kiss me!
RONALD: Really?
DEBBY: Yes, really. I was attracted to you, physically and
emotionally. You are tender and sweet, I thought you had good
paternal potential. And you sounded really romantic before you
grabbed me.
RONALD: I don’t even remember what I said.
DEBBY: You said, “Debby, come here. I need you right now.” On
reflection, perhaps I misinterpreted.
BLAKE: Now here is something, Ronald. Go with this.
RONALD: You never said anything before. You’re lying.
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DEBBY: What, you never caught the innuendo?
RONALD: What innuendo?
DEBBY: “It’s so cold outside; I’m going to need something to warm
me up.”
RONALD: A blanket, a coat, a scarf you wanted to borrow.
DEBBY: “Ronald, what would you do if I just lay right in your bed all
night?”
RONALD: That doesn’t necessarily mean anything.
DEBBY: Come on, Ronald!
RONALD: What? It doesn’t! Come on. Somebody, help me out.
CHARLIE: No, you’ve got no defense on these, Ronald. That’s
pretty dense. Very dense.
BLAKE: We’re getting somewhere with this, and I like it. I think we
all like this. This is what we want. I think we’re on the road to a
breakthrough, everyone. This is what we want. I want everyone
to be here mentally right now. Emotionally, let’s get this going.
Let’s make a little factory, here, huh? A little love factory where
we make love happen.
RONALD: Love is not the only child of misery! Isn’t that right, Blake?
BLAKE: True.
CHARLIE: Elaborate.
RONALD: I have a fucking flare gun pointed at a woman’s head. I
tried to kill myself yesterday. And you know what? I tried to kill
myself when my wife left me, too. It’s all the same. Every morning
I wake up and I am cold and I don’t want to get up and I don’t want
to do anything. I want to lay there all day. I feel no love. Did you
ever think, Blake, that perhaps misery is impotent, that it breeds
nothing? Or if it breeds anything, it is just more misery. Mitosis or
meiosis or what-the-fuck-ever - - it just replicates itself,
exponentially, until someone kills all of it?
BLAKE: This is passion, Ronald! Welcome to life! This is not laying
in bed. This is not cold.
RONALD: This is a hostage situation. And, for chrissake, I’m still
cold.
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BLAKE:
Exploring emotions is like exploring a mine full of
explosives, Ronald. You can dig deep and find jewels and
precious stones, but if you make one wrong move, if you strike the
wrong vein - CHARLIE: Kablooey. From the looks of it, Ronald, if you don’t mind
my interjection here . . .
RONALD: No, go on ahead.
CHARLIE: Well, it appears that you have been mining, and you did
strike a vein of explosives.
RONALD: Fair enough. It’s just so frustrating, you know. Where is
the sense in any of this?
CHARLIE: Oh, I know. I know. Ask Debby, I’m sure she knows too.
I mean, look at it from her perspective for a second. The guy she
was digging - - well, a.) He didn’t even catch the signals she was
giving out. I mean, he completely missed them. And they were
pretty thinly veiled, not even subtle. That’s got to be rotten, right
Debby? And then, b.) He takes her hostage, at flare-point, and
he’s talking crazy and shouting.
RONALD: I’m attracted to you Debby. I am, I really am. I just - - you
know. I get . . . I get uncomfortable with emotional dealings and
such. I don’t do a good job with expression. I . . . well . . . I
just . . .
BLAKE: We worked on this, Ronald. Remember our buzzwords.
RONALD: What I mean to say, Debby, is I think you are very
beautiful and very smart and nice. (He counts these words off on
his fingers.) You have a cool head . . . I mean, clearly, you didn’t
flip out or anything when I put this flare gun to your head. You’ve
kept me calmer, that’s for sure. Stability, that’s one of my
buzzwords. Stability.
DEBBY: Well, thank you, I guess. (She is released. RONALD still
holds the flare, ready to shoot.) There are other ways to do this.
Like, “Debby, how about hot chocolate next - - ” Wait, what day is
hot chocolate this week?
BLAKE: (Visibly excited for the breakthrough.) Tuesday. It’s
Tuesday.
RONALD: How about hot chocolate on Tuesday, Debby?
DEBBY: Sure.
CHARLIE: Now, why don’t you put the flare gun down, huh?
RONALD puts the flare down. A STRIKE FORCE enters.
neutralize RONALD and drag him offstage.
They
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CHARLIE: Holy shit.
BLAKE: Sorry. That was the strike force I mentioned earlier,
Charlie. Can’t have that kind of thing going on. Makes people
scared, nervous. Romance doesn’t work with fear very well. So.
Sorry, Debby. I’m sure you can find someone else. You’re
attractive. Thanks for helping to talk him down, Charlie, that
always helps. I’ll see if I can get you some extra hot chocolate this
week, huh? So. Well, I actually need to go write my report on the
incident. How about I write it in a favorable light for Ronald, that’s
the least I can do. The brink, huh? The brink.
BLAKE exits. Awkward silence.
CHARLIE: I’m Charlie.
DEBBY: Debby. You just got here?
CHARLIE: Yeah. Interesting place.
DEBBY: Why don’t you grab your bags? I’ll take you on a tour.
CHARLIE: Okay. You alright?
DEBBY: Yeah. I’ll show you the bar first, how about that? A nice,
extensive tour. Whiskey.
CHARLIE: Whiskey.
DEBBY and CHARLIE exit.
Lights out.
SCENE 3
AT RISE:
Spotlight on INFOMERCIAL HOST.
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INFOMERCIAL HOST: A famous philosopher once said, “What does
not kill me will make me stronger.” Love may weaken our knees,
but it strengthens our hearts, our hope - - it strengthens what
matters. Love is not candy. Love is not lace or rose petals. It is a
recognition of the human condition - - suffering, just ask a
Buddhist - - and an attempt to override that miserable state of
affairs using the means we have available. Come visit the frozen
tundra of northern Alaska, where polar bears die of exposure, and
find suffering pointing you on towards love. (CHARLIE, in his
boxers, enters smoking a cigarette. He just had sex. He is
startled, but not shocked by the audience and the HOST. He nods
and exits opposite side of the stage.) Thousands of singles
become hundreds of couples every year here at Warming Hearts.
Join us at Warming Hearts Resort and help us melt that tundra
one night at a time. Because where can true love come from, but
misery?
THE END
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