A Matter of Husbands

 

 

A Matter of Husbands

By 

Ferenc Molnar 

Translated By

Benjamin Glazer

 

adapted by Nicole Murray

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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In one screen, we see a room with EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN.  She is dialing in to speak via a facetime type app with FAMOUS ACTRESS who picks up from her room in screen two.

 

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

Hello?  

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

I need to talk to you.  It’s about time that you--

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

Wait. Who are you?  Are you getting back to me about a job?

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

What?  No, just stop.  You know who I am.  And whatever is going on with you and my husband, just stop it now.  I want him back.

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

What?  Who is this?

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

You know who this is.  Is HE THERE?

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

Is who here?

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

You know who.

 

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FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

Your…husband?

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

Yes.

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

Who is that?

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

You know who he is—He’s blondish, not very tall, well he’s actually kind of short. He wears glasses.  He’s a lawyer—your manager’s lawyer actually.  His first name is Alfred.

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

Oh!  Yes, I do think I’ve met him. Yes.  I remember him now.

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

You’ve more than met him.  I want to talk to him.  Bring him here.

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

Huh?

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

Ah ha!

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

Ah ha what? Don’t take my silence for some kind of embarrassment.  I’m completely at a loss—I don’t quite see how I can bring your husband here when I haven’t got him to bring.

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

You just admitted you knew him.

 

 

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FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

That scarcely implies that I have him. Of course I know him.  He drew up my last contract.  And it seems to me that I have seen him once or twice since then—backstage.  A rather nice voice, nice hair.  You said he wore glasses?

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

Yes.

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

I don’t remember him wearing glasses.

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

He probably took them off.  He always wants to look his best for you.  I think he’s in love with you.  He never takes them off anymore when I’m around.  He doesn’t seem care how he looks then.  Maybe he doesn’tlove me anymore. No, this is ridiculous.  I want him home.

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

If this weren’t such a weird, crazy, alternate dimension type of fantasy—well,I’d be very pissed with you.  Wherever did you get the idea that I had taken your husband from you?

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

Well, he sends you flowers all the time.

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

That’s not true.

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

It is!

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

It isn’t.  He never sent me flowers in his life.  Did he tell you he did?

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EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

Well, no. But I found the florist’s website in his browser history. Then, I called over.  Flowers are sent to your dressing room twice a week!

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

That’s a lie.

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

Are you saying I’M lying?

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

I’m saying someone is lying to you.

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

​​​​(fumbles through things on desk for letter)

 

And what about this letter?

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

Letter?

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

He wrote it to you.  And he said—

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

He wrote it to me? Take a screenshot of it and share it here. Who even sends letters anymore?

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

MY HUSBAND DOES.  Or at least he used to—to me. Always doing cute things like that.  No, I won’t send it, but I’ll read it to you.  

“My darling.  Can’t come by the theatre tonight.  Urgent business. A thousand apologies and ten thousand kisses.”  

 

​(seems like she may start to cry)

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FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

Don’t do that. Don’t cry.

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

Why not?  You steal my husband and now you’re telling me not to cry about it? Oh I know how little it means to you.  How easy this all is for you.  One night you dress like a royal princess, and then next you undress like a Greek Goddess.  You get lash extensions, eyebrow threading, spend a fortune on the perfect shade of red lipstick and are always in perfect lighting.  Everything working to make you look perfect, and gorgeous. You even have an author’s line to make you seem witty and wise.  No wonder a poor, simple-minded lawyer falls in love with you.  What chance do I have against you in my cheap designer knock off dress? Even online beauty tutorials can make up for the lack of glamour! I don’t know how to flirt and pose to lure some guy in.  I don’t have Mr. Shakespeare writing my speeches for me.  I’ll bet I got way better grades in schoolthan you did and I am probably far more educated, but when it comes to alluring men, no contest.

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

(without anger, slowly, regarding her      appraisingly.)

 

This is all very interesting.

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

Interesting how?

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

I mean that I never received a flower, or a letter, or anything else from your husband.  But you’re totally convinced.  You said he used to write you letters.  Tell me, haveyou and your husband been having some problems lately?

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

Well, yeah…

 

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FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

You used to have a very close, passionate relationship?

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

Oh, yes...

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

And recently, it’s fizzled?

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

Well, kinda.

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

And that is all because of him, or have you been distant lately, too?

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

I have been working a lot…

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

Of course!  So typical.  If you knew how often we actresses dealt with this sort of thing! I think your husband has been playing a little game to make you jealous--to revive your interest in him.

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

Do you really think so?  You mean this kind of thing has happened before?

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

Countless times.  It happens to every actress who is moderately pretty and successful.  It is one of the oldest tricksin the world and we actresses are such conspicuous targets for it!  

There is scarcely a man connected with the theater who doesn’t make use of us in that way some time or another—authors, composers, scene designers, lawyers, orchestra leaders, even the managers themselves.  To regain a wife or sweetheart’s

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affections all they need to do is invent a love affair with one of us. The wife is always so ready to believe it.  Usually we don’t know a thing about it--but even when it is brought to our attention we don’t mind so much.  At least we have the consolation of knowing that we are the means of making many a marriage happy which might otherwise have ended in divorce.

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

But—my god, I never imagined, how could I--

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

There dear, don’t apologize.  You couldn’tknow, of course.  It seems so plausible.  You think of your husband as being in an atmosphere of perpetual temptation, in a backstage world full of beautiful sirens without scruples or morals. One actress, you suppose, is more dangerous than a hundred ordinary women.  You hate us or fear us.  No one understands that better than your husband, who is evidently a very cunning lawyer.  And so he plays on your fear and jealousy to regain the love you deny him.  He writes a letter and leaves it behind him on the desk for you to find. He orders flowers on a shared computer, knowing you could easily check the browser history?  He probably even left my number out somewhere easy for you to find.  And did he have something as old school as a lock of my hair?

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

Yes.  I found it in his desk drawer.

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

I was pretty sure my hairdresser was selling swatches of my hair for this kind of thing.  He keeps getting me to go shorter and shorter.  It’s a wonder I have any hair left.

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

​(happily)

 

Is that how he got it?

 

 

 

 

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FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

I can’t imagine how else.  Tell me, he hasn’t saved any of my racy texts has he?

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

Not that I know of...

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

Don’t be alarmed.  I haven’t sent him any.

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

Then what made you--?

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

I might have if he came to me and said “Sara, will you do something for me?  My wife and I aren’t getting along so well.  Would you send me some risqué texts that I can leave in my messages on my phone where she may find it?” I should certainly have done it for him.  I’d have sent him some texts that would have made you cry into your pillow for at least a week.  I wrote ten like that for a very well-known playwright once.  But he had no luck with them.  His wife was such a proper person she trusted him completely and would never stoop to checking his phone.

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

You are so clever!  Wow!  I would have fallen for it completely! You’re amazing!

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

I’m no better or worse than any other girl in the theater.  Even though non theater women consider us monsters and most likely home wreckers.

 

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

I have been a perfect fool.

 

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FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

Well, you do look a bit silly, on the verge of tears and face flushed with happiness because you have discovered that a little blond man with glasses loves you, after all.  My dear, no man deserves to be adored as much as that.  But that’s your thing, isn’t it?

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

Yes.

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

Yet I want to give you a parting bit of advice:  don’t let him fool you like this again.

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

He won’t.  Don’t you worry.

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

No matter what you may find in his pockets—letters, handkerchiefs, my photograph,texts on his phone, no matter what flowers he sends, or letters he writes, websites he visits—don’t be taken a second time.

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

Definitely not!!  And you won’t say anything to him about this will you?

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

Not a word.  I’m angry with him for not having come to me for permission to use my name the way he did.

 

EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

You are a dear and I don’t know how to thank you.

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

 

Now don’t start crying all over again!

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EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN

 

You have made me so happy!

 

​(logs out)

 

FAMOUS ACTRESS

​

Buh, Bye. Finally.  She’s gone.

​(in a sexy voice)

 

All right Alfred.  Now where were we?