THE LAST LUNCH

A Comedy in Three Acts, with a Prologue and a Coda

Revision Five

 

Dramatis Personae

MARA — Forty-eight. Manager of a municipal cafeteria scheduled for demolition. Practical, impatient, unexpectedly tender.

INES — Twenty-three. Apprentice electrician. Talks too quickly and refuses to apologize for it.

DORIS — Seventy-four. Retired civil engineer. Has volunteered to supervise the building's final inspection although nobody asked her to.

SAM — Thirty-one. Delivery driver. Permanently late, permanently cheerful.

MR. KLEIN — Fifty-six. Municipal administrator. He believes every human problem can eventually be converted into a form.

NORA — Forty-one. A cook. Has worked in the cafeteria for twenty-six years.

THE CHILD — Eight. Appears during the lunch hour. Nobody knows whose child she is.

MRS. ANNA VESNA — Ageless, or nearly so. Founded the cafeteria in 1958. Seen only by those who have stopped insisting on what is real. She does not haunt the room; she simply has never finished leaving it.

CUSTOMERS, WORKERS, INSPECTORS, DELIVERY PEOPLE — Played by the ensemble.

A Note on Staging — read before blocking any of the following

The play contains four unexplained things: the Child, her upstairs, Mrs. Vesna, and the chalk mark beneath the paint on the back wall. These are not four separate mysteries. They are one mystery, observed from four angles, and the production must make that legible through treatment, since the text will never make it legible through explanation.

The rule is simple and must never be broken: nobody on stage reacts to any of the four differently than they react to the ordinary business of the cafeteria. No double-takes, no held silences that ask the audience to gasp, no lighting cue, no music sting, no actor "playing the mystery." Doris measures a wall that has moved exactly the way she'd note a stuck door. Nora serves Vesna exactly the way she serves the chicken-soup customer. If every strange thing in this play receives the identical flat, procedural non-reaction as everything ordinary, the audience will feel — correctly — that they are watching one submerged logic surface four times, rather than four accidents the play forgot to resolve. The uniformity of the response is the only clue they are given, and it must be enough.

 

PROLOGUE

1958

 

Darkness. A single bare bulb switches on — not a spotlight, an actual bulb on a cord, the kind a building has before it has electricians.

A YOUNG WOMAN in a plain coat stands in an empty room. There are no tables yet. No counter. Only concrete and dust and the bulb. This is ANNA VESNA, thirty years old, though the actress playing her will play her again in the present day, unaged. The audience should not be told this. They should simply notice, an hour from now, that they were not surprised.

VESNA: (to the empty room, as if it can hear her) You'll need a stove there. And tables — not too many, or people will sit alone. And a door that doesn't lock, because a door that locks is asking a question nobody wants to answer at lunchtime.

She takes a piece of chalk from her pocket and writes something on the wall. We do not see what.

VESNA: There. Now you're a place. Whatever they call you after this — and they will call you other things, I promise you that — this is what you are underneath it.

She looks around once more, satisfied, and exits — not through a door, but simply into the dark at the edge of the stage, the way memory exits a room it has finished furnishing.

The bulb goes out. Lights rise, fast and fluorescent, on—

 

ACT I — The Building Is Still Open

Scene I — 11:47 A.M.

 

Bright fluorescent light. A municipal cafeteria. Plastic tables. Stainless-steel counters. A large clock reads 11:47. There is nothing mysterious about the room. It is ugly, functional, and extremely alive. On the back wall, faded almost to nothing beneath at least three different eras of paint, a patch of chalk-white that has never fully taken to any coat rolled over it.

NORA is cutting bread. MARA is standing behind a counter holding a letter. INES is lying underneath a vending machine with a screwdriver. DORIS is measuring the wall with a tape measure. SAM enters carrying six enormous c

 

MARA:

 Nobody panic.

NORA:

That means panic.

MARA:

I said nobody panic.

NORA:

Exactly.

SAM:

Where do you want these?

MARA:

What are they?

SAM:

Sandwiches.

NORA:

We already have sandwiches.

SAM:

These are government sandwiches.

DORIS:

What's the difference?

SAM:

They were ordered by somebody who isn't eating them.

INES:

That's most government food.

MARA:

Put them there.

SAM:

There where?

MARA:

There.

SAM:

That's the dishwasher.

MARA:

Then don't put them there.

SAM:

Good system.

He puts the boxes on the floor.

DORIS:

The building is leaning.

MARA:

Buildings don't lean.

DORIS:

They do when they want to leave.

MARA:

Doris.

DORIS:

Yes?

MARA:

Please don't give the building emotions.

DORIS:

I'm an engineer. I give buildings measurements.

She measures again.

DORIS:

Seven millimetres.

MARA:

What?

DORIS:

Movement.

MARA:

Since when?

DORIS:

Since 1989.

Silence.

 

MARA:

You've known since 1989?

DORIS:

I suspected. This wall's been three different rooms, you know. Under this paint there's a paint for the ration center, and under that one there's a paint for the community hall, and under that —

She taps it.

 

DORIS: —

something I've never been able to get to. Every name they gave this place, they just painted over the last one. Cheaper than sanding.

NORA:

And you didn't tell anyone?

DORIS:

Nobody asked. Buildings are the most patient liars we have. They'll hold a secret for forty years if you never think to open the wall.

The doors open. MR. KLEIN enters carrying a clipboard.

 

KLEIN:

Good morning.

EVERYONE:

No.

KLEIN:

I haven't said anything.

MARA:

That's why.

KLEIN:

Asset 114-C will close at two o'clock.

MARA:

Asset what?

KLEIN:

114-C. That's the current designation.

NORA:

It's a cafeteria.

KLEIN:

It's Asset 114-C that is currently being used as a cafeteria.

DORIS: (dry, to no one)

There it is again.

KLEIN:

Sorry?

DORIS:

Nothing. Go on.

KLEIN:

The cafeteria will close at two o'clock.

NORA:

Today?

KLEIN:

Today.

MARA:

Permanent?

KLEIN:

Yes.

DORIS:

For how long?

KLEIN:

Permanently.

DORIS:

That's not a duration.

KLEIN:

It is in municipal language.

INES:

What happens to the building?

KLEIN:

Demolition begins Monday.

Everyone looks around. The room continues operating. A customer enters.

 

CUSTOMER:

Chicken soup?

NORA:

Two dollars.

CUSTOMER:

Is it fresh?

NORA:

No.

CUSTOMER:

Yesterday?

NORA:

Last Tuesday.

CUSTOMER:

I'll take it.

Nora serves him.

MARA:

Why?

KLEIN:

Budget.

MARA:

That's not an answer.

KLEIN:

It's the answer we use.

DORIS:

Who decided?

KLEIN:

The committee.

INES:

Which committee?

KLEIN:

The Facilities Rationalization Committee.

NORA:

That sounds like people who don't eat lunch.

KLEIN:

They eat lunch.

NORA:

Then they're worse than I thought.

The clock changes to 11:48.

MARA:

What are we supposed to do?

KLEIN:

Continue operating until two.

MARA:

And then?

KLEIN:

Everyone goes home.

DORIS:

That's your plan?

KLEIN:

That's the plan.

DORIS:

No.

KLEIN:

No?

DORIS:

That's not a plan. That's an ending somebody wrote on a form and mistook for a decision. Words do that, if you let them. Say a thing enough times in the right font and it stops needing to be true.

Blackout.

Scene II — 12:15 P.M.

Lights immediately return. The cafeteria is crowded. There is no indication that any time has passed except the clock. MARA is trying to maintain order.

MARA:

One line!

CUSTOMER 1:

There is one line.

MARA:

Then stay in it!

CUSTOMER 1:

I am.

MARA:

You're standing sideways.

CUSTOMER 1:

I have a bad knee.

MARA:

Then have a bad knee facing forward.

INES climbs onto a chair.

 

INES:

Everybody!

Nobody listens.

INES:

EVERYBODY!

The room quiets.

INES:

The building is being demolished.

CUSTOMER 2:

Yes.

 

INES:

How do you know?

CUSTOMER 2:

I read the newspaper.

INES:

Oh.

She climbs down.

SAM:

That went well.

INES:

I thought people would be surprised.

SAM:

People are only surprised by things that don't happen to them.

THE CHILD enters. She walks directly to Mara. Mara greets her exactly as she greeted the soup customer — no pause, no shift in register.

CHILD:

Do you have lunch?

MARA:

Yes.

CHILD:

Good.

MARA:

Where's your mother?

CHILD:

At work.

MARA:

Where?

CHILD:

Here.

MARA:

I don't see her.

CHILD:

She works upstairs.

Mara looks upward — briefly, practically, the way you'd check for a leak.

 

MARA:

There is no upstairs.

CHILD:

There was yesterday.

Doris stops measuring — not startled, just interested, the way she'd stop for an odd reading on an instrument.

DORIS:

That's interesting.

MARA:

No, it isn't.

DORIS:

Architecturally, it is.

KLEIN:

There has never been an upstairs.

CHILD:

There was.

KLEIN:

No.

CHILD:

Yes.

KLEIN:

No.

CHILD:

Yes.

KLEIN:

I have the building plans.

DORIS:

Plans are not buildings.

KLEIN:

They are official.

DORIS:

Official things are not necessarily real. I've spent fifty years drawing rooms that were never built and standing in rooms that were never drawn. The paper and the walls stopped introducing themselves to each other a long time ago.

The child takes a chair.

CHILD:

Can I have soup?

NORA:

Of course.

Nora gives her soup, exactly as she gave it to the customer three minutes ago.

 

CHILD:

Thank you.

NORA:

You're welcome.

The child sits. Everyone returns to work. The ordinary resumes. 

 

MARA:

Doris.

DORIS:

Yes?

MARA:

Is there an upstairs?

DORIS:

No.

MARA:

Good.

DORIS:

But there could be. Most buildings have one more room than the blueprint admits to. It's usually where the person who built the place kept whatever she didn't want the inspectors asking about.

Blackout.

Scene III — 12:31 P.M.

 

A quieter moment. NORA alone at the counter, wiping it down. She hums, almost without noticing. MRS. VESNA is simply there, on the customer's side of the counter, as though she has been standing in line the ordinary amount of time. Nora's reaction is precisely as flat as it was to the soup customer, to the Child, to everyone.

VESNA:

You still hum that.

NORA: (not looking up)

Hum what?

VESNA:

The thing you hum when you're deciding whether to be angry.

Nora looks up. Looks at her. No shock — only the mild, unbothered recognition of someone noticing a familiar draft.

NORA:

Do I know you?

VESNA:

You've served me soup for twenty-six years.

NORA:

I don't forget faces.

VESNA:

No. You forget names. It's different. Names are administrative — they get reassigned, reclassified, painted over the second somebody with a clipboard needs the wall for something else. Faces are just weather you've stood in. Nobody's found a form for weather yet.

NORA: (a beat, returning to her work)

What can I get you?

VESNA:

Whatever's left when everyone else has eaten. That was always my order.

Nora, without looking up again, ladles a bowl and sets it where Vesna is standing. When she next looks, the bowl is empty and Vesna is gone. Nora regards the empty bowl exactly as long as she'd regard any bowl someone forgot to bus, and goes back to wiping the counter.

NORA: (to no one, matter-of-fact, not wistful)

Some people you just keep feeding.

Blackout.

 

ACT II — The Problem Becomes Administrative

Scene I — 12:58 P.M.

 

A table has been converted into a meeting room. Klein has placed seven forms on it. Everyone is standing except him.

 

KLEIN:

There are procedures.

MARA:

For what?

KLEIN:

For closure.

NORA:

We're already closing.

KLEIN:

That is precisely why procedures are required.

INES:

What happens if we don't close?

KLEIN:

You cannot not close.

SAM:

That's impressive.

KLEIN:

What?

SAM:

You've made a verb out of bureaucracy.

DORIS:

He's right.

KLEIN:

Thank you.

DORIS:

I wasn't complimenting you.

KLEIN:

Still.

Mara takes the papers.

MARA:

What is this?

KLEIN:

Closure declaration.

MARA:

And this?

KLEIN:

Asset disposal.

MARA:

This?

KLEIN:

Employee transition.

MARA:

This?

KLEIN:

Food inventory.

NORA:

We're going to throw away the food?

KLEIN:

It cannot remain after closure.

NORA:

Why?

KLEIN:

Because the cafeteria will be closed.

NORA:

The food doesn't know that.

KLEIN:

The food is not the issue.

NORA:

The food is always the issue.

She takes a tray.

NORA:

People are hungry.

KLEIN:

That is outside the scope of this meeting.

MARA:

Then expand the scope.

KLEIN:

I cannot.

DORIS:

Why?

KLEIN:

Because I don't have the form.

Everyone stares at him.

 

INES:

We need a form to expand the scope of the meeting?

KLEIN:

Correct.

INES:

And who gives you the form?

 

KLEIN:

The department.

INES:

Which department?

KLEIN:

Administrative Coordination.

SAM:

And who coordinates them?

KLEIN:

Nobody.

Pause.

SAM:

Finally, an honest answer.

A telephone on the wall — old, wall-mounted, absurdly out of place — rings. Everyone looks at it. Nobody remembered it was there.

 

MARA:

Is that ours?

KLEIN:

It shouldn't be connected.

DORIS:

It's ringing. Whatever it shouldn't be, it currently is.

Klein, against his own instructions, answers it.

KLEIN:

Hello — this is — hello?

He listens. His face changes, very slightly — the first unscheduled expression he has had all day.

 

KLEIN: (quietly)

No one's there.

MARA:

Then why do you look like that?

KLEIN:

Like what?

MARA:

Like someone told you something you didn't have a form for.

He hangs it up carefully, as if it might be listening. He goes back to his file, unsettled, and — almost involuntarily, looking for solid ground — flips to a page he hadn't planned to check.

 

KLEIN: (half to himself)

This can't be right.

DORIS:

What.

KLEIN:

The registry. Founding date for this facility — 1974.

NORA:

That's wrong. I've worked here twenty-six years and it was old when I started.

KLEIN:

The record says 1974.

NORA:

The record's wrong.

KLEIN:

The record is the record.

NORA:

I know a woman who's been coming here since before 1958. I've served her soup my whole time in this kitchen.

KLEIN:

Then she doesn't appear anywhere I have access to.

NORA:

Maybe your access isn't the whole building.

Klein has no form for this. He closes the file slowly, and for a moment simply stands there — a man who has just discovered that two things he trusted equally cannot both be true, and no department exists to tell him which one to believe.

KLEIN: (quietly, not to anyone)

It was nothing.

DORIS: (mildly)

That's usually what people say right before they change their mind about something.

 

Blackout.

 

Scene II — 1:21 P.M.

 

The cafeteria has become a market. Customers are exchanging things. A man offers a bicycle. A woman offers three books. Someone brings flowers.

MARA:

What are you doing?

CUSTOMER:

Buying lunch.

MARA:

With flowers?

CUSTOMER:

It's all I have.

Nora accepts the flowers.

 

NORA:

Soup.

She gives him soup. Another customer places a toaster on the counter.

 

NORA:

What's this?

CUSTOMER 2:

Toaster.

NORA:

I know what it is.

CUSTOMER 2:

Then we're doing well.

She gives him food.

 

KLEIN:

This is unauthorized commerce.

MARA:

They're exchanging things.

KLEIN:

Without a pricing mechanism.

DORIS:

People did that for thousands of years.

KLEIN:

Before municipal accounting.

DORIS:

Exactly.

The Child watches everything.

CHILD:

Why are you closing?

MARA:

Because they say the building isn't useful anymore.

CHILD:

Who says?

MARA:

People with numbers.

CHILD:

Numbers can't eat.

NORA:

She's right.

KLEIN:

Numbers can determine resource allocation.

CHILD:

Can they eat soup?

Klein opens his mouth. Nothing comes.

SAM:

Careful.

KLEIN:

About what?

SAM:

You might have encountered a question outside your department.

 

Blackout.

 

Scene III — 1:43 P.M.

 

The noise has become enormous. Everyone is eating. The food is running out. Mara discovers a storage room.

MARA:

Nora!

NORA:

What?

MARA:

Come here.

Nora enters. They stare at shelves filled with food.

NORA:

That's impossible.

MARA:

I know.

NORA:

We haven't had that much food in twenty years.

MARA:

Apparently we do now.

NORA:

How much?

MARA:

Enough.

NORA:

Enough for what?

MARA:

I don't know.

Doris enters.

DORIS:

The wall moved.

MARA:

What?

DORIS:

The storage room wasn't this large.

NORA:

Is the building expanding?

DORIS:

No.

MARA:

Then what is happening?

DORIS:

We're using it.

MARA:

Using what?

DORIS:

The space. A building can be larger than its plans if enough people need it. I've measured this room four times today. It disagrees with itself a little more each time. I used to think that meant my instruments were failing.

MARA:

And now?

DORIS:

Now I think the instruments were just outvoted.

She looks at the chalk mark on the wall.

DORIS:

Somebody wrote something on this wall before either of us worked here. I've never been able to read it. But every committee that ever renamed this place tried to paint over it anyway, which tells you something — you don't bother covering a thing that doesn't still say what it always said.

MARA:

That's not engineering.

DORIS:

No.

She smiles.

DORIS:

That's architecture.

 

Blackout.

 

 

ACT III

Scene I — 1:59 P.M.

 

The clock reads 1:59. Everyone is gathered. The cafeteria is almost empty of food, but full of people. Klein stands by the exit.

 

KLEIN:

It is time.

Nobody moves.

KLEIN:

The cafeteria closes at two.

Silence.

MARA:

No.

KLEIN:

Excuse me?

MARA:

We are not closing.

KLEIN:

You don't have authority to make that decision.

MARA:

Neither do you.

KLEIN:

I have written authority.

DORIS:

And she has fifty people standing behind her.

Klein looks around.

KLEIN:

This is obstruction.

SAM:

Maybe.

KLEIN:

You are preventing municipal property from being transferred.

INES:

It's not property.

KLEIN:

What is it?

INES:

A place.

KLEIN:

That's not a legal category.

DORIS:

Neither is a home.

KLEIN:

A home is legally defined.

DORIS:

Only after someone decides to protect it.

The clock changes. 2:00. Nothing happens. Everyone waits.

KLEIN:

The building is closed.

Nothing happens.

NORA:

No.

KLEIN:

What?

NORA:

The building is open.

She turns on the coffee machine. It works. The lights remain on. The refrigerator hums. Someone laughs.

KLEIN:

You can't simply declare it open.

MARA:

Apparently we can.

The Child approaches Klein.

 

CHILD:

You should eat.

KLEIN:

I'm not hungry.

CHILD:

That's okay.

She hands him a sandwich.

CHILD:

Eat anyway.

Klein takes it. He looks at it as though it were an official document.

 

KLEIN:

What is this?

NORA:

Lunch.

Klein takes a bite. Pause.

KLEIN:

It's good.

NORA:

I know.

He sits, slowly, at one of the plastic tables — the first time all day he has sat anywhere that wasn't behind his clipboard. Doris watches him.

 

DORIS:

How long have you worked for the committee, Klein?

KLEIN:

Nineteen years.

DORIS:

And in nineteen years, how many times have you eaten lunch in a place you were closing?

KLEIN: (a long pause)

None.

DORIS:

And in nineteen years, how many of those closures turned out to be wrong?

KLEIN:

I don't — that's not something I'd have a record of.

DORIS:

Why not?

KLEIN:

Because once a place closes, no one checks whether it should have.

DORIS:

So you've spent nineteen years being right by definition, because the alternative was never measured.

Klein sets the sandwich down. This is the moment the ground actually moves for him — not the phone call, not the registry. This.

 

KLEIN:

I don't know what my job is for. I've known what it's called for nineteen years. I don't know what it's for.

DORIS: (gently, no triumph in it)

Welcome. Most of us find that out a little earlier.

A long silence. Klein looks at the sandwich as if it might tell him.

 

KLEIN: (quietly)

It's still good.

NORA:

Lunch usually is. It's one of the few things that hasn't been redefined yet.

 

Blackout.

 

CODA — The Next Morning

 

Morning. Sunlight — the first genuinely warm light of the play. The cafeteria is open. There is a new sign above the entrance: THE LAST LUNCH. Underneath, someone has written by hand: OPEN UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

Mara is sweeping. Doris is repairing a chair. Ines is fixing the vending machine. Sam is carrying boxes. Klein is wearing an apron.

MARA:

What are you doing?

KLEIN:

Working.

MARA:

Why?

KLEIN:

I submitted the form.

MARA:

Which form?

KLEIN:

There isn't one.

MARA:

Then what did you submit?

KLEIN:

A letter.

MARA:

To whom?

KLEIN:

Everyone.

MARA:

What did it say?

KLEIN:

I don't know. I've never written one before. I only ever filled in the ones other people wrote.

DORIS:

That's progress.

The Child enters.

 

CHILD:

Is there soup?

NORA:

Always.

She serves the child.

CHILD:

Where's my mother?

Mara looks around.

MARA:

Upstairs?

The child smiles.

 

CHILD:

Yes.

She runs toward the back. Everyone watches.

 

INES:

There is no upstairs.

DORIS:

Not yet.

A pause. She isn't being clever this time.

 

DORIS:

This building keeps a version of itself the paperwork never recorded. It always has. That's not a mystery to solve. It's just the part of the ledger nobody's department covers.

They hear footsteps overhead. Everyone looks up. Silence.

 

SAM:

Should we investigate?

MARA:

No.

SAM:

Why not?

MARA:

Because if we find an upstairs, we'll have to manage it.

KLEIN:

She's right.

Everyone laughs. The sound of footsteps continues above them.

NORA glances toward the counter — the spot where Vesna stood in Act I. It's empty. She wipes it down out of habit rather than need, exactly as she wiped it before any of this began.

The cafeteria remains open. The lights slowly brighten.

On the back wall, for just a moment — no more than a breath — the chalk-white patch catches the light exactly enough for the audience to almost read what's written under the paint. Then the light moves on, and it's only a wall again.

 

END