On The Beach - Act 1

A Stage Play by Tom Friel

On The Beach

Character #1 - John McGinnis a surly 50-something marketing VP for a children’s book publishing company. McGinnis, divorced, has two ungrateful teenage daughters and looks forward to nothing more than his scotch and a smoke at the end of the day.

Setting - An exclusive oceanside property outside Santa Cruz

(All dialogs in Act 1 are performed by character #1)

Act 1 by T.G. Friel

What the hell is that? (Looking towards the beach) Goddamn mother-f*#kers! Dumping trash on the beach again. Why can’t the f*#king cops do their job. Ok, Ok, Ok, maybe it wasn’t just trash. Maybe it was a body, hell I don’t know. It’s not like I got a good look her. How do I know if she was dead? No deader than most women I’ve known. Besides, I needed to get to work. The presentation I’d been working on needed to be finalized.

No, no, no, I’m not going to report it, that’s unnecessary, completely unnecessary. I suppose if she’s still there when I head back home I may take a closer look. Maybe she was just drunk and passed out or something. Maybe she was homeless and found the beach to her liking. Maybe she was feeding the gulls with that stiff looking hand of hers.

Maybe she just enjoyed the water splashing over her half-naked body. Not that I looked that close you understand.

Hell, maybe she wasn’t even real. Somebody’s idea of a joke placing a mannequin on the beach. Well, it didn’t fool me. I’m sure it was probably nothing but some young actress, doing her death act. Or maybe she was one of those “Goth” girls, that’s probably why she looked so pale. Yeah, that’s why her face was as white as those tiny breasts on her. Not that I looked that close mind you. It was hard to see much underneath her jet-black hair all covered in sand.

I’m not giving it a second thought, why should I? Kids these days don’t care about anyone but themselves. Let that selfish, self-centered little brat stay out there for all I care.

End of Act 1