A Most Suitable Match

A young woman sees a matchmaker with a peculiar ability for time travel.

CAST LIST

 

AMY: Blond hair, slightly misanthropic but generally charismatic.

 

ALEXA: Friend of Amy. Model - Alexa Chung with dark brown hair. Witty and chic.  

 

MATCHMAKER: A corpulent middle-aged woman with disheveled red hair.

 

GROUP OF NEANDERTHALS: A woman, little boy, and a handful of other Neanderthals dressed in animal skins. Grimy, with messy hair.

 

NEANDERTHAL BOY: A muscular, shirtless boy.

 

LAURA: Dark-haired maid slightly mousy in appearance.

 

MR. HENRY BOARE: Model - Hugh Grant. Middle-aged, arrogant, and glib. Affected received pronunciation.

 

WILLIAM: Byronic in appearance, charming manner. 

 

SCENE 1

 

Place: A coffee shop.

 

AMY: Listen, I’ve decided to see a matchmaker.

 

ALEXA: That’s weird, I seem to have missed the memo that we’re back in the Stone Ages.

 

AMY: Don’t laugh, I just think it’s my only option that has any potential.   

 

ALEXA: Have you tried out any 21^st century inventions like online dating? What about Okcupid?

 

AMY: Been there, done that. All the messages I got were either from men on completely different continents or people I’m pretty sure are fugitives from justice. If the next thing you’ll ask is why I didn’t message anyone myself, well, there was honestly no one who came into question. I seriously considered turning lesbian for a moment.

 

ALEXA (smiling): You’re just way too picky. How about that.

 

AMY: That’s so infuriating of you to say. I defy you to go on a single meaningful date off Okcupid. And I say this right off the bat, I assume no responsibility if you accidentally happen to get murdered.

 

ALEXA (laughs):  All right, what about Tinder?

 

AMY: I went on there yesterday to see what all the hype was about, and I kid you not, a minute into the conversation, the first guy asked me whether I’ve ever been “tied up” and to come over because he lives “alone.”

 

ALEXA: Sounds kind of hot to me.

 

AMY: I do value my life, you know.

 

ALEXA: What can I say, I wish you Godspeed on your trip back to prehistoric times.

 

AMY (rolls eyes): Thanks.

SCENE 2

 

Scene: It is raining. AMY walks into MATCHMAKER’s office fully drenched.

 

AMY: Wow, the rain is intense! Don’t you hate this freezing cold rain? Makes me feel like the world is ending.

 

MATCHMAKER: I need it for my work, so I personally can’t complain.

 

AMY (a little confused): Ah, cool.

 

MATCHMAKER: Have a seat. Please fill in this form so I have your address and general contact information. (She hands Amy a form.)

 

AMY: Sure thing. (Begins filling in form and hands it back shortly after.)

 

MATCHMAKER: So, what brings you to me today?

 

AMY: I’d really like to meet someone I’m truly compatible with, so I figured you might be able to help.

 

MATCHMAKER: You’ve come to the right person. What three characteristics do you value in a man?

 

AMY (attempts light humor): Sounds a little heteronormative, don’t you think?

 

MATCHMAKER remains expressionless. AMY laughs nervously.

 

AMY: All right, so um, I think my ideal match would be someone intelligent, appreciative of nature, not into “mindless consumer culture,” if you know what I mean…

 

MATCHMAKER: You mean a Neanderthal.

 

AMY: Um, not quite. (Laughs.) I just mean that I think I’d like someone centered but still up for a laugh. So in that sense a similar sense of humor is a must.

 

MATCHMAKER: Okay, I think I understand.

 

A flash of lightning. Thunder strikes and AMY faints.

 

SCENE 3

 

Upon awaking, the scene is transformed. AMY lies sprawled down on a forest ground. In the distance, a family of Neanderthals is going about their day.

 

AMY (she stirs and looks around aghast): What the - (Pauses. Proceeds with sheer horror.) What on Earth just happened? Excuse me, miss, (Turning to a Neanderthal woman delousing her son’s head nearby.) is this some type of historical reenactment? I’m not supposed to be here. Can I speak to your manager or anyone in charge?

 

Neanderthal lady looks up expressionless and continues to delouse her son’s head.

 

AMY: Hello? Sorry, I really don’t mean to disrupt the show, but I really shouldn’t - 

 

NEANDERTHAL BOY appears and begins approaching AMY. Strapped across his shoulders is a dead gazelle.

 

AMY: Hi, I’m so glad you’re coming over here. No one seems to have noticed me. I’m…

 

He throws the dead gazelle in front of AMY and grunts enthusiastically. She screams.

 

AMY (in shock): What the hell are you doing? This is why people become vegetarian.

 

NEANDERTHAL BOY smiles at her sheepishly. He kneels down and starts carving out chunks of meat from the gazelle. He offers her a large piece.

 

AMY: This is really happening.

 

AMY declines, and he takes her arm and begins leading her to a beautiful stream enveloped in flowering trees. He inhales the fragrant smells and grunts, clearly enraptured with both the surroundings and AMY.

 

AMY (calmer): Yeah, it really is nice here, the question remaining of what on Earth is going on.  

 

He begins eying her from top to bottom and approaches her lasciviously.   

 

AMY: Stay away, I’m telling you, stay the hell away from me. Holy Mother of God, (Shouting.) I want to get out of here now!

 

Lightning strikes. Thunder.  

 

SCENE 4

 

AMY is back in the matchmaker’s office. She is furious and shaken.

MATCHMAKER sits calmly as before.

 

AMY: What the hell just happened?

 

MATCHMAKER: You said you wanted someone into nature and averse to consumer culture.

 

AMY (patronizingly): Have you stopped to consider that maybe he wasn’t into buying things because there was nothing to buy?

 

MATCHMAKER: I guess you could make that point.

 

AMY: Did you drug me? Did you? Do you know that’s illegal?

 

MATCHMAKER (unperturbed): Calm down, sweetheart. I guess I should have told you more about my, well…methods. I send my clients back in time if I feel they’d be happier there.

 

AMY (dramatically): I think I’m having a heart attack.

 

MATCHMAKER: Everything’s going to be okay. You’re here now. Please tell me what you didn’t like and if there’s any other historical time period you think you’d be happy in. Maybe I should leave that decision to you this time.

 

AMY (mock calmness): I guess I didn’t like my match because (Slowly and emphatically.) he was a Neanderthal.

 

MATCHMAKER: So you’re saying you’d like someone a little more…intellectually developed?

 

AMY: That would be a first. You know, if this wasn’t as intriguing as it is horrifying, I would have run out of here a minute ago and filed legal action against you.

 

MATCHMAKER (smiles): I’m glad you decided to stay.

 

AMY pauses for a moment.

 

AMY: All right, if these are your methods, I might as well play along. (Enthusiastically.) You see, I have this bizarre obsession with 19^th century English high society. I love everything about it - the clothing, the way people spoke, what people did in their free time, how passion and emotion was still somehow fresh and unclichéd…I’m telling you, I’ve watched just about every decent-budget period film and occasionally think I was born in the wrong era.

 

MATCHMAKER:  That can be dealt with.

 

AMY: Sorry for being a little disrespectful earlier. That whole episode was just very overwhelming to say the least.

 

MATCHMAKER (smiles wisely): Not to worry, people tend to react this way. It’s time for you to go now. You ready?

 

AMY nods and grins. Lightning and thunder.

 

 

SCENE 5

Place: An ostentatious mansion.

 

LAURA comes running up with an expression of distress.  

 

LAURA: Goodness me, miss! Mr. Boare will be here any moment. You must needs hurry downstairs for I believe he has something of the utmost importance to disclose!

 

AMY hurries down the stairs. HENRY is waiting for her in the living room.  

 

HENRY: Hello, Amy.

 

AMY (excitedly): Uh... (Curtsies awkwardly.) I apologize for keeping you waiting.

 

HENRY (in reference to Amy’s American accent): By gad, what in the heavens is the matter with your voice? It sounds positively garbled.

 

AMY (tries to contain a smile): Sorry, I believe I may be coming down with a cold.

 

HENRY: Goodness! Amy! Stay in bed, will you? You will quite literally die if you don’t.

 

AMY: Oh don’t worry, it may just be a headache. It’s nothing serious, rest assured.

 

HENRY (awkward, rambling): All right, dearest. Please sit down, I have something I must tell you because, well, frankly, love is like a rose, you know? Like a red rose. Have you ever seen a rose? Ah, I dare not as you surely have spent all your delicate years in this fabulous residence. I digress. Surely you’ve noticed my deep and ever-growing affections for you. I daresay that I love you with all my throbbing heart because you lighten the very center of my soul like…like a nightingale.

 

AMY: Like a nightingale?

 

Henry: Yes, sunshine.

 

AMY: Forgive me, I’m just trying to understand the metaphor.

 

Henry: Don’t think, dearest. Leave that to me.

 

AMY (offended, muttering to herself): Oh no he didn’t…

 

HENRY: In any case, I await your response with great trepidation. Although I am positive that it will be the affirmative as I have recently come into a stupendous inheritance.    

 

AMY (shifting in her seat): Sorry, I actually need to go now.

 

HENRY: Is that so? All right, I’ll be waiting for you right here. Do hurry.

 

They look at each other intently while remaining seated. AMY is clearly waiting to be transported back to the present, but nothing happens. Awkwardness follows.  

 

AMY: I want to go now.

 

Henry: Yes, I did understand that.

 

AMY (emphatically but calmly): I REALLY need to go now!

 

Henry (looks around): Nobody’s stopping you.

 

AMY (gets up and shouts): Hello? Get me out of here NOW!

 

HENRY: There’s no need to become hysterical darling, it’s really only a few steps to the toil-

 

Lightning and thunder.

 

 

SCENE 6

 

AMY: Why did it take you so long? I looked like a total moron there.

 

MATCHMAKER: Sorry, I’ve become a little hard of hearing over the years. And you’d be surprised, time travel does distort voices somewhat, so I could barely hear you. In any case, why didn’t you like Mr. Boare? I thought he was quite a catch.  

 

AMY:  Forgive me, but he was like a living cliché!

 

MATCHMAKER: Why, did you think romance was invented in the 19^th century?

 

AMY (sincerely): Ugh, I know…I guess this is where I concede that I’ve been idealizing the past. Be that as it may, I get the sense that we’re on completely different wavelengths here. I appreciate what you’re doing, but the matches you’ve set me up with so far have not exactly matched. I mean, by saying I wanted someone into nature I obviously didn’t mean someone with a reduced mental capacity. Next you send me back to some tawdry mansion to meet a man who’s almost twice my age, condescending, and cornier than 5 romcoms combined. So far I haven’t exactly been blown away by your choices.

 

MATCHMAKER: Yes, yes, but you have to understand it takes a while until I get a good feel for a client. We’ve reached that juncture so now you’ll no doubt take a shine to the young man I have in mind.

 

AMY (hesitates): I don’t know…

 

MATCHMAKER: Trust me. I’m on to something.

 

AMY: Oh well, all right. But this is the last time.

 

MATCHMAKER: Oh, yes.

 

Lightning and thunder.

 

SCENE 7

 

Place: A bus stop. AMY is seated when a young man approaches. He takes a seat.

 

WILLIAM: Hey, I’ve never seen you here. You new in town?

 

AMY: You could say that. Where are you headed?

 

WILLIAM: Just going to work. I work as an editor, which basically means I get to be mean for a living.  

 

AMY: Charming.

 

WILLIAM (nervously): I was kidding.

 

AMY (laughs): No worries, I figured as much.

 

WILLIAM: You know, I dread the day someone thinks I’m serious when I say stuff like that and either thinks I’m a total prig or somehow intellectually challenged.

 

AMY (enthusiastically): I’m right there with you! People like to toss around the old “sarcasm is the lowest form of wit” line, but if you ask me, it takes a certain degree of abstract thinking and, okay, without painting myself as the reincarnation of Einstein, intellect to pick up on it.

 

WILLIAM: Yes!

 

AMY: With that said, maybe we’re wrong, but at least we’ll draw comfort from the fact that we’re wrong together.

 

WILLIAM (laughs): That’s so uplifting.  So tell me, what do you do?

 

AMY: I do a bit of everything here and there, but I’m principally a writer. I’m currently working on a coming of age story that involves a pair of scissors, a diary, and cup of spilled coffee.  

 

WILLIAM: Riveting. (Laughs.)

 

AMY: Nah, it’s a story about a girl who befriends the school bully and (Speaks in a tone of mock gravitas.) great personal revelations and romance ensue.

 

WILLIAM: Now we’re talking. Hey, at the risk of coming across as disingenuous, if you ever need any editing work done, I’m your man. The more typos, in fact, the happier and more useful I feel.

 

AMY: That is incredibly nice of you, thank you.

 

WILLIAM: Oh man, my bus will be here any moment. Uhh, I was going to go hiking this weekend…would you be interested in joining me?

 

AMY: I’d love to! Let me give you my number, it’s 052 - 

 

Lightning and thunder.

 

SCENE 8

 

Place: Back at the matchmaker’s office.

 

AMY (upset): Why’d you take me back? I was having a great time! Please send be back to whatever era that was. You were right, you knew exactly what I wanted the third time around!

 

MATCHMAKER (flustered): Um, there was actually a little technical issue. I wanted to send you to a little ancient Mesopotamian village, but something went wrong. Damn Microsoft.

 

AMY: Wait, so which period was I sent to instead? It didn’t seem too far back since - oh man, I don’t even know his name - the guy I met said he was waiting for a bus.

 

MATCHMAKER: Oh, you didn’t time travel at all. You were in 2015, only two blocks from here.

 

AMY: What? Wow!

 

MATCHMAKER: Yes, the young man’s name is William Burrow. Nice guy, but I did think you’d like that Mesopotamian tribal chief’s son I had in mind for you.

 

AMY (frustrated): No! I have no interest in whoever that is. Please can you just give me William’s phone number? Just any way of getting in contact with him?

 

MATCHMAKER: Sorry, I don’t have any phone numbers.

 

AMY: Oh no….

 

MATCHMAKER: You know, it’s enough effort to keep tabs on all these names in the system.   

 

AMY sees WILLIAM walking past the window.

 

AMY: I have to go!

 

MATCHMAKER: All right, I’ll bill you the charges.

 

AMY: Charges? Ugh, alright!

 

AMY outside and catches up with WILLIAM.

 

AMY: William!

 

WILL turns around in surprise.

 

WILL: Woah, hi! So glad to see you again, you just disappeared into thin air. I had to look for you because frankly I was worried about you and then myself for possibly having hallucinated our encounter.

 

AMY: No, sorry about that. It’s a long story and I really didn’t mean to disappear.

 

WILL: I called in sick to work. If you don’t report me to my boss, would you want to go grab lunch together? You can explain that most impressive little trick then.

 

AMY: Deal.

 

They walk away together happily.

 

THE END

Reviews

[helq]

I really like the ideas in the text, something simple about relationships and interactions between people, something that it's missing in many movies nowadays.

But I don't feel satisfied with it, maybe because is not long enough. Not long enough to let the characters act like humans. You see, a real human overcome a new situation really slowly, if you in front of someone vanish into air (in a world, like our, where you don't see people vanish or you don't have time travel capabilities (I think)), that someone will be really shocked, I don't feel that when I read the text. I would like to read how really a Neanderthal would react to see a stranger with strange clothes, and how probably she will die by being there.

Now you can consider a sequel where Will ends up not being that person that she wanted to "have". She have conflicts with him, they break and she try to search someone new, but then she realize that Will was a really good guy, that her "standards" are to high (if you want to call them like that), and that it's not about meeting the nicest or most handsome guy possible, it's about the time that you expended with that person and how good your chemistry really is. But come on, it's a sequel, don forget to add some cats and explosions.

If your really like nerdy, intelligent and time travel related stories, you should see "FAQ about Time Travel" (don't see the trailer, as always it will try to ruin the experience, put images in your mind that you didn't wanted before seeing the movie, and maybe torture your pet, or fire your kitchen).

PS: sorry for my bad grammar or, in general, bad English. :/
PS2: I'm glad I found your youtube channel one year ago when I was learning german :P
PS3: sorry if this ended being a really long review, I hope you enjoyed it (no, I think, the idea of the review was exactly to say that, but in the other way)

[E.J. Newman]

So sorry for the late response! Only just logged in and saw your review. Thanks for leaving a comment! I wrote this play as part of a writing challenge that had a word limit, so unfortunately I couldn't make it much longer than it already was. Of course your points are completely valid though - thanks again for dropping by! I'll definitely check out "FAQ about Time Travel" :)

[Jacob Tang]

Yup i've seen FAQ about time travel helq great movie ! Funny how the toilet is a time machine LOL . But that movie really do make you wonder isn't it , chaos theory or more widely known as Butterfly effect .Perhaps in a sequel , Amy is like really smart and invented a time machine , like back to the future . And she decided to travel back in time to change her life forever . For the best of course . Maybe she traveled back in time with all the infomation and blueprints . Then she use that knownladge to create Apple , microsoft , google ,facebook , youtube etc ..... anything that makes lots of money . She became the most powerful woman in the world . But she cannot find a date cuz most of the men only dated her because they wanted her money something like that . You can write about how she fall in love with someone , but in the end discovering that the man cheated by taking her money and she became really sad .

[Marty]

Quirky style of humor. It's a fun read.

There is a lot to be improved however, as you know. You grasp a sense of pacing, but I advise you to think of writing a story like music. Notice how every stage of the song you have a different beat rhythm? But they all surround the main BPM of the song for consistency.

So to simplify it you have a main motif and you surround it with variations to give the story more breathing time.

Also, don't be intimidated by how hard it is. Trust me, it takes time to write something you feel is good enough, and the best advice in this regard is to try to be as creative as possible. You already have that naturally, so just try to train it as much as possible.

Anyway, here is wonderwall

[Jacob Tang]

Wow , i got a laugh when reading this . The idea was fantastic , it's a pity that there were only 8 scenes . You know i really like the idea of time traveling . And you combined time travel with dating . i believe that you can pretty much develop this story further by adding more human elements to it . Human elements like romance , feeling , expressions , love and loss (emotions)? Well after all, all good stories i believe should have strong ideas and framework ,it should also include dramatic twists . Unexpected plausible events that is a pleasant surprise for the reader . But you shouldn't give the reader all the details- that is allow the reader to imagine whats going to happen . For short evoke curiosity and imagination .
Suggestions/Ideas :
1.Time travel is like impossible in the way you described . But nevertheless , we can agree that it requires some technology that is way beyond our era , perhaps Amy's character is a women from a era at least 1000 years from now . So it makes sense that she wants to travel back in time cuz people are addicted to technology or something .
2.She travel back in time to the 21st century(2016) but due to a technical fault , she is stuck there forever !... she got to learn to adept .
3.Or .... she traveled back in time , but fell in love with her FATHER ! LOL

[gremlin08]

This play was a lot of fun to read, especially the Henry Boare scene. It reminds us that we have to live in our own time no matter how tempting it is sometimes not to. EJ, I'll be looking forward to future work.

[E.J. Newman]

That's one of the things I was hoping readers would take from this play. Another play is already in the works, so stay tuned for more! I appreciate your comment :).

[Michelle Mok]

I agree with you - without abstract thinking and a sense of humour, plus the ability to pause for a second in the sometimes chaotic (or just dull) life and search for moments to be sarcastic, one can even barely judge whether sarcasm of others is the lowest form of wit.

I like your work and I just opened an account here to show you some support :))

[E.J. Newman]

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this and even making an account to show support! So sweet of you. Yes, sometimes we need to point out the absurd and ludicrous in life to lighten things up, and I would argue that it takes a little brains to notice this and make it work. xx