Friday Night - A short play

Friday Night

Characters:

Girl: 18 to 22 years of age, a little pretty.
Six men: All 20-30 years of age, dressed according to their dispostions.

[Fade in, 6 men and 1 girl are there in the room around a round table and 4 to 5 chairs]

Existentialist: Lady and gentlemen, I welcome you all to our first meeting of 'Friday night discussions'. Today's topic is : Why do we live?

Optimist: We live because life has a lot of nice things in store for us.

Pessimist: No we are here to suffer; we live to suffer all our lives.

Existentialist: Not exactly, actually we can reduce our sufferings a lot, if we . . ..

Plagiarist: Yes, yes we can surely reduce our sufferings a lot.

Girl: [To Plagiarist] How?

Plagiarist: [To existentialist] Yes, how?

Absurdist: By being a Rhinoceros, [Laughs out aloud, stops] being a man will give you nothing.

Feminist: No one respects girls here; no one has offered this girl a seat yet. [Hits the girl with elbow]

Girl: [Now a sort of bored, suddenly getting furious] Yes, yes no respects for girls here.

Absurdist: No one respects Rhinos too, so what. [Laughs out aloud, stops] But one day i will be a Quarter-master General.

Optimist: I think he is talking about friendly White Rhinos of North Africa.

Pessimist: No, i think he is comparing us people to those bloody Rhinos.

Feminist: [ready to blast off] Everyone saw how he compared girls to Rhinos, such a daring assault is not aimed at a single girl but entire female race.[Hits the girl with elbow]

Girl: [Woken from sleep] What? . . . .yes, yes female foeticide is .. . [remembers a little] killing our roots.[smiles sheepishly to feminist]

Feminist: [Whispering] You idiot girl, [loudly] What are you people doing? Come on, this man is insulting females.

Plagiarist: Yes, this man is insulting females. He must be made to sniff the ground. [Starts rolling his sleeves in anger]

Absurdist: [indifferent and looking at nowhere] Dark Green fires from Reddish Black hell will burn your ultimate desires of having an imparted impulse.

Existentialist: Cool down people, we are deviating from the topic.

Plagiarist: [Rolling his sleevess down] Yes come on, we people are deviating from the topic.

Optimist: Hope this fight dies down soon.

Pessimist: It would never die down.

Optimist: [To the Pessimist, smiling] You will think positive one day.

Pessimist: [To the Optimist, mocking] You will never think negative any day.

Optimist: [Smiles] You will, one day.

Pessimist: [irritated] And you will never.

Optimist: [Smiles] But, you will, one day.

Pessimist:[Very angry] I will? But you will not live to see that day.

[Pessimist pounces upon Optimist and starts punching him]

Existentialist: [Loudly] See you people are making me angry, and .. . .

[But no one is listening to him, plagiarist and girl are seen flirting on one side, suddenly he says soemthing and she slaps him, in turn he slaps her, and the slapping cycle starts between the two.]

Feminist:[To Absurdist] I think you detest girls since you were born.

Absurdist: I think you were never born.

Feminist: You girl hater.

Absurdist: You ectoplastic creature.

Feminist: You narrow minded fellow.

Absurdist: You artless buffalo.

[At this the Feminist pounces upon Absurdist and starts punching him]

Existentialist: Stop it, [Threatens] see I was a dacoit 20 years ago . . .[no one is listening, so he screams] Stop iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!!!!!!!!!!

[Everybody is fighting horribly and tearing each other's clothes, Existentialist goes out of the room through a black and white door]

Existentialist: [Enters with a Bazooka in his hands, screams] Stop this immediately or i will shoot you all.

[Suddenly a shoe comes flying and hits his nose hard and in rage he fires all over the room, everybody is badly wounded except the girl]

Optimist: We will live. [dies]

Pessimist: Take my final salute people. [dies]

Feminist: Long live the revolution. [dies]

Absurdist: Quintessential apples are here again. [dies]

Plagiarist: Yes, apples are here again. [dies]

[A deafening silence all over the room]

Girl: Thanks, you didn't kill me.

Existentialist: Well, well, so this is life, let's get on with it . .

[Existentialist moving towards the girl, slow Curtain]