(We are in dark­ness. A beat. Then:)

FI: Did you notice the little red fox this morning?

EM: What little red fox?

FI: The one that keeps popping through the bushes like a little nosy neighbor.

EM: Oh him. He’s not nosy.

FI: Or her.

EM: They’re not nosy. It’s their street. It’s the fox’s street. We just live on it.

FI: You’re right. It is their street. Just … seemed like they knew some­thing was up. All the hustle and bustle.

EM: No. They’re just going about their foxy busi­ness. We’re the nosy neigh­bors. We’re the ones that are like “What are you up to, fox? Why are you hanging out in the bushes, fox?”

FI: “Where’s your family, fox? What’d you eat for break­fast this morning, fox?”

EM: Prob­a­bly chickens.

FI: Def­i­nite­ly chickens.

EM: Someone’s chick­ens. John and Betty’s chickens?

FI: John and Betty don’t have chickens.

EM: Don’t they?

FI: No. They have contempt.

(Em laughs and pulls a string; a single light­bulb lights up the space, which is, it turns out … a supply closet. The down­stage wall is open to the audi­ence, the closet door is stage right. Fi, dimly illu­mi­nat­ed now, is outside the closet, wearing a suit. Em, inside the closet, is wearing a wedding dress.)

FI: Can I come in? By any chance?

EM: Are you gonna make me do anything?

FI: No.

EM: You promise?

FI: I promise.

(Em unlocks the door, pulls Fi inside, and quickly shuts it again.)

FI: Nice digs.

EM: Yeah. It’s my little space­ship. It can go anywhere.

FI: Oh … sweet.

EM: It’s meant for one person. But the two of us com­bined are sort of like one person.

FI: Are you calling me small?

EM: No. I would never do that. FI: OK.

EM: You’re big.

FI: Thank you.

EM: Pow­er­ful.

FI: Thank you.

EM: Mighty.

FI: That’s good, thanks.

(Em gives Fi a quick peck on the lips, then looks away.)

EM: Turns out you chose to marry a mis­an­thrope. Or … almost marry.

FI: A hot misanthrope.

(Pause.)

FI: So, are you gonna tell me what’s—

EM: Every­one said that once you get to the day, it’s amazing.

FI: I know.

EM: That it would all be worth it once you get to the actual day.

FI: They did.

EM: That it’s just the lead up that’s really bad. All the self-repli­cat­ing To Dos and family dynamics.

FI: They’re liars.

EM: Our friends and family! The people who are sup­posed to love us most in the world!

FI: Dirty liars.

EM: Don’t be funny.

FI: I’m not. It’s terrible.

EM: Awful.

FI: Worse than I ever imagined.

EM: Right?! All of the people. In their outfits.

FI: The outfits are tough. The outfits are def­i­nite­ly tough.

EM: And the big … plastic … smiles.

FI: That’s from all the Botox.

EM: And every­one has to perform the role of being so excited for you.

FI: They’re prob­a­bly excited for us, no?

EM: Yeah, sure, but they’re also a million other things.

FI: Like?

EM: Lonely. These things make some people feel ter­ri­bly lonely. And old. They look at us and they see our crow’s feet / and they—

FI: Smile lines, please.

EM: They look at us and they see our smile lines. And they think about how we’re not even really young anymore. And that makes them, like, acutely aware of how close to death they are. And then they’re struck with this, like, mortal panic, but simul­ta­ne­ous­ly have to act extreme­ly enthu­si­as­tic. And it’s just like … do you think that maybe … maybe we shouldn’t have fought so hard for this?

FI: No, you’re right. Gay rights have gone WAY too far.

EM: Stop being funny.

FI: I’m not being funny. I’m chan­nel­ing Ron DeSan­tis to be supportive.

EM: I’m just not sure we needed the right to eat over­priced, ter­ri­ble food and wear uncom­fort­able shoes for fifteen hours while par­a­lyz­ing our faces from smiling.

FI: Not to mention how straight it feels. Have you noticed how straight it feels?

EM: SO STRAIGHT. How did that happen? It’s very con­fus­ing how that could have happened!

FI: I don’t know! The whole thing just reeks of man wife groom bride blah blah no matter who’s involved, apparently …

(Dis­tant­ly, the sound of someone’s voice comes over a micro­phone. Em’s anxiety returns.)

EM: Is every­one saying ter­ri­ble things about me?

FI: No. They might be think­ing ter­ri­ble things about you. But they have manners. (Off Em’s dev­as­tat­ed expres­sion.) Hey. They prob­a­bly just think you ripped your dress or some­thing. (Fi checks the time.) But do you think you might be up for—

EM: You promised.

FI: I know. Just checking.

(Beat.)

EM: I met this lesbian check­out lady when I was picking up the place / cards—

FI: See for a mis­an­thrope, you know, you’re always meeting people.

EM: Jane. She and Carol had gotten married in their back­yard. Just like a really tiny family thing. In the moment, I thought that was sort of sad. Like it was a man­i­fes­ta­tion of inter­nal­ized homo­pho­bia or some­thing … like they didn’t want too many people there because of shame. But now … I don’t know. Maybe being proud doesn’t have to mean we just … copy their rituals.

(A beat as they both con­sid­er the way-too-late­ness of this epiphany.)

FI: So, have you trav­eled any­where yet?

EM: What?

FI: In your spaceship?

EM: Oh. No. I was waiting for you.

FI: God, you’re so obsessed with me. (Then, Fi begins ready­ing the space for … some­thing.) Where should we go?

EM: Huh?

FI: In our space­ship. It can take us any­where in the whole universe!

EM: Oh. I don’t know. Maybe like … the DMV?

(Fi takes in the lame­ness of that answer. Then, their eyes meet; Fi’s are conspiratorial.)

EM: No.

FI: Yes.

EM: No.

FI: Yes.

(They snap into space­ship posi­tion. With Fi leading the charge, they begin to make the sounds of whirring, an elec­tri­cal engine pow­er­ing up, the beeps and boops of con­trols coming online, maybe even a voice coming over a radio “Houston to base station … Houston to base station … we are prepar­ing for liftoff in … 3 … 2 …1”. Fi pulls the bulb’s string to turn off the lights just as … BOOM. Blast off. They are now “offi­cial­ly” some­where in the cosmos.)

BOTH: Whoooooooooa.

FI: Oh, crap, wait—you know, I could have sworn I put in the DMV coor­di­nates cor­rect­ly, but—(glanc­ing out the “window”) oh my God, you know where I think we’ve ended UP?

EM: Where?

FI: I think we’ve ended up at … the wedding of our dreams!

EM: (Please God, no more wed­dings.) Ohhhh.

FI: Can you look out the window and tell me where it’s hap­pen­ing? Sorry, my eyes are just a little tired from the zero oxygen.

(Em looks out the “window,” but answer­ing this ques­tion proves exceed­ing­ly dif­fi­cult at present.)

EM: (Grasp­ing) Yeah, I think it’s uh—underwater maybe?

FI: Oh yeah, yeah, an under­wa­ter wedding!

EM: (Really grasp­ing) Or maybe it’s … I don’t know, in a … a water bottle?

FI: Oh, sick. Turns out tying the knot is seri­ous­ly hydrating!

EM: (Really, really grasp­ing) Or a game. I think it’s actu­al­ly in a game.

FI: Sorry, the wedding is in a game?

EM: Yeah. Like Jumanji but maybe, um, I don’t know—maybe like a pirate game? Or … ugh, I’m so bad at this.

FI: No, no, no, you’re doing great!

EM: Or what about a PLAY!

FI: Like … a wedding in a theater?

EM: (Really onto some­thing now.) No, a wedding that’s also a play. We could … could find a couple of actors who look like us …

FI: Or we do it in the dark! So it doesn’t matter if they look like us! Opens up the casting options.

EM: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s good. And then if the wedding is a play, we could still say, you know, words in front of people … which feels … impor­tant. Like, we can still be wit­nessed in our love. But without being wit­ness­es … to being … wit­nessed? If that makes sense?

FI: So we don’t go to this play?

EM: God no. That would be humil­i­at­ing. Or if we do go, we don’t tell anyone we’re going. We just pretend we’re regular audi­ence members.

FI: I like it. Do we think we could find someone who would put on a play like this?

EM: I mean, there’s gotta be, like, a really smart and cre­ative theatre pro­gram­mer out there who would see the value of a metathe­atri­cal med­i­ta­tion on the het­ero­nor­ma­tiv­i­ty of the wedding indus­tri­al complex. Right?

FI: Prob­a­bly would draw a really intel­li­gent and thought­ful crowd, too.

EM: For sure. For sure.

(Beat.)

FI: So how would this play start?

EM: You do it.

FI: You’re the writer!

EM: I’m too anxious. It can be anything.

FI: Ok fine. So … to start with, in our wedding play, I dis­cov­er you parked in a space­ship at a farm-to-table wedding venue. And we blast off into space, and land in the parking lot of the DMV of Ulster County. Or actu­al­ly, no, no, no, actu­al­ly we land on a little space­ship landing pad just outside the DMV parking lot. And we have to cross through a field to get there. But the field has gone to seed. And it’s really thick and brambly. So we need a machete.

EM: Of course your wedding play has a machete.

FI: You said it could be any­thing! So we’re cutting our way through bram­bles and vines when—(Pirate accent) look ho! What’s that?

EM: Did you just call me a ho?

(Fi wasn’t, but now def­i­nite­ly is.)

FI: (Pirate accent) Look, ho! At yon distant tower!

EM: (Pirate accent) Yarr! What’s that tower, ho?

FI: (Pirate accent) ’Tis the water­rrr tow­er­rrr of my youth! Where I came as a wee little baby pirate!

EM: (Pirate accent) Ah yes, the famous water­rrr tow­er­rrr of your baby pirate­hood! ’Tis so tall! And covered in so much arrrrr … (grasp­ing at an ending to this word:) … gyle.

FI: (Pirate accent, incred­u­lous) Ah yes, the famous arrrrgyle water tower! And we scrab­ble to the bottom of the arrrgyle water tower, where (Drop­ping the pirate thing) we drop the pirate thing, ’cuz turns out being a pirate is flippin’ exhausting.

EM: Don’t say flipping.

FI: But as tired as we are, I take your hand, and we start to climb. And the wind is in our faces, but we climb and climb. And when we finally reach the top, down below us we see … What do we see?

(Em is strange­ly moved by this image.)

EM: We see … a dance floor. In the field. And all our friends are dancing and waving to us from afar. And they look like they’re having the best time ever. Like they’re actu­al­ly so happy that they’re there, and we’re here. Every­one just feels so relieved and them­selves and … in their element.

FI: Mm, that’s nice. But then! Because all plays need con­flict right?

EM: I mean, I don’t know, I think that might be a patri­ar­chal construct …

FI: The water tower starts shaking!

EM: Uh oh …

FI: It starts groan­ing and shift­ing and we realize it’s begin­ning to stretch, up, up—

EM: Like a beanstalk!

FI: Yes! Except it’s not a beanstalk! It’s not a beanstalk at all!

EM: Well what is it then?

FI: It’s a … gay little rainbow!

EM: YES! But THEN! Our feet start sinking into the gay little rainbow and come up gloopy and smelly and strange. And we realize we’ve taken a wrong turn. A very wrong turn. Because sud­den­ly, the road is made of—

BOTH: DEADLY MONTH-OLD RHUBARB PIE.

FI: (Haunted by this image:) Such an inex­plic­a­ble texture. Such an oth­er­world­ly hue.

EM: Baby, I really did think Aunt Lucy had given us an empty dec­o­ra­tive pie basket when I tucked it away in that cupboard.

FI: I know you did, baby.

EM: The impec­ca­ble Amish weave was a red herring!

FI: (Nearly gagging) Please don’t bring up herring at a time like this.

Em: Oh God, I’m so sorry.

Fi: And lest we digress too far from our deadly detour! Guess who shows up to save us from the putrid rhubarb pie road?

EM: WHO?

FI: Our O.G. hero, The Little Red Fox. And luckily, they have an incred­i­ble fox diges­tive system and are quite happy to lick the poi­so­nous rhubarb rot off our legs … Which is weirdly sort of erotic—

EM: What is your deal with this fox?

FI: Deliv­er­ing us FINALLY … after a long, sweaty—

EM: Sticky, dangerous—

FI: Treach­er­ous, tumultuous—

BOTH: TREK.

FI: To our final destination.

EM: Which is?

(The air shifts as they re-enter their shared reality. Fi turns on the light.)

FI: Right here. Right now. (They are … still in a supply closet. But a space for authen­tic ritual has opened up before them, some­thing that has eluded them until this moment.)
And I give you your favorite hat.

(Fi gives Em a utility bucket as a hat.)

EM: And I give you your favorite wand … (Em gives Fi a mop as a wand. Then pulls out a piece of paper from some sort of pocket.) And I say … in front of every­one in the audi­ence of the play …

FI: Hey. We’ve mem­o­rized. Like real actors. And I’m going first.

EM: You are? How come?

FI: Because I’m roman­tic. (A prepara­to­ry moment.) And I say … (Takes a breath.) Remem­ber when we took that Harry Potter Buz­zfeed quiz the other day that I sort of hated because it said I was most like Neville Long­bot­tom when I’m def­i­nite­ly most like Hagrid?

EM: Yeah.

FI: Rhetor­i­cal, Em. These are gonna be rhetorical.

EM: K.

FI: And the quiz asked what’s most impor­tant to you in a partner? Like
that was one of the ques­tions? And I chose “that they inspire you”? Well, I saw your brow sort of furrow and the edges of your mouth squeeze a little, which is the face you make when you don’t believe things. Like when we were watch­ing M3GAN, and there’s that scene where the Allison Williams char­ac­ter doesn’t seem to pick up on the fact that her Franken­stein robot doll def­i­nite­ly mur­dered the neighbor’s dog? (Em, hearing this, is prob­a­bly making the face.) That face. And I knew that the reason you were making that face was because you don’t believe that anyone is inspired by you anymore. (The truth of this hits Em imme­di­ate­ly and pal­pa­bly.) Which is … (Care­ful­ly.) maybe also a little bit why we’re here? (Fi looks around the supply closet, then out at the audi­ence.) Wher­ev­er it is we are. You know, in addi­tion to the het­ero­nor­ma­tiv­i­ty of the, uh—

EM: (Perhaps through tears, which have already begun) Wedding indus­tri­al complex.

FI: Right. But the thing is, I don’t see you that way, as someone unin­spir­ing. To me, your love is bedrock. It is floor. But it is also space­ship. It is also moldy rhubarb rainbow road in the sky. You can’t even help making the ordi­nary extra­or­di­nary, Em, you com­pul­sive­ly coax it out of hiding whether you intend to or not. (Turning to the audi­ence.) So now … in front of all these very attrac­tive people that we do not know, I want to make a couple of rea­son­able promis­es to you. I promise to keep you warm. To wrap my body around your body when the power goes out, which it will, because our house is very old. I promise to be there when things get hard, and when you just want to quit, and then when you un-quit, and when you quit again. I promise never to force you to feel dif­fer­ent­ly than you feel, but just to remind you that we’re in this togeth­er. Forever. And that there are a thou­sand ways to do life. And ritual. And it doesn’t really matter what anyone thinks. Because a wedding is a moment, but a mar­riage is a story we tell and keep telling. And I may be a little bit biased, but I think we tell pretty flip­ping weird stories together.

EM: (Through tears) Don’t say flipping.

(Em kisses Fi. Then, wipes tears, poofs out wedding dress a bit.)

EM: OK. Let’s get this shit over with.

FI: Are you sure? We don’t have / to—

EM: No. I want to. (Looking at Fi.) With you? Anything.

FI: Then let’s go.

(Fi offers Em an arm. Em takes it. Metal music starts to play, some­thing like “the kids aren’t alright” by Pinkshift. They walk out of the supply closet, and down the theater’s aisle, to the exit. They open the door to a sunlit day. A group of people dis­tant­ly cheer.)

END OF PLAY