A scene from section 1 of Love and Information by Caryl Churchill
Scene one
After hearing a commotion in the kitchen between the son and the maid, a mother follows the son to his bedroom and enquires what the commotion was about. The son is adamant about opening up to his mother about the incident; nevertheless the mother is persistent. The son was prompted to confide in his mother that he had an affair with the maid. The maid was claiming to be pregnant for him. The mother is disappointed since they live in the governor’s mansion, which would ruin their reputation. (There are two characters in the scene, a mother and his son in the son’s bedroom. The son reveals his affair with the maid. The audience should find this dramatic and yet entertaining)
Scene 2
A husband walks in the house in the evening bruised, the wife sits him down in the living room, and as she is attending to the bruises, the conversation unfolds. The wife asks the husband what happened to him. He hesitates to tell her, but the wife is persistent; therefore, he reveals to her that he jumped off his friend’s vehicle into a bush as the police were following them. It turns out the friend deals with drugs. Therefore, the friend persuaded him to save himself from the police by jumping off the vehicle into a bush since he was going to crash the car before the police caught up with him. Considering that the husband is a church leader and this kind of information would destroy his reputation to other congregants; therefore, it needed to remain between them. (There are two characters, husband and wife, in their house’s living room. The secret is that the husband’s friend is a drug dealer. The feeling the audience would get from this is that of betrayal and drama from the church leaders and feeling entertained.)
Scene 3
A young man on his graduation day walks to his best friend’s house disturbed. His best friend pesters him to tell him why he was distressed and what he was doing there instead of being at the graduation arena. In his best friend’s ear, the young man whispers that he gave the last check that his parents sent him to his girlfriend, whose mother was sick in the hospital. Therefore the young man was not going to graduate. His parents are not aware of their son’s actions. However, they know very well that today is their son’s graduation day. The parents are traveling for miles to come and witness their son graduate. He does not know how to tell them about his situation since they are barely rich. (There are two characters in this scene. They are best friends. The scene is at one of the friend’s house. The secret is that the young man gave his last tuition check to his girlfriend for her mother’s hospital bill. The feeling I want the audience to experience is that of sympathy and disappointment).