Women at their Mirrors

I haven't posted in a while, so here's another scene.
It's about the idea of the public vs the private, and how something as simple as putting on your make up is a kind of mask.

Three women at dressing tables facing the audience, behind them, numerous mirrors. Tthey apply makeup and style their hair. Alice is a woman in her late 60’s, lamenting the loss of her youth, Bianca is a prostitute who dresses accordingly, and Daisy is a girl of about 4 or 5, playing with her mother’s clothes and makeup.

Daisy:                    You...You’ve got to pout...like this...when you put on the lipstick...

Bianca:                 The punters like it when you look like what you are. So we lay it on thick, ladies.

Daisy:                    ...and it’s got to be PINK!

Alice:                    I used to have my hair long. I’d wear this section up in rolls and have the rest of it in curls. Of course, that was the fashion then. Can’t do that now. Now it’s all thin and grey.

Bianca:                 Why can’t women put mascara on with their mouth closed? I can. I’m sure I...oh...maybe not.

Alice:                    I used to rub toothpaste on any blemishes I got. Don’t think it would work on filling in the laughter lines... They say wrinkles are a map of your life on your face. This line here...that’s from the first time Brian made me laugh...and this one’s the first time he made me cry.

Daisy:                    Mummy doesn’t put enough blush on...Pink is for girls...so...so people will know you’re a girl.

Bianca:                 I don’t mind having to put this much makeup on for work. It’s almost like a mask...like it’s not really me doing those things. When I’ve got my work face on, I’m in that mind-set...I feel like I can take on the world. You’ve got to be thick skinned to do what I do. It doesn’t hurt to put another layer on top of it.

Alice:                    This one is from the first time he was unfaithful, and this one was me trying to pretend I didn’t know.

Bianca:                 I like to have my hair long and loose. Some girls will tell you that it just gets in the way, but I guess it’s just...I feel more feminine that way. The guys are paying for a woman, so I give them a woman. A real woman. They’re not paying to see you looking like shit.

When he’s with me, he’s not your husband, or your father, or your brother, or your uncle. When he’s with me, he’s someone else entirely.  He’s whoever he wants to be, and that’s something he can’t get with you. With me, there are no rules, no social etiquette to tell us how to behave around each other, just the basest of instincts.

Alice:                    Who’s that old woman in the mirror there?

Daisy:                    Mummy says I’m too young for make-up. I think I look pretty.

Alice:                    This is the same perfume I sprayed on the day I got married; only now it smells old and musty.

                                Maybe that’s the problem. Life’s just made up of big events, and the bits in the middle just blend into one. There’s the first time you have a night out and a man asks you to dance, your first kiss. There’s the day you get married, the day your first child is born. You remember these days above all the rest and they’re like the peak of your happiness. You look back on them and remember how happy you were, and realise how unhappy you are now.

Bianca:                 No one wants this. It’s no one’s first choice. But it’s better than nothing, surely. I’d rather do this than not be able to support myself.

                                I remember when I got into a car for the first time. I cried the whole time. Not that he noticed, or cared. But after that, it somehow got easier. If you’ve done it once, then you can do it again.

Alice:                    Only once in my life have I ever felt desirable. It was something so simple, and in that moment, just for a second, I felt like the most beautiful girl in the world. There was a man. I remember the way it felt as he ran his hands over my legs. I remember this kiss. He kissed me just once on the skin left bare in between the suspenders that held up my stockings, and when he did that I felt...good. About myself, about what I was doing and about the power I had over him. Just that one moment, fleeting and stupid, but at least I had it.

Women at their Mirrors

I haven't posted in a while, so here's another scene.
It's about the idea of the public vs the private, and how something as simple as putting on your make up is a kind of mask.

Three women at dressing tables facing the audience, behind them, numerous mirrors. Tthey apply makeup and style their hair. Alice is a woman in her late 60’s, lamenting the loss of her youth, Bianca is a prostitute who dresses accordingly, and Daisy is a girl of about 4 or 5, playing with her mother’s clothes and makeup.

Daisy:                    You...You’ve got to pout...like this...when you put on the lipstick...

Bianca:                 The punters like it when you look like what you are. So we lay it on thick, ladies.

Daisy:                    ...and it’s got to be PINK!

Alice:                    I used to have my hair long. I’d wear this section up in rolls and have the rest of it in curls. Of course, that was the fashion then. Can’t do that now. Now it’s all thin and grey.

Bianca:                 Why can’t women put mascara on with their mouth closed? I can. I’m sure I...oh...maybe not.

Alice:                    I used to rub toothpaste on any blemishes I got. Don’t think it would work on filling in the laughter lines... They say wrinkles are a map of your life on your face. This line here...that’s from the first time Brian made me laugh...and this one’s the first time he made me cry.

Daisy:                    Mummy doesn’t put enough blush on...Pink is for girls...so...so people will know you’re a girl.

Bianca:                 I don’t mind having to put this much makeup on for work. It’s almost like a mask...like it’s not really me doing those things. When I’ve got my work face on, I’m in that mind-set...I feel like I can take on the world. You’ve got to be thick skinned to do what I do. It doesn’t hurt to put another layer on top of it.

Alice:                    This one is from the first time he was unfaithful, and this one was me trying to pretend I didn’t know.

Bianca:                 I like to have my hair long and loose. Some girls will tell you that it just gets in the way, but I guess it’s just...I feel more feminine that way. The guys are paying for a woman, so I give them a woman. A real woman. They’re not paying to see you looking like shit.

When he’s with me, he’s not your husband, or your father, or your brother, or your uncle. When he’s with me, he’s someone else entirely.  He’s whoever he wants to be, and that’s something he can’t get with you. With me, there are no rules, no social etiquette to tell us how to behave around each other, just the basest of instincts.

Alice:                    Who’s that old woman in the mirror there?

Daisy:                    Mummy says I’m too young for make-up. I think I look pretty.

Alice:                    This is the same perfume I sprayed on the day I got married; only now it smells old and musty.

                                Maybe that’s the problem. Life’s just made up of big events, and the bits in the middle just blend into one. There’s the first time you have a night out and a man asks you to dance, your first kiss. There’s the day you get married, the day your first child is born. You remember these days above all the rest and they’re like the peak of your happiness. You look back on them and remember how happy you were, and realise how unhappy you are now.

Bianca:                 No one wants this. It’s no one’s first choice. But it’s better than nothing, surely. I’d rather do this than not be able to support myself.

                                I remember when I got into a car for the first time. I cried the whole time. Not that he noticed, or cared. But after that, it somehow got easier. If you’ve done it once, then you can do it again.

Alice:                    Only once in my life have I ever felt desirable. It was something so simple, and in that moment, just for a second, I felt like the most beautiful girl in the world. There was a man. I remember the way it felt as he ran his hands over my legs. I remember this kiss. He kissed me just once on the skin left bare in between the suspenders that held up my stockings, and when he did that I felt...good. About myself, about what I was doing and about the power I had over him. Just that one moment, fleeting and stupid, but at least I had it.

Breakneck Productions presents 'Bones' by Peter Strachan

20th August

Square Chapel, Halifax, West Yorkshire
(part of the Halifax festival)



"Some Christmas - your eggs hard-boiled, p*ssing down with rain, and your brother kidnaps Reggie Kray."

...It's Boxing Day 1969. Benny and Reuben Stein own a run-down porn cinema in Gateshead, and owe a lot of money to a local gangster - who has just given Benny a week and a kick in the teeth to pay up. So when a drunk, rich-looking Londoner staggers through the door, Reuben sees an opportunity, both to make some money and to establish himself as a gangster in his own right. The one tiny little flaw in this particular kidnapping plan is that Reuben may have stumbled on the biggest gangster of them all - one of the infamous Kray twins.
Insults, punches and severed fingers fly in this fast-paced dark comedy from the writer of The Men Who Stare at Goats. In amongst the infighting, hostage negotiation and games of Snap, Benny, Reuben and the others discover how far they are really prepared to go to be Real Men - and learn that sometimes even the most fearsome of crooks aren't as manly as they seem.

Please Note: This performance is not suitable for children under 16.

Facebook event here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=149005021778701&index=1

An extract from a novel I'm writing...

This is just a small section from the novel I'm writing, which as a kind of modern fairy tale that undermines the traditional fairy tale conventions and values. This particular bit occurs fairly early on and marks the start of the combination of the horrific and the fantastic:

There was a dream that Lucy had often had for almost as long as she could remember. It always began in the same way. She was standing in an empty space in front of a full length mirror that was framed with silver vines. She would peruse her own face in this mirror until she was confronted with some manifestation of that which made her different from everyone else, as she inevitably would. More often than not her hair would become thick and blonde, a gold tiara encrusted with the most expensive of diamonds would appear on her head and she would be transformed into the lost princess of a distant land. At other times she would grow wings as translucent and thin as tracing paper, covered in swirling silver dust, and she would float away on the breeze, the fairy queen. In her nightmares her face would become distorted and hideously ugly, and then she would be suddenly surrounded by people who would shun her or run away in fright.



On this particular night however, the dream became far more obscure. She had grown wings before, but these were painful. Whilst looking into the same mirror she had seen a thousand times, she fell to the floor in sudden agony. She became aware of something trying to break out of her back, something that was obliterating her flesh and shattering her bones. Ripping out from between her shoulder blades irrupted a mass of feather shapes made of mahogany. She opened her eyes and watched as they formed themselves into huge wings which towered over her head and almost grazed the floor, even in their closed state. They were adorned with gold filigree shapes; mythical creatures which roared and fought one another and the most beautiful flowers that seemed to bend to a non-existent breeze.


Without her consent, the wings opened and it was only now that she appreciated their terrible magnificence. Slowly, they began to flap, but Lucy could not control them. She started to panic as she rose above the ground and attempted to hold onto the mirror to stop herself from soaring into the blackness on such a monstrous pair, but it disappeared at her touch and she was soon consumed by the dark.


She awoke in a cold sweat, with a very real pain in her back. That dream had terrified her more than it should, so she turned up her oil lamp. She was suddenly terrified of the darkness that had just engulfed her. She lay awake just watching the light flicker.

© Catherine Stiles, 2010.