I was inspired to write this short one-act play following my mum’s stay in a local hospice. It was recently selected as part of the Maurice Patterson One-Act Play Festival and will be staged in early February 2023.

Two other plays were also selected and I have been cast as Josephine in Assembled With Care by Mary Onions. So, if you come along, you’ll get to see my play and me acting in another one!

Note: the synopsis contains spoilers. If you want it to be a surprise, don’t read on. Be content with the tagline: A tragicomic play about love and regret when time is in short supply.

Synopsis

In this tragicomic piece, the final days of four different lives overlap. Martin can’t make himself heard, Marilyn dreads the postman’s knock, Morris is determined to crack one last case, and Melissa just can’t help interfering.
Four patients are sharing a large room at the hospice. It is not clear what is wrong with each of them, but the fact that they are in a hospice tells us they haven’t got long to live.

Morris is a retired policeman, who was married to the job. He has become very fond of Melissa, a drama teacher who has spent much of her life caring for her mother and has never married. Marilyn, a local solicitor, is visited regularly by her son and is plagued by owl-themed gifts. No one knows
much about Martin because he has limited speech following a stroke. He hasn’t had any visitors as far as the others are aware.

Morris becomes obsessed with finding out who has been sprinkling perfume on his pillow while he sleeps. He decides this is this last case and is determined to find the culprit. Melissa is excited to be interviewed by a DCI. Marilyn finds the whole thing quite ridiculous.

During the investigation, they find a stack of letters under Martin’s pillow, while he is out of the room. They appear to be from his son, wanting to make amends for a previous wrongdoing. Morris and Marilyn think they should stay out of it, but Melissa contacts the son on Martin’s behalf,
pointing out that Martin is unable to do so himself.

Morris decides to do a stakeout to catch the person perfuming the pillows in the act but falls asleep almost immediately and sleeps in late the next day. When he awakes, Melissa is nowhere to be seen and he mistakenly thinks she has passed away during the night. He’s relieved to find out that she has merely gone home for some time, having been in the hospice for respite care only.

Once Morris has recovered from the shock, he, and Marilyn notice that Martin too has slept in today – or has he? As they discover the inevitable truth, they receive a text message from Melissa – Martin’s son is coming in that day to put things right with his dad.

Characters/Casting

MARTIN, 75, has had a stroke.
MORRIS, 64, retired DCI, was married to the job.
MARILYN, 65, solicitor.
MELISSA, 58, drama teacher.
NURSE, indiscriminate age, non-speaking bit part.

While I have specified ages and genders, these are flexible. MORRIS is retired from the police, so could be younger than 64. MELISSA should be of a similar age to MORRIS. MORRIS and MELISSA could easily be gender-reversed or the same gender. MARTIN needs to be old, so it makes sense he has had a stroke. MARILYN could be younger than 58. The NURSE can be any gender or age.

Staging

Four beds on a stage, with easy chairs next to them, angled so that all are visible to the audience. At no point are all the actors in bed, so it should be possible to arrange the actors in such a way for the audience to see everyone. During one scene Morris interviews Melissa, which can be done on chairs at the front of the stage. A wheelchair is required to wheel Martin off and on.