A Nude Beach Play
Fiction concept by Clark Humphrey
7/11/97
The scene opens with a woman sitting up on a towel on a beach, nude. Her undies, T-shirt, sandals, and cutoff shorts are in a neat pile to one side of her towel. She’s listening on a personal stereo to something. At her feet is a paperback book. With sunglasses half on, she alternates between staring out at people and broadcasting a variety of colorful, scornful expressions at anyone who stares out at her.She makes pithy remarks about women who are so flat it’s pathetic or so big they probably have never seen their own feet, and about men who are big, bigger, and almost big enough.
After about four minutes of this tableau, she finds herself looked at by someone who apparently doesn’t flinch when she looks back. Instead, she looks on with official disgust as he walks closer to her and finally appears onstage. He’s wearing only a baseball cap (worn frontwards) and generic knock-offs of popular sneakers. In one hand, he’s holding a six-pack; in the other, a large clear-mesh tote bag with his clothes and towel.
(Direction note: No attempt is ever made to hide any part of either character’s body from the audience.)
They argue over who looked at whom first, who looked at whom most obviously, and who was treating whom as an object. Under her questioning, he admits he rather enjoyed it when she gazed directly (and, he likes to imagine, longingly) at his crotch.
As he helps himself to putting down his towel next to hers, she insists he must really be annoyed to be on the receiving end of the sex-objectification process.
He flatly denies the presumption: to him, and, he insists, to probably any man, to be thought of as a sex object by a highly doable woman is the highest possibly compliment.
He quotes his favorite rap lyric, in which a man boasts to other men about how women adore his (the rapper’s) dick.
The man at the beach continues by explaining that since raw animal sex is what he personally wants most out of life, to be even potentially considered as a candidate for such sex is at least a small triumph of approval. He then guesses at what she wants most out of life: to be swept off her feet, but remain completely in charge. She adamantly denies this.
Upon repeated goading from him, she relents and tells him her ultimate fantasy (while he opens a beer and hands her another, which she accepts). She puts her sunglasses all the way on as she describes her dream experience.
She flails her arms and hands (including the hand holding the beer) around herself sensually during this, but doesn’t actually touch any part of her body (or his). While her story’s relatively long, at nearly four minutes, it settles into a “having it all” scenario, which the man quickly summarizes as close enough to his guess.
After about ten more minutes of these exchanges, the woman notices the sun’s about to go down behind the bluff hiding this nude beach from general-public view.
Without saying a word about any near- or far-future plans, they stand up together, help each other de-sand their towels, gather their things, and walk off, still agreeing to disagree.
