Tennessee Williams, Two-Character Play

FELICE. [slowly, reflectively, writing] To play with fear is to play with fire. [He looks up as if he were silently

asking some question of enormous consequence] — No, worse, much worse, than playing with fire. Fire has

limits. It comes to a river or sea and there it stops, it comes to stone or bare earth that it can’t leap across and

there is stopped, having nothing more to consume. But fear —

[There is the sound of heavy door slamming off stage]

Fox? Is that you, Fox?

[The door slams again]

Impossible! [He runs his hands through his long hair] Fear! The fierce little man with the drum inside the rib

cage. Yes, compared to fear grown to panic which has no — what? — limits, at least none short of

consciousness blowing out and not reviving again, compared to that, no other emotion a living, feeling

creature is capable of having, not even love or hate, is comparable in — what? — force? — magnitude?

CLARE. [from off stage] Felice!

FELICE. — There is the love and the — substitutions, the surrogate attachments, doomed to brief duration,

no matter how — necessary … — You can’t, you must never catch hold of and cry out to a person, loved or

needed as deeply as if loved — “Take care of me, I’m frightened, don’t know the next step!” The one so loved

and needed would hold you in contempt. In the heart of this person — him-her — is a little automatic sound

apparatus, and it whispers, “Demand! Blackmail! Despicable! Reject it!”

Shakespeare, Othello, Act 1, Scene III

IAGO. Thus do I ever make my fool my purse:

For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane,

If I would time expend with such a snipe.

But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor:

And it is thought abroad, that 'twixt my sheets

He has done my office: I know not if 't be true;

But I, for mere suspicion in that kind,

Will do as if for surety. He holds me well;

The better shall my purpose work on him.

Cassio's a proper man: let me see now:

To get his place and to plume up my will

In double knavery—How, how? Let's see:—

After some time, to abuse Othello's ear

That he is too familiar with his wife.

He hath a person and a smooth dispose

To be suspected, framed to make women false.

The Moor is of a free and open nature,

That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,

And will as tenderly be led by the nose As asses are.

I have't. It is engender'd. Hell and night

Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.

Sarah Kane, Crave

A. Don't say no to me, you can't say no to me because it's such a relief to have love again and to lie in a bed

and be held and touched and kissed and adored and your heart will leap when you hear my voice and see my

smile and feel my breath on your neck and your heart will race when I want to see you and I will lie to you

from day one and use you and screw you and break your heart because you broke mine first and you will love

me more each day until the weight is unbearable and your life is mine and you'll die alone because I will take

what I want then walk away and owe you nothing it's always there it's always been there and you cannot deny

the life you feel, fuck that life, fuck that life, fuck that life, I have lost you now.