Beautiful Dreamer

BEAUTIFUL DREAMER

Interior, a hospital room, 1924. ELLIE sits in a bed. Also in the room are a chair and table of some sort, with an empty vase. A closed door leads offstage.

Ellie (singing): Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me,
Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee;
Sounds of the rude world heard in the day,
Lull'd by the moonlight have all pass'd away

Beautiful dreamer, queen of my song,
List while I woo thee with soft melody;
Gone are the cares of life's busy throng.

Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me
Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me

Beautiful dreamer, out on the sea,
Mermaids are chanting the wild lorelie,
Over the streamlet vapours are borne,
Waiting to fade at the bright coming morn.

(A knock.)

Beautiful dreamer, beam on my heart,
E'en as the morn on the streamlet and sea;

David: Ellie? Can I come in?

Ellie: Then will all clouds of sorrow depart,

David: Ellie?

Ellie: Beautiful dreamer awake unto me
Beautiful dreamer awake unto me (David opens the door. She looks up.)

David: I brought you a rose. The first of the year. I know how you miss them.

Ellie: A rose.

David: Yes. A red one.

Ellie takes the rose and smells it.

Ellie: a rose. Off which bush?

David: the climbing rose. It’s grown over the entire porch.

Ellie: has it been that long? I can’t keep track anymore. Every day is the same in here. Hospital food and healthy walks on the lawn and nurses always asking me ‘how do you feel today?’ and ‘did you sleep well?’ they treat me as if I were a baby. I’m surprised they let you bring this in, with the thorns and all. I’m not supposed to have sharp things. Not even hairpins. They took away every last one. My nail file, too. The one with the ivory inlays. The one Alice gave me. (Pause) How is Alice?

David: Alice has been dead for ten years.

Ellie: Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t anyone tell me? I’m still here, you know, I’m not that crazy. I can handle the news. The news. She’s dead?

David: I did tell you. You went to the funeral, Ellie. You weren’t in here yet. You’ve just forgotten. Forgotten. Lost track of things. They warned you this might happen.

Ellie: Yes. They did. That I remember. I remember the oddest combinations of things. Like that fort we built the year I turned ten. Do you remember that? The walls all leaned and the roof leaked something awful but we were so proud because we’d made it ourselves.

David: And then we moved again the next year. I wonder what became of that fort. I doubt it’s still standing. The fact that it stayed up for more than five minutes was nothing short of a miracle.

Ellie: That was Illinois. Then there was Colorado. Colorado Springs Middle School. Proud home of the flying squirrels. Do they even have flying squirrels in Colorado?

David: I don’t know. I never saw one that I remember. Remember the rope swing in California?

Ellie: God yes. The American River. We spent that whole summer down by the river with the rope swing. Swimming. Swinging and jumping off into the water.

David: The only way to stay sane. It must have been at least a hundred and five in the shade.

Ellie: Sane. I guess it didn’t work, then.

David: I’m sorry — I didn’t mean —

Ellie: I know you didn’t. I’m resigned to it at this point. I’m crazy. Batty. Completely insane. Not quite all there. This is a good day, you know. Some days I hear things. See things. One day the chair and the table began to dance. It was quite romantic, really. A waltz. One-two-three two-two-three — would you like to sit down?

(David sits in the chair)

The walls here have ears. Nothing goes unnoticed. There they are, always watching, waiting to see what will happen next. Nothing much ever does happen. Patients eat, sleep, and occasionally have breakdowns or try to run away or attempt to strangle the nurse — that happened one night. It took four other nurses to restrain her — the patient, I mean. Not the nurse.

David: I can’t imagine. It must be strange.

(Ellie looks at the rose she is still holding)

Ellie: We don’t have any rosebushes here. None. I suppose they’re afraid we’ll hurt ourselves — rather silly, I think. “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” I bet the rose is the most mentioned flower in English literature. “The mind does not create what it perceives, any more than the eye creates the rose.” Emerson. Can you put this in that vase? (David takes the rose and puts it in the vase).

David: Shakespeare. Emerson. You could have been an English major.

Ellie: But life got in the way. At least I still have fun. Look at you. College, a job — you got your dreams. But do they make you happy? When was the last time you did something fun? My straight-laced older brother. (David doesn’t respond.)
Beautiful dreamer wake unto me…don’t you remember that song?

David: Yes.

Ellie: So sing with me.

David: No. It’s not something I do. It’s not something people in general do.

Ellie: So?
Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee…
I used to wonder what would be waiting when I got out. I’m twenty-seven. I should have the rest of my life ahead of me. To do something. And here I am instead. Not overtiring myself. Living out my days in safety and boredom.
Sound of the rude world heard in the day
Lulled by the moonlight have all passed away.
Stand up. The chair wants to dance.

David: What?

Ellie: The chair wants to dance. Go on! You don’t want to make it angry — it ate a spider once.


David: Chairs can’t eat spiders.

Ellie: Don’t! (David reluctantly stands up.)

David: Are you all right? What’s wrong?

Ellie (giggling): Nothing’s wrong. The chair and table are in love, that’s all. Look at them — aren’t they sweet?

David: Ellie, they’re just a chair and a table! They’re not doing anything. They can’t fall in love. They’re inanimate objects! For the love of God please stop this.

Ellie: No, I can’t come right now. I’m busy. My brother came to visit me. Can’t you see that? (David sits back down in the chair, at a complete loss, and takes the rose out of the vase) David! Get up, you’re sitting on her again.

David: Her?

Ellie: The chair.

David: Oh. (He stands, still holding the rose.)

Ellie: Illinois. Colorado. California. Tennessee. New York. We lived so many places. Sometimes I just don’t know — can I see that rose again? (David hands her the rose and sits back down in the chair. This time she doesn’t protest.)

David: Remember the rose bush in our yard in Tennessee? Huge yellow roses. The bush was so big that we used to crawl inside it to hide. Hiding amid the scent of roses. Yellow roses. Yellow roses always seem to mark the end of something. (He is starting to babble and he knows it.) The end of so many things. It was after Illinois that things started to happen. Your nightmares. Insomnia. Those roses —

Ellie: David.

David: Roses. (Ellie looks back at the rose she is holding. She peels off one petal and lets it fall into her lap.)

Ellie (softly at first): Beautiful dreamer… (As she sings she slowly pulls petals off the rose and lets them fall. Somewhere around “Gone are the cares…” David joins in very quietly. As the song progresses he grows slightly more sure of himself. Piano joins in and plays through to the end.)

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