Drama Workshop: Ideas For Teaching Drama
OUT OF THIS WORLD
By Andrew McCann
ACT TWO: SCENE THREE
A Cell in the Zenotrons' Central Headquarters
(LUCY is alone in a bare cell. She is sitting despondently on the floor when she hears a familiar voice and responds excitedly to it.)
SALLY (offstage) Where are you taking us?
6TH ZENOTRON (offstage) My orders are to lock you in this cell!
(ENTER SALLY, JANE, JACKO AND THE PROFESSOR.)
JANE Lucy!
PROFESSOR There you are, my dear. Thank goodness you're all right!
LUCY Oh, Uncle! I'm so glad to see you! I thought you'd all been killed by those horrible Zenotrons!
SALLY You had us worried,too, Lucy.
PROFESSOR I hope they haven't been treating you badly, my dear.
LUCY They treated me very well at first. Made me feel important. Threw a special party in my honour! It was great!
SALLY Doesn't sound like the Zenotrons to me!
LUCY Then they locked me in here. Said I would stay here unless I answered all their questions.
JACKO That sounds more like the Zenotrons!
LUCY At first I did as they asked, because I thought they were my friends. I answered all their questions.As a reward, they let me out of here and fed me well again.
PROFESSOR Look, this is important, lucy. What sort of questions did they ask you?
LUCY They wanted to know about you, Uncle- and about your space craft- and where we had come from- and why we were here. I found it difficult to answer some of the questions. I don't know much about your space craft- I'm far more interested in ponies! All I know is that it got us here because of some silly mistake I made- and I hope that some day it'll get us back. I've no idea how far the Earth is from here- no idea at all! But when I told them that it took us only a few seconds to get here, they started being nasty, saying that I was a liar and I was pretending not to know things I did know. I've never told a lie in my life, Uncle- honestly!
PROFESSOR I'm sure you haven't, Lucy.
LUCY I started to think about why they were asking me all these questions. So I stopped telling them anything. I didn't tell any lies. Just kept quiet, that's all.
PROFESSOR Good for you, Lucy!
LUCY I don't understand them at all. If they really want to help us to get back to Earth, they've got a funny way of going about it.
PROFESSOR The Zenotrons only want to help themselves, believe me.
SALLY Well, I'm not going to help them one little bit!
PROFESSOR I don't think that attitude will help us, Sally. We're going to have to go through the motions of doing our best to help them, or we've had it. We need their co-operation, if only to find the rock to fuel the space craft. There's no way we're ever going to escape from this planet without that.
JACKO They're hardly likely to want to find it for us, though, are they?
PROFESSOR Maybe not for us- but if they want to find out how my space craft is powered, they'll have to provide me with the appropriate materials to do it with- and that means finding me samples of rock!
(ENTER ZENOTRON LEADER and ZENOTRONS)
ZENOTRON LEADER We have kept our part of the bargain, Professor, now it is your turn to keep yours. You will come and demonstrate the workings of your space craft to us.
PROFESSOR Very well.
(Exit PROFESSOR with ZENOTRONS)
(Blackout)
©Andrew McCann
Drama Workshop: Ideas For Teaching Drama