The 2013 winner of the DC Horn Foundation/Yale Drama Series Prize In this darkly comic exploration of loss, intimacy, and motherhood, three women are joined by a baby who never lived. Morgan, in her middle years, is the grieving mother of a stillborn child. Elena, the failed midwife, burdened by guilt, is considering a career change. Dolores, eighteen, is pregnant with a baby she does not want. Meanwhile, Constantinople, the child who wasn’t meant to be, wanders lost in search of his mother, trying to make sense of the world while making an unlikely appearance in each woman’s personal drama.   Poignant, lyrical, ingeniously absurd, and outrageously funny, Jen Silverman’s Still is a brave and remarkable exploration of grief and family. It is the seventh winner of the DC Horn Foundation/Yale Drama Series Prize, selected this year by Marsha Norman, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Getting Out; ’night, Mother; and other acclaimed theatrical works. “I have read other plays on the subject of a stillborn child, but none that live in such an existential plane, none as elegant in formal structure, none with language both surreal and trashy, none as funny, and none as moving.”—Marsha Norman, from the Foreword -- Marsha Norman Jen Silverman recently held a Lila Acheson Wallace fellowship at Juilliard. Previously produced plays include Crane Story and Phoebe in Winter . Her play All the Roads Home was selected for the 2013 Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford, CT. In addition, she writes poetry and fiction, and has been published in Ploughshares and the LA Review . She lives in Astoria, NY. Still By Jen Silverman Yale UNIVERSITY PRESS Copyright © 2014 Jen Silverman All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-300-20635-7 Contents Foreword, by Marsha Norman, vii, Still, 1, Acknowledgments, 102, CHAPTER 1 Still Characters (3F, 1M) CONSTANTINOPLE He is a giant newborn baby, dead. He should be played by a fully grown, very tall man. He is slippery, as unclothed as possible. Unearthly, disturbing, and charming MORGAN Constantinople's mother, 41, fierce, grieving, all angles DOLORES 18, at odds with the world, from time to time a dominatrix ELENA A young 30, a midwife, strongly principled, scared Time: Now Places: A rundown hotel on the outskirts of a city Morgan's basement Playwright's Note: Actors must not cry in any moments except those that are specifically indicated. Then (with the exception of Constantinople's wailing, in Scene 9) they never give themselves over to expressing grief fully—all crying is subtle and understated. There is no moment in which these characters let themselves become sentimental. It is crucial that actors find and play the dark humor and moments of real joy. There is no intermission. Scene One A light on CONSTANTINOPLE. He looks around. He looks at us. He's delighted. He has a plastic hospital bracelet around his ankle. CONSTANTINOPLE Wow. Hi. You're really beautiful. I ... That's great. How beautiful you are. That's ... wow. I'm not good with words yet. I'm learning them. I learned a new one today. "Audacious." I overheard it. I don't know how to use it yet. (beat) So. About me. I was born two days ago. I'm learning that people may want to know this, about me, why I don't know things yet. (beat) Things are just great here. Have you noticed? They're great. Everything is so strange and great. I need more words. I don't have enough words yet. Wow. You know? Words are great. (beat) So that's me. I hope you like it. Being beautiful. Being here. I hope you like it a lot. I was dead when I came out. That was two days ago. Did I tell you that? I forget if I told you that. I'm just having a look around. I just want to see it—what I should have had. (shift—darker) Like you. I should have had you. Your faces. Your hands. Your words. (beat) Don't feel bad or anything. (listens for something, then stills as he hears it) Oh. That's my mother. She's crying again. She's very far away. I'm not sure where. I hear her in here. (touches his stomach, where the umbilical cord was) I don't know what she looks like. If you see her anywhere, let me know. I'd better go. I'm getting stiffer. I don't have much time. CONSTANTINOPLE leaves . Scene Two A seedy hotel. Elegance faded, dilapidated, a grime that sort of shines. DOLORES sits on a pool table, cue in hand. She is dressed in hardcore dominatrixgear. She plays pool against herself. DOLORES Your shot. (she takes it, misses) Ooh. Suckerrrr, my shot. (she takes it, misses—as her opponent) Pathetic. (annoyed) Fuck you. (annoyed) What did you say to me? DOLORES checks her watch. Then she moves the pool ball, sets up for a shot. Then, spoiling for a fight with herself: DOLORES You can't do that! —Watch me. Put that back. —Make me. Girrrrl do not make me take out my combat boots. A WOMAN comes in, out of breath, in a hurry. She's wearing formal work