JOHN DARROW
Must be some type of crude trap to prevent against grave robbers. Give me a hand, won’t you. Maybe if we put our backsides into it, with a little spit, we can force it open.

RAM IN A THICKET (sample)
By Robb Piggot

This play was first produced in June 2017 as part of the Monkey With A Hat On Adventure Ten Minute Play Festival

CHARACTERS

ELSPETH: A strong-willed young woman with a shrill voice. A pretty, young social climber concerned with appearance, title and status.

REGINALD: Her fiancee, the Eighth Earl of Clarendon. Delicate, fussy and just barely “in the closet” member of the British aristocracy.

JOHN DARROW: A rugged adventurer in a pith helmet. Dashing and handsome with raw sexuality, usually found on the front of cheap romance novels.

SETTING

A small anteroom in the Tomb of Queen Nur. Mespotamia. There is a stone pedestal center stage right, on which sits small primitive statue.

TIME

A spring afternoon. 1925.

Note: The dialogue should be delivered in a quick, clipped-style of speaking but always with that strong undertone of sexuality. Particularly after the entrance of the adventurer. Think gay porn for the Downton Abbey set.

(The lights fade up on an empty stage.)

ELSPETH (offstage)
Here! This must be the way out!

REGINALD (offstage)
Now Elspeth, you are certain this time.

ELSPETH (entering)
Oh Reginald, after we are married, I will expect you to accept my word as the truth and not question me so.

REGINALD (pointing offstage)
But …

ELSPETH
I simply can not imagine what has gotten into you this afternoon.

REGINALD
This stagnant air.

ELSPETH
Then take shorter breaths. Now then just a few steps more and we can be free from this horrid tomb.

REGINALD (looking around)
We’re right back where we began.

ELSPETH
Oh no, you’ve made another wrong turn. Oh, how very stupid of you! And here again is that queer little statue. Hello little one, did you miss us for very long?

REGINALD
You mean to say that we have been banging about in total darkness for the past hour and a half?

ELSPETH (to the statue)
Little one, I do wish you would remind Reginald not to use that tone of voice when he is speaking to me.

REGINALD
Now, see here!

ELSPETH
Had I known you would have been so difficult all afternoon, I should not have agreed that we sneak off from Mother in the first place.

REGINALD
What “hidden treasures” your Uncle William thought we could possibly discover in this Sumerian mausoleum is beyond me.

ELSPETH
You have no sense of adventure.

REGINALD (resigned as he pulls out his cigarette case)
I must have left it back at the hotel.

ELSPETH
Always playing the fool. When will you be serious? And Reginald, no. (taking his cigarette case from him) I simply must put my foot down. The tone in this crypt is foul enough.

REGINALD
Now that you mention it, I have begun to notice an undercurrent of constraint.

ELSPETH
Of course, after I am the Lady of the Manor House, I shall have to wean you to a pipe.

REGINALD
A pipe!

ELSPETH
Naturally. All the men of my family are avid pipe smokers. I can see that it is up to me to take you by the hand. Now come along and do keep close – I simply can’t afford to lose you in the shadows.

REGINALD
Lest you find a bandaged hand around your lily white neck.

(REGINALD touches the back of her neck and ELSPETH startled, lets out a little scream.)

JOHN DARROW (offstage)
Hello? Is there someone there?

REGINALD
In here.

ELSPETH
Reginald, lower your voice. Someone will hear you.

REGINALD
Rather the point, pet.