Hologram

In Hologram, the last play in the trilogy, Laura sits in a wooden chair in a circle of light, and Stephen sits in another chair in a circle of light.  They speak as if on the telephone but no telephones are visible.  Laura tells Stephen she’s a little drunk, has started graduate school, and is having a party with friends.  She wonders how his book is coming.  He says he isn’t writing any more and wonders why she doesn’t answer his letters.  She suggests that the woman in Stephen’s book who is obsessed with the praying mantis could have a daughter who is in love with her stepfather. There is a conspiracy between them that drives the mother out of her mind and makes her leave.  Stephen says his book isn’t about that.  When Laura asks, Stephen says he did touch her mother but also respected her boundaries.  He asks Laura what she wants and if he can help her.  She says she doesn’t need his fucking help.  She says he can call anytime and leave her a message when she doesn’t answer.  She says she wants him to suffer and then die.  Or he could drive up to the university and have “hot, desperate, guilty, screaming sexual intercourse” with her and then she would eat his head.  She says this isn’t real, that it’s just a dream, or his novel, or a hologram.  She decides it’s a hologram and tells him to keep in touch.