Venice

 Bianca, a young woman, tells us she is speaking from Venice.  We hear the sound of a cello playing  a Sibelius solo concerto.  The cello stops and lights come up on Bianca feeling as if someone is watching her.  She says her friend Desdemona attracted men like flies to cow flop.  They met at an acting seminar in Munich but she felt she had known her all her life, that she dreamed about her before she knew her.  She says the man has been following her since she got to Venice and then tells us that Desdemona suddenly disappeared; the police were polite but no help.   Then she got a postcard from Desdemon and she packed up and came here.  On the back of the card Desdemona had written Making the Beast with Two Backs.  Wish you were here.  There are times when she thinks she has seen her disappearing down one of those  narrow streets.  She says Desdemona had a recurring dream about a creature crawling out of the dark lagoon and dragging her into the water.  Bianca says that sometimes we want the people we love dead so we can own them forever.  She says she keeps getting lost in her dreams and that she is not what she is, that nothing is what it seems, and that something is wrong with everybody.  Venice is the portal to another dimension, the place where we come to die.  Or, she says, perhaps Desdemona isn’t real. Or she’s the person Bianca sees in the mirror.  She asks if we can see her, reflected in the mirror.  We hear the cello as the light fades out on her.