A sketch by Jean-Pierre Martinez
Ramirez, a police inspector, enters, followed by his deputy, Sanchez. They look around.
Ramirez – You haven’t touched anything?
Sanchez – No… What would I have touched?
Ramirez – True… I’ve never seen a crime scene so… desperately empty.
Sanchez – Yes…
Ramirez – Finding clues here is going to be tricky.
Sanchez – I don’t see what we could send to the lab… aside from the air we’re breathing.
Ramirez – You know, that’s an idea…
Sanchez – You want me to send an air sample to the lab?
Ramirez – There’s no visible weapon… Maybe it was gas poisoning.
Sanchez – Only an autopsy would tell us that…
Ramirez looks around again.
Ramirez – An autopsy, fine, but… where are the bodies?
Sanchez looks around too.
Sanchez – Apparently, there are no bodies either.
Ramirez – What do you mean, no bodies? If there are no bodies, there’s no crime! And if there’s no crime, there’s no crime scene…
Sanchez – There must be victims, though. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here.
Ramirez – There are victims, but no bodies?
Sanchez – I don’t see any…
Ramirez – The perpetrator must have disposed of the bodies… But how?
Sanchez – I suppose that’s what we’re here to find out…
They look around again, then at the floor.
Ramirez – I don’t see anything.
Sanchez – Ah, I think I’ve got something.
Ramirez – What is it?
Sanchez – A book.
Ramirez – A book?
Sanchez (flipping through it) – A play.
Ramirez – How do you know it’s a play?
Sanchez – It’s published by Comediatheque Editions.
Ramirez – Do you think it could help with our investigation?
Sanchez – Who knows… (He keeps reading) It’s unsettling… The characters in here have the same names as us…
Ramirez – No?
Sanchez – Inspector Ramirez and his deputy, Sanchez…
Ramirez – Let me see… (He takes the book and reads a few pages) And their descriptions match exactly those of the victims we’ve been sent to investigate.
Sanchez – So… if we go with that theory… we’re characters in a play?
Ramirez – Worse than that: we’re dead…
Sanchez – And we’ve been assigned to investigate our own disappearance…?
Ramirez – This is the strangest case I’ve encountered in my entire career.
Sanchez – What type of play is it? Comedy? Tragedy?
Ramirez – You know me, theatre’s not really my thing…
Sanchez – What’s the title?
Ramirez – Dramedies.
Sanchez – Dramedies?
Ramirez – That’s the title of the play.
They exchange baffled looks.
Sanchez – How could characters in a play die? Since they don’t actually exist.
Ramirez – This is all a bit unusual.
Sanchez – Dying on stage, no less…
Ramirez – So you think… we’re on a theatre stage?
Sanchez turns to the audience.
Sanchez – Look at all these people, sitting in the dark… Looks like they’ve come to watch us…
Ramirez – Hell, you’re right… Who do you think they are? Witnesses?
Sanchez – Maybe they’re here to watch the re-enactment.
Ramirez – This is crazy… Don’t tell me they even paid to be here.
Sanchez – Why don’t you ask them?
Ramirez – You think we can talk to them?
Sanchez – I don’t know…
Ramirez – It might help with our investigation…
Sanchez – Maybe they saw something…
Ramirez approaches an audience member.
Ramirez – Did you pay for your ticket?
A little improvisation based on the response or non-response of the audience member.
Sanchez – And… did you see anything?
Ramirez – Looks like we’re on our own, as usual.
Sanchez – Yes, because it seems our characters didn’t leave much of an impression…
Ramirez – Sadly, that’s the fate of most ordinary mortals. To leave no trace after their time on Earth.
Sanchez – Still… Us, theatre characters…
Ramirez – True… We might have hoped for a bit of recognition…
Sanchez – The play was probably a flop. When it’s a masterpiece, people remember the characters, don’t they?
Ramirez – Especially the leads… Some characters even become more famous than their authors.
Sanchez – Take Sherlock Holmes, everyone remembers him. But who remembers the name of the author of Sherlock Holmes?
Ramirez – Elementary, my dear Watson. It’s Conan Doyle.
Sanchez – Alas, you’re no Sherlock Holmes.
Ramirez – And you’re no Doctor Watson.
Sanchez – Otherwise, we’d have solved this mystery ages ago.
Ramirez – What can you do… We’re just minor characters.
Sanchez – The ones nobody remembers once the curtain falls… Who said life is but a dream?
Ramirez – Life… It feels long, especially at the beginning. You start saying your lines in the first act.
Sanchez – At first, you don’t realise the play’s already written.
Ramirez – And gradually, you remember the words as you’re saying them.
Sanchez – Until you remember them before you say them.
Ramirez – And when the story nears its end… You just hope you don’t mess up your exit…
Sanchez – It’s a bit musty in here, isn’t it?
Ramirez – That’s the smell of the theatre.
Sanchez – The good news is, we’ve managed to find the bodies.
Ramirez – Yes… And they seem to be starting to stink.
Sanchez – The smell of decomposing characters…
Ramirez – The ones from all those flops that couldn’t hold the stage.
Sanchez – Plays that never found their audience, as they say…
Ramirez – The one we were in must not have been very timely… Take an air sample. We’ll send it to the lab for confirmation.
Sanchez takes a small bottle from his pocket, uncaps it, waits a moment, then caps it and puts it back in his pocket.
Sanchez – And there we go. Curtain call.
Ramirez – Time to exit the stage. For good. For us, this was the last performance…
Sanchez – Let’s head out this way.
Ramirez – To think all these poor people paid to be here…
Sanchez – Dramedies.
Ramirez – We should have called it Autopsy of a Flop.
Sanchez – I’d have preferred to be in a masterpiece… To leave a legacy.
Ramirez – Maybe next time…
They exit.
Blackout.
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A sketch from the collection Dramedies
Link to the collection for free download (PDF)
Find all of Jean-Pierre Martinez’s plays on his website:
https://jeanpierremartinez.net