Poorly Wrapped, a One-Act Play for 2 actors about Desire, Obsession, Power
We’re less than a month away from Valentine’s Day, so check out the one-act play, Poorly Wrapped, on the topic of Love…or at least, lust, obsession, greed, power, and desire! It has 2 great roles for 1 male and 1 female actor and runs around 25 minutes long. It’s a dark comedy/drama, a bit eerie, a bit funny, some elements of the absurd mixed in with some potential creepiness:
When a beautiful woman walks into a local gift shop on a small island, Clark, the sales clerk, is instantly smitten with her. Under this woman’s “guidance,” he goes to extreme lengths to make sure she is satisfied with her purchase. Yet as her demands increase, Clark is torn between his duty to the shop and his growing lust of this stranger.
You can consider this 2-person one-act play for festivals, workshops, competitions, evenings of one-acts, classrooms and full productions! Get the complete play directly below, and read on further for an excerpt from Poorly Wrapped. You can also check out the 1.5 minute monologue, Locking The Store, which is extracted from this play, in which Clark just has to close the shop early so he can be alone with the beautiful customer, Grace…
Enjoy reading the Excerpt from Poorly Wrapped below:
GRACE: I think you’re asking too many personal questions now. Do you think that’s right for you to be doing that to your customer?
CLARK: Oh, well, I guess—I’m sorry—I guess, I sorta see you now as more than a customer. You seem more like…someone else.
GRACE: Well, maybe I’d…be…more like someone else if I didn’t have to buy anything. If I really weren’t your customer.
(pause)
CLARK: Oh…well…okay, then. (pause) Don’t be my customer anymore. Be more than that. I’ll just—I’ll just give you the camera.
GRACE: You would do that?
CLARK: I would. If that would make it okay for me to talk to you more. To ask you about things, personal things.
GRACE: It would certainly make me feel more comfortable.
CLARK: Okay. Then here. I’ll give you the camera, and now you’re, you’re just a beautiful woman who walked in here and who I decided to give a camera to. You’re not a customer. Just a woman. Just a young, beautiful, beautiful woman in this store.
GRACE: The store that you own.
CLARK: That I own.
(pause)
GRACE: I’m going to a carnival.
CLARK: A carnival? Where?
GRACE: Far away from here. Outside of this island. This wasteland.
CLARK: I didn’t know there was a carnival going on.
GRACE: There’s always a carnival going on. You just have to find it.
CLARK: And you like to take pictures of it? Of the animals?
GRACE: I don’t think there will be animals at the carnival.
CLARK: Aren’t animals always part of a carnival?
GRACE: You’re thinking of a circus.
(pause)
CLARK: I rode a ride with my sister once, when we were kids, this ride in a giant strawberry or apple or some kind of fruit, and when you sat on the inside, there was a steering wheel—green, like it was a leaf—and it would make the fruit spin around.
GRACE: I know that ride.
CLARK: And my sister kept turning the wheel.
GRACE: That’s very common.
CLARK: And she turned it so many times, and I kept telling her to stop and slow down, but she just kept screaming and laughing and telling me to quit being a baby.
GRACE: It’s very unattractive for a man to be a baby.
CLARK: So…so…So when I got off the ride—
GRACE: You threw up?
CLARK: Yeah. How’d you—
GRACE: It just sounded like that’s where the story was going.
CLARK: Oh. I guess, I guess that story is not very special.
GRACE: It’s not—for carnivals. When it comes to gift shops, it would be though. It’s all context. If you threw up here, in the gift shop, because you spun yourself around the cash register or something…that would be unique.
CLARK: Yeah, I haven’t done that.
GRACE: Well, you have plenty of time to make original memories.
CLARK: I guess.
GRACE: Would you mind gift wrapping the camera?
CLARK: I thought you didn’t—
GRACE: I didn’t. When I was a customer. But now that I’m just a…beautiful woman—that’s what you called me, right? Then maybe I do want the camera gift wrapped. Maybe it would make me feel special. Since it’s a gift. To me.
CLARK: Oh, well. Yeah, see, we actually don’t gift wrap. I don’t even have any paper or tape.
GRACE: Then you really shouldn’t have offered.
CLARK: I know. I just got, I don’t know, I was a little flustered, I guess.
GRACE: Well, if you offer something like that, it can really disappoint a girl when you don’t follow through.
CLARK: I’m sorry. You’re right. You’re so right, and I shouldn’t have said it…
GRACE: You shouldn’t have.. (pause) But you do sell wrapping paper. I see it over there. This is a gift shop after all.
CLARK: Oh, yeah, we sell it.
(pause)
GRACE: I like the purple wrapping paper. Right there. The one with the sparkly butterflies on it. See how the butterflies are sparkling?
CLARK: Blue and pink and orange.
GRACE: Red and green too.
CLARK: I guess I could…I mean, if I open the wrapping paper, I can’t sell it then.
GRACE: No, you can’t.
CLARK: And I’d have to open some tape too. I have the scissors though. They’re in that drawer over there.
GRACE: That’s good.
(pause)
CLARK: But I don’t know if I should open it up. That’s quite a few things that I won’t be able to get the payment for.
GRACE: Well, I’d hate to see our relationship change back to being a customer and shop owner. I’d hate to see that because I was going to tell you a few other personal things. Personal things I would never say if I were just a customer.
CLARK: Really?
GRACE: Yes.
To find out what happens as Grace’s demands begin to escalate and Clark reveals a secret, check out the full play below!