Emerald City (2 page)

COLIN
: [
defensively
] I feel like a change.

MIKE
: Elaine Ross producing?

COLIN
: I imagine so.

MIKE
: Haven't asked her yet?

COLIN
: Not yet… No.

MIKE
: Ever thought of producing your own scripts?

COLIN
: It's hard enough to write them.

MIKE
: Worth considering. More money, greater artistic control.

COLIN
: Elaine's always done my scripts well.

MIKE
rocks his head backwards and forwards, indicating that he's not sure he agrees.

You don't think so?

MIKE
: If you're happy, fine. Got a project I'd like to talk to you about. Got an hour or so next week?

COLIN
: [
to the audience
] What I should have said was, ‘No! Not this week, next week or any other week.' The man was patently a hustler and a spectacularly insensitive human being. It was the confidence and assurance that made me hesitate. In my defence, it's an industry in which today's joke is tomorrow's genius. Lucas, Spielberg—laughed at by the studios when they first did the rounds. Who knows where the next hot project is going to emerge from? And it was only a few minutes of my time. [
To
MIKE
] Sure.

MIKE
: [
fishing for a notebook
] I'll get your number.

MIKE
takes the number and exits.
COLIN
stands staring ahead, deep in thought.
KATE
enters.

KATE
: How was the cocktail party?

COLIN
: Appalling. Last time I go to one of those. Everyone in the room knew who I was, but not
one
of them came across to say hello. I don't expect anyone to genuflect, but I do happen to be the screenwriter with the best track record in the country and not one of them came and said hello.

KATE
: You can look a bit… unapproachable. Why didn't you walk up and introduce yourself?

COLIN
: I hate imposing myself. I hate the humiliation of having to
loom
.

He acts himself looming.
KATE
smiles.

Standing there with your facial muscles going rigid around a forced smile, blood freezing in your veins as you wait at the edge of a conversation for the circle to widen—until finally you croak, ‘Mind if I join you', and everybody looks at you as if you'd just farted. Why are Australians so bloody graceless? Why can't we
occasionally
show a little social tact and flair?

KATE
: You're too sensitive, Colin. A dozen people probably wanted to talk to you, but were just as nervous about approaching you as you were about them.

COLIN
: [
gloomily
] If you do make the effort and approach someone, it inevitably turns out to be the most boring person in the room, and you're stuck. If you leave too soon they'll know you think they're boring, and if you stay, they catch you glancing desperately over their shoulder and say, ‘I'm boring you, aren't I?', and you shriek, ‘No!', and you're stuck for another hour. I find mass social intercourse a total mystery. Nobody likes it but it keeps on happening.

KATE
: [
smiling
] Colin, you're so
inept
. All you've got to do is say, ‘Ah, there's Dennis: catch up with you later'. Being scrupulously polite to all people at all times makes you just as many enemies as being rude.

COLIN
: The only guy that did come and talk to me was some aging shyster who script edits soap operas.

KATE
: What did he want?

COLIN
: He's trying to get a project up.

KATE
: And he wants you to write it?

COLIN
: I expect so.

KATE
: You're not going to talk to him about it?

COLIN
: Won't do any harm. There's just an odd chance it might be brilliant.

KATE
: [
reprovingly
] Colin!

COLIN
: [
irritated
] There's no harm in
talking
to the man. Don't you think I can look after myself?

KATE
: [
to the audience
] Frankly, no. Colin does his best to appear confident, but just under that prickly surface is a monumental insecurity and an almost childlike desire to please. If I hadn't been round to rescue him from the hucksters and operators, his career up to now would've been a disaster.

They exit.
MIKE
enters with his girlfriend
HELEN
. She's a lot younger than he and is smart, engaging, buoyant and very sexy.

MIKE
: Met Colin Rogers today.

HELEN
: [
impressed
] Really?

MIKE
: Had a long chat.

HELEN
: Where'd you meet him?

MIKE
: Film Commission.

HELEN
: Did you just walk up to him?

MIKE
: What am I supposed to do? Crawl on my hands and knees?

HELEN
: [
shrugging
] I would've been a bit nervous.

MIKE
: He's just a working writer like I am.

HELEN
: You haven't had eight of your screenplays shot.

MIKE
: His era's over. The public wants
excitement
when they go to the cinema. Action, adventure—not a bunch of middle-class wankers chatting about their problems.

HELEN
: Hate action flicks.

MIKE
: Hate action flicks? Cinema
is
action.

HELEN
: I occasionally like to exercise my mind.

MIKE
: You want to exercise your mind—go and read philosophy. [
To the audience
] Apart from a tendency to worship anything that smelt of Culture with a capital C, who could fault her? I still look at her and can't believe it's me who gets into bed with her every night. I get erections when I hear her on the phone. I watch her talking to other men and wonder how they can keep their hands off her. And she's funny. And she's smart. And when we screw she goes ‘Mmm, mmm, mmm', like she's eating zabaglione, and when she comes she shakes like a jet hitting turbulence. [
He
pauses slightly and gives a worried frown
.] I'm not putting this all that sensitively. What I'm trying to say is that if what I feel for her isn't love, then it's pretty bloody close.

HELEN
: What was he like?

MIKE
: Boring.

HELEN
: I'd like to meet him.

MIKE
: He's boring.

HELEN
: I'd still like to meet him.

MIKE
: [
shaking his head in disgust
] The power of the media. Just because you've read in some women's magazine that he sleeps in red pyjamas—

HELEN
: [
interrupting
] In the nude. He sleeps in the nude.

MIKE
: So do I, but it never seems to get you excited.

HELEN
: You're not famous.

MIKE
: I'll be more famous one day than he is.

HELEN
: You get famous, I'll get excited.

MIKE
: People come from nowhere in this industry. You can make it on the basis of a three-line synopsis written on the back of a coffee chit.

HELEN
: [
mischievously rather than cuttingly
] If that's all it takes, why has it taken you so long?

MIKE
: Because everyone wants tomorrow's projects, but they won't look at anything unless it's got one of yesterday's names attached.

MIKE
stares across at
COLIN
as he walks onstage. The name from yesterday he intends to attach. He leaves the stage with
HELEN
as
COLIN
paces up and down waiting for the phone to ring.

COLIN
: [
to the audience
] I gave Elaine the best outline I'd ever written. Three weeks later she still hadn't phoned. For the first week I put it down to the fact that her five-hour lunches didn't leave her with much time, or in any condition to absorb new material. The sheer rudeness of her silence was unforgivable.

COLIN
paces up and down, makes a decision, reaches for his coat and storms out the door. He arrives at Elaine's office. He appears outwardly calm but clenches his right fist and taps his right foot, his characteristic sign that he's distressed.
ELAINE
looks up.

ELAINE
: Colin.

COLIN
: Just passing by. Thought I'd drop in and say hello.

ELAINE
: How nice.

She knows what he's here for, but pretends she doesn't. There's an awkward pause.

COLIN
: Busy?

ELAINE
: Yes, I am.

COLIN
: Money'll be hard to find this year.

ELAINE
: Good projects always find their money.

She wants to avoid discussing the outline. She tries to look as if she's desperate to start work again, but
COLIN
stands there shuffling, clenching and looking agitated and uncomfortable.

[
With noticeable reluctance
] Would you like some coffee?

COLIN
: No, I'd better go.

He's extremely reluctant to go, but having said it he has to finally turn and make for the door. He summons up his courage and turns back.

[
Tensely
] Oh, by the way. Did you get a chance to glance at my outline?

ELAINE
: Your outline. Yes. Just a quick glance.

COLIN
: [
quickly
] It's very rough.

ELAINE
: [
nodding
] It's interesting. I was expecting something contemporary.

COLIN
: [
quickly
] Were you? Why was that?

ELAINE
: Everything else you've done has been contemporary, so I didn't think the assumption was unreasonable.

COLIN
: I wanted to move away from contemporary. People have been suggesting that it's all I can do.

ELAINE
: What people?

COLIN
: Critics, friends.

ELAINE
:
Never
let critics force you into areas you don't want to go.

COLIN
: I did want to go. It's a story that's important to me.

ELAINE
: Coastwatchers?

COLIN
: My uncle was one during the war.

ELAINE
: My aunt wrapped Red Cross parcels, but cinema hasn't suffered irreparably because her story remains untold.

COLIN
: [
upset
] They were incredibly brave. They saved this country from invasion.

ELAINE
: Do you think it'll have wide appeal?

COLIN
: Absolutely.

ELAINE
: [
with a false smile
] Let's have lunch next week and talk about it.

COLIN
: You don't think it'll have wide appeal?

ELAINE
: Let's have lunch and talk about it next week.

COLIN
: [
in an impassioned outburst
] Elaine, these men were incredibly brave. Didn't you feel at least slightly moved by what you read in that outline? When's the last time you saw anyone in today's society risking their lives for their fellow countrymen. These men were heroes. Old-fashioned, genuine heroes. Can't we make films about heroes anymore?

The phone rings.
ELAINE
looks immensely grateful. She picks it up, puts her hand over the mouthpiece and turns to him.

ELAINE
: I'll read it again and ring you.

She turns her attention to the phone.

Ross Productions. Carmel. I'm so sorry, I've been meaning to call.

COLIN
clenches his fist. Now he's finally burst forth he wants to continue the debate, but as he watches
ELAINE
nod and smile into the phone, he realises he's not going to have a chance. He turns and leaves.
MIKE
walks onstage.
COLIN
picks up an outline and reads to himself.

MIKE
: [
addressing the audience
] I had to pitch and hook him. No second chance. Deep down I knew he was yesterday's man and I was the future, but not so deep down, all that media hype about him over the years impressed me against my will. He was such an arrogant prick he'd make anyone nervous. He stood staring at me as if I'm a wood grub and he's a red gum. I took three indigestion tablets and it still didn't stop the flames in my gullet and the fire in my gut. I remember thinking as I swallowed them, ‘Why are you doing this? What are you trying to prove?' I knew the answer before I'd finished asking the question. I was trying to prove to every bastard who's ever laughed at me behind my back, sneered at the mention of my name, or sacked me, that despite a less than glorious career in insurance, real estate, sales, advertising, burglar alarms and pigs, I was a top talent waiting for the right time and the right game and I'd found it. And every time I thought of Helen it made me even more desperate to succeed. I won her on a promise of future greatness and time was running out. I couldn't exist without her. No way. So there I was, wood grub to the red gum, needing him to say ‘yes' because none of those miserable merchant bankers are ever going to trust a script with my name on the front even if they love it, their wives love it, their secretaries love it and it gives off the odour of dollars. With Colin Rogers' name on it, my career is launched.