The Grand Charade: A Play In One Act

By Frank J. Schlueter [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The scene is set in a home. It is suburban, of middle class roots.

A MAN, our protagonist, gallantly and with no regard for himself, begins to empty the dishwasher.

A WOMAN, his wife stops him and speaks: Do not worry about those. I’ll empty it later.

MAN can no longer live in this house of lies, and moves in with Babette, a worldly-wise waitress at the coffee shop where lost souls gather to curse their fate and the state of a sad and cruel world.

They smoke. They drink whiskey. Eventually, they die.