MINI OPERA (ENO) THE WAITRESS AND THE SWEEPER

A Bar and a Street, Nightime, Today.

A bar woman, holding a tray of glasses, sings to herself. Customers - the Chorus - move about her, drunk and unaware of her. They hum their own repetitious refrain. A man sweeps the street outside. He wears a baseball cap, and seems to mutter to himself.


WAITRESS
I dreamt when I was six of a large green hat.
That I sailed as a boat to the edge of every map.
My dream helped me escape from my daily routine.
Now the routine owns the best of me, and dreams are seldom seen.

CHORUS
(Raising glasses in the air) One more. One more.

WAITRESS
I serve your drinks that serve no purpose, but to drug you to the core.
I clean your vomit from the walls; wash your footprints from the floor.
When you’re young in school they ask you, what you want to be?
I thought a dancer super-hero who does surgery for free.

CHORUS
Haha haha haha haha
Haha haha haha haha

WAITRESS
(On last ‘haha’) Haha

As they sing ‘Haha’ refrain. One of the customers leaves the pub. He passes the Sweeper and throws litter on the ground. The sweeper stops and looks at him. The customer is gone.

SWEEPER
Don’t mind me. Cleaning. Cleaning. Cleaning.
Don’t mind me. Keening. Keening. Keening.
Walk on by – but I swear by the sky, I won’t come.
Tonight you’ll hear the demons roar, and feel its breath upon the door,
And when you wake in screaming sweat
You will cry for someone to come close,
For someone to embrace,
For someone to come sweeping – sweeping,
While you sit weeping.
And when you wake you won’t recall, who held you through it all,
And in the day you walk by where he is sweeping – where he is sweeping –
So tread softly – or he won’t tend to you...again.

WAITRESS
You missed a spot.

The Waitress has been listening to the Sweeper unbeknownst to him. The Sweeper tries to cover his tracks.

SWEEPER
Mumble. Mumble. Mumble.

WAITRESS
Grumble. Grumble. Grumble.

As the Sweeper sings, the Waitress comes closer and closer to him, making him more and more nervous.

SWEEPER
Further north, cloudy with light rain and drizzle but some heavy rain across northwest,
with snow possible over the northeast Highlands – so no fun times.

CHORUS
No fun times.

WAITRESS
Now the routine owns the best of me, and dreams are seldom seen.
And I get the feeling you understand routine, Dream Keeper.

SWEEPER
I'm just a sweeper.
I know nothing of your large green hat.

WAITRESS
Did I mention a hat?

SWEEPER
There are grey clouds in the sky...

WAITRESS
Try change the forecast...

SWEEPER
Why they’re there I know not why...

WAITRESS
Help a girl out...

SWEEPER
To stare directly at the sun...

WAITRESS
Would be fun...

SWEEPER
But you’ll get burnt...

WAITRESS
Yet feel alive...
Just a sensation... \
An invitation...

SWEEPER
You don’t think that I’ve lost my dreams too?
The moon is not what it seems...

WAITRESS
But we could make it....

SWEEPER
The seasons change and fade...

WAITRESS
But come again...

SWEEPER
With no line ‘tween dreams and waking
You want that world, but you’re mistaken...

WAITRESS
And yet there must be something I can give.
Every deal struck has a price.

SWEEPER
It’s a suicide.
WAITRESS
I’d rather do what you do.

SWEEPER
No.

WAITRESS
I meant with you.

They look at each other a moment. Considering it.

SWEEPER
And have all the dreams in the world – then destroy them.

WAITRESS
It might be fun?

SWEEPER
Adventures and intrigue

WAITRESS
A sense of dread and disease

SWEEPER
(Throwing her a broom) Erotica and sleaze

WAITRESS
It beats the bar tap.

CHORUS
Hahahahahah
Hahahahahah

Again they look at each other and have decided it's a good idea.

SWEEPER and WAITRESS
It’s a wonderful feeling when your fortunes get reversed
When you meet that special someone who couldn’t give a curse
I knew I was trapped, I always wanted to be free
But never saw a problem shared is problem halved

WAITRESS
Till there was me.

SWEEPER
There is some sacrifice, always a compromise, no bank holidays, and language barriers

WAITRESS
You know I’m a waitress, right?

SWEEPER and WAITRESS
I
Felt a prison was my life

CHORUS
I

SWEEPER and WAITRESS
I

SWEEPER
Had too many dreams to keep me sane

WAITRESS (at same time)
Had too few dreams to keep me sane

CHORUS
I

SWEEPER and WAITRESS
I

CHORUS and SWEEPER and WAITRESS
Had my soul saved tonight

SWEEPER and WAITRESS
And what was a bleak and lonely time
Became more bearable with rhyme
The forecast changed from dark to bright
And strange new friends bring strange delight
To keep the world from ghostly chills
And swallow dreams to save some ill

WAITRESS
Say goodbye to dreary jobs
Untangle dreams
And not the yobs

SWEEPER
But listen to the silence now
And judge the cry
It’s where and how

They both stop and listen; the Chorus who have been humming backing to the Waitress and Sleeper now modulate into cries and whimpers.

WAITRESS
I’ve waited for the world.

SWEEPER
And now the world awaits – but it won’t thank you.

WAITRESS
Thank you. It never did.

The Sweeper hands her a green baseball cap. They go off together. The final musical suggestion is a kind of lullaby as if in a nursery.

END.