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BLUE MOON · written by Robert Kaplow · 2025
Scene 9 of 26 · ≈ 4 min on screen · First scene of act two
On the opening night of Oklahoma!, lyricist Lorenz Hart drinks through Sardi's while chasing one last renewal with Richard Rodgers and the young woman he adores, but both are already moving beyond him.
Hart leaves the show that displaced him for his Sardi's habitat, where wit and remembered greatness keep fear at bay.
Hart toasts the past, savages Oklahoma! while praising Rodgers' genius, and displays the shabby, ardent gifts he bought for Elizabeth.
Sven returns with lavish flowers for Rodgers; Hart swaps envy for another secret drink and presses Eddie and Morty to hear more about Elizabeth.
Elizabeth arrives, exchanges her small flowers for Rodgers' grand bouquet, tells Hart her encounter with Cooper almost became sex, and rushes upstairs.
This scene
EDDIE
Handful of Dick, that's funny. Hey...
HART
I'm writing an entire musical about her. It's inspired by those Frank Capra war pictures: Why We Fight...This one will be called:
(title-in-lights gesture)
Why We Fuck. ...And the big ballad at the end will be: "The Skin On His Back Was Flawless."
(staring where she stood)
Of course, when you're twenty what other commodity do you have to trade in on except your body? You haven't done anything, right? Can you imagine what Elizabeth would write if she saw my back? "The skin on his back looked like a white bed sheet someone had thrown-up on. His pecker looked like the horn of a retarded unicorn."
Larry picks up shot-glass of Old Grand Dad. Considers it.
HART (CONT'D)
Just one to get me through congratulating him.
He moves to drink the shot.
EDDIE
(gently admonishing)
Larry.
HART
(toasts Eddie)
To the skin on her back. Like every other part of her: flawless.
He drinks it down with the relish of someone who's been missing something he dearly loves.
HART (CONT'D)
How can so much pleasure be compressed into so small a container? That's it. Absolutely no more. Agreed?
Morty plays "It Ain't Necessarily So."
HART (CONT'D)
God I miss Gershwin. I bet I saw Porgy and Bess more times than any other person in this city. Best line in Porgy: "When Gawd made cripple, he mean him to be lonely."
EDDIE
Did you ever think your entire life is a play and that, you know, 99 percent of the people in it they got no lines, you know? They're just like extras. And you, you're just an extra in their play?
HART
Deep. Very deep.
EDDIE
I got thoughts, too, you know.
HART
Really? I thought you were just an extra.
EDDIE
Will somebody get these fucking flowers off my bar?
(Off screen)
WAITER
Ok!
Hart looks to where Elizabeth exited. Gestures to Eddie to refill his shot glass; Eddie gestures "Enough."
In the background, "ANDY" WHITE, melancholy-looking, 44 years old, in a rumpled suit and wire-rim glasses, has taken a seat at a solitary table near the bar. He scribbles something on the small memo pad he always keeps with him. Quietly orders.
HART
You've got to see her as I did.
EDDIE
I just seen her.
HART
No, the first time. If you can't see that, you can't understand what this whole night is about.
EDDIE
I'm beginning to think you didn't screw her.
"Andy" White at his table near the bar has begun to eavesdrop on this conversation.
HART
(takes out a deck of cards)
I wanna practice this trick on you before I do it for her.
(lowers voice)
HART (CONT'D)
And I'm not showing it to her as a trick. I'm showing it to her as an experiment--to prove there's an extra-sensory link between us. She believes in all that horseshit, you know? Talking for twenty minutes about psychokinesis. I don't understand a fucking word she's saying. I'm sitting there nodding, thinking: Is she really wearing a grape-colored brassiere?
He cuts the deck of cards a few times.
HART (CONT'D)
And later I'm going to teach you boys my own card game. Cocksucker's Rummy!
EDDIE
Larry. Language.
HART
You're offended by the word cocksucker? All right, I won't use it. I give you my word as a cocksucker. But let me tell you about the first time I saw her.
EDDIE
I think I'd rather see the card trick.
MORTY RIFKIN
Me, too.
HART
You know what the sexiest thing on the planet earth is? A half-erect penis.
EDDIE
Jesus Christ, Larry, nobody wants to hear this.
HART
I'm not talking to you.
EDDIE
Who you talking to?
HART
Me. I gotta talk to somebody interesting. I mean it though. A half-erect penis is a promise. A fully-erect penis is an exclamation point--as a writer it offends me; it's too loud; it's too adolescent; the story's already over. But a half-erect penis: Is it going?
HART (CONT'D)
Or is it coming? But women appeal to me precisely for their absence of penises.
EDDIE
Me too.
HART
They live in a much more interesting emotional landscape than we do. A landscape we can only dream about. But this evening is not about landscapes. It's a portrait of Elizabeth, and only Elizabeth.
EDDIE
Here we fucking go again.
HART
Wait, you saw she was beautiful, right? I mean, if not classically beautiful, then, what's the right word...
Gropes for the perfect adjective.
EDDIE
Nice tits. Small but very inviting.
HART
I wish I could paint her. That seems to me the most intimate way of looking at a person. At the same time, the least sentimental. To accurately reproduce the planes of her face.
(sculpts her face in the air)
The two tiny freckles on her left cheek.
(notices White)
You look familiar. I've seen your picture somewhere...
White shrugs.
HART (CONT'D)
You're a writer?
White raises his pen in acknowledgement.