The Horses in Central Park–Paul Hufker
Cast of Characters
SNOWY: A nearly all-white horse
HOPE: A nearly all-gray horse
Scene
Central Park, a sunny day
Time
Present
Lights up on:
A white horse and a gray horse, both wearing blinders, are drawing a carriage full of people through Central Park on an intermittently sunny day. They clop along slowly. The white horse, SNOWY, has gray patches on its head and in its mane, and the gray horse, HOPE, has a smattering of white on its hindquarters.
.
SNOWY
I dream of wings. I dream of white, fresh beaches. Of grains of sand splashing up like pure white water all around me.
[HOPE flicks her tail.]
HOPE
(so very tired of this)
This sea of tiny flies. They’ve been picking at my hide again.
SNOWY
Lately I dream of climbing a high, brown Spanish hill on a dusty summer day. I can taste the dirt on my
bridle. I am a burro, carrying my gentle master’s cargo, and the sun sets on my tanned back.
HOPE
The metal on our feet is worn out again. My feet are bleeding.
SNOWY
I climb up and up until the sun licks my face and I rest at the oasis at the top.
(a deep sigh)
SNOWY
The oasis at the top.
[Pause.]
HOPE
God, I itch.
SNOWY
We’re almost done.
[HOPE looks back at the passengers.]
HOPE
These people are ugly.
SNOWY
They’re tourists. Try and forget their weight. Dream of wings with me.
HOPE
(disgusted)
I think I rely more on this carriage than it relies on me.
SNOWY
(trying to keep HOPE’s spirits up)
We certainly know its weight, don’t we?
[Always in-step, they turn right.]
SNOWY
I was born beside a rushing stream on a hot July afternoon. They thought I’d never be able to walk–that
my legs were fragile, and for a very long time I didn’t think I’d ever gallop, but one day I ran all alone and I dove into the green foam of a rushing ocean and was swept away.
HOPE
That didn’t really happen.
SNOWY
(smiling)
Sure it did.
[Pause.]
SNOWY
(has said this a thousand times before)
You don’t dream of wings? You’ve really lost all your hope? Your name is “Hope.”
HOPE
(has said this a thousand times before)
Yes, and you’re named “Snowy” because you’re nearly all-white. But you’re not all white, are you?
[HOPE kicks at SNOWY’S tail which is not white.]
HOPE
And no, I still don’t think I can fly. Right in eighteen paces.
[HOPE again looks back at the passengers.]
These people are ugly and loud. And heavy.
SNOWY
They’re not heavy, there’s just a lot of them.
[They pull to a momentary stop.]
SNOWY
I’ve started listening again. When they talk. I know you hate listening, but I’d forgotten that it can be good. Sure, they all say different things that turn out to be the same things, but I decided to decide what
they say. You might not hate it if you decided. Yesterday I decided that that loud old man was telling
the legend of a Ronin warrior. The warrior was hired by a very poor town to save them from a dragon who tortured the townspeople from a nearby mountaintop. He cut the head off the dragon, but in the bloody battle, his horse was killed and he couldn’t get down the mountain. So when the snows came, he stayed alive by sleeping inside its corpse which he hollowed out.
[Pause. They begin to move again.]
SNOWY
Turn right.
[They turn.]
HOPE
That’s sad. The story.
SNOWY
It is. But. It’s good to think of things like that.They try to look at one another. The blinders bother them.
HOPE
I wonder–will they put us in adjoining stalls tonight? I haven’t kissed you in so, so long.
SNOWY
It would be nice, your body heat.
[HOPE takes a deep breath of SNOWY’s hide. The imagination is
sparked.]
HOPE
(taking in SNOWY’S scent)
Ohhhh! Your hide has such a lovely smell in spring. It reminds me of my childhood. Under the…tangerine blossoms that grew in early spring, all along the riverbed.
SNOWY
See? You can still do it! Try another one.
[HOPE tries really hard.]
HOPE
I can’t. I’m sorry.
SNOWY
It’s OK.
[HOPE stomps.]
HOPE
I itch.
SNOWY
(checking HOPE’S hide)
Your hide is much worse. We’re almost done.
HOPE
Until tomorrow.
SNOWY
Yes. Until tomorrow.
HOPE’S hide is really bothering her.
HOPE
When I was young, I would rub my back against the bark of an oak and feel very satisfied. My hide would bleed a little from the scratching, but I was whole and satisfied. Now my hide is one long rash.
[Pause.]
SNOWY
(quietly)
If I rub up next to you in the stall…do you think…I mean your hide is much worse, I don’t want to get…
[They turn.]
SNOWY
I’m sorry.
HOPE
(sincerely)
It’s OK.
[SNOWY changes the subject.]
SNOWY
Look around. People can go anywhere they want, and yet they come to a park. Fathers with their sons, mothers, daughters. So many of them. It must be a very nice feeling to walk around a park.
HOPE
I’m sorry we never had children.
SNOWY
I regret it some days, too. But if we did, they might have to go around making up where they were born. Like us. And they might dream only of wings, or of nothing at all. Like us. Who knows if they’d ever really enjoy a park.
[Pause.]
SNOWY
Last turn. Right in fifty paces.
HOPE
Snowy?
SNOWY
Yes?
HOPE
I can’t. Go right anymore.
SNOWY
Why not?
HOPE
My hide, my feet, the
weight–it’s too much.
SNOWY
Dream with me.
HOPE
I can’t dream!
[SNOWY is startled by this rare outburst. They clop in silence for a moment.]
SNOWY
Thirty paces.
[As the setting sun dips behind the trees, something changes forever in HOPE.]
HOPE
What if we don’t?
[Pause.]
SNOWY
What do you mean?
HOPE
What if we don’t turn right? What happens?
SNOWY
(nervously)
What if…we turn left?
HOPE
Yes! Maybe…maybe is a big word, I know, but maybe…there are the yellow butterflies and the ripe tangerine trees of my childhood. Maybe there is a pale green stream where you can see the smooth rocks all the way down through the hollow water. Maybe there are wings…
SNOWY
(growing fear, growing excitement)
I’ve never been left.
HOPE
Maybe there’s a mountain there, one we never saw.
Pause.
HOPE
And maybe our son is at the top.
They share a look of nervous excitement.
HOPE
Twenty paces…
Pause.
SNOWY
Do you think…there won’t be anymore tiny flies…if
we turn left?
HOPE
Maybe.
SNOWY
I guess you can dream…HOPE
(a nervous glance)
Fifteen paces…
[Walking the fine line between elation and terror, SNOWY freaks out.]
SNOWY
Oh, god, maybe…and Maybe…and MAYBE AND MAYBE AND MAYBE…
HOPE
Listen! We know what happens if we turn right. But left? Maybe left is a cliff, a deep ravine, and at the
bottom there is a stampede of rushing water that we can fall away into, and we’ll learn to swim on the way down, and maybe our metal shoes will snap off like when I flick away flies with my tail and our two stalls are already built next to each other but there’s no partition and I can finally feel my gums enough to kiss you!
[An oasis at the bottom. HOPE looks on at the approaching abyss.]
HOPE
And I don’t care if the people fall with us.
[Pause.]
[They move slowly forward, preparing to face their destiny…]
SNOWY
Five paces… oh god!
[They inch further.]
HOPE
Snowy?
SNOWY
Yes?
HOPE
I’ve always dreamed of wings.
[The lights slowly fade to black.]
END OF PLAY
***
Paul Hufker has been an AEA actor, playwright and director in the NYC area for over 15 years. He is a proud graduate of Brooklyn College’s MFA playwriting program, under Mac Wellman and Erin Courtney. Paul has worked with many NYC theatre companies including: The Bechdel Group 12 Peers
Theatre Company, The Tank Theatre Company, Variations Theatre Company, AND Theatre Company, the 29th St Playwrights’ Collective (Member), Cut Edge
Collective (member) and many others theatre companies across the US. He is a 2018 Eugene O’Neill Prize Semi-Finalist, a 2016 Great Plains Theatre
Conference invited playwright, a 2015 and 2016 Himan Brown Award winner (through Brooklyn College), a 2016 O’Neill Conference semi-finalist, a 2016
American Theatre in Higher Education Excellence in Playwriting Award finalist, a 2015 Jerome Fellowship finalist, a 2014 Princess Grace Award semi-finalist, and a 2011 O’Neill Conference semi-finalist. His writing collaborations have been produced in NYC, throughout the US, and in Toronto, Canada, as well as at MIT, the Museo Jumex in Mexico City and the Serpentine Gallery in London. He is currently a full-time Assistant Teaching Professor at Rutgers University, in
their Writing Program, and a proud graduate of Webster University. https://paulhufker.wixsite.com/paulhufker