A One-Act Drama

Blind
Eye

“We watched her hand it to you.”

The Play

Bodie and Lena wait in a grim municipal room after Patrick has been arrested. Outside, a July Fourth celebration moves toward fireworks. Inside, they replay the moment they watched him take the drink that ended more than six months of sobriety.

The longer they wait, the harder it becomes to keep the evening contained as somebody else’s mistake. They saw what was happening. They recognized the pattern. And they looked away.

The Question

Blind Eye is less interested in who is to blame than in the smaller, more uncomfortable question that comes afterward: when does witnessing become responsibility?

The room offers no clean answer. It only gives Bodie and Lena enough time to stop pretending they did not see.

Production

The play should remain spare and still. The waiting room is ordinary, fluorescent, and administrative. The changing light outside and the distant fireworks should register time passing without turning the room theatrical.

Silence is part of the dialogue.

“I made a choice to look somewhere else.”

Production Information & Script

Read Blind Eye.

Visit New Play Exchange for the play and production information, or download the excerpt directly from this site.