A Trick of the Mimes. 🎭

🎭 Scene: “The Mime Contract” 🎭

A silent negotiation between Maybelle and Anona, where gesture becomes language and shadows become truth.

Setting:

A minimalist office - walls of pale gray, a single desk, two chairs. Papers flutter like moths. Light slants in from a high window, casting long shadows across the floor.

Characters:

~ Maybelle, the White Mime, crisp in her black suit, face painted pale as parchment.

~ Anona, the Black Mime, radiant in her light suit, face painted deep as ink.

Their suits speak professionalism...poses divine theatrical grace. One in black, one in white - mirroring each other in gesture and contrast...unified in silent expression.

Maybelle, the White Mime, gestures outward with pointed elegance, while Anona, the Black Mime, raises her arm...a question poised in silence. Their mirrored poses and inverted palettes create a visual dialogue - contrast, harmony, and theatrical grace.

The audacity of the mimes intrigues the two young interviewers. This was new. Never done before. They both smile, finding the women curious indeed...they whisper aside, both agreeing to play along. Maybe these applicants were just what they needed to lively up the place.

Act I: The Offer

Two faceless figures, (not disguised, just another would be boss, for Anona any May had been to many interviews and been rejected)....slides two contracts across the desk.

Maybelle opens hers - eyes widen. She lifts the page...golden light spills from it.

Anona opens hers - no light. Just ink. Heavy, slow.

They turn to each other. No words...Just comparing.

Maybelle gestures: a shrug, a smile, a hand to heart.

Anona responds: a slow tilt of the head, fingers curling like smoke.

Act II: The Negotiation

They rise.

Maybelle steps forward, arms outstretched - offering partnership.

Anona steps back, then forward again, tracing a circle in the air.

Suddenly, the shadows on the floor begin to move.

Maybelle’s shadow splits- one side bows, the other stands tall.

Anona’s shadow stretches - becoming a staircase.

They climb each other’s shadows.

At the top, they mime a handshake - slow, deliberate, fingers brushing like wind.

Act III: The Dance of Contracts

The papers rise from the desk, swirling around them.

Maybelle mimes a pen - writing in air.

Anona mimes a flame - burning the old offer.

Together, they mime a new contract:

One draws a square.

The other fills it with light.

The faceless figures, puzzled, stare in question signs.

The mimes mime refusal.

Then mime creation.

The scene ends with both mimes standing side by side,

hands clasped, shadows fused -

and the contract burning, glowing between them,

not ink, not fire...but in gesture.

For Anona was Maybelle, and Maybelle was Anona, under all the paint.

Maybelle's contract offered $5,999.00 per month, while Anona's contract offered $3,199.00. For the same job.

The mimes mimed "Shame on you". Removing their gloves, comparing Black hands to White face and White hands to Black face.

It happens every time...they mime, exiting...Leaving the faceless ones dumbfounded and ashamed.