The Smoking Lounge Play

A script from a play, found by Elias in Abigail Wright's apartment (Session 5). It dramatizes this building and these tenants — and ends by scripting the investigators' own entrance.

Transcript

SCENE: The Smoking lounge, a large parlor on the fourth floor. In the room are THE DOG, THOMAS and MICHELLE.

(ENTER MARK ROARK.) MARK: Abigail is gone, she moved upstairs today. THOMAS: And? MARK: I miss the kid. MICHELLE: Her dad, that pig, came around. She doesn't like you Mark, no one likes you. Anyway, she ran off with that salesman, everyone knows it. MARK: Fuck you, you cunt. THOMAS: Come on guys... come on... (THE DOG BARKS.) (Someone is heard coming up the steps, a loud racket reverberating up and down the staircase.) MARK: Who is that? (Everyone stops to listen.) MICHELLE: Who could be down there? Who is that? (MARK steps to the doorway and leans to look down the stairs.) MARK: Hello? Hello? (ENTER FEDERAL AGENTS)

Analysis

They Are Reading Their Own Stage Directions

The script's cast is the building's tenants — Thomas, Michelle, the Dog — plus Mark Roark. The "loud racket up the staircase" is **the investigators climbing**, and **"(ENTER FEDERAL AGENTS)"** is **the PCs** (who carry Marcus's FBI credentials). Same engine as the Session 3 self-printing finale script: the place writes the people who enter it. See The Actor-Character Seam.

What It Establishes

Abigail "moved upstairs today" and "ran off with that salesman" — the encyclopedia salesman.
Her father Thomas Wright ("that pig") came around (he's the Nassau County cop who fast-tracked the case).
Mark Roark misses her ("the kid") and is universally disliked in the building.
The smoking lounge is placed on the fourth floor — vs. the sixth in witness accounts. The night floors have no fixed number.
May connect to the "pages from a play" Palmer saw in Manuel's apartment (Session 4).