Five Linked Plays for Television
By William Bowles & Kethiwe Ngcobo
The Cast
A small African boy
A vicious dog
Synopsis
Five short stories, each presenting the same event from five different POVs and locations, events that revolve around an African flower seller, a white couple, a small African boy, an African gardener and a vicious dog.
Setting
The northern suburbs of Johannesburg, summer. Time: late 1990s. Shot on HD, the colour modified to resemble that of a painting with flat, intense and contrasting colours.
A long, straight avenue lined with tall trees. Almost pastoral with the dappled light and shadow cast by the trees contrasting sharply with the intense light reflected off the high, white walls that line the street, punctuated with gates. Like a Monet painting. There are no cars on the street or any other people except for a young African boy skipping along the street, trailing a stick which he bangs on the walls and drags across the railings. He is dwarfed by the height of the walls and the trees. As he skips he is alternately in deep shadow or intense sunlight. Occasionally, we hear dogs barking in response to the rattle of his stick on the railings.
From behind, the boy is skipping along the pavement. He arrives at a high, wrought iron gate just as a dog jumps up at the gate, snarling and banging its snout against the railings but with its front paws pushing through the spaces between the railings and hitting the shoulders of the boy, pushing him backwards onto the grass verge of the pavement.
CUT
Closeup of boy's face, frozen in fear as he falls backwards onto the grass verge. Camera zooms back as he falls. He lies stunned for a brief moment, his face a mask of fear which changes to anger as he stares down the barking dog.
CUT
The boy recovers and gets up, picks up his stick and recovering his courage, brandishes the stick but keeping a safe distance from the gates, drags the stick across the railings and further enraging the dog. He then skips on up the avenue.
CUT
From behind he continues up the street banging on the walls and rattling the railings and making the dogs bark, receding into the distance toward an intersection.
CUT
He reaches the end of the street and a crossroads as a car turns into the avenue. The sound of traffic. POV from the boy's position as he looks first right and then left along the street.
CUT
The boy sees a body and red flowers flying into the air with an intense, blue sky as a backdrop and the simultaneous screech of brakes and a thump as a car hits a body.
ROLL SPONSOR’S CREDITS
ROLL CREDITS
Over flowers as they scatter, set against backdrop of the intense, blue sky.
Copyright © William Bowles and Kethiwe Ngcobo, All Rights Reserved