Five Linked Plays for Television
By William Bowles & Kethiwe Ngcobo
The Cast
Man
Woman
Flower Seller
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.
It’s a hot sunny day with a flawless blue sky. A suburban inter-section with two lanes of traffic and a raised traffic island separating the cars going in the opposite direction. Standing on the traffic island is a young African man holding bunches of bright red flowers that he waves at the cars as he whistles loudly. When the robot turns to red, he enters the traffic and walks down between the two lines of cars, but the windows are all wound up tight.
No. 3: The Flower Seller
The flower seller tries to make eye contact through the car windows but the drivers look away. He approaches one car where he makes eye contact with a woman passenger who is leaning through an open window. She smiles and gives him money and he hands her the bunch of flowers. As the car moves off, the window slides closed.
CUT
A clear blue sky with bright red flowers waving.
CUT
The flower seller finds himself trapped between the two moving lanes of vehicles and he tries to make it back to the traffic island in the middle of the road but misjudges the speed of a car coming up at the rear of the line.
SOUND
The sound of brakes. A thump.
CUT
A clear, blue sky. Bright red flowers scatter across it.
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Copyright © William Bowles and Kethiwe Ngcobo, All Rights Reserved