Otherness and the Vampire

From the editor:

An angel falls from heaven. It 's Otherness, dressed in a white suit. As he falls, a small cloud of dust kicks up.

Majestically, Vampire walks towards one side of the stage pointing out the way for Otherness, who is clasping his hands in prayer.

Otherness now lives with the vampire.

Followed is an excerpt of the full play. This play was performed in both languages by the Green Room from October 17 to October 19, 2025.


VIII

Otherness works out.

VAMPIRE: What do you even eat? Air?
OTHERNESS: This place is very healthy.
VAMPIRE: I have never seen you take a single bite.

Otherness stretches his arms and breathes in deeply.

VAMPIRE: I asked you a question.
OTHERNESS: How would you know? You never leave your room.
VAMPIRE: That's not true. I go out at night.
OTHERNESS: I’m sleeping at night. (Pause) I don’t know what goes on in this house.
VAMPIRE: You’re not here to know things, you’re only here to serve me.
OTHERNESS: I’m here because I want to be.
VAMPIRE: You insolent fool!
OTHERNESS: I could have fallen anywhere else.
VAMPIRE: Fallen, fallen! You opportunistic demon! Who do you think you’re fooling with your blue eyes? Let's see! Where are your feathers? Where are your wings? What do you want? To shame me?
OTHERNESS: And what, pray tell, would you ever have to be ashamed of?
VAMPIRE: Of my appetites, of my nocturnal habits, of the very fact that I want nothing more than to sink my teeth into you as we speak.

Otherness recoils in fear.

XI

Vampire digs a hole in the middle of the stage.

VAMPIRE: There’s no greater burden than my indifference. I can drink gallons of blood, frigid jugs of that precious liquid and feel no remorse, nothing, save the pleasure of having partaken. Oh, how those creatures give themselves to me! (Looking offstage) There is something binding in that confidentiality. You can’t fool the heart, how many times have I tried to quit it! (Pause) And yet this thirst engulfs me. Your small body couldn’t satisfy me. Now, you will sleep.

Otherness appears.

OTHERNESS: You’re a criminal!

Vampire, caught in the act, turns towards Otherness.

VAMPIRE: It’s not my fault.
OTHERNESS: What a repugnant creature!
VAMPIRE: Don’t be unfair.
OTHERNESS: I’ll pray for you.
VAMPIRE: Listen!
OTHERNESS: You cynic! It’s the branch of an ash tree. (Pauses) The tree that weeps like a woman, remember?
VAMPIRE: I am no murderer, I just wished to live. (Coldly) Get her.

Vampire keeps digging. Otherness leaves and returns with the woman in his arms. He lowers her into the hole. Vampire covers the body with dirt. Otherness watches him.

VAMPIRE (throwing the last shovel of dirt): Good night.

Otherness watches, horrified, as Vampire finishes, the latter turns and says:

VAMPIRE: There is no more you and I, but us. (Pause) If I am a murderer, you are my accomplice.

XII

OTHERNESS: Don’t cry!

Pause. Silence.

VAMPIRE: I’m not crying. (Pauses) Forgive me.
OTHERNESS: Who am I to forgive you.
VAMPIRE: You don’t trust me anymore.
OTHERNESS: Can’t you think of any other thing besides yourself?
VAMPIRE: I can’t conceive of a more hellish thing.
OTHERNESS: Lord give me patience! Just look at yourself!
VAMPIRE: No!
OTHERNESS: What are you so afraid of?
VAMPIRE: Once, when I was a boy, I dared to glance into a mirror. (Pause) There was nothing there. I don’t know how I look.
OTHERNESS (begrudgingly): You’re very beautiful.
VAMPIRE: That’s not what my heart tells me.
OTHERNESS: If you could see yourself in the mirror you’d know…
VAMPIRE: You can see yourself?
OTHERNESS: God Almighty! I know my eyes are blue.

Otherness finds a corner of the mirror and he examines himself, rubbing his neck where Vampire bit him.

VAMPIRE (intrigued): Do I have blue eyes?
OTHERNESS: I didn’t get a mark.
VAMPIRE: I’m harmless, can’t you see?
OTHERNESS (looking offstage): You have no mercy.
VAMPIRE: Mon amour gravement touché.
OTHERNESS: What language are you speaking?
VAMPIRE: The wound runs much deeper.
OTHERNESS (looking at his forehead): You can’t even see it anymore. (Pause) Do I look like a rabbit to you?
VAMPIRE: Not particularly.
OTHERNESS: I’ve never really stopped to look at how long my ears are. (Pause) We were going hunting, each with their own shotgun. My father made me go; he wanted to make a man out of me. (Pause) I loved rabbits, you understand? Oh poor me! I hadn’t even heard the shot ring when I was already stiff as a board, completely dead, dead and innocent. ‘I thought he was a rabbit!’ My father yelled, beside himself with grief, lost in his own sorrow. (Pause) That’s how he justified a shot between the ears.
VAMPIRE: What a way to snuff out a creature!
OTHERNESS: It wasn’t his fault!
VAMPIRE: It’s nobody’s fault, I’m tired of saying it.
OTHERNESS (desolate): No one believed the thing about the rabbit.
VAMPIRE: Poor man. He must suffer so…!
OTHERNESS (desolate): I’m a criminal! Even worse, I made a criminal out of my father! And all because of my stupid obsession with jumping like an idiot! There I am, scaring off the rabbits so my father wouldn’t kill them! (Dejected) And he ended up killing me… My father is innocent!
VAMPIRE: Don’t cry.
OTHERNESS: I’m not crying!

XIII

Vampire is sitting in front of a chalkboard with drawings of a snake, woman, and rabbit. Otherness points with a ruler at the drawings as his speech continues.

OTHERNESS: This has to be the last time, you promise?
VAMPIRE: I promise.
OTHERNESS: Swearing in vain is a sin.
VAMPIRE: I swear on myself.
OTHERNESS: Good, let’s see: women aren’t the only living beings who have blood, got it?
VAMPIRE: Yes.
OTHERNESS: There are many animals who have blood, cold blood or warm blood, it depends. Animals with cold blood include, for example, snakes, lizards. Do you like snakes?
VAMPIRE: No.
OTHERNESS: Warm blooded animals are called mammals. Why are they called mammals? Because they give birth to their babies who call them mamma. Man is a mammal. Rabbits are too.
VAMPIRE: Rabbits?
OTHERNESS (impatiently): It’s another example. (Pause) What is the difference between a rabbit and a woman?
VAMPIRE: I don’t know.
OTHERNESS (scientifically): Rabbits don’t cry.
VAMPIRE: Ah!
OTHERNESS: You’re not convinced.
VAMPIRE: I have no idea what you’re talking about.
OTHERNESS: Women are innocent creatures, called upon to be mothers to future generations. Sucking a maiden’s blood is a crime: an abominable crime, an inconceivable crime, don’t you know that?
VAMPIRE: I only follow my desires.
OTHERNESS: That’s precisely the problem.
VAMPIRE: What problem?
OTHERNESS: You are not an animal, you are a man.
VAMPIRE: I’m a vampire.
OTHERNESS: You know what I mean! You’re a thinking being, you know how to speak, you know how to think.
VAMPIRE (proudly): I know how to fly too.
OTHERNESS: Stop that. (Pause) There is a difference between you and the rabbits.
VAMPIRE: Between me and the ladies.
OTHERNESS: No, between the ladies and the rabbits. You are the same as women. God, what a mess! Alright, starting over: killing that which is akin to you is a crime.
VAMPIRE: I don’t want to kill them, I just want their blood. OTHERNESS: Blood is life.
VAMPIRE: I want a maiden 's life, not her death.
OTHERNESS: What are you talking about!
VAMPIRE (vehemently): Their lives! It’s all I want.

XIV

Otherness and Vampire sit back before a table observing the items on it.

OTHERNESS (incredulously): You had never seen a rabbit before in your life?
VAMPIRE: I’d seen them, but I hadn’t looked at them.
OTHERNESS: There are so many rabbits in this forest, you could kill them just by walking through. There are more rabbits than there are women, can’t you see?
VAMPIRE: Yes. What long ears they have!
OTHERNESS: You can have as many rabbits as you want without the risk of someone coming to drive a stake through your heart. No one will hate you for killing a rabbit. Everything we do to them is within the strictest, current laws.
VAMPIRE: I see. (Pause) There is no difference between the blood of women and that of rabbits?
OTHERNESS: None, it’s simply not forbidden to obtain the latter.
VAMPIRE (fearful): We’ll be breaking tradition, that’s not right. My father would never approve of this. (Pauses, with dread) I could never recognize a rabbit!
OTHERNESS: Look at it better!
VAMPIRE (with his eyes fixed on Otherness): I can only recognize that which is akin to me. I’m scared of rabbits!
OTHERNESS: Don’t be such a coward! You’re acting like a woman. VAMPIRE (trembling): I am a woman.
OTHERNESS: Don’t be so childish.
VAMPIRE: I can recognize their innocence.
OTHERNESS: Oh, my God…! Do it for me, I’m begging.
VAMPIRE: Alright. (Pause) I don’t want you to hate me.
OTHERNESS: I don’t hate you.
VAMPIRE: I want to be like you.

Vampire and Otherness hug each other tenderly.