(Two actors are on stage, holding legal pads. Actor 1 is pacing.)
Actor 1: There is no way. There is no way to squeeze a meaningful plot into this short amount of time. I refuse.
Actor 2: What are you talking about?
Actor 1: It would have to be an allegory. Something that looks at society as a whole through the life of one individual. Something very now.
Actor 2: What about a character study?
Actor 1: Are you kidding? This isn’t the nineteenth century. No, fiction has to tell us where we are, and where we’re going. Fiction has to mean something.
Actor 2: What about entertainment?
Actor 1: Look, we don’t have time. This is a ten second play. It has to be short.
Actor 2: A ten second play?
Actor 1: A ten second play.
(They think.)
Actor 2: We could just cop out, take the easy way.
Actor 1: How?
Actor 2: Do metafiction. Write a ten second play about two people writing a one second play. (Laughs) Most of it would be exposition anyway.
Actor 1: That’s a wretched idea. (Beat) Let’s begin.
(They scribble furiously, then both look up.)
Actor 2: What’s the message?
Actor 1: (Slightly defeated.) We don’t know where we’re going.
THE END