Last Night was written for the stage. It was intended to fill an evening of some of my older one-acts being produced by my good friend/creative brother Michael J. Ewing. He ended up not using it for that, and I promptly forgot it existed.
One day, a few years later, Mike called me out of the blue and told me that he and some friends shot it as a short film. I couldn’t imagine why they would do that, but I was thrilled they did. And then when I saw the result, I cried. It was so much better than I could have hoped for—or even imagined. It remains one of the things in this world of which I am most proud.
It also nabbed me the very best bit of review text I’ve ever received—and probably ever will…
Dennis DiClaudio, the writer of Last Night, displays a talent that is on the level of Quentin Tarantino. The complex and difficult-to-produce method of presentation used in this movie could easily go unnoticed because the writing of the dialogue is so good, pulled to completion with the outstanding performances by all four actors. The “first person omniscient retrospective” tense is a method typically seen only in books; and when it is used, it is usually only seen either from the perspective of a dead person (providing the omniscient nature) or from a narrator who is relaying a story in which they know every detail. To bring this method to film, and in a group situation, is brilliant and extremely hard to do.
Wherever you are, Rachel West, please know that I will will be buried with your writing.
The actors directed themselves, and none of them took a directing credit. Which annoys me because they did such a good job. I wasn’t even in the same state as them when they filmed it, so none of that credit goes to me.
All that I’m responsible for is the text, which is included below.
Last Night
by Dennis DiClaudio
Theo, early 30s: Michael J. Ewing
Karl, early 30s: Matthew Graves
Gil, early 30s: Greg Earnest
Pia, the waitress, 20s: M.J. Loria
(Lights up. Theo, Karl and Gil are sitting at a table in a corner bar, each with a glass of beer in his hand. A mostly-empty pitcher of beer sits on the table in front of them, along with six empty shot glasses and some spent appetizer platters. The characters should behave as if they're engaged in a regular barroom conversation, not the meta-conversation we hear them having.)
Theo, Karl and Gil: (singing) We are singing a song! We're singing a song! All three of us are happy tonight! We're singing a song! Yes, we're singing a song! Can everyone see how happy we are?!
Theo: Look at us. We're very happy.
Karl: That is definitely true.
Gil: (emptying last of pitcher into glasses) We're probably the happiest people here.
Karl: Certainly the loudest.
Gil: Definitely certainly! (holding up empty pitcher, yelling offstage) Waitress! Come give us more beer so that we can continue showing each other — and everybody else — how happy we are tonight!
Theo: Seeing us hear, laughing and singing, all happy the way that we are, it's hard to imagine that this will be the last good night that the three of us will ever spend together.
Karl: Almost impossible.
Theo: If somebody were to tell us, we would never believe it.
Theo: We’d call that person a liar.
Gil: A lying asshole.
Karl: A lying asshole liar.
Theo: And yet, it's true. In just a few short weeks, this friendship — this eleven year friendship — this will have come to an end.
Karl: The three of us will be split up forever.
Theo: And ever.
Gil: Eternity.
Karl: We will remember this night as our last.
Theo: We’ll remember it fondly.
Karl: We’ll also remember it sadly.
Gil: Well, I won’t remember it at all.
Theo: No, of course you won’t.
Karl: But us two will.
Theo: Yeah. And tonight will mark the beginning of the end.
Gil: Though, we won’t know it.
Karl: How could we?
(Pia, the waitress, enters with another pitcher of beer.)
Theo: Ah! Here she comes. The person who will help me ruin all of our lives.
Pia: Hey, don't blame me. You’re the one with the fiance. I’m not going to know anything about any of that. I really won't even know you.
Theo: You'll know me well enough.
Pia: Not all that well. Not after all the beer and shots I’ll keep bringing.
(Pia places the pitcher on the table, and Gil begins refilling everyone's glasses)
Gil: It’s funny. Right now, I have no idea that you two are flirting with each other. I'm completely unaware.
Karl: I'm aware. I'm very aware.
Pia: That's because you're trying to flirt with me, too. But, you’re failing. Unfortunately, I don’t find you attractive at all.
Karl: I'm aware of that as well! That's why I'm ordering more shots!
Gil: This is a terrible idea!
Theo: The absolute worst!
Karl: I will regret all of this!
Pia: I'll be back. Gotta go talk shit about you guys with the bartender.
(Pia exits.)
Karl: I hope your time with her is going to be worth it all.
Theo: Honestly, I won’t even remember it.
Karl: None of it?
Theo: I’ll remember throwing up halfway through.
Gil: In the bed?
Theo: No. The bathroom.
Gil: Do you finish?
Theo: No. She’s gone when I get back. I pass out, and then I wake up, and she’s gone.
Karl: Not really worth it, is it?
Theo: Not at all. In fact, I’ll spend a lot of time thinking about how not worth it will be while I’m considering suicide in about a month.
Karl: Suicide, really? I’ll have no idea.
Theo: Yeah, when Jenni admits that you two are sleeping together, it’ll hit me really hard.
Karl: Well, we’re not sleeping together yet.
Theo: No, not yet. Not as of tonight. But you will be.
Karl: Right. Only after you sleep with the waitress.
Theo: You know, she has a name.
(Pia enters with a tray of shots, which she places on the table.)
Pia: As if you’ll remember.
Theo: No, I won’t remember. But he should. If he’s going to use you as an excuse to sleep with my fiance.
Karl: I won’t use her as an excuse to sleep with Jenni. I’ll use you sleeping with her — sleeping with (looks at Pia’s nametag) Pia — as an excuse to sleep with Jenni.
Theo: Fair enough. (to Pia) And what about you? What will you be getting out sleeping with me tonight?
Pia: I’m going through a phase in which I’m trying to make myself believe that sex doesn’t matter.
Theo: And why’s that?
Pia: No good reason. Stupid romantic notion of being a sophisticated woman of the city.
Karl: So, will you find out that sex does matter?
Pia: Not really. But I’ll figure out that bad sex is just pointless, so you might as well try to find somebody who does it right.
Theo: Well, I’ll be happy to have been of assistance.
Pia: Thanks. And you will. Genuinely. In fact, one day, I’ll read an essay in a used book store about our night together. It’ll get a lot of laughs.
Theo: Good thing I never end up finding out about that, or I’d be tempted to actually go through with killing myself.
Pia: Yeah, good thing!
(Pia exits.)
Gil: So, how will you do it?
Theo: Do what?
Gil: Kill yourself.
Theo: I won’t.
Gil: But how will you consider doing it?
Theo: Pills.
Karl: You won’t be serious about it.
Theo: Maybe not. Who can tell? I’ll certainly feel determined when the time comes. Right up until the moment when I bring the canister to my mouth.
Gil: What’ll stop you?
Theo: Hard to say. Possibly cowardice. Possibly the belief that I could still get Jenni back. Possibly the memory of you lying there in your casket.
Gil: I guess so long as it’s not completely pointless.
Theo: It’s the way you’ll look, really. The caved-in side of your face reconstructed by the mortician in that creepily unnatural way. The fact that you will not resemble yourself at all. That I could end up looking like you — as irrational as that sounds — that’ll haunt me.
Gil: An overdose of pills would hardly have the same effect as having an Escalade slam into you at 75 miles—
Theo: I said it was irrational.
Karl: No, but I know what he means. You’re going to look really bad. A bunch of people are going to question the wisdom of an open casket. Your own mother — delusional — will grab hold of my lapel and beg me to go out looking in the ditches near the site of the accident, in case the real you is lying unconscious on the side of the road. It’s going to be terrifying.
Gil: Alright, I think I get the idea. I’m sure that if I will have had had any idea that my face would be so traumatic to—
Theo: No offense. We’re all going to be really sad about you. But you have to understand, the reality of you being gone is going to take a really long time to settle in.
Karl: And then it’ll hit us in weird ways.
Theo: Ways in which none of us ever could guess.
Gil: Like how?
Theo: In seven months, I’m going to break down crying on the toilet. I’ll just bend over double onto the bathroom floor with my pants at my ankles and stay like that for about an hour.
Gil: I don’t know how I feel about that.
Theo: I can explain what was going on in my head.
Gil: I don’t think I wanna know.
Theo: Fair enough.
Gil: (to Karl) Do you have a less... bizarre example?
Theo: I suppose.
Karl: At work one day next year, I’ll type out all my March Madness predictions. And I’ll address the email to you. Both of you. And I’ll come this close to hitting Send before I remember that you’re dead. And you hate me.
Theo: I won’t hate you. I will have loved to have gotten that email. You’re the one who’ll hate me.
Karl: I’m never going to hate you. Not for a minute. Sure, I’ll be mad at you for a good long while. But that really will be masking my own sense of shame. To you. And to Jenni. You know, I’ll always kind of love Jenni.
Theo: I’ll know. We’ll both know.
Karl: Will she ever talk about me?
Theo: No.
Karl: I didn’t think so.
Theo: But I’ll think about you. A lot.
Karl: Really?
Theo: Yeah. At least once every couple months for years and years, I’ll consider picking up the phone and calling.
Karl: What’ll stop you?
Theo: Who knows.
Gil: What about me? Will you think about me much over the years?
Theo: Not really. No.
Gil: What?!
Theo: I’m sorry. For a while, sure, I’ll be very sad. But, well, you know. That’ll fade.
Gil: You’re joking, right?
Theo: You’ll be dead. There’s a finality to that that’ll affect my brain chemistry in a different way than it will knowing that he’s out there somewhere.
Gil: Let me get this straight. He’s going to sleep with your fiance, and then you’re going to spend years pining over your lost friendship. But I’m going to be killed by a drunk college kid on my way to your apartment so that you won’t have to be alone on the night before you were going to get married, and you’re going to forget all about me?!
Theo: I’m not going to forget all about you. Hey, I’m going to be really really sad. For a while. Remember the crying toilet thing?!
Gil: Fuck you.
Theo: I’ll make a very heartfelt toast to you at our rescheduled wedding. I’ll get pretty choked up.
Gil: Oh, well, that’ll make it all better. (to Karl) What about you?
Karl: I won’t be able to maintain a very strong mental image of your face. Not without pictures. But I’ll think about you.
Gil: I hate you both so much.
Karl: What’s weird is, after all these years, the only picture I’ll have of you, for some reason, is one of all three of us together. But your face will be obscured.
Gil: I don’t want to hear any more.
Karl: That’ll take on some kind of odd significance to me over time.
Gil: Can we change the subject?
(Silence for a moment.)
Karl: Well, the waitress will be back any minute now, and she’ll tell us that it’s last call.
Theo: After some debate, we’ll decide to order two more rounds of shots and another pitcher of beer. And that will be what pushes me over the edge and gives me the drunken confidence to make a move on the waitress over by the restrooms.
Karl: I’ll go to bed angry. So mad that you get all the good women.
Gil: I’ll wake up in my car in front of my apartment building tomorrow morning. I won’t be able to believe how lucky I was to have made it home safely. I’ll actually give up drinking for a few months. Or actually forever.
(More silence. Pia enters.)
Pia: Okay, boys. You know what I’m here to tell you, so you know, let’s get with it.
Theo: It would be nice if, right in this moment, I could ask for a check instead of those shots and that pitcher.
Karl: If you could do it then you could change everything.
Gil: Everything would happen differently.
Theo: The three of us could go on being best friends for... for who knows how long.
Gil: All of our lives from this point forward would be different.
Karl: From this point forward.
Theo: That could fix everything.
Pia: But you can’t do that. This is the way things play out. You do order the shots. You do go home with me. And everything plays out the way it plays out.
Theo: I know. I’m just saying...
Karl: It would be nice, that’s all.
(Karl hands his phone to Pia.)
Pia: Sure. Sure it would. But there’s no point obsessing over that now.
(Theo, Karl and Gil pose for a photograph. Pia holds the phone up to take a picture.)
Theo: True enough. There’s plenty of time for obsessing later on.
Karl: Yeah, we have all the time in the world.
Gil: Well, not all the time.
(At the last second, Theo gets Gil in a headlock, which causes his face to be obscured. FLASH. And Blackout.)
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