Orange Flower Water is a dramatic play written by Craig Wright published in August 2004.
"A brutally honest drama about marriage and infidelity" by Chicago Sun-Times, and "Simultaneously visceral, with crackling humor, and intellectual."
[2] Characters [3] David Calhoun, a pharmacist, 30s-40s Cathy Calhoun, a choir director wife of David, 30s-40s Brad Youngquist, owner of video rental stores, 30s-40s Beth Youngquist, wife of Brad, 30s-40s Setting Present day in various locations of Pine City, Minnesota.
David prompts Beth to imagine herself far away from Pine City, "in a bay in a kingdom in the clouds."
Although David wishes he didn't have to hurt others to find his happiness, it’s a price he is willing to pay to live his dream.
The argument fades and Beth shares a recent dream that she and David had a four-year-old daughter named Lily.
In the dream, Beth, David, and Lily are driving home after shopping for ingredients to make Christmas cookies together.
Disappointed at his failed attempt to be intimate with Beth and upsetting her in the process, David tries to convince her to reconsider.
Brad stands wearing a "World's Greatest Dad" apron holding a spatula and a container of charcoal lighter fluid.
Brad is worried about what their cookout party guests will think of him and sarcastically asks if Beth would be happy if he made a huge scene in front of them.
After Brad's anger grows of the wasted fifteen years of their marriage and Beth admitting that she wasn't happy through any of it, she leaves.
David and Cathy lay awake on the bed and speak to each other trying not to wake their sleeping children.
Cathy climbs on top of and straddles David trying to initiate sex but he says that he can't.
She begins asking David questions about he and Beth's relationship and divulges information about her meeting with Brad over coffee.
Cathy warns Beth that David loves babies but once they are no longer little or helpless, he becomes petty and blames them for everything.
Beth and David stand near the bed wearing light jackets discussing a house they are currently in and are considering buying.
They begin to go back and forth about how to make this house a home for their children, when Beth questions whether what they've done is worth all the suffering it has caused.
Unlike in the dream, Lily was a good little girl and did not spill the orange flower water.
He wraps the letter around a bottle of orange flower water so that one day she may smell it and remember all the things that went into making a miracle like her.
The production at The Contemporary American Theatre Festival in Shepherdston, West Virginia was directed by Leah C.