THE HOUSE
THEY SHARE
A one-act play for four adult performers College-age edition
by John van Sicklen Maeck II
San Francisco, California
mwfarmcsa@gmail.com
+1 415-815-7966
Copyright © 2026 John van Sicklen Maeck II
All rights reserved
THE HOUSE THEY SHARE
Synopsis
John imagines that sharing a rented house with Louise and her two younger sisters, Kira and Sofia, will give him a lasting place in their lives. He organizes papers, photographs and plans, then discovers that help and belonging mean asking rather than deciding. Four keys, a planned Sunday outing, packing for time away and a broken hallway lamp bring the housemates’ wishes into conflict. John has to learn to offer ordinary care without claiming the others’ futures. The final image is of a house kept welcoming by a man learning how to live there himself.
Characters
JOHN, twenty-two. A student, writer and photographer. He has helped organize the shared rental and hopes it will become a lasting home.
LOUISE, twenty-three. A student approaching the end of her course. Warm, perceptive and independent. Kira and Sofia are her younger sisters.
KIRA, twenty-one. A music student. Direct, observant and serious about her work.
SOFIA, twenty. An art student with a part-time job, a crooked lamp and three basil plants.
Four speaking roles; four adult actors. No doubling or recorded voices are required.
John is a housemate. Kira and Sofia are Louise’s younger sisters; there are no parent or child roles.
1
THE HOUSE THEY SHARE
Setting
A shared rented house in San Francisco near a college campus, from move-in during the academic year to early summer. One kitchen table, four chairs, a counter, a small lamp, basil pots, boxes and suitcases. Other rooms and an overseas call are suggested through light and attention.
Production
Four college-age performers. All four characters are adults. The household consists of John and three adult sisters; there are no parent or child roles.
One continuous act in four scenes. Estimated playing time is twenty-five to thirty-five minutes, subject to a timed reading. Changes of time occur through light and practical action. No additional recorded voices, projections or licensed music are required.
A new stage adaptation of The House They Share, the imagined-future story from A Mother’s Son. The characters, family relationships and circumstances are reimagined for college-age performers.
Scene One The Lease
A rented house in San Francisco, near a college campus. One kitchen table, four chairs, a counter, a small lamp, three basil pots and several moving boxes. Four keys lie on the table. Late afternoon. JOHN has made four neat piles of paper. LOUISE enters with a box marked KITCHEN. KIRA follows with a portfolio. SOFIA carries a lamp with a crooked shade.
JOHN: I’ve made copies.
LOUISE: Of what?
JOHN: The lease. Emergency numbers. Collection days. A suggested arrangement of the kitchen.
SOFIA: Has the kitchen agreed?
JOHN: It’s a suggestion.
KIRA: You laminated it.
JOHN: The sink is wet.
LOUISE sets down the box. She examines the papers, then the room.
LOUISE: Which room is mine?
JOHN: I thought the one at the back. You said you wanted quiet. LOUISE: Thank you.
JOHN: I also thought we could put your desk under the window, and the shelves along—
LOUISE: I can find the window.
2
THE HOUSE THEY SHARE
He stops. She takes a key.
SOFIA: Does this work?
She plugs in the lamp. It lights.
KIRA: You carried it all the way here without checking? SOFIA: It was free. I had faith.
JOHN: It needs a different shade.
SOFIA: It needs a home.
She straightens the shade. It tilts again. She leaves it.
LOUISE: We should do the money before we unpack.
JOHN: I’ve covered the deposit.
LOUISE: We know. Kira?
KIRA: Transferred mine this morning.
SOFIA: Mine arrives Friday. From the job, not from a miracle. JOHN: There’s no hurry.
SOFIA: There is for me. I said Friday.
KIRA: What if the hours get cut again?
SOFIA: Then I tell you before Friday.
JOHN: I can lend you the difference.
SOFIA: You can offer. I can decide.
JOHN: I was offering.
SOFIA: Good. Then thank you. I’ll decide when I know the difference. LOUISE: And we should write down what we borrow from one another. JOHN: Even small things?
LOUISE: Especially things we pretend are too small to mention. KIRA: I still owe her twelve dollars from January.
SOFIA: Thirteen.
KIRA: See? A financial institution.
JOHN: I don’t want the house to feel like an institution.
LOUISE: Neither do I. I would like to know what my room costs without guessing how grateful to be.
He looks at the four keys.
3
THE HOUSE THEY SHARE
JOHN: Is that how I made it sound?
LOUISE: You haven’t made it sound like anything yet. That’s why we’re talking now.
JOHN: I thought getting everyone through the door was the difficult part. SOFIA: You got the table through the door. That was the difficult part. KIRA: We got the table through the door.
SOFIA: I supervised.
LOUISE makes a note on the back of the kitchen plan.
JOHN: You can use the other side.
LOUISE: I am.
KIRA: What’s the rule about visitors?
JOHN: Everyone’s welcome.
KIRA: All the time?
JOHN: Within reason.
KIRA: Whose?
A small silence. LOUISE pulls out a chair.
LOUISE: Let’s sit down.
They sit. JOHN has inadvertently taken the head of the table. There is no other kind of chair, but he has made it look official.
LOUISE: I have an early class on Tuesdays. I’d like quiet after eleven on Mondays.
SOFIA: I work Saturdays. If you’re having people over Friday, tell me before I discover them in my towel.
KIRA: Knock. Wait for an answer. Those are two separate things. JOHN: Of course.
KIRA: You said “of course” while opening my door this morning. JOHN: I was holding your box.
KIRA: The box could wait too.
He turns over one of his papers and writes.
LOUISE: What do you need?
JOHN: Me?
4
THE HOUSE THEY SHARE
LOUISE: You live here.
JOHN: I’d like us to eat together sometimes.
SOFIA: I can do sometimes.
KIRA: Sunday?
LOUISE: This Sunday. We can start with one.
JOHN writes SUNDAY. He underlines it, then puts down the pen.
JOHN: My old room was mostly boxes.
LOUISE: We’ve noticed.
JOHN: I kept thinking I’d unpack when I knew where I was going. KIRA: Where were you going?
JOHN: Somewhere with a table.
They look at the table. It is scratched and slightly too large for the room. SOFIA: Well. We’ve achieved furniture.
She opens a box. LOUISE produces a melon and a small cutting board. KIRA sorts four mugs, rejecting one with a crack.
JOHN: I thought, in the garden, we could grow things for the neighborhood. Maybe get a compost program going. There’s room for raised beds if we move the bins.
LOUISE: Fruit first.
JOHN: I could draw it properly.
KIRA: You’re talking instead of cutting.
He takes the knife and begins. SOFIA puts the three basil pots beside him. SOFIA: These came with me.
JOHN: They’re dry.
SOFIA: Yes.
JOHN studies them, then reaches for a sheet of paper.
LOUISE: John.
She hands him a mug of water. He waters the plants.
JOHN: Begin here.
LOUISE: That would help.
They pass pieces of melon. KIRA finds a thirteenth photograph under JOHN’s papers.
5
THE HOUSE THEY SHARE
KIRA: Is this going on the wall?
JOHN: I was going to put up the series.
LOUISE: All of them?
JOHN: They’re a series.
SOFIA: They’re a crowd.
KIRA holds up the photograph: a girl in a bright coat, looking away.
KIRA: This one.
JOHN: You can’t see her face.
KIRA: I can see she’s going somewhere.
LOUISE takes the photograph and props it beside the lamp. They eat. For a moment, no one explains the room.
Scene Two The Good Day
Several weeks later. Sunday evening. The boxes have gone. The photograph is on the wall. The kitchen plan is no longer visible. A meal has ended. Four places remain, with extra cups and serving dishes. SOFIA is gathering plates. KIRA works out a few notes on a small keyboard; no recognizable song is needed. LOUISE carries dishes to the counter. JOHN is still enjoying the evening.
LOUISE: I invited Mara for next Sunday, if that’s all right. JOHN: Next Sunday?
LOUISE: She hasn’t seen the place.
JOHN: I was going to work on my submission.
LOUISE: You can work in your room.
He collects two cups. She sees his face.
LOUISE: What?
JOHN: Nothing.
KIRA: We can’t afford that word. It takes three days to explain.
JOHN: I was going to spread the photographs out. Choose them. I said it last week.
LOUISE: You said you might.
JOHN: I said I would.
LOUISE looks at the table. There are dishes across its whole surface.
6
THE HOUSE THEY SHARE
LOUISE: You’re right. You did.
JOHN: I don’t mind her coming.
LOUISE: You do if you have to pack everything away.
JOHN: A bit.
LOUISE: I can meet her somewhere else.
JOHN: I don’t want to drive your friends out.
LOUISE: You aren’t. I can have coffee in a place that sells it. It’s an established practice.
He smiles despite himself.
LOUISE: I’m sorry. I should have asked.
JOHN: Thank you.
SOFIA: Can I put my drawing things at this end on Sunday? I won’t talk. KIRA: You will talk.
SOFIA: I won’t expect answers.
JOHN: That would be nice.
KIRA: I’ll be at the library. You can both pretend I’m studying. LOUISE: Aren’t you?
KIRA: Not for all those hours. Sometimes I’m looking out the window at people who seem to know what they’re doing.
JOHN: They don’t.
KIRA: They have better coats.
KIRA tries the short sequence of notes. It fails to resolve. She stops before the last one. JOHN: I like that.
KIRA: You say that about everything I play.
JOHN: Not everything.
KIRA: What didn’t you like?
JOHN: The alarm on your phone.
She laughs, then plays the passage again.
LOUISE: I liked the first version better.
KIRA: Why?
7
THE HOUSE THEY SHARE
LOUISE: It sounded like you were going somewhere. This one sounds like you’ve got there and don’t like the hotel.
KIRA: That’s almost useful.
LOUISE: I aim for almost.
SOFIA holds out a plate for JOHN’s cups. He puts them on it. They begin clearing together.
JOHN: George stayed nearly three hours.
SOFIA: He ate for four.
KIRA: He thought my course was a hobby.
JOHN: I told him you were good.
KIRA: I told him it was my course.
She tries the notes again. LOUISE waits for the last one.
LOUISE: There. That’s the one.
KIRA: You think?
LOUISE: Play it once without apologizing.
KIRA does. SOFIA taps a plate with her fork in applause.
JOHN: This is the family house I always wanted.
LOUISE sets a cup down. SOFIA stacks the plates. KIRA switches off the keyboard. SOFIA: I’m going to finish the drawing before I fall asleep in it. KIRA: I’ll do the pans in a minute.
They go toward their rooms. JOHN takes a towel. LOUISE begins washing up. JOHN: Good day.
LOUISE: Yes.
JOHN: You don’t sound as if it was.
LOUISE: It was. I liked it.
She gives him a plate. He dries it.
LOUISE: When you said “family house”—
JOHN: I didn’t mean you had to call it that.
LOUISE: You said it in front of everyone.
JOHN: I said I was happy.
LOUISE: You said what the house means for all of us. You didn’t ask.
8
THE HOUSE THEY SHARE
He continues drying the plate after it is dry.
JOHN: Do you want to leave?
LOUISE: I am standing at the sink.
JOHN: I know where you’re standing.
LOUISE: Then stay here with me. I tell you one thing that bothered me and you send me out the door.
He puts down the plate.
JOHN: My last place, I could go a whole weekend without anyone asking where I’d been.
LOUISE: That sounds lonely.
JOHN: I hated how much I liked someone leaving a cup in the sink. It meant somebody else was there.
She looks at the cups waiting between them.
LOUISE: You could have asked us to leave more dishes. He almost laughs.
JOHN: At home, if everyone sat at the table, it meant nobody was leaving angry. You’d watch which chair was empty.
LOUISE: At home I liked the empty chairs. It meant the questions had stopped for a while.
JOHN: What questions?
LOUISE: Where are you going? Who with? When will you be back? Why that course? Why not something sensible? You’d think I was crossing a border every time I went out for milk.
JOHN: I ask you when you’ll be back.
LOUISE: Sometimes I like being asked. Sometimes I want to go out for milk.
JOHN: How am I meant to know which?
LOUISE: You can let me answer without watching my face as if I’ve given the wrong time.
She takes another plate. He waits for her to finish rinsing it.
JOHN: I didn’t know you were watching that.
LOUISE: I live here too.
JOHN: I keep thinking I’ll get this part wrong.
9
THE HOUSE THEY SHARE
LOUISE: You will. So will I.
JOHN: That’s comforting.
LOUISE: Yesterday you moved my books.
JOHN: There was more light on the other shelf.
LOUISE: I knew where they were.
JOHN: You didn’t say anything.
LOUISE: I’m saying it now.
KIRA returns with her mug. She sees their faces and pauses.
KIRA: Is the good day still good?
JOHN: We’re discussing it.
KIRA: Everyone ate. The music worked. Nobody broke anything. Can it stay good while you do that?
She puts her mug beside the sink.
KIRA: And I’m doing the pans. Don’t do them while I’m gone. She exits briefly for an apron or towel. JOHN looks at the pans and leaves them alone.
JOHN: I’m afraid that if I don’t name happiness, it’ll leave before I know it was here.
LOUISE pulls her hands from the water and dries them.
LOUISE: Name it. Just don’t own it.
His phone lights. He looks at it by reflex.
LOUISE: What is it?
JOHN: A price alert. I bought a little of something I thought would go up. LOUISE: Did it?
JOHN: A little.
LOUISE: Good.
He looks from the phone to the room. He turns the phone over.
JOHN: It doesn’t change tonight.
LOUISE: No.
KIRA returns. SOFIA appears with a sheet of drawing paper.
SOFIA: Can somebody look at this before I ruin it?
JOHN starts toward her, then waits.
10
THE HOUSE THEY SHARE
JOHN: Do you want an opinion or a person to hold it up? SOFIA: Hold it first.
He does. LOUISE steps beside him. KIRA takes the pans. They look at SOFIA’s work. KIRA: I can’t see from here.
They turn the drawing toward her. Lights shift while they continue an ordinary, unfinished conversation.
Scene Three The Suitcases
Late spring. A suitcase stands open on a chair. LOUISE is sorting clothes. SOFIA labels a parcel at the table. KIRA measures her portfolio against a cabin-baggage diagram on her phone. JOHN waters the basil.
JOHN: Are all three of you leaving the same day?
LOUISE: Yes. It’s cheaper together.
KIRA: Unless this counts as a second passenger.
She holds up the portfolio. SOFIA takes it and turns it sideways.
SOFIA: Now it’s artistic hand luggage.
KIRA: Tell the airline.
JOHN: I thought it was just the summer.
LOUISE folds a shirt once more than it needs.
LOUISE: The work in Bogotá might continue into the autumn. I won’t know until I’m there.
JOHN: And you two?
KIRA: My course ends in August. I may apply somewhere else after that. SOFIA: I don’t know yet. I want to see everyone before I decide anything. JOHN continues pouring. SOFIA reaches over and lifts the mug upright. SOFIA: It has enough.
He looks at the wet saucer. He puts the mug down.
JOHN: Right.
LOUISE: We’ve paid our shares through August. You’ll only be paying yours. We said we’d talk about the lease by July fifteenth.
JOHN: I remember.
KIRA: I can help find someone for my room if I’m not back.
11
THE HOUSE THEY SHARE
JOHN: I don’t want strangers in your room.
KIRA: It will be a room for rent. The stranger might be perfectly nice. JOHN: I know. I just—
He stops. KIRA waits without rescuing the sentence.
JOHN: I thought we’d done the hard part. The deposit, the boxes. Finding a place we could actually afford.
SOFIA: We did that part.
JOHN: I’d have liked to know there was another part coming. LOUISE: So would I. The offer came yesterday.
JOHN: You’ve been talking about it all morning.
LOUISE: I know. It’s exciting.
The pleasure in her voice makes him look up.
LOUISE: You can be annoyed about the house. I’d also like to tell you about the work.
JOHN: I am glad they asked you.
LOUISE: Are you?
JOHN: Yes. I was just hoping to be glad about something nearer. That makes her smile. She sits on the edge of a chair.
LOUISE: They want me to help with the interviews. In Spanish and English. The person running it read my paper. Properly read it. She asked about a sentence I’d nearly taken out.
JOHN: Which sentence?
LOUISE: The one you said sounded angry.
JOHN: It did sound angry.
LOUISE: I was angry. She wanted to know what I’d do next. JOHN: What did you say?
LOUISE: I told her. For once I didn’t spend the whole conversation proving I was grateful to be there.
He sits opposite her. SOFIA quietly removes the overfilled saucer from beside his elbow. JOHN: Will you read it to me again? The sentence.
LOUISE: You may still dislike it.
JOHN: I’d like to hear it with the job attached.
12
THE HOUSE THEY SHARE
LOUISE: We can put the date somewhere.
He takes out his phone, enters the date and puts it away.
JOHN: When do you leave?
LOUISE: The eighteenth. The early flight.
JOHN: What do you need from me?
She stops folding.
LOUISE: You didn’t ask why.
JOHN: I will. I’d like to hear the answer without trying to change it. KIRA: I need somebody to tell me the portfolio fits.
SOFIA: It doesn’t fit.
KIRA: Somebody else.
JOHN takes the phone and compares the measurements. He makes no larger plan. JOHN: We could ring them.
KIRA: We could.
They do. The call can be mimed in a brief shift of light. No additional voice is needed. When the light settles, the portfolio is in a cardboard sleeve. JOHN has tape stuck to his wrist.
JOHN: They said it was fine.
KIRA: After you stopped explaining what art is.
JOHN: It seemed relevant.
SOFIA removes the tape from his wrist and uses it on the sleeve. LOUISE finds an old photograph in a paperback. She looks at it longer than she intended.
JOHN: Is that Elena?
LOUISE: Yes.
JOHN: Will you see her?
LOUISE: I don’t know.
He waits. She puts the photograph back in the book.
JOHN: I could write—
He stops himself, but she has heard.
LOUISE: Please don’t.
JOHN: I wasn’t going to do it without asking.
13
THE HOUSE THEY SHARE
LOUISE: You were already composing it.
A reluctant smile from him.
JOHN: Only the first paragraph.
LOUISE: You don’t have to repair this.
He hands her the book without opening it.
JOHN: All right.
SOFIA puts a purple shoe on the table.
KIRA: Why is that on the table?
SOFIA: To remind me to find the other one.
KIRA: Has it helped?
SOFIA: I haven’t forgotten the problem.
KIRA removes the shoe from the table and finds its mate beneath the chair. She gives both to SOFIA. LOUISE closes her suitcase. The click is louder than anyone expects.
JOHN: I’ll drive you.
LOUISE: We’d like that.
A small shift of light. Morning. The bags stand by the door. KIRA checks the window latch. SOFIA checks the plants.
SOFIA: Don’t kill them.
JOHN: They’re basil. Even I know what to do with basil. SOFIA: Eat the top. Water the bottom. You’d be surprised. KIRA takes a photograph of the kitchen. JOHN watches her frame it.
JOHN: Am I in it?
KIRA: You’re moving.
He stands still. She takes the picture.
LOUISE: Have you got your keys?
JOHN: Yes.
He checks. He has.
LOUISE: Keep living here.
JOHN: I’m on the lease.
She looks at him. He understands a little more of what she means.
14
THE HOUSE THEY SHARE
JOHN: I’ll try.
They lift the bags. The departure is accomplished by their walking out of the kitchen together. A change of light. JOHN returns alone with his keys.
Scene Four The Light
Early summer. JOHN comes in carrying groceries. He puts his keys beside the lamp. He begins to call toward the other rooms, then stops. He puts away the groceries. There is a single orange left. He peels it and eats a piece. He takes his notebook to the table. Sits. Opens it. After a while, he writes.
A later evening. A call. LOUISE appears in a separate pool of light, seated with a mug. The actors can see one another; the playing areas remain distinct.
LOUISE: Did the basil survive?
JOHN: Two new leaves.
LOUISE: Sofia will require photographs.
JOHN: Already sent them. She told me to stop taking them from the plant’s worst side.
LOUISE laughs. He waits for it to finish.
LOUISE: What have you been doing?
JOHN: Working. Writing a bit. George came for dinner. LOUISE: Did he bring anything?
JOHN: An appetite.
LOUISE: Consistent.
JOHN: We ate at the table.
LOUISE: Good.
JOHN: It felt disloyal for about five minutes.
LOUISE: To whom?
JOHN: I’m not sure. Nobody who was hungry.
She takes a drink. He looks at the other chairs, then at her.
JOHN: How’s the work?
LOUISE: Hard. Good. I’m glad I came.
He receives that without helping her improve it.
JOHN: Tell me.
15
THE HOUSE THEY SHARE
The light shifts slightly as she talks quietly. The words need not be heard. JOHN listens. When ordinary light returns, her mug is empty.
LOUISE: They’re asking if I can stay longer.
JOHN: Do you want to?
LOUISE: I think I do.
He puts a hand on the back of a chair. He does not pull it out.
JOHN: We still need to decide about the rent by the fifteenth. LOUISE: I know. Can we all talk on Sunday?
JOHN: Yes. I’ll look at the notice period before then.
LOUISE: Thank you.
JOHN: I found two people who are looking. From my course. They could come and see it next week if we decide not to renew together.
LOUISE: You found people?
JOHN: I asked. I haven’t given them your keys.
She smiles, then looks away. This news has reached her differently than she expected. JOHN: Is that all right?
LOUISE: Yes. Of course.
She turns her mug in her hands.
LOUISE: I suppose I liked thinking my room would stay my room while I decided.
JOHN: I liked it too.
LOUISE: That’s unfair of me.
JOHN: A bit.
She nods. He lets her take the moment.
LOUISE: If I do come back and somebody’s in there, can I still have dinner?
JOHN: Can you bring something?
LOUISE: Something excellent.
JOHN: Then yes.
LOUISE: You didn’t make it easy, renting this place with me. JOHN: I carried the table.
16
THE HOUSE THEY SHARE
LOUISE: You carried one end of the table.
He laughs. She does too.
JOHN: I’d do that part again.
A pause.
JOHN: I miss you.
LOUISE: I miss you too.
He nearly adds something. She waits. He lets the two sentences stand.
LOUISE: You sound different.
JOHN: I’m trying not to turn waiting into a job.
LOUISE: Is it working?
JOHN: Some days.
They smile. Her light fades as the call ends. JOHN puts down his phone. The kitchen lamp goes out. He looks toward it. The dark space holds his attention.
JOHN: Oh.
He moves toward the other rooms, stops, and returns to the lamp. He checks its switch. Nothing. He unplugs it. He opens a drawer and finds a replacement bulb. The practical action takes the time it takes. A safe, unpowered prop may be used; the light is controlled independently. He changes the bulb, plugs in the lamp, and turns it on. The familiar circle returns. He straightens the crooked shade. It tilts again.
A message. KIRA and SOFIA appear together in the separate playing area. SOFIA holds the purple shoes. KIRA holds her phone to photograph them.
SOFIA: Tell him the plant misses me.
KIRA: How would I know that?
SOFIA: You can see it in the leaves.
KIRA takes the picture and sends it. Their light fades. JOHN sees the message. He lifts a basil pot toward the lamp and takes a photograph. He begins to type. Stops. Deletes a few words. Sends the photograph.
He returns the plant to the counter. He gathers his notebook and puts away the pen. He checks the front door, then turns off the kitchen lamp. He goes toward his room without looking into the others. A faint light remains on the table, the four chairs and the three plants before it, too, fades.
End of play