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From Livingscript
Contents |
Dramatis Personæ
MARCUS
TOM
DEATH
HITLER
SHEILA
TONY
ROBERT
LIFE
THADDEUS CRAMBLEJEEZIC
Act One
Scene One
MARCUS hands TOM a dead tulip. TOM looks at it and frowns.
TOM: you can be a real creep sometimes, you know?
MARCUS: it's not creepy unless I picked it that way.
TOM examines the tulip before tearing off each petal individually and throwing them to the ground
TOM: Things I hate. Marcus. Morning. The way even when I'm angry I still sound stupid. That I can't find any words to make this better.
MARCUS: What's on your mind?
TOM: I don't want to talk about it.
MARCUS: You didn't have to take it out on the fucking tulip.
TOM: You don't have to be such a prick! Back off, Okay?
MARCUS: I'm not a prick. I gave you the tulip to begin with.
TOM: A dead tulip. You gave me a dead tulip.
DEATH in a wide-brimmed gardener's hat, overalls, and gloves enters from stage right with a basket of freshly wilted wildflowers.
DEATH: Hey Marcus, have you been traipsing through my garden again? That's not cool, man. This is my passion. (to audience.) If you would like for these characters to die and a new play to start, please raise your hands.
DEATH looks for raised hands
DEATH: Your choice.
TOM: He didn't pick it that way, apparently.
DEATH: Likely story. And why are you looking so glum on a lovely day like this, oh Tom?
TOM: No reason.
DEATH: Don't pull that on me, Tom, you know I can read your thoughts.
DEATH looks at the audience
DEATH: If you are willing to do what a bad play tells you, take the hand of the person next to you.
DEATH looks for movement
DEATH: Bad night for lovers.
TOM shoves DEATH who falls backwards into MARCUS
A wooden door opens up from the floor and HITLER comes out from some unseen depth under the floor. The light from down there is dark red, and screams are heard from what the audience must decide to be hell. Twinkling music is heard as HITLER slams the wooden floor hatch closed.
HITLER: (screaming at the voice behind the hatch) Superfantastisch!
MARCUS: Hey, did you guys know we had a door to hell here?
DEATH and TOM (in unison): Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.
- Shut up. (HITLER: The necessity is not to remove the Jews but to remove weakness.)
- Shut up. (HITLER: We do not need to control the state. The state is us. We must control ourselves.)
- Shut up. (HITLER: The love of order is a natural and holy thing.)
TOM: Marcus, when you woke up today, did you think, "I am loved"? Did you have anyone beside you?
MARCUS moves to lunge at TOM when an airplane is heard overhead. 10 seconds of silence as the plane approaches. Everyone stops moving. Thousands of leafletes begin 1000
1000
to fall from the sky. TOM picks one up.
TOM: "Save a life, Get Vaccine 341"
MARCUS: Vaccine 341. Don't mind if I do. Anything to eliminate the gay gene...
DEATH: Please, no politics.
MARCUS: Vaccine 341. Don't mind if I do. I have been sick of loneliness for too long.
DEATH: No Chekov, either.
TOM: These jeans aren't gay, they're Diesel.
DEATH: Product placement is verboten!
MARCUS (To TOM): You are so fucking stupid sometimes you k 1000 now that?
TOM: Fuck You!
DEATH: Vaccine 341. You are told to take it.
MARCUS: So, they are really going to enforce this vaccine? Everyone?
DEATH: It certainly would help with the over population problem in hell.
HITLER: I'll second that! I just came from there, hardly got through. And if I have to go to another all night Bette Davis marathon with Paul Lynde and Truman Capote again I think I'm going to scream.
TOM: Marcus, you live in Chelsea, does it get any gayer?
MARCUS: I just moved to Hell's Kitchen, and it's...god, I don't even have an ice maker.
DEATH: I guess it does.
All laugh with sick, forced laughter. Blackout. All move around. Lights up. Nothing has changed.
MARCUS looks at TOM and recites the following with utter derision:
Duncan Sheik, the songwriter/singer, comes around the corner, holding an old fashioned bubble gum machine. He is humming "My Girl".
MARCUS: God, he's so fucking lame. Can't we get someone who isn't such a c-grade pop star to make a cameo?
TOM: We tried to get Anna Nicole Smith but...
They glare at death
DEATH: What?
MARCUS: I was hoping for Daniel Radcliffe in a nude scene.
TOM: I am better than this.
MARCUS: You are what you have written.
TOM: I am better than that.
MARCUS: Then you will endure a world that neither cares or understands.
HITLER: It will be hard at first to impose order. The Jew has many claws; some are in your heart. (He makes threatening and sudden motions, perhaps a claw, towards the audience.)
MARCUS: This, this thing, can only be understood by looking what came before.
MARCUS and HITLER recite in unison a sing-song of utter derision
BOTH: What? Oh give it up! Besides what do you think I was written into the story for?
TOM: These words were not supposed to be immortal and were not a flaw in my eyes. If you don't like my play is not a problem to me. I realize that others might not value this, or might not understand.
MARCUS: We hope that you are learning. You might be getting better. It is possible that you are not good enough and that this adventure will fade because you never cared enough to learn to do it better.
DEATH looks at TOM. A screeching noise. Blackout.
Scene Two: Back in the Hat
TONY'S APARTMENT is brought in during the blackout as TONY'S THEME plays. When the lights come up, TOM has become TONY, with a different costume. He is writing. Eventually he speaks. He is an asshole. Non-realistic lighting.
TONY: It's always hard writing a new Gospel. The Gospel of St. Marcus was no exception.
Sheila, Tony's cleaning lady, enters with a chip on her shoulder and an empty bottle of Windex in her hand.
SHEILA: Doesn't St. Marcus already have a gospel? You're out of Windex.
TONY: No. This is Marcus not Mark. How did you know what I was writing?
SHELIA: The director is having everything you write read aloud, so everyone can follow along.
Snap into realistic lighting. SHELIA's demeanor instantly transforms into a real person.
SHELIA: Tony I don't know who you're describing when you talk about me like that. That's not me. That's not a real person.
Snap back out. SHELIA goes back to the fake person.
TONY: You... Wait...
Lights down lights up. DEATH has appeared. SHELIA lies on the ground. Smears of Windex near her mouth indicate how she died.
TONY: DAMN IT!
(pause)
From the ground, without moving:
SHELIA: I'm sorry I'm being melodramatic. I am talking about my life and my future and I can't even penetrate because all women are stupid as far as you think.
(pause)
SHELIA: Sho is Marcus?
Blackout. Lights up on TONY writing. SHELIA is sitting up but still has Windex smears. The following lines are read without pause:
TONY: An old friend.
SHELIA: I told you.
TONY: Jesus.
SHELIA: I know I know I know
TONY: What?
SHELIA: I know you don't love me and I don't care.
(pause)
SHEILA: So what's Marcus's deal?
TONY: When I figure that out I'll write it down for you to hear.
SHEILA: Is it because I'm Jewish? (pause) I know you don't like Jews. I know you don't love me. Just please let me read what you have and spare me more humiliation, Tony. Please.
TONY: Are you a writer?
SHEILA: No, but I'm a reader. If it was just about nothing I wouldn't know when it was over.
TONY: Here.
SHELIA reads the writing
SHEILA: Why doesn't Tom like Marcus?
TONY: It's just kind of implied.
SHELIA: But it isn't.
TONY: They just don't like each other.
SHELIA: But that's so empty. Why do I care? And what do Death and Hitler have to do with anything? Why does Death come on jive-talking?
TONY: What's wrong with that? I thought it was funny.
SHELIA: It's nonsensical, but there's no point to it. It's just showing that you can write anything.
TONY: I thought it was funny.
SHEILA: But you have to write something before someone can read it. This is just a drawing of a bird.
She shows him the bird. Blackout. Lights up. They are slightly moved. A bottle of Windex stands center stage next to a butcher knife.
TONY: Other side, Sheila.
SHEILA: Oh.
SHELIA reads it and reacts to certain parts while TONY watches
SHEILA: Well...
TONY: Yeah?
SHEILA: I didn't hate it. I kind of liked the bird better, though.
(beat)
SHEILA: What do the tulips stand for?
TONY slowly stands and walks to the Windex. Ominous music. TONY walks over and picks up the knife and Windex. Lights darken.
SHOUTS FROM OFFSTAGE, VERY ANGRY: Drink the Windex, whore! Drink the fucking Windex! Don't you ever talk like that to me again. Don't you ever fucking do that you fucking piece of shit! Don't you ever
Lights snap up. TONY is putting the knife and Windex away in their right places.
TONY: Sheila, "sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar".
(beat)
SHEILA: What?
TONY: Freud. Freud said... - nevermind. The tulips don't stand for anything. They're just flowers.
SHEILA: That Freud quote is seriously your excuse? What does the bird stand for?
TONY: I think it's clear that it stands for the liberation of the proletariat from their capitalist slave drivers.
SHEILA: Oh, I kind of see it now. It's just that you're really clever, and I'm a stupid bitch that'll be stupid so you can say your great lines.
TONY: Shelia
SHELIA: Tony, I'm pregnant.
Snap into "pregnancy". This is played with absolute seriousness but slowly fades away as we reenter TONY'S head.
SHELIA: And I'm not ready. And I'm not going to get ready. And I don't give a shit what your bullshit fundamentalist parents told you, but one of the reasons I chose to live in the city is because I knew I didn't want to lose my life for some damn mistake.
We start to spin out of "pregnancy with:
SHELIA: You write these plays like nothing matters but I'm trying to help you because I love you
Snap back into "pregnancy"
SHELIA: Tony, what you are saying about me is foul, and it's wrong. And I don't want to have to tell your parents, because I really do like you, but. But you. Tony, I'm not a murderer.
(pause)
There is a knock at the door
SHEILA: I'll get it.
SHELIA walks to the kitchen and gets the Windex. She drinks some, savors it, then goes to the door. For the rest of the scene she drinks the Windex. SHELIA opens the door and MARCUS enters.
SHEILA: Can I help you?
TONY sees who it is
TONY: Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ.
- Jesus Christ. (From offstage SHELIA's VOICE is screaming: Tony I'm not going to sit here and listen to)
- Jesus Christ. (SHELIA's VOICE: Tony I don't care what you think.)
- Jesus Christ. (SHELIA's VOICE: Tony I'm not having your child.)
Snap into non-realistic lighting. SHELIA becomes a fake person.
SHEILA: Really? I always thought Jesus would be taller.
MARCUS: I'm Marcus!
His pockets are stuffed with leafletes
SHEILA: You're Marcus? St. Marcus?
TONY: Oh, God--NO--Sheila have those fumes gone to your head? This is my nephew, Marcus.
SHELIA: OH! It's a pleasure!
TONY: Shelia you're a whore and whores die this is my pastor, Marcus.
SHELIA: Marcus it's a pleasure what should we do?
TONY: Shelia you shit you shit you shit this is my father, Marcus.
SHELIA: Hello, sir. I can't wait to join the family.
They shake hands
TONY: Marcus, it is always good to see you, but I must say I am surprised. I thought our lunch date was yesterday. I waited around all afternoon.
MARCUS: Dammit I knew I had something scheduled! I'm sorry Uncle Tony.
TONY: Marcus, we have made a terrible mistake.
MARCUS: There are no mistakes simply weakness.
TONY: Dad. Dad.
MARCUS: Well. How about I take you and, uh, Shelia was it, out for some coffee right now?
TONY: That sounds great.
Scene Three
A cafe. DEATH and HITLER drink coffee and do crosswords at the side. MARCUS, TONY, and SHELIA sit center.
TONY: It was not a day I wanted to have to remember. The sunlight curdled around and around and. Shelia was happy to meet him I thought. This was back when I thought I could be good in a good world.
Back in
TONY: But why did you drop by in the first place?
SHELIA: Maybe it's just me, but I bet it has something to do with all that paper he has.
MARCUS: Oh yea!
"He takes one of the leaflets from his pocket and presents it to TONY."
TONY: Where did you get this?
MARCUS: They're everywhere, they've been drooping them in the streets all morning.
SHELIA: What are you talking about?
"MARCUS hands her a leaflet as well."
SHELIA: Whats the problem?
MARCUS: We can't just go around giving everyone some vaccine to make sure that all our babies are the same in the future.
SHELIA: Why not?
MARCUS: Because, how would you like it if someone gave you a vaccine so you could only have white babies, and we wiped out all other races.
SHELIA: I'm not black?
TONY: WHAT?
SHELIA: Oh my god, you guys thought I was black?
MARCUS: Well you are playing the cleaning lady!
HITLER looks up and declaims
HITLER: We are cruel, yes, but wisdom is cruel. Our world is cruel. There is a simple fact, of separate races. They try to paint racism as a dirty word simply to make us ashamed of our natural dominance--and who is this "they"? The Jews, and the under races. No Aryan woman can be reduced to cleaning without their influence.
DEATH: Whatever can we please just move on with the story.
MARCUS: The cleaning lady isn't black?
HITLER: We start with simple humor; the Jew is miserly, cruel, evil. The negro is stupid, menial, docile. These jokes are funny because they are true. By laughing at them, we affirm the true order of the world.
TONY: Are you sure you're not black?
HITLER: Without our humor, we might get lost. The cleaning lady is black. The loan shark is Jewish. The untermensch is a slave. This is the order of the world. It is because this order is not enforced that our world exists in disarray.
Blackout
Scene Four
MARCUS: I'm worried about Buddy. He is such a good and loyal friend. I don't want them to change him.
SHELIA: Wait, who is Buddy?
TONY: His salamander.
THADDEUS CRAMBLEJEEZIC, the roaming prophetic homeless man enters, floating above the rest. The lights dim and focus on him.
THADDEUS: Homeless and hungry...god bless...anything will help...homeless and hungry...god bless...god bless... A system out-of-control. A salamander in fear of losing his way of life. Neither may exist happily while the other survives. Buddy the salamander will soon be swept up in a vortex of controversy as the system bears its overwhelming weight upon it. Something has been taken and treated seriously that did not deserve it.
Everyone ignores THADDEUS and the lighting returns to normal
SHEILA: Oh, a salamander? Serves him damn right, the amphibian. I say, choose land or water; gills or lungs. You can't have both. I won't let you.
TONY: Sheila, try to be less judgmental!
SHEILA: Weird pet to have anyway. Have you ever tried a dog?
TONY: What? For lunch?!
SHEILA: No, don’t be ridiculous, we’re not in China. I mean have you ever tried having a dog as a pet?
MARCUS: Silly name for a dog, “Buddy”.
SHEILA: You would have to name him something else, then.
TONY: The name “THADDEUS” comes to mind, what do you think?
Scene Five
Stage is black except for a single spotlight on BUDDY, centre stage. Heart-breaking solo violin winds a quiet melody in the background. BUDDY is seated at a table, a wilted tulip in a slim unremarkable light-blue vase being the only thing on the tabletop.
BUDDY: The only thing I have ever wanted was to be left to be myself. I never asked to be a pet. I never asked to be put under a microscope. I never even asked to be named. A salamander needs no name. To name a salamader is to be at war with the salamander. I am the only one who can discover the true "I;" these impositions from the outside will never define me. I have sat at length in my glass aquarium, and pined for sweet escape from these transparent, though most certainly solid, walls. My gills slowly undulate in ennui. I would shed a tear, a tear that I would live inside; swim in the depths of for the rest of my days. I would shed a tear so that the world in which I live would truly be mine. I would shed a tear if I had tear ducts. But no. It is only dry here. They will never understand what it is to be a salamander. You never will. Let your salamanders free! Do not cage, or name, or classify, or restrict us. Let us be. Let me be. I only want to be.
BUDDY takes the tulip in his hand and delicately sniffs its parfum. Stage lights fade to black.
Scene Six: Sentences That Answer Each Other Directly/Are Also Inhumane and Wrong
SHELIA and TONY sit in TONY'S APARTMENT. Six months before scene two.
SHELIA: Tony, you ever read poetry?
TONY: Let me correct you. Tony, have you ever read poetry.
SHELIA: No, Tony, people don't always, I'm trying to say something. It's not clear, always.
TONY: Let me correct you. No, Tony. I'm trying to say something about how people do not always say things clearly.
SHELIA: People don't say things clearly isn't the point. People don't talk with rigid grammatic conventions. Sometimes they will, but that's only because it fits the precise rhythm of what they're saying. That's why you're not writing a prose novel, is because you're creating words, living words, in people's mouths.
TONY: Let me correct you.
SHELIA: Stop it.
TONY: That people don't say things clearly isn't the point.
SHELIA: Stop it.
TONY: Sometimes people do talk with rigid grammatic conventions, but that's only because those conventions fit the precise rhythm of what those people are saying.
TONY looks up at SHELIA. They share a non-realistic moment.
TONY: The form of the words is as important as their meaning.
SHELIA: The form of a scene is as important as its plot.
Lights and tempos into realism
TONY: We should go to the new play by John Patrick Shanley. He's very good at using stylized language.
SHELIA: He's very good at using stylized language? Tony, I can't tell if you're kidding half the time.
TONY: I mean,
SHELIA: We've been going dates a while now, and you've never mispronounced anything. Your sentences have proper grammar, avoid convoluted structures, and usually express a single concrete idea.
TONY: I don't know what to say about you not liking my sentences. Does it irritate you?
SHELIA: I think it's sexy. You're so incredibly proper. You don't talk like anyone I've ever met in my life.
TONY: I was not raised divorced from the real world.
SHELIA: You've also never kissed me, Tony.
electricity
SHELIA: In fact, we've barely touched. You apologize when our arms rest together. I've decided you were waiting for me to make the first move.
she is coming in
SHELIA: What do you think of that?
a pause, attraction, she comes to kiss him. he is terrified, but kisses her back. a sweet, sensuous moment. DEATH appears at the window, with HITLER
DEATH: He could feel the air between them. He didn't want to kiss but did instead, and forgot to regret it. He didn't know how or what to do with all these lips and tongue and was terribly sad about that, but she was willing to show him. He was embarrassed by his erection and she wasn't. They did not have sex that night because he felt it would be wrong; something that would change. His grammar weakened. New characters appeared on his pages. The future kept coming.
silence
HITLER: When do you plan to kill him?
DEATH: I haven'th decided yet.
HITLER: How about a heart attack during intercourse?
DEATH: Naw. He's healthy. No clogged blood vains.
HITLER: How about a sex game going wrong?
DEATH: I don't control people's minds, Hitch.
HITLER: Really? pause. How about cancer?
DEATH: Takes too long to grow.
silence
HITLER: Killing didn't seem to be so hard when I was alive.
DEATH: That's why I killed you. You were the competition.
HITLER: Correction, I killed me.
DEATH: You came to me anyway.
HITLER: Life was more scarry then death back then.
DEATH: Still is.
HITLER: Tell that to LIFE.
DEATH: I will. Here's over there trying to get SHEILA pregnant.
HITLER: Doesn't TONY have something to do with that?
DEATH: He's out of practice.
over by TONY and SHEILA stands LIFE with her armes crossed
LIFE: No no, that will never do. Try not thinking about AIDS and SHEILA having a baby. Try not to think of your grandmother. Just get it up!
SHEILA: Yes get it up! You are so big and strong!
TONY: I'm trying, im trying! I'm sorry, I,
DEATH: Problems, LIFE?
LIFE: Get out of here, DEATH. There's no room for you here. We're having a conceivement!
DEATH: So am I! Why would I stop the birth of my next customer?
LIFE: Your next victim!
DEATH: Give it up, LIFE. TONY can't get it up if his LIFE depended on it.
LIFE: I DO depend on it!
DEATH: You depend on TONY's penis?
LIFE: Try not to be so arrogant. You depend on prostates.
DEATH: Only for men. For women i depend on brests. And so do your babys.
LIFE: smiling And so does SHEILA.
DEATH: What's so funny about that?
LIFE: She's using them to... stiffen TONY's tools, aye?
DEATH: SHEILA! TONY!
HITLER: There it goes.
LIFE: It's up. Matter of time when he bursts fresh semen into her womb.
HITLER: Wait...
DEATH: You fool, TIME can be bribed!
HITLER: Wait!
LIFE: Not in this lifetime!
HITLER: WAIT!
DEATH and LIFE exchange glances and look at HITLER
HITLER: Tony blew it.
DEATH smiles as he see's TONY cleaning up the mess he did on SHEILA's breasts. LIFE exhales.
DEATH: Ta ta, LIFE. See you on your next concivement. Come, hitch.
HITLER: Cuming, ooh, cuming!
HITLER and DEATH both laugh and go offstage
LIFE: Oh get your stuff together, TONY....
only TONY and SHELIA are onstage. they are in separate place
SHELIA: I'm too serious, but he's an immature asshole.
TONY: Wrote again today, to no great effect. Thought very great deal about Shelia.
SHELIA: I mean, the way he talks about it, the way he acts, he's thirteen. I don't think he's ever actually done anything with a woman. Maybe he's seen some porn, but
TONY: Very confused about last night.
SHELIA: It wouldn't matter if he wasn't so awkward about it. I can't believe he honestly sees the world this way, though.
TONY: Am trying to describe last night small and honest, but cannot. Mind racing. Cannot shut up to self.
SHELIA: And I know, I've been told, I tell myself, this is what happens when you start messing with these nice Christian boys. That they're boring, and all you get is shit. Because it was awful, it went on too long. He didn't pay attention to me, he did random shit for a bit and I was just there.
TONY: I feel like at most I've committed a fifty percent sin.
SHELIA: I don't have a clue why, but I'm already thinking, I'm going to see him again. He's not going to treat me like a person, he's going to say stupid shit and talk about random things, he might say two honest words in the whole evening, but I'm going to call him today and see him tonight. I'm going to make more of this, and it's awful. Why is that?
TONY: Called mother today. She's well; good. Did not talk about Shelia.
SHELIA: In the meantime, I'm going to get properly laid.
SHELIA exits. TONY returns to his desk, and begins writing. HITLER enters and watches him.
The phone rings, but no one answers it. Silence
TONY: Story two. A man and a woman talk about nothing. They kiss. Death appears and comments. Life defends the lovers. Story two. What got in the way of perfection when he started kissing her. Story two. All I want to do is describe and create beauty said the first piece of graffiti in the bathroom. Why waste your time in here said the piece below it.
HITLER: Here is how we will remove the poison of sex from our minds. First, we will make it something that is done to people, not shared. We will reinforce this with pornography and with a cult of potency. Men will learn that their penis is all that matters; women will learn the same about their breasts, because the connection and feeling of their vagina cannot be shown in our pornography. A man ceaselessly thrusting into a vagina; a man masturbating onto a woman's breasts; this are the stunted models our people will learn.
TONY: Story three. Tony and Shelia talk in a room. Tony decides that Shelia is the devil, but decides after that to kiss her. Tony tells himself some things to make it all right.
HITLER: Here is how we turn a boy into a man.
TONY: Time.
A spotlight falls on TONY centrestage. The remainder of the stage is black.
TONY: Between life...
LIFE enters left of TONY.
TONY: And death...
DEATH enters right.
TONY: This is all on which we may depend. The promise made at my birth strives for fufilment. My bones strengthen; my muscles grow. This year I am taller than the previous. My voice deepens. My hair thickens. It sprouts from my new taut body in places I could never have imagined. Where once I was Tom, I now am Tony. I am Marcus. I am Adolph. I have become a man.
LIFE: The promise was mine. An ancient, whispered deal made when he was but a slamander in his mother's womb.
DEATH: Your promises are hollow. His muscles will weaken and seize. Bones become brittle. He stoops. Hair thickens only to thin. He stops... he will stop imagining.
TONY: Between this I wait. And I wait.
LIFE: He waits.
DEATH: Waits. Waits.
Lights fade up as a heavily pregnant SHEILA enters.
SHEILA: Tony, we're going to have a baby.
TONY: My god, Sheila. Is it mine?
LIFE: Mine.
DEATH: Mine!
SHEILA: I don't believe you can even ask me that.
TONY: Our night together. I withdrew. I didn't....
SHEILA: For once in your life be direct, you god damned playwright. You tit-fucked me.
TONY: It thought it was safe sex.
DEATH: Doesn't exist.
LIFE: Ingenious sperm. You swim, you crawl, you drag yourself panting to find your tulip target.
SHEILA: Next time I'll walk on my hands to the shower.
DEATH: She said a mouthful.
TONY: How can I believe this? When you left me it was to find someone else.
SHEILA: To find sex, Tony. It wasn't hard. And it was good.
Enter HITLER.
HITLER: The Jewess lived up to expectations.
SHEILA: But all the while this foetus was growing inside me.
LIFE: Sweet salamander.
TONY: My child.
HITLER: A Jew.
LIFE: A goy.
DEATH: A negro.
LIFE: A cleaner.
DEATH: A playwright.
HITLER: Where was the vaccine 341?!
SHEILA: Our baby, Tony.
TONY: Oh, my god. What if it's gay?
SHELIA: Tony, I'm going to touch you here. I'm going to smile at you as you touch me. My shirt will stretch towards you, then I will lean in behind it as you feel me. Tony, touch me like this. I am not ashamed.
MARCUS enters but stands on the outskirts of this group.
MARCUS: I love you.
SHELIA and TONY are real people for a second
SHELIA: You really want kids?
TONY: I mean, of course, not now. But--
SHELIA: I don't at all. Pregnancy scares me, honestly.
TONY: I don't want a homosexual son.
SHIELA: What if it's a daughter?
TONY: A lesbian.
HITLER: A lesbian!
MARCUS: I love you, Tom.
TONY: Shut up!
He turns back to SHEILA.
TONY: I didn't want this.
MARCUS: Tom, please.
TONY: Shut the fuck up. I fucked you between your tits.
SHELIA and TONY are real people for a second
SHELIA: Yeah, you did. And I want it now.
TONY: You dirty bitch.
SHELIA: Fuck me, Tom. Oh god, I want to fuck right now. You know what you do to me.
TONY: Tell me where you want it. Tom is a randy buck who fucks his slut Shelia every chance he gets. Tom is a terrible sinner who doesn't believe in God. Tony has to hide Tom wherever he goes now. But I'd never.
SHEILA: To avoid having a gay child?
MARCUS: I miss you, Tom. I love you.
TONY: Will you shut up? Even to avoid having a gay child. I don't have the right to take a life away. I'm not Tom. I'm Tony, understand? Tony?
DEATH: Tom was his fictional creation.
LIFE: Dead tulips. Yours.
DEATH: Mine.
SHEILA: You avoided penetration so you wouldn't have a gay child?
MARCUS: But you are Tom.
TONY: (To MARCUS) No! (To SHEILA) Yes!
HITLER: Fear of the vagina leads a man down strange valleys.
MARCUS: Tom...
HITLER: He may deny who he is.
TONY: I'm not Tom.
HITLER: He may lead a nation.
SHEILA: This is still a human being.
HITLER: He may torture, incarcerate and make lampshades.
TONY: I don't want this baby Sheila.
SHEILA: Oh, god!
HITLER: Where was the Vaccine 341?
TONY: Where was the 341?
SHEILA: You're a monster!
MARCUS: Tom!
TONY: I am... I am...
Light focuses on DEATH and LIFE thus thay have a small converation while the lights fade on TONY, SHEILA and MARCUS
DEATH: I have to hand it to you, Life. How you managed to get that semen to concive is beyond me.
LIFE: I have my ways.
DEATH: Well so do I but they don't include superman's semen.
in the dark, SHELIA, not angriy
SHELIA: What a stupid fucking thing to say.
LIFE smiles mysteriously
DEATH: Unless, of course... It's somebody elses baby.
LIFE: What do you think I am? A pimp?!
SHELIA: How does that answer anything?
DEATH: No, I think you are deceptive and overly ambitious.
LIFE: (guiltily) It wasn't my doing. She did it with her own judgement and will. Besides, it's not my problem how people get to this earth just as long as they do.
over the next three lines, TONY MARCUS and SHELIA crescendo into a chorus of "Shut up! Shut up!"
DEATH: So tell me, was it Marcus?
LIFE: No. It was Tom.
DEATH: Who the hell is this Tom?
lights focus back on TONY, SHEILA and MARCUS
SHEILA: Who the hell is this Tom?
TONY: It's nobody!
MARCUS: (to TONY) He's you!
TONY: Stop it!
SHEILA: Is this the problem you've been having? Are you too afraid of being a father you turned gay to not have contact with a potential mother? I am about to act depressed in a few lines so watch out.
MARCUS: This is an iteresting question.
TONY: I... I... I...
HITLER: Oh spit it out, Jew!
TONY: It... It all started with the Vaccine...
SHEILA: Vaccine 341?
SHELIA begins to remove the dress and the pregnant belly underneath it, revealing modest clothing underneath
SHELIA: Tony, it's called an abortion. I think it's a terrible thing too. I'm going to get one, and I hate myself for that, but I'm going to get that.
LIFE: Oh, Tony, oh,
SHELIA: Tony, I can't be pregnant. It's nice to know you're thinking of me. Tony I am trying too.
DEATH: Yes, Tony, yes,
TONY: Shelia this isn't real please.
HITLER blows a kiss to TONY, then all characters exit except for TONY, SHELIA, and MARCUS, TONY'S FATHER
MARCUS: Here is what is going to happen.
SHELIA: You are being polite or I'm leaving.
MARCUS: You are going to come to counseling
SHELIA: No.
MARCUS: Young lady
SHELIA: Shut up.
MARCUS turns to TONY. SHELIA wa 1000 lks off'
MARCUS: Son, I used to force things into straight lines and imagine that one after the other things fit together, click click. I used to think that if a thing was mentioned, we must see it. That the only plot was one progressing through time. I read some books in high school that helped, some in college too. But it wasn't until I saw a play that I truly understood that no, these linear connections are not how life work. It's how small and stupid lives work, that don't notice their own effect and connections. Stones sinking underwater never imagining ripples stretching to shore. Son, you have failed me.
TONY: I have fallen, father, and no road rises.
MARCUS: Son we will stop this girl from doing something terrible.
TONY: Yes.
MARCUS: Son we will make you once again pure.
blackout
Scene Seven
BUDDY sits at the same table from Scene Five. A female sits across from him. The vase is shattered and the tulip is mangled. A medium-sized black revolver lies on the table.
BUDDY: How the time flows, how the love turns cold, how the forever... turns into never... How it all changes. Tony... Sheila... Marcus... What are you thinking? What does it matter?
BUDDY picks up the revolver, aims it point-blank at the female's face and fires. Black out simultaneously with the gunshot sound.
Scene Eight
The Cast all enter spread from stage left to right, after a pause of a few beats, they all begin speaking in a rhythmic tone, lines from prior scenes. Their voices should rise and fall seperately, allowing each character some voice, counteracted by the other characters rebuttling them. Sheila is holding and drinking the windex in ample gulps, Marcus is twirling the tulip in his hand. This scene should signify how complete the events transpired really are, the tulips, the gun, everything should seem expired without a sense of angst. Buddy is twirling the gun, bloody. Life is holding pamhplets
TOM: Things I hate. Marcus. Morning. The way even when I'm angry I still sound stupid. That I can't find any words to make this better.
MARCUS: Son, I used to force things into straight lines and imagine that one after the other things fit together, click click. I used to think that if a thing was mentioned, we must see it. That the only plot was one progressing through time. I read some books in high school that helped, some in college too. But it wasn't until I saw a play that I truly understood that no, these linear connections are not how life work. It's how small and stupid lives work, that don't notice their own effect and connections. Stones sinking underwater never imagining ripples stretching to shore. Son, you have failed me.
HITLER: Here is how we will remove the poison of sex from our minds. First, we will make it something that is done to people, not shared. We will reinforce this with pornography and with a cult of potency. Men will learn that their penis is all that matters; women will learn the same about their breasts, because the connection and feeling of their vagina cannot be shown in our pornography. A man ceaselessly thrusting into a vagina; a man masturbating onto a woman's breasts; this are the stunted models our people will learn.
THADDEUS: Homeless and hungry...god bless...anything will help...homeless and hungry...god bless...god bless... A system out-of-control. A salamander in fear of losing his way of life. Neither may exist happily while the other survives. Buddy the salamander will soon be swept up in a vortex of controversy as the system bears its overwhelming weight upon it. Something has been taken and treated seriously that did not deserve it.
SHELIA: I'm sorry I'm being melodramatic. I am talking about my life and my future and I can't even penetrate because all women are stupid as far as you think. she drinks some of her windex People don't say things clearly isn't the point. People don't talk with rigid grammatic conventions. Sometimes they will, but that's only because it fits the precise rhythm of what they're saying. That's why y 1000 ou're not writing a prose novel, is because you' 1000 re creating words, living words, in people's mouths.
DEATH: Hey Marcus, have you been tr 1000 aipsing through my garden again? That's not cool, man. This is my passion. (to audience.) If you would like for these characters to die and a new play to start, please raise your hands. He could feel the air between them. He didn't want to kiss but did instead, and forgot to regret it. He didn't know how or what to do with all these lips and tongue and was terribly sad about that, but she was willing to sh 1000 ow him. He was embarrassed by his erection and she wasn't. They did not have sex that night because he felt it would be wrong; something that would change. His grammar weakened. New characters appeared on his pages. The future kept coming.
the lights should fall on deaths last sentence 'the future kept coming
exuent all, end of Act I.
