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Moving Parts Theatre’s Pagan Play.
June 19 – 27, 2010. Hollywood Fringe Festival.
THE FAUN: Either way. Either way. Either way. Either way. Either way, I will have to find a way to cope with the selfish people I know. And change. I’ll have to change to cope with the arrogance, with the hubris, with the greed and envy and entitlement and vanity. I’ll have to become something bigger than the ego. And then I will be compassionate. Desire is exhausting.
By a curious coincidence, None at all is exactly how much suspicion the ape-descendant Arthur Dent had that one of his closest friends was not descended from an ape, but was in fact from a small planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse and not from Guildford as he usually claimed.
Arthur Dent had never, ever suspected this.
This friend of his had first arrived on the planet some fifteen Earth years previously, and he had worked hard to blend himself into Earth society — with, it must be said, some success. For instance he had spent those fifteen years pretending to be an out of work actor, which was plausible enough.
He had made one careless blunder though, because he had skimped a bit on his preparatory research. The information he had gathered had led him to choose the name “Ford Prefect” as being nicely inconspicuous.
He was not conspicuously tall, his features were striking but not conspicuously handsome. His hair was wiry and gingerish and brushed backwards from the temples. His skin seemed to be pulled backwards from the nose. There was something very slightly odd about him, but it was difficult to say what it was. Perhaps it was that his eyes didn’t blink often enough and when you talked to him for any length of time your eyes began involuntarily to water on his behalf. Perhaps it was that he smiled slightly too broadly and gave people the unnerving impression that he was about to go for their neck.
He struck most of the friends he had made on Earth as an eccentric, but a harmless one — an unruly boozer with some oddish habits. For instance he would often gatecrash university parties, get badly drunk and start making fun of any astrophysicist he could find till he got thrown out.
Sometimes he would get seized with oddly distracted moods and stare into the sky as if hypnotized until someone asked him what he was doing. Then he would start guiltily for a moment, relax and grin.
“Oh, just looking for flying saucers,” he would joke and everyone would laugh and ask him what sort of flying saucers he was looking for.
“Green ones!” he would reply with a wicked grin, laugh wildly for a moment and then suddenly lunge for the nearest bar and buy an enormous round of drinks.
Evenings like this usually ended badly. Ford would get out of his skull on whisky, huddle into a corner with someone and explain in slurred phrases that honestly the colour of the flying saucers didn’t matter that much really.
Thereafter, staggering semi-paralytic down the night streets he would often ask passing policemen if they knew the way to Betelgeuse. The policemen would usually say something like, “Don’t you think it’s about time you went off home sir?”
“I’m trying to baby, I’m trying to,” is what Ford invariably replied on these occasions.
In fact what he was really looking out for when he stared distractedly into the night sky was any kind of flying saucer at all. The reason he said green was that green was the traditional space livery of the Betelgeuse trading scouts.
Ford Prefect was desperate that any flying saucer at all would arrive soon because fifteen years was a long time to get stranded anywhere, particularly somewhere as mindboggingly dull as the Earth.
Everything about this is brilliant.
COMMUNIST, an old-timey sidewalk hustler, grabs the attention of a rosy-cheeked American YOUTH.
COMMUNIST
Hey, kid. You there, American youth!
YOUTH
Me?
COMMUNIST
Yeah, you! Have you heard about Communism?
YOUTH
Com-Communism?
COMMUNIST
Yeah, kid, it’s the latest thing. You should really come over to Russia and give it a whirl.
YOUTH
Well what’s it all about?
COMMUNIST
It’s a classless, stateless society, where ownership of all property and means of production is held by everyone.
YOUTH
Well golly, that sounds pretty neat. You Russians have got it pretty well together.
COMMUNIST
Sure do, son. Care to join up?
YOUTH
Well let me ask first. Is there free speech guaranteed for the media, arts, and the people?
COMMUNIST
No way. We wouldn’t want any dissenting opinions.
YOUTH
All right. Will necessary items like toilet paper and bread be available as it’s needed?
COMMUNIST
You’ll have to wait in line like everyone else.
YOUTH
I see. Are women and men equal in this society?
COMMUNIST
Not at all. Women are held in common alongside cows and shoes.
YOUTH
Boy, I don’t know. It sure sounds tempting.
COMMUNIST
(holds out clipboard)
Sign here, son. I think you’ll really get a kick out of it.
YOUTH is about to sign the clipboard. MEDIA runs in.
MEDIA
Hold on one cotton-picking second! You’re Old Man Fascism!
COMMUNIST
Curses!
YOUTH
What?
COMMUNIST
And I would have gotten away with it too if it wasn’t for you, Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Smith from Anytown, USA.
MEDIA
I am the US Media! I can see right through your disguise!
YOUTH
I’m not going to wear your gray tunics and lose my true-blue American denim and Chuck Taylors!
COMMUNIST
But—
YOUTH
Good day to you, sir!
MEDIA pulls a lever and COMMUNIST drops through a trap door.
MEDIA
So, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, are you ready for higher education in a capitalist state?
YOUTH
I sure am! But where are the teachers?
MEDIA
Statewide layoffs.
YOUTH
My textbooks?
MEDIA
Treasury austerity plan.
YOUTH
Student loan?
MEDIA
Federal budget cuts.
YOUTH
But how am I supposed to get an education?
MEDIA
This is your education!
Mug to the audience.
A cubicle. There is a chair, desk, and on the desk is a microwave with a computer keyboard in front of it. MILLER leans on the desk sipping coffee. O’NEILL sits at the microwave getting frustrated.
O’NEILL
Oh great. Thank you. Thank you so much, you stupid computer.
(to MILLER)
It ate my file again.
MILLER
You need to have patience with the new memo system, O’Neill. They’re filed, stamped, buried in the peat bog downstairs, and then distributed to the department heads.
O’NEILL
The system’s screwed up. It’s all Mr. Bossman’s fault.
MILLER
Look: you’re new. How long have you been with us? Sixteen years?
O’NEILL
Twenty-eight.
MILLER
Oh yeah, that’s right, you were hired in March. And you still haven’t gotten a hang of the system yet. What do you do with these memos now?
O’NEILL
Take them down to accounts receivable.
MILLER
And where is that?
O’NEILL
It’s by the bottomless pit.
MILLER
That’s right. Sherman and Manchewitz Investitures Corporation is a very big company and sometimes it’s tough to get your bearings. Anyway, it’s been twenty-eight years, your grace period is over, so Mr. Bossman put your name in the red bin.
O’NEILL
The red bin again? Dammit! Now I’m going to have to get up early and change the pH filters in his shark tank.
WILLIAMS enters, clothing in tatters, covered in blood, holding a very, very long straw.
WILLIAMS
I drew the short straw.
O’NEILL
Poop scoop in the cheetah paddock?
WILLIAMS
In the cheetah paddock. Third time this week.
O’NEILL
I thought you were up for promotion.
WILLIAMS
And I got it. I chewed up Mr. Bossman’s food for him. But then he got a gastric feeding bag installed—
O’NEILL
Old bastard
WILLIAMS
And so instead I have the flavor of cheetah poop in my mouth every morning.
MILLER
I heard Mr. Bossman downsized the requisitions department two weeks ago.
WILLIAMS
What?
MILLER
Now if we need to get toner, we have to go to the basement to get it.
O’NEILL
I really don’t want to fight the Minotaur to get toner.
MILLER
And he got a pay cut last week. He’s pissed.
WILLIAMS
Damn that Mr. Bossman! I’m going to defecate on his desk.
MR. BOSSMAN enters.
MR. BOSSMAN
Hey guys!
WILLIAMS
Out of my way, sir, I want to poop on your desk.
MR. BOSSMAN
Ease it up there, Short Straw! That’s Wilder’s job.
WILLIAMS
Defecating on your desk is a job?
MR. BOSSMAN
Not anymore it isn’t.
WILLIAMS
What?
MR. BOSSMAN
We got taken over by the Japanese. The whole country’s one big company. And so Sherman and Manchewitz Investitures Corporation is going to have a few changes.
MILLER
Will you replace the pine cone in my office with a real external hard drive?
MR. BOSSMAN
No!
O’NEILL
My computer’s a microwave with a keyboard in front of it.
MR. BOSSMAN
No!
WILLIAMS
Could I have a real phone instead of a bananaphone?
MR. BOSSMAN
Yes! You’re promoted. Your first job is to lay off the horses
O’NEILL
How can a company not have horses in this recession?
WILLIAMS
My friend works for Microsoft and he says they don’t have any horses.
MR. BOSSMAN
Fire the horses. Then fire the Minotaur. Then fire yourself. You’re all fired.
WILLIAMS
Fired?
MR. BOSSMAN
Everyone in this room.
O’NEILL
Even you?
BOSSMAN
My God.
He pulls a pistol from his waistband and puts it to his head.
WILLIAMS
How come you get a real gun? My gun’s a bananagun.
O’NEILL
I thought that was your phone.
WILLIAMS
That’s why I keep shooting myself in the head!
MR. BOSSMAN
Shhh!
(pause)
Bang!
(collapses)
MILLER
Mr. Bossman, are you all right?
MR. BOSSMAN
Tell my sharks I love them. And don’t forget to feed my cheetahs… to my sharks. Ack! Dead!
He expires.
WILLIAMS
I call his office!
O’NEILL
(overlapping)
I call his office—dammit!
MILLER
Like hell you do!
They all run.
WALLACE
If she’s stupid, then it’s one thing.
WILHELMINA
Right.
WALLACE
If she’s stupid, then that’s fine, but if she’s unappreciative of her lover—
WILHELMINA
She didn’t say that, though.
WALLACE
I mean, that’s the way it looks.
WILHELMINA
Right.
WALLACE
Yeah, you have amazing stories. And she never said anything?
WILHELMINA
No.
WALLACE
That’s wild. For doing that? She’s a Mother Teresa. She should become a monk — uh, a nun — and go work in a monastery.
WILHELMINA
I don’t, like, have any sympathy for her situation, though.
WALLACE
The phone call?
WILHELMINA
If she made a call and said she’s seeing her professor, people would run. They’d run and believe it.
WALLACE
It’s one thing to be working at this small company with these guys—
WILHELMINA
But she deals with it all the time. In school and at, um, that place.
WALLACE
I think she’s a bit of a hypo — uh, hypo — masochist. Hypochondriac.
WILHELMINA
Right.
WALLACE
She loves complaining and feeling sick. Sometimes you have to fill out forms with an allergy sheet? You know?
WILHELMINA
Yeah.
WALLACE
She should just put down anything!
WILHELMINA
And she has a ready-made excuse. Any time she’s stressed and needs an excuse, she should just say, “I have a teenage son at home.” A ready-made excuse.
WALLACE
That’s hilarious.
WILHELMINA
Yeah. My one friend — this guy. He told all my friends they had to pay him pack for the car insurance he owed. Like they owed him money or something.
WALLACE
They didn’t?
WILHELMINA
No.
WALLACE
Didn’t you say he had a really nice car too? A really nice apartment?
WILHELMINA
Yeah.
WALLACE
Why can’t he afford it?
WILHELMINA
He didn’t say. He just wants them to pay it for him.
WALLACE
Wow, that’s wild. That’s hilarious.
NORM
Though of course the bagels are boiled and then fried.
MARY
Is that so?
NORM
That’s what they say.
MARY
I wouldn’t have guessed.
NORM
And of course spaghetti is made in a similar way.
MARY
How ’bout that?
NORM
God’s truth.
MARY
I hear they turn prunes into pop now.
NORM
Soda pop?
MARY
That’s right. They bottle it.
NORM
Never happen.
MARY
You never believe me.
NORM
Maybe that’s true.
MARY
Ain’t this the finest country in the world.
NORM
Maybe so.
REBECCA
Who knew dorm parties could be so much fun, huh, Greg?
GREG
Only on the sixth floor, Rebecca.
REBECCA
Have you written that humanities paper for me for me yet?
GREG
I have to write my own essays too, Rebecca. Maybe on the next one you could do the outline or something.
REBECCA
Greg, I’m pretty busy with my false teeth collection.
Dan approaches them.
DAN
Aren’t you just cheating both yourself and the school?
GREG
You’re such a buzzkill, Dan.
REBECCA
Look, Dan, let me tell you something. I’m getting a degree in statistics.
GREG
Get it, Dan? Stat.
REBECCA
All right? That’s what this school is third in the country for.
DAN
My academic advisor told me not to talk to you two. She said you’re a bad influence.
REBECCA
That’s exactly the kind of thing a buzzkiller would say.
GREG
Dan, you’re making me thirsty.
Greg goes.
DAN
There are mean people at this party.
REBECCA
That’s all I ever hear from you. “I’m too cold. I can’t play my guitar here. There are mean people at this party.”
DAN
I’m going.
REBECCA
Go practice your major seventh chords.
Greg returns with a drink.
GREG
Pomegranate and Red Bull? That’s heaven in a cup!
(In the summer of 1965, a short man opened up a furniture store.)
MAN: Too bad I’m too short to use any of my furniture. That’s why I sell it. Because everyone else is taller and can.
(Then, a woman walks in, with four other people.)
WOMAN: I’ve got more fingers than I can count. Voici les cadets de Gascogne, qui font cocus tous les jaloux!
MAN: (hands her a car) Here’s a sacreligious artifact.
WOMAN: What’s your name?
MAN: Daniel Webster.
WOMAN: Daniel Webster? Like the dictionary? Okay, let me try and guess the rest of your names, I’m very good at this. Daniel Webster. Jeff Oxford. Rebecca Britannica. Bertrand Wikipedia. And John Farmersalmanac.
(Some benevolent robots help children.)
CURTAIN.
By Spencer S. Spencer and Nathan P. Nathan
Spencer: Nathan, why do you keep putting cats on my face?
Nathan: Here, my sweatshirt doesn’t have cats on it. I’ll wipe it off. So you’re fine now, right? This stray hair isn’t coming off.
Spencer: That’s my eyebrow.
Nathan: Here, I’ll get this one. (his head)
