DONT KNOCK by Ashley Nader

Characters:
Jimmy Holden: 24 Years old. The last four months have been a complete nightmare.
He is alone and has been losing loved ones left right and center. He has three close
friends Pamela, Andrew and Tony (all from high school). He is tired of the country
and is beginning to blame the government as he has no one else to point his anger
to until.
Pamela Pander: 24 Years old. Six months pregnant. Happily married for five years
now to Tony. Cannot stop eating, has food on the brain. Cares for Jimmy deeply and
worried about him.
Andrew Match: 24 Years old, single and looking. Enjoys having fun.
Ryan Tallet: 22 Years old. Was caught trying to rob Jimmys apartment. He is
homeless and has a dark past and would do anything for his family in order to
provide.
Tony Pander: 24 Years old. Married to Pamela. Loves his poker. Would do anything for
the ones he loves. Cannot wait to be a father. Is Jimmys best friend, been with him
through everything.

Setting: The play takes place at Jimmys apartment and Andrews apartment. They
live in the same block of flats. A bounce back of conversation at Jimmys apartment
and Andrews apartment until the climax occurs at Jimmys apartment.
(The stage is in darkness with the sound of footsteps heard followed by the sound of
a door opening) Jimmy: (shouts) You bastard! (sound of a decanter smashing)
(Lights come up on Andrews place as Pamela, Andrew and Tony are waiting for
Jimmy before they can start playing poker)
Andrew: Has anyone seen the chips?
Pamela: (Holding the packet of chips and scoffing them down her throat) Here they
are!
Andrew: The poker chips, not the Lays!
Pamela: Good, more for me (as she shovels another handful of chips in her mouth)
Andrew: Your like a machine, do you ever come up for air!
Pamela: Watch out, I might eat you if your not careful!
Tony: (Goes to the table puts down another packet of chips, kisses Pamela on the
cheek) He might enjoy it. Its been a few months since he got his Willy wet. Isnt
that right Andrew! (Tries to take a chip from Pamela)
Pamela: (Slaps his hand) Get your own! (Points to the other packet) Well no need to
be bitchy just because youve got blue balls the size of bowling balls, go play with
yourself and come back when your feeling relieved.
Andrew: Its not that, well besides that (adjusts himself down there)
Pamela: Charming (She pulls a stupid face and scratches her boob) now that were
even
Tony: Thats quite hot! (Tries to grab her other boob and she smacks his hand)
Pamela: You can play with them later while Im asleep, Andrews trying to tells us
something, concentrate.
Andrew: My car was broken into this morning!
Pamela & Tony: SHIT!!!
Pamela: (Holds a chip in her hand) You werent hurt were you?
Andrew: No thankfully not, I went to the bank to draw some money and pick up
some fruit from the grocer, when I came out, the drivers window had been
smashed. The thing that grates my goat is that there was a parking guard,
supposedly watching my car.
Tony: I hope you confronted him and gave him a good blasting.
Andrew: I did, but I would have had more luck talking to a brick wall. He just kept
shrugging his shoulders and saying he didnt see anything.
Pamela: Well least they didnt steal it. (She begins to open up the other packet)
Andrew: My car is covered for theft, not break ins, neither was my radio and sound.
So after cleaning up the glass off my seat and missing my appointment with my top
client, of course because Murphy has a sick sense of humour, the twisted little
bastard. I am driving out my parking bay when the guard has the audacity to ask
me for a tip.
Pamela: No!!
Tony: You kidding me!! Andrew: He helped with sweet buggar all, just watched me
as I was cleaning up the glass. Couldnt give me any information on what happened.
Yet still wanted a tip. Pamela: Unbelievable! Tony: I hope you put him in his place.
Andrew: I lost it. I just saw red and lost my temper. Whipped up my handbrake in
the middle of the parking lot, stuck on my hazards. Went to the back of my car dug
through my fruit and took the bag of oranges and started lobbing him with oranges.
I didnt stop one after the other. Swearing like a Lesbian trucker in a hore house. He
began running through the shopping mall; I chased him and carried on. Luckily for
him I ran out of oranges and he ran away.
Tony: You left your car open in the middle of the parking lot?
Andrew: Yes. Keys still in the ignition, door open and fancy that nothing was taken or
stolen.
Pamela: So you think the guard did it?
Andrew: Damn straight. When I calmed down I phoned through to center
management and laid a massive complaint about it. They informed me they dont
have guards.
Tony: What will criminals think of next.
Andrew: After my complaint they are going to look into the problem and jack up
their security. What a country we live in I tell you. Did you bring the beers? I need a
drink.
Tony: Ill get you one out the cooler, and yes Pammy I got your six-pack of chocolate
milk. I like my balls in tact, only make that mistake once.
Pamela: Youre a quick learner baby!! Well least youre safe and here with us now.
Andrew: Its just the pure inconvenience of it all. Getting new glass fitted and paying
for that. Then going to the police station and doing a statement. Now I have no
music, and after this ordeal I dont even know if its worth it, what so it can be
stolen again? Whats the point of having nice things and enjoying what you work
hard for to have it taken away in a blink of an eye?
Tony: It does suck but Pams right, no one got hurt and you here with us. Take your
beer and just calm down.
Andrew: (Goes to the draw, pulls out the cards) Im sure I left the poker chips here.
Unless theyve stolen those to.
Pamela: I remember, Jimmy took them with him for a poker game that he was going
to have with his dad and a few work mates. Im sure hell bring them with him now
now.
Andrew: Well hes ten minutes late. Not like him to be late for anything. Have you
two spoken to him since the funeral?
Tony: We spoke to him about two days after and about a week ago! He seemed
okay. Considering everything that has happened, he seems to be doing bloody well.
I hope this behaviour continues and he doesnt end up lashing out and doing
something that he would regret.
Andrew: Ive tried talking to him but he just shuts me out. I bump into him around
the building and its small converse and then he scurries off. He is going to come,
wont he?
Pamela: This is Jimmy were talking about here. In the last six years that we have
been doing this he has not missed one poker evening with us. Its our monthly ritual
that he came up with. He will be here.
Andrew: Are there anymore chips?
Pamela: Dont panic I ordered two pizzas one for the boys and the other one for me.
It should be here shortly. I could eat a horse Make that two horses. (Lights go out
and the otherside of the stage lights up, to reveal Jimmys apartment. Ryan is tied
to a chair, blood on the one side of his face, passed out in the chair.)
Jimmy: Wake up you bastard! (Slaps him)
Ryan: (mumbles)
Jimmy: Maybe this will wake you up! (Throws a glass of water at him and the plastic
cup) Wake up you swine (slaps him again)
Ryan: (Squeezes his eyes and clears his throat) Piss off, you lucky this rope is here
otherwise you would be chewing on my boot.
Jimmy: Tough words for an amateur, who got caught!
Ryan: Ive been caught before; this is just a plan in motion. Everything happens for
a reason.
Jimmy: You must be so proud to have a career as a thief, no wonder this country is
going to shit!
Ryan: Going to shit, it is already shit! Why do you think I do what I do? For fun?
Jimmy: You could find a job, but Im sure stealing works better in your favour,
(sarcasm) flexi hours, no boss and best of all you dont pay taxes!
Ryan: (sarcasm) Best of all no traffic on the way to work! Jimmy: Why me?
Ryan: Why not? Do you think your special? I dont ask the heavens and question
why I am doing what I do? Its the cards I was dealt, so I play the best damn hand
that was dealt to me. So what are you going to do with me?
Jimmy: Im not sure yet. Although I will give you another smack (slaps him) it just
makes me feel so much better.
Ryan: Get it out of your system now, because if I have my have chance I will cut
your ear off and use it as a key ring!
Jimmy: So what do you think I should do with you? Maybe end the small talk and just
pull out my gun and fire a few rounds in your chest, not only to make me feel better,
but to rid the world of another filthy criminal, that no one would miss. (Pulls out his
gun). What do you think of that? (Places gun against Ryans face)
Ryan: If that was the case you would of done that already and killed me. Youre like
a cat who has just caught a mouse and who wants to have a bit of fun.
Jimmy: Maybe, but dont forget the cat still kills the mouse, and enjoys it.
Ryan: I am not afraid, of you, your gun and anything else in this world (spits in his
face). Bring on your punishment; Ive been through worse guaranteed.
Jimmy: You think so. I have a lot of rage built up in me and its just screaming to be
poured out onto someone.
Ryan: When youve been doing this for ten years, you see and go through a lot. My
right knee pulverized with a brick. My lower back burnt with an iron. My jaw
shattered and rewired. Bullets going through my body as though I was target
practice. My rectum being raped and mangled as though it was a piece of stewing
beef. Whatever you have planned will be like a walk in the park compared.
Jimmy: You must be a sucker for punishment.
Ryan: Or do I enjoy seeing peoples reactions, and the way they act!
Jimmy: Youre a twisted son of a bitch, how can you wish devastation on yourself
and inflicting it upon others. (Gun gets pointed close to Ryan)
Ryan: Ironic, you stand there talking about morals and doing the right thing, yet I
am the one tied up with a gun in my face. Not once have you tried to get help or
phone the police. You enjoying this, arent you?
Jimmy: Cart you off to jail? Then what? That you can be back on the street in a few
months more armed, more dangerous.
Ryan: Well during that time Ill have a place to sleep, three meals a day and a roof
over my head, and dont have to pay a cent thanks to the people that pay our
taxes.
Jimmy: Your right, I am enjoying myself, how often do you get to retaliate against
the bastards that place fear into us, and that hurt and torture us.
Ryan: Your drunk with power, just remember will the pain you feeling ever truly go
away, no matter what you do to me? Will it bring back your loved ones, the things
youve lost? Will it make you stronger or will it turn you into the monster that you
have always feared?
Jimmy: Dont try that Dr. Phil rubbish on me. You dont know anything about me.
Ryan: You want to bet? I know more then you could imagine. Jimmy: I think I have
heard enough of you. Its time to shut you up.
Ryan: (sarcastic) Of course you know best Jimmy!
Jimmy: (Slaps him) How do you know my name?
Ryan: I know more then you think Jimmy!
Jimmy: Damn you! (Slaps him) How do you know my name?
Ryan: (Laughs) (Lights go fade, and we are at Andrews place)
Pamela: That pizza cant come any sooner.
Tony: Well if it doesnt arrive in 20 minutes well get it for free.
Pamela: (Aggressively speaks to Toni) If the pizza isnt here in 20 minutes, there will
be teeth marks in this table and teeth marks in you!
Andrew: Youve just polished off a packet of chips. Its like watching wood going
through a chipper. Pamela: I cant help it, if the baby is hungry.
Andrew: Are you sure there is just one, what are you giving birth to a litter of
puppies?
Pamela: Babe its serious, where is my emergency pack?
Tony: Its in the cooler box. Are you sure you need it? Cant you just wait?
Pamela: Wait! Do you want another episode like last time; I swear I will curse you
into a coma, pull you out of it, knee you in the nuts and swear you back into a
coma.
Andrew: Hurry up! Throw something in her, anything to shut her up.
Tony: Here suck on a pickle.
Andrew: What happened last time?
Tony: She began to have a hunger attack at the shopping mall. I didnt have enough
time to get anything for her, so she flipped out got angry elbowed me in the
stomach and stole a childs ice cream.
Pamela: (While eating the pickle) It was strawberry, delicious.
 Heaven and Hades
By G. L. Horton
copyright 2000 Geralyn Horton
The four characters are gathered around a drawing board, brainstorming a
commercial spot for television. BEALE is a top executive. SAM (or
SAMANTHA), the art director, is the youngest. The characters can be cast
without regard to the gender or ethnicity of the actors playing them: and,
once cast, the actors and director should feel free either to exploit or ignore
gender and/or ethnicity when creating the characters.

BEALE :Sorry, poeple. It just doesn't sing for me.

(SAM wordlessly tears off the sheet of drawing paper, crumples it and throws
it away)
ALEX :Shoot.
BEALE :It wasn't all bad, but --- (pause)
KIP :An earlier idea I came up with was a back country road, in terrible shape,
potholes--
ALEX :I told you. Potholes says city to me, Kip.
SAM :Or at least highway.
KIP :No, this is hillbilly rural. If potholes isn't the term--
BEALE :The soundtrack's Country-Western?
SAM :Ugh.
KIP :Maybe at first, but-- so call the pothole things gullies or ditches or
whatever. It looks like the car's in for a really rough time on this one lane
road, maybe it's unpaved , stretching away through a really repulsive
landscape. Slag heaps, junkyards, broken down motels--
SAM :Country-Western
KIP :Country-Western's the first choice of the largest listner group.
SAM :And the poorest. Who cares what they like, if they can't afford the car?
ALEX :Besides which, there are almost as many people who hate country
Western as like it. I'd surf right by this crap in the first 3 seconds. Wouldn't
you, Beale?
KIP :But it's changing! Morphing from the first shot! As the driver drives
through this junk heap, the car smoothes everything out. The luxury of the
car spreads over the surroundings, everything goes great. The gully-ditch
thing becomes plush, the smoothest green on the golf course. The motel's
now a mansion.
ALEX :I think I've seen this.
SAM :Not in the last year or two. With upgraded animation--
ALEX :Could work, I suppose. If the precedents are like, allusions.
KIP :It never pays to get too far off the archetypes. They're the nature of the
beast.
ALEX :OK. I see this crummy road, yeah, but the guy isn't bowling over the
landscape transforming roach motels. We keep the farm country image for
positive--
SAM :Have you seen the country lately?
BEALE :Agribusiness.
SAM :Farms are about as interesting as burlap. Miles of the same crop, all
the same size and about the same color--
ALEX :BUt country the image is still--
KIP :Never mind. Forget it.
SAM :Does that mean we get to scrap the twang?
ALEX :So. He's tooling through a city, but stuck on the crummy side of the
tracks. Keep your obstacles, Kip: junk, decay-- and here we can use
potholes. But instead of your potholes that grass up or part like the red sea,
as his car goes over them they change to --uh--silk. Or red carpet. Yeah,
red silk carpet! Whatdaya think? Plus with car plus carpet you get a
subconscious kick from the pun.
BEALE :Brilliant! Could be. What do you think, Sam? Can you work
with it?
SAM :I think so, yes. Red's the carpet color, that'll be rushing you forward,
the mud morph's ocher to pink or maybe gold.
ALEX :And! Trash in the gutter, newspapers, mostly whitish stuff, rolling
along, like blown on down from the blast of the car; that's waves. No, foam--
or bubbles--
KIP :Why not petals? Apple blossom?
ALEX :Too effete. Sparkling bubbles. in a brook burbling alongside. While, the
wall, no, -- dumpster, imagine this long line of green dumpsters-- turns into
this utter this sort of manicured cricket green--
KIP :So now a cricket green is superior to my golf course, is it?
BEALE (singing, sarcastic)
"Hail, Brittania!"
ALEX :Cricket or golf, or croquet field, whatever. But elegant, see?
Civilization. Utopia.
BEALE :Elgar. Paradise.
SAM :Shades of green.
KIP :Tender shades.
ALEX :Tenderish. Not too tender.
KIP :Tender worked for GM.
ALEX :Last year. By now the public's bored.
BEALE :I like the elegance, elegance so perfect it's like ice.
SAM :It glitters.
KIP : What's wrong with "gleams" ?
ALEX :Glitters like a prize, like fairy dust that dreams are made on
SAM :Picking up the gold from earlier, the dust.
KIP :What dust?
BEALE :Gold dust. I like that. Financial but also insubstantial
ALEX :Right. So the rest, barbed wire, garbage cans, junkies, bums,
whatever--even rats-
KIP :Transformed into knights in armor! You know, the way a kid will take a
lid off a trash can and make it his shield?
SAM :Metal cans? Do they still use metal cans?
KIP :We can go from galvanized iron to gold, but I think green plastic's too big
a leap.
ALEX :Green cans blend into the dumpsters.
SAM :This armor's gold, too?
KIP :Gold or silver.
BEALE :It could all be gold, the car set in it like a jewel. Or like a saint's bone
in a gold and crystal reliquary.
ALEX :Stay with me now, we add drama. These rats scurrying around the
garbage in the alley. The car magics, they become-
KIP :Ponies! Ponies pulling Cinderella's coach. The car, the car's the coach.
Turns into the coach.
SAM :Coach? Isn't that--?
BEALE (sings)
"Bippity- boppity-boo!" (spoken) Mess with Disney, you guys, we'll be in
court until the Second Coming.

ALEX :What is this, Kip: the guy's Cinderella now?

KIP :Maybe he's with Cinderella, Alex. He's, you know, the prince.
BEALE :Prince is not so good. Like gawky Charles. Who fantasizes being
Charles?

ALEX :Or the artist formerly known. Or short Arab guys with mustaches and
head hankies.
SAM
Cinderella, that's another line entirely. I see that as pink, soft edges.
KIP :So maybe we don't go with the rat and pony thingee.
ALEX :keep the guy, definitely. This is definitely a guy spot.
BEALE :Sound track?
KIP :I'd say classical.
ALEX :Classical for class, but synthesized, with a contemporary beat. Not
effete.
KIP :You seem awfully nervous about effete, Alex.
ALEX :We can't get too far ahead of the public, Kip,Sweetie.
SAM :As you surf onto the spot, shouldn't it feel more like a feature film than
a music video?
And everybody likes movie music, it's a wash.
KIP :Classical will do that, too.
ALEX :I don't know, kiddo. The MTV generation has the demographics, now.
They can afford upscale. But movies don't say "class" to them like to their
parents.
KIP :All this time, we show as little of the car itself as possible. From the
driver's view: just a few perfect details so a really sophisticated viewer could
identify the make and model, but most people just get an impression, the
sense of that transformative power. The last shot goes transcendent-- the
car disappearing into a a realm of light, -- only the logo in focus.
BEALE :Just one shot of the logo? That's the whole id?
KIP :We could put the name at the bottom of the last frame, very tasteful--

ALEX :Been done, done, done! Lowest impact.

SAM :Worse, you drain away the power of the final image, the
transcendence thing. I see it like the Emerald City of Oz, but with details sort
of blurred in the shimmer. So the viewer can put what he wants there,
whatever works for him.
BEALE :His or her own version of Heaven.
ALEX :Great. But if she happens to blink when the logo's on, they never get
that our car is what"s gonna do it for him. We need some specifics, we need
them right along.
KIP :Specifics limit your audience.For every guy who wants to see big-
breasted blonds, there's point three guys and one woman who doesn't. For
every customer who likes monochrome upholstery, there's one who prefers
contrast.
ALEX :So? Customization computes. The customer these days can order
exactly what he wants, no problem to give it to him.
KIP :That's only solved at the point of purchase. This is mass media. We
can't customize the image, not yet. Like Sam says, we have to come up with
something vague yet suggestive enough so that the beholder will add the
perfection.
ALEX :If Sam were really good, we'd all want what Sam's picture tells us
to want.
SAM :I'm good.
ALEX :You'll never get me to want a herbacious border, Sam, no matter how
many satyrs and nymphs you show romping in them. And Kip there claims to
be immune to the allure of diapers and sticky-fingered hugs, tone deaf as far
as our species' siren-song of reproduction.
SAM :I'm very good. Both of you--Give me your attention a dozen times a
day, and you'll change. You're talking to the artist who made Sloan's
Summer Whisk a national object of desire.
ALEX :For the idiots who watch Oprah.
SAM :Any idiots, if they'll just watch what I do! But I can only go to work
once I get the public's attention. More-- my real problem is the quality of
attention. Usually the context-- in the middle of a football game, or after a
hard day at the office, people will only look at certain kinds of things, in
certain ways. I wish I had them meditating, chanting, a waking dream
state. People can be like that in galleriess.
KIP :Like in church.
BEALE :That's my department. Trust me.
ALEX :A new account?
BEALE :One step at a time.
SAM :I feel ready for a breakthrough.
BEALE :My dear, you are. I guide my artists so that each creative contribution
takes its place as part of a larger vision. A world of choices so dazzling that
what lies outside its boundaries is not simply beneath contempt, it's
well nigh unthinkable.
SAM :Yeah? Well, I've made the unthinkable attractive, too. Anorexia,
addiction, mutilation-- I've got the technique to do it, all I need is--
BEALE :What?
SAM : Inspiration, I guess.
ALEX :So which is more inspirational? Money? Or the fear of being fired?

SAM :Projecting, Alex? Headhunters call me, all the time. I have to beat
them off with a stick. While you two--
KIP :Sam's right, Alex. A picture is worth a thousand words.
ALEX :Some are. Others have a short shelf life.
BEALE :Don't be such a clod, Alex. Sam is a true artist. For the artist,
materials at hand are motivation enough-- no need for the carrot or stick. Do
you imagine the cloistered illuminators really worked to gain heaven or
escape hell? In their cold dank cells, starved and celibate, they were
content to make pictures-- most of them. Because the making of pictures is
bliss. Sam really does find beauty in cars and beer bottles, just as the
anonymous stone carvers of the Middle Ages found beauty in the self
torment of saints, or Michangelo in the muscular terror of sinners at the Last
Judgment. Sam's happy as a pig in shit. This is a wonderful time to have an
artist's eye, to be talented!
SAM
How do you figure? Kids I went to school with, some of the best of them, if
they can't work in commercial they can't make a living at all--
BEALE
Then they are fools! But at least they had the chance to try! There used to
be taboos about class and sex and belief, to say nothing of how hard it once
was, just to get hold of a few ounces of paint, or to see another artist's work.
The slavery of apprenticeship--
SAM
Like everyone these days can afford to go to art school--
BEALE
Not everyone, but thousands, hundreds of thousands. Millions more learn
from books or computers, and photography puts the world's museums in
their laps. Master the old techniques or scorn them-- your choice. No church
or state to prescribe subject matter; no patron to flatter. Best of all, release
from the tyranny of truth.
ALEX
Aren't we getting a little off track, here?
BEALE
Not at all. We are proceeding straight on down the crooked track of your
time--and a fascinating time it is.
SAM
I don't quite see what you're getting at.
BEALE
That's because it's not visual, Sam. A few more years, lots of hard work from
your cohorts, and possibly nobody on earth will get it.
KIP
The tyranny of truth?
BEALE
What passed for truth, of course. Always and only a kind of rule of thumb, a
compilation of what 's worked pretty well in such and such a place, or what's
come down from the forefathers, or what everybody just assumes. All up
for grabs, now.-- Neither Scripture nor Nature sits on the Court of Appeal
KIP
Well, maybe artists can do whatever they want. But if they want what they
do to be seen, they have to function within the market.
ALEX
Naturally.
BEALE
Naturally, Kip?
KIP
I used to write poetry.
ALEX
Give me a break.
KIP
So I used to think about how advertizing copy was like a poem. Metaphor,
emotion, every word counts--
BEALE
Lots of similarities.
KIP
But you can't do both. There's something about the process that's different,
and it interferes--
SAM
One of my teachers said something like that--
BEALE
Small minds, maybe. Really creative people can do it all.
ALEX
But why bother? If there's no market for it, no audience?
BEALE
There will be. Can't you see it coming? The great convergence, where
international conglomerates will preside over a new drawing of the cognative
map. All the old meanings, parocial associations beaten into kids to preserve
the tribes-- the united mass of mankind will vote in a new virtual order,
based on market value: one dollar, one Euro, one pound sterling, one vote.
And you, my friends will be their unaknowledged legislators, because you are
the masters of metaphor.
ALEX
Us, huh? Not the CEOs.
BEALE
Well, if you are the legislators, call them the executive branch.
ALEX
I'll bet. And this great global ad campaign: sounds to me more likely to be
dumbing down than some great rush of creativity. What can the whole
undeveloped world buy, anyway, more than a Coke or a Pepsi?
BEALE
Everything, oh ye of little faith!
KIP
They don't make in a year the price of a pair of Nikes.
BEALE
This cognative dissonance, this is what has to be worked out. What could be
more exciting? The great conglomerates will compete to supply stories and
images, facts and skills, as well as food and gadgets; what will be the mix if
the rich realize that controlling the fantasies of the poor is in their best
interest? When computers can trace every purchase, every net search and
profile what every consumer is likely to want and how much he is willing to
pay for it-- and you people perfect the arts of inducing wants-- what will
humans be?
ALEX
That's a rhetorical question, right? You don't expect us to answer that?
BEALE
Of course not.
KIP
Just trying to think about it gives me a headache.
BEALE
What about you, Sam? Are you pained or excited by these revolutionary
prospects?
SAM
Not really. It sounds all right, there'll be a job for me--
BEALE
Oh, yes. A most important one. Making images, shaping souls. In service to
whatever system, in sickness and in health, idealistically or cynically,
bouyed up by utopian hopes or sunk in despair. The dawn of the Age of
Mammon: my time--like most times. Forgive me for indulging in the luxury of
calling it to your attention. But don't worry. You'll forget all about it as soon
as you walk out the door.
(With a snap of BEALE's fingers, ALEX, KIP AND SAM go rigid, their eyes
glaze over, and Zombie-like they file off stage.) THE END

Showtime
By G. L. Horton
copyright 2005 Geralyn Horton
The lobby of a small theatre, one of several in the Off Broadway district of
Boston. There is a big poster on the back wall:

CAST OF CHARACTERS:

IKE, a nerdy young man wearing a baseball cap, with an iPod in his pocket
and buds in his ears. He seems totally absorbed or even asleep. Next to Ike
is
MARCIA, a youthful 60, rather flamboyantly dressed, and next to her is
SHIRLEY, quite elegant, approximately the same age as Marcia, and next to
her
GWEN, a local playwright of indeterminate age.
BEN, a rather cranky character whose clothing is somewhere between sedate
and funky and suggests that he might be either an academic or a theatre
techie, enters and sits in the 5th chair, on the far right.

BEN (to GWEN)

Itll be at least another 10 minutes before Isabellas Belles is on. They're running
late.
MARCIA (to no one in particular)
An hour late? How can they run an hour late?
BEN (to MARCIA):With new plays it's hard to predict...
IKE:House Boys was over 20 minutes ago. They're still discussing in there.
GWEN (to BEN):Want to go in and listen, Ben?
BEN:Not particularly.
GWEN:Sometimes the discussion's more interesting than the show.
BEN:Not to me. (takes a copy of American Theatre from his briefcase and begins
to read, making notes on the margins.)
IKE:Big audience, for a staged reading. They had to put in more chairs.
GWEN:Catchy title: Desperate House Boys.
IKE:It was pretty funny. Not much to talk about, though.
BEN:Never stops the opinion-mongers.
IKE:Good cast for it. Great comic timing.
GWEN:Whos in it?
IKE:I didnt recognize them. Maybe you would? (gives his program to GWEN)
MARCIA:I promised my niece Id see her in Isabelles Belles, but if it's going
to make me late... What time does Francescas close? Can I get my money
back...?
SHIRLEY (to Marcia)
Dont give up. I saw this companys last marathon, and it was very enjoyable.
MARCIA:Were the plays all about gays?(Lobby sound fades. BEN, IKE, and
GWEN freeze and listen.)
SHIRLEY:Uh, I-- uh--. There were quite a few gay characters --
MARCIA:All the plays Ive seen recently were either about power mad Peters
who want to shtupp all the Jennifers and cheat all the patsies or goodhearted
gay Jefferies who just want to love Jeremies but the whole asshole world is
out to ruin their lives. Im so sick of that. I hate it.
GWEN (to IKE, distracting others)
These actors are all Equity! Ben? (shows program)
BEN (looks at program)
For a full production theyd have to re-cast.
SHIRLEY:Hating gays is not a very attractive attitude.
MARCIA:I dont hate gays! I love gays, my familys full of them! But Im sick
of sick plays, and sick of guys. Soapbox or soap opera, when was the last
time you saw a mother who isnt a monster?
SHIRLEY:Face it, dear. Boys are what its all about. Movies, TV, the
newspapers: men tell the stories, men are the stories. Whats the difference
if theyre shtupping Jennifers or each other? Heroes are 12 years old at heart,
and for them women are props and furniture.
MARCIA:What about girls? When I was 12 there were characters to identify
with.
SHIRLEY:Saint Joan? (sound of lobby chat rises again)
MARCIA:Auntie Mame.
SHIRLEY:Red Riding Hood.
MARCIA:Fanny Brice.
SHIRLEY:Kathryn Hepburn.
MARCIA:Dorothy of Oz.
SHIRLEY:The wicked witch.
MARCIA:Which wicked witch?
SHIRLEY:All of them! All that beautiful wickedness!
MARCIA:Ive warned my niece theres no future for her in todays theatre:
and Ive loved theatre since my Dad first took me to Oklahoma.
GWEN:Thank you for the program. (offers it back to IKE -- dialog overlaps)
SHIRLEY:Me, too! My grandmother took me to South Pacific, and it was
heaven. But these little South End theatre companies are terrific.
I discovered them when I was walking over from Copley to the antique shop
across Tremont street--
IKE:You can keep it. (refuses program)
MARCIA:Your scarf-- is that from the Asterisk at Copley?
SHIRLEY:Why, yes!
BEN (offers):Want a gummy bear? (IKE takes one)
MARCIA:I have one just like it! (shows her matching scarf)
GWEN:No thank you. (refuses candy. Begins to scrawl notes on program)
SHIRLEY:What good taste you have!
BEN (to GWEN):These are real fruit, not sugar.
MARCIA:I hope you didnt pay full price?
GWEN:OK, thanks. (takes candy, returns bag. BEN reads his book & eats.)
SHIRLEY:70% off.
MARCIA:Asterisk has the best sales.
SHIRLEY:This theatre is a bargain. too. I came here to see a musical, 1/3 what
it cost me in New York, and between you and me they did a better job, so I
keep--
MARCIA:Not Bat Boy?
SHIRLEY:No. Company.
MARCIA:My grandsons seen Bat Boy 11 times. He wanted to get me.
SHIRLEY:11 times! And you wouldn't go with him?
MARCIA:Not after he played me the CD! I want real music, not cheesy send-
ups.
(BENs candy bag rattles when he gets a piece out. He is interfering with
GWENs eavesdropping. GWEN grabs BENs hand and hisses Ben! Stop
Crinkling! BEN looks at her as if shes gone demented, shrugs, goes back to
his book.)
SHIRLEY:Some people say Sondheims responsible, but for me--
MARCIA:I like Sondheim! I'm not against difficult! Just knee jerk camp. The
A.R.T. has sunk so low I just cant bear to go.
SHIRLEY:Talk about sinking! Did you see Richard II?
MARCIA:The swimming pool and sodomy?
SHIRLEY:What is it with directors and on stage water?
MARCIA:The only way they know to make a splash?
SHIRLEY:That and drag casting! Did you see Dido?
MARCIA:I canceled my subscription. Let them trash the classics on somebody
elses dime.
SHIRLEY:I dont care how good an actor is! I dont want to see a man as a
burley-Q Venus, or a Didos Nurse out of Monty Python! And not a critic in
town to say That stinks! That's offensive!" Its no excuse to cite the Greeks
and Shakespeare.
(BEN goes for a bear from his candy bag, GWEN stops him, signals him to be
quiet so that she can hear SHIRLEY and MARCIA. Now Ben understands: he
listens too.)
MARCIA:The Greeks and Shakespeare were pigs! They beat their servants,
locked up their wives, made mince meat out of anybody who pissed off a
priest! These days women have the right to vote: why not a little dignity?
SHIRLEY:It's like we're back in the fifties.
MARCIA:Some ways, it's worse. Trading the right to be supported after
marriage for the right to fool around beforehand isnt so smart a bargain.
SHIRLEY:More like trading Manhattan for a handful of glass beads.
MARCIA:Course the support thing was always iffy, and Alimony? Just a myth!
SHIRLEY:I got alimony.
MARCIA:Wow. You must have had a gunsel of a lawyer. Only woman I ever
heard of got alimony, her husband did something he didnt want in the
newspapers.
SHIRLEY:That may have been a factor.
MARCIA:My three marriages were like an expensive hobby. On top of kids,
which are a full time no pay job.
SHIRLEY:How many children do you have?
MARCIA:Three husbands, one kid with each. Total 17 years married, which
optimistically is less than a quarter of my life.
(BEN begins to take notes in a notebook.)
SHIRLEY:More than enough, Id say! My ex is still a factor to be reckoned
with. Mister Bigbucks. Generous with his children; Ill give him that.
MARCIA:You're lucky. I took my deadbeats to court.
SHIRLEY:Not so very lucky -- Samuel didn't have much when we split.
It was after that he made his millions. Im nice to his successive wives-- not
so nice that hed worry, though. It's paid off. My son is in business with him.
MARCIA:So do you do the holidays?
SHIRLEY:The children and grandchildren and I gather with him and his
current.
MARCIA:Whose house do you go?
SHIRLEY:We meet at a good restaurant. Price for Samuel is no object, and
good restaurants tend to stay up and running longer than Sams
relationships.
MARCIA:My oldest son is married to a man.
(SHIRLEY looks up. Perhaps the whole theatre is listening? Lobby sound
bumps up. GWEN pantomimes that Ben should hide his note-taking. IKE has
his eyes closed.)
GWEN:Ill have another gummy bear, please.
SHIRLEY (reassured)
That happens, these days.
MARCIA:He was married to a woman first and I have a granddaughter from
that. Then he divorced her and the next thing I know Raymond is marrying
this man. In a good restaurant catered ceremony, with tuxes and a cake and
some lesbian who claimed to be a rabbi. Violin, canopy, breaking the glass,
the whole magilla. His father was pretty good about it, actually. I mean the
jerk behaved surprisingly well. Although anybody could see that he was
shocked.
SHIRLEY:Anybody over 60 is bound to be shocked. Doing it in a really
expensive restaurant helps the old fogies get over it.
MARCIA:Id get over it faster if I didnt have to see all their goddamn plays!
Like you say, the women might as well be furniture! When we were girls, who
ever imagined that a man could marry the groom? Let alone my own son.
SHIRLEY:My youngest son did it, too.
MARCIA:Yours, too?
SHIRLEY:Its a small world. They both used Rabbi Rachel, am I right?
MARCIA:Raymonds partner has two kids, and together they're adopting one.
SHIRLEY:My son tells me they're going to hire a surrogate to carry on the
Stern family line. Samuels will pay-- if the surrogates Jewish.
MARCIA:Besides those I have grand kids 16, 12, 6, and 4. Wonderful thing,
grandchildren. Makes it all worth while.
SHIRLEY:I have 9 so far. My oldest grandson is at Brandeis.
MARCIA:You must have married very young.
SHIRLEY:You, too.
MARCIA:I was 20.
SHIRLEY:I was 19. A young 19, a baby myself. What did I know?
VOICE OVER LOUDSPEAKER
Thank you for your patience, people. The house will be open in about 2 minutes.
(Lobby noise fades for Loudspeaker, rises again)
(GWEN, hands clasped in prayer, mouths O please dont stop, O please dont)
SHIRLEY:I knew nothing. A baby myself, Im having babies. 1,2,3,4. Boom!
(GWEN and BEN resume taking notes)
MARCIA:Id just about figured out how to be a mother when Boom! Im dumped! So I
have to figure out how to be also a father and a college student and a breadwinner
and deal with all sorts of stuff I dont think my parents ever dreamed existed outside
of Dostoevsky.
SHIRLEY:So what did you do?
MARCIA:The worst. I fell in love. Husband number one was a pervert in his own way,
but number two liked number 2! That particular shit made the jerk I first married
look like Mahatma Ghandi.
SHIRLEY:Ghandi was only Mahatma to the world. To his wife, he was a jerk.
(BEN snorts at this. GWEN stifles him with a tissue, and BEN turns his stifled laugh
into a discreet cough)
MARCIA:Well, Ive been a jerk too, in my own humble way. After number 3 its live
and let live, but only with boyfriends. Why do we call them that? Theyre too old
to be "boys", and not mensch enough to be friends.
SHIRLEY:The first time a so-called boyfriend sprawls on my sofa and expects me to
wait on him, it's "Bye bye Birdie". Back to the vibrator. Greatest invention of the
twentieth century.
MARCIA:The twenty first century improvements are pretty special, too.
SHIRLEY:Really? Am I missing something?
MARCIA:Where do you go for yours?
SHIRLEY:Walgreens?
MARCIA:Walgreens?! Try the Fetish Flea!
SHIRLEY:Fetish Flea? Wheres that? (the lobby is very very quiet, all listening)
MARCIA:Wherever thay can get away with it! Sweetie, youll be astounded! Exercise
balls with attached battery-powered dildo, or a booty tooter butt plug. A flesh-lite
tongue that never tires. Satisfaction guaranteed!
SHIRLEY:Sounds overwhelming.
MARCIA:You want subtle? Kama Sutra arousal oil, sensitivity swabs,
tickle toys like the busy bee vibrating pantie-- brightens up a boring committee
meeting. Want to go?
SHIRLEY:When and where?
MARCIA:Next Saturday at the Armory. No chance of running into anybody observant.
SHIRLEY:Wed better we do this incognito. Scarf, wig, sunglasses, exchange jackets
and keep our heads down. You dont want to come face to face with your son in law!
MARCIA:God forbid!
VOICE ON LOUDSPEAKER
The house is now open. You may take your seats.
(Lobby noise up full)
SHIRLEY (rising)
Im Shirley Stern. I've got a card. (gets it out)
MARCIA (rising)My name's Marcia Feldman. Where are you sitting? (takes card)
SHIRLEY:E26.
(GWEN rises, looks at her ticket)
MARCIA:Im K7.(BEN rises, looks at his ticket)
SHIRLEY:Way back and to the other side.(BEN takes GWENs ticket)
MARCIA:Well get together afterwards.
BEN (holds out tickets, offering)
Ladies? You can have our tickets if you like. G 14 and 15.
GWEN:We arent a couple, just colleagues.
BEN:Id prefer sitting farther back.
MARCIA (tempted):Well-- (takes tickets, looks to Shirley for agreement)
SHIRLEY (sudden panic)
No, thank you! (exits quickly, out of the theatre, hissing to MARCIA as she goes) Call
me!
(MARCIA glares at others, pushes tickets back at Ben, sails into the theatre in high
dudgeon)
GWEN:Well, you screwed that up, Ben.
BEN:Probably be too far away to overhear them anyway.
GWEN:Maybe I dont need to bother seeing Isabellas Belles.
BEN:I think everyone wanted to applaud the show we had here in the lobby.
GWEN:You suppose the box office would give me a refund?
BEN:You got your moneys worth!
GWEN:Did Shirley really say that her son was hiring a surrogate??!!
BEN:I think I missed some of the best stuff? Especially in the beginning, from the
one who was facing away.
GWEN:Mrs. Samuel Stern. Isnt there a Samuel Stern of about the right age who
runs Consolidated Charities?
BEN:I wish Id gotten a peek at her business card.
GWEN:You want to hire her, or blackmail her?
BEN:I was thinking of calling her up, you know, pretending to be a client. See what
she has to say in a different context.....
GWEN:Youre going to put them in a play.
BEN:I only caught about half. But its a start, and if youd let me see yours--
GWEN:Id have gotten it all if you didnt make so damn much noise!
BEN:We could collaborate...
GWEN:I just need ten minutes, and I got at least six. Make up your own.
IKE:You can hear the part you missed, if you want.
GWEN:What?
IKE:I recorded it all, right here. (the pocket iPod. IKE shows them the microphone on
which he has recorded the conversation, hands them each one of the ear buds. He
turns on the sound, and GWEN and BEN listen, start to correct their notes)
But I wouldnt go to the trouble of writing a play, if I were you.
Ill have this little show edited into a podcast and broadcasting over the Net before I
go to sleep tonight. Twenty first century improvements really are pretty special.

THE END