PLAYS ON WORDS2
Note. More short plays, mostly comedic!
Tripe
Henry
Dinner
Fuck
The King
Still Mild
Singer
The Killer Dolls
TRIPE
A RESTAURANT. HOBART AND JOHNS, FURIOUSLY ARGUING.
JOHNS: No! No! No! No! The fixity of the play's modality is concurrent with its intimate frequency!
HOBART: Poppycock! The frequency of the play's intimacy is concurrent with the fixity of its modality!
JOHNS: Tripe! Tripe! Tripe! Tripe!
WAITER: Tripe, sir?
JOHNS GRABS A PLATE OF TRIPE FROM THE WAITER AND PUSHES HIM AWAY. HE FORKS A HUGE HEAP INTO HIS MOUTH. SO DOES HOBART.
JOHNS: (SPLUTTERING TRIPE.) That's mine!
HOBART: (SPLUTTERING TRIPE.) Fuck off!
JOHNS STARTS DRAGGING TRIPE OUT OF HOBART'S MOUTH. AS HE DOES SO, HOBART FORKS TRIPE OFF JOHNS' PLATE INTO HIS MOUTH. SO A KIND OF CIRCLE IS ACHIEVED. WAITER ARRIVES WITH ANOTHER PLATE OF TRIPE, FOR HOBART. THEY STOP FIGHTING.
JOHNS: The fixity!
HOBART: The modality!
JOHNS: The frequency!
HOBART: The concurrence!
AT THE SAME MOMENT THEY BOTH STOP SPEAKING TO STUFF THEIR FACES. THEN THEY BURST OUT SPEAKING AGAIN, SPLATTERING EACH OTHER WITH TRIPE.
HOBART: Do not do that! Do not! Do not!
WAITER RETURNS WITH DONUTS.
WAITER: Donuts, sir?
WAITER PRESENTS THEM WITH DONUTS. HE CLEARS AWAY THE TRIPE. HOBART AND JOHNS SIT LOOKING AT THE DONUTS. THEY ARE OBVIOUSLY STUFFED.
JOHNS: The modality -
HOBART PICKS UP A DONUT AND STUFFS IT INTO JOHNS' MOUTH. JOHNS STARTS TO SUFFOCATE. HOBART, IF POSSIBLE, STUFFS ANOTHER ONE AND ANOTHER INTO JOHNS' MOUTH UNTIL HE IS DEAD. HOBART KNEELS ON THE FLOOR BY JOHNS' BODY, WEEPING.
HOBART: Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill!
WAITER: The bill, sir?
HOBART: Oh thanks. Do you take credit cards?
WAITER: Certainly sir.
EXEUNT HOBART AND WAITER LEAVING JOHNS DEAD.
HENRY
HENRY SITS IN A LARGE CHAIR. THERE IS A CHILD'S PLAYPEN NEAR IT. HE BANGS ON THE WOODEN ARM OF THE CHAIR WITH A HAMMER. (NOTE – IT’S FEASIBLE TO DISPENSE WITH CHAIR AND PLAYPEN AND FOR THE ACTOR TO STAND MORE OR LESS STILL AND INDICATE THE CHANGES OF CHARACTER WITHOUT RECOURSE TO PROPS OR SET.)
HENRY: Silence in court! Silence in court!
SILENCE.
HENRY: The Accused will rise.
HE RUNS AROUND AND GETS INTO THE PLAYPEN, ASSUMES A HANGDOG EXPRESSION, SITS DOWN, RISES. RUNS BACK TO THE CHAIR, SITS DOWN, GLARES AT THE PLAYPEN.
HENRY: Henry Leif-Cowson, you stand accused of. What does he stand accused of?
GETS UP FROM CHAIR, PUTS ON SPECTACLES.
HENRY: Of murder, your Honour.
TAKES OFF SPECTACLES, SITS IN CHAIR.
HENRY: Murder? The sentence is clear. You shall spend the remainder of your natural life in prison, Henry Leif-Cowson! Do you have anything to say in your defence?
RUNS OVER TO PLAYPEN.
HENRY: Yes, your Honour, I do!
RUNS BACK TO CHAIR.
HENRY: Say it then.
RUNS BACK TO PLAYPEN.
HENRY: I will. It is this. Before yourself, before this jury of my peers, in front of my very mother, and to the ears of my beloved country I say: I did not do it.
BACK TO CHAIR.
HENRY: You did not do it?
BACK TO PLAYPEN.
HENRY: No.
BACK TO CHAIR.
HENRY: Who did then? Tell us that!
TO PLAYPEN.
HENRY: You did!
TO CHAIR.
HENRY: Me?
TO PLAYPEN.
HENRY: Yes you!
TO CHAIR.
HENRY: Ha! I laugh. Hahaha! What is your evidence?
TO PLAYPEN.
HENRY: My evidence is your own conscience!
TO CHAIR.
HENRY: My conscience? My conscience has nothing to do with it! I am the Judge! My conscience does not enter this court!
TO PLAYPEN.
HENRY: Aha! You enter this court conscienceless? A shallow Judge indeed! No Judge at all. In fact, a defendant! I put it to you, brothers and sisters, that this so-called Judge is in the wrong place! He should be standing here in the dock! Step down, step down, not-so-almighty Judge! Humble yourself and submit your mind to the lightrays of a superior intellect! You cannot judge if you will not submit to be judged!
TO CHAIR.
HENRY: Very well. If you challenge me thus, I will submit in all humility and in all confidence to the questioning of one already condemned! And by so doing I will doubly and triply confirm your condemnation, Henry Leif-Cowson!
TO PLAYPEN.
HENRY: You will step down?
TO CHAIR.
HENRY: I will. For the sake of argument. So I descend.
TO PLAYPEN.
HENRY: Good. From here my righteousness shines even more brightly, by virtue of my position's absurdity.
TO CHAIR.
HENRY: Does it indeed! To me it looks like you're in the right place at last! Shut the bolts, officers! Lock the doors! This is a dangerous felon! With pretensions to judge every one of us, and definite inclinations towards inhibiting our freedom! Ought he not to be handcuffed? No, we will dispense with such ornaments. Why do you hesitate, Officers of the Police, to lock the doors? Do as I say! Am I not a Judge? Is it not the seat of Justice on which I sit? Do I not glare like a Judge and wag my head from side to side? Do I not speak like a Judge?
TO PLAYPEN.
HENRY: Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury! I stand here accused of murder! A charge made doubly laughable by the fact that my accuser is the very defendant who stands in the court here!
TO CHAIR.
HENRY: Silence! The Accused shall not speak unless called upon to do so.
TO PLAYPEN.
HENRY: But you are the Accused!
TO CHAIR.
HENRY: Am I? And what do I stand accused of? Judging? Being a Judge? I plead guilty, guilty, a thousand times guilty, before you and my peers and God! Before breakfast I plead guilty of that! Haha! Since I am a Judge I could offend only by not judging!
TO PLAYPEN.
HENRY: You are accused of murder!
TO CHAIR.
HENRY: Of murder? I do not think so!
TO PLAYPEN.
HENRY: I am here only by agreement, for the purposes of debate! I am the Judge of this Court, I am the Judge!
TO CHAIR.
HENRY: Very good! Excellent! If the Defendant is the Judge we can save on time, fees and procedure. Her Majesty's Government will be spared much expence! But can we trust in your complete lack of prejudice? Can you swear outright that you have not bribed yourself? Probity comes by training. And selection. Those who are called upon to judge – ha – must be the purest of all waters, distlled to sunlike brightness! Are you that?
TO PLAYPEN.
HENRY: Murderer! Get back in the dock!
TO CHAIR.
HENRY: You showed me no mercy! I will show you none! Bow your head! Tremble! Sag like a sack!
TO PLAYPEN.
HENRY: I will not. I stand firm. I am who I am!
TO CHAIR.
HENRY: A killer of innocents!
TO PLAYPEN.
HENRY: I have killed no one! No one!
TO CHAIR.
HENRY: Your proof! Your proof!
TO PLAYPEN.
HENRY: I am my own proof!
TO CHAIR.
HENRY: And you are nothing. Very well then. For lack of evidence at last I throw out this case that has dragged on now for – God – thirty, forty years, forgotten even by the tabloid newspapers that once found in it an echo of every chord that can be played on the heartstrings. I throw it out, it cannot pay its rent, into the rain, for God's sake let it go down into the drains and rest forever among the refuse! Officers, go out and find new criminals. You will know that you are old by how young they look, babes in arms cradling automatic weapons. Bring us again at last something worth judging! I am leaving.
TO PLAYPEN.
HENRY: Stop him! Stop him! He is getting away! Stop him! Officer, bar the door! Ah! Don't hesitate! What's this confusion? That is the murderer, walking out of the building! I am the Judge! It is his own case he has thrown out! Get him back! You have been fooled! Get him back! Get him!
EXIT RUNNING.
DINNER
ETHEL AND NIGEL GETTING READY FOR DINNER WITH GUESTS.
ETHEL: They should be here, Nigel –
NIGEL: Table’s laid –
ETHEL: Great, I think we’re just about ready. Ah, here they are.
ENTER KEITH AND ANNE.
NIGEL: Hi, Keith! Great you could come! Hello, Anne! Come and sit down.
KEITH: Hi.
ANNE: Hi.
ETHEL: Hello, Keith! Hello Anne! Wonderful to meet you both at last!
NIGEL: You found us allright then.
KEITH: Yes, no trouble.
ETHEL POURS OUT WINE.
ETHEL: So Keith, you’ve just joined –
NIGEL: About six months, Ethel –
ETHEL: I’m so vague! What is it you do exactly? You’re a -
KEITH: I’m a murderer.
ETHEL: Gosh!
NIGEL: Yes Keith kills people.
ETHEL: How many people have you killed, Keith?
KEITH: Sixteen.
ETHEL: Wow. So you’re actually a mass murderer.
KEITH: Pretty much. Getting there.
ETHEL: Anne, how about you?
ANNE: Well I dispose of the bodies, Ethel.
ETHEL: Right.
ANNE: That’s such a lovely name, ‘Ethel.’ You don’t hear it much!
ETHEL: I do!
ANNE: No, I mean –
NIGEL: So how are things anyway, Keith?
KEITH: A bit sticky lately, I’ve got to admit, Nigel.
NIGEL: Oh.
KEITH: I’ve been having pangs of conscience.
NIGEL: Christ!
KEITH: Sometimes, the people I’ve killed – my people, I call them – I see them in dreams.
ETHEL: Ghastly.
KEITH: And sometimes when I’m wide awake.
NIGEL: Bloody hell!
KEITH: Standing at the foot of the bed, staring. Can’t get back to sleep.
ETHEL: Do you believe in God, and heaven – do you believe in life after death, Keith?
KEITH: No.
ETHEL: And yet you see these ghosts?
KEITH: The visible world we live in is just a screen, Ethel. A stage-set built by our conditioning. Behind it, there are crowds and crowds of spirits of every kind, angels and demons you can call them if you like, it’s like the battle of Stalingrad going on all the time, and Auschwitz and Dachau. What we call the Second World War was just a brief lifting of the screen. But most of the time, human existence is a strange performance where the stage is virtually empty but behind the scenes – Oedipus, Hamlet, Emperor and Galilean, all going on at the same time and in collision.
ETHEL: Do you just kill anyone or is it a particular kind of person that you tend to kill?
KEITH: Anne chooses them.
ANNE: Yes I choose them.
ETHEL: On what basis, Anne?
ANNE: Dice.
ETHEL: And does it give you, well – satisfaction?
KEITH: No. Not yet.
ANNE: Not yet. Not really.
NIGEL: Do you ever have disagreements, Keithy? Ever say to Anne, no love, not that one!
KEITH: We work pretty well together.
ETHEL: I’m just amazed, Keith, that you – with what you’re experiencing all the time, you just have no faith, no belief!
KEITH: This work actually narrows your mind.
ANNE: Yes it narrows your mind. It stops you imagining things.
ETHEL: It doesn’t stop you seeing things!
ANNE: No but it stops you thinking.
ETHEL: Ah! It stops you thinking.
KEITH: Yes, that’s it. You see things, but you don’t think about them.
NIGEL: You don’t draw conclusions!
KEITH: Exactly.
NIGEL: My God, if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s people drawing conclusions! What right do they have to do that?
KEITH: None whatsoever. None.
NIGEL: You’ve got to remain open-minded!
KEITH: Of course you have, Nigel.
NIGEL: Unless you begin from the starting-place of a strong conviction.
KEITH: Yes.
NIGEL: If you’re blessed with a real strength of mind from the start –
KEITH: Yes, from the word go.
NIGEL: You’re going to be blown here and there like a scrap of paper. There’s so much to take in. And all of it changing all the time.
KEITH: Much too much.
NIGEL: So I can’t stand people coming to conclusions. But starting out from them, that I don’t mind.
ETHEL: But don’t you ever think, Keith – mightn’t it be a comfort to imagine, that one or other of your people, as you call them, might have gone to some kind of heaven?
KEITH: Well, Ethel – how can I explain?
ANNE: The thing is –
KEITH: Yes, time.
ANNE: Everything’s –
KEITH: Happening at once. That’s the point, isn’t it?
ANNE: Yes.
KEITH: When you say, ‘Life after death,’ well straightaway I’m not with you, because, everything’s happening at the same time.
ETHEL: I see! So we’re dead and alive at the same time?
KEITH: More or less precisely right, yes, Ethel.
ETHEL: How fascinating!
NIGEL: Let’s eat, anyway!
KEITH: Lovely.
THEY EAT.
NIGEL: Wonderful, Ethel!
ETHEL: Oh, a controlled disaster, I’m afraid!
ANNE: Really good. Is it Rosemary?
ETHEL: From the garden.
KEITH: Fantastic.
ETHEL: I’m really interested, Keith, in your brutality. Have you always been a really brutal person?
KEITH: Have I, Anne?
ANNE: No, I think it’s something that’s increased.
KEITH: Since I met you!
ETHEL: And where will it all end? What are your ambitions?
KEITH: The terrible thing is, Ethel, I fulfilled all my ambitions the first time I murdered someone.
ETHEL: God that sends a shiver down my spine!
NIGEL: Terrible fate. Stay hungry, that’s my motto!
ANNE: Well you’re really shovelling it in!
NIGEL: Got me! You got me, Anne! Christ, she’s terrible after a couple of glasses of Ciarascuro!
ETHEL: And yet you carry on.
KEITH: Well –
ANNE: Well you –
KEITH: You have to.
ANNE: You have to, don’t you, Keith?
KEITH: This is quite hard to explain, if you haven’t –
ETHEL: I haven’t!
KEITH: Once you have killed another human being for no reason, well – there is no actual point in doing anything.
ANNE: No motivation.
KEITH: It’s like the opposite of a vocation.
ETHEL: And yet you don’t just stop, you find no satisfaction –
KEITH: No. You become repetitive.
ANNE: Repetitive.
KEITH: Repetitive. Um. You can’t think. So you can’t think of anything else to do. There isn’t anything else to do.
ETHEL: Except murder! A whole world reduced to the single activity of murder!
KEITH: That’s more or less precisely it, yes, Ethel. A very simple world.
NIGEL: Incredibly simple.
KEITH: Um. Even more simple than you think.
ETHEL: How?
KEITH: Because everything has been removed from it.
ETHEL: Except the murdering!
KEITH: No, even that.
ETHEL: Hmmm?
KEITH: Because –
ANNE: After the first one –
KEITH: It’s the – er –
ETHEL: Go on –
KEITH: It’s the same person you’re murdering over and over again.
NIGEL: Yup! I see that!
ETHEL: Sweet Christ!
KEITH: So – you see – everything’s come to a complete full stop, the same thing is just happening over and over again, hitting the full stop and rebounding, with no reason, just happening because nothing else can happen except that, and something has to happen.
ETHEL: Does it?
KEITH: Oh yes that’s a Universal Law I’m afraid, there’s no stopping. That’s the nearest you can get to it, repetition, that is as far from God as you can get.
ETHEL: God? You said you didn’t believe in God –
NIGEL: Ethel –
ANNE: Well – perpetual change, perpetual motion, absolute blessedness –
KEITH: And blank everlasting repetition. Those are the two bookends of the Universe if you like.
ETHEL: Christ, Keith, I think you’re the most religious person I’ve ever met!
NIGEL: Ethel!
KEITH: No. I don’t think so.
ETHEL: Don’t think? You think all the time! I’m amazed by your thoughts!
KEITH: No, you’re not.
ETHEL: Yes I am!
KEITH: I do not think.
ETHEL: Yes you do!
ANNE: No he doesn’t.
ETHEL: Shut up, Anne! He does!
NIGEL: Ethel, Ethel –
ETHEL: I want to compliment our guest, I think he has a wonderful mind!
NIGEL: But I don’t think he wants you to say that –
ETHEL: I don’t care!
NIGEL: Ethel, for Christ’s sake! Keith’s a fucking murderer!
KEITH: I think we’d better leave.
ANNE: Yup.
ETHEL: Nigel –
NIGEL: You’ve really upset him, Ethel.
KEITH: Not at all, not at all. Just – very tired. Got to go. Thanks, Nigel, thanks, Ethel.
ANNE: Come on Keith, come on –
KEITH: I’m coming!
ETHEL: Goodbye! God bless you!
END.
FUCK
TWO DOWN AND OUT PRIESTS, AIDAN AND BARTHOLOMEW.
AIDAN: For fuck’s sake!
BARTHOLOMEW: For fucking fuck’s sake!
AIDAN: For the fucking sake of fuck!
BARTHOLOMEW: As it fucking was in the beginning.
AIDAN: So shall it be in the fucking end.
BARTHOLOMEW: For fuck’s sake!
AIDAN: For fucking fuck’s sake!
BARTHOLOMEW: For the fucking sake of fuck!
AIDAN: Fucking right!
BARTHOLOMEW: You’re fucking right!
AIDAN: Fucking right!
BARTHOLOMEW: Fucking right on the fucking night!
AIDAN: For fuck’s sake.
BARTHOLOMEW: For fucking fuck’s sake.
AIDAN: For the fucking sake of fucking fuck!
BARTHOLOMEW: It’s a fucking disgrace!
AIDAN: Since the fucking garden of Eden, mate.
BARTHOLOMEW: Since the fucking fall from fucking grace.
AIDAN: For fuck’s sake!
BARTHOLOMEW: For fucking fuck’s sake!
AIDAN: For the fucking sake of fucking fuck!
BARTHOLOMEW: It would be fucking marvellous, mate –
AIDAN: Wouldn’t it just be fucking great –
BARTHOLOMEW: At the fucking pearly fucking gates –
AIDAN: But fuck me if we’re not too fucking late.
BARTHOLOMEW: For fuck’s sake!
AIDAN: For fuck’s fucking sake!
BARTHOLOMEW: For the fucking sake of fuck!
AIDAN: For the fucking sake of fucking fuck!
BARTHOLOMEW: It’s a fucking disgrace.
AIDAN: But it’s fucking great!
BARTHOLOMEW: Yes it’s fucking great!
AIDAN: It’s the fucking garden of fucking Eden all over a-fucking-gain!
BARTHOLOMEW: Fuck me if it’s not!
AIDAN: It’s the best fucking life I’ve ever fucking lived!
BARTHOLOMEW: So thank fuck for that!
AIDAN: Yes thank fuck for that!
BARTHOLOMEW: Yes thank fucking fuck for that!
AIDAN: Thank fuck for fucking that!
BARTHOLOMEW: For fuck’s sake!
AIDAN: For the fucking sake of fucking fuck!
BARTHOLOMEW: For the sake of fucking fuck!
AIDAN: Thank fuck!
BARTHOLOMEW: Since the garden of fucking Eden.
AIDAN: Thank fuck for the blessed light of fucking day!
BARTHOLOMEW: Thanks for our fucking food!
AIDAN: Thanks for our glorious fucking ancestors!
BARTHOLOMEW: The British fucking grenadiers!
AIDAN: The battle of fucking Waterloo.
BARTHOLOMEW: And thanks for wonderful fucking London!
AIDAN: Best fucking place since the garden of Eden.
BARTHOLOMEW: And fucking Babylon.
AIDAN: With its famous fucking hanging gardens.
BARTHOLOMEW: Thank fuck for fucking everything!
AIDAN: For fuck’s sake, thank fuck for everything.
BARTHOLOMEW: Fucking mum, fucking dad, fucking Queen and fucking country.
AIDAN: The white cliffs of fucking Dover.
BARTHOLOMEW: And the multi-fucking-cultural culture.
AIDAN: Thank fuck.
BARTHOLOMEW: For fuck’s sake thank fuck.
AIDAN: Thank fucking fuck for fuck’s fucking sake.
BARTHOLOMEW: Thank fuck for the fucking water.
AIDAN: And the fucking bees, the fucking birds and the fucking deer.
BARTHOLOMEW: The holly and the fucking ivy.
AIDAN: The fucking spreading oak tree.
BARTHOLOMEW: Thank fucking fuck for fucking poetry!
AIDAN: Thank fuck.
BARTHOLOMEW: Thank fucking fuck.
AIDAN: Thank fucking fuck for fuck’s fucking sake.
BARTHOLOMEW: Thank fuck for the Arch-fucking-bishop of Canterbury!
AIDAN: And the Arch-fucking-bishop of York!
BARTHOLOMEW: And the independent fucking judiciary!
AIDAN: And the fucking press!
BARTHOLOMEW: Thank fuck for the fucking English language!
AIDAN: And the abolition of fucking slavery!
BARTHOLOMEW: Thank fuck for the Concise Oxford fucking Dictionary!
AIDAN: Thank fuck for the fucking rivers and the fucking mountains!
BARTHOLOMEW: And the fucking babbling brooks!
AIDAN: Thank fuck for the fucking lot of it!
BARTHOLOMEW: We are fucking lucky fuckers!
AIDAN: Fuck me if we’re not.
BARTHOLOMEW: For fuck’s sake.
AIDAN: For fucking fuck’s sake.
BARTHOLOMEW: For the fucking sake of fucking fuck.
AIDAN: Thank fuck.
PAUSE.
BARTHOLOMEW: Fuck that.
AIDAN: Fuck what?
BARTHOLOMEW: Fuck the fucking Prison System.
AIDAN: Fuck fucking that. Thank fuck for fucking Probation.
BARTHOLOMEW: Thank fuck for fucking baptism.
AIDAN: And the fucking marriage sacrament.
BOTH: There’s more to thank fuck for than to fuck!
AIDAN: Just a-fucking-bout!
BARTHOLOMEW: At a fucking pinch!
AIDAN: Depends how you fucking look at it!
BARTHOLOMEW: But that’s what I fucking think –
AIDAN: So we’ll fucking leave it at that.
EXEUNT.
THE KING
THE KING HAS GOT HIS FOOT STUCK IN THE GROUND. HE WEARS CROWN AND ROBES.
KING: Hello! Hello! I have got my foot stuck in the ground! Would somebody help me please!
SILENCE.
KING: Hello! Hello! This is the King! Is there anybody? To think that my ancestors. Men as big as houses. My grandfather Stefan, who walked through the streets of Paris with a horse on his back! Is there anybody? Hello! For heaven's sake!
ENTER STEVE AND PETE, WORKMEN.
KING: Ah! At last! Would you fellows pull me out? I have got my foot stuck in the ground. I am the King. Would you be so awfully kind as to just prise me loose?
STEVE: Christ! How did you get that?
KING: Get what?
STEVE: How did you get stuck like that?
KING: I went for a walk. There was this hole just the size of my foot. It's ridiculous.
STEVE: You're lucky we turned up.
PETE: Yup.
KING: Lucky in that. But not lucky in needing it.
STEVE: Not lucky in getting stucky.
PETE: Yup.
KING: No. So do you want to just seize hold of my arms and heave me out?
STEVE: That's not a bad idea for a start. We can try that, and if that doesn't work we can try something else.
PETE: Yup.
KING: There's no limit to the things we could try.
STEVE: But let's try that for a start.
KING: Right!
STEVE: You seize hold of that arm, Pete, and I'll seize hold of this. Oh – I'm Steve and he's Pete.
KING: Let me shake you by the hand, Steve, and you, Pete.
STEVE: Pleased to make your acquaintance.
PETE: Yup.
KING: Me too. You'd better believe it.
STEVE: Alright. So we're going to heave, then? Grab hold.
PETE: Yup.
STEVE: Got him, Pete?
PETE: Yup.
STEVE: Heave then!
THEY HEAVE. THE KING'S FOOT COMES OUT.
STEVE: Hooray!
PETE: Yup.
KING: Free! Thank God! Ah, to stretch one's leg, to stroll about!
STEVE: Glad to be of service.
KING: I shall make you fellows County Councillors!
STEVE: Gosh.
KING: You have deserved well at my hands. I shall not forget. Tell me, what brought you to this place?
STEVE: Mending the road.
KING: Ah! Splendid! It needs it!
PETE: Yup.
STEVE: Certainly does. Well we have got to go and have our break now.
KING: By God you have!
STEVE: Goodbye then!
KING: Goodbye!
PETE: Yup!
EXEUNT STEVE AND PETE. KING STRUTS ABOUT.
KING: How splendid to share a common language! If each of us spoke a language only he could understand, each of us would be a separate nation. And King of it. And lonely. And hopeless. I am humbled by what has happened here. And exalted. Now I shall return to my palace.
HE MAKES TO LEAVE BUT FINDS THAT HIS FOOT IS STUCK AGAIN.
Oh God! No! Impossible! The same place again. Inextricable. Massively tiresome. Hello! Hello! Hello! Oh no. Hello!
ENTER STEVE AND PETE WITH TEA AND SANDWICHES.
STEVE: Hello! What's happened?
KING: The same thing! Would you mind awfully just hoiking me out again?
STEVE: Not at all, not at all.
PETE: Yup!
KING: Well, he would!
STEVE: What?
KING: He would! I said would you mind and he said Yup!
STEVE: Oh no he always says that.
KING: Ah!
STEVE: But what he meant was, Yup, of course we don't mind, as many times, your Majesty, as you get stuck, we will pull you out. No problem. It's better for us to do it now in our break than when we should be working. Foreman would be onto us.
KING: Oh I don't think he could criticize you for assisting the Monarch!
STEVE: Not while you're around he wouldn't.
KING: But afterwards, you will be exalted to the ranks of Local Government.
PETE: Yup!
KING: Tell me, why does he only say Yup?
STEVE: He doesn't want to strike a negative chord.
KING: That is wonderful. That is really wonderful. And, just at this moment, exactly what I need!
STEVE: Good. You see you get everything with us. We pull you out and we cheer you up.
KING: Ha!
STEVE: But we'd better get on with it. Time's running out.
KING: Don't hurry on my account.
STEVE: Got to, Guv. On the job.
KING: Listen. I really do not want you to hurry.
STEVE: Is your foot hurt?
KING: No, it isn't that.
STEVE: Well?
KING: Hmmm.
STEVE: Do you think you could tell us what it is?
KING: Well -
STEVE: If possible quite quick -
KING: Well look. I am actually a tad affronted by this foreman chap.
STEVE: Oh he's a beast!
KING: Look, I am the King. Yet you suggest to me, Pete -
PETE: Yup?
STEVE: Steve.
KING: Steve, sorry -
STEVE: It's alright, Pete. Mistake.
PETE: Yup.
KING: And yet you suggest to me, outright, that you are afraid of the consequences from your foreman of helping me, your Monarch, out of a hole in which my foot is stuck.
STEVE: It does seem preposterous.
KING: Think about what I am, and what he is. Go on, think about it. Probably what's happened is, that I am absolutely exalted out of sight and you don't quite believe in me when you don't see me. He is more in your face. And so you forget that everything you do, everywhere you go, is subject to myself, high above, rarely seen or felt, and yet for all that, a far more powerful force than your foreman with his sour breath.
STEVE: Majesty, you are never far from our thoughts!
KING: Is your tea-break up?
PETE: Yup.
KING: Well then, have another tea-break.
STEVE: Well first we'll pull you out.
KING: No. Don't. I am here. Fear nothing. Stand up to this brute!
STEVE: Well anyway I've eaten all my sandwiches.
KING: Never mind. We will just chat.
STEVE: It's horrible to see you stuck here.
KING: I'm alright. It might be nice if you could bring me a low stool.
STEVE: I'll fetch one at once.
KING: Thanks!
EXIT STEVE.
KING: Well, here we are, Pete!
PETE: Yup!
KING : I wish I could command you to say more than Yup! I wish my powers could extend to that! But no, Yup it must be. Am I right?
PETE: Yup.
KING: My discourse is restricted by your response. My language controlled by your lack of it. Ha! In this conversation, you are the King and I am the subject!
PETE: Yup!
KING: Imagine, if you and I were the only two people left on earth! How my mind would strain against the chains of the word Yup! How yup would be my prison! Exiled to the island of yup, barren little monosyllabic rock set in the polyphonous ocean! I would scream, Pete, I would scream like this. Aaaaaghhhhhh!
PETE: Yup!
KING: And would that do any good?
PETE: Yup!
KING: What if I screamed louder? Aaaaaghhhhhh!
PETE: Yup! Yup!
KING: Or louder still? AAAAGGHHHHHHH!
PETE PANICS AND PULLS HIM OUT OF THE HOLE.
KING: No, Pete, no! You have pulled me out! That is not what I want! No! I am striking for a longer tea-break! You shall relax! Now where is that hole? Where is it? Ah!
HE JAMS HIS FOOT BACK INTO THE HOLE.
KING: There!
HE ACCIDENTALLY PULLS HIS FOOT OUT AGAIN.
KING: Oh! What? Have I widened the hole with my – with my wriggling? Does it no longer hold me, this hole? Abomination!
PETE CLAPS HIS HANDS.
KING: No! It is not an occasion for delight! You must not tell Steve! Not that you could. But no doubt you have your own language of nods and winks and sly grunts, or ways of dropping a spade that are fraught with meaning! You are capable of communicating to your mate, perhaps, everything that has happened, by your intonation of the word Yup. But I will not let that snotty little foreman, that fire-breathing woodlouse, get the better of me. I will not allow him to tyrannise over you, my subjects! I command you, Pete, by the power of the Crown, not to reveal to your colleague that this hole is loosened, nor to anyone else, ever! I am stuck in it. Alright? And yourself and Stephen shall not heave me out until such a time as you have enjoyed a longer break. If you disobey me, Pete, I will withdraw from you outright, the reward for your earlier service.
PETE: Yup!
RE-ENTER STEVE WITH STOOL.
KING: Ah! Good!
STEVE: I brought us some more sandwiches.
KING: Ah! Splendid! And where did you get them from?
STEVE: The foreman gave me his.
KING : What?
STEVE: He gave me his. I said you wanted us to have another break, and he said, If it's the King, break as long as you want. And have my sandwiches.
KING: What will he eat?
STEVE: I don't know. Maybe he'll nip home and get some more from his wife.
KING: I misjudged him, Steve.
STEVE: Me too.
KING: He is loyal.
STEVE: I think I saw a tear in his eye.
KING: Very well then. We shall not prolongue the tea-break.
STEVE: What?
KING: I am no longer affronted. There is no need to prove a point, no point to prove! You can go back to work. But pull me out first.
STEVE: Righto! Alright, Pete?
PETE : Yup!
STEVE: Heave!
THEY PULL HIM OUT.
KING: I am free! Free again! I shall proceed directly away from this place, reassured and satisfied.
STEVE: Should we eat the sandwiches ourselves or give them back?
KING: That is up to you. You are my free subjects. Isn't that right, Pete?
PETE: Yup!
EXEUNT.
STILL MILD
BOB AND FRANK, MEETING.
BOB: Still mild.
FRANK: Yeah. Still mild.
BOB: Trees, still. Fields.
FRANK: Yeah, still fields.
BOB: Still dogs.
FRANK: Yeah. Turned out the same.
BOB: All the best.
FRANK: All the best then.
EXEUNT DIFFERENT WAYS.
SINGER
SINGER: Hello good evening you’ve never heard of me or seen me before, well you may have done but you didn’t notice me for long enough even to remember to forget me. I don’t mind in the slightest. You can forget me again, if you like, but it might be a bit more difficult this time. Because the time has come for me to announce a discovery. I have been discovered – by myself. My little ship with white sails has stumbled on the Americas of myself. There was a treasure in a cave, and the cave buried in lava. There’s been a split, an earthquake. I am a singer. I am the singer. I don’t say the greatest singer ever, but a great singer. I’ve always known, but not known – like a daydream. The mind has many languages – you don’t speak all of them – some are not spoken by anyone. The last known speaker has died, and yet the language still gabbles on and on, all by itself. Impossible for anyone to understand. And then, the thing that it’s speaking about, prophesying perhaps, it just turns up, it just happens, and you realise that this is it. That strange background noise in your mind – like a rustling of eaglets – it was speaking about this. The babble at last falls silent. And the singing begins. Curled up, curled up, the singer was, in a dream of a womb, in the womb of a dream. Now awoken, in a strange place. And ready to sing. To sing.
SHE TRIES TO SING. A STRANGE CROAK COMES OUT.
No, that wasn’t it, that was wrong. Perhaps this is not the day, or perhaps this is just the beginning, it does not emerge perfect, it comes out like a duck billed platypus and has to evolve, painfully, into a rose, a singular thing, not a mixture. Or it might be the weather. Or my mind. Or perhaps the moment is now, was not then.
THE TRIES TO SING. NO SOUND COMES OUT AT ALL.
Nothing. No sound at all. Is that worse or better than an ugly sound? But how can I practise, how can I improve nothing? Nothing is so terribly perfect, I will drown in nothing, if I fall into it. As a singer, I have nothing to do with silence, except for the pause before the applause. The pause before I begin. The pauses where the sounds I have sung turn into sounds in your mind, and thenceforth transfer into spirit. Yes I do have a connection with silence, I and silence perform a kind of duet, in fact we are lovers, but I am not silence, and silence is not me, just as I am not ugliness or tunelessness. If I become them I will die.
SHE TRIES AGAIN TO SING. STILL NO SOUND.
Is it already spirit? Won’t come back into sound? I am going to cry.
SHE CRIES.
Has it died unborn, the song? Then I will sing a lament for it.
TRIES. NO SOUND.
If this happens I will be forgotten again. That is alright. That doesn’t matter. It’s the fate of most frogspawn. Very well then. I made a mistake. I was not wrong. I am what I said, but, the song will not – at this time – be, for some reason. Sleep then, song! Sleep! I think, I think I understand. I am a kind of mountain. The song must remain in the cave, unsung. The song of the black bear! You will not hear it chanted on the branches. I – the greatest singer. I – the greatest singer – never to have been heard. The resonance is almost too much for me to bear. But I must bear it alone. The song of songs, bliss of bliss, unknown, unknown, totally unknown. So I will go away again now. Goodbye, goodbye, thankyou for listening.
EXIT.
THE KILLER DOLLS
NEIL
JILLY
THOMAS
ABBRA
CADDABRA
NEIL, JILLY, THOMAS, AT A TABLE,WITH ABBRA AND CADDABRA, THE KILLER DOLLS.
ABBRA: Speak!
CADDABRA: Speak! Or we will kill you!
NEIL: My name is Neil-
ABBRA: Good! Good!
NEIL: And I am –
ABBRA: Speak! Speak!
CADDABRA: Have a conversation! Other people join in!
ABBRA: Otherwise we will kill you!
JILLY: Why are you like this???
CADDABRA: Speak to each other! Not to us! Speak!
JILLY: Nice to meet you, Neil –
ABBRA: This is good, this is good!
THOMAS: You have known him all your life, Jilly. And me.
CADDABRA: I don’t like this! I don’t like this tone!
ABBRA: More bland please!
NEIL: Won’t you have a cup of tea, Thomas?
THOMAS: There isn’t any tea.
ABBRA: The one called Thomas will be the first to die!
NEIL: Well! What shall we talk about, eh?
JILLY: Isn’t it sunny!
ABBRA: Good. Alright.
NEIL: Isn’t it sunny, Thomas?
THOMAS: It’s dark.
ABBRA: Kill him!
THOMAS: I’m just saying it’s dark! It’s a bit cloudy.
JILLY: Yes it is cloudy. It really is. Not very cloudy. But quite.
NEIL: Not actually dark, Thomas.
THOMAS: I say it is dark.
JILLY: Well that’s just Thomas! Hahaha!
ABBRA: How dark is it?
CADDABRA: I don’t know. I am blind, like you.
ABBRA: It could not be more dark.
CADDABRA: So let him say it is dark.
ABBRA: No! It is not dark!
NEIL: It’s a bit gloomy.
ABBRA: Yes, yes, that is alright! But now the sun is coming out!
CADDABRA: And it’s time for a cup of tea!
THOMAS: They can’t kill us!
JILLY: Thomas!
THOMAS: They can’t kill us! They are only dolls! Put them back in the cupboard!
ABBRA: He is the one!
CADDABRA: He is the crack in the cup!
ABBRA: Kill him!
THOMAS FALLS DEAD.
CADDABRA: Is he dead?
ABBRA: Yes he is dead.
CADDABRA: And the others?
ABBRA: No. Alive.
CADDABRA: Good.
ABBRA: Let us carry on with the conversation.
JILLY: Oh look, the sun has come out!
NEIL: Yes, I knew it would!
JILLY: I wasn’t sure.
NEIL: Oh I never doubted it.
JILLY: It looks like – the great big shining eye of a doll!
NEIL: Yes! What an afternoon! The dead are perching in the branches of the copper beech like jackdaws –
ABBRA: No!
CADDABRA: No!
NEIL: Not the dead – oh, no – how silly of me! It is Mr and Mrs Harris passing by on the road.
JILLY: How well Mrs Spencer looks.
ABBRA: I am beginning to feel.
NEIL: Their daughter Janet is in America.
JILLY: Yes! Imagine! America!
CADDABRA: I feel strong!
NEIL: Which states has she visited?
ABBRA: Life is tingling in all my limbs!
JILLY: Every state you can imagine.
CADDABRA: I am alive!
NEIL: Every state you could wish for.
ABBRA: I am an angel of God!
JILLY: When will she come home?
NEIL: When she is entirely transformed.
CADDABRA: I am the Queen of heaven!
JILLY: That will be a great day.
NEIL: Yes. And so entirely normal.
JILLY: Yes. Greatness is normal.
NEIL: Miracles are normal.
JILLY: The miracle of coming home is perfectly normal.
ABBRA: I stand among the stars!
NEIL: To drink a cup of tea.
JILLY: With the people who conceived you.
CADDABRA: I am the light!
JILLY: Are you alright, Neil?
NEIL: Yes I am perfectly fine, Jilly.
JILLY: Are you ready?
ABBRA: Ready for what?
NEIL: Yes I am ready.
CADDABRA: Ready for what?
JILLY: For absolutely nothing at all.
NEIL: Nothing at all.
ABBRA: That is good! That is good!
JILLY: Now!
JILLY AND NEIL LEAP UP AND THROW THE DOLLS INTO A BOX AND SHUT THE LID.
JILLY: At last!
NEIL: Never, never let them out again!
JILLY: Build a fire and burn them!
NEIL: Thomas! Thomas!