B E N G R E E N M A N W E E K :
G E T T I N G T H E M O S T
O U T O F Y O U R
R E P E R T O R Y C O M P A N Y :
A P L A Y I N
T H R E E P L A Y S .
BY BEN GREENMAN
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[Note: The three plays that comprise "Getting the Most out of Your Repertory Company" have each been performed often, but rarely with success. The author hopes that a theater company will one day do his work justice.]
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The Magician's Assistant.
Interior of a suburban house. Early afternoon. Outside, it is storming fiercely. Inside, on the dining-room table, there sits a shoebox diorama of a house very much like the one that comprises the set. ELIZABETH, a woman of about twenty-five dressed in casual clothes, stands over the shoebox, waving her hands witchily and making noises of wind and rain. Her elderly aunt, Agnes, sits in a chair at right.
ELIZABETH: I think I have the hang of this trick. I can make it rain on command.
AGNES: But can you make it stop raining?
ELIZABETH: Of course. That's just the rain command recited backwards. Honestly, Aunt Agnes, are you testing me? [looks at clock on wall] And where on earth is Francis?
AGNES: I don't know. He's your boyfriend. If they even call them boyfriends anymore.
ELIZABETH: I like to call him my pack-horse, or my haul-mule. But boyfriend will do in a pinch.
AGNES: He is rather late, don't you think?
ELIZABETH: [distractedly] That's what I said. Listen, Aunt Agnes: do you know how to turn a rabbit into a dove? Or how to force an audience member to select a face card rather than a number card?
AGNES: I was never into the black arts, dear. I worked in a hat shop. I could tell you whether you look better in a summer brim or a Jane Stout. That's about all.
ELIZABETH: Well, hats play a role in the magic act. Brian wears a hat.
AGNES: [hissing] Vaudeville! Dens of sin and iniquity! You can go further with a bowler or a stingy-brim than with a hundred of those dreadful stage-shows.
FRANCIS rushes in from stage left. He is drenched, his hair plastered down onto his forehead. He is about twenty and has the look of a matinee idol. Unfortunately, his voice is high and squeaky.
ELIZABETH: I'm so glad you're here, darling. Do you have the handbills for tonight's show?
FRANCIS: Well, I couldn't find Brian.
ELIZABETH: What?
FRANCIS: You know Brian. My brother. Your boss. Mr. Magician. I can't find him.
ELIZABETH: Oh, Francis. Please. You're not telling me that you didn't bring the handbills?
FRANCIS: I'm telling you that there's only one person who seems to know their location, and I don't know his location.
AGNES: (to herself) There's quite a lot you seem not to know, you high-voiced dolt. Maybe if you wore a hat your head wouldn't get so wet.
ELIZABETH: Did you look on the kitchen counter?
FRANCIS: Of course.
ELIZABETH: And in the shower?
FRANCIS: Of course.
ELIZABETH: And next to the bed?
FRANCIS: Of course.
ELIZABETH: And in the hot-tub?
FRANCIS: Of course.
AGNES: (to herself) A hat, damn you! A hat! Did it ever occur to you to wear something to protect that tiny brain of yours?
ELIZABETH: Well. I suppose they're lost forever.
FRANCIS: Weren't you over at Brian's house yesterday?
ELIZABETH: Yes. But we were only rehearsing. [looking outside] Oh! The rain has stopped! How strange! While I was standing here talking to you I forgot to encourage the weather.
FRANCIS: [sighing] I suppose I will go back to the house and look for the handbills. And, while I'm at it, my brother Brian.
ELIZABETH: Yes, Francis. That would be wonderful.
FRANCIS. I will return soon enough. But for now, my dear Elizabeth, you have made me disappear, and by doing so, earned your title: "The Magician's Assistant."
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Mexico By Rail.
Interior of a hospital room. ANGELA, an elderly woman, is sitting up in bed.
ANGELA: (to herself) Once I was the mistress of the great Cantinflas. The one and only Cantinflas. World-famous Latin-American vaudevillian. Star of stage and screen. The Chaplin of Chiapas. But I knew him by another name: Mario Moreno Reyes. Oh, Mario, I said. Oh, sweet Mario. I said it when we met, and I said it forty years later. In return, he called me La Angelita de los Lirios: The Angel of the Irises. We fell in love at once, and never fell out of it. I was by his side when his family denounced him for his decision to act as a torero bufo, or a rodeo clown, at a carpa, or tent show. I folded his trousers during his portrayal of Passepartout in the 1956 film version of Around the World in Eighty Days. I was sleeping beside him in his cama, or bed, when he devised his philosophy of life: "El mundo deberma remr mas. Pero despuis de haber comido [The world should laugh more. But after having eaten.]" Only I know that sweet Mario considered a number of other philosophies, including "El mundo debe salir del cuarto inmediatamente [The world should leave the room immediately.]" and "El mundo no es bastante. [The world is not enough]." The Cantinflas charm never failed to warm my heart, whether we were together or apart, no matter what the weather. It reminds me of that old song: "That Cantinflas charm never failed to warm my heart / Whether we were together or apart / No matter what the weather." Oh, how I love to recall the love of my pencil-moustached, battered-hat wearing pobrecito!
NURSE enters. She is a woman of twenty-five or so.
NURSE: And how are we doing today?
ANGELA: The piston is attached at one end to a forced steel rod, which is called a connecting rod, and at the other end to an offset portion of the crankshaft, which is called a throw. The rod converts the reciprocating motion of the piston to the rotating motion of the crank. The rod's lower, larger end is bored for a precision bearing insert.
NURSE: All day with the engines! Is there nothing else that you can discuss?
ORDERLY ENTERS. He is a handsome man of twenty who wears a hat.
NURSE: Hey, there. Are you going to the big party tonight at Doctor Feldman's house?
ORDERLY: Not sure, honey. That depends on who Doctor Feldman is. [He winks]
NURSE: Well, I'm going and I need someone to go with me. Anything to get away from this dried-up old prune and her talk of automotive engines.
ORDERLY: Hey! I love talking to her about engines. The other day we were discussing the fact that most V-type engines have opposite cylinders staggered so that the two rods operating on each crank throw can sit side-by-side, and she pointed out that larger engines sometimes have fork-and-blade rods. Don't you find that sexy? [Raises eyebrow]
NURSE: Well, yes. I guess so.
NURSE and ORDERLY exit.
ANGELA: Oh! Cantinflas! Oh!
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Overreaction/Underreaction.
Interior of an airport. NORTON BARNSTABLE, a famous writer no longer in the prime of his youth, is waiting for a plane. LUCRETIA PESSARY, his attractive, twenty-five-year-old mistress, is at his side.
NORTON: My goodness, Lucretia! I almost forgot! We have to — er, rather, I have to — think of a new title for my next masterpiece.
LUCRETIA: [chewing gum] Yah.
NORTON: As you know, it is a sequel to my masterpiece of the early 1970s, The Prisoner of Lust.
LUCRETIA: [chewing gum] Yah.
NORTON: You know the list of contending titles thus far, do you not?
LUCRETIA: [chewing gum] Yah.
NORTON: Let me refresh your memory. The Prisoner of Tar. The Prisoner of Tape. The Prisoner of Musk. The Prisoner of Dogs. The Prisoner of Steve. The Prisoner of Time. The Prisoner of Aloe. The Prisoner of Lust Some More. Do you have any preference among those?
LUCRETIA: [chewing gum] Yah.
NORTON: [exasperatedly] Well, please, Lucretia, don't hoard your wisdom like the squirrel in the winter hoards his winter nuts for winter!
AURELIA, an old woman, approaches NORTON and LUCRETIA. She is dressed in ragged clothing.
AURELIA: Pardon me, sir.
NORTON: Well, what have we here? Are you a beggarwoman?
AURELIA: No, sir. [She begins crying.] Well, yes, sir. I am a beggarwoman. But once I was a rich woman, a woman who owned several pairs of shoes and several hats. And for the life of me, I don't *know* how my **life came** to this ***sad*** and ****pitiful**** end. [* crying / ** more crying / ***weeping / ****sobbing]
NORTON: There, there, dear. Let me produce a roll of bills and peel off a hundred from the top. There is, as you see, a hundred underneath, proving that I am not one of those charlatans who walks around with a money roll in which the outermost hundred-dollar bill is simply a thin tissue of wealth over an ordinary roll of tens, fives, or — heaven forbid — singles.
AURELIA: I see that, sir, and for your wealth I am thankful.
LUCRETIA: This old beggarwoman stinks. I'm going to buy more gum.
LUCRETIA exits stage left.
NORTON: A wonderful woman, Lucretia, but with something of an attention-span problem. Tell me, forlorn beggarwoman, do you read?
AURELIA: Yes.
NORTON: Do you know the book The Prisoner of Lust?
AURELIA: Yes, of course. I was not always a beggarwoman. Once I lived in Berkeley, and that book was my Bible.
NORTON: Well, I am Norton Barnstable.
AURELIA: [gasps] No!
NORTON: Yes.
AURELIA: I once saw you give a lecture entitled, "Getting Your Cock Caught In the Door of an Argument." You were stronger then, and younger.
NORTON: Weren't we all, madam? But even at this advanced age, I continue to attempt to shock the establishment with my shocking insights into society's shocking problems. In fact, as fate would have it, I am trying to think of a title for a sequel to that very book we so recently discussed. Tell me which of these you like best: The Prisoner of Tar, The Prisoner of Tape, The Prisoner of Musk, The Prisoner of Dogs, The Prisoner of Steve, The Prisoner of Time, The Prisoner of Aloe, The Prisoner of Lust Some More.
AURELIA: Who is Steve?
NORTON: [laughs] What delightful insouciance! If you could, dear woman, please select one title.
AURELIA: The Prisoner of Lust Some More. Why tamper with success?
NORTON: [laughs] Why indeed?
LUCRETIA returns.
LUCRETIA: It's time to board our flight.
NORTON: And then it will be time to board our flight some more. [Winks at AURELIA]
- - - -
CAST:
Old Woman: Agnes, Angela, Aurelia
Young Woman: Elizabeth, Nurse, Lucretia Pessary
Young Man: Francis, Orderly, Norton Barnstable
Next: Day Four
Previous: Day Two
OTHER McSWEENEY'S STORIES:
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Ben Greenman Week Why There Are Some Typos in "Superbad"
Ben Greenman Week On a Book Entitled "Superbad"
Doctors and Patients By J.B. Orenstein
Relatively Safe By Daniel Lazar
Clues By Christopher Painter
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