Too busy to post real stuff… (I warned you about these two posts, today and tomorrow, yesterday!)
Hereʼs something unpublishable because itʼs only the beginning of a spring play that never went anywhere (and I stole the idea it expresses at least twice anyway). I think I wrote it sometime about the mid-Nineties…
ANOTHER SPRING PLAY
another in a series of twisted tales from folk traditions
by John Randolph Burrow
As the audience enters, no programs are distributed. As curtain time passes, the house lights do not dim, stage lights do not come on. Nothing happens. The light crew seems to be getting a little nervous. The audience converses.
AUDIENCE What’s happening here? —Where’s the play? —What’s going on? —Are they going to start soon? —Are they going to give us a play or not? Come on, you guys, where’s our play? —We paid good money: let’s have a play.
ROWDIES We want a play! We want a play!
LIGHT CREW Look at those guys. What do they think they’re doing?
ROWDIES We want a play! We want a play!
HEAD ROWDY Hey.
DENSE ROWDY Hey what?
THIRD ROWDY Hey!
DENSE ROWDY Hey what?!
HEAD ROWDY THIRD ROWDY FOURTH ROWDY FIFTH ROWDY Look!
DENSE ROWDY SIXTH ROWDY Look at what?
HEAD ROWDY Them. They’re looking at us.
DENSE ROWDY Huh?
THIRD ROWDY Looking at us. They’re all looking at us.
SIXTH ROWDY They are!
DENSE ROWDY Look at them looking at us.
FIFTH ROWDY You want something?
FOURTH ROWDY What’s your problem, huh?
HEAD ROWDY How come you’re bothering us?
AUDIENCE How come you’re bothering us?
ROWDIES You!!? You’re staring at us.
AN AUDIENCE MEMBER Only because you’re making so much noise!
ANOTHER AUDIENCE MEMBER Yeah! What do you think you are? —The play?
ROWDIES Maybe we do. What’s it to you?
AN AUDIENCE MEMBER Plenty. Maybe if you’d shut up, they’d start.
THIRD ROWDY Yeah, right. No little play until the bad little boys shut up and keep quiet, huh?
ANOTHER AUDIENCE MEMBER Maybe.
HEAD ROWDY Hey! Then we’ll be the play.
AN AUDIENCE MEMBER You made a rhyme there. “Hey, we’ll be the play. “
DENSE ROWDY Huh?
ANOTHER AUDIENCE MEMBER You made a little rhyme.
DENSE ROWDY Huh?
AUDIENCE Hey, we’re the play. It rhymes.
DENSE ROWDY Huh?
AUDIENCE Rhymes! —The words sound alike. Hey . . . play.
ROWDIES Hey! So where is the play? Huh? —Hey, lights guys, when’s this play going to get started?
LIGHT CREW Who knows? Maybe it’s another clever and original opening.
DENSE ROWDY Huh?
ANOTHER AUDIENCE MEMBER It’s the spring play. They all start weird.
DENSE ROWDY Huh?
AN AUDIENCE MEMBER Don’t you remember?
HEAD ROWDY Nothing more than three minutes ago. —But if this is the cute and original beginning, something’s wrong.
ANOTHER AUDIENCE MEMBER Now you’re just being modest. —How long have you guys been practicing this?
DENSE ROWDY Practicing what?
ANOTHER AUDIENCE MEMBER This! This routine.
THIRD ROWDY This is no routine.
HEAD ROWDY We’re not the cast.
ANOTHER AUDIENCE MEMBER You’re not the cast? Uh huh. Right.
THIRD ROWDY We’re not! You see our names in the program.
DENSE ROWDY Program? What programs?
HEAD ROWDY I didn’t get a program.
THIRD ROWDY Me neither.
AN AUDIENCE MEMBER No one did.
ANOTHER AUDIENCE MEMBER That’s odd. There weren’t any programs.
ROWDIES How come we didn’t get programs?
AUDIENCE What? Do you think we know?
FIRST ROWDY Yeah. I do. You’ve been in plays before.
AN AUDIENCE MEMBER Not this time. He didn’t have a script before try-outs.
SECOND ROWDY He never has a script by try-outs.
THIRD ROWDY But there’s usually programs.
FIRST ROWDY You guys. Lights. What’s going on? How come we didn’t get any programs?
SECOND ROWDY Yeah, Pick. When’s this play going to start?
HEAD ROWDY Don’t look now, but we’re becoming the play. There’s more of them watching.
THIRD ROWDY [pause] Of course, we could be.
HEAD ROWDY Could be? Could be what?
THIRD ROWDY The show.
DENSE ROWDY Huh?
THIRD ROWDY We could be the show.
DENSE ROWDY, FOURTH ROWDY, FIFTH ROWDY, SIXTH ROWDY Us?!! Yeah, right. Be real.
HEAD ROWDY Get serious.
DENSE ROWDY I dunno. We gonna get somethin’ else?
[pause]
HEAD ROWDY Don’t look like it.
THIRD ROWDY So . . . .
DENSE ROWDY FOURTH ROWDY FIFTH ROWDY SIXTH ROWDY So? So?
HEAD ROWDY . . . So . . . why don’t we be the play?
DENSE ROWDY FOURTH ROWDY FIFTH ROWDY SIXTH ROWDY Who?
HEAD ROWDY THIRD ROWDY Us.
DENSE ROWDY FOURTH ROWDY FIFTH ROWDY SIXTH ROWDY Us?
HEAD ROWDY Why not? Everyone’s watching us already.
DENSE ROWDY They are?
AUDIENCE Yeah. We are.
AN AUDIENCE MEMBER And I’m getting a crick in my neck.
A THIRD MEMBER OF THE AUDIENCE Why don’t you either shut up or move it onto the stage already?
ROWDIES Us?
ANOTHER AUDIENCE MEMBER No, your twin brother . . . the one who got the brains.
AUDIENCE You guys want to talk so much, why don’t you do it from the stage?
ANOTHER AUDIENCE MEMBER Or are you scared?
THIRD ROWDY I’m not scared of nothin’.
LIGHT CREW Except good grammar.
HEAD ROWDY What was that?
LIGHT CREW Nothing. We were just wondering if we should put the spotlight on you . . . stars.
THIRD ROWDY FOURTH ROWDY FIFTH ROWDY Watch your mouth.
DENSE ROWDY Hey, you guys. How come the show hasn’t started yet?
LIGHTS 1 Don’t ask me.
ROWDIES We’re asking.
LIGHTS 2 When the curtains open, then we put on the lights.
ROWDIES So when’s the curtain go?
MIKE When the gym lights go out. Like always.
ROWDY 1 So what are we waiting for?
LIGHTS 1 For the gym lights to go out.
HEAD ROWDY So why aren’t they?
LIGHTS 2 I don’t know. Maybe you should go find out.
ROWDIES Maybe we will. [pause] —How about it? —Wanna go with me? —Up there? —Sure. —What can they do? Kick us out? —We paid our money. —Wanna come? —Yeah! Why not?
[Pause]
To make something valuable of having you read this garp, observe that you do get a look at my creative process in play writing here and tomorrow. Notice that I focus on the dialog (by tomorrow the words over who says them) and have almost no stage directions. This is not because I think I am Shakespeare (I do not think so), who used precious few stage directions himself, but because I knew when I was writing that I would serve as the director and could invent business and movements in rehearsal (which, by the way, I believe is like Shakespeare, who knew heʼd be involved in the productions of his shows, too).
I also just let the words flow, worrying about who said what later (especially after I had actual actors involved). thatʼs the point of the dashes in the ROWDIES lines, dividing the words among different people, whoʼs who just not yet assigned.
One thing keeping me too busy to post intelligently—besides being at Andrew subbing nearly every day of the week lately—was that I awoke at 3:30 AM yesterday to travel to Ames to see my brother Paul receive the most prestigious award the Iowa State Education Association can bestow… Possibly I will tell you all about the experience later.
©2010 John Randolph Burrow, Magickal Monkey Enterprises, Ltd, S.A.