CHARATER LIST:
THE BEL CANTO
THE FAIT ACCOMPLI
POSITIVE POLLY
THE DREAM KILLER
THE ANGEL OF CORN
THE SOCIAL DISSERTATIONIST
THE GOOGLE CHAT STATUS
THE COLORATURA
THE CHAIRMAN OF ENTERTAINMENT
THE DREAM ABOUT MISMATCHED SHOES
THE SALTED CARAMEL MOCHA
SOMNIUM EFFIGY
FLESH EFFIGY
SETTING: For Scenes 1-3, choose one from one or more of the following: anything from the first act of an Ibsen play, a scene from the fifth chapter in any Octavia Butler novel, or a simply a repeating projection of one or all of the following: Graciela Iturbide photographs, still life images from Neruda’s odes, or the mural of ODB in Brooklyn. For the latter, call the setting REPEATED PROJECTION and treat it like a static character in all scenes. Or, let the setting be outer space. Sound: Mass Appeal by Gang Starr or the instrumental version of Big Sean’s IDFWU.
SCENE 1
THE BEL CANTO (slowly, spreading hands and arms open)
Welcome, sensitive population…
THE FAIT ACCOMPLI
Before dawn, the muscles gather to bone and squeeze. It feels like all night rabbit punches.
POSITIVE POLLY (to the audience)
Can I tell you something? My physical therapist is the BEST.
THE BEL CANTO (whispers)
I have an anxiety disorder. In retrospect, a slow stutter…
THE FAIT ACCOMPLI
It feels like a wish for paralysis is reasonable. It feels extreme, without the pleasure of falling through air, the aftermath of landing.
POSITIVE POLLY
She applies just enough pressure to loosen those traps.
THE BEL CANTO
And I’m drawing self-portraits in pain, making stump rubbings in an arbitrary fortress ruin…
THE FAIT ACCOMPLI
Weaknesses unearned and unwelcome.
THE BEL CANTO
I think in triplicate amazement, tough, subtle, estoteric debauchery as best mission…
THE FAIT ACCOMPLI
Small accumulations, the array of attack dull slaps in miniature becoming the usual beast
POSITIVE POLLY
You know what else I love? I love that pressed hair smell. Especially when you grease it up first.
THE BEL CANTO
…all swoon, revoked. (lowers head, looks at hands)
THE FAIT ACCOMPLI
I’d like to astonish you with my language, but only in your dreams.
POSITIVE POLLY (skips offstage)
(Blackout)
SCENE 2
Sound: Give Up by FKA Twigs
THE DREAM KILLER (in a bootleg, grayscale Technicolor dreamcoat)
What kind of idiot pays attention to dreams? How can you even afford that?
THE ANGEL OF CORN (chewing gum)
Absurdism is my life. Between the ground of absurd and ism is where I live.
THE SOCIAL DISSERTATIONIST (smoking a Black & Mild, paces slowly back and forth the whole time but stops abruptly to deliver lines)
How can people not be into anti-racist dystopian theories?
THE GOOGLE CHAT STATUS (throughout, takes baby steps in a square on stage, speaking lines when right behind another character, peeking over their shoulder)
Something’s not right.
THE DREAM KILLER (snorts)
Also, and I should know, you’re terrible at voguing. (starts voguing, really well actually)
THE ANGEL OF CORN (clearly high on an illegal substance)
There’s an Aryan in my bed speaking Norwish. I’m going to put something Norwish on my body. I think it makes perfect sense.
THE SOCIAL DISSERTATIONIST
Let me advocate for the devil on this one...what’s really the difference between Miley twerking and my li’l cousin Reggie IV deciding to join the ballet?
THE GOOGLE CHAT STATUS
Trying to reconnect…
THE DREAM KILLER
That’s hard to believe, given your questionable history of sniffing trash.
THE ANGEL OF CORN (really convinced)
In the right context, a tattoo artist would say of course I know Norwish. It’s better than a tattoo of corn on your ass. We could be like Camus and do waiting for Norwish.
THE SOCIAL DISSERTATIONIST (stops pacing)
And also, some days you just don’t wanna think about how the rape and enslavement of your ancestors shows up in your facial structure.
THE ANGEL OF CORN (looks around, confused, scratches head)
THE GOOGLE CHAT STATUS
Whoops…
THE SOCIAL DISSERTATIONIST (strokes chin)
How does one astonish a racist? You would actually think it’s easy, but (blows smoke) not the case.
THE ANGEL OF CORN (frowning, hands on hips)
Why is there a didgeridoo in the background?
THE GOOGLE CHAT STATUS
Try now.
THE DREAM KILLER (smiles evilly, opens coat like a flasher, brandishing an array of weapons)
(Blackout)
SCENE 3
Intro sound, fading as players enter from offstage in ostentatious costumes with great swagger at varied paces: Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix by Jessye Norman. They can land anywhere on stage and move around or stand at will.
THE COLORATURA
Your own abduction in a dream signifies helplessness.
THE CHAIRMAN OF ENTERTAINMENT
You can’t con a con man, I heard that in a movie.
THE DREAM ABOUT MISMATCHED SHOES (nodding, excited)
In his traveler’s mind, the Bulgarians were relevant.
THE SALTED CARAMEL MOCHA (looking all sexy)
It’s okay if you fetishize me.
THE COLORATURA
If you’re holding someone else against their will, let go.
THE CHAIRMAN OF ENTERTAINMENT
I don’t have any favorites; I like to say I like them all.
THE DREAM ABOUT MISMATCHED SHOES
He would go from Bulgarians to Papa Smurf.
THE SALTED CARAMEL MOCHA (continues preening)
I’m just the right balance of power and sweetness.
THE COLORATURA
Nothing there about how feminism enters the collective unconscious. But, forgetting to reside in the core of grief, you could learn to knit Fair Isle sweaters for your captor(s).
THE CHAIRMAN OF ENTERTAINMENT
But honestly, I haven’t been this bored since the early 1990s so I’m drawing a blank.
THE DREAM ABOUT MISMATCHED SHOES
Now that fool is Googling all 54 countries in Africa! (walks off hurriedly downstage left, shaking head)
THE SALTED CARAMEL MOCHA (posing, downstage right)
You know you want me. No whip. (struts across stage, switching hips, until downstage left exit)
(Blackout)
SCENE 4
SETTING: A clear day, bright blue sky, few clouds; five crows float to a centerline lamppost on a busy street (can be a projection). Elton John’s Believe plays. Lights fade in on players center stage an arm’s length apart. As one talks, the other rhythmically hums, stomps like Black fraternites/sororities, or does a Riverdance, but not so loudly as to drown out the other character.
SOMNIUM EFFIGY
I had a dream last night parts of my body were not my body, not myself.
My legs went to Harvard. My stretch marked chest resettled from Iraq. Compton claimed my hands and my shoulders, Cape Cod. I wish I could explain it. But my throat came from the woods of Germany and my mouth spoke only Xhosa.
FLESH EFFIGY
I dreamed I could find a place for all the places my body had been. My Andalusian hips could sit somewhere with ease and softness, like the texture of dyed silk.
My hair lost all its color. My eyes belonged to the owls. I could fill my belly, more French than Italian, with Petit Verdot and dark roux.
Everything I could smell, though, led me to Korean BBQ kitchens, which means I could be a tourist. But I couldn’t lift my arms unless I carried wood from the Brazil nut tree, and only then to make fire, not paper.
I didn’t feel lost. I felt off-kilter, disconnected, but I knew (because my brain went back to its beginnings) that I could make myself whole, somewhere.
SOMNIUM EFFIGY and FLESH EFFIGY (together, holding hands)
And I wake up as the only thing not burning
(Curtain)