FIRE OF FREEDOMOr, Revolution Up In Smoke A PLAY IN ONE ACT
MISTER MARLBORO........Head of the Famed Flags of Flame DOCTOR VITALE..............Health and Safety Agent of the State
The one scene takes place in a room for arresting and sanitizing officials in a society that is ruled by an oligarchy of scientists, artists, doctors and educators. They had to develop hard and fast rules to protect the people from themselves. The last and most difficult scourge to eliminate from their civilization was tobacco smoking. That is why this interrogation in front a live audience of witnesses, taped and broadcast, is the pivotal one. The infamous "Mister Marlboro" has finally been caught and brought to the Cleansing Room of Decision.
When the curtain opens the stage is dark. There is the sound of a door opening and the click of a lightswitch and floodlight coming on. It lights only a man (who happens to be Mister Marlboro) sitting at a table which has only a soiled glass ashtray on it. There is another man standing, wearing a white labcoat, who moves in and out of the ambient light. Suddenly the standing Doctor Vitale leans in close becoming lighted himself next to the "patient."
DOCTOR: Your smoke signals gave you away--- the lingering stench that could be be found out by someone with the worst adenoids on the planet. It not only poisons the body and the mind, (Picking up the ashtray and putting it close to Marlboro's face.) but the clean beauty of our perfect paradise. (Vitale's face changes from stern to kind while beginning to walk in circles around the table and Marlboro.) But, you know how we yearn to bring benevolence as well as justice to every individual, opportunity for a life term for death is offered -- be a spokesman for our way of life, by recanting the nicotine rebellion openly in front of millions! MARLBORO: (Puts hand to his mouth with an imaginary cigar.) Eh, what's up Doc? Maybe you could also take smoke and blow it out your ass! I wouldn't be the mouthpiece for your antiquated, antiseptic, anti-liberty Atlantis. Even if I was dying of cancer, I would raise even higher the Tobacco Torch against Tyranny! DOCTOR: Your incendiary pell mell Pall Mall philosophy, will be purged from our world. You think that liberty is uniquely your bell to ring. MARLBORO: (Sings.) You can ring my bell......, ring my bell. (Shouts.) LSMFT, MF! (Starts singing) Winstons taste good like a cigarette should. (Emits calmly.) And they are mild. DOCTOR: (Turning to face the audience.) I believe we've heard enough, esteemed ladies and gentlemen. This obstacle to the Oligarchy must be obliterated, obviously. (Swiveling toward the rebel.) Before the eradication procedure, do you have that obligatory last request? MARLBORO: Yeah. (He looks lovingly at the ashtray.) Hot damn yeah, I'm dying for a cigarette!
DOCTOR: Your smoke signals gave you away--- the lingering stench that could be be found out by someone with the worst adenoids on the planet. It not only poisons the body and the mind, (Picking up the ashtray and putting it close to Marlboro's face.) but the clean beauty of our perfect paradise. (Vitale's face changes from stern to kind while beginning to walk in circles around the table and Marlboro.) But, you know how we yearn to bring benevolence as well as justice to every individual, opportunity for a life term for death is offered -- be a spokesman for our way of life, by recanting the nicotine rebellion openly in front of millions!
MARLBORO: (Puts hand to his mouth with an imaginary cigar.) Eh, what's up Doc? Maybe you could also take smoke and blow it out your ass! I wouldn't be the mouthpiece for your antiquated, antiseptic, anti-liberty Atlantis. Even if I was dying of cancer, I would raise even higher the Tobacco Torch against Tyranny!
DOCTOR: Your incendiary pell mell Pall Mall philosophy, will be purged from our world. You think that liberty is uniquely your bell to ring.
MARLBORO: (Sings.) You can ring my bell......, ring my bell. (Shouts.) LSMFT, MF! (Starts singing) Winstons taste good like a cigarette should. (Emits calmly.) And they are mild.
DOCTOR: (Turning to face the audience.) I believe we've heard enough, esteemed ladies and gentlemen. This obstacle to the Oligarchy must be obliterated, obviously. (Swiveling toward the rebel.) Before the eradication procedure, do you have that obligatory last request?
MARLBORO: Yeah. (He looks lovingly at the ashtray.) Hot damn yeah, I'm dying for a cigarette!
CURTAIN
NOTE: The play may be gender modified, naturally. Also, FYI, this was not funded by any tobacco company. I once smoked, but I quit. I enjoyed English Ovals and Players Navy Cut, ooh boy the combo of Virginia and Turkish tobaccos. I smoked a pipe, too. Love those Dunhill brands. But, when I was a big beer drinker, I became hooked on menthols. Then non-menthols tasted like soap, go figure. I recommend a course of action, too, that eventually phases out les fumes from your life. However, cigarettes should be treated like outdoor barbeque, in my opinion. Over-charbroiling meat can cause cancer, too. But, one wants to live now, too. Caveat Emptor.
A one-minute play for Gone in sixty seconds - A theatre quest
The PRISONER sits crumpled on the floor, almost broken but clinging to sanity through sheer force of will. The GUARD enters - a person with a cruel, vicious nature just barely concealed behind a veil of civility.
Guard: So, Prisoner Two-Four-Seven, do we find you in good spirits today?
Prisoner (automatically) : I didn't do it.
Guard: Yes, you said that on my last visit. And the one before that. And the one before THAT. You "didn't do it".
Prisoner: I didn't do it.
Guard (ignoring the prisoner): I don't want this session to be like our last. Look! (gestures) I haven't brought Citizen Jones and the... instruments.
Guard (ignoring the prisoner): I just want to talk, this time, Prisoner Two-Four-Seven. To talk about your crime and perhaps come to some kind of understanding.
There is a pause. A beat. Two beats. Is the prisoner considering what the guard has said, or just too dazed or drugged to respond? The guard looks expectant.
Guard (losing the thin veneer of patience maintained thus far): You're a PROBLEM, Prisoner Two-Four-Seven, did you know that? I can't have you killed because Our Glorious Leader has decreed that no-one is to be executed without a trial. I can't release you because that would mean you were wrongly arrested, and Our Glorious Leader is never wrong. I can't send you to trial because you won't admit your GUILT, and you ARE GUILTY, Prisoner Two-Four-Seven, because you were arrested on Our Glorious Leader's authority, and OUR GLORIOUS LEADER IS NEVER WRONG!
Guard (almost talking over the prisoner): Didn't do WHAT?
Prisoner: I didn't... I don't...
The prisoner loses focus and trails off for a second, but then focuses, the previous conviction returning.
The guard sneers.
Guard : I'll see you NEXT year.
END
What follows is my entry for TenMinJoe's Gone in Sixty Seconds - A Theatre Quest. It may seem a bit presumptuous of me to offer up yet another version of a myth that has already been treated in verse, drama, and interactive fiction by such grand masters as Ovid, George Bernard Shaw, and Emily Short (respectively). In my defence, I can say that (1) nobody will waste very much time by reading my version, which fits well within the parameters of TenMinJoe's one-min. shows, and (2) I actually wrote the first draft of this in 1996, somewhere over the North Atlantic on a British Airways flight from Birmingham to Toronto, and so it technically predates the work of at least one of my betters. It has never been published or performed before; in fact, it has languished in a spiral-bound notebook for eight years until opportunity knocked and I was inspired to tidy it up and post it here.
I have included my original suggestions as to costuming and lighting, for the sake of completeness, but I believe that the sketch can be successfully put on with the minimal resources described by TenMinJoe. After all, there is a long and noble tradition of playwrights demanding the impossible and directors somehow managing to deliver brilliant approximations thereof; and besides, it's not as if I'm calling for the onstage transmogrification of a poodle or some such.
Galatea by Waldemar Exkul [Downstage left, the NARRATOR, a woman in modern clothing, lit by a neutral spotlight, stands in front of the proscenium. She is holding some notes. Slightly farther upstage and to the right, but not quite at the centre of the stage, GALATEA, a statue, stands frozen on a small pedestal. In fact she is an actress wearing a white bodysuit, and lit by a colder, bright white, tightly focused fresnel to give the impression that she is made of marble. Over the course of the narrator's speech, the light on GALATEA gradually fades from white to red. To GALATEA's left stands PYGMALION, a man in a toga, holding in one hand one of the tools of his art—a mallet or a chisel or a file; his other hand is empty. His face and hair are covered in fine white dust. He is lit by a weak yellowish light from the right. The NARRATOR speaks in a steady, measured voice, but she clutches her notes tightly, and we can see that her hands are trembling. As she speaks, PYGMALION and GALATEA perform the actions she describes.] NARRATOR: The sculptor stepped back to admire his work. As the sweat trickled down his dusty forehead, the statue on the pedestal was gradually transformed. The cold white marble softened and deepened into the gentle pink of living skin... and the glaring red of torn flesh. Clutching helplessly at her bleeding stomach and thighs, weighed down by the stone that still clung to her breasts, Galatea stumbled from the pedestal, gasping the first and last words of her brief life: GALATEA: Good gods, Pygmalion! What did you think I looked like? [GALATEA collapses on the floor. As PYGMALION starts to move his empty hand, the lights fade to black. The NARRATOR turns and walks out.]
[Downstage left, the NARRATOR, a woman in modern clothing, lit by a neutral spotlight, stands in front of the proscenium. She is holding some notes. Slightly farther upstage and to the right, but not quite at the centre of the stage, GALATEA, a statue, stands frozen on a small pedestal. In fact she is an actress wearing a white bodysuit, and lit by a colder, bright white, tightly focused fresnel to give the impression that she is made of marble. Over the course of the narrator's speech, the light on GALATEA gradually fades from white to red. To GALATEA's left stands PYGMALION, a man in a toga, holding in one hand one of the tools of his art—a mallet or a chisel or a file; his other hand is empty. His face and hair are covered in fine white dust. He is lit by a weak yellowish light from the right. The NARRATOR speaks in a steady, measured voice, but she clutches her notes tightly, and we can see that her hands are trembling. As she speaks, PYGMALION and GALATEA perform the actions she describes.]
[GALATEA collapses on the floor. As PYGMALION starts to move his empty hand, the lights fade to black. The NARRATOR turns and walks out.]
Afterword: Classical Greek sculptors, as compared with, say, present-day American advertisers, had a much more realistic view of female beauty, so perhaps I am being a bit unfair to Piggy here. Still, even dear old Publius Ovidius Naso (not that he was faithful to his Greek sources) calls the sculptor a misogynist, one who "detest[ed] the faults beyond measure which nature has given to women" and aspired to do nature one better. (I can't really quote Ovid at will; that was cribbed from Edith Hamilton.) So perhaps the real Galatea would have bled in other places, but she would have bled nonetheless.
SCENE: Behind an imaginary store window.
Herman: (weighing the item hesitantly) We must not be hasty, dear.
Sarah: No, certainly not.
H: Perhaps we should consult our advisor beforehand?
S: Maybe.
H: Yes, I feel we can trust him well. He has yet to fail us.
S: I have faith in him.
(Herman nods and returns the item to its place, following Sarah who has already begun departing.)
SCENE: All three stand in an imaginary living room, Walter and Sarah facing Herman.
Walter: (shaking head) This will not do at all.
Herman: But have you considered-?
Sarah: (interjecting) We have already been through this, Herman. It is simply not possible.
W: Indeed.
H: No! No, but this is ridiculous! Surely you cannot suppose that-
S: (moving closer to W.) It has been supposed.
W: (putting arm around S.) You will need more faith in our decisions, Herman. Otherwise it will be difficult to understand.
H: I no longer believe my eyes!
(Herman, confused and angry, storms away.)
SCENE: An imaginary room, with an imaginary window, their imaginary curtains almost closed. Herman sits on a chair with Theresa, his mother, standing behind him.
Theresa: (sympathetically) It will be alright...
Herman: (weeping) What could have happened?
T: (reassuringly) There is time enough to discuss this later.
H: (despairingly) Later? But that's it! Again!
T: (dismissively) Aren't you ready?
H: (surprised, eyes darting to the window) Is she here already?
(Theresa steps in front of Herman, out of his reach, drawing the curtains further apart. Sarah enters from behind with a chair that she sits upon beside Herman.)
T: (patiently) Now try to look at it this way...
(Sarah listens.)
(Walter enters, carrying a chair that he sits upon beside Sarah.)
Walter: (condemned, to Sarah) So, you were right all along...
(Herman listens, frowning and shaking his head slowly.)
SCENE: An imaginary pub. Sarah is on the same chair, alone. A stranger enters with a chair, sitting beside her.
Stranger: (drunken) It'd taste better with champagne, y'know. That, that's, cul'n'ry blas'my.
Sarah: (looking away) Fuck off.
"The Ninth Planet" by Ashley Pomeroy - Note: The cast consists of two men. Drink Man and Paper Man. Drink Man is mildly sozzled and has the best role. Paper Man is reading the paper.
The Situation: Two men sitting on chairs, facing the audience.
The Minute: Drink Man: Eh. Eh, excuse me fellow. Sir. I couldn't help but notice that you were reading the paper.
Paper Man: Yes, it's the Daily Telegraph. Boris Johnson is a very funny man.
Drink Man: D'you, ah, d'you happen to know anything about the planets, like?
Paper Man: The planets?
Drink Man: Yeah, you know, the celestial spheres. Great big spinning lumps of rock, and gas...
Paper Man: Well..
Drink Man: And asbestos. There's planets made out of asbestos, you know that? People can't go there because of the fibres, you know?
Paper Man: Right.
Drink Man: D'you know about Pluto?
Paper Man: The Disney character?
Drink Man: Eh?
Paper Man: He was Mickey Mouse's friend. I think he was meant to be a dog. Bit racist nowadays.
Drink Man: Eh? Pluto's the ninth planet. Ninth... out of nine. Last. Last and least.
Paper Man: I believe in France they call it 'Pluton' (said in exaggerated French; "plue-TON")
Paper Man: Pluton! In France, they call it Pluton.
Paper Man: Yes, it's where the plutonium comes from, Pluto. It's where all the weapons of mass destruction are hidden.
Drink Man: Really? Does NASA know about that?
Paper Man: Yes. I have the telephone number of NASA here if you want it, next to Andrew Marr.
Drink Man: We should blow it up.
END THE
Or, The Roasting of The Christ
Scene: A Dean Martin-style celebrity roast. Five chairs are placed in a semi-circle. Seated from left: Don Rickles, Dean Martin, Jesus Christ, Phyllis Diller, and Telly Savalas. We join the roasting in progress.
Guests laugh, then Curtain
There's an elevator. There are two people outside the elevator. It should be obvious that one is an alien -- Antennae on their head, HELLO I AM AN ALIEN hat, t-shirt that says I ABDUCTED AND ANALLY PROBED YOUR MOM AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS PAINFUL RASH, be creative. The other is not an alien.
They get in the elevator.
Guy: What floor?
Alien: What? I'm not an alien.
Guy: Uhh. Ok. What floor?
Alien: Oh. The roof.
The guy pushes the button. (A real button would be scandalously decadent. Pantomime, you fools!)
Alien: Not that I have to go the roof to use my amazing alien technology to summon horrible spacely doom upon your puny Earth city! Ho ho ho! That I can do from anywhere. I mean can't do. Right. Not an alien. I just... want to... eat the birds. FEED! FEED the birds.
The guy nods & smiles politely, trying to be quiet and thereby encourage the alien to shut up.
Alien: Yes indeed. Entirely non-alien people in this here elevator.
The door opens (Ok, no props, right? Can you swing some elevator door sound effects? Some people going "Shoosh" "Shoosh" a la Star Trek?) and the guy is about to get out. The alien leaps out first, shoving him back in. The guy is unfluttered, once more.
Alien: Hah! Not so fast!
Guy: This isn't the roof. This is the fourth floor.
The alien looks around wildly. Ham it up so much it hurts.
Alien: (looking back at the guy at last) ... I bet you think I'm going to shout "PENIS" and run away like a crazy alien, don't you? Human fool!
Guy: I was expecting it, yes.
Alien: Well it ain't gonna happen.
The Guy leaves the elevator.
Elevator Door: Shoosh.
Guy: Now you must take the stairs to the roof! You fool! Who is the puny Earthling now! Ahahaha!
Alien: Curses! If only I could use stairs! Why is it that the alien mortal enemies of humanity always have some fatal flaw?!
Curtain.
Ok, technically I suppose that last line doesn't count as wholly original. Fair use, though, eh?
Enter 3 actors. Sex or race of the actors doesn't matter. They wear contemporary, casual clothing.
Actor1 sits (from the audience's view) on the right, Actor2 on the left, Actor3 sits with his back towards the audience on the middle chair.
The actors sit. The lights dim. There are 3 spots on the actors, directly from above.
Lights out.
The end.
A man and woman stand on stage, with a third person standing between them, mouth open.
MAN: Behold! My newest invention! The Turing Recursive Universal Examiner 6000-B! WOMAN (unimpressed): Sliced bread, look out. MAN: Hush! The TRUE6000 is very sensitive to sarcasm. It analyzes statements for truth. Watch, I'll demonstrate how it works.
The man grabs a firm hold of the middle person's left ear, and the person's mouth shuts.
MAN (very loudly and well-enunciated): Abraham Lincoln died in 1865. TRUE6000 (robotically): This statement is ..
