Impromptu No. 1 in Z Major

(the first short play I wrote for the Overnighters - 8/10/08)

THE CAST:

Marilyn - A big shot woman in the theater.

Heather - The schemer.

Rebecca - The dimwitted accomplice.

PROPS:

A bucket

A glass of water

A dummy script which can be torn up

A brown glass medicine bottle (ether) and a rag

A lute or autoharp

A flashlight with colored cellophane over the lens

SETTING: APU Grant Hall, the Overnighters performance.

(lights go up on MARILYN, sitting in front row, looking all important. The curtain is drawn, and there is an air of expectation. Suddenly, MARILYN'S cell phone rings. She answers it.)

MARILYN: Yeah? What do you mean 'apparently there's going to be a slight delay'? I'm... No, you listen - I've got a whole roomful of people here waiting to be entertained, and if you think I'm going to get up there in front of them and do it, you'd better think again! No - no, I'm NOT doing the - I haven't done that in decades! NO! (hangs up viciously) DAMMIT! Where are they? Probably miniature golfing - fuckers. It's that playwright, I knew it the moment I saw him. Not that the actors are any better - and that director! DAWSON! Where are you?! I'm going to make you regret this! (turns to audience, patronizing) I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen, it looks like there's going to be a slight delay. If you'll just sit tight for a minute, I'm going to sort it out. (she stalks out, and we hear her bellow from offstage) HEADS WILL ROLL!

(a moment of stillness, then a commotion from behind the curtain. We hear various clangs and rattles, then HEATHER and REBECCA'S voices)

HEATHER: We're in! Come on, Rebecca!

REBECCA: I'm coming, but shouldn't we-

HEATHER: I told you, piece of cake! No security here!

REBECCA: I know, but Heather, I'm not sure it's -

HEATHER: Listen, Rebecca, this is our big opportunity! The OVERNIGHTERS, for Christsakes! Think how many people will see us! What it'll do for our careers!

REBECCA: I know, but Heather, what about the other actors?

HEATHER: They'll be FINE! It's only ether - it almost definitely won't kill them!

REBECCA: But why did we have to -?

HEATHER: It's a dog eat dog world, Rebecca. The rat race... nose to the grindstone... And that script of theirs was shit. (sounds of tearing paper) Anyway, we DESERVE to be here, and they were in our way!

REBECCA: But -

HEATHER: But WHAT?

REBECCA: But why didn't we just sign up? (long pause) Heather? Heather, what are you doing with that rag? (muffled struggle, subsides)

HEATHER: What I do for a moment's peace. (pokes head out of curtain, notices audience) God! Um, hold on just a second, everyone. We ARE the legitimate actors, here to perform the play, um, written last night, by a, er, very talented - (ducks back behind curtain, stage whispering) Rebecca! Rebecca, wake up! (shaking and slapping sounds)

REBECCA: (moans incoherently)

HEATHER: Come on, Rebecca, it was only a bit of fun - you know how I like to have fun with my ether, huh? Water, water, where is there some water... (pause, then splash. REBECCA coughs and burbles a bit, then begins speaking in a slurred voice)

REBECCA: Heather? Did you-?

HEATHER: No time, the audience is waiting, let's get discovered!

REBECCA: Ooh, I feel sick...

HEATHER: No, Rebecca, you mustn't - oh God. (vomiting sounds) No, at least keep it in the - oh damn, that's my shoe ruined. Get it together, Rebecca! The muse of theater is calling! (HEATHER draws the curtain, revealing her pulling REBECCA, who is huddled next to a splattered bucket, to her feet. REBECCA is still wiping her mouth, and gives the audience a queasy smile. HEATHER beams)

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, we're very pleased to be here tonight, and we do apologize for the wait... We assure you, it'll be worth it. Now, if we can-

(MARILYN reenters at this moment.)

MARILYN: Where the hell have you been? (she advances down the stairs ominously)

HEATHER: Who, us? We've been - er...

REBECCA: We've been in sleepy-land. With bunnies and elves and ... and... (she collapses back onto the bucket and vomits again)

MARILYN: Is she puking? Is that part of the performance?

HEATHER: It could be.

REBECCA: (weakly, lifting her head) Ta-da!

HEATHER: No, I'm pulling your leg, it's just the ether. She has to have the ether - you know, calms her down. She's like a wild animal otherwise.

MARILYN: Ether?

HEATHER: Don't worry, we're the proper actors, putting on the, uh, script... (she goes over to REBECCA and picks up a few scraps of paper, reads from them) Um, "The Men of Regiment D: Stories from the Front Lines", yeah, that's it.

REBECCA: (getting into the spirit, grabbing a scrap) Come on, Sarge, we've gotta make a break for it! The Germans are advancing, with their concentration camps and, hic, their big swastika thing.

HEATHER: (taking REBECCA and shaking her, still reading a scrap) NO, DAMMIT! We've got to hold our position! For justice, and democracy, and all those other really good things! We've got to free Europe from Hitler!

REBECCA: Right! Freedom, and, hic - HITLER! Free Hitler! Free Hitler!

HEATHER: No, no, not free Hitler, free Europe from - it doesn't matter, never mind. (to MARILYN) Anyway, hell of a script really. (she tosses the pieces away)

MARILYN: (suspiciously) Wait a second -

HEATHER: (innocently) Yes?

MARILYN: (looks around, realizes she's holding things up, and grudgingly subsides back into her seat) Oh, just get on with it.

REBECCA: (savagely) NAZI!

HEATHER: Shh! Yes, well, we'll just be- getting on with it. (she claps her hands, rubs them together, obviously thinking hard) Er... Um... You should know - It starts out as a war drama, but then the playwright sort of - changes things, midway through.

MARILYN: Changes things?

HEATHER: Yeah, it's a very avant-garde piece of writing - one minute you're in a tank, liberating all those, um - yeah, and the next it's all, like, you know... (nudges REBECCA, whispers to her)

REBECCA: Oh my prince! My heart would sing a melody that my lips know not! My lips would kiss your heart with my song I cannot sing!

HEATHER: Fear not, sweet princess, my lips know the melody of the song of which your heart spoke... of. Let me serenade you with it - with my lute. (picks up a crude lute and begins singing badly) Looooooooove, looooooooove, I loooove yoooooouuuuuuu....

REBECCA: Oh, yes!

MARILYN: HANG ON!

HEATHER: What?

MARILYN: You were just in World War II! What century are you supposed to be in now?

REBECCA: Eleven!

MARILYN: What?

REBECCA: Several-ty bling!

MARILYN: WHAT??

REBECCA: STARDATE THREE-ZERO-FIVE-EIGHT-TWO... POINT NINE!!

HEATHER: Be quiet, Princess Rebecca!

REBECCA: That's FIRST ENGINEER Rebecca to you!

HEATHER: Be quiet, First Engineer Rebecca!

REBECCA: Yes, Commander Heather!

HEATHER: You're a damn fine officer, First Engineer Rebecca. Stick close; let's scan the room.

(she pulls out a flashlight with colored cellophane taped over the lens, and they go around the audience a bit, shining the light at various random people. After a fairly long pause, REBECCA speaks)

REBECCA: What are we looking for, Commander?

HEATHER: Aliens, of course! One of these people could be being controlled by a Thlagraxian brain parasite... Waiting to strike at any moment, and murcinate us all with an impelled Zoozoo wave! (REBECCA is frightened, and shrinks toward HEATHER)

REBECCA: I don't like techno-jargon, Heather - it's like words that don't mean anything... it frightens me.

HEATHER: It's all right, Rebecca, it's only pretend. (turns on an audience member suddenly) YOU! Are you an alien? (scans with flashlight, long pause)

REBECCA: (breathlessly) Are they, Heather? Are they an alien?

HEATHER: Nope.

REBECCA: What about him over there? He's scary looking! (points to another random audience member, then they move back to the stage)

HEATHER: We know him, remember?

REBECCA: Do we?

HEATHER: Yeah, he's that guy who always... (whispers to REBECCA. They giggle)

REBECCA: Oh yes, I didn't recognize him without his outfit. Yoo-hoo!

MARILYN: (losing patience) Okay, that's it! I don't know who you think you are -

HEATHER: We THINK we're the actors.

REBECCA: But we're not really.

HEATHER: Shh! Yes we are! (to MARILYN) And YOU, madam, are disrupting the course of our very fine play!

REBECCA: (at MARILYN) Inconsiderate! (to HEATHER) Maybe she's a Nazi alien! Gimme the flashlight, Heather, I wanna scan her!

HEATHER: Not NOW, Rebecca!

REBECCA: ALIEN! ALIEN! ALIEN!

HEATHER: (slapping REBECCA) Get a hold of yourself! The show must go on!

MARILYN: But-

HEATHER: (turning on MARILYN) Now, if we can continue without any further interruptions?

MARILYN: Now, look -

REBECCA: (brandishing flashlight menacingly) What's it gonna be... Alien?

HEATHER: Come on, just let us finish our play - it gets better, really it does. Besides, this next scene just sort of, ties everything together...

MARILYN: I'm not -

REBECCA: Maybe SHE needs some ether. (laughs)

HEATHER: Right, well that's settled. (clears throat) Now then - the rest of the play. (turns to audience) So, um, after they beat the Germans in World War II, and courted in Medieval times, and stopped the Thlagraxian brain parasites, our two heroes, um... Well, they...

MARILYN: This better be good.

REBECCA: SHUT - UP! SHUT - UP! I can't WORK in these conditions! (crying) Oh, Heather, it's nothing like what I'd hoped, it's all aliens and bad lighting and... and... (breaks down sobbing)

HEATHER: (to MARILYN) See what you've done, you heartless bitch! (to REBECCA) There, there, sweetie, it'll be all right, it'll be all right. (she consoles REBECCA quietly with ether as MARILYN'S cell phone rings again)

MARILYN: (irritably) What? Yes, I know something terrible's happened, I'm sitting here watching it! Where did you get these people? And what the hell kind of bad medicine was that playwright taking? It's gibberish! AND they're freaking out the audience, which takes a lot with Alaskan theatergoers! I swear, I'm going to... (HEATHER and REBECCA look up nervously at this next bit, slowly rising with sheepish, "you caught us" smiles, REBECCA still clutching the ether and rag) You what? Found... ? In a bunker? Bound with DUCT TAPE? Oh my GOD! Well who've we got on stage then? (she hangs up, looks at HEATHER and REBECCA. A moment of silence, then she begins talking to them, in a low, deadly tone, standing up and moving closer, towards the stage) So, it seems we've found the people who were SUPPOSED to be onstage tonight... Any idea what happened to them?

HEATHER: (badly feigning innocence) Uh, well... I mean, so many people you see in the course of a day, it's hard to...

REBECCA: (sniffing the ether rag) What'd they look like?

MARILYN: Did you really think you'd get away with it?

HEATHER: Well, you know, not really. Still, worth a shot though, eh?

MARILYN: Why didn't you just sign up?

REBECCA: I asked her that!

HEATHER: (fabricating wildly) Because our names are on wanted posters all over the country... They know all our aliases, and have us under twenty-four hour surveillance.

REBECCA: Yeah, the CIA's got a chip in my pancreas!

HEATHER: We've been on the run for seven years!

REBECCA: Ever since I tried to elope with Jenna Bush!

MARILYN: (advancing further, becoming more menacing) I think not.

REBECCA: (whacked on ether) Um... I'm a genetic scientist whose breakthrough high-tech therapy which could have cured millions was stifled by an evil corporation - then I fell in love with the assassin they hired to kill me!

MARILYN: Mm-mm. (shakes her head grimly. A pause, then they both begin blurting things out at once)

HEATHER: We're old-school hobos, riding the rails and travellin' with our bindlestaff, only the lonesome whistle of the 9:15 train to Poughkeepsie to keep us company, that and our trusty flask of moonshine liquor-

REBECCA: We're a pair of Argentinian transsexuals who came to this country in search of good-paying jobs in the data entry industry. We share an apartment with three Indonesian seminary students who don't like-

MARILYN: (fully on stage now) WILL YOU PLEASE STOP!? (a pause, as she collects herself) All right, do you know what I think? I don't think you're transsexuals, or hobos, or on the run from the government.

REBECCA: But-

MARILYN: And I don't for a moment believe that you developed some kind of miracle cure, or any of these other ridiculous stories you're trying to feed me.

HEATHER: Yeah, well, that's your opinion, right, but-

MARILYN: (overriding her) I believe the two of you are -

REBECCA: -Crazy?

MARILYN: No- well, yes, but -

HEATHER: -Insane geniuses of the stage?

MARILYN: REALLY. BAD. ACTORS. (a shocked gasp and pained exclamation from HEATHER and REBECCA. REBECCA puts the ether rag to her face and swoons. MARILYN slaps it away) And stop huffing that!

HEATHER: Now look here, our stuff is original, daring-

MARILYN: It's SHIT! You're SHIT! What do you call what you were doing up there? SHIT! People don't want to pay money to come and watch SHIT, so take your SHIT, and GET OUT! (this final line sends them both running backstage, HEATHER going ahead, REBECCA stumbling slightly behind. HEATHER'S last line can be delivered from offstage)

REBECCA: (sobbing) She's evil! She called us... bad!

HEATHER: Just keep running! Run until you forget! Run, Rebecca, RUN!

MARILYN: (calling after them, facing away from audience) AND STAY OUT! (she looks self-satisfied, dusting her hands together) Well, I guess that just showed them. Nicely done, you. (she turns back to the audience, and stands frozen, a deer in the headlights. An awkward pause.) Well, um... I guess there's going to be another slight delay. In the meantime... (she engages in an internal struggle, reaching a very tough conclusion) - I will provide entertainment. Does, er, anyone have a ping-pong ball and a rubber glove? (blackout)

END