MAN
It’s not as if this hasn’t been done before. This whole thing. This same thing. Let’s have no illusions. Let’s go into this thing with our eyes open as it were. I believe it was Samuel Beckett who said I can’t go on.
(Pause.)
Was that too easy? Maybe that was too easy. Nothing worth doing is easy. Nothing worth doing is worth doing well. Nothing worth doing well is worth doing at all. You see we are here with no illusions. Staring things straight in the face. Eye to eye, man to man, heart to heart, soul to soul. It’s like an effluence. I open my mouth and it’s like any other orifice. It weeps. It excretes. We have a contract you and I. It was an implicit contract and I am now making it an explicit contract. We are to do something. Something is to happen of note. Something worthy of remark. And the beauty of the whole thing is that if nothing happens. When all is said and all is done and all is a washout a total bust, you can say, “Well that was a total bust,” and you will have completed a positive action. An act of volition. Of this you can be sure. Of this you can be agreed, right. That we are here.
(Pause.)
Anyone see Thom Paine? What happens next?
(Pause.)
Right. We have a contract you and I. You and me? I have a contract, I do. Yes. You and I. You and I. Here we are. This is the contract that once was implicit and I am making explicit. You are here because you want something. And I am here because I want something. It has been said that this is the basis of theater. This is the basis of conflict, when I want something, and you want something different. If I were really handsome, and could sing like a canary. If I could cut a dashing rug and fill out a rugged figure. If I could lift you up to the highest heights, and toss you back down to the depths of sorrow, if I could be your proxy through the dark corners of your psyche, and show you what it means to be human. If I could do all that with an arch of my eyebrow, then we might have not a conflict, but a burgeoning relationship founded on mutual understanding. What I fear is to come, however, is a deepening void between us, as I desperately chatter and gape, grotesquely groveling for your approbation as you quietly leave the room and pretend that none of this ever happened.
(Pause.)
Goodbye, then.
(Pause.)
Well, that’s over with. Imagine if you will, imagine. By the way. I don’t have any stories to tell you. You will hear nothing of my life. I will be revealing no dark family secrets. Nor will I be doing impersonations of colorful characters from my past. Now, imagine with me that I’m just some crazy dude on the subway. Just standing, talking to no one, or maybe looking right at you. Talking and talking and talking and making you keep your gaze averted. So that you want nothing more than to look, to speak, if just to say leave me alone you fucking freak. If nothing more than to know I’ve moved on. But i am like a drill.
(Pause.)
That was not a good time to stop. But, I am not...you know I am getting really sick of saying I, maybe there’s some way for the man standing before you to speak and speak well...
(As he speaks the flashlight beam starts to drift away from his face and downward. He keeps his face in the light as best he can without acknowledging that something is going awry.)
Because this all so easily becomes about ego. It becomes a cult of personality. A way for egos on both sides of the moat to increase their self regard. Self regards. Um. Um. Um. Um. The important thing is to keep moving. If one can keep moving keep up the flow and the pretense, then all can go about their businesses fairly unscathed. And fairly is what we...it’s the thing to aim for, is it not. It is or is not. It is naught. See, not, n-o-t, and n-a-u-g-h-t carry to different spellings. They have discrete meanings. N-o-t means many things, a denial, a lack, an absence, and n-a-u-g-h-t means nil, nothing, so they are indisputably different, and at the same time, indisputably alike...
(He gives up on trying to keep his face in the light.)
Besides being homophones, they meet at the intersection of absence and zero.
(Pause.)
Well, that worked out well. As well as could be expected. I’m not complaining. I wouldn’t dare. You know who has cause to complain? People who stepped on landmines. Paraplegics. Orphans. People wracked with cancer. Political prisoners. Not me. Yeah, I knew I couldn’t hold out without referring to myself again. Without referring to myself again. Without referring to myself again. Please put the light back on my face. It’s so hard to get good help these days. Ha ha ha. That was droll, wasn’t it. Imagine me, in a drawing room on the upper west side. With a brandy in my hand and a revolver in the other. You are my mistress.
(Playing the part.)
Oh, I’m frightfully sorry. It seems I’ve killed your valet. And I know how hard it is to get good help these days. Wait. I’ve got a better idea.
(He takes the flashlight from the stagehand and turns it off.)
I’m having a bit of deja vu. A dark room. A guy talking. People watching. Wondering. Hoping. I don’t know. It seems like maybe there’s still something we’re all missing. Even right now.
(Turns the light onto the stagehand.)
How’s that? Profound? What can this mean. Is he meant to represent everyman? The anonymous worker silently, diligently serving the elite. Ah, but that would require my status as an elite, a status which, I am proud to say I deny. I will be no man’s master. But neither will I be any man’s servant.
(He holds the flashlight out to the stagehand, who does not move.)
I am not beholden. I am free. There is nothing more beautiful, no woman more attractive, no whore more attractive than freedom.
(He holds out the flashlight again.)
See how admirably he demonstrates his freedom? Perhaps he is not an insolent monkey of a peon, but a shining example of American virtue. Well? Is that what you are? Are you virtuous? Are you strong? Are you brave. Will you now stand up to my tyranny Will you show that you have a soul and are more than a bag of muscles, a vessel of vessels. If you dare not, then take the flashlight from my hands and let’s get on with this thing.
(Pause. He deflates.)
Don;t worry. It’s all part of the show. But you probably weren’t worried. I wish you would worry, just a little. I mean, this is really hard, isn’t it Ethel?
ETHEL
Yes.
MAN
Yes?
ETHEL
Yes.
MAN
I didn’t quite expect you to answer me.
ETHEL
Sorry.
MAN
It’s all right.
ETHEL
Really?
MAN
Really.
ETHEL
Thank you.
MAN
You’re welcome. I mean, I did ask you a question. I should by all rights have expected an answer, unless my question was purely rhetorical, in the which case it would have been simpler and clearer to phrase it as a declarative statement.
ETHEL
Just say. This is hard.
MAN
This is hard.
ETHEL
I mean that would say what you wanted to say without it being a rhetorical question.
MAN
Just so.
ETHEL
What?
MAN
Just so.
ETHEL
Yeah. I just don’t really know what that means.
MAN
It doesn’t mean much of anything.
ETHEL
Maybe then it should go in the same category as rhetorical questions.
MAN
Just so.
(Silence.)
Will you please take the flashlight now?
(He holds it out to her. She ignores him.)
That was not a rhetorical question.
ETHEL
What? Sorry. I was lost in thought.
MAN
The flashlight. Please?
(Ethel takes the flashlight.)
Nothing easy. Ethel, shine the light on my face so we can put these good people out of their misery.
ETHEL
Good?
MAN
Who knows? A stray compliment never hurt anyone.
ETHEL
Just so.
MAN
Ha ha. Quiet for a minute. I need to think.
(A very, very long pause.)
ETHEL
A ruse...
MAN
I know. What Ethel just cued me into, which I was about to say anyway, is that of course, this was all a ruse. But you knew that didn’t you? You never thought: “why won’t the stagehand do his job? I wonder if he was supposed to speak.”
(The light drifts away from his face again: he makes no attempt to follow it.)
You’re too clever for that. You don’t get ruffled, you don’t get scared. You remain urbane, no matter how many valets I shoot. It would have been great if we had filled the room with water, and I had declaimed from a leaking boat, speaking the last line as it sunk beneath the waves. Or done the whole thing from trapezes. Imagine. A razor-sharp point of light dancing through the darkness, following my face, my voice, but not me. A better looking, more charming, more James Bond type of me. That would be cool. That’s what we’ll do for the movie version. It’ll be CG, but done well. And tastefully. Well, that’s it. Thanks for coming. Goodbye.
(Pause. He takes the flashlight from Ethel and turns it off.)
2 comments:
Just so.
Aha! Beckett is WRITING rather than rearranging books. Way cool.
Vacuous didn't get the b b joke. Hmm...
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