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THE DIRECTOR


ACT 2: Fund-Raising Party

 

AT RISE: Immediately following Scene 1.

AUTHOR
(Addresses REAL AUTHOR)
Do you want me, as AUTHOR, to choose the MODERATOR?

REAL AUTHOR
Sure, go ahead.

AUTHOR
Is there anything in particular you'd like to know?

REAL AUTHOR
Yeah: "What works; what doesn't?"

AUTHOR
OK, uh---(Name goes here)---would you moderate for us?

(Action based on taped Village Playwrights' responses to Scene 1)

ACT II: TRAVELING

Scene 1: Getting Off

AT RISE: Chairs have been rearranged to simulate three rows of paired lounge chairs on the deck of an ocean liner. The ACTOR and the AUTHOR are seated together in the two chairs in the last row, chatting quietly but not in any way intimately. The DIRECTOR is sprawled across the two chairs in the first row, taking a sunbath. The READER is sitting primly, feet together, script on lap, in a chair in the second row, facing the audience.

READER
Act II, "Traveling." Scene 1: Getting Off.
(Clears throat nervously and looks around)
At rise, chairs have been rearranged to simulate three rows of paired lounge chairs on the deck of an ocean liner. The ACTOR and the AUTHOR are seated together in the two chairs in the last row, chatting quietly but not in any way intimately---
(Glances toward them disapprovingly)
The DIRECTOR is sprawled across the two chairs in the first row, taking a sunbath---
(Waves his hand limply toward the DIRECTOR)
The READER is sitting primly, feet together, script on lap, in a chair in the second row, facing the audience.
(Stares into audience for a moment, then reads with Austrian accent)
So. Now vee may perhaps to begin. Yes?
(Turns to glare at the AUTHOR)
How many people here, think you, have ever read Portnoy's Complaint?

AUTHOR
Don't look at me; everyone knows I'm not the real author.

READER
Where is this ship supposed to be going?

AUTHOR
We're not going anywhere; we're in the middle of a pacific.

READER
I heard that "uh"! "Uh" pacific, nothing simple like "thee" Pacific, to stand for "thee" Pacific Ocean, no, just "uh" pacific---

AUTHOR
If you insist, then, the middle of a pacific stage.

DIRECTOR
A pacific stage is no good! There's got to be action!
(Jumps up and moves around)
Actors have to move around!

READER
Don't just do something, sit there!

DIRECTOR
(Rushing toward READER)
Someone's going to be thrown overboard if he doesn't stop complaining!

ACTOR
(Pleased)
Dwindling!

READER
(To DIRECTOR)
You seem to be the one doing all the complaining. How about you going over the side?
(Takes DIRECTOR's script from him)

DIRECTOR
So you can keep going over the top? After you, dear Gaston.
(Takes READER's script from him)

READER
After you, dear Alphonse.
(Grabs his script back from DIRECTOR and shakes his head disapprovingly)
Anyone in the audience under ninety isn't going to know who we're talking about.

AUTHOR
Literature is supposed to be broadening.

ACTOR
And frustrating, which this scene certainly is so far.

AUTHOR
Why frustrating?

ACTOR
It's not going anywhere!

READER
(Glancing at AUTHOR)
But I hope I'm going to be going somewhere very nice very soon!

DIRECTOR
And to think that some people I won't mention think that I am obsessed with sex!

ACTOR
Isn't saying "some people I won't mention" the same as mentioning---me?

DIRECTOR
Don't mention it.

ACTOR
It? Now I'm an it?

AUTHOR
Distracting the subject only slightly, why does everyone keep talking about going somewhere. Isn't it good enough just to be, right where you are?

ACTOR
To be---or not to be.

AUTHOR
Right! You said you always wanted to play Hamlet. Would you be any different if you actually did play Hamlet?

ACTOR
It'd look nice on my résumé.

READER
If that word wasn't accented, you'd be talking about your resume.

AUTHOR
OK, so your résumé would be different, but would you be different?

ACTOR
I think so; I would have played Hamlet. My memory would have changed, so I would have changed.

AUTHOR
So your memory is you?

ACTOR
It's certainly part of me.

AUTHOR
So if you change your haircut, you change?

READER
For the better, I'd hope.

ACTOR
Sure: when I change something, I feel different. And when I feel different, I am different.
(Emoting)
To be, or not to be.

(READER opens his mouth to speak)

DIRECTOR
(To READER)
Don't say it.

AUTHOR
You mean when you feel hungry, you're a different person from when you feel sick? When you feel happy, you're a different person from when you feel sleepy?

ACTOR
Yeah, I think so.

AUTHOR
So when you're hungry and happy and sleepy---

READER
---And dopey and bashful and sneezy and doc---

DIRECTOR
When I'm hungry and sleepy, I'm grumpy!

READER
I knew I forgot one!

AUTHOR
Are you a combination of the different persons you were when you were hungry or happy or sleepy, or are you a different person altogether?

ACTOR
It's not that complicated; I mean I actually am one person, not some convoluted combination of people I might be with any one feeling. But that person changes.

AUTHOR
But when does the hungry person change? When he sits down to eat? When he takes the first bite? When his stomach's full?

READER
When he explodes!
(Mimics his own body exploding)

DIRECTOR
(Brushes imaginary food from the back of his own head and body)
Now that's a change!

ACTOR
Certainly I'm not the same person I was twenty years ago.

READER
(Sucks his thumb and lisps)
I'd be three years old.

AUTHOR
We're not talking about your physical body. Millions of your cells die and are reborn every second. Your very bones are replaced in a few years.

READER
Excuse me, sir, could I borrow some old boner you're not using at the moment?
(Moves in on AUTHOR)

DIRECTOR
(To READER)
Could you please refrain from commenting on every speech?
(READER opens his mouth to respond)
Please?
(READER closes his mouth; to AUTHOR)
So while the machine may change, the "ghost in the machine" stays the same?

(READER opens his mouth. DIRECTOR glares. READER shuts mouth)

AUTHOR
What if I upped the ante---

(READER opens his mouth. DIRECTOR glares. READER shuts mouth)

AUTHOR
---and said that all the ghosts in all the machines were actually the same---

READER
"Pantheism! Pantheism!" ---The DIRECTOR takes a handkerchief out of his back pocket and stuffs it into the READER's mouth. ---Really! I hope it's clean. Or not too dirty. Or interestingly dirty. OK, mum's the word. But the scene will be arid from now on. Get it? Mum? Arrid?

(DIRECTOR glares. READER sucks in lips and looks angelic)

ACTOR
But deep down, people really aren't the same.

AUTHOR
You didn't go down deep enough. Sure, some people speak, and think and dream, in Chinese or Urdu or Pashto---but if you go deeper than that, to those inmost beings that love and imagine and quest for truth: aren't they all the same?

DIRECTOR
Does everyone search for the same truth?

AUTHOR
Sure, or it wouldn't be worth calling truth.

ACTOR
But what about---those monsters---who are only interested in money, and power, and control?

AUTHOR
They've shut off, or shut down, their inmost beings. Whether they've been hurt, or corrupted, or misdirected---
(Slowly raises his arm with a pointing finger)
They've mistaken their finger for the moon.

READER
(Stuffs his hand into his mouth to mimic a handkerchief's effect)
Isn't this getting the least bit pretentious?

AUTHOR
Pretension, ambition, aspiration---all three words are very close to the same thing. I might admit that this---
(Slowly raises his arm with a pointing finger)
---was a bit much.

READER
A bit?

AUTHOR
These subjects matter to me; I'm not pretending. They should matter to everyone.

DIRECTOR
You send messages by telegrams, not by plays.

AUTHOR
I'm not trying to get people to think the way I do---

READER
Ha, ha, ha.

AUTHOR
People should at least consider these things more often.

DIRECTOR
They'll consider them when they want to, not when you want them to.

AUTHOR
Plays have to be about something.

DIRECTOR
Yes, the interactions of the players, the changing emotions of the characters---portraying life, not talking about it.

ACTOR
Didn't you say something about whales, or destroyers?

AUTHOR
That's coming in the next scene.

ACTOR
Aren't we in the middle of the Pacific?

READER
Which way is Japan?

ACTOR
Then why don't we move along?

AUTHOR
(Shrugging and pointing to READER with authority)
Hit it!

(NO BLACKOUT)

Scene 2: Enter Whales

READER
Scene 2: Enter whales.

AUTHOR
All problems should be so easily solved.

DIRECTOR
But they can't be. People love their problems.

AUTHOR
People love their problems? That's really sick.

DIRECTOR
We're all sitting at a table with this huge Lazy Susan on it. And in the compartments of this Lazy Susan are our needs, and our fears, and our hatreds, and our complaints. We sit there, turning it and turning it, going over them again and again: how can I make more money? How can I lose, or gain, just five pounds? What's for dinner? My friend's mother's dying. My uncle's getting Alzheimer's. My best friend's in the hospital again. Over and over; again and again, round and round.

AUTHOR
(Displays sudden, frantic, enormous enthusiasm)
Wait!

ACTOR
What's the matter?

AUTHOR
It's now 9AM on the Thursday morning of August 31, 1995, and I'm sitting at my keyboard---

DIRECTOR
You can't say that: we're long past August of 1995, and I know you don't play the piano---

READER
He's at his computer keyboard, dummy.

ACTOR
Let him talk before he splits.

AUTHOR
I'd asked for ideas---let's just say that I rubbed my magic talisman---

READER
(Makes jerk-off motions with his left hand and arm)
I'll bet you rubbed your magic talisman---

DIRECTOR
I didn't know you were left-handed.

READER
There's lots of things you don't know about me, bubby.

ACTOR
Let him talk before he pees in his pants.

AUTHOR
OK, then say I asked for inspiration---and I got it!

READER
You asked for it, and you got it.

AUTHOR
Thank you. I had the craziest dream last night, and I just must talk about it.

DIRECTOR
"Just must?" That won't work. What have you been drinking---or smoking?

AUTHOR
I'm in this huge apartment filled with lots of people of all ages: kids, parents, grandparents, in this close-knit Jewish family.

ACTOR
I didn't know you were Jewish.

AUTHOR
I'm not---and believe me, I've never dreamed in Jewish before this!

READER
OK, out with it.

AUTHOR
One of the boys wasn't there anymore. But he wasn't dead, he'd left the family and gone away, maybe to the West Coast....

READER
(Ineptly sings the following)
"California, here I come---"

ACTOR
Hush.

READER
Hush?! I haven't been told to "hush" in years.

AUTHOR
The mother, in the family, showed me a letter that she'd gotten from her son. You know how hard it is to remember anything you read during a dream. Anyway, this letter had been typed on paper that's covered with a white chalky material, like Ko-Rec-Type---

DIRECTOR
Did the Jewish community use Ko-Rec-Type?

ACTOR
Oh for Heaven's sake, let him get his dream out of his system!

AUTHOR
Anyway, something in the letter made his mother very sad, but I couldn't ask her any questions. Then the dream switched to some kind of festival. I could look out over this sunlit, dust-raising horde of people. It looked like a festival in India or Pakistan. The women were wearing gold-lined saris----their noses pierced by rings that had tiny rubies set into them.

DIRECTOR
What is all this supposed to mean?

AUTHOR
It's hard to describe: the feeling of sadness for the lost son. The happiness of the people at the festival, as if this were a time that everyone put on their best clothes and celebrated a wedding, or a funeral, or living! The women's faces with bright eyes---it reminded me of a time when I was in India. We took a bus to the Nicholas Roerich museum in Naggar, north of Delhi. The bus was jammed. The men were on top of the bus, clinging to the bars of the luggage racks, blown by road-dust. The women and children were crammed inside. The women were sparkly-eyed: talking and laughing---the people here ate a ruby-amber honey that was made by bees that fed on marijuana nectar. All the fields were planted with marijuana. The bees were stoned out of their gourds, making honey that stoned these women out of their gourds.

ACTOR
Sounds like Heaven!

AUTHOR
Well, a noisy Heaven. The women were talking, laughing, and showing off their children and jewelry and clothing. Everyone shouting over the bus-noise.

DIRECTOR
And I suppose all the kids were screaming and yelling at once?

AUTHOR
No, as I remember, all the kids were quiet.

READER
Ruby-amber honey on their Cream of Wheat. Yummy!

AUTHOR
Most kids, even babies, are quiet in India. They have their mother's constant attention. When the mothers work in the rice fields in the south, they have their youngest strapped to their backs. The other kids are working right beside her. The kids are always there, but they only scream and carry on when they're playing by themselves. With adults they're always quiet.

ACTOR
Maybe they're always with their kids because so many of those kids die young.

AUTHOR
Maybe. Extended families help, too. Even if the mother's working in an office away from the family, there's usually a grandmother, or an older brother or sister---always someone paying attention to the kids. So they don't have to scream for attention.

DIRECTOR
Too many kids. In China they passed laws allowing only one child per family. I think their population is actually decreasing. Pretty soon India's going to be the most populous country on earth. Even with so many kids dying young. Still too many kids.

AUTHOR
Birth control's starting to catch on, but some men like their women pregnant or nursing all the time.

READER
Indian fundamentalists! At least they're not as crazy as American fundamentalists!

ACTOR
What makes you say that?

READER
Hindus believe in reincarnation. Everyone gets born again and again. But Americans believe in "the Bible." So everyone is going to rise again on the final Day of Judgment.

ACTOR
So?

READER
Everyone's going to rise again in the flesh.

ACTOR
And?

READER
To get their hooks into everyone's soul as soon as possible, these crazies say that a fetus has a soul from the moment of conception.

ACTOR
What difference does that make?

READER
So all these fetuses are going to rise again, and all the spontaneous abortions are going to rise again, and even all the stillbirths are going to rise again!

ACTOR
Yeah? So what?

READER
Well, if one woman has had two spontaneous abortions and one or two stillbirths, and all of them rise again, how are all of them going to fit inside?
(Pantomimes one baby in his stomach, one on his shoulder, and one on the top of his head)

DIRECTOR
I always make a practice of believing two impossible things before breakfast.

READER
Then you'll fit right in with the Religious Right. They know that all military men need their whorehouses to let off steam, except for the gay military men, who are expected not to have any sex at all while they're in the military.

DIRECTOR
You can raise everyone's taxes, so long as you don't raise mine.

ACTOR
Remove all regulations from my businesses, but keep all those other businesses under firm control.

AUTHOR
Keep all those gay teachers out of classrooms. Even though thirty straight teachers and fifty straight relatives failed in their efforts to make me straight, one little limp-wristed teacher can corrupt an entire school system without trying to, or even wanting to.

READER
God, please don't let Newt Gingrich become gay. Could you imagine Rush Limbaugh in a steam room?

ACTOR
Don't be nasty. Someone out there might find Rush Limbaugh attractive.

READER
And Brad Pitt might fly to Never-Never Land with me in his arms.

AUTHOR
There's someone out there for everyone.

READER
Well, anyone for Rush Limbaugh can stay out there as far as I'm concerned.

AUTHOR
Underneath that soft exterior may lurk a Man of Steel.

READER
Underneath that soft exterior is undoubtedly a yucky, mushy, sqwushy interior. May we change the subject, please? Let's spend time with something pleasant.

DIRECTOR
You wanna go back to Brad Pitt?

READER
That's not a bad idea.

DIRECTOR
He's too young for me, I like men who are more developed. More mature.

READER
(Leans toward AUTHOR, eyeing him and describing him)
I like men about five foot ten, medium build---
(Leans closer, stating AUTHOR's eye color)
________ eyes, wearing----
(Describes AUTHOR's clothes until AUTHOR interrupts him)

AUTHOR
(Uncomfortably turns away from READER's attention)
I'm not attracted to any particular physical type. What's inside is more important.

READER
(Sits back in his chair)
One duodenum, at least one kidney, preferably two. Exactly 43 inches of small intestine followed by three feet of large intestine followed by---

DIRECTOR
Why do I think this is leading into sex again?

ACTOR
Because it is?

AUTHOR
I don't think sex is only about beauty. Just because I think someone is beautiful doesn't mean I want to jump into bed with him. I just want to look at him.

READER
(Primps in his seat)
It is so annoying being stared at all the time.

ACTOR
(Addresses AUTHOR)
You don't want to touch him? You don't want to get to know him?

READER
You don't want to rip all his clothes off and lick him for months?

ACTOR
Haven't you ever followed some beautiful guy just to see where he lives?

READER
I followed this really gorgeous guy once. The most beautiful man I'd ever seen. I kept hoping he'd lead me back to the nest!

DIRECTOR
What about jumping into bed with him and not having sex?

READER
What about the sun rising in the west.

AUTHOR
(Addresses DIRECTOR)
That can work out OK, sometimes. But it's hard to pull it off.

READER
If it's hard, it's easily satisfying for both.

AUTHOR
Both people have to think the same way at the same time. It can be awful if your timing's off---when one wants more than the other wants to give.

READER
Two shits that pass in the night.

DIRECTOR
Will you stop!

READER
Only if you will. It can be awful if our timing's off. Oh, that reminds me of that sick joke about the gorgeous actor who had everything that any director could ever---

DIRECTOR
Timing!

READER
That's the one!

ACTOR
(Addresses AUTHOR)
But if the two were intelligent, and really understood each other, couldn't one forgive the other for moving too fast, or too slow?

AUTHOR
Maybe on a desert island, with no one else around. But this city is always so busy---there are so many people, so many demands on your time, so many distractions. It's too easy to drop something that's not working out precisely the way you want it. You forget about one and go on to somebody else.

ACTOR
Not always. Somebody might be worth waiting for.

AUTHOR
But the other person will have moved on. If you miss that---one---moment, well, you've missed it forever.

READER
Don't worry, honey, there'll be another moment along, any minute now.

AUTHOR
That's what I mean! Another moment, yes; but that moment---if you miss that moment you don't get another chance.

READER
That old Lazy Susan of Life will have whirled right past you?

DIRECTOR
That should be my line.

READER
(Points at script)
No, it says right here: READER: That old Lazy Susan of Life---

DIRECTOR
I mean, since I was the one who had a lovely speech about a Lazy Susan, I should be the one who talks about the Lazy Susan now.

READER
But, oh great DIRECTOR, you have such influence that every word you say---
(Points to his own forehead)
---will remain permanently embedded in my cerebellum---

ACTOR
Cerebrum.

READER
(Glares at ACTOR)
Remains permanently embedded in my head---
(Addresses DIRECTOR)
So I'll remember every word you will have ever said. Oh, I made a couplet!

DIRECTOR
Would that were so!

READER
That I made a couplet?

DIRECTOR
I wish you did remember everything that I have ever said.

READER
Why do I have the feeling that we're about to get personal again?

ACTOR
Well, we're not going to get personal again.

READER
Isn't that something that the AUTHOR should be saying?

ACTOR
No, I don't want this to get personal. Not here, not now.

READER
Wait a minute here, now.
(Points to each character as he names them)
I'm talking about the Lazy Susan that the DIRECTOR will be talking about later. The ACTOR is saying things that the AUTHOR should be saying. I think that the REAL AUTHOR is getting us all confused!

ACTOR
No, it's gotten beyond anything the real author may have wanted.

DIRECTOR
How could that happen?

ACTOR
The real author may have started out with certain particular intentions, but we all know how the characters can take over once we've started writing a play. We have gone beyond what the real author wanted.

READER
I just think the "real author" is "real incompetent." I think I should take over the part of the DIRECTOR. I've had much more to say than he has, anyway.

DIRECTOR
But that means you'd have less to say, as I have had less to say.

READER
Wrong! If I read the part of the DIRECTOR, the DIRECTOR will actually begin to direct something. Like directing that the ACTOR and AUTHOR should change places, too, since everyone knows, or should know, that the ACTOR is really an author and couldn't care less about acting. And the AUTHOR isn't the author anyway, so it doesn't matter who plays the AUTHOR.

AUTHOR
Hold on there! I like my part. It has pith!

READER
I path.

AUTHOR
You can't take it away from me. Anyway, I'm lousy with accents.

ACTOR
It's not an accent, it's a speech impediment.

AUTHOR
I was just trying to be---diplomatic.

READER
A first! A genuine first!

AUTHOR
Comedies of manners are impossible to write these days, because there are no traditions that are held sacred. We have only personal attack and sarcasm to rely on. Bernard Shaw could write whole plays about a woman being a prostitute, or a man being a philanderer, or a woman making up her mind whether to take a lover or not---

READER
And if I become the DIRECTOR, I will certainly have more to say about a man making up her mind whether to take a lover or not---

AUTHOR
Nowadays a man going to bed with his mother would only rate a footnote---

DIRECTOR
One must admit that it has been done before.

AUTHOR
So we have to tackle bigger questions---

READER
---With ever larger tools---

AUTHOR
---And leave things unresolved, since life affords no pat answers, and it's now the fashion to confuse and bewilder the audience---

READER
---Not to say "bore the life out of." Yes, I know. I just did say "bore the life out of."

ACTOR
But this thing still isn't going anywhere.

AUTHOR
Where should any play be going?

ACTOR
Toward the resolution of some conflict. Toward the spotlighting of some facet of a meaningful life.

READER
Sounds like you want a "well-made play." Isn't yesterday's "well-made play" today's "ill-made play"? Or the other way around? Or vice first?

AUTHOR
Tom Stoppard writes plays that you have to read before you see to understand them; writes plays with absolutely no movement in them. Mamet writes plays where everyone's a villain. Andrew Lloyd Webber writes. And Alain Boublil rewrites. A.R. Gurney writes and writes and writes and writes---

DIRECTOR
We get the idea. But it's nice to have a beginning, a middle, and an end, rather than a middle, and a middle, and a middle.

READER
Or a muddle, and a muddle, and a muddle.

ACTOR
You don't have to find something new to say, but you do have to find an original way of saying what may have been said before.

READER
What if I turned back to page 1 and started reading in pig Latin?

AUTHOR
Audiences can always vote---

READER
---With their feet---

AUTHOR
---With their feet, and also with vegetables and cat-calls and negative word of mouth. Personally, I've vowed never to subject myself to Mamet's misanthropy again.

DIRECTOR
"Mamet's Misanthropy"! Great title for a play!

ACTOR
(Addresses AUTHOR)
But one day Mamet might write a play that you'd want to see.

AUTHOR
Yes, if word-of-mouth assured me it wasn't anything like the usual Mamet play.

READER
Thank God, we've reached page 46 at last.
(Addresses AUTHOR)
Wait a minute. We have not reached page 46. This is only page 45.

AUTHOR
Sorry. I've been doing rewrites. I should make a note of that.

READER
(Addresses REAL AUTHOR)
Yeah, you should!

DIRECTOR
What's the significance of page 46?

READER
Well, we know this was only going to take about an hour, and forty-six pages take under an hour, so we must be finished with the scene and ready for the critique.

ACTOR AND AUTHOR
(Together)
Why do I know it's not going to be that simple?
(READER follows following argument, as if watching a tennis match)

AUTHOR
(Addresses ACTOR, leaning in front of READER)
Don't take my line!

ACTOR
(Addresses AUTHOR, leaning in front of READER)
It's highlighted in yellow, so it's my line!

AUTHOR
But it says AUTHOR, not ACTOR, so it's my line!!

ACTOR
I don't have time to read the stage directions, let alone whose line this is. That's why the real author---
(Addresses audience, sneering at AUTHOR)
---and not this jerk who's just playing at being the author---

AUTHOR
I am so successfully impersonating the author---
(Addresses audience, sneeringly indicating ACTOR)
---at least better than this moron is trying to play the part of an actor---

READER
(Addresses REAL AUTHOR)
(Author's_name), you are really messing this up. First of all, I'm supposed to be the only one addressing the audience. Second of all, you did mess up the underlining back there; I saw it! Well, I'm taking over. Like I said before, the ACTOR---
(Grabs ACTOR's script)
---should be played by the AUTHOR---
(Shoves ACTOR's script into AUTHOR's hands; they fumble with scripts; READER ultimately takes AUTHOR's script and hands it to ACTOR)
---and my piddling part---
(Shoves his script into DIRECTOR's hands; they fumble with scripts; READER ultimately takes DIRECTOR's script and reads from it)
---should be exchanged with the DIRECTOR.

DIRECTOR
There! And that even works! Now I am the DIRECTOR!
(Shows ACTOR his script)
See? It says DIRECTOR, and it's underlined in yellow, and I am reading it!

ACTOR
Well, just because I'm reading a part called the ACTOR doesn't mean I'm not really still the AUTHOR!

DIRECTOR, READER, AND AUTHOR
(Together)
But you never were really the AUTHOR!

READER
I don't like this part. I'm not really a snide person---
(Addresses DIRECTOR)
---like this person really is---

DIRECTOR
Look, we already established that this isn't based on the actual personalities of the people reading it---
(Snickers behind his hand)
---so this play can be played anywhere, by anyone---

ACTOR AND AUTHOR
By anyone who can follow the yellowed-in lines.

DIRECTOR
Follow the yellowed-in lines---
(Voice rises in pitch)
Follow the yellowed-in lines---
(Addresses audience, using his normal voice)
If you think I'm going to launch into "We're off to see the Wizard," you can forget about it.

ACTOR
(Addresses REAL AUTHOR)
Am I supposed to be doing a speech impediment here? I'm not real good at speech impediments.

AUTHOR
(Speaking distinctly, addresses REAL AUTHOR)
And if you think I should lose my speech impediment now, it will totally destroy the faith the audience has in my verisimilitude.

DIRECTOR
For God's sake, don't touch his verisimilitude!

READER
As DIRECTOR---
(Turns to DIRECTOR, who glares at him)
---as former DIRECTOR, I don't think this is going to work. The audience will become confused---

DIRECTOR
Will become confused?! Ooooooh, there's that interrabang again! But, actually, I think I agree with you---

ACTOR, AUTHOR, DIRECTOR, AND READER
(Together, to REAL AUTHOR)
We want our old characters back!

REAL AUTHOR
OK---that'll make it easier for me, anyway.

(Characters, with as much confusion as possible, exchange scripts)

ACTOR
I feel much better. No one likes a speech-impedimented author---

DIRECTOR
It's a good thing Kevin couldn't make it tonight---
(Addresses REAL AUTHOR)
(REAL AUTHOR’S name)---you can't use real names in here---remember, it could be anyone---

AUTHOR
Talk to me about that! I'm the AUTHOR again! That feels right!

READER
Well, I reluctantly admit that I agree. I felt so self-conscious reading all those DIRECTOR lines. I can be myself again!

DIRECTOR
Oh, good.

AUTHOR
And I can stop thinking about which switched swish speaks which speeches. I know, that can't be easy for me to say.

READER
(Addresses AUTHOR)
But you keep putting that in the present. Not only didn't you write it now, you didn't write it before. And you're speaking as the REAL AUTHOR thought when he was writing this.

AUTHOR
Stop bugging me. Anyway, on with the play---
(Points his forefinger as an imaginary gun at DIRECTOR)
Bang, you're dead.

DIRECTOR
You can't do that!
(Addresses REAL AUTHOR)
You can't do this!
(Addresses audience)
Don't let them do this to me! I don't want to die!

READER
That was Joan Collins's finest movie moment. Remember "Lord of the Pharaohs"?

ACTOR
Wasn't it "Lord of the Flies"?

DIRECTOR
Joan Collins wasn't in "Lord of the Flies," she was in "Land of the Pharaohs."

READER
Rock Hudson was Lord of the Flies. You're right, it was "Land of the Pharaohs." All the stones were crashing down, blocking the exits from the pyramid Joan Collins was in, and she kept moaning, "I don't want to die; I don't want to die."

DIRECTOR
That was only a movie; this is real life.

AUTHOR
This is a play.

DIRECTOR
But it's my real life in this play---
(Addresses REAL AUTHOR)
I even made a point of coming back this week to read this crappy part. Sorry, it's not really a crappy part---
(Addresses AUTHOR)
---stop putting these terrible words in my mouth---
(Addresses REAL AUTHOR)
---but Kevin and Al didn't show up, so why didn't you kill off one of them?

AUTHOR
You keep forgetting. I said, "Bang, you're dead"!

DIRECTOR
But look at the script! I keep on talking!

READER
Some people just don't know when to stop.

AUTHOR
OK, but you're not reading the stage directions.

DIRECTOR
I told you I never read stage directions.---Pauses, looks at script. DIRECTOR dies.---Awwwwwwwwwww.---Pause. No! Long pause. Please? Longer pause. Shit! DIRECTOR throws down script and leaves stage.

ACTOR
Dwindling!

READER
Blackout. End of scene.---Aha! The REAL AUTHOR's getting smart. He didn't say end of which scene. OK, what do we do now?

REAL AUTHOR
Appoint a moderator, like always.

(BLACKOUT)

END OF ACT II