Nowthis.webexcerpt.doc

Now This received a university production in the Quintero Theater at the Universityof Houston in April of 2011. The director was Sara Becker; the scenic/projection designerwas Clint Allen; the costume designer was Paige Willson; the lighting designer wasTravis Horstmann; the vocal coach was Jim Johnson; the musical director was AndrewHager; the sound designer was Jacob L. Davis; the choreographer was Teresa Chapman.
The University of Houston cast included Lauren Ballard, Chris Battle-Williams, MelanieBurke, Sam Brown III, Melanie Burke, Domonique Champion, Sawyer Estes, MiguelGarcia, Andrew Garrett, Kimberly Hicks, Kevin Lusignolo, Katie Mattox, BenjaminReed, Andrew Runk, Richard Sabatucci, Joel Sandel*, Jenna Simmons, Alan Wales,Rosie Ward, Lisa Wartenberg.
************************************************************************ Now This was developed in 2009 and 2010 as part of the Oregon ShakespeareFestival’s Black Swan Lab for New Work. The Producer was Lue Morgan Douthit; theStage Manager was Jill Rendall.
I am especially grateful to the following OSF actors for their generous contributions tothe development of the script: September and October, 2009:Ryan Anderson, Catherine E. Coulson*, Richard Howard*, Jeffrey King*, AnthonyHeald*, Miriam A. Laube*, Gregory Linington*, Terri McMahon*, Vilma Silva*,Derrick Lee Weeden*, Tyrone Wilson*.
August, 2010:Tony DeBruno*, Michael Elich*, Brent Hinkley*, Miriam Laube*, Dee Maaske*, TerriMcMahon*, Chinasa Ogbuagu*, David Salsa, G. Valmont Thomas*, K.T. Vogt*.
(*Denotes Member of Actor’s Equity Association) All rights reserved. For permissions, contact Scott@ScottKaiserShakespeare.com Welcome to the town of Purple Mountain, where teenager Joey Adderall isat the end of his tether. His girlfriend, Amy Clearblue, is pregnant; hisfather, Mort Soloflex, hasn’t spoken to him in years; his mother, PurelleSwiffer, is a clean freak; his former teacher, Activia Green, is a ragingliberal; his boss, Shad Rogaine, has anger management issues; hisroommate’s pit bull, Oswald, is a terror. He’s broke, alone, and withouthope. What’s a young man to do? Joey heads to the Clear Cut Mall with aloaded pistol, and shoots his way out of his disposable life, taking with himseveral fellow consumers. It’s all captured on CCTV by security specialistRandy Lenscrafter, and uploaded to the internet for everyone to see. Can thepeople of Purple Mountain ever hope to understand—and learnfrom—Joey’s rampage at the mall? All rights reserved. For permissions, contact Scott@ScottKaiserShakespeare.com CAST of CHARACTERS(in order of appearance) A Note About Casting:The number of actors required for the play, and the manner in which it can be cast, ishighly flexible. Doubling issues can be resolved through the use of quick changes,abstract movement, masks, voice-overs, image projections, video projections, and anyother theatrical devices you can dream up to tell the story.
All rights reserved. For permissions, contact Scott@ScottKaiserShakespeare.com It is September. Starless night in the small town of Purple Mountain.
Hush now. No words. For all the consumers of the muted town are sleeping now.
(He takes out his cellphone and shuts it off.) Unplug, be still, and listen—for you alone are wide awake at this unpowered hour of theUnisom night.
Listen. It is night down Brownfield Road, where the Dasani Creek trickles into theAquafina River, where the Allosaurus and the Smilodon once drank deep, where theDasani tribe once civilized a small village, where the first euro-settlers set up camp,where the lumber mill was built, where the garment factory stood, and where the waste-water treatment facility now stands.
Look. It is night along Big-box Boulevard, where the Clear Cut Mall stands like asuburban fortress moated by a vast black asphalt sea, flags waving gallantly in thevalley’s Frigidaire, rising high above white windowless walls bursting with thepaparazzied glare of store signage and security floodage.
It is night at Richman’s Auto-Mart on Lemonworth Way, where this year’s plus-sizedmodels line up hip-to-hip along the sidewalk, bumpers bared and headlights high, like akick-line of rotund Rockettes, framed by a midnight-rainbow of buxom balloons, andsplashed with Edison-daylight.
It is night on State Highway 29, heading south-south-south into town, where bang-the-drum billboards boast of 24/7 moldy-oldies on KPUR radio 98.6, the Cracker-Jack newsteam on TV-13 KPMT, the Best-Fricken-Sports-Channel-Ever on Red Rocket SatelliteRadio, cheap diesel at the Ramparts Truck Stop and Car Wash, slots and 21 at the DasaniCreek Casino, and eighteen championship holes at the Broad Stripes Golf Club.
It is night at the Land-of-the-Free Gun Shop & Range, where locked glass cabinets ofsidearms and loaded racks of rifles proudly wear the names that tamed the savagewest—Eastwood Revolvers, Wayne shotguns, Fonda Rifles, Costner pistols, Hackmanhandguns, Ford Derringers, Cooper carbines, Stewart semi-autos, MitchumMuzzleloaders, Palance pump shotguns, Autry assault rifles, and all the ammo, blammoand camo needed to regulate an uninfringed militia.
Time passes. Come closer. And listen.
All rights reserved. For permissions, contact Scott@ScottKaiserShakespeare.com It is night at the Unilever Hospital, where overworked Birth hit the in-vitro-trifecta,bringing three fresh consumers into the world, hand-delivered one-by-one-by-one, naked,hungry, and sleepy, through amnio-slick mortal-portals, placed in shopping carts, and leftto rest quietly, lit by the Dura-flame of their mother’s flushed face.
It is night in a rock-a-bye corner of the Walbox parking lot, where RVers freely spend thedo-not-pass-go night—resting their weary bones in save-a-bundle trundle beds aboardThe GuzzleGreen, The FossilFeast, The LaneWeaver, The ReaperRacer, TheGrandeFinale, and The DieBroker.
It is night at the Purple Mountain Eucerin Church, on the corner of Proctor and GambleStreets, where the title of Pastor Poligrips’s upcoming sermon—“Don’t Discount yourUnborn Child”—splashes the root-ruptured sidewalk with black Lucite letters lit fromwithin.
It is night at the Bright Stars Strip Club, where Trix-elated Trauma knocked back shotswith Mort Soloflex, who drank, in one happy hour, four-fifths of a fifth of scotch beforehurtling himself home at hypersonic speed along Highway 29, sliding out of control atthe sharp left turn by Ginsu Drive, executing an Olympic triple-axel down theembankment, and smashing to an unscheduled stop courtesy of an old stone wall buriedbeneath a BlackBerry patch.
Come still closer now. Quietly. And look.
For only you can see the wired-tired citizens of Purple Mountain drowsing in their lay-away bedrooms ’round the town—on View-lust Lane, where late shows flicker likeunwatched plasma campfires; on Consumption Street, where smartphones snooze inkitchen-counter cribs, sucking electro-sustenance from the teat of the grid; on SprawlStreet, where dentures pillows zippers undies nails have been clipped, stripped, zipped,flipped, and dipped; on Encroachment Road, where romance novels lie, well-thumbed, inlonely laps, the lights still blazing; and on Have-more Street, where Beamers and Benzes,tucked nighty-night in triple-A garages, Beautyrest; Listen. For only your ears can hear the hopes, wishes, prayers, fears of the rechargingresidents of Purple Mountain, lying quietly in the beds they made for themselves, as thespendthrift night consumes the unused minutes of their lives.
From where you are, you can hear their dreams.
(The CITIZENS begin to enter, as if sleepwalking. They are fully clothed, but barefoot.) You can hear the dreams of Lunesta Richman, Purple Mountain’s wealthiest denizen,owner of Richman’s AutoMart, the Broad Stripes Golf Club, and the Clear Cut Mall, inhis King-of-the-Cosmos bed, who REMs, in Cinemascope, of— All rights reserved. For permissions, contact Scott@ScottKaiserShakespeare.com —the moon. I own the moon. I bought it when it was low, and everyday I watch myinvestment rise. I’m waiting for the right moment to sell, when it’s astronomically-high.
In the meantime, it’s my personal, private, 36-crater luxury golf course. I tee off at FraMauro Highlands, where Alan Shepard, commander of Apollo 14, played a par 4 with alow-gravity 6-iron, striking the Titleist with a one-armed shot—thwack—and watching ittravel for miles and miles and miles towards the lunar horizon.
You can hear the dreams of Amy Clearblue, six-days-shy of sixteen-years-old and no-returns-after-sixty-days pregnant, smitten with indecision, whose maybe-baby wasundertaken, loveless and gloveless, on a too-hot summer’s night, between two stonecherubim in the pioneer’s cemetery, who dreams, in 3D Ultrasound, of— Not a beautiful baby in my womb, but a tiny Joey in my belly, a joystick in his hands,using my body for his amusement—thumbing the buttons to bloat my boobs, to fuzz mybrain, to puke my food; his quick fingers giving me pimples, clogging my bowels,popping my veins, swelling my feet, swinging my moods up-center-left-down-right,remote-controlling my entire life, until I can’t take it anymore. So I take a Sharpie, drawa black hole on my tummy, reach in, grab the coiled cord of his boy toy, and— You can hear the dreams of Dash Goodyear, the former football quarter-pounder forColgate Crest College, whose instant-replay-brain hallucinates, in Super 8, of— —steering a Revlon-red Corvette to the vacant lot behind Eveready Stadium, whereCharmin Bounty, the Cheerio, inflates my pigskin and polishes my trophy the night afterthe big game.
Rescue me, my hero sandwich! Get me on the scoreboard! Take me into the end zone,knock me one between the goal posts, and put—me—over—the—top! And Johnny Viagra, manager of the Land of the Free Gun Shop & Range, who returnedfrom Iraq less two wings and a prayer, curled up like a burl in his powder-burned bed,who dreams, in night-vision optics, of— Patrolling Land’s End at sunset, on pristine white sand, fingers enfolded with my fiancé,the amorous ocean gently rising to kiss our entwining footprints. Ahead, I see a logrolling softly in the surf, washing up onto the beach. As we approach, I see it’s not alog—it’s my left leg. As I let go of my lover’s hand to pick up the limb, the sea turnsblack—crude oil black. When I look back, my bride is gone. Now my right leg rolls in All rights reserved. For permissions, contact Scott@ScottKaiserShakespeare.com with the Coldwater Tide. As I reach for it, I find I can’t move—I’m buried to my waist inthe oil-soaked sand, and sinking fast.
And Mrs. Purelle Swiffer, sani-scrubbed in her pine-spruced, hepa-filtered, dust-bustedhospital-cornered bedroom, tightly tucked beneath celery sheets and celibate wool, whodreams of— —strolling in a divine, primeval garden—the Garden of Eden—naked, immaculate, andin perfect harmony with nature. And an ancient gardener—the Master Gardener ofEden—takes my hand, and shows me a tree, and speaks to me gently, and says: This tree is your tree, Purelle. It is the Tree of Love. I want you to take care of it for me.
And it’s the most beautiful tree I’ve ever seen, with delicate branches, and velveteenleaves, and silk blossoms, and succulent fruit. And the very sight of it fills me withrapturous joy.
But then I see that one of the blossoms has been spoiled by a tiny aphid, so I ever sogently pull off that one petal; but now the tree is ever so slightly out of balance, so I go tothe other side of the tree and pinch off a leaf; but now the tree looks a tad lopsided again,so I reach down low and snap off a little twig; but still the tree looks a skosh crooked, so Ireach up high and pluck off some fruit; but still the tree looks askew, so I pick, and I snip,and I tug, and I lop, at branch, leaf, bud, and fruit, until, before I realize what I’vedone—oh, my! And Sergeant Hartz, of Purple Mountain Animal Control, who dreams, as he does mostnights, in pixilated dash-cam black-and-white, of— —the unblinking marbleized gaze of the paralyzed doe, left-for-dead in the breakdownlane of Highway 29, her breath vaporizing in the cold night air, and the appalling pop,rattling off the trunks of petrified trees in the adjacent woods, as I pinch the trigger of mypistol, sending a bullet through her brain, releasing her from a world of pain.
And Activia Green, a history teacher at Advil High School, who dreams, in grainy blackand white, of— All rights reserved. For permissions, contact Scott@ScottKaiserShakespeare.com Rappelling down the bridge of Lincoln’s unfinished nose on a rope, bouncing both feetoff his cheek, and slipping onto his lips, to speak with— The monumental sculptor, hanging from a harness, chiseling away at Lincoln’s chin.
Stop! This isn’t art. It’s eco-vandalism! You’re desecrating the sacred landmark of anindigenous people! Poppycock! I’m creating an indelible landmark for the American people.
Nonsense! This land is your land. This land is my land.
This land is Sioux land. They call this mountain Six Grandfathers.
So what? It’s also been called Cougar Mountain, Sugarloaf Mountain, SlaughterhouseMountain, Keystone Cliffs— Whatever you call it, it belongs to the Sioux. It was granted to them by treaty in 1868, inperpetuity— All rights reserved. For permissions, contact Scott@ScottKaiserShakespeare.com Treaties aren’t forever, missy, they’re written on paper, and signed by men. Rock isforever, this granite is forever.
Well, carving faces into this granite is an act of enviro-narcissism.
It’s a work of monumental arrogance.
It will be known forever as my masterwork.
It was a masterwork of nature, until you gave it a colossal moustache.
I’m proud of Teddy’s moustache. Think it turned out rather bully! Now watch out! Thisthing’s gonna blow! Look on my works, ye Feeble, and despair! And Bobby Starkist, straight-A, capital-A, all-American senior at Advil High School,eagle-scouting, chess-king-crowned, V-card-carrying, MIT-bound wonder-son, whodreams of— —the instant of celestial conception, when virginal Space, who looks a lot like AmyClearblue, is inseminated by the seed of rapacious Time, who looks a lot like me,swelling her big-belly with our voluminous new universe, which, for some 13 billionyears, a blink of Time’s blushing eyelid, she will nurture in her cosmic womb, patiently All rights reserved. For permissions, contact Scott@ScottKaiserShakespeare.com awaiting the moment when, after eons of uber-gestation, she will push it through awormhole between her divine legs, giving it place in the Omneity.
And Lilly Eli, a graveyard-nurse at the Twilight’s Last Gleaming Retirement Home,stealing 13 winks on the sagging Wint-o-Green sofa in the break room, her bloodstreamrichly mixed with embezzled medications, and her purse thick with surreptitiously filchedscripts, who dreams, as she often has since mid-life caught her napping, of— Driving along the Equatorial Highway in a huge U-Haul, racing the fading light to thehorizon, pushing a thousand miles an hour, when suddenly I get too close and smash intothe setting sun. Everything I own is thrown from back of the van and strewn all over theroad. I scramble out, trying to gather all of my precious treasures, but I’ve injured thesun, and it’s bleeding to death, and I can’t see to retrieve my suitcases stuffed with oldhopes; can’t rescue my boxes crammed with hoarded bitterness; can’t recover my tubsjammed with collected rejections; can’t save my shoeboxes of hands-never-held, lips-never-kissed, bodies-never-savored scattered along the road. Now it’s completely dark,and they’re gone forever—the apologies ignored, friendships neglected, blessingssquandered, truths untold—and I’m lost without them, can’t navigate, have no identity. Isit in the middle of the road and cry myself blind. But then, I look up, and I see the littledipper in the pristine sky, and it winks at me, and I suddenly feel…calm.
And Randy Lenscrafter, security specialist at the Mall, who dreams, in 35 millimeterstock, of— (Clap) Exterior—A Flower Garden—Day: Wide Shot of Randy beginning to endomorphfrom a human being into a bee.
(Clap) A series of Close-ups on Randy’s anatomy as it grows wings, thorax, mandibles,compound eyes, antennae, stinger.
(Clap) POV shot of a honeybee’s ommatidium vision: the flower garden seen throughsixty-three hundred tiny hexagonal lenses.
(Clap) Zoom in to an Extreme Close-up on the Randy-bee launching himself into the air,his wings beating two-hundred times a second.
(Clap) A series of Steadicam shots: the Randy-bee flies from flower to flower, beckonedby their flirtatious folds, drawn by their kaleidosized colors, fretting from petal to petal,flitting from pistil to pistil, sucking up their precious nectar, eager to bring the honeyhome to feed the hive.
All rights reserved. For permissions, contact Scott@ScottKaiserShakespeare.com And William Zagnut, an estate lawyer for Robbins and Baskin, who, for the past thirty-one years, ten months, four days, seven hours, and fifty-three minutes, has been drawingup the final testaments and executing the last wishes of his signatories to the smallestsub-sub-sub-atomic-heading, the details of which he can recall instantly with punctiliousprecision, now fast asleep in his wheelbarrow-narrow bachelor’s bed, who dreams of— My unsettled clients, buried with as much as they could take with them—diamond rings,gold watches, pearl earrings, silver fillings, titanium hips, silicone tits, Teflon joints,Jarvik hearts, standing at my bed to contest the unexpected execution of their earthlyestates— They found me at work one Monday morning, rooted to my desk, composting like aNovember pumpkin! Do you see me, Will? The heartless soul at your ear? Avis Adderall. You were texting a friend, when you crossed the double-yellow line onPeterbilt Road, and kissed an eighteen-wheeler.
They harvested my parts, put them on choppers, and spread them around the country incoolers.
Yes, you made parting gifts of your anatomical parts—your heart spared a woman inHartford, your liver saved a little girl in Livermore, your eyes sighted a mother in Iowa,your kidneys rescued a kid in— All rights reserved. For permissions, contact Scott@ScottKaiserShakespeare.com Bud Starkist! You drowned in Purple Lake on Memorial Day.
I stripped down to my birthday suit, and jumped out of the boat for a swim. Hit my headon the hull and never came up again.
I remember. They said your blood alcohol was twice the legal limit.
Nerf Goodyear? You passed on the slopes of Purple Mountain.
We were playing football on skis—I went out for a pass, and lumber-jacked into a tree,face-first.
There was blood in the snow. So sad.
Give me a light, will you, Will?—for old times sake? I made love to a lit cig, fell asleep, and burned the house to the ground.
Yes, I saw the report. Cause of death: asphyxiation—they said you never woke up.
(The questions of the dead overlap, building to a crescendo.) All rights reserved. For permissions, contact Scott@ScottKaiserShakespeare.com Did my daughter Amana find her one true love? Did my grandson Bobby solve the mysteries of the universe? Did my son Shad learn to curb his temper? (Cutting them off) O you poor troubled souls, I’ve closed the files on you—all of you.
Are there still willow trees and saxophones? Yes, but who has time to notice? Certainly not the living. Now let me rest in peace.
And Mort Soloflex, on his Ultimate Sleep bed in the Vaseline Intensive Care Unit atUnilever Hospital, with needles, tubes, and wires pumping remorse, shame, and fear intohis nostrils, arms, and chest, who dreams, in sepia-tones, of— All rights reserved. For permissions, contact Scott@ScottKaiserShakespeare.com —looking up from the bottom of my grave, and seeing my only son, my second-wife’sfirst-born, Joey, the boy I haven’t seen, called, or written since his confirmation, his eyesblazing down on me as he unzips his fly, takes aim, and pisses on my barren chest.
You’re still on fire, dad. Here, I’ll put you out. I’ll put you out of your misery.
And Amana McNugget, a real estate agent with Trophy Home Realty, 39 and unhappilyunmarried, asleep in her beautifully appointed master suite with walnut floors, soaringceilings, gas fireplace, and a spacious balcony with majestic views of Purple Peak, hertabby cat, Fisbo, sprawled out beside her on the sale-pending bed, who dreams, in IMAX,of— Swimming slowly south, among a pod of grey whales, gracefully propelling my buoyantbulk through spacious seas, eating nothing but amphipods strained through my baleen,following an ancient aquatic avenue running along the North American continental shelf,paddling, gliding, breaching, diving along the same underwater way that’s been followedfor eons by my ancestors, from the Bering Sea to the balmy waters of Baja, until, shortlyafter arriving, I will choose a favorite male companion, and in the same warm-waterlagoon where I was born, breed.
And Pastor Poligrip, slumbering, as he has since his first unholy emission, with cottonsocks cloistering his feet— —a feather pillow squeezed between his knees, —and a scratch pad on the nightstand to catch his cream-filled dreams, —the better to find the words to paint the verbal-essence of his beloved Joey Adderall— All rights reserved. For permissions, contact Scott@ScottKaiserShakespeare.com —whom he longs to touch with his Vlasic hands, —but dare not, lest he should offend the eleventh commandment, —who dreams, in flickering De La Tour taper-light, of— —my metaphysical muse, the poet John Donne, obliging me with a rhyme for Joey’sface.
Yes, “disgrace” is good, very good.
In the darkness, still asleep, the pastor reaches for his Cross pen and scrawls words on thepad in a dribble-scribble only he, come morning, will be able to read.
Where I can never love but in disgrace.
Yes, that’s good. Well done. Well done. Now sleep. Sleep.
All rights reserved. For permissions, contact Scott@ScottKaiserShakespeare.com And nineteen-year-old Joey Adderall, ejected from his home by his mother, dumped byAmy Clearblue, his first-and-only girl, stripped of his job by Shad Rogaine, manager ofthe Sushi Shack at the mall, sleeping fitfully on the dog-haired, mite-infested, sex-stained, bong-watered sofa-cushions on the living room floor of the home of Lotto Jones,a tenuous friend at best, in an apartment warren on Have-not Street, a .22-caliber Costnerpistol tucked in the glovebox of his shiftless Ford Sinestra, who dreams of— Washing dishes in the kitchen of the Vista on Existence Restaurant, the city spread outlike a billionaire’s buffet 107 stories below me, when a jumbo jet slams into The NorthFace of the building, destroying any way to escape above the impact, trapping ninehundred and eleven souls.
As the flames climb upward, the room smolders, and the building quivers. The toxicstench of jet-fuel burns my nostrils and singes my windpipe as I breathe. All around me,people freak—ankles char; eyes burn; throats sear; lungs choke; they’re on fire, flailing,rolling, screaming for mercy, God-in-Heaven, mercy.
Like a super-hero born with super-powers, able to walk through flame, to breathe infume, to see in smoke, I pull out my Costner, take careful aim, and start shooting people,one by one by one, putting them out of their misery, ending their torment, cleansing theirpain forever. A banker, a lawyer, a doctor, a janitor, a cook. My father is there, on fire. Ishoot him dead. My mother is there, swallowed by flames. I shoot her dead. My boss isthere, being eaten by fire. I shoot him dead. My girlfriend is there, blazing like a torch. Ishoot her dead. I shoot them all. Not out of malice, but out of mercy. Not out of hatred,but out of love. Not like a mortal man, but like a God.
Then, with a shudder, I feel the coming collapse of the tower. With my last bullet, I shootat the window, shattering the glass; My super-powers failing, I stand on the sill and stickmy head out into the sky; the flames lick at my legs, tongue my pelvis, kiss my torso,caress my arms; I lean out, as far into the sky as I can, out, but it’s not enough; I can’tbreathe, can’t bear the heat.
But I refuse to die in flames. I step out into the sky… All rights reserved. For permissions, contact Scott@ScottKaiserShakespeare.com

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