“A Freak Tragedy”
Characters:
august chagrin – a performance artist; dressed in too-small clothes and a bright red toupee; holding a golden urn containing red glitter. (Upstage Right)
rona – a pineapple; holding an empty yellow-orange bowl. (Stage Left)
mona – a cigarette; holding an ashtray full of ashes. (Downstage Left)
amitodana – a strand of prayer flags; holding a silver urn containing purple glitter. (Downstage Right)
diamond – an iguana; holding a chicken bucket containing green glitter. (Upstage Left)
anita – a dildo; holding a flesh-colored urn containing blue glitter. (Stage Right)
Place: San Francisco Bay, the rocky shore of the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary.
Time: October 31, 1994
Setting: The back wall is a mural of white bricks and windows with bars; below them, greenery and long sloping paved paths.
The stage is the foreground of the scene, large jagged boulders rising up and creating several small stages at different levels, one for each Character.
The audience is in the water, essentially is the water. Speakers attached to the bottom of theater seats play the sounds of water gently lapping against a rocky shoreline and occasional nature sounds, birds, boats, etc.
(A percentage of the theater seats should be given to shadowy unnamed characters – sleeping men in trench coats, or dummies representing them; other seats should be shrouded with tombstone-looking covers bearing the names of aids victims.)
august chagrin: Spotlight on a life not lived in vain.
He came from love, and to love he returns again.
(He tosses glitter from his urn into the air.)
(Pause.)
(all turn toward mona, smoking a cigarette, oblivious to the action.)
…He came from love, and to love returns again.
rona: Psst! Mona! That’s your line.
mona: Whut? –Oh.
(Without emotion or inflection:)
I love myself, I love myself.
amitodana: Not yourself. Your son. The child of your loins.
mona: I’m a cigarette; I ain’t got no “loins.”
august chagrin: What night is this? What starry night?
‘Tis Halloween, a blessed fright.
(He tosses glitter.)
all: Trick or treat, the sweet, not candy;
Masturbate—my god, it’s Randy!
(all who have it toss glitter or ashes from their receptacles.)
rona: Hey! My bowl’s empty.
mona: Tough titty, sister!
rona: I’m a pineapple!
august chagrin motions to rona: The sister fair, with rugged skin;
A slice and she is soft within.
rona, ignoring him: Why am I a pineapple?
diamond: Shh.
rona: Don’t shush me!
diamond: Shhh!
rona: Who do you think you are?
diamond: Diamond.
rona: You ain’t a diamond, you’re a lizard! Haa-haa!
diamond: I’m an iguana. I was Randy’s best friend.
mona: You should be a zebra!
diamond: Don’t start, fag.
anita: Girls!
mona: Who you calling a faggot?!
diamond: Cigarette, fag; same difference.
mona: Don’t make me come up there.
(diamond huffs.)
amitodana: Can we please have some reverence for the departed?
(She tosses glitter into the air.)
(Pause.)
rona: I just wanna know why I’m a pineapple.
august chagrin: Because Randy would think it was funny.
anita giggles: You’re a fruit!
mona coughs: I’m a cigarette.
(She tosses ashes.)
august chagrin: Boys with boys and girls with girls,
It matters not in hearts-a-whirls.
diamond: Did Randy ever tell you the story about Diana Ross?!
anita / amitodana: Yes!
rona: Who?
mona: She was one of them fag hags.
diamond: She was an entertainer. A drag queen.
(She tosses glitter into the air.)
mona: A what?
diamond: A drag queen; an artist.
mona: Huh!
diamond: I was there; I should know.
mona: She was a man.
anita: A father figure.
amitodana: Randy’s first love.
diamond: Not. Rich was Randy’s first love.
anita: Rich was Randy’s first fuck.
diamond: Diana Ross was nothing more.
mona: Could somebody tell the cock to watch her god-damn mouth?
august chagrin: Everybody, please!
(Pause.)
Across a country low and high,
The rainbow flag we proudly fly.
(all who have it toss glitter.)
mona: What is this crap? I’m missing LA Law for this?
rona: Why didn’t I get any glitter?
mona: You probably sold yours to buy crack!
(She laughs and goes into a coughing fit, ashes fly everywhere.)
amitodana: It’s not glitter. It’s ashes.
rona: Don’t lie to me, lady. It’s glitter.
mona: Mine’s ashes.
amitodana: It’s symbolic ashes, your brother’s ashes.
rona: It looks like glitter to me.
mona: It’s ashes.
(She tosses ashes.)
rona: Anyway, why didn’t I get any?
mona: Shut your trap!
anita: For fuck sake!
(all freeze.)
Can we get on with this? Can we show the film now?
rona / mona: What film?
(The lights dim, a montage of porn films are projected onto the upstage wall.)
anita: Behind the Green Door; Insatiable; The Opening of Misty Beethoven…
august chagrin: Ace in the Hole; Brotherly Love; Never Big Enough; Weapons of Ass Satisfaction…
anita: The Private Afternoons of Pamela Mann; Talk Dirty to Me; Deep Inside Her…
august chagrin: Abductions in the Park; Rear Views; Hung Like a Horse…
diamond: How about Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit; Just One of the Guys; Desert Hearts…?
anita: What’s that?
diamond: Lesbian films.
august chagrin: Ah, good! –Heavy Equipment; Pool Boys; Dishonorable Discharge…
anita: Deep Inside; In Search of the Ultimate Sexual Experience…
(all look to diamond.)
diamond: Umm…that’s all I’ve got.
mona: Doctor’s Desire…
amitodana: Midnight Cowboy…
rona: Starsky & Hutch!
(The film montage fades. Lights come up.)
(mona fans herself, the ash on top of her head glows orange.)
mona: It’s hot as hell up here. Can we get this over with?
august chagrin: Beware if you must return again,
You’ll find the past will never change.
rona: I’ll say. If I had any glitter, I’d throw it.
(august chagrin tosses glitter.)
amitodana: It’s ashes, symbolic ashes.
(She tosses glitter.)
anita, tossing glitter: It’s pretty!
(mona takes a drag off of a cigarette; all look at her expectantly.)
mona: You know, that was the nicest thang he ever did for me, coming and picking up my ashes.
(She flicks her ash.)
diamond: Randy wasn’t so bad.
(She tosses glitter.)
(A calm descends on the stage, the Characters smile easily at one another.)
august chagrin: Again across the country wide;
Where now to land? Let’s flames decide!
amitodana: Austin, Texas!
(She tosses glitter.)
diamond: Denton, Texas!
(She tosses glitter.)
august chagrin: Actually, it was a little town called Columbus, Texas.
(He tosses glitter.)
anita / amitodana: The Budge In!
(They toss glitter and laugh.)
rona: I still think I shoulda got some glitter. Just ‘cause I’m a pineapple don’t mean I don’t deserve any glitter.
diamond, stepping down to rona’s stage: Here, girl, have some of mine.
rona: Thanks, Diamond!
(rona reaches into the chicken bucket and tosses glitter. They laugh together.)
Whee! That’s fun!
august chagrin: What can be said of Randy’s life?
mona, without emotion or inflection: That he was born into great strife.
rona: That he was a sweet and juicy fruit!
(She tosses glitter.)
diamond: He thought my brother was really cute!
(She tosses glitter.)
anita: He never gained great fame or wealth.
(She tosses glitter.)
amitodana: And in the end, he loved himself.
(She tosses glitter.)
august chagrin: He longed to see the San Francisco Bay,
And now’s he’s gotten all the way.
(all toss glitter and ashes.)
Blackout.
The end.