Play For Our Times: Scene 2

Scene 2

Characters:
PLAYWRIGHT
ACTOR

PLAYWRIGHT: I hope you won't mind a call in the middle of the night. I could not sleep. I need to write another scene.

ACTOR: I never sleep very well. What's on your mind?

PLAYWRIGHT: I told you this is a play for our times, right? Do you think you could talk about the revolution?

ACTOR: What revolution?

PLAYWRIGHT: Any revolution. How do you feel about revolution?

ACTOR: I do know a lot of actors got blackballed in Hollywood for even thinking revolution. McCarthy thought revolution was a communist term only.

PLAYWRIGHT: The illegals are talking revolution, overthrow of this corrupt government. Diego Riviera, the painter, said the Mexican poor always had to think revolution to survive. He said stuff like that after he provided a sanctuary for Leon Trotsky in Mexico who Stalin was trying to assassinate. The US did not want anything to do with Trotsky. The president thought he might need Stalin's help to whip the Nazis. Turned out he did need him, so Trotsky stayed in Mexico and an assassin finally penetrated his security and killed him.

ACTOR: You want me to play Trotsky???

PLAYWRIGHT: No, but do you approve of the new Arizona law SB1070?

ACTOR: No. I am afraid it cannot be enforced without racial profiling among other reasons.

PLAYWRIGHT: Hmm. This might be a problem since I support the law. Perhaps you should move to Arizona where I am so we can work on this play. You need to take in the atmosphere of Arizona. There are some key figures in this SB1070 drama, Governor Brewer and Sheriff Arpaio among others.

ACTOR: You want me to play a sympathetic character or a villain?

PLAYWRIGHT: A very complex male character. Somebody I could fall in love with. I know I am old and fat, but I have always written plays about men I could fall in love with.

ACTOR: So I wouldn't really have to fall in love with you? I could just play the character?

PLAYWRIGHT: Falling in love is far too complicated for the old. In real life. I am 78 years old. I no longer want my vagina penetrated.

ACTOR: I am younger than you are, but I am not sure I could.

PLAYWRIGHT: One of the last boyfriends I had gave me a horrible infection and I had to have my uterus treated with a laser several times. It was very unpleasant and I have never forgotten it. So I have avoided penetration ever since. One of my last BFs could only get a partial erection and required oral sex to ejaculate. I used to be fairly good at that, but it took so long for him to come I lost all interest in that form of sex, too. It is too hard of work.

ACTOR: You are disabled?

PLAYWRIGHT: Yes, partially. They say it is good for old people to have sex, but it gets more and more difficult. My present companion is totally dead down there. He must be in the last stages of decay. I was never able to have a relationship with him the least bit sexual. All his interest was already gone.

ACTOR: You are bored with him?

PLAYWRIGHT: He is totally uninspiring. I think you have to have a little interest in the physical to be an exciting male presence. I can't write a play for him. It would be impossible.

ACTOR: I am having difficulty figuring out what you have in mind.

PLAYWRIGHT: I don't have anything in mind. There are other possibilities. I spent all afternoon writing a letter to Michael Lacey, the executive editor of the Village Voice in New York. He established the New Times in Phoenix and just came out with an article in it and the Village Voice protesting the SB1070. He hates Sheriff Arpaio who arrested him and another editor in the middle of the night for publishing his address and other stuff he didn't like in the New Times. When I am writing to him I consider falling in love with him although he is quite a bit younger, but he has published some of my letters in the New Times, even one a while back where I criticized him for being so obsessed with his war with Arpaio. In his article today he talked about forgiving your enemies. He said the Hispanics are not our enemies. He said we are the ones who need to be forgiven.

ACTOR: You want me to play a Michael Lacey type? A journalist at war with the meanest Sheriff in the US?

PLAYWRIGHT: Could you do it? I told Lacey I found it hard to forgive illegals who shot up my apartment on the west side. I kept calling the police and saying things like, "Come quick, there is this illegal who is crazy drunk, and he is chasing his girlfriend who is on foot. He is in a red car and shooting at her. She is screaming and trying to hide. He keeps coming back and shooting and bullets are ricocheting off the walls of these apartments. Hurry! Here he comes again! I have been calling an hour. He won't stop. He is an illegal. He does not speak English. A red car, speeding! Hurry!"

ACTOR: Maybe I should play the policeman who comes to your rescue.

PLAYWRIGHT: No! I don't want to talk to the police! I don't want you to knock on my door. Just catch the man in the red car.

ACTOR: But who am I to play in this drama?

PLAYWRIGHT: The illegal's girlfriend is probably tired of these antics and is trying to get rid of him, and he is going to kill her if he can. If he finds her he will shoot her. I heard her screaming. She is beautiful, too.

ACTOR: What would Michael Lacey say?

PLAYWRIGHT: Oh, that prick. He doesn't care if all of us women get murdered.

ACTOR: Have you ever loved an illegal?

PLAYWRIGHT: I tried to. He got picked up by the cops and put in jail and he called me to come and see him after we barely got involved. He was an onion picker. Onions penetrated his skin so deeply it turned me off. I was totally unable to respond to him, but he gave me a horrible infection. I had to go back to the doctor twice to get more pills to get rid of it. He said that he was being sent back to Mexico but he would be back in a few weeks. I asked him how and he said he would walk. Sure enough he called me and said he walked all the way! I told him he gave me a bad infection and I could not see him again. Oh my poor uterus, what it has gone through.

ACTOR: Wouldn't Michael Lacey admire you for your compassion? I wonder if he could go to bed with a female illegal onion picker? I doubt it. Editor of the Village Voice.

PLAYWRIGHT: Men don't look at life the same as women do. Surely Michael Lacey does not have to put up with a fat woman either. Thin women have it over fat women when it comes to men even if they stay thin by smoking meth or just plain old cigarettes. I actually lumber about like an elephant since I had chronic fatigue symptoms all this last year and could not take walks and gained weight. I just have to rest until I recover. The vegan diet was what was doing it mostly, I think, but I had an altogether upsetting year over another boyfriend I lost who went into a meltdown, started doing drugs and drinking and the last I knew was on the street.

ACTOR: I hope I don't have to play a homeless hopeless alcoholic and drug addict.

PLAYWRIGHT: No, I fell out of love with him when he got drunk. I have too many drunks in my life already. It is impossible to be in love with a real drunk. Alcohol comes first in their life.

ACTOR: What happened to Michael Lacey?

PLAYWRIGHT: I never stay in love with him long. He pays so little attention to me. Oh, there is a cop I used to know. I was very attracted to him. He is on the other side.

ACTOR: You mean dead?

PLAYWRIGHT: Yes, he died. He is I think a year younger than I am. He was a cop for quite a long time. I think he has accepted an assignment to this Arizona area because he used to be an Arizona cop. I dreamed about him the other night. He was around for hours. He was wearing a uniform so I know he was working.

ACTOR: Why don't I just be myself? The actor. I don't really have a lot of interest in playing a dead cop who is patrolling this area. I have no doubt he is here. But I am afraid if I have to play a dead guy I must decline.

PLAYWRIGHT: Oh, all right, just be yourself.

ACTOR: Are you sure you trust me? I will find this character. Give me some time.

PLAYWRIGHT: Oh, all right. I am tired now. I think I can go to bed and sleep. Good-night.

Header: Man in the Mist by Connie

With the opening of Bohemian Cowboy in LA coming up, my mind is on theater!

Here is my official cardinal shirt, and now that the Arizona Cardinals have made themselves known to the world of football in fine fashion I am thinking how the theater world might do the same. My son Raymond and I have both spent years and years trying to open the doors of theater to local playwrights, and have not succeeded it would seem at this point, since there are no new plays by local playwrights making a stir. But what has happened is that Raymond has taken all the experience he garnered doing new plays by all local playwrights to Los Angeles with him to stage one of his own new plays. Now that has got to catch the attention of everyone, even those who have not been believers in the idea that in order to rejuvenate theater, local stars must be developed, local issues addressed, in short theater needs to become personal and next door, and therefore perhaps not to be missed!
Raymond, despite not being recognized in the press here for years, will carry his Arizona history with him and the theater voice he developed here just may startle the world. Raymond would always try to do the impossible, causing some to think he bordered on the edge of insane. What a tightrope you have to walk to write and perform in a theater piece, bringing it to fruition with a professional sheen. I am so excited by the biggest project he has ever tackled.
The last big play he wrote and produced in Phoenix was Blue Baby which turned out to be too big for the main theater critic in Arizona to handle He did not attend it both times it was produced so therefore had a good excuse not to write about it. It is a landmark play dealing with homosexual assault and rape in the jail system, plus it addressed many more issues in a kind of a memoir and this play even developed somewhat of a cult following despite hardly any critics attending or writing about it. Perhaps they were uncomfortable with the subject matter, who knows, but why? If it is your job to cover theater, you are not doing it when you discriminate, when you black ball a playwright for personal reasons. If a powerful newspaper critic is against you, no other theater company is apt to do your work, since publicity has always been a ncessity for the success of a new play especially which has no built in reputation to help it succeed.
The Arizona State Theater Company is doing Raisin in the Sun which is a very powerful play and I have seen a number of versions of it. That's just it. It is about as safe a choice of a play by a black playwright that you could choose to do. Obviously there is considerable risk to doing new work by local playwrights, but I will tell you what, if you don't take those risks, your theater will never come alie as it could with new work. You will miss the biggest excitement there is to be had in doing theater. All because you knew you had to tackle so many obstacles. Audiences can be arrogant and judgmental. And they will punish you severely if they think you are trying to foist an inferior play on them by someone who does not know what they are doing. Well, Raymond has had to earn his laurels as a playwright.
So now I think all of Phoenix's theater world is looking to see what happens with his great venture in LA, as many know him and have followed his career here for years. They can't help themselves. They have to look.
What will LA theater patrons say about him? Raymond to me has become like a white knight of theater going on a crusade on behalf of all the playwrights in the world. The cowboy is riding his imaginary steed a long way to the promised land. We all can't help but get excited about that. I know him. I know he can ride, he can fight, he can battle, and he can win the hearts of the people. He is a natural born actor who has made himself the conduit for his work. For what he can do.
So I sense magic happening in that dark theater during these last days. The lights are going to come on and a miracle will happen once again on stage. A theater audience will be beguiled once again. A new playwright will be born! Once again.
We cannot always rely on the old ones, who have made it. Their work loses vitality with age. We must have new voices to speak for our times. The old must show respect for the new.