Best of the Best of PlayGround

20TH ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION THE BEST OF THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (1994–2014) Six short plays celebrating the very best writing from the first twenty years of PlayGround.

THE BEST OF THE BEST OF

PANOPTICON

by Aaron Loeb

RAPUNZEL’S ETYMOLOGY OF ZERO

by Katie May

NET

by Geetha Reddy

MY NAME IS YIN

by Tom Swift

Publications in The Best of PlayGround series: THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND–SAN FRANCISCO (2014) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND–LOS ANGELES (2014) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND–SAN FRANCISCO (2013) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND–LOS ANGELES (2013) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (2012) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (2011) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (2010) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (2009) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (2008) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (2007) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (2006) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (2005) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (2004) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (2003) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (2002) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (1997-2001)

For more information, visit www.playground-sf.org.

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14

TRUFFALDINO SAYS NO

by Ken Slattery

4

Foreword by

Brighde Mullins

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by Robin Lynn Rodriguez

The Best of the Best of PlayGround (1994–2014)

HELLA LOVE OAKLAND

The Best of the Best of PlayGround 1994–2014

HELLA LOVE OAKLAND ©2012 Robin Lynn Rodriguez MY NAME IS YIN ©2003–2014 Tom Swift NET ©2009 Geetha Reddy PANOPTICON ©2008 Aaron Loeb RAPUNZEL’S ETYMOLOGY OF ZERO ©2011 Katie May TRUFFALDINO SAYS NO ©2009 Ken Slattery CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that performance of the plays contained in this publication (see above) are subject to a royalty. They are fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America, and of all countries covered by the International Copyright Union (including the Dominion of Canada and the rest of the British Commonwealth), and of all countries covered by the Pan-American Copyright Convention, the Universal Copyright Convention, the Berne Convention, and of all countries with which the United States has reciprocal copyright relations. All rights, including professional/amateur stage rights, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio broadcasting, television, video or sound recording, all other forms of mechanical or electronic reproduction, such as CD‑ROM, CD-1, DVD, information storage and retrieval systems and photocopying, and the rights of translation into foreign languages, are strictly reserved. Particular emphasis is placed upon the matter of readings, permission for which must be secured from the Author’s agent in writing.

The English language stock and amateur stage performance rights in the United States, its territories, possessions and Canada in the above-listed plays are controlled exclusively by PLAYGROUND, INC., 3286 Adeline Street, #8, Berkeley, CA 94703-2485.

No professional or non-professional performance of the Play may be given without obtaining in advance the written permission of PLAYGROUND, INC., and paying the requisite fee.

Inquiries concerning all other rights should be addressed to the appropriate playwright, c/o PlayGround, 3286 Adeline Street, #8, Berkeley, CA 94703.

SPECIAL NOTE: Anyone receiving permission to produce any of the plays contained in this publication is required to give credit to the Author as sole and exclusive Author of such Play(s) on the title page of all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play(s) and in all instances in which the title of the Play(s) appears for purposes of advertising, publicizing or otherwise exploiting the Play and/ or a production thereof. The name of the Author must appear on a separate line, in which no other name appears, immediately beneath the title and in size of type equal to 50% of the size of the largest most prominent letter used for the title of the Play(s). No person, firm or entity may receive credit larger or more prominent than that accorded the Author. The following acknowledgment must appear on the title page in all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play: PlayGround developed and subsequently produced the World Premiere of [Play] in San Francisco in [year, as indicated on credits page] James A. Kleinmann, Artistic Director SPECIAL NOTE ON SONGS AND RECORDINGS: For performances of copyrighted songs, arrangements or recordings mentioned in these Plays, the permission of the copy­ right owner(s) must be obtained. Other songs, arrangements or recordings may be substituted provided permission from the copyright owner(s) of such songs, arrange­ ments or recordings is obtained; or songs, arrangements or recordings in the public domain may be substituted.

Layout, Artwork, Introduction, Foreword © 2014 PlayGround Publications ISBN: 978-0-9722708-1-6 Printed in the United States

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Contents

Introduction ............................................................. 5 Foreword ................................................................ 7 HELLA LOVE OAKLAND................................................. 11

by Robin Lynn Rodriguez MY NAME IS YIN......................................................... 23

by Tom Swift NET....................................................................... 39

by Geetha Reddy PANOPTICON............................................................ 51

by Aaron Loeb RAPUNZEL’S ETYMOLOGY OF ZERO.................................. 63

by Katie May TRUFFALDINO SAYS NO ............................................... 75

by Ken Slattery

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PlayGround, Inc. Board of Directors Regina Guggenheim, Chair James A. Kleinmann, President Patrick O’Brien, Vice President

Maya L. Tussing, Treasurer Aaron Loeb, Secretary

Kate Clarvoe Nicole Franklin Bruno Kurtic Yumi Nam

Kenn Rabin Geetha Reddy Patrick Reilly David G. Steele

James A. Kleinmann Artistic Director

Annie Stuart Associate Director

Cass Brayton Editor, Best of PlayGround

Acknowledgments: Continued thanks to Paula Vogel for the inspiration, to co-founders Brighde Mullins and Denise Shama, to Berkeley Repertory Theatre for providing PlayGround’s home since 2003, and to the PlayGround Writers Pool, whose work fuels everything we do and who repre-sent the future of the American Theatre.

PlayGround is a member of Theatre Bay Area and Theatre Communications Group, the national service organization of the professional theatre, and is an associate member of the National New Play Network. PlayGround operates under an agreement with Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers.

PlayGround is made possible in part by generous funding from: Actors’ Equity Foundation • Alameda County Arts Commission • The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation • Berkeley Civic Arts • The Bernard Osher Foundation • Blackrock • Chevron • Creative Capacity Fund • Dramatists Guild Fund • Electronic Arts • Financial Avengers, Inc. • The Fleishhacker Foundation • Google • Grants For The Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund • Harold & Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust • IBM Corporation • The Ira & Leonore Gershwin Trust • Lenore & Howard Klein Foundation • The Leo J. & Celia Carlin Fund • Microsoft • Negley Flinn Charitable Foundation • San Francisco Arts Commission • The Shenson Foundation • The Shubert Foundation • Theatre Communications Group • The Tournesol Project • Visa • The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation To make a tax-deductible contribution to PlayGround, write to: PlayGround, Inc., 3286 Adeline Street, #8, Berkeley, CA 94703.

Or visit our website, www.playground-sf.org.

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Introduction

Welcome to The Best of the Best of PlayGround, a special six-play anthology released by PlayGround Publications to mark PlayGround’s 20th Anniversary. From October 1994 to March 2014, PlayGround developed nearly 700 original short plays out of several thousand submissions by San Francisco Bay Area emerging writers as part of the celebrated Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series. Each was written in just four days in response to different monthly topics initiated by PlayGround.

From these, the PlayGround community of artists, subscribers and supporters narrowed the list to twenty-four scripts from which a national panel of distinguished dramatists helped select the top six writers and plays for our 20th Anniversary Celebration that took place on September 15, 2014 at Berkeley Rep. The Best of the Best of PlayGround features the six plays performed at this celebration.

PlayGround was founded in 1994 by myself, Brighde Mullins and Denise Shama. Our mission was and remains: to support the development of new local voices for the theatre. Over the past twenty years, PlayGround has emerged as the largest developer of new works and new writers in the Bay Area. PlayGround has also become a place where community is created, where developing writers create connections with the Bay Area’s working professionals—directors and actors who make their careers on some of our most significant stages. PlayGround’s alumni have gone on to win local, national and international honors for their short and full-length work, including recognition at the Humana Festival, Sundance Festival, D.C.’s Source Festival, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Aurora Theatre’s Global Age Project, Internationalists Playwriting Prize, and New York International Fringe Festival, among others.

PlayGround’s ongoing activities include: the monthly short play staged reading series Monday Night PlayGround; the Emerging Playwright Awards, presented to the top emerging —5—

writers discovered through the Monday Night PlayGround series; The Best of PlayGround Festival, featuring an evening-length program of the season’s best short plays; ongoing playwriting intensives and lectures; the Commissioning Initiative, by which PlayGround commissions and develops 5–6 new full-length plays each season and, more recently, the New Play Production Fund, supporting production of new plays by Bay Area playwrights.

In 2012, PlayGround launched the PlayGround Film Festival to support the development of short films by teams of local filmmakers and writers, adapted from some of the more than 100 original short plays featured in the Best of PlayGround Festival since 1997.

We look forward to providing additional services for developing playwrights and the professional theatre community in the years to come.

James A. Kleinmann Artistic Director

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Foreword

“ Drama began as the act of a whole community.

Ideally there should be no spectators. In prac­ tice every member of the audience should feel like an understudy.”—W.H. Auden When Auden wrote those words (in the 1930s) he didn’t know what was coming in terms of the compartmentalization of civic and social life. Change is the super-flux incarnate, change is constant, imminent and unavoidable. In the past ten years our screens have been miniaturized and many of our innovative playwrights can be found writing for Amazon and Netflix, for cameras, for mass audiences. The plays that are included in this anthology are a testament to the vitality and necessity of live theatre and of the theatre community despite these changes in the forms of presentational storytelling: this foreword is not a lament, it’s a celebratory description and a contextualization of six short plays that represent PlayGround’s first twenty years.

And these plays are short—they are microcosms of worlds that expand upon reflection. They were created in short amounts of time, and that pressure cooker of time plus occasion has provided the formula that has kept PlayGround vital and vibrant.

Charged with selecting six plays for presentation at PlayGround’s 20th Anniversary Celebration, it wasn’t easy to narrow down from the twenty-four finalists. I was tempted to suggest that a few more be added to the final evening . . . there was so much quality writing, so much breadth to the aesthetic range of the work. Reading through the plays, I had a sense of the richness of the terrain that had nurtured this work and these playwrights.

When Jim Kleinmann founded PlayGround twenty years ago, he was drawing on the energies of Paula Vogel’s “Once Upon a Weekend” at Brown University, where he’d been an undergraduate. I’d come from New York’s Lower East Side to

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teach at San Francisco State, and when I met Jim and Denise Shama, we started talking about our ways of making theatre— our process. Part of my process had been the just-add-water approach of doing plays at La MaMa and other downtown venues, and when I was a student the best instruction I received was by putting plays up at the Yale Cabaret. Jim, Denise and I all agreed on the Vision, and Jim has ably and expertly handled it all ever since.

PlayGround has morphed over the years, but Jim and the board have kept it close to the original mission: to nurture playwrights. The writers respond to prompts that are used as springboards for plays. It’s wide open but there are certain limits. Indeed the time limit and the crucible aspect of creating the play in that set amount of time leads to a level of risk and delight. “Thought makes everything fit for use,” as Emerson writes. Part of the delight of PlayGround is in seeing how different sensibilities take in and metabolize different prompts.

This anthology brings together the best of the best—that is, of the past twenty years there were festivals culled from the plays chosen. So what you’re reading is representative of the ambition of PlayGround.

The prompt for Robin Lynn Rodriguez’s powerful choral piece Hella Love Oakland (2012) was “Bay Area Stories.” That’s a broad prompt, and part of the magic of Rodriguez’s work is her specificity: she names the places and we hear the familiar voices of Moms and their kids at The Farmer’s Market, the Zoo, and Fairyland in Oakland, California. Tom Swift’s hilarious My Name is Yin (2003) comes from the prompt “Tabula Rasa.” The connection between the prompt and the piece is not immediately apparent, which is the beauty part of this charming, utterly mysterious play.

Geetha Reddy’s play Net (2008) includes so much gorgeous, heightened (excuse the pun) language—and asks a basic question “What kind of world is this where people are only kind when you are about to fall?” The prompt for this play was “The Longest Night.” Also from 2008 is Panopticon by Aaron Loeb. This two—8—

hander shows that the Self contains multitudes: interestingly the prompt was “The Ghosts of Departed Quanitities (or Is The Right Answer Enough?)”

Rapunzel’s Etymology of Zero by Katie May (2011) features a math-besotted Princess, whose epiphany is her articulation of the beauty of numbers: “The same algorithm that describes the curving spiral of a ram’s horn, also describes the whirl of a nautilus shell. 1.618, the golden ratio! The same math naturally occurring all over creation. Isn’t that gorgeous?!” the Princess asks. This prescient fairy tale was occasioned by the prompt: “Kingdom of Number.” And, finally, in Ken Slattery’s ingenious Truffaldino Says No (2009) there is a meta-theatrical uprising among the stock commedia characters. The prompt for this play was “Arlecchino,” that most ubiquitous of characters.

All of these plays have in common an incredible economy and spirit. They have in common a true theatricality, a sense of the strangeness that is innate in being alive, of the need to tell stories and to re-tell them in new frames, of the necessity of the live event. These plays came out of a time and a place, as all theatre does; they have in common a joyousness, a freedom, a sense of the place of theatre within a community that is larger than any personal story, but that comes only from nurturing individual voices. That’s what PlayGround has always done, and its success—as evidenced in these scripts—is that playwriting is full of possibilities.

Brighde Mullins Los Angeles 2014

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HELLA LOVE OAKLAND A Comic Play/Spoken Word Piece

By Robin Lynn Rodriguez

“Education is a natural process carried out by the child and is not acquired by listening to words but by experiences in the environment.”

—Maria Montessori

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HELLA LOVE OAKLAND

By Robin Lynn Rodriguez HELLA LOVE OAKLAND was originally developed by PlayGround (James A. Kleinmann, Artistic Director) for the Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series in residence at Berkeley Repertory Theatre on March 19, 2012. It was directed by Tracy Ward. The cast was as follows: Backpack Mom 1......................................Rebecca Pingree Backpack Mom 2......................................... Aneesh Sheth Backpack Mom 3....................................... Cindy Goldfield Actor 1 ...................................................... Ryan Martin Actor 2 ......................................................... Adam Roy HELLA LOVE OAKLAND was premiered by PlayGround at the 16th Annual Best of PlayGround (2012) festival on May 3, 2012. It was directed by Jon Tracy. The cast was as follows: Backpack Mom 1...................................... Maryssa Wanlass Backpack Mom 2........................................ Lauren English Backpack Mom 3............................................. Lisa Morse Robin Lynn Rodriguez has been writing with SF PlayGround for three years, and is a member of their Resident Writers. She presented her full-length play Hedge in a staged reading at last year’s PlayGround Festival of New Works and the play was a finalist for the SF Playwrights Festival in 2012. Her full-length Hella Love Oakland was workshopped at the 2013 PlayGround Festival. The short version was featured at the 2012 Festival when she won the Emerging Playwright Award and the June Anne Baker Award. Her work has also appeared at the One-Minute Play Festival, Theatre Madcap, and the Playwright’s Theater at Tao House.

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HELLA LOVE OAKLAND A Comic Play/Spoken Word Piece

By Robin Lynn Rodriguez Note on style of both genres: The parts of this piece that are spoken word are done in that physical and vocal performance style with assonance and rhythms played for effect. The Mom scenes are done earnestly with self-deprecating humor. The Backpack Moms use sophisticated but ageappropriate “mom” voices, and almost clownlike ASL or suggestive gestures to indicate what they are talking about to their children. For example: croissants and pretzels can be traced in the air. An ASL “Q” stands for question. A gesture of looking with two fingers is used when talking about “observing.” Baby signs can be used for the baby.

Characters: Backpack Moms 1, 2, and 3, late 20s/30s, females of various ethnicities. The three are identified by their hip, pulledtogether looks, including baseball caps and small sling backpacks in coordinating colors.

Setting: The Farmer’s Market, Oakland Zoo, and Fairyland in Oakland, California.

(BACKPACK MOMS are center stage in a tableau. Perhaps we hear the sound of kids playing at a playground. BACKPACK MOM 3 squats and looks into a stroller at her baby. Breaking the tableau, the MOMS then step forward and rotate their caps to one side. Playground noises cease. The spoken word piece begins. This is done full throttle.)

BACKPACK MOM 1: Holla back.

BACKPACK MOMS 2 and 3: We love Oakland.

BACKPACK MOM 1: We hella love Oakland.

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HELLA

LOVE

OAKLAND

BACKPACK MOM 3: I love Oakland like a prodigal child gone wild but still dear and near to my heart. Which means that as I say it, I must weigh what is also true, and that is the fact that I hate it too. A city of dichotomy, its soul you see, nestled between the hills and flats, is as full of art and love as ­ugliness and anger. A home that I feel nurtured in and also feel in danger. Oakland’s a place where not just race but ­poverty and privilege meet and greet every day on the street. Forgive me as I live here, see, and not just ­co‑exist, seek not just tolerance, but real community.

Because ­immunity is not what I want from others, but with my sisters and my brothers, I want to fix or maybe not fix, but work toward repair in word and deed the damage done by greed that I have had my share in benefiting from. In Oakland we are together. People of different kind, and creed, and color, and need. All together, living life however we can.

And sometimes that is a very sweet thing. (Beat.) Represent.

(All three step back. They turn their caps forward again and now are in a scene at the farmers’ market. BACKPACK MOM 3 checks in with baby. They are waiting in line for Blue Bottle Coffee. As they talk, they move forward in the line.

BACKPACK MOMS 1 and 2 speak to their children who are offstage unseen.)

BACKPACK MOM 1: This line is offensively long.

BACKPACK MOM 3: It always moves faster than it looks. (To baby) Hello Tweedle Bug. Yes. There you are.

BACKPACK MOM 2: Do you see Jilly?

BACKPACK MOM 1: She was with Jack by the tree.

BACKPACK MOM 2: I don’t see her.

BACKPACK MOM 1: She was just there a minute ago.

BACKPACK MOM 3: The market’s really busy today.

BACKPACK MOM 1: It’s the nice weather.

BACKPACK MOM 2: I should probably go look for her.

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HELLA

LOVE

OAKLA ND

BACKPACK MOM 1: Why don’t you? A latte, right?

BACKPACK MOM 2: I could just see her wandering off.

BACKPACK MOM 1: Wait—Is that her on the other side?

BACKPACK MOM 2: Yes. There she is— BACKPACK MOM 1: This place is so full of people.

BACKPACK MOM 3: And they move so fast.

BACKPACK MOM 2: Jilly? Stay with Jack. No. I want you to stay with Jack. I need you to stay where I can see you.

BACKPACK MOM 1: Jack. Sweetie? Do you want a pretzel ­croissant or a quiche? Quiche or croissant? Okay.

BACKPACK MOM 3: If you want to go ahead— BACKPACK MOM 1: He can wait five minutes.

BACKPACK MOM 2: The weather is gorgeous.

BACKPACK MOM 3: It finally feels like spring.

BACKPACK MOM 1: Jack? Do you notice how the leaves are ­coming in on the tree? Those are eucalyptus leaves. That’s a good observation sweetie. That’s a good question. Maybe we can investigate that later.

BACKPACK MOM 2: Jilly. Keep on this side. Make sure you can see my eyes. Yes, my eyes. You need to be able to see them.

BACKPACK MOM 1: Jack. Keep an eye on Jilly, okay? Make sure she doesn’t go off.

BACKPACK MOM 2: Thank you, Jack.

BACKPACK MOM 3: We’re getting close. (To baby) How’s my bug?

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HELLA

LOVE

OAKLAND

BACKPACK MOM 2: Jilly? What is that woman asking you? (To BACKPACK MOM 1) She probably thinks she’s lost. What is she saying? She’s offering them something. Should I go over there? (Beat.)

BACKPACK MOM 1: Yes, you can have one of the nice lady’s strawberries. Thank you for checking in, Jack.

BACKPACK MOM 2: Absolutely. Strawberries are great. But please check in with me first. Okay? Did you say thank you?

BACKPACK MOMS 1 AND 2: (To woman offstage) Thank you!

BACKPACK MOM 3: People are so nice.

BACKPACK MOM 2: Those strawberries look amazing.

BACKPACK MOM 3: They’re nine bucks for a three-pack. Should we go in together?

BACKPACK MOM 1: Sounds like a plan.

BACKPACK MOM 2: Yay! We’re next.

BACKPACK MOM 1: Three lattes please. One skim. Two soy. Extra foam on one of the soys. Thanks.

(They wait for order, enjoying the time.)

BACKPACK MOM 3: This is the life.

(Stillness. BACKPACK MOMS step forward–center. Caps are turned simultaneously. Spoken word piece begins again.)

BACKPACK MOM 1: How much do you love Oakland?

BACKPACK MOMS 2 and 3: We hella love Oakland.

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HELLA

LOVE

OAKLA ND

BACKPACK MOM 2: So I email back my mother and first tell her that I love her, and thank her for the offer. I have no—no— wish to scoff her desire to provide for a divide between our child and this city. But we’ve agreed that we don’t need your help sending our daughter to private school. Because we believe the best education we can provide her is not to hide her away from the real world. There are good schools in this city, with teachers who work hard in scarred neigh­borhoods.

But more than that, we believe that the best teacher to reach her will be the experience of difference she can have right here in Oakland that we can help her to interpret. And our hope is to open her eyes to see what lies outside her bubble of privilege, and the power she should leverage for both herself and others. Plus we know, no ­matter what the school test scores, she’s going to college. And that is one of a thousand lessons she can learn in this city.

BACKPACK MOM 3: Represent.

(BACKPACK MOMS turn caps and are now in a scene at Oakland Zoo. Leading the children, BACKPACK MOM 1 walks backward, leading students with a “quiet-coyote” sign as if in school. This sign is made by touching middle and ring fingers to the thumb of one hand.)

BACKPACK MOM 1: Quiet voices in this area.

BACKPACK MOM 2: Jill you heard that. Are you looking at the monkeys?

BACKPACK MOM 1: Siamangs.

BACKPACK MOM 2: Siamangs. Right.

BACKPACK MOM 3: They’re cute.

BACKPACK MOM 1: Jack, did you see that? What do you notice about their habitat? Can you write a couple of describing words about their habitat? I love that. Write that down. No write it down and show me.

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HELLA

LOVE

OAKLAND

BACKPACK MOM 2: Jilly? Can you fill out your form like Jack’s doing so well? Are you done? I didn’t see you? Okay. You go and look at the macaws then. No. We don’t throw the paper on the ground. No Jilly. We don’t litter. Ever. Okay, Missy.

You’re going to pick that up when you are done looking at the macaws.

BACKPACK MOM 3: Do you see the siamangs? You see the ­siamangs over there sweetie? Look. Focus with your eyes.

BACKPACK MOM 1: So you’re going to put yourself in for the lotteries?

BACKPACK MOM 2: We’re going to at least see what our options are.

BACKPACK MOM 1: Charters are a legitimate option. We ­considered them. What school did you get assigned to?

BACKPACK MOM 2: Emerson.

BACKPACK MOM 1: That’s a decent one right?

BACKPACK MOM 2: Title One. BACKPACK MOM 3: Aren’t they all?

BACKPACK MOM 2: We’re considering it. We’re just not sure.

BACKPACK MOM 3: It’s a big decision.

BACKPACK MOM 1: Well we’re loving un-schooling. I think you should consider it. The light in Jack’s eyes when he dis­covers things. It’s like education is an adventure. It’s definitely been the right choice for us.

BACKPACK MOM 2: He’s really good at it.

BACKPACK MOM 1: Jilly might be too.

(They look at both kids and consider briefly.)

BACKPACK MOM 2: We’re probably going to go public or charter.

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HELLA

LOVE

OAKLA ND

BACKPACK MOM 1: I wish nothing but the best for Oakland schools. But it wasn’t the right path for us.

BACKPACK MOM 2: We’re not decided. There are so many factors— BACKPACK MOM 3: You’ll figure it out. I really want a hot dog.

Oh. Look. The train is coming. Look, Bug. The train. Can you see it? The choo-choo train? Focus with your eyes.

(The three turn and wave as the train passes.)

BACKPACK MOM 3: (Turning back to kids.) What are they playing with on the ground?

BACKPACK MOM 1: Oh God. I think it may be poop. Jack. No Jack. Good job not touching.

BACKPACK MOM 2: Jilly. No please—Oh God. Jill. Drop the poop.

You heard me. Drop it. Now missy.

(Stillness. BACKPACK MOMS move center. Stroller is gone and siamangs disappear. Simultaneously, caps are turned.

Spoken word piece begins.)

BACKPACK MOM 1: I look deep into my husband’s eyes, where I know lies his soul. And I say to him . . . Baby . . . Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise that we’re underwater on our mortgage. ’Cause it means or seems we cannot—will not—be tempted to flee this city. Because if I’m honest, I too sometimes want to move up the hill, just like Jack and like Jill. But just like them, I don’t belong there. I belong here, in the midst of it, being the grist which is separated from the chaff. I want to be a part of people making things, if also breaking things, because sometimes that’s part of the creative process too.

The tension in this city is, I believe at its heart, a creative one. And when all is said and done I am glad to contribute to it. And ameliorate a bit the hardship that so often inspires or ignites the fires that produce movements and music, and art so vibrant that the saturated colors look almost violent.

But they’re not. They’re just intense. It’s an intense city. But when you focus your eyes, it’s beautiful.

BACKPACK MOM 3: Represent.

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HELLA

LOVE

OAKLAND

(BACKPACK MOMS turn caps and are now in a scene at Fairyland. They are watching a puppet show. The BACKPACK MOMS are enjoying the show and for a moment they only watch. They use slightly hushed tones.)

BACKPACK MOM 2: I love this one. I just love it.

BACKPACK MOM 3: I don’t know if we’ve seen this version.

BACKPACK MOM 1: He brings it to Fairyland in the Spring. We always come here to see it in the Spring.

BACKPACK MOM 3: I can see why. Since it’s all about birth.

BACKPACK MOM 1: And rebirth. When you think about it.

BACKPACK MOM 3: That’s deep. I like it.

BACKPACK MOM 2: It always makes me cry at the end.

BACKPACK MOM 3: It’s a good ending.

BACKPACK MOM 2: When the mommy swan comes.

BACKPACK MOM 3: And the ugly duckling sees her.

BACKPACK MOM 2: And realizes that he’s not an ugly duckling.

BACKPACK MOM 3: He’s a baby swan.

BACKPACK MOM 1: He just needed someone to tell him.

BACKPACK MOM 2: And they fly off together. Just wait till you see him make them fly. It’s amazing. Wait till you see the kids’ expressions when they see it.

BACKPACK MOM 1: Even when you can see the strings.

BACKPACK MOM 2: He makes it look like magic when they fly.

BACKPACK MOM 1: (Can’t help herself.) Jack. Can you see how he’s using the strings? That’s called a marionette. Jack? Do you see—

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HELLA

LOVE

OAKLA ND

BACKPACK MOMS 2 and 3: SSHHHHH. (BACKPACK MOM 1 is silenced for a moment. They watch.)

BACKPACK MOM 3: Maybe after this we can send them into the hedge maze with the magic key and grab some cotton candy for ourselves.

BACKPACK MOM 2: Sounds good to me.

BACKPACK MOM 1: I love Fairyland.

BACKPACK MOM 2: It’s one of the best things about Oakland.

BACKPACK MOM 3: I love Oakland.

BACKPACK MOM 1: Holla back blood.

(BACKPACK MOMS still in scene, all turn caps, continuing to watch children at play.)

End of play.

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MY NAME IS YIN

By Tom Swift

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MY NAME IS YIN

By Tom Swift MY NAME IS YIN was originally developed by PlayGround (James A. Kleinmann, Artistic Director) for the Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series in residence at Berkeley Repertory Theatre on November 17, 2003. It was directed by James A. Kleinmann.

The cast was as follows: The Bear..................................................... Kerri Shawn The Writer.................................................Jason Frazier Alf Kjaellstroem....................................... Lizzie Calogero The Husband............................................. Brian Herndon The Wife............................................. Tina Marie Murray The Audience Member................................. Caroline Doyle MY NAME IS YIN was premiered by PlayGround at the 8th Annual Best of Playground (2004) festival on June 12, 2004. It was directed by James A. Kleinmann. The cast was as follows: The Bear.................................................... Kerri Shawn The Writer........................................... Mark Rafael Truitt Alf Kjaellstroem............................................ Gwen Loeb The Husband.............................................. Gabriel Marin The Wife................................................... Julia McNeal The Audience Member..................................... Sam Misner Tom Swift is a playwright, producer and financial planner. He currently serves as Captain of the Financial Avengers™, a registered investment advisory firm that he co-founded with his sidekick, The Oracle. He is a four-time PlayGround Emerging Play­wrights Award winner and is a PlayGround Resident Play­ wright. He is working on a full-length play and a book, but seems incapable of completing either. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, and resides in Oakland, California.

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MY NAME IS YIN

By Tom Swift Characters: The Bear, an American Brown Bear The Writer, a journalist, male The Audience Member, an outspoken older woman Alf Kjaellstroem, a Swedish Provincial Spokesman with a German accent, male The Husband, a man The Wife, a woman The Artistic Director, a concerned person, male

Setting: An empty stage, with several pairs of shoes strate­gi­ cally placed. The shoes can be filled with butter, but this is not necessary. There may also be a writer’s desk or table, with computer or notepad, up or downstage left, but this is not necessary either.

Notes & Credits Pronunciations: Kjaellstroem — KELL-strum Jämtland — YEMPT-land Yu Xiuzhen — yoo ZHOO-zhen The Artistic Director is optional and can be cut, if necessary.

If that choice is made, simply string together The Writer’s lines in that section. The only required accent is Alf Kjaellstroem’s: it must be German. All other accents are optional, though The Bear is from Brooklyn, originally.

Any production and production program should credit the Associated Press appropriately. The credit should read as follows: “Hikers Find 140 Shoes Filled With Butter” and “Correction, Buttered Shoes Story” copyright © Associated Press, 2003. Used with permission.

— 25 —

MY

NAME

IS

YIN

(A Bear enters, carrying shoes filled with butter. The Bear carefully places the shoes around the stage.)

THE BEAR: (To the audience.) What are you looking at?

(THE BEAR exits. THE WRITER enters.)

THE WRITER: I am an artist. (Pause.) No, that’s not right. I am a writer. (THE BEAR enters with more shoes.) No. I am a journalist. I’m just a journalist. I want to be an artist, but I’m just a journalist.

THE BEAR: To be clear, I am a bear. I am an American Brown Bear. Actually, that’s not quite correct. I am an expatriate American Brown Bear. (Places shoes.) What? You’ve never seen a bear doing an installation before? That’s why I left, you know. That is exactly why I left.

(Exits.)

THE WRITER: My most widely published work was a story I wrote about shoes filled with butter. It was picked up by the Associated Press. It ran all over the world. Millions read it.

(THE BEAR enters, with shoes.)

THE BEAR: No one was supposed to see this. I chose a remote location for a reason. It was a private installation. It was for her. And, me. Not for you. Everything you touch you destroy.

(Exits.)

THE WRITER: It felt good to be widely read. For once, I felt important.

(ALF KJAELLSTROEM enters, wearing a uniform. He addresses the audience.)

ALF KJAELLSTROEM: I am the Provincial Spokesman. I am also in charge of heavy equipment. I am a very important man.

(THE BEAR enters with more shoes.)

— 26 —

MY

NAME

IS

YIN

THE BEAR: This was never meant to be dangerous.

ALF KJAELLSTROEM: One day, I will be elected Prime Minister, and when I am, Sweden will be great again. Greater even than France!

(Pause. He exits.)

THE WRITER: The story takes place in Sweden.

THE BEAR: I came here to escape. To experiment. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “If she’s an expatriate, why did she choose Sweden? Why not France?”

THE WRITER: It’s why I’ll never be a great artist. Sweden is not known for its art. Go ahead, name one great Swedish artist.

THE AUDIENCE MEMBER: August Strindberg.

THE WRITER: Dammit! Name another. Go on, name another.

See? See? THE BEAR: Let’s just say the French are not laissez faire when it comes to granting visas to American Brown Bears.

THE WRITER: If I were French, I would probably be a great ­artist. You can name a lot of great French artists.

THE BEAR: The Swedes are much cooler when it comes to visas.

THE WRITER: Like Sartre, THE BEAR: And, they have better fish.

THE WRITER: Ionesco— THE AUDIENCE MEMBER: Can you please get started?

THE WRITER: Exposition is one of my problems. I just can’t—it just never—oh, God, my life is useless.

(He cries.)

— 27 —

MY

NAME

IS

YIN

THE WRITER (contd.): Sorry. I’m sorry. From the Associated Press News Wire: Stockholm, Sweden. “Hikers Find 140 Shoes Filled With Butter. As shoe collections go, the one found by a pair of Swedish hikers definitely had no place in any closet.

A Swedish couple hunting on a remote mountain Sunday in Sweden’s province of Jämtland found 70 pairs of shoes, all filled with butter.”

THE HUSBAND: (Offstage.) Hurry. We’re almost there.

THE WIFE: I’m coming.

(THE HUSBAND enters from house, carrying a rifle. He turns and looks at the audience, using binoculars.)

THE HUSBAND: Ahhhhh! Look. Look. Just look at the view.

(THE WIFE enters. She stops, abruptly, seeing the shoes. She gasps.)

THE WIFE: Oh. (THE BEAR looks at her.)

THE HUSBAND: Isn’t it breathtaking?

THE WIFE: (Walking among the shoes.) Oh. Oh, my. Oh, it’s . . . wonderful. I’ve never seen anything like it. (She cries, over­ whelmed.) It redefines me.

THE HUSBAND: Let’s hunt.

(THE BEAR flees.)

THE WIFE: I’ll never kill again.

THE HUSBAND: You alright? (He turns and sees the shoes for the first time.) What the hell?

(Startled, he trains the gun on the art installation.)

THE WIFE: No, not hell. That’s one interpretation, I suppose, but I don’t see it. It’s so much more.

— 28 —

MY

NAME

IS

YIN

THE HUSBAND: What—what is the meaning of this?

THE WIFE: Don’t you see? Don’t you see the meaning?

THE HUSBAND: Why are you crying?

THE WIFE: Who are you?

THE HUSBAND: Who am I? I’m your husband.

THE WIFE: No, you’re not. You’re a stranger.

THE HUSBAND: Elka— THE WIFE: Don’t call me that. That’s not my name.

THE HUSBAND: Elka, what’s wrong with you?

THE WIFE: I don’t know who you are, but you are not my ­husband and I am not your wife and my name’s not Elka. I have no name.

THE HUSBAND: Your name is Elka!

(THE WIFE approaches a shoe, reaches in and tastes.)

THE WIFE: Butter. I thought so. They’re all filled with butter.

THE HUSBAND: Elka, stop this nonsense. Let’s leave.

THE WIFE: Get away from me. Get away. You will not take me from this place. I see.

THE HUSBAND: Elka— THE WIFE: I finally see. (To audience.) And, I did.

THE HUSBAND: (To audience.) And that’s how my life changed forever.

— 29 —

MY

NAME

IS

YIN

THE WIFE: Oh, of course, I knew exactly who he was, I just didn’t know who I was. It’s so hard to explain. You must understand, it’s not as if you expect to stumble across 140 shoes filled with butter on a Sunday afternoon hunting trip in a remote region of Sweden. I was thinking about what I would make for dinner. And then . . .

THE HUSBAND: She left me. Not precisely . . . but in that instant she went away.

(THE BEAR creeps in and listens.)

THE WIFE: . . . there they were. There it was. I’d never seen anything so odd so astonishing so incomprehensible in my life.

THE HUSBAND: She changed, right before my eyes.

THE WIFE: I understood everything in that moment by understanding . . . nothing. God, that sounds so pretentious.

THE AUDIENCE MEMBER: You have no idea.

THE HUSBAND: (To Wife.) I’m calling the authorities.

THE WIFE: (To Husband.) I’m born again.

THE HUSBAND: What?

THE WIFE: I’m a baby. A new-born.

THE HUSBAND: (To audience.) Do you see what I mean? So, I called for help.

(He calls on a cell phone. ALF enters, on telephone.)

ALF KJAELLSTROEM: Alf Kjaellstroem, Provincial Spokesmen and Director of Heavy Equipment, how can I help you? Yes. Yes. No. Outrageous. High heels?

THE HUSBAND: Yes, there are high heels.

ALF KJAELLSTROEM: Boots?

— 30 —

MY

NAME

IS

YIN

THE HUSBAND: Yes. ALF KJAELLSTROEM: Are there . . . tap shoes?

THE HUSBAND: (Not to his wife, but incredulously.) Are there tap shoes?

THE WIFE: Of course, there are tap shoes.

THE BEAR: It’s not easy for an expatriate American Brown Bear to find tap shoes in Central Sweden.

(THE WIFE taps a rimshot using a pair of tap shoes.)

ALF KJAELLSTROEM: I’ll . . . notify the media.

THE WRITER: I was writing a play when I got the call.

ALF KJAELLSTROEM: “If we knew who had done this we could make them clean this mess up, THE WRITER: Alf Kjaellstroem, a province spokesman told The Associated Press today.”

ALF KJAELLSTROEM: “It’s not going to be pretty when the butter starts to rot. And, we have to wait for the snow so we can get up there with the snowmobile.” (A very long pause.) How was that? Was that a good quote? Will I get in the papers?

THE WRITER: Is that all you can think about? Rotten butter and snowmobiles?

ALF KJAELLSTROEM: Slacker! Some of us have responsibility.

Some of us take that responsibility seriously. Rotting butter is a serious problem. Children are starving, for example.

THE WRITER: That’s what this is about. It’s a statement about competing human appetites.

THE WIFE: I don’t think this is about appetite.

THE BEAR: No, it’s not.

— 31 —

MY

NAME

IS

YIN

ALF KJAELLSTROEM: Someone has to clean this mess up.

THE WRITER: It’s not a mess, it’s art. The triumph of consumerism and the death of agrarian society.

THE WIFE: The absurdity of modernity.

THE HUSBAND: The end of my life.

THE BEAR: It’s private!

ALF KJAELLSTROEM: This is not art. This is not art. This is nuisance. The butter will attract pests and bears.

THE BEAR: That is so ursist.

THE WRITER: It should be left undisturbed.

ALF KJAELLSTROEM: (Hitlerian.) It’s the butter. The butter will rot. The butter will attract the worst elements. We must do something about the butter.

THE HUSBAND: He’s right. The butter will rot.

THE WIFE: He’s a fascist. The butter is supposed to rot.

THE BEAR: The butter was the most difficult part of the piece.

THE WIFE: The butter is the essence of the piece.

THE BEAR: THE WIFE: It’s such a difficult medium, It’s such a delicate medium, and I just have— and she just has— THE WIFE and THE BEAR: Such big paws.

(Pause. They share a meaningful moment.)

THE HUSBAND: We must leave now.

THE WIFE: No! THE HUSBAND: This will end badly. I feel it.

— 32 —

MY

NAME

IS

YIN

(He exits.)

ALF KJAELLSTROEM: Your job is to report the news, not argue with me about artistic expression.

THE WRITER: You are dangerous.

ALF KJAELLSTROEM: You need me. Come, we’ll be famous.

(He exits. Pause.)

THE WRITER: When I reported it, I realized it was similar to a piece done by a Chinese Artist in 1996. His name was Yu Xiuzhen and his exhibit “Shoes With Butter,” was installed in the Tibetan mountains in China.

(THE BEAR looks directly at him, and speaks.)

THE BEAR: Excuse me.

THE WRITER: (Screams.) Who are you?

THE BEAR: I’m . . . a bear. Her name is Yin Xiuzhen, not Yu Xiuzhen. And, she is a woman, not a man.

THE WRITER: What? You—you’re the artist?

THE BEAR: Yes, I’m the artist. No, that’s not correct. Yin Xuizhen is the artist. I am her admirer.

THE WRITER: But, you’re a bear.

THE BEAR: Yes, I know.

THE WRITER: I already put it on the wires.

THE WIFE: It must be corrected.

THE WRITER: You’re telling me my most widely published work has an attribution error— THE WIFE and THE BEAR: —and is sexist.

— 33 —

MY

NAME

IS

YIN

THE WRITER: Dammit! Can we let it slide?

THE BEAR: Growl.

THE WRITER: “Correction, Buttered Shoes Story: In an October 9th story about the discovery of 70 pairs of shoes filled with butter on a Swedish mountain, The Associated Press erroneously reported the name and sex of a Chinese Artist who did a similar installation in China. The female artist is . . .

THE BEAR & THE WIFE: Yin Xiuzhen, THE WRITER: not Yu Xiuzhen.”

THE BEAR: Millions read the story, THE WIFE: but no one read the correction.

THE WRITER: I’m a failure.

THE BEAR: It was private.

THE WIFE: I know.

(THE HUSBAND enters with Alf.) THE HUSBAND: Help me. Help me get her away from here.

ALF KJAELLSTROEM: I’m sorry, Madam. This is a crime scene.

You must leave.

THE WIFE: I’m not leaving. I’m never leaving.

THE HUSBAND: Elka, enough is enough.

THE WIFE: I told you, my name’s not Elka. You must leave. This place is private. It’s for her.

THE HUSBAND and ALF KJAELLSTROEM: For who?

THE WRITER: For whom.

THE HUSBAND and ALF KJAELLSTROEM: For whom?

— 34 —

MY

NAME

IS

YIN

THE WIFE: For Yin. For the Artist, Yin Xiuzhen. Don’t you see?

(Pointing to The Bear.) She loves her. This is a love poem to Yin. THE BEAR: Yes. THE WIFE: We were never supposed to see it. All of you must leave.

THE BEAR: You understand.

THE WIFE: But . . . can I stay? (A realization.) Can I stay and be her?

THE BEAR: Would you?

THE WIFE: My name is Yin! THE BEAR: Yin. Yin. (Moving towards The Wife.) Oh, Yin. THE HUSBAND: It’s attacking my wife.

(He raises gun.)

THE WIFE: No, darling, don’t.

(She lunges in front of the Bear. HUSBAND shoots Wife.)

THE HUSBAND: ELKA! (He drops gun and runs to her, cradling her in his arms.)

THE BEAR: Yin. Yin! ROAR! ALF KJAELLSTROEM: (Picking up gun.) I told you the butter would attract bears.

THE WRITER: No! (ALF shoots The Bear. THE WRITER grabs the rifle from Alf. Then, an anguished cry.)

— 35 —

MY

NAME

IS

YIN

THE WRITER: You madman! (Pause. Then, to audience.) I was so enraged that I wrote a political drama called The Husband, The Wife, The Fascist and The Bear.

THE AUDIENCE MEMBER: Oh, God! THE WRITER: Audiences had difficulty accepting the premise. So, I started over, from scratch. This time, opera was my inspiration, but I hate opera and I’m not a musician. It was turgid.

THE BEAR: Declaratory.

ALF KJAELLSTROEM: Incomprehensible.

THE HUSBAND: Well, we thought it was interesting, THE WIFE: But, pretentious.

THE AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Leaving her seat.) It’s awful. (She begins to exit.) It’s awful!

THE WRITER: Shut up!

(He shoots The Audience Member and she falls in the aisle.

Horrified, he drops the gun, which fires again.)

THE WRITER: Dammit!

(THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR emerges from the audience or vomitorium. He cradles The Audience Member in his arms.)

THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR: You shot her.

THE WRITER: Sorry.

THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR: She’s a subscriber.

THE WRITER: I’m sorry. I— I have trouble with exposition. I’m sorry. (He cries. They look at him.) Where were we?

THE BEAR: I just got shot.

— 36 —

MY

NAME

IS

YIN

THE WRITER: You madman!

(He rushes to The Bear, and cradles her in his arms. ALF KJAELLSTROEM moves upstage, perhaps to a raised platform.

The end of Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma,” from TURANDOT, begins to play. It is lip-synched or sung by the characters.

The style is operatic and melodramatic.)

THE BEAR and THE WIFE and THE AUDIENCE MEMBER: Il nome suo nessum saprà, e noi doverm, ahimè, morir, morir.

(They struggle for life.)

THE WRITER and THE HUSBAND and THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR: Dilegua, o notte! Tramontate, stella. Tramontate, stella!

THE WRITER, THE HUSBAND, THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR & ALF KJAELLSTROEM: All’alba vincerò! Vincerò! Vincerò!

(THE BEAR, THE WIFE and THE AUDIENCE MEMBER die obviously. As orchestration rises after the aria, ALF KJAELLSTROEM emerges, as if giving a speech to a large crowd.)

ALF KJAELLSTROEM: It’s the butter. The butter. The butter will rot. The butter will rot. The butter will rot. The butter will rot.

The butter will rot! THE BUTTER WILL RO-O-O-O-O-O-O-OT! (Speech and orchestration end simultaneously. Black out.)

End of play.

— 37 —

— 38 —

NET

By Geetha Reddy

— 39 —

NET

By Geetha Reddy NET was originally developed by PlayGround (James A. Kleinmann, Artistic Director) for the Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series in residence at Berkeley Repertory Theatre on December 12, 2008. It was directed by Susi Damilano. The cast was as follows: Alfonso.................................................... Gabriel Marin Stuart......................................................Will Marchetti NET was premiered by PlayGround at the 13th Annual Best of PlayGround (2009) festival on May 7, 2009. It was directed by Mark Routhier. The cast was as follows: Alfonso..................................................... Aaron Wilton Stuart........................................................ Soren Oliver Geetha Reddy is a five-time recipient of PlayGround’s Emerging Playwright Award. Her play Safe House premiered in 2010 at SF Playhouse. At Central Works she and Aaron Loeb collaborated to create Blastosphere! In 2008, Safe House was selected for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and Sacramento’s Capital Stage’s Playwright’s Revolution Festival. Geetha’s plays Me Given You and Girl in a Box were part of the Playwright’s Foundation’s “In the Rough” reading series. She was awarded PlayGround’s June Anne Baker Prize in 2005 and has since received three PlayGround Alumni commissions. Her plays have also appeared in the San Francisco Fringe Festival, the Santa Rosa Quickies festival, Just Theatre Lab, and the Best of PlayGround festival. Her short film OBIT screened at film festivals nationwide including LA Shorts Fest, NYC Indie Fest, and BendFilm Festival. Geetha is a member of the Dramatists Guild and a Resident Playwright at the Playwrights Foundation.

— 40 —

NET

By Geetha Reddy Characters: Alfonso, male, a ballet dancer Stuart, male, San Francisco Police Department (The Golden Gate Bridge. Night. ALFONSO swan dives off the bridge and with a sharp intake of breath is falling.)

ALFONSO: ‘Awake! Finally awake,’ I thought. And then there was the next thought, the next thought: (Begins flailing his arms with increasing frenzy.) ‘Maybe there was a better solution than jumping, like that acai berry, or those ­homeopathic pills in the vials at Whole Foods, or coffee, or or or . . .’ and just when I thought ‘I should have tried cocaine, I always wanted to, but snorting even the word is really so unseemly—’ just then. Thinking ‘unseemly.’ I stopped.

(ALFONSO jerks to a stop and writhes sensually, trapped in a net.)

ALFONSO: Relief. Maybe joy? For a breath. Then mortification.

Then panic. I couldn’t get out. Stretching. Balling. Not just caught in the knot, but of the knot. One with the knot. And then I relaxed and waited. And the dullness returned. And I found myself looking below longing, not for the water, not just for the water, but for the crisp feeling of air; of being awake.

(STUART appears and turns a flashlight on Alfonso. ALFONSO writhes during their conversation.)

STUART: “Told ’em,” ALFONSO: he said. “Help!” I said. Well, it was a bourgeois reflex.

STUART: “How ya doin’?”

ALFONSO: (In a high posh voice) “Quite tangled, I’m afraid.”

Why did being near death turn me into Dame Judi Dench?

— 41 —

NET

STUART: “I told ’em.”

ALFONSO: He kept saying that! “Help me!” I would return. Yes, what? Yes, I tried again. Help me. Does that make me foolish? I even say it one more time. So be it.

STUART: “I told ’em.”

ALFONSO: “Help me!” And that is the last time I ask.

STUART: “And now look at you.”

ALFONSO: “I didn’t know about this net.”

STUART: “It was in all the papers.”

ALFONSO: He said that. What could he mean by that? That it was in all the papers. Was it in American Dance Journal? Was it in the Entertainment section of the Guardian? Does he think?

He surely didn’t think— (To Stuart) “You surely—Officer, you surely are not suggesting I jumped knowing there was a net!”

STUART: “Sure. Why not? For the attention. Makes as much sense.”

ALFONSO: “That would be profoundly pathetic.”

STUART: “That’s what’s pathetic?”

ALFONSO: “To jump knowing.”

STUART: “It’s pathetic either way, eh?”

(Beat.)

ALFONSO: I’ll admit it. That hurt my feelings. It is one thing to know you are pathetic. It is an entirely other thing to be called pathetic by a flatfoot goon while hanging— (To Stuart.) “How high am I?” STUART: “I don’t know. The tide is going out. Maybe 220 feet.”

— 42 —

NET

ALFONSO: Hanging at 220 feet. Like a cat toy. Being insulted by this rib-eating lumox. Why couldn’t I have gotten a blueeyed high-cheekboned policewoman with a iron exterior and a heart like a lioness. Or even a cute rookie in a tight uniform. Instead, I thought, when I need the most help, I get this flatulating gelatinous— (Yelling at Stuart in a tantrumy way.) “You are supposed to be nice to me you know!”

STUART: “What! I’m nice. I called them. They’re sending the chopper.”

ALFONSO: (Still whining.) “Ask me ‘Why?’ Don’t just stand there, you—you—big lug.”

STUART: (‘What am I gonna do’ sound.) “Ehn. They’re coming.”

ALFONSO: “Well— (Regaining some composure.) Well. I will say officer. You are not very good at your job.”

STUART: “Job? Keep you from dying. Check. Done.”

ALFONSO: “That is pathetic.”

STUART: “What?”

ALFONSO: “Being replaced by a net.” (Beat.) Was that too cruel?

STUART: “Oh. Like sad fucks like you are supposed to be my Christmas treat?”

ALFONSO: I guess I deserved that. “Yeah, I am a sad fuck.”

(STUART is a little ashamed. ALFONSO sighs a little, rolls over, and peers down into the gloom.)

STUART: “Don’t move. Probably better not to look down.”

ALFONSO: “How could it possibly matter?”

STUART: “You may panic. Roll over. Look at me. They’ll be here soon.”

ALFONSO: “Why is it taking so long?”

— 43 —

NET

STUART: “You’re our first.”

ALFONSO: “Well that’s something. The first? Really?”

STUART: “They didn’t anticipate you would be so ‘tangled’.”

ALFONSO: “The first.”

STUART: “Yeah. I’ll get you a T-shirt. ‘I TRIED TO JUMP OFF THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT’” ALFONSO: “Where will they take me?”

STUART: “Probably the Psyche In-Patient at General. I heard they’re full up though. So they maybe keep you in the ER for a while—like in restraints. So, don’t be surprised, upset, or anything.”

ALFONSO: (Struggling against the net for emphasis.) “Yes, Officer. I promise I won’t freak out about velcro straps in a well-lit room with a sweet nightingale named Troy ­dabbing my forehead. It will be a Christmas treat compared to this.

This hanging below a bridge like a bug waiting to be devoured by a—” STUART: “Hey, you know what?”

ALFONSO: “Yes? What?”

STUART: “Last summer I brought my kid out here so he could experience it before they ruined it with that—that net, and so we were leaning way out.”

ALFONSO: “Looking at the tall ships pass below?”

STUART: “Spitting. And seeing if our spit would, you know, plop.”

ALFONSO: “Charmant.” (To the audience.) This is how he experiences this great feat of prewar engineering: Secreting.

Plopping. My hero.

— 44 —

NET

STUART: “Anyways. We’re leaning way over and his hat blew off, and the wind sort of looped it up and under and we never saw, really saw it, well, plop into the water. I was wondering—” ALFONSO: “Do I see the hat?”

STUART: “Well, yeah.”

(Beat.)

ALFONSO: “Well, what did it look like?”

STUART: “Yeah. It’s like a Giants hat.”

ALFONSO: “What is that? A big hat, like in Texas?”

STUART: “No, the Giants. It’s a baseball hat, with a Giants logo.

An S and an F.” ALFONSO: “What does S and F have to do with Giants?—Never mind. I’ll look.”

(ALFONSO cranes around.)

ALFONSO: (To the audience.) There are a surprising number of artifacts tucked in between bars and hooked on bolts under the bridge. I saw a brassiere made of feathers, a ­picnic ­basket that still had a baguette molding inside, a tape cassette unfurling in the breeze. And voila! The hat. (To Stuart.) “I see it.”

STUART: “You’re shitting me.”

ALFONSO: “I am not shitting you.” Yes, I said it. “I will show you.

I can almost—” (ALFONSO starts to wiggle and move with increasing freedom and beauty.)

ALFONSO: (Reaching out.) “Got you.”

— 45 —

NET

(ALFONSO stands on the net, holding the cap—free—for a guy standing on a net 220 feet above the Pacific Ocean.)

STUART: “Hey careful. Hey buddy maybe you should sit down.

Lie back down. You could fall.”

ALFONSO: “Here!”

(ALFONSO throws the hat up, but he can’t throw it high enough and it comes back at him. He almost loses his balance reaching out to catch it.)

STUART: “Hey. Wait. Careful. Now.” ALFONSO: “I’ll get it to you!”

STUART: “Hey. Buddy. What’s your name again?”

ALFONSO: “Alfonso.”

STUART: “I’m Officer Stuart. Alfonso. Don’t worry about the hat okay?”

ALFONSO: I noticed. “You are being nice to me.”

STUART: “I’m nice. I mean. Alfonso? You were right. I was annoyed that I was replaced by a net. I told them it was a bad idea. That it was going to be impossible to get you guys out of the net. It’s smarter just having a foot patrol to police the jumpers. I was pissed.”

ALFONSO: “Because I’m the first.”

STUART: “First of many.”

ALFONSO: “And now?” I asked even though I knew the answer.

STUART: “I’m afraid you are gonna fall. Buddy. Al. Sit down okay?”

ALFONSO: But I didn’t want to sit. So I didn’t.

STUART: “Al?”

— 46 —

NET

ALFONSO: “Alfonso.”

STUART: “What kind of name is that? Alfonso?”

ALFONSO: “It’s the kind of name that you give yourself when you are 15, pretending to be 19.”

STUART: “Is that something you do a lot? Pretend?”

ALFONSO: Do you see? Now, I could jump, he asked why. And I was tired and I said, “What kind of world is this where ­people are only kind when you are about to fall?” And he said, STUART: “Look. A lot of people jump, but not when I’m on duty.

Not once, But now they keep me in an office, a little shed, at the north end. I was the guy who could talk anyone down— could spot the guy with the backpack and the 2-day-old beard. I’m the man. Was. Now I am just a jackass replaced by a net.”

ALFONSO: And so I asked him what he would say. To Backpack Man. What magical thing he would ask to keep him from jumping. And he said, STUART: “I ask them to tell me about the day they were born.”

ALFONSO: He said because it surprised them and because they had no direct memory of it, but it was still about them. And then he said, STUART: “I ask about their third grade teacher,” ALFONSO: he said, because when you are eight you can’t help but be happy. (To Stuart, with great affection.) “When I was eight I started tap dancing. Busking in Seattle.”

STUART: “No kidding.”

ALFONSO: “And a gentleman came and paid for me to take classes at the Pacific Northwest Ballet.”

STUART: “Hey, you do ballet?”

— 47 —

NET

ALFONSO: “I did. I hurt my back. Now I can’t even walk without my Vicodin.” And I told him about lying in bed, and how the season started and my friends stopped visiting. And how the pain never ever got better. And I told him about how I didn’t know what happened the day I was born because my mother left me in the backseat of my grandmother’s Crown Vic one night and flitted off. And he said, STUART: “Al? You having pain now? You seem pretty good.”

ALFONSO: And I realized, standing there—swaying there—the pressure was gone. With the cold air. And the net.

(ALFONSO starts doing barre exercises, but wobbly like on a net, still holding the hat.)

ALFONSO: I felt loose and flexible.

(ALFONSO starts dancing on the net to unheard music. First gingerly and then with more energy and joy.)

STUART: “Hey! Alfonso. Alfonso! Cut it out. That thing isn’t that big. That goddamn net can’t, isn’t meant to be . . . ” ALFONSO: “Jumped on?”

STUART: “Come on cut it out. You’re gonna ruin my record. Al!” ALFONSO: (Really jumping now.) “Yes!” STUART: “I can’t reach you.”

ALFONSO: (Stopping.) And I looked up at him. (To Stuart.) “It doesn’t hurt!”

STUART: Awesome.

(The sound of a helicopter. A spotlight searches.)

ALFONSO: “I really didn’t know about the net.”

STUART: “They are going to lower a guy down to you and put you in a harness. Okay?”

— 48 —

NET

ALFONSO: “But I hoped—” (ALFONSO looks at the hat. Then starts throwing the hat higher and higher.)

ALFONSO: I wanted to give him something.

STUART: “You can give it to me later. Hey, be careful, you are going to—” (STUART catches the hat and ALFONSO falls.)

ALFONSO: And I fell. I fall.

(ALFONSO falling.)

ALFONSO: And now I feel bad because people will say I broke Officer Stuart’s perfect record of saving jumpers. Only he and I know that I was indeed saved. (Resigned to falling.)

It’s true what they say about your life flashing before your eyes like a movie. The Red Shoes but starring Alfonso. All the awkwardness and grace. The kisses. The missed luggage.

The coupé jeté. The développé. Until these last moments.

Officer Stuart. The hat. The relief. The dance. One last ­misstep. One last misunderstanding. And then the fall itself.

End of play.

— 49 —

— 50 —

PANOPTICON

By Aaron Loeb

— 51 —

PANOPTICON

By Aaron Loeb PANOPTICON was originally developed by PlayGround (James A. Kleinmann, Artistic Director) for the Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series in residence at Berkeley Repertory Theatre on February 18, 2008. It was directed by Mark Routhier. The cast was as follows: She.......................................................... BW Gonzalez He......................................................... Adrian Roberts PANOPTICON was premiered by PlayGround at the 12th Annual Best of PlayGround (2008) festival on May 8, 2008. It was directed

by Barbara Oliver. The cast was as follows: She.......................................................... BW Gonzalez He......................................................... Adrian Roberts Aaron Loeb is a Bay Area playwright whose work has been performed around the country. His full-length plays include Ideation, The Proud, Alcestis (Doesn’t Live Here Anymore), Brown, First Person Shooter, Blastosphere (with Geetha Reddy), What Your Parents Don’t Want You to Know . . . (an opera by Kurt Erickson for which Loeb wrote the libretto) and Abraham Lincoln’s Big, Gay Dance Party, which premiered Off-Broadway in 2010. Among the honors Loeb has received are: the Will Glickman award for Best New Play in the Bay Area (Ideation, ’13), two Bay Area Theater Critic Circle Awards for Best New Play (First Person Shooter in ’07, ALBGDP in ’08), Outstanding Play from the New York International Fringe Festival (ALBGDP ’09), GLAAD Media Award Nominee (ALBGDP ’09), and seven Emerging Playwright Awards from PlayGround. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, Inc.

— 52 —

PANOPTICON

By Aaron Loeb (A couple sits at a table, a bland breakfast in front of them.

SHE is bored. HE is unhappy. This is the state of things and, it is clear, has been for some time. Perhaps he reads a paper. Perhaps she reads a book. They do not look at each other unless they must. This is a very nonchalant breakfast conversation.)

SHE: I’ve poisoned your coffee.

(Pause. HE looks at his coffee cup. Beat. He very deliberately picks up the cup and drinks his coffee. A long, slurping drink.)

SHE: You’ll see.

HE: Can’t wait. Death would be a welcome change.

SHE: You don’t believe me.

HE: I’ve been watching you. You didn’t poison my coffee.

SHE: You can’t watch me all the time.

HE: I do. All the time.

SHE: I pre-made your coffee last night, when you were asleep and weren’t watching. I poured in an ounce of Drano, spit in it for good measure, microwaved it this morning, served it to you, and now you’ve drunk it. I poisoned your coffee.

(Beat.)

HE: I switched them.

SHE: When? I’ve been looking this whole time, waiting for you to drink.

HE: You weren’t when I switched them.

— 53 —

PA N O P T I C O N

(Beat. SHE lifts her coffee cup, doesn’t drink. She smells it, puts it down.)

SHE: You didn’t switch them.

HE: How do you know?

SHE: I know what Drano smells like. And I definitely know what my own spit smells like, living with it, as I have, all my life.

You didn’t switch them.

HE: Perhaps. But whether I did or not is immaterial. You didn’t poison my coffee.

SHE: I did.

HE: I have cameras all around the house. Hidden cameras that you don’t know about. There’s one in a book over there.

Another behind that grate. In the kitchen, I have a ­camera hanging from the pot rack that looks like a frying pan. But it’s a camera. You see? And every morning before you wake up, I play back the video, tracking your nocturnal life. Like a meerkat on that show.

SHE: Meerkats are diurnal.

HE: Be that as it may . . . I keep a journal of your little nightly triumphs, like the time you got a jar of pickles open all by yourself. I jot down all your small catastrophes, like the time you couldn’t find your car keys. I maintain a record of your life more complete than your own memory so that, when you tell me one morning, “I don’t remember where my car keys are,” I can say “They’re on your dresser,” and thus keep the conversation to an absolute minimum. I know more about you than you do and I can tell you for certain, you did not poison my coffee.

(Pause.)

SHE: I knew all that. About the cameras.

HE: Right.

— 54 —

PA N O P T I C O N

SHE: I’ve always known.

HE: Hmm. SHE: I hired a body double.

HE: Really? Clever.

SHE: She comes in after you’ve gone to sleep, snoring like an idiot. She is my height, my weight, my hair color, my nose, in short me, only an actress. While she spends her nights ­acting for your cameras, I’m out of the house purchasing Drano to poison your coffee and dancing until dawn with gigolos at tony nightclubs like “The Golden Swan” and “The Fancy Flamingo.” I am popular. Beloved. I have hangers-on. At the clubs, everyone calls me Carmen, and they think I am the widow of a rich oilman whose name was Ricardo. You see, I can be dangerous and exciting.

HE: You don’t look like a Carmen.

SHE: To them, to the gigolos and the hangers on, to them, I do.

(Pause.)

HE: I’ve seen the video. Neither you nor your actress body double put anything in my coffee.

SHE: I switched the tape.

HE: We’ve already established that you did not know about the tape.

SHE: We have only established that you don’t think I knew about the tape. But let’s suppose that I did.

HE: I never suppose anything.

— 55 —

PA N O P T I C O N

SHE: (Acting out this plan, talking rapid-fire.) But I insist! Let us suppose that I, being aware that you are watching me all the time, devised the following plan: You fall asleep. I take a tape from a previous day. Let’s call that day, “yesterday”.

I sneak out. I purchase a book entitled How to Poison Your Husband’s Coffee With Drano. A good book. A very useful and good book. Then I dance at the “Tawny Tiger” with an eighteen-year-old Speedo model. Whooo! I sneak back in at dawn, place a cup in the microwave containing the following: coffee, Drano and a soupçon of unnecessary, but very satisfying, spit. I sneak into your secret video surveillance room—which I have always known about, by the way, ever since it was just your secret room for the observation of pornography.

HE: Never!

SHE: I switch the tape from last night with the tape from the night before, and go to bed. You wake up, go to your “secret” monitors and watch my body double triumphing over a jar of pickles. You wake me up, as you usually do, demanding breakfast. I prepare it. You watch. Everything is normal. But for one . . . small . . . detail. When I put your cup in the microwave, there’s an exact duplicate there already.

It is the duplicate I remove and place before you. The one that is there. Right now. It is, not by way of coincidence, but by way of meticulous planning on my part, poisoned. Let’s just suppose.

(Pause. HE drinks his coffee again.)

HE: And where is she in all this?

SHE: She? HE: Your double. The actress.

SHE: What? I don’t know.

HE: Do you think she’d like me? That we could be friends?

SHE: I doubt it. Perhaps. Why does it matter?

— 56 —

PA N O P T I C O N

HE: Well, I’ll be a widower soon. Perhaps I’ll change my name to Ricardo.

SHE: Ah. Back to this.

HE: Your coffee is poisoned.

SHE: You didn’t switch them. And, besides, I didn’t drink any.

HE: You will.

SHE: Why would I? HE: The better question is: Why haven’t you already?! Because, despite all your bravado, you aren’t really sure I didn’t switch them. But when, any moment now, I keel over ­vomiting Drano, you’ll be certain I was lying about switching them and you will drink. Oh, yes. You will drink.

SHE: I have been watching you this whole time.

HE: (Triumph.) But you haven’t been watching the coffee!

SHE: You may have video cameras and tapes, but I have insomnia and vigilance. I know for a fact that you have not touched my coffee. I have followed you around the house from the moment I pulled this cup out of the microwave. This ­poisoned cup right here. Ha! Yes, that’s right. I said “Ha!” HE: You only think you’ve been watching me.

SHE: And what do you suppose you mean by that?

HE: Let’s imagine all of the events in the universe, improbable or otherwise, that could yield the net result we will call: “I have poisoned your coffee,” where “I” is me and “your ­coffee” is that cup in front of you. If we’re being honest, most of the scenarios ending in this result are ones that you could not directly observe. Surely, by now, you’ve realized that despite your considerable self-regard, you are not, in fact, omnipresent.

SHE: Take that back.

— 57 —

PA N O P T I C O N

HE: Perhaps I might illuminate for you the series of events that will result in your untimely death.

SHE: I’d like that very much, thank you.

HE: Our scenario begins with our hero, me, realizing that the woman on my tapes is an actress— SHE: —How could you tell?

HE: She walks differently. I fell in love with your awkward gait. No actress, no matter how talented, could properly ­reproduce your sort of . . . loping.

SHE: Loping. Like a she-wolf.

HE: If you must. Now, I, having realized that you, my she-wolf wife, have gnawed your way out of my video camera net, come to the conclusion that you are planning my demise.

And so I enact the following plan: I put an ad in the paper for a professional double.

SHE: The paper? That’s where I found my professional body double!

HE: Newspapers are totally underrated since the advent of the Internet.

SHE: I know. Right?

HE: Two days after placing the ad, I receive a call from a man— an Iraqi—who recently fled to this country with twenty years of experience. He was Saddam Hussein’s body double. “How interesting,” I tell him. “People often remark on my resemblance to Saddam Hussein.” He laughs and says “I hope the resemblance is only physical. Saddam was a serious shit-goblin.”

SHE: He said that?

— 58 —

PA N O P T I C O N

HE: He said that. That’s how they talk in Iraq. I confirm for him that I am not, in fact, a shit-goblin, and this appeases him. “Okay, then, Dude,” he says, “We gonna do this thing or what?”

SHE: They don’t say “gonna do this thing” in Iraq.

HE: He learned it from our troops. May I continue with my story?

SHE: Please.

HE: So, I hire the man. How can I not? Having been Saddam Hussein’s double, he is trained in the ways of assassination, including the application and survival of poisons. One day, let’s call it, “this morning,” faux-Saddam (who is now faux-me) wakes you up for breakfast. You make his morning coffee and then follow him around the house making sure he doesn’t poison you in return. He does not. But while you’re following him, I—the real me, mind you—creep into the kitchen and place a radioactive isotope in your coffee.

Bloop! So, you see, I don’t switch the coffee cups—you were right about that—but I do separately poison yours.

SHE: And when do you switch places with mini-Saddam?

HE: (Laughing madly.) That’s the genius part. I don’t. I am, in fact, the Saddam Hussein body double. And over the past twenty years, I’ve built up an immunity to Drano. The book you bought was originally released in Iraq under the title How to Poison Your Dictator’s Coffee With Drano, and since then Saddam, being a paranoid shit goblin, required all of his body doubles to taste test his coffee for him.

SHE: None of that is true.

HE: Prove it.

SHE: I can’t.

HE: Exactly.

(Pause. SHE raises her coffee cup and takes a deep drink.)

— 59 —

PA N O P T I C O N

HE: I told you so.

SHE: No, you told me I would drink in triumph once I saw you on the floor vomiting Drano. You are actually quite surprised that I just drank this coffee.

HE: I confess: I am. Why did you do that? Your husband put a radioactive isotope in it.

SHE: I’m not really me. I am actually my double as well.

HE: No! SHE: And, over the years that I have been creeping around this household in the middle of the night, looking at your pictures, I have fallen madly in love with you and your Saddam Hussein-esque good looks.

HE: How tragic!

SHE: But now that I know you’re the kind of man who would slip a radioactive isotope into his wife’s coffee, I don’t want to live anymore.

HE: Oh no!

SHE: Why do you say “How tragic!” and “Oh no!”? I thought you wanted me dead. Or, at least, the real you wanted to kill the real me. Surely an identical actress will approximate.

HE: Because, you see, I’ve known about the actress for quite some time now. I’ve been afraid you would have her, or, more accurately, she would have you harm me in my sleep— actually, to put it correctly, harm him in his sleep. And so he assigned his double—me—to watch her double—you.

Over the months, watching her/you glide through the house late at night, not at all like a wolf, he/I fell madly in love with her/you. Can’t you/she see?! He/I have the same Saddam Hussein-esque good looks, but I/he am a better man than he/I could ever be! I would never put a radio­ active ­isotope into your/her coffee. You/she and I/he really could have had something together. Something magical. And now you’re going to die because you drank the radioactive ­isotope! And so am I! — 60 —

PA N O P T I C O N

SHE: You too?! I thought you were immune to Drano.

HE: I made that up just so you would drink the coffee. We will both die by the other’s hand.

SHE: How tragic!

HE: I know. Right?

SHE: Let me suggest something.

HE: I’d love to hear anything you’d like to suggest.

SHE: Perhaps we might embrace. As lovers do.

HE: Sounds self-indulgent.

SHE: No, bear with me—it’s for a reason. Don’t you suppose that when those two find us, their exact duplicate body doubles, dead in each other’s arms, it might wake them up to the ­horrors of their behavior? Perhaps he’ll stop watching her all the time. Perhaps she’ll stop sneaking out and snorting coke off the abs of twenty-year-olds.

HE: She does that?

SHE: Doesn’t matter. What I am suggesting is . . . perhaps they will see the positive and loving message of this double ­homicide. Maybe seeing that we two have fallen in love will make them remember how they once loved each other . . . really loved each other.

HE: They did, didn’t they?

SHE: Oh, my, yes.

(Beat.)

HE: Alright. We gonna do this thing?

SHE: Oh, you and your charming Iraqi patois.

— 61 —

PA N O P T I C O N

(HE and SHE rise. Slowly, they approach to embrace. SHE pauses.)

SHE: How do I know you’re really poisoned? How do I know this isn’t all another trick?

HE: You don’t. And neither do I! Isn’t it magical? It’s like Saddam once told me, “Sometimes murdering someone is just like love. Unless you do it with your bare hands, you just have to take it on faith.”

SHE: He had a beautiful way with words.

(They kiss. Slowly, each of them reaches behind the other, grabbing a steak knife from the table. Each raises their knife, about to strike. Suddenly, SHE pulls away, and both hide their knives behind their backs. She stares into his eyes.)

HE: (Innocent.) What is it?

(Pause.)

SHE: Nothing.

HE: I planted a car bomb— (SHE places her finger on his lips.)

SHE: Shhh . . . Shut up and kiss me.

(They kiss again, this time more passionately. Each drops their knife, dedicating themselves to nothing but the kiss.

Blackout.)

End of play.

— 62 —

RAPUNZEL’S ETYMOLOGY OF ZERO A Feminist Fairy Tale

By Katie May

— 63 —

RAPUNZEL’S ETYMOLOGY OF ZERO

By Katie May RAPUNZEL’S ETYMOLOGY OF ZERO was originally developed

by PlayGround (James A. Kleinmann, Artistic Director) for the Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series in residence at Berkeley Repertory Theatre on February 21, 2011. It was directed

by Barbara Oliver. The cast was as follows: The Narrator.......................................... Cathleen Riddley Rapunzel................................................. Jenna Johnson The Prince............................................... Patrick Russell RAPUNZEL’S ETYMOLOGY OF ZERO was premiered by PlayGround at the 15th Annual Best of PlayGround (2011) festival on May 5, 2011. It was directed by Jim Kleinmann. The cast was as follows: The Narrator.............................................. David Cramer Rapunzel.............................................. Rinabeth Apostol The Prince............................................... Jomar Tagatac Katie May is a playwright, comedy writer, and performer. Her plays include Black Sheep Gospel (Great Plains Theater Conference), A History of Freaks (finalist for the David Mark Cohen Award in Playwriting), and Manic Pixie Dream Girl (PlayGround fellowship commission), among others. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Virginia Piper Writing Center and the National University of Singapore, a grant from the Women in Film Foundation, and a two-time PlayGround Emerging Playwright Award winner. Her animated short film adaptation of Rapunzel’s Etymology of Zero was featured in the inaugural PlayGround Film Festival. She holds an MFA in Playwriting from Arizona State University.

— 64 —

RAPUNZEL’S ETYMOLOGY OF ZERO

By Katie May NARRATOR: Once upon a time . . . Or, perhaps I should say: Once upon SOME Time. Where Time is relative to one’s position in space, and to the speed at which one is traveling through space—which is to say that Time could mean any point in an infinite number of dimensions and/or universes that exist simultaneously, so that the very idea of there being A time becomes just silly! (NARRATOR waits for the audience to show their agreement. An uncomfortable beat.) Right, down to business. Once upon SOME time, in SOME dimension, in SOME universe, (RAPUNZEL politely clears her throat.), there was a Kingdom and in that Kingdom lived a Princess named Rapunzel.

RAPUNZEL: Hi. NARRATOR: And the Prince who loved her.

PRINCE: HEL-LO! NARRATOR: Now, Rapunzel, like all the princesses in this particular kingdom, had a talent—a sort of princess superpower.

RAPUNZEL: Oh I wouldn’t really call it that.

NARRATOR: Well, you’re not the Narrator are you?

RAPUNZEL: No. I’m sorry, please continue.

NARRATOR: A sort of princess superpower. The thing one must know about princess superpowers is that generally the more useless the talent the more beautiful the princess. And Rapunzel— RAPUNZEL: Has the most useless talent in the known universe.

PRINCE: What? I adore your talent!

RAPUNZEL: Seriously? Hair growth—that impresses you?

— 65 —

R A P U NZEL'S

ETYMOLOGY

OF

ZERO

PRINCE: Your tresses make me tremble! Your hirsuteness makes me horn— NARRATOR: While not as useful as spinning straw into gold, talking to animals, or even the ability to sleep for hundreds of years, Rapunzel’s most useless talent for controlling the growth of her hair meant she was the most beautiful princess in the land. Which would not have been a problem except that she was also— RAPUNZEL: Smart.

PRINCE: Scary smart!

NARRATOR: (A demonstration of Narrative superiority.) Super­ numerically Smart. (PRINCE reacts.) Aaand not only was she smart, she was also terribly talented with numbers.

RAPUNZEL: (To the Prince.) Did you know, that the definition of googolplex is ten to the googol power where one googol is greater than the number of elementary particles in the known universe?!

PRINCE: Huh? NARRATOR: In fact, Rapunzel’s love of math was directly proportional to how much she did NOT love the Prince.

RAPUNZEL: Which is not at all.

NARRATOR: And Rapunzel’s complete disinterest in the Prince was directly proportional to his absolute fascination with her.

PRINCE: My love, I shall make you my Queen!

NARRATOR: And so in an effort to delay her nuptials as long as possible, Rapunzel built a tower, stocked it with as many books as it would hold, and concocted a story about an evil stepmother.

RAPUNZEL: (To the Prince.) She’s just so-o-o-o . . . Evil.

PRINCE: (Nods, and perhaps takes notes.) Uh huh. Uh huh. ­Ee-e-e-vil. Got it.

— 66 —

R A P UNZEL'S

ETYMOLOGY

OF

ZERO

NARRATOR: And she locked herself away in the tower— PRINCE: I shall rescue you my love!

NARRATOR: —and began to formulate a plan. Or, as it were, an Equation.

RAPUNZEL: If I take the circumference of the tower, divided by the Prince’s rate of ascent, derived from his metabolic rate, factored by average wind speeds, caloric intake, height, weight, lean muscle mass, accounting for his princely ­genetics . . . (Trails off, muttering to herself.)

NARRATOR: From which she arrived at a number.

RAPUNZEL: The number. The number which describes the constant rate at which my hair must grow in order for the climbing prince to never reach the top of the tower!

NARRATOR: Genius, your Highness.

RAPUNZEL: Thank you!

NARRATOR: So, as the story goes, the Prince called.

PRINCE: Rapunzel Rapunzel!

NARRATOR: And she let down her hair. (RAPUNZEL lets down her hair.) And the Prince climbed.

PRINCE: (The PRINCE climbs.) I’m on my way my lovely!

NARRATOR: And climbed. (The PRINCE climbs.)

PRINCE: Won’t be long now!

NARRATOR: And climbed some more.

PRINCE: Nearly there my love!

NARRATOR: Except that he wasn’t. Because as he climbed Rapunzel grew her hair.

— 67 —

R A P U NZEL'S

ETYMOLOGY

OF

ZERO

RAPUNZEL: Which is sort of like setting a clock ticking at a certain speed and just letting it run. I hardly even notice it, it’s like tapping my finger—or chewing. Who thinks about chewing?

NARRATOR: And so her mind was free to ponder the great questions of the universe. To linger over the vast trajectories of stars across the heavens, and the elegant swirl of the water in her morning cup of tea. She began to see numbers everywhere.

RAPUNZEL: In the slanting shafts of sunlight through the ­window.

In the angle of the hawk’s wing as it dips from the sky.

NARRATOR: And so time passed, and Rapunzel studied.

RAPUNZEL: (Calling down to the Prince.) So, every number is either a composite or prime, right? And Primes are only ­divisible by one and by themselves, and they go on ­forever, but we only know about a certain number of them, even though we also know that the next one is just out there, waiting to be discovered, for us to call it up from the Anonymous Infinite!

PRINCE: You don’t say?

NARRATOR: The Prince never noticed he wasn’t getting anywhere. Which really wasn’t so surprising.

RAPUNZEL: (To the Prince.) The same algorithm that describes the curving spiral of a ram’s horn, also describes the whirl of a nautilus shell. 1.618, the golden ratio! The same math naturally occurring all over creation. Isn’t that gorgeous?!

PRINCE: Your face is gorgeous!

RAPUNZEL: (Sighs.) I did some calculating and it’s also the same ratio that describes the spiral of the stairs right here in my tower!

PRINCE: I thought there were no stairs in the tower.

— 68 —

R A P UNZEL'S

ETYMOLOGY

OF

ZERO

RAPUNZEL: Oh . . . I mean before my EVIL stepmother BURNED THEM DOWN! PRINCE: Of course! Blast her and her Evil ways!

NARRATOR: And so it went. The Prince climbing, and Rapunzel studying and calculating. And she began to do math that no one had done before, equations that described— RAPUNZEL: The crawl of sunlight across a cobblestone floor, the rate at which smoke rings expand outward after release from the lips.

NARRATOR: And the mathematicians of the kingdom took notice of her proofs. Prim, pretty— RAPUNZEL: Princessy— NARRATOR: —proofs. And they said: “But what does it do?”

RAPUNZEL: What do you mean what does it do?

NARRATOR (As the mathematicians.): “What is the practical application of your equation? How do we use it?”

RAPUNZEL: You don’t. It’s just there, like a painting, or poetry.

It doesn’t Function . . . it Describes.

NARRATOR: But the mathematicians harrumphed (Harrumphs.) and they called her proofs and theorems “Beautiful!” but “Useless.” Which made Rapunzel love her work all the more.

RAPUNZEL: Because if anyone is equipped to understand Beauty and Uselessness, it’s a Princess.

NARRATOR: And the more she loved them the harder she worked, and the harder she worked the more she came to feel that she was on the edge of something, teetering on the ­precipice of discovery . . .

RAPUNZEL: (Calling down to the Prince.) It’s space.

PRINCE: What?

— 69 —

R A P U NZEL'S

ETYMOLOGY

OF

ZERO

RAPUNZEL: Spaces, voids, emptiness. I can’t figure out how to factor them in.

NARRATOR: To understand this problem you also must know that in Rapunzel’s kingdom, as in many kingdoms across universes, there was no true concept of nothingness. No idea of nothing as a thing unto itself. Spaces in the counting system were only placeholders.

RAPUNZEL: Like a period at the end of a sentence. Letters stand for sounds, that make up words that denote an idea, but a period is just punctuation. If everything stands for something else how do you account for the empty?

PRINCE: (Still climbing.) Why would you need to? It’s empty right? What is there to account for?

RAPUNZEL: How would we identify rhythms without the silences between beats? How would we know stars without the vast emptiness between pinpoints of light? Without a void and emptiness to delineate one thing from the next, everything would be simultaneously singular and infinite. Light or blackness.

PRINCE: Whoa. Heavy.

NARRATOR: So Rapunzel pondered and paced, and chewed her pencils to pieces— RAPUNZEL: Ow! NARRATOR: She thought harder than she had ever thought before. So hard, in fact, that for a few whole minutes she completely forgot to grow her hair.

RAPUNZEL: (Her head snaps up.) Uh oh! (She rushes toward her window but it’s too late.)

NARRATOR: And before she knew it— PRINCE: (Finally in the tower.) TAAA–DAAA!!!!!

NARRATOR: The prince arrived.

— 70 —

R A P UNZEL'S

ETYMOLOGY

OF

ZERO

(A long beat. RAPUNZEL and the PRINCE stare at each other.)

RAPUNZEL: So. PRINCE: So-o-o-o.

RAPUNZEL: What now?

PRINCE: Well . . . I marry you and make you my Queen!

RAPUNZEL: And then what?

PRINCE: What do you mean then what?

RAPUNZEL: What next? You make me your Queen and after that, what?

PRINCE: Well, you get pregnant. I fill you up with babies. You generate heirs. Lots of them . . . just heirs running around all over the place.

RAPUNZEL: I generate heirs . . . Huh. What if I don’t want to?

PRINCE: What do you mean, you don’t want to? That’s what Princesses do. You become Queens, you generate heirs, it’s what you stand for.

RAPUNZEL: Not me. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want you to fill me up, I want to remain empty, non-generative. (A beat.

RAPUNZEL gasps.) NON-GENERATIVE. That’s it!

PRINCE: What’s it?!

RAPUNZEL: Spaces, voids, they’re not just empty, they are nothing, they are Non-Generative, which is something, even though it’s nothing. You see the nothing has a function, a describable something, to be Non-Generative!

NARRATOR: It was as if a door had blown open, and a great light blazed forth! And Rapunzel was so overcome she did the previously unthinkable. She kissed the Prince! (RAPUNZEL kisses the Prince. They step back. A brief pause.) And she felt—

— 71 —

R A P U NZEL'S

ETYMOLOGY

OF

ZERO

RAPUNZEL: Nothing.

PRINCE: Less than nothing.

RAPUNZEL: Less than nothing . . . Less than nothing . . . That would be . . . NEGATIVE. Oh I have to write this down! (She scrambles for a pen.) We need a symbol, we need a name, I’ll name it after you! . . . What is your name?

PRINCE: (Pulling himself up to his full height.) Zerothusellah!

RAPUNZEL: Zerothusellah?! . . . Your parents named you Zerothusellah?

PRINCE: Yours named you Rapunzel.

RAPUNZEL: Good point. How about we shorten it. Zero. Yes, Zero, I like that. 1 times 1 is one. 1 times 2 is two. They generate products. But 1 times 0 is . . . zero. It—creates—nothingness.

PRINCE: Neat.

RAPUNZEL: Don’t you see? It’s so simple . . . it’s Beautiful. And Annihilating.

NARRATOR: And it was. And Rapunzel used it to do math previously unknown. Elegant math, quiet math, the math of silences and stillness.

RAPUNZEL: Math like that frozen moment just after a birth before the baby draws its first breath to scream. Math that speaks of the emptiness of the sky just after snowfall, when the last flake has finished its downward drift.

NARRATOR: And as Rapunzel made great contributions to the field, princesses everywhere began using her original equation to calculate the rate at which they must stay ahead of their pursuing princes. All across the land towers sprang up, inhabited by princesses braiding ropes and weaving thread, and becoming great scholars, while outside their windows the princes climbed.

— 72 —

R A P UNZEL'S

ETYMOLOGY

OF

ZERO

RAPUNZEL: Oh come on now, not all the princes were completely daft. (PRINCE reacts.) Sorry.

NARRATOR: Eventually many of the princes gave up, and came inside to study. And the towers became great centers of learning. Intellectual utopias of Science and Literature, but most of all Mathematics. And people began to refer to the land as the Kingdom of Number. And even though she had never married, they crowned Rapunzel their Queen.

RAPUNZEL: Which technically makes it the Queendom of Number— NARRATOR: But in her wisdom, she was above getting nitpicky.

RAPUNZEL: (Cowed.) Right.

NARRATOR: As for the Prince, he had grown tired of both math and chasing princesses, so he married a librarian.

PRINCE: (To an audience member.) Your shelves make me shiver, your dewy decimals fill me with desire!

NARRATOR: And as time went by, Rapunzel’s concept of zero leaked out into the universe, across time and space—changing­ the face of mathematics everywhere. But ­prejudices are often slow to change and giving credit to a princess locked away in a tower was too much for many mathematicians to stomach. So, to this day, no one can quite recall where it came from.

RAPUNZEL: (Muttering.) Bastards.

NARRATOR: There was, however, one person who knew the whole story. And so it was that the Prince, who turned out to have a surprising gift for words, if nothing else— PRINCE: Hey! NARRATOR: —eventually wrote the story down.

PRINCE: (Writes.) Lights up on Narrator. Once upon a time . . .

— 73 —

R A P U NZEL'S

ETYMOLOGY

OF

ZERO

NARRATOR: And when he was finished, he got it published. And his wife stocked a copy in the library, which made it official.

And should you ever find your way through space and time to the Queendom of Number, you can find it— PRINCE: Rapunzel’s Etymology of Zero.

NARRATOR: Nestled there like the next prime number. Just ­waiting to be Discovered.

(Blackout.)

End of play.

— 74 —

TRUFFALDINO SAYS NO

By Ken Slattery

— 75 —

TRUFFALDINO SAYS NO

By Ken Slattery TRUFFALDINO SAYS NO was originally developed by PlayGround (James A. Kleinmann, Artistic Director) for the Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series in residence at Berkeley Repertory Theatre on January 12, 2009. It was directed by Chris Smith. The cast was as follows: Arlecchino................................................ Colin Thomson Truffaldino................................................. Craig Marker Colombina.................................................... Gwen Loeb Il Dottore........................................... Eric Frashier Hayes Isabella................................................... Cat Thompson Pantalone................................................ Jomar Tagatac Flavio..................................................... Michael Phillis Il Capitano......................................... John Patrick Moore TRUFFALDINO SAYS NO was premiered by PlayGround at the 13th Annual Best of PlayGround (2009) festival on May 7, 2009. It was directed by Chris Smith. The cast was as follows: Arlecchino...................................................Soren Oliver Truffaldino................................................. Aaron Wilton Colombina............................................... Cindy Goldfield Il Dottore, Pantalone.................................. Danielle Levin Isabella........................................................ Lisa Morse Flavio..................................................... Michael Phillis Il Capitano............................................... Brian Herndon Originally from Ireland, Ken Slattery studied Drama and Theatre at Trinity College Dublin. In recent years in the Bay Area, Shotgun Players produced Truffaldino Says No and Killing My Lobster produced The Shakespeare Bug, both of which were full-length plays initially commissioned by PlayGround. Ken would like to thank his wife Maria for her love and support.

— 76 —

TRUFFALDINO SAYS NO

By Ken Slattery Characters: Truffaldino, male Arlecchino, male Colombina, female Il Dottore, male Isabella, female Pantalone, male Flavio, male Il Capitano, male

Setting: Home of Arlecchino, Colombina and Truffaldino.

(Lights rise. TRUFFALDINO is present, seated. He seems despondent. Enter ARLECCHINO. He walks like a cat, with bent knees, never in a straight line. Walking quickly but taking his time, it seems he covers the whole stage before he reaches his destination—beside TRUFFALDINO. TRUFFALDINO ignores him until he speaks.)

ARLECCHINO: Truffaldino!

TRUFFALDINO: Papa.

ARLECCHINO: What’s the matter with you? You seem down.

TRUFFALDINO: Il Capitano asked me to find a wife for him today.

Someone “beautiful and rich,” capable of providing him with “a legion of offspring.”

ARLECCHINO: Fool. All he ever does is run away from such a woman. Who’s he got in mind this time?

TRUFFALDINO: Isabella.

ARLECCHINO: Isabella? The master’s daughter? What a coincidence! Just this very day, our master Pantalone says to me: (He shuffles around the stage as he does an impression of PANTALONE, a miserly old man.) “Arlecchino. The shop’s not doing well in this time of economic crisis. If only someone would marry my daughter Isabella, who continues to eat me out of house and home!” So he asks me to find a husband for Isabella!

— 77 —

T R U F FA L D I N O

S AY S

NO

TRUFFALDINO: She’s infatuated with Flavio.

ARLECCHINO: Il Dottore’s son?

TRUFFALDINO: Forever they lament their hopeless love for one another, yet neither seems capable of doing a thing about it.

ARLECCHINO: Yet another coincidence! Do you know who Pantalone wants Isabella to marry?

TRUFFALDINO: (Wearily.) Let me guess.

ARLECCHINO: Il Dottore himself! (Pause.) What a situation.

TRUFFALDINO: I’m tired of it, Papa.

ARLECCHINO: (Scheming.) Well then! Let’s see how we can turn this state of affairs to our advantage!

TRUFFALDINO: Do we have to?

ARLECCHINO: What’s got into you? We do indeed! So! What has Il Capitano asked you to do?

TRUFFALDINO: He asked me to find out where Isabella lives, so he may go there and seduce her.

ARLECCHINO: No chance! He’ll run at the first sight of her skirt!

I think Il Dottore is a better hope. OK! This is the plan. I’ll go to Il Dottore straightaway, tell him of Isabella’s affection for him, and convince him to visit Pantalone’s house.

TRUFFALDINO: Il Dottore will need no convincing.

ARLECCHINO: In the meantime, you fetch your mother Colombina! Tell her to pay a visit to Il Capitano.

TRUFFALDINO: You want my mother to seduce Il Capitano?

ARLECCHINO: Of course not! We merely need her to stall Il Capitano whilst Isabella falls in love with Il Dottore! Come on! Let’s go!

— 78 —

T R U F FA L D I N O

S AY S

NO

(ARLECCHINO moves as before. He stops when he realizes TRUFFALDINO hasn’t moved.)

ARLECCHINO: What’s the matter?

TRUFFALDINO: I can’t do this.

ARLECCHINO: (Perplexed.) You’ve got to do this. This is what we do!

TRUFFALDINO: No, Papa.

ARLECCHINO: No? What do you mean, No? TRUFFALDINO: I mean, No, I won’t fetch Colombina. I refuse to participate in these events any more. Every day, the same old concerns. I feel like I’ve been doing this for hundreds of years.

ARLECCHINO: But if you don’t do this and fetch Colombina, whatever will happen?!

TRUFFALDINO: Well we know what will happen if I do fetch Colombina. She’ll be angry with you for suggesting this entire scheme, but she’ll go to Il Capitano’s house in any case. At the same time, you’ll go to Il Dottore, get your message confused, and tell him to go see Isabella at Il Capitano’s house, not Pantalone’s house. Then, upon ­realizing your mistake, you’ll go to Pantalone’s house and tell Isabella to go to Il Capitano’s house to see Flavio. Pantalone will eavesdrop upon your conversation with Isabella and ­follow her to Il Capitano’s house, because he does not want her to be seduced by Flavio. So everyone will turn up at Il Capitano’s house after nightfall and confuse each other for someone else in the darkness. Meanwhile, as Il Capitano slowly becomes convinced his house is under attack from Turkish invaders, Flavio, having previously eavesdropped upon your conversation about Isabella with Il Dottore, and stricken with grief over the loss of his one true love to his father, will spend the day composing a poem. That is, until either you, me, or Colombina turns up to tell him what’s really going on and he hurries to Il Capitano’s house to sort out the mess.

— 79 —

T R U F FA L D I N O

S AY S

NO

ARLECCHINO: (Embarrassed.) What makes you say all this?

TRUFFALDINO: I’m not cut out to be a Zanni, Papa. I want more from this life. I want out.

ARLECCHINO: You’re distressing me, Truffaldino! This is your life! Why would you want any other?

TRUFFALDINO: Surely there’s something different I can do with my time?!

ARLECCHINO: (Unconvinced.) Like what?

TRUFFALDINO: Maybe I can go off to fight in a war like Il Capitano?

(ARLECCHINO is highly amused.) Maybe I can own a shop like Pantalone? (Arlecchino becomes even more amused.)

Maybe I can be in love with Isabella? (Arlecchino is suddenly serious.)

ARLECCHINO: Don’t you go getting false ideas, Truffaldino. You are who you are. Remember that!

TRUFFALDINO: Flavio is such a wimp! Yet she always chooses him in the end! Why can’t she choose a real man for a change— ARLECCHINO: Is this your problem? You have a crush on Isabella?

I’ve got news for you, Truffaldino, you’re not the first to fall for her flowery, emotional, high-maintenance ways— TRUFFALDINO: (Mournfully.) I know, Papa. Yet there’s more to my malaise than Isabella. I wake up in the mornings, and it seems all I am is a clown. I serve my master, yet—like you— all I want to do is trick my master, so—like you—I spend my days plotting and scheming. But the schemes never seem to work, and I— I really wish I could’ve gone to college— ARLECCHINO: I don’t want to hear it, Truffaldino! Get it together and get moving! We don’t have all day here! Night is almost upon us. If you don’t get moving now, our messages won’t be delivered to anybody, and nobody will know what to do!

(Enter COLOMBINA. She is Arlecchino’s wife, and moves in a similar fashion to him.)

— 80 —

T R U F FA L D I N O

S AY S

NO

ARLECCHINO: Colombina, my dear! What brings you here?

COLOMBINA: I’m—I’m not sure. I’ve a feeling I should be somewhere, but I’m not sure where.

ARLECCHINO: (To Truffaldino.) You see! It’s started already!

(To Colombina.) My dear, you should be somewhere, it’s true! Truffaldino, tell her at once! (TRUFFALDINO does not ­comply.) Truffaldino!

COLOMBINA: What has gotten into him?

ARLECCHINO: Listen, we don’t have much time! You must go to Il Dottore’s house!

(TRUFFALDINO shakes his head as ARLECCHINO has already got the plan wrong.)

COLOMBINA: Il Dottore’s house?

ARLECCHINO: Yes. You must go there and declare your love for Flavio!

COLOMBINA: Flavio? The poet?

TRUFFALDINO: (Unable to resist getting involved.) You’re ­getting it wrong! She needs to go to Il Capitano’s house and seduce Il Capitano!

(Enter IL DOTTORE, old, wealthy, and fat. He moves slowly, meandering in figure 8s using tiny steps. The others wait for him to arrive. TRUFFALDINO makes a point of checking his watch.)

ARLECCHINO: Il Dottore! Esteemed doctor! What brings you here?

IL DOTTORE: (Walking as he talks.) I’m—I’m not sure. I’ve a ­feeling I should be somewhere—

— 81 —

T R U F FA L D I N O

S AY S

NO

ARLECCHINO: (To Truffaldino.) You see! The problem continues!

(To Il Dottore.) Il Dottore, you should be somewhere, it’s true! Il Capitano has declared his love for you, and you must go to him at Pantalone’s house!

IL DOTTORE: (Walking as he talks.) Il Capitano, eh? Most unusual.

Reminds me of a Latin professor I once knew—Ergo cogito sumo, he would say to me— TRUFFALDINO: Papa, no! You’re getting it wrong again! It is Isabella who’s declared her love for Il Dottore! And—Why am I even bothering?

IL DOTTORE: (Walking as he talks.) Isabella too, eh? How unusual for them both to declare their love for me on the same day; yet not so unusual either, in our funny old world.

ARLECCHINO: Il Dottore! We’ve no time to lose! You must depart for Il Capitano’s house immediately! Isabella is waiting for you there!

IL DOTTORE: (As he exits.) I shall go straightaway! By the way, did you know there are 300 distinct breeds of goat in existence? Alpine Goat, Anatolian Black Goat, Anglo-Nubian Goat, Appenzell Goat, Argentata of Etna Goat, Belgian Fawn, Benadir Goat, Billy Goat— (Exit IL DOTTORE.) ARLECCHINO: (To Colombina.) You’ve got to reach Il Capitano’s house before Il Dottore gets there!

COLOMBINA: I would rather seduce Flavio than Il Capitano.

(Enter ISABELLA, whimpering. She has a handkerchief. She has heard Colombina’s last remark. Truffaldino’s mood picks up when he sees her.)

TRUFFALDINO: Isabella! What brings you here?

ISABELLA: (To Truffaldino.) I’m—I—Everybody’s got to be somewhere.

— 82 —

T R U F FA L D I N O

S AY S

NO

(She drops her handkerchief. With some alacrity, Truffaldino moves—the same way as his father—to pick it up. He returns her handkerchief to her, but she remains aloof.)

ISABELLA: Colombina! Why do you want to seduce my sweet love, Flavio? Don’t you know that Flavio and I are destined for one another?!

TRUFFALDINO: (Building himself up to reveal his affections.)

Isabella!

ARLECCHINO: Don’t do it, son!

TRUFFALDINO: Why not consider me instead of Flavio for a change?

ISABELLA: Who are you again?

(She drops her handkerchief again. TRUFFALDINO retrieves it for her again. Enter PANTALONE, an old, hunched-up man who shuffles across the stage.)

ARLECCHINO: (Wearily.) Pantalone! My master! What brings you here?

PANTALONE: What the devil is going on, Arlecchino? You were supposed to come to my house! You’re supposed to tell Isabella to go to Il Capitano’s house to see Flavio who is in fact really Il Dottore, so that I can overhear you and follow Isabella!

ARLECCHINO: Yes. We got delayed.

PANTALONE: Instead I follow Isabella here! What’s your explanation for this unforgivable holdup?

ARLECCHINO: Truffaldino refused to go to Il Dottore’s house. He said No. PANTALONE: He said No? (To Truffaldino.) You said No? What’s the meaning of this?

— 83 —

T R U F FA L D I N O

S AY S

NO

TRUFFALDINO: I’m tired, Master. I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m thinking I can get out of this game while I still have a chance. Before I get too old, and it’s too late for me to be anything other than my father.

PANTALONE: What can you do instead?

TRUFFALDINO: Fight in a war, maybe? Or maybe just travel the world, see what else is out there! Now that I’ve found this freedom within me, I feel I can do anything!

(Everyone is aghast. PANTALONE falls flat on his back, kicking his legs in the air, gradually curling up like a dying insect.)

ARLECCHINO: Truffaldino, look what you’ve done to your ­master!

Apologize to him immediately!

TRUFFALDINO: I cannot. I’m leaving! (To Colombina.) I’m sorry, Mother.

COLOMBINA: I understand, my son.

TRUFFALDINO: Isabella! Come with me.

ISABELLA: I— I don’t know—I still feel destined for my lover Flavio— ARLECCHINO: Flavio! Where the hell did he get to?

(Enter FLAVIO and IL CAPITANO, arm-in-arm. Flavio wobbles as he walks, as if floating from side-to-side. Il Capitano walks in large strides, with his chest puffed out.)

FLAVIO: I am here with Il Capitano!

IL CAPITANO: (Bemused.) What happened to the Turkish invaders? Did they come to your house instead?

— 84 —

T R U F FA L D I N O

S AY S

NO

FLAVIO: I’m not quite sure why, but I possessed a strong urge to go to Il Capitano’s house. Since nobody else was where they were supposed to be, it turned out that Il Capitano and myself were alone there; apart from my father, who we found lecturing a plant. Anyhow, one thing led to another between myself and Il Capitano— IL CAPITANO: It emerged there’s a reason why I’ve been making up lies about my sexual conquests and running away from women all these years!

FLAVIO: And my own inability to get it together long-term with Isabella is rooted in another issue— ARLECCHINO: We see. (To Truffaldino.) Look what you’ve gone and done now!

COLOMBINA: Leave him be, Arlecchino!

TRUFFALDINO: It’s a brave new world, Papa. We all have the freedom to be who we want to be now.

ISABELLA: Um, Truffaldino? Maybe I was too quick to decline your invitation earlier? I would love to travel the world with you, see what else is out there— TRUFFALDINO: Then we shall depart! (TRUFFALDINO hugs his mother and moves to shake hands with his father.) Father?

ARLECCHINO: (Finally accepting the situation.) Good luck, my son.

(They shake hands. TRUFFALDINO exits with ISABELLA. She drops her handkerchief once or twice on the way out, and each time Truffaldino retrieves it. As he moves to do this, he walks at first as his father does, but then he seems to find his own walk. The remaining characters watch them depart. Exit Truffaldino and Isabella.)

ARLECCHINO: Well there goes several hundred years of Commedia dell’Arte.

— 85 —

T R U F FA L D I N O

S AY S

NO

COLOMBINA: Hush, Arlecchino. We can do with a rest.

FLAVIO: Wow, the end of Commedia dell’Arte as we know it.

I think that deserves a verse or two in my next poem— IL CAPITANO: (Shocked.) Agh! You’re a poet!

(IL CAPITANO turns and does his trademark run offstage, throwing his head back, howling, and kicking his feet forward. Exits.)

FLAVIO: Il Capitano! Come back! I can change! I can change!

(Exit FLAVIO.) ARLECCHINO: So maybe not quite the end . . .

COLOMBINA: Apparently not.

PANTALONE: Will somebody please help me up here?

(ARLECCHINO and COLOMBINA stare down at PANTALONE as lights fade.)

End of play.

— 86 —

THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND SERIES Available for purchase online at www.playground-sf.org

THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND–SAN FRANCISCO (2014): The BrokenTooth Comb by William Bivins; Love Spacewalked In by Maury Zeff; Mr. Wong’s Goes to Washington by Ruben Grijalva; Riding Dragons

by Victoria Chong Der; Stranger in a Stranger Land by Karen Macklin; When You Talk About This by Patricia Cotter THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND–LOS ANGELES (2014): A Change of Heart

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by Evelyn Jean Pine; The Spherical Loneliness of Beverly Onion by Katie May; Symmetrical Smack‑Down by William Bivins; Value Over Replacement by Ruben Grijalva THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND–LOS ANGELES (2013): Flight Time

by Carolina Rojas Moretti; The Kid in the Trunk by John Corcoran; Pinocchia by Kathleen Cecchin; The Prince and the Closet Castle by Andrew Crabtree; Romeo and Jules by Ron Burch; Waiting for Kafka

by Kevin Crust THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (2012): Childless by Garret Jon Groenveld; Hella Love Oakland by Robin Lynn Rodriguez; Meet the Breeders by Ignacio Zulueta; Miss Finknagle Succumbs to Chaos by Kirk Shimano; Room for Rent by Mercedes Segesvary; Ships in the Day by Genevieve Jessee; You Eat What You Kill by Cleavon Smith THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (2011): Calling the Kettle by Brady Lea; Ecce Homo by Jonathan Luskin; Escapades by Mandy Hodge Rizvi; Frigidare by Arisa White; Rapunzel’s Etymology of Zero by Katie May; See. On. Unseen. The. Lost. by Evelyn Jean Pine; This Is My Body by Daniel Heath THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (2010): 7 Nightmares by Erin Bregman; The Audition by Alex Moggridge; Back to Earth by Evelyn Jean Pine; A Futurist Supersaga in Six Acts by Tim Bauer; The New Season by Tom Swift; The Safety of Pools by Malachy Walsh; Undone by Diane Sampson THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (2009): All Thumbs by Aaron Loeb; Gymnopédie #1 by Kenn Rabin; John Jacob O’Reilly Smitherton’s Bid to Save the World by Erin Bregman; Net by Geetha Reddy; Seen by Evelyn Jean Pine; Truffaldino Says No by Ken Slattery; Wednesday

by Daniel Heath — 87 —

THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND Series Available for purchase online at www.playground-sf.org

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20TH ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION THE BEST OF THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (1994–2014) Six short plays celebrating the very best writing from the first twenty years of PlayGround.

THE BEST OF THE BEST OF

PANOPTICON

by Aaron Loeb

RAPUNZEL’S ETYMOLOGY OF ZERO

by Katie May

NET

by Geetha Reddy

MY NAME IS YIN

by Tom Swift

Publications in The Best of PlayGround series: THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND–SAN FRANCISCO (2014) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND–LOS ANGELES (2014) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND–SAN FRANCISCO (2013) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND–LOS ANGELES (2013) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (2012) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (2011) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (2010) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (2009) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (2008) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (2007) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (2006) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (2005) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (2004) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (2003) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (2002) THE BEST OF PLAYGROUND (1997-2001)

For more information, visit www.playground-sf.org.

19 9

14

TRUFFALDINO SAYS NO

by Ken Slattery

4

Foreword by

Brighde Mullins

20

by Robin Lynn Rodriguez

The Best of the Best of PlayGround (1994–2014)

HELLA LOVE OAKLAND