| An Unidentified Man | |
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a scene sketch by George Constantin
Cast UNIDENTIFIED MAN, 50s... His WIFE ANNOUNCER YOUNG MAN CRAZY WAVING CAT JACKASS DIRECTOR PARKING OFFICER WRITER 1. An Unidentified Man GC / April 2010 Author's note: This is a short comical piece. The feeling of a crowded city should be evoked by the director, set designer, cast and crew. The author suggests that simple is better; the play is written for a no-budget production to be included in a series of short "plays-in-aday" performance. The author believes in the creativity and discretion of the actors and director as well as the crew. Have fun and make it fly. Property plotting includes a car (automobile) represented by a pair of simple chairs, a briefcase, and assorted props for characters. For the car in this play, a simple arrangement of two chairs side-by-side is recommended. There will be a need for a dashboard, but a very small edifice will suffice. There should be no actual steering wheel and part of the effect desired is of the actors holding nothing. If a wheel is used, it should not be affixed to anything but be a free prop. A third chair for another automobile is needed. This can work with a fourth chair on the other side representing parked cars for later action. Four chairs. A small table or stand. That's it. Important prop is the "waving cat" display. All the action is physically done trusting the actor to give the invisible parts life and plausibility. 2. An Unidentified Man GC / April 2010 LIGHTS UP. A scene. The setting is a city. Plain stage is fine. Mood lights, bird chirps, car honks, cat calls and wolf whistles, streetsounds of basketball games or jumprope, boom-boxes, cross-cultural dialects. New York is the ideal, but any city anywhere in the world will do. Enter AN UNIDENTIFIED MAN in suit-clothes, fedora hat and briefcase walking with keys jangling except for the one he is holding between two fingers. He seems buoyant and joyous, if not a skip in his step then everything seems to be okay. A bit of Parisian aplomb and American drive. Unlocks car door. Gets in, places suitcase on seat next to him. Rolls down window. Clips on seatbelt. Checks mirrors. A sleight-of-hand will have taken place as the actor will start the car by not using the keys he had. He checks for traffic, pulls out into the road, and has that silly Hollywood-studios look of the 1940s and 1950s while driving, bouncing head, smile, and carefree. UNIDENTIFIED MAN I am a happy man! My life is so great! I love love love my life! Happy life! Happy me! Me Me ME! Oh goody my life. Happy my life happy to be me. And who am I? I am ME! That most happy man! Happy happy happy me me me. Me happy. Happy Me. Haa- Pee- Mee - . . . Haaa-peeee-me-eeee. Me! All mine! Just for me. Happy! His mobile phone rings. He answers it. UNIDENTIFIED MAN Ah, my wife Mary who married me. We will be together unto eternity. Til then I will call her Tilda. Tilda til then. Happy me . . . Hold on . . . Yes? . . . Hello dear! My dear Mary. I am happy, Mary! Happy me. How are the kids, Morgan and Megan? Happy kids! Happy us! Happy me! They are fine? Great! See you at home. Happy home! Happy me. Ah, hold on. Let me put you on speakerphone. 3. An Unidentified Man GC / April 2010 He places the phone on the seat next to him. His wife appears and sits on the seat occupied by the phone. This is meant to present the dialogue to the audience, not a metaphysical action. Although it could be. . . UNIDENTIFIED MAN Fine. Tilda, can you hear me? WIFE I can hear you! Can you hear me? UNIDENTIFIED MAN Yes, it's like you were right here with me! WIFE Maybe I am. UNIDENTIFIED MAN You are -- you are always with me my love. Always with me in my heart. WIFE And you too, dear. What are you doing? UNIDENTIFIED MAN I am driving around the city. Such a lovely, happy city! What about you, Tilda? WIFE I am clipping coupons for things that we don't need to buy but it keeps me busy. Awaiting your arrival home. UNIDENTIFIED MAN And home I shall be! We must hang up now, love, as I have to be a safe driver. Kisses. WIFE Hugs of love. Bye. UNIDENTIFIED MAN Goodbye. 4. An Unidentified Man GC / April 2010 The wife should exit in a very ridiculous way, suitable for the Absurdity dictated by the shorts works of Beckett or Ionesco. Leaps and cartwheels with funny sounds are encouraged. The UNIDENTIFIED MAN is still holding the phone, and -- with teeth clenching tongue -- he clicks it off with an electronic "boop" sound. Swerves a little in his momentary distraction. UNIDENTIFIED MAN Ooh! Must be careful. Thunder sounds faintly. He scowls, but this is only a momentary blip in a happy scene. He rolls up the window and whistles lightly (or hums if the actor cannot whistle) and decides to turn on the radio. ANNOUNCER (OFF STAGE) . . . right now, because the first one-hundred callers will get Dr. Kratzenseiler's new Macrobiotic Sodium Enema Cleanse for only nineteen dollar and ninetyfive cents. But if you call in the next ten minutes, we'll double your order. That's one-full gallon of Dr. Kratzenseiler's new Macrobiotic Sodium Enema Cleanse with the never-rust mixing spoon, Dr. Kratzenseiler's bestselling book "Bowelling for Dollars, Colon-izing for Life" . . . (truck horn blasts loudly) . . . the autographed rubber glove suitable for display, and the chance to let Dr. Kratzenseiler himself scope yourself or a loved one, all for only nineteenninety- five. Call now. UNIDENTIFIED MAN switches radio off. UNIDENTIFIED MAN Such garbage! Pulls to red light. Car idles. A chair is to the right of the UNIDENTIFIED MAN. It represents in this next scene the car that will pull up and idle beside him. 5. An Unidentified Man GC / April 2010 The car that approaches is a YOUNG MAN, entering from off stage, fast and with the brrr-rrrooooummm sound from his mouth, he has an old muscle-car. He pulls up with a screech-tires-skid-brakes "errhhhh" kind of sound, like kids do. YOUNG MAN Shit. Look at that old fart. Shitty old man's car, too. Must be like a goddamn Buick. If I ever get old enough to where I want a Buick, I'm gonna put a fucken bullet through my head. UNIDENTIFIED MAN looks over at YOUNG MAN. UNIDENTIFIED MAN How are you? Nice day today! The YOUNG MAN stares back and does nothing else. Green light. YOUNG MAN races off of stage, barely in control of his car. UNIDENTIFIED MAN What a nice boy! (sound of a tummy grumbling) UNIDENTIFIED MAN Oooh! Stow-mah-keee -- my little not-so-little stomach. Oh dear tummy, you must be famished! We did not feed you toady! Let me pull over at the roundabout here and park at the park and we will lunch with the lunch I brought for lunch. UNIDENTIFIED MAN gets up and turns twice in a tight feet in the same square-foot left turn counter-clockwise as he looks for a parking spot. UNIDENTIFIED MAN Man, these city roundabouts are fun but tricky. Let me see let me see . . . let . . . me . . . see. See! I see it! A perfect spot. 6. An Unidentified Man GC / April 2010 He sits down. He pulls up to his parking spot with the foot-dancing maneuvers of a nice parking job, while checking the mirrors. UNIDENTIFIED MAN Just perfect. A perfect parking for this perfect park. And now, time for lunch! He opens the briefcase. He produces a foot-long hoagie (plastic, comical representation of a cartoonish sandwich is suggested), a bag of chips, a glass of water (not bottle), a carton of milk, a slice of fudge cake, a spritzing-squirt squeeze-bottle with yellow liquid inside, and one of those WAVING CAT displays found in Asian restaurants. UNIDENTIFIED MAN Lunchy-lunch! Happily bites into giant hero sandwich. Loostens tie, then, as an afterthought, takes off hat and places it on the seat next to him. The cat has been waving at the audience this whole time. In the middle of chewing his third bite, he turns the cat to face him, and his chewing keeps the beat of the cat's rhythmic wave. He starts nodding his head to the beat, Then the necks get the gyration going; he's enjoying himself. First one foot taps. Then the other. One hand on the sandwich as the other snaps to the beat. His Head and arms stiffly straight as he mimicks the cats's feral-feline wave. He's feeling it. UNIDENTIFIED MAN Oh yeah, Catty Cat. Cool West Coast Jazz cat bebopping the hips scene cat. Watching me eat my sandwich cat. Now, the WAVING CAT will assume an anthropomorphic life. The character "CRAZY WAVING CAT" will come walking from the audience up toward the actor. CRAZY WAVING CAT will take the waving cat display and throw it off curtain in a violent cat-batting-mouse way. This is a hip-hop cat with a big clock hanging by chain from his neck kind of cat. 7. An Unidentified Man GC / April 2010 Crazy cat. If possible, the CRAZY WAVING CAT continuously stiff-arm waving through the entire scene would be ideal. CRAZY WAVING CAT Miaaow. UNIDENTIFIED MAN Heya clocky cat? Where da action at? CRAZY WAVING CAT What's wrong with you? (beat) Cocksucker! UNIDENTIFIED MAN (coughs on sandwich, mouth too dangerously full to talk) What? CRAZY WAVING CAT What's wrong with you, COCKSUCKER! UNIDENTIFIED MAN Come on Crazy Waving Cat! Be civil. CRAZY WAVING CAT Howz dis for civil? (Straight intonation all threat as if one's fist on another's throat...) Gimme summa dat goddamm sanwitch. UNIDENTIFIED MAN (coughs, looks down and brushes crumbs off his shirt, then extends the sandwich to the cat) Here . . . (weakly) CRAZY WAVING CAT slaps the sandwich out of his hand. UNIDENTIFIED MAN What did you do that for? CRAZY WAVING CAT Because I love you, Happy Man. Happy, shit for brains, clueless, in-love-with life happy man. 8. An Unidentified Man GC / April 2010 UNIDENTIFIED MAN I don't understand. What have I ever done to you? I bought you from a shop in Chinatown and I take you everywhere. I love you. I bought you. CRAZY WAVING CAT And since you are a dumbass idiot mule-faced horse's ass donkey-dong retard, I'm supposed to love you for it jackass? JACKASS, a donkey-headed guy in a donkey-head mask, a "wife-beater" sleeveless T-shirt, wearing ample, creased 1940s tweed slacks held up by wide suspenders, and yellow work boots walks from stage right-to-left (or vice) and looks at the audience in the center stage . . . JACKASS Hee-haugh! . . . and then completes the walk off stage. The CRAZY WAVING CAT then grabs UNIDENTIFIED MAN by the lapels of his suit. CRAZY WAVING CAT Time to pay your bill, rotten mildewy mattress stuffing. UNIDENTIFIED MAN Wait! CRAZY WAVING CAT Wait? Wait?! UNIDENTIFIED MAN Wait. Wait! CRAZY WAVING CAT I'll wait. I'll wait to bash your teeth in down through your toenails. I'll wait. Wait! UNIDENTIFIED MAN Wait . . . wait. 9. An Unidentified Man GC / April 2010 ANNOUNCER from the radio commercial walks from stage right. Cups his ear and holds a microphone stand and with that sickening old-timey voice and fake-eyed twinkle pitches to the audience: ANNOUNCER Wait! There's more! Call now and we'll include a rewrite of this whole awful play! That's right! We will smash the playwright's hard drive, hack his email to find all copies of this shitty play he emailed to his family and friends who of course didn't read it but pretended to like it and said it was "GRRREAT!," then force him to drink Latin American well water along with week-old fish tacos covered in baked-in-the-sun mayonnaise. Call the box office now and demand a refund. Call now! (beat) Well? The DIRECTOR runs onstage. He should have the silly effete look of a director poseur auteur. Backwards Tam O'Shanter hat or just a beret is essential as is the ascot and the riding crop and baloony pantaloon britches. If wardrobe is not available, the actor should effect this feel. DIRECTOR Wait! UNIDENTIFIED MAN That's what I said! ANNOUNCER Call now! DIRECTOR Wait! UNIDENTIFIED MAN That's what I keep saying! ANNOUNCER Call NOW! CRAZY WAVING CAT pulls out a pistol and shoots ANNOUNCER. 10. An Unidentified Man GC / April 2010 CRAZY WAVING CAT Dropped call. Dropped one faggy announcer! JACKASS crosses stage from direction he exited, other way. Half way across, looks at audience: JACKASS Ha-ha! (slaps knee and bends over to clutch aching tummy from laughing) CRAZY WAVING CAT shoots Jackass. Jackass falls backward spread limbs starred out. CRAZY WAVING CAT Fucken jackass! DIRECTOR (produces rolled script from back pocket) Good change. Let's run it by the writer later. ANNOUNCER (Head up toward the audience but the rest of him play-dead stiff.) Call now! Call him now! CRAZY WAVING CAT shoots announcer again. DIRECTOR You can't keep messing with the script! We worked weeks on this! CRAZY WAVING CAT Weeks?! Like, if weeks means ninety seconds, yeah, you worked weeks on this. DIRECTOR pushes against CRAZY WAVING CAT with the rolled-up-again script. During the following conflagration, UNIDENTIFIED MAN will make a slightly-stealthy, light-stepped sneaky-appearing bent-overbodified- bodied break for out of the scene. 11. An Unidentified Man GC / April 2010 DIRECTOR Lissen here, buster, I'm the goddamn director. My name is on top of everyone else's, above the title! CRAZY WAVING CAT Ooh! A little too much drama academy, film school here?! Mister Louie-B Selznick Lasky Warner Kazan. Fucken froot loop. And what's with the "buster" terminology? You watch too much Turner Classic Movies. DIRECTOR I'm the director. Get back into your place facing The Unidentified Man you shit! This ain't no rehearsal. Pushes his palm into the face of the CRAZY WAVING CAT, who struggles but after all he is a crazy waving CAT. CRAZY WAVING CAT drops the gun. As UNIDENTIFIED MAN nears the curtain, JACKASS looks up with head-move only. JACKASS Hey, DeMille, your lead is almost out of here. All other characters look at UNIDENTIFIED MAN. He has that old-timey crook-caught-in-thespotlight silly look. UNIDENTIFIED MAN Uh. Ha ha. Hmm. DIRECTOR Get back here! We're not re-blocking this scene! UNIDENTIFIED MAN walks back in character to the car, walks around, opens the door with invisible keys, closes the door, and puts his seat belt back on. Runs through lines . . . UNIDENTIFIED MAN I am a happy man! (thinks to get through all the lines to the last one . . .) Happy . . . happy . . . happy . . . happy. Happy! 12. An Unidentified Man GC / April 2010 DIRECTOR pulls out script. DIRECTOR Man, this guy is supposed to be a good writer. This dialogue is shit. A PARKING ENFORCEMENT OFFICER appears on stage, in cop-blue. Hands on that ticket-book like a waiter's order book. Scribble-scrawls in big loopy ostentatious loops. Rips ticket from book and slaps it on UNIDENTIFIED MAN. PARKING OFFICER Meter expired. Next time feed the meter you wanna have an improv. DIRECTOR Improv?! This is my goddamn show! There is no improv with me! This is a production, not an acting class! Improv! DIRECTOR takes the ticket off of UNIDENTIFIED MAN, holds it up in front of the PARKING OFFICER, and tears it down the middle longways. Holds the pieces up by his own head like trophies. PARKING OFFICER I will call my supervisor! ANNOUNCER Call now! DIRECTOR looks angrily at ANNOUNCER. UNIDENTIFIED MAN mimes a "don't make a scene" gesture. DIRECTOR looks icily at UNIDENTIFIED MAN. UNIDENTIFIED MAN (meekly, looking at shoes) . . . I know, you're the director. 13. An Unidentified Man GC / April 2010 DIRECTOR I can get any lead I want, uncle. Backstage-dot-com or even Craigslist. You're shitty enough to be on eBay. No reserve. Free shipping. UNIDENTIFIED MAN Yes sir. PARKING OFFICER Fucking Hitler . . . DIRECTOR What?! They stand off at each other. Showdown. PARKING OFFICER You heard me! UNIDENTIFIED MAN unbuckles invisible seat belt and skooshes along floor to the find the prop pistol. DIRECTOR All too well! I'm firing you and you won't even get to be a P.A. on this show. CRAZY WAVING CAT Some show. DIRECTOR AND PARKING OFFICER Shuttup! ANNOUNCER Call later! UNIDENTIFIED MAN passes pistol off to CRAZY WAVING CAT. PARKING OFFICER You can't fire me. My dad owns this theatre. 14. An Unidentified Man GC / April 2010 DIRECTOR Sissy. Can't you get a gig without daddy helping you out? PARKING OFFICER one-handed and violently throws the ticket-book down. Should make a SLAP sound. PARKING OFFICER That's it! This show fucking sucks! JACKASS And it was done already by Pirandello. And fucking Sam Shepard. The WRITER runs up from the audience. WRITER Can't you stick to the goddamn script? Come on, man, there's legal disclaimers on the front of this thing! No changes without the author's permission. I don't permit them! UNIDENTIFIED MAN (to audience) He's really an okay writer. Don't judge him by this. WRITER Thanks, man. CRAZY WAVING CAT Fags. A long, uncomfortable PAUSE in the action. The cast looks confused. DIRECTOR Line? Pause. DIRECTOR Line? ! 15. An Unidentified Man GC / April 2010 Longer pause. ANNOUNCER Call waiting . . . UNIDENTIFIED MAN motions to the CRAZY WAVING CAT to pass him the gun. CRAZY WAVING CAT tosses the pistol. UNIDENTIFIED MAN grabs it with two hands. He looks over at the DIRECTOR. DIRECTOR C'mon, man. Line! Let's get this over with. I gotta make an audition. UNIDENTIFIED MAN places gun to self (to chest or head depending on the prop; no actor injury allowed). UNIDENTIFIED MAN I am a happy man! BOOM! The gun discharges and the rest of the cast collectively gasps. CRAZY WAVING CAT Unbelievable. DIRECTOR Even for this silly play. PARKING OFFICER How long have I been here? DIRECTOR I don't know. Five, ten minutes? PARKING OFFICER You don't know? CRAZY WAVING CAT What kind of director are you? Losing track of time. 16. An Unidentified Man GC / April 2010 DIRECTOR Okay, for the sake of artistic purposes and for a device to make this next action work, let's say ten minutes. PARKING OFFICER Ten minutes? One quarter for every five minutes. The driver here should have fed the meter fifty cents by now. PARKING OFFICER picks up ticket-book and begins the elaborate citation-writing process displayed earlier. DIRECTOR Maybe we can turn this into like some noir thriller . . . PARKING OFFICER Yeah? Okay, how's this: (pulls out walkie-talkie) "Dispatch? Gotta unidentified man here in a car onstage at some experimental theater show." . . . Like that? DIRECTOR Yeah, that works. Helps us with the show's title, too. PARKING OFFICER returns to ticket and tears it out of the book and slaps it on the forehead of UNIDENTIFIED MAN. CRAZY CLOCK CAT Dude, that's pretty cold. Guy just offed himself and you're still going to write him a parking ticket? WRITER Actually, that was my whole intention of this play. I was at Starbucks trying to work on my serious drama and I got a stupid parking ticket. This play was meant as catharsis. 17. An Unidentified Man GC / April 2010 UNIDENTIFIED MAN Bullshit! Art is not catharsis! Go see a shrink. You wanna be an artist, make art, not therapy. JACKASS Well said. WRITER Said the Jackass. JACKASS Out of your feeble-brained, talentless, never-worked-a-day handed whimpering whiny unremarkable bodied mess of an existence self. WRITER Ooooh. Big words. You come up with that all by yourself? JACKASS With a little help from helpless you. CRAZY CLOCK CAT Come on, man. Let's hurry up. I gotta take a dump. DIRECTOR Here's your litter box. Director violently throws the script on the stage -- aboveheaded downward thrust with two hands. WRITER Fine! You wanna insult me? You try to write a goddamn ten-minute play that's funny! You fucking derelicts. ANNOUNCER I think you mean degenerates. WRITER Shut the fuck up! 18. An Unidentified Man GC / April 2010 UNIDENTIFIED MAN Some writer this guy! Where'd you find him? Hey, junior, go back to MFAland and ask for your money back. Sitting in evening workshops and writing one ten-page story a semester. Get a real job. Hack. UNIDENTIFIED MAN's cell phone rings. He looks around and grasps for it. He does the worst: he answers it. UNIDENTIFIED MAN Hey. Uh-huh. (beat) Yeah. (beat-beat) Hey, can I call you back? Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Bye. DIRECTOR Simple dialogue and totally understood. No embellishment. You could learn from that. WRITER Forget you guys. I'm going to write a real play. ANNOUNCER So was this like an acting class exercise? DIRECTOR I told you before! This is not a goddamn class. This is a performance. We're putting on a show! JACKASS We're putting on something all right. CRAZY CLOCK CAT I still gotta take a dump. C'mon, man. DIRECTOR Okay okay okay. I'm the director. Lead, back to life. You're in the car having your sandwich. Announcer, off stage. Parking Officer, back off stage. You too, Jackass. Everybody off except for the Man and the Cat. The cast follows the DIRECTOR's direction. 19. An Unidentified Man GC / April 2010 The original Waving Cat prop comes rolling out on a skateboard. CRAZY CLOCK CAT Felino Ex Machina. Pretty good, that. DIRECTOR Nice touch. WRITER (OFF STAGE) Don't mention it. The CRAZY WAVING CAT character places the Waving Cat prop on the dashboard representation. DIRECTOR walks off stage with the CRAZY WAVING CAT character. DIRECTOR Unlike other self-destructive avant-garde plays, we won't leave the destruction for you to sift through . . . CRAZY WAVING CAT . . . We're gonna put it back together. UNIDENTIFIED MAN (smiles back in character, adjusts Waving Cat prop) I'm a happy man and enjoying my happy lunch. The cell phone rings. He looks and sees it is his WIFE. Hi sweetheart. Yes, I am at the park. Come meet me. I will be waiting. He clicks the phone off "boop" and adjusts his tie, gets everything in order as the a happy man we were shown in the beginning of that play. His WIFE enters from offstage and walks to passenger side of car. He smiles. 20. An Unidentified Man GC / April 2010 UNIDENTIFIED MAN Darling! WIFE My dear husband. That most happy man? How was your day? UNIDENTIFIED MAN Since we last spoke? Well, I must say that nothing much happened. WIFE Uneventful, then? UNIDENTIFIED MAN Yes, you could say. WIFE I do say. UNIDENTIFIED MAN And you did say. UNIDENTIFIED MAN stretches out his arm and pulls his WIFE toward him. She rests her head on him. We feel this warmth. WIFE Love. UNIDENTIFIED MAN Nothing but. THE LIGHTS FADE TO BLACK. 21. An Unidentified Man GC / April 2010 |
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