ALONE IN A DESERTED MIND
(the Only Life and Subsequent Times of Tud Drucker)
a two-act play by Ggreg Snyder, Frank Munnich and Tony Jonick

SETTING:  A stage. The set, costume and prop pieces for Act One are all
on stage, and will be appropriated by the performers as needed.

AT RISE:  SID MALONGADOO, CLAUDIA BOUCHET, SYBLIE LEADING, IRVING J.
ROBOOSTOFF, TANYA ROSENTHISTLE, BOBBY JOE MANUCCI and PETER WILLIAMS are
at various points on the stage. Their attitude states "the man we are
about to recall is a genius or else we wouldn't be wasting our time
paying tribute to him." They will talk to the audience, and they will
quite often talk to each other. They will assume roles as noted.
Occasionally, a STAGE HAND will hand them a distracting item; i.e.,
something that would steal focus if left on stage for the entire act.

     CLAUDIA
(Reads from a script)
The setting is the home of Tevyo, a milkman living in a small town in
19th century Russia. Present are Tevyo and his wife Goldo.

(Miaow, I Mind begins. The lights come up on the inside of a small
Russian house. IRVING becomes TEVYO and TANYA becomes GOLDO, a Russian
couple.)

     TEVYO
Goldo, have you seen our boy?

     GOLDO
Who is to be saying where he is? He is young and full of fire.

     TEVYO
Ah, that I could be so young. I remember when we were just having been
married. I was a tiger, full of vim and vigor!

(TEVYO grabs GOLDO, lustily.)

     GOLDO
Tevyo, stop with such foolishness! What will the neighbors be saying?

     TEVYO
They will say that Tevyo still has a tune left in his old fiddle! Just
because of snow falling on what roof is, why should not the fire be
burning the books?

(The door opens. PETER, as the spaceman HUIGBERTO, and SID, as
psychopathic organized crime figure DINGO, enter. HUIGBERTO holds a ray
gun. DINGO watches menacingly from the background.)

     GOLDO
Our boy is home!

     HUIGBERTO
I am here on your behalf. If I disturb you, it is only because you
summoned me. I am Huigberto, and I have come to destroy you.

     TEVYO
Ah, it seems our boy has grown, Goldo, and seeks to destroy us. Such is
tradition.

     GOLDO
Yes, Tevyo, son of Mikhail. It is much like you annihilated your father,
and his father likewise.

     DINGO
Okay, okay, okay, just cool it, okay? Listen here, you Ruskie freak,
either your boy works for me, or I wear your butt for a neck tie. You
hear that, Tevyo? How do you like that?

(DINGO smacks TEVYO in the head. TEVYO is more or less unmoved.)

     TEVYO
Ah, such is the way of things. Time passes, and the winter wind blows
soft on this old milkman's soul. Once this world was as a cotillion to
me. I sought the maid with the fairest stub. We met, we married, we had
Huigberto. But he was much too restive to stay on our little dasha. He
went out and became a carnivore of galaxies. Is it not wrong that I
should be proud of this boy?

     HUIGBERTO
Enough with this foolishness! I work for no man. I have destroyed races,
I have torn apart planets. They asked for that which was given to them,
though not in the words they spoke. I had a need to be fulfilled, though
it needs not me. If someone must consume planetary energy for
sustenance, then why not me? Am I not Huigberto? Such is the fate... and
the curse, of Huigberto. Pity poor Huigberto.

     GOLDO
Soon, you will be ready to marry, and we will seek a wife from the
matchmaker. You will have a son, and someday, he will liquidate you. It
is the rotation of existence.

(HUIGBERTO grabs the bloodied tale of an alley cat.)

     HUIGBERTO
Matchmaker, schmatchmakerÉ We shall consult the tail of this alley cat,
freshly slain in the fallen snow. It shall tell us the future. A tale
from a tail.

     TEVYO
In the future, men will ride in great balloons...

     HUIGBERTO
Shut up!

(HUIGBERTO shoots TEVYO and GOLDO.)

     TEVYO & GOLDO
Oy!

(TEVYO and GOLDO fall dead. Don't worry, they're only actors and not
really dead. You don't have to kill off two actors with every
performance. Well, not yet anyway.)

     DINGO
Good move, spaceman. Your parents were really getting on my nerves.
Future, tradition, what a bunch of crap. You ready to talk about the
Tsar, or what?

     HUIGBERTO
What about this Tsar, who is my mortal enemy, though his face I know
not?

     DINGO
I want him dead. I want his family dead. He's a big fat gumba freak, is
what he is!

     HUIGBERTO
The tail tells me I must do your bidding.

(HUIGBERTO throws the tail away.)

     DINGO
What'd you do with the rest of the cat? You want I should get rid of the
body? Maybe I could borrow a knife from my mother and cut the kitty up,
you know?

     HUIGBERTO
The tail says that you are a wise man, and that through my association
with you I will be one step closer to my ultimate goal of complete
universal annihiliation, thereby satisfying my need for life essence.

     DINGO
That tail knows it's poop, Sunny Jim.

     HUIGBERTO
Of course it does! The tail knows what it sees, though without eyes it
cannot hear the knowledge the clouds the mortal mind.

     DINGO
Tell me this, Huigberto. Once you have sucked the life essence out of
the universe, then what will you consume? Nothing will be left, right? I
bet you didn't think of that, did you, big guy?

     HUIGBERTO
I shall start eating lighter. I am putting on a few pounds as it is.

     DINGO
No, you look great.

     HUIGBERTO
Please. Dingo embarrasses Huigberto.

     DINGO
No, really, I think you lost a couple of pounds. Have you been
exercising?

     HUIGBERTO
Dingo, there will later be time for you to plant your flappers unto by
dark, cavernous space. Now, you must swear that you will repeat none of
what you have seen here today.

(TEVYO and GOLDO slightly rise from the ground.)

     TEVYO & GOLDO
Swear!

     DINGO
Ah, sure, Hiugberto, anything you say.

     HUIGBERTO
Upon this tale, I say to you, swear!

     TEVYO & GOLDO
Swear!

     HUIGBERTO
Shut up and stay dead!

(HUIGBERTO fires his ray gun, killing TEVYO and GOLDO again.)

     TEVYO & GOLDO
Oy!

     DINGO
Persistent bastards, aren't they?

     HUIGBERTO
Tell me not, and I will believe it so.

     DINGO
So, how much money is this hit gonna cost me?

     HUIGBERTO
You know, it seems as if all the things I've done, I've done for
money... sweet, golden money. Is this the course of my life? Since I
began the worship of the cat tail, my life has had purpose, like fine
cheese sandwiched between two slices of freshly baked bread. Even when I
organized that immense mega homicide on Tau Ceti, leaving nine-tenths of
the population dead and sucking their essence into my being, I knew
something was missing. It is not unlike the relish I once got from
living the life of a sociopath.

     DINGO
Yeah, well, what you going to do? You do what you have to. It's your
nature, mate.

     HUIGBERTO
That is the thing, Dingo. I wish to be respected as an earnest
sociopath, without ulterior motives. So kill I shall. But I won't be
doing it for your sake, or the Zamboni crime syndicate, or anybody else.
I'm doing it because the cat's tail told me so! The universe is
changing, Dingo. Soon, there will be no room left for genocidal fiends
like myself. People will walk backwards, so that they might journey to
places where they have already been. The sun will shine only at night,
and we shall call it day. Men will ride in great balloons! Our way of
life will seem archaic, on the new ways will became old ways for the
young. So remember, it's a war of survival... us or them.

(Miaow, I Mind ends.)

     SYBLIE
The play Miaow, I Mind; the man, Tud Drucker. This somewhat over-
appreciated piece began his career, during the eighteen years of which
occurred the sum of his work. Was he a genius, or just an iconoclast? He
was labeled both humanist and crypto-facist.

     CLAUDIA
He often insisted that he was not a playwright, but simply a man who
wrote long pieces of dialogue intended for performance by actors.

     SYBLIE
He was Tud DruckerÉ AustralianÉ ManÉ Alone in a Deserted Mind.

     CLAUDIA
Despite the many years since Tud Drucker's strange disappearance and
pursuant martyrdom, he still remains the subject of great controversy.
The mention of his name at any drama literati party from Sydney to
Saginaw can still cause chewed noses and fist-fights. He is worshiped
and reviled, given kingly praise and excoriated in the harshest terms.

     SYBLIE
He is still poised in the lips, held in the minds, and lodged in the
bowels of the public.

     PETER
The world of Tud Drucker was incredibly huge... consequently, Drucker's
America has no borders, and is populated by any character his mind could
create, as if someone had cracked his head open as a small child, and
then failed to cement the gap. To see one of his plays is to see a
reflection of America in a slightly murky pond, covered with excess
lichens and dead tadpoles.

     SID
He was an okay bloke. He was kind of hard to talk to, you know? If you
got three words out of him, it meant he liked you. One of his mates told
me that when he was a little shaver, he would stand stationery for hours
on one leg, staring into the branches of a lone gum tree. I think that
might be all anybody needs to know about his personal life.

     PETER
Paul Jennifer Tud Drucker was born at a simple sheep station called
"Woogamaloolabillaboolabong," near the town of Spotted Walls, New South
Wales, on January 18th, 1942. The world was alive back then. Big Band
music filled the airwaves...

(Big Band music plays, and slowly fades out over the course of the
Syblie's monologue.)

     PETER
...Adolf Hitler was at his peak, and a baby boy was born to shepherd
Davis Allen Alan Drucker and his long suffering wife, Rosella. There was
much rejoicing at the ranch. The parents danced, the children laughed,
and the jumbucks sang their happy song. Tud's older brother, Davis
Clarper Drucker, was part of those times.

(An extended pause. They all bow their heads.)

     BOBBY JOE
Tud grew up fast. By the year 1945, he was already three years old, and
in 1946, virtually a year later, he was four.

     SYBLIE
It was during those young, gelatinous years that events were occurring
which would later dictate the course of Tud's life, artistry, and
asexual preferences.

     TANYA
Tud's brother Clarper, already several years older than his brother by
this time,  practiced a unique form of animal husbandry, until he was
arrested in 1951, a broken young man. Clarper was sentenced to the
Provincial Reformatory for Boys, or T.R.S. for short, where he underwent
extensive ice therapy, until his suicide at the age of seventeen, which
he executed by throwing himself in the path of an oncoming jerboa herd.

     BOBBY JOE
I can only think that Tud Drucker must have been devastated by the loss
of his brother.

     IRVING
And yet, an interview with reformatory warden Pier Newton, head of
T.R.S., says otherwise.

(SID  puts on a warden's hat and jacket and becomes Pier Newton.)

     SID
(As Newton)
"What struck me as odd was that Tud Drucker was not devastated by the
loss of his brother. The Drucker boys weren't bad boysÉ they were just
common scum, that's all. They couldn't rise above their class. I tried
to steer the older Drucker boy straight, but some people just don't take
to extensive dunking and electroshock. It  didn't work. No big deal."

     CLAUDIA
According to the records of the Australian Juvenile Authority, Tud was
sent to Urquarhart & Bedlam's Boarding School at the age of eight. This
was the typical fate of a station child, torn from the tender confines
of the Rams and Ewes and thrust into a world within itself.

     TANYA
Both Davis Drucker and Rosella hoped to acquaint their second child with
the finer tastes of civilization and regular British beatings which
could not be properly dispensed at a busy outback sheep station. They
hoped that in doing so, their second son would become an even greater
success than the first.

     CLAUDIA
Young Tud remained there for the next six years, immediately followed by
another three years dressed as a boy, for a total of nine. I think that
the noted Drucker historian, Tanya Rosenthistle, here, can better
elaborate. In a written affidavit from former dormitory matron Uta
O'Leary, she described the school and the life of the children therein.

(TANYA puts a scarf around her head and becomes O'Leary.)

     TANYA
(As O'Leary)
"It was a beautiful place. The pungent smell of kerosene on the cold
concrete floors; gum trees out back filled with little gray koalas for
the boys' games; the crack of cricket bats on the red-leather balls, and
later

     TANYA
in the evening on soft, buttery flesh. It was a grand time. They would
come to me afterwards, you see, barely able to walk. They would all turn
to me for care, all pert little flesh at my disposal."

     CLAUDIA
Many Americans may be shocked by the Australian concept of handing child
abuse over to the teachers, preferring to keep it at home, separate from
the mental abuse normally provided by the U.S. school system.

     TANYA
Tud, whose parents were usually too intoxicated or ill-organized for
proper handling, was likewise shocked by the strict, quasi-facist,
military discipline, though he would later seem to respect it in such
plays as the Beat Me, Bite Me, Whip Me, his sensitive ode to lost
childhood innocence.

     CLAUDIA
After I showed Ms. O'Leary the police records, she finally recalled Tud.

     TANYA
(As O'Leary)
"Oh, he was a little wild beast, that one was; but doesn't he look
pretty in the cart there? When we got him, he would only eat with his
knife. See the slits on the sides of his mouth? Though after the first
few beatings, he did seem to perk up a bit, and would roll over and beg.
But it didn't last long. Following a period of heavy thrashing, he
suffered a withdrawal, quite total. We diagnosed him as autistic, and it
was then that he began his rifle training. Oh, those were glorious,
delightful days."

     PETER
It was at this time of his life, during the carefree era of the 1950's,
that Drucker was first exposed to the concept of America. Dr. Syblie
Leading is a noted Drucker antagonist.

(PETER motions to SYBLIE, who smiles, appreciative.)

     SYBLIE
It was the conflict between the severe suppression in Tud's real life
and the idea of absolute freedom, as propagandized by visiting American
soldiers returning home from the Korean Conflict, that finally caused
Tud Drucker to snap. In a blaze of gunfire he escaped into the dangerous
maze of Sydney's back streets and alleys. He was, in his own words, "a
young waif, trapped in a world he never made.

     PETER
(Sighs)
It is at this juncture that his life that is most disputed. Many people
have wondered exactly what happened to Yip and Rosella Drucker at this
point, as they disappear from the Drucker time line completely in 1954.

     IRVING
(Reads from notes)
Though many people believe that they escaped to South America, rumors
abound of their death in a tank at the hands of the Russians. German
court records pronounced them officially dead in April, 1973, on the
basis of skeletal remains found not far from Hitler's bunker in Berlin.

     PETER
Excuse me, but aren't you talking about the Nazi leader, Martin Bormann?

     IRVING
(Checks his notes)
Oh. I'm sorry, these are the notes for tomorrow's show.
(Digs for the correct notes)
Ah hah. Here they are. Davis and Rosella Drucker were most likely
murdered by vicious albino poachers who hunted their sheep at
Woogamaloolabillaboolabong. They did this for the purpose of selling the
Merino lambs to Chinese merchants for aphrodisiac purposes. However, a
more popular theory has it that Tud simply forgot about his parents.
Warden Newton said it best.

     SID
(In Newton's voice)
"It would be just like his type to forget about his parents. Those
Drucker boys, they were born scum, and that's how they stayed."

     BOBBY JOE
Tud began haunting the pubs of an old section of Sydney known as "the
Rocks" and usually slept in Mrs. McQuarrie's Seat, a park in an area
called the "Dominion."

     SYBLIE
Tourists still travel to the park to see Drucker's initials carved in
the stone, along with the "prophetic" comment, "Cheese, cheese, all you
can eat, across the curdled seas."

     BOBBY JOE
I made the pilgrimage once myself when I was a young fella.

     SYBLIE
I'm not surprised.

     CLAUDIA
In January, 1958, Tud saw his first dramatic production, a dinner
theater presentation of Hamlet, starring the American actor Bob Crane,
which ran in repertory with Fiddler on the Roof. He would watch the
productions night after night from a theatre window, often while reading
American comic books he had shoplifted from a local newsstand.

     SID
It was not long after that Drucker first came to my attention with a
short piece called Miaow, I Mind, which he scribbled on pieces of lined
paper he'd stolen from a local market, and shoved down my shirt front
with a threatening grunt.

     CLAUDIA
Australian theater mogul Sid Malongadoo.

     SID
Several of the characters were lifted directly from Fiddler on the Roof,
including Tevyo, a milkman, and his wife Goldo. However, it was the
character of Huigberto, a heretic whose mystic traditions included the
worship of alley cat tails, that showed his early promise.

     CLAUDIA
In a far-sighted move, Mr. Malongadoo commissioned Drucker's first
production, the visually stunning Anal Aggravation, a musical comedy
laced with light-hearted whimsy.

     SID
Oh yes, it was wonderfully sublime, the story of a battered wife named
Mugo, who meets death through a casual misunderstanding of Washer-Dryer
technology. It was so successful, I said "Hey mate, let's write
another." The next day, Tud gave me the scripts to Tonsil Hockey and
Gunslinger Moses. I chose to produce the latter.

(Gunslinger Moses begins. Western piano music plays in the background.
SID becomes SLIM, a prospector, SYBLIE is LILY, a dancer, and IRVING is
MOSES, a prophet. There is a cantina, which includes a bare wooden table
with a bowl of chili.)

     LILY
Boy, it sure is hot here in Dodge City, Texas.

     MOSES
Excuse me, podnuh...

     SLIM
What's your name, stranger?

     MOSES
I'm Moses, King of the Egyptians. I have just arrived on the stagecoach,
which has just pulled into town, along with my brothers, Virgil and
Morgan Moses.

     LILY
Whatcha doin' around these parts?

     MOSES
I bring you these 23 psalms, etched on tablets of stone by the almighty
hand of God. I wrassled with the giant, Goliath, for forty days and
forty nights. I spoke to the prophet Esau, and he told me to try a bowl
of your dee-licious chili.

     SLIM
Sir, you're welcome to all the chili you can eat, but you're gonna have
to leave them psalms with the Marshall, on account of we got this here
town ordinance.

     MOSES
Podnuh, I'm going to have to baptize you, with the love of God, by
sticking your head in this here chili!

(MOSES shoves SLIM'S head in the bowl of chili.)

     SLIM
Wait a second, derned blast it, mm-ww-ff...

     LILY
Are you the one for whom we have waited?

     MOSES
Submitted for your approval... The Kingdom of Texas is like this: A man
takes a mustard seed and sows it in his field. It is the smallest of
seeds, and yet, later it grows into the biggest of plants. It is only
later that the man realized that most of his guests prefer mayonnaise to
mustard, and that big hoedown he planned for Boxing Day didn't turn out
so well, except for the music, which was pretty good.

     LILY
So, are you he who has come, or should we wait for another?

     MOSES
Consider this... My kingdom is like a party to which many have been
invited. Once you show up, you find that few are allowed to enter,
because there's this guy at the door, who only lets in people who "look
right," and the rest of you have to wait in a line outside in the cold
night air for no apparent reason.

     LILY
Then why issue so many invitations?

     MOSES
Do not you understand, faithless one? Remember what I said about the
excess of mustard? Why would you want to go to a party without
mayonnaise, anyway?

     SLIM
Well, maybe there are some cute sheilas inside.

     MOSES
You are learning, emaciated one.

     LILY
Let me taste the mighty chili, Moses! Let me touch your cloak, that your
fleas would be my fleas. Let me follow you, oh, stalwart Moses.

     MOSES
All of you pilgrims, heed my word. I come from the Sahara, where the
land is so intolerable, the inhabitants do not live there. I search for
a man named Ramses, the outlaw mummy.

     SLIM
I reckon I might have seen him around these parts.

     LILY
It could be really unhealthy for a person to squeal on Ramses, Slim.

     SLIM
Excuse me for asking, Mr. Moses, but what does a mummy do to become an
outlaw?

     MOSES
He has broken the mummy's code, five rules which all dead, wrapped
Egyptians must follow. Here they are. Number One: Stay dead. Number Two:
Don't leave the sarcophagus door open. Number Three: Don't curse in
public. Number Four: No pepper games. And Number Five: When eating
spaghetti, always twirl it with a fork.

(During the following sequence, MOSES, SLIM and LILY  will speak the
song, in a jazzy rap, snapping their fingers in a Bob Fosse kind of way.
This is not so much a song as a chant.)


     SLIM & LILY
     Whatcha doin' here, Papa Mo?

          MOSES
     I told you once, so you should know!
     I'm looking for an outlaw, mummy dude,
     He's smelly, ugly, mean and rude.

          SLIM & LILY
     Whatcha gonna do to him, Papa Mo?

          MOSES
     I'll shoot him down if he won't go.
     Ramses left his pyramid
     and I kept track of the things he did.

          SLIM & LILY
     What did he do, Papa Mo?

          MOSES
     He broke the sacred mummy's code.
     That's no way for a mummy to be...

(BOBBY JOE, as RAMSES, enters the cantina.)

          RAMSES
     Moses, I hear you're looking for me.

(The beat fades into the background.)

          MOSES
Ramses, I order you back to the Sahara, back to your pyramid!

          RAMSES
So who's going to make me?

          MOSES
The law, that's who, you bloody putz.

          RAMSES
The only law I need is right here, in this gun and this whip. That's the
way of the west, tenderfoot.

          MOSES
No, the law isn't about guns or weapons. It's right here in these
psalms.

          RAMSES
Those psalms aren't worth the stone they're printed on! I came out west,
looking for chili, that I might have something to eat with my cheese. I
will never go home, but I'll send you back, in a wooden sarcophagus!

          MOSES
Podnuh, them's fighting words!

(RAMSES draws on MOSES and fires. MOSES ducks, and SLIM is hit.)

          SLIM
Ah, shucks. I hate getting killed.

(SLIM dies. RAMSES takes another shot. MOSES swerves, and LILY is hit.)

          RAMSES
Oops! Damn German luger never shoots straight. Take that, Moses!

(RAMSES throws the gun at MOSES. MOSES ducks. MOSES lifts a psalm
tablet.)

          MOSES
May the law of God have mercy upon your soul.

(MOSES throws the tablet at RAMSES, crushing him.)

          RAMSES
Gads! I am slain. Remember this, Moses... I am not alone. Multiple
mummies roam the west. They shall avenge me...

(RAMSES dies. MOSES surveys the damage.)

          MOSES
Ay, Chihuahua. What a bloodbath.
(Lifts his arms)
By the power of Lazarus, I bring all of the innocent bystanders back to
life!

(SLIM and LILY come back to life. )

          SLIM
I appreciate that.

          LILY
Much obliged, stranger.

(The jazzy beat starts again.)

          SLIM & LILY
     Whatcha gonna do now, Papa Mo?

          MOSES
     I'll fight sin wherever I go!
(He picks up the tablets.)
     I'll tell everybody when they read my inscriptions,
     I am Moses, King of the Egyptians!

(Gunslinger Moses ends.)

     PETER
I imagine the play must have stunned Sydney's vestal theater goers, with
it's haphazard mixing on time periods bringing out the irony of the two
cultures.

     SID
Yeah, I guess.

     CLAUDIA
With that jazzy hip-hop spoken word musical number, I think it's fair to
call Drucker the first rapper.

     SID
Well, I didn't know what to think. I mean, Moses, chili, Texas. I liked
it.

     CLAUDIA
I think it's a very angry play.

     SID
It's very typical of his work during this period, to say the least. Tud
was full of resentment over his youth. This rage with boil over in plays
like Norse Side Saga, the story of Danish and Swedish street gangs
fighting for turf in a large American city.

     BOBBY JOE
This was also the first play to explore stories from the good book in a
modern way, coming over ten years before Jesus Christ Superstar or
Godspell, or that other play, what the hell was it called? Oh yeah,
Joseph and his Amazing Neon Jock Strap or something like that.

     SID
Damn straight! Tud was ahead of his time.

     BOBBY JOE
Of course, in many cities in America, people had a problem with that. I
don't know about you're folks' Sunday schools, but we were all taught to
believe that if you make fun of the lord, you're going to hell.

     SID
Within one week of Gunslinger Moses's successful opening, Drucker had
written his third opus, The Guy with the Flag, a one-man show about a
guy with a flag.

     PETER
You know, I performed this piece on the stage of the Hydrangea Repertory
Theatre three years ago, shortly before resuming my career as a hack
actor for television soap operas.

     IRVING
Don't be ashamed, my boy. At least you got a nice paycheck.

(PETER shrugs.)

     SID
With that in mind, I defer to the famed multi-media artist from
Toronto, Peter Williams. Some say that you are the finest young
performer of Drucker's work alive today.

(PETER walks to center stage.)

     IRVING
Oh sure, a lot of people say that. His agent, his manager, his
publicist...

(The Guy with the Flag begins. There is a small stool and a white signal
flag a center stage. The background suggests a ship. PETER assumes to
role of SAILOR BOB. PETER picks up the flag and examines it,
contemplatively, appreciatively, erotically.)

     SAILOR BOB
I've got a flag. Isn't it beautiful? I love this flag. I love all my
flags. What is a flag? A flag is a piece of cloth, tied to a stick... A
long, hard stick. Sometimes I stand on the ship for hours, and I never
get to use my flags at all. Once, I went three days, just standing
there, not waving my flag. I was sad. But when I do wave it, it's
incredible. It goes here and there, to and fro, flags of all different
colors, each representing a different message. The funny thing is, I
have no idea what the messages mean. You see, I only have a three
security clearance, and you need a two to decode flag messages. Anyway,
pretty soon they're going to transfer me away from the signal corps,
down to the torpedo room. I hope they let me bring my flag. I like it
down there, 'cause the other sailors are such friendly chaps. Give you
their right arm, or third leg, they would.

(The Guy with the Flag ends. PETER bows his head and returns to the
table.)

     IRVING
I love that piece. The man with the flag is such a mensch. I wonder what
the flag really means. Maybe it represents the symbols we attach to our
cultures in the midst of nationalistic fervor.

     SYBLIE
Bloody hell, it's just a flag.

     CLAUDIA
I think that it's a foreshadowing, or possibly a warning, of things to
come. The Guy with the Flag indicated that Drucker had an early interest
in nautical themes, which he would later explore in depth in such plays
as Homos in the Navy, Tuna Pirates, and the Red Sea-Dog Bites Again!

     SID
A distant cousin of Tud's once told me that as a very young man, little
Tud's father would often take him into Sydney and introduce him to
visiting American sailors. There, the yanks would acquaint Tud with some
of the more intimate nuances or American life, and Tud's father would
make an ample profit.

     CLAUDIA
So then, Tud's interest in the sea and America both arose from the same
external stimuli.

     SID
I think "stimuli" is a very good word for it.

     BOBBY JOE
By 1961, Drucker's influence was being felt around the world. Former
undersecretary of the Navy and Kennedy family friend Robert J. Buellton
shares this memory in his book, Sure, I Knew Jack. What About It?

(IRVING picks up an old hardbound book and prepares to read.)

     SYBLIE
Be careful with that book. It's a first edition.

     IRVING
Yeah, yeah...
(Reads in an atrocious Boston accent)
"I remember those days, out at the family compound on Hickory Hill,
little John-John, he wasn't even walking yet, and Caroline would be
riding Macaroni. The boys, Jack, Bobby, Teddy, they would be playing
football on the lawn, and afterwards the ambassador would light a large
bonfire of old financial records, and read to us from Tud Drucker's the
Red Sea-Dog Bites Again, a copy of which Jackie had given him as a
Father's Day gift. Those were the magical, mystical days of Camelot.'

(IRVING gives the book back to SYBLIE.)

     SYBLIE
You know, we were supposed to memorize these parts.

     IRVING
What, I'm acting, I'm reminiscing, and unlike those of you here in the
academic profession, I got a real job back in Hollywood. Who's got time
to memorize?

     SYBLIE
Never mind.
(Clears her throat)
Buellton's reference to the Red Sea-Dog leads us to the play that
started to get Drucker the global attention he craved.

     CLAUDIA
I think Drucker's stage notes describe the setting best. "The scene is
the battleship, U.S.S. Arizona on December 6, 1941. The crew is tense
and terse, but there is a thrill in the air as if very soon they will be
called upon to do something brave and heroic. There is some muttering
among these very special sailors, who wait for roll call, and a chance
to give their lives for democracy."

(The Red Sea Dog Bites Again begins. CLAUDIA becomes HOWLING JACK
PARALLELOGRAM and IRVING becomes COMMANDER RHOMBUS, sailors on board the
U.S.S. Desperia.)

     RHOMBUS
At sea, at last. To feel my feet step swirling from under my seat, from
spar to star in a single beat. Roll away ocean, roll away neat. Roll my
heart to your salty teat.

     PARALLELOGRAM
In Afric's sorry port the men found bare little sport. Several had their
hair coiffed in jungle bones, and a few tattooed their rumps with the
feathered fans of the land. But most blew sullen bubbles in their milk.

     RHOMBUS
Ha, ha! I've fanned my hot milk two more than thrice in days of yore.
But I take my skiff drifts to your shore.

     PARALLELOGRAM
Aye, and more. I know your score. The sea stores wonders and horrors
more than land can stand. So, sir: Shall we bore to the core of the
story and review these standing stones? I waited where ye told me, by
the jungle's edge, by a banana tree, and by George, if I don't spy a
house of Jill Repute. So I cut cards with Jill & make a deal to pass a
dime her way while I watch my wait. I'm barely done swabbing the heck
out of my third angora, also named Jill, when over the hill floats a
raft with these fine fells abroad. I drop my broad from the bed. "Bah,"
she cries, no fully fluffed; but I've no time for spiceties. I drop,
naked as a buck, out of the window and duck walk to the banana grove,
swinging in my sin.

     RHOMBUS
We wait for our lord. It is his pleasure to take their measure. I've
sent Seaman Homes below with an offering of readiness.

(ADMIRAL BOX, played by BOBBY JOE, enters.)

     BOX
By the Red Sea Dog! You send a paucity of meat with a paunchity of
sailor, Rhombus. Our need for devourity knows no bounds. No sounding
plumbs our depths of desire. You must send more pork to squelch our
fire.

(BOX stuffs salted swine squibs down his gullet.)

     BOX
I find there is a feeling Rhombus, which cannot be fulfilled. Beyond the
fierceness which fuel'd my fury once before. Aye, and while I find I am
still furry in my mind and memory's fount falters and runs dry, this is
more, like my body is at war, and nought but salted swine will settle
the score.

     RHOMBUS
A lack, my lord... some dietary deficiency. A lass, perhaps may also
soothe some inner wound.

     BOX
Faugh! My fire comes not from misplaced desire. And you know my stomach
skips at contempting women in their slips stealing into ships. Those men
of lesser might, Ah. Besides, are there not plenty of women on the ship,
like the fair Commander?

     PARALLELOGRAM
My heart lies not with the tripod breeders, Admiral.

     BOX
Nay. I over step, good Rhombus. I know ye've found a measure of so much
more than pleasure from one who skips to stores.

(BOX sees something in the distance.)

     BOX
Ahoy, sailor! Wherefore do you slack on duty?

(BOX runs offstage, angrily.)

     RHOMBUS
My treasure. You may abhore such graces as a pretty face may bring, but
I find I'm the one once buried.

     PARALLELOGRAM
How'd ye meet her, Commander?

     RHOMBUS
I'm sailing Wilson to the Palace of Versailles,
When this angel of white peace catches my eye.
I don't know what to say, till I see her drop her glove,
Now I'm all tied up in a sailor's knot of love.

     PARALLELOGRAM
You think of love, yet you long for war.

     RHOMBUS
The mission that awaits us is one of great mystery. There is a scent in
the air that cannot be smelled with the nose.

     PARALLELOGRAM
The secrecy that surrounds this ship bodes not well for this simple dog-
faced sailor. I have heard stories that the Japanese want peace.

     RHOMBUS
Keep your lips tight, sailor girl, especially around the junior
officers. If peace be the destiny of our ship, so be it.

     PARALLELOGRAM
I'm sorry, Commander. It's just that I tire of eating naught but this
scurvy pineapple and poi. I long for action. Why must we wait here,
patrolling the waters of Honolulu? I wish to consume the flesh of the
Nihon-jin sea devils!

     RHOMBUS
Fear not, Howling Jack Parallelogram! Admiral Box is our commanderÉ The
Red Sea-Dog always provides action! I served under him in the Great War.
I killed seventeen monkey warriors with my bare hands, I did. That's how
I got the monkey bite scar on my bum.

          PARALLELOGRAM
If only I could be so lucky.

     RHOMBUS
That's the spirit! Now get down below and squab the deck!

     PARALLELOGRAM
Aye-Aye, Commander Rhombus.

(PARALLELOGRAM exits. ADMIRAL BOX, enters.)

     BOX
Have that slacker keel-hauled as soon as we reach dry land! By the Red
Sea-Dog of my salty lungs, this does me good. I'm a man of action, I am.
Traipsing behind a desk like our president on wheels suits me poorly. I
have to have the deck pitching, like a well-turned clock under my feet.

     RHOMBUS
There are secrets within secrets, Admiral. I am afraidÉ

     BOX
By what? This is no time for squeamishness! Our day is just two days,
but one.

     RHOMBUS
Admiral, I have told you, I believe, that I am a full-blooded Corn-Foot
Indian on my Uncle's side.

     BOX
Aye, but you've proved yourself a credit to your race.

     RHOMBUS
My people, it is said, we have special powers. At times we have visions,
nightmares, prophecies! The veil of the future parts, and the past
recurs, again and again. The lines of force twist, and the particles
spin. The present loses all meaning. I see things to come, and I am
frightened.

     BOX
By the Red Sea-Dog! You sound like Nimitz, with your howling. Come to
the point!

     RHOMBUS
The point, my Admiral, is that we are doomed. Our mission will be
fruitless, and those brave fighting men, standing in the moonlight, will
die with indignity.

     BOX
But these are the finest fighters and flyers to a man. They have been
trained to a peak, and know their mission. They have received the super-
soldier serum which only we two know of, since the death of Reinstein,
also called Erskine.

     RHOMBUS
I do not know how! The visions fled like the setting waves, and cast me
up dry and boneless. Perhaps we should consult the Chaplain, my twin
brother, Commander Rebus. He knows my dreams, as we suckled from the
same she-wolf.

     BOX
Damn Commander Rebus! He always speaks in puzzles. He is a man of
philosophy, and talks like a mad monk. He would be discharged from my
service, if not for the spell he holds over my wife, the fair
Admiralina.

     RHOMBUS
I am the hunter, and my brother is the jaguar-deer. I can offer no other
interpretation of my visions, until the wee hours slacken upon the bow.

     BOX
Then we must proceed. How can we know whether any decision is right or
wrong? In two days we leave this pineapple port to engage the
enemy...neutral or no! And under my orders, we will not fail!

(PARALLELOGRAM enters.)

     PARALLELOGRAM
Admiral, the sailors beg your thunder!

     BOX
Men! We have grown in our secrecy until we are strong and brave. But we
must hold our swords in our hands...for just two more days! The ships
shall be made ready, and our planes loaded aboard. You have all promised
your lives, but I would have your souls as well. I would make a present
of them to the Emperor of Japan, a pretty wrapping for his defeat to
arrive in. In two days there will be no turning back. We shall sail over
the horizon, and on towards Midway. We shall catch the nips sleeping in
Osaka Harbor. You all know what you must do. Your planes will be loaded
with high explosives. The doors will lock shut, and there will be but
one escape. As you dive in from the sky, like the sword of Liberty
through an over-ripe cheese, you will crash your planes into the
battleships themselves. By the Red Sea-Dog, this will be glorious! No
red-blooded Yank will be able to keep their seat as the newsreels show
your sacrifice. Roosevelt will see his course of peace is a shambles
when the people rise up to force war in his throat. And your brave
example will pave the way for us to stride into Tokyo and take Tojo by
the nose-ring! We shall have Japan. And Germany, next. Democracy will
flourish its brand on the flank of the world for all time to come!

(There is a flourish of cheering in the background. A helicopter lands
on stage. Just kidding. No helicopter lands, we just wanted to give the
stage manager a heart-attack. The lights fade out on the Arizona. The
Red Sea Dog... ends. CLAUDIA stands by a display of a scene designer's
blueprints, drawings and models, depicting the complete set for The Red
Sea-Dog....)

     CLAUDIA
Drucker's Play, The Red Sea-Dog Bites Again, is never performed in its
entirety, and in fact only one complete staging was ever attempted, at
the Beirut Opera Hall.

     BOBBY JOE
Theater critic Claudia Bouchet has written a book on the history of this
play. I saw you plug it on "Good Morning, America." What's up with that
pretty blonde lady who hosts the show? She looks so young, but she's
been on the show forever.

     CLAUDIA
I don't know. As I was saying, the lack of interest in this opus on the
part of dramaturgs is probably due to the constraints of the stage
directions, which not only require that all of the Battle of Pearl
Harbor be fought on stage, complete with battleships, airplanes, and
live explosives, but also on Drucker's insistence that the battle took
place on a two-dimensional surface.

     BOBBY JOE
I'm don't think I follow you, ma'am.

     CLAUDIA
Well, he forced the stage manager to keep the curtains closed at all
times, allowing the actors only a six inch strip on which to perform.

(CLAUDIA unrolls a large blueprint of a set)

     PETER
Can I help you with that?

     CLAUDIA
Please.

(PETER assists in setting up the display.)

     PETER
There you go.

     CLAUDIA
Thank you, This staging became awkward, as the characters were forced to
climb over each other, or hug very close, just to get past each other.
The theater was destroyed by the live ammunition which Drucker had snuck
in and had hidden under the seats; the complete play was never performed
again.

     PETER
I can only hope, that with the success of modern special effects
extravaganzas, such as Andrew Lloyd-Weber's Starlight Express, this play
may once again see the light of day, perhaps with Lloyd-Weber himself
performing as the doomed and dismembered Admiral Box.

     SYBLIE
That, I would pay to see.

(The panel members nod their heads in agreement.)

     PETER
I was very fascinated to learn that the character played by Miss Leading
was not actually a case of what we now call non-traditional casting. It
was, in fact, meant to be played by a woman in the original Drucker
script.

     SID
I mentioned that to Tud when I first read the script. I told him,
"Listen up, mate, women didn't serve on battleships or aircraft carriers
back then." He asked me, "Then how did the sailors make babies?" I
quickly dropped the subject, for fear of what he might produce if forced
to rewrite the script factually.

     PETER
Indeed.

     SYBLIE
In the mid-sixties, Tud began to develop what has been perceived as a
nasty attitude towards the theater. The Lovely Lizards in Flat 404 and
Stage Hands, Up My Bum reflect this period. He had a felonious dislike
for the theater establishment, which was clamoring for his attentions.

     SID
Tud had been working with an alternative theatre group in Perth. After a
group of actors raised minor objections to the rampant dismemberment and
cervine fraternization in Plausible Stairs, Tud became increasingly
agitated. My memory of this incident is somewhat cloudy, as I was high
on fermented mare's milk at the time, and thus unable to keep an eye on
him.

     SYBLIE
So, he was sensitive about his work?

     SID
Actually, it was not the actor's insolence which agitated him. Rather,
it was only after the director pointed out several typos in the script
that he attempted to murder the entire cast and crew with a Winchester
'73. Despite his early rifle training, his aim was poor and he was
unable to operate the weapon properly, or else he might have succeeded
were the critics had failed.

     SYBLIE
The common man grew hostile with Drucker after his would-be thespicide.
They were split between the pragmatics, who would have
liked to have seen the boil lanced, and the idealists, who insisted upon
pressing the letter of the law.

     SID
Tud went into hiding in the highland jungles of New Guinea, and his
lawyers immediately sought an acquittal. Despite the overwhelming
evidence against him, they insisted on a plea bargain. The attempted
murder charge was downgraded to "Inability to Properly Fire a Rifle."

     TANYA
After his acquittal, Drucker flew back to Sydney in an airplane made out
of reeds and palm leaves, which he had stolen from a tribe of cargo
cultists. Eating nothing but sandwiches made from fruit bats and bread
fruit, Tud wrote voraciously during his voyage. Among the plays to come
out of this journey is The Guy with the Winchester Rifle, the saga of a
playwright who attempts to murder an entire theater company.

     SID
Upon his triumphant return to Sydney, his moods changed as often as the
catch of the day at his favorite fish-and-chips spot. His uncommon love
for ridiculing the handicapped became a mere passing fancy; he no longer
hunted wild jerboas; and he began a period of heavy moping, during which
he would retreat into the outback for weeks on end, stand on one leg,
and wail continually. Stella Dorante, a Scottish fish cleaner living in
Australia, remembers Tud Drucker.

     CLAUDIA
(As Stella Dorante)
I remember Tud Drucker.

     TANYA
Tud Drucker bathed in the attention which the Australian avant-garde had
bestowed upon him. The movement, which had previously been limited to
the country's division of "plays about sex," and "plays not about sex,"
was delighted that Drucker's plays were not only difficult to
understand, an essential element to any serious work of absurdist fluff,
but also were quite perverse, in an enjoyable sort of way. In 1961, Lee
Strasberg began performing Drucker's works at The Actor's Studio, and
the prolific Aussie was now writing plays at the rate of thirteen a
year. It was also in 1961 that troubled movie starlet Marilyn Monroe
stated that it was her deepest fantasy to sleep with both Tud Drucker
and Albert Einstein at the same time. She would be dead within the year.

     BOBBY JOE
Forgive me for asking, Claudia, but you slept with Drucker, didn't you?
I mean, that's the rumor, right? What was it like? What kind of stuff
was he into?

     CLAUDIA
How nice of you to bring that up in front of all these people. No
comment.

     BOBBY JOE
Did he like to be tied down? I always pictured Drucker as the kind of
fruit, arty type who was into that kinky stuff.

     CLAUDIA
I'm not going to dignify that answer with a response.

     TANYA
I personally wonder if the Bohemian morality of your brief relationship
with Drucker somehow affected his impact on the neo-psycho-realistic
theater scene of the early sixties.

     CLAUDIA
It's important to realize that I didn't know Tud Drucker as a manÉI knew
him as a writer.

     TANYA
What kind of man was he?

     CLAUDIA
As I said, I didn't know him as a man, per se. His writings enriched
me...

     TANYA
From his writings, what did you learn about the man?

     CLAUDIA
Nothing, nothing at all. The man was a mystery to me.

     TANYA
(Persistent.)
What was so mysterious about this man?

     CLAUDIA
(Shouting.)
I don't know. I didn't know him.

     IRVING
(Clears throat, wants to change subject.)
Claudia, you have often said that Drucker's finest work was Telly Man,
Many critiques and playwrights alike have described it as "Pinteresque."
Harold Pinter himself was said to have called it "me-esque." It was
inspired by a series of Tasmanian folk tales about the strange
inquisitor who invades the dreams of people who watch too much
television.

     CLAUDIA
Yes, well, let me defer to the text.
(Picks up a copy of the play and reads)
"The lights come up on a section of the stage that is not unlike a
prison cell, though it is not like a prison cell. It is both threatening
and non-threatening at the same time. It is dark and bright. The
atmosphere has a dry dampness to it."
(Closes the book)
Incredible.

     IRVING
Now, that's writing. Sort of a cross between Samuel Beckett and Neil
Simon.

     CLAUDIA
And yet, completely Drucker.

(Telly Man begins. The INQUISITOR, played by PETER, walks in front of
the ACCUSED, played by SYBLIE, in an odd, clock-like motion. INQUISITOR
walks five paces away from the ACCUSED, then five paces towards him,
then claps in front of his face. INQUISITOR repeats this twice, and the
first two times, the ACCUSED is unmoved. The third time, the ACCUSED
flinches.)

     INQUISITOR
You know this manÉ You have been seen with him. We have proof, you know.
We made it ourselves.

     ACCUSED
I have never met this man.

     INQUISITOR
You have surely seen him, for we found his picture in your mind. If  you
have not seen him with your eyes, then surely, you have seen him with
your thoughts.

     ACCUSED
I have never seen this man.

     INQUISITOR
Do you mean to tell us that you have never heard his voice, which we
have put inside your head? Maybe it has not touched your ears, but have
not his oral tones been lodges in that little bit of flesh that connects
your upper lip and gums, just below your nose? Is not his voice there?

     ACCUSED
I have never heard this man.

     INQUISITOR
Surely, you know this man, this "Johnny." Look, look at his picture, on
the telly. Look at it, next to the man with the silver beard.

     ACCUSED
Hey, it's Kenny Rogers!

(Telly Man ends, preferably with a blackout that leaves the audience
stunned by its weirdness.)

     TANYA
In 1964, Tud Drucker departed from his usual psychedelic stylings to
write his first children's play, the Zurich Massacre of 1941, a fanciful
re-creation of the Swiss armies atrocities during World War II. Its dark
theme was easily misunderstood by young audiences, most of whom really
enjoyed the ample bloodshed and scenes of prolonged misery.

     BOBBY JOE
People say that we should protect our children from violence, but I know
my kids love that stuff. The play closed after only 200 performances, by
order of the New South Wales Cheese Advisory Board.

     TANYA
Tud was very distraught. He considered this play, with its harsh
depiction of torture and punishment, his gift to the children of the
world.

     CLAUDIA
Peter, I'm suddenly reminded of your revival of Drucker's later work
Plausible Stairs at the Alaska Shakespeare Festival. I met with some
opposition, if I'm not mistaken.

     PETER
The thing is, acting Drucker is a tremendous challenge for the
performer, and the subtle, varied and confused levels on which Drucker's
mind worked are often very hard for an actor to sustain, much like
trying to force open a doorway whose wood has warped, due to excessive
moisture. I was in London, working on a production of Miaow, I Mind, and
while working with several Polish exiles in the cast, I was reminded of
a production I had seen in Toronto, an X-rated version of the Rudyard
Kipling classic, Rikki Tikki Tavi, and at the very moment that the
lizard was supposed to sexually stimulate the lead actress, it died. I
guess the stage lights were too hot. I mean, it was a lizard. Putting
that aside, the actors on stage were left with several choices: They
could have ignored the dead lizard, and continued on with the play; they
could have removed the lizard from the actress, and deposited it into a
trash receptacle; or they could have played off the dead lizard, much
like Laurence Olivier played off a dead iguana in a French
misunderstanding of the Sound of Music I once saw. Now, I said to these
Polish exiles, who were having a great deal of trouble understanding the
Drucker piece, that one of them might want to go to the local shopping
arcade, to the local pet store, and buy a lizard... they aren't too
expensive... and kill it. They might want then to commune with the dead
lizard, to try and understand it. I told the male actor to try and
imagine lizard legs sprouting from his abdomen and clutching the floor.
I had seen it displayed to a similar effect in a wonderful performance
of Drucker's the Spatula and the Scapula. The director of that
production was the French-Canadian genius Jules-Michel Podorowski, and
I'll never forget the special gift he gave me that night.

     TANYA
Podorowski... When one thinks of Tud Drucker, one name immediately comes
to mind...

     IRVING
(Suddenly)
Dwayne Hickman, star of television's Dobie Gillis! He was a great actor.
Very underrated...

     TANYA
True, but since he had no association with Drucker, the name Jules-
Michel Podorowski comes to mind afterwards. In an interview given to a
Peruvian leftist newspaper in 1972, Podorowski describes his first
meeting with Tud Drucker.

     PETER
(Puts a beret on his head, wears dark sunglasses, and speaks in a
reasonable Quebecois accent)
"A mi me gustaba las dramaticas estra–as de Tud Drucker mucho. El ten’a
una mente muy grande, como un profesor, un doctor, un criminalÉ"

     BOBBY JOE
Fortunately, he also wrote his memoirs, which were discovered in 1982 by
a mysterious traveler named "SlŸd Chucker."

     PETER
(As Podorowski)
"The time I spent with Tud in Australia is often referred to as 'the
Lost Years,' which is odd, since every item of discussion is thoroughly
documented, indexed, cross-referenced and stored in a fire-proof vault
beneath my home in Quebec. I went to a theater in Sydney, Australia,
where I was, how the Aussies say, Ôon holidays.' I was there to see the
Drucker play Summer Reich, which was very controversial. I saw this man
Drucker on stage with a sheep. I cannot describe the horror and
fascination I experienced at watching thisÉ Ôrehearsal.' After this
impromptu performance, I introduced myself to this madman, and we were
instantly friends. We talked through the night, dining on crab strudel
and sipping harsh Tasmanian cabernets, and I was intrigued to learn that
he had known the great Irish rebel playwright, Brendan Behan."

     BOBBY JOE
Who?

     CLAUDIA
Early in Drucker's career, he received a phone call from the gifted
Irish artist, Brendan Behan. Behan admired Drucker's work, and read it
fervidly while he was in the hospital. He phoned Drucker and told him
many stories, which Tud copied down verbatim and tried to publish under
his own name. Behan was so angry, he was beside himself. Those who wish
to learn more of this riff would do well to listen to the Gaelic folk
singer Liam Fitzpaddy, who evenhandedly displays the Irish view of Tud
Drucker in his song, "the Unscrupulous Aussie Bastard."

     SYBLIE
What about the different ethnic groups, an issue that was so important
during Drucker's time? He was both a hero and wretch to the oppressed.
In 1968, during the heart of the civil rights movement, Drucker composed
his paean to the racial strife in America, A Bunch of Greasy Rednecks
Chompin' on Ribs Ôn Watermelon.

     BOBBY JOE
Back in Alabama, we all had the same, enlighted reaction. "Who the hell
is he calling a redneck?"

     TANYA
No one knew what to think. I mean, I personally never use the "R" word,
I just don't care for it. But my southern friends, and I have several, I
assure you, they use it all the time. Well, Tud's play befuddled
everybody. Was he being ironic, or was he a racist? Its Off-Broadway
premiere was viewed by both Alan Q. Brock, a journalist with the John
Birch Society, and Archibald Muhammed, a Black Muslim poet. I saw both
men, after the performance, discussing what they had seen. They were
each incredibly confused. It took the mind of Tud Drucker to bring these
two men together.

     BOBBY JOE
So what was up with this play, anyway? I think Podorowski described it
best.

     PETER
(As Podorowski)
"It must be understood that Tud had limited contact with the White
Americans from the deep south. He had also had never seen a Black
American, a Pan-Afrikan, if you will.  He had only seen them on
television. That gave him a unique perspective. The so-called
"rednecks"... they are not so white, they are not so blackÉ They remind
me of nothing I've seen. They are unique entities from the mind of Tud
Drucker."

     TANYA
A racially diverse cast is normally used when producing this play, as no
one has yet to decipher which group of people it represents at any given
time.

     BOBBY JOE
(Sets up the scene)
"The scene is the streets of Chicago. Lady Mustapha, a jaywalker, is
waiting on a street corner for the light to turn red."

(A Bunch of Greasy Rednecks... begins. The lights come up on a street
scene, that could be out of Brecht, if it were not out of Drucker. It is
a neighborhood slum, located in the city and state of Chicago. AESOP, a
junkie-philosopher, played by IRVING, and LEROYA, a female pimp, played
by CLAUDIA, enter. Her jargon will constantly change cultures. They both
wear coal miner clothes, with pimp-like accentuations. SYBLIE assumes
the role of LADY MUSTAPHA, who looks not unlike a prostitute.)

     AESOP
Life is a pickle... green, sour and transparent.

     LEROYA
Lady Mustapha, how's the wee lass of the night, hoot man, hoot man? I
been dreamin' of yah since I left me hounds on the moors.

(LEROYA runs her fingers through Mustapha's hair.)

     MUSTAPHA
Madame, miscast you mangy mandibles from my mannered merchandise. I
little like to lure your lengthy limbs on my lovely, lethal locks.

     LEROYA
Chiquita, if you are my merchandise, then I should see some net profit,
no? When I took you into my flock, I expected more than a lazy ewe.
Vaga!

     MUSTAPHA
The boon in business has bummed into a bad bit of brine. It's simply
corrupt to street cross in this slick crag with this strange copper
slipping cautious on this sinful corner of the slimy crevice.

     LEROYA
You call yourself street-crosser, and you scared of paleface law? You
crazy sheila! We not scared! We tunnel under Fifth Chemical Bank! Soon,
we be rolling in wampum.

     AESOP
If a tree falls in a forest, can I have it?

     MUSTAPHA
This diffident dude from the dinkem dalles of Dakota is different. He's
a contemporary cop, conspirator to a clammy crowd of crippling cool cats
clamoring for correction. I warn you warily as one who would wish the
wind to wisk you away on a wafting warblerÉ This chicken chested trooper
is chastising all cheating Chicago chicaneries.

     LEROYA
You must mean Aldous Minuteman, the new Bull in the Rodeo. Heck, he
ain't bupkiss. A bobby like him couldn't peck the wanker off a dead
possum.

     AESOP
Danger is like a predator. It hunts, it stalks, it drinks carbonated
beverages.

     ALDOUS
(Offstage)
Stop!

     MUSTAPHA
Your felcher's fate festers flatulent on the fruitless flight of
fallacious futurity!

     ALDOUS
(Offstage)
Justice be done!

(Two shots are fired. LEROYA and AESOP fall dead. BOBBY JOE, as ALDOUS
MINUTEMAN enters. He is a cop.)

     ALDOUS
Demon dogs! Them's the last two. I have rid Chicago of all its
criminals.

     MUSTAPHA
Your dedication to duty is diligent and devout in a decisive demeanor
that doles dogma to the derelict of dispassionate deportment.

     ALDOUS
When I joined the force, I made a solemn oath: to rid Chicago of all its
crooks, even if it took a whole week. Well, I've done that, and
sometimes it took longer. But now I've got to find me a woman. Someone
pretty, someone resourceful... someone pretty resourceful. Someone like
you, Lady Mustapha.

     MUSTAPHA
Me? I'm a mere miniature manifest of the moral misogyny that makes
midnight a mysterious migration to madness.

     ALDOUS
You heard me right, ma'am.

     MUSTAPHA
Jesus, I'm a jaywalking Jezebel who journeys into the jovial jam of
jocund jiggling. Furthermore, you're a fledgling fuzz that furrows force
to foul the fire of foregone folk.

     ALDOUS
Lords of light, you're right. If you are a jaywalker, then that makes
you a criminal. That means that you must die by the holy hellfire I
wield.

(ALDOUS aims his gun at MUSTAPHA, slowly, but badly.)

     MUSTAPHA
My providence is provided by my poor proportion of penance and my
prosaic privy to the profane passings of this picayune populace. Grind
your gun gallantly into the graphic grange of grace that gambols its
goodness on gondolas of gonorrhea.

     ALDOUS
G'day, my fair Lady Mustapha.

(ALDOUS shoots MUSTAPHA dead.)

     ALDOUS
Such is the way of the world. One minute, you're on the top, and the
next, you ain't feeling so well. Ausgescheitnicht!

(PETER, as a NEWSPAPER BOY, enters.)

     BOY
Wuxtry, wuxtry, read all about itÉ By the State of Illinois, all minor
traffic violations are repealed... wuxtry, wuxtry!

(The BOY exits. ALDOUS looks down a MUSTAPHA'S dead body.)

     ALDOUS
Oh well, that's the way it goes. I guess we was just ahead of our time.
(Kicks her body over and exits.)
Merde!

(A Bunch of Greasy Rednecks... ends. The lights fade out on the street
scene. )

     SYBLIE
Well, I think it's fair to say the Tud gave a new meaning to the term
"non-traditional casting."

     PETER
You know, we did that play in Toronto, at the Neuter Theatre  and we
were sued by Nambla.

     SYBLIE
N.A.M.B.L.A.? You mean the North American Man-Boy Love Association?

     PETER
No, the other Nambla.

     SYBLIE
I didn't know there was another Nambla.

     PETER
Well, there is. And they sued us.

     SYBLIE
Well, what is that an acronym for?

     PETER
It doesn't stand for anything. They're just Nambla. None of us were
exactly sure who they were. Of course, it was neither the first, nor the
last time that Drucker and his work would run into legal trouble.

     SID
Well, Tud enjoyed the outlaw reputation. He felt that any recognition
was good. I remember when he and Podorowski became involved in the
"Terrier affair."

     TANYA
Yes, that was a black mark on the life of Drucker, and to the theatre
world in general.

     PETER
(As Podorowski)
"Sometimes, Tud would find things on the street, and send them to me
when I was at my home in Quebec. It could be a piece of gum, a baseball
card, anything... even some small dogs. This led the Canadian government
to bring him up on charges of importing terriers without a license."

     TANYA
The charges were later dropped, at the behest of pop singer Anne Murray,
who herself had received several German Shepherds from Drucker as a
token of his unabashed admiration.

     TANYA
I remember seeing Podorowski on the Dick Cavett show. He discussed a
special name the Canadians had for the Aussie.

     PETER
(As Podorowski)
"It may happen, when an figure is well-beloved by a group of people,
they will call him by a special name. For example, around the world, the
finest soccer player was never known by the name Edson Arantes de
Nascimento. He was simply called PelŽ. Charlie Chaplin, the greatest
movie comedian, was referred to as ÔLe Tramp' in Paris. In this spirit,
the people of Quebec did not call mon ami by the name Tud Drucker. They
called him... PelŽ, which was very confusing, because to see his name
advertised, you did not know if you were seeing a play or a soccer
match. It was not uncommon for his works to be interrupted by mobs of
soccer hooligans, who were hoping to see a talented Brazilian, and
instead were treated to absurdist Australian drama."

     SYBLIE
He was popular in Quebec and the American big cities, but in the
provincial areas, it was sometimes a different story.

     BOBBY JOE
Tell me about it!

     SYBLIE
My new friend, truck driver novelist Bobby Joe Manucci, was deeply
inspired by Drucker's work as a young boy, growing up in Dothan,
Alabama.

     BOBBY JOE
Despite his cult following, Drucker has been officially scorned in the
deep South since the publication of Umbabwa Town, in which a heroine
named Jezebeline recites a three-hundred line poem about her home on the
plantation, using nothing but swear words concerning biological
irregularities to depict the attitudes of devout, Bible-toting
evangelicals. Throughout the monologue, baseball great Willie Mays
mysteriously hits fungos at advancing confederate troops.

     IRVING
Umbabwa Town is a very odd, very beautiful play. It is my most favorite
Tud Drucker play, and the most difficult. Because of its ironic
complexity, I believe it should never be performed, under any
circumstances.

     PETER
It was with Podorowski's support and guidance that Drucker wrote the
following piece, the Damned Cafe. Syblie, you have often said that this
is your favorite Drucker play.

     SYBLIE
Well, I think it's fair to say that it changed me from a zealous book
burner to a mere antagonist.

     CLAUDIA
(Sets the scene)
The scene is a small cafe, somewhere in between the damned, the blessŽd,
and NGC 592-1/2A.

(The Damned Cafe begins. There are two tables, each with two chairs. The
WAITRESS, played by TANYA, enters from stage left. PETER, as FENWAY and
SYBLIE, as ZOE, enter from stage right.)

     FENWAY
Such cool scrap I've unearthed about this joint.
The Critics adored, and chose to anoint.

     ZOE
A trendy locale, that we patronize.
The word on the streets, clever truth or lies?

     WAITRESS
Ahoy, my friends, to this place of fervor.
It's the Damned Cafe, and I'm your server.

(The WAITRESS moves to escort FENWAY and ZOE forward, and they follow.
The WAITRESS then turns and blocks their way.)

     WAITRESS
But you have to spit on the damned spirits
Right here, before either one of you sits.

     FENWAY
Ha! why should we do this thing you request?

     WAITRESS
(Haughtily turning away)
Well you don't pass... We serve only the best.

     FENWAY
Wait, my good girl. We may do as you say.

     ZOE
This is uncool. We should just go away.

     FENWAY
And know that we missed a mind-blowing trip?
Give us the jive, sis, and I'll let it rip.

     WAITRESS
I once was a G-Man. Oska's the name.
I brought in Whamoli, Uggo the Dane,
Grunt-fingered Louie, he was to blame.
But here in this place I run this small joint
It brings the blessŽd who laugh and who point
The damned deserve whatever they are sent
You want to eat here, you gotta pay rent.

(FENWAY gathers up phlegm and spits. The DAMNED wail piteously,
offstage.)

     FENWAY
If this place is all they say that it is,
Let's sit down and eat...I'm ready to fizz.
(The WAITRESS bows deeply, leads them to their table, gives them menus
and leaves.)

     ZOE
(Reading)
Ugh... Iced tongue of dog and braised hair of newt
I've tried lots of things but this doesn't suit.
Everything here is disgusting and gross
Now, The Fluorescent Grape, that was the most!

(The WAITRESS re-enters, pad at the ready.)

     FENWAY
We'll have the ape spit boiled in a log,
Fricasseed albino, five of the frog,
The vomited hairballs, the piles with germs,
And for dessert, two candied rats with worms.

     WAITRESS
And now I ask you, with a great zeal,
Would you like cheese toast before your meal?

(FENWAY and ZOE cross there arms, to indicated a negative response. The
WAITRESS leaves. FENWAY turns to ZOE.)

     FENWAY
You wanted to come. Don't give me those eyes.

     ZOE
You have become the hep-cat I despise.

     FENWAY
You didn't mouth off when I hocked some spit.

     ZOE
You're really uncool, man. You like that...

(FENWAY and ZOE turn. The WAITRESS brings out IRVING, as a JABBERING
IDIOT on a leash.)

     WAITRESS
Hey lady, gent, see this wretched half wit,
For your amusement, pleasure, and/or spit!

     ZOE
Why do you parade him, tied up, like so?
Is there some bad story, like, we should know?

     FENWAY
Man, It could be you strike my humor well.
What might be the story that's here to tell?

     WAITRESS
This poor, poxy wretch, here before your eyes,
His life beheld of dark, muggy gray skies.
Little on that Earth would make his heart sing;
Therefore, he wished the heaven's just one thing:
A woman fair, heart warm, smile so deep;
A special angel, queen among the sheep.
The heavens obliged, sent her down to Earth,
He saw her and expected joyful mirth.
But too soon did he raise his hopes up high,
And give in to the damned one's love stick sigh.
In a green pod did her torso gestate,
He sat on it warmly, he had to wait.
On a spring day from the vessel she hatched,
He was delighted to think he was matched.
Destiny forced him to take his tough cuts...
The woman, I fear, truly hates his guts!
Then she ran off with his twice-removed aunt,
And left him back here, to scratch and to pant.

(The JABBERING IDIOT begins sobbing, and FENWAY laughs, ZOE picks up a
little fondue fork and pokes him halfheartedly. The WAITRESS takes him
off.)

     ZOE
Well, it's good that we're among the blessŽd.

     FENWAY
Would be a shame, to eat what he's been fed.

(All sorts of strange sounds come from offstage. The WAITRESS re-enters
with some trash on a plate. The handle of the leash of the damned man
hangs off the edge. FENWAY eats with gusto, ZOE picks at it, and eats
sparingly. A strangely garbed man enters from stage right. It is SID, as
MAJOR BRUNO of Star Dispatch.)

     MAJOR BRUNO
The Damned Cafe. My mother Science warned me of this place. A child's
wive of hum and pillory. Plus, they over-season the hairballs.

     FENWAY
Check out the stiff I see standing out there.

     ZOE
Those threads really scream the guys such a square.

     MAJOR BRUNO
I stand at the threshold of my venerable future. But honor and science
dictate my actions. I must save those two from a fate worse than
themselves.
(Approaches the couple)
Greetings, young masticaters. I see from your, as you call them,
percales, that you are new to these starry climes. Liberate your
shackles! The universe awaits beyond these doors, and logic calls our
names.

     FENWAY
How weird he yammers, he both squawks and squeaks.
I don't imagine that he really speaks.

     ZOE
I heard it say "Mom." It wants to go home!

     WAITRESS
(Entering)
It's dangerous! Don't touch it! Leave it alone!
It tempts the blessŽd with stories of "outside"

     MAJOR BRUNO
You speak in circles when only uninterrupted lines go straight. There is
an outer door that leads inside. No one is better than the best when the
worst remains a part of the rest.

     ZOE
I.. I think I hear something. Where are you from?

     MAJOR BRUNO
I was the astronaut from Star Dispatch who was lost and found myself
halfway between the moon and one of its orbiting galaxies. Since that
day without the sun, I have traveled the stars looking for new universes
and new homes for all people. We are all one, on both sides.

(The WAITRESS exits and enters with a 9mm Beretta, and shoots MAJOR
BRUNO several times. MAJOR BRUNO'S body flops all over the stage, dying
several times, before finally landing in Fenway's lap.)

     MAJOR BRUNO
Remember me, for I am no other.

(MAJOR BRUNO dies permanently.)

     WAITRESS
That is the fate of all those rotten reds,
Riddled with bullets and shot in the head.

     FENWAY
Wak! Those needle tracks on his arms... the family birthmark of the
Frisco tribe! Major Bruno is my identical twin brother-in-law, Bruno
Major! I was such a foolie!

     ZOE
Hey! You're not speaking in pentameter. That's the one true sign of the
blessŽd. Half a sec... neither am I! Oh, Major Bruno, what was that
strange power of yours to turn our hearts?

     FENWAY
He was the Go'An child, born once every hundred years to rise and fall
again, like the Snyders of Mars.

     WAITRESS
The two of you have dropped your rhyming course,
you must leave now and face the scalding steam.
It comes from the places below.

     FENWAY
Your rhyme! It did go!

     WAITRESS
Damn your nation!

     FENWAY
It's below my station!

     ZOE
We must jump into the pit, and all because of some dern spit.

     FENWAY
Aw, shit.

(FENWAY leaps into the pit. ZOE follows him. They wail. The WAITRESS
drags MAJOR BRUNO'S body.)

     WAITER
Such is my fate, and now I pay the cost,
into the pit of the wailing and lost.
But wait! My pentameter has returned!
God is appeased by the souls that have burned.

(Without ceremony, the WAITRESS chucks MAJOR BRUNO'S body into the pit.)

     WAITRESS
But soft what light through yonder window breaks...
It's two more customers, for goodness sakes!
Ahoy, my friends, to this place of splendor.
It's the Damned Cafe, and I'm your vendor.

(The cafe area goes dark. The Damned Cafe ends.)

     CLAUDIA
The Damned Cafe earned Drucker a well-deserved reputation for darkness,
and put him in the minds of manic-depressives everywhere. Strangely
enough, he chose to follow it up with another sortie into children's
theatre.

     PETER
To understand this next piece, one should examine more closely Tud's own
childhood. I find it interesting that there is a very limited selection
of visual information on Tud Drucker. The few photos of his own
adolescence are very blurry. We have the best one inserted into this
evening's program. It shows the teenage Drucker on a camping trip,
photographed by a park ranger who would later lose several teeth for his
trouble.

(At this point, audience members should be glancing through their
programs. Inserted should be a very fuzzy picture of Drucker, resembling
the famous picture of Bigfoot, a hairy mass walking along a
mountainside. Even better would be to insert the actual aforementioned
picture of Bigfoot.)

     PETER
A more accurate picture comes from a police sketch artist. This is taken
from a description by fish monger Stella Dorante, who caught a glimpse
of Drucker from behind during his endeavored thespicide. In your
programs, this is filed as insert number two.

(The audience should now be looking at a police sketch of the back of
Drucker's head. His hair is a bit bushy and tangled.)

     BOBBY JOE
This gives us an interesting look at the young Tud Drucker. Little
pecker really needed a haircut, didn't he?

     IRVING
Tell me about it.

(The other players give IRVING and BOBBY JOE disparaging looks.)

     SID
I once asked Tud how he felt about children, and he looked at me and
said, "They are little versions of us, right?"

     BOBBY JOE
That's a very sweet sentiment.

     SID
Actually, he didn't really mean it as a rhetorical question.  It was
kind of scary the way he asked it.

     PETER
I tend to wonder if Tud's confusion as to the nature of children's
theatre stems from his lack of exposure to pantomime theatre as a child.
His material for young audiences reeks of a certain freshness, or even
naivete. The piece you are about to see, Snow White and the Sweaty Pig,
has a sultry sexuality that few adults could understand, much less
children. That might go a long way towards explaining the lack of
uproar.

     IRVING
I'm in this one, right?

     BOBBY JOE
No, you're not.

     IRVING
Good, because I forgot my lines.

     BOBBY JOE
You don't have any.

     IRVING
Well, that explains it.

(Snow White... begins. SID, as KOALASKI, an incredibly sweaty man in an
undershirt. CLAUDIA as SNOW WHITE, in an aged and tattered blue dress,
and TANYA as ROSE RED, a miserable housewife in an mystical land. They
sit at a dinner table of a cottage in an urban area of the enchanted
forest. They each have a plate of toast with butter.)

     KOALASKI
Hey Rose, how long is your sister going to be here, huh?

     ROSE
I don't know, Koalaski.  Can't you be nice to her, Honey. I mean, she's
family and all.

     KOALASKI
Oh, she's family, all right. Real close family.

(KOALASKI licks his lips and gives SNOW a perverse look.)

     ROSE
Stop it, Koalaski.

     KOALASKI
What, me stop? I'm sitting here in my own two room cottage, and I got to
look at this two bit piece of trash, eating my food, breathing my air,
giving me those dirty looks, as if I were not fit to be in her presence.

     ROSE
Koalaski!

     KOALASKI
Jesus, Rose, it's about time someone said it. She walks around this
house like she owns the place. And you, you're no better, with your
self-righteous attitude! What are you two, a couple of queens?

     SNOW
I used to be a queen. I was queen of this entire, enchanted land.

     KOALASKI
Aw, give me the butter.

(ROSE starts to hand KOALASKI the butter. KOALASKI stops her.)

     KOALASKI
No, I want Queen Snow White to pass it.

     ROSE
Koalaski, don't.

     KOALASKI
Don't "Koalaski, don't" me, you worthless towel! This is my cottage, and
I want this luxurious queen to pass me the freaking butter!

     SNOW
It's okay, Rose.

(SNOW passes KOALASKI the plate of butter. As she does so, KOALASKI
guides her hand to the table, receiving immense sexual pleasure from
this action.)

     KOALASKI
That's better.

     SNOW
You're a pig, you know that?

     KOALASKI
Would you hear that? Do you hear the way she talks to be? You call me a
pig, here, at my table, as your prepare to eat my food?

(KOALASKI slaps SNOW. SNOW falls from the chair. ROSE squirms. KOALASKI
laughs.)

     ROSE
How could you?

     KOALASKI
Ah, she had it coming.

     SNOW
Bastard.

     KOALASKI
Your ears to God's nose.

     SNOW
If I were still queen, I would have you fed to the wolves.

     KOALASKI
Hey Snow, why don't you find a boyfriend? You still got a few miles left
on you. Then maybe you can get your pale white ass out of my cottage.

     SNOW
I had a boy once... A sweet, pleasant boy. He was my prince charming.
After I ate the poison apple, he gave me a kiss. A sweet, sunny kiss,
that awoke me from the glass coffin. We rode off on his beautiful
stallion. Well, we were supposed to live happily, ever after, but such
was not our fate. He was a handsome prince, but when he became king, he
was a ruthless despot who quashed all opposition. The peasant uprising
that ousted him from power sent me fleeing. He followed soon thereafter,
disguised as a vibrator salesman.  We met up again with those Seven
Dwarves, who were in litigation with the Disney people over licensing
agreements and thus burdened by expensive legal fees. It seemed like the
old days. One day I wandered out into the woods to pick some magnolia
blossoms, and as I came back,  by chance I peaked into the window. My
king-in-exile charming was playing a game with Bashful. It had something
to do with a poison banana. I'd always suspected that particular mite of
being partial to the kindness of strangers, but never my charming
prince. I let them be, to finish there sordid affair. They chose not to
commit the unholy act of sodomy, but instead engaged in about an hour's
worth of Gomorrahy. When my beau came out, I looked him in the eye and
said, "I know what you did. I saw the whole thing. You disgust me." His
love for me was dying, much like the candle on this table. I let him go
to sleep. I watched him lie there, his skin pale as alabaster, like me.
I knew it was the cause, his gentle beauty. My jealousy could not be
controlled. I needed glorious retribution! I took my pillow and I
stifled him, until every ounce of life was suckled from his body. Thank
God he was sick with the flu, or he probably would have fought back. I
watched him lying still, as dead as the frogs that croak in the night,
and then I went to the supermarket for a bottle of cheap scotch.

(SNOW picks up the candle from the table and stares into it.)

     SNOW
Turn out the light, and then... turn out the light.

(SNOW blows out the candle. Snow White and the Sweaty Pig ends.)

     SYBLIE
We'll be back after this intermission.

END OF ACT ONE

ACT TWO

AT RISE:  Same as Act One, with the Act Two props and costume pieces
decorating the set.

(The Oranges of Angst begins. The stage within is set up as a migrant
workers camp on Route 66 in Arizona. JOHN TOAD, played by PETER, walks
up to MA, played by TANYA.)

     MA
John, where you been?

     JOHN
I been walking around the camp, took me a stroll around the creek, and
I've been listening to people talking, hearing some things...

     MA
You say you've been walking around that there creek?

     JOHN
That's what I said, Ma.

     MA
Johnny, I've heard stories about what happens to people when they walk
around the creek. I heard it does things to a man. I hear stories about
how they come back mean. Tell me that didn't happen to you, son.

     JOHN
No, it weren't like that, Ma.

     MA
Mrs. Alisal, her son Alexander went walking by that there creek, and he
came back all mean and ornery-like. Tell me that didn't happen to you,
boy.

     JOHN
I already told you Ma, that ain't the way it is.

(JIM BUCK, played by BOBBY JOE, enters.)

     JIM
Hey, you folks going out to California?

     JOHN
I reckon we are.

     JIM
My name's Jim Buck, and I come from Texas.

     JOHN
I'm John Toad, and this is my Ma. We come from Toad Hall, in Oklahoma.
At least, we used to. Damn weasels at the bank plowed it over to plant
rice paddies. So we all packed up the motorcar and headed west.

     JIM
What you reckon you gonna do once you get to California?

     MA
We got this flyer, says there's plenty of picking jobs for every man,
woman and child who can make it to California.

     JIM
Is that a fact?

     JOHN
I reckon it is.

     JIM
Well, suppose I was to tell you that they don't need any pickers in
California.

     JOHN
Mister, it says here they need 10,000 coconut pickers by March. Says
here they got coconuts, and bananas, and oranges growing right on the
vine.

     JIM
I'm just saying, suppose they don't need any coconuts pickers at all?
Maybe I heard that the folks in California eat their coconuts from a
candy bar. Now, just supposin' the copy store had a bunch of extra
paper, on account of it being the depression and all, and they just
printed those flyers because they got 500 job openings at their copy
stores around the state. So what happens? 20,000 fruit pickers show up,
thinking they're going to make ten dollars a day. Instead, they make two
dollars a day running a copy machine, gettin' ink all over their faces,
because that's the only work there is.

     JOHN
I don't know what you're saying, Mister, but I sure don't like the way
you're saying it.

     MA
If you're so smart, how come you're heading to California?

     JIM
Well, I ain't going to pick coconuts or make copies, that's for dang
sure. No, I heard someone tell me that all the men in California are
either fruits or queers, so I figure there might be a lot of desperate
rich women out there who'd be willing to pay a man like me to keep them
happy. I ain't never been good at much, but I'm good at lovin' and
kissin', that's for sure.

     JOHN
Ah, come on.

     JIM
Well, I tell you, John Toad of Toad Hall, I'd rather pick cherries than
coconuts, any old day.

     JOHN
Well, why don't you go satisfy my grandma. She ain't had any hose since
my grandpa died. Maybe she'll give you a biscuit for your trouble.

     MA
I've been meaning to tell you, John. Grandma passed on when you was out
walking by the creek.

     JOHN
Grandma's dead? Don't that just beat all.

     JIM
I'm real sorry to hear that, Mrs. Toad. I was really looking forward to
that biscuit.

     JOHN
Well, ain't there going to be a service or nothing?

     MA
John, we only got gas money to get to California, and we couldn't afford
no decent burial...

     JOHN
What'd you do with her, Ma?

     MA
The little children were starving, son. I couldn't afford no food, and
their little eyes was all deep and hollow-like.

     JOHN
You ate Grandma?

     MA
Johnny, I couldn't let the young'ns starve. If you'd only seen their
little faces.

     JOHN
Ah, ma.

(There is an uncomfortable silence that arises when one commits
cannibalism.)

     JIM
You got any left?

     MA
No, we ate her all.

     JOHN
Ma, what were you thinking? I ain't had good vittles since they kicked
me out of Catholic school.

     MA
Well, she was just so delicious. Not like Grandpa. He was tough and
stringy. ÔBout all we could make out of him was stew. Grandma, she was
mm, mm, good.

     JIM
My mouth's a-watering just thinking about it.

     JOHN
Do me a favor, Ma... When my time comes, don't eat me all in one
sitting. Save some leftovers, in case special company shows up.

(There is AD LIB SHOUTING from offstage.)

     MA
Who is that?

     JIM
It's the cannibal police.

     MA
Oh, no... You don't suppose they found out about Grandma?

     JOHN
No, I reckon they be lookin' for me.

     MA
You? What for?

     JOHN
Well, while I was walking, we came across a group of healots and we
cooked 'em up real good.

     JIM
I thought you said you ain't had decent eats.

     JOHN
I ain't. Cannibal police chased us of before we et our first bite. We
had to leave our dinner in the campsite, right about the time they was
done.

(There are more shouts in the distance. )

     POLICEMAN
(Offstage)
There's one of them flesh-eating reds!

     MA
Them cannibal police is getting closer.

     JOHN
 I reckon I'd better be going.

     JIM
I can hide you in my trunk as far as Barstow. Maybe you can help me turn
a few tricks once I get to Los Angeles.

     JOHN
I'm much obliged, Mr. Buck.

     MA
John, will I ever see you again?

     JOHN
Oh, you'll see me. Wherever there's a man dying in the gutter, I'll be
there. Wherever someone's passed on, and ain't yet rotted, and I got
wood enough for a fire, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop eating a
guy,  look for me mama, 'cause I'll be there.

(The Oranges of Angst ends.)

     SYBLIE
The Oranges of Angst, which centers around an Oklahoma family's
depression era journey, represents Drucker's shift from children's
theatre, and back to the populist avant-garde that made him fashionable.

     CLAUDIA
Before the show, we handed out cards for you in the audience to ask
questions regarding the life and work of Tud Drucker. We are going to
take a few moments now to answer some of those questions.

(At this point, the panel will answer questions from the script, and, if
possible, real questions culled from the audience at intermission.)

     IRVING
Oh, good. Questions and answers. This was my idea. It's about time they
used one of my ideas.

     CLAUDIA
Our first question: What was Drucker's favorite book?

     SID
I can answer that. "Curious George Learns the Alphabet."

     CLAUDIA
Really?

     SID
Well, he loved all the "Curious George" books, but he found "Curious
George Goes to the Hospital" to be too melancholic, and most of the
other books in the series had a symbolism that was difficult for Tud to
grasp. He respected the "Man in the Yellow Hat" as a Christ figure.

     CLAUDIA
Our next question: Which of Drucker's plays would you put in a time
capsule for future generations?

     TANYA
It's almost easier to say which one of them I would most dread putting
in a time capsule. Any one of them could cause massive confusion for
future societies seeking to learn about western culture.

     BOBBY JOE
Well, let's just say you were forced to choose one.

     TANYA
Suppose I were to put the same question to you, Mr. Manucci?

     BOBBY JOE
That's Dr. Manucci! I paid good money for that Ph.D. Hell, I'd throw in
the Red Sea Dog. That shows America at it's best, socking it to the bad
guys. So what if he was off by a couple of years.

     CLAUDIA
Here's an interesting question. Who was the great love of Tud  Drucker's
life?

     BOBBY JOE
Sid, Irving, give us the dirt. You guys knew the man.

     IRVING
I met him once at a production meeting. He sat in a corner with his head
turned away, chewing on staples.

     SID
Yeah, but to answer the question, I think Tud's great love with himself.
It was a special relationship, and when you saw the two of him together,
you knew that nothing could come between him.

     CLAUDIA
Our final question: Which work from the Drucker canon will be most
influentional in years to come?

     SYBLIE
I think the Wheezing Pugilist, only I don't really mean influence in the
positive sense of the word. It tends to draw the biggest crowds to this
day, and has been an inspiration to all sorts of imitative detritus,
from Rocky to Kick Boxer.

     BOBBY JOE
Hey, I liked the "Rocky" movies, especially the one where he beats up
the Ruskie.

     CLAUDIA
That's all the time we have for questions.

(CLAUDIA gathers up the question cards and puts them away.)

     TANYA
(Clears throat)
In literati circles, Tud was sometimes referred to as "the Australian
Brecht."

     IRVING
By who?

     TANYA
It was mainly by the Aussies themselves. They had often wanted a Brecht,
but were unable to afford a real one.

     CLAUDIA
In addition to his surreal stylings, like Brecht, Tud was fascinated
with the concept of America. Oddly enough, he never made any attempt to
study the United States, or understand it in any cohesive way. I guess
he didn't know any good travel agents. So, in 1970, Podorowski took him
there.

     TANYA
Podorowski showed Drucker the true face of America, as only a French-
Canadian esthete could. Special Agent Wolf Wicker compiled "the Drucker
File," as well as designing several saucer-shaped baskets and an array
of lawn furniture.

(BOBBY JOE puts on some dark sunglasses and becomes SPECIAL AGENT
WICKER.)

     BOBBY JOE
(As Wicker)
"They went underground, crossing from Canada into the U.S. in the trunk
of a Volkswagen driven by the former Yippie leader, Abbie Hoffman. FBI
film, recently obtained through the Freedom of Disinformation Act, shows
Podorowski and Drucker taking part in the noted Akron race riots of '71,
somehow as the leaders of opposite sides. They only narrowly missed
being caught in the police fire-fight. There the trail becomes cold: a
faint recollection of a prostitute in Ogden, Utah, of a man with a
strange accent asking her if she would wear a white, wooly wig; a donut
store deal in Tampa collapsing when the buyer, an eccentric ÔMr.
Srucker', was told that the police officers were not included; a string
of gas stations throughout Nevada, each discovering aboriginal graffiti
on the Ethyl pumps, which translated read ÔPut a nickel in the damn
thing. Pulled the handle. Burnt me mouth.' He was even rumored to be
married to Margaret Dumont. It is believed these rumors were started by
Drucker himself, since Miss Dumont had actually been dead for six years
at the time."

     SYBLIE
Whatever did take place, his understanding of American life seemed to
blossom and unfold into an even hairier state of confusion. Much like
Brecht, his exposure to the real American way of life did little to
clarify the reality of Yankee livelihood.

     SID
Frankly, I was worried that once Drucker saw America, he would be
disappointed. I remember what shocked him most was that after his trip
to Disneyland they wouldn't let him visit any of the amusement parks for
security reasons.

     PETER
Ah, much like Khrushchev before him. Were they afraid that he might be
mobbed or attacked by crazed fans?

     SID
No, he was the security problem. He kept attacking the characters who
roamed the parked, demanding to know why they looked so different in
person. He actually wrestled Goofy to the ground and tried to get his
mouth to move. He couldn't understand why it was frozen in place, and
kept insisting that all the characters needed tetanus shots. You folks
don't even want to know what he did to Donald. It was ugly.

     TANYA
Shortly following his trip to the states, now living on both Trinidad
and Tobago, he negotiated a deal with Broadway producer Sol Weisenstein
to develop a musical comedy for the Great White Way. Within three days,
he had written the beautifully poetic Theater Closed-No Performance
Tonight. Despite the bountiful prose which revealed Drucker to be at the
height of his craft, it was misinterpreted by critic and audience alike,
who stayed away in droves. It failed to sell a single ticket, and
Weisenstein lost five million dollars.

     IRVING
That's nothing, wait'll we get to my story. At least I didn't spend my
own money. Weisenstein was a fool. But I'm ahead of myself.

     CLAUDIA
After the failure, Tud was distraught. Together, they worked on a new
play for Broadway, which Weisenstein would direct, and Drucker would
write. It was called Oy, New Dehli, a nudie piece that seemed to be
loosely inspired by Oh, Calcutta. New York Times critic Charles Champlin
called it "Drucker rehash."

     SID
I think that was unfair. It had some wonderful vignettes. My personal
favorite was Miaow, I'm Nude, in which a space man named Digberto aligns
with a gangster named Ringo, and worships cow tails. Plus, it was nude.
How original! We all made a fortune.

     BOBBY JOE
This was the first Drucker play I was exposed to. I liked it, except for
the ugly chicks and fat guys.

     CLAUDIA
In 1974, not long after the successful opening of Oy, New Dehli,
Drucker's closest friend, Jules-Michel Podorowski, died in an automobile
accident near Cholame, California, when his sports car slammed into a
plaque marking the spot where James Dean had died some twenty years
earlier. Another plaque was subsequently erected to honor Podorowski,
and it later resulted in the death of noted physicist James Rottard.

     IRVING
Such a thing!

     BOBBY JOE
I think we all remember where we were the day Podorowski died.

     PETER
I was in Vancouver, receiving a high colonic.

     BOBBY JOE
Tud wrote the play Dead Charlie, which had little to do with Podorowski,
but let me tell you. It was the saddest story this old cowboy has ever
read.

(Dead Charlie begins. Lights come up on a stool. CLAUDIA, as the
PAPERGIRL, sits alone on a stool in a place out of time. Her demeanor
might be not unlike performance artist Laurie Anderson, with a nail
driven through her head.)

     PAPERGIRL
There are certain things you remember about people when they're dead,
things that you didn't think about before, but for some odd reason just
pop into your mind when they're dead. When I think about death I think
about a boy I knew in my blossoming years, a boy who's dead now. I get
images of him, images of all of his friends, they were all very short,
and hung around in a gang to negate their size. They rode around on
motocross bikes, and would often throw rocks at me while I was
delivering papers. The rocks weren't that big, but golly, they sure hurt
like hell. Charlie, the dead boy, he was the leader of the group. Of
course, he wasn't dead then, and wouldn't be for years to come. I
remember that when I found out Charlie had died, I looked him up in my
year book and found a little poem he had inscribedÉ"From the deepest
sewer, to the highest gearth, don't eat any Gerble's baby food." That's
just the kind of guy he wasÉhe could make you laugh with a silly poem,
or make you cry with a small rock. Some people are like that, and the
dead boy was.

(Dead Charlie ends. The lights go down on the stool. Claudia takes some
time to recover herself from the emotional trauma.)

     IRVING
Claudia, what about the Dead Charlie piece? It seemed very challenging,
not unlike digesting a piece of undercooked chicken breast.

     CLAUDIA
When it was determined by the producers of this pastiche that I would
perform this piece, I was reminded of the my first exposure to Tud
Drucker's work. A friend had given me a copy of The Guy with the Hat,
and I took it home and read it. You know, I felt violated by the text. I
was literally used by the dialogue, and then cast off like some
worthless trollop. Then, I read the play again, and I realized
something... it had words.

     IRVING
Can I just say, you looked great.

     CLAUDIA
Thank you, Irving. It's very rewarding to hear you say that, as
portraying the character of the Papergirl is both difficult and
bellicose, at the same time.

     PETER
I think it serves as a sepulcher to his grief. The great shock of
Podorowski's death came when Drucker was planning what he had hoped
would be the crowning achievement of his career: Druckerland, a 50-acre
amusement park that he hoped would do for Alice Springs what Disneyland
did for Anaheim.

     SID
I told him not to do it. I said, "Tud, no!" He just stood there and
drooled.

     TANYA
Using profits from his plays, Drucker built the first two attractions on
his own. The primary attraction was a low-budget fantasy kingdom called
DesertWorld, which consisted of a large plot of undeveloped land and an
adventure ride: "Ride the Rainbow Serpent."

     SID
I wouldn't call it a ride, really. It was more like a walk... A somewhat
dangerous walk with a barrel of LSD laced sugar cubes at one end, and a
pub at the other.

     TANYA
The second attraction was Abe Lincoln's America, a production that
utilized an animated robot of Abraham Lincoln, which Drucker had copied
almost directly from a similar attraction at Disneyland.

     CLAUDIA
I recently conducted an interview with puppeteer Kendall Mutz for the
Village Voice. He designed the Druckerland "Lincoln" attraction. I
quote. He told me that he always felt it was a shame that Druckerland
never opened... Drucker had poured so much money and imagination into
the Abe Lincoln attraction, but the location of the park was just too
remote. I mean, Alice Springs is 700 miles from any other Australian
city. It would take forever to reach it by rail, and the airport was
often buried in a sandstorm. As soon as the potential investors realized
this, they foolishly panicked.

     TANYA
We have used an insurance company video tape to reenact the attraction,
Abe Lincoln's America.

(Abe Lincoln's America begins. BOBBY JOE, as the robot ABE LINCOLN,
enters the stage. He walks in an odd, staccato motion. You would never
mistake him for anything but a robot, much like the one at Disneyland.
It blinks its eyes a lot, which is the puppeteers way of saying, "Look!
It can blink its eyes." The robot HARRIET TUBMAN enters, played by
CLAUDIA. She wears a railroad conductor's hat.)

     LINCOLN
Greetings, charming lady. Dangerous morning to be walking about, what
with these rebel roustabouts combing the woods.

     TUBMAN
My quest makes me immune to all danger.

     LINCOLN
What would that be?

     TUBMAN
I search for Lincoln, the Great Emancipator.

     LINCOLN
Who might you be, that seeks this mighty Lincoln?

     TUBMAN
I am Harriet Tubman, the leader of the underground railroad.

     LINCOLN
An underground railroad? You don't say.

     TUBMAN
Yes. I have a bevy of escaped slaves at the station in Gettysburg. It
seems we're out of subway tokens, and we still have six more stops until
we reach our destination.

     LINCOLN
A pityful plight, madam. Why do you travel alone?

     TUBMAN
I was sent ahead of the pack to find the famous Lincoln, most honest of
all Abrahams.

     LINCOLN
Look no further, ma'am, for you have found him.

     TUBMAN
Free at last, free at last. Give me freedom, oh Emancipator, oh
Emaciator!

     LINCOLN
Your wish is my command. If it's freedom you want, then it's freedom
you'll get.

(Lincoln removes a knife from a sheath on his belt and raises it.)

     LINCOLN
I emancipate thee! Behold the scimitar of freedom!

(Lincoln lowers his knife and stabs Harriet Tubman.)

     TUBMAN
Freedom! Freedom!

     LINCOLN
I sacrifice your soul to the Gods of Olympia. Last week, I offered them
the good goat Nanny, but the were not appeased. Drink, ye pagan Gods,
drink the free blood of this woman.

(LINCOLN stabs TUBMAN again.)

     LINCOLN
(Laughs heartily)
I love emancipatin' people.

     TUBMAN
Freedom!

(TUBMAN dies. LINCOLN looks out at the audience.)

     LINCOLN
Four score and seven years ago, our four fathers came to America on the
Mayflower, which was captained by Christopher Columbus, the man who
would later found Ohio, as well as the Columbia School of Broadcasting.
By the great God Apollo, there was a mighty war upon this country, a war
started by the treacherous Thane of Georgia, the treasonous Jefferson
Davis. Davis haunts us no more, and though the great walking shadow of
death may find me, it will be on the road to forever, tomorrow, and
tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, which is, after all, another day.
But fiddle-dee-dee! In a larger sense, we cannot castrate, we cannot
concentrate, we cannot say hello to this ground.The brave men, living
and undead, who struggled here have consummated on it far above our poor
power to add or subtract, much less divide by the square root. In their
memory, I struck Davis down, with the assassin's sword. No man sleeps
where Lincoln stalks.

(THREE ROBOT WITCHES, played by IRVING, SYBLIE and TANYA, enter.)

     THREE WITCHES
Double double, toil and trouble, a-whomp-baba-loobam, a-whomp-bam-boom.

     WITCH #1
Lincoln, Lincoln, Lincoln!

     LINCOLN
Witches, by Jove! What magic do you speak?

     WITCH #1
Do you fear the horsemen of the dead South,
whose great despot you dispatched to his grave?

     LINCOLN
Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin.

     WITCH #1
Worry not, for you shall not meet your end
On the great land from which you came to tend.

     LINCOLN
So, as long as I never leave the Union, I am safe from the Confederate
swamp devils!

     WITCH #2
Lincoln, Lincoln, Lincoln!

     LINCOLN
Another speaks.

     WITCH #2
Worry not about your obsolete foes,
for no man born to an earthly woman
shall see your soul to its visceral grave.

     LINCOLN
Of course not! I am Lincoln, I am invincible! As a young boy, I was
kicked in the head by a horse and left for dead. On the advice of a
gypsy, my mother dipped me in the great Mississippi, the river of
immortality, chanting the holy words of Puddin'head Wilson, "M-I-S-S-I-
S-S-I-P-P-I, because I like you."

     WITCH #3
Lincoln, Lincoln, Lincoln!

     LINCOLN
That's my name, don't wear it out.

     WITCH #3
When your mother rinsed you in the river,
she grasped you by the head, the top was not
dipped, and this is powerless to kismet.

     THREE WITCHES
Beware, beware, beware!

     LINCOLN
Ghast, I am possessing of the Achilles' head. But I need not worry, for
no man of woman born shall do my death. As long as I do not leave my
home, I am safe! I am Lincoln. I am invincible.


(The robot JOHN WILKES BOOTH, played by SID, enters.)

     LINCOLN
What the hell?

     BOOTH
I am John Wilkes Booth, assassin of robot presidents! I have come to
kill your mechanical Yankee hide.

     LINCOLN
But the witches' prophecy! No man born of woman shall make me dead.

     BOOTH
I was born not of my mother's womb, but I sprang from the head of Zeus
after an axe blow by the jealous Hera.

     LINCOLN
Oops! The Gods still crave blood. Wait a second, Booth. I'm not a
Yankee! I was born in Kentucky. Yeah, that's right.

     BOOTH
And I was raised a mortal in the North.

     LINCOLN
May a castrated soldier bare my vengeance. I swear, that if they open my
grave in one score and sixteen years, my face will be chalky white with
the hatred I feel for you. My eyebrows will be gone, that my eyes might
better search the cosmos for your thespian soul. My face shall bare a
melancholy expression, if only because I myself did not have the
pleasure of killing you in this life. Wait a second! The witches'
prophecy... As long as I never leave my homeland, I am safe. This is the
Union! Fie on thee, foul thespian!

     BOOTH
Did you just say you were from Kentucky?

     LINCOLN
Well, yes, but we moved to Illinois when I was young, so I guess that
kind of makes me a Yankee, doesn't it?

     BOOTH
Vengence is mine now, you pagan beanpole, turncoat to the Bluegrass
State.

     LINCOLN
You'll never be the actor your father was!

     BOOTH
Everyone's a critic. Besides, he was a lousy assassin. You're sick with
distemper, Tyrannosaurus!

(BOOTH shoots LINCOLN. LINCOLN lets out a mechanical scream and falls
dead.)

     BOOTH
Though I'm not from Alabammy, my pistol packs a whammy, you just have no
regression from confederate aggression.

(Abe Lincoln's America ends.)

     SYBLIE
By 1975, the world realized that there were two Tud Druckers: a five
foot, seven inch white man who wrote plays, and a six foot, two inch
aborigine hired by the playwright to attend Tupperware parties in his
stead.

     TANYA
When the Tupperware Drucker was revealed, he wrote a series of memoirs
about the experience entitled, Me Mate Tud Drucker Is Not a Jumbuck-
Buggerin' Bastard. Though it practically diefied the playwright, it
received universal praise from the Australian press for it's candor and
lack of sophistication.

     SYBLIE
It was later revealed that the playwright himself had written the book,
wearing blackface and elevator boots. He claimed to have done this
because he felt only an ethnic artist would have such a work taken
seriously. The Australian critics then stated that they never liked the
book in the first place; they just didn't want to look stupid.

     SYBLIE
When a group of university scholars convinced the critics that they
looked stupid anyway, it was discovered that some of the critics did
indeed like the book, especially the recipe for rabbit and emu pie.

     TANYA
This was also the year that Hollywood discovered Tud Drucker, in the
form of wildcat producer Irving J. Roboostoff.

     IRVING
Finally, we get to my piece of Drucker history. I was wondering, when
are these schmendricks going to introduce me? This nice audience is
sitting here, looking at me, saying, who's the shmutzige vogel? But I
digress. I had acquired the rights to Homos In the Navy, after a
protracted legal battle and several fist-fights with Drucker's agent. I
had him rewrite it as a vehicle for Fred Astaire and Charles Bronson,
called The Tap-Dancing Slasher. However, I just couldn't get the
ferkochte thing past the MGM Bureau of Standards. The script and
storyboards lie in a vault in Atlanta, along with some undeveloped test
footage. It would have been a great film, let me tell you. Bob Fosse
arranged the choreography, we had music by Hamilton, Joe Frank and
Reynolds... We even got Debbie and the King! I guess Hollywood just
wasn't ready for bad taste on such an epic scale.

     CLAUDIA
If I'm not mistaken, Astaire was in his mid-70's and Bronson was in his
fifties at the time

     IRVING
Your point being?

     CLAUDIA
Well, the protracted dancing and battle scenes would probably have been
difficult for the aging Astaire to perform.

     IRVING
Well, we actually shot a few scenes before MGM pulled the plug. Astaire
was a great sociopath. He had fire, he had charisma, he was Charlie
Manson with taps. He even said to me, "Irving, I wish I had been born 40
years later, then my career would have not been such a waste. I spent my
time dancing with people, when I could have been blowing them away."

     CLAUDIA
The cancellation of the project, so late into production affected
Drucker deeply. So deeply in fact, that for several days his spine was
seen between his ribs, and his navel protruded from his back. Yet the
project had flaws. Certainly Astaire would not be accepted by the public
as an evil super-villian...

     IRVING
Images were made to be changed. There were even publicity plans for Fred
slice up a crowd of orphans and nuns at Graumann's Chinese theater for
the gala opening.

     CLAUDIA
You mean, like mannequins or wax figures?

     IRVING
Hey, that would be good, too.

     BOBBY JOE
Despite his refusal to write plays, Drucker earned a modest living
working for a supermarket tabloid called "the National Inquisition,"
under the psuedonym of "RŸd Flucker." He felt that this style of writing
represented the peak of western literature, and became obsessed in
writing a series of articles involving the Kennedy assassination.

     SID
Oy, you couldn't talk to him about Kennedy. Every week he had a new
theory, and he was always sure it was the right one. One week, it was
Julie Andrews, the next week it was Johnny Olsen.

     PETER
I'm sorry, but who's Johnny Olsen?

     IRVING
A game show announcer. He was on a show called "The Price Is Right."
Maybe you never got that in Canada. Let me tell you, Johnny may have
been a wild man, but he didn't kill Kennedy.

     BOBBY JOE
Tud also used the scandal sheets to spread lies about himself, the
interest in his older works having seriously fallen with the gradual
collapse of the New York theatre scene in the late 1970's. In one
article printed in the Inquisition, Drucker describes his humble origins
in a real cool form.

(BOBBY JOE picks up a copy of a supermarket tabloid and reads.)

     BOBBY JOE
"Drucker is the ultimate genetic creation of a secret literary enclave
in the deserts of Australia.  Grown in a vat and programmed with the
works of the ages, Drucker takes words, and places them on the page. He
positions sentences together with other sentences, achieving the
ultimate..." uhmm... Hey lady, what's that word?

(BOBBY JOE shows the tabloid to TANYA.)

     TANYA
Synergy.

     BOBBY
Oh... "acheiving the ultimate synergy of mind and matter, thereby
creating an absolute acme of theatre."

     TANYA
Eventually, the editors at the Inquisition grew tired of this self-
agrandizment, and asked Tud to write another Kennedy article. It was
during this alleged investigation that Tud was arrested by the Los
Angeles Police Department for breaking and entering. Apparently, during
an attempt to link Dr. Linus Pauling with the Bobby Kennedy
assassination, he broke into a 1973 Toyota Corona. In addition to
various papers, he took a forty dollar stereo, several Anne Murray
cassettes and a shopping bag full of Cheese Nips. He was given a
suspended sentence and asked to stay away from several community service
centers.

     SYBLIE
His psyche now battered and desperate, Drucker went back to Australia.
He resumed writing at the subdued pace of seven plays per year. He
communed with the aborigine tribes that lived around his home town of
Spotted Walls. They delivered his messages and scripts to the outside
world, and picked up his royalty checks for him. Sid, you were there
when Drucker returned to Sydney.

     SID
Tud was on walkabout. A miscast boomerang knocked a jumbuck out of a
tree, and hit me mate Tud on the head, giving him a severe concussion.
The aborigines brought him back, but the trip from Spotted Walls only
worsened his condition. By the time he reached us in Sydney, he was in a
bloody coma. The aborigines brought in bone men to apply their cures.
Those painted abos dancing and chanting in a modern hospital room was
one that could have come from Tud's fantasies. It seemed they were too
late, though. One of them told me, "I think this one's been gone dream-
time, long time, mate."

     TANYA
While in his comatose state, Drucker wrote one of his most commercially
successful plays, The Wheezing Pugilist. Despite earning him a great
deal of money around the world, it has been eschewed by the
Druckerphiles primarily because of its success, which ruined the
esoteric standing of Drucker's many fans, who admired him as a cult
failure.

(The Wheezing Puglist begins. There is a  boxing ring. In one corner is
KID ASTHMA, played by PETER, a skinny, emaciated boxer. He is with his
girlfriend, SHAMI, played by Syblie. KID is battered and bloody.)

     KID
Baby, what are you doing here, in your condition? Should you be back at
the cavern, watching the fight on cable television?

     SHAMI
Kid, I'se down on my me knees. Please don't go fight this mucker. We'll
make it somehow. I can sell my Mother's chairs. We can always sit on
Stalagmites.

     KID
Shami, I love you too much to share you with any geological structures.
I'll take this guy out by the 17th round. Just watch me. Then I can get
you a white picket fence to live behind, not just some hole in the
ground. Just think- You, me, a hole in the ground and a picket fence.

     SHAMI
Oh, Kidsy-widsy, if only it were possible. Your asthma might finally
clear up. I do admit my hair has never looked better since those bats
moved in. But- no! I can't take the chance of losing you. Not now. Look
at you. You're battered and bloody, and the fight hasn't even started
yet.

     KID
Shami-

     SHAMI
You go out there and fight, I can't guarantee I'll be waiting. I can't
take it. I'll- I'll go join a Shao-lin nunnery.

( MRS. OLDMAN, played by CLAUDIA, enters. She is the Kid's trainer.)

     OLDMAN
Kid, Shami, there's no time for that now. It's time to give that doofus
Mohammed Dundee the drubbing of his lives.
(Sponges him down)
You look real good.

     KID
Thank, Mrs. Oldman, thanks a lot. You're the best darn trainer a boxer
with bronchitis ever had. Without you, I'd be nothing.

(DOCTOR NUTMEAT, played by TANYA, hands him an inhaler. KID takes a
whiff.)

     KID
Doctor Nutmeat?

     NUTMEAT
Yeah, kid?

     KID
I just wanna go the distance 'gainst this guy, that's all. Do whatever
you can for me.

     NUTMEAT
I'm only doctor. I have no power to work miracles. My training in both
regular and eastern homeopathic medicine made me what I am. That which
the Shao-lin nuns taught me was science, not magic. You were wheezing
pretty bad out there, you know.

     KID
I think the bastard has pollen in his glove.

     OLDMAN
The pig.

     KID
I just gotta make it. I made a bet with Big Louie Crab that I could make
it all the way.

     OLDMAN
Kid, if the Boxing Commission finds this out, you're finished. They
don't want no asthmatic pug as it is.

     KID
That's the chance I gotta take. I got to prove to the rest of the world
that asthmatics are real people, and not just wheezing weenies. Plus,
there's something else.

     OLDMAN
What is it, kid?

     KID
It's on account of my girl, Shami, and what she done said to me.

(SHAMI, played by SYBLIE, appears in a memory.)

     SHAMI
Kid, I'm-a gonna have your baby. We need money to get married, so we can
have a nice start. We need a house of our own. We can't live in Carlsbad
Caverns forever.

(SHAMI fades.)

     OLDMAN
Gee kid, isn't there another way to get the money? You could get a day
job, rob a liquor store, sell the baby to a rich couple from
Connecticut. I mean, why this?

     KID
On account of something else Shami said to me.

(KAMONO HASHI-SAN, a Shao-lin priest, played by IRVING, appears in a
memory.)

     KAMONO
If you walk with yourself through the jungle, you may stride without
fear of the rhino or tiger.

(KAMONO fades.)

     KID
Hey, who was that?

     DOCTOR
Oh, I'm sorry. That was one of my memories. Kamono Hashi-San, my Shao-
lin master. He taught me the ways of the mighty herb.

     KID
Anyway, she said to me...

(MOHAMMED DUNDEE, played by SID, enters. He is a hulking opponent. The
bells rings.)

     OLDMAN
No time for your inane stories, Kid. It's time for you to show Mohammed
Dundee what for, and knock that guy senseless.

     KID
Right. Look out, senseless.

(Kid goes to the center of the ring, and boxes with DUNDEE. KID begins
wheezing.)

     DUNDEE
Are you okay now?
You seem a bit ill to me.
Should I call the doc?

     KID
I'm all right. I'm gonna make it through this fight, damn straight.

     DUNDEE
I think you are sick.
Why do you want to fight me?
It seems so risky.

     KID
On account of something my girl Shami told me, just the other day.

(KAMONO HASHI-SAN appears in a memory.)

     KAMONO
Kid, I'm gonna have you're baby. We need money to get married, so we can
have a nice start. We need a house of our own. We can't live in Carlsbad
Caverns forever.

(KAMONO fades away.)

     DUNDEE
That is not your girl.
It would seem you remembered
the wrong entity.

     KID
Yeah, but at least he got the dialogue right this time.

(KID wheezes heavily, and spars with DUNDEE.)

     NUTMEAT
Kid, you okay?

(The bell rings. KID goes back to his corner.)

     KID
'Sbad this time, Doc.

     NUTMEAT
Don't do this to yourself, Kid. I can't bear watching.

     KID
I gotta, onna counta something...

     NUTMEAT
Forget the flashback, you're just going to get my old Shao-lin sensei
again.

     KID
I just gotta do what I gotta do. I got to make sure Shami's taken care
of. You see, I only got six months to live.

     OLDMAN
Say it ain't so, Kid.

     KID
I'm afraid it's true. Fortunately, the six months aren't consecutive.

(The bell rings. KID returns to the ring and boxes DUNDEE.)

     OLDMAN
I'll never forget the day I discovered Kid Asthma. He was wheezing his
way through a match with some palooka from Wagga Wagga. He was about to
hit the meat, when his opponent mentioned the word locust. Kid went
crazy and knocked the guy out.

     NUTMEAT
How come?

     OLDMAN
His parents were devoured by locusts when he was a a little shaver.

     NUTMEAT
Gosh, that's tough. Hey, why don't we just mention locusts now?

     OLDMAN
The Boxing Commission, that's how come. They won't let us say it,
because they think it gives Kid an unfair advantage.

     NUTMEAT
That stinks.

     OLDMAN
That stinks on ivy.

     DUNDEE
I shall knock your head
Until you are unconscious.
It will cause great pain.

     KID
Oh, yeah?

     OLDMAN
Hey Dundee, quit talking that trash haiku!

     DUNDEE
You will soon wind up
In a far away clinic
With bruises and cuts.
The doctors will give
You low-cost health care until
Your brain rots, sucker.

     KID
What kinda insult is that? Low-cost health care? Low-cost? Locust!
Locust! Locust!

(KID begins jabbing furiously at DUNDEE, repeating the word "locust."
DUNDEE shreiks in terror, unable to fight off this attack.)

     KID
I'm a killer locust, and I'm here to kill your mommy and daddy!

(KID takes a great series of jabs and knocks DUNDEE senseless.)

     OLDMAN
Kid, you knocked him out!

(OLDMAN and NUTMEAT hold his hands up, triumphantly. KAMONO HASHI-SAN
rushes into the ring.)

     KAMONO
Kid, now we can have that home we've always wanted. Our baby will be
happy.

(KID and KAMONO embrace and kiss. The scene fades out. The Wheezing
Pugilist ends.)

     SYBLIE
After reading the Wheezing Pugilist, Drucker's doctors pronounced him
brain-dead. His comatose body was shipped to Saskatchewan, Canada, per
his last wishes. Upon arrival at Saskatoon International Airport, he
recovered completely, though inexplicably tended to mutter the word
"Velveeta" at three o'clock every afternoon.

     TANYA
It was at this time that the rare tape of Drucker's voice, known to
scholars as "the rare tape of Drucker's voice," was made. It is unknown
why he made the cassette, as he was a very private man and would often
beat people to a bloody pulp for approaching him with any type of
recording device.

     BOBBY JOE
Technician Wolfgang Deirdorf worked on the tape. He sent us this letter
from JBL Laboratories in Northridge, California.

(IRVING becomes Wolfgang Dierdorf. Some Henry Kissinger glasses might be
a nice touch.)

     IRVING
"We electronically enhanced the tape using Dolby noise reduction, and
channeled it through a MIDI synchronizer, eliminating subtle 'hiss' and
'wah.' We then separated all of the tracks, highlighting the high and
low amplitudes of his voice word by word, using a Tacscam 24-channel
digital display deck; finally, we took the tape to A&M Studios in
Hollywood, where the final mix-down was supervised by Grammy Award-
winning producer Phil Ramone."

     SYBLIE
This is the definitive recording of Tud Drucker's voice.

(They all sit back to listen. Background noise, hiss and distortion of
immense proportions are heard. The voice itself is a series of distorted
chirps, which should bear no resemblance to anything coherent, except
for a slightly muffled sound of T†D humming the theme to "Family
Affair.")

     T†D
(Recorded)
Ooooh. Mwwwf. Oh. Grglsnrf.

(These words are simply meant to suggest incoherence.)

     BOBBY JOE
In 1979, Tud Drucker returned to America. He searched for the America of
his dreams, the America of his writings. Some believe he found it, just
outside of Ketchum, Idaho, where he spent his evenings working at a
convenience store, a profession he glorified as the ultimate experience
for an immigrant living in America.

     CLAUDIA
He continued to write feverishly during the days, as he could not open
his aspirin bottle. The Ghost Bubble Over Niagara Falls is a classic
example of this period. Loozey and Richie, a dizzy blonde and black
calypso band leader, are obvious steals from the popular American
television show "I Love Lucy."

     PETER
The play is alive with visual images, and it presents a special
challenge to an actor. Loozey leads Richie through a surreal courtship
of outlandish sex, torture, humiliation, and free-style bowling, and the
words fall with a rolling, Jamaican edge. Drucker's description of the
bombing of Niagara Falls following a bout of intercourse with German
author Herman Hesse is often cursed by directors for being very
difficult to stage, if only because of the ritualistic slaughter of
several live salt water crocodiles. Oddly enough, the entire play is
written in stage notes. Not a word is heard by the audience.

     IRVING
Twenty-seven plays come out of this period, though with the exception of
Ghost Bubble..., they are rarely performed anywhere, save the esoteric
Drucker Festivals that have begun to surface in Canada and Tierra del
Fuego.

     PETER
America had an odd effect on Drucker. It took the thoughts contained
elsewhere and brought them to the forefront of a new reality, much like
one might take a dying pigeon to breakfast in the late summer.

     SID
I knew something was wrong with Tud after I saw the premiere of Ghost
Bubble... at the Protestant Playhouse in Brooklyn. He had attended the
premiere, and later on we talked at a cast party. He seemed
disinterested at the goings-on, and rather distracted. I said to him,
"Tud, what's wrong." He looked at me and said "Get out of my face, you
bloody hillbilly," and attempted to rip my ear off. I was very stunned
and amazed. He had progressed from our beloved Australian epithets to a
series of American slurs. He still wasn't using them properly, but it
was a promising start.

     TANYA
On December 6th of 1980, Tud Drucker disappeared, and speculation
abounds as to his whereabouts. Many insist that he was gunned down after
a backwoods shouting match with one of the Gem State's infamous self-
styled mountain menÉ A writer to the New York times, one "FrŸd Clucker,"
claims he spotted the playwright in Kalamazoo, Michigan, making Hungry
Jack runs for ElvisÉ His closest friends claim that he died from
consumption, and had his body hidden in Samoa to create suspicion. The
radio news of that day tells the story in a way that only the radio news
of that day can.

(The PLAYERS listen solemnly. CLAUDIA assumes the role of the
NEWSCASTER.)

     CLAUDIA
(As Newscaster)
We hope you're enjoying today's programming, and we'll continue
to...Excuse me, but I've just been handed this urgent bulletin from our
action news desk. At ten o'clock this evening, it was reported, amidst a
great deal of panic and confusion, that the world has lost on of its...
Pardon me, but I've just been informed that we will be switching to
field reporter Michael Swartz, who has been covering this developing
story.  Michael?  Are you there, Michael?  Well, it seems were having a
little trouble with the microwave link, but I do have on the phone right
now Arnold Colber, chairman of the... I'm sorry, we won't be going to
Mr. Colber just yet, but we have been informed that there will be a
message from the Emergency Broadcast System... But first, Michael
Swartz, out in the field, who has been actively covering this story for
us...Michael?  Well, while were waiting for Michael, the President is
preparing to make a speech from the rose garden... The word from
Washington is that he is incredibly saddened by this event, and that
flags are flying at three-quarters mass on Capitol Hill... There appear
to be technical difficulties in Washington, so for now, we'll return you
to our regular programming, and update you as this situation unfolds.

     CLAUDIA
Perhaps the answer to Drucker's mysterious demise lies in one of his
last, cryptic works, the Disappearing Playwright.

(The Disappearing Playwright begins. The lights come up on a bare
representation of a Bus Stop. N†D SMUCKER, played by BOBBY JOE, a
disheveled playwright, stands next to a WOMAN, played by SYBLIE. BOBBY
JOE plays NŸd with an incredibly bad Aussie accent.)

     WOMAN
Say, aren't you NŸd Smucker, the beloved but misunderstood playwright?

     N†D
Yeah, what about it?

     WOMAN
I took a class on you at Uni. Could you autograph my bum?

     N†D
Bugger off!

     WOMAN
You're not very friendly.

     N†D
Says who?

     WOMAN
Says me.

(N†D attempts to bite the WOMAN'S nose off.)

     WOMAN
Ouch!

     N†D
Well, what's a tortured, misunderstood genius to do?

     WOMAN
You could disappear mysteriously, leaving everybody to believe that
you're dead.

     N†D
Hey, that's a good idea. Thing is, what if nobody notices?

     WOMAN
Oh, they'd miss youÉ Unless someone really important were to be gunned
down in front of their home by a crazed fan on the same night.

     N†D
I'm NŸd-fucking-Smucker. Who's more important to this generation than
me?

     WOMAN
Well, no oneÉ Except for maybe the Beatles.

     N†D
Fuck the Beatles. Pommie Homos, every one of them. Hey, you wanna shag a
genius?

(The Disappearing Playwright ends. The lights fade on N†D and the
WOMAN.)

     IRVING
Since his disappearance, Drucker's old friend and producer Sid
Malongadoo has continued to discover "lost works" at the rate of three a
year. Oddly enough, many of them contain references to events that have
occurred since 1980, including a lambada-inspired opera based on the
Challenger tragedy, entitled Set the Sky on Fire!, and a rejected
screenplay for the Cannonball Run, Part Three.

     SID
I'm currently unearthing a play about the fall of communism in Eastern
Europe called Ruskie Wankers. We've scheduled a trial run in Melbourne,
after which I expect to uncover a series of lost revisions before its
Off-Broadway premiere.

     BOBBY JOE
At this point, I would leave it to Tanya Rosenthisttle to sum up Tud
Drucker's life.

     TANYA
He was born, he lived, he grew, his mind was educated, he experienced
external stimuli, he ate food for sustenance, he slept at night, he used
the power of reason, he walked on two feet.

     SID
Tud Drucker, my mate. He might be surprised that one lonely man, an
outcast among the assimilated, could rule the theater world on two
continents without the slightest cooperation to modern taste or
convention. But then, he was so battered by this world, it's doubtful
that any other absurdity would have turned his crank.

     IRVING
Wherever he may be, and in whatever world he may be wandering in, one
thing is certain: his undying love for the society he lived in led to
the realization of certain goals. These goals, alone in their reality,
lay substantiated in the sands of time.

     SYBLIE
What the hell does that mean?

     IRVING
I don't know, they told me, "Irving, you got the final word," and that's
all I could come up with. I got it out of my son's junior high school
yearbook.

     SID
You know, Tud once wrote his own obituary. Because no corpus dalecti was
ever found, it has never been printed. I think it sums up this evening
better than any of us could. Peter, could you do the honors and read it?

(SID hands PETER a typed sheet of paper. PETER looks at it, puts on his
reading glasses, and reads.)

     PETER
"I am Tud Drucker. Now I'm dead." Wow.

(PETER wipes a tear from his eye.)

     BOBBY JOE
Good night, everybody. Thanks for coming.

(The PLAYERS slowly gather their things. A STAGE HAND walks on stage,
and begins sweeping. SID sees him, and gets an alarmed look. The STAGE
HAND motions to SID. SID walks over and the STAGE HAND shoves a legal
pad full of revisions, scribbled in crayon, into SID'S hand with a
threatening grunt.)

     SID
(Whispered)
What're you doing? Get out of here. You'll ruin everything.

     STAGE HAND
(In a thick Aussie accent)
Bugger off.

(The STAGE HAND walks up to SYBLIE, almost offstage.)

     STAGE HAND
Hey lady, do you like shagging with creative men?

     SYBLIE
Depends on who it is.

     STAGE HAND
Well, thing is, I got this white, wooly wig in my car...

(The STAGE HAND and PLAYERS exit.)

END OF PLAY