(MRS. HO and SUNNY HO meet before an arras. Furtive.)
MRS. HO
Did you read the plays that your brother wrote?
SUNNY
What do you mean?
MRS. HO
Those called, “The Provinces.”
SUNNY
I glanced them over.
MRS. HO
He wrote them in your name.
SUNNY
What do we do?
(SUNNY’s MAN FRIEND calls from offstage.)
MAN FRIEND (Offstage)
(Loudly)
Sunny, are there noodles?
SUNNY
Wait a minute, Yicheng! My mother is conspiring!
(To MRS. HO)
What do you propose to do?
MRS. HO
I will bring up a suit to him in a court of law.
SUNNY
Really?
I know that you and he have been . . . strange, lately. But a court of law?
MRS. HO
We are misrepresented.
SUNNY
Well . . . . Who will be your lawyer?
MRS. HO
A man I met once on a street.
SUNNY
Who will be your judge?
MRS. HO
The Pope in Rome. Only a pope will be adequate. But not a recent pope. One from the Renaissance.
(The arras quivers in expectation.)
MRS. HO (Continued)
(Seeing the arras)
Shhh!
SUNNY
You don’t think . . .?
MRS. HO
I have letters to write.
(Exeunt, severally.)
END OF PROLOGUE.
(Two dandies, MAUVE and HALLWARD, sit around the fire.)
HALLWARD
You know, Mauve, in our age, the Victorian age, it is common to tell ghost stories on Christmas Eve.
MAUVE
Then don't keep your tongue in your head: tell one, Hallward.
(HALLWARD thinks for a moment.)
HALLWARD
I think the greatest horror is that our age will come to an end; and people will tell it years later in breathy whispers, guessing at our actions with whitewashed assertions punctuated by, “Did you know?” and “Can you believe it?”
MAUVE
(Snorts)
Is that the best you’ve got? You might at least tell of a man who can pop his eyeball from his head and swing it like a yoyo.
(MAUVE does so.)
HALLWARD
Good show, old friend! Good show! A right Victorian Christmas!
(MAUVE replaces his eye. HALLWARD has a sherry. Snowflakes fall.
Chestnuts roast.)
THE END.
(An AUTHOR walks through a gallery of the WOMEN whom he has created.)
AUTHOR
Ah, you my dear, sweetheart! Did my words catch the glint in your eye? And, old neighbor. Your acid tongue stings worse and with more purpose in my prose. And you, dear sister. Your eyes stare fish-like even now. Do I capture them well? And, mother. You, mother. You.
(The MOTHER moves.)
MOTHER
I am still when I choose and I move when I choose.
AUTHOR
So you are. So you are.
MOTHER
I do not stand like a fossil, bones re-hinged and joints moving as you desire. I speak my mind.
AUTHOR
I long for it so to be.
MOTHER
Your sister and I, and all the other women, we have thoughts, feelings, which none but we can express.
AUTHOR
And so you do. Which is as it should be. For a responsible author brings in the voices of others.
(He helps his mother back to her stand and dusts off her rickety joints.)
THE END.
(Found on a pot by Mrs. Ho. Type on onion skin. This play has a title.)
(Tabernacles.)
AARON: Brother, one of us should go out and get Miriam.
MOSES: Let her remain.
AARON: I heard the jackal. Your sister cannot abide in the scorching [. . .] call her back.
MOSES: If you go, I will smite [. . .]
(AARON waits, then [. . .])
(Ethnographic monologues.)
ELEPHANT
I love peanuts! I’m not afraid to say it. In a world of dread and drear, it’s good to make pleasant remarks. My life is an ode to peanuts---their savory goodness. Each breath I take, a longing for peanuts. To feel the soft crunch between my teeth! To swirl the delicious mash around my gums! Is there anything like a peanut! Oh, peanut! my, peanut! If I weren’t a pantheist, you could be my only god!
BOY WITH AN ALLERGY
Peanuts, you will kill me . . . why do I know you? Once, I tasted. Too young to understand---though someone should have taught the reflex---and there you were, on the counter, tempting with your salty smell. I remember your deliciousness, as you slid past my throat. But then, the closing---oh, the closing! The stifling! The drawing of the curtain! And the dying---oh, the dying! But that first taste was too alluring. And, often, I want more. But you have brought me to the brink too much. Now, your goodness is tainted by cruel intentions. And, when I taste your skin, I taste my choking. So, peanuts, I am almost done with you. Almost. But not quite. For still, each time you pass my lips in illicit encounter, there is a fleeting moment, a rapturous memory of my first taste. Peanuts, I will die for you!
PEANUT
Dig me up. Roast me. Eat me up. My death fills me with tuberescence.
(Can be performed free of charge on National Peanut Day. Contact the author for
more details.)
THE END.
