The Tease Spoons

THE TEASE SPOONS

A Drama in One or Three Acts by

John Lawrence Nazareth

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CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that THE TEASE SPOONS, being fully protected under the Copyright Laws of the United States, the British Commonwealth, including the Dominion of Canada, and all other countries of the Berne and Universal Copyright Conventions, is subject to a royalty. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, and radio and television broadcasting, and the right of translation into foreign languages, are strictly reserved. Inquiries regarding performance and public reading rights should be addressed to the author at P.O. Box 10509, Bainbridge Island, WA 98110, USA or via e-mail to [email protected]

NOTE: This is a work of fiction. The characters and events in it are all fictional. However, liberties have been taken in using the actual names of places, institutions, politicians, and philosophers.

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CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY

Act I:

HAROLD, also called HARRY

AMANDA, his wife, also called AMMEY

BEVERLEY, endearingly called BAD

DEREK, her husband

Act II:

MARCEL, a moniker, or nickname, for COLLECTIVE MEMORY and the characters of Act I.

Act III:

PROPRIETOR, an unnamed owner of a Mexican restaurant

UNNAMED SERVERS in the restaurant and all the characters of Acts I and II.

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NOTES and CONTEXT FOR THE PLAY

A distinguishing feature of this play is that Act I---four scenes on a single set---can be performed independently as a one-act dramatic comedy that requires very modest staging resources. Alternatively, Acts I, II and III comprise a full-scale dramatic play. The characters and events in the play are all fictional, but the setting for the play is real and uses the actual names of places, institutions, politicians, philosophers, and even the author’s cat.

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The setting for Act I is Bainbridge Island, a bedroom community to the west of the city of Seattle in the State of Washington, USA, and a short, 35-minute ride by ferry across a separating body of water known as Puget Sound. The island’s downtown area is called Winslow, formerly a small, self-contained town beside the main harbor, which later incorporated the remainder of the island into a renamed City of Bainbridge Island. The island is about 12 miles long from north to south and 4 miles wide, with a land area of roughly 30 square miles, and its population of approximately 25,000 is highly- educated and prosperous. A bridge of less than a hundred meters across Agate Pass connects the island’s northern tip to the mainland west of Puget Sound, which is known as the Kitsap and Olympic Peninsulas. On the far side of this bridge lies the reservation of the Suquamish Native-American tribe and a few miles beyond is the unique little town of Poulsbo, also mentioned in the play, which is located on fjord-like Liberty Bay and was settled in the 19th century by immigrants from Norway and Sweden. This town grew much more organically than the City of Bainbridge Island and retains and celebrates its Scandinavian origins.

The action takes place soon after the 2008 United States Presidential Election.

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Act II is a dream act with only a single speaking actor and it provides considerable room for directorial imagination.

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Act III takes place in a Mexican restaurant in the little town of Moab located in the state of Utah. Moab is the gateway to one of America’s most beautiful national parks known as Arches and not far from another spectacular sandstone formation known as Natural Bridges.

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If this drama is performed in its full three-act version then the character Marcel of Act II could come on stage at the very beginning of the performance and provide the overall context for Act I. He can be attired as described at the start of Act II and introduce himself with a simple “Bon Jour, my name is Marcel,” then present the contextual discussion for Act I as given above, and conclude with an “Adieu, for now. We will meet again and get to know one another much more intimately very soon.”

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The Tease Spoons: Act I

Four scenes performed on a single set

Scene 1: Harold and Amanda (Harry and Ammey) are a couple, now in their sixties, who married in middle-age and are set in their ways. The scene takes place in the living-cum-dining room of their two-story townhouse. The living area is in full light, the dining area is dimly lit, and a doorway in the latter leads to an adjoining kitchen that is not visible. The front door of the house opens into the living room. Both Harry and Ammey are well attired, Ammey wearing a protective apron. They are expecting overnight guests, Beverley (Bev) and Derek. The first letters of their names spell Bad, and Harold and Amanda affectionately use that acronym for Beverley, who has a wicked streak, and likewise refer to their two visitors as B&D or the Bads.

The set can be minimalist, if desired: a settee or couch and two easy chairs with a cocktail table between them in the living room; a dining table and four chairs in the adjacent dining area; and an oil painting (appropriate for the script below) on the wall of the living room.

HAROLD: The Bads will be arriving before long. Gosh, I wish you hadn’t invited them to stay! It’s not as though they are old friends. Couldn’t they have put up at a motel?

AMANDA [exasperatedly]: For heaven’s sakes, Harry, it’s just for tonight. And it’s not as if they are complete strangers. We’ve known them for over a year.

HAROLD: Just those couple of months when they were selling their house here on the island and moving to their Wyoming ranch!

AMANDA: Yeah, but wasn’t that a fun time! Dining out together at all those restaurants! And Bad has been a telephone friend ever since. Didn’t you enjoy our rendez-vous with them last summer at Bryce and Zion?

HAROLD: Well sure, she’s bursting with life. But all the same, I wish they hadn’t timed their return for the day after the election. They’re such conservatives! It’s going to be

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hell keeping our mouths shut about Barack whipping the pants off McCain. Oh and by the way, shouldn’t we be removing that Obama/Biden sign from the yard?

AMANDA: You know, I’m sure they thought McCain could not lose. Probably part of the attraction of their return swing past here was the opportunity for a silent gloating session. I try never to talk politics with Bad if I can help it---you know how she feels about Bainbridge liberals!

HAROLD: God, can you imagine! McCain sworn in next January by the Chief Justice, a rush of blood to his head, he keels over from a stroke or a heart attack, and suddenly we’d have President Sarah Palin right there on the podium!

AMANDA: A rush of blood to somewhere else made him choose her as running mate in the first place.

HAROLD: Well, Sarah sure has patability!

AMANDA [looks confused]:

HAROLD: You know… that old saw: “They are an incompatible couple---he has the income and she has the patability”. Gosh, even your brother had a crush on her and he’s more liberal than we are.

AMANDA [shrugs off this levity with disdain]: Anyway, she’ll never be President now. Let’s have some tea. I’ve put the kettle on.

[A couple of seconds later there is a whistle from the kettle and Harold goes into the kitchen.]

AMANDA [calls out]: By the way, be careful not to slip up and call them B&D. Or Bad! Remember it’s Beverley and Derek. Bev and Derek! But she sure lives up to BAD!

[Harold re-emerges with two cups on saucers with teaspoons in each saucer. He gives one to Amanda.]

AMANDA [irritably]: That’s not my teaspoon! You’ve brought two of yours.

[She gets up, goes into the kitchen, there is rattle of cutlery in a drawer, and she returns holding up a different teaspoon.]

AMANDA: They are all jumbled up in the drawer as usual. I’ve used my cutlery for years! I’m not changing horses now just because we are married and our stuff has gotten all mixed up. There must be twenty teaspoons in that drawer!

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HAROLD: Well I much prefer mine. A better brand, you know that! You always choose to lay out my cutlery for dinner when we have company. I prefer my green plates too.

AMANDA: Oh for gosh sakes, they are made by Corning---that horrible unbreakable, shiny white with just a little ribbing of green. I know your mother preferred them when she was here. Everything subdued, everything in good taste! I love my pink plates. I need some color, a little pizzazz!

AMANDA [sits down again on the sofa, settles down stirring her tea, and changes the subject to reminiscences]: Remember the first time I met Bad at the pottery studio? She was bursting with energy. So dominant! She’s the only person I’ve met since leaving the Bay Area who reminds me of my dear old friend at the Berkeley College Club, Mrs. Davis. Dear ole’ Mrs. D.! How I miss her! Mayhem in a mink coat! So ready to laugh, so ready for a good time!

[They generally refer to the aforementioned Mrs. Margaret Davis as Mrs. D.]

HAROLD: Yeah, like when she deliberately introduced Professor Westcock to us at the club as Mr. Wetcock. He glared at her all the rest of that evening!

AMANDA [throws back her head in laughter]:

HAROLD [warming to the task]: Westcock! Wetcock! Ha ha! Or when she was out shopping for a potted, maidenhair fern and kept asking the florists for a maidenhead fern. Maidenhead, ha ha ha

AMANDA [laughs again but then becomes serious]: Actually Bad’s not that way at all. She’s quite prudish in the sexual area. But Mrs. D. and Bad are so similarly mirthful. So ready to do something exciting at a moment’s notice, so outgoing.

HAROLD: Not like introverted old us, eh! I suppose that’s why we’re drawn to such people.

AMANDA: You’re more of an introverted-extrovert. You’d be a full-fledged extrovert if your parents hadn’t shipped you off to boarding school when you were twelve.

HAROLD: And I guess you’re an extroverted-introvert---introvert on the inside and drawn to extroverts on the outside. To folk who act like fish in an aquarium at feeding time!

AMANDA: I love being around funsters. People who laugh a lot! I wish I could be more like Bad and Mrs. D. Take charge of situations, instead of situations taking charge of me.

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HAROLD: Well, with Bad… I mean Beverley ……it’s more like taking a charge into people. Insulting them! The way she puts one down. She’s got to be at the top of the heap. Hell, she even keeps putting down poor ole’ Derek, no sensitivity to his feelings at all.

AMANDA [smirks]:

HAROLD: Don’t you remember, the first time you met Bad? When you told her that I had graduated from Cambridge and she said right off the bat: “Well, your husband must be smart. I wish I could say the same of Derek.” God, the trail of social debris she leaves in her wake!

AMANDA: He loves her all the same. Derek’s her shovel brigade! Like Don Regan was for Ronald Reagan.

HAROLD [with emotion]: Every one of those lines on Derek’s face was etched there by his wife!

AMANDA: Well, some are smile lines too. You know, come to think of it, Mrs. Davis told me that her husband’s poor face was very lined as well.

HAROLD: Living with her, all that constant push and pull of emotion, that’s what probably drove him to his early grave.

AMANDA: Actually it was job stress as well. He came from that wealthy, southern California family. You know, Mrs. D’s family was not well to do at all. Her Dad was a detective. Marrying into her husband’s family is what made her wealthy. Good looks and smarts are what got her places. I guess she was noveau riche! But a good egg all the same. In some ways, Bad’s just the opposite. Her Granddad made pots and pots of money---something to do with the grain trade on the Mississippi---and he treated her like royalty when she was a child growing up in St. Louis. That family just frittered away their money. You know what, Bad’s not noveau riche, she’s noveau poor! [smiles at her own joke].

HAROLD: Please! Noveau pauvre! Bad’s lack of education is rubbing off on you.

AMANDA: In her mind, her granddad’s squandered megabucks trump your Cambridge degree any day. And I prefer noveau poor. At least people know what I’m talking about.

HAROLD: Well, she still has the habits of the rich. The riche! Feeling entitled! Just being in their company is a privilege, so they don’t owe you a thing in return. I really wonder

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whether Bad would even put us up at the ranch if we happened to pass through Wyoming. Probably stick us in the bunk house or put us up in a tent out on the range.

AMANDA [in a singsong voice, mockingly]: Oh she’ll give us a home, where the buffalos roam! [She smiles again at her joke.] Well, they’ll be here soon. I think I’ll go check on the quiche.

[She goes into the kitchen, then returns to begin setting the table in the dining area.]

AMANDA: Well, everything’s ready. I can serve dinner soon after they arrive.

[Harold remains seated, pensively stirring his tea.]

[Lights dim.]

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Scene II: Harold and Amanda are seated again on the couch, obviously expectant of visitors. She has removed her apron and looks spiffy. There is a knock on the door. Amanda opens it and there is a resplendent Beverley, who looks every bit the part just described in Scene I. She is in her sixties, her physique matches her dominant, outgoing personality, and she is tastefully, albeit flamboyantly dressed, wears good makeup and a modern hairstyle. (She’s the type of person that’s sometimes described as larger than life.) Derek is behind, long and lanky, a bit subdued. He’s got two large suitcases, one in each hand. There is a large cylinder on wheels beside him. He sets down the suitcases.

BEVERLEY [throws open her arms to envelop Amanda. She has a bottle of wine in one hand and a large bouquet of flowers in the other]: Well, well, here we are! Here we are! We stopped by the liquor store to get you a decent bottle of wine. You know we can’t stand that Almaden chablis some folk still drink. [She then hugs Harry. Derek comes across to shake hands, a touch dolefully.]

HAROLD [looking at the cylinder---an oxygen machine]: What’s that?

BEVERLEY: Oh, I’m on oxygen therapy at night. Can’t sleep without it! Not enough in the atmosphere for my needs you know.

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HAROLD: We’ve only got a double bed for you upstairs. Not suitable for a ménage a trois!

BEVERLEY [dismissively]: Ménage? Coffee? I hate coffee in bed. Derek, darling, why don’t you take up the suitcases!

HAROLD [smirking]: That would be a mélange a trois! Not ménage ….

AMANDA [interrupting to restore calm]: What lovely flowers! I’ll put them in water in the guest room [and to Derek] Come, I’ll help with the luggage.

[Amanda takes the flowers and a suitcase through a doorway to the upstairs bedroom and Derek follows with the other suitcase and the oxygen machine. Stairs could be painted on the wall, for instance, to indicate a stairway behind.]

BEVERLEY [commanding as ever and still flourishing the bottle]: Harry, do open this bottle. I’m dying for a drink.

HAROLD: Sure! I could use one myself. [He takes it and goes into the kitchen while Beverley looks around the living room. She walks up to inspect an oil painting on the wall and gives it a good look over, first from a distance, then close up, cocking her head. Enough time for Harold to bring in the uncorked wine bottle in one hand and four glasses in the other. He pours a glass for each of them, they say “cheers” and she quaffs as she returns to the painting on the wall. Just then Amanda and Derek return.]

BEVERLEY [turning to Amanda]: Did you do this?

AMANDA: Yes, inspired by the scenery in the national parks---our summer rendez-vous in Bryce and Zion. I love the colors of the desert and was trying to catch the feel of it. [Slight pause] Come, make yourselves comfortable. [They settle down into the couch and easy chairs. Harold pours wine into the other two glasses and gives them to Amanda and Derek; he tops up Beverley’s glass as well.]

BEVERLEY [slightly patronizing]: Well, you’re certainly making progress. But, you should use thicker paint. You know what my art teacher used to say: “Color is only color according to amount and placement”.

HAROLD: But Bev, amount and placement are quantitative terms. What about the quality, the consciousness and feeling of the artist who paints the color on the canvas? The qualia of the artist! The redness of the red! The blueness of the blue! Don’t quality and feeling count for something? Isn’t it strange that qualia and quality have the same root?

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AMANDA: Never mind him, he’s into philosophy and cognitive science these days. All I hear is William James this, and Henri Bergson that! And that boring ole’ Descartes: is it “I think therefore I am” or “I am therefore I think”? Harry, what was it that famous Berkeley philosopher said about the brain?

HAROLD: John Searle? He said “the brain secretes consciousness the way the stomach secretes bile”.

AMANDA [to Beverley]: When we were students in Berkeley, I used to make eyes at this good-looking man walking across campus. Turned out it was Searle. Wow, was he handsome in those days! Those eyes, so intense! But, comparing feeling and consciousness to bile---that’s really vile!

HAROLD [sarcastically]: Well, some brains do secrete vile the way the stomach does bile. Like Bertrand Russell’s!

AMANDA [again to Beverley]: Harry detests Bertrand Russell. ‘Cause of the way he savaged his idol, Bergson. Henri Bergson!

BEVERLEY [not really comprehending but authoritative nevertheless]: Didn’t another Henry… Henry Ford… say “philosophy is bunk”?

HAROLD: That was history, Bev. Not philosophy. He said “history is bunk”. [And now to Amanda] I guess for you artists, it’s simply: I paint therefore I am!

AMANDA [firmly]: I am! Therefore I paint!

BEVERLEY [meanwhile gets up and amply refills her glass, which she has been draining rapidly]: Well, cheers again! Here’s to our summer rendezvous---wasn’t that fun?

AMANDA: Utah and New Mexico! The lands of enchantment! Europe may have its cathedrals, but we have our national parks. Those pinnacles at Bryce, like abstract statues of saints. Remember when we went to view the canyon at sunrise? More beautiful than the sun streaming through stained glass windows! [And turning to Derek] Derek, you must be worn out from the long drive from Wyoming.

DEREK: Actually, we’ve been here three days now, taking care of the rental.

HAROLD: You didn’t vote then in yesterday’s election?

DEREK: We’re still registered here in Washington so we did the voting by mail thing.

HAROLD: Who did you …?

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BEVERLEY [hastily interrupts, anxious to change the subject from politics]: Derek gets our retirement income from renting the condo. He’s thinking we should sell it too, now that we’ve moved to the ranch.

HAROLD [smiles, hinting wickedly back to the earlier conversation with Amanda about the Bads’ political conservatism]: So, Derek provides the income and you provide the patability. You two must suffer from incompatibility. Income! Patability! Incompatibility! [He titters.]

AMANDA: I think Beverley and Derek are completely compatible. No less so than you and me.

DEREK [hugs Beverley on the couch and starts to beam]: Oh, she was patable from the first day that I met her.

BEVERLEY [shrugs off the hug, but beams up at him too]: Well, I kept you waiting at the altar. Until you could provide some income! Still, you’re not in my granddad’s league.

AMANDA [getting up]: Come, come, let’s continue this love fest at the dining table. You must be famished. Bring your wine glasses with you, dinner is ready.

BEVERLEY: I need a refill. [She picks up the bottle.] Woah, bottle’s empty!

[The others get up and they head towards the adjoining dining area, taking their wine glasses with them.]

[Lights dim.]

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Scene III: Now the living room area is dimly lit and the dining area is bright. The four are seated at the dinner table, having finished the main meal and having cleared the table. Everyone is a little tipsy and consequently a bit feisty too. They are now on dessert and coffee to round off the dinner.

DEREK: Well that was a delicious meal. Thank you so much! So great to catch up on all the news!

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BEVERLEY: Yes, thank you. Delicious soup! Nice quiche and salad. Did you make it yourself? You know, there’s a bakery down on Winslow Way that makes the best quiche I’ve ever eaten.

AMANDA: Oh, I made this from scratch. But we’ve tried the quiche from the Blackbird and it’s good. Derek, do you miss Winslow at all?

DEREK: Not really, I like being on the ranch, we take our horses for a ride every day, and ….

BEVERLEY [interrupting]: Winslow was always a one-horse town, we might as well be on a two-horse ranch.

HAROLD [taking offence and starting to defend his abode]: Actually, Winslow has become pretty upscale. It’s more like a one-Lipizzaner town.

BEVERLEY: What’s a Lipizzaner?

HAROLD: The Lipizzaners! Those elegant white stallions at the Spanish Riding School in Vienna that put on wonderful shows and tour the world.

AMANDA [also defending her abode]: Well, in any case it’s no longer the Town of Winslow. You were here, weren’t you, when Winslow expanded into the City of Bainbridge Island?

DEREK: Have things improved? Still experiencing teething problems of instant growth?

HAROLD: Well, you know, if you blow up an ant to the size of an elephant, the creature can no longer stand on its own feet. It’s a non-linear problem! It’s going to take quite a while before the place runs smoothly.

BEVERLEY: I know what linear is, but adding a `non’ to it sounds like non-sense, ha ha! Sense, non-sense! [laughs at her own joke].

HAROLD [not amused]: Just think of it this way. Think of the body of an ant as a round sphere and say for argument it has just four short legs, each a little cylindrical pole. Say the radius of the sphere is one and the radius of each pole is a tenth. [He uses hand gestures to help his explanation.] Now what is the volume of the body? It’s proportional to the radius cubed, remember! So that’s one cubed, which is still one. And the base of the cylindrical pole, well that’s a circle, so its area is proportional to the radius squared, a tenth squared, so that’s one-hundredth. So the ratio of body to supporting base is a hundred to one.

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[The other three eye one another and start to get restless, eager to change the subject.]

AMANDA [mimicking Jackie Kennedy’s famous remark]: Please, Mr. Kruschev, please don’t bore us with statistics!

HAROLD [persisting]: Just bear with me. Now scale everything up linearly by a factor of ten. So the radius of the body is now ten and the radius of each base leg is now one. So the volume of the body---remember radius cubed---is proportional to a thousand, whereas the base area of the legs is radius squared, so now that’s one squared which is still one. So here is the key thing: The ratio of body to base is now a thousand to one instead of a hundred to one. The legs can no longer support the body! You have to scale body and legs up differently. Broaden the legs much more to support the body. That’s nonlinearity! When you are back home just work it out. It’s not hard to see with pencil and paper. Blowing up an ant to the size of an elephant won’t work!

[By now the others are truly uncomfortable and fidgety at the table.]

BEVERLEY [not understanding at all and anxious to prove herself anyway]: Well, I guess you can say Bainbridge is a one-elephant city! Ha ha. A one-helluvant city! Ha ha.

DEREK: You know that instantaneous growth never works well. Hard to manage! Poulsbo grew much more organically.

BEVERLEY [still peeved]: Well, Poulsbo must be full of eggheads like Harry. [And then turning to Harold] You studied math at Oxford, didn’t you?

HAROLD [mollified, starting to beam]: Cambridge, actually.

BEVERLEY: Well, you know what C.S. Lewis said. He had to go to Cambridge because he was not smart enough to get into Oxford.

[Harold no longer looks mollified.]

AMANDA [trying to calm things down as usual]: Then Harry went on to Berkeley! That’s where we met.

BEVERLEY: So did you do drugs in Berkeley?

AMANDA: No, of course not. Maybe a little pot, but that was it. We were students at U.C. and then stayed on. Just loved the Bay Area! You know the tourists’ slogan for the city: `San Fran, Free and Easy’!

BEVERLEY: So then you were love children?

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HAROLD [irritated]: Actually Bad, we were not …

AMANDA [hastily interrupts]: Bad luck, bad luck!

HAROLD [recovering]: Yeah, Beverley, bad luck, bad luck for us. We were not cut out for that either. Haight-Ashbury was not our thing. But as you know, we aren’t conservative either.

AMANDA: I guess you could say we are too square to be round and too round to be square. [Pause] Derek, have some more dessert. More coffee, anyone?

DEREK: Yes, a little, please.

[Amanda gives him a small slice of cake and pours a new round of coffee for anyone who wants it.]

BEVERLEY [stirring her refreshed cup of coffee with a teaspoon]: This is nice cutlery. We have a similar set, just missing a couple of items, misplaced somehow.

AMANDA: Yeah, we combined all our stuff from the Bay Area when we got married and moved up here.

[Just then there is the muffled patter of little feet, the sound of something running upstairs.]

DEREK: What’s that?

HAROLD: Oh, it’s our cat, Luna. She’s stays upstairs in Ammey’s bedroom.

AMANDA: She’s been quiet as a mouse till now. We got her from the shelter.

BEVERLEY: Gosh, Ammey, why didn’t you just spend a little money and get something decent. And what’s this about your bedroom, do you each have your own?

AMANDA: Yep, now that we are both retired. I like to go to bed very late and wake up late. Harry’s just the opposite. And his snoring has gotten worse and worse! So now we live like the rich have always done in their palaces, I share the bedroom suite with little Luna and he generally beds in the guest room. I guess we’re noveau riche!

BEVERLEY: Gosh, I’d like to do that at the ranch.

HAROLD [brightly and with a sideways glance at Amanda]: Hey, maybe you could move Derek into the bunk house? Or where the buffalo roam!

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BEVERLEY [starts to yawn]: Harry has put us to sleep with his non-linear rant. I don’t know how you manage to stay in bed so late. Soon as I hear the birds chirping in the morning I’m up and about.

DEREK [finishing up his slice of cake]: Long drive home tomorrow. Must make an early start in the morning.

BEVERLEY [starts to get up, still yawning, drains her wine glass that’s on the table]: I think it’s beddy-byes for us. Come on Derek….

AMANDA: We’ll probably be asleep when you get up. Just let yourselves out the front door in the morning if you want to get going early.

[They kiss goodnight and goodbye, just in case, with lots of hugs and positive feeling.]

AMANDA [calls out as they go upstairs to the guest room]: There’s plenty of food in the fridge. Help yourself to anything you need in the kitchen. I’ll leave some breakfast things on the counter. [And then to Harold] Come, let’s wash up. [They start to clear up the dessert plates and cups and wine glasses and head into the kitchen.]

[Lights fade.]

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Scene IV: Harold and Amanda emerge together into the living room, wearing robes and slippers. They have just gotten up, mid-morning. Beverley and Derek have already left.

AMANDA: Looks like they’d let themselves out by the time I came down to turn on the coffee. See, that wasn’t so bad. And we stayed off politics! I’ll go pour us a cup. Sugar? [She goes into the kitchen.]

HAROLD: Well, I, for one, am glad that’s over. Yeah, half a teaspoon please!

AMANDA [calls out]: Isn’t Bad a hoot and a holler? I hardly got a sip of that bottle she brought, drank most of it herself. [Pause] Wasn’t it fun reminiscing about our get together in Bryce and Zion?

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HAROLD [calls out]: The way she anthropomorphizes everything! The Bryce pillars in your painting---saw profiles of people in them. That’s one thing I can say about Derek. He’s got much more of a feel for nature.

[Amanda returns with two cups with teaspoons in the saucers and gives one to Harold. They sit down side by side on the couch.]

AMANDA: Bad’s not all bad! There’s a child-like innocence beneath all that flamboyance and excess.

HAROLD: She’s patronizing. And disrespectful! Said I was too thick to get into Oxford. But, the paint on your canvas…. that was not thick enough. She’s got no right to critique your art. Pottery is her thing! She has no respect for a good education.

AMANDA: Well, she did go to art school---the Cornish, I think. She does have very good taste.

HAROLD: I should have said to her “You pot, therefore you are”!

AMANDA: Descartes doesn’t mean a thing to her. Didn’t you notice? It would have gone right over her head. Or she might have turned the tables and said “You’re potty therefore you are”!

HAROLD: You know what? She and I are income-potible! [Titters, then starts to stir his coffee.] Hey, you’ve given me one your teaspoons!

AMANDA: There weren’t any in the drawer. Just mine! Could be one on the dining table?

HAROLD [gets up and goes into the dining area and looks over the table]: No, nothing here.

AMANDA: Must be in the dishwasher then? Sorry, I didn’t turn it on last night.

HAROLD [goes into the kitchen. There is a clatter as he looks in the dishwasher]: We have five in there. Where are the others? Sure they weren’t any in the drawer?

AMANDA: I know there are six for a full place setting. And one to spare for the sugar bowl. We’ve got seven at least! I only put out five last night on the table. Look again in the drawer.

HAROLD [another clatter, this time from the drawer]: Nothing there!

AMANDA: Look around on the counters. The sugar bowl?

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HAROLD: Nope, nothing there either. [He emerges and the truth begins to dawn on them.] My God, I think she’s taken two of my teaspoons! Must have pocketed them when breakfasting on their way out this morning!

AMANDA: No, she couldn’t have!

HAROLD: You know, she said something at the dinner table last evening about having a similar cutlery set. Didn’t she say she was missing a couple of items? The drawer is full of teaspoons. Didn’t know about our weird his-and-hers habits! She probably thought we wouldn’t even miss them!

AMANDA: Do you think she did it just to humiliate us? Another of her put-downs?

HAROLD [heatedly]: Disrespect! Disrespect of anything but money. Didn’t I tell you that the rich steal! Not just fortunes. Tiny items too, things like towels from hotels. They have to keep in practice! That’s probably how her granddad made his fortune.

AMANDA: Goodness, what does that do to our friendship? What a betrayal!

HAROLD [now yelling]: Not twenty pieces of silver! Just two pieces of stainless steel! She’s a damned thief!

[Just then the phone rings. Harry and Ammey are too much in shock to answer. It rings five times and then the answering machine comes on. It’s Beverley calling from her car on their drive back to Wyoming.]

AMANDA [her recorded voice comes on]: Hello, we are not available right now. Please leave a message after the tone. [Beep sounds.]

BEVERLEY: Hello, this is Beverley. I suppose you are out and about. I just wanted to call from the road and thank you for such a wonderful visit and delicious food and fun, ha ha ha, and we got a lot done, we did a lot of stuff. And, if you have a moment, give us a call and we will chat. But, thank you again. It was really lovely. And you know ha ha, we can do it again soon, do another take! You never know. OK. Say hello to Harry and talk to you soon. Bye-Bye!

[Amanda sits open-mouthed in astonishment. There is a loud clatter as the teaspoon in her hand drops to the floor, and then a crash as the cup and saucer follow.]

[Lights fade.]

------

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The Tease Spoons: Act II

This short act, a bridge between Acts I and III, has only one principal speaker, Marcel, as in Marcel Proust. Actually that’s his moniker, or nickname, his real name being Collective Memory. The entire act has a dream-like quality and it affords plenty of opportunity for directorial imagination.

Marcel is dressed in a magician-like or harlequin’s outfit, perhaps with an appropriate high conical cap and lots of magical patterning and/or stars on clothing and cap. Behind him are four “boxes”, one for each of our principals from Act I: Amanda, Harold, Beverley, and Derek. Each box captures the essence of the person inside. Thus Amanda is dressed in an artist’s smock and sits before an easel—as in the famous painting of Vermeer---and her box is full of her oil paintings (these can be painted on the walls of the set). Harold sits at a computer and his box is full of bookshelves and books. Beverley is in a sophisticated yet childlike pinafore outfit and her box has large, ornamented pots and potted flowers and plants (again can be painted on the walls). Finally, Derek is in the clothing of an outdoorsman and his box has pictures of mountains and horses and the great outdoors. He is at work, for instance, mending a fence on his ranch.

Each of the boxes is lit up in a golden, surreal light, which can be slowly dimmed and switched off, leaving the box in darkness with little visible to the audience. No sound comes from these boxes, i.e., the actors within are silent throughout the act. Initially, the lights in the boxes are off and the sole spotlight is on Marcel, who begins his soliloquy.

Marcel has a distinctly French accent, which lends color to this act.

MARCEL: Good evening! Please, let me introduce myself. My name is Collective Memory. But, if you prefer, you may call me by my moniker, my nickname, Marcel! You know, as in Marcel Proust, the Frenchman who wrote that trillion-word novel, A la Recherché du Temps Perdu.

The English translate that most poetically as Remembrance of Things Past. But, the literal translation is much, much better: In Search of Lost Time! [He repeats for

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emphasis.] In Search of Lost Time! Because, you know, “collective memory” is indeed the very repository of “lost time”. That’s how I earned my nickname, Marcel!

Carl Gustav Jung, a great psychologist as you will recall, got it only half-correct when he called me “Collective Unconscious”. He got the “Collective” part correct, anyway! But “Unconscious” denotes something that’s dead. Memory is active, alive! [And an aside.] Mon Dieu! Perhaps he would have preferred me to have some no-neck German nickname like Gunter. Maybe even Carl Gustav!

[Strolls back and forth and continues.]

MARCEL: People think that memory is just stored up in brains, like bits in a computer. Or holograms, perhaps! That might be true of spoken words and written words, and visual patterns, and audible patterns. But the overall collective duration of our world, its images-in-action, its imagination, so to speak, that furls and unfurls within the continuous, seamless passage of time---that’s where I come in! That’s collective memory. Because, you see, memory is not only encoded in space. It is woven into time itself!

[A pause and Marcel then turns towards Amanda’s box which is still in darkness.]

Now, take Amanda, for instance. [The light in Amanda’s box comes on and she can be seen painting at her easel.] The membrane between Amanda and me is not opaque. She is open to my whispering. [Marcel then whispers.] Aren’t you Amanda? [Amanda momentarily looks up from the painting on her easel toward the voice, recognizing it, but with a faraway look, then returns to her painting.] You see! Amanda is an old soul. Her best paintings come from the realm wherein I reside. In fact, her mentor at her art school told her that she could be labeled a “mystical painter.” High praise, indeed! My unfolding and whisperings can flow onto her canvas. Especially when she paints scenes of the high desert of Utah and New Mexico! Ah, the painted desert!

But, with Amanda, still waters run deep! She’s honest, but she does not always tell all that she knows.

[Marcel now turns towards Amanda’s box in order to address her directly.] Take that unforgettable moment of duration not so long ago when Beverley came onto the answering machine and spoke her thanks and farewell, and your cup and saucer and teaspoon clattered to the floor. [Amanda looks again towards the voice with a faint smile on her lips. Again returns to her painting.] You knew full well then, didn’t you, that you had once confided in your friend Beverley; you’d told her of the strange his- and-hers habits of Harold and yourself when it came to cutlery. If you’d then told that

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to Harold, after the teaspoons disappeared, the roof would have fallen in, would it not? He’d have been in an even bigger fury. It would have spelled the end of the friendship. He’d never forgive or forget that. You remember Amanda, don’t you? You’d solve the whole puzzle in your own way. [A faint, silent, up-and-down nod from Amanda in her box.]

MARCEL: Poor Harold! He still has not gotten over the supposed theft of his two precious teaspoons. But doubt has set in. Planted there by you, perhaps? Maybe those teaspoons were taken accidently? Maybe they slipped down behind some drawer? And meanwhile he’s been comforting himself by resolving to steal one of Beverley’s earrings should he ever visit the ranch in Wyoming---you confided that Beverley has a large collection, so that would be the perfect retaliation!

[A pause.]

Because, you see, between Harold and me, it’s a very different relationship. [Marcel whispers] Harold!

[The light in Amanda’s box goes out, so she is no longer visible, and Harold’s comes on. He is surrounded by books and he’s sitting before the computer on his writing desk, furiously typing away on his keyboard.]

[Again, a little louder] Harold! [Harold jerks very slightly, looks to left and right, but there’s basically no change in his activity in his box.] Harold’s not really open to my voice. But he’s fascinated by my realm, all the same. He’s scientific and bookish and he has a distinctly philosophical turn of mind. He’s interested in the philosophy of nature. You know that natural science itself was once called “natural philosophy”! And Harold is drawn to poetry. He’s what you might call a “mystic-wannabe.” He wants to be like his hero of heroes, Henri Bergson, a philosopher-mystic indeed! But actually Harold’s more like his other hero, William James. A philosopher’s philosopher! Very open to mysticism, but no capacity for it himself!

[Marcel paces up and down and continues.]

Did you know that at the start of the last century Henri Bergson was a household name? The world’s most prominent natural philosopher! Then along came Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein to destroy Bergson’s reputation, a conspiracy almost between these two brilliant minds. I have to admit that they were brilliant. But such shameless self-promoters! And with William James deceased, there was no one able to offer up a solid defense of the mystical mindset. But, no more on that! Let it pass, let it pass! Time will cure all, you will see!

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[Strolls back and forth again, then turns to the audience.]

MARCEL: Harold has a very curious criterion for selecting the philosophers that he reads. There must be passages in their writings, at least here and there, which read like poetry; which can be turned into poetry with a minimum of tinkering. Well, that at once excludes a huge chunk of the philosophers: Husserl and Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and on and on and on. Even the great Emmanuel Kant!

Try this little experiment the next time you’re in the philosophy section of a bookstore: pull down the most prominent book of any of these philosophers and see if you can find even a single passage that reads like poetry. I guarantee that you will not! Because, you know, there are basically only two types of philosophers: the ones that commune with me, and the ones that don’t! And only the former have the poetic gift. The others are all locked up in rationality. Insufferable rationalists you could call them!

Mind you, some try to wriggle out of it. Take the great Wittgenstein. You know, in his lifetime he published only one book: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. [Marcel enunciates each word with care.] What a title! And do you know what he is said to have said of his masterpiece? That he had attempted to say in it what could not be said, and that, strictly speaking, his book was all nonsense. But, he is said to have said, that it was deep nonsense! Imagine that! Philosophical jujitsu I call it!

Still, Wittgenstein understood the limitations of symbolism. Of language! Put it another way, the limitations of the human species itself! I suppose I would call him a sufferable rationalist! He was impressed by Einstein’s great equation E = m c2, by the great scientist’s symbolization of energy equaling mass multiplied by the square of the speed of light. But, he was even more impressed that the sun---the Sun God!---silently turns matter into huge amounts of energy, each and every day, nourishing life here on our precious earth in a practical way. About that we must forever remain silent!

And please, don’t get me started on Descartes, that so-called father of modern philosophy! Did you know that he thought animals were completely mechanical, without consciousness, nothing but automata? Imagine that! Reminds me of the old joke that philosophers fall into two categories: those that have lived with dogs, and those that haven’t. And to think that Descartes was French!

[A significant pause.]

MARCEL: Harold did something once that, in my eyes, was especially good. He took a passage extracted from a book that Henri Bergson wrote during his big brouhaha with Albert Einstein, and Harold reworked Bergson’s prose into a beautiful poem. It’s a

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reflection on my own nature, in point of fact, and I have it memorized, verbatim. It goes like this:

[Marcel adopts the posture of someone about to deliver great wisdom from on high.]

“Time is the continuity of our inner life, A self-sufficient flow or passage, The flow not implying a thing that flows, The passing not presupposing states Through which we pass. The thing and the state Are but artificial snapshots Of the transition naturally experienced That is duration itself.

It is memory, But not personal memory, External to what it retains, Distinct from a past Whose preservation it assures. It is a memory Within change itself! A memory that prolongs The before into the after, Keeping them from being mere snapshots, Appearing and disappearing in a present Ceaselessly reborn. A melody to which we listen with eyes closed, Heeding it alone, comes closest To coinciding with this Time, The very fluidity of our inner life!

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Still it has qualities too many, Definition too much! First, we must efface The difference among the sounds, Then banish the distinctive features Of sound itself, Retaining only the continuation Of what precedes into what follows.

Uninterrupted transition, Multiplicity without divisibility, Succession without separation! Thus, finally, do we re-discover Basic, Lived Time.”

MARCEL: And of course, we re-discover collective, lived memory as well! So you can see how I got my name. And my nickname, Marcel too! You know, Marcel Proust was greatly influenced by Bergson. Did you know that Henri Bergson’s wife was a cousin of Marcel Proust and that Marcel was best man at Henri’s wedding? So, maybe my nickname should have been Henri, rather than Marcel!

[A thoughtful pause.]

“Time is the continuity of our inner life, a self-sufficient flow.…..” Isn’t that a beautifully poetic rendition of Bergson’s prose? But, as I said before, sadly Harold and I do not commune directly. And, it’s much the same with Beverley, the membrane between her and myself is opaque too.

[Harold’s light goes out and now both Amanda’s and Beverley’s lights come on simultaneously. They can be seen talking animatedly to each other on cell phones, but again we don’t hear what they are saying.]

MARCEL: Friendship, true friendship, is a strange thing! In some strange way, Amanda and Beverley have “clicked,” they’ve become friends. And Derek and Harold have gone

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along, joined them for the ride. Amanda and Beverley have long ago had some reconciliation on that matter of the missing teaspoons. Right now they are busy planning yet another rendez-vous for the two couples, this time at the wonderful national park known as Arches in the State of Utah. They are going to meet during the summer and celebrate Beverley’s birthday then as well. You can feel their palpable excitement as the two lay out the plans! Their conversations go on and on and on ……

[The lights dim considerably on Amanda and Beverley even as they continue their inaudible, animated phone conversation, and now Derek’s comes on.]

MARCEL: And, of course, let us not forget Derek. He’s a simpler soul, but he too is sensitive to my whisperings. Grew up on his father’s ranch, a bit like Teddy Roosevelt. He loves to ride horses and fix fences. He loves the national parks. He’s interested in adventures and natural phenomena, like the occupation of America by the original Indians, the fall of meteorites and asteroids, the great floods that swept across central Washington fifteen thousand years ago---things like that. And his devotion to Beverley is total. He was smitten from the very start and stayed that way.

[The lights in all four boxes come on brightly again.]

MARCEL: Two couples, so different in their essences and yet, strangely enough, they have crossed the threshold from being mere acquaintances and entered into a friendship of opposites. You will meet them again very soon, in a little town called Moab in the heart of the state of Utah, the gateway to Arches National Park, one of the most beautiful of all places in their little three-dimensional world.

[Lights slowly fade.]

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The Tease Spoons Act III

Scene I: The setting is a Mexican restaurant in the little town of Moab in Utah, the gateway to Arches National Park. The action takes place at a large table, seating four, in a semi-private section of the restaurant. Images of seated patrons could be painted to create the effect of other diners. Again there is room for imaginative design---arches, gaily painted walls, soft lighting---as is typical of the intimate, yet festive setting of Mexican restaurants. There is a large outline of the North American continent on a wall. Other walls display images of scenes from Arches National Park and also from Mexico, in particular, from the monarch butterflies’ forested habitat in central Mexico and an outline of the Yucatan peninsula, all designed to create effect. (The reason for these images will become evident from the dialogue in this act.)

[Amanda and Harold walk into the restaurant together. They are greeted at the entrance by its Mexican proprietor.]

PROPRIETOR: Buenos tardes, Amigos! Welcome!

HAROLD: We’d like a table for four, please. A nice table for four, por favor. Our friends back at the motel will join us very soon.

PROPRIETOR: Com, com zees way, please.

[The owner picks up four menus and leads them to the semi-private table.]

PROPRIETOR: Have you had a nice day? Visiting ze Arches?

HAROLD: Yes, spectacular! We spent the whole day in the park. God’s country!

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AMANDA [smiling]: It’s our amiga’s birthday today, the one who is coming. We’re celebrating together.

PROPRIETOR: Bueno! We will make her birthday especial. You will zee. Dreekns now?

HAROLD: Two margaritas, please.

PROPRIETOR: Blended? On ze rocks?

HAROLD: Blended, please, and with salt.

PROPRIETOR: Right away, Senor. [Calls to his help and pointing to the table] Salsa! And cheeps!

AMANDA: And some guacamole, please. We will order food when they arrive.

[The proprietor leaves and Harry and Ammey study the menu briefly.]

HAROLD: The combo special looks good!

AMANDA: Yeah, for me too.

[Just then Beverley and Derek arrive at the door and spot Harold and Amanda at their table. They join them, exchange hugs, and sit down at the two empty places. The proprietor sees them and comes up again.]

PROPRIETOR: Buenos tardes, Senor, Senora! Dreenks for jou also? Margaritas?

DEREK: Yes, great. Do you sport a good, strong tequila? Don Julio? Cabo Wabo?

PROPRIETOR: Jess, si Senor. Tequila, muy grande! Muy forte! Toro Perro?

DEREK: That’s a new one to me. [Glances at Beverley, who nods assent.] Yeah, we’ll give it a try. Love a good margarita!

BEVERLEY [to Amanda after seeing their menus on the table]: But, you know, we’re not that familiar with Mexican food. Why don’t you just order for us?

AMANDA: We were going to have the combo special. Chile relleno, enchilada, and taco. [And to the Proprietor] Four specials, por favor!

[There is a choice of meats for the enchilada and taco and the proprietor goes around the table asking each one: “cheeken, beef, or cheeje”, and they make their choices. The Proprietor departs to place the orders.]

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BEVERLEY [excitedly]: What a wonderful day in the park! All those sandstone arches carved by the weather. Delicate Arch is my very favorite. A bit like that arch in St. Louis! You know, where my granddad got his start.

HAROLD: Hey, speaking of the devil, I loved our hike through that so-called Devil’s Garden.

AMANDA [excited but in a different way]: That high desert country! The feeling of timelessness! Lost in a larger consciousness almost! No wonder Christ went out into the desert for forty days and forty nights.

HAROLD [excited as usual by mention of numbers]: Did you know that there are as many as eighty-eight arches in the park?

AMANDA [turning to Derek]: You were so quiet all day. Just taking it all in? When I’m in the desert I have a feeling sometimes of just wanting to walk and walk and simply vanish into it. Vanish into myself, I suppose.

HAROLD: It’s a bit like being on a high balcony and wanting to jump off. You know the feeling, don’t you?

DEREK: No, no. Not like that at all. It’s more like ….

[But just then the drinks and guacamole arrive, the proprietor and a helper returning with two regular margaritas for Harold and Amanda and two Margarita Bulldogs for Beverley and Derek, those incredible concoctions where an open bottle of Corona beer-- -a well-known Mexican brand---has been inverted into an oversized margarita.]

BEVERLEY: Good grief, what’s this?

PROPRIETOR [looking stricken]: Margarita Toro Perro, Senora! Muy grande!

HAROLD: That’s a margarita bulldog. [A pause and then it dawns on him] Toro? Bull! Perro? Dog! Toro Perro is a bulldog! You’ve got a margarita with a built-in chaser. A margarita bulldog!

[They all burst into laughter.]

DEREK: Well, hell. Let’s give it a try. It’s your birthday surprise, Bev!

[Much relieved, the Proprietor and his helper depart. The four at the table say “cheers”, wishing Bev a happy birthday all round, and then continue the conversation from where they had left off before.]

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HAROLD: Cheers to the arches too!

AMANDA: Nature’s glorious hand! Carved by the wind and the rain out of a sandstone reef, millions of years old! It’s as though each emerged from the rock, like a Michelangelo statue.

HAROLD: Do you know what Michelangelo said about his sculpture? “The more the marble wastes, the more the statue grows.”

BEVERLEY [grandly]: It’s a bit that way with my pottery. I put a lump of clay on the potter’s wheel and the pot emerges as the clay wastes away beneath my hands.

HAROLD [teasingly, starting to needle Bev as usual]: So, you’re the Michelangelo of pottery!

BEVERLEY: Well, at least I don’t do it all by numbers!

AMANDA [calmly, pouring oil on troubled waters]: It’s different with painting. I don’t feel the painting emerging from the canvas. It’s more as though I pour myself onto the canvas. Almost as though one hears a voice that guides one’s hand. My brush takes on a life of its own.

BEVERLEY: Didn’t you study art with a Chinaman?

AMANDA: Chinese art, long ago. My teacher, Mr. Lin, used to say: “Practice that brush stroke, again and again. And, one day, the brush will do it by itself.” It becomes a meditation, almost. So different from western art!

HAROLD: The Tao of Physics! The Zen of Motorcycle Maintenance! You were discovering the Tao of Art.

BEVERLEY: The Tower of Art?

HAROLD: Tao! T-A-O [he spells out.] The Tao of Art! Lao-tzu.

AMANDA: There he goes again. Lao-tzu. Philosophy---Bergson, Bergson, Bergson! I’m so sick of Bergson. Day and night, night and day!

[Fortunately this is interrupted by the arrival of the food, carried in by the Proprietor and a helper. Steaming plates are placed on the table and the four cheerfully sit down to eat. Lights fade.]

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Scene II: This is performed on the same set and there is just enough time during the break between scenes for the plates to be replaced by almost empty ones and the glasses emptied as well. The four are close to finishing up their meal and their margaritas, and they’re all slightly tipsy (reminiscent of Scene III of Act I).

BEVERLEY: Gosh, these margaritas are good and strong. Bulldogs for me from now on!

DEREK: Too strong for me. Next time I’ll just have the Corona.

HAROLD: Well, tomorrow it’s on to Natural Bridges. We should make an early start.

BEVERELEY: How far are they from here?

DEREK: Just over a hundred miles, about a couple of hours, maybe a bit more.

AMANDA: When we were grad students, we rented a car one summer and drove from the Bay Area, all the way across to Utah and Colorado. One national park after another! That’s when I saw Natural Bridges for the first time. It was so lonely and frightening. Not a soul in sight, just us in that vast space, with silence all around. Looking down into that waterless chasm, one could feel the power of the river that once coursed through it. That chasm, with its steep, curving sides, spanned by arching bridges! I’ll never forget it.

HAROLD: They’re different from the ones over here. That’s why they are called bridges rather than arches. They’re carved by a river. The rushing water wraps itself around a huge rock in its path and, over time, it wears down the rock from both sides and ends up cutting right through. Forms a new pathway that goes right through the rock! That’s how you get a natural bridge.

AMANDA: The water’s now gone, the chasm is bone-dry, but still you feel the power of that raging river. It’s as though time is condensed and the cutting done all at once, instead of over thousands of years. When you stand at the edge of that chasm---that snaking, banded canyon---you feel sucked into its vortex. It’s terrifying!

[Now begins duets of sorts, one between Harold and Derek and the other between Amanda and Beverley.]

HAROLD [to Derek]: Sipapu! The largest bridge is so perfect that the native Indians named it after their sacred entrance to the underworld. Sipapu! Beautiful name, isn’t it? You know, Indians have been on the continent for at least ten thousand years. Their ancestors crossed the land bridge at the Bering Straits, went down along the west coast and followed the rivers into the interior. [He points to the wall displaying the outline of the North American continent, which also shows some of the major rivers.] Just imagine

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going up the Columbia, up to where it’s not that far from the headwaters of the Missouri. Around the time of the last great ice age so maybe they were able to cross over by canoe on that glacial Lake Missoula? [Again he points to the map.] And then down the Missouri and the Mississippi, all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. What a journey! An Indian version of Lewis and Clark, discovering America in the opposite direction.

DEREK [to Harold]: No dams along the way, no industrial pollution, no agricultural waste runoff!

AMANDA [conspiratorially to Beverley]: Just imagine that, Bev. Tasty barbecued salmon from the Columbia River, and then fried catfish on the Mississippi. Did you know that Lewis and Clark wouldn’t touch the salmon? Traded trinkets with the Indians on the Columbia River for their dogs! Can you believe it? Eating dog!

BEVERLEY [to Amanda, gaily]: Salmon, fried catfish, topped off with Gulf shrimp when they hit New Orleans.

AMANDA [to Beverley]: That’s right. When they discovered New Orleans! Just like Columbus discovering America.

DEREK [to Harold]: No strip-mining, no drilling, no fracking!

HAROLD [to Derek]: All that damage done just in the last few hundred years. We’re now the top species and everything we do seems just for ourselves. I’ve been playing a little game recently. Looking at all our human activities---music, dance, writing, everything, yes, science and engineering too—and asking what part benefits the rest of life. And the answer seems to be precious little. Bees pollinate the plants of this earth. Earth worms make the soil fertile. But what we do is about as useful to the rest of life on our precious planet as the peacock’s tail! Do you know what my definition of modern Homo Sapiens is? The species that turns carbon, all that carbon sequestered over millions of years, into carbon dioxide!

[Amanda and Beverley raise eyebrows and exchange knowing, here-he-goes-again, glances.]

DEREK [diplomatically changing the subject]: How old is that Sipapu natural bridge we visit tomorrow?

HAROLD: Over ten million years old. Ten million! Just imagine that!

BEVERLEY [grandly]: Well, give or take a billion.

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HAROLD: Yeah, yeah, just a number to you. But, compare that with the fact that it’s been just fifty thousand years since modern man first emerged from Africa. And then, just ten thousand years ago, we set foot on this continent!

BEVERLEY: Please, please speak for yourself. [And to Amanda] We’re not that ancient!

HAROLD [ignoring her flippancy]: Numbers need to be seen relative to one another. Think of it this way! Sipapu is ten millions years old. Humans arrived, let us say, ten thousand years ago, and gave the bridge a name. So, for nine million, nine hundred and ninety thousand years that thing of beauty stood there unnamed, with no one having ever been there before to admire it.

BEVERLEY: Except, of course, the dinosaurs.

[Harold and Beverley are beginning to clash yet again.]

HAROLD [irritated]: Mastodons, maybe! Dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago. Huge asteroid did them in. Hit right there! [He points in the direction of the outline map of Mexico on the wall showing, in particular, the Yucatan and the Gulf of Mexico.]

BEVERLEY [gaily]: Wow, one big enchilada! [then again turning to Amanda for support] Harry’s back into the numbers game again. Last time it was non-something or the other.

AMANDA: Nonlinearity. Harry, couldn’t you please save this for your math conferences?

HAROLD [exasperated]: Look it’s just ten million minus ten thousand. It’s simple subtraction. Bev can handle that!

BEVERLEY: I hate sub anything! I go only for top of the line.

HAROLD [starting to lose his temper and picking up a teaspoon in the salsa on the table]: Not like this, I suppose! You wouldn’t pocket this teaspoon would you? Take it to use on your dinner table?

BEVERELEY [haughtily]: Are you kidding? Maybe for everyday use! I put out my granddad’s silver when we entertain. He specifically left it to me in his will. A twenty- place setting!

HAROLD [now completely losing his head]: Is that so? Twenty pieces of silver, indeed! Then why, may I ask, did you help yourself to two of my teaspoons---stainless-steel teaspoons!--when you stayed with us last fall?

BEVERLEY [coyly]: Well, what if I did?

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HAROLD [angrily turning to his wife]: See, what did I tell you? She did take them!

AMANDA [calmly]: Maybe she did it to tease you. Tease spoons! Get her own back on you for teasing her with numbers and nonlinearity. Maybe she just wanted to get your attention.

DEREK [getting angry too]: Hey, what’s going on here? You’re not accusing us of theft are you? [And to Harold] You’ve not been flirting with my wife, have you?

BEVERLEY: I’m not interested in his attentions. I wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole.

HAROLD [starting to sputter and again losing control]: I wouldn’t touch you with my barge pole either.

BEVERLEY [scornfully]: I said a barge pole. Nothing to do with yours!

AMANDA: Please, please! Such vulgarity! Please get hold of yourselves!

[As this bedlam breaks loose at the table, there is an eruption from the kitchen area. Several members of the waiter staff, male and female, come up to the table in a procession led by the proprietor. They are clapping and singing “Happy Birthday” in a ceremony that one sometimes sees in a Mexican restaurant when informed that it is a customer’s birthday. One of the waiters strums on a guitar, and the proprietor carries a huge sombrero, which he places on Bev’s reluctant head. Another carries a little artificial cake with a single candle on it, which is put before Bev, who blows it out to general applause. All this good cheer counteracts the mood at the table where the four principals had been glowering at one another. Meanwhile, Amanda can be seen rifling through her large handbag and when the Mexicans are done and return to the kitchen, taking the sombrero and the cake and the dinner plates with them, she pulls two objects from her bag and places them on the table.]

AMANDA: Here are your precious teaspoons!

HAROLD [in astonishment]: How did you get your hands on them?

AMANDA: Bev gave them to me this morning. We settled this whole thing months ago! She couldn’t send them back by post. You might have opened the parcel and the cat would have been out of the bag. I was going to put them back in the drawer when we got home.

BEVERLEY [nonchalantly]: It was a sudden impulse. I wanted to teach you a lesson. Nobody makes fun of me and gets away with it! Derek had nothing to do with taking them. Knew nothing of it!

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[They begin to see the lighter side of the theft and start to laugh. Harold’s demeanor turns from anger to amusement.]

HAROLD: Hey, you know what? This would make a really terrific one-act play. A couple visits another, supposedly they are good friends, they stay overnight, and then the wife steals the host’s spoons when departing very early the next morning. And that’s the end of the friendship! They never see or speak to each other again. If only I could write creatively, instead of just always messing around with numbers! You know, I once did manage to create a pretty darn good poem. But not from scratch! I took a prose passage from Henri Bergson and reworked it into a poem.

[He begins to recite.]

“Time is the continuity of our inner life, A self-sufficient flow or passage…..”

AMANDA [interrupts]: Please Harry, save it for another day. We need to make an early start tomorrow.

[Beverley grabs playfully at the teaspoons at the table, making out to steal them again amid more laughter as Amanda picks them up and puts them back in her bag. The proprietor returns with the bill, which he lays on the table.]

PROPRIETOR: The Senora’s Toro Perro is on ze houze.

BEVERLEY: Well, thank you! Thank you very much! [And turning to Amanda and lowering her voice as the proprietor leaves]: God, I hope I don’t catch head lice from that damned sombrero.

DEREK [looks at the bill and pulls out money from his wallet]: I think that covers it. This treat’s on me.

AMANDA: Maybe, we’ll see. We can settle up at the motel.

HAROLD: Well, back we go tomorrow into God’s country. Today it was Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver. Tomorrow it’ll be Shiva the Destroyer!

[They all walk out in a very good humor. Just as our principals are departing, in walks Marcel dressed as in Act II, past them and the owner, who is wishing the two couples goodbye at the door. The group is oblivious to Marcel’s presence, although Amanda and Derek seem to start slightly. Marcel comes to the center of the stage. Our four

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principals are now in the background, lit up now in a golden light, talking animatedly to one another, but, as in Act II, nothing of their conversation can now be heard; i.e., there is another “golden box” around the four who are in inaudible conversation. The spotlight is now on Marcel. ]

MARCEL: Bon Nuit, Amanda [she turn briefly toward the voice]; Adieu, Harold [no reaction from him]; Adieu, Beverley [she continues talking to Harry]; Bon Nuit, Derek [he turns momentarily from his conversation with Amanda]: This is where I am most at home, here in the high desert. This is where I fulfill my duties best, helping conscious matter cohere within the passing confines of time. You know, the way that gravity--- gravitational force!--helps inanimate matter cohere within the confines of space!

[Marcel pauses to gather himself up to full stature to begin his closing recitation.]

Because, never forget, that it is I Who joins your present to your past, Keeping your future in check! That’s why you wake up today The very same person you were yesterday. Remember it is I who guides the monarch butterfly [Marcel indicates the image on the wall] Across the passage of three generations, All the way to Canada, And then back home again to Mexico. That’s why, as I said before, Carl Gustav’s `collective unconscious’ Is better framed around myself, Is better framed as `collective memory’ ! And that’s why your genetics, Your so-called human genome, Is but a limited, materialized form of memory too.

Universal Gravity, the connective tissue of the universe in space! Collective Memory, the connective tissue of our universe in time!

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Remember - It is I who makes telepathy As real as everyday speech, And I who makes precognition A verity too! I open the door to True Friendship, [Marcel points back at the four friends in the background] To Feelings and to Love! And, most of all, It is I who opens the door To your Consciously Evolving God: Call Him what you will, Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu, Jehovah, Buddha, anything you wish! Know only that it is He who walks, Not behind you! Not in front of you! Know only that it is He who walks In your very footsteps! Here, especially, in the high desert, But everywhere else too!

[Lights slowly fade.]

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Author’s Biography

John Lawrence (Larry) Nazareth was born in 1946 in Nairobi, Kenya, of Indian (Goan) parentage and attended high schools in Nairobi and Bombay---today’s Mumbai. He graduated from Cambridge University (Trinity College), England, with a B.A.(Hons.) in Mathematics and a Diploma in Computer Science. He then immigrated to the United States to continue his education at the University of California, Berkeley, where he obtained a Ph.D. in Computer Science and, simultaneously, an M.Sc. in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research.

His professional life, which began in 1973, has spanned scientific research, consulting, and university teaching. He has held appointments on the research staff at Argonne National Laboratory (University of Chicago), the Systems Optimization Laboratory (Stanford University), and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Vienna, Austria); he was also engaged on a variety of consulting projects by the San Francisco firm, Woodward-Clyde Consultants (subsequently merged with URS Corporation). His academic career began in 1988-89 when he was tenured as a full Professor in the Department of Pure and Applied Mathematics at Washington State University (Pullman, WA) and, soon thereafter, appointed Affiliate Professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of Washington (Seattle, WA). He retired from academic teaching in 2003 and now makes his home on Bainbridge Island near Seattle, Washington.

He has written seven books in the mathematical and algorithmic sciences under the imprint of Oxford University Press, Springer-Verlag, and other scientific presses, and he has published extensively in the research journals of that field. In pursuing broader interests, he has also independently published a booklet of poetry, Three Faces of God and Other Poems (1986), a travelogue, Reminiscences of an Ex-Brahmin: Portraits of a Journey through India (1996), and a historical memoir, A Passage to Kenya: A Historical Collage of a Unique Time and Place (2017) along with a short addendum, Up and About in Nairobi and Bombay: A Self-Portrait of My Early Days in Kenya and India (2018), which lends some personal color to the earlier historical and political account.

This is his first play. Philosophical issues, which are presented here in dramatic form, are addressed in much more depth in a subsequent book, Thou Art That and Other Essays: Reflections of an Algorithmic Scientist on an Era Between Gods (2021).

For further background information, please visit www.math.wsu.edu/faculty/nazareth

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