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Following the Leader

A Play in Two Acts.
As presented at the Blackburn Theater, Gloucester, Massachusetts, in October 2008.

There are three distinct sets of players.

The Principles: 1) Robert, the candidate—a peace-lover 2) Wes, the candidate’s brother--a warrior and 3) Rebecca, the woman between them. Their attire changes according to the scene.
The Campaign Staff: Two women, two men—Shana, Ben, Pete, and Pam. Their attire is consistently campaign-staff casual.
The Chorus: Aloysius, Lloyd, Cass, Dio. Their attire is generally toga-like in appearance, with minor alterations to suggest they are part of a larger crowd in crowd scenes.

All eleven players are onstage at some point in most every scene, even as the focus of our attention is often shifting. Each set of players has a main scene in each act, in which their doings are central and in which the other two sets of players play ancillary parts. (Chorus antics should be full of philosophical sight gags, e.g, a guy getting hit over the head, turning his peaceful spouting warlike. They should also include a few bits demonstrating the waves in which the ways language infuses the body, and thus the body politic, e.g., a player exclaiming “I'm the best,” accompanied by chest thumping.) In some cases, their presence may be just barely suggested, the individual or group so dimly lit that expression of the player or players is barely discernible. Nonetheless, at some level it ought to be clear to the audience that in most of the scenes they are all there, in some roll and at some level of participation, however subtle and/or understated.

In general, the music in the play should provide an ongoing counterpoint to everything else. While propaganda is often utilized and ever discussed, as befits the politics of today, the emphasis and effect much less concern the propaganda than the atmosphere. Action is always secondary to attitudes. Goals and events, clearly predetermined in the media-drenched mind of everyone on and offstage, are always just a means to the end of self-awareness.

So, while the music, by turns stirring and angry, comes through utterly solid and opaque (e.g. opening verse of The Byrds’ “Chimes of Freedom,” key verses from the Stones “Blinded By Rainbows,” “Connection,” and “Sweet NeoCon,” and Lennon's “Give Peace a Chance”), the mood of the players can generally be described as adamantly anxious. Obvious confusion and doubt are rife. Again, in contrast to the music, even the most straightforward lines are delivered with a defiant sense of doubt lurking in the background. The continuously operative counterpoint is between, on one hand, the candidate’s patent striving to achieve unprecedented perfection, confidence and effectuality in human affairs, and one the other the play’s attitudinal/atmospheric message that the only hope of salvaging anything out of the confusing mess that is present-day life is to stand secure in and aware of all of one’s insecurity, doubt and imperfection. The job of the play is not to resolve the resulting dissonances that otherwise belie the certain and passionate case for world peace as pled and represented by the candidate (or any of the other “can do” performances by the principles, each of whom in various ways attempts to take action despite the sea of doubt), but merely to show some of its gawky contours. If there is any certainty here, it’s not in the candidate’s proclamations, the chorus’ philosophical ruminations, or the campaign staff’s reconstituted 60's spoutings. Rather, it rests in the conveyed sense that the audience can’t help but get all this (ad nauseam) because, behind whatever pretense politics can muster, what’s happening onstage here absolutely mirrors what’s already going on offstage. The play and all the players are fully aware from the get-go that for any of the professed legitimate political goals of peace, freedom and prosperity-for-all to be achieved, hope and despair, transparency and deception must always be expressed front and center, and as inextricably bound counterparts to the same process of change, at least for the foreseeable future.

PRELUDE (Downstage center)

Young Robert and young Rebecca sit on the floor his room, pouring over his pile of books, chatting softly and laughing.

Young Wes (enters loudly, waving a gaudy squirtgun) : Hey pinhead, you seen that new babe that just moved in next door?

He notices Rebecca, blushes, tries ineffectively to hide the squirtgun behind his back.

Rebecca, looks up from what they’ve been doing. She's lovely, demure, yet flirty, a thoughtful, earthy yet undeniably attractive young lady who, in the most natural way, throughout the scene shows an easy interest in both brothers.

Rebecca: Hi.

Robert: She came over to introduce herself while you were out squirting . . . Indians.

Wes (More blushing, but with some defiance now, with bravado waves the gun at them.) Yeah. Well, at least someone is having fun around here. (Looks pointedly, competitively at Rebecca, setting off an a tension between the brothers that she ably and effortlessly finesses throughout the rest of the scene.)

Robert: She’s read Camus, Dostoyevsky . . .

Wes: (chiding) Dostoyevks . . WHO?

Rebecca (good-naturedly) Been out protecting us from the Injuns, have you?

Wes (Taking this, irony and all, in stride, in a kid way): You bet, ma’am. It’s tough work, but someone has to do it. Otherwise this pinhead could wake up tomorrow shot full of arrows.

Rebecca (confidingly, flirtatiously, to Robert) He’s cute.

Robert, nose self-protectively in a book, nods moodily, in a kid way.

Rebecca (Sensing friction, trying for a solution): What can we all play?

Robert and Wes (in unison, Robert intellectual, Wes macho) Nothing.

Blackout.

Play now begins in earnest with the song Chimes of Freedom by the Byrds. As lights come up Byrds' song fades into the song Following the Leader, from Disney’s Peter Pan. After enough of this to sufficiently shift the mood, this song also fades as lights come up on Robert, our candidate, addressing “the crowd,” – (chorus [ Aloysius, Lloyd, Cass, Dio] and staff members (Ben, Pam, Shana, Pete] in “crowd mode”).

Robert (In campaign attire): “Unlike some of my opponents, I have always believed that human beings, all human beings, are basically good. That even includes the most vile perpetrators among us, who I have always thought of as unfortunates, violently shut-out from their essential natures. And since time began, human beings have always, in my view, mainly sought to live peacefully, happily, creatively and even lovingly with one another.

(Clears throat)

“Of course, there is no denying that for thousands of years of human development, those fine urges for peace and goodness were mitigated by a nearly utter lack of technological sophistication and, consequently, by the need to defend ourselves, to even fight against one another for the survival of our nearest and dearest during times of natural disasters, resource scarcity, and various other crises.

“But, my fellow Americans, by the same token there is also no denying that in the past hundred years we humans have finally lifted ourselves out of the technological darkness and limitations that have made such sorrowful behavior at times necessary. Yet (voice rises), we continue to act in the same way! Pushing ourselves to the brink of self-destruction at the very moment in history when we could be building a peaceful and equitable world worthy of the promise of our own God-given, essential natures. Why? Why? Sheer bad habit! Elect me your president and I promise to do everything in my power to reverse this trend and began moving our country, our people, our planet along the path to their true potential!

Crowd cheers heartily, except for Cass and Dio, who either boo or show some otherwise negative response. They are clearly in the minority, though.

Lights now partially fade out and then come back on, as crowd separates into Chorus and Staff roles and take their places upstage. Rebecca and Wes join Robert in position downstage. Chimes of Freedom, taking up where it left off at the previous fade, can be heard during this transition.

***********

ACT ONE , SCENE ONE

Chorus, up right, playing a “ musical hat game” in which a “cool” beret and a helmet get passed around—all sorts of silent expressive fun can ensue determining who is wearing what when, its effect on them, and which two chorus members wind up with them (E.g., Lloyd should get the beret—Diocletian the helmet]). Meanwhile, the Staff, up left is playing cards. It might be fun here to make it somewhat ambiguous whether the game is hearts, war, gin, etc. Good opportunity for at least as much silent improv in this corner as in the Chorus’. (All dimly lit.)

Robert (in intellectual student attire) is mid-stage-right reading, Wes (in ROTC student attire) mid-left (cleaning/toying with a gun).

Rebecca (Downstage center, softly spotlit, in earth-mother student attire. She speaks directly to the audience, deeply, profoundly and thoughtfully, yet with overtones of anxiety, as if already clearly aware of some impending burden of great responsibility. In fact, oracular would not be a bad description of her demeanor throughout this speech): At every point of origin, we find the same thing—naked human yearning. It’s always there, wherever we are, in the present, the past . . . (stumbles, already seems to have forgotten a line. The pause here stretches out to where both she and the audience [hopefully] start getting uncomfortable).

Ben (noticing the pause, looking up from his card game, coming to her rescue): And the future.

Rebecca: (Still in the same vein to audience, but mitigated and overlain with a recognition that he [staff member Ben] has just helped her out. In this light, it should be clear that the line is coming out differently now): Yes, the future. It was there at the beginning, and all along the way, no matter how burdened or garbled, and will unquestionably be there til the end, if there is one. That yearning, from which comes all the good and all the evil we do . . . while much of the past still lies deep within, still holds the future hostage. . . (There is a looming sense that she still has a lot more to say, knows what her lines are, but something catches her, turning her suddenly silent and pensive). Lights dim to half on her.)

Lights come up on the two groups in the back. Now all three principles, Rebecca included, still in their original positions downstage, are all dimly lit—though she is lit brighter by half than Robert and Wes (Whereas they are still, respectively, reading and cleaning a weapon. While so far having been frozen in position, now they may start get more expressive, silently demonstrating in subtle ways their individual struggles between doubt and certainty.)

Aloysius: Every word carries a history.

Lloyd: So speak accordingly . . .

Dio: (Cutting him off) And don’t put too much stock in it.

Cass: (Nods assiduously.)

Rebecca: (still half-lit, and still pensively, remembering her train of thought, almost as if she’s thinking as she’s speaking). Yes, all the good and all the evil. . . the good because we haven’t given up on it . . .

Pam (absently from the back, still playing cards, but listening) Or it on us.

Rebecca: The evil (shudders) because . . . because for the moment at least . . .

Robert (looking up from this book, intoned from out of the relative darkness with fervent hope/doubt, both intense and tentative) Our able distillations of its past creations can still provide our greatest victories.

Shana (folding a hand in mock disgust, speaking both to the audience and the empty air in front of her) And worst nightmares.

Rebecca (A cry of intense helplessness) Because we haven’t shaken it!

Lights pointedly up on Wes, down on the rest. This is clearly Wes’s first big moment with the audience, as all the other players are either frozen or otherwise distant from the audience. For a moment no one speaks, during which the sounds of Wes’s near-fanatical examination of his weapon ramp up and are all we can hear onstage. Still, while all we can hear are the sounds he is making with the gun, we can still see him well enough in the dim light to introduce us to his own peculiar form of intensity, and the way that most of what he will say and do throughout the play clearly conveys the sense that only his intense focus on the present job stands between him and something exploding and/or falling apart—and that at the same that he is aware of this and annoyed by this.

Wes: When all is said and done (grabs his gun), someone has to stand up and get out there. Know what I mean. You put your pants on in the morning. You go. Without that, nothing else matters. Win, lose or draw, you go. When we run out of us, we run out of words. We run out of life. That’s it. End of story. (Grabs a rag, sits down, starts cleaning his weapon. Lights dim on him, up briefly on the woman.)

Rebecca (Both agonized and certain, an extension of her previous line, indicating Wes): How could I not choose him?

Robert (In tones foreshadowing his future candidacy): Most of the people of the world know that, finally, there could be enough, more than enough, to go around, for all of us, and now just want to share the wealth.

Cass: Finally? What finally?

Aloysius: Every word has a history.

Lloyd: And a mission.

Aloysius: So take none lightly.

Dio: Or take ‘em all lightly.

Wes (Shifting back and forth between convincing himself and explaining to the audience): Do you want to kill? Of course not. Anymore than you want to die. Do you have to kill sometimes? (Picks up the gun and looks through the sight) Of course you do. There’s always going to be a threat out there. We always need to be ready and able to protect ourselves. (Pointedly, at the audience) You’re going to hear a lot of words. But this isn’t just a word. (Turns the gun, til it’s pointing over the audience’s heads (NOT AT THEM--the barrel should never be aimed at in any person’s direction, on- or off-stage), then turned [safely, with safety on and the weapon double-checked before each performance to be without ammunition], the safety audibly clicked off and the trigger pulled so that the click resounds through the theater. He then makes a point of putting the safely back on, and turns to face the audience.) Definitely not a word.”

Lights dim on him, up on Robert.

(During all of this, Rebecca, seated at center stage, should always be at least partly lit, and her expressions visible. Whatever her reactions, or lack thereof, to the speeches of the men, her demeanor should ideally convey a multitude of meanings. For the way she resolves the complexity of her feelings for them both foreshadows and ultimately catalyzes the political resolution at the end of the play.)

Robert (to crowd): It’s not even a failed economic model that’s keeping us back anymore. Just a few misguided souls for whom the power of the few over the many continues to blind to the only things that can ever make us truly happy and free as a people. (Distant cheers.)

Pam: Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for . . .

Pete: We have nothing to fear but fear it . . .

Shana: I have a d-

Ben: One hit wonders.

Shana: This one better hit it out of the park

Ben: Yeah . . .

Rebecca: (To herself, but clearly indicating Robert, still agonized and certain) How could I not choose him? (To the audience) I love two men, always have and always will. One who lives in a world that has never been (nodding toward our peacenik), the other in a world most of us don't want (nodding toward our warrior).

(As the lights now go down on our three principles, this might be a good place for some brief, yet punchy and creative musical splicing, interweaving the war-peace and love themes of the ‘60s and beyond—to be worked out.)

As the music and the lights go down on all but the crowd/chorus, they now can emerge in full force as hecklers from either side of whatever their issue is.

E.g.,

C: Peacenik!

D: Hippy!

B: Baby killer!

C: (Derisively) Flower power!

A: Warmonger

(You get the idea.)

Once the choral heckling and bickering has worn itself out, we might fade out and go right into . .

ACT ONE SCENE TWO

(“Give Peace a Chance”)

The “peacenik” half of our chorus, Aloysius and Lloyd, in full togas, mid-stage right. Fully lit. Mid-stage left, a hill overlooking the village of Khe Sahn toward the end of the Vietnam War, dimly lit. Huddled there, Wes (in combat attire) Rebecca (army nurse attire), and Pete, back turned (also in combat attire), radiating as much intensity as they can while crouched silent and motionless. Robert is onstage as well, but set even farther back mid-stage left, alone, even more dimly lit, reading. He as well as Wes’s group should all be there for the audience to notice, but not so much as to distract from the highlighted repartee of the chorus.

Aloysius: Every word carries a history.

Lloyd: So speak accordingly

Aloysius: What protects, also obstructs . . .

Lloyd: What frees you, frees . . . .

Aloysius: . . . me … and you . . . and . . .

Lloyd: Us and them.

Aloysius (nodding wisely, intoning the word so it can both end a sentence and connect to the next line) Inextricably . . .

Lloyd: Linked.

Aloysius: Separation

Lloyd: Is illusion.

Aloysius A: Know that . . .

Lloyd: And know everything.

At this point we hear a brief exchange from Dio and Cass, just offstage, somewhat muffled yet just loud enough for the audience to hear.

Dio (just to Cass, cynically, half under his breath, but clearly in direct opposition to Aloysius and Lloyd); Separation . . .

Cass (playing off Dio as Lloyd plays off Aloysius) . . . is inevitable . . .

Dio: And necessary.

Aloysius (Ignoring them entirely, continuing grandly): Every world, like every man, woman and child with a memory . . .

Lloyd: That (points abstractly) man.

Aloysius: That (points abstractly) woman.

Lloyd: That (points abstractly) child.

Aloysius: That (makes a dismissing gestures with hands) word.

Lloyd: This . . . (makes a hugging gesture wrapping arms around self)

Aloysius: Every word has a history . . .

Lloyd: And mission.

Aloysius: So take none lightly . . .

(Enter Cass and Dio, from upstage left and right, simultaneously. Though also in togas, after a fashion, they are as wild and disheveled in appearance, and blunt, loud and shameless in language and demeanor as A and B are intellectual, reserved, dignified and stoic. From here on, the intent should be to stir up as much anxiety and confusing as possible. What are they talking about? War and peace? Reality and illusion? Good and evil? Themselves as characters or themselves as actors? Truth or hypocrisy? Word or deed? The whole thing ought to lend toward the effect of oxymoron as mood. Confident confusion. Resolute anxiety. Etc.)

Cass (To Aloysius and Lloyd): You aren’t serious?

Dio (ditto, chortling): Surely you jest? (Turning and looking straight toward the audience, even though still speaking to Aloysius and Lloyd. He is to various degrees contemptuous, loud, angry, menacing) Surely you don’t expect them to get this?

Lloyd (Amazingly unperturbed, not missing a beat continues the previous thread from Aloysius with unruffled calm): Or too heavily (He makes a broad welcoming gesture with his arms, taking in Cass and Dio).

Aloysius: (The same as Lloyd, continuing their lecture as though nothing has interrupted it) This word (makes a hugging gesture wrapping arms around self).

Lloyd: That word (points dismissively)

Aloysius (Repeating, like an English teacher, in an effort to get a bothersome presence to understand how to say it right): This man (points left to the man stage left).

Lloyd (Following suit): This man (points right to the man stage right).

Aloysius: That man (points right to the man stage right).

Lloyd: That man (points left to the man stage left).

Aloysius: You see, already we know everything about them . . .

Cass: (To Aloysius, at whom he has been staring and seething, incredulous) What we know is that you are cuckoo.

Lloyd (cryptically): Yet nothing about them.

Dio (belligerently to Lloyd) What a load of crap. (To Cass) Of course, we know everything about everything.

Aloysius (To Dio, finally directly acknowledging his presence): Well, we know . . .

Cass (To audience): Of course we do. Haven’t we been rehearsing the damn thing for …?

Lloyd: (Confusing matters even more, indicating the three other actors across the stage) We only think we know something about them. All we can really know anything about is . . .

The other three chorus members all look at him expectantly.

Lloyd (smugly): . . . the word. (Pointing, randomly, disparagingly) This, that and the other.

Dio (To Lloyd) Holy shit, man. Am I not even here?

Aloysius: (Wrapping arms around self, aghast and incredulous at even the thought of any kind of exclusion) Brr! The other. Not even here (points at the ground)?!

Cass (To Aloysius): Now wait a minute . . .

Lloyd (basking in his superior grasp of the esoteric): Not even in the race?

Aloysius: The race? Oh, yes . . .

Cass (To Aloysius, angry and sarcastic): Oh, sure, here we go. Pretending, again. we don’t know what’s going to happen.

Cass and Dio can even get a bit disruptive with each other. Disruption is their thing.

Dio (To Cass): Hey, they want to get paid. Don’t you?

Cass (To Dio): I don’t care. Let them fire me. I’m through playing pretend. I’ve found my conscience.

Dio (Obviously calmed down a bit, largely unchastised, but as if in recognition of the utter imperturbability of Aloysius and Lloyd, what he has interpreted as a passive, expectant audience, and the chaos which is the play so far, sobering up to the bigger picture): That’s not the point. Look at them (his own broad sweep). If we keep doing this, we’ll just get ignored. Like the last time?

Cass (Straining, as if trying to remember something): Damn.

Dio (To Cass, grudgingly): Just sit down. We’ll get our chance.

Cass: (Stares back at him disappointed and full of doubt): To get real?

Dio: One thing’s for sure, there’s no chance this way. The louder you shout, the less they hear.

Cass: But they have to hear! (Waves at Robert, Wes and Rebecca dimly lit downstage) Otherwise they could self-destruct.

Dio: I know.

Cass: This isn’t a play. This is real.

Chorus D: I know.

Cass (Casually indicating the players to his left) : It’s all going to self-destruct . . . it’s time to stop playing pretend (shouts to Aloysius and Lloyd) Stop equivocating!

Dio (To Cass, in lower tones, briefly the sober voice of reason) I know. But you aren’t going to get heard this way. You want to get heard, don’t you?

Cass (Pondering, quivering, perhaps with rage).

Dio: Don’t you? And anyway, we’re supposed to know how this part ends. We’re just pretending we don’t. They (alludes to Aloysius and Lloyd) know how it’s going to end, too. They just uh, wanted to get paid. Which as you know, means plot. They (pointing to the audience) have to get mesmerized at least a little bit if anyone is going to get paid.

For a moment the chorus roles reverse, with Aloysius and Lloyd playing out of character to disrupt the efforts of Cass and Dio to get back in.

Aloysius (out of character, to Lloyd): Ain’t going to happen.

Lloyd (same, to Aloysius) Not now, that’s for sure.

Cass (Ignoring them, to Dio): On a regular basis?
.
Dio: That’s right. Paid . . . on a regular basis. So sit down. (He brattily sticks his tongue out at Lloyd and sits down near him, also now facing front as number four in the chorus line) We’ll look for an opening and push through the reality . . .

Cass (scornful,doubting) Ha!

Dio: . . . the minute we see it, and then make our point.

Cass (With tremendous reluctance seats himself a reciprocal distance from Aloysius, oozing doubt and sarcasm) Right.

Dio (His tone has begun to merge somewhat into that previously established on stage by the stoic dignity of Aloysius and Lloyd) A one-percent chance of being heard is better than none at all.

Cass (Still sour and dissonant) Right. I came out here to tell the truth. And instead we just joined the competition.

Lloyd: Yes. That’s right. Where it all comes together. Illusion or reality. It’s about a race, for the world no less.

Cass (Getting into it, self-important): A play about a race for the world, no less.

Aloysius: (Pedantically, glad to have them all back in line) Ah. And so, what do we know so far?

Lloyd: About the race?

Aloysius is silent.

Lloyd: About the world?

Aloysius is silent.

Cass (Again committed to the show, pushing to move things forward): About a world at war starving for peace?

Dio (Putting out a restraining hand toward him . . . patience).

Cass (Mentally flailing): Not the world? The word?

Aloysius (like he’s know this all along): Yes.

Lloyd (a bit lost now also): Which word? This word? (Points at self).

Aloysius (Getting them back on track again, points at Wes, still motionless stage left) That word.

Lloyd is silent, looking stumped.

Aloysius (Leading Lloyd): And the word . . .

Lloyd (Repeating dumbly) And the word . . .

Aloysius: . . . is the man.

Lloyd (Remembering): Every word has a history.

Aloysius: Every man, and woman, and child has a history.

Lloyd: And a mission.

Lights down on all but Aloysius, spot on him.

Aloysius (Unabashedly pontificating): Language is the mechanism by which we structure social reality. Something wrong with the system? We can see it in the language. Presuming we achieve sufficient calm to focus, distance to observe. Social implosion is guaranteed when people are regularly cut off from getting this sort of perspective on themselves and the world around them. The more we implode, the more we veer from the path of innocence and freedom. We begin instead to live them as mere illusions, false imitations of themselves. This can only end in outright violation of all we hold most precious.

Lloyd: (Looking down as he speaks, as if reading off an imaginary pad on his lap) War. Totalitarianism.

Cass (Startled, for reasons not quite explained) You really don’t want to get paid, do you?

Lloyd (Defensive, but again, the audience is supposed to be confused by what this brief exchange might mean): That’s what it says in the script.

Aloysius (Oblivious to them, continues undaunted, if a bit more colloquial in tone to the audience): So, if you want to identify the culprit, follow the money. But if you want to nab the culprit behind the culprit, look closely at the words.

Lights go down on Aloysius and the others, as Cass and Dio loudly boo him.

The song Blinded By Rainbows, by the Rolling Stones, is heard as the lights come up on the group of soldiers at “Khe Sahn.” Intermittent with the music is the sound of bombs going off.

Wes, Pete, Cass and Dio ( having thrown some military items on over their togas --Cass has the helmet from earlier), all in combat garb, huddle with Rebecca, in a medic outfit, at a sentry post in the US military base at Khe Sahn, during the Vietnam War. The major bombing of the Tet offensive is behind them, by a number of years, but the fighting still goes on sporadically, and the war has now become mostly a political football, tying the hands of the soldiers still there who still just want to win the war and avenge their dead comrades. A general sense of pessimism and futility, as well as anger and frustration directed at Washington and “peaceniks” pervades the group.

Shana stands up, reading from out the darkness: “ By 1967, growing numbers of Americans were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the war. Some, especially students, intellectuals, academics, and clergymen, opposed the war on moral grounds, pointing out that large numbers of civilians in both the North and the South were becoming the chief victims of the war and that the United States was in reality supporting a corrupt and oppressive dictatorship in Saigon. Campus protests became common, and youthful picketers sometimes ringed the White House chanting, “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” In October 1967 at least 35,000 demonstrators staged a mass protest outside the Pentagon. Many more Americans opposed the war because of the increasing American casualties and the lack of evidence that the United States was winning.

Pete: Screw this. I’m going home.

Dio: You can’t. They’ll brig your ass.

Pete: Better than this.

Wes: Keep the faith, boys. Keep the faith. Help is coming. Westmoreland promised.

Cass (sarcastic): Right.

Wes (His arm in a sling, intensely rubbing his rifle with his free hand): Don’t worry. We’ll get our revenge. There won’t be a gook left standing for miles around.

Rebecca (Tending to his wound, looking at him in dismay): You don’t mean that.

Wes: Like hell.

Rebecca: Wes . . .

Wes: What are we here for? WHAT THE HELL if not to clean up this mess, once and for all.

Dio: Never gonna happen.

Cass: No shit. (Pulls out a joint) Wanna toke?

Pete: Yeah. And then I’m outta here. They’ll never catch me. War totally sucks. Anything I can do to stop it from now on . . . (cuts himself off by plugging the joint in his mouth).

Wes (Angry at them all, but more angry at the unseen and cosmic forces that have brought him to this point, turns away from them like a dark cloud: Ok, forget it. Do whatever you want. But as for me, I don’t know how, but somewhere, some time, somebody’s gonna pay for this. I swear it.

Blinded By Rainbows, which has been still playing softly in the background fades out as the lights go down on this vignette, stage left, and then come up on the following vignette, stage right. The music is now Get Together, by the Youngbloods.

Robert, Ben, Pam, Shana, Aloysius, and Lloyd (wearing the beret from earlier) and Rebecca, too, are hippy college students, getting stoned in a dorm. During the blackout Rebecca the nurse has transformed into Rebecca the earth mother, wearing beads, etc., and walked across the stage to join them as well. Where their soldier counterparts were hardnosed and frightened, this group is wistful and loopy. Still, in some respects it could almost be the same people talking about the same thing, though from the exact opposite vantage point. Rather than mystification at why they aren’t being allowed to win a war that they know could be won if they were really given the wherewithal to do so, it’s mystification about whether this war or any war is “moral.” So, arguably, their general mood is that same mélange of confusion, ambiguity and “this is a big con game” chatter. The extreme solution here, of course, is not the frantic urge to kill, but rather to tune in, drop out, etc. Here Rebecca, once again, provides some counterpoint, representing “more responsibility” where in the last scene it was “more humanity.”

Dio (standing up in the darkness across and stage, reading authoritatively, as Shana did previously): “In the 1930s the breakdown of the League of Nations, the rise of aggressive dictatorships in Italy, Germany, and Japan, and the onset of World War II produced a strong reaction against international government and against peace-inspired topics in the study of international relations. The moral dealism inherent in these topics was criticized as unrealistic and impractical, and the academic study of international relations came to be regarded as the handiwork of starry-eyed peace visionaries who ignored the hard facts of international politics. In particular, scholars of international relations were criticized for suggesting standards of international conduct that bore little resemblance to the real behaviour of nations up to that time. As the desired world of peaceful conflict resolution and adherence to international law grew more distant from the existing world of aggressive dictatorships, a new approach to the study of international relations, known as realism, increasingly dominated the field.”

Lloyd (Sucking it up from a giant hookah): Man! Great stuff!

Everyone else except Rebecca: Yeah!

Aloysius (Startlingly out of his “chorus” personae, but only superficially): Hey, you know, I finally got why the Beatles have what they’ve done, what nobody’s ever done before.

Pam (Starry-eyed): Yeah? How?

Ben: They banged every girl in the universe?

Shana starts to look at him in blurry disapproval, but then breaks uncontrollably into giggles.

Aloysius: No, man. It’s because . . . well, it’s simple. It’s because they love each other so much. That’s what comes through in the music!

Robert: Yeah! The Beatles! The sign of our times! The augur of change. (Bangs his chest) Right here! Not just here. (Points at his head)

They all laugh, even Rebecca.

Robert: Never before in history. Maybe not everyone sees it yet. Maybe we don’t even. But we all fee . . eel it. (A shadow of something—doubt?—crosses his face) Hey, gimme some more of that. (Grabs the hookah and takes a long toke). The Beatles. Yeah. The Beatles is us!

Dio (Again, from across the stage, darkened): ToysAreUs.

Lloyd (Did he hear something?) Huh?

Rebecca: Well, whatever us is, we’re not getting anywhere just sitting around here losing our minds.

Shana: Aw, come on, Beck, you know it’s fun. And what the heck can we do, anyway, with all those maniacs and bozos running things. They shot all the good guys. Fuck. Light up, girl.

Ben: Tune in.

Pam (Really getting into the music): TUNE in!

Robert: (In spite of himself) No, she’s right. We gotta do something. (Zoning out) Just not sure what . . . at the moment. . . .

Get Together fades out, lights come up again across the stage. Wes is there, all alone, an disheveled mess of a man in an shabby apartment. On table before him lay handguns, rifles, intact and taken apart . . . and a heroin rig. He’s in the process of shooting up, clearly not for the first time, clearly in desperate straights. The Byrds' We’ll Meet Again plays softly in the background here throughout the vignette. This song, so dulcet, is meant to provide a strong ironic counterpoint to what we are actually seeing.

Wes (Fumbles with the rig, needle falling to the floor and skittering away. Falls to his knees, and we don’t know if he is about to utter a cry of rage or break into tears): Shit! Shit, shit, shit, FUCK! (Grabbing the needle and hugging it to his chest, subdued) Damn.

A “dark shadow” appears. This is accomplished by Cass and Dio bringing in a big bedsheet painted black upstage of him and waving it around menacingly.

Wes stands, sees the dark shadow, knows immediately (even if we don’t) exactly what and who it represents. He feebly goes and grabs a rifle off the table, comes to attention, and salutes the shadow.

Dio (As dark, powerful and foreboding as possible): You no longer need to salute, soldier. Just obey.

Wes: Yes, SIR!

Dio: You’ve got a new mission.

Wes: Sir?

Dio: They stopped us from winning over there. But we can stop them over here. Now and forever. With your help.

Wes: How’s that, sir.

Dio: You know one of them . . . very well. And you're our man, first and foremost.

Wes (Not entirely understanding, but ready, willing, and hoping he’s able): Yes sir. Give the order.

Dio: Your brother . . .

Wes (Taken aback, momentarily pensive, finally resolute): That shithead?

Dio: That’s right. That shithead.

Wes (Again, still missing a beat, but quick to recover): Aye, aye, sir.

Dio: No need to call me sir.

Wes: No, uh . . . sir?

Dio (As dark as possible): You can just call me . . . BOSS.

Blackout

Lights come up on Robert now, on the other side of the stage from where his brother was. The music here is another Byrds' song, I Am A Pilgrim, again for all sorts of counterpoint with what we see. Robert’s digs could be a near exact replica of Wes’s. Just as clearly, he is not doing well. Tired and disheveled at a shabby desk in a shabbier apartment, hunched over a table with more pill bottles on it than paper. Most of the paper we do see has been bunched up and discarded, along with broken pencils, on both the table and the floor. Books, open or otherwise, lay scattered around in a clearly disorderly way. As the vignette opens, he is the act of breaking another pencil, then crunching up another worthless page into a ball and tossing it forlornly onto floor.
In the background, we can see a shadowy figure looming.

Robert (Putting his hands to his head, desperate) Ugh. I won’t go insane. I won’t go insane. (Grabbing a bottle of pills and downing one) Insanity is boring, a waste of time, and, most important, irrelevant.

Rebecca enters, obviously having overheard. Visually, at this point she might present a meld of herself in her two previous scenes, sporting some vestiges of both hippiedom and combat medic. She enters forcefully, without preamble, and without comment by Robert. Whether she is visiting or living there is never indicated, let the audience think what they want.

Rebecca (Focusing right in): I wouldn’t say . . . irrelevant. But if you insist on being crazy, you better stay sane.

Robert (Laughing weakly in spite of himself): Alright. But shit, I can’t do it. Ever since the Nam dust settled, the diaspora happened, nothing could be clearer. Everybody got shut out, or sold out, or (shrugs in a self-implicating way) just went nuts.

Rebecca shakes her head disapprovingly, but remains silent.

Robert: Well, why not? Everything we were ever taught, by the best no less, and then taught to teach, said one thing, while everything we were experiencing, seeing with our own eyes, hearing and feeling with our hearts, was saying the other! Aaah, shit.

(He reaches for another pill. She strides over and knocks the bottle out of his hand)

Rebecca: No! You’re going to stop feeling sorry for yourself.

Robert: Sometimes feeling sorry for yourself is good for you, when it’s all that’s left.

Rebecca: Not if you make a career out of it.

Robert: True. (Back into despair) But what the hell, Beck . . . there’s nothing . . .

Rebecca (Having an epiphany): Wait … that’s it! God, it’s so simple, why didn’t I think of it before.

Robert: What are you talking about?

Rebecca: Robert, remember, all the time I’ve known you (sighs) until now, you’ve insisted on being so . . . there. In our time, in the present, deep, real . . .

Robert: Yeah, yeah, all that. So what?

Rebecca: Well, do it now, but all the way. Robert, you’ve got two whole languages in you, an old partly dead one you still know has some value and a new, hardly formed one you’re dying to make whole and real.

Robert perks up a bit, suddenly interested.

Rebecca: And the conflict is driving you crazy.

Robert nods thoughtfully.

Rebecca: Well, every one of those words isn’t just thoughts. It’s feelings, too. It’s you. And you’re trying to force it together on a page and out into the world before you’ve let yourself just let it all come out freely from both sides, yelling, screaming, crying, shouting, every damn fucking emotion that’s underneath every damn fucking word, underneath it all. (She really is looking like light bulbs are popping in her head during this part of the speech) You really have to let it all come out in any and every way—and I know you of all people can figure out how to it so it doesn’t hurt anyone. Let it all come out first, and somehow, I know you will find a way, first.

Robert (In obvious dismay): Therapy? Haven’t we all tried that?

Rebecca: Call it whatever you want. It’s not about a system. It’s about you. And I believe in you. You can do this! Find a way to let both languages OUT, FREE. Then they can come together in a new one. And you’ll have your pages, your path, your life . . .

Robert (Having something of an epiphany of his own): Wait a minute. I think I read something about this. . .

He falls to his knees on the floor, grabs a book from under a messy pile, turns frantically to a certain page, reads while Rebecca looks on in studied silence. After a moment, he too sighs, but much more heavily, makes a sound like air being let out of a balloon and slumps spreadeagled to lay fully on the floor, eyes shut.

Rebecca (Nodding, utterly confident): You can do this. You. Your words, all of them. Your heart. Your soul. Your mind and your body. Let 'em all come out, and then watch 'em all come together, in a brand new way that’ll shake it all up. You need to. (Facing audience for this) And we need you to.

Blackout

Act Two Scene One

Act Two opens on the campaign aides, sitting awaiting an important televised speech by their presidential candidate, Robert, who has somehow managed to already win his party’s nomination. The vignette’s function is to further help ground us in more of the social, political and historical reality the play is dealing with, in constrast to the purely symbolic and/or didactic function of some of the other scenes. This puts a lot of dramatic pressure on these “campaign aides” here, for lending sufficient weight to the “reality” aspects of the otherwise more “ethereal”/polemical tones of the three principles and the chorus in its various guises. These relatively realistic and gritty campaign aides, in their mood and dialog must provide essential grounding for whatever potential dramatic tension resides in the central plot between Robert and Wes, Rebecca, and the risky run for the presidency, the eventual very real threat of assassination, and the ultimate happy resolution. Shana and the gang should provide some friendly contrast to Robert’s flaming idealism. Not that this gang isn’t, finally, at bottom idealistic. But each has a slightly different viewpoint and clearly distinct form of presentation, and as a group they neither need be nor can be so pure. The general idea is that at some point the candidate will need, if not their occasional outrageousness, at least the ability it gives them to see through things. They in turn depend on his unflagging hope and amazing legitimacy.

(They are sitting in their “hangout,” The Cavern in Cambridge, where they have clearly spent many hours passed wondering what to do that night, that weekend, that year. Tonight is different, they have a job, and the beginnings of a renewed hope for the future the possibilities of which they are still privately wrestling with, no matter how much like cheerleaders they wish to act. Right now they listening to strains of Sweet NeoCon by the Rolling Stones, waiting for their candidate, speaking next door at Harvard, to come on television. Despite all the excitement and hopes of the moment, an undercurrent of depression, mitigated by flashes of irony, like a well-worn glove, pervades their mood. Shana and Bert (who dodged the draft), Pete (drafted, but disillusioned and now a committed peacenik) and Pam. In short, here are two not entirely atypical, half-reconstituted couples from the ‘60s, and maybe now not so much couples anymore as long-lost, reunited friends.

(Wait staff come and go here and there in desultory fashion. Some people prefer making their own trips to the bar. Others not. The place is little more than a decent burger and seafood joint with a liquor license, a small stage, and even tinier dance floor.)

Shana (who prides herself on her arts of conversation, is holding forth at this moment):
Expansiveness in relationships, a habit carried over from the old days, and a pleasurable one at that, then, gradually diminished. As I found myself aging over the decades, relationships were increasingly controlled by other people's limitations. Then, when I finally met Bert (smiles at him), and had a chance to try that old oceanic thing again, I discovered I’d forgotten how to do it.

Bert, sitting at her side toying with his drink, contributes a sour smile.

Shana: Now Bert complains that it’s my limitations that run our relationship.

She giggles, then looks at him and at the rest of them, rather dolefully: Don’t think I don’t miss that old sort of moment, though. Whatever else it might or might not have been, it was fun.

Pam: Sex and drugs and rock and roll.

A brief repetition of political chestnuts.

Pete (A little too loudly): Peace, love, freedom. Power to the people.

Shana (Now taking it in a direction that might be a touch cynical: Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for . . .

Pete (Catching on quick): We have nothing to fear but fear it . . .

Pam (In stuttering complicity): I have a d-

Ben (Summing it up): One-hit wonders.

Shana: Well, this one better hit it out of the park

Ben: Yeah . . .

At this point Robert enters downstage center, addressing the crowd (the chorus in crowd mode). The music playing in the background changes into the excited hum of the crowd. The staff turn to the TV screen behind them to watch.

Robert (Shining exuberance when facing front, mitigated once or twice by darting haunted side glances toward what might cameras or cue card holders): Fellow citizens of the world. For the first time in history, we’ve gained the ability to create a humane balance of people and natural resources. These new technologies have the potential to free us from the narcissistic greed, selfishness and superstition that have historically cut us off from the loving lives we all most deeply want to lead.

(Wild applause)

But no matter how great our technologies, as long as we keep thinking in backward ways, we shall remain a backward people. As long as we remain in the habit of listening to ourselves first, our neighbors second and God third, if at all, we will repeat our past mistakes no matter how big our guns and bank accounts. But once we begin to listen first to God, then our neighbors and only then to ourselves, we can begin to make the world we really want, a world that will make us all happy beyond our wildest dreams.

(Fade down on “our wildest dreams.” Robert continues to speak, but lights . . . come up again on the staff, who, having already heard all this earlier in committee, shift from watching to their own commentary. Occasional bursts of applause from TV still punctuate their dialog.)

Pete (Shaking his head) How he got through that God shitstorm last month I will never know.

Ben (Smiling) By being real clear. The first one to ever just try it and succeed. God as an enveloping loving and intelligent influence. Not that old dictator that kills children and heretics, oppresses women and sends guys in metal suits on Crusades. In one debate, he got everyone in the world not working for some corrupt religious group on his side. Amazing.

Pete: Yeah. Beautiful. I know. I know.

Pam: Simple. Elegant.

Shana: Yeah, but still. It ain’t over yet. Don’t think they don’t continue to contort his words. It’s all in the words and most people … are …

Pete: Morally illiterate?
Bert: Immorally literate?

Shana (Stopping to listen for a second—more applause): More crapola about the goodness of people. (Shakes her head) The “good” people, the ones who manage to really see through the vast load of shit we’ve all been handed from birth and beyond, have always been the minority. When good things happen, it’s because every once in a while people’s self-interest actually intersects with an idea that’s about more than violence, selfishness, greed and stupidity.

Shana has a brief “moment” here. She stands up, full of indignation and incredulity. The Stones’ Sweet NeoCon may make a brief comeback during her venting and the following exchange.

Shana: Good? Ha! The great unwashed, and washed, majority . . . be they children of Hitler, Allah, Christ or J.P. Morgan, all manage to delude themselves into thinking they are the good guys, fighting to protect their divine or secular idols against all the other horrible people. The truly sane peacemakers have always been drowned out, crushed, vilified as crazy troublemakers. . .

Bert: Jesus, Shana, enough already. Have another drink or something.

Shana: (snorts) Funny you should mention him.

Pam: Who?

Shana: Jesus . . . Now there’s a crazy troublemaker who almost made it. That was a pretty neat idea he invented.

Pete: He wasn’t a crazy troublemaker.

Pam: What did he invent?

Shana: Martyrdom. It almost beat the assholes, did beat them for a while, I think, until they figured out how to appropriate it to their system.

Ben: He didn’t invent martyrdom. I’m sure that was around way before him. And it was far from his best idea, anyway.

Pam: A pretty bad idea, if you ask me. What sort of role model is that?

They all laugh at this.

Shana; (Shrugs) Oh, never mind. Who cares. What’s it matter? Either way, how’s any of it going to help us get this guy elected?

Pete: And keep him alive so he can get elected? Ever since the famous bloody Middle- Eastern fiasco, announcing your independent candidacy for almost anything anywhere is like painting a bullseye on your butt.

Shana (Irrepressibly the most original of the group, she’s had another thought while Pete was speaking) Funny, though.

Ben: What?

Shana: All the time we are officially “kids,” we actually do tend to get rewarded for sane behavior, for coming down on the quiet side of trouble. In school, for example, with all those teachers and stuff. “Keep those knees together and do what you are told.” But then, once we’re deemed old enough to, uh, fight the big-world fights, everything suddenly does a 180. One way or another, we’re now supposed to pick up the gun, don the armor and go kill, kill, kill.

Pam: Yah, beat those other guys.

Pete: In war, on the playing field, in business, you name it.

Shana: Our only viable choice at that point, though we may not know it yet, is our peculiar brand of hypocrisy. Anyone who still wants to earnestly talk about sanity and peace now becomes the troublemaker.

Pam: (chortles).

Shana: That’s’ when you start to realize it was probably never about those ideals.

Pam: What then?

Shana: Control.

(They all nod, in various shows of dismay and disgust)

Bert: Well, Shan, yeah . .but maybe that’s a bit extreme. You know, people get diverted .. bent.

Pete: Like the song goes.

Pam: Oh yeah, George’s weeping guitar!

Shana (Rather grandly finishing up their cynical thought-fest): On the vast playing field of history and human emotion . . . war, chaos, and disinformation have always been deeply infested with pain. On the other hand, for truth and peace to prevail, an exorcism is always required.

From the television, applause and cheers now spike and then die down, indicating that Robert has finished speaking, and with great success. Lights come back up center stage. Robert has gone, leaving the crowd, which has now turned to face the audience, in the process of reverting back to their role as the chorus.

This is challenging vignette for the chorus. This dialog is their most literal, inasmuch as there is still something of “the crowd” in them. On the other hand, their standard division along the original lines of Aloysius and Lloyd as philosophical “peaceniks” and Cass and Dio as disruptive cynics is evident.

Aloysius: That’s all he will say. That he went away to a dark place, and when he came back–most don’t—he came back with some renewed vision others don’t have, that even he didn’t have before.

Cass (smugly): The harder he tries to explain it, the less it’ll get through to them.

Lloyd: You’re wrong. You just heard. Plenty are finally starting to get it.

Cass: But if you can only get it by having gone through it yourself and come back,

Aloysius (Always the intellectual, thinking it through and attempting to weigh it out in spite of his loyalties): And figured it out.

Lloyd: Yes, you have to have been there.

Dio: Bah! Too hard. Too impossible. Too . . . improbable!

Aloysius (Gratefully having found the right link, and shaking his head in disagreement): No! What one can do, all can do. That’s exactly his point. (Gesturing) There and back, and forward into the light. Out of the false darkness into the true light. The knowledge is the experience.

During the following exchange, Cass and Dio start to break up in scornful laughter at what they clearly think is mere foolish chatter by Aloysius and Lloyd. They start miming, picking up guns (Cass a rifle, Dio a handgun) and pointing them at the heads of Aloysius and Lloyd, respectively. Strains of Disney’s Following the Leader may be heard in the background as this all progresses. At the same time, we see Wes, in full assassin-gear mode and carrying a very scary-looking weapon, appear in the shadows behind them. As the following exchange continues, Wes is clearly checking out the layout of the area, at one point even pulling out a pad and jotting down a few notes.

Lloyd (Vehemently): The experience is the knowledge . . .

Cass: (Pointing his imaginary gun at Lloyd’s head and pulling the trigger) Pow!

Aloysius: That leads to better experience . . .

Dio (Doing likewise at Aloysius’ head) Pow!

Lloyd: Essential . . .

Cass (Again): Pow!

Aloysius: To more knowledge.

Music fades. Robert abruptly comes back out. The crowd/chorus turns around, immediately converting completely back into a crowd. Wes momentarily ceases his inspection to stare at his brother, with an odd mixture of emotion. If we could put a name on it, we might say rage and remorse.

Robert: How dare we spend billions of dollars entertaining ourselves when there are thousands of children dying from preventable malnutrition and disease—all over the world every day? How dare we spend a penny on war that we could be spending on education? How dare we spend another cent on more machines whose primary purpose is killing people when we could use that money to save lives? How dare we call ourselves a Christian nation? Was this sort of behavior more valid one hundred, two hundred, three hundred, three thousand years ago? No! Was it more justifiable given our technological ignorance? (Judiciously) Perhaps.

(Exhorting): But now?? Need we go any further to explain what motivates the craziness and desperation of the suicide bombers? While the rest of us still behave the way we do?

There is no break in Robert’s speech, but at this point Wes’ hypnotic fixation on his brother breaks. He obvious has heard all he can stand. He ominously shoulders his weapon and, shaking his head in total negation of his brother’s words, if not his brother, stalks off.

Robert: Where are our leaders? The ones who will start telling us the truth? The purer, demonstrable truth about our own swinish, obsolete, self-defeating behavior?

Crowd (shouting and pointing to him): Here! Here! Here!

Robert: All of our problems, from the biggest to the smallest, at least those over which we have some measure of remedy, come back to our being disconnected. When we really connect, to our Creator, to ourselves, to the ground upon which we walk and from which we draw our physical support and nourishment, to that degree we connect to each other. Our atavistic impulses to take any unfair advantage vanishes, leaving only our joy in one another. What follows? Our truest feeling. A desire to provide and care for one another.

Strains of “Following The Leader” rise again.

Raising his voice, Robert enjoins the crowd: WANT TO END THE WAR?

Crowd: YEAH!

Robert: ALL WAR? POLITICAL, MILITARY, ECONOMIC, GENDER, RACIAL?

Crowd: YEAH!

Robert: THEN LET’S CONNECT!

Crowd (chanting): CONNECT

Robert: CONNECT!

Crowd: CONNECT! CONNECT!

As lights dim on what we now understand as Robert’s latest stump speech, lights come gradually up on the campaign staff again, viewing all this from their usual perch in the “Cavern.” Meanwhile, the sounds of “Following the Leader” are replaced by the muffled strains of the song “Connection,” by the Rolling Stones.

Shana: (somehow conveying both personal distaste and political approval, or is it the other way around?) What a bore!

Bert: Yeah, but look . . .

Pam: Effective.

Pete: The truth is always effective. First it was “All men are created equal—a notion that had been bumping around for a while.

Pam: Like centuries?

Bert: But who gets the credit? The guys who figured out how to say it the best. That was a quantum leap. This (referring to his televised candidate, who is now smiling and waving as he walks off the stage) is the next one.

Shana: Hmm. Wasn’t there a war back there in 1776, too?

Bert: Yep. And that’s the difference now. No more war. No more losers. Everybody wins. That’s the leap. The founders said it first. He’s going to do it first.

Blackout

Act Two, Scene Two

Lights up on Wes, in what was the same apartment as before, but somewhat spruced up. There are no signs of drug use here anymore, but plenty of firepower lying around. Wes is sitting at the table, with his same old intensity cleaning that high-powered assassination weapon we saw earlier. In the background, Cass and Dio are once again holding up the dark bedsheet, but this time the foreboding of the earlier scene with it might be mitigated a bit. The point here is to convey that perhaps since now the “dark authorities” Wes is serving are secure in his loyalty, and thus their almost guaranteed, continued reign of power despite the fluke of his incredulously lucky brother, they can now afford to “frolic a bit.” Consequently, Cass and Dio might prance about and such with the “dark flag.” This is a good spot for them to improve on some mixture of dark foreboding and cheerful arrogance.

But as in the earlier “pill” scene with Robert, a shadowy presence, just dimly seen, looms in the background here.

Wes (Seems to have just about finished his preparations and signaling guarded satisfaction): Ugh.

He begins to stand. Just as he rises to his feet, Rebecca enters boldly from behind him. Her face is a wild mixture of love, concern, fear, agony, hope, etc. She is dressed in full campaign regalia, clearly in Robert’s camp. But again, her presence is unquestioned and unexplained.

Rebecca: So! You didn’t listen. You never listened!

Wes: Oh yeah. I listened alright. I listened well. (Looks down on the table of guns, now sans drugs.) I just heard it different.

Rebecca (Strides to him) You heard nothing. (Bangs him, not particularly softly, on the chest).

During this, Cass and Dio may start to get a bit nervous. As they do, their machinations with the sheet probably get less fun-filled and more threatening.

Wes: Look. This isn’t even about politics anymore. In fact, it never was, not really. The truth is, I hate him. You know why? Because he doesn’t understand the main thing, he never did. You have to suit up in this world. It’s what you do. It’s what gives you self-respect, the respect of others. He threw that away. I’ll never understand that. And now he wants to lead? With what? Air? How does he live with himself? How can he stand to be so naked? So disrespected? So disrespectable? You think this election bubble means anything to the people who really matter in this world? Sure, everyone is nice to him, like they are to invalids and the insane. He thinks it’s a great world; he doesn’t realize people think he’s nothing. They’ll use him if they can, kill him if they can’t.

Rebecca (Grabbing the gun he is defiantly holding, shaking it and him together like she would shake a recalcitrant child, speaking to him as though she can see right through his angry bullshit): Come off it. There’s still time for you to help us. You know that.

Cass and Dio start shaking the sheet violently.

Wes (Glancing nervously over her shoulder at the sheet, we might suddenly sense a couple potential chinks in his armor): I’m not so sure about that.

Rebecca: (Imploring) Join us. He’s never stopped loving you.

Wes: Ha. He doesn’t love anything but his . . .

Rebecca (Challenging): His what?

Wes: His fucking ideas.

This stops her for a second, because of course there’s some truth to what he says.

Rebecca: Alright. So he loves ideas. So what do you love? Huh?

She doesn’t think she has much time, clearly, she knows the clock is ticking, so pushes him, literally, not hard but firmly, sending him staggering back bit.

Rebecca: Huh? What?

He glares at her, seeing nothing but her now, the sheet forgotten.

Wes: You!

Rebecca (Not missing a beat, as if she could have written this herself): Of course you do. Always have.

Wes (Crumpling in the realization of the truth, he staggers again a bit, without her help, drops the gun, then slumps down into the chair during the exchange that follows): Yes.

At this Cass and Dio do a horrified double-take and proceed to rush with a great flourish off the stage carrying the sheet, presumably to report this unfortunate turn of events to their dark masters.

Rebecca: Always will.

Wes (Beaten): Yes.

Rebecca: And so . . . what are you going to do about.

Wes jumps up to take her in his arms. Rebecca gently raises her hands to stop him.

Rebecca: No, not that. You know (and she says this not without some obvious regret) that it’s too late for that.

Wes stands there, head down, in silent admission that she’s right.

Rebecca: But you can do something. Something big. Something important. Something right and true. You know it’s true! I don’t care where you went, what you did. You’ve known him all your life. Just like . . . (Pressing her point) . . . you love me. And I know he’s right. (Proudly) Cause I helped get him there!

Wes: (Briefly nonplussed by this new piece of information, but then shaking his head as pulling himself out of a trance. Indeed, for now he is seemingly caught between her and the darkness): I don’t know. Look, I just don’t know. (Walks over and picks up the gun) But you do have to leave now. (Glancing back neutrally to where the sheet had been) I have stuff to do.

Rebecca (Full of angst, clearly unsure she has won him over) Stuff?!!

Wes (Back to impassive, opaque): Yeah, stuff . . .

Blackout

Music, the Stones’ Sweet NeoCon comes up and leads us into the next scene, where it lingers, at a low volume, during the start of Robert’s following speech.

Lights come up on Robert addressing the crowd, downstage left. Rebecca and Wes are both there and clearly visible, at opposite sides of the stage. She supportive, adoring. He glaring, but nonetheless demonstrating a curiosity we haven’t seen before. The two of them take no notice of each other.

Robert (Addressing the cheering crowd): Knowing what not to do is simple. Do not kill. Do no harm. Whenever you’re confused, backtrack from there. If you’re unsure about what will do the least harm, take all the time you need to decide what you think it is. If you absolutely can’t decide, are absolutely stuck, say, between doing nothing, letting the mass murderer die and doing something, sending him into rehab, then do the thing with least obvious death in it. If it’s choosing between two equally constructive lives, pick the youngest to save. If you just can’t know which one, save both until fate or the weather decides for you. Know yourself, pray for help and do no harm. The rest will follow.

Wes (Under his breath to himself, yet clearly audible to the audience): What a jerk-off. He’s not alive today because we judged him better. He’s alive because we were ordered to shoot to kill anything rising out of that rice patty. He has absolutely no clue, no clue.

Robert: The change has to start somewhere, sometime. Nothing could be clearer. And that somewhere is right here, that sometime right now. The degree to which we are invested in violence is simply the measure of our powerlessness. Do no harm.

Wes: Why don’t you just shut the fuck up. (To himself, now doubting everything, a not-so- subtle shift from the last scenes) This is taking up all my time and space, when I could be out getting laid. (Disgusted, but clearly not quite the same assassin-guy, he stalks off once again.)

Robert: And now, folks, I have an important announcement to make. For the remainder of my campaign, I won’t be addressing you in front of the television cameras. If you want to see me, come to see me in person, and we will talk face-to-face in rooms small enough to make sure both of us can see and hear one another. (Waves of protests from the crowd.) That’s all I will be doing between now and election day, meeting with as many of you as I possibly can, taking time out only for radio talks and call-ins, which we have already scheduled on alternate days. If you think about everything else I’ve said, you will realize that this is the only way I believe that, come election day, you will all have a chance to vote for a real person, and not just an image created by the media. (Again, waves off protests with confident smile only slightly mitigated by anxiety) Thank you. I love you.

Robert walks off the “podium” out of the bright light and over to center stage, where, after a pause, lights come back up on him and Rebecca, who is still standing in the same spot.

Rebecca: Are you sure about this? Don’t you risk us winding up all alone? No longer
coming into millions and millions of homes. The people who would vote for you.

Robert: I have to do this, Beck. I realize now I should have figured out how to do it from
the start. The media in principle isn’t a bad thing. In fact, in many ways it’s a good thing.
But its incessant use now, particularly during these elections, has turned it into a drug. If
we want to stay a democracy, we have to be careful of it, that’s all.

Rebecca: What do you mean?

Robert: Like any other drug, it starts by making us feel more connected and winds up
weakening our connections to everything else. And no matter how good everyone’s
intentions, a drugged electorate forces it’s leaders to be dictators.

Rebecca: But without TV and the Internet, we would have never come so far so fast.

Robert (In agreement, but sadly): Yes. But it’s time to come clean, so they can really take
stock of me and of our situation, beyond all the blare and glare. The stakes are so high,
we probably won’t have another chance to start taking the right policy initiatives before
all hell breaks loose on this planet. Your think it looks bad now? You ain’t seen nothing
yet, if someone doesn’t put a stop to our mesmerized rush off the precipice.

(Turning to the audience now, confessionally, spot on him) Yes, it’s true. In a lot of ways
I’ve been a media candidate so far, but media candidates become media presidents, and I won’t be that! So let’s all turn it all down a notch, to where we can be a real
democracy, with people brave and free enough to really make up their own minds. Your
own minds!

Rebecca rushes at him, as if starting to say something, but then just embraces him. He
hugs her back.

Lights up on the staff at their usual perch in the Cavern, upstage left, watching the candidate on TV, or in this case, him decisively moving away from the cameras, waving them all off.

Shana: My God, did you hear that? He’s actually going off TV? And when he’s winning? (Incredulous) What did he just say?

Pete (Translating, as if he knew ahead of time this was going to happen and why) That the medium is not so much about the message itself as it is about the speed of the message, and that speed too often controls how we receive it.

Pam (Also more in the know): So yeah, from now until the election, he is tripling his personal appearances, but no more TV. All the print interviews they want. And a debate a week, if they want, in person or over the radio . . .

Pete: Yeah, radio is still ok, but no more tv.

Pam: I hear the electronic media companies are considering filing a suit. (Ambivalent) How good that will be. Guess we get to find out if ratings equal votes. Meanwhile, he’s telling everyone to turn off their tvs and computers and come see him. If they can’t do It in person, then read, listen to the radio,--slow it all down and think. TV is out for now.

Bert (almost reverentially) He said the only thing you can get traveling at TV speed is whatever the people broadcasting at you want you to get. (Imitating Robert) If you want to decide anything for yourself, if you want a chance to think for yourself, you have to come and see me. That way you can tell me what you think and I can tell you what I think. Then you can really decide. Otherwise, I’m just posturing and you’re just guessing.

Pete (reading from a newspaper) Same thing he’s telling the foreign leaders. He’s even already suggested radio call-ins with the public before and after big summit meetings as a possible standard operating procedure.

Shana: Political suicide, at so many levels . . . even if he’s right.

Pam: Nods.

Ben: Someone has to be both right, and dare to say it. (Still reverentially quoting) Slow down, connect, and think. That’s how you’ll know what’s the right choice for you. (sighs) Truth is beauty, beauty truth.

Shana: Like there’s ever been a poet is the White House. (Disgusted) He should be running for poet laureate.

Pam: That job’s appointed.

Shana (Miserable): Who cares.

Blackout

Lights dim on them, and come up on the chorus, incongruently craning their necks to watch the TV flickering from across the stage.

Aloysius (Amalgamating/repeating earlier lines): Every word has a history and a mission.

Cass (Chortling): And a picture’s worth a thousand of them, or was.

Lloyd: Every man, woman and child . . .

Dio (Louder, cutting him off) Media? Did he say. . . Medea? (Breaks up with laughter) Isn’t that the truth . . . you gotta kill if you want that Fleece.

Cass (Immediately on the same wavelength, while Aloysius and Lloyd sit unmoved): Fleece or be fleeced.

Dio: Ain’t it ever . . . but ya really don’t want to go pissing off Medea . . .

Cass: Uh, the media?

Cass and Dio highly amused, Aloysius and Lloyd deadpan, lights dim.

Act Three, Scene Three

Aloysius: He wants to lead them out of the darkness into the democratic light . . .

Lloyd: It shines down equally or not, on us all.

Cass: Not so sure of that—have you looked around lately?

Aloysius: But he can only lead them so far. Then they must each begin to lead themselves or or it will no longer be democratic.

Dio: Isn’t democracy the will of the people? What if the people just want to be led?

Aloysius: Ah, you and your Grand Inquisitor!

Dio: A student of literature, but clearly not of history. Too much light, often used as a most reliable form of torture.

Cass: Yep, give me that comforting darkness anytime.

Lloyd: Light and dark, good and bad, loved and unloved, yin and yang. Haven’t any of you noticed, after a while, without the touch of divine grace or human kindness, it all ceases to be . . . fun?

Cass: So that’s your point? (To audience) The fate of the world hangs in the balance and he talks about fun?

Lloyd: Wait . . . (Hearing Robert’s voice offstage) I think he’s coming.

Aloysius (Continuing): What drives the panic, what drives the narcissism is our fear that without the money, without the weapons and the armor, without the looks, brains and talent . . . .

Dio (Smirks): Without the big God and big Devil . . .

Aloysius (Unphased): . . . without the best of everything . . .

Cass (Sarcastic): Without that shimmering, entrancing, seductive, definitive performance . . .

Aloysius (Taking it all straight) : . . . There is no protection, no safety, no love.

Lloyd: Orphans of the storm, brothers and sisters, united in divisive narcissism.

Cass: Spewed from the creation, shuddering in the stark and uncompromising necessities of existence, quivering in the hot love of exploding physicality made conscious . . .

Dio: Exploding consciousness made physical?

Cass: Who knows, who cares? Go left to God, right to the Devil.

Wes enters the shadows stage left here, back in full assassin mode. At key, equitably spaced moments during the rest of this “debate,” his face expresses shifting support for the speakers.

Dio (smirking): Yeah, right to the Devil. I like that.

Aloysius (Ever the patient teacher): Everyone goes both ways, but thinks they’re only picking one. And now. . .

Lloyd (The faithful echo): And now . . .

Aloysius: We have the means to cure the split.

Lloyd: Maslow. Bucky.

Dio (Onto them, but still chiding): Marx (Does a brief “Groucho” here).

Cass (Straight): Thoreau.

Aloysius: Horatio Alger.

Lloyd: Manifest Destiny.

Dio (Still a tad sarcastic, but echoing Pete from earlier) Power to the people.

C (Straight) The New Frontier.

Dio (Finally totally straight): We are the world.

C: All you need is love and give peace a chance.

Lights down on them, up on the Robert. His entrance is accompanied by John and Yoko’s Give Peace a Chance, playing low in the background through the next few lines. The chorus goes into their now-familiar conversion into the crowd by turning around (they might each have an item to put on/take off to signal the switch. Rebecca comes on as well, at first as though intending to stand by Robert’s side, but then“something” stops her, and instead she stops and waits a bit to the right of the stage and podium, “looking around.” About the same time, on the other side of the stage, Wes finally snaps out of his vacillations, and steps out of the shadows, clearly intending to make one last concerted effort to shoot his brother.

Robert (Rousing the crowd): Stop the war?!

Wes locks and loads, but at first only the audience hears this. Everyone else, including Rebecca, is riveted on Robert.

Crowd (All excited): Yes! Yes!

Wes clicks off the safety of his weapon, and Rebecca hears the sound, knowing exactly what it means. Her attention is now utterly switched to Wes, in utter horror at what is about happen, and that nothing she can do will prevent. In desperation, she lifts her hands to heaven in prayer and supplication (yes, she does!). Once more, The Byrds' We’ll Meet Again starts up here. Simultaneously, Lloyd suddenly comes to a strange posture of attention from his spot within the cheering crowd.

The rest of this bit should play almost like a mock, slo-mo fantasy gag. Lloyd reaches into his toga sleeve and pull out a flower, rushes to Rebecca, and places it with great profundity into her outstretched hands. She opens her praying eyes, sees the flower, looks over at Wes about to pull the trigger, and, a transformed creature, strides with utter confidence and triumph across the stage, looks him straight in the eyes, and sticks the flower into the barrel of his gun. That’s it for Wes. In an instant he goes from determined to stricken to frozen to slumped, dropping the weapon, but as he and Rebecca continue to look into each other’s eyes--quickly, starkly and poignantly--defeat turns to remorse, remorse to relief, and finally, relief to joy. Now they both turn to look at the rest of Robert’s speech, Wes’ pride in his brother struggling all the while to catch up to Rebecca’s. He can improv how much and with what sort of vacillation, with the help of glances back and forth between him and Rebecca, he gets there.

Robert: Yes! Yes! We can finally stop. We have finally achieved the prerequisites. We can finally triumph over all the mistaken and unwitting purveyors of strife and evil among us. We can fulfill the promise of Christ, the real promise of Christ, but here on earth, of our own will and volition . . . If we only take stock of our new-found opportunity and act accordingly, realizing everyone’s deepest wishes!

Lights down on him, briefly up on staff as the music fades.

Pete: Laying it on a bit thick, ain’t he?

Shana: Well, don’t think he’s quite shaken that Messiah complex. Watch, they’re gonna be calling him the Antichrist next.

Rebecca now strides proudly downstage center, while Robert and Wes move into positions downstage left and right of her. As she begins, her speech, The Byrds' Chimes of Freedom once again start up, softly at first, but rising to a crescendo as the scene continues.

Rebecca (This speech is pointedly to both brothers, but obviously, much of it is also meant for the audience, the chorus, the staff, everyone.): You see it now, don’t you,? You are the same? Either you both make it or neither of you do? (To Robert) You don’t need to be a god, (To Wes) You don’t need to be a devil! All of us were born into both the love and the hardness. But we find the means to take away the hardness, if only we find the courage to follow that path. What each of you wants, has always wanted, however secretly, beyond your wildest dreams and most terrifying nightmares, is finally there before us, for the taking and embracing—the whole wide world waking up, yearning and connected, ready to share its finest knowledge and understanding. We have only to see that all our performances, messianic and diabolical, all our ritualizing, sanctifying, and demonizing, are now just in the way. They no longer protect. They only divide. We can finally trade in their consolation prizes for the real thing. Take your brother’s hand. Take your brother in your arms. You know you want to. You know your heart is breaking.. Come, my loves, shed your tears of remorse and and joy onto each other’s shoulders. Feel your brother’s tears on your own skin. These are the waters of peace and innocence, love and the only true freedom ever possible on this earth.

(Three-way embrace, during which the brothers and the rest of the players drop all remaining campaign accoutrements, weapons, etc. Any and all artifacts identifying the split between left and right fall away. Appropriate players may express various signs of their own personal response to the play’s apotheosis (“elevation to divine status”) that may at first include disapproval, anger, fear, disgust, skepticism, doubt, confusion, etc., and finally their growing sense of understanding and hope.)

The finale is clear—the election of the peace candidate, and that “peace’’ will triumph in the largest sense, seem assured. Both the cause and reflection of all this, the brothers have become truly united, possibly for the first time, their latent affection for each other now out in the open, clearly having been catalyzed by the triumphant clear-headedness and groundedness of the woman for whom, in spite of themselves, they have always shared a love.

Confetti, celebration, cheering … blackout.

Lights come up for the “curtain call,” which here is identical to the play’s catharsis.

All holding hands, together, smiling, real people indistinguishable from dramatis personae, everyone freed from that old boundary as well, by the play’s resolution--art and politics having united.

Robert (Coming forward): At long last WE have won.

Rebecca (Her look embracing them all): Everyone victorious.

Wes: No sacrificial lambs. (pulls out a tragedy mask and flaunts it)

Shana: No trivialization of joy (pulls out a comedy mask and flaunts it).

Dio (grabs the tragic mask from Wes and hurls it away, finally, clearly solid with the peace and quantum change message): Beyond Shakespeare!

Lloyd (grabs the comic mask from Shana and hurls in away): Beyond Darwinism!

Aloysius (In apotheosis mode): Beyond religiosity and ideology!

Chimes of Freedom ends. Expectant silence from the players. A grand, authoritative voice offstage, yet filling the room

Finally guided by the beginnings of an accurately perceived and realized coming together of the able practicality of their physical being and the loving kindness of theif spiritual beings, they went on to make a much better world.

The actors bow, then erupt in celebration.

Voice: In the deepest sense, the only peace candidate there ever was, or will be, has won!

Curtain.

Lee Strauss (Copyright@2018)