ACT THREE
Scene 1

PLACARD: ‘LIFE IS FOR THE LIVING—AN OLDFASHIONED WAKE FOR ONE OF IRELAND’S BEST AND BRIGHTEST.' A buffet table heaped with food. Dance music is playing. LIFE PHOTOGRAPHER takes flash photos. G.I. ATROCITY stands at bar drinking while following couples dance by—WIFE/LENIN, M/GUIDE, PRINCESS/MARX.

G.I.ATROCITY: Some things are worse than the premature death of a living legend! [Pause.] Getting your face wiped away by a 13-year old Vietcong freedom fighter for instance! [Pause.] Or having your genitalia shot off by one of your own sentries is another superb example—[Pause.]—of life’s little ups and downs.

WIFE: [While dancing with LENIN.] Or giving birth to a son who turns out to be a presidential assassin!

PRINCESS: [While dancing with MARX.] Or marrying a modern King Arthur who is cut down in his prime—

M: [While dancing with GUIDE.] Or being the widow of a man who leaves you destitute!

Phonograph has run down. Dancers go to the buffet.

GUIDE: Let’s stop all this gloomy talk and be happy!

WIFE: Must we have all these pictures taken?

PHOTOGRAPHER: We’re paying you $1,000 for each shot we publish, madam.

WIFE: Oh, well, if it’s necessary—

GODS takes plate of food and a drink to O, who sits on a box at far end of stage with sniper’s rifle.

WIFE: You must be hungry sitting here since dawn. Getting a decent breakfast under your belt is essential at a time like this. I haven’t forsaken you, boy; and I never will. No matter what happens you are always uppermost in your mother’s heart and mind—[Kisses O’s forehead.] When all this is over they will say a lot of nasty things about us but we will stick together and we will be strong!

GUIDE: This is the best damned whiskey I ever drank! Here’s to a better tomorrow, Comrades!

M: Tomorrow the rent is due. My baby has a rash. My husband will be in the slammer—

PHOTOGRAPHER: [Taking M’s picture.] We’ll take care of all your cash flow problems, madam; just send the bills to Life Magazine!

G.I.ATROCITY: Good—old—Life! Hey, how much do you pay for pictures of war atrocities?

PHOTOGRAPHER: [Checking notebook.] The going rate is—10¢ a dozen.

G.I.ATROCITY: That’s less than a penny each!

PHOTOGRAPHER: For individual pictures we round off to the nearest cent.

LENIN: That reminds me of a joke.

GUIDE: What does?

LENIN: That fellow who got his face obliterated.

MARX: Is it clean?

LENIN: It’s immaculate! This joke is about God! One day, it seems, God came down to earth to make an inspection of his realm disguised as a cowboy. He landed in Texas. During the day he inspected the sagebrush and the cattle and found them to his liking, and toward sundown he came upon a saloon, which pleased him much, because in his human form he acquired the thirsts and appetites of a mortal. While he was noshing at the free lunch he suddenly felt a fullness in his bowels that grew to such painful proportions he knew he must relieve himself of the burden in his belly or burst. Inquiring of the bartender, he was directed up a flight of stairs. "There," said the bartender, "he would find a facility for relieving himself." But when God reached the second storey he found a maze of corridors and rooms that confused him. The pressure in his gut was so urgent now that he dropped his pants where he stood and squatted over a hole he found in the floor. Pulling up his pants and heaving a sigh of relief, he headed downstairs to the bar where, to his amazement he encountered a total shambles. It looked as if a herd of buffalo had stampeded through the place. The bodies of dazed cowpokes were draped over the wreckage. Then the bartender raised his head from beneath the bar, wiped a gob of muck from his face and put to the spotless cowboy a question that was to become immortalized in the folklore of America’s Wild West: "Where were you, stranger," asked the bartender, "when all that shit hit the fan?"

G.I.ATROCITY: The way I heard it a man got his brains blown out and the punchline went: "Where were you when that 45 caliber slug spattered your father’s brains all over the kitchen walls?"

PRINCESS: I was told it this way—"Where were you when they crucified my Lord?"

ENTER EICHMANN.

EICHMANN: There is another version that goes: "Where were you when your granny was turned into a bar of soap?"

GUIDE: Christ, it’s getting morbid again—let’s dance! [Puts record on player; dancing resumes.]

ENTER HERALD with GODS.

HERALD: I will announce you—

ZEUS: No, it isn’t necessary.

EROS: What’s going on here?

HERALD: An Irish custom. It’s called a "wake." In the midst of their grief it helps people to remember that life is for the living

APOLLO: I find this party atmosphere most inappropriate. Neither grief nor joy should be theirs today. These people should soberly reflect upon the implications of what is happening to them.

HERALD: They feel the common man has little to say about such things as life and death—which are more or less in the hands of entities such as yourselves. They think this story concerns the high and mighty only

APOLLO: Then tell them straight away their humble station gives them no immunity from the laws by which the most exalted men are judged. Go, tell them!

HERALD: [Tapping staff on floor.] Good people your attention please!
The end of this affair is near
Though your grief you seek to ease
We ask you now to show some fear
For what befalls a man of high estate
Gives the humble a glimpse of their own fate

CHORUS: It’s because of all this gravity
That we so dearly sought
To sink into depravity
For grief will bring us naught
Death comes to one and all
Without much rhyme or reason
A man should make life joyful
No matter how short his season
From the advice you are giving
To this wisdom we are led
That life is for the living
And death is for the dead
As children we wrote on our slate
That vice and virtue are the tools
From which we make our fate
Virtue is for wisemen, vice is for fools
But when we practice what you exhort
We find that something’s wrong!
For good men’s lives are always short
And a bad man’s life is long!

HERALD: Evil men grow up like weeds
Their lives an utter waste
Like wheat, a good man’s deeds
Make bread we all can eat
But as the wheat is cut in its prime
So the farmer it might nourish
The martyr dies before his time
So that all men might flourish

CHORUS: On that point we’d like to be excused
We are extremely confused
About where our sympathies should lie
Between these two who are destined to die
Which one is the hero
And which the antihero?

APOLLO: [Approaching O.] What do you say? This is no dream or fantasy. The result of what you do this day will be fatal. Your resolve in this matter must be as hard as steel.

O: It’s no accident that I am being chosen to do what must be done. No matter how passive the role I‘ve been cast to play, my whole life has been a sacrifice to the cause of social justice that history will judge to have been as heroically made as that of any who fell at Lexington or Stalingrad.

ZEUS: Don’t presume to know the judgment of history or glorify your deeds in such lofty ideological terms. The fact is, in this affair you are on your own.

EROS: The here and now is all that matters. The present is the pond you swim in.

APOLLO: It’s not wise of you to take credit for what must be done.

O: You’re right. I’m only finishing what was begun by others. It’s a dirty job but I’m willing to do it. Let’s leave it at that.

ZEUS: Then you prefer being a dead martyr to a live nonentity?

O: I would rather be a bird than a fish

APOLLO: We had something more like the status of a moth in mind for you.

O: I make the same choice. If my life is to be but an hour long I’ll make the most of it.

APOLLO: Alright. I am convinced. Though it is we who aim the gun a triggerman is needed. And you seem well qualified by fate for the job.

HERALD: [Tapping floor with staff.] Now is the time for all interested parties to appear!

ENTER SONS pushing K in wheelchair, followed by CARDINAL. CHORUS bows respectfully.

CARDINAL: My dearest friends
This monstrous calamity
Has robbed me of my senses
My mind is split open
The winds of despair rattle in my skull
Everything seems shattered
I stumble through a wild landscape
The earth gives way
I fall in a nightmare
Thorns tear at my flesh
Leaving me raw in a sea of salt
You ask me for strength but I am weak
This disaster is beyond my comprehension
We must turn to God
We must pray—

ALL NONDEITIES on stage bow heads.

CARDINAL: Dear God, give us the strength and wisdom to divine your purpose. Our will to go on has been shaken. Our faith is assaulted by unbounded grief. The light has been taken from us and we stagger with tears in our eyes and rage in our hearts. Wherefore we beg You for guidance—

K: I’m sick of this superstitious claptrap! You’ve buried too many of us with your pious platitudes! Tell us the truth about this "God" of yours. Why is he destroying my offspring one by one? What have we done to antagonize him? Why this unrelenting vengeance!

CARDINAL: His ways are not easy to understand, K. Perhaps he is testing your faith—

K: I flunked that test 50 years ago, when I discovered His world was created according to the laws of Charles Darwin. The only "faith" I have is in the religion of survivalism. That is the rock on which I have built my success—and the success of my sons. This is what I taught them about life:
When it is stated
That we’re not related
To our brothers the beasts and the birds
But rather our line
Is something divine
Please remember your old father’s words:

SONS: There is only one rule
That will help us to thrive
In the jungle of life
Just the fittest survive!
K: Don’t show your scorn
To men who are born
To serve you like oxen and cattle
For just as the rat
Is game for the cat
So these men fall prey in life’s battle
There is only one rule
That will help us to thrive
In the jungle of life
Just the fittest survive!

K: You’ve got to choose between being
A grazer with your head bent low
Trusting benignly to the crop of grass
While your neck’s naked and vulnerable
Or a predator stalking
With your head held high for the scent
And your fate in your own hands
Predator or grazer be
The choice is yours to make
The grazer’s fat and moves in herds
The predator is lean and alone
The grazer, while he lives, is idle
The life of the predator is rough
Tell me now which you prefer
To be the hunted or the hunter?

SONS: The hunter! The predator!
That’s the role we choose!
With the scent of prey in our nose
And our fate is in our own hands!

K: Then learn the lesson of the predator
For that is what you are
And if you practice what you learn
You’re sure to travel far

SONS: Teach us how to stalk and kill
So we might always have our fill!

K: First:
Don’t be fooled by ethical notions
Or be misled by your emotions
There’s only one law that never bears false witness
Those who think of life
In terms of moral strife
Are doomed to fail the jungle test of fitness
Second:
Stalk your prey with care
There’s danger everywhere
Bleeding hearts will talk of fratricide!
Their tears will fall like rain
They’ll try to soften your brain
But if you stop just once to listen
You’ve committed suicide!
Third:
Remember this:
The predator lives and dies by his wits
His exalted life is bought with hard work and high risk
When you’re successful you can feel justifiably proud
But when you fail there is no excuse!
Failure is disgrace!
Failure is death!

SONS: Failure is disgrace!
Failure is death!

K: Last:
When you’re in a race
No matter how large or small
Run your best pace
Or run it not at all
It matters not what means you use
Just so you win and never lose
In business it’s the identical test
There’s no such thing as second best
Sentiment and ethics are for cattle
The predator must be armed for battle
Politics is the very same story
The fight is rough and gory
The spoils are taken by the strong
While the weak cry out that this is wrong
To the victor belongs the spoils
To the fit the prize is survival!

SONS: There is only one rule
That will help us to thrive
In the jungle of life
Just the fittest survive!
And thus we learn the catechism
So basic to our new religion
Whose symbol is the eagle not the pigeon!

K: I’ve built my own church. My sons are my disciples and my bishops. They are my army in the holy war against failure and death. We have assaulted the highest hills and taken them. The world is at my feet and I have my four sons to share it with—

WIFE: Four sons no more; only two are left.

K: What are you saying?

WIFE: Our first son was killed in the war.

SONS: He was a pilot, Papa, flying a plane full of bombs to destroy the enemy. But the bombs exploded and destroyed him instead. He was a hero who helped us win the war.

K: He wasn’t a hero; he was a fool! It wasn’t our war. He sacrificed his future for a sentimental crusade! Let his death be a lesson to you. Never rally to another man’s cause. Don’t be caught in the stampede of cattle rushing to their doom!

WIFE: That was 20 years ago. Now another son is about to die.

K: Who? Which one is missing?

SONS: J is the target this time. They say that creep over there is going to blow his brains out today.

K wheels himself to O followed by SONS.

K: Who the hell are you?

O: Nobody now. But I will be somebody pretty soon.

K: You mean by murdering my son?

O: It’s nothing personal, old man This is purely a political act. Think of it as a presidential impeachment—

K: You don’t belong on the same planet with my boy!

O: But we are on the same planet. We are brothers!

K: When you speak to your betters, speak with respect, damn you! [With a nod from K, SONS overpower O and take his rifle away.] Now, scumbag, what have you got to say before we impeach your right to exist!

O is forced by SONS to his knees. Muzzle of the rifle is placed against back of O’s head.

O: I have a wife—children—!

K: Is that all you’ve got to say for yourself? You see what I’ve been talking about, boys! This is the way you handle "divine providence"—by kicking it in the ass! What looked like a hopelessly tragic situation for us is now a headache for this selfappointed "hitman" who would gladly kiss our feet—or any other part of our anatomy —if we asked him to. But we’re not giving him those options. We are going to blow him away without a second thought! Go ahead, pull that trigger—[SON with rifle hesitates.] What’s the matter with you! Don’t think of him as a human being! He’s a bedbug; an insect you squash with the heel of your shoe!

Rifle is fired. O falls dead. Action is frozen in tableau as HERALD comes downstage.

HERALD: My Lords. Patrons. Let me explain the event that has just occurred. It reflects the complex nature of what inspired our author to portray the forces that always lay beneath the surface of things. The simplest acts often stir up the gravest implications. Thus we have taken some theatrical liberties with the actual events so that you might better comprehend their true significance. It’s really a kind of dramaturgical autopsy we are performing here (or striptease some might say)—peeling away, layer by layer, the manifold mysteries obscuring the reason for our late president’s assassination. What you saw just now never happened. It was a theatrical trick; a structural device to increase the suspense now that we are very near the climax of our show—and to remind you this is art you are seeing and not actuality. In the real world K and his sons had no idea they were about to become the victims of a Greek tragedy. [Approaching tableau.] Why should they? After all, Greek tragedies only happen on a stage, don’t they? And, while art may imitate life, the reverse is never true! [Taps staff on stage sharply.]

The tableau dissolves. O rises and is given rifle by SON.

K: I don’t believe in Greek tragedy!

HERALD: [With his back to K while rejoining GODS.] But it believes in you!

K is pushed by SONS across stage to wake scene.

K: Then there is nothing I can do. The most powerful father is powerless to prevent a quintessential nonentity from assassinating his son. Everything I accomplished was in vain. Among all men who ever lived I was the mightiest. Mightier than Caesar and Ghengis Kahn! My empire surpassed their wildest dreams of imperial conquest! I won the greatest prize of them all—only to see it snatched away by a common thief! I deserve a better fate than that!

CARDINAL: This is where your Darwinian creed fails, K. It neither explains nor consoles when such a calamity befalls you.

K: No, it didn’t fail us—we failed it! My first son was undone by a selfinflicted overdose of ideological sentimentality. Now my second son is risking his neck on a cheap publicity stunt—

CARDINAL: Although his mission failed, your first son died a hero’s death, K. Don’t let your pride, or your grief, diminish the glory of his idealism. As for your second son—you cannot blame his assassination on an act of political vanity no more forseeably fatal than the one that brought him to Dallas. It’s true that Presidential pride is a fault, but it’s also true that there are limits to human responsibility for predicting all of the consequences of what we do.

APOLLO: You’re mistaken, priest. Your creed doesn’t explain what is happening here any better than his. And it is just as pernicious—for as he puts a man above the rule of moral responsibility you put him beneath it. The truth of the matter is that the lives of men are governed neither by the laws of the jungle nor of the gods, but by what they themselves perceive to be reasonable.

CARDINAL: There are some truths men cannot reach with their minds alone. Some of life’s mysteries must remain impenetrable—

APOLLO: There is nothing man cannot reach. No truth he can’t discover. Man is himself the measure of all things. That is the terrifying and glorious reality of being human. But you refuse to concede him his divinity. You promise salvation by submission. If a man is not his own master he is someone else’s slave! If this modern "Greek tragedy" teaches you anything it is that you must accept the fact that all of your fairytale gods are dead.

CHORUS is agitated, disturbed.

EROS: Repeat after me. God is dead. Say it! God—is—dead!

CHORUS: No—we can’t—it isn’t true!

ZEUS: You are trundling with a putrescent corpse. It’s obscene. It’s not healthy. Give your God a decent burial and get on with the business of living without father figures.

CHORUS: It’s true we have all had fathers who died and we had to bury them so we could become adults. Maybe you are right. Maybe God is an ideological deadend and we are better off admitting it.

EROS: Congratulations! All of the old gods are dead! Long live the new God! Long live Reason!

CHORUS: The old gods are dead! Long live the new God! Long live humanity!

APOLLO: You are free now. Don’t be afraid to dream the wildest dreams. Open your wings and fly. Open your throats to joyous shouts—your ears to receive sweet news of liberation! Leap chasms! Race the wind! Beat drums! Shake everything loose! Be as naked and joyous as children!

PRINCESS: [To GODS.] If the gods are dead I’d like to know exactly what role you are playing in this? What gives you the right and the power to murder my husband?

EROS: We have no power. We are only the figments of a playwright’s imagination

ZEUS: In reality we are not real—

APOLLO: We are an abstraction—

EROS: We are the symbols of certain ideas—

ZEUS: Think of us as messengers sent out by each of you long ago with a question, and now we have returned with the answer. In this case it is a sentence of death.

K: The sentence of a kangaroo court! Don’t expect us to swallow this colossal swindle!

CHORUS: You ask us to be reasonable—but this judgment of yours seems terribly highhanded. You seem to be insulting the very intelligence you congratulated us for having. Nothing we have seen or heard so far persuades us to support your condemnation of this man we hold in such high esteem. Let us be a jury. We’ll hear the facts and make our own decision.

GODS confer.

APOLLO: What you are asking for is fair. Henceforth These proceedings will be judicial in nature!

HERALD comes downstage to address audience as stage is set for trial.

HERALD: Before you hear the judges say
Why your President must die today
I must explain that what you see
Should be construed as a fantasy
Now let the Defense make its case!

K: First, the defense must state its astonishment that these charges could be brought against a young man who has distinguished himself so brilliantly. Their sheer absurdity makes them dangerous! One day the sun is shining brightly. The crowds are cheering. The world is at peace. Prosperity pervades the land. There is humor, hope and glamor—where previously there was only gloom and despair. Then suddenly—oh so suddenly!—you say this Camelot of ours must come to an abrupt end, that it is all wrong! And when we ask why these good times must cease, you tell us there is one American among us millions who is not content—and this single rotten apple must by some celestial law spoil the entire barrel! By his own admission the assassin aspires to make history with the squeezing of his trigger finger. That is his sole motive, his grand design! Yet this court seeks to cover his criminal motives with the cloak of "divine justice!" The charges are false and base but we will answer them because you have a loaded gun pointed at our heads not because we recognize the righteousness of your jurisdiction!

CHORUS and SONS applaud.

HERALD: Thus we have heard the father tell
That things on earth were going well
And how it is hard to comprehend
Why he is summoned to defend
A man who has brought the rays of light
To people who have lived so long in night
He asks the noble judges why
They have brought the storm clouds to our sky
He claims this trial is an act of treason
And that the judges have lost their reason

K: I will speak to the first charge because it mentions the dynasty I founded. Let me say I am proud to be this man’s father. I am proud to share his triumphs. And I will share his tragic fate too, if I must! We stand accused of establishing a dynasty. To that we plead guilty! I started with nothing but my bare hands and built a family second to none in the history of our nation! We Ks are ambitious, and why shouldn’t we be? We have the talent and the guts. If there are prizes to be won, why not win them?

ZEUS: It is how you win them that concerns us.

K: The obstacles were overwhelming. The odds were a thousand to one. The deck was stacked against us! In politics the end justifies the means.

APOLLO: But in this case what is the end?

K: Power! We needed the power!

APOLLO: Power to do what? For what reason did you need the power of the Presidency?

K: The reason? Because—it was there!

ZEUS: So, because it was there you treated your sons like pawns in a dynastic chess game. How can you be so totally oblivious to the nightmare you have created?

K: My brain is a weapon; a club I use to beat off a hostile world. You’ve got to be strong or people will tear your head off and kick it around like a football! Let’s not fool ourselves. We’re still living in the Dark Ages. Even in Camelot they suited themselves in armor!

EROS: But now your armor is rusting. Great cracks appear in the walls of your feudal fortress. Soon the sound of utter desolation will be the only one you hear sitting on your :earlike throne. All of this ruination should make you sadder and wiser. Instead, you are still angry, ambitious and unrepentant!

ZEUS: Why didn’t you teach your sons it’s how the game is played that matters most—not who wins or loses?

APOLLO: What bothers me most about your gamesmanship is that you—not your sons—were to be the ultimate winner. Isn’t that so?

K tries to respond but is prevented from doing so by onset of another stroke.

APOLLO: What did he say?

SON 1: He says, only the welfare of his family ever motivated him to do what he did.

APOLLO: Our record clearly indicates the opposite to be true. Like most dynastic plans, yours was principally an exercise in conceit. What makes your case so tragic—and so fascinating—is the ironic fact your sons might have glorified your name on their own had you more faith in the quality of their breeding!

HERALD: We’ve learned by what the court has shown
A man must reap what he has sown
That if his goals are shallow
All his fields will become fallow
But how his grief is made yet worse
When on his children fall his curse
He learns this truth when it is too late:
That those we love must share our fate
He spent his life in search of power
But the price he paid made it taste sour
And even when his goal was won
When everything under the sun
Was waiting to be shaped by him
He admitted it was just a whim!
The world he saw as just a toy
That he had fancied as a boy
Let us all profit by his mistake
We all must pay for what we take
That if we take and never give
We stay alive but never live
The highest joy we find on earth
Is giving to others a sense of worth

PLACARD: ‘K IS THROWN TO THE WOLVES BY HIS KIN.'

SON 1: It is painful to see our father
In such a state of disgrace
But we have come to save our brother’s life
Not our father’s reputation
For he is a man from another era
Who is scarred from many battles fought on our behalf
He has given us much more than most fathers
Yet he has erred in teaching us
That what was good for him must be good for us
We live on a higher plane now
That was his mistake
But we do not throw him to the wolves

SON 2: We admit the presidential prize was vainly sought by our brother. But he was soon impressed with its enormity. He was in fact quite overwhelmed with humility and quickly came to appreciate his shortcomings. But he had seized the ship of state in midtyphoon and could not plot a course to safety. At last he was freed from his father’s influence; only to find himself adrift in a foundering vessel! So he did he could. He gathered the best and the brightest for their counsel and advice. They fired his imagination with revolutionary visions. They helped him set a course for peace, justice and dignity for every American. He gave a single name to all of our hopes and aspirations—The New Frontier!

SON 1: If this revolution falters now who is to blame? If men’s hopes are smashed beyond repair, who is at fault? If The New Frontier is never crossed who is the villain? And if this great opportunity is lost for a thousand years—or even a thousand days—more, who will be responsible? I say this court—this court will be responsible!

CHORUS responds emotionally. They menace GODS. HERALD comes downstage to address audience. The action behind him is frozen in tableau.

HERALD: The defense has made its boldest thrust
As in the populace they put their trust
Powerless to be their brother’s savior
They threaten the court with mob behavior
These boys have demonstrated skill
The crowd is in a mood to kill
On the judges they put the blame
For the extinguishing the flame
That fired their souls
With dreams that glowed like goals
I must confess my own mind is somewhat altered
The prestige of the court has faltered
Nevertheless, by persisting in this behavior
You will be punished for contempt!

CHORUS retreats reluctantly, grumbling.

APOLLO: The court appreciates your feelings. You see us as enemies. But it is for your own good we do what we are doing. A new prophet has come unto you awakening ancient dreams of paradise on earth. He has captivated you with his smile, his wit, his beauty and his youth. He has promised you the rebirth of the hope that America can keep its rendezvous with a destiny that was once so manifest.

EROS: He has marshaled his forces for an assault on The New Frontier. A mighty army is his to command. The morale of the troops has never been higher. They wait eagerly for the order to march!

CHORUS begins to squirm.

ZEUS: Day after day you wait and wait. You have been waiting a thousand days—as your ancestors waited a thousand years. What’s the delay? Why does your leader linger in his tent? A thousand days have slipped by! Victory is slipping through your fingers!

CHORUS buzzes with questions.

HERALD: The masses are angry and confused
The judges say they’ve been abused
The commander of their great crusade
Is guilty of a masquerade
The army has begun to rot
As by their commander they are forgot
The banners are slack and tattered
Morale is worn and battered
Though not a single shot was fired!
For the prize they all desired!
A homestead they were promised each
When The New Frontier was reached

CHORUS: They say into his tent he’s taken a whore
Like Caesar and Samson who went before
With her he lingers while we wait
To find out what is to be our fate

Advancing toward Sons:

That is why we have gathered here
To ask you what’s become of our homesteads
Beyond The New Frontier?

SON 1: A revolution of such magnitude cannot be hurried

SON 2: Camelot wasn’t built in a day!

SON 1: Compromises have to be made!

SON 2: The senate is reactionary! The house is hostile!

SON 1: The problem isn’t simple!

SON 2: It’s a puzzle with a thousand pieces!

SON 1: We’ll need another thousand days at least!

SON 2: To consolidate our power!

SON 1: Give us another thousand days!

CHORUS: No! We can’t wait that long! Not another day! It took a thousand years for this moment to arrive. A thousand years of human history to set this stage! And what do you give us? The excuses of schoolboys caught cheating on a test! The court is right! You are guilty!

ZEUS: You have thrown destiny to the wind—dumped it overboard like ballast to keep your political ship afloat

APOLLO: Even now, when he is troubled by the growing specter of his failure, the president comes out among the people he has deceived to collect more of his peculiar taxes. How he yearns to hear them call his name, to feel them reach out and touch him. He has come to us in a mock parade of musical comedy grandeur. But this parade has a more profound significance for him. It will be his cortege! Let the sentence of death be carried out!

The slow beating of drums is heard, as if in a cortege.

CHORUS: Honored judges, though your wisdom we trust
We humbly beg you to consider what is just
We are the ones who have suffered without cause
Now our trust is in your laws
To lift us from this great sorrow
So we might yet have a bright tomorrow
We’re afraid the medicine you now advise
Us to take will cure the disease by the patient’s demise!

ZEUS: The court is powerless to grant clemency. Vast forces have been set in motion which cannot be ignored.

APOLLO: The assassin is the man in whom these complex forces have been reduced to their simplest terms. Even he is powerless to alter what has been wrought inside him

EROS: He was the brother who was not kept; the potential that was never realized. He is the unknown soldier suddenly become known. He is the vengeance of history. He is a human time bomb!

APOLLO: Later, when this drama has ended, you will execute him and defile his corpse. But truly he is the victim in this thing. He is you.

LENIN: Comrades! These judges have told you they cannot change the course of history. That is true. But don’t worry about the patient! He will not die. He will, in fact, live to a ripe old age. This period of suffering is nothing more serious than a severe case of growing pains. The human race is going through its adolescence. You must say farewell to your childhood and that makes you sad.

MARX: We understand your grief and anger. None of us enjoys seeing the faults of a father figure illuminated; but we all know they have them. You were raised in a capitalistic society. That society is dying now and you are heartbroken. But you will survive this grief and you will grow to adulthood and look back on all this with a mature perspective. You can’t argue with the inevitable. The sooner you learn that the better. These judges have tried to create the impression one man could alter what is unalterable, but their ideology is as fraudulent as they are. [To LENIN.] Unmask them!

LENIN removes masks from GODS, revealing them to be—Medgar Evers, Guillaume Apollinaire and Lenin’s older brother, Sasha Ulyanov. Action stops as HERALD comes downstage to address audience.

HERALD: Please don’t be distressed
As the judges are undressed
It was by their disguise
They had hoped to make you wise
But now that they are revealed
We’ll let nothing be concealed
From now on our metaphors and hyperbole
Will be abandoned
We think you are ready
For the plain unvarnished truth!

MARX: Go back to your grave, corpses! The world has had its fill of your sanctimonious meddling!

O: No! Let them speak. I see no harm in what they say. Some of it makes sense.

LENIN: Don’t be a fool. You’re one of us.

O: I don’t know what I am yet. I like the sound of what they say. Their voices are musical. Yours sound like—machines.

EVERS: That is because you are more like us than like them. Life hasn’t proletarianized you; it has turned you into a nigger.

APOLLINAIRE: And you share our courage. You are willing to take matters into your own hands when more exalted men abdicate their responsibilities—

ULYANOV: And like us you have little to give but you give everything you have—

PRINCESS: What about giving me some consideration? If you have any compassion for humanity no one deserves it more than my husband. If you knew him as I know him you would kneel at his feet and praise him as a prince among men!

APOLLINAIRE: He was not judged as a husband—or even as a man; but as a powerful politician.

ULYANOV: You grieve for one man, lady. We grieve for many.

PRINCESS: His public life is just a part of him. Take that away but leave me the rest—my husband, my children’s father!

GODS are impassive. PRINCESS focuses her appeal on O.

PRINCESS: May I speak with you?

O: I know what you will say—

PRINCESS: Then let me say it for my sake! I must try to save him! [Breaks down in tears.]

HERALD: I remind you all that our time is running out.

PRINCESS: All I ask is that you think of him not as an abstraction but as a real man—as imperfect as you are! Look him in the face and then squeeze that trigger—or is that why you’re planning to shoot him in the back?

O: Enough! Enough! [Covers ears.] Leave me alone! Let me think!

PRINCESS: Yes, think, think! Think about how these competing characters are using you for their own purposes. It’s just a game they are playing—with your life! Think about the future generations who will curse you—or worse, forget you! Live for yourself. You are young, like us—and just as rich with potential happiness. And if that isn’t enough, perhaps some financial arrangement might be made—

WIFE: She’s right son. The world will spit on your corpse! Even these socalled "friends" of yours will laugh at you for doing their dirty work. Listen to what this lady has to say. I’m sure she will be generous—

M: Yes! Don’t waste this temporary leverage! You owe it to me and your children! An impoverished widow with two orphans! Is that going to be the legacy you leave us?

O: I can’t think! My mind is all mixed up! Someone help me!

HERALD: We can’t help you because we are all part of the phenomenon you call yourself. This debate is taking place inside your head. The torture you are undergoing is selfimposed. The murder you are contemplating has suicidal implications—

LENIN: Listen to me, comrade: in a few seconds you will pull that trigger. There is nothing else to think about. You have no choice!

O: I’m not satisfied with that.

ULYANOV: You want to know about the future. We assure you it does exist outside yourself. After you, life lives; and what you do now determines what comes after. We died for that principal.

O: I don’t understand. [Indicating MARX and LENIN.] Are you asking me to do what they want?

EVERS: No. They ask you to be their triggerman. We ask for much more—

APOLINAIRE: We want a conscious act of selfsacrifice; as he, your victim, realizes he must be martyred for the sake of a more rational society.

ULYANOV: This man you must kill is already dead. Murder him now and a myth might evolve that will transfigure him into the stuff from which some future New Frontiersman can actually build a Great Society. Let him live and both he and his dreams will end in the disgrace of yet another failed presidency.

ALL characters have been moving to side of stage opposite O so that now he is alone.

O: How easy it is to kill a man because you hate him.
This way it’s a much harder thing to do.
But I am calm now.
My blood is cold.
The crescendo that was building is gone
It’s so quiet now
I’m alone
They’ve left me feeling numb
The time must be very close now
A sound!
A wind is beginning to blow
The leaves are rustling
The earth is spinning faster—

He cringes as if afraid he might be thrown from the earth. Beating of a drum is heard, like the beating of a heart. It grows louder and faster.

Trying to throw me off!
My head is hot with pain and fever!
I’m trembling and sick!
Oh, God, I wish it were over!
One way or the other!
There he is!
I’ve got him in my sights!

O aims rifle at J (who ENTERS from opposite side of stage). J looks at O and begins to cross stage toward him in slow motion. As he does this members of CHORUS touch him, blow kisses, reach as if to stop him—but their fingers slip away. Mouths open in silent anguish. When J is close O lowers rifle. Drums have been beating explosively but now they stop. J puts lips to O’s ear and whispers into it briefly, then J looks at O face-to-face, benignly; O turns away and shields his eyes. J turns and moves toward PRINCESS slowly, silently. O raises rifle and aims again. The drums come up suddenly and loudly to mix with the reports from O’s rifle as he fires three times. J falls forward into arms of PRINCESS. CHORUS gasps as tableau begins to form around the fallen president. Stagehands and other production personnel enter to join tableau. When clamor subsides we hear CARDINAL intoning a Liturgy For The Dead as song sung by choir begins growing to crescendo. O comes downstage to address audience.

O: [Shouting hoarsely above the choir.]
I’ve done what I had to do!
The runner has fallen!
But the torch was snatched from him!
Some other will carry it!
The beacon must be lighted!
Each of you must do your part!
These are the words of a dead man!

Pause, then O turns and runs off, as if being pursued.

CHOIR: [Singing.]
Oh my dove,
In the clefts of the rock
In the covert of the cliff
Let me see your face
Let me hear your voice
For your voice is sweet
And your face is comely
Catch us the foxes
The little foxes
That spoil the vineyards
For our vineyards are in blossom
My beloved is mine and I am his
He pastures his flock among the lilies
Until the day breathes
And the shadows flee
Turn, my beloved, be like a gazelle
Or a young stag upon rugged mountains!

Curtains close slowly. Presidential effigy is carried out of auditorium to band playing ‘Hail To The Chief’ before audience is permitted to depart.

End of Play

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