ACT TWO
Scene 1

At curtain AUDITIONISTS discovered as they were at end of Act One. MASKE observes this tableau through Hole-in-the-Wall. He wears evening clothes and smokes a cigar. FRAU MASKE is only partially visible to his right.

MASKE: It’s a disgrace.

FRAU MASKE: What is, darling?

MASKE: [Poking at bricks with walking stick he creates small avalanche.] The shocking state of dilapidation into which a once proud studio like UTG has fallen.

FRAU MASKE: According to this bronze plaque that hole has been officially designated as a "cultural monument whose desecration is punishable by six months in prison and a fine of 50,000 marks."

MASKE: What could be so special about a few square meters of missing bricks?

FRAU MASKE: [Reading.] "The hole in this wall was made by a misguided ‘special effect’ that accidentally exterminated the roomful of actors within who, at that very moment, were costuming themselves to be ’killed’ by it on the simulated battlefield into which the adjacent soundstage was being converted."

MASKE: That might explain this "silent treatment" I’ve been getting.

FRAU MASKE: From whom, dear?

MASKE: [Pointing with stick.] These must be effigies of those actors permanently posed in that most dramatic of all dramatic moments: the split second which separates a human from his being and his not being.

FRAU MASKE: [Fully visible now in evening clothes as she peers through hole.] Oh, you silly man—don’t you see what’s happened? Our intermission stroll has taken us behind the scenery of the play we’ve been watching through that prosceniumsized mirror! This hole we’re looking through now is the one whose purpose we found so mystifying during the First Act. As for these "effigies"—not realizing the curtains have closed, the actors are unnecessarily sustaining that state of paralysis we saw them conspire to use in solving the socalled "Private Parts Paradox." Even making the most generous allowance for the disorienting effect of our reversed perspective Theo, I’m surprised a man with your scientific outlook on life could believe in the possibility of our encountering two different dressingrooms full of Hitler lookalikes in the same evening.

MASKE: Hitler, Hitler, Hitler! I’ve seen so many fake Fuehrers tonight the sight of them has lost its shock value!

FRAU MASKE: Alright dear, calm down. At least now you understand why they have been ignoring us.

MASKE: I do?

FRAU MASKE: They think we are part of The Casting Director’s plot to deceive them into breaking their own strike.

MASKE: Nonsense! Anyone who knows me knows I would be the last man in the world to willingly collaborate in such an act of dramaturgical duplicity.

FRAU MASKE: Maybe they really don’t recognize us—[Her panties slowly descend to her ankles. In attempting to adroitly retrieve them with a kick of her toe, she sends them sailing toward KARAJAN. When he fails to react she enters set gingerly to reclaim them. To Karajan and other actors:] Excuse me—terribly sorry—an accident—

MASKE: Well my dear, I’m sure that little hint you just dropped will eliminate any doubt about our identity as the plaintiffs in Maske vs. Sternheim—the famous invasion of privacy case asking whether the fact a man’s wife habitually loses her unmentionables in public entitles some playwright to make him the target of an attack on German middleclass values?

FRAU MASKE: That’s not true, Theo.

MASKE: Oh?

FRAU MASKE: In the first place, I’m the one Bloomers is all about. Your role is quite inconsequential.

MASKE: I wish you’d tell that to my barber!

FRAU MASKE: Secondly, Sternheim’s play is not so much a scathing attack on middleclass male chauvinism, as it is a revolutionary manifesto on the unshackling of the female psyche both on and off stage. And thirdly—[Discreetly stowing panties in purse.] these "accidents" I keep having are by no means uniquely mine. It’s common knowledge Germany’s city streets are becoming positively littered with lost lingerie.

MASKE: How typical of you to blame the entire elastic industry for your loose ways!

FRAU MASKE: That’s quite enough of that ,Theo—I think it’s time we returned to our seats before the curtains reopen on this public laundering of our personal problems.

MASKE: Speaking about our seats, are you planning to sit through Act Two on a bare bottom?

FRAU MASKE: Why, does the idea excite you?

MASKE: Only to the extent our lawyers have advised me another of your scandals would be fatal to our litigation.

FRAU MASKE: Don’t worry darling; no one will ever know. [Leaning against MASKE.] It will be our little secret. Besides—I won’t be the only woman in the audience sitting on her skin. It’s all the rage nowadays to be stark naked beneath one’s theatergoing finery!

MASKE: [As they begin to exit arm-in-arm.] Females! I tell you, Louise, sometimes I think Sternheim might be right. Marriage doesn’t result from the mutual attraction of sexual opposites; it’s more like a collision between members of two distinctly separate species!

FRAU MASKE: [Laughing.] Men! Why is it they always know exactly when to say just what a woman really wants to hear? [They EXIT.]

Scene 2

HELMSLEY: So, it seems there is an audience on the other side of that damned mirror!

SCHROEDER: If we can believe a single word of what that pair told us—

THATCHER: They were obviously actors—

WERNER: And not very convincing ones—although I found it difficult not to spit in that loudmouth’s eye.

KARAJAN: It was pathetic—the way she tried to provoke me with those perfumed panties of hers!

CELINE: Nevertheless they have succeeded in getting us to talk.

HELMSLEY: Since we forced them into closing the curtains, what difference does that make?

WERNER: Yes, we’ve won!

SCHROEDER: Unless it’s a trap; making us think the curtains had closed when in fact they hadn’t.

CELINE: Or, if they had, reopening them just so this scene could be played.

MASTROIANNI: I have a hunch this "war" we are waging with our female casting director is far from over.

SCHROEDER: If Act One didn’t thoroughly demoralize the audience, it could take another hour or two of our complete inactivity to empty the theater!

CELINE: It wouldn’t surprise me if the cunning bitch recruited one of those stark naked or seminude starlets next door to burst in here and put our paralysis to the ultimate test.

ENTER FEMALE DRAMA CRITIC via Hole-in-Wall naked but for tattered remnants of fur coat, which she uses to cover her nudity. She has been through some kind of living hell and looks it. The effect she creates is that of a wild animal—or primitive human—being fresh from the struggle to survive.

FEMALE DRAMA CRITIC: Thank God—Oh, thank God I’m saved! I thought I’d never escape alive! [Suddenly aware of her theatrical situation.] What am I saying? Where have I heard those lines before? Of course! They are the very words spoken by The Waylaid Housewife in the Second Act of To Bolivia Or Not To Bolivia?!!! [She menaces AUDITIONISTS with broken beer bottle she has been hiding in remains of fur coat.] Alright you miserable motherfuckers, the first one who makes a move in my direction gets his crotch cut to ribbons! I don’t want to hear a sound out of you—not a single word! This scene isn’t going to be played the way its author planned it! [Looking skyward.] Oh no, you rotten bastard—I’ll be damned if I cooperate in your plan to make me a part of this wretched play! You may have had me raped, tortured and humiliated by those goons offstage but I’m not about to put on a public performance for your benefit! Damn! I’m doing exactly what you want me to do, aren’t I! I should leave immediately! Even if it means returning to that Nazi nightmare you’ve conjured up for me out there. But before I go, there is something you should know about the dangers of dabbling in theatrical Black Magic. Somewhere in this Teutonic inferno you’ve created, I will find a knight in shining armor to rescue me from your evil spell. So beware, "my Fuerher!" Starting now your Great American Hitler Play has begun to unravel its way toward becoming a playwriting equivalent of Stalingrad! Somewhere, somehow, a way will be found to end this dastardly plot of yours happily!!!! [Turning to exit, she collides with TELEGRAPH BOY, whom she menaces with broken beer bottle.] Out of my way, you stormtrooping sonofabitch, or, believe me, this broken beer bottle will make mincemeat of your manhood!

TELEGRAPH BOY steps aside as FEMALE DRAMA CRITIC makes good her EXIT.

Scene 3

TELEGRAPH BOY enters scene wearing archaic Western Union uniform Female Drama Critic might reasonably have mistaken for that of a fascist legionnaire. Throughout scene he is obviously ‘improvising.’

TELEGRAPH BOY: Holy cow! Talk about your close calls! [Still protecting crotch and waiting for reaction from other actors.] Uh, would someone mind telling me what the dickens is going on here? [Pause.] I mean, to put it bluntly, are we or are we not doing Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth tonight? [Pause.] I grant you that’s not the kind of question a walkon usually asks but I’ve run out of ideas! [Pause.] I mean, I’ve been waiting backstage for a propitious moment to deliver this telegram I have for a Mrs George Antrobus of Excelsior, New Jersey—but the longer I waited the less likely it looked such a moment would ever arrive! [Pause.] Could this be one of those practical jokes acting companies sometimes play on their newest members—like when Olivier entered the stage as Romeo; only to find himself face-to-face with the cast of Man and Superman? [Pause.] If so, I suppose I should be flattered that such an elaborate hoax would be perpetrated on an actor with my meager credits. I mean, somebody went to an awful lot of trouble converting Staten Island into a replica of Nazi Germany! [Pause.]

     Unless of course, that ferry ride I took from Lower Manhattan actually did turn itself into a transAtlantic voyage! [Pause.] Alright, I confess to having dozed off during the trip but can such a realistic mixingup of time and space be blamed on some kind of Rip van Winkle syndrome? Even my occasional drug use can’t account for a situation so thoroughly convincing as this one is! Not that I’m the apologetic about hallucinating on duty now and then—with or without the aid of pharmaceuticals; considering how I have been forced to work morning, noon and night to subsidize my acting aspirations—speaking of which; I mean my moonlighting as The Telegraph Boy in The Skin of Our Teeth, I admit to suffering from spells of ontological ambiguity periodically; brought on no doubt by the uncanny way my part in that play happens to coincide with my actual daytime employment at Western Union—a fact that is not unrelated to my getting the Telegraph Boy part in the first place. [Pause.] The truth is, I have become typecast as a deliverer of telegrams—the consequence of which, I’m sure you appreciate, is to afflict me with an acute case of confusion over my on and offstage persona. I mean, I have frequently stopped in my tracks to ask myself if the telegram I am about to deliver is a fake addressed to some fictitious character, or the genuine article on its way to being read by a recipient whose reality couldn’t be more factual. And, believe it or not, there are times when such a seemingly simple question is not that easy to answer! [Pause.]

     I mean, I have actually delivered genuine telegrams to people with bona fide names like Abe Lincoln, Hedda Gabler and more than one Adolf Hitler! So it’s understandable if now and then I inadvertently deliver a makebelieve message to an authentic customer or, conversely, surprise one of my co-characters by handing him an envelope whose contents are wholly unrelated to the play we are performing. [Pause.] Either way, as you can imagine, the result is profoundly disconcerting. I mean, could any faux pas be more fundamentally fatal to a telegram delivery boy’s raison d’etre than his misdelivery of a telegram; whether he does so in his capacity as a theatrical supernumerary, or as one of those actual non entities without whose supporting role the drama of life itself would quickly come unglued? [Pause.]

     All of which, you must be asking yourselves, is leading us exactly where? Well gentlemen, in my opinion we must consider the possibility that, when all of the foregoing factors are taken into account, it can be logically argued that: Unless the lady who left here just now in such a hurry was in fact Mrs George Antrobus—it is most unlikely that this play was written by the aforementioned Thornton Wilder—if indeed this is a play! Therefore, it is not you who are playing a prank on me, but I who have gotten either my acting or my occupational engagements totally confused. Which in any case should mean that somewhere in this pouch there must be another telegram that will make this mystery crystal clear—[Produces telegram from pouch.] And lo and behold—what have we found here but a telegram adressed to Universal Transglobal Productions, Berlin, Germany from a Mr Charles Chaplin of Hollywood, California! [Opening envelope he ‘reads’ contents:]

     "Accept your audition invite. Stop. Burning all my American bridges. Stop. ETA Berlin [Insert actual performance date and time of Chaplin's audition scene.] Stop. Expect you schedule screentest accordingly. Signed: The Great Dictator." [To AUDITIONISTS.] Does that make any sense to you? I mean, this is an audition, isn’t it? And the unclaimed number hanging on that wall does indicate a late arrival, doesn’t it? And history will record the fact that Charlie Chaplin did indeed attempt to assassinate the character you all seem so set on becoming, won’t it?

     Well, I’d like to hang around and see how all of this ends—but I have a hunch that somewhere in this world The Skin of Our Teeth is being performed tonight, and its fate may hinge on my arriving in the nick of time to deliver this other telegram on cue—although only God knows how I’ll get to wherever it is I’m supposed to be going! [EXIT via Hole-in-Wall.]

Scene 4

The public telephone rings.

KARAJAN: [Still holding house phone to his ear.] Well, that does it. Our goose is well and truly cooked. [Phone rings.] Don’t give me those Judas Iscariot looks! You know damned well I haven’t got any choice but to answer what could be the call I’ve been expecting my lawyer to make about his last ditch efforts to save me from the jaws of a mad judicial dog bent on devouring every ex-Reichsminister in sight—[Phone rings.]—even a menial one like me; all of whose alleged atrocities were strictly the bloodless type every policestate functionary routinely commits in the name of cultural conformity. [Phone rings.] Yes, yes, I know—it might also be just a soundeffect calculated to shatter the weakest link in this chain of our selfimposed enshacklement. [Phone rings.] Nevertheless, I intend to take what may very well be our casting director’s bait. If it’s a trap, so be it! This absurd paralysis can’t be sustained ad infinitum anyway. [Phone rings.] If it wasn’t the ringing of this phone it would have been a false fire alarm, a fake air raid, or the staging of an audience riot that eventually forced us to violate the oath we swore against acting. [Phone rings.] Christ knows I’m doing you all a favor by being the first to capitulate! But enough of these apologies! [Phone rings.] The time has come for each of us to stage manage his own fate! [He picks up public phone receiver.] Von Karajan here—Of course I’m all ears!—The spineless scum refused to take jurisdiction?—So much for the supremacy of the German Supreme Court! What do you mean, "Don’t panic?" I can feel the hangman’s rope around my neck! Of course I agree; if I could win this audition my legal problems would be clearly perceived as a Hollywood plot to sabotage Europe’s postwar bid for industrial parity —but that’s precisely why my chances of doing just that are less than nil! UTG is understandably reluctant to supply its already well-armed critics with the additional ammunition of having Blockbuster’s top banana played by an actor who is himself a certified war criminal! Yes, yes—standing in my shoes a bona fide Fuehrer would argue: That once one has the will to triumph, his actual victory is unstoppable; That it is always darkest before the dawn; That every underdog has his day, and in my particular case; That there is the cold comfort of not having any further illusions concerning the efficacy of an overpriced lawyer’s legal skills!

He hangs public phone up violently and, speaking into house phone says:

What’s that? You want to know what effect, if any, my failed appellate plans have on your fur coat prospects? Only this, sweetheart—hell itself would have to freeze over before I gave a damn about the sartorial requirements of anyone who would ask such a heartless question! As for my call to the casting director, you can give her this message: If indeed he is at the top of her hit list, Herr von Karajan prefers the screwing of his career to be selfinflicted; hence any plans she might have had for buggering him in the bargain should be reconsidered in the new light of his unalterable decision to exit the stage in a blaze of eschatological glory that will make Hitler’s Fuehrerbunker swan song look like the insurance scam suicide scenario of an overthehill traveling salesman!

He hangs housephone up violently. Countdown starts on scoreboard.

L.R.: [Via public address system.] Good evening, auditionists. This is the voice of your Casting Director. As you can see, we are counting down to the magical moment you have been waiting for so eagerly. But before this audition to end all auditions begins officially, I call your attention to the most important of those rules especially formulated to govern the conduct of such a monumental event—involving, as it does, so many leading contenders for the title of World’s Heavyweight Acting Champion!

     First: Once the zero-hour clock changes its readout from minus to plus, it will not stop ticking until every contestant has had an equal opportunity to demonstrate that he alone can translate UTG’s blockbusting idea into a boxoffice reality. And, since you have each been allocated 180 seconds in which to achieve that seemingly impossible task—it is axiomatic that a final decision cannot be made before zero hour plus 39 minutes. Then—and only then—will it be announced which of you walks away from this casting call with his or her name certain to be etched on that one Oscar all actors would give their left testicle or ovary to win. Make no mistake about it: my emphasis on the word "equal" wasn’t accidental! Contrary to past practices, those numbers you are wearing have been assigned on a scientifically randomized basis. Consequently, tonight there will be no "Ice Breaker," no "Heir Apparent," no "Dark Horse," and no "Odd Man Out." In a race where the continued dominance of Germany’s role in the shaping of Western Civilization is at stake, there can be no sentimental favorites. And, while your theatrical track records did play an important part in my preliminary computations; now that this field has been narrowed to the necessary baker’s dozen, all of the old bets are off. I need only remind you that not since Lincoln’s log cabin debut, has a future superstatesman entered this world more humbly than Adolf Hitler! Moreover, as for that cow shed scenario in which the infant Jesus enters the global stage to be crowned King of the Jews by a trio of celestial powerbrokers; Germany’s postwar messiah will be middleaged before he is deified; and even then he must unilaterally engineer his own epiphany!

     Second. Concerning the Test Scene you will all be improvising: When that soundstage door opens, don’t expect to be greeted by those cheering throngs who will one day fill the Berlin Sportpalast or the Rallyground at Nuremburg! Oh, no! Instead you will find yourselves in the backroom of a prototypical Bavarian Beer Hall, face-to-face with a handful of social misfits comprising the total membership of The German Worker’s Party—that pathetic excuse for a revolutionary movement Adolf Hitler must somehow mastermind into becoming the most powerful political machine the world has ever seen—and believe me my friends, shaping such a colossus from the kind of common clay I am providing you with tonight will not be easy! The composition of your audience has been selected to represent the very saltiest elements in Germany’s racial bloodstream; such that only the most efficacious of rabblerousers will be able to persuade them they are indeed the stuff from which myths can be made! But why waste words when the final 10 seconds of this trial countdown have been planned as a preview of what awaits you on the other side of that sliding door?

Soundstage door slides open after appropriate warning signals. From within we hear the jeering, catcalls, whistles and heckling of small audience waiting for Hitler to make his oratorical debut. The door slides shut.

L.R.: And now darlings, having done my Casting Director’s damnedest to put your fate in the hands of these toughest customers any entertainer has ever had to please—let me wish that each of you might hobble out of here tonight on that pair of proverbial crutches auditioning actors always wish one another—while secretly hoping their rivals will leave them with anything but an act that proves impossible to follow!

Countdown clock changes readout from minus to plus. Soundeffects indicate audition has begun officially. The Scoreboard is activated and begins displaying a variety of relevant and irrelevant data.

Scene 6

This and all other scenes involving JEWISH IMPRESARIO and BLONDE BOMBSHELL are played behind the brick wall—which continues to crumble and provide an everwidening proscenium. BLONDE BOMBSHELL ENTERS left wearing one-piece swimsuit. JEWISH IMPRESARIO ENTERS right in long black coat adorned with yellow Star of David. They meet at center of hole-in- wall.

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: Excuse me, sir, but could you direct me to the Miss Third Reich of 1933 Bathing Beauty Contest?

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: Certainly. As a matter of fact it just occurred to me I should be getting over there myself to help with the judging.

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: Imagine my bumping into one of the judges!

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: My card.

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: [Reading business card.] "Max Meier. Talent Scout.!"

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: This way, my dear—I know a little shortcut that will not only diminish the danger you risk by walking around half naked like this in public, but will allow us a little time to privately explore the possibility of our developing a professional relationship. [EXIT with BLONDE BOMBSHELL left.]

Scene 7

Countdown for AUDITIONIST 2 approaches 30 second mark.

HELMSLEY: [Tugging at LORRE’s arm.] Hate to be a spoilsport, old chum—but your time for fun and games has nearly expired.

LORRE: [Reacting violently.] Get away from me! I can’t be bothered with that now, you idiot! The Female Casting Director has just returned with her camera crew to shoot what could be the comingtrue of the dream we both share of documenting that magical moment when the barest of facts becomes stranger than any of the fictions ever imagined by all of the world’s script writers!

HELMSLEY: [Tugging and pulling more earnestly.] The show must go on!

LORRE: The show in there is the only one I give a damn about now!

CELINE: [With HELMSLEY he drags LORRE from observation apparatus.] Don’t be a fool! [Slaps LORRE’s face while HELMSLEY pins his arms.] Have you forgotten why you’re here?! [Slap.] This is your last chance to escape being perpetually typecast as the pervert you really are!

Having been subdued, LORRE weeps convulsively.

HELMSLEY: That’s more like it. Now, off with this wretched trenchcoat. We don’t want your Fuehrer looking like a dirty old man, do we?

LORRE’s trenchcoat comes off. Under it he wears a plain blue suit from the fly of whose trousers a huge erect phallus protrudes.

CELINE: What’s this! My God man, you can’t go on in this condition—[Tries to stuff phallus back into Lorre’s trousers but it breaks off in his hand.]

MASTROIANNI: Jesus, Joseph and Mary—what have you done!!!!

CELINE: Nothing that can’t be fixed! [Tosses phallus to MASTROIANNI.] There, you see? It’s only one of those inflatable devices used by underendowed exhibitionist!

MASTROIANNI: [Inflating and deflating ‘phallus’ as CELINE tries to zip LORRE’s fly.] Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!

CELINE: Shit! I’m afraid this bloody zipper is kaput.

LORRE’s shirttail has become caught in zipper. CELINE leads him downstage to proscenium ‘mirror.’

CELINE: You’ll have to keep your hands down here to cover your crotch; like this—yes, yes, that’s not too bad. In fact, I like the way it fits in with what should be Hitler’s unorthodox use of body language to convey messages words alone can’t express. [Fussing with LORRE’s hair and costume.] While you rant and rave about the esoteric concept of a fascist superstate, your audience can speculate on the more down-to-earth question of what mysteries hang suspended between the legs of all great men!

10 second warning alarm sounds.

CELINE: Alright, ex-corporal Hitler! The bugle call to battle is sounding again! Shoulders back! Chest out! Head held high! You’re looking good! Now, left face and—Forward March! Left. Right. Left. Right. [EXIT LORRE via soundstage door marching.]

THATCHER: If Number One’s histrionic snit-throwing didn’t break the adjudicatory ice, Number Two’s portrait of a sexual psychopath posing like "September Morn" should prove to be a shattering experience!

WERNER: [Looking through Lorre’s peephole.] Just as I thought—it was all a mirage!

MASTROIANNI: So that wall separates us from nothing more exciting than an empty room!

WERNER: Oh it’s full of actresses, alright; displaying themselves in that pre-audition state of nature one expects to see through a hole like this. But beyond that not unsurprising fact, their behavior is no more "enthralling" than our own. I tell you, the more one sees of backstage life in the raw, the less likely one is to minimize the monumental achievement of authoring a play like Private Parts.

Scene 8

As in their previous scene JEWISH IMPRESARIO and BLONDE BOMBSHELL ENTER from opposite directions to meet at Hole-in-Wall. This time she wears streetwalker’s costume and he tries to avoid being recognized by hiding under broadbrimmed hat.

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: [Blocking JEWISH IMPRESARIO’s path.] What’s the matter Jew boy; afraid I might be a Gestapo agent in drag? [Opens dress to display fullfrontal view of the ‘merchandise’ she is offering.] Don’t worry—this piece of Aryan ass is 100% kosher! [JEWISH IMPRESARIO tries to sidestep her but she blocks his path.] Max? Is it you hiding under that sombrero? [Having knocked his hat off she pummels him with fists.] Filthy, rotten motherfucking bastard! What happened to all of those promises of superstardom you made to me during that detour we took the other day to what should have been my rendezvous with destiny!!!!

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: [Seizing her fists.] Stop it, you silly bitch! I didn’t recognize you all tarted up like this. It’s no accident you found me. I’ve been combing the red light districts of Berlin all night looking for you!

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: Louse! Swine! Bullshitter!

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: [Taking document from coat.] It’s true liebchen! I’ve signed you up for a part in a feature film!

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: [Having examined document.] Oh, Max—this is wonderful! Can you ever forgive me for doubting your motives?

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: When you read the fine print you might change your mind. This flick could turn out to be a little on the blue side.

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: [Crying.] Can any film be bluer than the life I’m already leading? Although, thank God, you came along before I was forced to turn my first trick.

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: [Offering handkerchief.] Dry those tears, liebchen. Save them for the camera. Now, show me a smile—that’s it. Enjoy! Having been plucked from the very gutter of your despair, the stage is now set for that classic success story of how a down-and-out starlet actually attains the stellar status a talentscout-on-the-make says she can while enticing her onto his casting couch!

EXIT BLONDE BOMBSHELL and JEWISH IMPRESARIO hugging each other.

Scene 9

ENTER CHAPLIN via Hole-in-Wall wearing topcoat, hat & dark glasses and sans familiar mustache. He carries a cane or walking stick.

SCHROEDER: [Grabbing CHAPLIN by scruff of his neck.] Not so fast shorty—can’t you read? Members of the general public aren’t allowed in here!

Her attempt to eject CHAPLIN is thwarted by tableturning tactics made famous by The Little Tramp.

CHAPLIN: [Straddling vanquished enemy, prodding her with cane.] Don’t you recognize me, fatso?

SCHROEDER: No. Why should I?

CHAPLIN: Why indeed! It seems like centuries since you last manhandled me! And who knows how many 97-pound weaklings you have bullied in all that time? Well, if that little exercise in tableturning didn’t refresh your memory, maybe this will—[Removing coat, hat and affixing mustache, he struts about stage in typical Chaplinesque style costumed as ‘The Great Dictator.’]

HELMSLEY: So that telegram wasn’t the product of its deliverer’s imagination! You have actually returned from those California goldfields.

CHAPLIN: [Having taken his medallion from its peg.] And not a moment too soon it seems! [Aware of countdown, he approaches proscenium ‘mirror’ to check his appearance.]

CELINE: [Approaching CHAPLIN from rear, grabs him by shoulder, spins him around, strikes boxing pose—taunting with mock jabs, feints, fancy footwork, etc.] Let’s see how good you are in a fight with someone who is neither too large a target, like our fat friend on the floor, nor one of those professional fallguys you flatten with such regularity in films! Believe it or not Jewboy, I’m overjoyed to see you in the flesh after all these years of boxing the shadow of that "Semitic Superman" you so shrewdly disguise in tramp’s clothing—

With display of razzledazzle fisticuffs climaxing with a pantskick, CHAPLIN decks CELINE before he throws his first punch.

CHAPLIN: I believe you! As someone once said: "Time wounds all heels."

SCHROEDER: [Rising, dusting herself off.] And there is no fool like the one who returns to the scene of his acting crimes!

CHAPLIN: [Looking at himself in proscenium ‘mirror.’] Oh, I think history has proven Europe was all wet in writing off my potential for stardom.

CELINE: [Also rising and dusting himself.] But stardom as what—the first of those massmedia celebrities to be fleetingly idolized by the matinee set? Nothing you have "accomplished" since being expelled from the Old World School of Stagecraft has altered my first impression of your congenital inability to take the art of acting seriously.

CHAPLIN: Isn’t that what the Viennese artistic establishment said when they rejected Hitler’s application to study painting?

HELMSLEY: Yes; but surely the animus for Hitler’s powerlust can’t be explained by his failure to succeed as a painter.

CELINE: As an aspiring artist, "The Adolf Hitler Story" might best be told in slapstick—but as a power politician there isn’t a funny bone in his body!

Other AUDITIONISTS show support for this statement ‘Yes.’ ‘Absolutely.’ ‘Here, here!’ etc.

CHAPLIN: You all agree, then: the Great Dictator tale should be a sad one?

WERNER: Good grief; if Adolf Hitler’s rise and fall isn’t the most Grecian of tragedies I’d like to know what is!

CHAPLIN: [Testing poses, gestures.] It seems to me Sophocles might have scripted something equally "catastrophic" from your selfrighteous choralizing; although, in my professional opinion, this scenario is more like those Mack Sennett ends with one of his patented piethrowing contests. And wasn’t it Euripides—the greatest of all those Greek tearjerkers—who privately conceded nothing epitomized the human tragedy better than the asskicking Aristophanes habitually administered to all of his characters? But don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to persuade you my plan for playing the Fuehrer as the funniest of funnymen should meet with your approval. On the contrary! This unanimity of contempt has the happy effect of making the odds on my winning not 12-to-1 but even money. As the only comedian in this contest my victory should be a sure thing—if indeed Herr Hitler is the hind most part of that Music Hall horse I’m betting him to be.

HELMSLEY: I hope you aren’t wagering too much on such a hopeless proposition.

CHAPLIN: Haven’t you heard? It was frontpage news in the Stateside trades. The headlines read: "Chaplin Backs Gab About Great Dictator Flick With Megabuck Buyout of Kraut Studio." [Turning toward ensemble.] What’s happened to all those smiling faces? You disappoint me! I was sure you would appreciate the humor of my owning the organization I am auditioning for! Well, perhaps you will find this parting thought more amusing:. Leaving aside my skills for corporate wheeling and dealing, could anything be more Hitlerian than this comedic blitzkrieg I’m about to unleash on that pack of wolves out there? [Speaking in Hitlerian style he directs following speech at soundstage door.] Patience my maneating friends! Before you know it your sides will be splitting from the bellyful of laughs I’ve cooked up in my bid to teach every German—Jew and Gentile alike—the true meaning of that most quintessential of Yiddish words—"chutzpah!" [Crossing threshold created by opening of soundstage door.] For starters I’m changing my name to Adenoid Hynkel! [Laughter is heard coming from within soundstage.] As for this swastika business—forget it! From now on you Germans will salute the Double Cross! [More laughter from within as soundstage door slides shut.]

Scene 10

A bus or tram stop. BLONDE BOMBSHELL dressed in traditional peasant costume, waits with luggage. JEWISH IMPRESARIO ENTERS with newspaper.

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: So, you’re serious about bailing out of the big city?

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: After the way that picture you debuted me in bombed, what else is there to do?

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: Dracula’s Sex Life was a disaster alright, but some of the critics thought your performance, while brief, was not entirely unwatchable.

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: How can they say that when all I did was lie in bed wearing a seethrough nightie while some bloodsucking creep sank his fangs into my neck? [She sports a bandaid on her neck.] The author didn’t write me a single word of dialogue—not even a scream!

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: In this business even the faintest praise is precious; but who am I to judge? They say that sooner or later every starlet yearns for the domestic bliss you will doubtless find with some princely pig farmer or chicken baron back in that rustic paradise you left for the bright lights of Berlin.

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: Goddammit Max, you win again. But I’m warning you: no more fuck flicks for me. From now on I do my acting from neck up or not at all.

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: Whatever you say pussycat! [Reaching for luggage.] Should we head for your place or mine?

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: That’s another thing. From here on out our relationship is strictly contractual. Your 10% will no longer be taken out in trade but paid cash on the barrelhead.

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: It’s 20%—and why has giving Max Meier an occasional cheap feel suddenly become such a bad bargain?

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: It’s nothing personal Max. Nowadays we German girls have to be very particular about the kind of men we even seem to be shacking up with.

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: So you’re finally pulling racial rank on me, is that it blondie? Well, you have nothing to worry about on that score. This is one second class citizen who is not so stupid as to help send his meal ticket on a one-way trip to Buchenwald! [Picking up luggage.] It’s your place then; unless there is also a law against subhumans lending members of your Master Race a helping hand with their luggage?

EXIT BLONDE BOMBSHELL and JEWISH IMPRESARIO laughing.

Scene 11

Having emerged from toilet, BRECHT comes downstage for look at himself in ‘mirror’ dressed as Chicago gangster of roaring 20’s vintage.

WERNER: If that clown Chaplin really owns the company is there any point in proceeding with this charade?

CELINE: Money may talk, but when it does so with a Jewish accent sometimes the message gets lost.

SCHROEDER: Especially when it’s translated into German!

HELMSLEY: Besides, unless Blockbuster can be massmerchandised on the basis of its believability, UTG’s stock won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on. And, while Hitler might be many things, a Yiddish vaudevillian isn’t one of them.

SCHROEDER: Even her harshest critics have always treated Germany’s frequently fiascoed flings at empire building as anything but amusing.

BURTON: No. For all his fame and fortune our funny friend hasn’t a hope in hell of making this chapter of human history into a laughing matter. Tragedy is the name of the game we are playing—and its winner will be the one who portrays Herr Hitler to the deepest depths of his massmurdering hilt.

WERNER: [To BRECHT.] Which makes me wonder what you might be up to in such a sinisterlooking outfit?

HELMSLEY: Not planning to eliminate the competition with a Chicagostyle massacre are you?

BRECHT: Nuttin’ could be foider from my mind, boys. As yuse can see, I ain’t packin’ dat kinda artillery. [Opens jacket.] Never da less, yer consoynes about bein’ rubbed out is gratifyin.’ In soycumstances like dis da tret of vilence is more efficacious den da genuine article. Havin to poisonally blast yer way to da top of da heap is da surest sign a putative king pin lacks da organizational wherewitall to run his racket on a businesslike basis. Take dat guy MacBett for instance. By knockin’ Duncan off wit his own mitts he showed da whole woild his attempted putsch on Scotland’s trone was nuttin’ more den a oneman show. No. An autentic autoritarian is never short of muscle men when dat kind of doity woik needs doin’. Hunerts, tousands—even millions—might be moidered on da way ta makin’ da Joyman erster Hitler’s poil but da Fuehrer’s hands must remain spotless—not just his fingernails; but his entire aura so radiant wit superhuman cleanliness dat even his shit is taught ta be stinkless!

MASTROIANNI: What a sensational idea! Adolf Hitler as an Aryan Al Capone; with all of Europe’s history seen as a squalid jurisdictional dispute between rival gangs of racketeering desperadoes disguised as nation-states!

HELMSLEY: While undeniably there is a criminal motif running through the National Socialist movement, can Hitler’s complex character be reduced to that of a common crook—a mobster whose entire political credo consists of advocating lawlessness as a way of life?

MASTROIANNI: Why not? If there is a nutshell into which Hitler fits, it could very well be the singularity of his simplemindedness. After all, when the witches’ brew of Nazi ideology is boiled down, what’s left in the bottom of its black pot but that most basic of all political postulates: might and might alone makes right?

HELMSLEY: Which is hardly the kind of ironfisted message Germany’s longsuffering electorate wants to hear from the lips of its Austrian messiah!

BRECHT: [Finished manicuring himself and adjusting costume.] The message doesn’t matter. It’s not what Hitler says, but the way he says it that will separate him from the run-of-the-mill rabblerouser; a fact which, I believe, explains why UTG is putting all its casting eggs for Project Blockbuster in the basket of his oratorical debut. What they want from one of us is not another Gettysburg Address but a triumph of style over substance; a speech so full of fury the very sound of it becomes its significance.

WERNER: That may enlighten us as to what they want, but doesn’t it do so by raising the truly inscrutable problem of just how one goes about giving it to them?

BRECHT: Not necessarily. To begin with we must answer the basic question of what acting itself is all about—

CELINE: Of course!

SCHROEDER: Brilliant!

MASTROIANNI: Why didn’t I think of that?

WERNER: I had an opinion on that subject myself; but for the moment it escapes me!

BRECHT: It’s not uncommon to lose sight of something that should be as familiar as the nose on one’s face. In our case it is the plain fact that, like it or not, the actor’s only reason for being is to say what a playwright wants his audience to hear. For example: as Hamlets haven’t we all agonized less over the Oedipal implications of failing to avenge a father murdered by his wife’s lover, and more about delivering the definitive reading of "To be or not to be, that is the question?"

CELINE: Well, that certainly wasn’t it!

THATCHER: In modern times like these a more ambiguous rendition is required. To be or not to be, that is the question.

SCHROEDER: No, no, no. The classic rendition is still the best. To be or not to be, that is the question.

BURTON: On the English stage the rule for handling lines of such high voltage is to do so with the utmost delicacy—thus: To be or not to be, that is the question.

WERNER: Except that Hamlet isn’t English, is he? And in Scandinavia that line is always a showstopper. To be or not to be, that is the question!

HELMSLEY: Yes, but since Danish drama has always been more Teutonic than Scandinavian the final solution of Hamlet’s soliloquy problem is to sturm und drang it to death. To be or not to be, that is the question!

CELINE: Aren’t you all forgetting that: since Hamlet thinks like a Frenchman his lines must be delivered as if they were an existentialist manifesto! Hence: To be or not to be, that is the question.

MASTROIANNI: In Italy, of course, the issue is complicated by certain ecclesiastical considerations which produce the following kind of circumspect interpretation: To be or not to be, that is the question.

BRECHT: All of which only proves that no matter how many ways we say those lines it is Shakespeare’s meaning that remains fundamentally undisturbed. To wit: when all other choices seem only to exacerbate the problematical nature of our existence, suicide is always a viable option. Even when, as our Italian friend has so adroitly demonstrated, an actor’s intent is deliberately subversive, the author’s ideology still finds its way into the ears of his audience. And why is that invariably the case? Because it is the written word from which every character derives his raison d’etre. What would the world be without playwrights but a stage full of inarticulate idiots trying simultaneously to tell their meaningless tales? Ipso facto, all of our efforts to resist an author’s intellectual tyranny become an exercise in selfdestruction; unless some strategy can be found whereby one’s character survives the liquidation of its literary genesis.

WERNER: Are you saying you’ve actually discovered such a strategy?

BRECHT: More accurately, it discovered me! It happened when (God knows why) I was rereading the doctoral thesis Goebbels wrote on bookburning as the only valid argument against the writing of books. It suddenly dawned on me the same reasoning might be applied to the writing of plays—

HELMSLEY: You’re not seriously proposing we incinerate a repertoire that keeps us chronically underemployed as it is?

BRECHT: No. What I’m suggesting is only this: If the words a playwright puts into his character’s mouth are somehow made to seem less important than the manner in which the actor says them, who ends up in the dramaturgical driver’s seat?

WERNER: I’m not sure I follow you.

SCHROEDER: Join the club!

BRECHT: Alright, ask yourselves this: has any actor ever recited the Funeral Oration from Julius Caesar the way he truly believes an opportunistic pragmatist like Marc Antony would actually do it?

THATCHER: Now you’re making sense. I’ve always felt that scene was meant more to be Antony’s inaugural address as Caesar’s selfanointed successor than as a critique on Brutus’ own dictatorial desires.

HELMSLEY: Not only should Marc Antony climax his despotic aspirations with a virtuoso display of emotional pyrotechnics—his speech should end a play that has nowhere to go thereafter but down the slipperyest kind of theatrical slope!

BRECHT: And so it would, except for Shakespeare’s wellfounded fear that Antony’s plans for abbreviating his 5-Act potboiler would result in a boxoffice disaster. After all, like every audience, the Elizabethans felt cheated if their theater tickets didn’t buy them a whole evening’s worth of entertainment. So, for the actor what should be the speech to end all other speeches is, for its author, only a prologue for the scenes that follow. Accordingly, while every wouldbe Marc Antony struggles to subvert the language making him more famous as Shakespeare’s mouthpiece than the man he really was, so too, we now find ourselves in the dilemma of creating a character who avoids every stereotypical expectation arising from the very nature of his monumental superhumanity! All of which explains why the key to Hitler’s oratorical mystique is itself locked within the paradox of Marc Antony’s congenital antiShakespearianism.

WERNER: I still don’t see how any of this helps us to go out there and do what you are saying has never been done before?

HELMSLEY: Perhaps if you could put this theory you’re preaching into more practical terms?

BRECHT: Why not! Since the time has nearly come for me to put up or shut up, maybe you will find my warmup technique instructive. It begins conventionally enough with: "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him." After which one escalates the emotional intensity as follows: "Friends, Romans, countrymen—lend me your ears! I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him!"

This line is repeated several times until its meaning is totally subordinated to Hitler’s hysterical style of oratory—as in Brecht’s ‘Arturo Ui.’ Then, somewhat exhausted:

What one strives to recapture is that long lost language in which our ancestors expressed their primitive thoughts not with words but by the very sounds those ideas evoked in their presymbolic mentality—

He delivers another reading of Antony’s speech ala the historical Hitler at his most extravagant oratorical self.

So must Antony translate Shakespeare’s arcane rhetoric into a single cry of pain, grief, hate, outrage and apostasy!

Countdown ends. Soundstage door opens.

It’s coming, it’s coming! I’m almost there! My timing couldn’t be more perfect! [EXIT via soundstage door.]

Scene 12

Night. JEWISH IMPRESARIO and BLONDE BOMBSHELL standing under streetlamp. Facade of apartment house is visible.

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: I don’t like the looks of this. What kind of casting director does business at this time of night in his apartment? And who the hell is this "von Pichelsdorf" anyway? Thirty years in showbiz and I’ve never heard his name mentioned!

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: Why should that matter? You said this script he sent me is pure dynamite—

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: That’s what bothers me! It’s too good to be true that such a valuable property is just left on your doorstep like someone’s illegitimate offspring.

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: [Checking watch.] You’re only upset because I’m getting this chance to star in a major motion picture on my own. But you have nothing to worry about, darling. Our partnership is unbreakable. And, as far as anything underhanded "von Pichelsdorf" might have in mind—[Taking pistol from purse.]—this will keep our "negotiations" on the up and up.

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: So, I’m not the only one who smells a rat in this monkey business! That pistol only makes me more certain I can’t permit you to walk into a trap like this on your own.

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: [Pointing pistol at him.] Max, this is one time I’m asking you to trust me.

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: Have I got a choice?

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: Not if you want to go on breathing.

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: If you have the balls to shoot me I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to handle this von Pichelsdorf character.

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: [Putting pistol away, giving him a hug and kiss on the cheek.] Thank you, darling, I needed that little vote of confidence! Now I really must rush. [Runs off left.]

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: [Moving toward EXIT right, turns and calls:] Remember, I’ll be sitting in this allnite cafe if you need me!

Scene 13

HELMSLEY: Poor old Bert. He has a point, but as always he can’t resist insulting the intelligence of his audience when making it.

CELINE: Besides which—what is politics if not the ultimate expression of organized criminality?

BURTON rises from dressing table but, after fit of coughing, collapses to floor. He is helped or carried to sofa (which PERON vacates) by MASTROIANNI, HELMSLEY and THATCHER. His attempts to rerise are prevented by MASTROIANNI.

MASTROIANNI: Be sensible, Dickie—

THATCHER: Why ruin what little remains of your health for the one role you are ethnically incapable of playing?

BURTON: If only that were true! But it isn’t I who want to play Hitler so much as Hitler screaming to be played by an Englishman!

SCHROEDER: [Gesturing that Burton is deranged.] What do they say about actors who claim to be on speaking terms with their characters?

MASTROIANNI: It’s true my friend. I’m afraid those inner voices you’ve been hearing belong in the pink elephant category. And, while no repertoire could be more eclectic than yours has been, this time you’ve bitten off more than any of England’s most legendary leading men has ever chewed. A French Reichschancellor, perhaps; an Italian Kaiser, maybe; but an English Fuehrer? Never!

HELMSLEY: Ideas like yours about the socalled love-hate leitmotif underscoring all Anglo-German affairs are only found at the bottom of a London gin bottle!

BURTON: [Rising.] Drunk or sober, you tell me: Where does all this talk of "Deutschland uber alles" come from—if not that neurosis Germany has suffered from ever since the British Empire became a fact of its geopolitical ghettoization?

SCHROEDER: There you go again, Richard, talking through that hallucinatory high hat of yours! History will record the fact it was we Germans who first perfected the systematic squeezing of whole populations into a space so concentrated, for all practical purposes, it becomes a racial vanishing point!

BURTON: And there you go again, confusing cause with effect! If German Jewry prospered by adopting the lifestyle of its persecutors, is it any more paradoxical for an imperialminded Hitler to emulate the winning ways of his fatherland’s archest enemy?

HELMSLEY: Maybe not. But by labelling the Third Reich as only a pale imitation of Britain’s brand of global land grabbing, you flatter yourself. In 10 short years Hitler will do what the English have only dreamt of doing for three centuries. The swastika will be flying over every European capital; while from Suez to Singapore there won’t be a single Union Jack fluttering in what was once the nonstop daylight of Albion’s planetary domain!

BURTON: From an Englishspeaking point of view it is hardly significant whether the post war world spins under a sunlit Union Jack or a starspangled banner—

SCHROEDER: Even if that means letting the bolsheviks raise their hammer and sickle over the earth’s perpetually darkened other half?

BURTON: Yes! But does it really matter to us, here and now, who salutes what when Hitler is no longer a factor in the ideological flagpole game?

MASTROIANNI: Still, Dickie; before we can salute this theory of yours, it needs, I fear, a bit more explaining.

BURTON: What I’m saying is simply this: not only does my apparently upsidedown analysis demystify Hitler’s antiSemitic obsession; more significantly for the actor who would impersonate him, it identifies the crucial problem of devising an oratorical style that is utterly bereft of Churchillian eloquence—without losing any of Churchill’s own rabblerousing power. Concerning the apparent incongruity of my playing this manifestly most unEnglish of all roles—since your Herr Hitler is anything but the archetypical Aryan himself, it is you Germans who are genetically incapable of appreciating the transracial nature of his character. As for my failing health: in addition to its physically therapeutic benefits, an exercise like this concentrates the mind on a problem over which one has at least some hope of mastery. And if this is to be my swan song, what better setting could I wish for than this most operatic of all singing contests? But, even more to the point, being diagnosed as a terminal case has sharpened my sense of the health hazards associated with Hitler’s all-too resistible rise from rags to riches. To me it is not inconceivable that, like Lincoln, the etiology of Hitler’s hypochondria can be traced to the suicidal implications of his messiah syndrome. And, if that’s the case, might it not have occurred to UTG that only an actor with one of his feet actually in the grave can motivate himself to make history with the kind of haste for which Hitler will become famous?

HELMSLEY: There’s nothing special about dying. We are all in a losing race with time.

BURTON: In the long run that’s true—one’s death cannot be outdistanced. But, when the course is sufficiently shortened, an occasional superman reaches the finish line a splitsecond before his mortality catches him up. I’m thinking of world class sprinters like van Gogh, Schubert, Buchner, Byron, Mozart and of course, that swiftest of all speedmerchants—the 100-meter man who finished up nailed to a cross.

WERNER: Basically then, you see Hitler as a man who is in one hell of a hurry?

BURTON: I’ve said all that needs saying. And now, with your cooperation, I will use what little time remains to gather myself for what I hope will not be Richard Burton’s final appearance.

Holding his temples BURTON meditates. When soundstage door opens he turns left and strides confidently to EXIT with head erect and shoulders thrown back.

Scene 14

JEWISH IMPRESARIO dozes at cafe table right. BLONDE BOMBSHELL ENTERS left, quickly crossing to wake him.

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: Wake up Max! I’m back safe and sound! And what’s more important, I got the part!

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: Safe and sound, my ass! The sun is up for Christ’s sake! You slept with him, didn’t you!

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: No.

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: Liar! You’re not going to tell me you spent the entire night reading for him are you?

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: No.

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: Then you did get into his bed!

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: We got into bed alright, but he turned out to be a she. So my virginity is still alive and well.

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: And so it should be! No wonder I’ve had such a hard time scoring with you! Of all the stage-struck nymphos in this town eager to spread their legs for any agent with a fraction of my star-making voltage, here am I trying to plug my AC equipment into your DC socket!

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: [Touching his cheek.] Poor Max! I had no idea an act of animal sex could mean so much to a man of your platonic temperament. But if you really want me, I might just be willing to—

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: Listen, lady; if I really wanted to, why wouldn’t I rape you on the spot?

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: Are you asking me or telling me, Max?

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: Telling you, God damn it! [Rises.]

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: You’ll have to catch me first! [EXIT running and laughing.]

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: [Starts after her, then stops.] What the hell are you doing Meier? Use your head! You’re a Jewish intellectual, not an Arabian stallion! She’s a prize piece of ass alright, but is any lay worth getting a coronary over? No, Meier—take your time—[Returns to table, retrieves hat and stick.] As the old bull said to the young bull who suggested charging a distant herd of heifers in the hope of servicing a few stragglers: "Why start a stampede when by walking our way there we can not only take them by surprise, but conserve enough energy in the bargain to fuck them all!" [So saying, he EXITS walking.]

Scene 15

During the following, colored smoke is seen coming from Fassbinder’s cubicle.

SCHROEDER: An English Hitler indeed! Only a German Churchill would be more miraculous!

CELINE: The real miracle will be if he finishes that act of his alive!

WERNER: He’s definitely on his last legs.

HELMSLEY: A walking corpse if there ever was one.

SCHROEDER: What’s that odor?

HELMSLEY: Good God, we’re being gassed!!!!

MASTROIANNI: Don’t panic—it smells like nothing more lethal than cannabis!

WERNER: [Banging on cubicle door.] What’s going on in there? This is no time for getting high! It’s your turn to go on! [Billowing smoke drives him away.]

SCHROEDER: Can it be we are witnessing the spontaneous combustion of an actor with too much talent for his own good?

Smoke has obscured Hole-in-Wall. Auditionists are choking.

WERNER: This is no joke!

A funky version of ‘Horst Wessel’ song is played as fanfare. FASSBINDER ENTERS from cubicle, comes through smoke and strikes triumphant pose. He wears a high-collared floorlength cape of platinum fabric embroidered with golden swastikas, and the initials ‘A.H.’ His hair is done in authentic Hitlerian style but it too is platinumized (as is his mustache). As smoke clears four members of ROCK BAND are seen at Hole-in-Wall.

SAXOPHONIST: [Using handheld mike.] Members of the German Worker’s Party! In conjunction with Universal TransGlobal Productions, the management of the Sternecker Beerhall proudly presents the world premiere performance of that soon-to-be star of stage, screen and radio—the blonde bombshell to end all blonde bombshells, the one, the only, the absolutely mindblowing phenom known as—

FASSBINDER flings his arms upward, opening cape to reveal nude torso of a woman whose skin has been platinumized, her genitalia hidden by small, fringed Nazi flag. Other AUDITIONISTS greet this astounding sight with a unanimous ‘AH!’

SAXOPHONIST: You said it cats—this lady’s name is indeed A.H.!!!!

As SAXOPHONIST plays‘ Harlem Nocturne’ FASSBINDER vamps to music, using cape as tool of stripteaser’s trade. He approaches SCHROEDER, thrusting his bared ‘breasts’ at her.

FASSBINDER: [Speaking with FEMALE VOICE.] What’s the matter, liebchen, cat got your tongue? [Speaking with MALE VOICE.] Or is it just a paralyzing attack of professional jealousy? [FEMALE VOICE.] Go ahead, give ’em a good squeeze—[Putting hand to SCHROEDER’s groin.] —seems as if I’ve aroused more than just your curiosity, darling! [As SCHROEDER grabs for ‘breasts,’ FASSBINDER dances adroitly to MASTROIANNI.] What about you handsome—can I tempt you with a hip? A thigh? A kiss? [MALE VOICE.] Don’t tell me you’ve never tried it mustache-to-mustache?

MASTROIANNI is embraced by FASSBINDER and, despite struggling, receives a passionate kiss from him—after which FASSBINDER concentrates on CELINE.

FASSBINDER:[FEMALE VOICE:] Now it’s your turn "Frenchie." Surely you won’t flinch from the magic of a moment so rare! [He encloses CELINE within cape and throws head back to express ‘orgasmic’ ecstasy as CELINE labors desperately to escape from inside cape.] That’s quite enough of that you eager little Gallic beaver!

CELINE is sent sprawling by kick or shove from FASSBINDER. PERON is next victim. She has remained seated at coffeetable. FASSBINDER drapes himself on sofa, resting his head on PERON’s lap. Cape falls away revealing expanse of ‘female’ flesh as FASSBINDER caresses PERON’s face.

FASSBINDER: The strong, silent type eh? What do I see in your eyes? Desire? Admiration? But no surprise, no shock! [MALE VOICE.] Just the lean and hungry look of a comer. [Pats PERON’s cheek.] More interested in my theatrical technique than exploiting this chance for a cheap thrill, is that it? [Slaps PERON’s cheek, and rises. FEMALE VOICE.] Maybe we can discuss my "trade secrets" after the show. [Music ends. MALE VOICE.] Well boys, what do you think of my Futuristic Fuehrer?

CELINE: You’re out of your mind.

HELMSLEY: You can’t get away with this—

THATCHER: It’s unethical—

SCHROEDER: Immoral—

WERNER: And, if I remember rightly, quite illegal. [Thumbing through copy of text on coffeetable.] There’s a rule somewhere in here about uninvited riffraff—

GUITARIST: Who’s he calling "riffraff!"

FASSBINDER: [FEMALE VOICE.] Maybe it would help civilize things by introducing the members of my band. On tenor sax we have Heinrich Himmler; alias "Hot Lips Hank," the meanest little scatman this side of the Mississippi—

SAXOPHONIST comes downstage and plays brief jazz figure. He is costumed in style of 1940’s zootsuiter.

FASSBINDER: Playing lead guitar is Mister Ernst "Fat Fingers" Roehm. Don’t let his red neck fool you. This selftaught Segovia has turned more than a few straightlaced musicologists into jivetalking jitterbuggers!

GUITARIST plays rock cadenza. He is dressed in T-shirt and tattoo style of l960’s.

FASSBINDER: Next, that atavistic enfant terrible and metaphysical shitkicker sometimes known as Albert "Kid Amadeus" Speer on his supersonic squeezebox, "Pandora!"

ACCORDIONIST plays opening passage of Bach’s ‘Prelude & Fugue in B minor.’ Sound he creates is that of huge church organ. He wears 18th century costume. Fourth member of band is not a musician. Wearing tattered uniform of Wehrmacht officer who has lost an eye, hand and leg, he is encumbered with the electronic baggage comprising the band’s entire sound system; including amplifiers, speakers, batteries, etc. The handheld mike, electric accordion and guitar are also plugged into the equipment he carries; such that, in addition to his heavy burden, he must also contend with wires entangling him. FASSBINDER continues in MALE VOICE, dripping with sarcasm:

FASSBINDER: And last, but by no means least, let’s have a warm welcome for this blueblooded beast of burden in whose remaining eye one reads the future story of his fucked-up attempts at Fuehrercide—ladies and gentlemen, I give you Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg! [When he refuses to move FASSBINDER takes rope attached to his neck and starts pulling STAUFFENBERG downstage.] Oh yes Stuffy, one day your love for me will turn to hate but all of that is in the future. For now let us stand together in the spotlight and share the sweet smell of my coming success! [STAUFFENBERG has been pulled into the set.] Bravo Stuffy! And now, the customary bow? [FEMALE VOICE.] Yes my darling, I know how difficult this is for you, but an aristocrat of your upbringing must appreciate the importance of protocol.

The rope is shortened and yanked downward, forcing STAUFFENBERG to bow and then collapse from weight of his load.

FASSBINDER:[MALE VOICE:] You really are accident prone, Stuffy! Here, let me help you up.

He pulls on rope, strangling STAUFFENBERG, who manages to rise nevertheless.

FASSBINDER:[FEMALE VOICE:] That’s better. It’s all over now darling. Let Mommy wipe away those tears. [Takes hanky from cape pocket, daubs with it under STAUFFENBERG’s one good eye.]

WERNER: Here it is in black and white on page 638. Article 17 of the official rules for this audition states—[Reading.] "While each auditionist is encouraged to employ his creative resources to the utmost, using props, special effects or a supporting cast of characters is strictly forbidden."

FASSBINDER is handed text by WERNER, who indicates appropriate passage triumphantly. FASSBINDER calmly tears page from text.

FASSBINDER: So much for Article 17 and all those other regulations cramping my style. Isn’t it plain, you stupid little man—they don’t apply to someone who was born to be the Arch Rulebreaker of all time!

WERNER: You won’t get away with this! I’ll have you drummed out of the guild!

FASSBINDER: [Using page as toilet paper under cape; MALE VOICE.] I wouldn’t expect you not to—as a card carrying establishmentarian it’s your duty to blow the whistle on oddballs like me! And to show you I harbor no hard feelings, I’ll even provide you with this additional evidence of my nonconformity!

Seizing WERNER with his left arm, FASSBINDER uses his right to rub the desecrated page into WERNER’s face with suffocating effect.

SAXOPHONIST: [Pulling FASSBINDER from WERNER.] That’s enough, boss. No need to lose your cool over this creep. Besides, it’s just about curtain time.

FASSBINDER: [FEMALE VOICE.] So it is!

WERNER drags himself to sink and scrubs face. Countdown ends. Soundstage door opens.

ACCORDIONIST: [Peering into void exposed by soundstage door.] Not much of a crowd out there—

GUITARIST: [Joining ACCORDIONIST.] It looks more like a geriatric coffeeklatch than a mob of musicloving teenyboppers—

Taking grenade from Stauffenberg’s backpack, FASSBINDER pulls pin. Smoke is released as grenade is tossed through soundstage doorway.

FASSBINDER: [MALE VOICE.] Don’t despair! If we can knock the socks off these pathetic malcontents, tomorrow all Germany will be dancing to our tunes!

EXIT FASSBINDER via soundstage door, followed by ROCK BAND.

STAUFFENBERG: [At footlights, to audience.] Believe me—that grenade was supposed to explode in his face! Oh, my fellow Germans, can this nightmare be so divinely ordained that our national doom is inescapable?

STAUFFENBERG is yanked off stage by rope around his neck.

Scene 16

BLONDE BOMBSHELL ENTERS pushing JEWISH IMPRESARIO in wheelchair.

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: Some "stud" I turned out to be—mistaking a heart attack for the Orgasm to end all Orgasms! Being a Jew I should have known that what began as a simple sex act would turn into a religious experience. Oh yes! Not only did God do an injury to Max Meier’s cardiovascular system—he added the sublime insult of afflicting him with a dose of amnesia! So here I sit, being punished for a sin whose committing I don’t even have the consolation of remembering!

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: [Stops pushing.] You really can’t recall having had your way with me?

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: [Clutching chest.] Oy vey ist mir! When will this torment cease?

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: I’m sorry, Max. I forgot what the doctor said about getting you excited.

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: No! I want to hear all the details! If it doesn’t refresh my memory, it might at least end this misery of mine by killing me. So, tell me again how I "ravaged" you!

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: [Slowly pushing JEWISH IMPRESARIO toward exit.] It all started when you battered down my apartment door. I remember thinking how cool, calm and collected you looked after having exerted yourself so heroically—

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: Heroically! [Clutching chest again.]

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: Actually, the fact you caught me stark naked made your composure seem that much more remarkable—

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: Stark naked!

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: I thought you would charge into my boudoir and service me where I stood—but you took your time; narrowing the gap between us step-by-step until the suspense became quite unendurable—

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: Oy, oy, oy!

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: There was something decidedly bullish in your whole approach—as if you were playing Zeus to my Europa.

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: Zeus! Europa! [His head slumps to his chest.]

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: The overpowering fragrance of your animal lust penetrated my nostrils like the whiff of some potentially poisonous gas—the effect of which was anything but lethal, however! Oh, no! My central nervous system never felt more alive! So aquiver was I with desire only my acting skills stopped me from asking you to quicken your petty pace! [EXIT with unconscious JEWISH IMPRESARIO.]

Scene 17

During lull following Scene 15 THATCHER has entered Fassbinder’s cubicle.

HELMSLEY: Well! What can one say after an experience that can only be described as indescribable?

THATCHER: [Emerging from cubicle with items of clothing worn by Fassbinder prior to his metamorphosis.] What I want to know is how the devil he did whatever it was we saw him do!

SCHROEDER: It was all a trick; some chemical in that smoke caused us to see what could only have been an optical illusion—

CELINE: It was more than optical; those tits of his were palpably authentic.—

MASTROIANNI: And that kiss he gave me was no fake!

SCHROEDER: I tell you we were all victimized by an exhibition of the old "sexual switcheroo scenario"—

THATCHER: [Having returned to cubicle and begun to dismantle it.] Nothing! No hidden exit or secret compartment to conceal the customary accomplice! His metamorphosis must have been kosher!

SCHROEDER: What difference does it make? We didn’t come here to compete as quickchange artists, did we?

HELMSLEY: And, more importantly, our adjudicators will certainly reject the idea that Hitler is only the ultimate expression of that obscene thread which admittedly weaves its insidious design through the otherwise straightlaced tapestry of German social life.

PERON: Nevertheless, isn’t there an element of truth in epitomizing Nazism as a kind of pornographic floorshow watched by an entire nation—with a mustachioed hermaphrodite acting as its master of ceremonies? Our author certainly seems to suggest Weimar’s inflationary problems are more than just monetary. They include an everspiralling vortex of cultural surrealism which might yet produce such a vast credibility gap in German daily life that a Wagnerianstyle Gotterdaemmerung could in fact become a real life scenario of racial suicide.

HELMSLEY: Except that, like all authors, ours has his own ontological axioms to grind. Hence he would have his audience believe history unfolds itself in accordance with aesthetic principles generally, and dramaturgical law in particular.

WERNER: [Having at last cleansed himself at sink.] I may not have the last laugh in this affair, but neither will he for squandering his chances with a Fuerher so futuristic as to be utterly unfeasible.

MASTROIANNI: It’s certain no medals will be pinned on such a provocative "bosom" in public—but secretly, can anyone fail to applaud an act of artistry so outrageously astute?

SCHROEDER: I’m not ashamed to display my admiration! [Claps hands once.] After all, his heroic fiasco has narrowed the field from 7 to 6!

WERNER: My god, it’s true! In all this excitement I overlooked the fact that our odds have narrowed considerably!

MASTROIANNI: Of course, being the next to go on, my appreciation is not uninfluenced by the manner in which his martyrdom has paved the way for my own radical answer to the question of Hitler’s oratorical mystique—

SCHROEDER: There’s nothing "mysterious" about Hitler’s way with words. When it comes to saying out loud what is on every German’s mind, the oldest casting cliche of all applies: It takes one to know one.

THATCHER: A fact of Nordic theatrical life which, my Italian friend, makes your failure as the only remaining nonAryan among us a fait accompli.

MASTROIANNI: [Downstage, talking more to himself.] Certainly the deck has been stacked against me. But I‘m not so naive as to have come here without a few aces up my sleeve. [Produces ace from sleeve.] First, there are my credentials as a bona fide matinee idol—the only one here, by the way, who has consistently demonstrated those charismatic traits without which no Hitler-hopeful can mobilize the massive emotional forces needed to convert a common little democratic republic into the world’s first, and probably last, truly totalitarian state. [Another ace is produced.] Second, my ethnicity can hardly be a decisive issue when the picture we‘ve been given of Hitler is anything but the blue-eyed blonde stereotype of an "Aryan" superman. Instead, he might easily be mistaken for a Neopolitan ladies’ man; one of those small time Casanovas whose domination dreams consist of sequentially fornicating their way through the entire female population of a provincial Italian metropolis. [He has in fact costumed himself as small town gigolo, vintage 1920. Another ace is produced.]

     Thus the ace of hearts appropriately symbolizes the proposition that, as I believe Hitler will prove, modern politics is nothing more than the ancient art of seduction updated by 20th century massmarketing technology; a state of affairs you Germans, with your reverence for the efficacy of brute force, refuse to accept. [A final ace is produced.] Which brings us to the ace of aces—my trump card! [Turning to auditionists, showing ace of spades before making it disappear in his hand.] Hasn’t the book on Fascism been written in Italian?

SCHROEDER: Bookwriting comes easy to armchair autocrats like Machiavelli, but the real business of translating ideas into action is a Prussian monopoly.

HELMSLEY: Besides, Nazis don’t read books—they incinerate them!

MASTROIANNI: How typical of you to joke about such mindless acts of vandalism!

HELMSLEY: Vandalism, yes; but mindless only to the extent these literary conflagrations are ignited by an instinctive appreciation for the power of fire to purify. Like it or not, pyromania is an ideology whose time now and then comes in the desperate lives of men and nations—as a kind of atavistic Prometheanism.

PERON: If our author is right, the message is unmistakably clear—20th century Europe is suffering from an advanced case of overcultivation that only a holocaust can cure.

THATCHER: For whatever reason, National Socialism is Germany’s way of turning its clock back to that time before man became a domesticated animal—a time when the tribal territory comprised the center of one’s universe—a universe whose animating principles had yet to be expressed as mathematical formulae but were instead the stuff of a mythic weltanschauung where gods and men dwelt together in a Gothic garden of Eden—

CELINE: Think of it! There actually was a time when not a single Jew had set his filthy foot on European soil!

MASTROIANNI: If Hitler’s only reason for being is to bring back the Dark Ages, then I would rather remain just another actor with a pretty face. But I detect in this Fuehrer of yours a hint of Lorenzolike magnificence which, if skillfully handled, might actually make Berlin the site of a second renaissance. [Countdown ends, soundstage door opens.] To Adolf Hitler then—may his architectural models become a reality! [EXIT.]

Scene 18

BLONDE BOMBSHELL ENTERS wearing evening gown and holding golden ‘Joey’ statuette. She is escorted by LEADING MAN wearing tuxedo. They arrive at cluster of microphones as REPORTERS chasing them ENTER. Flashbulbs pop, questions are shouted.

FIRST REPORTER: Can you tell us why you didn’t mention Max Meier among all the people you thanked for winning that Joey?

SECOND REPORTER: Is it because he’s a Jew?

THIRD REPORTER: Is it because he’s dead?

FOURTH REPORTER: Are all these rumors about a new agent in your life true?

FIFTH REPORTER: Does this Joey mean Dr. G has given your career more than just his official seal of approval?

FIRST REPORTER: In other words: Are you having it off with the Propaganda Minister?

LEADING MAN: Gentlemen, please! [Waits for silence.] I’m sure all your questions will be answered when I tell you that later tonight this brave little leadinglady of mine—[Hugs BLONDE BOMBSHELL.] will meet secretly with Herr Meier to award him this Joey which, but for the policestate mentality dominating our Motion Picture Academy, should have been his in the first place. And now, if you will excuse us—[EXIT with BLONDE BOMBSHELL followed by most REPORTERS.]

FIRST REPORTER: Well, how should we headline that? "Newborn Star Risks Popularity With Act Of Interracial Generosity?"

SECOND REPORTER: If we could print the truth it would read: "Publicityseeking Sex symbol Makes Frontpage News With Bullshit About Atoning For All Of Germany’s AntiSemitic Sins By Committing Occupational Suicide."

FIRST REPORTER: [As they walk to exit.] Jesus, you don’t think Meier stagemanaged this entire affair, do you?

SECOND REPORTER: If he didn’t, the reports of his extermination were anything but premature! [EXIT with FIRST REPORTER.]

Scene 19

CELINE comes to proscenium ‘mirror.’ He is dressed in black tunic, riding britches, boots and carries riding crop. His hair is in Hitlerian style but plastered down with pomade. His mustache is thin in the French manner circa 1920.

HELMSLEY: Well, there goes another "front runner" down the drain!

WERNER: I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. By now this audition should have been history, yet here we are still in contention. Nevertheless, it makes you wonder why so many talented actors seem to be deliberately selfdestructing!

CELINE: Could it be they subconsciously felt that maybe a victory in these circumstances might cost them more than a defeat?

WERNER: That old Faustian bugaboo wouldn’t frighten actors of their sophistication—

SCHROEDER: None of us got here without a little help from Old Mephisto now and then!

CELINE: But this time the remortgaging of our already overlycollateralized souls is not the problem. As I see it, the actor playing Hitler runs the very real risk of ruining his career by identifying himself with a character who commits such gross atrocities—not the least of which involves exterminating 6 million of God’s own Chosen People.

HELMSLEY: But there is more than one way of looking at the Holocaust; including the view it simply completes the litany of woe that same God has visited upon the Jews since He first created them!

SCHROEDER: Besides, when the history of the 20th century is finally written, all this hysteria about extermination camps will appear as a footnote to the chapter on "The General Devaluation of Human Life." Hitler is more likely to be remembered for the autobahn, the Volkswagen and the aerospace industry than for his genocidal peccadillos.

CELINE: Since when have the historians ever gotten anything right? The undeniable fact is that all of Hitler’s grandiose schemes will fall flat on their faces; except the only one that ever mattered—the complete deJewification of Europe. The rest of Nazi "ideology" is nothing more than camouflage to hide that harshest of harsh realities. The lebensraum slogans, the master race theories and the Fuehrerprinciple itself are just so much smoke behind which Hitler builds his machinery for putting the solution to Europe’s Jewish question on an assemblyline basis. God knows it won’t be duck soup exterminating an entire race of experts in the art of survival! A job like that demands more than mere acting talent! You don’t think I was invited here because of my credits as the Bad Guy in a string of 4th-rate horse operas shot on a Parisian soundstage, do you? No—it was my reputation as a lifelong antiSemite that caught the corner of our casting director’s eye. She knows that only a genuine Jewhater like me has what it takes for turning Hitler’s fantasies of a kikefree Deutschland into reality.

WERNER: Even if UTG did have something so macabre in mind, they certainly wouldn’t advertise the fact by putting this do-or-die project of theirs into the hands of someone so notoriously psychopathic on the subject of German Jewry—

CELINE: Not unless they intend Blockbuster to be a not-so-subtle declaration of allout war on that hotbed of International Zionism known as Hollywood, USA!

SCHROEDER: Somehow I can’t see those tinseltown Jewboys shitting bricks over a plot in which some 70 million German settlers deputize an out-of-town gunslinger to eliminate a few ethnic undesirables from their lilywhite midst.

CELINE: Except that Hitler doesn’t ride into the Third Reich as an expert in eradicating renegade Indian chiefs only; his real specialty consists of wiping out those Yid doctor- and lawyertypes who have wormed their intellectual way into the spiritual woodwork of Western Civilization!

HELMSLEY: The less said about this subject the better.

CELINE: Oh? Why is that? Do you find it demoralizing?

HELMSLEY: It’s more a matter of taste—

CELINE: What has taste got to do with understanding the character we are trying to play? I suppose if we were auditioning for the role of the Marquis de Sade instead of Hitler, pornography would be similarly offlimits?

HELMSLEY: Now that you mention it, why not? Just as someday Sade will emerge from all the censorial dust he stirred up to be seen as the patron saint of all humanistic literature, so too, when the smoke of Auschwitz eventually clears, Adolf Hitler will be seen as having done what Pontius Pilate did for Christianity—by providing Judaism with a mythic launching pad for its final phoenixlike fling at dominating the global psyche.

THATCHER: It’s true! Without Hitler the rebirth of Israel will never be more than a gleam in Chaim Weizmann’s eye!

SCHROEDER: Not that statues of the Fuehrer are ever likely to be erected in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv!

CELINE: Let the Hebes have their Promised Land, so long as a respectable distance is preserved between theirs and ours. And the same goes for Hollywood. A certain amount of transAtlantic competition is healthy, but if the Americans think they can put Europe out of the massmedia business, we will show them a thing or two about the art of extravaganzamaking: starting with a cast of characters numbered not in thousands, but thousands of millions—and starring the toughest Tough Guy of them all! Compared to Adolf Hitler, Humphrey Bogart is a pussycat! And, mark my words: World War II will make Intolerance look like cinematic chopped liver! Eat your hearts out, Messrs. Griffith, Goldwyn, Warner and DeMille! Project B is going to break more box office records than Carter has pills! [Coming down from his Hitlerian soapbox.] Yes. Well; that is the kind of oratory I think UTG is really interested in hearing. They couldn’t care less about the "complexities" of Hitler’s "character"—all they want is someone who is ready, able and willing to save their corporate bacon with an act of suicidal heroism. Or, if all else fails, to make of their mutual gotterdaemmerung the most spectacular blaze of theatrical glory the world will ever witness. [Countdown ends. Soundstage door opens.] In either case, only a Hitler with my hot head and cold blood can do what all those hypocrites out there really want done! [EXIT.]

Scene 20

Shots are fired. Having been chased on stage, JEWISH IMPRESARIO ENTERS to meet BLONDE BOMBSHELL, dressed in red and accompanied by squad of GESTAPO AGENTS.

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: So, this is how Max Meier meets his end—like Dillinger. Betrayed by a dame in a red dress! [While being handcuffed by GESTAPO AGENTS.] You’re not going to let a scene like this pass without saying something melodramatic, are you?

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: Your days were numbered anyway, Max—and I wasn’t given much of a choice. It was either turn you in or let them flush my career down the john.

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: It’s no surprise the curtains are closing on our fuckedup love affair with you giving me the finger! [GESTAPO beat JEWISH IMPRESARIO.]

1ST GESTAPO: You’ve uttered your last obscenity, Jew!

2ND GESTAPO: That’s no way to treat a white woman!

3RD GESTAPO: This should teach you some respect, Yid!

GESTAPO LEADER: That’s enough! The boys at headquarters don’t like it when there isn’t enough life left in their "clients" to make liquidating them worth while.

JEWISH IMPRESARIO is dragged off by GESTAPO AGENTS. BLONDE BOMBSHELL tries to exit but is prevented from doing so by GESTAPO LEADER.

GESTAPO LEADER: And just where do you think you’re going?

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: I’ve done my part of the deal—

GESTAPO LEADER: Don’t talk to me in that tone of voice! [Slaps her.] I will tell you when your services are no longer required by the Gestapo! [Holding her tenderly.] Did you really think I would relinquish my jurisdiction over an adorable creature like you? No, my dear; I have some more propositions to make concerning this sensational skin you’ve just saved by selling your soul. [Lifts dress, runs hand up her leg and thigh.] You wouldn’t refuse a genuine hero of the Third Reich, would you? I got this iron cross for being shot up pretty badly on the Eastern Front; but not so badly as to interfere with my procreational capacities! [He makes move on her, which is thwarted by sound of air-raid sirens. He lifts and carries her toward exit.] Come, my blushing bride! This twilight may not give us Godlike beings much time for a honeymoon, but who knows; with just the right kind of luck we might manage to leave a little Superbrat behind for some future Fuehrer to use as cannon fodder in Act III of Germany’s epic struggle to persuade the rest of the world it is not merely a stage, but a house in which only the grandest opera is sung! [EXIT with BLONDE BOMBSHELL as air-raid sounds are heard.]

Scene 21

WERNER has finished making costume and tonsorial changes—so that now the five remaining auditionists are virtual Hitler lookalikes.

SCHROEDER: The nerve of that halfbaked hatemonger lecturing us on the rudiments of an ethnocentricity our tribal ancestors had fully philosophized while his were still fingerpainting their cavedwellers’ walls!

THATCHER: Sartoriallyspeaking I thought his jet black Fuehrer suffered from the same stylish parochialism that makes all French cowboys look like French cowboys.

WERNER: Some "blaze of theatrical glory!" He’s going to be shot down in flames by that fancy Dan mustache of his!

SCHROEDER: So, not only is the grand finale to be an all German affair, but one in which a consensus has been reached at least on the Fuehrer’s outward appearance.

THATCHER: Yes; it’s gratifying to see how you have all come round to my way of thinking on that score.

SCHROEDER: Your way of thinking? Since when did you ever have an original idea about anything? If you will remember, I’m the only one who arrived here looking like this. [To WERNER. ] Isn’t that so?

WERNER: Well—I really couldn’t—ah——

SCHROEDER: It’s like that, is it? What about you, Thatcher? Are you going to deny I haven’t changed a single hair since that taxi ride we shared on our way here?

HELMSLEY: [Seated at dressing table; to himself.] I don’t like the looks of this.

SCHROEDER: It’s a little late for changing your costume tune now, isn’t it?

HELMSLEY: [Checking watch.] What?

SCHROEDER: I was only reminding you this countdown has your number on it.

HELMSLEY: That’s just it. Either my Rollex has gone bananas or UTG is Mickeymousing this countdown clock of theirs. You see! Just now it skipped from 143 to 153; as if it somehow senses this preperformance scene of mine might need more than its allotted time to complete. Don’t you see what’s been going on? The only thing constant about these countdowns, is how they allow each of us to spill his guts out behind the scenes before we set foot on that soundstage—

SCHROEDER: So, what else is new? As actors our sense of time and space is always being warped by some playwright—

HELMSLEY: As actors, yes—we must obey the ontological dictates of our "superiors." If, however, we are the victims of a Private Parts plot, these countdown incongruities are not a problem for us, but for the character we have become. Consequently we must ask ourselves how Hitler would react to such an invasion of that most private of all his properties; the one by which he alone regulates the tempo of his own reality!

THATCHER: Didn’t we decide, that standing in our shoes, even Hitler would be powerless to solve the Private Parts Paradox?

WERNER: Remember what happened to our "conspiracy of silence!"

HELMSLEY: [Removing mustache and wig.] We’ll see just how "insoluble" that paradox really is! [Removes coat, puts on one he arrived in, begins packing suitcase.]

SCHROEDER: What are you doing?

THATCHER: Have you gone mad?

WERNER: You can’t go on looking like that!

HELMSLEY: Who said anything about going on? My plans couldn’t be plainer. I’m opting out!

SCHROEDER: What kind of option is that? Your refusal to answer a casting call of this magnitude won’t cost you just a job—it could put you permanently out of show business.

WERNER: Your name will be etched with acid on UTG’s stainless steel shit list.

HELMSLEY: I’m taking a risk alright—but only the kind Hitler himself would calculate as crucial to the viability of his character. Doesn’t it all boil down to this? If, as I suspect, the scene we are now playing is being secretly observed, this act of defiance should itself constitute my audition—and a successful one at that, considering how this bagpacking picture of mine says more about Hitler’s theatrical style of oratory than all the dialogue we have spoken here tonight! [Countdown ‘accelerates’ toward zero. HELMSLEY prepares to exit via Hole-in-Wall.] And now, before the obligatory critique on my prospects for success or failure begins, let me leave you with this last thought: Having reached the summit of that artistic Obersalzburg every actor seeks to scale, I don’t give a damn about anyone’s opinion of me as The Fuehrer but my own! [EXIT via Hole-in-Wall.]

Scene 22

Extreme right is a table piled high with file folders, behind which sits a BLACK American G.I. sits on folding chair extreme left.

BLACK G.I.: [Picking up file.] Case number 7419! [BLONDE BOMBSHELL rises, crosses to desk.] My name is Staff Sergeant Jones, United States Army. I’ve been assigned by the Judge Advocate General to investigate Nazi war crimes. Depending on my recommendation your case will either be dismissed here and now or referred to higher authority for further proceedings. Now, according to this charge sheet, you played a key role in the liquidation of a certain Max Meer—

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: Max Meier. Yes. He was my agent.

BLACK G.I.: Your agent?

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: I am—or was—an actress.

BLACK G.I.: [Taking newspaper clippings from file.] I’ll say! According to this you were "Germany’s most popular wartime film star." And these photographs show you rubbing elbows with most of Nazidom’s biggest fish at Berchtesgaden. [Hands her photos.]

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: I was invited to the Berghof frequently. [Returning photos.] But my purpose in being there was only to provide windowdressing.

BLACK G.I.: I can see that.

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: A two-piece bathing suit is hardly what one wears to a political conference!

BLACK G.I.: [writing.] So you went to the dance but never joined the party?

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: I know it’s hard to believe, Sergeant; but, despite my "stellar" status in the Third Reich, I have my own tale of Nazi atrocities to tell.

BLACK G.I.: I believe you, lady! Everyone in Germany has a horror story to tell me! That bum before you was once President of the Bundesbank! And I’ll let you in on a little secret of my own. WWII hasn’t exactly been a bed of roses for me! You are looking at a former Golden Glover who sacrificed his shot at a world title to save a civilization that still treats him like so much subhuman shit! But getting back to Meier. Is it true you fingered him for deportation to Auschwitz?

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: They made me! I was forced to—

BLACK G.I.: Just yes or no.

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: Yes! Yes! Yes!

BLACK G.I.: How many other Jews did you help the Gestapo exterminate?

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: None. Max was the first and the last.

BLACK G.I.: Does the name Anne Frank mean anything to you?

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: No. Unless—if she’s an actress our paths might have crossed; although Anne Frank is not a theatricalsounding name.

BLACK G.I.: She mentions you in her diary as a "role model."

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: Oh?

BLACK G.I.: [Turning pages of published paperback edition.] You’re described in here as the kind of "Teutonic lovegoddess" who drives Plain Janes like her to consider selfdestructing—

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: Making schoolgirls feel suicidal comes with a sexsymbol’s territory—

BLACK G.I.: Maybe, but it wouldn’t be the first time an established glamor girl eliminated her amateur competition with an act of homicide. As a matter of fact didn’t you appear in a picture entitled The Case of The Vanishing Understudy?

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: It’s not a crime to commit makebelieve murder, is it?

BLACK G.I.: No. But in my personal opinion there could be a link between the art and the atrocities you Germans are so famous for producing. [Closes file, checking watch.] Still, we mustn’t allow such metaphysical matters to stand in the way of deciding your fate. [Rubberstamping file.] This case is now officially closed. You’re free to go, fraulein.

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: How can that be when I’ve admitted having blood on my hands?

BLACK G.I.: [Putting jacket on.] Since Meier was probably gassed or starved to death his blood is not an issue.

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: And where does that leave me? I came here expecting a dead end!

BLACK G.I.: Jesus lady, if we strung up every Kraut who sent some Hymie to his doom, there would be nobody left between us and the Rooskies! [As he tries to leave, BLONDE BOMBSHELL falls to floor, holding his legs.] Listen lady, I’ve only got 5 minutes before the P.X. closes—and if I don’t fill this shopping list my Schatzi gave me she’ll be frying my black balls for her supper!

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: Please, sergeant! You’re leaving me to a fate worse than death! What future can a hasbeen like me have in that wasteland out there?

BLACK G.I.: [Wrenching himself free, BLONDE BOMBSHELL is left with coat pushed up to reveal her still-glamorous legs.] You’re an old broad, but with gams like those a comeback does not seem out of the question—

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: While these legs are still capable of turning men on by the millions, without a Max Meier to massmerchandise them I can only market myself on a retail basis. Tell the truth soldier, wouldn’t you like to add these (her breasts) to your war souvenirs? Think how the Fuehrer must be turning over in his grave right now at the prospect of what has to be the ultimate act of racial treason—[Poses provocatively while lying on the floor.]

BLACK G.I.: Alright, goddammit—[Checking watch.] There might be just enough time to let you blow me in the latrine for a carton of Camels, still get my old lady’s shopping done, and give Uncle Adolf a posthumous kick up his klukluxer’s racist ass! [BLONDE BOMBSHELL rises quickly and EXITS with BLACK G.I.]

Scene 23

WERNER goes to Hole-in-Wall.

SCHROEDER: Is she really taking a powder?

THATCHER: [Peering after HELMSLEY.] So it seems—

SCHROEDER: I don’t trust the bitch—not that she ever represented a serious threat.

THATCHER: No. She struck me as being long on courage but devoid of the heroic convictions needed to energize the unrelenting pursuit of power in its purest form.

SCHROEDER: Poor old Leona! Beneath her neoFascist breastbeating pumps the bleeding heart of a dyed-in-the-wool Social Democrat. Her cop-out only confirms my belief in the unavoidably eschatological consequences of climbing into Hitler’s skin. While ordinarily one can keep the ideological cake he is forced to eat on stage, in this case the affinity between actor and character must be more than skin deep. The spiritual contamination we incur by impersonating someone so totally drenched with innocent blood cannot be wiped away like so much grease paint. And therein lies the real reason for Leona’s seemingly inspired disappearing act—

Helmsley’s countdown ends. Soundstage door opens and then closes.

WERNER: [Returning to scene.] Well comrades, it’s official. Another bird has flown the coop! What I wouldn’t give to see the smug faces of our "adjudicators" now!

SCHROEDER: That noshow must have hit them like the proverbial fanful of fecal matter!

WERNER: And we can add to that injury the insult of Leona’s’s having solved their "insoluble paradox" by asking them the "unanswerable question" of whether by definition Hitler is quintessentially unauditionable!

THATCHER: There’s an easy answer to that.

WERNER: Oh?

THATCHER: Since for Hitler only the bottom line matters; it would not be out of his character to ingratiate himself, as I am about to do, if in the end he gets everything he has been after from the start.

WERNER: Which is?

THATCHER: If you have to ask about something so basic this late in the game that information won’t do you much good.

SCHROEDER: Nor you much harm; unless, now that your moment of truth has come you are having some second thoughts on the subject?

THATCHER: Not at all. Your curiosity increases my confidence. I couldn’t be happier telling you that what Hitler wants, above all else, is to attain a greatness surpassing all previous greatness; to punctuate this most historic chapter of human history with his personal exclamation point; to have it said that, after him came that deluge of mediocrity in which the very idea of a "superman" was forever drowned.

WERNER: That’s rather a tallish acting order, isn’t it?

THATCHER: Nothing less than the tallest will do!

WERNER: I mean technically—how does an actor convey such a sense of selfimportance without turning his audience into a mob of outraged untermenschen?

SCHROEDER: Doesn’t Stanislavsky say there are limits beyond which the imposition of theatrical tyranny becomes counterproductive?

THATCHER: Why should Hitler give a shit about Stanislavsky! He is an acting school unto himself! As he would revolutionize the practice of power politics, so must he rewrite the rulebook for conventional stagecraft. If that means offending the audience let their outrage be the measure of his talent for intensifying every microsecond of that mutuality of being only his electrifying personality can create. And if Hitler does have an actorial credo, surely it must go something like this: Never treat your audience with anything less than the absolute contempt they deserve! [Countdown is ending.] That scum sitting on the other side of this door might think my fate is in their hands, but intuitively they know the One True Fuehrer will neither seek nor need their approval. No matter what happens tonight; this generation of Germans and I have an appointment with providence! [Countdown ends. EXIT.]

Scene 24

BLONDE BOMBSHELL rummaging through mountainous heap of architectural rubble extreme left. JEWISH IMPRESARIO ENTERS in tattered overcoat, hobbling with aid of crutch.

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: What the hell do you want! [Picking up brick.] You’d better bugger off my turf mister before I brain you with this brick!

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: Spoken like the true mankiller you always were, liebchen.

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: My God—that voice! Can it be you, Max! [Climbing down to him.] Yes it’s true! My nightmare has ended! We both look like death warmed over but together we can reconquer the world, can’t we old chum? [Embraces him.] How in God’s name did you survive Auschwitz, darling?

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: I didn’t.

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: I don’t understand—

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: Can’t you tell by the smell—you’re hugging a corpse!!!!

Horrified, BLONDE BOMBSHELL pulls away from JEWISH IMPRESARIO as he opens coat to reveal his genuinely cadaverous state within.

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: I’ve come back from the grave for only one reason—to haunt you!

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: [Attacking him with stick she has picked up.] Haunt me, will you! [Knocks him down, beating his face repeatedly.] I’ve got all the ghosts I can handle! [Staggers off.] Jesus, when will this bad dream end!

JEWISH IMPRESARIO: [Rising.] Schmuck! As always, you’ve managed to magnify your problems! Now you will have to live with the sight of this hideous new mug of mine!!! [His face is indeed a bloody pulp.]

BLONDE BOMBSHELL screams, scrambles up and over rubble heap to EXIT.

JEWISH IMPRESARIO [Calling after her:] Do you really think you can escape your fate that easily! If I wanted to I could pursue you with the speed of light! [Retrieves hat and crutch—to himself: ] But why should I be in such a hurry? We have all eternity in which to run this "race" of ours blondie! Such a plot should thicken inch-by-inch, step-by-step, and—[As he starts slowly climbing up rubble pile:]—brick-by-brick; until every last drop of suspense has been squeezed from it! [EXIT over top of rubble pile.]

Scene 25

SCHROEDER: [Rubbing hands gleefully.] I couldn’t have written a better script setting the stage for what will be my own "Appointment with Providence!"

WERNER: You don’t think there might be just enough madness in Maggie’s methodology to influence the right people, even if it doesn’t win her many friends?

SCHROEDER: Oh, she’ll come close alright, but in a contest like this the nearest miss might as well be a kilometer! Nothing less than a perfect gameplan will do—and Maggie has made at least one fatally flawed assumption—

WERNER: Concerning what?

SCHROEDER: The very nature of Hitlerian greatness!

WERNER: Are you saying his will to be great isn’t the most important of Hitler’s motivational factors?

SCHROEDER: No, no—of course it is!

WERNER: Then exactly where did Thatcher gone wrong?

SCHROEDER: By conceding anything to that scum out there—especially their power to pick and choose between us as if we were coldcuts in some theatrical delicatessen!

WERNER: But isn’t every audition a meat market more or less?

SCHROEDER: That’s the way it usually works! But if this truly is to be the audition ending all other auditions it will be so only because one of us plays Hitler so perfectly his right to the part becomes irresistible!

WERNER: How can you say that when not 5 minutes ago we all agreed Hitler himself had no choice but to ingratiate his way to superstardom?

SCHROEDER: Since the field has narrowed from a final 4 to just the pair of us, what happened 5 minutes ago is ancient history. The slate has been erased. All the old bets are off—including any we may have made about the "bonds of our acting brotherhood" being stronger than those survival instincts now operating to make us mortal enemies. As for having no choice but to do what actors have always done; that is manifestly unacceptable. By definition: Hitler’s options are always infinite.

WERNER: Even so, besides opting out entirely, as Hesse did without much success, what other alternatives have we got?

SCHROEDER: Before we go into that, let’s get something straight. You think I’m an idiot, like all those others whose brains you’ve been picking; but I spotted your purpose right from the start, Doctor Frankenstein! You’re hoping this monster you are building will somehow achieve a viability exceeding the sum of its plagiarized parts. For an actor with your congenital lack of imagination such a parasitic strategy is, I suppose, to be expected. Unfortunately for you the jig will be up before your patchwork freak gets off the operating table. For that reason I am willing to continue this futile conversation; not that I won’t enjoy the anguish it causes you. To begin with, I am not going out there as just another unemployed actor seeking some producer’s ass to kiss! The oratorical debut they are waiting for me to make "hat-in-hand," will turn out to be nothing less than the reading of a cosmic riot act! Yes! I will simply proclaim myself to be the leading man they are looking for! How else should Germany’s savior introduce himself if not with an act of auto-epiphany? I need no casting committee to certify my divine right to rule! This countdown of theirs only indicates the time remaining before they start taking their corporate marching orders from me! That is the real secret of Hitler’s oratorical power. He doesn’t speak—he legislates! His words must chisel themselves like commandments into the stonelike slab of a German mentality famous for its blind obedience to authority. Thus with my voice alone will I close the curtains on this farce; and reopen them on a real life drama entitled: "The Selfdeification Of A Former Nobody Named Adolf Hitler!" [Coming down several pegs from crescendo he senses to be inappropriate for her audience of one:]

      And, having Fuehrerized myself, the next step will be dictating the terms of its suicide to a Weimar Reichstag which might otherwise take the democratic humbug of an AngloSaxon style constitution seriously. You see how easy it is once this kind of oratorical bandwagon starts rolling? Once Weimar is out of the way, Versailles will become just another French tourist attraction. With a flick of my lashlike tongue that infamous "peace treaty" will vanish from the face of the earth; along with all those other pieces of paper in which Germany has been wrapped like some ethnic obscenity. Oh yes—Adolf Hitler will give his prudish European neighbors a fullyfrontalized look at the pornographic facts of geopolitical life in the 20th century! [Sensing she may be overdoing things again she returns to a normal conversational style:] Well, having heard a sample of my "verbal blitzkrieg," what do you think?

WERNER: What can I say, except that talk is cheap—even the kind sounding so extravagantly totalitarian. What good will all that hot air do against the reality of the Maginot Line, the R.A.F. and America’s smoke stack economy? No; what Germany needs is not another soapbox Siegfried shouting down the sins of her enemies; but a man who communicates calmly while holding a large club in his hand.

SCHROEDER: Don’t worry; Hitler will get his big stick alright! But in the meanwhile he must stand alone on an empty stage—with only his vocal chords as a weapon! Like every unknown acting quantity his worst enemy is not a hostile audience but one which sits inside the concrete walls of its massive indifference. It is upon the gates of that siege psychology Hitler must hammer away until all of Germany capitulates to the incessant drumbeat of his oratorical battering ram! [Soundstage door opens before countdown ends.] There! You see! Is the premature opening of this door accidental—or an omen of my upcoming triumph!!! [Countdown ends. Large sections of the set crumble and fall.] Now let us see what we can do about bringing down the house on the other side of this threshold!!!!! [EXIT.]

Scene 26

WERNER extricates himself from rubble which has fallen apparently as result of Schroeder’s oratory. Coughing and brushing dust from costume, he comes downstage to proscenium ‘mirror’, in which he examines damage he and his costume have suffered.

WERNER: That was too close for comfort. For a moment I thought my number was truly up! I seem to have suffered a few scrapes and bruises but, thank God, nothing to impair my acting abilities. As for this costume, that’s another story! And yet, who knows; this tattered look could be a blessing in disguise. It makes a statement about Hitler’s skill for eluding one disaster after another by the skin of his teeth. Now there’s an omen for you! A roof actually falls on my head and I emerge from it all smelling like a rose! Yes—this could be my dress rehearsal for the miracle of July, 1944!! [Admires himself in the ‘mirror,’ imitating Hitler’s defiant pose after having survived the Stauffenberg assassination attempt.] Of course that cave in was completely coincidental. This room has been on the verge of total collapse all evening. The real miracle will be if it lasts for another 3 minutes! [Moves to a ‘safer’ location, after having surveyed the situation overhead.] Not that there isn’t an element of truth in what Schroeder said about the earthshaking aspects of Hitler’s oratory. But then they’ve all been right about one of the Fuehrer’s many parts—leaving me, as the final finalist—to amalgamate their eleven lost opportunities into a single winning combination!

     What did she call me just now—"a congenital parasite"—"an expert in the art of pastiche?" Well, what is Adolf Hitler, if not a selfmade patchwork quilt? Is there anything in his worldbeating weltanschauung that hasn’t been begged, borrowed or stolen? It’s as if some celestial practical joker sabotaged his prenatal script with pages from a dozen different plays! One moment he’s Hamlet, the next Al Capone; followed by Cyrano, Caligula, Picasso, Parsifal—even Joan of Arc makes an appearance now and then in his one man Rep Company!

     I wonder. Is he really oblivious to the incongruities of his personality, or is it all part of a masterplan to turn himself into a constantly moving target—a character so eclectic it can’t be put into any actor’s stereotypical pigeon hole? Thus we have the vegetarian/massmurderer, the author/bookburner, the military "genius" of Stalingrad; and the charismatic tyrant who insists on raping those he has already seduced into a state of abject submission! Yes! That is Hitler’s unifying principle—he is the most monumental bundle of contradictions the world will ever see! [Unseen by him, PERON emerges from rubble that has buried her.] And if that’s true, why shouldn’t it be I, the least likely to succeed, who ties all of Hitler’s loose ends into one neat package?

PERON: Aren’t you overlooking something?

WERNER: [Surprised, turning.] What—

PERON: There are still two of us in the hunt—or have you changed your mind about the Odd Man not being out.

WERNER: No, no;—certainly not. Having come this far, they will keep their word to give us all a chance. What you heard just now was only wishful thinking—an attempt to talk myself out of the usual preperformance jitters.

PERON: Liar!

WERNER: Why would I lie about something so inconsequential?

PERON: Why not? Hitler never needs a reason for his lies, does he?

WERNER: Perhaps. But I’m not Hitler. Not yet, anyway. And, no matter how ruthlessly we compete in public, behind the scenes we are fraternally obligated to be truthful with one another.

PERON: "Truthfully" then, what gives you the right to call yourself "the final finalist?"

WERNER: Only the right to my own fantasies! But seriously: isn’t the real question not whether your Hitler comes after mine, but whether my act is so tough it can’t possibly be followed?

PERON: I’ll buy that—even though your "bundle of contradictions" hypothesis is defective. For all practical purposes we could be identical twins—distinguishable only by these numbers we’re wearing—numbers that, unfortunately for me, might make mere chance the deciding factor.

WERNER: What was that about a defect in my hypothesis?

PERON: It’s flawed alright, but not necessarily enough to be fatal—

WERNER: I don’t believe you. It’s a cheap confidenceshattering trick. You’re the one who’s lying now! I dare you to tell me where I am "going wrong!"

PERON: Gladly! There is one element of Hitler’s character that is never inconsistent—an aspect of his persona that is always the same; an axis about which all his wildly gyrating moods turn; a monotonal motif underscoring the otherwise polyphonic dissonance of his psychic gestalt—

WERNER: If you have something to say, say it plainly or not at all!

PERON: [Producing a Luger from coat.] Is this plain enough for you? [WERNER reacts by reaching inside his own coat.] I warn you—this Luger is no more a fake than the one you are packing! [Moves toward WERNER, menacing him with Luger.] So; if you don’t mind handing it over? Slowly, slowly—no sudden moves; and by the business end last, please! [WERNER complies by offering his Luger to PERON grip first.] This way we can avoid that ludicrous scenario in which the two remaining auditionists mutually eliminate each other in a simultaneous shootout. [Takes possession of Werner’s Luger with left hand.]

WERNER: Having prudently asked the property department to doublecheck that my Luger was in fact loaded with blanks, such a contingency was never really in the cards.

PERON fires Werner’s Luger at a dressing table mirror with explosive result.

PERON: So much for prudence! You can thank your lucky stars you didn’t decide to do what I’m doing! While only fatal for me, for you the result of that shot might have been a life spent wrongfully imprisoned for a murder you never meant to commit!

WERNER: I rather think your death would have been ruled an accident—another of those not infrequent cases in which an actor is done in by the hangman’s slip knot that fails to slip, the springloaded dagger that comes unsprung, or the candyglass window which inexplicably severs a jugular vein—

PERON: And of course, the genuine slug that somehow finds its lethal way into a box of blank cartridges.

WERNER: Exactly. After all, the theater is a notoriously dangerous place in which to work.

PERON: Who knows how many perfect crimes have been committed both on and off its stage?

WERNER: Yes, yes, yes—but what has any of this to do with which of us will make the better Hitler?

PERON: Only everything, that’s all! What else have we been strutting and fretting our way toward—if not this moment when one of us must make that move of moves only a consummate man of action like Hitler would make? Isn’t that how the plot of Private Parts always ends? After a winless war of wits the time arrives when what the actors do speaks louder than any of their author’s words. The stage becomes a battlefield; on which we are no longer playacting, but locked in a deadly docudrama of kill or be killed—

WERNER: You can’t seriously believe this audition will end with one of us shooting his way to superstardom!

PERON: Why not? What is so "special" about your corpse that it can’t be added to all the others paving Hitler’s way to immortality? But the decision is not mine to make; it’s up to you.

WERNER: What decision?

PERON: To trade numbers with me.

WERNER: You’re asking me to do what you refused to do for poor old von Karajan, is that it?

PERON: I’m not asking for any favors. You can save your skin by handing me that number or I can pluck it from your corpse—

WERNER: On a count of three, I suppose?

PERON: If you insist on being melodramatic.

WERNER: Without an audience what’s the point? [Removes medallion and hands it to PERON, who in turn throws hers at Werner’s feet.]

PERON: Oh, they are out there alright; silently waiting for us to play this scene we have just played. It always takes them a while to realize the show is over. Only the formalities remain now; the final curtain, a pause, and then the shouting starts—that orgasmic burst of outrage with which every audience celebrates its release from the most total of all tyrannies—an evening spent trapped in a playhouse!

WERNER: But before any of that happens there is still one last question our audience will insist on having answered—

PERON: Oh?

WERNER: If Hitler must be as ruthless as you say he should be—why does he fail to finish off his one and only rival now, while he has the chance?

PERON: Surely they have guessed that for themselves. But to remove any possible trace of ambiguity I will state the obvious. What you are asking me for is not proof of my cruelty but a selfsabotaging act of compassion—a coup de grace administered by he whose only pleasure comes from the infinite attenuation of his victim’s misery. Oh what joy—what supreme rapture your continued torment brings me! Adolf Hitler is anything but a common killer. He deals his deaths slowly—on the instalment plan! He is a crusher of human grapes without equal; a vintner so meticulous that not a single drop of blood, sweat or tears is ever wasted in the making of his wrathful wine.

Countdown ends. Soundstage door opens, but instead of usual beerhall noises, we hear the multitudinous chanting of a Nurenberg rally building to its crescendo with shouts of: ‘Fuehrer! Fuehrer! Fuehrer!’

PERON: Do you hear that! It seems the shouting has indeed begun! No use frowning, my friend—if you really want to poop my party you can use this to blow your brains out. [Tosses Luger to WERNER.] It really would spoil my fun knowing you were no longer around to appreciate this upcoming triumph of mine.

As PERON turns to exit, WERNER fires several rounds, if not the entire magazine, at PERON’s back. PERON slowly turns to confront her wouldbe assassin with a wicked smile on her face.

PERON: I could kiss you for that! How perfectly you’ve proven the point I was just now trying to make. By pulling that trigger you murdered any ethical claims you might have made against my gunpoint gambit; leaving only these numbers to tell us apart—but numbers that now provide me with the decisive advantage of giving the premier performance of what might otherwise have been perceived as our twin portrayals of the definitive Fuehrer! But an end to this endless small talk! The time has come for Adolf Hitler to act!

PERON pauses at soundstage threshold to gather herself into an historically accurate Hitlerian pose, with right hand raised in a calculatedly casual response to Nazi salutes she sees within sound stage. One last deep breath before she makes a decisive EXIT.

Scene 27

At Peron’s exit scoreboard selfdestructs in display of exploding mechanical innards and sounds of cosmic pinball machine registering an apocalyptic tilt. Throughout this scene what remains of the set will continue collapsing until a state of complete ruination is achieved. After dodging newly fallen debris WERNER goes to soundstage door, pounding on it with his fists.

WERNER: Listen to me, backstabber! You may have won this preliminary skirmish but the main event has yet to begin! I’ll get my chance—and when it comes you will see that being last is still best! [Moves back into set, sitting near coffee table.] Who am I fooling? The game is over and here I sit holding an empty bag of someone else’s dirty tricks! [Tosses Luger away angrily.] It’s true! The unscrupulous bitch has stolen what should have been my theatrical thunder. In the calm after such a stormy performance what can any actor do that won’t come off as being anticlimactic? If only I could find a way to put my icing on her cake! Can it be I have been given this additional time not to do just that? There must be more to Hitler than his talent for the kind of deceit by which I was just now swindled out of what was rightfully mine! Think, damn you, think! You know something is missing—a last link, the final brushstroke to make the picture complete! An idea has been nagging at me all night long; it’s here in the back of my mind—or is it in this? [Opens text left behind by Kruger.] I seem to remember seeing,when I first read it, the glint of some treasure buried beneath this avalanche of words —[Begins turning pages.] A hint, a clue, some sign or symbol that might—could this be it? This innocentlooking asterisk referring the "assiduous reader" to Appendix XXII? [Quickly turns to Appendix.] Yes! Yes!! YES!! HERE IT IS!!! The author’s first draft of a sequel to his Private Parts scenario entitled, "Hitler At Heaven’s Gate, or: Can The Complete Nonentity Who Brought All Of Europe To Its Knees Also Will His Way Into Paradise?" [Scanning and turning pages.] The scene is nothing less than Valhalla itself; with a cast of characters comprising all of Germany’s past heroes, both factual and fictitious; from Frederick The Great and von Richtofen to Siegfried and Zarathustra! The stage is crowded with wall-to-wall deities! As for the plot: it consists of keeping the recently suicided Fuehrer waiting in the celestial wings while his application to join their exclusive club is hotly debated by its divided members. [Feverishly turning page.] After several hours spent arguing pro and con, the discussion ends abruptly when Hitler’s chief advocate gives up his client’s ghost with what the author thinks will become known forever after as Nietzche’s famous "If Only" speech. In it the philosopher sadly concedes that Hitler’s case for apotheosis is irretrievably lost; not because he has sinned in the seeking of his superhuman status—but because some of his evil acts were done for the sake of evil alone—

Rising with text in hand and reading as if he were playing Nietzche:

     "The time has come for me to abandon all of Adolf Hitler’s transfigurational hopes. And who else should throw his towel into the ring if not I, whose heroic prophesies he endeavored so vainly to fulfill? Ah if only he had crossed his Russian Rubicon not as just another earthscorcher, but as a knight in shining Teutonic armor, come to slay the dragon of Asiatic proletarianism! Then would I plead his cause until hell itself became as snowbound as Stalingrad! Oh, my fellow saints, gods and Valhallaites if only he had lent his ear more to men like Speer—and less to the Himmlers and Rosenbergs—Germany’s Third Reich might have had a fighting chance to become that Supersociety of our fondest dreams —" [Turning pages, scanning.] If only this—if only that—et cetera, et cetera. [Turning pages.] So forth, and so on—the Rudolf Hess affair the Jesse Owens episode—the Franco fiasco—[Turns more pages.] This author of ours could himself be indicted on charges of overkilling the target of his accusations! No wonder Nietzche ends his speech on such an apologetic note—[Resumes reading.]

     "I could continue these ‘if onlys’ ad infinitum, but any one of them warrants not merely your rejection of my ‘protege’s application, but his eternal condemnation. Yes, members of the jury, thanks to Adolf Hitler this throne we have been saving for the Greatest German of us all will remain eternally vacant! So let me end this saddest of sad stories with a last wishful thought. O Maker of Makers, if only Thou hadst made this hubristic offspring of mine more in the image of the Man From Illinois, than the Captain of Kopenick!" [Tears this page from text.]

     Here it is in black and white!!!! The miracle of miracles!!!! The piece that completes the most perplexing of human jigsaw puzzles! Rest easy, Nietzche—your prayers for a Lincolnesque Hitler are about to be answered! [Folding page and putting it in pocket.] This speech is nothing less than a blueprint for what will be my Foolproof Fuehrer! Here and there it even resonates like that masterpiece of totalitarian doubletalk Americanstyle—The Gettysburg Address. And, as Honest Abe glibly hallowed that bloodsoaked patch of Pennsylvania real estate in the name of Big Government, so must Hitler consecrate the charnel houses of Auschwitz, Treblinka and Belsen-Bergen as memorials to his crusade against mortality!

He begins moving about set with increasing agitation, oblivious to dust and debris still falling.

     But there is more to Abe Lincoln than his consummate expertise in the poetry of public relations: the man actually believed most of what he said! So, why shouldn’t Adolf Hitler heed his own highminded oratory concerning the incorruptibility of that absolute power he hopes to exercise? Moreover, as Lincoln legitimizes his high crimes by the "lofty moral objectives" they supposedly further, even the most minimal of Hitler’s atrocities must be justified by a similar law of necessity. And, if we apply this Lincolnian principle to the practicalities of implementing a racial purification policy, for instance, it becomes manifestly true that genocide is best handled on a case-by-case basis! The salvaging of more than a few bars of human soap must be considered in the planning of such a monumental project! Unquestionably some of Germany’s "social scum" will be worth more alive than dead, in what will be the Fatherland’s greatest hour of need. After all, if Churchill would make an antiNazi pact with the devil, why shouldn’t Hitler finance his Fuehrership via the House of Rothschild? Not to mention the secret weaponry that might be developed by an Einstein, a Heisenberg or a Max Planck!

     And, on the allimportant psychological front, who knows: with a more subtle approach the otherwise troublemaking talent of an amateur authoress like Anne Frank could become an asset to a regime notoriously lacking in literary achievements? Yes! When it comes to ends dominating means, Hitler’s greatest triumph must be the one he privately wins over the popular perception of his infallibility! In choosing his underlings, nothing but the best and the brightest will do! If selecting a superpatriotic sex pervert as the Reichchancellor’s personal secretary will better oil the wheels of his governmental juggernaut than Martin Bormann’s sycophantic unctuosity, why shouldn’t Hitler give the job to Ernst Roehm?

Finding himself near soundstage door he pounds on it, saying:

     Now there’s ruthlessness for you! The kind only a dictator’s dictator can impose upon himself!!!!!

Crossing to center stage, excitedly:

      Of course Speer must be given a much larger role to play—and Schacht, and Rommel and those other brilliant minds so eager to show the world what German knowhow is really all about. Why in God’s name should Hitler hesitate to surround himself with the most capable of disciples? The attainment of a truly totalitarian state requires a team effort!

Quickly crossing to the soundstage door and pounding on it again.

     Did you hear that! With the right kind of retinue what mountain can’t be climbed—or heavenly gate assaulted? [Aiming his words skyward with raised fist.] There’s the rub in your Valhalla Scenario, Mister Author! Adolf Hitler is not about to wait in the wings while some committee debates his destiny! No. He would burst upon the stage and steal that precious "Throne of Thrones" in a single, selfdefining act of deification! Oh, think of the music Wagner could have written for such a sublimely mythological moment! [Suddenly checking watch.] But first things first, Oskar! There is still some soulsearching to do before your drawingboard dictator becomes a reality!

Seating himself at coffee table he takes out small notebook containing a pencil whose point he licks while thinking.

     Item: Operation Barbarossa requires a major rethink if we are to avoid a disaster of Napoleonic proportions. As Goebbels is forever advocating, the conquest of a Stalinized Russia is more in the nature of a political, than a purely military, problem. Memo to Minister of Propaganda—[Writes.] "Request priority analysis ramifications of not—repeat not—liquidating all pillars of German-occupied Soviet Society. [Pause to think and lick pencilpoint.]

     Item: At all costs we must not allow this "Anne Frank business" to become another Dreyfus Affair. If that means buying her off with a long life of blissful normality, so be it!!! No "Jewish" Mein Kampf is going to appear on a bestseller list because Adolf Hitler makes the mistake of martyring its adolescent authoress! Order to ReichsFuehrer Himmler—[Writing.] "Effective at once: No Dutch Jewess under the age of 17 is to be processed for—" No, no, that’s not good enough—[Erases last sentence.] "Effective immediately all Dutch Jews are exempted from standard deportation policies." [Pause to think.] Item: The plundering of Europe’s art museums—

He continues speaking but sound is cut off, so remainder of his scene is mimed. The stage has gotten very dark but WERNER is oblivious. He is in a state of inspirational rapture as his list of ‘items’ grows. During following speech by Leni R. curtains will try to close several times without total success, permitting us to see WERNER continue his rhapsodic exercise in rehabilitating the Hitler he will play when his turn comes to audition. The sounds of a distant bombardment have been getting louder and closer. An air raid is also in progress. The drone of aircraft engines grows. Bombs begin to fall nearby. Odors of cordite and smoke drift into the auditorium. Sirens are heard. Small arms firing is also perceptible as following announcement is made via P.A. system:

L.R.: Ladies and gentlemen; owing to circumstances beyond our control this evening’s show has climaxed somewhat prematurely. Nevertheless, we think you will agree the outcome was obvious before this abortive and, in the last analysis, quite superfluous scene began. The lack of your contribution to our casting decision, however, should in no way diminish the heroism you displayed by participating in this most dangerous of dramaturgical experiments. So far you have all survived and, the gods willing, this evening should end as inconsequentially as any other you might have spent at the theater. Concerning the more distant future, let us hope you can one day tell your grandchildren you were actually there when Adolf Hitler first set foot on this widest of stages we call the world—

Curtains suddenly close and announcement terminates. GERMAN TROOPS ENTER rear of auditorium to guard aisles as their OFFICER mounts stage to address audience with loudhailer.

WEHRMACHT OFFICER: Achtung! Achtung! [Holding document aloft.] Pursuant to the provisions of Operation Gotterdaemmerung I hereby place this audience under my command. Henceforth you will be known as "The Gerhard Hauptmann Brigade" of the People’s Berlin Defense Force! Our capital city is under a Soviet siege! As you can see, hear—and even smell—this situation couldn’t be more apocalyptic if Wagner himself had orchestrated it! Don’t give me those dirty looks—isn’t this the moment toward which you have all been moving since you said your first "Heil Hitler?" The Fuehrer never promised us a rose garden, comrades; he offered us only the opportunity to carry a spear in this Grandest of Grand Finales. However, I didn’t come here to deliver a pep talk, but to read your battle assignments; after which you will obey my orders to sortie thereby, or be summarily executed! [Reads from document.] Rows 110 will add their corpses to the human antitank barricade being erected on the perimeter of the Reichschancellory. Rows 1120 will neutralize Soviet machinegun nests operating in the Alexanderplatz—having armed themselves with sticks and stones on their way there. Rows 21-30—

At this point he is interrupted by arrival at rear of auditorium of General PATTON and a squad of ALLIED TROOPS. Cavalry charge is blown on bugle by one of PATTON’s troopers. As German soldiers surrender to their opposite Allied numbers, PATTON advances to front of house, addressing audience on his own loudhailer.

PATTON: Listen up, civilians! You have nothing to fear! General George S. Patton of the United States Army is here!

WEHRMACHT OFFICER draws Luger—which PATTON shoots from his hand with his own pearlhandled revolver before leaping onto the stage.

WEHRMACHT OFFICER: What’s the meaning of this?

PATTON: You silly sonofabitch, isn’t it plain to see; the war’s over—das krieg ist kaput! Your Fuehrer has bitten the dust by way of a selfinflicted coup d’etat. The Stars and Stripes are flying from the Brandenburg Gate and, on the Unter den Linden, Jewish G.I.s are negotiating nylons-for-sex deals with frauleins still wearing their Hitler Youth uniforms—

WEHRMACHT OFFICER: No, no, I can’t believe this is really happening. It’s some sort of theatrical trick!

PATTON: If that sharpshooting exhibition just now didn’t convince you we’re not playacting, a bite of this kingsized Hershey bar should—[Takes large chocolate bar from inside tunic, offers it.] What’s the matter; afraid it’s boobytrapped? [Unwraps bar, takes bite, reoffers it.] Go ahead. Enjoy. It’s all yours. [WEHRMACHT OFFICER takes bar, begins eating greedily.] Amerikanische cigaretten? [Produces several packs.] Camels? Chesterfield? Luckies? Old Gold? [WEHRMACHT OFFICER nods; PATTON peels pack, puts cigarette in WEHRMACHT OFFICER’s mouth, lights it.]

WEHRMACHT OFFICER: [Chewing chocolate and exhaling smoke.] I don’t understand—why didn’t you kill me with that shot?

PATTON: Oh, I’m killing you alright: but with kindness! It’s part of a postwar strategy that puts us both on the same side. Yes, it’s you and us now. against all those Rooskie sonsofbitches! [To audience.] And the same goes for all you other "ex"-Nazis out there. The hot war is over. The cold one is just beginning. Together we’ll finish the job that sonofabitch Schickelgruber snafooed so superbly. Could any war have a happier ending? Listen! Those are the sounds of Berlin being rebuilt as a showcase for all the goodies only capitalism Americanstyle can create!

The sounds of war have indeed given way to those of the jackhammer, anvil and other tools of postwar rebuilding.

PATTON: What’s the matter with you people? Here I am spreading the best possible kind of news and there you sit like bumps on a goddammed log! Isn’t there a sonofabitch among you who still believes in that Supreme Sonofabitch who scripted the prewar scenario of mankind’s rags-to-riches rise from the bottom of a primordial soup pot? After being bombarded by 12 years of official bullshit I can understand your skepticism; but this isn’t the goddammed Fuehrer talking to you now, this is General George "Straightshooter" Patton; one of the sincerest sonsofbitches you will ever have the privilege of being chewed out by! Christ almighty, what can I do to persuade you people this admittedly unorthodox turn of events is 100% kosher?

WEHRMACHT OFFICER: Forgive my impertinence, Herr General, but if you will permit me, as a German, to speculate on the nature of this phenomenon you find so bewildering?

PATTON: Be my guest!

WEHRMACHT OFFICER: [Wiping chocolate from lips (having consumed entire bar) and lighting another cigarette.] It is not their recent love affair with Nazism which has disenchanted this audience. Their skepticism can be best explained as the kind of supersophistication an entire society acquires only after centuries of being intellectually totalitarianized. Moreover; since in the real lives of most Germans there are never any happy endings, a fairytale finale such as the one you represent can only exist in the realm of art. In addition to which, the noise of that typewriter isn’t helping your case.

Faint sound of typing can in fact be heard coming from behind curtain.

PATTON: Impossible! I can barely hear the damned thing myself!

WEHRMACHT OFFICER: Herr General, in Germany the sound of someone typing is an integral part of the theatrical experience, just as in Beethoven’s time the scraping of his pen on the manuscript of The Pastoral Symphony could be detected during even the stormiest of its passages.

PATTON: You’re telling me nothing will satisfy those cynical sonsofbitches out there short of letting them see what—if anything—lurks behind these curtains—is that it?

WEHRMACHT OFFICER: It’s not that we don’t appreciate your chocolate bars and cigarettes, but in the final analysis—

PATTON: Alright, goddammit, we can’t go on like this forever—[Takes hold of curtain as WEHRMACHT OFFICER does same.]

WEHRMACHT OFFICER: On the count of three?

PATTON: Why not, you romantic sonofabitch?

WEHRMACHT OFFICER: Ein! Zwei! Drei!

PATTON and WEHRMACHT OFFICER pull curtains open and EXIT to wings.

Scene 28

FEMALE DRAMA CRITIC and PLAYWRIGHT-OF-THE-MONTH discovered on stage. She sits at makeup table applying cosmetics in costume she wore for Act One. He sits at coffeetable typing and smoking pipe as HANS and FRITZ ENTER in stagehand’s overalls. FRITZ carries lectern and stool, which he establishes downstage. HANS offers flask to PLAYWRIGHT-OF-THE-MONTH with heelclicking and Nazi salute.

HANS: Your coffee, my Fuehrer! Does the Fuehrer desire anything else? Some of his favorite cream cakes, perhaps? [PLAYWRIGHT-OF-THE-MONTH shakes head negatively.] In that case may I ask the Fuehrer how long this "epilogue" of his will take? [PLAYWRIGHT-OF-THE-MONTH holds up three fingers.] Is that minutes, hours—or days—my Fuehrer? [PLAYWRIGHT-OF-THE-MONTH signifies smallest increment of time with thumb and forefinger.] I will take that as your solemn oath, Fuehrer, that in 3 minutes this stage will belong to we who have our own work to do—if this show hopes to have a repeat performance tomorrow night!

PLAYWRIGHT-OF-THE-MONTH waves him off impatiently with pipe. HANS salutes, clicks heels and EXITS with FRITZ. PLAYWRIGHT-OF-THE-MONTH types briefly, takes page from typewriter and snaps fingers to get FEMALE DRAMA CRITIC’s attention.

FEMALE DRAMA CRITIC: [Crossing to PLAYWRIGHT-OF-THE-MONTH.] Is it finished? [Takes page and reads briefly.] It’s marvelous darling! How cleverly you’ve maneuvered them into reopening the curtains! [Glances at proscenium ‘mirror,’ fusses with hair.] Does this stage direction really mean what it says? You want me to read the remaining text out loud from that lectern in the fullfrontal style of an explanatory epilogue?

PLAYWRIGHT-OF-THE-MONTH nods, points to lectern with pipe. FEMALE DRAMA CRITIC comes to lectern, puts on light, perches atop stool (puts glasses on), and, clearing her throat, begins to read:

FEMALE DRAMA CRITIC: "Ladies and gentlemen. At long last your ordeal is about to end. But before it does, let me use these final few moments to tell you just how this dreadful play was brought to such a satisfying end. As nature herself abhors a vacuum, so too the drama critic condemns a denouement that leaves its audience in a state of disbelief—especially one in which my own credibility as a woman and a journalist has been so villainously compromised." [Aside to PLAYWRIGHT.] That’s terrifically perceptive of you, darling! How rare it is for any female, let alone a drama critic, to be the leading lady in a scenario whose only outcome isn’t her undoing! [PLAYWRIGHT points to watch with pipe.] What’s that? Oh yes, the old tempus just keeps right on fugiting, doesn’t it! Now where was I—ah, here we are. [Resumes reading.] "But one needn’t be a distressed damsel of my dramaturgical expertise to insist on having some story told to make this farfetched finale seem at least a little less implausible than it presently does. Well, this is that story. It begins with my exit early on in Act 2. I’m sure you all remember that showstopping moment when I suddenly left the stage to search for a knight in shining armor who might champion what looked like my hopelessly lost cause? Of course, such a Fairy Tale Strategy turned out to be easier dreamt of than done! But, in the interest of brevity, suffice it to say, that after the most perilous adventures; including my skin-of-the-teeth escape from a Nazi torture chamber, several close encounters with rapeminded members of the advancing Red Army, and a surrealistic brush with death in the form of a firing squad composed of writers whose plays I had previously panned." [To PLAYWRIGHT-OF-THE-MONTH.] Really, Dexter, I never imagined you had this sort of stuff inside that tightly-screwed-on head of yours! [Resumes reading before PLAYWRIGHT-OF-THE-MONTH can react.] —"After all that, I finally found the man I was looking for, drowning his own sorrows in, of all places, the back room of this beerhall next door! [Indicates soundstage door.] From then on it was only a matter of sobering him up, finding a typewriter and making myself presentable while he rewrote what has turned out to be this happiest of happy endings!" [Switches lectern light off and leaves stool with page held to bosom.] Oh, my playwright-in-shining-armor, you’ve done it!!!! Not only does this single sheet of paper save the heroine, it rescues an entire audience from the villainous clutches of a wouldbe theatrical tyrant! [Rushing to PLAYWRIGHT-OF-THE-MONTH.] Let this kiss of mine be the first of your rave reviews!

PLAYWRIGHT-OF-THE-MONTH signals her not to reward him in that way just yet, then he types several lines on fresh sheet of paper. FEMALE DRAMA CRITIC reads as he types:

FEMALE DRAMA CRITIC: "The battlefield backdrop is replaced by a scene lifted from a schoolgirl’s storybook." [This is done.] "Churchbells are heard pealing." [Sound of churchbells is heard.] "And, as the sun sets in the West, The Female Drama Critic and the Playwright-of-the-Month walk hand-in-hand toward their honeymoon cottage on the hill. End of Play."

PLAYWRIGHT-OF-THE-MONTH rises and embraces FEMALE DRAMA CRITIC. They kiss.

FEMALE DRAMA CRITIC: It’s pure perfection, darling!!!! What more can be said; except that it looks like we really will live happily ever after!!!!

FEMALE DRAMA CRITIC and PLAYWRIGHT-OF-THE-MONTH stroll hand-in-hand toward backdrop, disappearing into a "blinding sunset effect"—to be seen thereafter as painted figures on road leading to Honeymoon cottage. If painted battlefield backdrop has been replaced by three dimensional storybook set, they will make their upstage journey toward an actual cottage.

End of Play

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