ACT TWO

TZU-DOH leaps from wings and poses heroically in front of curtain. His uniform has been bloodied. He wears head bandage, puttees, ammunition belts, grenades and waves a large red flag.

TZU-DOH: People of Lung Dung! A great event is about to occur! Ten thousand years of Chinese history is about to end! A new ten thousand years is about to begin! A new era is dawning! A new sun is rising in the blood-red east! [Strikes new pose.] Maybe you can feel the earth quaking beneath your chairs! That is the footfall of a mighty army coming to free you from the chains of feudalism! Ten thousand feet are trampling the grapes of wrath! [New pose.] We citizen-soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army have carried this blood-red flag across the Seven Great Rivers and over the Eight Great Mountains, through the burning sands and frozen wastelands, smashing our way out of the Nine Campaigns of Encirclement and the One Hundred Traps and Pitfalls of civil war! [New pose.] Ten thousand li we have marched, carrying our banner high, wide, and handsomely!

ENTER MOON wearing tuxedo, smoking cigarette in long holder and imbibing now and then from silver flask. He holds sheet of paper torn from teletype machine.

MOON: This man is telling you nothing but lies! People of Lung Dung, there is something you should know! It’s called "The Truth!" The socalled "People’s Liberation Army" has been driven to this remote corner of China with its Marxist tail between its legs—like the beaten dog it truly is! I’ve just been handed this bulletin from Koumingtang headquarters. [Reading.] "Dateline Peking, 5 April 1934. The insurrection of the Mao Tse-tung gangsters was put to a final end today by the encirclement of the remnants of his bandit forces in the region of Lung Dung, on the fringes of the notorious Grasslands. Thus ends the socalled 'Long March' and 'Glorious Communist Revolution' of the arch criminal Mao Tse-tung!" [Takes drink from flask.]

TZU-DOH: [Striking pose.] People of Lung Dung! How many times has the KMT told you that same old story? Every day they say we are finished—and every night we spring up in their rear to take them by surprise! [Lunges at MOON, jabbing at him with flag.] We are as numberless as blades of grass!

MOON: Speaking of which; I wonder how, at this very moment, the bandit forces of the PLA are enjoying their "little stroll" through the Grasslands!

TZU-DOH: [Striking heroic pose.] People of Lung Dung! People of China! People of the world! A message from Chairman Mao Tse-tung! [Takes scroll from tunic, holds it at arm’s length and reads.] "We of the Red Army are undaunted! The force of history propels us into the glorious morrow! The first day of a new ten thousand years is already here!" [New pose, thrusting flag at MOON.] The paper tiger of imperialist feudalism is writhing in its final death agony!

MOON: [Brushing flag aside, taking envelope from pocket.] I have just received this message from the leader of our KMT army, Generalissimo Chiang! It is addressed to the "Beleaguered Chief Gangster, Mao Tse-tung." It says: "Dear Mao; This is your last chance! Go back to writing poetry! Resume your navel gazing! Quit now and, in the spirit of traditional Chinese humanity, I will pardon all of your ‘revolutionary’ transgressions!"

TZU-DOH: [New pose.] Do you hear that? Isn’t it laughable? [Laughs.] Why is the KMT suddenly so "generous?" Why are they shaking in their shoes? You people know who the real losers in this war are, that’s why!

MOON: [Lighting cigarette.] A bulletin from the Northern Frontier! "The last remnant of the PLA is surrounded! After their long trek through the intestinal tract of China, the Red bandits are about to be shit out! So much for the socalled ‘Long March’! Its survivors are no more heroic than a pile of turds!

TZU-DOH: [New pose.] You think we mind being compared to shit? Better to be Chinese shit than the running-dog-meat of feudal-capitalist-imperialism! The people know that life itself springs from China’s night soil! The Red Army proudly fertilizes our new social order! [New pose.] Remember the B.E.F. at Dunkirk! Remember George Washington at Valley Forge! History will record that the masses of all humanity had their finest hour here in the Grasslands of Lung Dung!

MOON: [Referring to another document.] Just to set the record straight, the government lays out the following facts: The socalled "Long March" of the socalled "People’s Liberation Army" is nothing less than the most colossal disaster in the history of military fiascoes since Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow!

TZU-DOH: [New pose.] Yes! And long live the solidarity of the people of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics with the People’s Republic of China!

MOON: Fact: After marching ten thousand li, barely 500 disease-ridden criminals remain of the original one hundred thousand socalled "troops" of the socalled "Invincible Red Army!" Fact: The socalled "Heroes" of the socalled "Glorious Revolution" are up to their stinking armpits in the mud of the Lung Dung Grasslands! Fact: As the "rising sun" of Marxism sets slowly in the west, the megalomaniacal aspirations of Mao Tse-tung sink into the quagmire of utopian political theory! Citizens of China, don’t be fooled by Mao Tse-tung propaganda!

TZU-DOH: [New pose.] Comrades! Do not be led astray by feudal rhetoric!

ENTER SO-LOW through curtains.

SO-LOW: Wait a minute! What’s going on out here?

TZU-DOH: Go away, you fool; we’re acting!

SO-LOW: You mean you’ve already started the play?

TZU-DOH: [Trying to ignore SO-LOW, blocking him with flag.] History can not be denied! Victory is within our grasp!

SO-LOW: But I haven’t made my official welcoming speech to the cadre of the Peking Opera!

TZU-DOH: Well, you certainly can’t do it now!

SO-LOW: I’ve been working on it night and day! It’s two full pages! I was promised I could make a speech!

TZU-DOH: Get out of the way! [Strikes pose obscuring SO-LOW.] Now is the time to—[SO-LOW pushes him aside roughly.]

SO-LOW: Now is the time for my welcoming speech, comrades! [Reading.] "On behalf of the workers and peasants of the People’s Commune of Lung Dung, I officially welcome our comrades from—

TZU-DOH picks himself up and scuffles with SO-LOW.

TZU-DOH: Now is the time to pluck—

SO-LOW: Now is the time for my welcoming speech! [He uses flagstaff to get a strangle hold on TZU-DOH.] Have you had enough, comrade or must I kill you so I can make this welcoming speech!

TZU-DOH: [To MOON.] Don’t just stand there you jackanapes! He’s really trying to murder me!

MOON: Helping you would not be consistent with my character, comrade. In a situation like this you have no choice but to capitulate.

TZU-DOH: Alright! I surrender!

MOON: [To audience.] You see, people of Lung Dung, how quickly the "cold steel" of communist "conviction" disintegrates under the first real application of counterrevolutionary pressure? So much for ideological martyrdom!

TZU-DOH: [Having been released by SO-LOW.] It’s taken me ten minutes of the most intense concentration to psyche myself into this part—

SO-LOW: And it took me three whole weeks to write this speech!

TZU-DOH: An actor can’t change roles like a peasant changing his coat.

SO-LOW: I wouldn’t know about that. Around here you’re lucky to have one coat—winter and summer.

TZU-DOH: This project was doomed from the beginning!

SO-LOW: Do you mind if I read this speech now?

TZU-DOH: Of course I mind! You have shattered the delicate ambience required for this most difficult artistic feat. It’s bad enough I nearly lost my life in that accursed swamp of yours—

SO-LOW: You’re not trying to blame that debacle on me, are you? Those Grasslands are not my private property—they belong to all of the people now.

TZU-DOH: Since this speech of yours is on paper I can take it back to Peking and file it with the other provincial testimonials to our cultural crusade—[Grabs at speech.]

SO-LOW: [Refusing to surrender speech.] That wouldn’t be fair to the audience.

TZU-DOH: I’m sure the audience won’t mind. They came here to see our jubilee production of "How Mao," not to hear your speech; and it wouldn’t surprise me if their patience was approaching the point of no return.

SO-LOW: Are you hinting my speech might bore them? Well, I say that your play is boring them! This isn’t how it happened anyway. What’s all that fake blood supposed to prove?

TZU-DOH: It represents the countless buckets of real blood spilled by the people who—

SO-LOW: Yes, people like me! I can show you real scars, comrade actor! 25 years ago it wasn’t sweet and sour sauce I shed on the field of battle! And what have I gotten out of being a hero? Have I moved a single rung up the ladder of success? Has one song or poem been composed in my honor? Not that I’m complaining. In a country of this size it’s only logical that somebody will get lost in the shuffle—but why does that somebody always turn out to be old sergeant Hung? Why do I always end up holding the shitty end of every stick?

TZU-DOH: That sounds like a complaint to me.

SO-LOW: I’m only explaining why it is that sometimes my fuse is a little short—which was the point of my speech—to let our comrades in Peking know that I am still alive and manning my post after all these years—

TZU-DOH: I will deliver it personally to the Standing Subcommittee of The Permanent Committee on Rural Cultural Affairs—[Tries to snatch speech from SO-LOW.]

SO-LOW: It really needs to be read aloud—

TZU-DOH: No!

SO-LOW: What do you mean, "no?"

TZU-DOH: This is what I mean! Soldiers! Soldiers of the Red Army on stage! [He blows a whistle. SOLDIERS 1 & 2 ENTER with rifles and fixed bayonets.] Place this maniac under arrest until the end of the play.

SO-LOW: You can’t arrest people with actors. These aren’t real Red Army troops and you’re certainly not a real general!

TZU-DOH: You will see what is real and what is not! Sometimes art is more actual than reality itself! Furthermore, those rifles are loaded with live ammunition.

SO-LOW: But what about my speech?

TZU-DOH: Why don’t we put that question to a vote. [To audience.] How many of you out there want to hear the sergeant’s speech?

SO-LOW: As long as we’re voting—how many of you want to see this actor’s play?

Presumably the audience is not enthusiastic about either proposition.

TZU-DOH: Alright, it’s no skin off my nose if you don’t appreciate a cultural opportunity of the first magnitude! [He motions SOLDIERS to escort SO-LOW from stage. SOLDIERS EXIT with SO-LOW.] What else can one expect from the Great Unwashed? Not that I’m complaining, mind you.

MOON: It goes without saying—you’re only explaining.

TZU-DOH: Chorus on stage! [Blows whistle.] Let’s have the chorus on stage please! We’re cutting to scene 3!

FUH-KUP: [Putting head through curtains.] Is someone calling the chorus?

TZU-DOH: Yes; someone is calling the chorus! It is time for "The Song Of Ten Thousand Desires."

FUH-KUP: I’m not sure we know that one, but it sounds exciting—

He is pushed through curtains by VILLAGE CHORUS.

MRS MUK: [Putting makeup on.] What’s all this about a chorus call?

TZU-DOH: We’re cutting to the middle of page 9 in the script—

MRS MUK: Around here we don’t go by pages. We start the play with Lay-mee’s first try at seducing Mao.

TZU-DOH: If you will all just do as you are told things will move right along.

MR MUK: We like to get into the action as soon as possible

FUH-KUP: Into the juiciest parts, isn’t that what you mean, Mr Muk?

AI-SINGH: What’s the sense of beating around the bush?

TZU-DOH: The point is that one simply can’t jump into a play like this until one has at least a rudimentary understanding of its metaphysical context. This isn’t just the story of an ordinary man being seduced by an ordinary woman—

SHEN-TEH: Does that mean we are not going to do The Famous Seduction Scene?

FUH-KUP: You should have seen Shenteh play The Famous Seduction Scene last year comrade Artistic Director! It got Comrade So-low’s spectacles all steamed up!

MR MUK: I don’t think the play works without The Famous Seduction Scene.

MRS MUK: It loses its raison d’etre, don’t you think?

TZU-DOH: Of course we’re going to include The Famous Seduction Scene! You can’t very well do "How Mao" without it—but it’s vitally important to lay the groundwork for the seduction scene properly, so it can be perceived against a backdrop of Chinese history and the implacable machinations of sociological economics—[Suddenly strikes militant pose that alarms VILLAGERS.] First you must know the nature of the problem facing Mao Tse-tung! [Strikes another pose as music comes up.] In the beginning there was The Masses! [Another pose.] And The Masses were fed up with being hungry all the time! [Another pose.] And Mao noticed how The Masses were fed up with being hungry all the time! But in their feudalized ignorance The Masses knew not what to do about rectifying their situation—and Mao saw The Masses knew not what to do and he spake unto them, saying: [Another pose.] "It is time for The Masses to desire to have desires!"

MOON: [To audience.] Excuse me comrades, but I must ask you this: If the Chinese Communist Party was a bank would you put your silver dollars in it? Would you buy a used rickshaw from Mr Mao Tse-tung? Can’t you see what the "masses" really represent to this pisspoor, tinhorned, rabblerouser from Hunan? To him you are just one billion stepping stones on his hubristic quest for immortality; the subhuman stairway to his political superstardom! Listen "stepping stones"—do you hear that throbbing in the sky? It is not a figment of my ideological rhetoric or the hyperbole of some playwright’s poetic imagination! Those are real pistons pounding in real cylinders—real propellers screwing through the air on their way to obliterate you!

Sound of airplane is heard. VILLAGERS become alarmed.

TZU-DOH: [Striking defiant pose, shaking fist skyward.] Don’t be alarmed, comrades! Don’t be depressed by divebombers and negative propaganda! While it’s true there may be a small cloud on the horizon momentarily blotting out the enlightened sunshine of social progress—[Ducks as ‘plane’ makes low pass.]—the revolutionary flame burns fiercely in the heart and mind of Mao Tse-tung! [New defiant pose targeted at plane.] Many times has he suffered setbacks but his spirit remains undaunted—[Flattens himself with VILLAGERS as ‘plane’ attacks again.]

MOON: [Still standing, still calm.] Remember people of Lung Dung, you are encircled by a ring of Koumingtang steel! If you want to keep your heads—use them! [EXIT.]

TZU-DOH: [After plane flies off, rises to address audience.] The enemy has tanks and planes and bombs and bullets but we have the most powerful weapon of all on our side, comrades—The Mind of Mao Tse-tung!

Brief musical fanfare is heard at rear of auditorium. Pause. Another fanfare.

DUNG: [Putting head through curtains.] May I have a word with you, comrade Tzu-doh?

TZU-DOH: What is it?

DUNG: I don’t think your leading man is well enough to go on.

TZU-DOH: Then he’s not going to make his entrance through the audience now?

MAI-WEI and MEE-TOU ENTER from backstage.

MAI-WEI: We must speak with you!

MEE-TOU: Conditions backstage are getting out of hand—

TZU-DOH: Is this really happening to me?

MAI-WEI: The peasants are planning to do the seduction scene in the nude!

MEE-TOU: In the N-U-D-E, comrade—can you believe it?

TZU-DOH: [Beaten.] I can believe anything.

SHEN-TEH: The Famous Seduction Scene is always played au naturel.

MRS MUK: How else can a man be convincingly seduced?

MAI-WEI: Perhaps, but that’s not art—it is the crassest kind of reality.

MR MUK: What’s wrong with reality?

ENTER SO-LOW.

TZU-DOH: Oh my God, not you again!

SO-LOW: My presence is necessary to settle this argument about the seduction scene. I was here when it happened and I can tell you it was definitely done in the buff.

TZU-DOH: What actually happened is not relevant. This is an abstract work of art. We are dealing with transcendental ideas here; not simply the sexual seduction of a virile young man by a beautiful young woman!

SO-LOW: The plain truth is she was wearing only a green silk kimono with not another stitch on underneath; and Mao himself started out in just his pajama bottoms—

MAI-WEI: Can’t you get it through your thick skull: what happened back then was only the raw material from which this artistic masterpiece of revolutionary theater could be constructed?

MEE-TOU: What you were seeing was only on the surface—

SO-LOW: Well, I can tell you there was nothing wrong with her surface on that night—no sir, her skin was gleaming like alabaster in the moonlight!

FUH-KUP: If they’re not naked, what is the point of seeing "How Mao?" In the final analysis isn’t their nudity all the audience really cares about?

TZU-DOH: No, that isn’t all the audience really cares about. One needn’t come to the Peking Opera to see a nude seduction scene. If that is all people want they can roam the city streets peeping into bedroom windows.

FUH-KUP: Believe me, that’s not as good as seeing a professional actress and actor do it—and besides, you can get arrested for looking into bedroom windows, whereas theatergoing is a perfectly respectable way of spying on people.

TZU-DOH: [Exasperated.] The point I have been trying to make is this: pandering to such prurience bankrupts the theatrical art form. Not only is it tasteless but, to continue the metaphor, it is culturally non-nutritious. The seduction of Mao Tse-tung was not a sexual act—

SO-LOW: It was a pretty steamy affair, I can tell you! My eyeglasses got all—

TZU-DOH: Yes, yes, we heard all about your spectacles! All I am saying is that sex was only the disguise by which the forces of counterrevolution sought to unravel the fabric of Mao’s manifest destiny. What seemed to be the erotic love play between a man and a woman was, beneath the "gleaming surface" of their moonlit bodies, in actuality a ferocious combat of opposing wills; an epic struggle of revolution versus counterrevolution, Yin versus Yang, heaven versus earth, flesh versus spirit, mind versus matter, and mortality versus immortality—that is the difference between art and pornography.

MAI-WEI: Besides, a good actress doesn’t have to strip herself stark naked to create the illusion she is nude, young man! If I chose to I could make this drab, sexless uniform of mine seem just as transparent as that diaphanous silk kimono Lay-mee wears in The Famous Seduction Scene! All I need to do is lower my eyelids, put a blush on my cheeks, strike a maidenly pose and infuse my voice with a certain comehitherness and—[Demonstrates foregoing on FUH-KUP.]—voila! You are nothing more than so much masculine putty in my hands!

TZU-DOH: This isn’t the time for acting exercises! Some order must be created from this shambles! Decisions have to be made!

MRS MUK: Do you realize it’s a quarter past nine already?

DUNG: [Having ENTERED through curtain.] An injection of this drug will put him to sleep for the rest of the night.

MAI-WEI: It’s the only solution. Skai-hai must be neutralized.

TZU-DOH: How do I know what’s in that syringe? Can I risk the wellbeing of an actor with Skai-hai’s stature? On the other hand, if he tries to go ahead with this performance the results could be catastrophic!

FUH-KUP: I’ve an idea, comrade. Why not do just The Famous Seduction Scene and forget about the rest of the play?

THE VILLAGE CHORUS: That’s not such a bad idea!—So, you have got a head on your shoulders after all!—I think he’s got something there—If we just do the seduction scene we could be out of here by ten o’clock.

TZU-DOH: Enough! I’ve made up my mind! The camel’s back has finally been broken. This show is over! Turn the house lights up! Open the curtains! Everybody go home!

Curtains open on an empty stage.

MAI-WEI: They’re gone!

MEE-TOU: Mao and Lay-mee were rehearsing the seduction scene just a moment ago—

Commotion at rear of auditorium. Trumpet fanfare. MAO (played by Skai-hai) is carried in by SOLDIERS 1 & 2 on litter as in Act One.

SOLDIER 1: Make way! Make way for the Most, Most Revered and Exalted Leader of The People’s Liberation Army; the Greatest and Most Glorious First Citizen of China’s New Classless Society!

SOLDIER 2: The Man of the Millennium whose name forms joyously on the billion lips of the masses—Mao Tse-tung!

The litter is set down on stage. MAO rises on one elbow.

MAO: People of China! People of all humanity! The Long March is over! The red sun of a new era is dawning in the east! [Collapses.]

TZU-DOH: No, no, no—it’s hopeless! [To audience.] I’m sorry, but you can see that we tried to—

MAO: [Rising.] The revolution must go on! [Collapses.]

MAI-WEI: [At MAO’s side.] My poor darling, your head is burning up!

MAO: Do not—give up now comrades—this is—the turning point—from here I can see the light at the tunnel’s end—no sacrifice is too great for China’s egalitarian future—sail on! Sail on! Westward!—ever Westward! There is a New World just beyond—the horizon—[Collapses.]

MAI-WEI: You’re destroying yourself, darling—and for what: to make a grandstand gesture for the benefit of these hicks?

ENTER LAY-MEE in green silk kimono for seduction scene.

LAY-MEE: What’s happening out here? [Goes to MAO.]

TZU-DOH: The performance is canceled.

MAO: The performance is not canceled—and I can prove it! [Struggles to rise, helped by LAY-MEE.] I will lead you all in the singing of that grand old revolutionary favorite—Red Guards In The Sunrise! Come! Let us all sing! If you don’t know the lyrics, they’re printed in your programs—[He conducts audience and sings following lyric with CHORUS to tune of ‘Red Sails In The Sunset’.]

Red Guards in the Sunrise
Red Guards in the Sunrise
Red Guards in the Sunrise

Etc. until MAO collapses and must be helped to couch.

DUNG: As a doctor I must warn you there will be very serious consequences if you go on with this show.

MAO: You think I’m afraid of dying? Was Mao afraid of death as he lay on this very same couch? Does an actor have any less responsibility to his craft than Mao had to his political destiny?

MAI-WEI: This isn’t the Peking Opera House—

MAO: Are you saying these peasants are less worthy of seeing an actor sacrifice himself on the altar of his art than a Peking audience? It would be a privilege to drop dead on this humble stage! But I am not going to die, comrades! There is a new strength surging through my soul! The spirit of Mao Tse-tung itself has entered my body! Let us not dishonor the memory of our great leader’s heroic triumph over the forces of counterrevolution with this reactionary bickering! Instead, let the story be told of How The Most, Most Revered Chairman Mao Tse-tung Struggled With The Triple Temptations Of Sex, Selfinterest And Satrapy! [Collapses.]

TZU-DOH: All right, that’s it! Close the curtains!

Curtains close. TZU-DOH parts them to address audience at footlights.

Comrades, you have just seen with your own eyes what happened and must appreciate my predicament. The young actor scheduled to play the part of Mao Tse-tung has demonstrated his heroism in no uncertain terms. He wants the show to go on. But it's my responsibility to see that one of China’s most precious cultural treasures is stopped from needlessly selfdestructing. Already we have lost too many actors and actresses on this mission. As artists I think we have demonstrated our commitment to the cause of class solidarity. But now it is time for common sense to prevail. Accordingly I have ordered your Party Chief to call the Red Army in to evacuate us to a modern medical facility. While it is true you won’t get to see The Famous Seduction Scene, this night has not been a total loss. Far from it! You have seen nothing less than a genuine repeat performance of the history Mao Tse-tung made on this very spot 25 years ago. You aren’t being cheated out of seeing a seduction scene, comrades! You have received an extraordinarily rare cultural bonus you can carry back to your humble abodes, held in your horny peasant’s hands like a ball of rice carved in ivory! As Chairman Mao has said: "When you take culture to the masses do so with the utmost reverence, because culture is the food of the revolutionary spirit!" So, on behalf of the People’s Opera of Peking I bid you all good night.

DUNG: [Putting head through curtains.] He won’t take the knockout drops comrade. He insists the show must go on—

TZU-DOH: [To audience.] It’s all right. I will handle this. You can go now.

SOLDIERS 1 & 2: [Appearing at auditorium exits with rifles.] Nobody leaves! By order of the High Command of the People’s Liberation Army this show will go on! Open the curtains and let the play begin!

MEE-TOU: [ENTERING from wing.] I’m sorry, Tzu-doh, but Skai-hai is adamant. He really thinks he is Mao Tse-tung!

TZU-DOH: [To audience.] Well; it seems that I am the victim of a mutiny, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you will all remember that I am not responsible for the consequences of what ensues! [To MEE-TOU.] Let the curtains open on Scene 3. We will cut the Song of the Seven Encirclements and all of the biographical material. The audience is familiar with the story anyway, aren’t you? [EXIT MEE-TOU.] The humble birth of an oriental nobody named Mao Tse-tung against the vast landscape of China in the grip of a feudalistic dark age; the unspeakable oppression of the masses, the emergence of young Mao as a poet-intellectual; the 100 Treacheries of Chiang Kai-shek; one man’s utopian vision standing against the blind fury of bourgeois reactionaryism—despair, hopeless odds, fierce determination, et cetera, et cetera.

Curtains open to reveal MAO on couch, moaning in an overtheatricalized manifestation of pain caused by his fever. TZU-DOH ENTERS with MAI-WEI and MEE-TOU, who move ornamental screens to conceal the couch, then come downstage to confer with Tzu-doh. Like Skai-hai they are now acting their roles in ‘How Mao’.

TZU-DOH: He doesn’t look good.

MEE-TOU: What are we going to do now that our leader has been laid low?

MAI-WEI: What else is there to do but carry on with the revolution?

MEE-TOU: But someone has to give the orders.

TZU-DOH: Since I am senior, it would seem—

MAI-WEI: What has seniority got to do with anything? I am unquestionably the person closest to Mao’s heart and mind. Hasn’t he frequently said that "he and I speak with one tongue?"

TZU-DOH: But you are a woman!

MAI-WEI: Yes! I am a woman! Does that bother you?

TZU-DOH: I have no qualms about your talents, Mai-wei. I’ve watched you handle a machinegun and rub more than your shoulders with the troops. I only raise the issue as it might apply to those less enlightened male members of the cadre. As for me, you have my vote; but my vote is only one of the many needed for a democratically mandated change of leadership—

MAI-WEI: [Striking heroic pose.] There is no time for "democratic mandates" comrades! The initiative must be seized! Destiny has thrust me onto the center of the stage! Like Joan of Arc! La Pasionara! Rosa Luxemburg! It’s only fitting the red flag of freedom should pass into the hands of a woman! Who more appropriately symbolizes the most downtrodden of all the downtrodden!

TZU-DOH: You’re making it sound as if Mao were already dead!

MAI-WEI: That terrible thought never crossed my mind!

ENTER SOLDIERS with VILLAGERS.

SOLDIER 1: We’ve rounded up a few of the local inhabitants.

SOLDIER 2: Most of them have taken to the hills.

MAI-WEI: There is no need to flee from us, comrades. The Red Army has come here to liberate you! See? [Shows silver dollars to VILLAGERS.] We have carried these silver dollars all the way from Canton to pay you for the supplies we need.

MR MUK: [Bowing.] We have no "supplies."

MRS MUK: [Bowing.] You can see how poor we are, Your Highness.

SHEN-TEH: [Bowing.] We’ve been conquered so many times there’s nothing left for us to give, Your Highness.

MAI-WEI: Don’t call me that! I am not "Your Highness!" I am your equal, your comrade, your sister-in-suffering!

MRS MUK: The thing is—"sister-in-suffering"—this is a very poor village.

MAI-WEI: I told you we will pay for everything we take. These are real silver dollars. Do you know what silver dollars are?

MR MUK: We’ve heard about them.

SHEN-TEH: Silver dollars won’t do you much good in Lung Dung. You can’t eat them or make fire with them or keep the rain off your head with them.

TZU-DOH: We’re not fools!

MEE-TOU: We’ve liberated lots of people like you and we know how to ferret out your secret supplies if we have to!

MAI-WEI: We are experts in peasant psychology so don’t try to pull any wool over our eyes! Not that we don’t understand and even empathize with your plight. We know how mercilessly you’ve been plundered in the past.

MRS MUK: If it wasn’t the Mongols, it was the Tartars—

MR MUK: And the Tibetans; don’t forget the Tibetans!

SHEN-TEH: Or the Han warlords.

MRS MUK: And, of course, the local bandits.

MR MUK: Not to mention the feudal landlords.

MRS MUK: God knows what they all want this pathetic place for!

MR MUK: Sometimes they say it’s because we occupy a strategic location.

SHEN-TEH: Sometimes it’s because they just don’t have anything better to do than pillage and rape!

MAI-WEI: This time it is different—we have come only to help you.

MRS MUK: But you still want our food—

MEE-TOU: I thought you said you didn’t have any food!!!!

MRS MUK: I was speaking hypothetically.

SHEN-TEH: Can’t you see by the way our ribs are protruding we haven’t had a decent meal since the day we were born?

TZU-DOH: We know how you peasants can suck in your bellies and make your ribs protrude! The hard historic fact is that we have 20,000 troops to feed, clothe and house if this revolution is going to succeed.

MEE-TOU: So don’t give us any sob stories!

MAI-WEI: I can see you all need some reeducating—

MRS MUK: We haven’t been educated in the first place.

MAI-WEI: Your feudalized mentalities will have to be rectified with a dose of Mao-thought. I know that might sound frightening but you’ll see how much fun it really is; for the time being I want you to show these brave soldiers where you have hidden all the butter and eggs and salted turnips every peasant puts by for a rainy day.

VILLAGERS are led off by SOLDIERS. ENTER SO-LOW with DUNG and LAY-MEE.

SO-LOW: I found these two hiding in the dungeon of the castle, comrades!

DUNG: We weren’t hiding. We had gone there to collect these medical supplies. When we heard you were crossing The Grasslands we guessed there would be fever cases—

MEE-TOU: What a touching story of rural patriotism!

MAI-WEI: Who are you?

DUNG: I am Duke Dung and this is my daughter, Princess Lay-mee. Until your arrival on the scene I was the Satrap of Lung Dung—an impressive-sounding title which, as you can see, is mocked by the grinding poverty of this region.

MAI-WEI: You don’t think we’re going to believe you really live like this, do you?

MEE-TOU: How long did it take you to make this palace look so drab?

DUNG: About six thousand years. As you can plainly see—

TZU-DOH: We see very plainly indeed!

MEE-TOU: Don’t worry about our eyesight!

MAI-WEI: We know what your game is!

MEE-TOU: I suppose you’re going to show us your ribs?

DUNG: Our ribs?

MAI-WEI: This daughter of yours doesn’t look any the worse for wear.

MEE-TOU: [Not without a tinge of lechery.] Definitely on the statuesque side, I’d say—

TZU-DOH: She’s even wearing perfume!

MAI-WEI: And the fancy way she does her hair and makes up her face! The unmistakable signs of feudal satrapy!

LAY-MEE: But I’m not wearing any perfume! I don’t use makeup, and my hair is 100% au naturel—

MAI-WEI: "Au naturel!"!!

TZU-DOH: Are we expected to believe you smell like a rose garden naturally ?

MEE-TOU: Or that you haven’t spent a fortune on cosmetics to achieve that "peaches and cream" complexion?

MAI-WEI: And I suppose your hair just "happens" to arrange itself into an angelic halo of spun gold every morning!

TZU-DOH: No woman could be so artless!

ENTER SOLDIERS carrying books.

SOLDIER 1: We’ve searched the palace from top to bottom and all we found were books.

TZU-DOH: Books?

MEE-TOU: Only books?

He and TZU-DOH ransack books as if hoping to find incriminating evidence or contraband hidden between their pages.

SOLDIER 2: That’s it, comrades, just books. There are two rooms full of them.

SOLDIER 1: Books by Marlowe, Chekov, Wilder, Pirandello—

TZU-DOH: They’re all plays—plays! Nothing but plays!

SOLDIER 2: Hundreds and hundreds of plays.

DUNG: My great grandfather started this library many years ago.

MAI-WEI: A library of plays in the midst of all this selfproclaimed poverty?

MEE-TOU: Do you really expect us to believe you can afford a library like this when you can’t afford to paint your own palace?

DUNG: I am afraid the House of Dung has not proven itself to be the most successful satrapy in China. We decided a long time ago it would be futile trying to conquer our harsh environment. What little profit we scratched out of the land was invested in the library and this little theater for the peasants—

TZU-DOH: So, this "room" is actually a theater—

MEE-TOU: That would account for the curtain and those seats out there—

MAI-WEI: You performed Pirandello, Brecht and Wilder for the peasants?

MEE-TOU: Surely not Brecht!

DUNG: I’m not certain what they thought of the plays—our peasants can be pretty inscrutable. But they seemed to enjoy seeing them and acting in them. I suppose the costumes, the pageantry and the exotic story lines all took their minds away from the crushing poverty of their own miserable lives—

MAI-WEI: The crushing poverty you Dungs imposed on them!

DUNG: I’m sure we could have done more—but this is a harsh place. The dust was blowing here ten thousand years before there were any Dungs.

MEE-TOU: Well that is all going to change now.

TZU-DOH: We have books too! Not fairytales like these, either! Books by Marx, Engels and Lenin that will transform this desert into an oasis of milk and honey!

MAI-WEI: Do you think a mere ten thousand years of dust can defeat the invincible logic of Marx, Engels and Lenin?

DUNG: I hope not. I sincerely wish what you are saying is true, comrades—

MAI-WEI: [Striking dramatic pose.] Of course it’s true, you feudal dog!

TZU-DOH: [Striking dramatic pose, whipping out a little red book.] Cringe, Reactionary Devil! Cringe in the face of Mao-thought!

MAI-WEI: [Striking dramatic pose; thrusting another pamphlet at LAY-MEE.] Feel the power of Lenin’s Treatise on Plutocratic Propaganda! Behold as ten thousand years of feudalism explode in your face! [Pamphlet disintegrates into pages as he tosses it at LAY-MEE.]

MAI-WEI: We will control your dust storms—

TZU-DOH: And your droughts and floods—

MEE-TOU: And your frigid winters and scorching summers!

THE ENTIRE CADRE: Have no fear! The People’s Liberation Army is here!

DUNG: Then you should have no need for my humble medical services.

TZU-DOH: Are you ridiculing the immutable principles of Communism?

MEE-TOU: Don’t forget—one of them is the Principle of Flexibility!!!

MAI-WEI: We don’t need your bag of medicinal tricks anyway. Mao Tse-tung can fight off the enemy which has invaded his body with the sheer force of his will to rescue China from plutocratic despots like you!

TZU-DOH: That may be true, Mai-wei, but can we afford to take such a risk? You saw how many of our best and brightest soldiers fell in that swamp.

MEE-TOU: It’s true, Mai-wei. We buried some of our best comrades out there.

MAI-WEI: The real question is: can we put the fate of the entire Chinese population in the hands of these villains?

TZU-DOH: I think we can if we hold his precious daughter hostage to Mao’s cure.

MEE-TOU: Yes! If Mao dies, the Princess will die too!

TZU-DOH: You can see he doesn’t want that to happen—

DUNG: No. I don’t want that to happen.

MAI-WEI: He could be deceiving us with that look of paternal anguish. Can we ignore his selfconfessed theatrical expertise?

TZU-DOH: In my judgment, such a look of parental anxiety can’t be faked; not even by the most skillful actor—

MAI-WEI: Nevertheless, if the power to alter the course of Chinese history is put into his corrupt hands —might he not sacrifice his own flesh and blood for the cause of his satrapist ideology?

MEE-TOU: Yes, but unlike us he is not an ideologue. [To DUNG.] Isn’t that so?

DUNG: I have no priorities except the love of my daughter. If it comes down to a choice between her fate and that of the Dung Dynasty I would unhesitatingly choose to save her.

MAI-WEI: That is the difference between you and us—there is no single human being we would not sacrifice for our revolutionary principles!

MEE-TOU: We would gladly liquidate our own grandmothers (and they would lay their lives down happily!) for the sake of China’s conversion to that German-Judaic system of social welfare known as MarxEngelsism!

TZU-DOH: Then you understand the terms of our deal?

DUNG: Completely.

MEE-TOU: [Drawing pistol.] If you fail I will personally blow the brains out of her "beautiful" blonde head!

DUNG: [Moving screens from couch.] I have no doubts about that. Now you must leave us alone with our patient.

MAI-WEI: No. We will stay here and watch every move you two make.

TZU-DOH: I think we can safely do as he says, Mai-wei. There can be no escape for comrade Dung!

MEE-TOU: And we have some secret plans to make if the Red Army is to fight its way out of this latest encirclement under your leadership!

MAI-WEI: That is true. Come. We have work to do!

EXIT CADRE.

DUNG: [Attending MAO.] We have our own work cut out for us daughter! This will not be easy. His fever is lethally high.

LAY-MEE: [As she undrapes MAO’s torso.] But he seems like such a rugged individual—I’m sure we have a fighting chance to save him, father.

DUNG: [Embracing LAY-MEE.] I couldn’t bear losing you! We must succeed!

LAY-MEE: We will father; we will succeed. Together we will cure him!

DUNG: [Giving injection to MAO.] Even if we do save him we won’t be out of the woods with those fanatically antifeudal henchmen of his. Our only chance is to prolong the cure and then hope that his infatuation with you develops into a personal relationship that will transcend our socio-economic differences—

LAY-MEE: He has the face of a kind and compassionate man, father.

DUNG: When he gets his strength back you might see something more sinister in that face, child. Mao Tse-tung has the reputation of being a ruthless revolutionary. We must always remember that!

LAY-MEE: I will try.

DUNG: Our survival depends on you, Lay-mee.

LAY-MEE: On me?

DUNG: Mao must be made to fall hopelessly in love with you.

LAY-MEE: But how can I—

DUNG: [Having finished with MAO.] You must force him to fall in love with you! You must seduce him, Lay-mee!

LAY-MEE: I have never been in love before, father! I don’t know how to seduce a man!

DUNG: [Preparing to exit with medical bag.] How little you appreciate the power of your own beauty my child! Don’t worry. Seducing The Great Mao Tse-tung will be easier than you think! Now I must leave you to prepare another injection that will help us to "orchestrate" the healing process. Remember: our fate is in your hands! [EXIT.]

LAY-MEE: [To the unconscious MAO.] Am I really so beautiful in your eyes my Sleeping Prince? Will it be easy to make you fall in love with me—as easy as it was for me to fall in love with you? All I had to do was look at you!

MAO: [Deliriously.] What’s happening? Why has the column stopped marching? Who gave the order to halt!

LAY-MEE: Don’t worry. Everything is alright. Your Long March is over. You have arrived at your destination, Mister Mao Tse-tung!

MAO: Who are you? What’s become of me? Have I died and gone to heaven? You look like an angel with that golden hair and those big blue eyes!

LAY-MEE: [Laughing.] No you are not dead—but you are very sick and you must lie perfectly still.

MAO: Why? I’m feeling no pain. In fact, I don’t feel anything! My body has become blissfully weightless—as if it were floating high above the earth! Are you sure this isn’t paradise?

LAY-MEE: I would hardly call Lung Dung paradise!

MAO: Then why do you look so heavenly?

LAY-MEE: It must be the medicine you’ve been given—

MAO: I’ve seen you before, haven’t I—some other place, some other time?

LAY-MEE: I doubt it. I have never traveled beyond the borders of my father’s satrapy.

MAO: Then it must have been in my dreams; the dreams I used to have of a goldenhaired princess like you—a woman of such radiant beauty my eyes would ache to gaze upon her. Doesn’t your hair prove we are not in China? And, if we are not in China, where else could we be but in some celestial realm!

LAY-MEE: [Bathing him with alcohol.] There is a perfectly logical explanation for that. I have mixed blood. My mother was an American missionary—

MAO: Don’t stop—it’s divine—the way your hands draw the heat from my skin—

LAY-MEE: There is a logical explanation for that too. It’s only the effect of alcohol—

MAO: [Brings back of her hand to his lips.] No. It’s you. You are the girl of my dreams.

LAY-MEE: That’s your fever talking—

MAO: Listen to me. What I say must be the truth. I have the gift of prophesy. I have the vision that comes with being a great man. Besides, I’m not used to being contradicted. If Mao Tse-tung says you are an angel or the girl of his dreams, that is the end of the matter!

LAY-MEE: Yes sir! Whatever you say, sir! God forbid I should disagree with The Great Mao Tse-tung! [Salutes him.]

MAO: Tell me your name. I want to hear if there are any poetic possibilities in it.

LAY-MEE: My name is Lay-mee.

MAO: Ah! What bells are rung by such a name!

LAY-MEE: And you are Mao Tse-tung. Mao Tse-tung! It resonates in a way one could get very used to—[MAO tries to reach for her but falls back with a groan.] What’s the matter? Are you in pain?

MAO: The hallucinations are returning—I’m remembering the battles—the frozen mountain passes—marching 10,000 li—the burdens of leadership—maybe both I and China would be better off if Mao Tse-tung did die.

LAY-MEE: But you are too young and strong and brave to die, Mao Tse-tung!

MAO: Young? I’ve lived a thousand years already and burnt out a hundred bodies. No one man should have the responsibility for a billion other people resting on his shoulders—

LAY-MEE: [Still bathing him.] But they are so broad, these shoulders of yours! I have never seen a man such as you—the way your eyes burn so fiercely—the thunder in your voice—and the ideological radiance shining right through your brow—it’s as if your thoughts were entering my own mind without a word being spoken between us!

MAO: If you can read my thoughts you must know how much I—

LAY-MEE: You don’t have to say it, Mao Tse-tung—

She leans forward and they kiss as DUNG RE-ENTERS and watches. He sets screens in front of couch, obscuring the lovers from public view and then addresses audience in declamatory style.

DUNG: So! Everything seems to be working out according to my plan! The power of love forces itself into the geopolitical equation! The welfare of a billion souls on one side of the scale and my daughter’s life on the other. The balance is so perfect! Can China’s Marxist Messiah overcome the appetites of his flesh? As her first conquest, can the Virginal Princess seduce this Prince of Men? Was there ever so much at stake since Eve offered that apple to Adam?

ENTER TZU-DOH, MAI-WEI and MEE-TOU.

TZU-DOH: Just a moment, comrade! You are deviating from the script!

MEE-TOU: There is nothing in this play about Adam and Eve!

MAI-WEI: And your reference to the "Marxist Messiah" is insulting!

TZU-DOH: [To audience.] Kindly expunge that last soliloquy from your minds, comrades.

MEE-TOU: Just rinse it right out of your brain!

TZU-DOH: As you know, at the conclusion of this scene the Duke merely rubs his hands together gleefully, gloating over the success his drugs have had in clouding Mao’s mind temporarily.

MAI-WEI: The idea that Mao would actually fall in love with a hussy like Lay-mee is utterly preposterous!

TZU-DOH: Since Skai-hai seems to be showing the signs of a miraculous recovery I must ask you comrade—exactly what kind of drugs are you pumping into him?

DUNG: I have no tricks in my medical bag, comrade. I believe your leading man is, quite literally, acting himself out of his fever!

MEE-TOU: Then in reality he is still a very sick man?

DUNG: Yes. And, as I told you, I can’t be held responsible for the outcome.

TZU-DOH: Wait a minute. Are you saying that as your character in the play says it?

DUNG: I am saying it as the character in the play and as a real life character.

MAI-WEI: This is quite confusing. Can it really be possible for Skai-hai to create the illusion he is well when in fact he is mortally ill?

TZU-DOH: It’s possible. I have seen things like that happen on stage a few times, in the old days when we—[Stops himself.]

MAI-WEI: What were you going to say about the "old days?"

TZU-DOH: Nothing. Come, we’ve done enough damage to the continuity of this play. [To audience.] We apologize for that digression, comrades! [CADRE and DUNG bow then EXIT.]

The next scene is played on platform 8 to 10 feet above the stage, representing an airplane. The platform can be lowered from the flies or might be in place throughout play above or just behind couch. The ‘airplane’ contains: MOON and WEST wearing tuxedos, FAUST wearing Wehrmacht or Luftwaffe uniform and THE GIRL, dressed as a Chinese airline stewardess in long silk dress slit to hip. Sound of plane is same as that of divebomber heard previously. As scene begins FAUST is taking outrageous sexual liberties with THE GIRL.

MOON: I can’t believe we are traveling at such a rate of speed! How fast did you say we were flying, Herr Faust?

FAUST: 200 tits per hour Mr Moon!

MOON: That’s truly incredible, Herr Faust. It’s so peaceful up here among the clouds. You Germans are very clever with your flying machines. This view is spectacular. I feel like one of those gods we Chinese are so fond of writing plays about! Do you have any idea where we are?

WEST: According to my scenario we should be over Lung Dung.

MOON: Ah yes, I can see the infamous Grasslands of Lung Dung below.

FAUST: We’ll circle the area for our bombing run.

MOON: Then we are actually going to drop a bomb?

FAUST: We didn’t bring this blockbuster all the way from Essen just for the fun of it, Mr M! The Kruppwerks want a full test report before they start production on the other 32 million we ordered.

MOON: 32 million bombs just for one motion picture?

FAUST: [Taking sexual liberties with THE GIRL.] And that’s just for the Asiatic theater of operations. But then, there are so many of you damned Chinese!

MOON: It’s the lack of nightlife, Herr Faust; that is why the Bureau of Birth Control is so keen to establish a first rate motion picture industry.

FAUST: [Concentrating on target.] In actuality these babies will be dropped by dive bombers of course—

MOON: Of course!

FAUST: High altitude bombing is a thing of the past.

MOON: Positively antediluvian!

FAUST: Not much accuracy from this height—See that column of troops down there—the one with all those supply wagons?

THE GIRL: [Sitting on FAUST’s lap as he pilots plane.] Yes, yes, I see it!

FAUST: That will be our practice target. Just aim for the wagons—[He huddles over THE GIRL as she peers through ‘bombsight’. Once again he takes outrageous liberties with her body. WEST watches without emotion.] Now, when you get that middle wagon in the crosshairs just squeeze this button and you will send a halt ton of TNT plummeting earthward toward the comrades below. It should be quite a surprise for them!

THE GIRL: Herr Faust you’re tickling me! I can’t concentrate on the target!

FAUST: The thought of you releasing that package of death on those unsuspecting men down there has given me the goddamnedest erection, you voluptuous piece of Asiatic ass! [Works away on her backside as:]

THE GIRL: Bombs away! Is that what I’m supposed to say?

MOON: [Following ‘bomb’s’ flight.] As I understand our contract, Herr Faust, Reichfilms GMBH will provide a quantity of ordnance equal to the number of victims provided by The Cathay Cinema Corporation?

FAUST: [Ravaging THE GIRL as they also observe bomb’s flight.] We have a saying in Germany, Mr M.—"One bomb is worth ten thousand coolies!"

MOON laughs politely as WEST watches FAUST molesting THE GIRL.

THE GIRL: It’s taking a long time, isn’t it?

MOON: There it is—over there—that puff of smoke near the village!

FAUST: I knew this would happen! That damned bombsight was made in Japan!

THE GIRL: Then we didn’t hit anything?

MOON: If I’m not mistaken, that large crater down there was once the village school of Lung Dung.

WEST: Could I trouble you for another Martini?

THE GIRL leaves Faust’s lap, takes West’s glass, shakes and pours him a refill.

MOON: Do you think it’s wise, Mr West, to consume so much alcohol in this rarefied atmosphere when we have such important matters to discuss?

WEST: I can’t think of a wiser thing to do under these circumstances!

MOON: I suppose you Hollywood types can handle your liquor.

WEST: [Deliberately sounding quite drunk.] Artemis West is not a "type" Mr Moon—kindly remember that!

FAUST: Do you realize: this will be the greatest motion picture ever made? Ten times bigger than World War One!

WEST: [Ironically.] Too big for Tinseltown to handle on it’s own.

MOON: I understand Toho films has already started shooting in the Eastern and Southern sectors.

FAUST: If this bombsight is any indication of their technological expertise they will have a tough time providing any gore. I’ll bring some Zeiss sights with me on my next trip back from the European locations. Now that’s where the real action is. You ought to see what we’re planning for Poland, France, Russia and North Africa—

WEST: [Toasting with empty glass which THE GIRL refills.] Let’s drink to all that cinematic canon fodder whose too-numerous names will never appear in the credits of this extravaganza!

MOON: I understand you will be shooting in Superscope?

FAUST: We’re using only the latest technology—including a sensational new color process that captures every nuance of the carnage created by modern warfare.

WEST: And don’t forget the highfidelity soundeffects! [Imitates sounds of dive bombers and machine guns.]

FAUST: I can tell you confidentially—Telefunken has developed something called "Odorama" that lets you actually smell cordite when the bombs are exploding—and when the smoke of all those corpses belches from our Polish crematoria, the concentration camp scenes should be nothing short of stupendous, olfactorywise!

WEST: Just think of the almighty stink at Stalingrad when a hundred thousand frozen Germans begin thawing out in the Russian spring!

FAUST: That’s not funny!

WEST: No?

FAUST: I could mention the stench of all that American fishbait at the bottom of Pearl Harbor, or the—

MOON: Gentlemen, gentlemen—please! Let’s remember we’re creative artists!

WEST: [Rising.] Excuse me—

MOON: What are you doing?

WEST: I’m going to be sick if I stay here any longer—[Jumps from ‘plane’ to stage.]

THE GIRL: What a strange man—jumping from an airplane without a parachute!

FAUST: These Americans are all crazy—[Resumes pawing and nuzzling THE GIRL.]

MOON: [As light fades on ‘plane’ or it rises into flies.] They really do drink too much, those Hollywood types—

Having lit cigarette and swallowed last sip of drink he has carried with him, WEST comes downstage to address audience.

WEST: I want you people to know I had nothing to do with the bombing of your village school. What happened just now in that airplane was enough to make me, or any other civilized human being puke his guts up. Not that I’m blaming The Girl. She’s only trying to survive in the showbusiness jungle like any other starstruck bimbo. I suppose the whole affair and everyone’s role in it can be rationalized in one way or another. Yes, my Oriental friends, we are all the victims of circumstance! So, why did I bail out? Maybe I just can’t stand Germans. Or maybe I suddenly surrendered to my longstanding urge to be here—in China! I could feel something pulling me down to this ancient earth of yours—[He has wandered to screens and spends a moment or two observing the action hidden behind them.] And hell yes—I’ll admit I was also curious about what’s happening on the other side of these screens! And, now that I’ve seen what’s going on behind them, what can I tell you? What words can I use that won’t spoil that beautiful truth being hidden from your prying eyes? Christ knows I should be able to find them because I’m a wordsmith by trade—one of Hollywood’s craftiest writers of award-winning screenplays! That’s why I was sent here: to help script this extravaganza tentatively entitled, somewhat prosaically, as "WWII." One of my functions in this project is to think up a better title; something that will capture in one or two syllables—but preferably one; all of the glory, pathos, irony, romance and sheer sadomasochistic hell of the human race kicking the living shit out of itself! Now that is one hell of a word, that single word summing up thirty or forty million rape-murders!

Pause while he lights another cigarette or pours himself a drink from hip flask.

I don’t know if you have anything like it in Chinese art, but there is a picture in our culture painted by a Norwegian named Edvard Munch; a genius whose work burns with that arctic blue flame only a Nordic painter can produce. They know a thing or two about madness, those Scandinavians! Anyway, Munch painted this picture of a humanoid at the end of a pier, holding his temples with his hands and opening his mouth in the most horrendous way—[Mimes Munch’s ‘The Scream’.] Looking at that picture, you can actually hear this godawful wailing sound escaping from that tortured, gaping hole in his head—[Emits horrifying sound from his own gaping mouth.] Now that would make a great title for this movie we are making—that’s the word I’m looking for. All I have to do is find a way of spelling that horrific primal scream of Munch’s! But somehow I doubt if you are interested in my linguistic difficulties! People don’t generally feel much pity for we Hollywood-type screenwriters; especially folks like you. And believe me, I wouldn’t dream of imposing on you if I didn’t think I had something worth saying while that love scene is being played behind these screens. Just like the character on the couch, I have demons of my own to wrestle with—decisions to make; crucial decisions!

     Have I mentioned my 5 failed marriages—or the fact I have fathered no less than 8 children? [Takes snapshot from wallet and flashes it at audience before examining it himself.] This was taken on the 4th of July last year in Griffith Park, L.A.—a kind of "family" tradition where we all get together once a year—me, my 5 ex-wives and my 8 kids, all 14 of us, to celebrate the birth of our republic—and to play softball and dine on hotdogs. That was one hell of a day! Fantastic blue sky, temperature just right—Jesus, just look at those 14 smiling faces—[Puts snapshot away.]

     You’re probably asking yourselves what connection there is between a burnedout Hollywood writer, his 5 ex-wives and 8 fatherless kids—and you out there, with your yellow faces, high cheekbones and those "inscrutable" almond-shaped eyes in which I see ten thousand years of back, heart and ballbreaking misery? Well, the connection is simply this: that there is a connection! Between me, between you—between the 4th of July in L.A. and this historic day in a remote corner of China!

     You, me, Mao Tse-tung—we’re all in the same existential boat, aren’t we? Or are we? Could all of this be happening in here? [Indicating his temple.] Or is the whole world truly poised on the threshold of a very real apocalypse? [Looks at wristwatch.] I don’t know about you, but according to my watch it is 1935. Events are unfolding in the Danzig Corridor, the Sudetenland and Ethiopia. The headlines tell us that "Storm clouds are gathering" over Mukden, Alsace Lorraine and Manchuokuo—while in Burbank, Pasadena and Sherman Oaks the sun is still shining; or is it the moon? [Checks watch.] Those 5 ex-wives and 8 kids of mine are just about to wake up and read about a fire in something called "the Reichstag," and a story about an obscure Chinese revolutionary named Mao Tse-tung who has finished his Long March by coming down with a potentially fatal fever. [Feels brow, which seems to be hot; loosens tie.]

     They won’t realize, of course, that I am Mao Tse-tung or that this scenario I’m writing about an "obscure Chinese revolutionary" is really a story about me, my ex-wives, my kids and the struggle to achieve something called "artistic integrity!" [Searches for another cigarette, finds pack is empty, crumples it and tosses it aside.] It is also the story of a nicotine fiend who’s run out of cigarettes! [Goes to wing] Anybody back there happen to have a spare coffin nail—preferably an Old Gold?

Returning from wing with cigarette handed to him, he pauses to smoke and watch action occurring behind screens, before resuming monologue at footlights:

I’ll tell you what really bothers me about the next 10 or 12 years; it’s the secret thrill I get anticipating the catastrophe coming to engulf us all. Maybe that’s why I don’t like Germans; because I share with them the gleeful prospect of global Gotterdaemmerung! The funeral pyre of Western Civilization was, I suspect, ignited by those books they made a bonfire of in Berlin—not that you should give a shit about the decline of Western Civilization! But for me—my name is West after all—its fate is a matter of the gravest concern. In fact I take it all rather personally. I was educated to believe I was a repository for all that was good and glorious in that ten-thousand-year-old blossoming flower—and some of the evil too, of course. It’s not easy being part van Gogh and part Hitler—[Directed backstage.]—especially without an adequate supply of coffin nails! Yes, I’m afraid there is a bit of the Nazi in all of us AngloSaxons. [Wanders back to screens for another look at hidden lovemaking.]

     Did you notice the way that kraut was manhandling The Girl in the "airplane" scene? Wasn’t he the perfect swine; despite the fact that some of Mozart’s and Bach’s blood flows through his Aryan veins? And there she was—beauty itself personified in the fullest flowering of her femininity—and yet she permits that bastard to have his way with her because she has "stars" in her eyes! He of course, hasn’t the slightest regard for the finer points of her humanity. Just feel her up, fuck her and toss her away like an empty cigarette pack! Not to mention his "accidental" bombing of that schoolhouse and the fact I not-so-secretly envied Herr Faust for all of his swinish ways! Maybe the commies are right. Maybe it is time for us to stamp out the human race as we know it and put on the uniform of blue ants!

ENTER STAGEHAND with pack of cigarettes, which WEST rips open. He lights up and is instantly reinvigorated.

On the other hand, who knows? Next year might turn out to be as apocalyptic as it seemed a moment ago—[Music begins as he comes downstage to sing:]

1934 is a good time to be alive
When you consider what lies ahead
In 1935 you’ll either be Red or dead.
Certain cosmic forces are raising
Their ugly heads, my friend
And that old bugaboo—Gotterdaemmerung!
Is just around the bend.
Tomorrow you might find yourself
In Belsen-Bergen or Auschwitz
Or you might not find yourself at all!
So savor every bite, every little delight
Of this year of years—1934!
A positively sensational time
To be alive!

ENTER FAUST, MOON and THE GIRL, all looking somewhat the worse for wear.

MOON: You’ll never believe what happened to us, Mr West!

WEST: The plane crashed.

MOON: But that was more than 50 li from here! How could you have learned about it so quickly?

FAUST: Don’t you understand—he is the author of this goddammed scenario we are being forced to play!

MOON: Which would explain how he jumped from the plane and survived without a parachute!

FAUST: [To audience.]—and my "disgusting behavior" vis a vis the stewardess!

THE GIRL: [To audience.]—and my "lack of moral fiber!" In the motion picture business you do as you’re told or else—and I’m sure it isn’t any different from what you all have to put up with in your screw factory!

MOON: [Taking look behind screens, shaking head.] It’s hard to believe the fate of China is being decided against such an earthy background!

FAUST: This location is the pits alright!

WEST: What were you expecting; the set from Samson and Delilah?

FAUST: It wouldn’t be so bad if there was a nightclub or cozy little weinstube where we could wet our whistles.

MOON: I’ll phone the studio and have them pick us up in a bar-equipped limo.

ENTER SOLDIERS 1 & 2.

SOLDIER 1: Are you folks looking for a bar—

SOLDIER 2: And a public telephone?

FAUST: [Hugging THE GIRL.] That’s us, comrade! Can you guide us to some local Inn that has cold drinks and a warm bed!

SOLDIER 1: Follow us.

THE GIRL: [Aside to FAUST.] Can we trust them? They might be trying to get even for that schoolhouse-bombing-caper of ours.

FAUST: [To SOLDIERS.] You wouldn’t blame this lovely little lady for using a defective bomb sight would you, comrades?

MOON: Before you answer that, we can offer you both parts in this film we are shooting. The pay is 3 silver dollars per day, and there is a rape and pillage scene coming up—

ENTER CADRE, all striking heroic poses.

MAI-WEI: We are not chasing after careers on the silver screen!

TZU-DOH: We are not cynical materialists!

MEE-TOU: We are looking forward to 1936!

MAI-WEI: And the ten thousand years after that!

TZU-DOH: We know the difference between actuality and art!

SOLDIER 1: And this bayonet is actual, comrades! [Jabs at THE GIRL with bayonet.]

THE GIRL: [Screaming melodramatically.] No! No! No! I’m too young—and too beautiful—to die! Save me, Mao!

THE GIRL tries to reach screens but is prevented from doing so by SOLDIERS.

MOON: Wait! I have contracts for you all to sign! The pay for extras has been raised to 100 silver dollars per week!!!

MOON, WEST and THE GIRL are taken off by SOLDIERS. CADRE come downstage to sing:

CADRE: 1934 is a very bad year!
1935 will be much, much better!
We will emerge
From your Gotterdaemmerung
Without our chains
To dance on the corpse of
Western Civilization!
You think there is a difference
Between Stravinsky and Krupp
But to our way of thinking
They are both troublemakers!
Van Gogh was a man
In desperate need
Of psychiatric treatment!
We don’t want
Blazing sunflowers
Driving us crazy!
What is so wrong
With being blue ants?
Do you think Franz Kafka
Was content?
Some day there will be rice
Growing on the terraced hills
Of Hollywood!
1934 is a very bad year
1935 will be much, much better!

MAI-WEI: I think it’s high time we found out what’s going on behind those screens!

CADRE creep to screens and carefully move them from couch. MAO is discovered sitting. He has been writing poetry. LAY-MEE sits on opposite end of couch brushing her hair. CADRE continue observing from crouching positions as:

MAO: It’s no use. I can’t capture you with words. Your beauty is more elusive than a beam of moonlight! The raising of your arms like that when you are brushing those silky tresses is quintessentially indescribable! And the subtle way you lower your eyes when you know I am looking at you defies my humble powers of literary analysis! [Crumples paper and tosses it away.] My days as a poet are over. It’s too late for me to change! [Seizing LAY-MEE’s arm and pulling her into embrace.] Don’t you see what I’ve become after so many years of guerrilla warfare? Like all other revolutionaries, I no longer have the time nor the temperament for poeticizing—

LAY-MEE: I am not asking you to change.

MAO: Not with words—but your eyes are asking me to become your poet-lover. And the truth is; the sweet smell of your skin and the radiance of your hair is driving me insane! [Brings her face to his cheek, runs fingers through her hair.]

LAY-MEE: I’m sorry, my darling. I can’t help being what I am!

MAO: No; and neither can I help being what I am! Do you really think I can leave China’s revolution high and dry?

LAY-MEE: No. Of course you can’t—

MAO: I only have to close my eyes and I see the faces of all those heroes who died with my name on their lips at the River of Golden Sands, the Iron Bridge, in the Grasslands! Do you think I can blot them out—that even your beauty can do that?

LAY-MEE: You’re right my darling; It’s impossible for us to ever be lovers.

MAO: I wish you’d stop doing that!

LAY-MEE: Doing what, my darling?

MAO: Calling me your "darling!"

LAY-MEE: Do you want me to leave? [Leaves embrace, rises and starts to exit.]

MAO: Well, what are you stopping for? I answered your question in the negative by not answering it.

LAY-MEE: I thought you might change your mind.

MAO: Mao Tse-tung never changes his mind! You of all people should know that.

LAY-MEE: Alright then—goodbye!

MAO: Goodbye! [Pause.] Well? [With her back to Mao, LAY-MEE weeps.] What are you doing now?

LAY-MEE: Nothing—nothing. [Starts to exit again.]

MAO: Stop! Can’t you see I’m only teasing?

LAY-MEE: No.

MAO: I need my little nursey—I’m feeling chilly again.

LAY-MEE: [Turning to him.] Is that the truth?

MAO: No. But I do need you with me! [LAY-MEE rushes to his welcoming arms.] Why is this happening to me? Why didn’t I perish out there in the Grasslands?

LAY-MEE: Don’t say such things! I can’t bear to think of you not being here with me—I couldn’t live without you!

MAO: You’re exaggerating. A few hours ago you didn’t know me from Adam!

LAY-MEE: A few hours ago I didn’t exist!

MAO: We’re getting serious again, aren’t we. Let’s find something else to talk about—

LAY-MEE: What else is there?

MAO: How about this:
Alone in the autumn cold
I scan the river that flows northward
Past the Orange Islet
And the mountains crimson
With the red leaves of the woods.
On this broad stream of rich green water
A hundred boats race with the currents
Eagles dart across the sky,
fish swim in the shallows—
All display their freedom in
The frosty air.
Bewildered by the immensity,
I ask the vast grey earth:
"Who decides men’s destinies?"
I brought hither hundreds of cohorts
In those turbulent months and years
We were fellow students then in the
Prime of our youth.
In the true manner of scholars
We accused without fear or favor
Pointed at these rivers and ranges
And wrote vibrant words—
Valuing diamonds as so much dust!
Do you not remember
How in midstream our boats struck
Currents and were
Slowed down by torrents?

I can’t turn my back on the truth of my own poetry, can I?

LAY-MEE: Perhaps your poetry is more valid than the revolution it celebrates—have you considered that possibility?

MAO: Poetry is just so much smoke and mirrors. You can’t shape human destiny with words alone. Poets have been trying since the beginning of Chinese history to revolutionize the human condition but they haven’t put so much as a single grain of rice on anybody’s table.

LAY-MEE: Has all the rice ever eaten in China raised the consciousness of a single one of its peasants? Men do not live by rice alone, Mao Tse-tung!

MAO: True: but how can you tell that to a billion starving people?

LAY-MEE: They are not all starving—and they aren’t all angels, these precious masses of yours.

MAO: You don’t seriously believe that our happiness is worth more than the welfare of a billion human beings, are you?

LAY-MEE: Yes! That’s exactly what I believe! I believe that if the masses saw two people fall in love and thumb their noses at the rest of the world maybe there wouldn’t be any need to raise the consciousness of all humanity. Maybe just the sight of two people feasting on their love of one another would be enough to feed all of China for the next ten thousand years!

MAO: At last you’re showing your true ideological colors! [Taking LAY-MEE by the wrist.] You are still the Plutocratic Princess, aren’t you; a leopard that cannot change it’s feudal spots! Right now your eyes are blazing just like a leopard’s!

LAY-MEE: I hate you Mao Tse-tung! I hate you! [Struggles against his grasp as MAO laughs.]

MAO: And I hate you.

There is no conviction in his words. In fact, he is manifestly and hopelessly in love with her. Suddenly MAO falters, releases his grip on Lay-mee and collapses. ENTER DUNG.

DUNG: [Attends MAO, injecting him.] He’s having another attack—quickly, I need your help! His relapse could be fatal!

LAY-MEE: I don’t care whether he lives or dies!

DUNG: We’re not playing children’s games, Lay-mee! If we don’t save him we will share his fate!

LAY-MEE: I don’t care about that either—

DUNG: [Shakes LAY-MEE by shoulders, slaps her face.] There is more at stake here than just our lives, you silly girl! Now—dissolve one of those blue powders in 50cc of glucose solution and be quick about it! [LAY-MEE complies listlessly as DUNG attends to MAO.] You think all you have to do is raise your arms and lower your eyelids to seduce a man like Mao Tse-tung and derail the runaway locomotive of history? Hand me the alcohol! [LAY-MEE complies.] You are dealing with a masterful tactician; a man who has the flame of unbridled ambition burning where his heart should be. Give me those needles! [LAY-MEE complies.] You are in an allout war with him, my girl—you’re engaged in nothing less than a life and death struggle between the forces of Yin and Yang, Darkness and Light, Male and Female, Heaven and Earth! This isn’t a village flirtation! There is much more to this affair than mere copulation! Within his mind and your womb lies the potential for a new epoch in Chinese civilization—a race of incipient supermen waits unborn within you two!

LAY-MEE: [Studying Mao’s face.] But he is so goddammed arrogant, father!

DUNG: [Still working on his patient.] He has a right to be arrogant. He is a man. And a man should be arrogant and ambitious—full of hubris and testosterone; cleaving the air and banging the table with his fist! He’s not a character from those fairytales you read. Life and love are not that simpleminded. But your sex has its own weapons. As Mao developed his guerrilla tactics to defeat the superior forces of the KMT, so must you now nimbly dart around his flanks and attack where he is most vulnerable. If he strikes you, do not retaliate. Let him beat you and then let him see the result of his barbarism. Remorse will vanquish him much more effectively than all your arguments about the superiority of art over actuality. Remember, he has the soul of a poet—

LAY-MEE: And the temper of a Mongolian bandit!

DUNG: The poet’s soul will triumph over the barbarian’s fist, just as surely as paper covers rock. He is deeply in love with you, Lay-mee, but you must let him convince himself that he must abandon his revolution if he is to win you.

LAY-MEE: Why must love be so difficult!!!

DUNG: In a case like this such complexities are inescapable. The degree of anguish you feel is the measure of just how intense your entanglement is. True love should be a wildfire that can really burn you. Mao has already had a glimpse of this truth—that the real reason for his Long March to reach this remotest corner of China might not have been a strategic necessity, but merely the magnetic pulling of a love-destiny that will bind him to you. [Applies stethoscope to MAO’s temple.] Even now a poem is struggling to form itself in his brain—a poem whose thesis might be: That his love affair with you is more revolutionary than the Communist Manifesto.

LAY-MEE: How can you expect me to understand such ideas? The only thing I know or care about is that when I touch his cheek and gaze into his dark almond-shaped eyes [As she now does.]—I can feel myself actually falling in love with him. Falling, falling—[Lays down beside MAO on couch.]

DUNG: That is good, my child. Your body will keep him warm more effectively than any of my pharmaceuticals—

CADRE leap from their hiding places and strike heroic poses.

MAI-WEI: So, this is the way you work your "medicinal" magic!

TZU-DOH: We know what tricks you’ve been up to, feudal dog!

MEE-TOU drags LAY-MEE from couch. TZU-DOH and MEE-TOU replace screens in front of couch.

MEE-TOU: It’s about time we called a spade a spade!

TZU-DOH: Everybody on stage! The trial of those arch criminals, Duke Dung and Princess Lay-mee is about to begin!

ENTER VILLAGERS and SOLDIERS.

MAI-WEI: Citizens of the liberated area! A great event is about to unfold before your eyes!

MR MUK: Are you actually going to implement some of those social reforms you’ve been promising us?

SHEN-TEH: Can you really utopianize this wasteland by simply waving that red flag of yours?

MEE-TOU: Listen comrades; we have important news to tell you!

AI-SINGH: Have you discovered a cure for the heartbreak of psoriasis?

MRS MUK: Is this the proper time to bring up the fact one of my boobs is somewhat larger than its opposite number?

TZU-DOH: The only fact that matters now is this: a counterrevolutionary plot has been discovered!

Groans of disappointment from VILLAGERS.

MAI-WEI: A public trial is to be held where the motives and modus operandi of the culprits will be exposed in lurid detail for your edification!

MR MUK: Someone backstage said we might be issued with new winter underwear—

MRS MUK: And there were rumors about a Victory Feast—

TZU-DOH: We are getting a trifle tired of this carping! There will be time enough for cosmetic surgery and winter underwear when the revolution is firmly entrenched. Rome wasn’t built in a day. You have been suffering for ten thousand years and we have been responsible for your welfare only a few hours!

MAI-WEI: Bring the prisoners forward! [SOLDIERS (who have taken custody of DUNG and LAY-MEE) bring them downstage.] You wanted a feast? Well, feast your eyes on these traitors who had the audacity to believe they could derail the locomotive of history by drugging and seducing our glorious leader!

MR MUK: Isn’t this supposed to happen after The Famous Seduction Scene?

MRS MUK: We haven’t missed anything, have we?

TZU-DOH: [Abandoning his character.] What’s the matter with you people? You ‘re supposed to stick to the authorized version of the script! [Getting back into the play—to DUNG:] You can simplify things by confessing your crimes now, arch criminal Dung!

DUNG: [Comes forward to address VILLAGERS and audience.] Now that my aristocratic trappings have been stripped away you can see I am nothing more than an ordinary Chinaman with the same fears and desires as you. So perhaps you can understand why I wanted to save my only daughter’s life; even at the expense of depriving you of your revolutionary birthright. If any of you have children, perhaps you will sympathize with me. You mothers and fathers out there—how would you have reacted standing in my shoes? Is it really my fault if two young people fall in love? It seems to me what happened between them was the inevitable result of putting two characters with their opposite sexual polarity on the stage of life itself?

Following lines are spoken out of character:

TZU-DOH: Just a minute! This is going far beyond the boundaries of improvisation!

MAI-WEI: He is deliberately working on the emotions of the audience!

TZU-DOH: We will cut to the formal charges brought against Princess Lay-mee.

DUNG: I was only trying to play that scene convincingly, comrades. According to the theories of Stanislavsky, an actor should—

MEE-TOU: Don’t lecture us on Stanislavsky!

TZU-DOH: Acting theories are one thing, but that speech of yours just now comes dangerously close to inciting counterrevolutionary sentiments.

Actors resume acting in character.

MAI-WEI: [Indicating LAY-MEE.] The idea that her miserable existence can be equated with our New Social Order is laughable! [Forces laugh, echoed by MEE-TOU.] Now that she stands here in the limelight of her criminality, you can see she is anything but a Helen of Troy or Cleopatra! Look closely, comrades! [Drags LAY-MEE downstage.] Is her complexion really so flawless? Is this the figure of a nubile love goddess? Do you really think a lifelong crusader like Mao Tse-tung could suddenly fall head over heels for a scatterbrained socialite like her unless he’d been opiated out of his mind?

MEE-TOU: It really is laughable, as you say, comrade Mai-wei; she looks more like a cow than a femme fatale!

FUH-KUP: You’re jealous of her good looks!

MAI-WEI: I have nothing to be jealous about, you dirty old man!

AI-SINGH: What you need is some time in the sack with a stud like Mao!

TZU-DOH: Please! This is getting out of hand!

MAI-WEI: I don’t have to take these insults! Tell these lowlifes who I am!

TZU-DOH: It isn’t necessary to tell them you are China’s greatest actress, comrade—

MAI-WEI: If someone doesn’t defend my honor, I’m walking off this stage!

MEE-TOU: [To audience.] Comrades! You are making a big mistake if you think Mai-wei is not the most beautiful woman standing on this stage. You are being misled by her superb acting talent into believing she is a shrew! [To MAI-WEI.] It’s the truth, Mai-wei—your performance is so brilliant it has convinced these peasants you are something you are not. By despising you they are actually paying you a tremendous compliment!

MAI-WEI: Well—if that is clearly understood—

TZU-DOH: We will cut this scene anyway. The point has been made. Duke Dung and his daughter have been exposed. The seduction was politically motivated and Mao’s behavior can be explained by the drugs and soft lights.

MRS MUK: What about my aria?

MR MUK: And my big speech about a socialist paradise on earth?

TZU-DOH: We are all making sacrifices, comrades! Now, everybody clear the stage for the next scene—

ALL EXIT except TZU-DOH. ENTER WEST in bedraggled state.

WEST: What’s going to happen to me?

TZU-DOH: What are you doing here! You were supposed to be executed with the others for bombing that school house—

WEST: I’m as surprised by my being here as you are. Maybe I fell a split second before the firing squad fired. Not that I planned it that way; I probably fainted from fright! In any event I wasn’t hit and when your soldiers checked us over, I held my breath and they took me for dead.

TZU-DOH: Whether you were shot or not does not matter; there is nothing left for you to do in this play!

WEST: Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to rewrite that offstage firing squad scene. I know it’s futile to think of surviving as a fugitive among a billion Chinese. I wish to God I had died with the others just to end my misery; but God was sparing me for a reason—[Takes snapshot from wallet.] This picture of my family—

TZU-DOH: Yes, yes; we know all about your 5 ex-wives and 7 children!

WEST: 8 children. [Shows back of photo to TZU-DOH.] Can you read what I’ve written on the back of this snapshot?

TZU-DOH: [Reading.] "The Golden Bear Life & Casualty Company, Sacramento, California"

WEST: I have a policy with them. It wouldn’t be fair to my kids if I disappeared without a trace. You know how fussy insurance companies are about death certificates. If you could just get word to them officially confirming my demise—

TZU-DOH: Alright, alright—we will notify your insurance carrier.

WEST: And just one more thing. There is a clause in the policy about acts of war and insurrection. The bastards won’t pay off if I’m killed in connection with that sort of thing, so—if you certified that my death was accidental—

TZU-DOH: This is insufferable! Do you realize how much aggravation this play is causing me without its author’s postproduction interference?

WEST: Hell’s bells, of course I do—but this is for my ex-wives and kids, comrade—they shouldn’t become the innocent victims of my folly. Deprived of that insurance money they will be left up the shit’s creek of my untimely demise without a financial paddle.

TZU-DOH: Are you trying to impress me with your acting skills?

WEST: Jesus, you’re not confusing me with one of the characters in this play, are you? Isn’t it obvious I’m not Chinese?

TZU-DOH: Soldiers! [Blows whistle.ENTER SOLDIERS quickly with rifles.] Remove this "writer" and lock him up for the duration of the play!

WEST: [While being led off.] Take a good look at the faces in that snapshot, comrade! Don’t let our ideological differences stand in the way of their happiness!

TZU-DOH: [To audience.] I apologize for that, comrades. Believe me, this "snapshot" is only a stage prop; something we cooked up just for this production. The 5 women and 8 children in it are all professional actors who posed for it at our Peking studio. I am telling you this because I don’t want you to think I am being heartless when I throw it away—[Discards snapshot.] Actually the "scene" you just saw was a perfect example of invidious ambition rearing its ugly head—another minor acting talent trying to demonstrate its "stellar" qualities at the expense of your cultural needs; and, of course, failing miserably in the attempt. But this break in the action does provide me with an opportunity to explain something about the scene that follows—a scene in which Mao is portrayed as being what some critics consider a vacillating persona; or, as we say in the parlance of modern Chinese dramaturgy—a "Middle Character"—someone who seems eternally trapped in that noman’s land between good and evil. Perhaps there are those of you who remember some of the characters I myself played in the decadent old days—Macbeth or Willy Loman or any of Chekov’s tormented souls. Well, the point to bear in mind—and the one our critics are always overlooking: is that in this play, Mao Tse-tung is under the influence of certain drugs which interfere with his objective thought processes; thought processes that would otherwise have no trouble at all in choosing between right and wrong, between personal goals and the aims of socialism, between art and action, between transitory sexual gratification and immortality. Please mull over what I have just said as you watch the following scene. Thank you. [Bows before EXITING.]

ENTER MAI-WEI and MEE-TOU carrying machineguns, sneak to screens and, on signal from Mai-wei, push them aside, ready to attack. But the couch is empty.

MAI-WEI: They are not here!

MEE-TOU: We’ve been tricked again!

ENTER SO-LOW with shaving lather on face.

SO-LOW: What’s up?

MAI-WEI: Where have they gone?

MEE-TOU: Where have they taken Mao?

SO-LOW: Relax, comrades: Mao and Lay-mee went off for a picnic in the hills.

MAI-WEI: The cunning little schemer!

MEE-TOU: A love feast in the woods—how cozy!

SO-LOW: Mao said he felt the urge to poeticize.

MAI-WEI: So, he’s well enough to write poetry, is he!

SO-LOW: The old war horse was feeling pretty chipper. That familiar twinkle was back in his big, brown eyes—if you know what I mean.

MAI-WEI: We know what you mean, sergeant; now, leave us alone.

SO-LOW: That’s why I’m sprucing myself up. I think we’ll be pulling out of this dump and heading for Peking.

MEE-TOU: Make yourself scarce, sergeant!

SO-LOW: If you need me, I’ll be next door. [EXIT.]

MAI-WEI: Well, what do we do now, with those two "picknicking!"

MEE-TOU: We must be levelheaded in the face of a tactical setback.

MAI-WEI: Is that all you can say! This isn’t a military campaign! That little twotimer is seducing our commander-in-chief!

MEE-TOU: Warfare, love—is there really much difference between them?

MAI-WEI: Maybe you are right—maybe we should riddle her with bullets and put an end to their affair with hot lead. Like everything else, the answer ultimately comes from the muzzle of a machinegun!

MEE-TOU: While I admire your revolutionary ruthlessness, comrade, in my opinion a solution like that would only "martyrize" your competition—with the result that Mao might spend the rest of his life rhapsodizing over her sainted memory. I think there is a better way for us to get the upper hand.

MAI-WEI: Well?

MEE-TOU: Item: who is more beautiful—Lay-mee or Mai-wei?

MAI-WEI: Can there be any question about that? Especially when one considers the inner beauty of my revolutionary spirit!

MEE-TOU: Item: what is the best way to attack a fortified position?

MAI-WEI: Distract in the East and attack in the West!

MEE-TOU: Item: how does one best grasp the handle of a man’s mind?

MAI-WEI: By reaching your hand between his legs!

MEE-TOU: It seems to me all we have to do is combine those principles of Mao-thought and we will have our plan of attack!

MAI-WEI: I don’t understand—

MEE-TOU: You must counter seduce Mao Tse-tung!

MAI-WEI: Me? A seductress?

MEE-TOU: Why not you?

MAI-WEI: Don’t be silly. It’s debasing—it’s reactionary—it’s a throwback to imperialistic sexism—

MEE-TOU: This is no time for squeamishness, Mai-wei! I have seen you mow down whole ranks of men without blinking those beautiful brown eyes of yours—

MAI-WEI: There is a difference between killing men and seducing them—

MEE-TOU: [Goes to couch, starts undressing.] Come here, comrade.

MAI-WEI: What are you doing!

MEE-TOU: I will play the part of Mao Tse-tung to your seductress—

MAI-WEI: No, I can’t!

MEE-TOU: [Takes MAI-WEI’s hand, leads her to couch.] Come on comrade, this is for the revolution! [Starts to unbutton tunic.]

MAI-WEI: Are you insane!!!

MEE-TOU: You can’t expect to seduce a man in that outfit, comrade! Remember you are making this sacrifice for the People! Think of it this way: if Mao fell into the icy waters of Jade River, would you hesitate to strip yourself naked in the attempt to save him? [Continues removing her outer garments.]

MAI-WEI: Under those life and death circumstances it’s true—I would do anything to save him—

MEE-TOU: Is this any different? Isn’t Mao in mortal kind of danger at this very moment?

MAI-WEI: I will try to think of it in those terms, comrade—as an icy river I am plunging into!

MAI-WEI takes over removal of her outer garments as MEE-TOU finishes removing his and lies on couch.

MEE-TOU: I will lie here emulating Mao’s mentality—like an actor. When you look at me you must see him in your mind’s eye—

MAI-WEI: [Having stripped down to baggy army shorts and military bra.] Is this satisfactory for a lifesaving plunge into the icy Jade River?

MEE-TOU: Can’t you get rid of those shorts—they’re really rather offputting, comrade. Why don’t you step behind the screen and slip into Lay-mee’s silk kimono?

MAI-WEI goes behind screen. We see her underwear being draped over screen’s top as she changes.

Remember Mai-wei—you are actually seducing the Great Man himself; the man you have secretly loved throughout all these years of our Long March! [He picks up pad as if to write poetry. MAI-WEI comes to couch from behind screen wearing green silk kimono.] What is the meaning of this intrusion, comrade Mai-wei!!!

MAI-WEI: [Genuinely flustered.] I thought—you said—we—

MEE-TOU: How dare you enter my chambers half naked when I’m poeticizing! You should be ashamed of yourself!

MAI-WEI: Have you gone crazy? You just told me to tart myself up like this!

MEE-TOU: I’m acting—showing you how Mao himself might respond to the sudden sight of your near nakedness.

MAI-WEI: And how am I supposed to react—what should I say?

MEE-TOU: Tell me you are merely looking in on me before you go to bed.

MAI-WEI: Mao Tse-tung would never believe such a clumsy lie!

MEE-TOU: Let me be the judge of what a man will believe when some luscious creature like you enters his bedroom in a state of seminudity! Now, let’s try your entrance again. I’ll be lying here writing verse in my own state of semiundress. You gaze at me from some secret spot, overcome by the sight of my poetic visage in the moonlight. The feel of that silk grazing your bare flesh is driving you mad—the scent of your own body wafts up in a sudden eddy of warm night air as you approach the couch—with small, dainty, feminine steps! Yes, yes, just like that! [MAI-WEI approaches couch pursuant to MEE-TOU’s coaching.] What are you doing here, comrade—and what is the meaning of your near-nakedness!

MAI-WEI: I’m merely looking in on you before I go to bed, comrade Commander-in-Chief. I thought you might need me.

MEE-TOU: Need you? Why should I need you?

MAI-WEI: To keep you warm?

MEE-TOU: Keep me warm? Can’t you see how I have thrown off my covers? I’m burning up with fever! What I really need is something to cool me down. Do you have any ideas along that line? [Points to her hand and his brow.]

MAI-WEI: My hand? On your brow? [Sits on couch, puts her hand on MEE-TOU’s brow.]

MEE-TOU: Ah, your hand is so cool, Mai-wei! [Pulls her down so they are face-to-face, opens her kimono.] And those snow-white tits: are they as frigid as they look?

MAI-WEI: [Trying to escape MEE-TOU’s embrace.] Well, you are certainly not going to find out!

MEE-TOU: If you could just apply them to my cheeks, like a good nursey; one on each side to extinguish the fire in them while I quench these hot hands of mine on the frosted melons of your ass—[Buries face in her bosom and gropes for her buttocks.]

MAI-WEI: You’re going too far, comrade Mee-tou—unhand me immediately!

MEE-TOU: I’m not Mee-tou, I am Mao Tse-tung—you heavenly bitch!

ENTER MAO and LAY-MEE with poet’s notebook and picnic basket.

MAO: What is the meaning of this?

MAI-WEI and MEE-TOU try to regain composure.

MEE-TOU: We were rehearsing some military tactics—

MAO: Practicing the principles of hand-to-hand combat?

MAI-WEI: I was braving the ice of Jade River to save you!

MAO: You think I’m blind?

MAI-WEI: Maybe you are blind, if you can’t see what this hussy is after! Doesn’t she climb into your bed?

MAO: That was a medical necessity—

MAI-WEI: And your "picnic" this afternoon—that was also "therapeutic," I suppose?

MEE-TOU: The Dungs are tricking you, Mao Tse-tung!

MAO: What are you talking about? They saved my life and restored my intellectual powers. This afternoon I wrote some really first rate poems.

MAI-WEI: Poems! What has poetry got to do with breaking out of our encirclement and advancing on Peking!

ENTER DUNG and TZU-DOH.

TZU-DOH: Is it true—you’ve been out walking?

MAO: Yes! I’m feeling absolutely marvelous!

TZU-DOH: [To DUNG.] Does this mean he is fully recovered?

DUNG: This sense of euphoria could be premature. A relapse could occur at any time.

MAO: [Holding temples.] Why does everyone contradict me! Have you all forgotten who I am!!!

MAI-WEI: I think it’s you who are forgetting who you are! They have pumped you so full of drugs you are no longer in control of your identity!

MAO: [Staggering toward couch.] Maybe you are right—I—

DUNG: [Having followed MAO to couch.] The treatment is not complete.

MAO: [Reclining.] Yes it is. I am cured. My strength has—[Collapses.]

TZU-DOH: What is it?

DUNG: The relapse I predicted—[Attends MAO.]

TZU-DOH: Is he acting, or is he really sick?

DUNG: I must get more medication. Lay-mee, stay with the patient and treat his symptoms—

MAI-WEI: I can do that!

DUNG: Very well—if you’re willing to risk coming down with the fever yourself—

MAI-WEI: There is nothing about the fever being contagious in the script—

TZU-DOH: We must call off the show—

MAO: [Trying to rise.] No! The show—must go on—no medication—no drugs—I can pull—[Collapses.]

TZU-DOH: There is a difference between risking one’s life for a social revolution and for a provincial theatrical event, Skai-hai! No one expects an actor to actually sacrifice himself on the altar of some showbusiness shibboleth.

MAO: I expect it of myself, comrade! This is no ordinary role in an ordinary play! The spirit of Mao Tse-tung is caught up within my own soul. If I were to cast him out, my soul would fly after his and I would be nothing but the shell of a man—a husk, a ghost forever questing after the golden opportunity I squandered. If I must die, let me do so here and now at the summit of my artistic aspirations. Let the people see that we actors can be heroes too! Maybe then they will take the theater more seriously. Now—leave us alone. I command all of you to go away!

EXIT ALL but MAO and LAY-MEE. Pause as they recline on couch. Mao is spent and sleeps immediately. Lay-mee strokes his brow.

LAY-MEE: Sleep, sleep, my darling—

ENTER SO-LOW.

SO-LOW: [Out of character, sheepishly.] Are we going on with the play then—or what?

LAY-MEE: [Shushing him with a finger to her lips, rises from couch, takes pad from Mao’s hand.] He’s resting now—[Puts one screen in front of couch. SO-LOW does same with other screen.] Here is the poem he wrote this afternoon. [Reads from pad.] "Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet—Who is dancing in the sky, whirling this ribbon of color? After the rain the sun has returned to set and the pass and the line of hills are blue. A desperate battle raged here once. Bullet holes pit the walls of the village; they are an embellishment. And today the hills seem yet more fair."

SO-LOW: He is a talented fellow all right. The greatness just oozes out of him. "Charisma" I think they call it. Anyway, he must have some strange power over people or what am I doing here throwing my youth away for an abstract idea? [Having entered to guard Mao, he now sits behind desk, ready for a long night of duty.] If my mates back in Fukien could see me now they wouldn’t believe it!

LAY-MEE: [While nursing Mao.] Are you saying you have doubts about the revolution?

SO-LOW: Don’t get me wrong, miss. I’m not complaining. I’m only explaining that human nature is hard to change; and even if we can change it, should we change it? It seems to me that’s the $64 question. Sometimes I really miss those good old days of raping and pillaging, if you know what I mean—and will excuse my salty lingo—

LAY-MEE: You’re excused sergeant; and I do know what you mean.

SO-LOW: I’m not against suffering for a lost cause—living on the razor’s edge is the spice of life for a soldier; and it’s all very romantic, in its own deathdefying way. I guess what bothers me most about this revolution is the possibility it might succeed! Frankly, these lads Marx and Lenin must have been a trifle daft, if you know what I mean; or to put it in a nutshell—communism doesn’t strike me as being the sexiest of political ideologies.

LAY-MEE: Tell me something, sergeant: if you had the choice between immortality and a single night of lovemaking, which would you choose?

SO-LOW: You mean, if I was faced with the same choice facing Mao?

LAY-MEE: Yes.

SO-LOW: That’s hard to say, miss. Mao Tse-tung is a fish made to swim in the big pond of world events; while I am—you know—just an ordinary proletarian. Still, I’ve seen him with his pants down on a few occasions, so to speak, and he’s as human as the rest of us when it comes to his anatomical equipment. [Pondering Lay-mee.] Although in all honesty I’d have to say, if it was me, I would eat my slice of cake while it was still nice and fresh; especially if it was in the form of a beautiful piece like you.

LAY-MEE: Do you really think I am beautiful, sergeant?

SO-LOW: A fellow don’t have to be a flaming poet to appreciate the way you are put together, miss.

LAY-MEE: Does that mean you would like to make love to me?

SO-LOW: Even if I did, the fact is I’m on duty right now, miss—

LAY-MEE: Isn’t that the same argument Mao always makes: Duty comes before love!

SO-LOW: Looking at it that way, miss, you might have a point. Maybe I am being hypocritical—

LAY-MEE: Then why don’t you reach out and take your "piece of cake?"

SO-LOW: [Sotto voce.] You mean right here and now!?

LAY-MEE: Rape me, soldier! Pillage me! I understand that a veteran he-man like you can make love and war simultaneously.

SO-LOW: When it comes to lovemaking miss: I’ve done it in a foxhole; I’ve done it standing up. I’ve done it on horseback—and once, in Kwangsi province, I did it in a foxhole standing on the back of a horse! [They laugh. LAY-MEE leaves couch, crossing to desk. SO-LOW removes his coat. You can lie on my coat—[Spreads coat on floor near desk.]

MAO: [Calling weakly.] Lay-mee!

LAY-MEE: What is it?

MAO: I need you!

LAY-MEE: I’m busy just now!

MAO: What are you doing?

LAY-MEE: If you must know, sergeant Hung and I are about to make love.

SO-LOW reacts with alarm, pulls trousers up and reseats himself as MAO peers out from between screens.

SO-LOW: That’s just her way of teasing you, comrade Commander-in-Chief!

MAO: Pick up your coat.

SO-LOW complies as MAO emerges from behind screens in robe or clutching a blanket. He is still very weak.

LAY-MEE: What’s wrong? Don’t you think a common soldier is suitable for that kind of mission?

MAO: Don’t be vulgar!

LAY-MEE: Why not? Maybe I feel like being vulgar and playing the whore. Is there some Marxist principle against that?

MAO: I’m going to headquarters. You two can do whatever you want. [EXIT.]

LAY-MEE and SO-LOW exchange looks. So-low’s hands reach for his belt buckle.

LAY-MEE: No, not now. He’s delirious. We must help him!

SO-LOW: Yes—I suppose we must—

LAY-MEE: Come! Quickly! [EXIT.]

SO-LOW: [Doing up buckle.] For this I really should get a hero’s medal!

EXIT SO-LOW. After a brief pause ENTER WEST. He has been hiding somewhere on edge of set.

WEST: This really is one hell of a story—[Looking for snapshot previously discarded by Tzu-doh.]—not unlike the affair between Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson, don’t you think? Should a man turn his back on the woman he loves in the name of a higher political duty? [Still searching for snapshot.] Or is there any greater duty than that which we owe to love itself? I mean, it isn’t every day you find yourself in the vortex of a great love affair, is it? Have any of you had a great love affair lately? Revolutions come and go (they’re really a dime a dozen) but love—true love—is the rarest of rarities! [On hands and knees.] I’m looking for that snapshot, the one of my 5 ex-wives and 8 children with the address of that insurance company written on the back—[Sits and lights last cigarette, crumples empty package and tosses it away.] This story also contains some uncanny parallels to events in my own life. When I was young and full of revolutionary pis and vinegar—about ten thousand miles from here and God knows how many light years ago—a girl fell in love with me, just like this girl has fallen in love with Mao. She saw in my eyes the same flicker of "poetic genius." To her I seemed to be the coming true of all her girlhood dreams. But there were other things she saw in my eyes; disturbing things—the seeds of my selfdestruction. Arrogance, ambition, hubris. She smelled the burning brimstone of a Faustian megalomania caught in my hair.

     Like The Girl in this story she too tried seducing me—from the allure of Hollywood with her own allure. In my case alas, her powers of seduction were not sufficient. She too made the argument that art was worth more than all of the palm trees and klieglights in Babylon—and even though I knew she was right I left her for Babylon anyway. Not that I was deceiving myself. Hell no! I sincerely believed I could revolutionize America’s massmedia mentality by storming the main gates of MGM, RKO and Warner Brothers—just as Mao is planning to storm the gates of Peking. His "Feudalized Chinese Peasantry" was my "Exploited American Moviegoing Public!" But this girl who loved me knew that was all bullshit. She knew what I really wanted deep down was just to see my name in lights and chase a few moonbeams (and starlets)—nothing more "revolutionary" or idealistic than that. [Finishes cigarette with a deep drag, resumes search.]

     And now here I am in a remote corner of China searching for a snapshot of 13 ghosts I mistakenly and arrogantly keep referring to as "my" 5 wives and 8 children! How vividly I recall that 4th of July softball game! I had managed to multiply myself sufficiently to provide 2 teams of 7 players each! There were 14 of us under that gorgeous California sky, romping on a vast green lawn! And, when they were all gathered for the taking of that historic snapshot I remember wanting to say—desperately wanting to say—"Why don’t we keep things just like this forever; why don’t we all put aside our petty differences and preserve the magic of this moment forever? Is there any logical reason why we can’t stay the way we are today; as one big goofy family! What the hell is wrong with a family comprised of 5 wives and 8 kids and only 1 father—when that one father is the equal of any 5 or 500 average American fathers?"

     Christ, how badly I wanted to express that idea! And had I done so I believe my 5 ex-wives and my 8 children might have said: "You are absolutely right Artemis!" Maybe that is why the words never made it past my lips. Anyway, there is, I think, a connection between my dreams of mass media messiahship and my extended-family fantasies, and Mao Tse-tung’s desire to "father a nation of one billion Chinese." Call it megalomania or hubris or merely an overactive libido—or maybe there is some paternal instinct motivating all artists; but whatever it is, a bond does exist between Mao and me—and, consequently, between me and you.

     But the real reason I’m searching so frantically for that snapshot isn’t sentimental. I finally succeeded in making a deal with the chap in charge of the firing squad waiting off stage to execute me that he would get word of my demise to the insurance company (whose name and address I can’t for the life of me recall, but is written on the back of that missing photo) in the form of a phony letter I wrote over the forged signature of a fictitious Presbyterian missionary named Carmichael describing the "fatal fever Mr Artemis West caught whilst crossing a local quagmire known as The Grasslands."

     Incidentally, is it possible that when The Artistic Director of The Peking Opera and I were discussing this same subject a few scenes ago any of you just happened to remember the name and address of the insurance company he read from the reverse side of my July 4th Picnic memento before tossing it away? No, I didn’t think such a seemingly useless piece of bourgeois information would stick in any of your proletarian minds. And even if it had you would be understandably reluctant to collaborate in what sounds like a "double indemnity" insurance fraud. Technically, of course, this is a scam; but in moral terms I do not regard what I’m doing to my insurance company as dishonest. The truth is I was "fatally" attracted here by the lodestone of a tragic and perfectly legal "accidental" death. China has always constituted the geographical setting in my worst nightmares of personal doom. I knew that from the moment in my boyhood when I first saw its lunaresque landscape in the pages of a Time Magazine colorspread on the atrocities committed here by the Japanese in the ‘30s. Its desolation matches the desolation of my own life—of those vast and uncharted regions of my secret soul. This was always to be my destiny: To die like a dog in a remote corner of an obscure country on a minor planet in a lackluster galaxy in the cold, dark void of endless space—anonymous, misunderstood, unfulfilled and utterly horrified! Having spent a lifetime keeping this rendezvous with my destiny, how can I hope—or why should I want—to leave this place alive? Only a slug through the back of the head—something to totally obliterate your brains—befits such a surrealistic locale. To end your being in China—where civilization began ten thousand years ago and you still can’t find a decent toilet!

ENTER FAUST, MOON and THE GIRL.

FAUST: I knew we’d find you back here!

WEST: I thought you were all done in by that firing squad!

MOON: That was only a charade!

THE GIRL: You escaped before we could tell you Mr Moon succeeded in bribing the soldiers to load their rifles with blanks in exchange for acting contracts with Cathay films. We were afraid you might have suffered some truly fiery fate by jumping out of the frying pan of our fake firing squad!

WEST: You were really worried about me?

FAUST: [Putting arm around WEST’s shoulders.] Why shouldn’t we be concerned about our old pal, "Westy?"

MOON: Life just wouldn’t be the same without you "Westy!"

FAUST, MOON and THE GIRL remove lifelike masks of ‘How Mao’ characters they have been playing.

WEST: [Recognizing faces as those of childhood friends.] What the hell is going on?

THE GIRL: [Giving WEST hug and kiss.] Congratulations, darling! You’ve won the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer, and 7 Oscars for "How Mao!"

FAUST: Come on, you lovebirds; we’ve just got time to hop in a cab and make it to the award banquet!

WEST: Are you all nuts? We’re not in Pasadena; this is China!

THE GIRL: Oh, Artemis, you are silly!

WEST: There is a gook outside waiting to kill me—

FAUST: [Pulling WEST off stage.] As always, your powers of imagination are sensational, pal!

FAUST and MOON take WEST off with them. THE GIRL remains near the couch and addresses audience.

THE GIRL: Oh, how I wish we could have made love right here on the stage at the very moment of his triumph! If only you knew the ecstasy of being in love with a poet of such towering genius! Just thinking about him gives me the shivers! [Coming to footlights, out of character.] As far as I’m concerned you can keep your charismatic revolutionaries, your musclebound jocks and your mindless matinee idols! Don’t you ladies out there agree with me that what every woman secretly wants in a mate is a man with the intellectual virility to write the kind of play you have just been watching? [Turning to exit, in character and with melodramatic gesture.] Oh Artemis! Artemis! I’m yours! All yours! Forever!

THE GIRL ‘trips’ off stage like a ballerina. The houselights have been on for some time. ENTER STAGE MANAGER and 2 STAGEHANDS to remake set for ‘Epilogue’.

THE STAGE MANAGER: I don’t know if you realized it, ladies and gentlemen, but officially this play ended when those houselights came up. I can understand your confusion, but I must warn you there are only about 10 or 12 minutes of the intermission left before The Epilogue starts; if you plan sticking around for it. [Pause if audience makes no move to leave.] I really mean it ladies and gentlemen; The action of this play is definitely and officially over—we are only out here to change the set; so please take this opportunity to stretch your legs, have a smoke or use the restrooms—which are, I can assure you—up to the most modern hygienic standards of 1935—I mean 1993! And, just one more thing ladies and gentlemen. The management has asked me to advise those of you whose "sensibilities" might be offended, that The Famous Seduction Scene will be played in the nude tonight. And, since that scene is really the core of the play, you might consider leaving now and asking for a refund; although I must say your chances are pretty slim. For those wishing to get their money’s worth and not suffer the embarrassment of seeing two people make love in public—the management has arranged for a buzzer to sound: warning you that the Famous Seduction Scene is about to begin; so you can close your eyes or do whatever else you feel is necessary to—

STAGEHAND 1: Is this the snapshot Mr West was looking for?

THE STAGE MANAGER: [Puts snapshot given to him by STAGEHAND in shirt pocket.] Really and truly ladies and gentlemen, this is not part of the play! [Turns back to audience and supervises STAGEHANDS in building ‘Epilogue’ Set.]

CURTAIN

End Act Two

Act Three     Return to Index