 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Written for La Mama Experiments ’05. Concert reading at The La Mama Annex on January 10th, 2005, directed by George Ferencz with the following cast: JAMIE ANSLEY (Orma Dial) FELIPE BONILLA (Gormin Dial) BOBBY FAUST (Joralmon Wigdor) JIM SEAMAN (Narrator) JENNIE VATH (Dot Strant). The same cast reading with a synchronized music score for Flute, Clarinet, Guitar and Cello, at The Fort at SideWalk, March 29th, 2005, included two songs, “Hold On (Dearie Dearie),” and “Let Your Life Begin.” TENTAGATNET was produced by La Mama E.T.C. in 2007 as part of its Experimental Festival celebrating 10 years of La Mama’s Play Reading Series. Direction, casting and staging by George Ferencz. Costumes by Sally Lesser. Lights by Federico Restrepo. Scenic Art by Mark Kehoe. Sound Design by Tim Schellenbaum. Production Management by Juile Rosier. Press Representative Jonathan Slaff. Script and Score by Peter Dizozza. Cast: Dot: Leslie Ann Hendricks, Gormin: John Andrew Morrison, Orma: Sonja Perryman, Joralmon: Chris Zorker, Guy: Sarah Ford, Gary: Ulrich Flada 6 CHARACTERS Gormin Dial (Husband): in his mid-50’s. Orma Dial (Wife): in her mid-50’s. They are the “Dials,” a conservative married couple living, modestly but relatively prosperously, in the present day, in a 1930’s cottage built into a mountainside. No children. They are always together. They rarely go out. They no sooner begin to interact with each other than they are arguing about their fidelities to truth, beauty, decency, and each other. Dot Strant: This hooded shopper went to market to keep her slipshod slapped-together scrappy family in provisions and supplies. It appears she has orders to do so, and that her destination, the supermarket, is supremely foreign to her. Of indeterminate age, she turns out to be a female magician, deceptive, in that she is cloaked. A woman of surprising capabilities, she is devoted to her long-term boyfriend, Joralmon. Joralmon Wigdor: Her servant/master, an insomniac, partying all night, then up at dawn to take out the morning trash. His girlfriend, Dot, and two other disenfranchised (because of their freakish appearance) friends are living in his childhood trailer home. As a holdout to the development of the area around him, he has made enemies in his time, but among his friends he creates a rural utopian commune. When even from his friends he needs respite he visits to his private lair, a pup tent adjacent to the trailer. Of the two remaining people who live with Dot and Joralmon, one is a “preemie” baby with a tendency to shove his long fingers down his throat until he chokes (Gary). Anyone standing next to him feels obligated to say, “I didn’t do it.” The other is an equally freakish eggshell-eyed figure (Miss Guy) of indeterminate religion. TENTAGATNET is a word invented to suggest a way of turning a pup tent into a portal. To make a TENTAGATNET, before you pup the tent you must always cross the spikes. Locations. 1. A 1930s cottage (with bedrooms on either side, one of which includes an oval mirror) built into a mountainside inhabited by The Dials. It has a patio in front and a place for a tent (elevated) behind. 2. The Supermarket, a massive construction spread across two football fields from road to creek, built on the footprint of a Playhouse Theatre of Performing Arts which had served the area for 50 years prior to its demolition. 3. A Pup Tent, a two-person army tent behind the cottage. 4. A hammock tent, suspended between two trees, also behind the cottage. 5. A decaying 400 square foot trailer home covered in plastic white siding inhabited by Joralmon, Dot, Gary and Guy on the other side of the creek by the supermarket. 6. A Pup Tent, a two-person army tent behind the trailer with a portal connecting it with the pup tent behind the cottage. TAGLINE: A conservative couple confronts their mirror radicals when they accidentally cross the stakes of an army surplus pup tent, turning it into a TentagatneT!!! Time: The present. SCENE NINE. Dot appears opposite the twist point. Joralmon stands beside her.
DOT Okay?
JORALMON I’m appallingly grateful to you.
DOT Was it me or my ointment?
JORALMON Please accept my most appalling gratitude. Get up.
DOT I’m in no position to do so. I am too wounded by your violent lashes of gratitude.
JORALMON I, too, am wounded by our dependence on a depleted supply of canned goods. You must leave here at once. Here’s money, and a shawl.
He pulls out a long strip of paper.
JORALMON Go to the supermarket and come back with the items on this list.
Joralmon rejoins Gormin as Dot exits.
GORMIN Do you see?
JORALMON I see you with Dot.
SCENE TEN. Dot reappears opposite the twist point. Gormin stands beside her.
DOT What are you going to do to me in here? You’re not an ax murderer, are you?
GORMIN No.
DOT You’re not going to do anything to me, now that you’ve gotten me alone with you in this tent?
GORMIN Nothing untoward. Since you think me a pervert, I cannot go near you.
DOT But you are a pervert.
GORMIN Why?
DOT You prefer what you are too embarrassed to have.
GORMIN I’m embarrassed by what arouses me.
DOT How miserable is that?
GORMIN On a scale of one to ten I’d say three. Rather than fear the loss of happiness, I maintain a steady low-grade state of misery.
DOT Happiness creates its own momentum.
GORMIN Misery does, too. And as we’re on a mountainside, its slope, too, creates its own momentum.
DOT (fists raised) Do you roll with the punches?
GORMIN Yes, with the help of gravity. It is better to be buffeted by fate than suffer the pain of happiness lost.
DOT There’s a time in a month when my thought is fogged, when happiness repels. Everything upsets me as I await the storm’s end.
GORMIN And when it does?
DOT Don’t even talk about it.
GORMIN I don’t need to.
DOT You’ve seen, haven’t you? The larvae frosting the tree trunks hatch and the flying worms infest the air, filling my mouth, surrounding my head, so I walk face covered. The swarm subsides when I reach a wall on which sits a preemie baby with a long finger.
GORMIN I’ve seen him.
DOT Had he stuck his finger in his mouth?
GORMIN Yes, and it was choking him.
DOT And did you step away?
GORMIN No. I just stood there passively observing his self-abuse until a crowd came and accused me molesting him.
DOT I couldn’t help him without further compromising myself so I stepped away.
GORMIN I never see him now.
DOT No. He’s receiving good care. These are just dreams, dreams I dream every night. I dreamt about a guy, a Miss Guy, her Guy family calling her to come downstairs for a visit. She wore a burka as she appeared before me, as I kneeled at her feet, talking only of myself, until I noticed that her eyes were covered in glass and that one of them was pure white.
GORMIN Guy?
DOT Miss Guy. You don’t see her wandering around town anymore.
GORMIN No. Not since they tore down the playhouse.
DOT She lives with us, now.
GORMIN And the boy with the long finger?
DOT Him, too. He’s our friend, Gary.
GORMIN How big is your trailer?
DOT Small enough for a car to pull.
GORMIN Where do you and your boyfriend go for privacy?
DOT Guy’s nearly blind, Gary is colic, and we don’t need privacy. Only Joralmon does when he needs to be alone. That’s why he keeps a pup tent behind our trailer, very much like yours.
JORALMON (aside) She tells you too much.
GORMIN (to Joralmon) Nothing happened. My wife knows better than anyone, I’m homosexual.
DOT (overhearing) Why does she think that?
GORMIN We haven’t made love in a year.
JORALMON Isn’t it time you tried?
Gormin returns to Joralmon.
GORMIN Now it’s too late. She won’t let me. Is that her?
SCENE ELEVEN. Orma enters and stands outside the tent. She is carrying a heavy fuming object.
ORMA I use this purifying incense censer as a mosquito repellant. The vessel of bronze! Live coal from the sacred fire on the altar of burnt offering. I will put it inside the tent.
Coughing from within.
JORALMON What is she doing?
GORMIN Purifying. She always purifies a space before entering.
JORALMON It’s killing me. Has she been inside?
GORMIN No.
JORALMON Bring her in the tent. I’m going to the other side, my side. Don’t take down the tent, though! And get that censer out of here!
Gormin exits the tent holding the censer.
GORMIN Hi, Orma. What’s with this censer?
ORMA I thought you might like your censer with you to keep away bugs.
GORMIN Very thoughtful. Very smoky. Let’s leave it out here so we can breath.
He exits the tent to join her beside it.
ORMA Look at the lights blinking around us in the twilight, beckoning one another.
GORMIN Aren’t those fireflies?
He holds her from behind.
ORMA Yes. Yes, they are male fireflies.
GORMIN How do you know they are male?
ORMA Because the males fly. The females sit on leaves. The smaller females are maters. The larger females are predators, eager to eat the males.
Gormin releases Orma and steps back.
ORMA I’m sorry. That hurt you.
GORMIN No. I’m fine with that.
ORMA The predators mimic the maters. The airborne males don’t know what they’ll meet when they land. Sometimes you must trust your instinct against the odds. We hold for each other the power of life and death. In that way we are each other’s gods.
GORMIN I suppose.
He again is holding her from behind.
ORMA Blinking lights in the dark direct us.
GORMIN Indeed, they direct us toward them. Female fireflies must face a similar problem, ever asking themselves, are we eaters or maters?
ORMA Of course, you are upset when the male is foiled. I’m more upset to see a woman, or worse, an animal, than a man, fooled to its death. Men are naturally more dangerous, with greater potential to kill. Women are naturally nurturing and motherly. And animals, of course, are pure love.
GORMIN I suppose a woman could be gored by a tusk.
ORMA Blinking lights attract men; tusks attract women? Is that what you're saying?
GORMIN Let’s get gored by blinking tusks in the ocean’s depths.
ORMA That's not funny.
GORMIN I didn’t mean it to be. I thought it was kind of sexy.
ORMA There’s another possibility, that some of the blinking lights are fairies. Oh, I forgot. You don’t believe in fairies.
GORMIN They could just as easily be fireflies. Say, now that the tent’s been purified, let me show you what it looks like inside.
ORMA All right.
They go into the tent. Gormin closes the canvas entrance.
ORMA Ooo. In here we could easily be anywhere.
A moment of intimacy is interrupted by sounds of raucous activity outside…
GORMIN (upset) What the hell is that? Listen to that pounding music. There’s a party and we’re missing it. Let’s investigate.
ORMA All right. I already accepted your invitation to enter the tent. I’d say you have one or two agreements left in me before your credibility is completely shot again.
When they go out of the tent, they find themselves surrounded by shrouded figures.
ORMA These revelers are not of our world.
GORMIN How can you tell?
They don’t even comprehend that we’re here. Don’t alert them with your fear. If I can sense it, they can.
GORMIN Fear excites me. Everyone is ignoring us. It’s too dangerous. Let’s go inside. Come on, Orma.
They return into the tent.
SCENE TWELVE
ORMA Listen!
GORMIN What?
ORMA That’s Dot’s voice over the chatter. She’s arguing with someone!
GORMIN It must be her boyfriend.
Outside among the shrouds.
JORALMON Let me be your mother. I mean to be more motherly.
DOT You can’t be. You’re a man. Go out and work for us!
JORALMON I’ll take care. I’m a mother, too.
DOT No, you're not. You're a killer. Go hunt, and bring home the bacon so we can buy bread.
JORALMON Can’t your parents help out? ….
DOT No.
JORALMON … with this house?
DOT House? It’s a trailer. We have to move this house. We could have bought the land beneath it for five thousand when the theatre was still standing. We could have afforded it then, but now that it is worth upwards of a hundred thousand we are in no position to buy it!
JORALMON We need to clear out, to disassemble and liquidate. The assets… There’s none. Maybe we could obtain a rare complete collection of something sub-dividable we could sell in parcels, like the land we’re camping on. Here’s money. Go into the supermarket and come back with the items on this list.
From inside the tent.
ORMA Shall we go to the supermarket?
GORMIN Again? I can see yesterday as though it were today. In a quiet rural town, over the footprint of the summer stock playhouse, the hooded girl walked through the block-long supermarket aisle, trailing her shopping list, carrying her provisions for the group back home, those who sent her there. Although the cart was nearing overflow, she was capable; she was loyal. She would handle it.
ORMA I didn’t see a shopping list.
GORMIN But you saw her so swaddled. What face was hidden beneath her hood and ball cap? Your connection was empathic. Before we married, you had been enamored of such a fellow as this one, ready to carry out his every assignment, follow his every instruction, and anticipate his every need.
ORMA I only told you about him after you insisted on bringing up your own past.
GORMIN Now, as cuddly as you are, you are hitched to a man who doesn’t like to be touched, whose sphincter gooses in snaps and pops, whose workings fear exposure to the light, and who stands in the aisle wondering about the hooded girl in the supermarket.
ORMA If I knew the depth of you emotional incontinence, I wouldn’t have married you, but I did know and I did marry, because I’m a magical thinker. Gormin, don’t deny my magical thinking. Get the car. She’s coming with us!
GORMIN Orma, please leave her. Her vulnerability disturbs the predator in me.
ORMA I will not leave her, not after what she has told me, and not after knowing what I know about you.
They return to the tent.
ORMA I’m only just discovering how unkind you’ve been to yourself by the existence you maintain for yourself. Your lion’s den is just a little pup tent.
GORMIN Thank you for noticing.
Dot calls Gormin from outside the tent. As Gormin responds, Joralmon re-enters the tent through the cross-point.
DOT Gormin, front and center. Come out of the tent and report to me.
Gormin exits the tent.
ORMA And there you go, putting others before me. Leaving me alone in here.
DOT (voice over) What do you do for a living? GORMIN I’m a film collector. I think they’re fabulously valuable.
DOT (voice over) Where do you keep your films?
GORMIN: In a closet, in a tinderbox. Every Saturday I pull out one and project it on a screen outdoors.
Joralmon joins Orma.
JORALMON (to Orma) Are you hearing them? What is she doing with him?
ORMA I didn’t realize how far back this tent goes. Who are you?
JORALMON Shhh.
Outside
GORMIN It was my choice to make love, head-on, direct, with my eyes open. But I was not up for the challenge that floodgate released.
Orma overhears from inside.
ORMA That is because you have no connection with your body.
JORALMON Shhh.
GORMIN (to the tent) And I don’t appreciate your pandering to my disagreeableness, as though I’m the boss’s son and you’re escorting me for the night. My fulfillment of arousal translates into a ravishment of you. I take from the naked. I give to the covered. Don’t leave me alone with the willing.
ORMA The meeting of the antithetical twain can result in pure love and compassion.
JORALMON Why are you trying to have a relationship with that man? He clearly doesn’t want your help, or you. Try this instead.
ORMA What is it?
JORALMON A happy pill. It chemically opens in the brain the receptors of happiness naturally opened when someone loves you.
ORMA Thank you. Where may I find more of these?
JORALMON I will find you. (pushing his way out of the tent) Excuse me.
Joralmon exits and joins Gormin, who is standing beside the tent, alone.
JORALMON You and your wife have something to work out between you, and I can help.
GORMIN (motioning) Here they come now, driving up the driveway.
JORALMON (as if seeing her for the first time) Is that your wife?
GORMIN She is exquisite. Yes. I know.
JORALMON I didn’t think you had it in you.
GORMIN Excuse me.
Orma, getting out of the car with Dot. Gormin joins them and helps carry in bags of groceries.
ORMA Put back your hood. Don’t let my husband see you without it.
SONG: LET YOUR LIFE BEGIN
GORMIN Dot. Would you go outside for a moment? I have something to say to Orma and there’s someone out there who wants to speak with you.
DOT I’m coming. GORMIN Orma, Dot’s boyfriend is outside.
ORMA What did you make of him?
GORMIN He’s running the drug trade here.
ORMA I don’t think so.
GORMIN No. He’s a better man than that. He calls himself a film salesman.
From outside.
JORALMON Let's party, play loud music. GORMIN Let’s have a quiet evening at home by the fire. I’m going to set up the movie screen.
ORMA Forget it. Your credibility is shot. Everywhere I look I see cult. Your mind is infested with the occult. You are too cowardly to get what you want so you got me. No one has any idea how sunken into damnation you'd fallen before commencing this marriage charade.
GORMIN I think they knew.
MUSIC OUTDOORS GROWS LOUDER, APPROACHING THE COTTAGE.
VOCAL CHANT Do the wife-swapper life-slapper sling swing!
GORMIN People are coming. We can't hide much longer. Slingers looking to do a life swap infest this mountain.
From outside.
JORALMON Dot, what are you doing?
DOT I am turning this tent into a tentagatnet so that we could subdivide and liquidate their film collection!
ORMA Gorman, what are you doing?
GORMIN I am relieving us of the stewardship of our possessions, for they have been infected by the virus of the occult.
ORMA A burnt offering can deactivate the curse.
GORMIN No, it’s too late. I’m just going to prune trees. I must climb them. They’re strangling themselves with growth.
GORMIN exits the tent.
ORMA There you go, putting gods others before me. Leaving me alone in here.
Outside.
GORMIN Dot, what happened to our interview.
DOT Oh yeah. Enough about what I think of you. Let’s talk about you for a change. How far along the stages of human development are you at this late stage in your life?
GORMIN I’m just a clerk on the corner, drawing a paycheck, an angry little man hiding behind the coattails of my employer.
DOT Skills?
GORMIN Pruning. Most activities bore me. I’m functioning at a low level. I just want to prune.
DOT First Million?
GORMIN No.
DOT Married?
GORMIN Yes.
DOT Children?
GORMIN Apparently never.
DOT Property owner?
GORMIN Joint owner of our little cottage built into the mountain in the 1930’s.
DOT Lifespan?
GORMIN I don’t know.
DOT Accomplishments?
GORMIN I don’t know. I don’t suppose I’m very far along the path.
DOT We are all developing at our own pace. Let’s make this our best effort. Why am I compelled to speak with you?
GORMIN I think it is because you recognize my fetishes for what they are. I’m not really interested in you as a person. I don’t care whether you never take off that hood. You fulfill my fetish as you are. Is there any value in my life? Maybe there is value in my possessions, but how will I know until I sell them? Looks like I’ll never have fun again. I upset my wife. Her feelings? No I don’t consider them. I just want her to be with me and be herself, and me to be with her and be myself. Our temperaments clash. I can’t make a clean break in closing the conversation. I’m not quite admitting how I feel to her or me. I love her and want to be with her. We accuse each other constantly, because I’m not honest with myself and she can sense that. That’s no way to prosper. DOT Gormin, enough! You clearly have no intention of molesting me. Please grant me license to depart.
GORMIN Here. Take this disk. Give it to the man at the door. He’ll let you through.
SPECIAL DELIVERY Special Delivery!
ORMA Another auction delivery. The package is quite light. GORMIN I ordered a hammock tent. No poles or spikes. It ties between two trees.
JORALMON This is perfect. Stretch it tight.
DOT Now twist. There, a perfect tentagatnet ( ). Are you prepared to go in?
GORMIN I’ll take the candles.
ORMA I’ll bring the censer.
GORMIN Orma, back up.
ORMA No. Go forward.
GORMIN I can’t.
JORALMON Are you prepared to go through its twist point and out the other side?
GORMIN Yes.
ORMA Yes.
DOT and JORALMON Done.
DOT Let’s sell off everything and get out of here.
JORALMON I think that worked well. Congratulations, “Orma.”
Gormin and Orma are happy to be relieved of their possessions.
GORMIN and ORMA It happened when we went through the crossed canvas at the twist point!
DOT The twist point is where the three dimensions fuse into a flat surface of two dimensions, like on a film strip.
JORALMON Two options -- decide. Too many options -- no decision. Cheers, “Orma.” Raise your glass to the new transcendentalist. As the fairies appear in the morning mist.
DOT They went through the twist point.
The two couples exit the tube tent from the ends they entered.
GORMAN (arms around Orma, referring to Orma) I’m taking Dot home.
ORMA Yes I think that’s best.
JORALMON It’s Saturday night. Are you sure you don’t want to stay and see a movie on my projector.
GORMAN Another time.
JORALMON All right. But don’t be strangers.
DOT See you at the supermarket! Don’t go mixing bleach and ammonia.
ORMA Oh, we won’t.
Gorman and Orma exit.
JORALMON Okay, “Orma,” what did you do?
DOT I don’t know. Something’s wrong with that tent.
JORALMON Let’s waste no time liquidating their assets so we can take the money and run. We’ll break up the collection and sell each piece individually for the most profit. Get to work taking inventory. What’s this mystery reel?
DOT I don’t know.
JORALMON Load it into the projector and let’s see what it is.
Dot switches on the projector. Lights and demonic groans emanate from it.
JORALMON Oh, please take this off.
DOT I’m enjoying it a lot.
JORALMON I feel so powerless sitting here.
DOT Then go back in time and save them.
In Joralmon’s Trailer home. Gormin and Orma enter. Gary and Guy are already in there.
GORMIN Hi, kids. We’re home.
ORMA Poor Gary, always catching colds because of his undeveloped internal organs
GORMIN He’s doing fine. Look at those long fingers. He’s gonna be great.
ORMA And poor Miss Guy, nearly blind with her eggshell eyes.
GORMIN Gary, Guy, I know we said we had to move, but guess what, we’re staying.
ORMA The only thing that’s going from here is this plastic white siding. Let’s see the wood rotting underneath.
Orma begins to pull apart the trailer home.
GORMIN (to Gary and Guy) With your help we’re going to make this trailer the nicest country cottage you’d ever want to live in.
Orma stops demolishing for a moment to stand beside Gormin.
ORMA Darling. Look at Gary and Guy. How can you not protect these pure innocent creatures?
GORMIN I love and protect them, in all their misbegotten glory. Now let’s get to work.
They both pull apart the trailer home.
Meanwhile…
JORALMON Nothing, nothing of value here. It’s all faded, red trash!
DOT Settle in. These films are our vortex into another world.
(All join in collective groans and moans.) TentagatneT has musical accompaniment. Text with musical score, also available. SONG LYRICS appended herein: HOLD ON (DEARIE DEARIE) VERSE I Bad days have come and gone, They vanished when you came along, And now you want a razor or a reason to remain, For you lost your footing firm and strong. I found mine when you came along. You doubt me. Am I normal or insane? Since you’ve always been a savior, Why not use the gifts God gave you to hold on? Will you hold on? CHORUS Hold on, though you’re weary. The rain will wash you clean. Will you Hold On? Hold on, dearie dearie, upon the leaves so green, Simply Hold on. VERSE II I can’t recant ambivalence. My words are damning evidence. I play the role of victim in the prison house I own. With the game I’d hoped you’d play along, You played a warden big and strong, Now let the truth behind the myth be known. At a time of valediction, Though we stay we are not victims. Please hold on.
SONG 2: LET YOUR LIFE BEGIN VERSE I I can feel your head. Your head is cool, Feel your Beating heart, it’s a heart that’s full. You’re Alive and well, though day is done, When tomorrow dawns, there’ll be light soaked sun. It’s a cause for applause. Thank your stars for friendly neighbors. They wonder where you’ve been. Shed the lies of life’s procedure and let your life begin. VERSE II I am also here. I’m not afraid. I am with you still and I won’t let go. Help me first to help me help you next. You’re the one I chose and I’ll make you whole on my list still to do.
When a love’s held close as precious it glows as it flows out. Hear the gulls of love awaken when from the sky they shout. BRIDGE Ask of me, I won’t say no. I have to mend a heart broken. Leave to me to find the cure in sharing what we love. So we share and spend, then cast to sea, most precious of our pebble jewels. Give, you give, it gives me cause to love you more each day. VERSE III When I feel your head, your head is cool. When I feel your heart, it’s warm and full. We’re alive and well, and though the year is done, When tomorrow dawns there’ll be light soaked sun. End the losing battle that Neither side has won. When a love is love forsaken it stings as it flows out. See the gulls of love awaken when from the sky they shout. As they black it out. When a love’s held close as precious, then a life can begin. Let your life begin.
|
