All in the Timing
Page 13
JACK: On this street. In this city. In the country. On this planet.
JILL: You’re the most wonderful man I’ve met in years.
JACK: You have a light that surrounds you.
JILL: You’re intoxicating.
JACK: You’re radiant. I came to this party one thing and I leave it transformed.
JILL: I came to this party to meet the love of my life.
JACK: And you’re her.
LOUDSPEAKER VOICE (correcting): You are she.
JACK: You’re her! You are the love of my life!
JILL: My name could be anything.
JACK: But it’s Jill.
JILL: I could have gone anywhere tonight.
JACK: But you came to this party.
JILL: Hello hello.
JACK: Abracadabra. My name is Jack.
JILL: Would you like to get a cup of coffee sometime, Jack?
JACK: Yes, Jill, I would like that very much.
JILL: And it all happens right here.
LOUDSPEAKER VOICE: A-plus.
BLACKOUT
A SINGULAR KINDA GUY
Lights up on MITCH, a guy out on a Saturday night.
A young guy is out on a Saturday night in his best shoes, talking to a girl he’s met in a bar. She’s nice, he likes her. But he’s got this sort of confession, see. There’s something she ought to know about him. And he’s never told this to anybody. You see, on the inside, deep on the inside, he isn’t really a guy at all. He’s an Olivetti electric self correcting typewriter. And he can’t even type!
MITCH: I know what you’re thinking. You’re looking at me and you’re saying to yourself, Average guy. Normal human being. Nothing out of the ordinary. Well, that’s what I thought too for lots of years, and boy, was I wrong. Now I look back, I think I always really knew the truth about myself, underneath. It’s like, sometimes I’d look in the mirror in the morning and I’d get this weird feeling like what I was looking at was not what I really was looking at. Or else I’d be standing in a crowd of people at a party, and suddenly I’d get this idea like I was standing in a huge empty space and there wasn’t anybody around me for miles. Episodes of “vastation,” if you know that beautiful word. And then one day I had a … I don’t know what you’d call it. A mystical experience?
I was walking down Lex over in the Thirties when I go by this office supply shop. Just a crummy little place. But I turn and I look and I see … an Olivetti Model 250 portable electric typewriter. Are you familiar with that particular model? Have you ever seen the old Olivetti 250? Well let me tell you—it is sublime. The lines. The shape. The slant of the keyboard. It’s all there! It’s a thing of beauty!
Anyway, I’m standing there looking at this thing, and it’s like I recognize it from someplace. It’s like I’m looking at family somehow, like I’m seeing some long-lost older brother for the first time, and suddenly I realize—That’s me, right there. That thing in the window is exactly what I feel like, on the inside. Same lines, same shape, same aesthetic. And what I realized was—I am a typewriter. No, really! A typewriter! All those years I thought I was a human being, on the inside I was really a portable Olivetti 250 with automatic correctability. And you know what? I can’t even type!
Needless to say, this revelation came as a shock. But all of a sudden it’s clear to me how come I always got off on big words—like “vastation.” Or “phenomenological.” Or “subcutaneous.” Words are what a typewriter’s all about, right?
Problem is, it can be a lonely thing, being a typewriter in a world of human beings. And now here I am being replaced every day by word processors. Who needs a typewriter anymore? Here I finally figure out what I really am, I’m an antique already.
Plus, there’s my love life, which is problematical to say the least. The difficulties involved in a typewriter finding a suitable partner in this town are fairly prodigious, as you can imagine. At least now I know how come I always loved—not just sex, sex is anywhere—but … touch. Being touched, and touching. Being touched is part of the nature and purpose of typewriters, that’s how we express ourselves and the human person along with us. Hands on the keyboard and the right touch—fire away. Yeah women’s hands. They’re practically the first thing I notice. Nice set of shapely fingers. Good manicure. No hangnails. Soft skin. I’m not a finger fetishist or anything, you understand, it’s just …
You’ve got a pretty nice pair of hands yourself, there. That’s what I noticed, that’s how come I stepped over here to talk to you. I know this all sounds pretty loony, but you know I’ve never told anybody this before? Somehow I just felt like I could trust you, and …
What? I beg your pardon?
I don’t understand.
You’re not really a girl? Sure, you’re a girl, you’re a beautiful girl, so …
You’re what? You’re actually a sheet of paper? Ten-pound bond? Ivory tinted? Pure cotton fiber? (MITCH holds out his hand.) Glad to meet you.
BLACKOUT
SPEED-THE-PLAY
This play is for Martha Stoberock, with love, because it made her laugh, and just because
Speed-the-Play was performed at the Mitzi Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center on November 20, 1989, as part of a benefit for Broadway Cares, hosted by Spy magazine and honoring David Mamet. The evening was directed by Gregory Mosher, and the cast was as follows:
American Buffalo
DONNY J. J. Johnston
BOBBY W. H. Macy
TEACH Mike Nussbaum
Speed-the-Plow
GOULD Joe Mantegna
FOX Bob Balaban
KAREN Felicity Huffman
Sexual Perversity in Chicago
BERNIE Treat Williams
DANNY Steven Goldstein
DEBORAH Mariel Hemingway
JOAN Felicity Huffman
Glengarry Glen Ross
LEVENE Robert Prosky
WILLIAMSON W. H. Macy
MOSS J.J. Johnston
AARONOW Mike Nussbaum
ROMA Joe Mantegna
CUSTOMER Steven Goldstein
M.C. Roderick McLachlan
Lights up on the M.C. at a podium.
M.C.: David Mamet. Poker player. Cigar smoker. Male bonder. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Film director. Chicagoan. Genius. Why is David Mamet a genius? Because from a very early age, he instinctively knew three important things about his audience. First—Americans like speed. Things that are fast. This is, after all, the country that invented the rock song and the roller coaster, and might have invented premature ejaculation if it hadn’t been invented already. So Mamet keeps his plays in fifth gear. Second—David Mamet knows that Americans don’t like to pay for parking. So he keeps his plays short. Third—he knows how Americans talk. Particularly American men. He appreciates that when American men go to the theater, they want to hear familiar words like “asshole” and “jagoff.” Which might explain the popularity of American Buffalo, in which the word “fuck” appears over sixteen thousand times. We are gathered here tonight to honor David Mamet for his contribution to the American theater. Some of you might not be familiar with the Master’s work, so we have, as it were, boiled down a few of the major plays and extracted the gist, to give you the Master’s oovruh in the Master’s own way: short, and to the fuckin’ point. Four plays in seven minutes. You are about to enter … the Mamet Zone. (He rings a fight bell.) American Buffalo. Act One. A junkshop. (DANNY and BOBBY enter.)
DANNY: Bobby, you’re a young punk.
BOBBY: Fuckin’ right I am.
DANNY: A small-time thief.
BOBBY: Fuckin’ right I am.
DANNY: But we never use the word “thief,” do we, Bobby?
BOBBY: Fuckin’ right we don’t.
DANNY: And do you fence stolen goods through my junk shop?
BOBBY: We never talk about it.
DANNY: Fuckin’ right we don’t.
BOBBY: So what do we talk about, Danny?
DANNY: The nature of life. We also say “fuck” a
lot. (TEACH enters.)
TEACH: Fuckin’ life.
DANNY: Is it bad, Teach?
TEACH: It’s very bad.
DANNY: Go for more coffee, Bob. (BOBBY exits.)
TEACH: Fuckin’ Fletcher. Fuckin’ Ruthie.
DANNY: You ran into Ruthie heretofore?
TEACH: I’m over in the coffee shop puttin’ my finger on the Zeitgeist, Ruthie’s sittin’ there talkin’ objective correlatives. “Bullshit,” I say. Next thing I know, form follows content, this fuckin’ cunt is traveling around the corner with my sweetroll! For which I paid for, sixty-fi’ cents plus a truckload of stolen pig iron. Now is that the mirror back to nature, or what? As for fuckin’ I-don’t-give-a-shit-what-anybody-says Fletcher, I say the guy is a hairdresser, and I only hope some vicious lesbo with a zipgun rips his fuckin’ lips off. (Pause.) What’s new?
DANNY: Not much. I was thinkin’ I’d ask Bobby to steal some rare coins for me tonight.
TEACH: Maybe I should do it instead.
DANNY: Okay.
(Bell.)
M.C.: Act Two. The junkshop, that night, (TEACH and DANNY enter.)
TEACH: Everything’s fucked up, Danny. I can’t steal the rare coins.
DANNY: I fear I detect a rationalization, Teach.
TEACH: Why don’t you go take a leak in the gene pool you swam in on. (BOBBY enters.)
BOBBY: Hey, Danny. Want to buy this rare buffalo-head nickel?
TEACH: Fuck you, Bobby. (He hits BOBBY with a pigsticker.)
BOBBY: OW!
DANNY: Fuck you, Teach.
TEACH; Fuck you, Danny.
BOBBY: Fuck you, Danny and Teach. (Pause.)
TEACH: So is there anything more to say?
(Three bells.)
M.C.: Speed-the-Plow. Act One. An office in Hollywood.
(Bell, FOX and GOULD enter.)
FOX: Gould, you are the new head of production at this studio.
GOULD: I am.
FOX: I am an unsuccessful independent producer.
GOULD: You are.
FOX: And you owe me a favor.
GOULD: Forsooth?
FOX: I own this piece-a-shit movie script. Will you take it to the head of the studio and make me rich?
GOULD: I’ll do it at ten o’clock tomorrow morning.
FOX: Thank you, Gould.
GOULD: I’m a whore.
FOX: I’m a whore too.
GOULD: And we’re men.
FOX: Who’s the sexy new secretary?
GOULD: Some fuckin’ temp.
FOX: I bet you five hundred bills you can’t get her in the sack.
GOULD: It’s a bet. (Into intercom.) Karen, would you come in here, please? (KAREN enters.)
KAREN: Sir?
GOULD: Karen, would you read this book about cosmic bullshit that somebody submitted and come to my house tonight to report on it?
KAREN: Yes sir. (She exits.)
GOULD: Consider her fucked.
(Bell.)
M.C.: Act Two. Gould’s house, that evening.
(GOULD and KAREN enter.)
GOULD: Did you read the book about cosmic bullshit, Karen?
KAREN: Yes and I think the book is brilliant.
GOULD: It might be.
KAREN: And Mr. Fox’s script is trash.
GOULD: It may be.
KAREN: So why will you produce it?
GOULD: Because I’m a whore.
KAREN: I think you’re a very sensitive man. (Small pause.)
GOULD: At last a girl who understands me! (They embrace.)
(Bell.)
M.C.: Act Three. Gould’s office, the next morning, (GOULD and FOX enter.)
GOULD: I’m not gonna recommend your script, Fox.
FOX: No?
GOULD: I’m not going to the head of the studio with it.
FOX: No?
GOULD: I’m gonna recommend this brilliant book on cosmic bullshit instead. Why? Because the business of America is Byzantine.
FOX: You lift your leg to pee.
GOULD: You genuflect to pick your nose.
FOX: You stand on your head to jerk off.
GOULD: You bounce on a trampoline to defecate.
FOX: You know you’re only doing this because that shtupka fired off a twenty-one-gun salute on your weenie. (Small pause.)
GOULD: You’re right. (Into intercom.) Karen, would you come in here, please? (KAREN enters.)
KAREN: Bob … Bob … Bob …
GOULD: You’re fired, (KAREN exits.)
FOX: She’s a whore.
GOULD: She’s a whore.
FOX: And you’re my friend.
GOULD: If only we were women, we could be lesbians together.
FOX: But in the meantime, life—
GOULD: —is very good.
(Three bells.)
M.C.: Sexual Perversity in Chicago. Scene One. A singles bar.
(Bell. DANNY and BERNIE enter.)
BERNIE: All women are alike, Danny.
DANNY: Gosh, Bernie. Is that really true?
BERNIE: Essentially they’re bitches.
DANNY: Or else they’re whores?
BERNIE: Yes. Or else they’re whores.
(Bell.)
M.C.: Scene Two. Joan and Deborah’s apartment, (JOAN and DEBORAH enter.)
JOAN: All men are alike, Deborah.
DEBORAH: They certainly are, Joan.
JOAN AND DEBORAH: They’re men.
(Bell.)
M.C.: Scene Three. A singles bar. (JOAN, alone, BERNIE enters.)
BERNIE: Hi there.
JOAN: Get lost.
BERNIE: You got a lotta fuckin’ nerve.
(Bell.)
M.C.: Scene Four. A library, (DEBORAH, alone, DANNY enters.)
DANNY: Hi there.
DEBORAH: Get lost.
DANNY: Want to go out with me?
DEBORAH: Okay.
(Bell)
M.C.: Scene Five. Bernie’s apartment, (BERNIE, alone.)
BERNIE: Is there a metaphysical point to broads?
(Bell)
M.C.: Scene Six. Danny’s apartment, (DANNY and DEBORAH in bed.)
DANNY: Nice nice, Deborah.
DEBORAH: Nice nice, Danny.
DANNY AND DEBORAH: Good-night! (They fall asleep.)
(Bell)
M.C.: Scene Seven. A bar. (DANNY, DEBORAH and BERNIE.)
DANNY (introducing): Bernie, Deborah. Deborah, Bernie.
DEBORAH AND BERNIE: Hello!
BERNIE: You sure are a nice girl, Deborah. (Aside to DANNY.) Probably a whore.
(Bell)
M.C.: Scene Eight. Danny and Bernie’s office.
BERNIE: Danny, people sometimes have sexual intercourse under very peculiar circumstances.
DANNY: Is that true, Bernie?
BERNIE: Yes it is.
(Bell.)
M.C.: Scene Nine. Deborah and Joan’s apartment, (JOAN and DEBORAH enter.)
JOAN: Is there a metaphysical point to men? (DEBORAH is about to answer when she is interrupted by … the bell.)
M.C.: Scene Ten. An office.
BERNIE: Don’t fall in love, Danny.
DANNY: Mmn.
BERNIE: Deborah’s just another bitch.
DANNY: Mmn.
BERNIE: I gather that you don’t agree?
(Bell)
M.C.: Scene Eleven. Danny’s apartment, (DANNY and DEBORAH in bed.)
DANNY: Breast.
DEBORAH: Sperm.
DANNY: Penis.
DEBORAH: Menstruation.
DANNY: Masturbation.
DEBORAH: Your come smells just like Clorox.
DANNY: I think I’m falling in love with you.
M.C.: He does so.
(Bell.)
M.C.: Scene Twelve. A toy shop, (DANNY and BERNIE enter.)
BERNIE: When I was a child, an old man once placed his hand on my genitals in a movie theater.
DANNY: On your genitals?
BERNIE: In a movie theater.
DANNY
: Was it psychologically damaging?
BERNIE: How do I know, Danny? I was only a fucking child.
(Bell)
M.C.: Scene Thirteen. A restaurant, (DEBORAH and JOAN enter.)
DEBORAH: I’m going to move in with Danny, (JOAN puts a finger down her throat and gags.)
(Bell.)
M.C.: Scene Fourteen. The office, (BERNIE and DANNY.)
BERNIE: Ba deep ba dop ba doop, Dan.
DANNY: I know that, Bernie.
BERNIE: Da-da-daaa some girl, da-da-daaa it’s love, da-da-daaa you’re fucked. Oop scoop a wee-bop, bonk, deek!
DANNY: Sure, I see your point.
(Bell.)
M.C.: Scene Fifteen. Danny and Deborah’s apartment, (DANNY and DEBORAH enter.)
DANNY: Where’s the shampoo?
DEBORAH: Will you still love me when I’m old?
DANNY: Why are you putting on dirty panty hose?
DEBORAH: Are we all right?
DANNY: Bitch.
DEBORAH: Jerk. I’m moving out.
(Bell.)
M.C.: Scene Sixteen. Deborah and Joan’s apartment, (DEBORAH and JOAN enter.)
JOAN: All men are alike, Deborah.
DEBORAH: Oh be quiet.
(Bell.)
M.C.: Scene Seventeen. A beach, (DANNY and BERNIE enter.)
DANNY: All women are alike, Bernie.
BERNIE: Yes, they are.
DANNY: They’re bitches.
BERNIE: Or else they’re whores. And life, Danny boy?
DANNY: Life is good, Bernie.
BERNIE: Yes, life is very good.
(Three bells.)
M.C.: Glengarry Glen Ross. Act One, Scene One. A booth in a Chinese restaurant.
(LEVENE and WILLIAMSON in a booth.)
LEVENE: John. John. John. Forty, fifty, sixty years I been the best goddamn hustler of swampland in the history of real estate. I started selling real estate before I was born. I hit the calls. I caught the marks. I platted out the stats. I ate the chalk. I made the fuckin’ board, John.