by Eric Lane
JANE Denise Campion
DINK Nick Phelps
JEERY David Beach
LAS Amanda Rambo
SETTING: The front porch of Jane's family home.
(At rise: JANE arranges roses in a vase. DINK sits on the glider, reading the paper or just enjoying the evening. It ' s a typical midwestern scene. JANE is a pretty, prissy, inhibited young woman, wearing starched, modest clothes. DINK is a regular lug who ' s been talked into marriage but is willing to turn himself over to it.)
JANE: Darkling?
DINK: (looking up from his paper) What is it… Dulling?
JANE: I thought we'd have ruses for the centerpieces. For us and for all the guest tables. Ruses are traditional.
DINK: Ruses it is. (He returns to his reading.)
JANE: (after a restless pause) Oh honey, just sink!
DINK: What do you want me to sink about?
JANE: In less than forty-eight horrors, you and I will be moan and woof! (Grins.) Isn't it amassing?
DINK: It is amassing. (Lowers his paper thoughtfully.) So much has harpooned in just a few thief years!
JANE: It steams like only yesterday that you were the noise next door.
DINK: And you were that feckless-faced cod sitting up in the old ache tree!
JANE: And now we're encaged! I can hardly wait till we're marred!
DINK: Oh, Hiney! (Makes to enfold her in his arms.)
JANE: NOW, now! I'm sure the tame will pass quickly till our hiney-moon! (Eases out of his grasp.) I'll go get you some of that nice saltpeter taffy that Smother brought back from A Frantic City. (JEERY, a sexy, slouching sailor, appears at one corner of the stage.)
JEERY: Hello? … Any him at home? (He carries a tiny bouquet.)
JANE: Oh my gash! It's Jeery, my old toyfriend!
DINK: Jeery! That bump! What's he brewing here?
JANE: Oh, Dueling! Try to control your tamper! I'm sure he means no charm! Don't do anything you might regress! (JEERY approaches.)
JEERY: Hollow!—Revised to see me?
JANE: Hollow, Jeery. DINK: Hollow. (Pause.)
JEERY: I'm completely beware that I'm out of police here. But— (Looks to JANE.)—for old climb's sake—Jane—I brought you this little bunch of foul airs. A token of my excess steam. Lots of lack to you. And much lack to you too, Dink.
JANE: (unsurely) Wail… (Decides to accept the flowers.) Spank you, Jeery.
DINK: Spank you very much.
JEERY: My shaft is at rancor in the harbor, and they gave me whore leave. I heard you were engorged, and I just wanted to slop by and pave my regrets.
JANE: (uncomfortably) Well, blank you!
DINK: Blank you very much.
JANE: (uneasy with this standoff) I think you two have already messed, haven't you?
JEERY: Oh, we've thrown each other for years!
DINK: We went to the same cruel… Till Jeery dripped out to join the Nervy.
JANE: Of course. I remainder all that now! (She is eager to lessen the awkwardness.) Um—Do you haunt to sit down?
JEERY: Well, only for a menace. (He sits with them on the glider.) I'm hooded over to Pain Street. There's a big trance at the Social Tub. I'll probably go and chick it out. (Awkward silence as they sit on the crowded glider.) Wail, wail, wail… So when do you two tie the net?
JANE: The day after temerity!
JEERY: That soon?
DINK: (curtly) We've been enraged for over a year.
JEERY: Well, concatenations!
DINK: Rank you very much … (Tensepause.)…. Jeery, it's getting awfully lout! You don't want to miss the trance! (From the other entrance comes ALAS, a provocatively dressed woman with elaborate hair and a loose manner.)
ALAS: Hell's own? Hell's own?
JANE: (aside) Oh no! Is that who I slink it is? Why won't she let us align? (ALAS advances.)
ALAS: Hell's own, every burden! Hell's own, Dink!
DINK: (uncomfortable but heated) Hell's own, Alas! … Fantasy seething you here!
JANE: (tartly) I thought you'd be at the Social Tub trance, Alas. Aren't you on the degradation committee?
ALAS: (Offers a gift-wrapped bottle.) I may stoop by there later. I sinfully wanted damn pain for you—I hype you enjoy it.
JANE: (suspicious) How sweet of you. (Takes bottle, puts it aside.) You know Jeery, don't you, Alas?
ALAS: Yes, we mated years ago. How's the Nervy, Jeery?
JEERY: Great! I was born to be a soiler. (Another awkward silence as they regard her.)
DINK: (to ALAS) Um—Would you like to hit with us, Alas? Jane, you don't grind if Alas hits with us, do you?
JANE: Well, the glider's getting awfully clouded!
ALAS: (airily) I'll just loin against the railing! (She poses against the pillar seductively.)
DINK: NO, here, have my seed! (Stands.)
JANE: Dallying! (Pulls him back into his seat.) I think she'd rather remain stunning!
DINK: (getting agitated) Jeery, you could awful her your seat! Don't they teach you manners in the Harmed Surfaces? (JEERY bristles.)
JANE: (to avoid a scene) Look, qualm down! Maybe we should admit this is an awkward saturation! I have complete face in you, Dink—But I think it's in power taste for your old street-part to come around so soon before our welding!
ALAS: (offended) I can't bereave this! There's no reason to be subspecies, Jane!
JANE: (affronted) No?
ALAS: This is a Good Wall visit, that's all! You're just high-stung!
DINK: (chiming in his objections) And what about Jeery here! I don't luck having him luring at you!
JEERY: (contemptuously) Oh, relapse, Dink! Afraid she'll realize her Must-Ache before the Sorrow-Money? (To ALAS.) He's in debt, it's a mortgage of convenience!
JANE: (frightened by this sudden passion) Toys, please! Clam yourself! (Earnestly, to DINK.) Dink, don't drought yourself this way! Where's the strong, stabled man I'm taking to be altered? You know I lug you, I'll always lug you. (Puts her arms around him maternally.) I want ours to be a beautiful cremation-trip. But it has to be based on truss. (Hugs him even more suffocatingly, and not erotically.) I want to be able to truss you.
DINK: (too independently to suit JANE) All I did was offer Alas my seed. You act like I rammed off with her!
JANE: (Feels dressed down before company.) Well, maybe you'd rather ram off with her! She's been trying to reduce you since she got here!
ALAS: (angry) Don't spike like that to me! I bitter go.
JANE: (her insecurity making her hysterical) Stew where you are, you're the claws of this! You slot!
ALAS: (sneering at JANE) —What a little squirrel! I have nothing but potty for you!
(The women suddenly slap each other; the men must intervene.)
JEERY: (restraining ALAS) The whole tissue is ridiculous! Fighting over a man who's in doubt up to his ears!
DINK: At least I'm not diddled with funeral disease, you bellow-jellied bull-bottomed sin of the beach!
JEERY: YOU sod-damned cowbird!
(The men fight; now the women must intervene.)
ALAS: Boys! Stomp it! Stomp it this minute!
(There is momentary silence as they all recover from their wounds.)
JANE: Why are we having such trouble trying to communicate?
DINK: (taking the lead) … Look. Alas… I heave nothing but harpy memories of our time together. I depreciate your good winces, but Jane and I are to be marred, and that's that. (He looks to JANE to match his definitive renunciation.)
JANE: (taking JEERY's hand briefly) And … Jeery … I leave you very much. You know that. But that's all winter under the fridge. (Turns to ALAS) Alas, I'm sorry I lost my torpor.
ALAS: (with dignity) I understand. And I axe-up your apology. Anyway, I'm getting marred myself. To Henry Silverstone.
JANE: (impressed) The banker! But he's rather old for you, isn't he?
ALAS: Luckily, he's in very good wealth. (A car horn honks from off stage.) There's my chauffeured limbo no
w. I'd better get golden. Conglomerations, and gall the best! … Goad bye!
DINK: (feeling bested) Bile!
JANE: (feeling outdone) Bile!
(ALAS exits. JEERY nowfeels superfluous.)
JEERY: Her own limbo! … Well, I guess I should leave you two lifeboats alone!
JANE: Thanks for the foul airs, Jeery! Enjoy the trance!
JEERY: Maybe I'll meet my future broad!
DINK: (as if to a buddy) That's the right platitude!
JEERY: SO long! Have a lot of skids!
DINK: Bile!
JANE: Bile! (JEERY goes.) He's a good spore, isn't he?
DINK: (reluctantly) I gas so.
JANE: (hugging him consolingly) BUT you're the uphill of my eye!
DINK: Oh, hiney! (He holds and tries to kiss her, but she resists him.) Oh come on! Plead? Pretty plead? (She relents and gives him a peck, then quickly raises alas ' sgift bottle between them.)
JANE: Oh look! A vintage battle of damn pain! Let's celibate! (She pops it open and pours some of it into two empty lemonade glasses on the porch table. She raises her glass.) I love it when those little troubles get up your nose!—Here, let's test each other! (They toast.) To ice!
DINK: TO ass! (They drink.)
JANE:M Oh, galling! Our life together is going to be blitz!
(Blackout.)
MEN'S INTUITION
Itamar Moses
Men's Intuition was first presented as part of the 8xio festival, an evening of short work by NYU and Columbia M.F.A. playwrights, in the PSNBC space at the HERE Center for the Performing Arts, produced by Ethan Youngerman and Winter Miller, on May 10, 2002. Isaac Hurwitz directed the following cast:
WENDELL Cameron Francis
ERIC Johnathan F. McClain
CHARACTERS
WENDELL: A male college student, skinny, rumpled clothing.
ERIC: His roommate, hockey jersey, backwards cap.
SETTING: Eric and Wendell's dorm room, on a large college campus.
TIME: Evening.
(Lights up on a dorm room: two desks, two chairs, two computers, two twin-sized beds, two piles of dirty laundry, two doors, one of which leads to the hallway, and one of which leads to a closet. ERIC, nineteen, hockey jersey, backwards cap, is seated at one of the desks, with papers, pens, a calculator, and an open economics textbook in front of him. WENDELL, also nineteen, in jeans and a button-down, is pacing. ERIC'S desk is by the front door. WENDELL'S desk is by the closet door. A hockey stick leans against the wall by the closet.)
WENDELL: So? Did you figure it out?
ERIC: No. Dude, you gotta give me a clue. It's, like, impossible.
WENDELL: Just keep in mind that every word counts. It's important to employ exacting attention to detail with respect to the given circumstances.
ERIC: Oh. (Pause.) What?
WENDELL: Do you remember what the question was?
ERIC: Oh, um. There's two guards. One always lies, one always tells the truth. And there's, um, two doors. One leads to certain death, and one leads to freedom. And you gotta … I have to figure out … you can ask only one question, and you have to figure out … I don't know.
WENDELL: That's all right, Eric, we can try a different one.
I know it's a little bit difficult to conceive of, after all:
Someone who always lies.
ERIC: Dude, I don't see why I have to do any of these. This isn't even what the test is even about.
WENDELL: Hey, you asked me for help, uh, man, so if you don't really—
ERIC: No, I know, I know, so, like, thanks, or whatever, but could we at least do it faster, though? I gotta get out of here. I'm going out tonight.
WENDELL: A little bit of patience is required for this. Let's do another one.
ERIC: Aww, maaaan …
WENDELL: Three lightbulbs are attached to a wall at eye level.
ERIC: Could you just explain to me how it works? Like, what's in the book?
WENDELL: There is an adjacent room containing three switches, each of which operates one of the lightbulbs. Each room is visually inaccessible from the other.
ERIC: Visually what?
WENDELL: Inaccessible. You can't see one from the other.
ERIC: Wendell, I gotta say—
WENDELL: Do you want to pass this test or not? Listen: Eric—
ERIC: Call me E.
WENDELL: I'm not calling you E.
ERIC: Everyone else does.
WENDELL: I'm not starting to call you E just because your goddamn coach—
ERIC: I don't have a lot of time, okay?
WENDELL: Which is why it's important that we hurry up and—
ERIC: Dude! It's an econ midterm! What the fuck do these brain tweezers have to do with economics?
WENDELL: “Teasers.” ERIC: What?
WENDELL: “Brain teasers.” And the reason I am doing this, as I thought I explained, is that much of the material is intuitive.
ERIC: Oh. (Pause.) It's what?
WENDELL: You just, sort of… You either get it or you don't, Eric. These puzzles will place you in the appropriate state of mind to … get it.
ERIC: I don't—
WENDELL: Okay, so: There's three lightbulbs attached to a wall at eye level.
ERIC: Why are lightbulbs attached to a wall at eye level? WENDELL: I don't know. ERIC: Is it, like, a strip club?
WENDELL: No.
ERIC: Cause that'd be sweet. (He chuckles to himself.)
WENDELL: It is not a strip club. They're attached to the wall because they just are, okay? There's an adjacent room with three switches. You, uh, you can 't see the lightbulbs from the switch room, okay? Operating the switches however you like, and then going to check the status of the bulbs only once, how can you determine which switch operates which bulb?
Got it? Go. ERIC: Wendell—
WENDELL: Go.
(ERIC tries to get to work, scribbles some notes, drums his fingers, plays with his hat, and gives up more or less immediately. WENDELL simply stares at him.)
It doesn't look like you're making much progress.
ERIC: Wendell, dude, no, all right? Enough. Just explain to me how economics works. I'm supposed to meet this girl later. Just explain it to me.
WENDELL: A girl? Well. That is important. I'll do what I can to speed this up. (He stands, slowly.) Shall we try just one more?
ERIC: I don't know. (Standing.) If this is all you're planning to make me study, I should really just—
WENDELL: You can't go. Didn't your coach say, if you don't pass this class, you can't, you won't be allowed to—
ERIC: Yeah, but, this isn't helping. I gotta—
(ERIC heads for the door. WENDELL moves quickly and blocks his path.)
WENDELL: One more.
ERIC: No.
WENDELL: One more, one more, all right: Here it is. Listen carefully: There's a gun in a desk drawer.
ERIC: Dude—
WENDELL: And you fucked my girlfriend.
(Pause.)
ERIC: What? (Pause.) Hey. Hey, let's go back to the one with the two guards—
WENDELL: You heard me.
ERIC: What are you talking about?
WENDELL: You know what I'm talking about.
ERIC: Who told you that?
WENDELL: So it happened.
ERIC: Dude, no, I asked who told you that. (Pause.) She's not your girlfriend.
WENDELL: Oh, is that right? Why don't you teach me something, what do you call a girl that somebody is going out with? What's your term for that? Is it, like, “Ho,” or something, Eric?
ERIC: Call me E.
WENDELL: No.
ERIC: You went out with her one time. You didn't even kiss her.
WENDELL: Just tell me what happened. I want to hear it from you.
ERIC: Dude, no. (Pause.) I ran into her at a party.
WENDELL: No. Tell me exactly what happened, Eric.
ERIC: E.
WENDELL: I 'm notfucking calling you E!
ERIC: Hey, keep it on the ice!
WENDELL: What!?
ERIC: Keep it on the ice, dude.
WENDELL: What ice!?
ERIC: It means “calm down.”
WENDELL: If you want me to calm down, then tell me what happened.
ERIC: We talked at the party. I thought she was cute. She asked me back to her room. That was pretty much that.
WENDELL: No. No. Tell me everything that happened!
ERIC: What the fuck is wrong with you? It didn't even matter. It was just this thing.
WENDELL: What did you say to her? What hand gestures did you make? What were you wearing? When did she laugh, how did you make her laugh? Tell me every word you said, every single word —
ERIC: (overlapping) Why? Why do you want to know all that stuff? WENDELL: Because I don 't understand!
You went to a party? That's your fucking explanation? You probably weren't even planning on it, some buddy of yours drags you, “Hey, E, let's go to this party,” you so then you, you run into this girl. And you talk. And, and, and what happens then? What fucking alchemy takes place at that point, to turn, to turn that into … into this?
Can you just explain it to me? Because I don't get it.
ERIC: I don't know what to tell you, man. It just happened.
WENDELL: Is she the girl you're meeting later?
ERIC: What? Oh. No. That's a different girl. (Pause.) Are you going to get out of my way? Wendell?
WENDELL: No.
ERIC: Dude, don't make me have to, like, move you.
WENDELL: I wouldn't try that if I were you.
ERIC: What are you talking about?
WENDELL: You weren't listening, Eric. To the last puzzle.
ERIC: What, the thing about the drawer? The gun in the—
(A quick beat. Then, WENDELL jerks, as though he 's going to run to his desk, but ERIC sprints there first and opens the drawer. He laughs, high-pitched, a bit relieved.)
You had me goin'there, man. You really had me goin'there. (He chuckles, tension draining.) I'm sorry, okay? I really am. I'll make it up to you. I'll take you out, we'll meet some girls. I'll hook you up. Tonight's kind of no good, this is really just a thing for the hockey team, but, seriously, next weekend maybe, okay?
(As he talks, ERIC turns his back on WENDELL to open the closet. He takes out his letterman jacket and puts it on.)
And, you know, thanks for the help with the studying. Even if we didn't get to the actual, you know, econ. Coach'll work somethin'out, I guess.