Nine (9) Armies
Six (6) boiled pretzel vendors
Five (5) beverage bearers
SIR BUGGS D’BUTTIERRE (aka: Sir Budderbuggs), a fellow One (1) bozo-type CLOWN (Note: credit to Larry Harmon Pictures is unnecessary, as
CLOWN is a bozo, not a clown they call Bozo.)
Scene 37
KNAVE: M’lord, pray, doth the spearbearer, hight Sir Buggs d’Buttierre (saucy fellow!), cometh on time in his entrances? Forsooth, taking the same token by way of fidelity, your worthy immensity, did he also make exit or exeunt in like fashion? For in his bare bodkin wisdom, all ye who witness his moment’s stroll upon Ye Olde Wicked Stage shall now have a memory to be reckoned with!
PARKER IX: Would that I could have seen it! When that oaf Henry, some call the V, usurped my rightful ‘dieu et mon droit’ and wrested control of my charming Kingdom, I plotted against saucy fellows of all kinds! Even, sir, ye worthy Sir Buggs d’Buttierre! Zounds! This state of affairs makes meatloaf outa my life!
CLOWN: Pray, fake royal bozo, should Sir Budderbuggs join thy league, I should find little wit to woo thy grace, for there will be a cry so mighty from Sir Budderbugg’s lips, that you shall surely let my people come!
PARKER IX: Thou liest! Fie! Fie upon you! (to the NINE ARMIES) Have Clown withered, flayed, fried, buttered, buggered, and sautéed over a low flame for two interminable hours!
(The NINE ARMIES arrest CLOWN)
CLOWN: So, I let them fry me. But some day ye shall thyself forth-with and farsouth be grotted and cumberéd then cucumberéd and not remember-ed for thy troubles!
(SIR BUGGS D’BUTTIERRE enters. Flourish)
SIR BUGGS D’BUTTIERRE: With this moment, I make a cry so mighty, that the stars above, which reigned at my nativity, will come shrieking down, to crush this rebellion, reduce evil King Parker the Ninth to protoplasmic slime, and restore Clown to his rightful place as Ye Emperor Imperatrix of the Known Universe! Here, now, is my Cry: LET’S ALL GO TO… IKEA!!!!!!!!!!!!
CUT!
After the big laffs died somewhat, Butterbugs couldn’t help asking the question of the ages.
‘This is supposed to be a period piece, right?’
‘Oh yeah.’
‘Parker??’
‘Oh, I just quick-thought the name up. It just came to me. My first unpleasant experience in Hollywood was with a producer named Parker. A goofus. Nothing come of it.’
‘You tried to…’
‘He made some promises. Said I’d start in bit parts and work up to matinee level within a year. He didn’t deliver on any of it. Cost me a lot. Including all the joy I’d saved up. Now I’m cautious-boy. You gotta watch out for types like him. Like that Parker guy.’
‘I will, Perry.’
Then, Butterbugs wanted to clear something else up.
‘What’s IKEA? Or, an IKEA?’
Perry was completely and utterly patient.
‘A store,’ he replied.
‘Oh,’ responded Butterbugs. ‘Should I say ‘Eye-Kee-Uh’ or ‘Ick-Kee-Uh’, or ‘Ih-Kee-Uh’, or ‘Eye-Kee’ or ‘Ick-Kee’ or ‘Eye-Kee-Uh-Ay’ or ‘Ee-Kee-Uh’ or ‘Eye-Kay-Ee-Aie’ or what?’
‘It’s your call, Butterbugs.’
‘I want to have it down, for when we open.’
‘On Broadway.’
‘That’s what we get for not having a director!’
‘Yeah! I guess we’re pretty spoiled, huh?’
‘Well, it shows how valuable they are.’
‘I know what you mean. For stuff like this.’
‘This IKEA thing.’
‘Right.’
‘But you, as playwright, what do you want?’
‘I like acting better than writing, so that’s the director’s department.’
‘You mean –’
‘This is my last scribbling thing. My mom won’t hear of it. She wants me to be a player.’
‘I know little of what you say. My own –’
‘So after tonight, I’m heading on over to Pasadena, to knock on the Playhouse’s door! Wish me luck!’
‘So you don’t think that we could continue, and make something out of…’
‘Hey! I just remembered! Where’s the pay phone kiosk? My mobile’s busted, and I gotta call Mom – should’ve a half hour ago! She’s gonna kill me.’
‘Perry?’
‘Yeh?’
‘I think ‘Imperatrix’ is a girl.’
‘Oh.’
‘‘Imperator’ is a guy.’
‘Thanks.’
They parted.
Outside the picture show palace, Perry took off across the half-light of the square. Midway, he saw a singular entourage under the canopy of the marquee. Strange, at this hour, and in this dumpy Nowheresville, too. The influx had all the trappings of publicity, but there was no accompanying mechanism of crowds or paparazzi. He hadn’t time to check out any of it, as his mom was going to kill him, so he hastened off into a by-lane between cramped godowns.
Mike Wallace was there, however. A ‘60 Minutes’ (CBS) story was in the making. A camera crew was just coming out the Coptic’s brooding front entrance.
‘I got it, Mike,’ said the camera-wielder.
‘Good! All of it? Secret cam and all?’
‘Yes sirree.’
Then, addressing a producer, ‘Let’s track down the two actors. See what they think.’
‘They’re gone, Mike. Packed up for the evening.’
‘Damn… OK then, so should we. We’ll get background from Sonny if we need it. Let’s view the footage on the way back.’
Meanwhile, a gaunt figure, ancient but erect, also exited the great pile, and vanished into the sideways gloom.
Then there was Tashkent Chimm. The illustrious essayist, playwright and novelist was successfully cornered by Sonny. Here was a writer, an eminent one, as a matter of fact; Tashkent Chimm himself. In person, he had taken an assignment, a challenge, in fact. From Sonny.
‘I dare ya to show up at a soon-to-be-dynamited playhouse in a town on the outskirts of hell!’ his voice had boomed into Chimm’s Duckback voicemail. ‘On the night of –––––– you will find a Drama born, and I know you can’t resist voyeuring its obstetrics. Fill a ‘New Yorker’ slot with it and you shall have a seat in the highest heaven of my favors.’
That was enough for Tashkent Chimm. Never a man to turn down an opportunity to grandstand a winning hand, he made his way to the Coptic Theatre in Vrurr in time for the post-play play performed by Perry Flask and his co-actor. Something called ‘Scripty-Scrawl’, with characters named Sir Budders and Clown. Pretty wild. Clued-in and tipped-off as to the gig’s purpose (to publicly relate new talent), Chimm knew what Sonny wanted.
‘I like – Sonny,’ he thought as he watched the two young ’uns up on the stage from the shadows of a wayback row. ‘But I serve only myself.’
A feeble aisle lamp, tinted by a chip of sea-green glass, was enough to illuminate his note pad. He wrote as he saw, but didn’t write what he really thought.
‘The one who plays this ‘Sir Buggs’ character,’ he mulled, ‘he is a bright leaf. There is something of a beacon in him. Some kind of light. It cannot be only me who detects it. It is not merely a filament’s glow. That much can be seen in the naked bulb that stands near to him; light at its most banal. It is surrounded by a flaming halo, but not around this actor; he perhaps is the halo – thus the ‘surrounding’ and the ‘surrounded’. Perchance he burns with too bright a flame. Too bright for we even in the nether stalls of this, the chamber of witnesses. I don’t know though… They’re so far away, down there…’
But what he wrote was this:
Two actors, face-to-face, on a deserted stage in a deserted town. The theatre itself, not the idea, but the actual building, like a tomb above them, already anticipates its duty. Is this an elegy or a dream?
In irreal light – from one of those solitary but fearsome bulbs – like a little bit of supernova to stare at without perishing, here comes a miniat
ure drama. It is way beyond ‘Huis Clos’ because there is, in point of fact, an exit that exists, past all our expectations. I’m not trying to be canny here, or even clever. Drama is Encounter, and here, encounter only spawns amazement, because, really, who has the stuff to do obtuse scenes of unexplainable content? I ask you! Who today can pass past plausibility? Everything, and I mean everything, has to be explainable, buyable, germane, presentable. It’s the collective longing for legitimacy – respectability. All those bourgeoisie vices that Flaubert used to decry. Aside from such imponderable monstrosities, it’s the longing for heaven, where we simply don’t have to worry about such things as doubt and pity. I know this to be the case. (Speed up the End Days, will you? Come back to the Kool-Aid and canteen, Jimmy Jones, Jimmy Jones…)
I hope you don’t mind such sport.
If I could say, easily, that this scene I witnessed – on the sly, I admit – was something of value, I’d probably be taken to task by everyone from the Irving Trust Company’s board to the gangsta rappers of East St. Louis. But listen, that is what I must do. From my own conscience, if nothing else.
Whatever may be said about this drama duel, I felt that I was witnessing something… extraordinary. If I had to pigeonhole it, I couldn’t. Don’t laugh. Not even to save me from the pit of semi-eternal peril. Because, living the lie of fabrication for fashion’s sake becomes repulsive after a while. Even though it is the standard of the world.
To get back, past the first-to-fifth impressions, there’s something worth responding when, without an audience, without any salary, without any benefits, without any security, without any hope of attention, and without any consciousness of legacy, two actors can come together.
Into what kind of congress? Meaningful, I should think. A meaningful congress. Past the mere entertaining and into the meaningful. That’s what this kind of congress is all about. Past trite. Therefore: meaningful.
Let us start by saying that the two actors, let’s call them Ghee-pest and Como-vessel (to protect their existential identities), have no intention of moving past the Theatre of the Obscure – in which they find themselves – in order to make their point.
By their actions and their interactive dialogue outside the lines they plan to recite, they are consummately without guile, and thus, innocent in godly judgment. I can tell that, just by lurking in Row GGG and cupping my ear. I tell you, I saw it myself.
Did they?
When two actors do a scene together – alone, presumably it is for purposes of rehearsal. Like Horowitz at the keyboard, any actor worth his salt is obliged to rehearse in order to achieve the highest level of dramatic expression. You readers obviously need reminding of this. Otherwise there wouldn’t be the epidemic of impatience that leads the nation toward scenic Lemming Heights.
Not that rehearsals, especially in a play’s early stages of evolution, produce moments of exceptional ability… On the other hand, dramatic happenstance dictates that there will be, like it or no, truly remarkable – even golden – moments, never to be captured by recording or relating equipment, albeit of the most vulgar kind.
Schubert’s off-the-cuff improvisations, Norman Bel Geddes’ ‘mind-sketches’, Einstein’s unrecorded theorems, two actors in dramatic conference in a Vrurr (Kern County) show palace… I would rate them all the same! I tell you, I would! Why? You may ask: why?
Because, they are all an unknown factor. Though there be names who perform onstage of which we know, there are better, more accomplished names, most deserving of stage-time, of which we shall never know. The law of averages determines that the chances are, something extraordinary will emerge from sources unknown, as opposed to sources known, even though sources known have had streaks of luck in making themselves known to all and sundry, especially those who have never contemplated such keel-hauling concepts before. It can’t go on forever, and what’s more, it won’t. So we can safely put our chips on whatever it is that is unknown but apparently promises a win.
If you can’t follow my intellectualizing of exceptional moments, I cannot help you further.
Your questions:
Q: Did I see anything truly exceptional transpire between these two young actors?
A: To answer that, one must consider three aspects of the situation:
1) No one would describe me as a particularly robust man. I have lived, but now, at the age of 97, I feel – diminished. I am, nevertheless, still hale, and no one would call me a liar or a disadvantaged chump, due to my age. I am still stellar in my veracity and my reliability. My velocity in brain-thinking is mind-boggling. End of controversy. (It is rather difficult though, for my twin daughters, both 14, to have such elderly parents. I will not divulge the age of their mother…)
2) A lot of strange things happen on stage spaces. Because nearly all of them occur in front of witnesses, they are verifiable, yet open to perceptive interpretation. Some of the more oddball moments happen late at night. That’s when I saw these younglings act.
3) The lateness of my age, and the lateness of the hour in which I spied out their esoteric and terrible land, must by needs combine to form conditions that were and are perfect for witnessing creation in its rawest form. And there is nothing more naked than theatrical creation. If it takes any hostages at all, it holds them by knifepoint, and thus, creation becomes coercion. What better to heighten the value of the drama?
True though the lateness factors are, I wouldn’t dream of declaring that fantastical or irreal activities are guaranteed as a result. There’s too much room for error.
The Drama Industry (not the Industry of Drama) requires hard-working dedicatees. What does it have to say about youthful ones who develop their own pathways toward expression, via The Drama? Practically nothing! You sneer? Yet, said Industry will be happy to tap into such talent if the box office promise extends to such occult opportunities. I’m on their side (the youthful ones, that is), as you can tell. Underdog victories are scarce as crow fangs today, so I guess I’m pining for something that will never be. Imagine, then, the likelihood that anything like my midnight duo would be the subject of, say, CBS-TV’s ‘60 Minutes’? The time for such a notion to be declared dead-then-buried would be less than four seconds, according to my calculation. Considerably less than ‘60 Seconds’. Wallace might scoff, but he damn well knows I’m right.
In a short space – I don’t know how long – I experienced something at least as worthy as a Cuthbert Medicinals 90-second ‘infomercial’, to use a family-oriented term. Need I say more? Creations require publicity, as the wearisome cliché shrieks.
The point is, why is it that music is more to-the-point, more immediate, than worded drama? What gave them – the musicians – the right to get to the prize faster? Well, what does it matter; there’s gold in them there hills. Who cares who gets to it first? Who gets to it best, is where it’s really at.
Stock and knapweed! That’s about as harsh as my exclamations get these days. It’s because nobody believes me any more… That’s why I publish in prestigious serials, so that I can have my words enshrined and my morals polished. So make of it what you will.
But there is this: those that gather round the hidden illumination will sooner or later invent a better light, or smash the lamp of old.
All that I can say is, nobody has discovered anything past d’Indy’s climax to his tone poem, ‘Istar’. It indeed climaxes, then it releases its wad, so to speak, then retreats into acceptance. That is, all life itself requires is to ultimately surrender to the blissful ease of non-committal…
And on and on, for fourteen more pages. Until:
I criticize. It’s the only thing in life that matters most to me. The trials of Henry Kissinger are as nothing next to mine. I never meant anyone any harm. But I have to be true to myself. What evolves in a discussion about obscure amateur Shakespeare (William & Randy) productions can only come into the light of validity when one pronounces each and every one a happenstance. A one-of-a-kind experience. It can only be because we
must assume that, since the planets are all aligned this night, and the actors are nobodies who will never amount to anything because they are out here in X-ville (I don’t even want to bother to note their names yet again), and so they will never amount to anything at all. Yet, how else can this conclusion be anything but a celebration of the transitory nature of life, in which moments of spun gold are produced, never to be captured in any form, nor recaptured via media, nor in the form of copyrighted über-digital after-files, susceptible to piracy? Nor should they be, because magic can never strike twice. In the same place. In the same way. And it never should! If it does, its market value becomes as cheap as life itself. No, the real persons are best forgotten. But the essence of the moment, unburdened by such complications, lives forever.
This is the essence of the criteria.
And so, on to the Ultimate Conclusion. This experience onstage at the midnight hour is indeed a one-of-a-kind, and should remain so. It is fitting that the structure standing above this stage looks like an antediluvian tomb from without. This is good, because it will do an effective job in sealing off this experience from memory, so that memory can leak into the universe, off into the æther of subtlety, never to be heard of again.
The piece was titled ‘Justified Oblivion’, and it appeared the very next week in ‘The New Yorker’. It was hung with cartoons by Jules Feiffer, Virgil Partch, Saul Steinberg, The Chibb, and Gahan Wilson.
Sonny tossed the mag onto his desk.
‘Som’bitch!’ he whispered.
Chimm had delivered him a jape, instead of the boost he’d expected, even from such a wag. So, nothing really exceptional actually transpired that night, eh? – despite it being a satirical sort of moment. Couldn’t he even have faked it? No hired hack, he.
‘Well, I should’ve known. Keeping my boy unnamed and obscure, huh?’
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