by Hideki Noda
Silence.
TONOCHUJO (Unsure.)
Yes, of course. I’m sorry to hear that.
I think he deserves twenty seconds does he not?
Silence.
Question two,
Spin the wheel, where will it fall;
Will it be Geisha or Whore?
It’s Geisha!
Okaysha!
You are out with your friends,
The meal ends,
You fancy one of the Geisha’s but
You fear she is underage, do you – ?
GENJI
What are you saying?
TONOCHUJO
The question that’s written here –
GENJI
I mean what are you trying to imply?
Silence.
TONOCHUJO
Nothing. I just I, I, I…
If I could just read you the possible responses.
GENJI
But my intentions are always honourable.
Pause.
TONOCHUJO
I think we should give him the twenty seconds.
Applause.
Look, there’s only one left, there are no more,
It’s time for you to answer… (With Audience.) Whore!
You’ve wined her, you’ve dined her,
She’s lying naked on the floor,
You’re just about to whambangboomerang, when
She whispers ‘Five thousand Yen!’
Do you A: pay –
GENJI
I never pay.
TONOCHUJO
Just let me read the question, please.
B: leave –
GENJI
But I never pay.
TONOCHUJO
C: pretend you didn’t hear –
GENJI
I never carry any money,
I’m like royalty don’t you see?
TONOCHUJO
But what about this dilemma?
GENJI
What dilemma? She’d give it to me for free.
Laughter.
TONOCHUJO
And for that answer, you’ve just earned yourself
Another twenty seconds,
Which gives you the full sixty seconds to ‘build your babe’.
WOMAN brought in as doll upon trolley.
Ladies and gentlemen the dolly trolley!
Applause. Music. Tense silence.
Sixty seconds to build your babe starts now.
Clock starts ticking.
What’s he going to go for first?
Hair. Well, after all
Can’t have a perfect babe who’s bald.
Now, what’s next?
Breasts.
More like it.
That’s what we want, we want tit!
So what’s his perfect pair going to be?
Full, round, pert,
With hint of nipple just showing through the shirt?
O, O, O! Look at those!
I like a pair of tits that sit up and say herro!
Forty seconds left to go.
Now it’s the bum, the business end of things.
What’s it to be?
A small sweet succulent sixteen year old’s ass,
Or great big bouncy booty,
On which you can rest your glass.
He’s going for THE BIG ONE
With sexy sashay hips,
A beautiful deep harbour for to park his ship.
Now the lips,
Full and pouty,
Perfect for playing inny-outy.
Only ten seconds left and she’s not nearly done.
What about eyes and ears and tongue?
What availeth a perfect ass, as the poet says,
If your babe be blind, deaf and dumb?
Eyes, dark;
Ears, small;
Tongue long, lubricious…
4 3 2 1 …
And he has built himself the perfect princess.
His perfect ten.
Exit TONOCHUJO. Applause. Music.
Scene 11
GENJI and WOMAN find themselves alone. GENJI takes her for a ride on his bicycle. They are happy.
GENJI
Because of one chance meeting by the wayside,
The flower now opens in the evening dew.
GENJI’s servant opens door of limousine. GENJI and WOMAN enter car. Music. Champagne bottle and drinks.
GENJI moves to sit next to WOMAN, she moves seat. Servant brakes and WOMAN falls onto GENJI’s lap. GENJI smiles.
Exit limousine, enter motel. The MOTEL OWNER is watching Perfect Ten on TV.
MOTEL OWNER
Room 4.
GENJI opens bedroom door. Two men are performing sexual acts.
GENJI
Room 4 occupied.
MOTEL OWNER
Room 3.
Enter room, seedy noises heard from other rooms.
WOMAN opens window. Bird sounds are heard.
WOMAN
Such a desolate and deserted place,
The gardens overgrown,
The hedges and grass, a dull monotone of snot green,
Even the pond is choked with weeds.
How depressing!
GENJI
But such is the price of fame,
The lengths one must go to to avoid observation.
WOMAN
Let us hope whatever wicked spirits live here, pass us by.
GENJI’s mobile rings.
GENJI
Hello? Yes, no this is he.
O it’s you darling, yes, I see…
I know I’m not there because I’m here…
Otherwise engaged…
Work.
No need to sound so enraged…
Later, when I’m home…
I’ll see you then.
Yes, I am alone.
Now, if you don’t mind, darling,
(Going to hang up.) I’m in the middle –
I beg your pardon?…
You are?
That’s wonderful…
Yes, we will.
No, don’t start now on your own,
We’ll open one when I get home…
GENJI offers WOMAN a glass of champagne.
To me! I’m to be a dad again.
My second. Another boy
I shall father only men.
WOMAN (Devastated.)
Congratulations. Well done.
Now I really think I should be gone.
WOMAN makes to leave but is stopped by GENJI.
As masked characters GENJI and WOMAN dance, drink, embrace and make love.
The WOMAN becomes a Hannya, an evil spirit. The Hannya drives GENJI off and kills Evening Faces.
Exit Hannya.
GENJI holds the dead Evening Faces.
GENJI
Evening Faces, what spirit has possessed you?
Don’t leave me, Evening Faces –
Evening Faces, don’t do this,
Don’t do this to me.
Exit GENJI with corpse of Evening Faces.
Scene 12
The Consultation Room.
PSYCHIATRIST
So Evening Faces died?
WOMAN nods.
So now I can speak to Yumi?
WOMAN
I told you, I am Evening Faces.
PSYCHIATRIST
But Evening Faces is dead.
WOMAN
Yes.
PSYCHIATRIST
So I’m talking to a dead person?
WOMAN
Is that so strange?
PSYCHIATRIST
Not as strange as it once was.
Do you know why you are here?
WOMAN
Because four people died.
Scene 13
The Observation Room.
PROSECUTOR, CHIEF OF POLICE and PSYCHIATRIST under siege from reporters. Pizzas are delivered.
PROSECUTOR (Reading newspaper headlines.)
The Office Lady Murderer!
&n
bsp; You had no right to go to the press with what we know.
CHIEF OF POLICE
It is in the public’s interest to be informed
The investigation is progressing,
That the police force is not just messing
When it comes to serious crime, concerned
With only overtime and job security –
PROSECUTOR
Meanwhile the station is besieged by journalists,
We can’t go home, see our loved ones,
Or even our families.
CHIEF OF POLICE
Excuse me, but I ordered pepperoni.
PROSECUTOR (To PSYCHIATRIST.)
What’s that one you’ve got there?
PSYCHIATRIST
Chicken.
PROSECUTOR
I distinctly asked for anchovy.
PSYCHIATRIST (Smells his pizza.)
Here.
PROSECUTOR
You?
PSYCHIATRIST
Vegetarian.
CHIEF OF POLICE
Stands to reason.
They swap pizzas.
PROSECUTOR
Right gentlemen, is that us?
PSYCHIATRIST
What about the chicken?
PROSECUTOR
What about it? The chicken, is superfluous.
They eat.
So?
CHIEF OF POLICE
So?
Pause. They eat.
So Doctor, are you any nearer?
PROSECUTOR
Yes Doctor, please is the case becoming clearer?
PSYCHIATRIST
Can I ask you a question, Your Honour, Inspector?
Do you think that a person wronged
Can conjure a hatred so profound,
That their unconscious, or spirit or soul,
Call it what you will, moves beyond
The perpetrator’s mortal frame
To revenge the ill?
CHIEF OF POLICE
What?
PROSECUTOR
You mean possession?
CHIEF OF POLICE
Possession? Is that the best you’ve got?
PROSECUTOR
You mean like the case of Wakaranai,
The Emperor’s favourite Samurai,
Who, when he found the Emperor had slept with his wife,
Took his own life by Hara Kiri.
He disembowelled himself ritually
There in front of the Emperor.
His best friend then beheaded him.
But, as his head rolled up to the Emperor’s throne,
The lips still twitched,
Cursing the Emperor and his line.
The Emperor himself died some time soon after
Of causes unidentified.
CHIEF OF POLICE
Why do you look so mystified?
It’s just like when you decapitate a chicken,
It runs around flapping
As if nothing much has happened,
But it soon keels over, hits the ground.
Its simply a muscle spasm.
Or do you expect me to believe
The chicken is so consumed
By hatred of the farmer,
Its headless corpse is temporarily possessed,
In order to exact revenge?
PROSECUTOR
We are discussing human beings here, Inspector.
CHIEF OF POLICE
We are behaving like headless chickens, Your Honour.
PSYCHIATRIST
The chicken pizza.
PROSECUTOR
What?
PSYCHIATRIST
The fourth pizza.
CHIEF OF POLICE
Another breakthrough, Doctor?
PSYCHIATRIST
She said she knew that four people died.
CHIEF OF POLICE
She did? Why was I not notified?
It shows she knows.
PSYCHIATRIST
She knows because you told her so.
But she said four, not two. You told her two.
Why would she say four?
CHIEF OF POLICE
Perhaps it’s not the only time she’s done it.
Perhaps she’s killed more.
PSYCHIATRIST
She did not admit to killing anyone.
CHIEF OF POLICE
It is tantamount to an admission, therefore
A knowledge of who she is and what she’s done –
PSYCHIATRIST
But her understanding –
CHIEF OF POLICE
To hell with her understanding!
We have established her legal identity;
Finger prints, records of her dentistry –
PROSECUTOR
She must understand who she is
If she’s to be held responsible.
If not she’ll plead diminished responsibility.
Doctor, does she understand who she is?
PSYCHIATRIST
Yes, but who she understands herself to be
Changes from one session to the next.
CHIEF OF POLICE
Well I too can be very different people.
Come Saturday you’ll find me
On the banks of Lake Kawaguchi,
Work and family cares all left behind,
On my own, gazing into the clear water, I am
Serene,
A soul at peace and calm of mind.
But come Monday,
When I’m stuck in a traffic jam,
And the kids are fighting in the back,
And the wife is on at me yak, yak, yak;
How I don’t make enough money,
How she needs a new dress,
How I’m a bitter disappointment to her,
How she couldn’t care less
About the pressure that I’m under,
My blood boils, I see red.
I take out my gun and shoot her dead,
Through the yakking mouth.
Now are you saying I can go to court and plead
That this man wasn’t really me?
That I am a peaceful fisherman, you see,
Fishing for fish on the shores of Kawaguchi.
PROSECUTOR
But at the time of your hypothetical crime
You are in your right mind, Inspector
You understand your legal identity.
However, Doctor,
We have only one more week before we must charge her.
And in light of the pressure we are under
Let me make the terms of your assessment clear;
Does the suspect understand who she is?
And did she understand who she was when she committed this crime –?
PROSECUTOR’s mobile rings.
PROSECUTOR
Excuse me –
(On phone.) No, I haven’t told her yet.
No, don’t rush me, don’t rush me.
The PSYCHIATRIST and the CHIEF OF POLICE look at him.
PROSECUTOR
I’ll talk to her tonight, I must go. Yes.
(To PSYCHIATRIST.) Six more days, doctor.
And we cannot hang the Emperor’s Mistress.
Scene 14
The Consultation Room. PSYCHIATRIST and WOMAN. The WOMAN rocks. Silence.
Scene 15
The Consultation Room. PSYCHIATRIST and WOMAN. The WOMAN cries, the PSYCHIATRIST attempts to comfort her. Silence.
Scene 16
The Consultation Room. PSYCHIATRIST and WOMAN. The WOMAN hurls a stool in anger. The PSYCHIATRIST attempts to calm her down.
Scene 17
The Consultation Room. PSYCHIATRIST and WOMAN, they are laughing.
Scene 18
The Consultation Room. PSYCHIATRIST and WOMAN.
WOMAN
A dilemma for you, my friend.
Some weeks ago my wife
Informs me she’s pregnant once again.
In spite of her cold heart, our remote relations,
>
I am delighted, proud, what’s more,
She’s sure she’ll have another boy.
However, I am then informed
By the Lady Rokujo,
Who I’ve been seeing of late,
A man needs some warmth
When his wife is made of ice,
Well she tells me that she finds herself in a similar state.
You know Rokujo?
PSYCHIATRIST
No, tell me.
WOMAN
Older, small, striking,
I would have thought she was smarter than that,
I would have thought she took more care.
What was she thinking?
Has she no concern for my position?
But she says she loves me, besides,
She says it’s her last chance to have a child.
PSYCHIATRIST
I’d really like to meet this Lady Rokujo.
WOMAN
What about me?
I cannot leave my wife, that’s clear.
Scene 19
The Consultation Room. PSYCHIATRIST and WOMAN. WOMAN paces, takes PSYCHIATRIST’s pencil, tries first to cut wrists, then throws it away. Silence.
Scene 20
The Consultation Room. WOMAN constructs a shrine.
WOMAN
Jewel,
My jewel which never turns away,
You live at the bottom of the sea,
Stolen by the Dragon Queen.
Scene 21
The Consultation Room.
WOMAN
I’ll leave her, Rokujo,
She’s always been cold.
I’ll leave her next year.
If you do this for me,
We’ll go away and start afresh, I swear.
We’ll start a business together.
I’ll be there for you, trust me,
In this world and the next.
Next year.
PSYCHIATRIST
Is Lady Rokujo there?
WOMAN
Not now, she’s a bit upset.
Scene 22
The Consultation Room.
WOMAN
His distance is a measure of my sorrow.
Why did he not call?
He must call me, he must call me tomorrow.