Lodestar Quarterly

Issue 5 • Spring 2003 • Featured Writer • Drama

Walking to Buchenwald

Avery Crozier

Oklahoma & Los Angeles

Act One.

Oklahoma & Los Angeles

MILDRED isolated in light, seated facing out, with ROGER over her shoulder.

ROGER
Say no.

MILDRED
No.

SCHILLER also isolated in light, seated facing out.

SCHILLER
I just asked you to think about it.

ROGER
We don't have to think about it.

MILDRED
(Overlapping.) We don't have to think about it.

ROGER
It's too expensive.

MILDRED
(Overlapping.) It's too expensive.

SCHILLER
What do you want? A party in the church basement? A quilt with squares by all your friends?

ROGER
All I want is rhubarb pie.

MILDRED
Our friends don't quilt.

ROGER Put that about the pie.		SCHILLER I'm not paying for a party in the church basement. They're so depressing! Don't you want this to be unique? It's once-in-a-lifetime!
MILDRED Stop dictating!

MILDRED
You don't have to pay.

ROGER AND MILDRED
It's potluck!

SCHILLER
I hate potluck! Somebody always brings a slimy rhubarb pie. Yours should be different.

MILDRED
Strawberry rhubarb!

ROGER
Very good.

SCHILLER
Just think about it.

MILDRED
We don't speak any languages.

ROGER I speak German.		SCHILLER You don't have to! I know a little French, and nobody else cares.
MILDRED Oh, hardly.

ROGER
We couldn't let you pay.

MILDRED
(Overlapping.) It's too much for you to pay.

ROGER
We'd have to chip in.

MILDRED
Roger!

SCHILLER
I'll pay your airfare. That's the biggest chunk. Would that work?

ROGER
You'd be with us the whole time?

MILDRED
Roger, I'd never sleep!

ROGER
Type!

MILDRED
Your father wants to know would you be with us the whole time?

ROGER
(Overlapping.) I've always wanted to see theatre in London.

MILDRED You have not. You've never said a word.

SCHILLER Of course -- I wouldn't unleash you on Europe without adult supervision.

ROGER
You could do genealogy in England and France. Last I heard my mother's cousin still had family in Germany.

MILDRED
Would Arjay go?

SCHILLER
(Brought up short.) Arjay!

Lights out instantly on SCHILLER, MILDRED, and ROGER, and up simultaneously on ARJAY on the telephone isolated in light.

ARJAY
Where? When? Your parents?!

Lights up on SCHILLER on the telephone.

SCHILLER
You don't have to, but I think they'd come if they knew you were going.

ARJAY
What about Bolivia?

SCHILLER
Can't that wait till next year? I don't know enough Spanish yet.

ARJAY
They won't go if it's just you?

SCHILLER
You're a buffer.

ARJAY
Thanks, baby. I'm a buffer. You can't just send them?

SCHILLER
They don't speak any languages.

ARJAY
Send them to England.

SCHILLER
They can't even understand New Yorkers. This is an important anniversary. Imagine when we've been together that long.

ARJAY
Gross.

SCHILLER
This is the only time in their entire lives they'll have the chance to go to Europe. In a year or two they couldn't manage.

ARJAY
Three weeks? They'll drive you crazy whether I'm there or not. There's a reason you don't live in Oklahoma.

SCHILLER
You know nothing's more important than not being like my parents, but this is a big deal. They'll dine out on it for the rest of their lives. Even if it's miserable.

ARJAY
What if we're miserable?

SCHILLER
It'll be a great time to tell them our news.

ARJAY
Can't we just tell them over the phone?

SCHILLER
I don't want it to be that casual. It's a big deal, too, and it might be a bit of a shock to them.

ARJAY
Whatever you want, baby.

SCHILLER
And next year -- La Paz!

Lights out on ARJAY and up on MILDRED and ROGER. SCHILLER puts down the phone.

MILDRED
We've decided Roger will go with you.

SCHILLER
But this is your anniversary!

ROGER
You wouldn't sleep.

MILDRED
(Overlapping.) I'd get insomnia.

SCHILLER
Dad, would that be okay coming without Mom?

ROGER
We agreed to it.

MILDRED
(Overlapping.) Yes.

SCHILLER
Mom, this is just some sort of Midwestern nobody-in-our-family-ever-traveled-so-neither should-we sort of thing. You think you don't deserve to travel, that only rich people travel, but it's not that expensive. I used to think that, too, until I met Arjay. Treat yourself as if you mattered, for once!

MILDRED
We've just been insulted by our own child.

ROGER
No, just you. I'm going.

SCHILLER
Are you there? Are you typing a rebuttal or a dissertation?

MILDRED
(Overlapping with SCHILLER as she tries to change places with ROGER.) Then you type.

ROGER
I can't! Mildred!

Lights out instantly on ROGER and MILDRED as the phone rings and SCHILLER picks it up.

SCHILLER
Hello?

Lights up instantly on ROGER on the phone.

ROGER
She wouldn't sleep. She's addicted to sleeping pills as it is, and they still don't work.

SCHILLER
Okay, okay, so if it's just you do you still want to go?

ROGER
I wouldn't mind seeing the Royal Shakespeare Company. They never come to Oklahoma.

SCHILLER
We could see them in London or Stratford -- or both! And theatre's cheaper in London than New York --

ROGER
And haven't they restored the Old Globe?

SCHILLER
And the British Museum! The Tate Modern! Plus there's a new Darwin Centre at the Natural History Museum -- I think I could get us a private tour --

Lights suddenly up on MILDRED on another phone.

MILDRED
I hate museums!

SCHILLER
Mother! (A grim silence.) I thought you weren't going.

MILDRED
If I were. I'm tired of museums.

SCHILLER
(Hand over the phone, hollering.) Arjay, pick up the phone. My mother's trying to hijack our trip.

MILDRED Roger, you can't walk too far. Too many museums and you'd be sweating -- you'd have to sit down -- Schiller, don't walk him all over the place. He's got an atrial fibrillation. He shouldn't even fly, much less go running all over Europe. Hello, Arjay, explain to Schiller why we can't go.		ARJAY (Appearing, on the phone.) What?
		SCHILLER Talk Mom into going. She's close.

ARJAY
Europe is wonderful, and everyone should go at least once. When I was teaching in Switzerland I'd take the train somewhere new every weekend -- Paris, Munich, Nice --

MILDRED
But you speak the languages.

ARJAY No, I don't. Not one. Everybody speaks English, or mostly.

SCHILLER I speak French! A little.

ROGER I speak German. A little.

MILDRED
What about what's going on politically?

ROGER
President Dickhead.

ARJAY
They've got body searches down to an art, especially in Europe.

ROGER
You might enjoy it, Mildred.

MILDRED
I've got nothing for them to grab.

ARJAY
If you don't go, you'll regret it forever. If you do, even if it's a terrible trip --

SCHILLER
(Overlapping.) It won't be!

ARJAY
(Overlapping.) -- You'll have stories galore about rude Parisians, mean Germans, and uptight Brits.

MILDRED
Oh, it sounds just awful.

SCHILLER
Mother, you don't have to go.

MILDRED
I'm not!

Lights out instantly on everyone and up on a breezy MUSEUM GUIDE.

***

Next Page:   London   (page 3 of 9 pages)

All Pages:   See the entire play on one page

Table of Contents:   Walking to Buchenwald

Avery Crozier (averycrozier@yahoo.com) is the author of Eat the Runt, which was honored in the 2001 Top 10 Off Broadway Plays listing by the New York Daily News. In 1996, she was one of the writers for Endangered Species, a play-length monologue presented at Interact Theatre in North Hollywood as part of its Interactivity festival. In Walking to Buchenwald, Avery's second full-length play, he once again exploits the temporal nature of theatre with non-gender-specific roles that can be cast male or female.

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