Lodestar Quarterly

Issue 8 • Winter 2003 • Featured Lodestar Writer • Drama

Now She Dances!

Doric Wilson

Act Two

Devotions

The lanterns are hung, the Holy Perch is strung with garlands, the fake phono sits on a pedestal. A white wicker table waits off to the side.

Down the aisle comes a religious procession. MISS SALOME leads, scattering purple flower petals. She has replaced her pink sash with one of blood red. GLADYS follows, clanging diminutive cymbals. She now wears a frilly apronette and frou-frou. Next comes LANE, coped in the ritual robes of a high priest of Moloch. He wears a mask depicting the more vicious visage of the God. BILL follows, sheltering LANE with the Holy Umbrella. He wears an alter boy's surplice over his Levi's. Last is LADY HERODIAS, mater dolorosa, rosary clenched in her folded hands. She has changed into a scarlet evening dress of decadent décolletage.

LANE
(As they come down the aisle) Blessed be Moloch.

THE OTHERS
Blessed be Moloch.

LANE
Blessed be Bush the Belligerent.

THE OTHERS
Scourge of Saddam Hussein!

LANE
Blessed be Big Barbara.

THE OTHERS
Mother of Bionics.

LANE
Blessed be their begotten son.

THE OTHERS
Little Georgie.

LANE
Defender of the Profit Motive.

THE OTHERS
Avenging sword of the oil cartels!

LANE
Blessed be the Holy Ghost of the National Rifle Association.

THE OTHERS
Bang, bang.

The procession reaches the stage. LANE officiates in front of the Holy Perch. The others prostate themselves each according to his or her faith.

LANE
Mighty Moloch of repression --

As LANE intones, the others repeat.

LANE
Deliver us from objectivity. Deliver us from self-analysis. Deliver us from secular humanism. Deliver us from retroactive abortion. Deliver the disciples of abortion unto capital punishment.

THE OTHERS
For such is the right to life.

LANE
Protect and defend family values.

GLADYS
(With evangelical fervor) Praised be the missionary position!

LANE
Protect and defend us from marauding mimeographers.

LADY H
Drive some nails in that closet door!

LANE
Protect and defend Thy man children. Make them strong of limb, red of blood, with narrow waists and broad shoulders and tattoos of panthers running up and down their hairy forearms --

GLADYS
(Trying to restrain him) Er... Lane... ?

LANE
(Unheeding) -- endow them with bountiful genitalia straining the seams of their sweat-stained athletic supporters --

LADY H
Lane.

LANE
(Coming out of his rapture) What? Oh... yes... sorry... (Perfunctorily) ... as for girls, make them submissive, feminine and good homemakers.

SALOME
(Under her breath) For Christ's sake.

LANE
For Thine is the kingdom --

GLADYS
-- and the power --

LANE
-- and the glory.

LADY H
(Flagellating herself with her rosary) Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

They start to rise.

LANE
And --

They return to their knees.

LANE
-- omnipotent Moloch, protect and defend Sir Herod, K.C.B., who has yet to return from the darkness of Thy night and the uncertainty of Thy streets.

They rise. LANE places the mask of Moloch on the Holy Perch.

Next Page:   Act , Setting the Table   (page 11 of 14 pages)

All Pages:   See the entire play on one page

Table of Contents:   Now She Dances!

Doric Wilson was one of the first playwrights at New York City's legendary Caffé Cino and a pioneer of the Off-Off-Broadway movement, writing, directing, producing and designing over a hundred productions. He was a founding member of Circle Repertory Theater and the Barr/Wilder/Albee Playwright's Unit, a participant in all three nights of the Stonewall Riot, and was active in the early days of New York's gay liberation movement as a member of Gay Activist Alliance and as a "star" bartender and manager of the post-Stonewall gay bar scene, where he opened such landmark institutions as The Spike, TY's, and Brothers & Sisters Cabaret. His plays can also be read at www.doricwilson.com.

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