Lodestar Quarterly

Issue 8 • Winter 2003 • Featured Lodestar Writer • Drama

Now She Dances!

Doric Wilson

Setting the Stage

BILL
(Coming to the edge of the stage) Lots of junk back here.

LANE
Start handing it out.

BILL
(Returning to the scene dock) What do you want first?

LANE
(Checking his clipboard) Flora. Let's set up the undergrowth.

BILL
(Offstage) Trees? Flowers? Shrubs?

LANE
William, bring on garden.

BILL enters from the scene dock with a wing flat, which LANE and he position downstage left. As the scene progresses, they will set the stage to represent the rose garden of SIR HEROD's London townhouse.

The scenery, when in place, is patched and peeling and flatly two-dimensional. Pictorially Victorian, it is lushly painted with indolent begonias and overblown roses intertwined in a sinister mesh of excessive ferns and convoluted vines. Through a gap in this strangle of shrubbery is glimpsed SIR HEROD's stately home. Ornamental steps, flanked by fuchsia-laden urns, lead to French doors and within.

BILL
(As he enters) Whose blood?

LANE
(Assisting BILL) Not your concern. (Reminiscing) I remember as if it were yesterday my coming into the employ of this house. Palestine Walk it was known as in those days. My father -- he was head eunuch -- brought me in to amuse the boys. Young master Philip, young master Archelaus and young master Herod -- "Antipas" we called him below the stairs. As the old earl -- Herod Antipater -- was notoriously lethal toward children, we were confined to the tower. (His eyes misting over) The tower. What fond memories. There were rafters in the tower and chains and manacles and assorted other implements of persuasion. On rainy days the young masters were forever devising recreation, which inevitably was me. Boys being boys, I was frequently... well. I doubt they meant me permanent harm. (With malicious pleasure) Philip was the first to go. Done in by a fetish for the sea. A grappling hook to the thorax. A bit fishy, as he was discovered in his own bath, nearly a hundred miles from the nearest merchant marine. Archelaus was next to meet his maker. It was Christmas Eve. The family was in the drawing room playing charades. Archelaus was acting out King Edward the Second, somebody had tampered with the poker. Most unfortunate. Authentic as hell. At the time Sir Herod was blamed as he had been observed, not a moment before, stoking the yule log. (portending) Now Herod himself, the last of the line . . .

BILL
(Referring to HEROD) He's a big shot?

LANE
(Back to here and now) Sir Herod is a lord justice of the highest court, a peer of the realm, a personage of ancient lineage, staggering debts and impeccable prominence.

BILL
Says who?

LANE
Debrett's.

BILL
What's that?

LANE
A book which tells you who's who.

BILL
(As he exits to the scene dock) My mom doesn't approve of books.

LANE
She's illiterate?

BILL
(Offstage) Naw, she's been married seven times.

BILL enters from the scene dock with a second wing flat. LANE helps him place it downstage right.

LANE
Where did she acquire her antipathy to literature?

BILL
Grade school.

LANE
Prodigious of her.

BILL
Mom says books pervert the mind.

LANE
(Fascinated) Your mother's an authority on perverts?

BILL
We had a whole library of books in our town, but mom got all the church ladies together and they cleaned it out. (As he exits to the scene dock) Except for the Bible.

LANE
You're a student of scripture?

BILL
(Offstage) I have a friend in Christ.

LANE
Then you'll feel right at home in our little scenario, it's vaguely biblical.

BILL enters from the scene dock with a third wing flat. LANE helps him place it stage left.

BILL
(As he enters) I've been born again.

LANE
How uncomfortable.

BILL
Have you been saved?

LANE
From what?

BILL
Eternal damnation.

LANE
Probably not.

BILL
(Making a fist) You deny Jesus?

LANE
Nothing personal. He goes his way, I go mine.

BILL
Refuse salvation, I'll punch you in the face.

LANE
Threatening me bodily harm?

BILL
Only 'cause I love you.

LANE
(Charmed) William.

BILL
I'm a Christian, I love all creatures great and small. Except the humanists.

LANE
(Intrigued) And punching me in the face is how you express affection?

BILL
(As he exits to the scene dock) If it'll save your soul.

LANE
How came you to our "sceptred isle?"

BILL
(Offstage) Where?

LANE
How did you arrive in England?

BILL
(Offstage) I hitchhiked.

BILL enters from the scene dock with a fourth wing flat. LANE helps him place it stage right.

LANE
Wanderlust?

BILL
Nah, an itch to travel.

LANE
To see the world?

BILL
To get away from my stepdad.

LANE
Unsympathetic was he?

BILL
Nah, he kicked me out.

LANE
What did he catch you doing?

BILL
Failing.

LANE
At what?

BILL
Nothing in particular.

LANE
An all-around underachiever?

BILL
(With pride) School, sports, selling used cars -- you name it, I'm unsuccessful at it.

LANE
(With an ulterior motive) Are you currently fiancéd?

BILL
Beg pardon?

LANE
Have you a girlfriend?

BILL
Don't you?

LANE
You must miss her.

BILL
Not as much as I miss my best buddy.

LANE
This "buddy" of yours, why didn't he accompany you on your travels?

BILL
He got married.

LANE
To your girlfriend.

BILL
(Impressed) How'd you know that?

LANE
Intuition.

BILL
So I'm working my way to the Holy Lands.

LANE
A pilgrimage.

BILL
Nah, to join the Marines and sock it to the infidels.

LANE
Which infidels in particular?

BILL
Arabs, Jews, liberal Democrats... all them Godless heathens.

LANE
How romantic.

BILL
(Sneering) Romance is woman's stuff.

LANE
What would you call running off to the Foreign Legion to nurse a broken heart?

BILL
Real men don't get broken hearts, they have coronaries.

LANE
You'll look most impressive in uniform.

BILL
Yeah, I know.

LANE
You definitely have the physique for it.

BILL
(Flexing) I do, don't I?

LANE
Awesome musculature.

BILL
Wanna feel my biceps?

LANE
(Tempted) This hardly seems the time or the place --

BILL
(Ingenuous) Ah... come on... It's just between us guys.

LANE
(Uncomfortable) The possibilities are most intriguing.

BILL
(Flexing) Grab a hold of this.

LANE
(About to succumb) The probability fraught with --

Before LANE can make his move, GLADYS pops out from behind the just placed stage right flat. She wears her maid's costume and a dust cap, carries an immense transistor radio, street variety, and an old fashioned phonograph horn.

GLADYS
(As she enters) Hope I'm not intruding.

LANE
(Rapidly moving away from BILL) Not at all.

GLADYS
(To BILL) Why hello there.

BILL
Howdy.

GLADYS
(Vamping) Where has Lane been keeping you?

LANE
Busy.

GLADYS
(To BILL) My friends call me Gladioli Glad.

LANE
William is occupied. As you should be, Gladys.

GLADYS
(To BILL) Don't talk much, do you?

LANE
When he has something to say.

GLADYS
(To BILL) The strong, silent type?

BILL
Yep.

GLADYS
(Offering the radio and horn to LANE) Before you go all red in the face and start stomping about in a snit, I'm well aware this phonograph isn't strictly period so I scrounged around in the attic and found this old morning-glory horn -- isn't it a hoot?

LANE
(Horrified) A transistor radio?

GLADYS
Or as they say in the vestibule, a ghetto blaster. I liberated it from a nubile number in pink spandex who almost ran me down on his ruby red roller skates.

LANE
(Returning the radio and horn to GLADYS) This is in no way suitable.

GLADYS
Sure it is. (Trying to attach the horn to the radio) We simply insert... jam this into here -- (The radio complains loudly) -- - and we have an almost-plausible facsimile Gramophone, circa here and now, by which I mean then and -- (Frustrated, she gives the radio and horn to BILL) -- there, you're male, you're mechanically inclined.

Next Page:   Act , The Wrong Music   (page 6 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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