Lodestar Quarterly

Issue 8 • Winter 2003 • Featured Lodestar Writer • Drama

Now She Dances!

Doric Wilson

The Wrong Music

GLADYS exits hastily to the wings. A baffled BILL exits to the scene dock trying to figure out how to connect the horn to the radio as LADY HERODIAS, a dowager dreadnought, enters full steam down the aisle. Bracknell deranged, LADY H is dressed for the boulevards of 1895. She carries a beaded reticule, her hat is a fantastic bird of prey.

LADY H
(Barging down the aisle) I came the back way through the streets. I felt it best to avoid scrutiny. (To the audience) I cannot with clear conscience recommend the streets. The people one encounters on them are revolting. Actively. (As she climbs onto the stage) Indeed, I've a maxim for you. Curb your every inclination toward pedestrianism -- it only puts you in proximity with the wrong people.

LANE
(Conspiratorially) Did you accomplish your mission.

LADY H
(Warily) My swine of a brother?

LANE
Sir Herod is feeding the falcons.

LADY H
You mean he's stumbling into his costume between swigs from the bottle. He better stay sober tonight. (A sudden thought) He isn't... he hasn't --

LANE
He suspects nothing.

LADY H
And my diffident daughter? My guileless little girl?

LANE
Miss Salome is in the music room, whittling.

LADY H
(As Mata Hari) Step aside.

Before LANE can comply, BILL enters from the scene dock with the flat depicting the facade of the house. Guiltily, LANE and LADY H quickly separate. LANE helps BILL position the flat upstage center.

LADY H
(For BILL's benefit) The garden is pulling itself together quite nicely. (Indicating the foliage depicted on the wing flats) Look, hemlock in full bloom and it's only May. And foxglove... and there, deadly nightshade... and here, look, dainty belladonna... how I do prefer the domestic poisons. They take me back to when I was but a sprig of a thing -- a silly miss -- gathering me banewort where I might.

BILL
(Alarmed) Poison?

LANE
Roses and begonias, all very benign. (To LADY H) You're overloading the metaphor.

BILL
(Still suspicious) What's a metaphor?

LADY H
You are. (To the audience) Years ago Lane brought home this languid lad with aesthetic posture and creative hair who designed our set for us and then was seen no more. (To LANE) Did we ever recover the family silver?

BILL
If this Herod guy's such a hot shot --

LANE
Yes, William?

BILL
-- how come he doesn't have real plants?

LADY H
(Nonplussed) Qu'est-ce que c'est "real?"

BILL
You know, plastic -- like they have on TV.

LADY H
(Affronted) Television?

BILL
That's my big ambition. To be on the tube.

LANE
You aspire to fame and fortune?

BILL
Nah, I want to crash cars and kill people.

LADY H
(To LANE, a throwaway) Wherever did you pick up this one? No, I'd rather not know. (To BILL, as before) Young man, are you reliable?

BILL
What's in it for me?

LANE
(To LADY H) He's colonial.

LADY H
Nonsense. They never put Americans on the stage. Not even in America. (To the audience) I've played Masterpiece Theater, I know of what I speak. (To BILL) Young man, tonight, here in the garden, Lane and I are planning an intimate tête-à-tête -- nothing actually outré, but should the proceedings turn a trifle --

LANE
(Warning) Milady --

LADY H
Shouldn't he be in on it?

BILL
In on what?

LANE
Nothing which concerns you.

LADY H
(To BILL) Young man, I've a maxim for you. Delve not.

A puzzled BILL exits to the scene dock.

LANE
(Pulling LADY H aside) Did you accomplish your mission?

LADY H
(Referring to the streets) Out there in the streets is anarchy. Fuzzy fiscal policies stalking the better shops, radicals running riot, left to right, close personal acquaintances hanging from the lampposts -- but for the sake of you and your silly mission I gathered me skirts about me and persevered, when suddenly, to my horror, there, before me, was... was... was --

LANE
(Skeptical) What?

LADY H
A hand.

LANE
A hand?

LADY H
Your usual five fingers. Nothing out of the ordinary. No, now that I recall, there was an ink smudge near the knuckle of the third digit from the thumb. Or was it the first digit from the pinkie?

LANE
(Losing patience) Had this hand a face?

LADY H
I daren't look. There stood I, there stood the faceless hand -- the both of us poised on the precipice of an impasse. And then I saw it. The anonymous appendage with the ominous ink stain was proffering to me a piece of paper.

BILL enters from the scene dock with a step unit which he places at the French doors.

LANE
A piece of -- ?

LADY H
-- 8½ by 11 inch rag bond with miscellaneous mimeography on it. Which I instantly disposed of in the proper receptacle. (LANE reaches out his hand) It may have inadvertently slipped into my reticule. (Producing the piece of paper)

As LANE reaches for the paper, GLADYS appears from the wings and intercepts it.

GLADYS
(Snatching the paper) A flyer!

LANE
A circular of protest?

LADY H
Such a polite, well-groomed young man. You'd never guess he was a dirty Bolshevik, bent on circulating protest.

LANE
I thought you didn't see him.

LADY H
I didn't.

BILL
What's he protesting?

LADY H
Me. They're always protesting me.

LANE
(To GLADYS, curious about the cause) Save the whales? Ban the bomb? Free the Standard and Poor's 100?

GLADYS
(Perusing the flyer) It's something about the G.D.F. (As she comprehends) Ha! Lady Herodias, avert your eyes!

LADY H
It's off-color?

GLADYS
Depravity, pure and simple.

BILL
Porno?

GLADYS
(Offering the flyer to LANE, a gleam in her eye) This, I think, is addressed to you.

LANE
(Reaching for the flyer) Me?

LADY H
(Intercepting the flyer) What would Lane want with obscenity?

LANE
(Attempting to retrieve the flyer) Mine, milady.

LADY H
(Examining the flyer front and back) I see no depravity. (To GLADYS) Gladys, you were titillating us. Oh... here it tells what "G.D.F." stands for. (Reading) "Gay Defensive Front."

LANE
(Under his breath) Peachy.

LADY H
(Looking to LANE) Gay? Happy? I don't understand. Why be defensive about being happy.

BILL
If they're so happy, why run around protesting?

LANE
(Dismissing BILL) William --

BILL
I'm on a break.

LANE
(Pushing BILL toward the scene dock) The grownups need to talk.

BILL
(Reluctantly exiting) Just when it starts to get interesting.

LADY H
(Flyer in hand) Will somebody explain this to me?

LANE
(On the spot) I... er...

GLADYS
(Enjoying LANE's discomfort) It's a euphemism.

LADY H
A euphemism for what?

LANE
A euphemism for a euphemism.

LADY H
To be happy?

GLADYS
The synonym.

LADY H
Gay?

LANE
Does milady chance to remember Oscar Wilde?

LADY H
Mr. Oscar Wilde is not a fit subject for conversation. Certainly not in a family entertainment.

GLADYS
The circular comes from one of them.

LADY H
One of whom?

LANE
Mr.  Wilde's progeny.

LADY H
They don't have progeny.

GLADYS
(Still needling LANE) We throw 'em all in jail.

LANE
We seem to have missed one or two.

LADY H
(Staggered by the thought) You mean to say out there in the streets I was placed in juxtaposition with a... with a...

GLADYS
Sodomist! (See the trials of Oscar Wilde.)

BILL enters from the scene dock with an urn.

BILL
(As he enters) A sodo-what?

LANE
(Taking the urn from BILL) An unlicensed proctologist.

BILL exits back to the scene dock.

LADY H
I might have been molested.

LANE
(Placing the urn next to the step unit) I sincerely doubt it.

LADY H
(Waving the flyer) This is an omen.

LANE
It is nothing of the sort.

LADY H
The writing's on the wall, I tell you. There... above our heads... "Mene Mene Tekel Upharsim!" Mimeographed.

LANE
That particular message was meant for Belshazzar.

GLADYS
It's all in the family.

BILL enters from the scene dock with the second urn which he places next to the step unit.

LADY H
Whatever is this country coming to?

GLADYS
Perversion lurking in every byway?

LADY H
Are none of us safe?

GLADYS
Shall we all be murdered in our beds by bad Judy Garland impersonations?

LANE
(To LADY H, unaware of BILL) I entrusted you with an errand of the utmost importance, some street queen gives you a flyer, and you go all unglued. You return the back way, empty-handed.

LADY H
(As a drug transaction) The password?

LANE
Cut the flummery.

LADY H
(To GLADYS, as she extracts a parcel from the folds of her costume) Gladys, keep a peeled eye.

LANE
(Eagerly) You managed to score?

LADY H
It had to be arranged.

LANE
(Snatching the parcel and tearing it open) How much arranged?

LADY H
Our usual source was not available.

LANE
(Revealing a long play record album) As long as it's legitimate.

LADY H
I paid more than the going price.

LANE
(Reading the album title) Holy Mother of Moloch!

LADY H
What?

LANE
(Returning the album with great disdain) Beginner's Burlesque?

LADY H
(Reading from the liner notes) "Bump your way out of the daily grind"?

GLADYS
(Snatching the album from LADY H, reading the notes) "Flesh and how to flash it"?

BILL
(Sneaking a peek at the cover) Hot damn!

LANE glares at BILL, causing him to exit to the scene dock.

LANE
(To LADY H) You seriously expect Miss Salome to frolic about the shrubbery in her altogether accompanied by snare drums and slide trombones?

LADY H
I naturally expect my dear daughter to -- (The horrible realization hits home.)

LANE
Precisely.

LADY H
We're dead meat.

GLADYS
T'ain't missing tonight's shindig for nothing. (She hums a bump and grind rendition of The Snake Charmer's Dance while doing a Sally Rand fan dance with the album cover) I see Paris, I see France, I see Salome's underpants --

LADY H
(Retrieving the album from GLADYS) Steady, Gladys!

LANE
(To LADY H) Take it back.

LADY H
Take it back?

LANE
Explain to the clerk that this is not the noble and sentimental waltzes of Ravel.

LADY H
Unhappily --

LANE
Simply demand he make an exchange.

LADY H
I doubt he'll still be operating from the same street corner.

GLADYS
Street corner?

LANE
But surely --

GLADYS
Milady's made a bum connection.

LADY H
I've been hornswoggled.

LANE
What am I to tell Sir Herod?

LADY H
(Giving the album to LANE) I've a maxim for you. Make do.

LANE
(Appalled) "Make do"?

LADY H
We all know who's behind this sabotage. (Brandishing the flyer) The Gay Defensive Front. This is their doing. Oscar Wilde's revenge. A conspiracy of Gannymedes. Well, they shan't get away with it. I will see them hanged! Drawn and quartered! Vasectomized! (As she exits, a rogue caribou) Herod?! Herod, dear brother?! Debauched... debased... I've been undone!

Next Page:   Act , Fly in the Ointment   (page 7 of 14 pages)

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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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