Lodestar Quarterly

Issue 8 • Winter 2003 • Drama

Meaningless

Peter Sinn Nachtrieb

Rock (Party) Bottom

Spotlight on TED.

TED
I headed right back to the chat room like the stupid rat in the experiments who always chose the electrocution button instead of the cheese one. I think perhaps the worst incident was going to what I was told would be a wild orgy of safe group sex between consenting 18- to 29-year-old athletic and reasonably attractive men of all ethnicities, only to open the door on Cindy Blackfield's 8th birthday just as they were launching into match 2 of a round robin Hungry Hungry Hippos. This was older brother Bobby's idea of a practical joke. It was humiliating, but at least I won the tournament. But then, I succeeded! I found someone who I was attracted to, seemed reasonably sane, and wanted to come over that night. We kissed. We got naked. Oh man, things were very special...

A light up on LINDA.

LINDA
And that was the "very special" scene you witnessed at the beginning of the tonight's performance. That really beautiful, touching, completely non-awkward session of genuine lovemaking.

TED
Yeah, well, for at least 5 minutes.

LINDA
I hope you treasure those minutes till you die.

TED
God, I'm depressed.

LINDA
And no one cares. That's what really sad.

TED
Linda, I can't help noticing that you've been a little testy and irritable this entire play.

LINDA
Wow, Ted, you noticed. I'm astonished.

TED
You're kind of this really weird energy on the whole story right now.

LINDA
Oh, I'm sorry. Is it cramping your style? Am I preventing you from making a touching, insightful monologue about the idiosyncrasies of life?

TED
Well, as a matter of fact I was going to start one, but...

LINDA
Ketel left me.

TED
She left?

LINDA
She thinks I spend too much time paying attention to your problems. She thinks I'm in love with you. So she left me.

TED
Huh. Wow.

LINDA
Yeah. "Wow." What the fuck does that mean?

TED
I mean, it was never that serious, was it?

LINDA
Excuse me?

TED
Well, it seemed like it was just a romp. I mean if you really loved her, you'd bother to call her by her real name. She doesn't even look like she's from Holland.

LINDA
She thinks you're a selfish prick.

TED
Whatever. She's totally one of those lesbians who hates all men.

LINDA
Hates all men?

TED
Yeah. I've been to the Lexington Club. I feel those stares at me as though I'm a sex felon. Some day, I'm just going to yell in there "Hey! I'm sorry nobody asked you to the prom, but don't take it out on me!"

LINDA
If we're going to talk about gender-hating groups, let's just chat it up about your man-cult following, muscle-worshipping, machismo-absorbed, Calvin Klein-wearing, all praise the mighty phallus and "let's buy 12 stone Grecian penises and decorate our apartment with it"-thinking faggots you are trying to get with every night. You're becoming one of those queens whose entire philosophy of life is "Why be nice to it if you don't want to fuck it?"

TED
Are you cheapening man sex Linda? Sex between men is never cheap!

LINDA
I'm moving out.

TED
What?

LINDA
I'm outie! Skittles! Goodbye!

TED
I don't understand. Why?

LINDA
Um. Hmm. Let me see. How do I put this. Well basically for the past two years, or (to the audience) the last 80 minutes or so for you folks out there, you've been a real asshole.

TED
What? Me? You don't find my travails endearing and adorable?

LINDA
My entire life is your travails! You only talk to me when you need a back massage and need healing of your fragile, oppressed, queer soul.

TED
Well, Linda, my soul is fragile, you know that. That's why it's so nice that you are there to heal it. You're always there for me.

LINDA
And where have you been? You have no clue what's going on with me: How my heart is broken, how I don't know why my relationship suddenly fell apart, and how I think that I've wasted years of life building web pages that sell kibbles to a global marketplace. I think I've sold out, because the carrot they dangled on the stick was bigger than anything I've ever seen. But you don't care. Because it's all Ted, Ted, Ted. And let's make Ted's life even more special by making a FUCKING PLAY about it. Let's have everyone feel your pain! Isn't he just so angsty and cute, I wonder what he's doing after the show. And look, there's his lesbian friend who's such a good narrator and so nicely supports him and puts up with his wily antics. Well, I'm sorry, that's it. I'm tired of being best supporting actress. You call me when you feel like being a friend again. You call me when my role in your show here is a little more interesting and fleshed out. Goodbye.

She leaves.

TED
Oh Linda, come back, you're being ridiculous. Come back Linda! Linda? She'll be back. She's just trying to get attention. We're like this, she loves me. We're inseparable. Linda?

BOOFIE enters.

TED
Boofie!

BOOFIE
Ted. I'm sorry I've come all the way to your apartment, but it just wasn't worth it setting up a new scene back at work, it would have broken the flow.

TED
Oh. OK. What's up?

BOOFIE
Well, you remember how we had that huge, huge blowout celebration launch party last week, the one in the large outdoor tent, where Devo played, and we had all that beluga caviar, brie, and free bike messenger bags for everyone?

TED
Yeah, that was a great party. I had so much fun at that.

BOOFIE
Well, I'm glad you enjoyed it, because the money we spent on that party was actually your salary for next year, as well as few other people's salaries and, well, we're going to have to let you go.

TED
What. Wait. Are you firing me?

BOOFIE
Oh, no! It's not firing. We're not firing you, we're laying you off. It's just we have no money. We have no profit, no income. We have no business plan. We're broke. We're fucked!

She starts sobbing.

The options are worth nothing! Oh, the pain, the sorrow, why why why did the revolution have to end? It's like that really dramatic part of Les Miserables and we're all shot-up corpses strewn all over a rotating barricade. Oh it's all Microsoft's fault. If we had gotten that partnership on MSN we'd be in gold city. But no! No! An icy frost has descended on dotcomia. South of Market seems bleak, windy, dry, devoid of hope. That incessant hum of change and gentrification is fading. Its all fading away, a violet, like an old photograph, like Kim Basinger's career.

She recovers.

So, yeah, we'll pay you for this week, and then you're on your own.

TED
Are you leaving, too, Boofie?

BOOFIE
Yes. I'll be gone, too, very, very soon. Away from this sad, bleak, utopian, sham city.

TED
What are you going to do?

BOOFIE
I think I just may do what every laid-off, lost and confused, mid-twentysomething who lives in San Francisco does.

TED
What's that?

BOOFIE
Go to graduate school. Take care of yourself, Ted. Remember, whatever you do, use lots of lube.

She exits.

TED
Yeah, that's fine. I'll just find another job! I'll just find another best friend. I'll find a lover too! I'm fine. I'm doing fine, thank you very much!

Next Page:   Act , A Much-Needed Burrito   (page 8 of 8 pages)

All Pages:   See the entire play on one page

Table of Contents:   Meaningless

Peter Nachtrieb is a San Francisco Bay Area-based playwright, actor, and director. His solo show The Amorphous Blob, which he wrote and performed, was seen at San Francisco's Venue 9 in 1997 and at the Seattle Fringe Festival in 1998. His short play, Self Help, received the 2000 Emerging Playwright Award from Playground Theater Company in San Francisco. He is a frequent sketch comedy writer for the very popular San Francisco performance group Killing My Lobster. He has written two one-act plays, Thread and Multiplex. Meaningless his first full-length play.

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