gingatao

Samba Libretto (excerpt #1)

Setting – One uncomfortable wooden chair, paint peeling.

Enter, stumbling as though pushed onto the stage – One uncomfortable wooden poet, skin peeling. Mid-forties, wearing last night’s tuxedo and a bemused grin, trailed by his bodyguards and his therapist. He looks back for a moment. Looks down at his hand, surprised to see flowers as he was expecting scissors dripping blood.

Poet – (Grumpily as though at the end of the argument with the person who pushed him onto the stage) Whoops, sorry. Now where was I? That’s right, that creation and destruction are coins of two different sides and so forth. My new verse play is going well. I have already hidden the story in the first few lines. It is a classic symmetrical butterfly on the side of a Japanese vase. So instead of listening to me rambling on, here is a scene from it. (He sits on the chair.)

(Louise enters with an easel containing a still life of flowers. She starts to paint. Leonard rushes in naked and dripping wet and grabs her in a huge hug.)

Leonard – Louise! I have to tell you. Joseph Heller was a Jew!

Louise – Yes, Leonard. (Disentangling herself from the hug.) Please put some clothes on. If you keep doing that, I shall have to put one of those newfangled locks on the bathroom door that only lets you out here when you are fully clothed.

Leonard – Hmmm, no you won’t.

Louise – Yes I will, your polymorpheus perversity is becoming excessively tiresome and look what you have done to my painting.

Leonard – Oh, it is as beautiful as your poetry, which one is you?

The Poet – (Jumping up) Perfect, perfect. (Rushes toward the actors before being restrained by his bodyguards.)

(end scene)