Next in my Daily Book Excerpt:
Next on the script shelf:
Next play on the shelf is On the Verge
On the Verge is a lot of fun. Mary, Fanny, and Alex are three American women in the Victorian age, who are “adventurers”. They trek through Africa, through Nepal, with their helmets, and little pick axes, chatting about the natives, and their other journeys. The play is made up of relatively short scenes, as they go from place to place – we see them in the jungle, in the mountains – always chatting to one another like good Victorian ladies. The journeys spin off into time travel. They begin to skip about in space, getting word of the future, then going back in time … A reviewer called this play ‘a kaleidoscope’ and that seems very accurate to me. The sisters travel through time … they discover things like the surfboard, the barbecue … one or two of them decide to settle down in this or that year … “Ah, I like 1955, I am going to stay here …” But one of them, Mary, does not want to stop moving. She is the classic “adventurer” – always going, always looking forward … She could never settle down in one place.
This play is a delight. It’s funny, well-written, really interesting – and the characters are terrific.
Here’s one of the kaleidoscopic scenes – as you will see, the ladies come across a newspaper clipping, and try to piece together the facts … This is when it dawns on them that they are time travelers, a fact which they had not been aware of before:
EXCERPT FROM On the Verge or The Geography of Yearning
[Fanny has spied a bit of paper caught in a branch. She plucks it]
ALEX. Share, Fanny.
FANNY. A clipping. Folded thrice. From The New York Times.
MARY. Reputable. Trustworthy.
FANNY. The Herald Tribune, pour moi. This sheds new light. Terra Incognita cannot be utterly benighted if one can get The new York Times. [studies clipping] A Kodak of a man. Never heard of this fellow. Behind him an impressive array of snow mountains. His arms are spread — so: [Imitating a man gesturing about the size of a large fish] The caption reads: President Nixon. Grand Tetons. June, 1972. Quote: “I had trout from the lake for dinner last night. They were so good I had them again for breakfast. I haven’t had anything but cereal for breakfast since 1953.” Endquote.
[Pause]
MARY. 1953? 1972?
ALEX. Printer’s errors?
MARY. Two such errors in one tiny Times item? Not credible.
FANNY. Dickensian character. Looks like something off the bottom of the sea bed. [Pause] President. President Nixon. President of what?
ALEX. Some eating club or other. Where men have breakfast, and compare their tropies.
MARY. No. The United States.
FANNY. How do you know?
MARY. I just know. Don’t ask me how.
FANNY. I thought McKinley was President.
MARY. Garfield.
ALEX. Taft, you daft duo.
FANNY. Alexandra, the interjection of song lyrics into otherwise civilized conversation is strictly prohibited.
ALEX. Surely not president of the United States. How could a man who hasn’t had an egg for breakfast in twenty years be president of the United States?
FANNY. You know, he rather resembles an orangutan in a dinner jacket.
MARY. I could do with some trout.
ALEX. The Grand Tetons are a lovely little range.
FANNY. Someday they will be preserved as a national park by Teddy Roosevelt.
MARY. Teddy Roosevelt?
ALEX. I’ve never heard of him.
FANNY. Oh yes, you have. Bully bear and San Juan Hill and all that.
ALEX. No.
FANNY. His statue is in front of the Museum of Natural History.
MARY. In New York? No. It is not. Not when I was there last.
FANNY. Certainly not. That statue will not be erected until 1936.
[Pause]
ALEX. Do you know why there is evil in the world?
FANNY. Metaphysical speculation, Alexandra?
MARY. I don’t think so. Do you?
ALEX. Yes, I do.
FANNY. You are so young.
MARY. Why is there evil in the world, Alexandra?
ALEX. To thicken the plot.
[Pause]
FANNY. I believe you are exactly right.
[Alex seizes the clipping]
ALEX. This is plot thickener!
MARY. Yes!
FANNY. Yes! Ladies, we are in a strange new world.
MARY. Terra Incognita, by definition, could not be otherwise. I have a theory. One that explains the unknown objects. The strange words in our mouths. The references to persons unknown that spring to mind. Spring to mind. It is spring in our minds, ladies. A New World. Blossoming! Within and without! I believe, with each step, each chop of the machete, we are advancing through the wilderness of time as well as space. Chronology as well as geography. Not — as we usually do in savage lands, moving backward into the past, into pre-history — but forward, into the future! A New World, within and without! Blossoming!
[Pause]
FANNY. A new world! Within and without!
ALEX. It would explain the dirigible.
FANNY. The clipping from 1972.
ALEX. The Nixon.
MARY. Mrs. Butterworth. Burma Shave. Cream cheese.
ALEX. Robert Lowell. The troll.
FANNY. It would explain why, now, burning in my forebrain like a Mosaic tablet, is the copyright date for a novel entitled Herzog.
MARY. Something else is happening, obviously. Something even more astonishing. Not only are we advancing in time, not only are we encountering the future with every step — [Beat] Ladies, we are beginning to know the future! [Beat] It is entering into our consciousness. Like mustard gas. Whatever that is. Wait a moment. I’ll tell you. [She osmoses] Oh. Oh. Oh. Unfortunate simile. I withdraw it.
ALEX. We are absorbing the future! Through osmosis!
FANNY. As long as you’re at it, osmos Red Chinese for us.
ALEX. Let me try. [She osmoses] Something’s coming in, yes, like a radio transmission. [She holds up a hand] Don’t ask. [She osmoses] Hmmmmm.
FANNY. Yes?
ALEX. Little Red Book. Great Leap Forward. Swimming the Yang-tze River. Tractor Operas.
FANNY. Operas about tractors?
ALEX. Running dogs. And — [osmoses] They’re friends of Nixon!
[The ladies leap about excitedly]
MARY. Ladies, this is fantastic. I presume you are feeling — with me — slightly tremulous — a bit fluttery around the gills. Ladies, I don’t know about you, but I am experiencing a definite, a palpable — yearning for the future!
ALEX. Oh, Mary! Yes! [Osmoses a moment] Radio. Radio is. Oh. I can’t believe that! Voices on the air, ladies! Sounds voodoo. You’ll just have to osmose your own description.
[Pause]
MARY. We are imbued with the future.
[Pause]
FANNY. One doesn’t have to like it.
[Pause]
ALEX. I shall make my fortune in radio.
[Pause]
MARY. We shall go from year to year, as if we were going from tribe to tribe.
ALEX. Big fun!
[Mary finds a button in the grass]
MARY. Look. Another button. Similar to the one we found our first day on the beach.
FANNY. “Hec — khwod — ont.”
MARY. Once could be a fluke. Twice is a trend.
ALEX. What what what does the button read, Mary?
MARY. “I — Like — Ike”.
[Pause. Simultaneously]
MARY, ALEX AND FANNY: Who’s Ike?
[They laugh. Pause]
FANNY. I don’t know about all of you, but I do have a sudden craving. A burning desire. Intense, painful longing. [Beat] For “Cool Whip”.
[Pause]
ALEX AND MARY. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.
[The ladies come downstage, grasp hands, and survey their prospects.]
MARY. Ladies! Let us segue!
[They disappear in a blaze of light]
some friends of mine were in this show in college. (i actually helped paint the set.) What a fun show this was. What i loved most about it, being an English geek, was that the playwright was so clearly in love with words, and the sounds they make. Very cool.
seriously, any time i comment, it kills the thread. if i do it early, no one comments afterwards. if I do it late, the momentum of commenting comes to a grinding halt. what have I got, the plague or something? sheesh.
dude, you honestly need to chill.
Hardly anyone ever comments on my “bookshelf” threads.
I got your message. I read it. I loved it. It is much appreciated.
I can’t respond to every comment.
wow, that did come out pissy, didn’t it. apologies.
i’m not demanding a response from you, red. it’s just funny because it happens on several high-traffic blogs (such as yours).
i’m going back into my shamed little lurker hole now. paz.