Don Nigro

Rainy Night at Lindy’s is a long one-act for seven men and two women set in “a mythological delicatessen in New York City.”  There is a counter with a phone “and perhaps an old-fashioned cash register” and tables and chairs surrounded by darkness, creating the feeling of “a busy and somewhat iconic film noir city on a rainy night” in November, 1928.  In the darkness, we hear the sound of rain and wind and a tapping telegraph key as Walter Winchell, seated at a table with a round microphone, speaks to “Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea,” announcing that Arnold Rothstein, a notorious gambler reputed to be the mastermind behind the fixing of the 1919 World Series, is in a hospital fighting for his life.  The phone rings and is answered by Abe, the cashier.  Leo and Clara, the owners of the deli, speak of Rothstein, a regular customer that Clara doesn’t like, comparing him to a spider and telling Abe and Leo that they are to take no more phone messages for him.  Leo asks Clara to be quiet before she gets them in trouble, and Moe, “a big, beefy gangster,” asks if the lobster on his plate is male or female, since he only eats female lobsters.  Leo assures him the lobster is female.  Rothstein enters and asks if there are any messages for him. He asks where Damon Runyon is.  The phone rings and Clara tells Abe to answer it.  He does, listens, and says it is a wrong number.  Rothstein tells Abe that he is expecting an important call but as Leo escorts Rothstein to a table, Clara tells Abe, “No messages.”

     Ring Lardner enters, exchanges pleasantries with Abe, and lets Rothstein know that he detests him for fixing the World Series.  Rothstein says it was nine years ago and that Ring’s problem is that he wants to believe in things and gets angry when things don’t turn out the way he hopes.  Leo tries to get Ring to a table away from Rothstein and Moe.  Rothstein says that he hears a scratching sound, like rats, but that it can’t be rats because he hears the sound in other places.  Runyon comes in, exchanges insults with Ring, and is told by Rothstein that he (Rothstein) lost three hundred and twenty-two thousand dollars in a crooked poker game.  The phone rings, Abe answers, announces a wrong number, and hangs up.  Rothstein says that Abe has a tell that lets him know when Abe is lying.  Abe says he is not supposed to take any more messages for Rothstein, but when Rothstein asks him what the message was, Abe says that Humpty said for Rothstein to meet him at the Park Central Hotel, Room 349, in half an hour.

     Inez, a chorus girl, enters and tells Rothstein that she has been waiting backstage for him for forty-five minutes.  He says he has a meeting but that he’ll be right back.  She says that he’s never going to divorce his wife and marry her.  Rothstein replies that divorces are expensive and he has to pay Humpty three hundred and twenty-two thousand dollars.  The phone rings and Abe says he is pretending not to tell Rothstein that there isn’t another call for him.  Rothstein takes the phone and then says that he has to be going to his appointment.  Runyon advises him to pay the money, but Rothstein says it is a matter of principle.  Ring accuses him of giving Jack Dempsey bad olive oil before the Tunney fight and asks if Rothstein got a thrill out of ruining baseball.  Inez wants Rothstein to discuss his wife before he leaves for his appointment, and Rothstein says his wife is divorcing him because he doesn’t sleep with her.  Rothstein offers Moe his gun, but Moe thinks he should keep it, and Runyon thinks Rothstein should take Moe with him.  Rothstein insists that Moe take the gun and go to their office and pick up some money in case “the conversation” doesn’t go well.  Rothstein leaves and Inez wants Moe to follow him, but Moe says he has to do what he’s told and that he is “actually a relatively civilized individual.”  Inez ways that she will give Moe “anything” if he goes to the hotel and makes sure Rothstein is all right.  Ring tells Moe that his lobster plate has balls on it.  Leo says the lobster does not have balls and then accuses Abe of buying male lobsters.  Clara syas that lobsters don’t have balls, pops one in her mouth, and says that it is tapioca.  Inez wants Moe to get to the hotel but he leaves to get money from Eugene.  She berates the writers, blames Ring for distracting Moe, and runs out.  Ring says he knows everything is a game but that he wants the game to be fair, not fized.  Runyon tells him he’s in the wrong country.

     The phone rings, Abe answers, wrong number.  Lights down on deli area and up on Winchell banging on his telegraph key and announcing that Rothstein, found shot in the stomach at the Park Central Hotel, died of his injuries.  He was last seen at Lindy’s Delicatessen, “home of giant corned beef sandwiches, delicious apple pancakes, and the greatest cheesecake in the world.”

Part of the Pendragon cycle, Andromeda Chained Naked to Her Rock is a dialogue between Ben Palestrina, 17, and Meredith Cherry, 31, his former babysitter.  They are at Grim Lake in Armitage, Ohio, on a summer night in 1967.  Meredith suggest that they go swimming, saying that she has seen him naked lots of times.  She says she saw a painting in one of her father’s books earlier in the day, a painting of Andromeda chained naked to a rock in the fog, remembering making love in the ferns on a hillside.  When Ben asks her how she can know what a mythological girl in a painting was thinking, Meredith says that in addition to being insane she is also telepathic.  She says that she is Andromeda, waiting as a sacrifice to a sea monster that she pictures as the Creature from the Black Lagoon and reminds Ben that he asked her to marry him when he was five years old and that she said she would if he still wanted to when he was eighteen.  Ben is leaving for college the next day and she thanks him for visiting her in the hospital, saying that she would have died without him.  He says she is beautiful and that he will always love her.  She asks him if he is a virgin and then if he wants to make love with her.  It will be her going away present to him.  He says she is incredibly attractive but he doesn’t want to take advantage of her.  She says he either desires her or he doesn’t, and when he says he does want her, she tells him to give her “this,” then go away and not look back.  They kiss, “a long and tender kiss,” then look at each other as the light fades and goes out.

As William Roach at Valley Forge begins we hear wind blowing in the darkness and the light comes up on two soldiers, William Roach and his friend Cobby, huddled before a fire as snow falls.  William tells Cobby that he was sent to America to bring back a cousin, Mary Clark, who ran off rather than marry a man she had been promised to.  Cobby says he has heard the story many times and doesn’t want to hear it again.  He complains about being cold and hungry and miserable and wonders why they are marching back and forth on snow and frozen mud until their feet bleed.  William says they are fighting for freedom and that the war began over taxes.  He tells Cobby to avoid being negative, drinks from a flask, and, after some discussion, passes the flask to Cobby.  We learn that William married Mary Clark and Cobby thinks she must be insane to think that the Duke of York is her uncle.  The men talk about watching a performance of Addison’s Cato, and William tells Cobby that they will win the war by outlasting the English and then everybody will be free.  He says he doesn’t understand why Mary agreed to marry him but tells Cobby that he can meet her when the revolution is over.  He starts to give a cheer for the revolution, expecting Cobby to join him, but Cobby sits frozen, eyes open, as the snow falls on them and the lights go to black.

Ravished, a longer three-character (2m,1w) one-act, takes place in the present “or not far from there,” on a simple unit set:  DR a small wooden table with a vase full of red roses, R a bed, DL a wooden table with chairs, DC a glow like the embers of a fire, UCL some sense of a garden.  Lights come up on Lucrece, sitting on the bed, with Tarquin drinking at the DL table and Coll standing RC looking at Lucrece who is looking at Tarquin.  Lucrece speaks in phrases of a man making love to her and Coll asks her what happened to her.  She asks if the friend he sent to her, John Tarquin, has talked about her.  Coll denies sending Tarquin to their home, but Tarquin speaks to Lucrece, saying that he promised Coll that he would come to see her.  He says Coll spoke of her, of missing her.  Lucrece wonders why Coll never wrote to her, and Tarquin says that personal communications are forbidden, that he and Coll work for a private company that does things for the government.  He asks Lucrece the color of her eyes, and as they look at each other Coll says he doesn’t understand what Tarquin was doing with her.  He says there was an explosion and that he was unconscious for a while and that there are memories he can’t retrieve, but he does not understand why he would have made Tarquin swear to come and see her.  He says that whatever Tarquin told her was a lie.  Lucrece then turns to Tarquin and asks him to tell her exactly what Coll said about her.  Tarquin says that Coll showed him a photograph of her standing in a hallway by some roses and that he and Coll would sit by the embers of a fire at night, waiting, and Coll would talk about her.  Coll has moved downstage and sits by the fire, telling Tarquin about Lucrece, and Tarquin tells her that Coll was terrified that he would forget her and described her over and over so he would not forget.  Coll describes how he made love to Lucrece and Tarquin tells her that they were in a dangerous and unnatural situation and that Coll needed to talk.  She asks him why he came to see her and then asks Coll the same question.  Coll denies sending Tarquin but admits that he might have said things he doesn’t remember.  Tarquin asks Coll what he thinks Lucrece does when Coll is not there and says he envies Coll’s certainty about her.  Lucrece asks Tarquin if he liked Coll and Tarquin says that Coll had some weaknesses, that people who talk too much and who don’t pay attention and who want things they can’t have are weak.  He tells her that she wants him to touch her because she spends her nights alone but that it’s all a game, violence and lechery, and nothing satisfies.  Coll tells Lucrece that he dreamed she was naked in bed with Tarquin and woke up wanting to kill somebody. He repeats that he never sent Tarquin to her.  Lucrece tells Tarquin that she doesn’t believe anything he has told her, that he is some random maniac.  Tarquin shows her a photograph of herself and Coll tells Tarquin that she is sometimes too trusting, leaving doors and windows unlocked and walking around naked with the blinds up.  Coll tries to talk with her but feels she is waiting for some lover who will be more exciting.  Lucrece tells Tarquin that something is wrong with him and asks if the place where he has been has changed him.  She asks him if he thinks he has some kind of power over her and says that men love war because it gives them the power of life and death over women.  Coll then asks Lucrece what has happened to her and she tells him that he has come home to somebody else:  “This is the other side of the looking glass,” she says.  “You’ve cast yourself in this role, so pay attention.  Learn your lines.  All the dead people in the audience are watching.”  Coll thinks Tarquin did something to her, but she says that nothing happened, that Tarquin stayed in the guest room.  When Coll asks Tarquin why he went to see Lucrece Tarquin replies that Coll asked him to go.  He says that he and Lucrece talked in the garden until it began to rain.  Time perspective switches back to Lucrece asking Tarquin about the lack of rain in the place where he was and he says he is a kind of messenger.  Tarquin tells Coll that Lucrece may not be sane and Coll then tells her that he has seen Tarquin.  She says Coll is stupid for believing Tarquin when he said nothing happened when he visited her.  Coll asks if Tarquin raped her; she asks Coll if “a man like that” would just stop in to say hello and wonders if Coll is excited by the idea of Tarquin forcing her.  Coll takes a gun from his bag and turns to Tarquin, telling him he’s going to kill him.  Tarquin says he should go back to Lucrece and ask her what happened, and whatever she says will be the truth.  Coll begs Lucrece to tell him the truth and she repeats that nothing happened.  Coll leaves and we hear a loud gunshot, then birdsong.  Tarquin asks Lucrece if she is all right.  She wonders if he wants to come home with her after the funeral so she can kill him.  “Well,” he says, “you can try.”

There are three characters in Emotion Memory–Chekhov, Stanislavsky, and Lyka.  The simple unit set has a few pieces of furniture and represents four places:  Chekhov’s estate at Melikovo, a room in Moscow, the Paradise Theatre in Moscow, and Chekhov’s home in Yalta.  The time of the action is from 1892 to 1904.  We hear Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” being played on an old piano as the lights come up on Chekhov and Lyka.  It is evening; we see fireflies and hear crickets as the music ends.  Lyka tells Chekhov that he is good company but that he is lonely and unhappy.  Chekhov tells her of an experience he had with a young peasant girl when he was a young man in Moscow.  Lyka thinks the story is sad, but Chekhov insists it is funny.  She says that she never knows where she is with him and asks what he means when he says he loves her.  She tells him that she has been spending time with Potapenko, a married man, and wants to give herself to someone who wants her.  Chekhov thinks that she should have what she wants and, as she leaves, remarks that the fireflies flash their lights in a complex mating ritual.  “I hope they’re better at it than you are,” Lyka says, leaving as the lights fade.

     The second scene takes place in a room in Moscow early in the morning after the first (and disastrous) performance of The Seagull.  Lyka is sitting in a chair as Chekhov comes in after walking for hours in the snow.  He says the theatre is “a monstrous obscenity,” the actors “totally incompetent,” the audience “moronic,” and the critics “cannibalistic orangutans.”  He wants her to shoot him if he is ever stupid enough to write another play.  She tells him that at least the terrible production has brought out his true feelings, deep emotions that he always tries to hide.  She says Potapenko’s desertion and the death of her child and her suicide attempt were connected to deep emotions, that she at least is honest about what she feels.  Chekhov says he is sorry for her suffering, and Potapenko is a swine, but he is not going to wear his heart on his sleeve to be destroyed over and over.  She says the play is beautiful and that it is about her, the girl who loves the cynical writer who abandons her.  She tells him that the play was an act of love and that she is proud of his “amazing gift.”

      Three years later, at the Paradise Theatre in Moscow, Chekhov and Stanislavsky discuss the latter’s production of The Seagull, an artistic triumph to everyone but the author.  Stanislavsky tries to convince Chekhov that he wants to spend the rest of his life living inside his plays, that it’s “the most important thing I could posssibly be doing.”  Chekhov says that even when the play is done right it is still a betrayal of  “a poor, lost girl who was my friend and who loved me.”  “Well,” Stanislavsky says, “life is made of betrayal.  Art holds up the mirror.  Love makes us do it.  It’s completely insane.  Let’s do it again.”

     The last scene takes place at night, with fireflies, at Chekhov’s home in Yalta in 1904.  Lyka has been drinking and Chekhov tells her that his wife, Olga, makes him very happy.  Lyka tells him that he was just using her, the way all writers use people, that his words have infected her brain, that all she wants to to is drink until she can sleep.  She says that everybody is dying and that we go to the theatre while we wait.  She asks Chekhov if fireflies love and when he says he doesn’t know anything about love she suggests they sit and watch the fireflies “for a little while longer.”  They watch as the lights fade and go out.

     Plum Pudding takes place in France in the 19^th century and requires a table with some chairs and an empty arch doorway up center.  Lights come up on Emile and Julie in her apartment.  A large covered pan is on the table and Julie tells Emile that it is indeed plum pudding that he smells.  Emile says that he has a mystical feeling about plum pudding and wishes his friend, Monsieur Fortgibu were present.  Entering through the arch from an earlier time comes Fortgibu as the lights dim a bit on Julie, and Emile recalls a time when he was a boy in 1805 and was invited to dinner at Fortgibu’s home.  Fortgibu says that he has just returned from England where he ate “the most wonderful dish,” one that he believes has never before been served in France.  This “almost supernaturally delicious” dish is called Plum Pudding.  Fortgibus tells Emile what he knows of the origin and history of plum pudding before wandering off into the stage right darkness looking for his big spoon.  Julie tells Emile that Fortgibu sounds a bit off his rocker, but Emile says that she has to hear what happened ten years later, when he passed by an out-of-the-way restaurant and smelled something “mysteriously evocative,”  plum pudding.  Emile says he walked into the restaurant and was told by the waiter, who has come through the arch, that the last plum pudding has been ordered by another gentleman.  The gentleman turns out to be Fortgibu, who comes through the arch, gray at the temples, but still vigorous.  Julie says that it was just a coincidence, but Emile says that he shared the plum pudding again with Fortgibu, who thinks that their chance meeting after ten years means something and that life is very much like plum pudding.  He complains of feeling dizzy and again goes off into the shadows.  Emile tells Julie that it has been 27 years since his first encounter with Fortgibu and 17 since the second and both involved plum pudding.  Julie says she doesn’t know anyone named Fortgibu and suggests that Emile has made up the story.  A maid enters to announce the arrival of Monsieur Fortgibu and a very old and confused Fortgibu appears in the archway, asking for Roxanne who apparently lived before her death in the apartment above Julie’s.  Emile tells Fortgibu that he has met him three times in his life and at all three times plum pudding was present.  Fortgibu thinks that it might mean something, but it’s more likely the illusion of coherence.  He says that plum pudding is part of “a jumble of random fluctuations in an ocean of meaningless cosmic gibberish,” part of a “rich hotch-potch of abstruse symbology.”  At Julie’s invitation, he sits to join them for the plum pudding.

 The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter is about Charles Lamb and his sister Mary.  The time of the action is the late 1790s and early 1800s and for the set Nigro writes that, in addition to a punishment stocks with holes for wrists and ankles, “a few old chairs, one a rocker, and a sofa will do, and a cabinet with silverware.”  We hear the sound of a ticking clock as lights come up on Charles and Mary sitting by a fire.  In the upstage shadows we can see Mother, Father, Aunt Hetty, and Jane, all sitting.  Charles says that Coleridge told him that his wife is trying to kill him.  Mary tells Charles that she knows she is a terrible burden to him but she is very grateful that he did not put her in Bedlam.  She tells him that there is a witch in the parlor with them but Charles says they and the cat are the only ones in the parlor.  He leaves and lights come up on the others.  Father speaks of being a butler for old Mr. Salt, Mother wants the cat, Aunt Hetty has difficulty remembering a parrot’s name, Jane talks about ducks, and the conversation becomes a hodge-podge of humorous misunderstandings.  But we learn that Coleridge’s wife has given birth, although Mother insists that Coleridge cannot be the father because he couldn’t stop talking long enough to put it in her.  Frustrated, Mary throws a spoon at Jane and then more silverware at the other characters.  She grabs a carving knife and stabs Mother in the heart, twice, threatening Jane who runs out, bumping into the re-entering Lamb.  He takes the knife from Mary, and as the lights go to black we hear the sounds of moans and shrieks, a madhouse cacophony.

     The lights come up on Lamb visiting Mary who is in a straight jacket.  She asks if they are going to hang her, but Lamb tells her the verdict was lunacy and that she will stay in the madhouse until she is better and can be brought home.  Mary says she is sorry for hitting Father in the head with a fork but that putting a knife in Mother’s heart was the only joy she has felt.  Lamb says he remembers his own temporary insanity fondly and swears he will never leave Mary. As he goes off, lights go to black, madhouse cacophony again, then lights up on Lamb, slightly drunk, in the stocks speaking to Mary in the straight jacket.  He enacts a story about having dinner with Wordsworth, Keats, Haydon, and “old deaf Landseer,” to whom he shouts parts of their conversation.  Lamb talks of a “red blubbery fellow,” possibly “old Ritchie,” who, according to Lamb, describes himself as a controller of stamps.  Lamb concludes his story by telling Mary that they are a pair that the world has never seen, she in a straight jacket for madness and he in the stocks for public drunkenness.  The light fades, allowing Lamb and Mary to go off stage where she gets quickly out of her straight jacket and runs back onstage carrying a package of books of Tales from Shakespeare, the book she and her brother wrote together.  They see that her name has been left off the title page.  Charles is angry and wants to punch Godwin, but Mary urges him to let it go and take a copy to Hazlitt, stopping to have a drink with Coleridge.

     Lamb asks Coleridge to stop wailing and Mary comes in asking if a crowd has died in the parlor.  Coleridge says that Wordsworth has broken with him and wishes he had married a woman like Mary.  She suggests he write to Wordsworth and to his wife.  Coleridge complains of the man from Porlock who knocked on the door as Coleridge was writing down his masterpiece about Kubla Khan.  When Mary says he must face his demons like everyone else, Coleridge leaves.  Lights fade and come up on Mary and the upstage group.  Mary says she is haunted by the fear that she will be ill again.  Mother wants the cat and asks Mary if she also murdered Aunt Hetty.  Aunt Hetty says she is right there, and Mary tells Mother that she had a nightmare that Mother had come back from the dead to ask her questions, like an oral examination at a university.  Mother then fires a series of questions that Mary answers, after which Mother tells Father that she had carnal relations with Old Salt every Friday for seventeen years.  Lamb, from the darkness, asks Mary whom she is speaking to, and the light changes so that the others are in the shadows.  But the voices upstage keep talking to Mary and she tells Lamb that she has to go back to the madhouse, that they will walk along the street on Christmas Day and pretend that they are sane.  The ghost people watch them go and Mother, after wishing them Merry Christmas, calls for the cat as the lights fade out.

Barbary Fox (3m, 3w), the most recent addition to the Pendragon cycle, takes place during the last decades of the 19^th century and the first decades of the 20^th in Armitage, Pendragon County, Ohio.  The unit set represents two houses and the yard between them created by a framework of a ruined gazebo and fragments of old houses with DR an old upright piano and bench, DRC a bed, and DL a round wooden table with chairs.  There are two window frames UL and UR, a door frame L, an old sofa C with a broken grandfather clock behind it, and old cabinet with liquor LC, and an old lion-footed bathtub on a platform URC.  The action moves back and forth in time and space continuously, and the actors enter and exit or remain in character on stage when not involved in a scene.  In darkness we hear the sound of whippoorwills and then, as lights come up, Magenta, wife of Silas Quiller, playing Faure’s Sicilienne on a slightly out-of-tune piano.  Barbary Fox is on the bed DR; Bert Astor, her husband, stands looking downstage from the UR window frame; Gretchen, Barbary’s daughter, is sitting on the sofa C; Silas stands by the liquor cabinet; and Rem Astor, Barbary’s uncle, is drinking at the DL table.  As Rem, drunk, talks to Barbary at a time when she was a child, Barbary tells Gretchen about her life as a child in the house when her uncle would lock her in the fruit cellar to prevent her from going to the carnival.  She says she sat on an old cot in the fruit cellar and read from a trunk full of old books.  Gretchen speaks of Barbary and Rem speaks to Barbary as a child, creating a counterpoint of past and present.  Gretchen tells us that she married Clyde Quiller, her next door neighbor, although his younger brother Con was so handsome that he gave her bad dreams.  Margaret, the sister of Clyde and Con, was Gretchen’s best friend and their father Silas was the best friend of Gretchen’s father, Bert.  When Silas asks Magenta why she keeps playing the piano, she asks him if he has been next door again.  She wonders why Bert, their next-door neighbor, married “that wretched girl from the dump.”  As Magenta boasts of her heritage, Rem speaks again to Barbary as a child.

     Gretchen tells us that her mother Barbary was haunted by the sound of whippoorwills and memories of being raised by her uncle Rem.  Barbary and Rem speak of their reactions to birds and then speak to each other about why he locks her in the fruit cellar.  He tells her not to let people know how smart she is.  We heat the sound of a grandfather clock ticking loudly, and Magenta, who has moved to the sofa, tells us that when she was a little girl she would lie in bed and listen to the owls and the clock.  Barbary says that when she was fourteen she hated men for the way they looked at her and talked about her behind her back.  She hoped that one day somebody would take her to see the ocean where she would wash away her sins.  Gretchen, in a sudden shift to a much later time, asks Magenta why she married Silas.  Magenta tells her that she can’t remember, that no sane person wants to be touched by any other person.  Barbary tells us that she made “an arrangement” with Rem’s two sons, Lemuel and Dobbs, to let her out of the cellar at night.  Gretchen confesses that she takes small objects from stores and from people’s houses and hides them in a box in her closet.

     We hear crickets as the lights create a night effect and Rem asks Barbary if she wants to hear a bedtime story.  She doesn’t but Rem tells her about a girl who sneaked out of her house at night and got eaten by pigs.  When Barbary tells Rem to leave her alone, Bert, at a later time, tells her that he can’t leave her alone.  He says he wants to marry her so that no one else will ever touch her.  When Barbary refers to herself as the town slut, Bert says he doesn’t “give a rat’s ass.”  The scene ends as Rem, from another time and place, tells Barbary she doesn’t know anything about love, and Magenta talks of “two damned fools” who tried to put up a lightning rod on the roof during a thunderstorm and got hit and killed by lightning.

     Gretchen, sitting at the table and illustrating the family history with glasses, tells us about two houses, side by side, with eight people living in them.  She married a Clyde who was not her brother, and her friend Margaret married the Clyde who was not her brother, and the women moved into each other’s house.  Gretchen says she is trapped in the house with her late husband’s insane piano-playing mother and that her life is desperately stupid because she killed her own mother.  Barbary, in a scene from the past, tells Gretchen that men can’t be trusted.  When Bert calls to Gretchen to come to him, she says she is taking a bath.

     Bert and Silas, drinking, talk about Silas’ desire for Barbary.  Bert says Silas hasn’t slept with her because of friendship; he tells Silas that he has permission to sleep with Barbary as long as Bert can sleep with Magenta.  Magenta tells Silas that she knows he wants Barbary.  When Silas says that Bert has a crush on Magenta, she asks him why he built a house next door for Bert and gave him a job managing the cheese factory.  She thinks Silas must have done something awful that Bert knows about.  Rem then talks about repairing a broken old doll and Barbary tells us about going back to the deserted house where she grew up and going down into the fruit cellar.  She names some of the books she read there and tells Gretchen that her sister Eva ran off with a knife thrower from the carnival and their cousins Lemuel and Dobbs went after her and were never seen again.

     Rem tells Barbary that her parents, Rem’s brother and his wife Tootsie, died in a bizarre accident when the wagon Rem’s brother was driving turned over in a rainstorm and crashed into a ravine.  Gretchen tells Silas that she has seen him coming out of her house when her father Bert is not there.  Silas tells her that his son Clyde has a crush on her.  The action shifts to Rem telling Barbary that people look down on them because they live on Shite Creek by the dump and the fireworks factory and the chicken plucking plant.  He says that the fruit cellar is the center of God’s brain.  Rem then tells Bert that he cannot marry Barbary, that she is not for sale.  He threatens Bert with a gun and tells Barbary that she doesn’t know what love is.

     When Magenta asks what happened to Silas, Bert says that he could forget about killing people but that Silas couldn’t.  Gretchen, from another time and place, says that she and Margaret look out their windows at each other, Margaret looking at the house where Gretchen is trapped with Margaret’s mother, and Gretchen looking at the house where she killed her own mother.  Bert tells Barbary a story about giving Lemuel and Dobbs money to kill their father, Rem, and, from the past, Rem gives Barbary a jewelry box he says belonged to the mother.  Barbary asks Silas what happened with Bert when the two of them were riding the rails and living in hobo jungles, and Silas tells her to take her daughter Gretchen and run away.  He says she knows what Bert is capable of.  Barbary tells Gretchen she knows what her father is doing to her and tells Bert that if he touches Gretchen again she will kill him.

     Gretchen tells us she should have run away, but now she is trapped forever.  Rem tells us he found Barbary holding her sister Eva after the wagon crashed and killed their parents.  Gretchen says she found Barbary in the bathtub with her throat cut and the razor in her hand.  Magenta wonders why two grown men (Silas and Bert) were putting up lightning rods during a thunderstorm.  She says they were both fried like bacon.  Barbary tells Magenta that she is not sleeping with Silas, and Magenta tells us that she went into the bathroom while Barbary was taking a bath and pushed her, causing her to fall and hit her head.  Magenta then took the razor and cut Barbary’s throat.  Magenta plays “Sicilienne” again as the lights fade and go out.  Playing stops.  Whippoorwills in darkness.

The set for Babylon is a room “in an old white house” with a big desk, some chairs, and several doors.  The five actors wear dark suits and are named Abe, Rummy, Karl, Georgy, and Dick.  Rummy is sitting at the desk, rubber-stamping pieces of paper, as Abe enters saying he needs to see Georgy.  Rummy offers to help but Abe says he has some concerns about the way things are going, that innocent women and children are being killed.  Rummy says they never should have gone after Georgy’s Dad and calls Sam a fucking psychopath.  He tells Abe not to shit on the carpet and resumes stamping as Karl enters to say that Georgy is coming.  Georgy shakes hands with Abe; Rummy tells Georgy that he is doing a terrific job, and Karl takes Georgy out of the room.  Abe repeats his desire to talk in private with Georgy and Rummy uses the intercom to ask for Dick.  Karl returns with a golf ball for Abe (a gift from Georgy) and Georgy comes back looking for a bathroom, saying that he hasn’t seen Abe for a long time.  Karl goes with Georgy so he won’t get lost on the way to the bathroom.  Dick enters wearing dark glasses and holding a cane.  He sits where there isn’t a chair and falls on his ass.  Rummy moves a chair toward Dick as Dick tells Abe that he really isn’t one of their group.  Georgy comes in, lost again, but Karl takes him out for a meeting.  Dick tells Abe that if he really wants to talk with Georgy he should sit next to him that evening at the theatre.  Dick orders Rummy to give Abe his tickets.  After Abe leaves, Dick tells Rummy that he is going to use Georgy’s tickets and take care of the situation with Abe.  Georgy returns, is told the meeting is over, and says he has been having nightmares.  Dick tells him he should not go to the theatre.  Georgy gives him his tickets and Karl comes in to take Georgy home.  When Rummy tells Dick to enjoy the show, Dick responds, “Rummy, I am the show.”

     Three men and one woman comprise the cast of Grand Cayman, a one-act in which the beach is represented by three deck chairs and a hotel room by two doors and, probably, a bed and at least one chair.  We hear the sound of the ocean as lights come up on Murphy and Antonelli on the deck chairs wearing business suits.  They chat about the sun and rain and Ireland and money and lizards and pirates and about the man they have been sent to deal with.  Mary, in a bikini, sits in the middle chair, telling them that they have some very serious, potentially dangerous, business on their minds.  She says she knows they have been watching the man she is with.  Murphy, over Antonelli’s objections, explains his theory that God is Popeye the Sailor.  She asks them if they have been paid to kill somebody.  She wonders if one of them would kill the other if he were offered an obscene amount of money.  Antonelli puts a hand around Mary’s neck and asks what she wants.  Mary says that when she was in the mental hospital she met a girl named Mary who told her everything about her life, including two friends of hers who were tough guys.  Mary in the bathing suit says she knew about a man who had stolen large sums of money and put them in a private account in the Caribbean, and so she sent a check to hire the two tough guys to help her get her hands on the money.  She says the man they have been following wants to see them.  She says they are to make him tell where the money is and how to get it and then kill him and the three of them will split the money.  She takes the room key from her bikini bottom, gives it to Antonelli, and leaves.  The men are sure she is not in her right mind but agree that she looks like a Mary they used to know.

     As light fades on them we hear the sound of waves then a key turning in a lock.  An upstage door opens as dim light streams into the hotel room.  Leo tells the men, thinking they are room service bringing him clams, to come in and close the door.  Another door opens and Mary comes out in a bathrobe with her hair in a towel.  She turns on a lamp and we see Leo, half patrician, half gangster.  He tells Murphy and Antonelli that they are nothing, dog shit under his mucklucks.  Mary says that Leo is a very great writer and producer who writes under thirty-seven different pseudonyms and has suffered a stroke.  Leo asks the men if they came to kill him and says all they want is the seven billion dollars he has in the bank.  The three men drink and Leo offers Mary two million dollars to get naked.  She goes into the bathroom, slamming the door.  Leo offers Murphy and Antonelli seventy-eight thousand dollars to go in the bathroom and kill Mary.  Leo talks of Jack Kennedy and the effect of high-fructose corn syrup on the intelligence of children.  He says he has seven billion dollars in a tax-free account, but when he says he boinked Martha Washington in the rotunda, Antonelli wants to leave.  Leo tells them the story of a movie with two guys who come to a tropical island looking for an obscene amount of money without realizing they are in a trap.  Antonelli says that this is about Mary and Murphy, feeling dizzy, wonders what she put in their drinks.  Antonelli staggers into the door and asks Leo who he is, to which Leo responds, like Popeye, “I YAM WHAT I YAM,”  and orders the lights to be cut.  Blackout.