Predicament

 

By Alex P.

A one-act play of little play.

 

 

 

Characters:

EAR
MOUTH
EYE
NOSE
BECKETT
ALEX P.

 

Black stage and background. Blackground. Medium light.
EAR hovers from left. Stops roughly in the middle.
Long pause.
MOUTH hovers from right. Bumps into EAR. Backtracks. Stops roughly in the middle, beside EAR. Longer pause.

 

EAR: Hello. [Pause.] I am ear!

MOUTH: Hello. [Pause.] I am mouth! [Long pause.] How come, you talk?

[Pause.]

EAR: How come, you expect to hear my unutterable answer?

[Pause.]

MOUTH: What?

EAR: My unutterable answer!

MOUTH: What about it?

EAR: You expect to hear it!

MOUTH: Yes.

[Pause.]

EAR: Well?

MOUTH: I heard nothing.

EAR: I said nothing.

MOUTH: Then I heard everything.


[Long pause.]

MOUTH: Let us agree on our disadvantageous predicament.

EAR: Indeed. [Pause.] Agreed.

MOUTH: Let us say, [Interrupted by EAR.]

EAR: Only you can say.

MOUTH: Let us say, Shh!... Let us say you can speak.

EAR: And you can hear?

MOUTH: Through the mouth.

EAR: And I utter through the ear? [Pause.] Well?

MOUTH: I heard nothing.

EAR: I said nothing.

MOUTH: Then I heard one hundred percent of what you said.

[Long pause.]

EAR: Let us agree that I can speak and you can hear.

MOUTH: Only when we are both here.

EAR: [Cheers.] Hear-hear!

MOUTH: I heard something.

EAR: I said something.

MOUTH: Then I understand our little play.

[Long pause.]

EAR: What is like to be a mouth?

[Pause.]

MOUTH: I know of nothing else. Constantly inclined to speak. Dependent on ear to listen myself. Otherwise voice too bass-y.

EAR: How do you know?

MOUTH: Ear informs me.

EAR: I am Ear! I don’t speak unless we agree to play.

MOUTH: Then I don’t understand our little play.

[Pause.]

EAR: Neither do I.

[ EYE drops suddenly from above, hovering right, beside mouth.]

EYE: What?

EAR, MOUTH: Not a thing!

EYE: I heard Neither do Eye. I am Eye. Neither do I what?

EAR: I am I. I said Neither do I. I, not eye.

EYE: Yes. Eye. I Eye.

EAR: [Furiously.] No! I I.

MOUTH: Hang on, I I too.

[Long pause... Loud, extensive fart! ...Pause. NOSE drops suddenly from above, hovering left, beside EAR.]

NOSE: Something stinks.

[ BECKETT’s inanimate face appears slowly from above, centre, and hovers above everymember.]

BECKETT: Not I. This play. [Pause.]

[ALEX P. enters sluggishly from hatch, left. Crawls on belly, laboriously, stops, in the middle. Panting. Naked.]

ALEX P.: I am sorry. [Pause.] And for giving you words. [Pause.] I, too, try to earn the right to shut up.

BECKETT: I heard nothing.

ALEX P.: But I said something. [Turns, faces audience... Very long pause.]

 

[Rolls of toilet paper fall,
substituting CURTAIN.]