Tag Archives: xenomorph

question: what is the future of tarot card reading?

20 Thursday Oct 2022

Posted by in Illustration and art, Tarot

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We live in a golden age of Tarot; there are more decks and books about Tarot in circulation than ever before. Much like the allure of paper books over PDF files, we humans love our tactile experiences and it’s hard to imagine what sort of future technology might one day replace good ol’ fashion laminated playing cards.

The only thing I am certain of is that trying to do a spread in Zero-G will bring with it new sets of challenges. I can only speak for myself but these are the sorts of problems that I rarely lose any sleep over … rarely.

Whatever the future of Tarot holds, it will be fabulous.

sex mad roar

01 Sunday Jun 2014

Posted by in drama, Illustration and art

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blitzkrieg she bop

Blitzkrieg She-Bop & Love among the Ruins

The city will fizzle in the night, so vacant
I’m tryin’ to hear you talk …
I’m dyin’ to see you walking around me
the soundtrack to the city is exposed …
— The Clash, Sex Mad Roar (1985)

[The action takes place on a sweltering night in an attic on the High Street, Bethnal Green, at the height of the Luftwaffe Night Terror, in late April 1941. The room functions as a bedroom, with its ceiling sloping down at the back to within a few feet of the floor. There is a dormer window in a recess at back, its glass blacked out. A door stands at right center, bed left of window, bureau down right. The room is in terrible disorder and chaos, with something not of human design hiding in the shadows. The walls are covered in a strange encrusted material, vaguely resembling the chambered nest of a mud wasp, but on a much grander scale]

[LYSSK is discovered hanging upside down among the alien-encrustations as the curtain rises, snoring gently. She is a Xenomorph, powerfully built, one hundred and twenty-four years old]

[TSU XI TSU enters, lighting a candle on the bureau. She is a melancholy-looking woman of thirty-seven. She speaks with a Chinese-Yorkshrie accent; marking the two sides of her heritage]

LYSSK [Still upside down, yawning groggily]:
Tsu Xi Tsu, is that you?

TSU XI TSU:
Ah dint mean ta wake theur up. Nip on back ta sleep.

LYSSK:
I haven’t been asleep. What time is it?

TSU XI TSU [Takes off jacket]:
Abaht fowa o’clock.

LYSSK:
You’re late.

TSU XI TSU [Takes off shirt, scratching under her bra]:
Ah ‘ed ta walk fra uptown.

LYSSK:
How far uptown?

TSU XI TSU [Sighs]:
Way up tarn. ah let um sailors shake uz li’ eur dingy. [She sits in chair at foot of bed and fans herself] Ah dint av sense enuff ta gerr cab fare. Phaw! Theur dooant realize ‘a mafted theur are while theur sit daahn.

LYSSK:
Poor darling.

TSU XI TSU:
It’s onny April bur theur mun av ‘ed t’ gas lit ta mek it as mafted as dis i’ ‘eear. Ah’m sa glad ta gerr ‘ooam.

LYSSK [Drops to the floor, standing near her; a towering presence]:
You didn’t bring anything?

TSU XI TSU:
Not eur red cent, Lyssk. [Gets up and goes to bureau] Ah doun’t kna li’ what’s t’ matta wi’ uz. [Looks in the mirror] It’s ‘a’ darn ‘erpes sooar. If ah ‘ed onny ‘ed sense enuff ta gerr um camphor afowa ah went art.

LYSSK:
But isn’t it healing nicely? I can’t notice it any more.

TSU XI TSU:
O’ course it’s perfectly well. Theear won’t be eur trace o’ it tomorra. Ah shouldn’t ta av tried ta nip on art those twoa days t’ fust o’ t’ week when it wor sa bad. Everybody wor afraid o’ uz ‘n it made uz feel li’ eur lepa. Ah lost uz grip i’ um way ‘n naw ah can’t gerr it back. It orl depends on yursen. [Picks up the candle] If thas sure o’ yursen theur av luck; if theur aren’t, theur dooant. That’s orl ther’s ta it. [Crosses with the candle, which she puts down on the headboard of the bed] If i’d ‘ed eur lahl bit o’ t’ met t’neet i’d av getten um brass arta’ crowd. [Sits at the foot of the bed] Bur cocaine doesn’t brace uz up anymooar.

LYSSK:
Yes, I know.

TSU XI TSU:
Poor owd lass. Av theur bin liggin’ ‘eear orl neet i’ dis ‘ea’ waitin for uz? It’s ‘ard jouce on theur, Lyssk. Ah thowt i’d nip on sixes ‘n sevens t’neet! Uz nerves are just orl ta pieces. Ah did think ah wor goan gerr um brass dis tahhm.

LYSSK [Moves over to a mattress on the floor, half of which is covered in LYSSK’S encrustation-secretion]:
Why don’t you take your clothes off and come to bed?

TSU XI TSU [Gets up and takes a small bag out of her jacket]:
Ah caught dis for theur, onnyrooad. ‘Eear. [As she throws the bag it makes a rat-like squeal. There is clearly something alive inside]

LYSSK [Catching it, hissing happily to herself; a shrill noise, laughter made from fingernails running down a blackboard]:
Yum! Ta!

TSU XI TSU:
Lyssk, ah wish theur wouldn’t ‘iss li’ ‘a’, it’s inhuman. [Goes over to the bureau] Ah suppose theur can’t ‘elp it, bur it gives uz t’ creeps. [She begins to undress]

LYSSK [Wanders over to a dark corner of the room to eat in privacy]:
All right, darling. [Sounds of sloppy munching. Finally the Xenomorph drops the bloody bag on the floor and turns around, wiping her mouth] Do you want the last of the black meat?

TSU XI TSU [Undressing]:
Neya, it doesn’t matta. Ah’m just nervous ‘n irritable. Dooant pay enny attention ta owt assez. If ah dooant gerr um brass tomorra ah just doun’t kna li’ wha’ ahl doa. It’s terrible ta be sa dependent on owt as ‘a’.

LYSSK [Lies down on the mattress and stretches out one leg, inspecting her claws]:
Four days.

TSU XI TSU:
Neya, tonight’s ‘Aturday.

LYSSK:
That’s four days, isn’t it? We finished up that last package Tuesday night. I remember because it was the last time that they dropped bombs on Bethnal Green.

[As if on cue distant air raid sirens start up. They wail in the distance for a long moment while the two listen if they can hear the noise of approaching enemy bombers. Nothing. Unless noted the sirens continue throughout the rest of the play, faint background noise, like radio static or distant traffic, all that makes up an aural landscape of the city]

TSU XI TSU [Shaking her head as if from a dream, walks naked over to the bed, looking down at her lover]:
That’s reet. Ah wouldn’t av believed ah could nip on sa long. Ah dooant see ‘a theur stan’ it, Lyssk, orl neet li’ dis, doin nowt.

LYSSK:
It’s not like I can just go wandering down High Street any time I choose. Don’t worry about me. I can go for a while without the black meat … at least I think so.

TSU XI TSU [Attempts to pull a kimono off the chair, but finds it glued to the surface by LYSSK’S pear-translucent secretions]:
Ah cunt. [Gives up on the kimono and sits down in the chair, taking a cigarette from a package on the floor] Bur then i’ve bin usin it sa much longa than theur av. [Lights cigarette off the candle]

LYSSK [Curling into a fetal ball, stretching out one arm, inviting her lover to join her]:
I had been using it for some time, too, you know; a month or so after we met last summer.

TSU XI TSU:
Ta think. [Clambers into bed, careful not to spill ash, curls between LYSSK’S limbs as if the war-like Xenomorph was nothing more than a giant pillow] Onny eur year usin t’ flesh o’ t’ ‘iant black ‘entipede. Ah wonda wha’ ‘ood av become o’ theur if ah ‘adn’t fahn’ theur?

LYSSK [Running long talons through TSU XI TSU’S hair like a comb]:
What becomes of any queen who gets kicked out of her hive and has nowhere to go? I don’t like thinking about it.

TSU XI TSU:
That’s t’ trouble wi’ theur bugs. Theur are browt up wi’ onny ‘un idea — toa lay eggs ‘n fight — an’ if owt does ap’n ta thee then thas not able ta doa owt else. Thas onny ‘un ‘undred ‘n twenty-four, ‘n thas done.

LYSSK:
I’ll be one hundred and twenty-four in October, I think.

TSU XI TSU:
Lut, you’re fowa times ahda than uz ‘n it still mecs uz feel sa ancient. That’s ‘a theur stan’ t’ streeam t’ way theur doa. Theur are as firm ‘n strong as theur ivva wor, bur skeg a’ uz!

LYSSK:
I would if I could. But I can smell you, taste you and feel your molecules shift ever so slightly each time we make love. I know every micron of you, every fiber.

TSU XI TSU [Stubs out her cigarette and tosses the butt across the room]:
Ah feel sa owd, ‘n jiggered, ‘n discouraged, Lyssk. If ah dint av theur ah dooant think i’d gue on wi’ it.

LYSSK [Tightens her arm about her]:
I will always be with you. You know that, don’t you? Always.

TSU XI TSU:
Ah nivva thowt o’ thy leavin uz. [She puts her free arm up about her lover’s queer, oblong head and strokes the blank part of her skull where her eyes would be had she been human] Ah love theur sa much, Lyssk. Ah love theur mooar than anybody else will ivva love theur if theur li’ ta be eur thousan’ years owd.

LYSSK [Starts her horrible shrill laugh a second time; then quickly remembers how much TSU XI TSU hates it]:
Oh, um, sorry.

TSU XI TSU:
Ahl allus love theur. Bur thas li’ eur babby. Can’t nip on ahtside. Can’t feed yursen. Can’t even fettle sa we can buy wee mooar black met. [She snuggles up to her and presses her cheek to her. The two listen to the endless air raid sirens for a long moment, possibly in the distance is the throb and thrum of German bombers crossing the Channel, but it is impossible to be certain] Lyssk?

LYSSK: Yes?

TSU XI TSU [In a whisper]:
Uz darlin. [She gathers her courage. Long pause]

LYSSK:
Tired, lover?

TSU XI TSU:
Neya, not naw. Ah gerr strength fra theur. Thars getten plenty o’ strength for both o’ wee, ant theur? eh?

LYSSK:
It’s queer that someone like you would want to shack up with a monster like me.

TSU XI TSU:
Aye, you’ve sez ‘a’ afowa ‘n ah keep sayin’ —

BOTH:
“You’re neya monsta.”

LYSSK:
I know, but before I found you I was so alone.

TSU XI TSU:
Theur wor driftin thru orl ‘a’. [Waves hand at ceiling to indicate the rest of the universe] T’ cosmos, or whateva it is theur called it. Driftin, asleep, for thousands o’ years. O’ course theur wor a sen.

LYSSK:
And now I have you, darling. I may be nothing but a bio-mechanical killing machine, but none of that matters if I have your love.

TSU XI TSU:
Thee seh wee love won’t pay t’ rent. I’ve towd theur orl abaht missen. Ah did fettle ont’ Evenin ‘Un i’ Tangia, ‘n afowa ‘a’ ah used ta li’ on eur farm i’ Interzone. That’s orl ther’s.

LYSSK:
That’s fine. I don’t want you to tell me anything that you don’t want to. [Moves her position slightly] Are you all comfortable?

TSU XI TSU:
Aye, uz love. [Pause] Ah av summa’ ah need ta call ta thee abaht. Wi’ve eur problem.

LYSSK:
We have many problems, lover.

TSU XI TSU:
Ah kna we doa, ‘n yet ah can lie ‘eear li’ dis ‘n it doesn’t seem possible ‘a’ ther’s such eur thin as trouble int’ world. It is sa serene ta lie still, ‘n av theur strokin uz ‘air. Ah dooant want ivva ta move agin. Ah can feel thy ‘eart lampin. Does thee feel ‘a much fasta mine is gonneur than thy’n?

LYSSK [cupping one of TSU XI TSU’S breasts]:
Yes. Yes, I can.

[The sound of distant bombing is heard]

TSU XI TSU:
T’ bombs soun’ li’ eur spirit ‘a’ can’t rest. T’ spirit o’ t’ city gonneur made, ‘a’ goes on burnin ‘n burnin ‘n will nivva gi’o’a, neya matta wha’ becomes o’ theur ‘n uz. Bur when ah’m liggin’ close ta thee li’ dis, touchin theur, ther’s eur soarts o’ electric current ‘a’ radiates fra theur orl o’a ‘cos thas sa ali’. Wha’ wor ah goan seh? Wha’ wor ah callin abaht?

LYSSK:
The end of days? The beginning of love?

TSU XI TSU:
Aye. Ah wor goan seh while ah’m liggin’ close ta thee li’ dis it orl seems sa far away, doesn’t it? It is li’ liggin’ i’ bed ‘n listenin teur t’ clouds. Theear may be deyth ‘n storms ‘n fallin bombs art theear, bur they’re far away. They’re li’ t’ clouds. Thee can nivva touch wee.

LYSSK:
I wished we could get some raw, dripping black meat and forget out troubles for at least a night.

TSU XI TSU:
‘Oor beautiful Lyssk. [Sits up and moves to the side of the bed, finds a cigarette and lights it] Ah tell theur ‘a’ ah thowt ah ‘ood nip on sixes ‘n sevens tonight; ah ant gorreur nerve gallock i’ uz body. Ah woontad ta kna wha’ theur wor doin. Ah thowt orl sorts o’ dingy things. Ah could picture theur gerrin desperate ‘n nip on ea’ someone, somewheear, ‘n t’ police ‘ood ‘unt theur ‘n pur theur i’ eur zooa, or ‘appen doa experiments on theur, ah doun’t kna li’ wha’. Ah could av getten um stuff t’neet, a’ ‘a’.

LYSSK:
What do you mean? How? Who?

TSU XI TSU:
T’ landlut. ‘E wor waitin for uz ont’ stairs.

LYSSK:
Him? Does he still think you live alone? Why would he even mention it when he knows how broke we are? We owe him two weeks rent.

TSU XI TSU:
Neya, ‘e sez ‘e knew eur way sa ah could gerr um.

LYSSK:
What do you mean, darling?

TSU XI TSU:
Theur norrz.

LYSSK:
Do you mean to tell me that man has been soliciting for your favors again? [She hisses softly, her terrible segmented tail twitching violently] I knew something was the matter. Did you … what did you tell him?

TSU XI TSU:
Ah towd ‘im ta fuk off. Wha’ does thee think ah towd ‘im? Ah sez ah wor off t’ rubbish.

LYSSK [uncurls herself and places one of her giant hands on TSU XI TSU’S naked back]:
O, Tsu Xi Tsu. You feel so warm and I am suddenly so cold.

TSU XI TSU:
Well, ah dint want it sa bad, then.

LYSSK [desperate]:
If we had any other place that we could go, I would have got out of this house the night you told me he first came up here and bothered you. But how can we? We don’t have a pound to deposit on a new room. I suppose he knows all that.

TSU XI TSU:
Aye. [Looking around the room with a touch of humor] ‘N when t’ owd clart noggin finally sees wha’ theur did ta ‘is walls ah suspect we won’t gerr wee deposit back. That’s wha’ ah getten ta call ta thee abaht. ‘E’s goan kick wee art.

LYSSK:
“Kick us out”?

TSU XI TSU:
That’s wha’ ‘e sez. Unless–

LYSSK:
Unless what?

TSU XI TSU:
Well … theur norrz. We need eur place ta sleep. Eur place for theur ta ‘ide. Theur see —

LYSSK [Sitting up suddenly, tall and terrible in the shadows]:
What are you talking about?

TSU XI TSU:
Ah think t’ owd bloke will let wee stay if ‘e gets wha’ ‘e wants. ‘E cum up ‘eear ‘n made eur gurt fuss o’a uz ‘n sez ‘a’ ‘e wor mafted on uz ‘n orl ‘a’ rubbish, ‘n ah sin wor stayin a’ ‘is ‘ouse wiyaa’ eur ‘usban’ or eur guardian ‘n not payin rent ‘n it’s t’ war … ‘e sez ‘a’ if ah wor tooa gran’ for ‘im i’d av ta gerr art o’ ‘is ‘ouse, that’s orl. ‘A’ wor afta ‘e offered uz t’ black met.

LYSSK:
Tsu Xi; am I going mad or did you just suggest sleeping with our landlord in exchange for rent?

TSU XI TSU:
‘Appen, theur mean?

LYSSK:
Never let me hear that again. You don’t do that anymore.

TSU XI TSU:
Ah av uz job, don’t ah?

LYSSK:
You work as a hostess in a bar in Soho. That’s completely a different matter. Don’t ever let me hear yu suggest that again, do you understand? I would sooner crack his skull and eat his brains than let him touch you. [Now it’s LYSSK’S turn to angrily get up and cross over to the bureau] By the Lady of the Hive, it’s hot in here!

TSU XI TSU [Walks over behind LYSSK. The height difference is in stark comparison, the Xenomorph’s 7 feet to the human’s 5’3”. TSU XI TSU puts her arms around her lover as far as they can go]:
Darlin, wi’ve ta li’. Wi’ve ta doa summa’. Everee neet we meight dee if eur Kraut bomb falls on wee. Wi’ve neya brass ‘n ah don’t kna ‘a ta gerr enny. If we can’t gerr on … t’ way we bin gerrin on … then ah av ta doa summa’, theur understan’? [Reaches up and pulls LYSSK’S head down to her mouth. A long kiss] Ah don’t care wha’ ah av ta doa, bur ah’m not goan lose theur.

LYSSK:
You’re not going to lose me.

TSU XI TSU:
Oa? Theur gurt dummy. Wha’ does thee think will ap’n t’ moa anyone else i’ orl o’ London village sees theur? If thee don’t shoot theur they’ll pur theur i’ eur zooa ‘n doa experiments on theur. Theur towd uz it yursen. Owt for Churchill’s war effoarts. T’ onny way ah can protect theur is ta keep theur ‘idden ‘n ah can’t doa ‘a’ if we gerr kicked art ontoa t’ street.

LYSSK:
Of course we’ve got to do something. But you don’t understand what you are saying. If it were the last night we’d ever spend under a roof it wouldn’t change my decision.

TSU XI TSU [returning to the bed]:
Then, by Lut, it luks li’ it is t’ last neet, wi’ t’ jouce ah’m avin. [She sits and leans her chin on her right hand, gazing at the candle] If ah wor able ta doa enny kin’ o’ fettle it’d be different. Bur ah don’t kna ‘a ta doa owt else, ah guess. Ah couldn’t neya mooar stick ta enny kin’ o’ eur job than ah could drift thru space li’ theur did. Wea’ar up against it, that’s orl ‘n it’s fine ‘n noble ta call abaht uz ‘onor, whateva ‘a’ is, bur t’ day anyone finds theur, lova, it’s gem o’a.

LYSSK:
But Tsu Xi, love, you don’t understand. [Crosses to bed] Listen to me. [Cradles TSU XI TSU to her] You think that you know me, you think that because I told you how I escaped and got lost, how I drifted for almost a century, that you know me and that you love what you know. It isn’t your fault. But this is the way that I was made. I kill. That’s my primary goal in everything that I am supposed to do. But you changed that I don’t know how, but you did. I have so few ways to show you how much I love you because you are the clean part of me. You are the part that I live for. And you are sacred, do you understand? Holy.

TSU XI TSU [Still gazing at candle]:
Sure, ah understan’.

LYSSK:
Go on. Say that you love me. I love to hear you say it.

TSU XI TSU [resting her head against LYSSK’S massive breasts as if she were a baby]:
Ah love theur. ‘n ahl stick wi’ theur. Bur we getten ta li’, don’t we? We getten ta gerr um brass um way. ‘N if theur can’t gerr it, sa ah av ta. That’s if wea’ar goan stick togetha.

LYSSK:
No, you won’t have, Tsu Xi Tsu. I’d rather be dead. [Places her lover on the bed and stands] I’d rather go out into the street and let Nazi bombs kill me before I’ll see you do that. [Distant sound of bombs getting closer] That horrible old asshole. I think I’ll kill him. [Goes up into alcove and takes hold of the blacked out window as if she were about to open it and look outside. Thinks better of it and turns back toward the room]

TSU XI TSU [sympathetic]:
We getten ta, lova. Wea’ar up against it. Ah’m goan be jannock wi’ you; ‘a’ thin ‘a’ ah getten on uz gob isn’t goan gerr betta. If we gerr kicked art o’ ‘eear today, wha’ t’ ‘ell can we doa? sleep int’ park? Ah guess not. Not while ah gorreur way ta mek easy brass. Why, darlin, ah wish’t tha’d see t’ numba o’ ’em ‘a’ tries ta speyt ta uz everee tahhm ah nip on art. It’s easy, ah tell theur. ‘N ther’s gran’ brass i’ it. Ah dooant li’ ta call abaht it, bur we getten ta doa summa’. We can gerr eur gran’ roa somewheear ‘n keep eur lahl black met on ‘an’ orl t’ tahhm. Ah’m not goan leev theur bur ah need t’ rubbish, that’s orl. [Lies down on the bed and turns toward the wall] I’ve gone wiyaa’ it fowa days naw.

LYSSK: [comes down and sits as daintily next to her as she can]:
You are a strange woman. Can’t you see that you are the only thing I’ve left in this world and every other world we could ever visit?

TSU XI TSU:
Bur theur can’t tek uz away, can theur? You’re stuk ‘eear, li’ we’re stuk i’ London wi’ orl t’ world burnin afowa wee een.

LYSSK:
If I knew how to take you away, lover, I would. Now I just have to protect you.

TSU XI TSU:
Protect uz? Dooant theur understan’ ‘a’ ah saved theur when theur wor sa weyt theur couldn’t even move? ‘A’ theur belong ta uz? Ah saved theur fra dis reeight thin, ah suppose, eur year agoa. Dooant theur see, darlin’?

LYSSK:
There has to be a better way than this to live.

TSU XI TSU:
Neya.

LYSSK:
What do you mean by no?

TSU XI TSU:
Ah dooant see enny reason why we should li’.

LYSSK:
Why wouldn’t we want to live? What’s the point of being in love if you can’t live?

TSU XI TSU [Sits up and embraces her lover once more]:
Lyssk, uz darlin, listen ta uz. Thars bin eur wonderful lass, or relic, or whateva it is thy fowk call apiece otha, ‘n ah love theur as reeight few fowk av ivva bin loved i’ dis world. ‘Cos ah ‘ed lost everythin, theur see, when ah fahn’ theur, everythin. Ah ‘ed thrown everythin away. ‘N thars ‘ed ta be t’ whole world for uz sin. T’ whole world, theur see. Theear int owt else. When t’ black met getten uz ah just went daahn ‘cos ah dint care abaht owt. Ah gev up uz job ‘n just let missen slide. Ah intended ta kill missen when uz brass gev art, ‘n ah dint even care ‘a much ah ‘ed gallock. Then theur fell art o’ t’ sky ‘n orl ‘a’ changed.

LYSSK [Strokes TSU XI TSU’S hair]:
I remember.

TSU XI TSU:
Theur can’t rememba much. Ah can’t thoil ta think even naw ‘a theur wor bea’ up. Bur theur wor i’ sa much peeam theur didn’t even kna ‘a’ theur ‘ed crashed ta earth.

LYSSK:
That’s right. Free fall. There was that nightmare; I remember some horrible dream about smothering.

TSU XI TSU:
‘N sin then, Lyssk, wi’ve ‘ed eur wonderful tahhm. Does thee rememba when we used ta av ta sleep unda t’ temple? Ah love ‘a’ owd temple naw ‘cos it’s associated i’ uz min’ wi’ theur.

LYSSK:
It’s been the best year of my life.

TSU XI TSU:
“Ah mun nip on daahn teur t’ seas agin, teur t’ lonely seeur ‘n t’ sky, an’ orl ah ax is eur tall ship ‘n eur star ta stea ‘a by; an’ t’ wheel’s kick ‘n t’ wind’s song ‘n t’ whi’ sail’s shakin, an’ eur grey mist ont’ sea’s fyass, ‘n eur grey dawn breytin …”

LYSSK:
Er. What was that?

TSU XI TSU:
Seeur Feva, by ‘Ohn Masefield. Uz mutheur use ta read it ta uz when ah wor eur wee lass. I’ve bin listenin fert tide orl uz life, ‘n ah finally fahn’ it i’ theur. Wha’ does thee seh we nip on art wi’ it?

LYSSK:
What do you mean, “go out with the tide”?

TSU XI TSU:
Listen. [Sound of bombing getting very close]. Open t’ winda. Turn ont’ leet. Let’s gi’ t’ Krauts eur target.

LYSSK [Spins around, hissing in alarm]:
Tsu Xi Tsu! What are you saying? [Crouching down before her human lover, the Xenomorph looks as if she were peering into the other’s eyes.] No, not for me.

TSU XI TSU:
Lyssk, wi’ve ‘ed such eur wonderful tahhm. Wi’ve known everythin ther’s ta kna int’ world worth knowin. Wi’ve reached t’ top. Let’s let dis be t’ en’. ‘A can we survi’ togetha? Even if we don’t dee i’ an air raid, if t’ war is o’a wheear can we nip on? Whoa ‘ood let wee be togetha? Eur year is as long as eur lifetime if it is full o’ love.

LYSSK [Incredulously]:
Be serious.

TSU XI TSU [Gently]:
Ah nivva wor mooar serious i’ uz life. Ah can’t gue on wiyaa’ theur, ‘n ah won’t leev theur behin’ ta en’ up um experiment or slev. It’s theur ‘a’ ah love — the lahl strange spirit ‘a’ mecs theur lyssk, ‘n different ta everybody else ‘a’ ivva lived. T’ black met will kill ‘a’ i’ theur, i’ uz. If we’re goan destroy ‘a’ then let’s doa it soona than lata. Think! Dis may be t’ last neet we’ll ivva spen’ together — the last chance we’ll av. Turn ont’ lights. Open t’ winda. Neya tellin what’ll ap’n if we gerr ta see tomorra. Ah don’t ‘od on ta fyass it a sen.

LYSSK:
I am a warrior and a queen dethroned. If I don’t fall in battle then I don’t want to, darling.

TSU XI TSU:
Eur theur afraid ta dee?

LYSSK:
Afraid? No. It just goes against my need to survive.

TSU XI TSU:
Theur lost thy ‘i’. Theur lost thy fowk. Theur can’t feight. Theur can’t even nip on ahtside. Wha’ av theur getten ta li’ for?

LYSSK:
I’ve got you.

TSU XI TSU:
‘Abe, thars slipped. Thars slipped away furtha than ah thowt. Ah meight be gonneur parky turkey o’a t’ black met, bur thars slipped furtha than ah av.

LYSSK:
I’m not that bad off.

TSU XI TSU [panic-stricken, the sound of falling bombs very close now]:
Thas chuffin’ bad off, Lyssk. Dooant theur see ‘a’ thy life is finished? Warrior? ‘Ueen? Theur are nowt. Theur are less than nowt. Wha’ theur chuffin’ are is t’ onny alien thin on dis earth, ‘n ‘eear theur call calmly abaht … um vague ideeur abaht ‘onor. “Dee i’ battle”? Ther’s neya reason for theur ta gue on livin … except thy fear o’ deyth.

LYSSK:
I’m not afraid of dying … for the right reason.

TSU XI TSU [rising up, advancing to the blacked out window]:
‘Ell, let uz open t’ winda then, then. Ah’m not afraid. Skeg a’ uz. Think o’ t’ trouble it takes ta li’. Think o’ t’ effoarts ta keep yursen gonneur on ‘n on. When theur lose uz tha’il just slip ‘n slip. Thars getten ta dee int’ en’ anyha. ‘N when thas dead it won’t mek enny difference ta thee ‘a long theur lived. It will be just as if tha’d nivva bin burn.

LYSSK [Her head following TSU XI TSU’S every movement]:
I don’t understand you.

TSU XI TSU [Edging towards the window]:
Aye theur doa. Ah can’t fyass t’ dayleight, Lyssk, if you’re not i’ it wi’ uz. Ah’m tooa jiggered. Aren’t theur jiggered? Wha’ will become o’ theur wiyaa’ uz ta tek care o’ theur?

LYSSK [Helpless when faced with human rationalizations]:
I don’t know.

TSU XI TSU:
Let’s turn ont’ lights. Then we won’t av ta wake up int’ mornin. Theur ‘n uz but — maybe — bur ah think thas scared.

LYSSK [Makes a noise half way between a hiss and a sniff, curls back into her fetal position on the mattress, her tail swishing angrily]:
Have it your way. Open the windows.

TSU XI TSU [in an ecstatic whisper]:
Oa, Lyssk!

[TSU XI TSU opens the window, the sounds of the outside world suddenly very loud and then turns on the single, naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling. She then comes down on tiptoe, trembling; lies next to LYSSK. The room is garishly bright]

LYSSK:
Now what? How long do you think this will take?

TSU XI TSU:
Not long, ah think. Ah doun’t kna li’. Dooant let’s call abaht it. Lyssk, does thee think i’ve getten t’ reet ta tek theur wi’ uz?

LYSSK:
With you? Where?

TSU XI TSU:
Now — li’ dis. Bur ah couldn’t thoil for anybody else ta ‘urt theur, darlin.

LYSSK:
You’re trembling. Are you the one who is scared now?

TSU XI TSU:
Ah’m not scared. ah’m just ‘appy.

LYSSK:
Happy?

TSU XI TSU:
Ah thowt i’d lost theur, Lyssk.

LYSSK:
Um. [Very long pause during which nothing happens save the wail of air raid sirens and the drone of German engines getting louder and louder] I never thought killing me would take so long. Do you think they’ll find enough of us to figure out who we were?

TSU XI TSU:
Wha’ theur wor? Ah expect sa.

LYSSK [hissing one last time, more to herself]:
Won’t that give the boffins something to talk about? I suppose none of my sisters who survived will ever know what happened to me.

TSU XI TSU:
They’ll figure summa’ art. Please dooant let’s call abaht it.

[Another long pause. The German planes are right over head. Still no sounds of bombs dropping. From down on the street an outraged male voice: “Oi! Turn that bloody light out!”]

LYSSK:
Well, someone noticed.

TSU XI TSU:
Lyssk?

LYSSK:
Yes?

TSU XI TSU [in a whisper]:
Uz darlin’! [Long pause. The sound of planes is definitely heading away]

LYSSK [with a loud sigh]:
How incredibly thick are those pilots? Should I go onto the roof and start waving my hands and jumping up and down?

TSU XI TSU:
These raids gue on for ‘ours. If dis wev dunt see wee ah’m sure t’ next ‘un will. Oa, Lyssk, cum on back ‘eear. Wi’ve onny getten such eur lahl while.

[The sound of planes has completely disappeared. Sounds of distant outrage. Feet pounding up wooden stairs]

LYSSK:
From the sounds of it we’ve got the whole neighborhood coming to visit.

TSU XI TSU:
Fert Lurt’s sake, dooant open t’ door! I’m sure eur bomb will fall soon!

[The air raid sirens fall silent. Outrage on the other side of the door. A multitude of voices: “Ay yous insane?” “Turn Frank Bough that Isle Of Wight!” “’Re ya tryin’ ter get us killed?” “Tirn off dat lamp!” etc.]

LYSSK [raising herself up on one elbow to stare at the door]:
How ironic. It won’t be the Nazis that kill us, but our neighbors.

TSU XI TSU [Sits up in bed, truly terrified as more and more fists rain down upon the door. It trembles, about to be ripped off its hinges]:
Nah! Nah! Nah! This isn’t supposed ter ‘appun like this!

LYSSK [pulling her lover close, inhaling deeply of her scent]:
Love, love of my heart, listen. Do you trust me?

TSU XI TSU [In a panic, not sure what LYSSK is even saying]:
Trust yous? O’ cose, ay trust yous wi’ me loife.

LYSSK [Standing up, all 7 feet of her suddenly dark and threatening, her old warrior nature rising to the surface]:
Then sit right there, close your eyes and whatever happens, don’t move.

[LYSSK leaps to the ceiling, to hang upside down in the exact spot where she was sleeping when the play began. The ferocious babel of voices on the other side of the door reaches a pinnacle of indignation and then the door bursts open. Fearful, irate neighbors in night shirts, slips and bathrobes — normal people terrified that the lit, open window would allow their whole neighborhood to be fire bombed — burst in]

WOMAN WITH ROLLING PIN AND CURLERS:
Ah ya tryen ter get us killed?

MAN IN PURPLE DRESSING GOWN:
Wa woods ye dae sic’ a hin’? Ah hae a fowk in thes buildin’, ye ken.

FACTORY WORKER IN NIGHT SHIRT:
Oi don’t want ter die the-nite! Oi don’t want ter die any noight.

[By this time the crowd has moved into the center of the room. TSU XI TSU appears zombified, apparently staring into space as the multitude crowds in around her. In truth she is gazing in awe at LYSSK, still out of sight but watching every move the humans make]

TSU XI TSU:
I’m — I’m soz. Bur — bur —

[LYSSK drops from the ceiling, between the invaders and the door, trapping them in the small room. She rises to her full height — 7 feet — black-green as poison, clawed cable-like arms held out at her sides, her segmented tail whipping back and forth, her shiny smooth head moving into the light. The entire cast turns to stare at her, horror-struck, mesmerized.The Xenomorph takes one threatening step toward them, as if she could gather everything in the room up in her arms and devour them all]

LYSSK [Making her shrill laugh]:
I say, this is a terrible way to end things.

[CURTAIN]

the lover and the concubine

13 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by in drama

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another one-act play with many working parts …

][][

CHARACTERS:
THE LOVER: Possibly the Norse goddess Frigg, or perhaps simply Icelandic. She is somewhere in her late 40s to 50s. In a cruder, ruder time she would be considered a MILF, a Yummy Mummy, a Cougar; however those terms with all their baggage gets defined. Today she considers herself to be what healthy female eroticism looks like in a world that does not value either; though she is far from being healthy and rarely knows who or what, exactly, she is.

THE CONCUBINE: Senegalese, or perhaps Moroccan. A fey tomboy in her late teens. She is bewitched, besotted and bemused to find herself the object of lust to such an older, mad woman. She is at that age where, having her hormones run wild within her, she is discovering her moody, sassy side, a force of nature that she cannot always control.

THE EMPTY WINE-JAR VIRGIN: Nervy, pervy and with curves, she walks the earth with an empty old-fashion clay wine-jar (what the Romans would call an amphora) balanced upon her head for highly complicated personal reasons. In another time and place she would be one of the physical embodiments of the Yoruba lwa, MAMI WATA, a mermaid-like goddess who controls love, intimacy and fresh water. Unfortunately for her this is neither that time nor place.

HELEN KANE: (1904 – 1966) A popular American jazz singer in her day; her signature song was “I Wanna Be Loved By You.” Kane’s voice and appearance were a likely source for Fleischer Studio’s character, Betty Boop, although It-girl Clara Bow has also been credited as another possible influence.

THE CHORUS: Just as in the theater of ancient Greece, the Chorus is a group of performers full of gravitas and panache who comment with a collective voice upon the dramatic action going on. There are four female members to this one; all looking as identical as possible, wearing black clothing, white kid gloves and long fright-wigs of white hair. They appear as ghosts since none of the other characters can see, hear or interact with them. They all speak with over-wrought heavy brogues, and while their words and actions can be, at times, absurd, they present everything they do with a deadly seriousness, as if they really were in a classical Greek tragedy, which this, of course, is not.

][][

Setting:
A bathroom in an old Victorian-type sanitarium, perhaps set up in the 1800s to address ‘hysterical paroxysm’ in the female of the species. The stage consists of a line of shower-stalls, the sort that are nothing more than funny little privacy curtains that start around the shoulders and end at the knees, each with an old-fashion shower head dangling down above the stall. If it was the sort of bathroom to be haunted it would possess a waif-like melancholic Ophelia, hair in a shower-cap, complaining of her wandering womb trying to seek its proper place. Everything feels slightly dank and out of focus. The unnerving sound of water dripping on cracked tile off-stage is combined with the distant moan of endless wind. There is a row of clothing pegs on one wall with one cotton robe hanging on it. Nearby is a towel rack with a single towel. The set should be built on simple, wheeled elevated rises, in such a way as to be easily rolled off-stage with minimum fuss.

][][

Presently there is only one person using the showers, THE LOVER, naked, standing under the hot water, singing snatches of ‘Me and the Man in the Moon’ to herself. Since running an actual shower is highly difficult to stage (not to mention a waste of good water) when the actresses are in their respective shower-stalls they simply pantomime the act of washing.

THE CONCUBINE enters, wrapped in a large robe with her towel around her shoulders, unaware anyone else is using the bathroom.

THE CONCUBINE [startled, shy]:
Oh, I beg your pardon!

THE LOVER [turning around, wiping soap from her eyes]:
Hello, you needn’t. There’s enough hot water for everyone. Just [she lowers her voice conspiratorially] don’t tell anyone I’m here.

THE CONCUBINE [still smiling shyly, walks over to the towel rack, placing her towel next to the other]:
What do you mean?

THE LOVER:
I’m supposed to be seeing Doctor Bentorgan for my headaches, emotional instability, gloom, aggression, depression and feelings of lower abdominal heaviness, but I told Nurse Quim that I was feeling a bit overexcited and snuck away to the showers as soon as her back was turned. I’ve always found hot water is a great cure for it.

THE CONCUBINE [taking off her robe, hanging it on the peg next to the other one and then walking naked to the shower stall next to THE LOVER]:
It?

THE LOVER [giggling]:
You know, ‘it’!

THE CONCUBINE:
Um, no, actually. I’ve only just arrived last week. How long have you been here?

THE LOVER:
Years, darling. Years. I understand just how the Suffragettes must have felt. At first I hated being here. It was so old and dour and dead that I felt as if I were dead myself. I wanted to open my parasol and fly through the window.

THE CONCUBINE:
Well, why didn’t you leave?

THE LOVER:
‘Landica Therapeutically Massage,’ every hour, by the hour.

THE CONCUBINE:
What?

The lights suddenly go down and all action stops. A single spotlight illuminates and then follows THE EMPTY WINE-JAR VIRGIN as she slowly makes her way to the center of the stage, balancing her jar on her head.

EMPTY WINE-JAR VIRGIN [monologue]:
Did you know that the Oxford English Dictionary states that the word clitoris likely has its origin in the Ancient Greek κλειτορίς (kleitoris), and is, perhaps derived from the verb κλείειν (kleiein), meaning ‘to shut’? It also states that the shortened, psychosonic form, ‘clit,’ has been used in print since 1858; however, until then, the common abbreviation was ‘clitty,’ like klitty kat. Clitoris is also Greek for the word key, indicating that the ancient anatomists considered it to be the key to female sexuality. In addition to key, the Armenian Etymology Dictionary suggests other Greek candidates for the word’s etymology include a noun meaning ‘latch’ or ‘hook,’ a verb meaning ‘to touch or titillate lasciviously,’ as well as, ‘to tickle.’ Indeed, one German synonym for the clitoris is der Kitzler, ‘the tickler.’ In ancient Rome, Soranus of Ephesus wrote that while the Latin word clitoris is derived from the verb ‘to climb the side of a hill,’ it really shares the same root as the verb for ‘roaring flood climaxing over its riverbank.’

FX: Loud applause. THE EMPTY WINE-JAR VIRGIN does her best curtsey, jar still balanced, and leaves. Lights go up and action continues, as if nothing had happened.

THE LOVER:
You’re new here so you haven’t started your ‘treatments’ yet, but believe, me once you do you’ll never want to leave either.

THE CONCUBINE [frowning]:
And that’s ‘it’?

THE LOVER:
Yes. Well, that and the gamahooching.

THE CONCUBINE:
But isn’t that a sin?

THE LOVER [cheerfully reciting from memory a bad translation of the ‘Song of Solomon,’ 5:4-5]:
My beloved puts his hand into the hole by the door, and my cup of myrrh overflows for him. I arise to open myself before my beloved, for my hands drip with wet myrrh, my fingers are sticky with myrrh, each time I touch the handle of his bolt.

THE CONCUBINE [confused]:
Er, if you say so.

Long pause.

THE CONCUBINE:
So, what does your husband think of you being here?

THE LOVER:
Husband?

THE CONCUBINE:
You know … [gestures vaguely] … a man.

THE LOVER:
Oh, one of those. Yeah … no. How about you?

THE CONCUBINE:
Mr. G was nice in the beginning. He liked taking photos of me kissing other girls. He said he only wanted the best for me.

THE LOVER:
Ah, yes. And this Mr. G, has he visited you since you arrived?

THE CONCUBINE:
No.

THE LOVER [cheerfully changing the subject]:
Have you heard the story of the nun who used to live here?

THE CONCUBINE:
No. Why?

THE LOVER:
It’s quite romantic and sad.

THE CONCUBINE:
I heard a voice that called across the wind last night while I was in bed.

THE LOVER glances at THE CONCUBINE curiously. The older woman is now smiling, as if some unknown power were compelling her to do something very rash and perhaps a tad naughty.

THE LOVER [seriously]:
So … I see that you see that this old place is haunted, too.

THE CONCUBINE [unsure how to respond]:
I … felt something. What was it?

THE LOVER [overdramatizing, as if she were performing at the Chichester Festival]:
Ack! Alas! The dead! A holy saint’s soul estranged upon the air. A nun who cannot find her way to Paradise. What did she say?

THE CONCUBINE [backing a couple of small, wary steps away]:
She said: ’I was a coward; you must be bold. I was silent; you must speak as of old.’

THE LOVER [back to her normal mischievously voice]:
You mustn’t believe everything that ghosts tell you.

THE CONCUBINE:
I wish you wouldn’t talk like this. It unnerves me.

THE LOVER:
That’s the whole point, darling. When I was a wee girl I lived in Skibbereen during ‘an Gorta Mór.’ Back then the famine left not a soul standing — not one. Even the Sister Charlotte-Evie-Eve, who told me that the church’s gargoyles would speak to her, died and was buried at the Famine Burial Pits at Abbeystrowery.

THE CONCUBINE:
My! That is terrible, I am so sorry. Er, the famine you say? Wait. When was this?

THE LOVER [again cheerfully changing the subject]:
Do you have any extra soap? I seem to have used all mine up.

THE CONCUBINE:
Certainly. O! [goes to hand her bar over the shower stall, but it slips out of her hands, landing at the feet of THE LOVER] I am so sorry, it slipped.

THE LOVER [crouches on hands and knees, scratches a kneecap]:
Never apologize unless it’s serious, like running someone over with a lorry or accidently impaling them on rusty farm equipment. [slyly raises the bottom of the shower curtain that separates the two stalls, peering hungrily at THE CONCUBINE] My! What a lovely fat arse you have, my dear.

THE CONCUBINE [turns around, sees THE LOVER peering up at her, squeals in the exact same manner as those bizarre 1950s housewife stereotypes; standing on a chair and freaking-out over a mouse]:
Please, madam!

THE LOVER:
Madam?

THE CONCUBINE:
Missus?

THE LOVER:
Missus?

THE CONCUBINE:
Well, I don’t know your name.

THE LOVER:
Funny, I never told you.

There is another awkward pause.

THE CONCUBINE:
Well, regardless, please don’t peer at me that way, I feel self-conscious.

THE LOVER [suddenly standing extremely close to THE CONCUBINE with only the shower curtain between them]:
I don’t know why you’d say that. I’m naked. You’re naked. We’re alone and nobody is going to bother us.

THE CONCUBINE:
Are … are you trying to flirt with me?

THE LOVER:
I’m doing more than ‘trying.’

THE CONCUBINE:
But it’s wicked!

THE LOVER [in her best Mae West voice]:
‘Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.’ But for you I’ll go back over tried and true grounds anyday.

THE CONCUBINE:
Do you do this often?

THE LOVER:
’I’ll try anything once, twice if I like it, three times to make sure.’

THE CONCUBINE:
This is all so confusing. I don’t understand what, exactly, is happening.

THE LOVER [reaching over and playing with THE CONCUBINE’S hair]:
Well, last night a ghost sang to you outside your window and now you’re taking a shower with me. Later I’ll show you all about gamahooching and Landica Therapeutically Massage. Seems rather straight forward, actually.

THE CONCUBINE:
Please! You simply mustn’t! It’s disgraceful!

THE LOVER:
What’s disgraceful?

THE CONCUBINE [confused]:
Whatever it was that you were going to suggest.

THE LOVER:
Actually, I’ve already suggested it. What is there disgraceful about that? It always feels fantastic!

THE CONCUBINE:
It’s wrong.

THE LOVER:
It’s inevitable.

THE CONCUBINE:
Why inevitable? Why can’t you talk with a naked girl in a bathroom for half an hour without falling in love with her?

THE LOVER:
I didn’t say anything about love.

THE CONCUBINE [surprised and more than a touch disappointed]:
Oh? You didn’t?

THE LOVER:
Would you like me to? I can try it out, hold on. [doing her best QUEEN MAB] ’Love is a tryst/ between two naked girls/ who cum when kissed.’ Like it? Maybe you’re right. Maybe I was destined to love you.

THE CONCUBINE:
I didn’t say that! I have nothing to say about your lurid suggestions except that I … I’ve nothing to say … except … that I … well [almost inaudibly] have some suggestions, too.

THE LOVER [triumphantly]:
Suggestions? Calculations? Arithmetic? You love me!

THE CONCUBINE [flustered]:
I … I don’t know. No. Yes. Perhaps.

THE LOVER:
Then kiss me!

THE CONCUBINE [suspiciously]:
No!

THE LOVER:
Then I’ll kiss you!

THE CONCUBINE [wretchedly]:
Oh, what’s the use?

THE LOVER:
I don’t know. It’ll feel good? I don’t care. I only know that we love each other.

THE CONCUBINE [after a moment’s hesitation, desperately]:
You’re right! I don’t care, either! I do want to kiss you, too. Come here, you pervy ghost nun!

Before they can kiss, however, all the sound effects of dripping water and the running showers and the moaning wind are suddenly cut off. House lights flash three times, as they do during intermission to let audiences know it is time to return to their seats. Startled, the two women look wildly about as THE CHORUS rush out on stage and begin to unlock and release the wheels on the risers of the shower set. Within moments the whole set, with THE LOVER and THE CONCUBINE included, has been wheeled off-stage. The stage is now bare, as stages always are without anything on them.

CHORUS #1 reenters and places a large cardboard box stage-left. Written on the box’s side are the words, “Galway Puke Shooter/ This Side Up.” After arranging the box just so she sits down upstage. CHORUS #2 enters, carrying the LYSSK and TS’SSK costumes and a chair (this a reference to the play SAVAGE. The costumes consist of green reptilian body-suits and strange, oblong masks that cover the actress’s entire head save for the lips and mouth. It is suspiciously reminiscent of the bug-like xenomorphs from the Alien franchise). She places chair stage right, draping both costumes across it, then joins CHORUS #1 on the floor. CHORUS #3 enters with a large basket full of black and white poppies in it. The basket has straps on it, allowing someone to carry it on their back. CHORUS #3 takes her place next to the others. CHORUS #4 enters with four ukuleles, hands one to each member and then takes her place. There is an expectant pause. HELEN KANE walks on stage [FX: huge audience applause] She gives her trademark Betty Boop curtsy and begins to lip-sync to a recorded version of Me and the Man in the Moon. As of this writing (2014) the music and lyrics are in the public domain and thus a recording that can be found at:

[www.archive.org/details/HelenKaneCollection]

However, if copyright laws change please see the [Notes] section for the ukulele chords so that the song can be performed as a stage-performance. In either case, as soon as the music starts the four CHORUS members sternly strum along upon their ukuleles in the background.

HELEN KANE [singing]:
Why did my sweetie leave me?
Why did we have to part?
You know, no sweetie will relieve me
of this aching heart.

Why can’t I have the sunshine?
The sunshine instead of the gloom?
Why must I have these little shadows
creeping in my room?

When the night is dark and peaceful
loving hearts are all in tune
there’s two lonesome people in the whole wide world;
it’s me and the man in the moon

When the little birds are nesting
and I listen to them croon
there’s two lonesome people in the whole wide world;
it’s me and the man in the moon

While I lie there counting sheep
through my window he comes to peep
and with each other we’re sympathizing!

Oh, I’m looking at those happy people
while they sit around and spoon
there’s two lonesome people in the whole wide world;
it’s me and the man in the moon

O, but if my sweetie keeps me waiting
you know what I’m going to do? I’ll get another sweetie, soon
because there’s two lonesome people in the whole wide world;
it’s me and the man in the moon

O, how I miss his ukulele
and the way he strums those tunes
‘cause there’s two lonesome people in the whole wide world
it’s me and the man in the moon

When the creepy shadows fall
and the boogie man comes to call
I need two lovable arms around me!

You know, and if my sweetie keeps me waiting
you know what I’m gonna do?
I’m gonna get myself a big balloon, a big one
and I’ll travel through the air in that big balloon and have a love affair
with the man in the moon!

FX: Huge audience applause that last several minutes longer than anyone is expecting, rising and falling in intensity, finally fading out as THE CHORUS begins to speak their lines.

HELEN KANE does another curtsy and then with a big flourish of arms ushers THE LOVER and THE CONCUBINE back in. They are still completely naked, holding hands, totally unselfconscious. They take a bow as if they had just performed some wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey version of Othello at the Old Vic. As the couple stands, center stage, grinning and waving, HELEN KANE picks up the cardboard box and begins to strew drug paraphernalia all over: crack phials, ampoules, needles, bloody balls of toilet paper, etc. as well as used condoms and a knit skull cap. Then she and THE CHORUS hastily exit off-stage. CHORUS #1 returns, carrying two bib overalls, which she tosses haphazardly about, then returns to her original spot on the floor. CHORUS #2 drags out a soiled mattress which she places downstage. CHORUS #3 brings out an acoustic guitar, which she places upon the mattress and CHORUS #4 unfolds a large poster that she attaches to the wall with the spray-painted words: “Never Trust a Junkie” (from Sid and Nancy, 1986) on them. Lights dim. Suddenly the stage has become a Galway tenement flat, a heroin shooting gallery.

When each member of THE CHORUS speaks often their words can be almost unintelligible to one not familiar with regional dialects. This was done intentionally because everyone keeps saying that they love difficult drama. At no time should they break character, wink at the audience, or play what they say for laughs.

CHORUS #1 [vaguely Galway-ish]:
Luk at our bottle av water, our Lady’s beloved, de sun’s pride!
[Look at our daughter, our Lady’s beloved, the Sun’s pride!]

CHORUS #2 [vaguely Liverpool-ish]:
She ‘as na loved anyone ‘alf as much as she loves ‘er.
[She has never loved anyone half as much as she loves her.]

CHORUS #1:
So’tiz a shame dat she is so young.
[It is a shame that she is so young]

CHORUS #2:
Perhaps she wul grrer?
[Perhaps she will grow?]

CHORUS #3 [vaguely Newcastle-ish]:
Whey aye she will gra.
[Of course she will grow.]

CHORUS #4 [vaguely Inverness‎ -ish]:
Ah min’ when ‘er first ‘urls, ‘er first ‘ubes, appeared.
[I remember when her first curls, her first pubes, appeared.]

CHORUS [giggling together]:
Pubes!

As THE LOVER begins to speak, THE CONCUBINE turns and starts to dress in one of the discarded bib overalls, donning the knit skull cap, picking up the guitar and flopping down on the mattress. She is now THE JUNKIE GUITARIST.

THE LOVER [reciting from Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis]:
‘Fondling,’ she says, ‘since I have hymned you here
Within the circuit of this ivory pale,
I’ll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer;
Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or in dale:
Graze on my lips; and if those hills be dry,
Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.

Within this limit is relief enough,
Sweet bottom-grass and high delightful plain,
Round rising hillocks, brakes obscure and rough,
To shelter thee from tempest and from rain
Then be my deer, since I am such a park.

CHORUS #3:
Wor lady knows wot she likes.
[Our Lady knows what she likes.]

CHORUS #4:
Some say she loch tay much.
[Some say she like too much.]

CHORUS #2:
Wa’ does dat evun arl bottle and glass? She is flushed flesh like everyone else. ‘Er lover’s absence ‘as nted all sorts o’ fear in ‘er brezzy. Bright, not ‘er brezzy. ‘Er nights ‘uv beun chocker o’ sticky thoughts while terss’n and tn’n in ‘er empty flock.
[What does that even mean? She is flushed flesh like everyone else. Her lover’s absence has nurtured all sorts of fear in her breast. Well, not her breast. Her nights have been full of sticky thoughts while tossing and turning in her empty bed.]

CHORUS #3:
Wot? But the Sun’s pride is back. Wot is thor tuh feor?
[What? But the Sun’s pride is back. What is there to fear?]

CHORUS #4:
Fear.
[Fear.]

Once THE LOVER has finished the poem the JUNKIE GUITARIST begins to strums and recite parts of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 151 while the older woman slips into her own pair of worn-out overalls.

JUNKIE GUITARIST:
My soul doth tell my body that he may
triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason …

But rising at thy name doth point out thee,
as his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride …

He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
to stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side …

No want of conscience hold it that I call
her love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.

CHORUS #1:
Oi liked it better whaen they were in da nip.
[I liked it better when they were naked.]

CHORUS #3:
Yee elwis sa that.
[You always say that.]

CHORUS #2:
Why not? We’ve seun ‘Ercules chained in ‘Ades. Us berd and ‘er lover ay far lovelier than dat fill-swell beast.
[Why not? We’ve seen Hercules chained in Hades. Our Lady and her lover are far lovelier than that foul beast.]

CHORUS [giggling together]:
Beast!

THE LOVER bends down and straps the basket of poppies to her back. She is now the DEATH-HEAD POPPY PEDDLER. She goes over to the JUNKIE GUITARIST, prods her with her foot until she gets up off the mattress and goes over to an imaginary window. She raises it and suddenly the sound of desolate inner-city traffic fills the air. The DEATH-HEAD POPPY PEDDLER slumps onto the mattress with a sigh.

DEATH-HEAD POPPY PEDDLER [fanning herself with a hand]:
I could never stand all this junkie-chic, Bodenheim crap. Let the trust-fund hippies do what they want. Come over here.

JUNKIE GUITARIST [looking around]:
What do you want?

CHORUS #2:
Dun rabbit ter us Berd dat way!
[Don’t talk to our Lady that way!]

CHORUS #3:
Teenage cunnies an’ their hearts gan be see fickle.
[Teenage girls and their hearts can be so fickle.]

CHORUS #1:
Don’t tell me ‘ee is still burnin’ for dat ‘offin-stuffer Giovanni?
[Don’t tell me she is still burning for that coffin-stuffer Giovanni?]

DEATH-HEAD POPPY PEDDLER:
Darling, it’s no use hanging out the window like that, you could fall.

JUNKIE GUITARIST:
I’ll fall if I want to.

CHORUS #1:
Bah! Fickle!
[Bah! Fickle!]

CHORUS #2:
Inconsistent
[Inconsistent!]

CHORUS #3:
Capricious!
[Capricious!]

CHORUS #4:
Unpredictable love!
[Unpredictable love!]

DEATH-HEAD POPPY PEDDLER:
You know, dear, that he’s not coming.

JUNKIE GUITARIST [irked]:
So you say.

DEATH-HEAD POPPY PEDDLER:
Sig, hye and hail. You’re just wasting time, child of mine.

CHORUS #3:
Heor wot she says!
[Hear what she says!]

JUNKIE GUITARIST:
Time? Time is all I’ve got.

DEATH-HEAD POPPY PEDDLER [opens her legs and hinting]:
You could be between my thighs.

CHORUS #3:
Wor Lady knows wot she likes.
[Our Lady knows what she likes.]

CHORUS #4:
Yoo’re repeatin’ yerself.
[You’re repeating yourself.]

JUNKIE GUITARIST:
Not that old thing!

DEATH-HEAD POPPY PEDDLER:
Oy! Ganymede! Behave!

JUNKIE GUITARIST:
He said he’d be back before noon.

DEATH-HEAD POPPY PEDDLER:
Noon is a little too soon. [Chuckles at her own rhyme, all of THE CHORUS joins in then quickly stops, highly embarrassed] You think moping around the room is going to hurry him up any quicker?

JUNKIE GUITARIST:
No. Not ‘quicker’ …

CHORUS #1:
Giovanni is a complete langer, me Sun’s pride, an’ yer are neglectin’ de wan who truly loves yer.
[Giovanni is a terrible person, my Sun’s pride, and you are neglecting the one who truly loves you]

DEATH-HEAD POPPY PEDDLER:
Then if you’re not going to play with me, play me something quaint upon that girlish axe that you’ve got clutched in both hands. Humor me with a rude cut.

CHORUS #2:
Spell it out fe ‘er!
[Spell it out for her!]

CHORUS #3:
But Raimbo cannit reed.
[But Rambo can’t read.]

JUNKIE GUITARIST:
Cut?

CHORUS #4:
Mebbe she can hum puckle lines?
[Maybe she can hum a few lines?]

DEATH-HEAD POPPY PEDDLER:
Notes, strings, you know, whatever. I want a jingle-jangle full of major C’s, U’s and T’s.

CHORUS #1:
Pucker up an’ blow, lassy!
[Pucker up and blow, girl!]

JUNKIE GUITARIST [staring out the window, half to herself]:
I once knew the sort of snatches that you’re talking about. I could spit out the meanest of slit-roses, but an axe-limbed girl whisked the tune past me. Hey, maybe you’ve seen her, my mamacita with the baby-wide hips? [PAUSE] I sat on a rock in the midst of a heart-scrubbed stream and smiled at her while fingering my young dumb soul. I climbed a ghost-tree and plucked [STRUMMING} “silver apples of the moon/ golden apples of the sun.” I stumbled after her, over the sun-stunned hills, since the axe-limbered girl would often stop; she’d touch both of my eyes with the flesh of her flower and then sprung away. It was like a dream of a queenly crow cast among mourning doves and fools, a little scattered popcorn upon a penthouse floor, all in blues with neon light and a bubbling pool, gurgle; and I, heavy with leprous distilment and junk-flop sweat, followed. Through high corridors and leaking roofs I went, to you, the biggest of big ass women, towering over me like a wisp of Missy Missile Madam’s soul. But the music is gone. Where is my wealthy tune? Where is my flushed tool? My amethyst flood? My silver clouds? My golden rain?

Pause. The JUNKIE GUITARIST attempts to play a “Me and the Man in the Moon” riff. She becomes frustrated at her poor skills, lays the guitar down.

CHORUS #4:
She pure shoods practice mair.
[She really should practice more.]

CHORUS #2:
Dee can’t ‘ear us, tinnie dee?
[They can’t hear us, can they?]

The JUNKIE GUITARIST goes over to the chair and picks up one of the Xenomorph costumes, holds it up to examine it better. Picks up the oblong, skull mask, turning it this way and that with great fascination. She has no idea what it is.

JUNKIE GUITARIST:
Where did this come from?

CHORUS #1:
Isn’t dat from a scene —
[Isn’t that from a scene –]

CHORUS #2:
— dat got cut in de final edit?
[– that got cut in the final edit?]

CHORUS #3:
Why did wuh brin those wi’ wor?
[Why did we bring those with us?]

CHORUS #4:
Stage directions.
[Stage directions.]

[sudden darkness. curtain]

][][

Notes:

Here are the ukulele chords for Helen Kane’s Me and the Man in the Moon:

Bb F7 Bb
Why did my sweetie leave me?
Bb F Gm
Why did we have to part?
F7 Bb A7 Ab7 G7
No other sweetie can re-lieve me
C7 F
Of this aching heart.
Bb F7 Bb
Why can’t I have the sunshine?
Bb D7 Gm
The sunshine instead of gloom?
C7 F G
Why must I have these little shadows
Gm7 Cm7 F F7
Creeping in my room?
Bb
When the night is dark and peaceful,
Bb F#
Loving hearts are all in tune,
F7 Eb F Gaug
There’s two lonesome people in the whole wide world,

C7 F7 Bb
It’s me and the man in the moon.
Bb
When the little birds are nesting,
F#
And I listen to them croon,
F7 Eb F Gaug
There are two lonesome people in the whole wide world,
C7 F7 Bb
It’s me and the man and the moon.
Gm A7
Oh While I lie there counting sheep,
D7 G7
Through my window he comes to peep,
C7 F F7 F
And with each other we’re sympa-thi-zing!
Bb
Oh, I’m looking at those happy sweethearts,
F#
While they sit around and spoon,
F7 Eb F Gaug
There’s two lonesome people in the whole wide world,
C7 F7 Bb
It’s me and the man and the moon.
Bb
Oh, but if my sweetie keeps me waiting,
F#
You know what I’m gonna do? I’ll get another sweetie, soon;
F7 Eb F Gaug
Because there’s two lonesome people in the whole wide world,
C7 F7 Bb
It’s me and the man and the moon.
Bb
Oh, how I miss his ukulele,
F#
And the way he strums those tunes,
F7 Eb F Gaug
‘Cause there’s two lonesome people in the whole wide world,
C7 F7 Bb
It’s me and the man and the moon.
Gm A7
When the creepy shadows fall,
D7 G7
And the boogie man comes to call,
C7 F F7 F
I need two lovable arms aro-o-und me!
Bb
You know, and if my sweetie keeps me waiting,
F#
You know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna get myself a big balloon, a big one,
F Eb F7 Gaug
And I’ll travel through the air in that big balloon and have a love affair,
C7 F7 Bb7
With the man in the moon!

Written by: LESLIE, EDGAR/MONACO, JAMES V.
Creative Commons license: Public Domain

SAVAGE: a retelling of euripides’ medea

08 Thursday May 2014

Posted by in drama

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all mockery is laughing
all violence is cheap …
O you savage.
— Eurythmics

][][

CHARACTERS:
Lyssk
Ts’ssk
Su Xi Xsu
Tao Jiu-Di
A Boy
Two Guards
Children

SETTING:
A wind-swept desert outside the walls of the city of New Zhanjiang. The year is 2156. The Sino-Anglo Confederacy had brought humanity to the stars nearly a hundred years earlier. Now the newly formed 3rd Divine Chinese Empire is the dominate culture in every star system that humanity has sent pioneers, terraformers, Imperial Marines and missionaries to colonize.

][][

ACT I:

Darkness. Sound of endless, hungry wind. The stage is bare save for two large boulders in center stage. Dusty, dim light slowly rise, never enough to clearly see anything save for uninterrupted, confusing swirls of shadows everywhere. The wind storm reaches its crescendo and fades. Slowly the boulders unfold themselves from the tight balls they were sleeping in, like husky dogs in the Arctic snow. Seven feet tall, naked, profoundly curvy, eyeless, earless, with their oblong skulls and segmented tails, the Lingualandicis (“clitoris-tongues”) of this story are a single gender, a female warrior race. The larger and younger of the two is Lyssk, exiled from her homeland and estranged from her human husband. The smaller and older one is Ts’ssk, Lyssk’s former lover, former nanny, former confidant. Since arriving at New Zhanjiang, Lyssk and Ts’ssk have adopted short skirts to cover “their shame,” as the Preacher-Man calls all nudity, both human and extraterrestrial. As the wind dies the two xenomorphs’ conversation slowly becomes audible. As with all species under Imperial control they speak the official language of the court, Mandarin Chinese.

][][

TS’SSK [TALKING OVER THE FADING WIND]: Or … to do anything else, I suppose?

LYSSK: Don’t joke about it.

TS’SSK: Why not? I joke about everything else.

LYSSK: My throat chokes with all the lies that are trapped inside.

TS’SSK: Here, let me kiss it.

LYSSK: Do you hear that?

TS’SSK: Hear what?

LYSSK: Pleasure. It is prowling out there in the dark.

TS’SSK: My queen is a little dramatic tonight. No, I think that is what these particular humans call singing. Today must be their harvest day.

[SOUND OF A GOSPEL CHOIR OFF-STAGE. THE VOICE OF AN OFF-WORLD PREACHER-MAN TESTIFYING TO HIS FLOCK]

PREACHER-MAN: Praise the Lord! Halleluiah!

CONGREGATION: Praise the Lord! Halleluiah!

PREACHER-MAN: Tonight is the night when a great weight will be lifted!

CONGREGATION: Amen! Yea! Amen!

PREACHER-MAN: And in our hour of darkness a mighty light will descend from the heavens and there shall be a great revelation!

LYSSK: I hate their revelations. I hate their singing. I hate their harvests. I hate how they grow rich and fat each year. I hate what they do for their pleasures.

TS’SSK: It doesn’t really matter. Though, when you think about it, we had our harvests back home, too. I suppose it’d be more accurate to call them, “culls,” but no matter. Our girls painted their faces red with their own blood, and then in the small hours of the morning, after the screaming of the first sacrifice, they’d begin to fight. How beautiful our Lingualandicis girls were when they fought!

LYSSK: Be quiet now. Not another word.

TS’SSK: Words are all I have. I am old and you do not care.

LYSSK: If you find your surroundings boring, please, go home.

TS’SSK: It’s not that simple, child. Why did we leave, Lady Lyssk?

LYSSK [HISSING]: We left because I love Tao Jiu-Di. Because I stole from my mother for him. Because I killed my sister for him. Because I waged war against my own hive. Why do you even ask? You have been with me every step of the way.

TS’SSK: Isn’t love grand? Now I get to squat here like a vagabond in the dust with the once and never queen.

LYSSK: Your words irk.

TS’SSK: Here we go again.

LYSSK: Go see if my children are safe.

TS’SSK: Because you can’t go the twenty feet yourself?

LYSSK: Because your queen commands.

[TS’SSK GETS UP SIGHING LOUDLY AND WALKS AWAY]

LYSSK [HISSINGS]: Listen! [STANDS] Someone is coming.

TS’SSK [LISTENING]: No, I think that is what these particular humans call the wind.

[LYSSK CROUCHES, HER TAIL WHIPPING BACK AND FORTH. THE GOSPEL SINGING IS ONCE MORE HEARD IN THE FAR DISTANCE]

PREACHER-MAN: We have gone to the stars and they are ours!

CONGREGATION: Amen!

PREACHER-MAN: Now, I know! I know that it is hard on your soul to be so far from home!

CONGREGATION: Halleluiah!

PREACHER-MAN: Brothers and sisters, can I get a Halleluiah?

CONGREGATION: Halleluiah!

PREACHER-MAN: I said, can I get a Halleluiah?

CONGREGATION: Halleluiah!

PREACHER-MAN: But you are doing the Lord’s work! You are bringing light to the darkness! For we do not judge a sister by the color of her skin, the shape of her head, the blood in her veins —

CONGREGATION: Amen! Yea! Amen!

PREACHER-MAN: — only if she is saved! ‘For the Lord cast out the dragon in the Garden to the stars’ … [FADES]

LYSSK [STILL CROUCHING, STILL AGITATED]: Missionaries! Soft Flesh with their desire to conquer. The red plague upon them all. Where is Tao Jiu-Di? Where is my husband?

TS’SSK: Do not wait for him any longer, my spitting flame. You are eating your heart out.

LYSSK: If only I could! If only I could reach inside and rip it right out, ribs, breasts and all!

TS’SSK: If this is a harvest day then I am sure your Tao Jiu-Di is dancing even as we speak, dancing with the daughter of General Su Xi Xsu.

LYSSK [FLATLY]: Be quiet, hissing shell.

TS’SSK: I won’t say another word but he’s not coming back tonight.

[PAUSE. THE NIGHT IS FULL OF SOFT ALIEN NOISES. TS’SSK RETURNS TO SIT DOWN NEXT TO LYSSK]

LYSSK [SUDDENLY]: What is that odor?

TS’SSK: What odor?

LYSSK [INHALING DEEPLY]: That! That! Right there, can’t you smell it?

TS’SSK [BEMUSED]: What are you talking about, my little queen-poppet?

LYSSK: Ecstasy! Pleasure! Joy! How it all stinks. Yet the Soft Flesh have confined us out here in the dark! As if they were afraid we would steal their babies during the night. Seduce their females. [SHE STANDS TALL AND HISSES LOUDLY] I’ve waited in the dark, waited and waited and still he doesn’t return to me.

TS’SSK: He is fortunate. His people invited him in. They won’t let one of their own go hungry.

LYSSK: The very people who’ve come to civilize us, leaving us out here to scavenge like dogs.

TS’SSK: We make them nervous. [DREAMILY] Do you remember? How pink the hive looked at the end of the day with cypress trees all around and when we returned from our hunting out in the Sutu marsh you would throw yourself on a divan and have the drones bathe you. You were the Queen’s daughter and nothing was too beautiful for you. Back when you were calm and naked, back when they once rubbed oil into your shell.

LYSSK [FINGERING THE HEM OF HER SKIRT SADLY]: I’m still naked.

TS’SSK: Not as much as you once were.

LYSSK: Why do you always talk so? Do you think I miss living in a hive, hunting, having drones pleasure me?

TS’SSK: Does it matter? We’ve been on the run ever since.

LYSSK: We’re not running now.

TS’SSK: No, that is true. Now we get cheated, beaten, scorned and spat upon.

LYSSK: It’s the way that the Soft Flesh does things.

TS’SSK: It’s the way that you only think about yourself. You just assumed that, old as I am, I would follow you to the Three Hells simply because you fell in love? Meh. If I die, what are you going to do with my body?

LYSSK: I don’t know. Sell your withered carcass to the local butcher? I am told we taste a lot like dog.

TS’SSK [SERIOUSLY]: He is leaving you, Lady Lyssk.

LYSSK [STARTLED]: Silence! [HISSES] Listen.

TS’SSK: It is still the wind. He is out there, somewhere, dancing with his own kind. He will not come back.

LYSSK: But why does the Soft Flesh have to act this way? What ecstasy of theirs is it that stinks even from out here? Their world is rank with it. It is in their sweat, their terrible alcohol, their greasy food. Soft Flesh! Why do you caterwaul and stomp about like beasts? Is it because I, Lady Lyssk, am so choked with grief? Ts’ssk, beloved Ts’ssk … I feel as if I were in labor. I suffer and I am scared as when you helped to pull my first daughter from between my legs. Ts’ssk! Something stirs in me as in the olden days, the hive days. [SHE CLINGS TO TS’SSK, TREMBLING] Ts’ssk, if I scream will you put your tongue in my mouth? If I struggle will you rub me until I purr? Why do I suffer all alone? [HISSING] Hold me, Ts’ssk. Hold me with all your strength. Hold me as you did when I was a child, when I was insane with the pains of childbirth. [PAUSE] I still have something to birth into this world, something more terrible and more violent than I could ever be. Ts’ssk, I am afraid! I am afraid! I am afraid!

[A BOY ENTERS SUDDENLY AND STOPS]

BOY [NERVOUS, SLOWLY APPROACHING]: Are you Lady Lyssk?

LYSSK [HISSES, RISING UP LIKE A DARK GODDESS]: Yes! Speak!

BOY: Lord Tao Jiu-Di sent me.

TS’SSK [WITH A SNORT]: Lord? Did you say Lord Tao Jiu-Di?

LYSSK: What is the matter? Is he in trouble?

BOY: He told me to tell you that you are saved.

LYSSK: Saved? What is there to save? Explain!

BOY [BECOMING MORE AND MORE NERVOUS]: Um, he told me to tell you that he will come, uh, that you shouldn’t go anywhere.

LYSSK: Where is he?

BOY: He is with the generalissimo, Su Xi Xsu, at her palace.

LYSSK: Is he a captive?

BOY: No.

LYSSK: Then … then all this human joy is for him?

BOY: Yes.

LYSSK: What has he done to earn such gratitude? Talk! [SUDDENLY AWARE THAT THE BOY IS CLEARLY TERRIFIED OUT OF HIS MIND. SPEAKS IN A CALM VOICE] Please, forgive me. You had to come all this way in the dark by yourself. Come and sit on your auntie’s lap.

[THE BOY, TOO FRIGHTENED TO ARGUE, SITS IN LYSSK’S LAP, WHO WRAPS HER LONG ARMS AROUND HIM]

LYSSK [SWEETLY]: Please, just tell me, are they dancing for him as we speak?

BOY: Yes.

LYSSK: Do they raise their cups to bless him?

BOY [LOOKS UP ACCIDENTALLY INTO HER GAPING MAW, SQUEAKS]: Yes.

LYSSK: Child, you do not know me. You do not know Lady Lyssk. [FONDLING THE BOY] I’ve never understood the purpose of you Soft Flesh’s second sex. Why evolution spat out males I will never know. O, but I see! Does mv face frighten you? Do you want me to smile? [SMILES, A COMPLETE HORROR SHOW OF TEETH AND HINGED JAW] See? I am smiling. Now tell me. It must be good news since they are casting their blessings into the wind.

BOY [WHISPERS]: He is marrying Su Xi Xsu’s daughter, Lu Kui-Lei. The wedding is tomorrow morning.

LYSSK: Thank you, darling! Go and play now with the girls of missionaries. Dance all night long, as much as you can. When you are old, please, remember that you were the one who informed Lady Lyssk of her fate.

BOY [GETTING UP OFF HER LAP]: What shall I say to him?

LYSSK: To him?

BOY: Lord Tao Jiu-Di.

LYSSK: Tell him that I, too, raise my cup to bless him.

[THE BOY EXITS]

LYSSK [STANDS AND HISSES]: Thank you, husband! Thank you Su Xi Xsu! Thank you, all of you Soft Flesh, who worship an impotent god and came to teach me his holy language! How simple you all are as you spread across the cosmos. Like viruses, like plagues. How little the profit of ever embracing the things that you hold most dear has cost me.

TS’SSK [APPROACHING]: My honored sparrow, my little vulture.

LYSSK: Leave me alone! I no longer need your kisses or your pity. I shall birth my last child tonight by myself. O, new born hatred! How lovely you are! How good you smell. How delicious!

TS’SSK: Stop, dear Lyssk!

LYSSK [STANDS TALL WITH FOLDED ARMS]: Leave me alone, old thing. This tainted, foul human ecstasy is all around me, like a dog sniffing at my cunt.

TS’SSK: Take no notice of that, we can go away for a while. We can go to the foothills of Minia Pakma and chase billy goats. We can steal a boat and go sailing between the islands of Beylix. We can go fishing and stay away until the celebrations are over.

LYSSK: Ts’ssk, can’t you hear? Can’t you hear? [PAUSE] I am listening to the one who is about to arrive: my hatred. Daughter, violence, murder, sweetness! What has he done to me, Ts’ssk? I knew only war and madness. He came with his warm body. Soft Flesh is so warm. He had only to enter my mother’s hive and ruin me before all the others with a single kiss. A kiss! Ten years have gone by and Tao Jiu-Di is no longer mine. Have I been dreaming? Am I still Lady Lyssk? Humans love their dogs. Once he said I was like a bitch in heat. I had no idea what he was talking about. I have spent ten years wanting him, letting him do anything he wanted with my legs wide open. He made my desires twisted. He made loving myself shameful. How can such a pleasurable act be seen as dirty? These words burn, they are not even mine. They’re what is expected by a race that divides its people into slaves and masters. They pervert everything they touch. Like cancer. Like plague. I came to him naked and pleased him; pleasured him. How could I help but give him all of my mother’s secrets when he asked for them? How could I help but kill my little sister for him when she confronted us? How could I stop him from turning me into a pretty cutthroat? A rouge? A fool!

TS’SSK [PAUSE]: Pretty?

LYSSK: [SNAPPING] Petty! [HOPELESSLY] I did all I had to do, that is all.

TS’SSK: Is that all?

LYSSK: Yes, I let love ruin me.

TS’SSK: Ah, my hooked vulture. So now you’re blaming all this on love?

LYSSK [HISSING]: Blame? Ruined! Damaged! Fucked over! Lady Nssk, Guardian of the Hive, we all came from you but you made me the only perverse one! The freak! I was the one to fall in love with a monster, a creature so cruel and violent that he stole my heart.

TS’SSK: Why do you talk as if you still don’t understand what you’re dealing with? You fell in love with an alien organism. You call him human and handsome and husband. I call him a devil. There is something perverse about a species designed only to divide and conquer. Yet you act the part of the wounded lover because the cancer won’t be faithful just to one host? And you call me a hissing shell?

LYSSK: You talk and talk! Have you suddenly become a shaman? Does Lady Nssk whisper in your skull? Then tell me this: why wasn’t I made a human instead? I have breasts and a cunt just like the ones he is dancing with right now, yet I am looked at with loathing. Why make me Lingualandicis when we are a dying race? Would not a human Lyssk been just as beautiful? Then Tao Jiu-Di would not be seeking out other beds; then he could touch me without shame.

TS’SSK [FONDLES HER]: But you weren’t born human, were you? You can blame the Soft Flesh all you like, rage at the Goddesses, stomp your feet, hold your breath. What difference does it make? Humanity is just as deluded about the divine as you are about your heart. And yet you rage on. A spitting flame. A joke cast out into the dark. Shadows.

LYSSK: Hold that tongue of yours. I am still Lady Lyssk. Even on the run I am still a queen’s daughter. For ten years I have been running. Ten years! But tonight it is over, Ts’ssk. Tonight I will be the queen that old Lyssk never could.

TS’SSK: Calm yourself, lady.

LYSSK: I am calm, Ts’ssk. I am the fatal silence. Can you not hear how softly I go about on all fours? I am strangling everything inside this shell softly [HISSING] I am mutating with hate.

TS’SSK: Ai! You frighten me. Let us go and spend our days like we once did a long time ago, as lovers and mothers.

LYSSK: I will not go.

TS’SSK: Why not?

LYSSK: I am waiting for my husband.

TS’SSK [LOSING HER COOL]: This is madness! Humans! What are you expecting The apes never sue for peace. They only see the worlds that they conquer in terms of converting the heathens or total annihilation. There is no symmetry in them.

LYSSK: Nor in us! I am a warrior! I am a war queen! I have seen more conflict than you have and you are twice my age. Peace? Peace. I hate the word.

TS’SSK [CURLING UP BACK INTO A BALL]: Easy talk for one so young. But if your Tao Jiu-Di has abandoned you, if he has taken one of his own as a new bride, then what is the Soft Flesh going to do with us now?

LYSSK: Why worry about that? What you should rather be asking is, ‘name the vengeance that we are going to lay at their doorstep?’ Yes! I am frightened too, but not of their harvests or their absent sky-god or their lust to conquer! I am afraid of myself. Tao Jiu-Di, you put my soul to sleep, but now Lady Lyssk is awakening.

TS’SSK: You are amazingly fickle. When I speak bad about your choice in mates you bite off my head —

LYSSK: As if!

TS’SSK: — but suddenly you are filled with the need for revenge? They are going to banish us, Lyssk.

LYSSK: Perhaps they will.

TS’SSK: Where shall we go?

LYSSK: Look around yourself. This desert is large. I am sure there is a cave somewhere I can rule over. Lyssk, Queen of a Hive of one … alone.

TS’SSK [MOANING]: Now we shall have to flee again.

LYSSK: Yes, we shall flee again, hissing shell … after we’re done.

TS’SSK: After we’re done with what?

LYSSK: Must you ask me that?

TS’SSK: What do you want to do, my lady?

LYSSK: What I did for him when I betrayed my mother, when I had to kill my sister. What I did to old Pakma Raka when I tried to make Tao Jiu-Di tyrant of his rotten spice city. What I have done for my husband a thousand times over. Not because I was human but because I loved him.

TS’SSK: Even by our own lax standards, that really wasn’t love. Listen to yourself.

LYSSK: That wasn’t love? I am Lady Lyssk, all alone on an alien planet, a traitor of her hive, condemned, detested! But nothing is too much for me to overcome! [THE GOSPEL MUSIC SUDDENLY GROWS STRONGER IN THE FAR DISTANCE. LYSSK’S VOICE OVERPOWERS IT] Let them sing and dance like puppets! Let them sing wedding songs to a god that never listens! I have schemed and plotted before and it shall be a long night before tomorrow’s wedding. Husband! Tao Jiu-Di! You thought that you knew me, calling me a savage beast to frighten children behind my back. You took me as a virgin; the first out of all my ancestors, out of all my race, to let your queer hardness inside. What were you thinking as you penetrated me? Did you think I was going to turn into the same miserable flesh as you? I followed you in blood-hunger because I loved you, and now I need your blood to say goodbye.

TS’SSK [THROWS HERSELF AGAINST HER]: Lyssk! Bite your tongue! Bury your moans in the bottom of your soul! Bury your hatred! We have passed through darker nights. We shall endure this.

LYSSK: Endure? I told you to seal up my screaming mouth with a kiss and all you do is chide me as if I were still a babe sucking from your pap, your tits, nipples, whatever.

TS’SSK [TRYING TO CALM HER]: You will have your revenge, my little oni. You will revenge yourself, my sweet scavenger. One day you will blind them all with your rage. But not today! We are nothing here. We are only two toothless predators living among appalling sheep. We have fallen so low; even the missionaries’ fat and juicy children throw stones at us. I beg you, love, just for tonight; do not let your blood-hunger rule you.

LYSSK: Just for tonight? Never, tiny mother.

TS’SSK: Capricious!

LYSSK: Coward!

TS’SSK: But what can we do in this unsympathetic world? Tao Jiu-Di is leaving us. What do we have left?

LYSSK: As long as I live I will seek revenge. As long as I live … as long as I live …

TS’SSK: Poor child! Su Xi Xsu is in power and it is only because she permitted it that we are even allowed to stay out in the darkness. Were she to say a word, were she to give her permission, her Imperial Marines would be upon us with their pulse rifles and claymores! They’ve called us a spreading virus. They would kill us.

LYSSK [SOFTLY]: They will kill us, too. But they will find that they’ve come too late.

TS’SSK [THROWING HERSELF AT LYSSK’S CLAWED FEET]: Lyssk, I am old and I don’t want to die! I followed you. I gave up everything for you. I tell you, the universe is still full of good things! There is Alpha Grace Jones that will keep us safe for a thousand years. There are other suns that will warm our faces. I can make you the warm soup that we use to sip at midday. Perhaps we’ll find another hive, somewhere, that won’t care where we came from.

LYSSK [PUSHES HER ASIDE WITH CONTEMPT]: Carcass! This morning I too wanted to live in this sand-choking ghost wind, but now it is no longer a matter of living but where is the best place to die.

TS’SSK [CLINGING TO HER LEGS]: But I want to live!

LYSSK: I know. You want to live. The little thing that everybody wants. I truly must be a demon, the embodiment of something foul and vile since Tao Jiu-Di wants to live, too. That is why he left. Why you will leave.

TS’SSK [HURT]: Why would I leave you?

LYSSK [PETULANT]: Everyone leaves me.

TS’SSK [FINALLY FED UP]: Brat! You no longer love him. You have not loved him for a long time now. You act like no one in all of recorded time has ever suffered like you! You were infatuated with him because he was warm and fit snuggly in your arms as you slept. I’ve seen rag dolls with more dignity. He was the first to tell you that he was unhappy. You know the night I speak of, back when we were on the run and living in caves and he said that he wanted to sleep outside. Not in the cave. Not in your arms. Outside. So why did you let him go when you knew the fickle nature of the Soft Flesh’s heart? Yes, you’ve seen more war than I have but it has brought you no wisdom. Yes, I still call you lady and little queen, but nobody else does. I accepted it was your heart talking when you said you had fallen in love with something so … unnatural! The things you did to your own people all because of that love! One kills for a mate who still desires you, not for a beast you let out of your bed at night. You have thrown away your love on a beast, nothing more!

LYSSK [TAKES HER BY THE SHOULDERS AND LIFTS HER OFF THE GROUND. HISSING]: Take care, dearest Ts’ssk! You know too much. You say too much. I sucked at your nipple all right, and I have put up with your cantankerous moaning for ten years. But it is not from milk that Lyssk has grown. I owe no more to you than I would to the goat I might have suckled from if I had not been born to rule.

TS’SSK: But you do not rule.

LYSSK: You do not listen! You have said too much, you and your carcass. The game that we are playing is not for the likes of you, old and wormy. We both shall die far from home … hated … alone.

[LYSSK THROWS THE TS’SSK TO THE GROUND AND TURNS ON HER HEEL]

TS’SSK [MOANING]: Lady, someone is coming.

[LYSSK TURNS AROUND. SU XI XSU IS BEFORE HER, ACCOMPANIED BY TWO SOLDIERS. SHE CALLS HERSELF A GENERAL BUT SHE IS MORE OF A MINOR WAR LORD ON A MINOR PLANET. IN HER EARLY 60S, GRAY HAIRED, SHE IS HAUNTED BY A LIFE TIME OF KILLING]

SU XI XSU: Are you Lady Lyssk of the Lingualandicis?

LYSSK: I am.

SU XI XSU: I am General Su Xi Xsu of the Imperial Marines, president elect of New Zhanjiang.

LYSSK [IN NO MOOD FOR DIPLOMACY GIVES A MOCK BOW]: Halloo.

SU XI XSU [RAISING AN EYEBROW]: I have heard of your crimes. They say a blood-hungry dragon lives out in the shadows. Mothers tell that to their children to frighten them. I have put up with you for several weeks but now you will go.

LYSSK [TURNING]: Go? Just like that? Like a bad dream?

SU XI XSU: A nightmare? Yes, that would be a good way of describing you. We have no need of nightmares.

LYSSK: General, be careful, my mother is a queen.

SU XI XSU: I have been told all about your mother. Go to her and complain. Somehow I doubt you find too many sympathetic ears.

TS’SSK: Ears?

LYSSK [ARROGANTLY, TAIL WHIPPING BACK AND FORTH]: Fine, I shall leave here because it pleases me. The savage thing in the dark shall not scare anymore of your whelps. I shall return to my mother, but let the one who left me here by the walls of your city take me back.

SU XI XSU: What do you mean?

LYSSK: Give Tao Jiu-Di back to me.

SU XI XSU: What? Lord Tao Jiu-Di is my guest, the son of a king who was my friend when I was young.

LYSSK: My husband was never the child of royalty, if that is what he told you. I should know.

SU XI XSU: He is my guest and he is free to do as he chooses. Do not call him ‘husband’, that is a sacred title used only among the Lord’s children. He might have lain with you, as disgusting as that image is, since you are more like a beast in the field than a woman, but I do not recognize that you are man and wife any more than if he had brought a goat and asked for a wedding blessing.

LYSSK [INDICATING THE DISTANT SOUNDS OF CELEBRATION]: Is that what are they singing and dancing about?

SU XI XSU: Indeed. Tonight they are celebrating my daughter’s betrothal. Tao Jiu-Di will marry Lu Kui-Lei tomorrow.

LYSSK: Long life and long happiness to them both.

SU XI XSU: They have no need of your blessings.

LYSSK: O, why refuse them, General Su Xi Xsu of the Imperial Marines? Invite me to the wedding. Introduce me to Lu Kui-Lei. I can be useful to her. For ten years now I have been Tao Jiu-Di’s mate. I know all of his perverse tastes. I have quite a lot to teach your daughter, who has only known him for ten days and I doubt he has gotten a chance to break her in yet.

SU XI XSU: I am well aware of your crude and lascivious nature and it is to avoid corrupting her that I have decided that you should leave tonight. You and your companion have one hour to cross the border. These men will show you the way.

LYSSK: If I should refuse?

SU XI XSU: The princes of the late Pakma Raka, the man that you murdered in a failed coup d’état, have asked all the governments in the system for your queer, oblong head. If you remain, I will deliver you into their hands.

LYSSK: Pakma Raka commanded a great spice empire. I am told he was a good neighbor. Why would you wait to turn me in?

SU XI XSU [PAUSE]: Lord Tao Jiu-Di asked me to let you go.

LYSSK [GENUINELY SURPRISED]: Generous Tao Jiu-Di! I ought to thank him, don’t you think? Can you imagine those princes torturing me on the very day of your daughter’s wedding? Can you see me bound to a mechanical-ruling singularity, telling everyone who would listen whom I killed their beloved Pakma Raka for? ‘It was for the honored son-in-law of your humble neighbor — the great generalissimo — Lady Su Xi Sxu!’ You take the role of a tyrant very lightly, my dear Soft Flesh. At my mother’s hive I had time to learn that one does not govern by sending away their enemies. Have me killed me at once.

SU XI XSU [HEAVILY]: Yes, I know I should. But I promised to let you go.

LYSSK [RISING TO HER FULL GLORIOUS HEIGHT IN FRONT OF SU XI XSU]: General, lady, female human … you are old. You have been running your wars for a long time. You have seen enough blood-shed and slaughter to curdle any mud and clay soul. You have played enough filthy tricks so that even your missionaries, those pious souls, turn away in disgust. Now look at me and recognize who I am. I am Lyssk. Lady Lyssk, the daughter of Queen Nachkt. My mother had plenty of innocents slaughtered when it was necessary as well. But I tell you my name because we are more similar than you realize, dear bloody sister Su Xi Xsu.

SU XI XSU [LOOKING LYSSK UP AND DOWN, SNIFFS]: Sorry, no. I don’t see it.

LYSSK: We both have the blood of those who judge and who condemn running through us. We are the ones who never have to speculate how all the terrible decisions we make will change everyone around us for generations to come. You are no more a general than I am a queen, Su Xi Xsu. If you want to give Tao Jiu-Di to your daughter, Lu Kui-Lei, for whatever misguided, foolish reason, then have me killed at once. But you also must kill my companion, dear old Ts’ssk, and the children of Tao Jiu-Di as well.

SU XI XSU [ASTONISHED]: You were able to birth human children? Is that even possible?

LYSSK [SNAPPISH]: If you were able to understand my biology then you’d know my children are more like … what is the word that you apes use? Hybrid? Meh. Regardless, the answer is a simple yes. But I am not interested in filling in the holes to your faulty education. What I do want, however, is that you and your raggedy little soldiers kill everything that Lyssk has ever loved.

SU XI XSU: Why do you wish to die so badly?

LYSSK: Why do I want to live? Neither you nor Tao Jiu-Di have anything to gain in having me living and plotting against your blood. You know it as well as I.

SU XI XSU [GESTURES VAGUELY, SAYS IN A DEAD VOICE]: War has drained me of blood. I just wish to do something respectable before I get too old.

LYSSK [HISSING OMINOUSLY]: Then you are too old now! Keep me alive? Letting me go? Let your daughter reign instead, let her do the dirty work as it ought to be done. You can go fuck off, or wank off, or … whatever it is you tyrants do in your free time.

SU XI XSU [STRIDING ANGRILY OVER TO GLARE UP AT LYSSK]: Alien pride! Wretched insult! Watch that clit-tongue of yours. Did you think that I came here to seek your advice?

LYSSK: Why else would you be here? Gloating? My cheery personality? You can try to silence me if you have the balls for it.

SU XI XSU: Why would you even use that metaphor? I thought all Lingualandicis were female.

LYSSK: From your screwy gender-bender way of thinking, I suppose. After all this time I still find the whole concept of ‘masculinity’ bizarrely abominable. But, then again, I’ve always been a sucker for a cute abomination.

SU XI XSU: Be that as it may, I promised Tao Jiu-Di that you would leave unhurt.

LYSSK [GIVES A PURRING LAUGH, FIRST WE’VE HEARD]: Please! Unhurt? How can you even promise me that? Am I a shadow? A memory? An unfortunate mistake? All that Tao Jiu-Di wished for I brought to life! He may think he is conjuring me away so that he can hide himself among your toy soldiers in your toy palace, bury himself in your daughter’s cunt and become an even worse asshole than you when you die. But you and he and she are undone. My husband knows his soul and mine are bound together forever. You don’t possess the dark science to severe that. Drive me away? Why not. Kill me? Please! It will all be the same. In marrying him to your daughter, old woman, you are also making your daughter mine, whether you like it or not. [HISSES] Su Xi Xsu, do what must be done. Exile Tao Jiu-Di as well. You talk about my crimes, but for ten years he has been my coconspirator, my accomplice, my collaborator. His hands are soaked in the same blood as mine, hands which are going to violate your daughter. We are both mothers. You know that I do not speak lightly about such things. Give me Tao Jiu-Di.

SU XI XSU: No. I will see that you go alone.

LYSSK [SOFTLY]: Su Xi Xsu. I do not want to beg you. I cannot. My knees cannot bend, my voice cannot be humble. But you are weak since you could not bring yourself to have me killed. I was not alone when I came to this world. It was for Tao Jiu-Di that I killed Pakma Raka, betrayed my mother, and slaughtered my innocent sister. I did all that I up to be Tao Jiu-Di’s woman.

SU XI XSU: You can’t be his woman, you’re not human! You said that we were similar, sisters in blood. But no, you are wrong. It is true that we both have split more blood than even Hell can endure … but I did it for my people, for my city, for trying to make a better life for my family. You did for a man and now all you do is bad-mouth the very man you say you cannot live without. Pathetic.

LYSSK: If I bad mouth him it is because you and he leave me no other way to state my case. He belongs to me and my crimes belong to him.

SU XI XSU: No! You’re just twisting the truth up in that alien head of yours. Tao Jiu-Di certainly isn’t an innocent in this world, but parted from you and he can be saved. You alone have stained yourself. Tao Jiu-Di is one of us, the son of one of us. He is like any other men, a wild child, perhaps, but now he is a man who thinks as we do. You alone are inhuman, a monstrosity, a stranger here with your stupid head and hatred. Go back to your mother’s hive. I say again, we have no need of nightmares here.

LYSSK [SOFTLY]: What about my daughters? What are they? Lingualandicis? Human?

SU XI XSU: I do not know, and frankly, I don’t care. You will leave them with us. They will grow up in my palace. I promise you they will have my protection.

LYSSK [SOFTLY]: Generosity does not suit very well, Soft Flesh.

SU XI XSU: Enough! Your hour head start has begun. When three rabbit moons are high in the sky nothing will protect you here any longer. My orders have been given.

LYSSK: An hour. [PAUSE] In an hour I will never see my daughters again. I will not be able to raise them properly, not to be able to feed and bathe them. Their mother shall always be a stranger to them. What should I say to them? How can I do this? Exile is nothing compared to this. Su Xi Xsu, you are a mother. How can I do what you ask? Give me until tomorrow. I will stay awake all night watching my girls dream. I will awaken them in the morning as I always do and I will send them to you.

SU XI XSU [LOOKS AT HER FOR A MOMENT IN SILENCE]: Yes. [PAUSE] Yes. [CHUCKLES] You see, I am getting old. I should deny your request. But, Lady Lyssk, I have laid whole planets to waste. I have annihilated entire races with my army. Perhaps, in exchange for a peaceful night for your daughters, the Lord will be kind when it my turn to stand before him.

[SU XI XSU EXITS, FOLLOWED BY HER SOLDIERS]

LYSSK: Perhaps. [WAITS UNTIL THE HUMANS ARE OUT OF SIGHT THEN SPITS ON THE GROUND, HISSING SOFTLY AS THE SOUND OF THE WIND INCREASES] I am laughing at you, Su Xi Xsu! You want to let my daughters sleep because something stirs inside your heart when alone at night? You are old and vain and you have lost your claws. You are a fool if you think making supplications and amends to all the souls of the children that you have murdered, to all the races that you exterminated, to everyone who did not bow down before you and your missionaries and your horrible god will ever help! I am Lyssk! Daughter of Queen Nachkt of the Blue Hive. [SHE HISSES TO THE TS’SSK] Hurry, hissing shell. We shall be gone in an hour.

[CURTAIN, END OF ACT I]

SAVAGE: some thoughts on motivation and alien puppets

08 Thursday May 2014

Posted by in drama, Feminism, introduction

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all mockery is laughing
all violence is cheap …
you savage.
— Eurythmics

When I started writing this retelling of Medea I wasn’t worried about how the alien Xenomorph that would represent the tragic heroine, precisely, come to life on a shoe string budget; rather, I was curious what she would say if given a voice. This age of multimillion dollar Hollywood CGI has made modern storytellers lazy, I feel. I would rather work with Old School break dancing team or a high school drama class with a budget of $50 because that requires thinking outside the box. However, since the entire play succeeds or fails on the strength of its main character a little in-depth examination about the source material and costume is in order.

… Come, you spirits/ That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,/ And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full/ Of direst cruelty …
… Come to my woman’s breasts,/ And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers …
Come, thick night … That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,/ Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark/ To cry “Hold, hold!”
— Lady Macbeth, from Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 5

Like Lady Macbeth, Medea is a complex creature who loses what little humanity she had in order to do what she deemed necessary: commit murder. Perhaps it is easier to see these motivations in Shakespeare than in Euripides. Power, we are told, corrupts, and by the end of the play, Lady Macbeth, driven insane by guilt over the crimes she has committed, takes her own life. “Unsex me here,” she commands, so that she might not be burdened with all the scruples and morals that would normally prevent her from turning into a monster. She enters the play human but leaves it bestial. Medea, in contrast, was never human to begin with. She enters it a beast, temporary becomes human and leaves it a monster.

Before I reread the Greek play I thought I remembered it well enough. Medea is in exile; having fallen in love with a handsome stranger, Jason, and helped him to find the Golden Fleece. She leaves her family and travels, with their children, to a foreign land to live. Once there Jason quickly becomes bored with her, marries the king’s daughter, and casts Medea and his own children aside. It is a story of an innocent woman spurned who takes revenge too far. Except that there is nothing remotely innocent about Medea. In Euripides’ play, at least, one of the reasons that Medea fled into exile with Jason was because she brutally murdered her own younger brother, Apsyrtus, and threw his severed body parts around her father’s palace. Everywhere she goes, we are told by her nurse in the prologue, she brings death and destruction with her. In one kingdom she tricks the daughters of Pelias into boiling their father alive in order that Jason might usurp the throne and become king himself. Yes, Jason does leave her, and yes, this betrayal is what drives her to kill — not only Jason’s new bride and father-in-law, but her own children as well — but she doesn’t need to call upon the darkness in her heart to make her something less than human like Lady Macbeth does, Medea was never human to begin with; a fact that tends to get overlooked in many productions of Medea that I’ve seen.

I’m telling you all this because it is Medea’s inhumanness that I find the most interesting. By making her simply a spurned mortal woman being cast aside for a younger one Medea becomes a powerless victim, one who feels that killing is the only way that she can bring agency and control back to herself. Perhaps on one level that might make sense to some, but it also creates a giant plot-hole: Medea is a sorceress. She might even be a goddess. She leaves the play in a flying chariot driven by her own dark arts. She has necromancy powers Jason doesn’t even know about. Why, then, does she allow things to get so out of hand that total annihilation of her enemies seems the only choice open for her?

“Love for her man, no matter how vile,” some critics have argued, is her motivation and while that reading can certainly be found in the text it also cranks the misogyny factor up to 11 on the dial for me. It’s that old-gristle bone that a woman without a man is nothing. It reminds me a little too much of that one Billie Holiday song:

I’d rather my man would hit me/ Than to jump up and quit me
Ain’t nobody’s business if I do
I swear I won’t call no copper/ If I’m beat up by my papa
Ain’t nobody’s business if I do.

That is, indeed, one way to read Medea and the gender politics of the play. It’s a terrible way, granted, but others in the past have made this claim, so obviously there’s enough people who believe it. It’s not my way, though.

A much more interesting approach is to examine what befell the character of Jack Torrance. Author Stephen King has been highly critical of Stanley Kubrick adaptation of The Shining (1980) over the years, saying that by having the haunting of the Overlook Hotel coming from within Jack himself robs the character of any chance at redemption. Redemption is an interesting idea for Jack’s motivation, since it infuses everything he does with an agonizing desperation as the chance to be human moves further and further away. By simply having Jack get caught in a time-loop that he is forever doomed to repeat, Kubrick, while still making a very scary movie, strips any tension, any risk, any gamble with the Devil from Jack as well. But by making Jack a fallen rebel angel being given one last chance at salvation suddenly everything is at stake.

That is how I see Medea. She committed atrocities, ran away with Jason, put up with his betrayals for ten years not because she is a doormat but because this is her only chance to try and become the one thing she longs for but will never truly have. “Imagine, the darkness in love with the light,” the demon-girl Yazuha cries despairingly at the end of the Tenchi Muyo movie, Daughter of Darkness (1998). Jason’s crime wasn’t just cheating on her, it was casting her back into the dark; it was damning her and sealing her fate forever. At the end she destroys the world not because she’s a psychopath but because, from her point of view, everything within the human world around her is. She is the ultimate Other, desperately trying to pass for something she is not and failing. Jason didn’t just break her heart; he literally turned her back into the creature that she was before the play started.

This is why retelling this ancient story as set against an alien world, literally turning Medea into a Xenomorph (Xeno simply being a prefix for foreign or alien), seemed interesting. In the Horror genre the most famous alien, for me, is the bug-like monster of Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) that destroys the crew of the Nostromo. This nightmare was created by Swiss surrealist, H.R. Giger, who pioneered the whole concept of biomechanical, nightmarish life forms in art. As Charlie Jane Anders wrote:

”Biomechanics fused the impossible into a savage logic: metal and flesh, sex and death, hypnotic beauty and violation; its cool, corpse-silver colors pre-empting [Ridley] Scott’s industrial-tech aesthetic.” (2011)

As cool as all this might sound, the Xenomorph from the Alien franchise is a copyrighted image and, rightly so, Giger feels entitled to the artist’s royalties whenever one of his creations is used (going so far as to sue 20th Century Fox over failing to credit him in Alien: Resurrection). Other artists and film makers have taken the concept of biomechanics and expanded it over the years, from the New Flesh of David Cronenberg’s Videodrome (1983) to the metal fetishist of Shinya Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo: The Iron Man. (1989) In later Alien movies, once Giger no longer had creative control over his creation, certain changes occurred: the aliens became a lot more muscular, some had skull ridges, they could spit their own acid-blood, many developed horrendous drool problems. Why producers thought an over active drool gland was scary I do not know, it is hard to feel terror when you keep wanting to wipe a monster’s chin with a handkerchief and put a baby bib around its neck. However the Xenomorph-Medea, Lyssk, gets developed, please, no drool.

Lyssk’s species, the Lingualandicis (“clitoris-tongues”), need to look simultaneously like human females and grotesque lizards without drifting into the silly; something as familiar as a mother’s naked breast in an exoskeleton, as common child-bearing hips and ass with a segmented, scorpion-like tail. This is what confused Jason, he thought he was dealing with a female of his species, someone who’d behave accordingly. Seven foot tall Xenomorph-Medea needs to look like she could twist Jason’s head completely off if she felt like it.

Finding a seven-foot tall Amazonian actress might be difficult, which is why making a seven-foot tall Lyssk puppet might be an interesting alternative.

The idea came from a sketch on Jim Henson’s television show, The Muppet Show, with a creation called a Clodhopper. While only one performer was required for each full-figured puppet, the Clodhopper’s feet were attached to the performers’ feet while their heads and hands were the performer’s hands. Invisible wires allowed for wings to flap or tails to twitch. The puppeteer was dressed in black to hide their body against the black background. Considering that the play’s action takes place outdoors, in the dark, an eerie, ghost-like Lingualandici might add a certain amount of strangeness that an actress in body paint and a mask might not.

][][

Works Cited

Anders, Charlie Jane. How H.R. Giger’s Brilliant Madness Helped Make Alien “Erotic” (10/11/2011)
Retrieved from http: //io9.com/5851618/how-hr-gigers-brilliant-madness-helped-make-alien-so-erotic

King, Stephen. Danse Macabre. Berkley, CA.: Berkley Press. (1981)

Parish, James Robert. Jim Henson: Puppeteer And Filmmaker. New York: Ferguson Pub. (2006)

Prucher, Jeff (ed.) Brave New Worlds: the Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction. Oxford: Oxford Press. (2007)