Past Projects > Jerungdu > Script Archive > Mahoney's Mirror > MM (2) > MM (Part 3)
Mahoney's Mirror: A Sci-Fi Musical Comedy Adventure (Part 3)
by Michael Donahue, Newt Skink
& Bedlam Theatre Co.
Copyright 1997-2000
Act 2 Scene 5: Wally's Dream (Schroedinger)
Wally appears in a lab coat.
WALLY
Goot eefning laties und chentlemen. My name iss Herr Doktor Ervin Schroedinger. Although I have been ze recipient of ze Nobel Prize f'r mein research into ze field of kvontum mechanics, I come now before you tonight to perform an experiment in a somewhat ezotericly related field of research. Observe please ziss large box on ze table in front of me.
Wally displays inside of empty box.
It is a perfectly empty box mit only ze one opening. I would now like to introduce you to ze subject of tonight's experiment: Minka.
Produces a cat
Isn't she a beauty? Minka and I have been very goot friends for many years. Naaa, mein kleines Liebchen?
Strokes cat, places in box, closes top.
Note please zat ze box is large enough for Minka to move around kvite freely, so zat at any point in time she might be anyvhere inside ze box.
Produces a luger.
Vhen ziss experiment vass first conceived, ve sought of using poison gas, but encountered tremendous difficulty in convincing Minka zhat it vass only a shower.
Fires shots at the box as the cat squeals.
Ach ja, ziss iss always ze most difficult part of ze experiment.
Cat noises diminish and cease.
Vee do not know, indeed vee cannot know whether Minka iss now alive or dead or somevhere. . .in betveen. It iss only true ze act of opening ze box zhat vee can know. It zerefore stands to reason zat ze very act of opening ze box is ze determining factor of Minka's life und death.
Opens box.
Hmmm, zo I see.
Act 2 Scene 6: Third Vortex Scene
PATRICK
My infected ingrown cunt hair, I have been thinking…
NELLY
Yes my rusty pipe cleaner...
PATRICK
Schoedinger's theory of quantum mechanics states that particles and waves both act in fixed and predictable ways but LIGHT is an example of a form of energy that can adopt qualities found in either particles or waves… or both.
NELLY
So… what's the point of your snotty fuck stick?
PATRICK
Well my sunny side turpentine douche, as electrostatic life forces, we have both transcended the physical. We have adapted the qualities of both particles and waves and have become beings of pure light. Our intense suffering has become the catalyst to our enlightenment. There is no limit to our potential. We think we are here but in reality we're everywhere… like Pepsi… like the Super Bowl! How's that for cleaning the gold spray paint out of your twat?!?
Music starts.
NELLY
Oh if only we could find a way to become physical again my rodent penis. I fantasize you ramming the end of an old splintered plunger coated with Comet up my ass. It’s so unbearably comfortable not lacerating myself constantly and I really miss my itchy foot clamps.
Four Dimensional Donut
PATRICK
Stand on top of the sugar cube,
Stare down into the coffee,
All the things you can't imagine like being down here with me.
I'm a four dimensional donut,
I'm an electrostatic sphere,
I'm something you don't know what,
I'm something beyond fear.
If you can't believe me.
If you can't conceive of me,
If you can't receive you'll never know
I'm too far below.
NELLY
Bimbos in belly fissures,
Feet that smell like glue,
Ace bandage to the material,
I'm the spirit you never knew.
I'm the spirit you never knew,
The body is only a suit,
Physicality is your fixation,
Your libido is growing blue.
If you can't believe me,
If you can't conceive of me,
If you can't receive you'll never know
I'm too far below.
PATRICK
Sustenance, sustenance,
Everything I try,
Another energy is calling my name
From somewhere on the other side.
NELLY
Somewhere on the other side,
Thieves knots amnesia,
They'll all forget when they're blind,
Continuing desire continuing.
BOTH
If you can't believe me,
If you can't conceive of me,
If you can't receive you'll never know
I'm too far below.
Act 2 Scene 7: Transamerica Building
WALLY
Felix thought that the 3-D radio commercials composed by the GoaTease; the Beatles of the Bad Luck dimension were a message from Satan himself. And hearing Patrick's electrostatic voice in the plumbing didn't help matters. Nearly seven years have passed since Felix experienced a leap of consciousness from the top of the Transamerica pyramid. After enduring seven years of intense Bad Luck radiation George has still not overcome his grief. Although an Atheist, he at times resorts to prayer. Desperate to understand why such a tragedy should torment him, while awake and asleep he searches for answers. In his dreams, he asks God for insight. Little does he know that he could just as easily have written God a letter addressed to his retirement home in San Clemente. No matter. Ask and ye shall receive.
Lights up on George, asleep behind his desk. Baseball game on the radio. He wakes and picks up a framed photo of Felix from his desk.
GEORGE
Why, Felix, why? With all the beauty life has to offer, how could you just piss it all away off the top of the Transamerica building? It doesn't make any sense, Felix. Can't you hear me? It just doesn't make any sense!
George rests his head on the pipe.
ANNOUNCER
Die! Die! Die!
George rises.
GEORGE
Fucking Christ! What the shit!
Puts his head back.
ANNOUNCER
Get yourself a new BONE--MARROW--TRANSPLANT! With Battery Acid!
GEORGE
What the Fuck?! What the Fuck?! Felix, I…
Puts his head back. Hears Interference. Then Patrick's voice is heard.
PATRICK
If I just keep trying. Someone will hear me. Someone will believe me. We CAN go back. If someone can just hear me.
Interference.
GEORGE
I can hear you! I hear you, Felix! What? I… I hear you.
PATRICK
There's a geothermal testing lab in Iceland. Big holes in the ground, and selenium, lots of selenium.
GEORGE
Felix? I hear you, Felix, I can hear you! I believe you, Felix. I believe every word of it. And I'm coming for you Felix! I'll see you in Iceland, Felix! I'm gonna bring you back, Felix!
Act 2 Scene 8: The White House
Thunder.
NIXON
Wally the Fly! !
WALLY
Y-yes, sir.
NIXON
I have a new assignment for you.
WALLY
Y-yes, sir.
NIXON
This Patrick Mahoney thing is out of control. Mistakes have been made. There's leaks everywhere! And the media, The Fucking Media! ! I need someone, someone I can trust, to get down there and eliminate him immediately!
WALLY
B-but how, sir… How? He is in the vortex… beyond our hegemony… the treaties…
NIXON
I don't give a rat's ass How! ! Just do it! And now! Call Haldeman! Call Dean! They know people! Now you fix this and… and you're in line for a nice promotion, understand? Nixon has spoken!
Thunder.
Act 2 Scene 9: Iceland
GEORGE (Looking at the sky)
Wow, that's fantastic. Can I bum a cigarette?
OLGA
Why certainly. Ah yes, the northern lights. I don't know how anyone could look at the Aurora Borealis and question the existence of God.
GEORGE (Disgusted)
Oh, those are just particles thrown off the surface of the sun by explosions and then caught in the polar magnetic field.
OLGA
You're an American, aren't you?
GEORGE
Why yes. And you have been brainwashed by some self-serving religious organization, haven't you?
OLGA
No, actually, my mind is not closed off. I am open to many possibilities. In fact, even though I am myself a scientist, I realize that science itself is a dogmatic religion.
GEORGE
Oh really. Well I think that scientists whose hypotheses are clouded by religious snake oil should be excommunicated.
OLGA
Is there something bothering you?
GEORGE
Yes! The irrational zealots who have been imposing their hypocritical, repressed and backward dogma on forward thinking minds for millennia. They should all be thrown in reeducation camps and fed nothing but wine and communion wafers!
OLGA
Listen, I didn't ask for this. I was just taking a break and watching the sky, and frankly, you are ruining my view.
GEORGE
Ah fuck. I'm sorry. I am SUCH a fucking asshole. Well y'see it's just, well, I threw my whole life away in Frisco just to be a janitor in Iceland and the sun ain't come up since I got here and I don't really make friends all that easily and I'm just goin' crazy and, well, I'm sorry. By the way, my name is George Regan.
OLGA (Shakes his hand)
Olga Chadwick. Nice to meet you.
GEORGE (Abruptly)
See, the reason I'm so down on religion right now is that my 17 year old son (bursts into tears) committed suicide to be with "SATAN" and well, I've always been an atheist, y'know? A realist, a rationalist, but now, well, now I don't know what I consider myself.
OLGA
I see, I'm sorry to hear that… So, what made you decide to come to Iceland?
GEORGE
Well, my son's suicide note said that Satan was in the plumbing. I mean, what the fuck does that mean? Is that a reason to fucking kill yourself? Y'know? But then I started hearing the voices myself.
OLGA
You've been hearing… voices?
Voices in the Plumbing
GEORGE
I rose up from the dust covered hive bowels,
Rested my exhausted face on the coolant pipes
Someone was talkin' bout acid in the bone emulsion
Then my posturing turned into vulnerability
I told myself it's a complete impossibility
That wasn't Satan it's a message from the void
CHORUS
Distant voices whisper underground
Fifty thousand feet below but still I hear the sound
Distant voices whisper underground
And when I listened closely this is what I found
GEORGE
They asked me to believe
Asked me to receive
Asked me to conceive
It told me how I could even the score
I traced the tubing to the bottom floor
Said,"Go to Iceland if you wanna hear some more"
Said something 'bout geothermal testing
Go with the flow I thought would be the best thing
I got my ticket and I'm flyin' out tonight
CHORUS
Repeat Chorus
GEORGE
So I heard these voices in the plumbing and for the last two weeks before coming here I recorded them.
OLGA
You recorded… voices.
GEORGE
I picked 'em up on an AM radio receiver by putting the antenna against the pipe.
OLGA
And you heard Satan in the plumbing.
GEORGE
I dug up the original architectural plans and discovered that for some reason the pipes were wrapped in selenium wire.
OLGA
Ahh… selenium.
GEORGE
Anyway, to make a long story short, the voices in the plumbing told me to go to a geothermal testing lab in Iceland. I thought that, well, you know, that this might help me reach a place of closure around my son's death.
OLGA
God works in mysterious ways. (Giggles nervously) What strange providence but it's funny you should mention it but I am currently working with a selenium alloy as a potential thermal-conducting agent.
GEORGE
Right now?
OLGA
Oh, yes.
GEORGE
Do you have a soldering gun?
OLGA
A soldering gun?
GEORGE
And an AM radio?
OLGA
Oh, well, of course.
GEORGE
Well, would it be OK if I ruined your million dollar experiment in order to indulge my ridiculous pseudo-science obsession?
OLGA
Well, the Oil Company that's sponsoring this doesn't really want a better thermal conductor anyway. Why not…
GEORGE
Well let's get on it!
Exit
Act 2 Scene 10: Tofu Like Shale (4th Vortex Scene)
NELLY
What's the matter, Ratprick?
PATRICK
Project Elf is destroying my mind! I don't know about your dimension, but in mine the military uses the granite domes in Wisconsin to send subsonic messages all over the world. They say it's for communicating with the nuclear submarines in charge of destroying all life on the planet, but really it sends nothing but a constant stream of Nancy Reagan 'Just Say No' messages and they're going directly into my brain!
NELLY
Oh, that sounds horrible! Worse than migraines!
PATRICK
It would be, except instead of causing pain it's breaking down my resistance to irony and metaphor!
NELLY
Well so what?
PATRICK
Well for instance, I just noticed that that bland colorless formless chalky shale over there reminds me of Tofu!
NELLY
I hate Tofu! Besides, that's not a metaphor, you idiot. That's just an analogy!
PATRICK
Yeah, but then I started thinking of how boring and tasteless my life is and I thought,"Wow, just like that Shale! Just like that Tofu!" And I felt comforted!
NELLY
Ooh! How bitter. And ironic.
PATRICK
See, I told you… If we don't get out of here soon I might find myself happy to be alive!
Tofu Like Shale
PATRICK
People used to say
The world's a flat slab of clay
If you go to close to the edge
You'll never see another day
In a vision the Bad Luck Bilk Ozby
Showed me another way
Be it science or superstition
There's no reason to be afraid
It was just BAD LUCK!
Cast dressed as black cats run across the stage singing the chorus.
ALL
Shale like Tofu, Tofu like Shale!
PATRICK
Bad Luck!
ALL
Shale like Tofu, Tofu like Shale!
PATRICK
Bad luck
ALL
Shale like Tofu, Tofu like Shale!
PATRICK
Total Despair! Total Despair!
NELLY
Jowl man and the Jell-oww guy
Speak through the Earth but never talk through the sky
Covert Gods from parallel worlds
There's no reason to wonder why
Patrick and NELLY
What was wrong with Richard Nixon
He wasn't that bad of a guy
PATRICK
Here I stand pomegranate in hand
There's no reason not to give it a try
It was just BAD LUCK!
ALL
Shale like Tofu, Tofu like Shale!
PATRICK
Bad Luck!
ALL
Shale like Tofu, Tofu like Shale!
PATRICK
Bad Luck!
ALL
Shale like Tofu, Tofu like Shale!
PATRICK
Total Despair! Total Despair!
Wind, wind, I'm sick of the wind
I'd rather live in still stagnant caves
It was just Bad Luck!
ALL
Shale like Tofu, Tofu like Shale!
PATRICK
Bad Luck!
ALL
Shale like Tofu, Tofu like Shale!
PATRICK
Bad Luck!
ALL
Shale like Tofu, Tofu like Shale!
PATRICK
Total Despair! Total Despair! TOTAL DESPAIR! !
Act 2 Scene 11: The Lab
George and Olga are spotlighted. They sit on the bandstand with a giant drill device in front of them as the band rolls slowly forward toward the audience.
GEORGE
See! That's him! That's Felix!
OLGA
Yes, but there were TWO voices!
GEORGE
They're both Felix!
OLGA
They can't both be Felix. Besides, one of them is a woman! And she says she's from a different dimension!
GEORGE
You don't know Felix! Ah, ha, ha, ha. Come on, let's get this Conductor fired up! Let me use your compact case. (He cracks the mirror with a hammer.) Sorry… I'll buy you a new one. Hand me the soldering gun.
OLGA
But she's from another dimension! You can't just start adding dimensions to things! She could be anti-matter, or something. You could destroy everything!
GEORGE
Oh whatever! People have been saying that for thousands of years! If it isn't global warming, it's Satan walking the Earth! I'm sick of your tedious warnings of doom and woe!
George is hooking the machine up, turning dials, etc.
OLGA
But George, this is science! This is rational! We know this. It makes sense!
GEORGE
It all makes sense! Nuclear energy! Capitalism! genocide! It all makes sense! That's why people do it!
OLGA
But, George…
Spotlight on Patrick and NELLY
NELLY
I feel something!
PATRICK
Yes! We're being pulled! And it's painful!
NELLY
Where are we being pulled?
Spotlight on Wally
WALLY
How ironic that I, a mere fly, should be entrusted with saving the Universe. You know, I always felt, deep down in my soul, that somehow I was destined for greatness. And now my moment is at hand!
Points gun at Patrick
But who will know? Who will care? What difference will it really make? If I do nothing then everything happens, but if I do something then nothing happens. What kind of heroism is that where nothing happens, where nothing ever changes?!? My hero, Dr. Robert Oppenheimer was never diverted by such measly ideas of morality. The ancient Indian religions have long recognized that love and hate originate at the sub-atomic level, and Oppenheimer addressed them there! 60,000 Japanese children were burned alive so we could protect the world from Nazism and genocide! Of course, the Germans had already surrendered months earlier, but the ideas, The ideas! You understand? Adolf and Eva spun enviously in their graves at the efficiency of the American crematoria!
Oppenheimer
PATRICK
I've been down so long I can't remember,
The ELF whispered "Just Say No".
NELLY
I see the sun's gamma glow now a hideous blizzard
of untouchable indigo snow.
WALLY
Let's get on with the show,
The speed of evolution moves far too slow.
Let's get on with the show
Remember Robert Oppenheimer,
We could have all been Nazis years ago.
If it all blows that's the way it goes,
Who's to say there's so little we know.
The rank and file shrivel in denial,
Remember Roswell, New Mexico
Let's get on with the show,
The speed of evolution moves far too slow.
Let's get on with the show,
Remember Robert Oppenheimer,
We could have all been Nazis years ago.
Music intensifies as Patrick and Nelly start to spin and move to center stage. A giant prop hand holding a broken compact case lowers from the ceiling. George starts to shake as he holds Olga's compact case high in the air. Eventually they are depicted as combining as the prop hand engulfs them. Both of their faces appear in the compact case as the lights fade to black. A computer animated image of Nixon is shown as the planet Earth is sucked into his anus. It zooms out to show both Nixon and Bilk spinning off into blackness as they are joined at the ass. The image morphs into a yin/yang symbol and explodes signifying the end of both universes. Felix emerges as "Kali the Lounge Singer" and sings a short song of death.
KALI SINATRA (Felix/Angelique)
Love is oblivion... orgasm, death
Come on oblivion and steal my breath
Breath is wind and wind fans fire
We're all faggots on God's funeral pyre.
Burn the corpses... burn the flowers
When life meets death fire rains in showers
When the sirens wail we all just want to fuck
And who that is just comes down to luck
Black out.
Act 2 Scene 12: Epilouge for the Universe
Lights come up as Wally performs the last song as the entire cast enters the stage in maggot costumes to perform choreographed, abstract maggot dance.
Wally the Fly (69-96)
WALLY
I just love 'love'. Somehow I always knew the end of the Universe would be a love story and I'm glad to have been a fly on the wall watching it all unfold. I remember my tenth grade biology class when the professor showed us a film about insects and their exponential population growth. Due to accelerating mutation and a resistance to all known pesticides, insects will eventually devour humanity and take over the world. As the film ended and the lights came up, I saw a big green shit fly on the back of Nancy Doherty's lustrous jet black hair. She was the girl with the most inspired ass in the universe. When I looked at her ass, I saw GOD and I wished "I" were that little green shit fly. I wanted to be a member of the "master species", blessed with mandibles and a hard, chitinous exoskeleton. Now, victory is mine! My prayers have been answered because ever since the Gods, Richard Nixon and Bilk Ozby disappeared through their own respective assholes, there won't be anything left but proto-blood droplets and quasi-dingle berries. The most advanced life form will be maggots and my species will be alone at the top of the shit heap having progeny larvelly tucked away in temporal stasis waiting for the next Primal Celestial Zygosis. Who cares if they won't go to college, THEY LIVE!!! You people who think you are an audience -- and also myself being differentiated by the fact that I have (smugly) PROGENY -- are nothing more than victims of "Project Elf". Mortal souls were not blessed with an afterlife until the creator of the universe instituted Project Elf. But free will de-deified the deity and we have all disappeared through Nixon's anus. We have since been experiencing a post-mortem holographic delusion introduced during our life times by low amplitude radio waves bouncing off huge granite domes in Wisconsin. Our existence began, from yin to yang, in the year '69. Our existence was terminated, from yang to yin, in the year '96. That was when the yin and yang turned away from one another and imploded through their radioactive anti-matter excretion ducts. A government sponsored mass hypnosis gave us all life before birth. Now, a government sponsored post hypnotic suggestion is giving us all life after death. That's right, the rest of your life is only a "Just Say No" public service program, merely a pre-recorded loop on your neural VCR. If it feels like you are experiencing deja vu every time you see a media spokeswoman wearing a red dress, it is nothing more than another Nancy Reagan clone introducing the program at the usual Tuesday, eight o'clock start time. If this doesn't make any sense to you, you smug little hamsters on your squeaky wheels, think about the world being created in six days. What a burden to be the only character aware of my own non-existence in this squeaky, video hamster wheel loop. Just wait until the tape starts to decay. The parts of your life that are reduced to squealing magnetic erasure will make you feel as though you are going to heaven. I sometimes wish the loop were still in my tenth grade biology class when things were simple… when I could understand everything. When Nancy Doherty sat her divine butt in front of me every day making my entire body sweat and my insides quiver. Fortunately, I have become "aware". I no longer need to suffer through the entire "Just Say No" video over and over again for all eternity. I get the message now.
Wally pulls out the gun, puts it in his mouth and pulls the trigger. He does not die so he pulls out a fly swatter and begins hitting himself. He still does not die so he sprays bug spray in his mouth. Music ensues as cast is now lying in a circle under Wally as he rises toward the rafters. After great effort he finally dies. Cast begins the final mantra.
Everyone is Lying to You
CHORUS
Prey for leniency
Prey for your soul
Pray for mercy at your judgement
Everyone is lying to you
Everyone is lying to you
Nancy Reagan appears on the video screen.
NANCY:
Just say no, just say no, just say no, just say no...
Curtain Call
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