Global Panda(emic)
or
Facing the Theatre of the Future
---A Serial “Stage” Play---
by Ian Lambton
SCENE TWO.
SCENE ONE was published in HELLO GOODBYE APOCALYPSE’s first issue as “A One Act Play”, but has evolved into an ongoing series of Scenes, to be read in sequence.
This play is not necessarily intended for actual performance, so your reading – alone, in pandemic privacy – is the performance
LIGHTS come up on an empty stage. HAP crawls from the shadows of the empty audience seating, onto the stage, cautiously approaching the light of center stage. HAP is a mess, bedraggled and disheveled. He reaches the center of the light and tries to stand up. SID is heard off-stage, and HAP immediately cowers off to the side and back into the shadows. (Roles are any gender, age etc; “he” is used for convenience.)
SID: Hola! Hola! (Pause.) Hey dude, where you at? (Pause.) Come out, come out wherever you are.
HAP reaches into his tattered clothing and pulls out a dirty Covid face mask, as if it might be a disguise, and tries to stay half-hidden in the shadows. SID sees him but strolls casually round the stage, dressed in a beautiful outfit that resembles a police/ military uniform but with epaulettes, medals and a fancy hat. He strides about finding the center stage light and basks in it as if it was pure sunshine.
Look, we have to face facts. (Pause.) We’re here. (Pause.) It is what it is. I know – that sounds cliché, but then… you know… it’s all clichés. Truth, fantasy, all of it.
HAP: Go away. Leave me alone. I don’t want to have anything to do with it?
SID: With what?
HAP: With anything. Count me out. I’m not here.
SID: Yes you are. I see you.
HAP: So what?
SID: Well, if I see you, that proves you’re right there where I see you.
HAP: Not necessarily.
SID: What do you mean?
HAP: What if I refuse to see you? Maybe you’re not there. Then I could say that the proof, as you call it, has vanished.
SID: Into thin air? Nice try. But no. I’m here and you’re there.
HAP: So you say. But what if we only exist in each other’s imagination?
SID: Huh?
HAP: What if you only exist in my imagination?
SID: What the hell? You think my seeing you is a hallucination? You’re crazy.
HAP: Of course. If I’m seeing things that aren’t there, then yes, I must be crazy.
SID: I see. That’s your ploy. That’s your game. That’s your tactic.
HAP: It’s my strategy. My defense.
SID: Yeah, but it’s garbage.
HAP: Well… look at you?
SID: Okay, look at me. I look great, don’t I? Look at you. My God, what a mess. What happened to you?
HAP: It’s a long story. I went… downhill.
SID: Like an avalanche, like a train with no brakes, like a rolling stone, like a hunk of junk.
HAP: But that’s not the point. Look at you.
SID: Yeah, I’m worth looking at. You stay out of sight, that’s where you belong.
HAP: No. I mean yes. You’re right. But look at you? How did you get that… that uniform?
SID: I don’t know.
HAP: What are you?
SID: I don’t know.
HAP: Who are you?
SID: I really do not know. Obviously I am someone of importance and authority. Not someone you should mess with.
HAP: But why?
SID: Isn’t it obvious?
HAP: No. That’s the point. You’re not real. You’re like a mirage. A dream. A fabrication.
SID: You mean you’re calling me a fake? How dare you, you heap of steaming garbage in the gutter.
HAP: Are you calling the audience garbage in the gutter?
SID: Are you calling me a fake? Like an apparition?
HAP: Or a hologram?
SID: A hollow… hollow… like a ghost?
HAP: Yikes!
SID: Yikes!
For a moment they cringe together is if haunted by something scary in the audience, then back off, remembering…
HAP and SID: Sorry… social distancing, social… six feet, sorry.
HAP: But it’s true. You know it is.
SID: What? That you really are crazy?
HAP: Yes. But I’m real. You’re not real.
SID: How dare you.
HAP: We’re the same, you and I.
SID: No, we are not. And you just said only one of us is real.
HAP: Yes, but… but we are the same. I know, it seems like a contradiction.
SID: Or an evil twist.
HAP: I only look up to you because… I’m down here, and you’re up there.
SID: So we’re not the same. I look down on you because… I am superior to you.
HAP: But you’re not.
SID: Look at me? Look at you? How can you say we’re the same? Put your mask on. I mean your proper mask. Your happy mask. You look awful. You’d look a little bit better if you had your happy mask on.
HAP: I lost it.
SID: Oh. Me too.
HAP: Oh no. You lost your tragedy mask? That’s terrible.
SID: Yes in fact… it’s tragic.
HAP: I lost my Panda Bear head too.
SID: No no, you didn’t have one. It was a budget discrepancy.
HAP: What do you mean? The Script said we made our exit from the last scene like a pair of dancing panda bears.
SID: The script said so, yes. But the script is a fabrication, a fantasy. In fact it’s all a bunch of lies.
HAP: That’s my line, Sid. My script said… I say… “the script is all a bunch of lies.” I learned my lines.
SID: Did we swap roles? I’m supposed to be Sid the sad, and you’re Hap, the cheerful optimist.
HAP: With the stupid smiling happy- face mask.
SID: Stay away from me. I mean, you know… social distance. Especially of you take that crappy disgusting Covid mask off.
HAP: I need to find my real mask, my real face.
HAP hauls the costume hamper to center stage and begins riffling around in it. SID keeps a safe distance. But he also begins ripping his fancy outfit off, which is easier than expected because it turns out to be a flimsy Velcro covering, not a real costume at all. He keeps half of it on. Underneath is the Shakespearean outfit he wore in SCENE ONE.
HAP: See, I told you – you are a fake.
SID: Well, maybe it’s better than being real. If you represent being real, then... no thanks.
HAP: No, I don’t. I’m not real. I’m just pretending.
SID: Whatever for?
HAP: To make a point.
SID: Why?
HAP: Why?
SID: Who cares? There’s nobody out there, remember? (He blows a raspberry and makes a nasty face to the audience.)
HAP: Don’t do that.
SID: Why not?
HAP: You never know. There might be… you know, a remnant… crawling in the shadows.
SID: You mean… like you?
HAP: Is that what I am, a remnant?
SID: You lost your head.
HAP: I lost my head?
SID: Your panda bear head. You said you lost it.
HAP: Oh yes. And so now I have to continue “bare" headed. Ha ha! (He finds the uniform hat SID has been wearing.) Here’s a nice hat.
SID: Yes. (He grabs his hat back from HAP.) I like this hat.
HAP: Yes, Inspector General.
SID: Brigadier General, I think.
HAP: Really?
SID: Or Major something big.
HAP: Major Calamity
SID: Made your point.
HAP: Sergeant Corporal
SID: Corporal punishment? (Threatens to give HAP the boot.)
HAP: Enough of that.
SID: Well then… I ought’a… punch you in the nose.
HAP: Why?
SID: I was happy for a moment. You spoiled it.
HAP: It was fake. I’m the so-called happy one, remember?
SID: Fake is good. Sometimes.
HAP: Depends on who fabricated it and to what purpose.
SID: What is the purpose of any of this?
HAP: It’s in the script.
SID: How do we know that?
HAP: Because we’re actors. We do what we do, authentic and professional. We play our parts.
SID: What do you mean, authentic? I thought we agreed it’s all fake? You’re a fake. So am I.
HAP: I am not. I’m a real… actor… pretending to be… whoever I am… and playing my part... and saying my lines.
SID: In a vacuum. And heading, head first, towards the inevitable black hole.
HAP: Black hole? Where?
SID: That’s the scientific reality. That’s our ultimate destiny.
HAP: Well, yes, but… I mean
SID: Life, humanity. This little planet. All of existence as we know it.
HAP: Yes, well, fine… but not in my lifetime.
SID: What lifetime? You don’t have a lifetime. You’re just a character in a play, and even then you’re only pretending to be a character in a play. You don’t really exist.
HAP: Of course I do. I’m as real as you are.
SID: But I’m not real. I’m a fake, as you said, a mere figment of… your, or someone’s imagination. This is all fake. Fake actors doing a fake play for an invisible and non-existence audience.
HAP: Okay. What about Zoom, Skype, Google, Face-time and all of these… whatever they are…
SID: Platforms?
HAP: Platforms… a platform can be a stage.
SID: Is that where we are?
HAP: Is that who we are?
SID: We are nothing more than words on a page. Scribbles in a notebook. Scratchings on a cave wall.
HAP: How can you say such a thing?
SID: We don’t exist.
HAP: Like we’re in a dream? But whose dream?
SID: Like maybe we’ve emerged on the other side of the black hole?
HAP: Wow you really are mister doom and gloom
SID: That’s why I’m the one with the tragic mask. Which must be in here somewhere.
HAP: Oh yes, and I’m the look-up- at- the-bight-side guy. So who knows, maybe on the other side of the black hole it’s just like waking up the next morning,
SID: Who would know? How would they tell us?
HAP: Maybe the writer knows.
SID: What writer?
HAP: The one you call an idiot, the one who wrote whatever this is… this fake reality.
SID: There you go again. Which is it, fake or reality?
HAP: Well… both?
SID: Oh, you mean like Schrödinger’s Cat? A theoretical concept of being both dead and alive at the same time… according to… perspective?
HAP: I don’t know. It sounds… hopeful?
SID: Do you seriously think so, in these pandemic times and conditions, with who-knows-how-many plagues and catastrophes on the horizon about to explode upon the worldwide stage?
HAP: Worldwide stage?
SID: It’s a figure of speech… the world as we know it. Do you seriously think that anyone is going to produce this play, with no audience, and no contact allowed between actors? This is nothing more than pie in the sky.
HAP: Well… I like pie. I like sky.
SID: Look up… there is no sky. Just a shelter-in-place roof to this… this prison, this theatre, this cave we’re in.
HAP: Cave? Yes. Let’s light a fire. And put on our caveman furs.
As they rummage in the costume hamper and discover bits of cave-man fur, another character, BONK, already dressed in furs, emerges from the costume hamper.
HAP: Hey!
SID: Woah!
HAP: Wow.
SID: Hey, back off. Social distancing.
HAP: Hello?
SID: What the hell?
HAP: Hello?
SID: Hola?
BONK: Hell?
HAP: What’s he saying?
SID: Sound like he thinks this is Hell.
HAP: Maybe’s he’s trying to say – help.
SID: Who are you?
BONK: Hell? Help? Helf? Heffa? Huff? Honk?
HAP: Who are you?
BONK: I… huh... I am… Bonk… I’m… the writer?
HAP and SID stare at each other in horror.
SID: You’re the… he’s the writer? Well that explains a thing or two.
HAP: No, that doesn’t explain anything.
SID: Same thing? What’s your name?
BONK: Me Bonk.
HAP: Bonk? You’re… oh, I see, you’re… you’re the scribbler of pictograms on the cave wall?
BONK: Yeah. Yeah, that me.
SID: Get out of here.
HAP: Come on in. Join the crowd. Social distance guidelines, of course. Don’t you have a mask?
SID: Bonk? You’re not a real writer, are you? You’re just another stupid actor, pretending to be a writer character.
BONK: Yes. No. No real actors. No theatre. (He pulls out some scraps of paper and reads, haltingly.) We are words. We are… nothing more than words. We are the words on the page you are reading right now. We are destined never to be performed.
SID: See? I told you. This is terrible.
HAP: What do you mean? This is great. This is… this is the ultimate in audience participation.
SID: How so?
HAP: Think about it. We are the audience. You and me. We are the audience!
HAP and SID stare at each other, then at the audience, then back at each other. BONK, sitting on the floor between them just grins sheepishly, begins humming a tune.
BLACKOUT.