the short plays

"Susan, I know it was difficult, all of us living in that little house. But I put up with you the best I could."

Slow Ride
Three generations of women take a Sunday afternoon bus ride. The eccentric, hold-out-hippie grandmother, her conventional daughter, and the Goth granddaughter who is fed up with both of them exhibit all the tension, humor, affection and near-demented discord that arises when any three generations are in close proximity for more than ten minutes. But this journey results in an epiphany for the women; their razor-sharp wit finally slices through the layers of history holding them hostage, and this Sunday, for the first time, they will stop dissecting the past, and begin to look to the future.
 

SUE (whispering): She’s never been this bad before, I don’t know what to do. Eccentric is one thing, I can live with eccentric, goodness knows, but Alzheimer's I cannot deal with.

RITA: She's 65 years old, Mother. She may be a little screwy – like anyone would notice – but she does not have Alzheimer's.

SUE: Great, she's just crazy, thank you I feel so much better. Last week, she threw out my silverware. Said aliens were using the forks to control our minds.

RITA: Aliens. (calling over to Jez) Jezebel! Aliens?

JEZ: Call me old-fashioned, but I'm simply not interested in having some ET rummaging around my brain with flatware. I know you young people with your tongue tattooing and your eyeball piercing, you'd probably think nothing of the odd lemon fork through the spleen –

RITA: Lemon fork?

JEZ: But when a marauding mob of Martians marches down Main Street, I for one will not be standing around with a serrated pie server shoved up my –

SUE: Mother, do you mind? I'm trying to have a conversation with my daughter. (whispering) You see? She’s totally paranoid. She thinks people are talking about her behind her back.

JEZ: What are you two talking about?

SUE and RITA: Nothing.

"I mean, you can't just walk into Gimbels and order a size 87, space for Fin in middle, now can you? Or can you?"

The Ancient Gods are angry, and they want
... a weekly TV show

Jemima Gilbert, minor government functionary at the Department of the Interior, meets the embodiment of her darkest dreams when a Lovecraftian Elder God walks into her office and demands to be classified an Endangered Species. Who is the more frightening?

NYARLATHOTEP: We, who once ruled humanity without challenge or rival, have been forgotten. Put aside, discarded like last week's fish dinner. By order of His Most Dark and Abominable Lord, The 10-Horned 7-Headed Beast, Cthulhu, Guardian of the Threshold of Nightmares, this paperwork is to notify humanity that the Elder Gods still walk the Earth, and We wish Our (beat) rightful due.

JEMIMA: Your (beat) rightful due.

NYARLATHOTEP (nodding happily): Yes. Worship, sacrifice, and most of all, constant mention and thought. Articles in newspapers, billboards, television shows — perhaps a weekly series — that sort of thing.

JEMIMA (stifling a laugh): Wor … Worship. TV shows and worship. And this would happen — why?

NYARLATHOTEP (dejected and pouty): Because you have to. We're fading away. If no one thinks about Us, We cannot maintain our existence. You people move so quickly now, leaping from one belief to another as fast as H'aaztre leaps from the slit throat of a sacrificial virgin to a plate of fried chicken. So, you sign those forms, Our names get circulated through government channels, Greenpeace picks us up as their latest cause, before you know it, We're back in the Elder God business, (snaps his bony fingers) Bob the Soul-sucker's your uncle, everyone's happy.
 

Comedy. One act, 20 minutes. Three male actors: age ranges from 20-50. Can be done with minimal set.
 

performances

· Charade Drama Group, Bristol, England 2004 · Published in short story form in "Cthulhu and the Co-Eds", 11th Hour Productions 2001

"Gods, Rabbits & Automobiles" The Charade Drama Group Nic Coward Laetitia Hannan Kevin Restall Sian Taylor Sian Taylor & Laetitia Hannan, directors

"It was dark, and crowded, all these guys standin around talkin and laughin and smokin, and everybody is drinkin and it smells like old pee."

"You get offa one bus,
and you get on another one."

A worn man reminisces about an almost mythical drinking establishment from his childhood near the West Farms bus depot in the Bronx. A gritty and worn-down place, the neighborhood had little to offer the adults who lived there, and even less to a child. But children, especially those who grow up in the Bronx, are resilient, and survive harsh times through humor and a tough skin.

Willie and his older brother Danny are the products of a home bereft of affection, of parents who have lost hope, of a father who has lost any interest in his sons or his life. Danny desperately wants out, and his escape route is the boxing ring. Willie worships his older brother, hanging around him as much as he can, surviving in the hope that Danny will win, will prove that life has the possibility of being glorious.  

"Everybody goes back to sparrin, and there's no talk, cause they know Rickets ain’t gone noplace, he's standin in the hall with a cigarette stickin outta his crooked mouth, listenin. So everybody makes this big show like they're workin … they're huffin they're groanin — two guys are over by the ring, smackin each other on the chest with their gloves, they're goin WHAP WHAP like they're beating the crap outta each other. I turn around, I’m laughin, and Danny's over at the heavy bag. And he's punchin. He’s really mad, and he's got that face … oh, I don’t like that face. I hate that face. I think he boxes cause … it's the only chance he gets ta hit back, but he don’t never get that face in the ring. That’s the face he gets in the house, after he's done gettin beat. That's my Pops face.

"He's poundin that bag, he’s hittin like some kinda friggin machine, left, right, same spot over and over, left, right, I got kinda scared ... and I saw right there I was wrong, my brother Danny, he might never win no prize, but he sure as hell was a fighter."

Reviews

"My favorite piece was Joseph Reed Hayes' gentle West Farms (directed by Ashland Thomas.) Willy (Eric Kurizky) grew up poor and neglected, and transferred his affections to his older brother Danny (John Hill). Danny aimed for fame in the ring, but wasn't good enough, and after a round of cheap booze ended up flying through the imaginary window of a strip club. The story is well wrought, and Kurizsky's presentation warms with support from the hard punching Danny and the creepy trainer Rickets (Derek Ormond.) Dreams fade, but we all find a time and place to live, even if we change busses occasionally." — Carl F. Gauze, Ink19.com

"Once again, the theater year begins with a program of original short plays solicited and staged by Playwrights Roundtable. The fold expands to welcome Joseph Reed Hayes (author of Fringe Festival highlights A Little Crazy and Solos)." — Orlando Weekly
 

"I am from New York. I’ve slept with people uglier than you."

the planets align in their sinister design

A late night rendezvous finds a New York hipster, a hep catster, in a gray little room which is not his gray little room, in the company of ET buddies who do not know the meaning of cool — so he tells them.

"The Planets align in their sinister design and I am wasted on time. I am doin time. I am mainlining time, I am shooting time directly into my jugular, into my brain, man. And my brain is dexter, man. My right brain does not know what my left brain is doin."

"I'd watch what I called Ethel, sir, she may be a bird but she's highly intelligent."

tell it to the bird

Checking into a swank hotel, Mr. Thompson finds more than your typical amenities, including individual climate control, on-site fitness center, Internet access ... and Ethel, the Pest Elimination Companion.

BELLHOP: You see Mr. Thompson, even with the very high standards to which the Hilton organization has built this luxury hotel — individual climate control, on-site fitness center, high-speed Internet access, real windows (none of those painted-on faux windows for a Hilton guest, sir) — we find that it's virtually impossible to keep bugs out of the rooms, this being the deep South in the height of summer and all. Timing is everything, sir.

THOMPSON: But surely some screens or a bug zapper — why is he looking at me like that?

BELLHOP: She, sir, it's a she. Bubulcus ibis, you can tell by the yellow bill and lovely dusky legs. We've found that the most cost effective way of keeping gnats, chiggers, flies, and of course ticks off our guests is by using trained and fully domesticated tick birds. Not to mention ecologically sound, sir. One to a customer. Now Ethel here is one of our younger Pest Elimination Companions—

THOMPSON: PEC?

BELLHOP: Exactly sir. Ethel is fresh from the hatchery, very promising.

ETHEL: Squawk.

THOMPSON: This seems very bizarre, I don't think I've ever — OW! She bit me!

BELLHOP: Oh, she's just being friendly, aren't you being friendly, Ethel? Yes. Beautiful plumage. Ha ha, "beautiful plumage", it's a joke from Monty Python ... you know, from television ... never mind. Anyway, give her a couple of hours to imprint on you and you'll both get along famously, I promise you. Oh, uhm, almost forgot, better put these on.

THOMPSON: Goggles?
 

"The closest thing there should be to hope in Sid's heart is the sound of my voice right now saying the word."

buddha, mohammed & jesus walk into a bar ...

Modern life as seen through the eyes of
the ultimate outsiders:
two "teenage" deities-in-training.

CHARLIE: (through mask) DO AS I SAY, MORTAL. BOW BEFORE ME.

SID WINTERS, THE MORTAL: Uhm ... I don’t think so, thanks anyway.

Weaker thunder, lights dim

CHARLIE: (Peeks around mask) No? I mean (mask on) NO? YOU DARE DISOBEY? BOW!

SID: Hey, with all the lights and the noise, you make a pretty convincing argument, and maybe if I was younger, a bit more flexible ... but if I bow to you, I have to bow to the President, then the Mayor will want a bow, next thing you know I'm bowing to the mailman and the guy down the block who wears the tinfoil hat. My knees won't take it, I'm terribly sorry.

Sound of crumpling tinfoil and kazoos

CHARLIE: BUT I AM THE ALL-POWERFUL frmzts ... (mumbles)

SID: The what?

CHARLIE: THE ALL-POWERFUL oh screw this (throws mask away). What is wrong with you? I'm just asking for a little bow, what could it hurt? Do you want to be smote?

Spigot walks up, playing with mask.

SPIGOT: Yeah, you want we should smote ya? Smite him, Charlie, he's asking for a smatting. Beggin for it!

CHARLIE: If you had any idea what I could —

SPIGOT: (tugging on sleeve) Hey, Charlie?

CHARLIE: You're just lucky I'm in a good — what? What, stop it, what?

SPIGOT: How come the Mask didn’t work?

CHARLIE: Because the Mask is a piece of crap. You can't get a decent mask anymore, this one is plastic on a stick and nobody listens to the Mask anyway. Why they teach us the freaking Mask I have no idea.

SPIGOT: Well, it's tradition and all ...

CHARLIE: So is ripping their hearts out, you don’t see us doing that anymore either.

SPIGOT: Only like, psychologically ...