Excerpts from reprehensible new drama I call “Satin in the Surburbs” for no reason

ACT II: SCENE IV: OPEN CURTAINS UP

NB: Scene needs lots of pathos – also some black comedy. perhaps some irony??? I liked the stilts idea. Good use of drama; also catharsis. Maybe subtract some of irony from page 7 and transfer to this scene. V good.

Downstage-right is a sofa upholstered in distressed mauve alligator leather. Upstage of this, but downstage of the spiral staircase upholstered in thick pink shag is a 12’5″ french oak cafetiere. Downstage right of this but upstage left  of all of the above is a black-ish leather satchel with the initials J.P.S. on it. This is a very important visual narrative plot device prop so should be emphasised by placing it downstage centre of everything and suspended by guy-wires and swinging by a vast pendulum to the rear of the auditorium. It should respond to the emotive responses of the responding audience by shouting frenzied axioms parallel and in response to the plot narrative. Will rise constantly from this point to the final curtain. James enters upstage of this, and he is impassioned and aghast and happy but with an inner sadness. Cassandra and Cassie enter from across the auditorium on stilts. They are jovial but devastated, like being told of the death of a close relative but while getting head on ecstasy in a dungeon. The lights go up slowly, but with a sudden quickness which should jolt the audience softly.

James: Well it’s just like what you were saying when you said everything to me. Love is like an antelope that has learnt to defend itself with an eating disorder what to make it more thin with. We repel our predators at the cost of our taking at the trough of nourishment, and all that is left is a thinner beast. I for one am giving up!

Cassandra, or Cassie: But don’t you realise? She had an abortion!

Freeze. The scene ends on big laughs as the lights fade to black and all are devastated and ecstatic.

End of Act II.

Winter is cutting railway sidings alongside my veins. My life-blood is waiting for the signal to change and the points to switch.

TODAY I woke up at 5 a.m. to shovel the draught back out so I could carry on sleeping in habitable warmth. When I got back to bed next to puppet-face the dull grinding ache of wakefulness was already twitching behind my eyes. I went to make some coffee instead.

What I do when I have my coffee is have a cigarette, which takes about forty seconds to roll, having sourced or outsourced the predicative ingredients, about four minutes to smoke, and about forty seconds to digest before I want another one. This conscious, equanimous culture of fours as revolving self-perpetuating life-cycle sustains me as waking functioning cognizing human until lunchtime or tuck-shop. Expressed in this way, it is very much like the Unbearable Lightness of Being, except much more readable and valid and well-considered and not totally fucking stupid. Then I have some more coffee and some water so my throat doesn’t get claggy.

This morning God hung about my sleep for a bit and informed me of His will. The inspiration and lucidity of the dream was an unmistakeable manifestation of divine will and not at all contingent on my having left my light on and so not been sleeping deeply enough. It went like this: I dreamt that I had suddenly remembered an important component in my cultural interest set, one that I had for some reason banished until this point in the dream. It was a musician-comic artist named MARON (cf. St. Maroun? Unrefutable proof of being interfered with by sleep-Jesus?), spelt in capital letters, that I was trying to explain to a friend. So I showed her the record sleeves, which function also as framing his artwork, (conversely, I remember, his artwork functioned as anchor for his cassette tapes, v important) which were unusually big, rectangular things, which spelled MARON in big letters at the top, and had a washed out cartoon with three frolicking cats at the bottom, on a backdrop of blue. The cats were very much like those in the Extraordinary or Fantastical or Hilarious or whatever it was World of Richard Scarry. And in the speech bubbles there was something deeply sinister written. The only other bit of art I remember was a cartoon panel at an oblique angle, with three suited cats with very long shadows crossing the desert with apparently clandestine intent, for the cat leading the others was saying “shhh… tiptoe… be very quiet”. The cat at the rear, however, of the troop, to the reproach of his comp-cat-riots, was dressed like a one-man-band and making lots of noise to piss everyone off. The overriding theme of the artwork, and the music, which was a sort of synthesised big-band music, was pissing everyone off. I believe that I have found a quite perfect conjugation of visual and aural art, or let’s say union of rational and irrational expressions of human spirit, or let’s say conjunction of the appolline and dionysiac. I do not know whether it is ordained that I, personally, create this art, although I will try – if I find that I am wrong, and God intervenes again to stay my creation, then I will allow another of God’s messengers to take up this mantle. Perhaps Richard Scarry (n.b. could be dead? Look into). Or why not let’s hold a competition?

Sent your entries, along with a stamped addressed envelope to

Opus Divinum
The MARON Trust
LONDON
PO BOX W2384dhfghk837

We regret that we cannot return, or even credit your artwork once we have received it. It’s my vision so shove it (too aggressive too soon? Look into).

I hope this has been enlightening for all of you. Good luck and get drawing!!!

Dear everybody. Sorry for not writing.

Yes, yes, I know, I know, it’s been difficult for me since the show closed, I can’t seem to find work anywhere. Just occasional primary school talks and one or two of those puppety radio adverts. For those who aren’t up-to-date I was in a West End run of Elephantiasis of the Heart alongside Cath Saltzheiller and Mufasa Cetemol. As you probably will know, it had to close after contentions of plagiarism made the press. Although I personally believe it was wholly unwittingly, apparently the two-and-a-half-hour play was lifted wholesale, that is, completely word for word from a recorded telephone conversation between a Salvation Army phone volunteer and a Birmingham sewing operative resolved to take his life with an overdose of Nicorette gum. I just think it’s funny how these things filter into one’s creative subconscious.

For those who are interested, I have the minutes from the last Kosovan Exhange Charity Fashion Ball meeting. While they won’t make a lot of sense to those who weren’t there, I was, and I like listening and typing.

• Pace of Don Organ’s cat-walk entrance could be sped up. Suggest slow canter before playful skipping on home stretch. Remember the collar issue.
• Helen Azareth’s one-piece; point at issue is its being two pieces. Perhaps divide by two? Check mathematics of before next meeting.
• Re: hair styling issue for Buddy DeLovely – does the tonsure work? Suggest none hair.
• Jill Dundee must come out straight after Max Ffaktor – changeover was way too slow in the second dress rehearsal rehearsal third technical run. Suggest clasps?
• Technical issues with earthed run – suggest gas mark 4, but on top shelf. Pastry must be browned off but musn’t scorch the sugar. Aim for average to crispy.
• Unsure about elderly man in the piss-stinking raincoat in last music run – didn’t catch name. Is he a member of the committee? Full marks on hustle but where was the glamour??? 3/10 see me. Please pass on message.

I think that’s all. If I’ve left anything out of my notes I’ll post them soon with further instructions. Next meeting is 11.22 outside the old gasworks. Minors must be attended by special forces. Thanks for reading and good luck with the future.