THE LAST CYCLIST

Reconstructed and reimagined

by Naomi Patz
 Based on
a cabaret written
in the Terezín Ghetto in 1944
by Karel Švenk
as remembered and revised in Prague in 1961
by Jana Šedová and her coauthor Darek Vostřel

Copyright © 2011
All rights reserved
www.thelastcyclist.com
The Last Cyclist, copyright © 2009

For permission to perform The Last Cyclist or quote from any part of this manuscript, and
to obtain the musical score for the play and/or the CD of the score, contact Naomi Patz at
nnpatz@optonline.net.

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 THE LAST CYCLIST
To Be Performed Without Intermission

Opening scene:
Prologue: Jana Šedová remembers …
Dress Rehearsal in the attic theater in Terezín (pronounced Teh-ra-zeen)

The play within a play: “The Last Cyclist”

Prelude – Hitler addressing the crowd at a beer hall
Scene 1 – garden of a mental institution
Scene 2 – exterior of Abeles’s store and Manicka’s house
Scene 3 – garden of the mental institution (same as Scene 1)
Scene 4 – watching a parade
Scene 5 – exterior of Abeles’s store and Manicka’s house (same as Scene 2)
Scene 6 – town hall
Scene 7 – in front of reward poster
Scene 8 – meeting hall
Scene 9 – Ma’am’s room, with a couch and fireplace
Scene 10 – lunatics chasing cyclists: voices heard from offstage
Scene 11 – exterior of Abeles’s store and Manicka’s house (same as Scene 2)
Scene 12 – interior of Manicka’s and her mother’s apartment
Scene 13 – same as previous scene
Scene 14 – courtroom
Scene 15 – overcrowded barracks dormitory room on Horror Island
Scene 16 – middle of nowhere
Scene 17 – at front of stage
Scene 18 – at front of stage
Scene 19 – the zoo
Scene 20 – in front of the rocket ship

SET and COSTUMES

Both sets and costumes should be consistent with what was available to the prisoners in
Terezín.

Costumes
All kinds of makeshift costumes could be created from whatever is still wearable of the
clothing people had brought with them to the camp or have scavenged from people who
have been sent on the transports or have died. As all of the inmates had been deluded by
the Nazis as to what they might expect in Terezín (older prisoners shipped from Germany
had been told they were going to a spa!) and therefore had absolutely no idea what was in
store for them when they were deported, they brought all sorts of inappropriate things –
including fur coats, tuxedos, tennis rackets and similar.

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 In the Dress Rehearsal scene, the actors wear “normal” camp clothing, as appropriate to
their jobs as they can manage given what they have brought with them. Keep in mind that
some inmates have arrived only recently while others (like Švenk and Šedová) have been
in the camp for several years. In general, their clothes are shabby, not particularly clean –
prisoners were permitted to have three kg. of laundry washed once every three months),
and should reflect European clothing styles of the late 1930s. Everyone onstage in the
opening scene (and any stage crew members and musicians who will be seen by the
audience) wears a yellow Star of David. The actors’ stars will be covered by the costumes
they put on as they perform the dress rehearsal.

Available materials for costumes also included an ample supply of bedsheets (whose
primary purpose was for use as shrouds and so were readily available in the camp;
although it wasn’t a murder camp, there were numerous deaths every day from illness
and malnutrition). Bedsheets formed the basis of many costumes, decorated with paint
and pinned or sewn-on paper cutouts (think Matisse or Melania Trump’s jacket in
Taormina).

Your costumes – and the props and sets – should be imaginative makeshift, as were the
costumes and sets created for the original production in Terezín.1

Sets
As most of the plays were performed in the attics of the dormitory buildings, it would be
desirable to create the illusion of a drab attic setting. All of the props should be shabby
and appropriate to the late 1930s and early 1940s.

Very little is needed for the Dress Rehearsal scene – perhaps some chairs, clothing racks
or clotheslines and perhaps a couple of tables or shelves for props. The set can also
include some leather suitcases with deportees' surnames and transport numbers; these
could be piled up and used as tables or shelves, even chairs, making sure to show the
transport numbers. Suitcases could also be used to create Opportunist’s desk in Scene 6.

The script calls for a sign announcing "The Last Cyclist" to be placed on an easel with a
light over it at the side of the stage when the play-within-a-play begins, replaced with
new placards announcing the setting for each scene as the play progresses. It is helpful,
given the quick shift from one short scene to another, to identify the settings with
placards (in addition to the musical squibs that separate scenes).

All of the props that will be used can be onstage already. These include the wardrobe in
which Abeles (and later, the lunatics) will hide, which could be constructed from a
cardboard refrigerator box or more elaborately built but should still be makeshift and
easily moved. A peaked rectangular frame made of lightweight wood could serve,

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The costumes and sets for most of the productions mounted in Terezín were designed by a brilliant architect named
František Zelenka. No doubt the actual costumes and sets were much more rudimentary than his elaborate imaginings,
the sketches for many of which have survived. Zelenka was murdered in Auschwitz. The drawings, in the scenography
collection of the Historical Museum in Prague, part of the Czech National Museum, can be found online at
http://www.esbirky.cz/cz/instituce/narodni-muzeum/historicke-muzeum/divadelni-sbirka/scenografie/zelenka-
Frantisek.

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upright, as the doorway to Abeles's shop and sideways, with a "tail," as the rocket ship
(and each could have a placard identifying its purpose).

In the scenes that follow the lunatics' rise to power, large posters or portraits or even a
"statue" of Ma'am (perhaps with Rat peering not so discreetly over her shoulder) could be
displayed in virtually every scene.

CAST OF CHARACTERS AND THE SCENES IN WHICH THEY APPEAR

Prologue
Older Jana Šedová (her name is pronounced Ya-na Shed-o-vah, with the accent on the
first syllable of each name) as voice-over

Dress Rehearsal in Terezín

Karel Švenk (pronounced KAH-rel SH’venk, last name pronounced as a single syllable)
Ota (pronounced O-ta)
Jiří (pronounced YEAR-djee)
Tomas (pronounced TOE-ma'sh)
Franta (pronounced FRANT-aH)
Leo (pronounced LAY-o)
Pavel (pronounced PA-vel)
Jana (pronounced YA-na) = Young Šedová
Elena (pronounced EH-leh-na)
Zuzana (pronounced ZU-zana)

Performing The Play-Within-A-Play

Prelude: Hitler, Young Man
Scene 1: Lun 1, Lun 2, Rat
Scene 2: Abeles, Manicka, Head Physician
Scene 3: Lun 1, Lun 2, Celery, Head Physician, Ma’am, Rat
Scene 4: Opportunist, Abeles
Scene 5: Rich, Red, Abeles, Lun 1, Lun 2, Rat
Scene 6: Opportunist, Lun 1, Lun 2
Scene 7: Abeles, Voice-over, Lun 1, Lun 2, Lun 3, Lun 4
Scene 8: Ma’am, Lun 1, Lun 2 (possibly also Lun 3 and Lun 4)
Scene 9: Ma’am, Rat, Red, Rich
Scene 10: Voices of the Lunatics, Red and Rich amplified by other offstage voices
Scene 11: Abeles, Sweep, Manicka, Rat, Lun 3, Lun 4
Scene 12: Manicka, Mrs. Manickova, Abeles, Opportunist, Rat and Lunatics
Scene 13: Lun 1, Lun 2, Mrs. M
Scene 14: Abeles, Rat, Lun 1, Lun 2, Mrs. M, Lun 4
Scene 15: Big Shot, Rich, Other Cyclist, Red, Rat
Scene 16: Abeles, Manicka
Scene 17: Ma’am, Rat

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Scene 18: Lun 1, Lun 2, Lun 3, Lun 4, Rat, Ma’am (and “extras,” if desired)
Scene 19: Mr. Hippo, Abeles, Opportunist, Lunatics
Scene 20: Ma’am, Abeles, Rat, all of the Lunatics, Manicka, Opportunist

INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO THE CAST

You are all prisoners in the concentration camp located in what had been a Czech
garrison fortress town named Terezín, 40 miles from Prague. Under the Nazis, it is
known as Theresienstadt. Euphemistically, cynically and for PR purposes called a
“ghetto,” it is intended as a forced labor camp and holding place for transports to the East
(to Auschwitz and other death camps). Terezín is not a “death camp” and yet as many as
130 people – especially the very young and the elderly – die in a single day of illness or
starvation. It is a dreadful place, although practically paradise compared to the camps in
Poland. At its most crowded, some 60,000 prisoners are crammed into a walled town – an
area approximately five by eight city blocks -- meant to hold 6,000 people. And escape is
virtually impossible. Families are divided. There are separate barracks for men, women
and children.

Over the few years of its existence, one focus of its rationale has shifted: It has become a
“show” camp the Nazis are using to deceive the world about the horrors they are
perpetrating everywhere. This is possible because so many of the intellectual Jewish elite
of Western and Central Europe – painters, writers, composers, musicians, scholars and
their families – pass through the camp, and most of them contribute in one way or
another to the extraordinary flourishing of culture in this most unlikely place. It helps
them retain their sanity and sense of self. In the bizarre environment of the concentration
camp, in the constant presence of death, they manage to have “an artistic and intellectual
life so fierce, so determined, so vibrant, so fertile as to be almost unimaginable.” Cara
DeSilva, In Memory’s Kitchen: A Legacy from the Women of Terezín. There is a lending library at Terezín
with more than 60,000 books, brought by prisoners as part of their precious permitted
kilos of luggage when they were deported.

And the SS exploits it all. They don’t care what goes on in the camp so long as it doesn’t
involve overt acts of subversion or sabotage. “The supreme irony of Terezín is that within
its walls it [is] artistically the freest place in occupied Europe. Elsewhere Jewish music
[is] forbidden, so-called ‘degenerate music’ and jazz [are] banned, but in Terezín they
play Mendelssohn, Offenbach and the works of the composers incarcerated in the ghetto.
Most of these works would [fail] the degeneracy test as well as the racial one.” Simon
Broughton, BBC Music Magazine, 1993

It is now mid-winter, 1944. Karel Švenk – THE LAST CYCLIST playwright, director,
lead actor and hero to all of you as well as to much of the camp – has been in Terezín
since November of 1941, arriving on the first transport sent to turn the town into a prison
camp. Jana Šedová was on the second transport. Most of you have been in Terezín for at
least a year. Although none of you has any idea of the fate the Nazis have in store, you
know that it can’t be anything good. How can it be when things are so awful here?

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Everyone is terrified of the unknown that awaits in the East. You’ve heard rumors that
the Allied armies are advancing and all of you hope (although not all of you believe) that
the war will be over soon and you will be going home.

You have been allowed to bring with you 110 lbs. (50 kilos) of possessions, but you had
to carry it yourself to the train when you were deported and from where you got off the
train a virtually prohibitive distance to the camp. Most of you brought at least one book.
Some of you brought musical instruments. Not having any idea of where you were being
taken or for how long, you have brought largely inappropriate clothing. There are no
prison uniforms. You wear your own clothes and shoes (or those you have managed to
take from someone who has died).

Conditions in the camp are dreadful. There is massive overcrowding – as many as 60

people sleep in three lice- and bedbug-infested tiers in unheated, poorly ventilated
“dormitories,” with a single often overflowing toilet shared by as many as three or four
hundred people, many of whom are suffering from dysentery and other gastrointestinal
diseases. Your food consists of virtually inedible bare-subsistence rations, and everyone
regardless of age puts in 10 hours a day of mandatory labor seven days a week. Granted,
there is a hierarchy in pretty much everything for those relative few who figure out how
to play the system, who sell themselves one way or another for a chance to eat slightly
better, be slightly better housed, have easier jobs, perhaps be protected a bit longer from
the dreaded transports to the East. Among the camp inmates it’s known as having
Vitamin P, for protecksia: Whom do you know? What are your skills? What can you
offer, including your body?

People learn to be callous, to turn away from one another, to not see what is happening
around them. But you are actors; you observe people, you see what is happening. How
can there be niceties in life when you stand in line twice a day holding your only spoon
and bowl to receive a ladleful of watery soup and a bit of bread which you eat standing
up, when you get to wash three kilos of clothing once every three months, when you are
separated from friends and family and live surrounded by misery. (Rabbi Leo Baeck, who
survived Terezín, said “living space was replaced by dying space.”) Physical dying space
and spiritual dying space. In her early months in Terezín, Jana Šedová wrote a
monologue in which little Sarah goes home after the war and is institutionalized because
people cannot understand her lovely camp manners as anything other than insanity. You
struggle to be sane in this insane place.

Religion is no help because, although you are all Jewish, like most Czech Jews you have
very little knowledge of Judaism and even less affiliation with the organized Jewish
community. That doesn’t make you any less Jewish in the eyes of the Nazis, of course.

In that context, if you have not already been totally demoralized and manage to have any
sense of humanity still alive within you, you grasp at every shred of culture you can find.
You live to make – or to see or hear – plays and lectures and recitals, what will be aptly
described as “art in captivity” (by Lisa Peschel). It is a reminder that at least inside you are
still a person.

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And you are artists. Your make believe in the theater is a gift to yourself and to everyone
lucky enough to see a performance. Other prisoners will trade part of their food ration to
come to watch you. The camaraderie of your fellow performers, the focus on needing to
learn your lines during rehearsal time – which you have to do because there most likely is
only one copy of the script, the dizzying exhaustion of long rehearsals after 10 hours of
work on virtually no food, because no prisoners are allowed out on the street after 8 pm
and unless it’s been a short rehearsal you sleep on the floor in the attic and go straight to
work from there gives you an inner life that sustains you. The theater is keeping you
alive. Does that mean that there isn’t competition or jealousy or romantic/sexual intrigues
among you? Not at all. But that too is part of being alive beyond the animal needs of
staying alive.

Like everyone else in Terezín, you obsess about food. You are always achy and tired;
terrified you will get ill, depressed and lonely for the people you love. You want to
believe the war will end soon but you can’t always muster the energy to believe it.

But your involvement in theater gives you special strength. Your spirits rise when you are
together, when you rehearse, when you perform. You are actors and it is keeping you
alive. That is something you all share and yet, of course, each of you is an individual.

CHARACTER DESCRIPTIONS

In the opening scene, the characters are “themselves,” prisoners in the Terezín
(Theresienstadt, in German) concentration camp also known as the Terezín Ghetto. Their
personalities can be gleaned from the words they speak and their degree of optimism,
pessimism, fear, sarcasm and sense of camaraderie. I have given phonetic pronunciations
for the Czech names. Please note that in both first and last names the strongest accent is
on the first syllable, which I have underlined, with secondary stress to the final syllable.

(Note: Karel Švenk and Jana Šedová were real people, with biographical details and
descriptions much as described below; the others are the playwright’s imagining based on
the stories and experiences of Czech Jews of that era, but any resemblance to particular
individuals is unintended and purely coincidental.)

CAST IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE

JANA ŠEDOVÁ (Manicka, Red)

Jana is small, feisty, blunt, talented and funny. When we first meet her, in the prologue
(which takes place probably around 1985), she is in her late 70s and a heavy smoker. She
survived the war, moved to Prague and became a professional actress and playwright,
working primarily in cabaret and experimental theater. In 1961, in honor of the 40 th
anniversary of the Czech Communist Party, she recreated The Last Cyclist from memory
together with the director of the Rokoko Theater, radically changing the second act to

6
make the play acceptable to their audience. Four years later, she wrote the chapter on
theater in Terezín for the book Terezín, published in 1965 by the Council of Jewish
Communities in the Czech Lands. In that chapter she calls The Last Cyclist “undoubtedly
the most courageous of our plays.” She later testified before anti-Nazi tribunals three
times. She never remarried or had children. She died in September, 1995.

Although we know her by the stage name she took for herself, she was still Trude
Popperova when she came on the second transport to Terezín in December 1941. She was
21 years old, a young married woman from the small town of Chrudim, with no children.
Immediately after they arrived she lost touch with her husband and her parents and only
learned after the war that they had all been killed.

Her first real contact with acting is at Terezín and it becomes the central focus of her life.
In the early months, before men and women were allowed to mingle, she wrote skits to
entertain the women who were with her as part of a labor brigade sent from the ghetto to
work in a forest. She has already appeared in a number of plays by Švenk as well as in
productions by other writers (and will continue to act in cabarets and plays as long as
plays continue to be performed in Terezín). She most likely has a huge crush on Karel
Švenk and perhaps a romantic relationship with him, but he also has a girlfriend who is
not part of the theater scene – and she has no idea whether or not her husband is still
alive. Jana mends stockings for the wives of local SS members and helps monitor a
housing block where many elderly women sleep in blankets on the floor. She plays
Manicka and Red in the play-within-a-play.

Manicka
(Czech for “Little Mary” – pronounced Mah-nitch-ka) is a full-figured young
woman, probably several inches shorter than Abeles but much fleshier. She is
definitely attractive in a lazy, come-hither Rubenesque way, but she's an innocent,
not a coquette. She’s far from the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but – or maybe
this should be “so” – she is most certainly interested in Bořivoj Abeles. As the
plot develops, we see that she is steadfastly loyal to him and brave in standing up
to Mr. Opportunist.

Red
Resis in his late teens. As his name indicates, he is an ardent advocate of the
working class in its "revolutionary" struggles against the wealthy. He wears work
pants clipped at the ankles to keep them from getting caught in the chain of his
bike, and a worker’s cap. He has an aggressive-defensive attitude toward
members of the middle class (he can’t even conceive of the really wealthy) and
affects a sneering, superior attitude that doesn’t quite work.

OTA (Opportunist, Big Shot)

Ota is good humored and a touch cynical. He has been in Terezín for at least two years
and is assigned to a barracks-cleaning brigade. He comes from Brno, the second largest
city in what is now the Czech Republic. A bachelor from a working class family, he was
married young but he and his wife separated almost immediately and had no children. He

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was the first in his family to attend university where he trained in gymnastics and learned
to fence. Until his arrest, was the assistant regional manager for the Bata shoe company, a
major national chain, and also performed in a variety of Brno’s theatrical productions.

Mr. Opportunist is just that: He’s an “operator” – and collaborator – who takes
advantage of every opportunity to advance himself, and will do whatever he
deems necessary to get what he wants (or to extricate himself when he sees that
times are changing). He’s good looking and a sharp dresser – a hail-fellow-well-
met, bluff and blustering stereotypical “used-car salesman” type who slightly
overdoes everything, thereby making himself a bit suspect, particularly when he
tries to cast the blame on others, as he does toward the end of the play.

Big Shot has seen better times. After all, he’s a starving prisoner on Horror
Island. But it’s still clear that he’s been a wealthy man. He is wearing a tuxedo or
a smoking jacket, as if he's been dragged off in the midst of an enjoyable social
event, and he plays fairly incessantly with a pipe for which he’s obviously got no
tobacco or even matches and no chance of getting them. He’s a bit affected, as
befits his attire, but whatever fight there may once have been in him is definitely
gone by now; he’s barely got enough energy left for boasting and name-dropping.

ZUZANA (Lunatic 2)
Zuzana is sweet, good humored, often very serious, perhaps naïve and a bit squeamish.
She’s been in Terezín less than a year and is currently assigned to work in one of the
children’s houses. She seems almost shy until she gets onstage. In front of an audience,
she is bold. If you didn’t know better, you’d think she was typecast to play the role of a
clownish lunatic. Zuzana comes from a wealthy textile manufacturing family in Dvůr
Králové. She started acting in school plays as a young girl and went on to star in local
theater.

Lunatic Two is a small woman dressed in layers of drab mental hospital inmate-
type clothing. She might also wear a kooky hat. She sometimes speaks and moves
slowly even when she’s in a hurry and then, occasionally, becomes frenetic. She
isn’t instantly as obviously nuts as Lunatic One but there’s no question that she is
mentally disturbed. Both can be childishly playful even after they’ve revealed
their own evil streak and begun pursuing cyclists in earnest.

ELENA (Ma’am, Mrs. Manickova)

Elena is sophisticated. The other actors are in awe of her because she is a professional
actress from the same avant garde theater scene in Prague as Karel Švenk and went on the
road once with his troupe, known as the Theater of Needless (or Useless) Talents. Her
close connection to Karel is a source of great jealousy to Jana, which Jana attempts with
only a fair degree of success to hide. It amuses Elena, who had a serious boyfriend who
was also in experimental theater in Prague. In Terezín she is assigned to a factory where
extremely fine blades are used to split large mica cores into individual sheets of specific
dimensions for use as electrical insulation in the German war effort.

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 Ma’am, the dictator, is one of the inmates in the mental hospital. She is
delusional, self-aggrandizing, cunning and cruel. Physically she is a big, imposing
person and uses her height to intimidate others. Her voice is harsh and grating
even when she tries to mute it (as in Scene 9 with Rich). She uses no contractions
in her speech. Like other bullies, she is insecure and therefore susceptible to
flattery and the kind of subtle manipulation employed by Rat. She is
extravagantly overdressed (a bedraggled cocktail dress, perhaps, with a glitzy
shawl, garish makeup, a big beehive or upsweep hairdo and a huge silk flower
behind one ear or an outrageous hat). She may never have seen better days but
everything she wears certainly has.

Mrs. Manickova (Mah-nitch-kova) is a blowsy hausfrau. She has untidy grey

hair and wears a loose-fitting floral print dress, baggy stockings and old lady
shoes. In the scenes in her apartment she wears an apron; in the trial scene, she
wears the same outfit (without the apron) with the addition of an unfashionable
hat and maybe even white gloves. She’s law-abiding, small-minded, not overly
bright and in some awe of authority. She is also practical and fiercely protective
of her daughter and their position in life as she understands it.

PAVEL (Musician, Rich, Mr. Hippo)

Pavel comes from a prominent Prague family in the art glass business, where he worked
full-time overseeing aspects of the design department. He graduated from Charles
University with a degree in music and expected to do graduate work but couldn’t because
Jews were no longer allowed in schools. During college and afterward he often played in
pickup chamber groups that performed mostly in Prague’s otherwise unused churches on
weekday evenings. He is refined, smart and polite. The role of Rich is tailor-made for
him. He has been in Terezín for almost two years and it is noticeably beginning to wear
him down. He is assigned to help construct coffins.

Rich is a natty, preppy young man from a well-to-do family and dresses that way.
He is enthusiastic, naive and just a tad smug.

Mr. Hippo is an honorable person with no patience for stupidities – no patience

for most human beings, in fact. Hippo wears a work shirt with the word “ZOO”
over the breast pocket and on the back of the shirt, and carries a large set of
skeleton keys.

JIŘÍ (Hitler, Rat)

Single, cynical and world-weary at the age of 25, Jiří is the son of a hotelier in the spa
town of Carlsbad (now Karlovy Vary). He was being trained to succeed his father,
serving as the night manager of their small hotel and as a banquet-server at the Grand
Hotel Pupp. His whole family was rounded up together and Jiri watched as his father,
who tried to resist the way he was being manhandled, was killed in front of their eyes at
the assembly point. Jiří has been in Terezín since late 1942. He works in one of the
central kitchens. This is an extremely desirable job because the workers there not only get

9
a larger than normal ration but also find it easy to steal food, which he does and shares
with his fellow cast members whenever he can.

Hitler = an obvious parody.

Rat is the brains behind the entire lunatic operation, or so he believes. He is

Ma’am’s general, her chief advisor and the one who urges her on to greater and
greater acts of lunacy and evil. In the first scenes he is dressed in the uniform of a
hospital attendant; later, he adds a trench coat or official-looking jacket, a military
hat and maybe a sash with homemade medals. At that point he might carry
something that looks like a whip or a short riding crop – even a big stick, an
assertion of authority. As the situation demands, his voice is unctuous or sharp
and cutting.

LEO (Lunatic 1)
Leo comes from the city of Jihlava in Moravia. Jihlava was Gustav Mahler’s home from
early childhood until after he was already an accomplished composer. Leo speaks
German as well as Czech, as do most Jews from Jihlava. Jihlava has a huge central square
where army garrisons parade. Leo and his father own – owned – a pub, started by his
grandfather, right off the square. He still can’t believe it won’t somehow be restored to
them when the war is over. He is one of four children. The youngest two were sent to
relatives in the U.S. in 1937 when it became clear what was happening and there was still
time to get them out. His older sister arrived in Terezín when he did but she was sent to
the East several months ago. His parents? He doesn’t know. They were separated during
the roundups. He acted in regional theater in Jihlava for many years and as an extra in
Mozart operas performed in town. He learned a great deal watching the professionals
rehearse. Leo works in one of the laundries in Terezín.

Lunatic One wears a suit he has outgrown or which was handed down to him in
the first place – it is much too short in both arms and legs. He wears a cap with its
visor turned backward and jammed down on his head or some other ludicrous hat.
His movements are often twitchy and erratic; he’s either on a medication that
disagrees with him or desperately in need of medication to relax him. He speaks
quickly and anxiously, flails his arms and occasionally mutters to himself.

TOMAS (Head Physician, Lunatic 3, Other Cyclist)

Tomas is a family man and worried about them. He and his wife were able to send their
son on a kindertransport to London just before they were arrested, but he last saw his
wife and baby daughter eight months ago. He’s been in Terezín for over a year now. He
was an accountant in a small firm in Kolin and in Terezín has been assigned to work in
the technical department collating transport lists. That’s how he knows his wife and
daughter have been sent east but he is trying not to think the worst. He was attracted to
the cabaret theater in Terezín because he admires Švenk and, under Švenk’s guidance,
has discovered he has a real flair for acting.

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 Head Physician is pompous, stiff, humorless and sincere. He wears a hospital
coat and a brightly-colored tie (not a bowtie!). He might wear glasses and could
have a small mustache and a goatee.

Lunatic Three is touchy, hypersensitive, timid and truculent with occasional

incongruous sweet smiles. S/he takes offense easily, even when none is meant,
but usually responds by ducking her/his head and trying to make her/himself seem
(or feel) smaller. Once in a while s/he lashes out. Lunatic Three wears drab
asylum inmate clothing.

Other Cyclist is dressed in pants and a loose-fitting shirt. S/he has a bedraggled
cycling cap pulled down low. S/he has a residual eagerness to please overlaid with
the sense of irony and desperation s/he shares with the other Horror Island
prisoners.

KAREL ŠVENK (Bořivoj Abeles)

Karel Švenk, who was born in 1917, is adored by his fellow inmates. He has been
described as a “sad clown with extremely expressive eyes” and a biting wit. Clever,
inventive, a player of practical jokes and a lover of improvisation, he is “a born comic, an
unlucky fellow tripping over his own legs but always coming out on top in the end.” It is
very much a description of the character Bořivoj Abeles he has created to play in The
Last Cyclist. Before his deportation to Terezín in November 1941, on the very first
transport, Švenk was a pioneer of the avant garde theater in Prague. In his earliest work
as well as what he wrote in the concentration camp, his leftist tendencies infuse political
commentary into his cabarets and comedies. Viktor Ullman, a famous Czech composer
and exacting music critic also interned in the camp, has called Švenk “our Terezín
Aristophanes” who hardly realizes “just how much material, talent and inventiveness” he
has in stock. “Having laughed for two hours, you feel simply incapable of criticizing the
show.” Švenk wrote several cabarets which were each performed 30-40 times before
Cyclist was censored. (A later cabaret called “The Same but Different,” apparently an
eviscerated “Cyclist,” ran for 29 performances in March 1944.)

In Terezín, Švenk continued to perform the sorts of manual labor he’d been doing since
his transport detail arrived in Terezín to transform it from a military town into a
concentration camp. From his earliest days there, he created skits and parodies and
worked together with some of the great composers and musicians also imprisoned there.
His phenomenally popular Terezín March was written for his first cabaret. Karel Švenk is
gentle and kind and joyous. He is immensely popular yet very modest. He loves life and
his positive attitude is infectious. But he is not naïve nor does he deny reality. The Last
Cyclist speaks to that. (It is horribly sad and ironic that Švenk, deported to Auschwitz on
October 1, 1944 and from there transferred to a slave labor sub-camp of Buchenwald, lost
his will to live in those last months before liberation. “Švenk was waning before our eyes.
He is “quarrelsome, hysterical and rather unpopular.” Disoriented and fatally exhausted,
he died in April 1945, just a few weeks before the end of the war, on a long “death
march” as the Nazis evacuated the camps and pushed the prisoners on foot toward
Germany ahead of the advancing Allied armies. But that is yet to come. Now, on the

11
night of the dress rehearsal for The Last Cyclist, he is still bringing laughter and hope to
the inmates of the Terezín Ghetto.)

Bořivoj Abeles (pronounced Bo-je-voy [“je”as in the French word for “I) Ah-
b’less), the “hero,” is really an anti-hero. He’s the proprietor of a small grocery
store – an old-fashioned, shabby version of the "everything" shops attached to gas
stations in the middle of nowhere (which is apparently where his store is in
relation to the center of town). He sells – or would sell, if goods were available –
everything from shoelaces to pickles. He’s a nice, unassuming guy who doesn’t
have a mean bone in his body. In terms of appearance he’s probably in his late
twenties or early thirties, about average height, not in the least bit athletic-
looking. In fact, he is quite awkward. He has a big mop of dark brown hair, bushy
eyebrows and a generally schleppy appearance. He is madly in love with
Manicka. Despite his rather vague grasp of what’s going around him, he manages
– in spite of himself – to survive every catastrophe that befalls him. Even his final
act, which saves the country from the evil dictator and her cronies, happens purely
by accident.

FRANTA (Celery, Lunatic 4, Sweep)

Franta has only been in Terezín for four months. He and his wife, who come from a
Prague suburb, managed to hide in a neighbor’s toolshed until the neighbor became too
frightened. They were picked up almost immediately and sent to the camp. His wife is
also at Terezín and managed to be assigned a position that allows her a larger food ration
than he receives. She shares her food with him whenever they manage to see one another.
Before the war he was a long-distance truck driver. In Terezín he works as a carter,
harnessed like a mule as part of a team of prisoners, hauling in farmer’s wagons whatever
is brought into or taken out of the camp – lumber or turnips or corpses, it doesn’t matter;
the same carts are used for everything. He has been talked into auditioning for Cyclist by
Tomas, who sleeps near him in their barracks. He is strong but he seems insecure,
perhaps because of the time he spent in hiding or maybe because he feels intimidated by
some of his fellow actors, especially the great Švenk. His wife occasionally helps sew
costumes, but she never comes by during rehearsals.

Celery, the gardener, is the voice of down-to-earth, no-nonsense reason. He is

dressed in overalls and rubber boots and wears a straw hat against the sun. He
carries a gardening tool or pushes a wheelbarrow.

Lunatic Four is afflicted with idiosyncratic twitches – he’s constantly in motion

– flexing his muscles and making “tough guy” faces that mark him as a
stereotypical “lunatic.” He too wears asylum inmate’s clothing; if he’s rolled up
his sleeves, it’s so we can see his muscles.

Sweep is a downcast, stoop-shouldered man pushing a broom. He speaks in a

resigned, gloomy voice.

12
13
 THE LAST CYCLIST SCRIPT

PROLOGUE

OVERTURE (Track 01)

Older Šedová: (As voice-over or barely seen, perhaps as lecturer or at a radio mike)
My name is Jana Šedová. I survived. I may be the only member of the cast
who did.

Does it seem crazy to think that we performed plays in Terezín? And

operas, and symphonies and chamber music! Prisoners gave more than
2,000 lectures on every subject imaginable.

What did the Nazis care? As far as they were concerned, we were doomed
anyway.

But we had no idea of what was happening. It was as if we lived outside

time, with no past and no future. Only the present. Only Terezín.

In that unreal environment, I became an actress.

I got through each day knowing we’d rehearse at night. Acting nourished
me in the face of starvation. The members of our company kept me sane in
that insane world. We were so enthusiastic, so dedicated – and so utterly
ignorant of the gas chambers and crematory ovens waiting for us in
Auschwitz and the other death camps in Poland.

The Last Cyclist was our most courageous production. It was a comedy.
We were miserable and frightened. And our director made us laugh. And
we made the audience laugh. It was a gift beyond imagining.

DRESS REHEARSAL

Ota: (Scratching at bites all over his body) I wish we had hot water to wash in.
And a change of clothes.

Zuzana: (Looking at him, scratches a little too) I’d settle for clean water and a little
privacy.

Elena: Privacy! I can’t even remember what that was like.

14
Ota: Hey, if you could change one thing here, what would it be?

Pavel: Oh good! A game!

Jiří: My God, Ota, you sound like one of the lunatics in the play!

Leo: (Ignoring him) I would like something to eat besides moldy bread.

Pavel: What are you complaining about? The bread's not always moldy.
Sometimes it's hard as a rock.

Zuzana: And we get a full range of soups – from tasteless to disgusting.

Tomas: I would like to stop being afraid that I’ll write the wrong name or number
on a report. What do the SS want with all the statistics they’ve got us
compiling? I sit there in absolute terror, with my hands shaking. If I make
a mistake, they’ll beat me – or worse. Imagine what will happen if they
find out we're stealing supplies for the children's art classes?

Leo: (After a beat, and perhaps a deep sigh to acknowledge the seriousness of
what Tomas has just said) I wish people would stop bragging about who
they were at home. You’d think everyone was rich and famous.

Švenk: You mean like the dachshund I heard the other day telling his pals that
back in Prague he used to be a St. Bernard?

(This is a very corny joke – actually, FYI, a real joke from Terezín –and everyone should
react appropriately.)

Elena: I would like to have my own bed instead of being crowded into the middle
tier of bunks with women next to me, women over me, and women under
me.

Jiri: (Leering) I, on the other hand, would be most happy to share that space
with you even with all 59 of your roommates watching.

The others ignore him or make dismissive faces; one or two might smile knowingly.

Zuzana: You know what I just remembered? My mother told our neighbor to feed
our cat and water the plants, that we’d be back soon. What a joke!

Leo: Maybe the war will be over soon. I want to get out of here.

Jiří Be careful what you wish for. We’re all likely to be on transports to the
east long before the war is over.

15
Zuzana: I wish I knew where the transports were going.

Jiří: Of course you know. How could you not know? You’ve heard the rumors.

Leo: But they’re just rumors. How could people….

Jiří: (Interrupting) Leo, you’re as naive as Zuzana. You're deluding yourselves.

You see what they’re doing to us here and you still ask that question?

Zuzana: But we don’t know where we’re going. We don’t know when we’re going.
We don’t know why we’re going. We don’t know what will happen to us
when we get there.

Leo: Still, maybe ….

Pavel: If this is how they treat us here, 40 miles from Prague, what in God’s
name makes you think they’ll treat us better in the east? “Destination
unknown,” indeed; it’s a one way ticket to hell.

Švenk: You haven’t said a word since you got here, Jana. What’s troubling you?

Jana Šedová: Five more of my old women died today. They all remind me of my
grandmother and they are all starving. They’re disoriented. They’ve got
dysentery and I don’t even know what other diseases. I stand there and
patted their arms while they died. There’s nothing else I can do for them.
It breaks my heart. And it makes me angry. And I hate feeling this
helpless. I’m sorry … but you asked.

Pavel: In the natural order, old people die first anyway. Sure it’s pitiful, but …

Ota: Great. We’re living a Darwinian experiment.

Elena: (Dreamily changing the subject and the mood) When I’m in the factory
and my eyes are tearing and my hands ache from splitting mica, I imagine
that I’ve just gotten a manicure. I’m going to the café with my boyfriend –
God only knows where he is now – for chocolate cake …

The rest of the cast onstage react with varying levels of ecstasy and despair. They are
dreadfully hungry and she is not only talking about food but evoking memories of
civilized life.

Others: Ooh!

Elena: with whipped cream …

Others: Ah!

16
Elena: and real coffee.

The others are virtually overwhelmed and verbalize accordingly.

Elena: I picture myself putting on perfume so he can smell how beautiful I am.

Švenk: Hmmm. Perfume. Now, that we can give you. Eau de Terezín. An artful
distillation compounded of the mingled aromas of …

Pavel: Overflowing toilets.

Ota: Rotting garbage.

Zuzana: Unwashed bodies.

Jiří: Disinfectant.

Leo: Festering sores.

Tomas: Fear.

Elena: Thanks, guys. That really helped.

Franta enters, out of breath.

Franta: Sorry I’m late. There are SS officers in the square. I had to take the long
way to get here.

Ota: Brrr. You’ve brought the cold in with you. Not that it was so warm here to
begin with.

Franta: Oh, that reminds me. There must be about 100 people standing outside
waiting to come up and watch us rehearse. Believe me, the place will
warm up fast.

Pavel: And stink, too.

Tomas: Karel, you kept us at it until three o’clock in the morning yesterday and
we’ve got to get up at six to go to work. It’s bad enough we have to sleep
here because of the curfew, but we need to get at least a little sleep.

Švenk: All right, everyone. Let’s get started.

17
The cast gathers at his feet. Some of the actors close their eyes or stare into space.
Others watch him intently.

I want you to focus. You are actors. You are strong and courageous and
proud. You are on the stage. Forget that you are in Terezín. Imagine that
you are backstage in a beautiful cabaret back home. The musicians are
tuning up their instruments. The women in the audience are adjusting their
furs and eating chocolates. The men are belching discreetly as they sip
their after-dinner drinks. The house lights dim. Actors, the show is about
to begin. Hurry, before the crowd gets restless! Motivate us!

Pavel: Forget you are exhausted.

Švenk: No yawning or passing out, please.

Jiří: Forget you’re hungry.

Švenk: If your stomachs growl, make sure they growl in three-part harmony.

Franta: Forget that you itch all over from lice and fleas.

Švenk: (Contorts as he mimes scratching himself wildly (think Charlie Chaplin or

Marcel Marceau).

Jana: Forget that you don’t know where half your family and friends are or what
has happened to them.

Švenk: Family? Friends? Am I not everything to you, my dearest dear? Is stardom

not compensation enough for everything you’ve lost? (Histrionic gestures
and sighs.)

Tomas: Forget about the transports.

Švenk: Ah, the trains to nowhere. They must be nowhere in your thoughts tonight.
Forget everything that is bothering you. For now, the only thing that
matters is making the audience laugh, making them cry, getting them to
forget too.

But, um, you’d better not forget your lines or I’ll have to kill you myself.

(Cast reacts, mildly amused at yet another corny joke.)

All right, loosen up the muscles in your face. (Everyone widens eyes,
stretches mouths, etc.)

18
 And now, say the words. Terezín March. The chorus. I want to hear all
the vowels and consonants. Slowly. Clearly.

(This is a warm-up exercise, but it is also an opportunity for the audience to hear and
understand the lyrics)

All: Where there’s a will there’s a way.

We’ll survive another day.
And together, hand in hand,
We’ll laugh at hardship.

Švenk: Good. Now shout out the next lines – loud, loud, loud.

All: Don’t despair,

Still believe
That the sun will shine again
And we’ll live to turn our backs on Terezín.

Švenk: Now sing it!

MUSIC FOR TEREZÍN MARCH CHORUS – TRACK 02

All: (Sing entire song from the beginning – slowly, with enthusiasm; the song
expresses their fervent hope!)

Where there’s a will there’s a way.

We’ll survive another day.
And together, hand in hand,
We’ll laugh at hardship.

Don’t despair,
Still believe
That the sun will shine again
And we’ll live to turn our backs on Terezín.

Listen!

Soon we will be homeward bound.

Our lives will start again.
And tomorrow we will pack our bags,
Free women and free men.

Where there’s a will there’s a way.

We will live to see that day.
On the ruins of the ghetto
We will laugh!

19
Švenk: All right. Places, everyone. I’m going to open the door and let the
audience come in. Onstage for the Hitler scene – now!

A cast or crew member places on an easel (perhaps with a light over it) a large hand-
lettered placard that reads “The Last Cyclist.” It will be replaced for each new scene
with the appropriate identifying placard. Note that there were many talented artists in
Terezin; it doesn’t need to be hurried or sloppy.

MUSIC SQUIB – TRACK 03

HITLER SCENE

Clearly identifiable Adolf Hitler, not yet in power, addresses a raucous crowd at a
Bavarian beer hall. A smiling young man stands near the front of the stage.

Hitler: My fellow citizens, our country is in crisis. We must rid ourselves of the
monstrous perversion that is destroying society. Who is to blame for all
our troubles? The Jews!

Young Man: And the cyclists!

Hitler: (After a quick, confused look at the young man) Who is destroying our
economy and robbing our wives and children? The Jews!

Young Man: And the cyclists!

Hitler: (With a quizzical, impatient glance at the young man) Who is the parasite
on the body of the nation? The Jews!

Young Man: And the cyclists!

Hitler: (Now studiously ignoring him and ratcheting up the rhetoric) Who is
undermining our proud spirit with their whining and conniving? The Jews!

Young Man: And the cyclists!

Hitler: (Finally exasperated) Why the cyclists?

Young Man: Why the Jews?

In the rest of the play, the prisoner’s yellow badges, clearly visible in the dress rehearsal
scene, are hidden under their costumes.

20
MUSIC SQUIB – TRACK 04
SCENE 1

The garden of a mental institution; Lunatic 1 and Lunatic 2 are arguing.

Lunatic 1: (Holds a butterfly net)Look, I have a net!

Lunatic 2: (Disdainfully) It’s full of holes! And the brim will pinch your forehead.

Lunatic 1: (Clicks his tongue and shakes his head) It isn’t a hair net, you idiot. It’s a
butterfly net!

Lunatic 2: There aren’t any butterflies here. This place is too damp and ugly for
butterflies.

Lunatic 1: You’ve seen the Head Physician’s bowtie, haven’t you? It looks just like a
butterfly.

Lunatic 2: And you want catch that? How will you take it from him?

Lunatic 1: Like this! (He thrusts the net down over her head)

Lunatic 2: See! It is so a hair net! (Pulls it off)

.
Lunatic 1: You’re nuts.

Lunatic 2: (Furiously) I am not. You are.

Lunatic 1: We both are. So what?

Rat: (Enters briskly and speaks in a phony conciliatory tone) So nice to see you
playing, children. What are you playing?

Lunatic 1: Well …

Lunatic 2: (Speaks at the same time) We …

Rat: (Talking over both of their voices) Look what I have for you. (He holds up
a whiskey bottle.) I know you’re not supposed to drink. But what do I
care? I know you will behave … as you do.

Lunatic 2 jabs Rat with the butterfly net.

Rat: Why did you do that?

21
Lunatic 2: As a token of my love and esteem. I only jab kind, generous people who
have our best interests at heart.

Rat: (With an exasperated roll of his eyes) Then I thank you.

(He leaves.)

Lunatic 1: (Uncorks the bottle and sniffs) Schnaps!

Lunatic 2: Let me see! (She spills some onto the ground) Yup, schnaps!

Lunatic 1: Stop. Don’t waste it!

Lunatic 2: Bet you can’t break the bottle.

Lunatic 1: (Takes the bottle from her and throws it against the wall. It breaks.)

Lunatic 2: (Triumphantly displaying the neck of the bottle.) You did it. You win! My
friend, what are you waiting for? Drink up!

MUSIC SQUIB – TRACK 05

SCENE 2

Manicka stands in the doorway of her house ostentatiously avoiding looking at Bořivoj
Abeles, who is staring at her longingly from the doorway of his little shop. The shop has
a prominent sign reading BOŘIVOJ ABELES GROCERIES AND SUNDRIES.

Abeles: (Clears his throat and addresses her hesitatingly) Hello there.

M: (As if she just notices him) Oh, hello.

A: It’s hot out, isn’t it?

M: It sure is.

A: Dreadfully hot.

M: Stinking hot.

A: (Deliriously infatuated) You’re right. It is stinking hot. (After a pause) So

hot my underpants are sticking to my tush.

Oops! He’s embarrassed that he’s said that. She’s embarrassed – and amused.

22
A: Excuse me, but did you see a fat blue-eyed man go by?

M: (Apparently as infatuated with Abeles as he is with her) I’m so sorry, but I

haven’t.

A: Are you sure? He’s a tall thin guy.

M: I thought you said he was fat.

A: Uh, he just had an appendectomy. He might have lost weight. It was a

very difficult operation. (Abruptly changes subject and pose – he’s going
for a macho demeanor.) You know me, don’t you? From the boxing ring?

M: I don’t think I …

A: (Deflated) You’re right. I’ve never been in a boxing ring. I couldn’t harm
a chicken, not to mention a boxer. My name is Bořivoj Abeles. This is my
grocery store …

M: And I am Manicka.

A: (Still struggling to make conversation) Did you see a woman go by with a

dog?

M: Yes, I did.

A: Perhaps that was the man I’m waiting for. He might have been wearing a
dress. Was it a bulldog?

M: No, a poodle.

A: Then it wasn’t him. He’d never have a poodle. (Sighs dramatically) I’m
afraid he won’t turn up.

M: He may yet come…

A: He doesn’t have to…. (Pause) Manicka!

M: Mr. Abeles….

A: Manicka! (He takes her hand.) Manicka!

M: Bořivoj!

They look away shyly and then turn back and stare into each other’s eyes.
LOVE MUSIC swells in the background. TRACK 06

23
M: I…

A: What?

She sighs deeply. Bořivoj takes her in his arms and they kiss.

A: Manicka!

M: Bořivoj!

A: Manicka, I love you. I will bring you the blue of the sky, the gold of the
sun! Do you like cough drops? Or herring? I, Bořivoj Abeles, owner of a
grocery store, purveyor of first class goods, will give you everything!

M: Do you have a car?

Music out

A: A car? No, I don’t have a car.

M: A motorcycle, then. Surely you have a motorcycle!

A: No, I don’t have a motorcycle either.

Manicka sees the Head Physician cross the stage on a bicycle.

M: But you must have a bicycle, don’t you?

A: A bicycle. Manicka, for you I will buy a bicycle.

M: Bořivoj!

A: Manicka! (They kiss again.)

MUSIC SQUIB -- TRACK 07

SCENE 3

The garden of the mental institution; we see Lunatics 1 and 2 and Celery, the gardener

Lunatic 2: What are you doing?

Celery: Putting manure on the strawberries.

24
Lunatic 2: That’s weird. I always used to put cream on my strawberries, but what do I
know? I’m only a poor lunatic.

Head Phy: (Entering on bicycle) Keep moving there. Exercise will improve your
health and do wonders for your mental state. Keep moving. That’s right.
Keep moving. What’s new, Mr. Celery?

Celery: My back aches. It’s probably going to rain.

Head Phy: Well, that would be good for the vegetables.

Celery: (Bitterly) What vegetables? Ma’am is on a rampage. She’s still looking for
a slogan for her latest craziness and she’s in such a rage she’s already
destroyed the entire vegetable patch.

Head Phy: (Looks at the jagged glass bottle top Lunatic 1 is carrying.)Where did you
get that?

Lunatic 1: Mr. Rat gave it to me.

Lunatic 2: But don’t tell Rat we told you because you’re not supposed to know we
have it. Right?

Head Phy: Did Rat give Ma’am whiskey too?

Lunatic 1: Maybe. How should we know?

Both lunatics are now staring at the Head Physician, and specifically at his tie. They
circle around him agitatedly. While this is going on, Celery hides behind a barrel.

Lunatic 2: Look at that! You’re wearing a necktie. What have you done with our
butterfly? I mean, with your bowtie.

Head Phy: My bowtie? It’s in my closet. (He goes offstage, leaving his bike behind.)

Ma’am enters.

Ma’am: Lunatics, give me a slogan.

Lunatic 2: (Still waving to the Head Physician) See you tomorrow!

Ma’am: That is a lousy slogan. Give me a good slogan and I will be your leader.

Lunatic 2: Where will you lead us?

25
Lunatic 1: On a cheap trip to nowhere.

Ma’am: A slogan! A slogan!

Lunatic 2: She’s at it again.

Ma’am: There is not enough air here. How can anyone breathe?

Lunatic 1: The doctor left his bicycle. Let’s deflate the tires. That’ll punish him for
not wearing his butterfly. And it will give her more air.

Ma’am: Air! They have locked up all the air. They want to choke us. Deflate every
bicycle tire. More air! Give us air!

Lunatic 2: She does go on beautifully, doesn’t she? I could listen to her forever. Here,
air, free of charge!

They bend over to squeeze air out of the tires. Rat enters.

Rat: I’m glad to see you’re amusing yourselves, children.

Ma’am: Where is my slogan? You promised me a slogan a long time ago. I want
my slogan! I demand my slogan!

Rat: Calm down. I’ve got to go and put away the bike.

Ma’am: Do you know who rides that bike? The Head Physician. Who jabs us with
needles? The Head Physician!

Lunatic 1: Who locks the butterflies – I mean, the bowties – in a closet? The Head
Physician!

Ma’am: Who prescribes my electric shocks? The Head Physician!

Lunatic 2: (Aside) She is gloriously crazy. I love this new game. (Shouts) The Head
Physician! The Head Physician!

Ma’am: I want revenge. Down with the cyclist. Help me smash his bicycle. Give
us the bike!

Rat: With pleasure. Here, children. Enjoy yourselves.

The lunatics throw themselves on the bike and begin to pull it apart.

Lunatic 2: Isn’t this fun!

26
Head Physician enters.

Head Phy: What’s going on? What is the meaning of this?

Rat: You said they need more exercise so they’re getting more exercise. Leave
them alone.

Ma’am: We will find every bicycle and destroy it.

Head Phy: Has she been drinking?

Lunatic 2: Maybe. But you’re not supposed to know about it, remember?

Lunatic 1: I’ll let you have a swig (brandishes the broken bottle top) if you let me
have your bowtie.

Ma’am: We will smash the pedals, break the bells….

Head Phy: Stop them, please!

Rat: Let them be. They’re enjoying themselves.

Ma’am: We will not let him ride here. We will not let him stick needles in us!

Head Phy: Mr. Rat, give her something to knock her out.

Rat: (Muttering to himself viciously) I’d rather knock you out, you pompous
ass.

Ma’am: I will get even with that bike riding doctor. Does he not know who I am?
I must find a weapon! (She runs offstage.)

Head Phy: Mr. Rat! Come to my office at once. I need to draft a reprimand.

Rat: A reprimand? About what?

Head Phy: About you. I cannot allow you to jeopardize the health of our patients. It
is...it is….

Rat: It’s what? What is it? Don’t yell at me. When I’m alone with them, they
play well.

Head Phy: You give them liquor.

Rat: Liquor? Because I have a weak spot for them.

27
Head Phy: This discussion is at an end. (He walks away.)

Rat: How dare he do this to me? (Furious, he shouts as the Head Physician
leaves the stage) Calm her yourself, you lazy bugger. I’ll show you what
you can do with your report. (He runs offstage after the Head Physician.)

Ma’am crosses, brandishing a bicycle pump.

Ma’am: I will smash every one of his syringes with his own bicycle pump. Let
them all watch out. Death to cyclists! Death to cyclists? Yes! That is it! I
have a slogan. I have a calling. I have a cause. A holy spirit of pure
purpose is descending upon me. Follow me. I will lead you. Death to
cyclists!

Lunatics: (Offstage voices should augment Luns 1 and 2 onstage) Death to cyclists!

Ma’am: Louder! Death to cyclists! We will break out of this damned asylum and
rule the world. I will lead you. Death to cyclists!

Offstage
voices: (Loudly and enthusiastically) Death to cyclists!

Lunatic 2: Ma’am, may we break out too?

Ma’am: You may do anything.

Lunatic 2: In that case, death to cyclists!

Lunatic 1: May we catch all the butterflies in the world?

Ma’am: You may do everything you want.

Lunatic 1: Excellent! Then, death to cyclists!

The Lunatics run across the stage shouting “Death to cyclists!" and exit. Celery climbs
out of – or appears from behind – the barrel. Offstage voices shouting “Death to
cyclists” can be heard intermittently and as from a distance through Celery's next
speech.

Celery: Well, this is a pretty mess! How many times have I told the Head
Physician he’s got to watch out for these nuts? All my work here has been
destroyed. And what about my friends? Lots of them are cyclists. If this
keeps up, they’re going to get hurt. We’ll all get hurt before it’s over. The
doctor should put a stop to this. What if they really do break every
bicycle? How could anyone go for a Sunday ride or enter a bike race?
What will the delivery boys use? This is no good, no good at all.

28
Rat enters.

Celery: (Turns to him in great distress) Mr. Rat, the lunatics have escaped!
They’ve started with the cyclists but mark my words, they’ll end up
attacking pedestrians too. And then where will we be?

Rat: Stop worrying.

Celery: But the Head Physician needs to know.

Rat: Forget the Head Physician. He’s gone the way of your vegetable garden.
He won’t be giving any reprimands from now on.

Celery: (Horror struck) Don’t tell me that you have ….

Rat: (Waving the Head Physician’s now-bloodstained tie) Death to cyclists,

Mr. Celery!

Celery: My God, how will we get the lunatics back behind bars when the man who
should guard them has become as crazy as they are – maybe crazier,
because Rat knows what he’s doing.

MUSIC SQUIB - TRACK 08

SCENE 4

Mr. Opportunist and Abeles are watching young women parade by in the uniforms of
their gymnastics teams. It should be immediately obvious that Mr. Opportunist is an
"operator" who takes advantage of every chance to advance himself, whatever the cost to
others.

Opportunist: What a glorious group of women. Don’t you think so?

A: (Barely listening; he is scanning the crowd) Uh huh.

Opportunist: The best gymnasts in the nation – parading right before our eyes.

A: Um. (Still looking)

Opportunist: My dear Abeles, you must congratulate me. I’ve now sold my 100th life
insurance policy. One hundred more people whose lives are insured,
whose families will not suffer financial hardship. Yours truly has
performed an excellent service for humanity – (aside) and certain to get a
nice little promotion for it too.

29
A: (Paying no attention) I am sure Manicka is here somewhere.

Opportunist: Is she that fat girl? Or the one with the enormous nose?

A: Oh no. Much better looking. There she is now. There she is! Manicka’s
coming!

Opportunist: Where?

A: There! That adorable one.

Opportunist: All of them look good to me. (Aside) But he’s right. That one looks
particularly desirable.

A: (Waving and calling out) Manicka! Manicka! Listen to me. I will buy you
a bicycle!

Opportunist: You’d buy a bike?

A: Would I? Yes indeed! I am going to buy a bike.

Opportunist: I can sell you one.

A: I can’t see Manicka anymore.

Opportunist: Nothing special.

A: I disagree. She is very special. She looks splendid.

Opportunist: Not Manicka, the bike. The bike. Pay attention, man. Listen, it isn’t the
newest, but it works.

A: Did you see her wave to me? What an extraordinary woman!

Opportunist: Well? Will you buy it?

A: (Following Manicka with his eyes) As sure as my name is Abeles.

Opportunist: I will bring the bike to your place tomorrow.

A: Wrap it up well. I want it to be a surprise.

Opportunist: And when will you marry her, Mr. Abeles?

A: Maybe next week. I can’t this week, I’m taking inventory in the store.

30
Opportunist: Makes sense. Business before pleasure. Otherwise you’d be too distracted
to count your money. And what about children? Have they already been
had, are they being made or are they yet to come?

A: Yet to come. Manicka wants to have two and I want three. So that’s five
kids altogether.

Opportunist: Quintuplets! Papa Abeles, you must get yourself insured! Look, you’ve
just bought a bike. What if the man who sold it to you is a rogue? You’ll
sit on the bike, it will fall apart and you will scrape your knees, break your
nose or get killed some other way. What preparation have you made for
your poor orphan children, the little darlings? Do you want them to be
born as posthumous babies? You owe it to Manicka to get life insurance.

A: What children? I don’t have any children yet!

Opportunist: (Leering) But you will soon, Abeles, you will. Very soon indeed. I saw
the way you looked at her. (He nudges Abeles, who reacts with
embarrassment.) You owe it to Manicka to get life insurance. (He
produces a sheaf of papers and a pen.)

A: For Manicka, I’ll do anything! (He signs the document.)

MUSIC SQUIB TRACK 09

SCENE 5

This scene takes place in front of Abeles’s shop. Rich has a fancy bike with gears and
Red an old cheap bike. They are both leaning over Rich’s bike, with which he is
tinkering.

Rich: I know how to fix it. My uncle showed me what to do. He’s an expert in
everything. He has a factory with a hundred employees, and a huge house.
He’s got a cook and a gardener. He even has a chauffeur to drive his car.
He told me, “Rich, take this bicycle. If things begin to stink here, get
yourself to Cyclistine.”2

Red: Doesn’t he want to go?

Rich: He can’t go. He just bought gorgeous new furniture. But I’ll go. I have
already decided. I’ll establish a branch of his factory there. I’ll find cheap
labor…. Hey, you could come and work for me!

2
Pronounce “Cyclistine” as you would pronounce “Palestine,” to which it is a not-so-veiled allusion.

31
Red: Are you kidding? I’m not going to Cyclistine.

Rich: My uncle gave me a map. I wouldn’t dare go without one. I have no sense
of direction. Everywhere I go I will ask, “Which way, please?” Does that
make you jealous?

Red: (Raising his voice) That you’re going to Cyclistine? You’ve got to be
kidding. It’s dangerous. There are bad people everywhere along the route.
(Thinks a moment.) Of course, the way things are going, it’s not safe here
either.

A: (Comes out of his shop) Please don’t block the doorway. You’re keeping
customers away. I’m getting married and I need the business.

Rich: Mr. Abeles, my uncle says we should all go to Cyclistine. Will you go?

A: Absolutely not. I’m busy here. And I am marrying Manicka next week.
Would she want to live in Cyclistine? Hardly. I’ve got no time for laziness
or pipedreams. I'm a respectable businessman. A customer gives me
money and I give him the correct change.

Red: As long as you change something!

A: Red, Red, why are you always starting in? Change, change, change.
You’re never satisfied. Do I make a living? Yes. Enough? No. But things
could always be worse. Listen! I’ve bought a bike. Is it a nice one like his
(pointing to Rich)? No, it’s an ugly one like yours (to Red). But it’s a bike.

Besides, I know what you really want. You, Rich, want to ruin my shop
and sell flour directly from your factory. And you, Red, you’d like to start
a revolution, wouldn’t you. Then you could share my little shop with me.
Well, remember! Private property is sacred. Live and let live, as my
grandfather always used to say. He was a pack peddler and look … his
grandson owns his own shop.

Red: A pitiful one.

Rich: But his own.

A: Now, move. Here come some customers.

Lunatics 1 and 2 enter.

A: Welcome to my humble shop. Would you like some flour? Or an

umbrella? Or some onions? How about some terrific pickles?

32
Lunatic 1: What do you have here? (He looks suspiciously at the wrapped bicycle,
which looks exactly like a wrapped bicycle.)

Lunatic 2: He says he has pickles. I’d like a pickle.

Lunatic 1: Wait a minute, will you? What do you have here, Mr. Abeles?

A: A surprise for Manicka.

Lunatic 2: You see! It’s not a bike. It’s a surprise.

Lunatic 1: You are lucky, because if you had a bike like these gentlemen do, you
would …. Oh my, bikes!

(Red and Rich take their bikes and start to move away.)

Lunatic 2: Where are you going?

Red: None of your business.

Lunatic 1: You! Come with us.

Rich: I can’t. I’ve got to ride my bike.

Lunatic 1: Then ride in front of us. Do you know the way?

Rich: Of course. I have a map.

Lunatic 1: Wait for us at the bottom of the hill.

Rich: Sure.

Red: I’ll go too, okay?

Lunatic 1: You will wait for us right here while we eat one of Mr. Abeles’s pickles.

Lunatic 2: Two pickles.

Lunatic 1: Or three.

Lunatic 2: Or all of them, however many there are. We are going into the shop now.
Stay here.

Lunatic 1: And ring your bicycle bell as long as we are inside.

33
Red: (Ringing the bell -- BICYCLE FLOURISH 1, TRACK 10 – or use real
bell or “ring, ring” voice) Damn. Why didn’t I get away? The poor man
always ends up paying for everything. (He continues to ring the bell as he
tiptoes offstage.)

Lunatic 1 and
Lunatic 2 (From inside the shop) Mr. Abeles! More pickles! We are crazy hungry.
Crazy and hungry! (They laugh. When the sound of the bike bell is no
longer heard, Lun 1 pokes his head out the door.)

Lunatic 1: Hey! He’s gone!

(The two lunatics run offstage.)

A: (Calls after them) Wait! You didn’t pay me yet!

Rat enters with Lunatics 3 and 4.

Rat: Is this bike yours?

A: Don’t take it!

Rat: I am not taking it. I just want to look at it.

A: Give it back!

Rat: How dare you speak to me like that? (To the two lunatics) Gentlemen,
kindly give this gentleman a talking to.

Rat examines the bike as Lunatic 3 punches Abeles in the stomach (Abeles: Oof!) and
then both Lunatics 3 and 4 grab Abeles. Rat continues examining the bicycle.

Rat: It’s a nice bike. (He rings the bell.) BICYCLE FLOURISH, TRACK 11

Lunatics 1 and 2 come running in.

Lunatic 1: There he is! There’s the cyclist! Get him!

They throw themselves on Rat. They immediately realize their error and rush to help him
up, but he pushes them away. He is furious and ludicrously mortified at his injured
dignity.

Rat: You idiots! (To Abeles) They almost killed me and it’s your fault. I’ll get
you for this. (To the audience) Before I’m done with him, the name
Abeles will strike fear into the heart of every cyclist still at large.

Rat exits, pulling and pushing Lunatics 1 and 2 offstage.

34
Lunatic 3: Is this bike yours?

A: Have you ever seen a man in my line of business without a bike?

Lunatic 4: So, this is your bike.

A: Do you want to buy it?

Lunatic 4: Then it’s yours?

A: Why shouldn’t it be?

Lunatic 4: Grab him!

A: Why?

Lunatic 3: Because you have a bike. Death to cyclists, Mr. Abeles!

A: (Sotto voce) What are they talking about? Death to cyclists? Huh?

(To the Lunatics) Do I have a bike? Who said this bike is mine? I am here
and the bike is there.

Lunatic 3: Whose bike is it, then?

A: How should I know whose it is?

Lunatic 3: It’s not his bike. Let’s go find the others. (They run off.)

A: They’re insane! What do they have against cyclists? Or is it me they’re

after? Well, I’m not going to stand here waiting for them to come back.
This is a very unlucky turn of events, especially now when I want to get
married. It will have a bad end, mark my words. The lunatics will get me
for sure. (He mounts the bike and starts to ride off just as Rat enters with
a gun.)

Rat: You! Abeles! Stop at once! Give me the bike.

A: When you are pointing a gun at me? Of course! Here, take it! (He backs
away from Rat and exits the stage while Rat glares in his direction and
then wheels the bike off in the opposite direction.)

MUSIC SQUIB - TRACK 12

SCENE 6

Town Hall. Mr. Opportunist is sitting at a desk listlessly shifting papers from one stack to
another.

35
Opportunist: (Whispering to himself) What a nightmare this is turning out to be.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it.

Lunatics 1 and 2 are seen making their way slowly toward where Mr. Opportunist is
sitting. Imagine that he is in an office, that they are walking up the corridor and that he
sees them before they see him.

Opportunist: (Jumps up and starts cavorting around the desk and chanting in a loud
voice) Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle…. (Whispering again)
This business is making me crazy! Oh no, I don’t mean crazy. Not that. At
least I hope not that! But everything is getting so complicated. (Loudly)
The cow jumped over the moon…. (Looks around craftily) I think I’m
doing this well.

(Pause a beat for emphasis.) The lunatics have all the power these days
and if I want to get anywhere with them I’ve got to seem as crazy as they
are.

Lunatics 1 and 2 now stand near Opportunist’s desk watching him.

Opportunist: …The dish ran away with the spoon.

Lunatic 1: What’s with him? Pay attention, man. We need you.

Opportunist: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall …

Lunatic 2: It’s all right. Calm down. Everybody’s got problems. (To Lun 1) Some
people say the dumbest things.

Opportunist: Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.…

Lunatic 2: Well, I guess there’s no doubt he’s one of us.

Mr. Opportunist pretends not to hear but it’s clear that he’s very pleased: He’s
succeeded in convincing the lunatics that he is indeed a lunatic.

Lunatic 1: We have something for you, sir. Pay attention, now. Do you hear me?

Opportunist: (Drops to his knees and kisses the shoe of Lun 1) Do-la-sol-mi-fa-re-re-re.

Lunatic 2: He sounds like a competent fellow. Are you in charge here now? Hey, Mr.
Important Person! (Waves her hands in front of his face) Hey you, Mr.
Pencil Pusher!

Opportunist: (She may be crazy but he likes women, all women – and power and money
–so he leers at her as he sings) When I am king, dilly dilly, you shall be
queen.

36
Lunatic 1: We need a description of Bořivoj Abeles.

Lunatic 2: Former grocer with former goods.

Lunatic 1: We have a secret order from Mr. Rat. Here! Read it.

Opportunist: “Bořivoj Abeles tried to kill me. He is guilty of attempted cyclicide. Issue
a warrant for his arrest.”

Lunatic 2: How do you know that?

Opportunist: I just read it.

Lunatic 2: He’s tricky!

Opportunist: (Pulls a piece of paper at random out of the pile, looks at it and hands it
to Lun 2) Here, this should be good. Is this to your taste?

Lunatic 2: (Licks the paper) Perfect.

Opportunist: Why limit yourselves to Abeles? What about the other cyclists? I’ll help
you issue more restrictions. What laws do you want to impose?

Lunatic 1: Buses and trains will all have signs: “No cyclists allowed.”

Lunatic 2: We’ll plaster every wall with posters saying, “Anyone who talks to a
cyclist will be punched in the nose.”

Lunatic 1: Isn’t that harsh?

Lunatic 2: We’ll write it on soft paper.

Opportunist: May I?

Lunatic 2: If you can, you may.

Opportunist: “Everyone who wants to ride a bike must have a permit….”

Lunatic 2: That’s good!!

Lunatic 1: And now we need something about Abeles.

Opportunist: How about … “Abeles is not allowed in any public places”?

Lunatic 1: Excellent. Write it down!

Mr. Opportunist suddenly looks ashamed of himself.

Opportunist: What am I doing? I am an idiot, a complete idiot.

37
Lunatic 2: Are you? That’s excellent.

Opportunist: (Realizing he’s spoken out loud, he makes crazy gestures) I am even more
idiotic than that. I'm most idiotic! I’ a little teapot, short and …

Lunatic 1: (Interrupting) Wait, wait! Before you begin gibbering again, give us a
description of Bořivoj Abeles. Do you know him?

Opportunist: Do I know him? Look! There’s the dangerous cyclist! (He points at a
cabinet on top of which stands the statue of a stag.)

Lunatic 2: Quick!! Let’s get him to the print shop before he runs away!

They grab the statue and run off the stage.

Opportunist: Your Excellencies, Your mad Excellencies, that is not him! (Sighs) But if I
play my cards right, I’ll be rid of Abeles soon. Ah, Manicka, Manicka!
Abeles is right. You are a most beautiful woman, an overwhelmingly
desirable woman. Beware, friend Abeles. There is little I will not do for
love.

MUSIC SQUIB - TRACK 13

SCENE 7

A large poster is clearly visible. On the poster is a picture of a stag and the inscription:
BOŘIVOJ ABELES. REWARD: ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND PICKLES. Abeles stands
with his back to the poster and hasn’t noticed it yet.

Voice: Catch the cyclist, Bořivoj Abeles, accused of attempted assassination!

Catch the cyclist, Bořivoj Abeles. Catch the assassin Abeles!

Abeles: (Looks for the source of the voice, sees the poster and reacts with shock.)
What’s going on? I’m not a cyclist and I’m certainly not an assassin.
Assassin? Just look at me. Do I look like an assassin? Do I look like a
deer? I wish someone could invent a machine to turn cyclists into
pedestrians. Or better yet, lunatics into sensible people. It would solve all
our problems. But things don't happen like that in real life. (As he begins
to sneak away, the Voice addresses him softly.)

Voice: Hello! Where are you going?

A: (Sputtering and panicky) I only …

Voice: Wherever you’re going, find Bořivoj Abeles there and catch him!

38
A: (Looking heavenward) My Lord, if You really exist then You must already
know what I want to tell You. So why am I bothering to tell You? But I
will say it anyway, just to be sure. What harm will be done if You help me
a little? Look. Two lunatics and a rat are after me. Change me into … I
don’t know … A dark cloud, maybe, because storm clouds are certainly
gathering on the horizon. Or a burning bush. A burning bush would be
perfect because the whole world is on fire now. No one will notice one
little burning bush. Will You do it? My Lord, You led the Israelites into
the desert. Take me to a desert somewhere too. Not for forty years, of
course, but right now the desert would be far better than this place.

The four Lunatics come running in, point to the poster and yell:

Lunatics: Catch Bořivoj Abeles!

Offstage voices roar from all sides: Catch Bořivoj Abeles!

The lunatics run off with the poster, leaving Abeles alone on the stage.

A: Did I say two lunatics? A veritable flock of them! But am I raining? Or

burning? I am not. My Lord, do You exist? If You do not, I am lost!

He exits slowly and dejectedly.

MUSIC SQUIB - TRACK 14

SCENE 8

We are now in a meeting hall filled with lunatics and their supporters. They have been
waiting for Ma'am. There is a drum roll and fanfare and Ma'am enters. The crowd
applauds, cheers and bows down or salutes as soon as they see her.

Ma’am: My followers! Loyal citizens! Who is to blame for all our troubles? The
cyclists, you say? I hear you and I will do your bidding. I will destroy in
your name. Away with cyclists! Away with bicycles! Away with bike
lovers! I am the Führer now and my word is law. I command you to
institute the following rules:

Lunatics: (Speaking as a chorus) Firstly …

A recorded or loony lunatic-shouted fanfare precedes each declaration. The recording is

available as TRACKS 15 to 21 on the Cyclist CD.

Ma’am: All bicycle owners must wear the letter C for cyclist visible on their
clothing at all times.

39
Luns: Secondly …

Ma’am: Under threat of capital punishment, cyclists are forbidden to eat, drink,
read, write or sleep!

Lunatic 1: What can they do?

Ma’am: Work!

Luns: Seventhly ….

Ma’am: All cyclists must be exiled to Horror Island, where they will be starved to
death while they slave for the greater glory of … me!

Luns: Tenthly ….

Ma’am: These orders apply to anyone who has helped cyclists fix their bikes or
inflate their tires or sold them biking gear for the last two hundred years.
Round up all their relatives as well.

Luns: Sixteenthly ….

Ma’am: Death to cyclists!

Lunatic 1: Take the butterfly net. Let’s go catch them.

Lunatic 2: Butterflies?

Lunatic 1: Cyclists!

The lunatics rush off the stage as Ma’am raises her arms in exaltation.

Ma’am: Yes!

MUSIC SQUIB - TRACK 22

SCENE 9

Ma’am stands center stage, illuminated by a single spot. Behind her, not yet visible, are
(at least) a couch and something the audience will understand is a fireplace. She holds a
hand mirror and addresses it.

Ma’am: Magic mirror in my hand, who is most beautiful in this land?

40
Rat: (Speaking from the darkness behind the mirror and just barely visible to
the audience) You, my beautiful dictator!

Ma’am: Tell me, magic mirror, who is most sane?

Rat: You, my (in)sane dictator!

Ma’am: Tell me, magic mirror, who is most powerful?

Rat: You, my powerful dictator.

Ma’am: Me.

Rat: You.

Ma’am: Me, me, me!

Rat: And me.

Ma’am: What?

Rat: Jawohl!

He disappears. As the lights come up on the stage, Ma’am lies down on the couch
muttering to herself. Rich and Red, both filthy dirty, come crawling out of the fireplace.

TRACK 23

Red: You know what you can do with your stupid map? It says this is supposed
to be a tunnel, but it’s a chimney.

Rich: So? Every route you want to take leads through a pub.

Red: How did I let you talk me into this anyway? I never wanted to go to
Cyclistine.

Rich: Would you rather be arrested for riding a bicycle? The lunatics are hunting
cyclists everywhere. I don't know how much longer we can evade them.
We’ve nearly been caught twice already just since this morning. Now, let
me see, according to the map, we have correctly….

Red: Broken into somebody’s apartment.

Red leaves in disgust just as Ma’am suddenly notices Rich. She beckons to him and he
approaches the couch, very nervous and eager to please.

Ma’am: What are you doing here?

41
Rich: Well, I pedaled around and ….

Ma’am: You are a cyclist?

Rich: Yeah. You too?

Ma’am: Of course. Everyone who matters is a cyclist.

Rich: Thank God. I can trust you, can't I?

Ma’am: Of course you can trust me. You must trust me.

Rich: (Holds out the map). I want to go to Cyclistine. (Wailing) And I’m lost!

Ma’am: (Studies the map.) Let me see. Is that the way you came? No wonder you
got lost. You have to follow this road until you get to the shore. From
there you will go by ship.

Rich: And I took the opposite road. I am indebted to you, madam. (He leaves.)

Ma’am: Rat!

Rat: Ma’am?

Ma’am: What do you see?

Rat: A cyclist. Hey…! (He begins to run after Rich.)

Ma’am: Wait!

Rat: But he’s leaving!

Ma’am: For Horror Island.

Rat: What if that’s not where he’s going?

Ma’am: Oh, but that is exactly where he is going. (She laughs.) I have given him
directions. Now, where is my bottle? I need a drink!

Rat: (Aside) No way am I going to give her anything to drink. I used to be

afraid of the people outside. Now I’m afraid of the lunatics. The whole
damned world’s become a lunatic asylum. The nut cases have taken over.
(With rising tension) And I’ve done my share to make it happen. (A beat.)
This is no time to fall apart. I’ve got to pull myself together. I should bash

42
 her head in now, before she has designs on mine. (Loudly) If I could, I’d
kill them all.

Ma’am: (Serenely) But you can! Why are you so upset? Go kill whomever you
want!

MUSIC SQUIB - TRACK 24

SCENE 10

All of the action in this scene should be offstage, heard but not seen.

Voice-over: (Male voice, reading as if on an old-fashioned news broadcast)

Drunk with their own power, the lunatics and their army of followers
overrun the terrified, demoralized population, capturing and killing
cyclists and sending thousands more on transports to Horror Island.

The following (offstage) dialogue should be fast, choppy and overlapping.

Lun 3: I see two cyclists!

Lun 4: Don’t let them get away!

Red: Run, Rich! I’ll try to head them off.

Lun 2: Over here! Grab the bike!

Lun 1: Ha! Caught you.

Rich: Get your hands off me! (He groans loudly.)

Lun 2: There’s the other one. I see you! You can’t escape.

Red: Argh! They’ve got me too.

All offstage cast members laugh with a maniacal note of hysteria.

MUSIC SQUIB - TRACK 25 (melancholy music)

SCENE 11

The street cleaner, broom in hand, is on stage. Abeles enters whistling or humming.

43
A: Good evening.

Sweep : Mr. Abeles! What are you doing here? They are after you!

A: They can all go to hell. Have you seen Manicka?

Sweep: I have not. But I keep my eyes down. It used to be different. When I
looked at the garbage, I could see what people ate for lunch. I knew who
had a party, who quarreled, where there was a wedding or a house of
mourning. But today? (Shrugs.) No one has anything so there’s nothing to
throw out. (Sighs.)

A: You’re right. Everything has shriveled up.

Sweep: There’s no way to get along with them. Open your mouth and right away
they say, “He had a grandfather who rode a bicycle.”

Manicka enters.

M: Oh, Bořivoj! I thought you’d be far away by now. You’ve got to get out of
sight. Come with me. Hurry!

They leave together. The sweeper goes back to sweeping the road. Rat and Lunatics 3
and 4 enter. Rat looks at the sweeper. The sweeper glances surreptitiously at Rat and
slowly and cautiously backs away to make his exit.

Rat: Did you see how that sweeper was trying to sneak away from us? That’s a
sure sign of guilt. I guarantee you his grandfather or his grandfather’s
grandfather shamelessly rode a bicycle. That disgusting creature has not
been cycle-free for six generations. Go. Do what needs to be done.

Luns 3 and 4 leave and come back almost immediately with the sweeper’s broom.

Rat: Get rid of that, too. It is our glorious mission to wipe out everything
connected to people with cyclist ancestors.

MUSIC SQUIB - TRACK 26

SCENE 12

Romantic music plays in the background. Abeles and Manicka stand center stage. Mrs.
Manickova enters pushing or dragging a large wardrobe and shoves it between Abeles
and Manicka, apparently not noticing that Abeles is there.

M: Mother, what are you doing?

44
Mrs. Man: This wardrobe was in the way over there. I like it here much better. (She
suddenly notices Abeles.) Oh, Mr. Abeles. You're here! Do you know how
frantic you’ve made my daughter? I’ll tell you straight out, I’m losing my
mind because of you.

M: (Shudders) Mom, don’t say that!

Mrs. Man: I told myself: They will get married, I’ll get anything I want free of charge
from his shop, and …

M: Mother, I’m marrying him, not his ….

A: But ….

Mrs. Man: But now, you can’t even get married. If you try to get a marriage license
you’ll both be arrested.

A: Maybe in the meantime we could just….

Mrs. Man: Unite in unholy bedlock? I forbid it.

A: Have you never loved anyone?

Mrs. Man: That’s none of your business. I’m not your fiancée.

The sound of heavy knocking comes from offstage.

M: Bořivoj!

A: There is nothing to be afraid of. I will stand up ….

Mrs. Man: In the wardrobe.

A: God forbid! I will not run into a wardrobe.

Mrs. Man: Then walk slowly – and keep out of sight.

Mrs. Manicka pushes Abeles into the wardrobe and latches it.

Opportunist: (Calls from outside.) Anybody home?

Mrs. Man: What do you want?

Opportunist: Do you have a dog?

Mrs. M: No. Why?

45
Opportunist: Because then it can’t bite me. Open the door. Police! (He enters.) Good
afternoon. Hickety, pickety, my black hen. (To himself) Oops. Not here.
(Bows deeply.) Am I disturbing you, ladies?

Manicka and her mother glance at each other nervously and remain silent.

Opportunist: I’m glad to see you looking so well, so beautiful, so safe. I can’t wait any
longer. Manicka, dear exquisite Manicka, I’ve decided …. (He takes a
bicycle tire from behind his back and pretends that he has just now
discovered it in the apartment.) But what do I see here? A bicycle tire? A
token of love from the evil cyclist Abeles, is it?

Mrs. Man: A bicycle tire? Where did that come from? I don’t have the slightest idea
how it got here.

Opportunist: This could get you into a lot of trouble, Mrs. Manickova. As a responsible
citizen, I would have to report it. But if I were your son-in-law ….

Mrs. Man: If you were what?

Opportunist: If I were your son-in-law ….Your wardrobe is shaking.

Mrs. Man: We need to put something under the leg.

Opportunist: Manicka, all the flowerbeds were destroyed when we were hunting the
cyclists, so here is a cactus. It was the best I could do. Rub a dub, dub.
Three men in a ... (Aside, angrily) Not here! Well, what do you say, my
lovely Manicka?

M: Oh dear.

Opportunist: I have a good position in life. (Distracted by the motion of the wardrobe,
he stares at it fixedly.) That wardrobe is swaying. What’s inside it?

Mrs. Man: Old rags. Maybe the moths are hyperactive.

Opportunist: The lunatics respect me, Rat trusts me. Even the dictator…. Believe me, I
make myself useful to her. I do like you, Manicka. Don’t waste yourself
on a failure like Abeles. We’re going to ship him off to Horror Island …
as soon as we catch him. (He stares at the wardrobe again.) It moved!
(Brings his attention back to Manicka.) Won’t you sniff the cactus,
Manicka? It smells of love.

M: Ow! It stabbed my nose!

46
Opportunist: And Manicka has such a fine little nose, hasn’t she? Manicka will
probably have a fine little dowry, too. Right? Damn! Are you sure Mr.
Abeles isn’t in the wardrobe?

Mrs. Man: How could he get inside when it’s locked?

Opportunist: You are a wise woman, Mrs. Manickova. Do I have your permission to
give Manicka a kiss? Hey! Where is that wardrobe going?

Mrs. Man: What do you mean ‘going’?

Opportunist: The wardrobe is going after me! It’s attacking me!

Mrs. Man: It hasn’t moved.

M: It hasn’t moved.

Opportunist: It hasn’t? Am I hallucinating?

Mrs. Man: You are.

Opportunist: Am I really? Am I truly going mad? Help! Someone help me.

Mr. Opportunist makes a big show of running off. Abeles climbs out of the wardrobe.

A: I told you nothing would happen to me.

Mr. Opportunist, who has clearly recognized that Abeles was in the wardrobe, tiptoes
back onstage, points toward Abeles and then slips away as Rat and some of the lunatics
run across the stage, grab Abeles and frog-march him offstage, perhaps out through the
audience as Manicka and her mother watch, horrified.

MUSIC SQUIB - TRACK 27

SCENE 13

Several days later. Lunatics 1 and 2 rush onstage and hide in the wardrobe. Mrs.
Manickova enters. The wardrobe door opens a crack and Lun 2 peeks out, then pulls the
door shut again without Mrs. Manickova noticing.

Lunatic 1: (From inside the wardrobe) What’s new, Mrs. Manickova?

Mrs. Man: Are you in there again, Mr. Abeles? But … wait! How did you escape?
(We hear laughter from inside the wardrobe.) Are you both there?
Manicka, for shame! (More laughter) Get out now!

47
She opens the wardrobe and starts back in fright as the lunatics emerge.

Lunatic 1: How could we be Abeles when you know he’s been arrested.

Mrs. Man: (Shaken but trying not to show it) Excuse me, but I’ve got to go … um,
shopping. Yes, that’s it. I’ve got to go shopping right away.

Lunatic 1: Why? There’s nothing to buy. The stores are empty.

Mrs. Man: There must be something at the market.

Lunatic 2: Yeah, closed doors. And rationed, at that.

Lunatic 1: Well, Mrs. Manickova, admit that your daughter is your daughter.

Lunatic 2: Or did your husband have her with another woman?

Mrs. Man: Excuse me. We are a respectable family.

Lunatic 2: Shall we excuse her?

Lunatic 1: When she begs so nicely? We excuse you.

Lunatic 2: How is your daughter?

Mrs. Man: What is this? What do you want?

Lunatic 1: Your daughter loves Abeles. You must go to court and tell them …

Lunatic 2: That Bořivoj Abeles has seduced your daughter.

Mrs. Man: How could Abeles have done that?

Lunatic 2: Maybe he liked her.

Mrs. Man: He hasn’t seduced her. I will not go to any court.

Lunatic 1: Oh yes you will.

Lunatic 2: You see, we know things about you. Even unpleasant things. Even
dangerous things.

Lunatic 1: Look. Here you are with your husband. (He produces a large photograph
of a man and woman on bicycles; the top of the photo is cut off, so we see
the people only from the neck down.)

48
Mrs. Man: That’s ridiculous. We’ve never owned any bicycles. And where are those
people’s heads?

Lunatic 2: Tut, tut. You lost your heads when you bought the bikes.

Lunatic 1 flips the picture; now we see a woman with a young child.

Lunatic 1: Here’s more evidence. You and your lover at a bike race.

Mrs. Man: That’s a little boy!

Lunatic 1: Are you saying your lovers were taller?

Mrs. Man: It’s not me. I don’t have a hat like that.

The lunatics produce yet another photograph, this one of two children in a bathtub.

Lunatic 1: And here is your Manicka naked with Abeles.

Mrs. Man: Those are little children!

Lunatic 1: Wrong! The photograph has been reduced.

Mrs. Man: You’ve made all of this up!

Lunatic 2: And we’ve done it very well, too, haven’t we?

Lunatic 1: But we can do even better. We can print it in the newspapers. And then
you will be arrested.

Lunatic 2: What do you say now?

Mrs. Man: (All her bravado gone; resigned) When is the trial?

Lunatic 2: Soon, don’t worry.

Lunatic 1: When it is your turn, you will come forward ….

Lunatic 2: And you will tell the nation everything about the evil cyclist Abeles.

Lunatic 1: And if you don’t, it will be obvious that you are lying. And lying is
forbidden, so you would certainly be sent on a transport to Horror Island.

Lunatic 2: And your poor baby, little Manicka, sent off with you as your accomplice
…. Is that clear?

Mrs. Man: Is what clear? Nothing is clear to me!

49
MUSIC SQUIB - TRACK 28
SCENE 14

The courtroom. The accused, Abeles, is seated in the dock. He has a yellow “C” on his
shirt. Lunatic 2 stands next to him as his defense attorney. Rat is giving an impassioned
address to a jury composed entirely of lunatics. The jury may or may not be visible to the
audience.

Rat: Members of the jury, when we announced that Bořivoj Abeles had been
arrested, the nation rose up in joy. Their enthusiasm was like a great storm
that shook the entire universe. I will grant you that there are a few
misguided individuals who claim these uprisings are anti-government
demonstrations. These trouble makers say that people are rebelling
because they have nothing to eat and no jobs and for other ridiculous
reasons that may or may not have any basis in fact.

(Muttering) Stupid damned cyclists and their supporters. I will soon be rid
of every last one of them.

(Wheedling) But members of the jury, our good citizens – our true citizens
– appeal to you. They know that it is you in whom they can place their
trust. Read the charges!

Lunatic 1: (Clears his throat importantly) I wish to apprise the jury that before we
captured him, the accused, Bořivoj Abeles, terrorized cities, towns,
villages and isolated lonely houses with his frenzied cycling. Worst of all,
he dishonored beautiful Manicka, about which I shall present a detailed
interrogation complete with explicit photographs.

Rat: Does defense counsel wish to speak?

Lunatic 2: No sir, I have no comment. I completely agree with everything that has
been said so far. Yup, so far so good.

Rat: Bring in Mrs. Manickova.

(Lunatic 4 brings her in.)

Here is Mrs. Manickova, a simple woman of still humbler origin. She

lived with her daughter with no suspicion of what was about to befall her.
One day … my voice falters … her eyes were opened to the evilness of
Abeles. Although at first she didn’t trust us, today she appears voluntarily
before this honorable tribunal to help remove the blinders from the eyes of
people throughout the world.

Lunatic 1: Tell us, what was it like in the year 1928?

50
Mrs. Man: In 1928? Oh, you mean, when winter struck?

Lunatic 2: Whom did it strike?

Mrs. Man: (Ignoring her) I remember it was a terribly cold winter. Everything was
frozen.

Rat: And you assert, do you not, that the dreadful winter of 1928 was caused by
the cyclists?

Mrs. Man: I didn’t say that …. It was a terrible winter. Endlessly cold. There were
icicles hanging from the roofs.

Lunatic 1: What about the bicycles?

Mrs. Man: I didn’t say bicycles. I said icicles!

Lunatic 1: Icicles?

Mrs. Man: Yes!

All: She confessed!

Mrs. Man: To what? (She looks around in confusion and alarm.)

Rat: Relax, Mrs. Manickova. You’re doing fine. Now tell me, what was your
daughter Manicka doing then?

Mrs. Man: She was a little girl. She made a snowman.

Lunatic 1: How horrid!

Mrs. Man: Why? Because she made a snowman?

Lunatic 1: No, because it is such a pathetic image. A little girl – Manicka – makes a
snowman. Such a happy time of innocent childhood. A snowman! She is
making a snowman when along comes the perfidious cyclist Abeles and
seduces her.

Mrs. Man: Nonsense! He didn’t even know her then.

Lunatic 1: I stand corrected. He seduced her without even knowing her.

Lunatic 2: On behalf of the defense I must ask: Are you not making a mistake? Did
he really defile Manicka? Didn’t he defile the snowman?

51
Rat: Has Defense Counsel ever seen a cyclist who would defile a snowman
when he could defile Manicka?

Lunatic 2: I withdraw my question.

Mrs. Man: But it’s wrong!

Rat: Yes, terribly wrong. But defense counsel has withdrawn her objection. (To
Lun 1) Continue.

Lunatic 1: It has been established that Abeles defiled Manicka and not the snowman.
Mrs. Witness may now leave the court.

Mrs. Man: Lies, nothing but lies! They’re nothing but liars!

Lunatic 4 grabs her and throws her out.

Rat: Yes, the poor mother has spoken the truth regarding the cyclists. They are
nothing but liars. But we will be rid of them soon. The last boatload of
cyclists is being sent to Horror Island today. Members of the jury, I see the
verdict in your eyes. You hereby sentence Bořivoj Abeles to Horror
Island. He will be shipped off at once on the last transport.

(A mad gleam of joy suffuses Rat’s face.)

MUSIC SQUIB - TRACK 29

SCENE 15

Horror Island. Some half-starved prisoners stagger in carrying or dragging heavy sacks,
pile them up and slump down on or in front of them in exhaustion. The prisoners all have
a big yellow letter C (for "cyclist") on the front and back of their clothing. A portrait
and/or statue of Ma'am looms over the depressing scene. Big Shot was obviously a
wealthy guy in the “real” world; he is now just a pompous, bitter man who’s been exiled
to Horror Island. He and the other prisoners all are starving and emotionally as well as
physically drained. Despite that, they are making a valiant attempt to keep up their
spirits.

Big Shot: Yeah, let me tell you, caviar is tasteless without lemon. Try adding a few
drops of lemon juice next time and see how much you enjoy it.

52
Rich: I don’t know about caviar, but when it comes to sweets, I’m in heaven.
There’s a cafe right near the sea in Nice. No better cream puffs can be
found anywhere in the world, I tell you.

Big Shot: You go to the Riviera? Too many lowlifes there. I go to the Alps. There a
man can enjoy himself properly. The most extraordinary terrine of foie
gras with toast points and a glass of port, or a Chateau Lafitte. (Sighs) I
can almost taste it. Or roast duck with apples and cherries. (Sighs again,
even more deeply.) I can’t tell you how many times I said to my wife, “We
have a car, don’t we? What do you need with your father’s bike? I don’t
like having anything old in my house.” But she wouldn’t listen. She said it
reminded her of her dear departed dad. Well, now (looks around bitterly),
now we’ll never forget her old man and his bike.

Rich: Roast duck. Yes! Or even a much simpler dish – stewed chicken, for
instance. I’d love that.

Big Shot: Or a thick slice of bread slathered with butter and jam. Maybe two slices.

Rich: Or a baked potato with sour cream.

Big Shot: I wouldn’t care if the potatoes were dry, so long as there were plenty of
them.

Other Cyclist: (Moaning) How can you talk about food when we’re all so unbearably
hungry?

Red enters.

Red: Hey! I've heard that a Red Cross commission is coming!

Rich: You’ll believe anything. And even if they do, so what? They’ll come and
they’ll leave and that’ll be that.

Red: We shouldn’t just sit here like sheep waiting to be slaughtered.

Big Shot: And where would you get the energy to do anything about it?

Rat enters. The prisoners, with difficulty, get to their feet and raggedly salute him.

Rat: Pay attention now. A dignitary is coming. Who is coming?

Rich: A dignitary.

Rat: He will have a red cross on his sleeve. What will he have?

53
Rich: A red cross.

Rat: Exactly. You will sit here and eat sardines in oil.

Rich: Sardines in oil?

Big Shot and Other Cyclist are practically drooling as they listen.

Rat: When the gentleman with the red cross comes. Not before that. And you
will look disgusted.

Rich: Why should I? Sardines would be great!

Rat: Shut up and do it.

Other Cyclist: Like this?

Rat: Not you, moron. I'm talking to him! And you’ll call out “Uncle.” Do it!

Rich: Uncle!

Rat: “Do we have to have sardines and Hungarian salami for brunch again?”

Rich: Will I get Hungarian salami too?

Rat: That you’ll have already eaten.

Rich: When?

Rat: You ate the salami before you got the sardines.

Rich: Uncle! We’ve got sardines and the Hungarian salami I’ve already eaten
for brunch again!

Rat: Don’t sound so excited, you dummkopf. You’re supposed to be

disappointed that's all you're getting. (Turns to Other Cyclist) Here, take
this pocket watch. Look at the time and say, “Wanna shoot some pool?”

Other Cyclist: Is that my cue?

Rat: Is that your what?

Other Cyclist: Cue. My cue.

Rat: No, you ignoramus. It’s not your cue. The cue belongs to everyone. That’s
why it’s on the pool table. (He makes a disgusted gesture, perhaps a

54
 simulated slap across her face, then mutters loudly enough for the
audience to hear) Even the sane ones are nuts these days.

You (points to Big Shot), you be the Red Cross Commissioner.

(Then he turns to Rich.) You! (Rat hands him a piece of paper.) Read this
speech. If you screw it up, I’ll kill you, you dumb ox.

Okay. Let’s practice.

(To Big Shot) Please come this way. Here is our town square….

Big Shot: Nice, very nice.

Rich: (Calls out) Excuse me, Uncle! We’ve got sardines in oil and Hungarian
salami for brunch again!

Rat: Tsk, tsk. There’s a war going on and we all need to sacrifice. I’ll have to
cut your rations again.

Red: Cut our rations? We only get bread and water as it is!

The others support him, all speaking at the same time.

Big Shot: You can’t do this to us!

Rich: He’s right!

Other Cyclist: Yeah!

Rat: (Responds furiously, virtually out of control) Shut up, all of you, or I will
have you executed. Now (to Rich), continue.

Rich: (Reading) Speaking on behalf of my fellow cyclists, it is my great honor to

welcome to our island the representative of the Red Cross and assure him
that we live here in absolute comfort. As you see, we are all well-fed and
well-clothed.

Rat: (Interrupting him. He's regained his cool and his phony conciliatory tone.)
Very good. Now, some entertainment. Sing!

The prisoners sing the "official" lyrics mechanically and monotonously, dirge-like, and
yet at the same time with a hint of malice. (And with the words clearly articulated!)

PRISON SONG, PART 1 - TRACK 30

All: Dear Red Cross guest, as you can certainly see

55
 We're living here in glorious luxury.
We laugh and play
And sing Ma'am's praise all day.
Horror Island is our home.

Rat: Don't sing like you’re dying. Sound happy. (He notices the sacks and
shakes his head. Something has to be done to disguise them.)
Sound happy or it's the last sound you'll make. And sing loudly so I can
hear you. I'll be right back. (He exits.)

The prisoners sing the first line of the second stanza loudly – they are singing so Rat can
hear them – and then, when he has left the stage, sing the rest of the lyrics directly to the
audience intensely and quietly.

PRISON SONG PART 2 – TRACK 31

All: Dear Red Cross guest, as you can certainly see

We're suffering here in abject misery.
We slave away
And we are starved each day.
Horror Island is our doom.

Rat, who obviously hasn't heard this version of the lyrics, comes onstage with Lunatics 1
and 2. They quickly distribute to the prisoners the props they are carrying – a top
hat, a cigar, a hideous, ratty fox stole (complete with animal heads and tails, if possible),
or similar. Rat motions to Rich to continue reading, and as he does so, they open a
screen or unfurl a painted roll of paper decorated with bucolic looking cottages (a
veritable Potemkin village) behind which they hide the sacks.

Rich: (Continuing to read) Certain vile propagandists insist that we suffer here
from cold and hunger. They say that we are maltreated and overworked. I
can solemnly swear that it is.…

Other Cyclist: Gospel truth.

Rat: How dare you?

Other Cyclist: I’m so delirious with joy I don’t know what I’m saying.

Rich: We have sardines and Hungarian salami again.

Red: He goes on and on about food.

Other Cyclist: You’d think he was hungry, wouldn’t you.

Rat: (To Red) The gentleman wishes to ask you a question.

56
Big Shot: Do you have enough food?

The other prisoners silently urge Red not to complain. They are justly afraid of what Rat
will do to them.

Red: No, we are being starved.

Rat: (Livid) I warned you but you didn’t listen. (Blows whistle.) Guards, round
them up!

MUSIC SQUIB (Manicka/Abeles theme – TRACK 32)

SCENE 16

The middle of nowhere. Abeles is crouching behind a bush. Manicka enters. She looks
around, sees that someone is hiding there and raises her purse to attack just as Abeles
stands up and calls out to her.

A: Manicka!

M: Bořivoj! It’s you! I almost hit you over the head! (They embrace.) What
are you doing here? I thought you were on Horror Island.

A: It’s a long, complicated story. You remember that they deported me right
after the trial.

M: Of course I do.

A: The Lunatics put me on the last transport with the very last of the cyclists.

M: And?

A: It was the final ship to Horror Island.

M: (Sighs a deep “oh.”)

A: I was leaning over the edge hoping to catch sight of you, and I fell
overboard.

M: Oh, no!

A: Well, actually that was a good thing….

M: Oh?

57
A: Because I managed to escape.

M: Oh!

A: I swam to shore and made my way here. I’ve been hiding for days now
with nothing to eat but leaves and berries. And lonely, I can’t begin to tell
you how lonely I’ve been. I’m absolutely going out of my mind here.

Manicka shudders. That’s the last thing she wants him to be!

A: But what are you doing here?

M: I was on my way to be with you!

A: How did you know I was here?

M: I didn’t.

A: I’ll be damned. You didn’t know where I was but you found me anyway?
Manicka, you’re even more wonderful than I realized.

M: Look! I have brought you some sausages.

A: What a woman! This is difficult. How can I kiss you and eat the sausages
at the same time? Human beings are dreadfully imperfect. (Bites into the
sausage and spits it out.) Ugh! This is inedible!!

M: Well, what did you expect? Real food? There’s nothing decent to eat
anymore. I was lucky to get this. So what should we do now?

A: Let’s go home. To hell with the price on my head. If the lunatics capture
me, they capture me. Tonight, we’ll go for a walk in town. I want to see
people. I want to see lots of people.

M: Will you look at other women?

A: How can I, Manicka? It’ll be dark.

MUSIC SQUIB (“Jagged Music” – track 33)

SCENE 17

Ma’am paces back and forth across the front of the stage. When Rat enters, she screams
at him.

58
Ma’am: Tell me that it is not true! No, do not bother. I have already seen the truth
in my magic mirror. You have let the very last cyclist escape.

Rat: (Oily and unctuous)Your Ladyship, Madam Dictator, it is indeed true.

Abeles has escaped. (Ma’am sputters) But think about it. He has saved us
from a disastrous mistake. There is no food. There are no jobs. People are
angry and looking for a scapegoat. They need someone to blame. You
know that cyclists have always made the best scapegoats. If there are no
more cyclists, who will they blame for their troubles? You! Me!! But
don’t worry. I’ve heard he’s back in town. We’ll catch him soon and when
we do we’ll put him on display. Everyone will see him and remember that
the cyclist is to blame for everything.

Ma’am: Hmmm.

MUSIC SQUIB – SKIP TRACK 34 FOR ORIGINAL SCENE 18 (which has been deleted) AND GO
DIRECTLY TO TRACK 35 (“Despairing Music”) for the new Scene 18 that follows

SCENE 18

Nowhere in particular. Actors should be in front of the closed curtain if there is a curtain
to close or with the stage dark behind them. They mill around, all looking miserably
unhappy. If there are “extras” in the cast, they could deliver these lines.

Lun 1: It was safer in the asylum. Out here the streets are filled with sick,
homeless, desperate people.

Lun 2: Yeah. There are no jobs and there’s nothing for anyone to eat.

Lun 3: It’s disgusting. Parents are beating their children. Husbands are abusing
their wives. Friends turn away from each other on the street.

Lun 4: No one can look anyone else in the eye. Everyone’s face is filled with fear
and hatred.

(They look closely at one another, shudder and look away.)

Lun 1: The cyclist is locked up but we’re still suffering. Whose fault is it?

Lun 2: Rat and the dictator. They’re the ones who got us into this mess.

Rat: (Either as voice-over or peeking from the wings) No! The cyclist is to
blame!

59
Lun 3: Yes! The cyclist is to blame!

Lun 1: The cyclist! Get the cyclist! Everything is his fault.

Rat: (Entering) Abeles is to blame for everything. He’s the one who’s setting
the people against us.

Lunatic 4: And who kept Abeles here? Rat!

Lunatic 2: Blame Rat!

Rat: Not me! The cyclist is to blame for everything.

Lunatic 2: No, Rat is to blame. (Pointing at Ma’am, who has just entered)
It’s her fault, too.

Ma’am: It is not my fault. No! No! No! It is Rat who is guilty. Only Rat. Blame
him. Blame Rat.

Rat: Not Rat. Rat is your dearest friend. Don’t you remember? Listen to me.
The situation is desperate. The time has come to get rid of the last cyclist.
You must issue an order to do away with Abeles.

Ma’am: I have an even better idea! Put the evil Abeles in a rocket ship and send
him to the moon. Permanent, irrevocable exile! Go! Tell the scientists to
quickly build a rocket ship. As soon as it is ready, we will shoot him off in
a big public display. It will take their minds off their troubles and you and
I will finally be rid of Abeles.

Rat: Brilliant!

MUSIC SQUIB (listed as track 36, Calliope Music, for Scene 20 on CD)

(new) SCENE19

Abeles is locked up in a cage in the zoo. A large sign over the cage reads: “Rare and
Exceedingly Dangerous: Last Living Specimen of the Condemned Cyclistic Species.” Mr.
Hippo, the zookeeper, is shooing out the last visitors of the day.

Mr. Hippo: We’re closing. Out, out. Go to the park to make love! Look at them. It’s
disgusting. They stand there pawing each other right in front of the
monkeys, teaching them bad habits. (Turns to Abeles) Well, Mr. Abeles,
there’s the closing bell. How are you?

60
A: I’m getting used to it. Today I spat at a moron who tried to grab my ear. A
year ago I wouldn’t have done that.

Mr. Hippo: I have a problem understanding people. We’re called homo sapiens, but
I’ll tell you straight out we should be called homo crappiens.

Opportunist: Hippo, unlock the gate!

Mr. Hippo: First of all, to you I am Mr. Hippopotamus. And second, we’re closed, Mr.
Opportunist.

Opportunist: Opportunists always find a way in. I’m here for Abeles. We’re going to
send him to the moon.

Mr. Hippo: You’re crazy.

Opportunist: Shh! I’m not crazy, they are. (Points offstage) And so are the dictator and
Rat. Maybe their plan will work and maybe it won’t. If it doesn’t, I want
you to remember that I’m innocent! I have never harmed a single cyclist.

A: Hah!

As Mr. Hippo leaves the stage, Abeles spits at Mr. Opportunist.

Opportunist: My God, brother Abeles! Don’t spit at me. We’ve been friends for years.

A: Friends? You have never been my friend. I don’t have to talk to every
idiot who stands in front of my cage, even if they call me “brother.” You,
Mr. Opportunist, Mr. Collaborator, you are indeed an idiot.

Opportunist: How dare you? No matter. You are done for anyway.

He waves toward the wings and two lunatics come onstage dragging Hippo, who is
forced to unlock Abeles’s cage.

MUSIC SQUIB (TRACK 37, “tense music”)

SCENE 20

A very primitive rocket ship is center stage, its door open wide. Abeles, guarded by the
lunatics, stands near the rocket ship. He is pale and trembling. The dictator, flanked by
Rat and Mr. Opportunist, is concluding her speech to the (unseen) crowd; their roars of
approval are heard from offstage.

61
Ma’am: To demonstrate my magnificent, magnanimous generosity, sensitivity and
decency, I hereby grant the despicable prisoner one last request.

Abeles mutters something. The lunatics whisper it to one another and then to Mr.
Opportunist, who whispers it to Rat.

Rat: He wants to smoke a cigarette.

Ma’am: That is what he wants? To smoke a cigarette? Are cigarettes still to be

had? (Rat – or Ma’am herself – produces a crushed-looking cigarette and
straightens it out. The others are astounded; no one has seen a cigarette
in a very long time.) Then by all means, let him smoke the entire cigarette
down to the very last puff. See how benevolent I am! While he is smoking
it, we shall inspect the rocket ship. Opportunist, guard the prisoner.

Ma’am and Rat enter the rocket ship and all the lunatics crowd in after them. Mr.
Opportunist hands Abeles the cigarette and a match, then gazes out at the audience,
preening, proud that he’s playing such a noticeable, significant role. He pays no
attention to Abeles.

Just then, Manicka pushes her way to the front of the crowd of onlookers. Abeles sees her
and gives her a sad smile. The end has come but he is thinking more about her than
about what is going to happen to him. His eyes fixed on Manicka and a dopey lover’s
grin on his face, he bends forward to strike the match. Manicka reacts with shock to what
she sees is about to happen but Abeles is oblivious (as is Mr. Opportunist).

Instead of lighting the cigarette, Abeles has put the burning match to the fuse of the
rocket. The rocket ship takes off with a giant whoosh that pulls Mr. Opportunist (as well
as Ma’am, Rat and all the lunatics) along with it. Abeles watches dumbfounded. He has
succeeded at something he hadn’t thought of doing. He is saved yet again and, more than
that, has gotten rid of the enemy. He turns toward the audience with a sheepish grin and
shrug, and then, realizing the full extent of what he has done, runs to the front of the
stage and shouts joyfully to the audience.

A: Go home! You are free! It’s over! We are saved! The rule of the lunatics is
over!

Many offstage voices echo him, crying out: “We’re free! The lunatics are gone! We can
begin to live again!” But Manicka knows better. She restrains the voices with a loud,
anguished cry.

Manicka: No! No! No!

And then she turns and speaks directly to the audience.

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Manicka: The end has come only here on the stage. Out there, where you are – out in
the world – the rule of madness continues. (Despairingly, she embraces
Abeles.)

The “voice of Hitler” from the Prologue is heard, heavy and ominous.

“Hitler”: The Jews and the cyclists are to blame for all our misfortunes.

Young Man: Why the cyclists?

Entire cast: Why the Jews?

MUSIC FOR THE TEREZÍN MARCH BEGINS HERE AND CONTINUES UNDER THE
CURTAIN CALLS. TRACK 39

All cast members come onstage now to take carefully staged curtain calls. There will be
no curtain calls later. The audience should have a strong sense that this is the end of the
play (a) so that they give the actors their well-deserved applause and (b) to maximize the
starkness and effectiveness of what is yet to come in the play. As the applause dies down,
the actors join hands and joyously sing the Terezín March: They are prisoners in Terezín
who have overcome their own exhaustion and brought joy to their fellow-inmate
audience; they are pleased with themselves and proud of what they have accomplished.
They are on an emotional “high” that communicates itself to the enthusiastic audience.

All (sing): Where there’s a will there’s a way.

We’ll survive another day.
And together, hand in hand,
we’ll laugh at hardship.

Don’t despair,
still believe
that the sun will shine again
and we’ll live to turn our backs on Terezín.

(shouting) Listen!

(sing) Soon we will be homeward bound.

Our lives will start again.
And tomorrow we will pack our bags,
free women and free men.

Where there’s a will there’s a way.

We will live to see that day.
On the ruins of the ghetto
we will laugh!

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Enthusiastically and almost giddily, hugging each other with pleasure at their successful
rehearsal, they immediately begin to sing the March again.

Where there’s a will there’s a way.

We’ll survive another day….

As the cast continues singing, Švenk – who is standing center stage – is handed a
message. He reads it quickly, his face changing, and he holds up his hand for silence.
The music stops abruptly and the singing sputters out.

Švenk: Go back to your barracks, everyone. New transport lists have been posted.
Good luck. Be brave. Actors, I hope we’ll all still be here for tomorrow
night’s performance. Leave your costumes on the stage on your way out.

The actors turn despairingly to comfort one another and freeze. The stage darkens
except for a spotlight on Jana, who addresses the audience.

Jana Šedová: But there was no performance. The Jewish Council of Elders forbade the
play. They were terrified of what might happen if the SS learned about it.
The Last Cyclist was too dangerous. Its allegory was too explicit. Over the
next months, Karel Švenk and other members of the cast were among the
many Terezín inmates transported to the east, most of them to Auschwitz.

The stage lights come up partway and, one at a time, each cast member speaks directly to
the audience and then turns to face the back of the stage or exits.

Elena: I was Elena.

Ota: I was Ota.

Pavel: I was Pavel.

Tomas: I was Tomas.

Franta: I was Franta.

Jiří: I was Jiří.

Zuzana: I was Zuzana.

Leo: I was Leo.

Karel Švenk: I was Karel Švenk.

He shuts the light over the poster easel (if there is a light) and turns his back.

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Jana Šedová: My name is Jana Šedová. I survived. (After a beat) May their memory be
for blessing.

FINAL MUSIC, TRACK 40, and then the stage goes dark.

The End

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