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Performing Arts Journal, Inc and The MIT Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,
preserve and extend access to PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art
John Jesurun
CHARACTERS LETTER #1
7. MONOLOGO-ABDULLA
8. LA MUERTE DE PHAEDRA
DEAR PHAEDRA
9. MEPHISTOPHELES AS
(In FAUS T' office; FAUST, MEPHI-
GRETCHEN STOPHELES.)
10. HOW I ROSE
FAUST: (Speaking into phone.) Rhonda,
11. DEAR GRETCHEN
could you take this down for me? Dear
FAUST: Shut up asshole. And so, in that MEPHISTOPHELES: She can't hear you.
split second of time you were lost to me She's a forever now. As if one move would
forever. make them feel alive And realize the conse-
quences of their movements. Do you think
MEPHISTOPHELES: Strawberry fields for- Jupiter feels the consequences of its move-
ever. ments? It's just a dumb planet circulating as
you, Phaedra, were a dumb mouse circulat-
FAUST: And you became a strawberry mark ing as you my dear Gretchen are just a
on the rug. That's all that was left of you. fattened calf moving around the slaughter-
house looking for a sledgehammer. No pain,
MEPHISTOPHELES: I told her to stay no gain. Vade ad formicam, o piger, et
hidden and not move, the fool. considera viaseius et disce sapientiam. Go
to the ant, you sluggard and consider its
FAUST: But you moved. And then the ways and learn wisdom.
world moved. And threw you out of its
orbit. FAUST: It's this need to move that colors
everything. That makes everything hurt. Is
MEPHISTOPHELES: And then Faust that what it is?
didn't move.
MEPHISTOPHELES: It causes everything
FAUST: And then God and the Devilto pain and pale. It's how the universe
moved. I told you they always move to- Consider its ways and learn wisdom
works.
gether. But in different directions. Gretchen.
MEPHISTOPHELES: You see they never FAUST: And now your head is in the
tell me anything because I stay the same. I clouds in a world which I will never be
can only travel in my own universe. allowed to see.
FAUST: How the hell did we end up in the MEPHISTOPHELES: But I lived there
same universe? once or I think I remember I did, didn't I?
Or am I making it up in my bitterness. And
MEPHISTOPHELES:You'd think I would now I'm nothing but a three-legged knock-
kneed
know about other universes or planes but I dog knock, knock, knocking on
don't. heaven's door. It's a pity I never got to show
her hell She would have loved it.
FAUST: You do and you're not telling me.
FAUST: Phaedra, I'm sorry. There I go FAUST: What the hell did you do?
talking about myself again and now you're
sad. But I'm trying to explain. Poor Phaedra, MEPHISTOPHELES: I had fallen in love
it was all too much for you. I dragged you with another angel or something like that I
into this. think. How the hell did I know it was illegal
or unknown. Love didn't exist then. I had to
MEPHISTOPHELES: And now you're a invent it and then pay the price. Then once
stain on the rug. he threw me out I had to invent a place for
him to put me. But nothing existed then,
FAUST: He did this to you. Poor dear only love for god and him for us. But it
Phaedra. wasn't called love. I don't know what it was
100 * PAJ 78
FAUST: Who was it? FAUST: Will you shut up for a minute?
MEPHISTOPHELES: It's too long ago to MEPHISTOPHELES: Jeez. I'm just trying
remember. You'd think I would remember to explain a few things . . . as I said, there
the object and reason of my disastrous fate. was no love then.
How do you like that? You invent love and
get thrown out of heaven. So, ok it was a PHAEDRA: Yeah, right. Who let you in
mistake. How did I know? He said it was here?
my pride. What pride? There was no such
MEPHISTOPHELES: There was no con-
thing as pride or love or sex or sexes. There
cept of it And I brought this up to him.
was just light. It was a big bore. Or words.
And he hurled me out, kicked me to the
You know: "In the beginning was the word?"
Not true. There was no word. No music, nocurb. For the very idea. The very idea of any
air, no waking, no sleeping, only god butkind of love between an anything and an
anything. It was then that he got the idea of
everything did not become clear to me until
later. I wasn't aware of all the other thingscreating humans and it was I, I who brought
the idea of love to them. And forever, since
that did really in fact exist in the universe.
But that for some reason I was not allowed I have been twice damned for bringing the
to partake. It's taken all these years to see
idea to light. Because god was jealous that it
what's really going on in the omniverse. was I who had the audacity to think of it.
And all this time I haven't touched one Were we supposed to wait another five
grain of cocaine. million light years for someone to think of
it? I was impatient. Was I supposed to sit
PHAEDRA: What does that have to do around waiting for him to feel it? So I felt it
with it? first and the universe moved. The galaxies
shifted. Time began. Everything moved. Do
MEPHISTOPHELES: Well, everyone you understand that it had never moved
thinks I'm this evil, decadent, putrescent, since it began. It was a frozen beauty. I
once
drug fiend, evil queen, sex fiend. Look just
at put a little flame under it. How was I to
know
me. What do I look like to you? What form it would melt into another reality?
have I taken today? And he was pissed. It was me and only me
doomed to feel it unrequited for so many
PHAEDRA: They say you can take any centuries. And branded a devil for this?
form you want. Why blame me for everything that went
wrong? It was just something I felt. I just
MEPHISTOPHELES: Wrong, I will tell felt it. It was out of order. Out of his order
you this, little mouse. I take whatever form of things. Chaos! He said. It is chaos. You
whoever sees me wants me to take. You have brought to my sterile white sheet of a
create me in your own image. So, what do universe
I my empty clean soundless universe
look like? Am I ugly, repulsive, a troll,chaos.
a You have intruded this mess into my
cannibal? serenity. What a square! And so he hurled
me. Blew me into a thousand pieces des-
PHAEDRA: Quite beautiful, a surfer girl.tined to roam over trillions of years and
places, the entire geography of his endless
vision of galaxies and parallel miniverses. A
FAUST: Why are you telling me this? FAUST: How am I supposed to defend the
Devil? From and for what? And if I lose?
MEPHISTOPHELES: Go ahead to your And where are my own lawyers? They should
meeting and see. But remember what I told be here by now.
you.
102 * PAJ 78
MEPHISTOPHELES: Abdulla, release the ABDULLA: I can't stop him from entering
plunderhogs. the proceedings.
ABDULLA: The American or the Japanese KLEIST: Get thee behind me, Satan!
versions?
FAUST: Heaven forbids it. (KLEIST disap-
MEPHISTOPHELES: Both and all three, pears in a puff of smoke.)
Philip Morris version as well. The way
things are going they're going to crucify me. PHAEDRA: Does anyone see a little dog
running around? Sort of a poodle?
PHAEDRA: Sunt qui dicessum animi a
corpore putent esse mortem. There are those FAUST: I don't see it.
who think that the departure of the soul
from the body is death. PHAEDRA: (Becoming frantic.) But I smell
a poodle. Get it out of here! You know I'm
MEPHISTOPHELES: Yeah well, non is afraid of dogs!
sum qui mortis periculo terrear.
GRETCHEN: Oh, Phaedra, you are such a
PHAEDRA: I am not one who would be paranoid.
frightened by the danger of death.
PHAEDRA: Look I'm just a mouse, all
MEPHISTOPHELES: You should be. I right?! We don't need any more hellhounds
around.
told you since Phaedra is an intellectual, the One of the hellhounds has escaped,
I know it. Kill it please! (Sound of dog
form of her expression is more interesting
yelping. Car speeds up.)
PHAEDRA: But it's come back as a bull- PHAEDRA: Now she's in Hiroshima.
dog, a little one. Nagasaki.
FAUST: Help me Rhonda, help, help me PHAEDRA: It's me, Phaedra. You idiot!
Rhonda. What does Lucy look like to you?
MEPHISTOPHELES: (Referring to images.)
PHAEDRA: Don't look at it, it's a contor- Twelve divisions of pansys sent up from
tion. It' s all in autoreverse. Retrograde. hell.
104 * PAJ 78
FAUST: Lucy, please, stop this summoning, PHAEDRA: Near the seventh door of the
this haunted history house. This mystery seventh heaven.
meat. Send the pansies back to hell. Please
send them all back. FAUST: Nirvana? Cloud nine.
PHAEDRA: They're retreating in the face PHAEDRA: But can you see the Buddha
of the Baby Jesus. anywhere?
106 * PAJ 78
GRETCHEN: The clientele is hideous. Ur- GRETCHEN: Don't get him mad, he'll
chins of the lower subdivision of the middle unleash a legion of plunderhogs among
class. you.
MEPHISTOPHELES: How can you be so FAUST: Don't you get it? We are the
callous? plunderhogs. We don't need you to help us
fuck up our lives. You are such a pain. Call
FAUST: Summon up the garbage truck and the speaker of the house of pancakes.
have them removed.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Pain? You don't
MEPHISTOPHELES: Unfortunately we know the meaning of it. The ridiculous
will have to escape by garbage truck. It's our heights of pain one can achieve. I've seen it
only way out. all. Well, I've seen enough and I don't want
to see no more.
FAUST: The cashier is dead. And I didn't GRETCHEN: Full throttle, mouse!
touch a grain of that mealy mush they serve
here anyway. PHAEDRA: Swing low, sweet charity!
PHAEDRA: Then pump the jam and let's MEPHISTOPHELES: Party down, sister!
get out of here! Floor it!
PHAEDRA: Some party.
FAUST: Do we have any gas left?
FAUST: Can we get a printout an itinerary,
MEPHISTOPHELES: Accelerate! (They can I get a witness? Can I get a witness?!
blast off violently.) (Another violent acceleration.)
FAUST: Women!
THE TRIAL OF RHONDA
MEPHISTOPHELES: Compare, despair. GRETCHEN KINDERMOERD
How I ever got stuck with this bunch of
bitching losers I'll never know. (FAUS T, PHAEDRA, JUDGE, MEPHIS TO,
GRETCHEN/RHONDA, BABY KINDER-
PHAEDRA: Clam up, will you, I'm trying MOERD; courtroom inside a cruise ship.)
to navigate.
JUDGE: The question of Rhonda Kinder-
GRETCHEN: I don't think the mouse moerd. Do we have the proper documents?
should be driving.
MEPHISTOPHELES: We have here this
signed testimony from you yourself, Miss
Kindermoerd.
108 * PAJ 78
JUDGE: Devil, what have you to say about MEPHISTOPHELES: That has not been
this? proven.
110 I PAJ 78
JUDGE: Doctor?
FAUST: I resent his hogmawed implica-
tion. PHAEDRA: No way to tell.
JUDGE: (To GRETCHEN.) Do you know? PHAEDRA: Who was the rapist? Can you
identify him? Is he here in this room?
GRETCHEN: No.
GRETCHEN: He is.
PHAEDRA: Didn't you check?
JUDGE: Identify him.
GRETCHEN: I tried but I couldn't tell. It
was too tender, too smooth, too beautiful.GRETCHEN: I don't dare.
Too sad. I was raped eighteen months
before. JUDGE: You must.
112 * PAJ 78
JUDGE: Answer. Your baby love demands MEPHISTOPHELES: But if you loved it,
it. why did you kill it?
PHAEDRA: Can't you see it's petrified. PHAEDRA: Yes you are.
PHAEDRA: Baby sprit, speak. FAUST: It's clearly more than an egg and
you know it. It is a child of God.
GRETCHEN: It's terrified, petrified, speech-
less. Let it think. MEPHISTOPHELES: Then where the hell
is it?
PHAEDRA: What if it lies to us?
JUDGE: I have to admit its hardly more
FAUST: Everyone else has. Why should we than a scintillating, scintilla of evidence. It's
expect it to tell the truth? hardly alive.
MEPHISTOPHELES: You are the one who MEPHISTOPHELES: But where is it?
is lying. Where do you see the damn thing?
FAUST: This is not a rape trial. It is a GRETCHEN: There it is. I can feel its
murder trial. Did the devil seduce or induce presence. Can you?
you to kill your baby? Is that it?
MEPHISTOPHELES: Where? I don't feel
MEPHISTOPHELES: I did not. anything. This is witchcraft.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Do we have to sit FAUST: Where has it been all this time?
here and listen to her tales from the crypt?
PHAEDRA: Waiting its time out in a boot
FAUST: How do we know that this Baby
camp for unborn children.
Kindermoerd is not a demon, a nymph, a
donkey child. Inspect it. JUDGE: A poor tragic freak.
114 * PAJ 78
MEPHISTOPHELES: Perhaps it was killed JUDGE: I command you to leave this court
by an act of god. Did anyone ever think of
that? PHAEDRA: It's not leaving.
FAUST: To whom does its soul belong? Did JUDGE: Then pick it up and put it outside.
it enter the kingdom of God or is it here by
request of Satan? PHAEDRA: Hell, no. I'm not going to
touch that thing.
PHAEDRA: Kewpie doll, to whom does
your soul belong? To the devil or God? Or MEPHISTOPHELES: What thing? Where
somewhere in between? Is it consumed by is it?
hate or love?
JUDGE: Will someone please remove the
FAUST: It's seething at us. Baby Kinder- baby? Baby Kindermoerd, you are disrupt-
moerd, speak please. Where have you come ing this court. I will have to declare you in
from? contempt of court if you do not leave.
JUDGE: Are you an angel? Animal, veg- FAUST: Baby Kindermoerd spirit, please,
etable, or mineral? Seraphim, cherubim, or so we can continue with the proceedings
archangel? Have you seen paradise? It won't against your mother.
speak. Throw it out of the court!
GRETCHEN: Baby, please speak. Tell them
MEPHISTOPHELES: Where the hell is it? I didn't kill you. Tell them.
I still don't see it!
BABY KINDERMOERD: Di te eradicent
JUDGE: Nameless Baby Kindermoerd, you qui me hinc estrudis! May the gods destroy
are commanded to go back from whence you who are pushing me from here!
you came.
JUDGE: Behold, it speaks!
MEPHISTOPHELES: After you left the
womb of your hideous mother. MEPHISTOPHELES: Di omen avertant!
May the gods avert the omen!
PHAEDRA: I don't know, maybe they called
up the wrong one. Are you sure you are PHAEDRA: What?
Baby Kindermoerd? And not some one else
... Rosemary's baby? MEPHISTOPHELES: Absit omen! May
the omen be invalid!
FAUST: Don't get upset.
JUDGE: Have you seen paradise? What do
you have to say to us? How were you born?
116 * PAJ 78
JUDGE: I have checked and checked every MEPHISTOPHELES: Damn that mouse!
tooth, done DNA tests on every scrap of It's her fault. She is wreaking all this anti-
brain I could find, every vaporized vapor. havoc. Doesn't she have any code of ethics?
There is nothing to indicate their deaths. I thought we killed her with the cheese
They've escaped. bomb. It was fool proof.
JUDGE: Lets blow up the next hotel. MEPHISTOPHELES: I can make her like
you.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Not another one.
JUDGE: That's no good, I'm gay.
JUDGE: I gave you my soul. What else do
you want? MEPHISTOPHELES: You never told me
that. I'll make you straight.
MEPHISTOPHELES: I don't want your
crummy soul. JUDGE: Let's blow up the next hotel.
118 * PAJ 78
PHAEDRA: Am I dying?
MEPHISTOPHELES: What's wrong?
MEPHISTOPHELES: Sing, Phaedra. Say
PHAEDRA: I have to leave. goodnight, Phaedra.
120 * PAJ 78
FAUST: What's happened to you? FAUST: Crazed heifer, you've got your horns
twisted in the great mandala.
122 * PAJ 78
124 * PAJ 78
FAUST: Your heart was lifted up because of FAUST: Comfort, comfort. You would un-
your beauty. You corrupted your wisdom by derstand. It's the progress of a broken heart.
reason of your splendor.
MEPHISTOPHELES: I'm the devil. I know
MEPHISTOPHELES: On the contrary. My nothing about matters of the heart. My
heart was lifted up by the SPLENDOR OF heart was shredded ages ago. I can't remem-
MY REASON. I will ascend to heaven, I ber. I don't understand.
will exalt my throne above the stars of god,
I will sit also upon the mount of the FAUST: Yes you do. Those drops falling
congregation. I will ascend above the heightsfrom your eyes . . .
of the clouds. I will be like the most high.
And I rose and I rose and I rose. Not MEPHISTOPHELES: Taste them.
towards the light but into darkness by the
FAUST: Snake venom.
splendor of my reason. Get it? The splendor
of my reason lifted me up.
MEPHISTOPHELES: I thought so. Do
FAUST: How dark was the dark? you have the strength to hurl me out of
your orbit?
MEPHISTOPHELES: An eternal coma.
FAUST:
Forever on the edge of waking but never to Yes.
wake.
MEPHISTOPHELES: No.
FAUST: You woke yourself up by the splen-
dor of your resentment. FAUST: Yes.
126 * PAJ 78