Fight the Rooster

by Nick Cole

  1ST CASTING DIRECTOR

  Umm... lemme see. Oh, he’s a director.

  2ND CASTING DIRECTOR

  Of what?

  1ST CASTING DIRECTOR

  What do you mean of what?

  2ND CASTING DIRECTOR

  Companies, foundations, various organizations, assorted what have you.

  1ST CASTING DIRECTOR

  Assorted what have you?

  2ND CASTING DIRECTOR

  Yes, it’s a term; it means the whole spectrum. Everything in the enchilada, that sort of thing.

  1ST CASTING DIRECTOR

  You’re resorting to a lot of vagaries lately. You used to be so much more specific.

  2ND CASTING DIRECTOR

  Listen. I’m tired. I’m not feeling the thrill for passing judgment on people’s eternities like I used to. I mean, you accuse. They defend. The decision. Then they weep, gnash their teeth, and get hauled off to eternity with kicking, screaming, and a general carrying on that gets... I don’t know... redundant.

  1ST CASTING DIRECTOR

  Well that’s why I like to add a touch of creativity where I can. So I ask you, again: Who do you want to play Death? This guy directed films.

  2ND CASTING DIRECTOR

  Ah, that kind of director. Which ones?

  1ST CASTING DIRECTOR

  Good ones at first. Then he got progressively more commercial, and consequently worse.

  2ND CASTING DIRECTOR

  Crappy, I like to say.

  1ST CASTING DIRECTOR

  Yes, I’m well aware you like to use that term. Crappy would be a good description. Blockbusters that came and went, action figures, fast food campaigns, “It” actors, hip-hop video tie-ins. The works.

  2ND CASTING DIRECTOR

  Crappy.

  1ST CASTING DIRECTOR

  But successful. Financially speaking. Big weekends. Big openings. Star-studded premieres. Then poof — gone before you knew it.

  2ND CASTING DIRECTOR

  Died rich?

  1ST CASTING DIRECTOR

  Loaded.

  2ND CASTING DIRECTOR

  Death. Death... Death... Ah... Orson. Orson’s perfect for this. Let’s get Orson. He always makes ’em feel so... so guilty, and he gets it because they generally made all the same mistakes he made.

  1ST CASTING DIRECTOR

  Which Orson?

  2ND CASTING DIRECTOR

  Hmmmm... Has to be Touch of Evil Orson.

  1ST CASTING DIRECTOR

  Oooooh, I was gonna say something different. But you’re totally right.

  2ND CASTING DIRECTOR

  I bet this guy’s “dying” to meet Orson.

  1ST CASTING DIRECTOR

  They always are.

  2ND CASTING DIRECTOR

  Dying. Get it, it’s terminal you know.

  1ST CASTING DIRECTOR

  Witty. Here he comes, let’s watch.

  TOUCH OF EVIL ORSON WELLES enters Stage Right and sits at a table with two chairs facing each other on opposite ends.

  ORSON

  Lights, dammit, lights!

  The fires of a hellish landscape burn brighter against dark obsidian and sulfurous volcanic rock in the backdrop.

  ORSON

  No, I mean less light, you idiots! Less. That’s better. Darker. Just right. No, now that’s just too dark. I can’t even see my own damn hand. Are you doing this on purpose? You won’t get another tirade out of me. I’m not doing another snow peas commercial meltdown. I’ll just sit here. I assure you that. I’ll just sit here and smoke. All right, that’s better. Moodier. Just a touch less. Perfect.

  A gray room with an overhanging light that brightly illuminates anything directly beneath. There is nothing but the table and two chairs. Weak light illuminates the rest of the room, leaving much in shadow. PROPS: A black ashtray. A thin manila folder. A black pen.

  ORSON

  All right, send this “director” in.

  ORSON seems to shift about, finding the skin of his character. Just before THE GREAT DIRECTOR enters, ORSON falls into character, staring at the file, oblivious to all. THE GREAT DIRECTOR sits.

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  Oh my.

  ORSON

  You bet your sweet clapboard, “Oh my.”

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  But you’re... dead.

  ORSON

  My death is the last thing you should be worried about right now, son.

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  Yeah, but you’re dead.

  ORSON

  I’ve died before.

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  Like ’85, I think. Same day as Yul Brenner.

  ORSON

  Yul’s dead? Well... he hasn’t even called to get together for a drink! Dammit! I work and work and work and the only thing of variety that has ever occurred is that somewhere in between jobs, I died.

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  Citizen Kane. Oh my...

  ORSON

  We are not, I repeat, not, going to talk about that damned film.

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  But, but, but...

  ORSON

  (rising)

  Dammit, you little...! We’re here to discuss your eternity and all those crappy films you made. What the hell, man? Do you think you deserve to come in here and talk shop with me, Orson Welles, when all you did was start at the top and work your way to the bottom?

  (pause)

  That’s better. Now listen, sonny. I don’t know you from Adam, nor do I care to. I’m just here to prosecute you to the fullest extent of eternity and damn your soul to hell. I’m sure you’re a good man. Maybe you’ve even made some... some... some decent films. Made some money. I sure as hell never did. But making money is not making film.

  ORSON smiles off stage toward the unseen Casting Directors.

  ORSON

  Every film could have been a Kane. Every film has the potential. To be great, to be true. It’s just that we get in the way, we miserable cursed human beings.

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  I just want to tell you something...

  ORSON

  STOP! Before you do, remember... you’re dead. Your eternity hangs in the balance. We don’t have much time, only ninety minutes these days. Everything you say has to mean something, has to speak for your case. So before you say something that you may think is noble, or fawning or clever or witty or whatever, remember Faust was an idiot and I’m craftier than the devil. So ask yourself, “Is this going to help my case?” Because you’re dead and you’d better keep that in mind if you’re going to survive.

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  Okay. I will.

  (pause)

  I guess I just wanted to say that it took me a long time to realize what a great film Kane was. I knew it the first time I saw it, but it took me years to get it. You know... what I mean?

  ORSON

  (pause)

  And ironically you turned out nothing but opening-weekend dreck for most of the last twenty years of your life. How come you revere the film I made when I was twenty-three years old and yet you did nothing in your work that showed the slightest bit of respect or even understanding of my “Kane,” as you call it? How come?

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  I was trying.

  ORSON

  Trying? You were just handed the best script in town to make the Fat Man’s latest and last novel into a “Kane.” And instead, you chose to go see that lunatic WildBill. For what? For advice!

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  You know Bill?

  ORSON

  Oh yes, we do, and I’m waiting to get my hands on that little son of a... He’s crazy you know. I’m going t
o roast him crispy and then laugh as he screams on his way to hell while I eat a couple of steaks and drink some good smoky scotch. But we’re not talking about Bill, dammit! I just want to know one thing before we get started. One thing that would bring a little focus and tell me something that I cannot find in this folder which...

  (to CASTING DIRECTORS)

  ... really should be in this damn folder, but isn’t.

  (to THE GREAT DIRECTOR)

  I want to know why you gave up.

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  I was afraid of dying.

  ORSON

  You think you’re pretty damn smart, don’t you?

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  No, not at all.

  ORSON

  Yes you do! I can see it written in your weaselly little eyes. Think you’ve got it all figured out, don’t you, sonny?

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  In hindsight, what with the fire, I might have done things differently.

  ORSON

  Now that you have, shall we say, a little perspective, what with the flames of hell flickering in the backdrop here, it all seems pretty flimsy, doesn’t it? Ruining a movie. Employing an untrained producer. Creating chaos and mayhem. All so you can escape Hollywood… and it says here, “Live with Bears in Alaska.”

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  I don’t want to live with bears in Alaska. Just... around them. I just thought it might be a new life. The elements, cabins, bears, it was just... it seemed like an escape.

  ORSON

  But you said you didn’t want to die? Close proximity to bears would seem counterproductive to the goal of living.

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  Listen, I realize it was all a mistake and the things that happened only made it worse. I feel bad about all the damage I caused and the people I let down. I didn’t start out that way. I used to believe in film. I used to want not just to make the greatest film ever, but to make the films I saw up here in my head; for years, right from the beginning. It’s all in there. I’m sure your file tells you that at least. I tried to make true films, good films, films I would want people to see, but then... something happened. I forgot what I was doing. It became a job. I woke up one day and I was afraid. The stress and frustration of filmmaking was all I had left. From the first moment when you’re a kid... you know, Orson, more than anyone, you know, don’t you?

  ORSON

  Yes, I do.

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  But there was something. Something that got me up every morning, kept me awake at night. I had to get back to the set every day, because that day might be the day I got it right. The day I got it back, I guess.

  ORSON

  I understand, kid. But there’s a difference between you and me. Maybe it’s what makes me Orson Welles, the author of the greatest film ever made, and you, just another fish. I didn’t give up. When I died I was working on a filmed version of a play I directed when I was twenty-one. I was still trying to get it right. I didn’t give up when they took away film after film, starting with Ambersons, from me. All through Rita and Dolores and Eartha and every ballerina in between, I never gave up. I couldn’t have given up if I’d tried. That’s the difference between you and me. It was tough, but I didn’t quit. You did, and that’s why we’re both here now.

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  That’s why I’m here. But it doesn’t explain why you’re here.

  ORSON

  What am I doing here? Well, you’ve got some nerve.

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  Yeah, if I’m going to hell and everything I did was worthless, I want to know what you, the supposed greatest filmmaker of all time, are doing here. And while we’re on that subject, what exactly is it that makes you the greatest filmmaker of all time? It sounds a little too Top Forty for a guy who made one good film.

  ORSON

  So you’ve decided to fight, huh? Well, it won’t do you a bit of good. I already know you’re guilty, and believe you me, I’ve got the files and the paperwork to prove it. When I sign this final piece of paper, you see here lad, this one... dammit, now where is it? Well, that just beats all, I cannot... Oh, here it is. When I sign this piece of paper, my wayward little filmmaker, you’re not going to be so concerned about why I’m in hell so much as why it’s getting hot around your ankles.

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  But you haven’t signed it.

  ORSON

  I’m going to.

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  Fine. Go ahead. Kill me.

  ORSON

  You’re already dead. This is eternity. You need to justify your actions if you’re going to leave any kind of memory behind.

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  I don’t want to. You’re right, I have no defense. I was wrong.

  ORSON

  Oh, come on. Listen, you don’t know the first thing about wrong.

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  I know lots about wrong and I don’t believe your immortal soul has anything to do with whether or not you made a quote-unquote good or bad film. I went to Sunday school.

  ORSON

  This has nothing to do with your immortal soul, dear boy. Whoever the Great Director was and whatever choice he made, he’s dead and reaping the consequences of his belief choices in either Heaven or Hell. You’re not him!

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  ...?

  ORSON

  What I mean is, you are the image, the memory, the mystique if you will, that survives. The legend. And it’s here that you are adjudicated for all eternity before the public.

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  The legend? Oh, please. I’m a guy who made movies for a living. A way to pass a few hours at a Saturday matinee with popcorn and a Coke. I sold actors and explosions, fast food tie-ins and culture. But I knew that going into it. I knew my job was to sell a product and nothing more.

  ORSON

  Did you?

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  You’re damn right I did. And if I’m being judged on anything, judge me on that. My box office was huge. No one did it better. I was a merchant in the marketplace. I was one of the best. Even if I didn’t believe anymore, it was my job to sell a product. That’s all.

  ORSON

  Are you sure? Who’s going to finish what’s left of this “masterpiece” now that you’re dead?

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  Goreitsky can.

  ORSON

  (pause)

  I always believed.

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  Did you?

  ORSON

  Always. I knew a great one, the greatest, could happen at any moment. I was ready. I was waiting for it to happen.

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  Well whoop-de-doo for you. You know it’s a business. Everything doesn’t have to—

  ORSON

  From the moment I arrived in this town I did nothing but scramble to produce product. I was constantly being set upon by hordes of front office boys suggesting this and pointing out that. Anything commercial. Anything with a warm and fuzzy ending. Can you believe Kane was originally sold as a love story? Can you? “Why would this woman walk away from this man and sixty million dollars?” Lurid, tawdry, and yes, very commercial. But I wouldn’t let ’em do it. Instead I let Kane go down in critical acclaim and financial defeat. I never gave up, though. Every film, for me, was a Kane. Or it could’ve been. I fought tooth and nail to protect everything. I fought until I was a dirty word. You’re right, you know. I don’t deserve the title of greatest filmmaker of all time, for whatever that’s worth. A great filmmaker makes films. I didn’t make more films than I actually made. I alienated people, antagonized studios, and generally left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. That’s why I’m here, sonny. That’s why e
ach year passes and kids forget the name of Orson Welles a little bit more each day. That’s why.

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  Did you honestly think we were going to live forever? We all fade. Everything fades, Orson.

  ORSON

  True. But at that moment, at that moment when we’re burning brighter than a thousand suns, we cannot think of fading. We have to try to make it last forever. We have to fight. That’s human. It means we’re doing our best. Trying our best. Trying to be our best. Do you know how my life ended? My career?

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  Yeah. It was a good ending. You were still working, character stuff, commercials, voice-overs.

  ORSON

  It was a lie! I was better than that. I spent my whole life trying to live up to that fact. And the harder I tried, every failure, every defeat, every time they called me “Wonder Boy Welles,” every time someone came to stare at how large I had become, “Come one, come all, see the grotesque,” I tried that much harder. I was still trying when I gave up. My will to create was so immense that even long after my body and career had given up, my will to create continued on. I was hawking frozen peas, dammit! I had given up. My will just didn’t realize it. Here in hell, long after I was dead, I finally realized why. Why, as the years passed, I got larger and larger and movies barely got made, or more often than not, not made at all. I finally realized why my will had never thrown in the towel. You know what it was, kid?

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  What?

  ORSON

  The moment. There was a moment that almost seemed just enough. Mine was... I was knee-deep in the waters of the Amazon making a movie that no one would ever see. I must have been twenty-five at the time, but that didn’t matter a bit. Ambersons was being butchered like a Sunday hog and the laughter over Kane was still making its way through Hollywood. But at that moment, in the jungles of South America, knee-deep in muddy warm water, over budget, hounded by creditors and jealous husbands, a failure as a father, husband, and lover, I was doing exactly what I was meant to do. I was capturing light and sound in order to tell a story. That moment was so strong that it propelled me through the years ahead. Deceived me. Lied to me. Told me I was creating, when in the end, I was a mere merchant in the marketplace. Nothing more. Popcorn and soda pops.

  THE GREAT DIRECTOR

  But you made films, you collected a check, entertained people. It’s not a bad way to live. It’s not a crime.