Three Somebodies

by Kat Georges

  THREE SOMEBODIES

  PLAYS ABOUT NOTORIOUS DISSIDENTS

  S.C.U.M. | ART WAS HERE | JACK THE RAPPER

  BY

  KAT GEORGES

  Three Somebodies: Plays About Notorious Dissidents.

  All contents Copyright © 2018 by Kat Georges.

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced without permission of the author or publisher, except for brief quotes for review purposes.

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  Whenever any of the plays herein are produced the following notice must appear on all programs, printing, websites, and advertising for the play: “Produced by special arrangement with Three Rooms Press.” In addition, due authorship credit must be given on all programs, printing, web listings, and advertising for any of the plays herein.

  ISBN: 978-1-941110-54-6 (Trade Paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-941110-55-3 (Ebook)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017960408

  TRP-063

  COVER AND BOOK DESIGN:

  KG Design International

  www.katgeorges.com

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Three Rooms Press, New York, NY

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  To Peter Carlaftes

  INTRODUCTION

  IN SAN FRANCISCO FOR MOST of the 1990s, poet-playwright-actor Peter Carlaftes and I ran the small—but definitely fierce—theater company known as Marilyn Monroe Memorial Theater. We wrote, cast, and directed more than twenty-five plays. Between plays, we produced and presented numerous one-night-only events featuring poetry, film, sketch comedy, and Dada performance. The mission of the company was to present “demolished texts, deconstructed classics, and new works.” We were entirely self-funded, disdaining the tendency for granting foundations to fund art that fit a certain profile. Ours did not. While our art was critically-acclaimed, we used the theater to explore ideas of rebellion and passion without restriction. As Peter likes to say, “We had no kitchen. The stage was our stove.” Indeed, it was.

  The plays cooked up in Three Somebodies were all inspired by notorious dissidents, people who shook up the world—for better or worse. Shakespeare had his kings and princes. I chose royalty of the infamous variety: Valerie Solanas, author of The S.C.U.M. Manifesto, who famously shot Andy Warhol; Arthur Cravan—nephew of Oscar Wilde, wild child pugilist and poet—whose legendary antics preceded and influenced the Dada movement; Jack the Ripper as sculpted through the words of T. S. Eliot’s poem “Rhapsody on a Windy Night.” Each play received its world premiere at the Marilyn, and earned high critical praise. But while each play is inspired by a person, be forewarned: the plays herein are not at all standard “bio-dramas.” We didn’t do bio-dramas at the Marilyn. These are stripped down, twisted, juxtaposed, hard-bent works of intensity designed to bring to life a three-dimensional portrait of each of the subjects, and to examine their particular personas from the inside out. The subjects of these three plays refused to be handcuffed by linear drama so they roar to life in twists and shouts, psychedelic tremors, and whirlwind ebullience.

  So take your seatbelt off and get into the groove. Catch the waves, hug the curves, and take a ride you won’t soon forget.

  —Kat Georges

  CONTENTS

  S.C.U.M.

  The Valerie Solanas Story

  ART WAS HERE

  A Technical Knock Out in Ten Rounds Featuring Poet–Pugilist Arthur Cravan

  JACK THE RAPPER

  A Play on Madness Inspired by T. S. Eliot’s Poem “Rhapsody on a Windy Night”

  S.C.U.M.

  The Valerie Solanas Story

  Dedicated to

  dominant, secure, self-confident,

  nasty, violent, selfish, independent,

  proud, thrill-seeking, free-wheeling,

  arrogant females everywhere.

  PRODUCTION NOTES:

  I was introduced to Valerie Solanas’ infamous work, The S.C.U.M. Manifesto, in the early 1990s and was consumed by the comic brilliance of her writing. How could this oddball genius succumb to shooting (and almost killing) pop art superstar Andy Warhol on June 3, 1968? Was she using him as the starting point of her mission to rid the world of men? Research led to the discovery that one of Solanas’ main motivations for attacking Warhol was that he had allegedly promised to produce her original play, cleverly titled, Up Your Ass. On learning this, I immediately decided that she would be a great character for a play.

  After shooting Warhol, Solanas was indicted and by August was sent to a mental hospital while awaiting trial. Somehow, for three days around Christmas of that year, she was let out of the hospital on bail (apparently paid for by an anonymous rich man). Warhol spent those three days riding around Manhattan in a limo and refusing to get out.

  I started by determining that the play would be set in a party hosted at The Factory, and would be filled with Warhol superstars, all waiting for Warhol to show up. Instead, they get Valerie—and her mother—and all hell breaks loose.

  I wrote and rewrote the play several times, but I wasn’t satisfied. It didn’t capture the madness of the era: the chaos, the crazed druginfused sparkle, the breaking of all standards of the past. In frustration, I ripped up the first scene, ready to start writing again. But something happened. I glanced at the ripped up pages and started repositioning the pieces. Characters’ dialogue was broken up and rearranged. It no longer made linear sense, but it had the energy I needed. I screamed and grabbed a pair of scissors and cut every page of the script into strips, cut monologues into pieces, grabbed some tape and fastened things together in a new order. It worked on the page. On the stage it was one of our most successful productions, reprised twice during our years at the Marilyn.

  —K. G.

  S.C.U.M.:

  THE VALERIE SOLANAS STORY

  CHARACTERS:

  DOROTHY: Valerie’s mother; I would do anything for her

  VIVIAN: Make me like death, like heroin

  GOLEM: To be in love / is to love the beloved / just as he is

  BERNARD: In their faces, I see hope

  VALERIE: Don’t struggle or kick or raise a fuss

  SETTING:

  A party at Andy Warhol’s Factory loft, furnished with a couch with a small table near
it. A lamp on or near the table. A 16mm movie projector, three TVs, a small triangular raised area in a corner with a projection screen in pulled down front of it. Various art objects around the room, including the stump of a tree, painted fluorescent colors. Walls are filled with silk-screened square prints of Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe series.

  It is early evening on the day of VALERIE’S release on bail from jail, just over six months since she shot Andy Warhol. December 1968.

  As the audience enters the theater, they are accosted on the street by VALERIE dressed in old jeans, a sweater, a cap, and pea coat who wants them to purchase her writing. Fifty cents for women; a dollar for men.

  Inside, the SOUND of Percy Faith’s “Theme from a Summer Place” plays over and over again, fading with house LIGHTS to silence.

  Just after music fades, VALERIE enters the theater and can be heard arguing with usher/house manager about being allowed to be let in. She finally convinces usher/house manager she will behave and will stand in the back.

  In BLACKOUT, DOROTHY enters and crosses slowly with a creaky walker to a small table with lamp and couch. Turns on table lamp as she sits.

  DOROTHY: She has a terrific sense of humor. My life was not in vain. The day Valerie shot Andy Warhol, my husband, her father, called me drunk and said, “Look what your little slut did! If I had stuck around, I would have taught her how to behave.”

  I think he was right.

  The Rolling Stones’ “2000 Light Years From Home” rises as DOROTHY speaks. LIGHTS rise as VIVIAN enters, talking fast and loud, carrying a police baton. SOUND of people at a party, over ongoing musical track of hip New York 1960s rock during course of the play.

  Once VIVIAN enters, VALERIE begins whispering into audience members’ ears occasional ad lib commentary on the action on the stage.

  VIVIAN: I can’t believe it. I’m on my way over here tonight. And there’s all these hippies protesting the war—from San Francisco or Hoboken or something—waving signs—whatever. Some Black Panther or something on a box just saying “Right on!” You know, some kind of righteous thing—and everyone’s fist is in the air—And then it’s like pandemonium! Cops. Tear gas. People flying. Cops cracking heads, knocking them on the ground. . . And I’m floating through . . . in slow motion. . . And then some cop is about to smash some hippy with his club. His club is back over his head—and I just reach up and grab it from him . . . and then walk away! See—here it is! I think it might look good as a . . . you know—neck tie or something funky.

  Hands reach in from Offstage and grab police baton out of VIVIAN’S hands. She stares for a moment at the spot where the club used to be, then crosses to DOROTHY.

  VIVIAN: So you’re Valerie’s mom. I can’t believe . . . I mean, she’s lucky to be out of jail.

  DOROTHY: Hmm?

  VIVIAN: It’s almost ten. Valerie should be here by now. The party is going to start happening soon. I hope she’s all right.

  DOROTHY: She’ll be here. Did you know her?

  VIVIAN: Everybody knew Valerie. We used to make fun of her. S.C.U.M.? What’s that? A drug? A virus? Oh . . . Society for Cutting Up Men. Oh, yeah—right—whatever. I bought The S.C.U.M. Manifesto just because she wouldn’t leave me alone. One dollar. Two dollars for men. She always looked so pissed off at the world. I think she needed more vitamins. Or a poke of something. Some people went out of their way to avoid her, but they were just afraid because, unlike the rest of the world, she knew what she wanted. I think that’s why we sort of got along.

  Pause.

  VIVIAN: Do you think she’s ready to come back out?

  DOROTHY: She said she has no regrets.

  VIVIAN: Does she remember what it’s like . . . out here?

  DOROTHY: Do you mean will she do it again? She said no, she’s over it now.

  VIVIAN: The scene is still here, it will always be here. She was always beyond it anyway. A permanent feature of the world beyond. Always in the same clothing: the same old jeans and sweater, and the cap sitting straight on the top of her head. And her face . . . always the same expression frozen on her face. Never a smile.

  DOROTHY: She didn’t want to smile. She wasn’t a “smiler.”

  DOROTHY and VIVIAN speak the following speeches simultaneously.

  DOROTHY: Valerie was a . . . special . . . child. She was at the top of her class in grade school, and a good athlete, too. She especially loved to play baseball . . . she was an excellent batter, always hitting one home run after another.

  At home, she loved to read everything, from the Bible to Alice in Wonderland. She read the newspaper to her father and me at the dinner table. I’ll never forget when she read the news about Pearl Harbor, about how the Japs bombed America . . . in the innocent voice of a child . . . she didn’t have any idea of the tragedy she was reading. It gives me goose pimples just to remember. That night, I couldn’t stop crying.

  VIVIAN: Anyway—Last night—you wouldn’t believe last night. Insane. We went out to eat first. I wasn’t too hungry so I just ordered dessert. Lemon meringue pie. I just ate the meringue. I didn’t like the color of the lemon. Too yellow—it was too much of that fake color stuff—like a bad hair dye. The meringue was okay. Toasted on top. Egg whites . . .

  So before that I met Jasmine over at her place. She was asleep, of course. I had to ring the doorbell in a really nervous way—she knows my ring—it’s like “zzz-zzz, zzz-zzz, zz.” She answered it. “Is that you, Vivian?” I said, “Yes, open up.” She let me in. Her place was a mess, like, she had some people over the night before and a couple of them were still lying around.

  I just vacuumed around them like they were small sofas or something. Put the trash in a bag, threw it out. She was in a terrible mood. She’d been doing barbiturates, so I gave her some amphetamine and then fixed her breakfast—a crouton. She put the A in her coffee and ate. And then she was a lot better.

  VIVIAN reaches into her purse, pulls out a box, opens it, pulls from it a smaller box, opens it, pulls from it a tiny bag, pulls from it two small pills, examines them closely, swallows one, replaces the other and puts everything back very neatly with extreme fastidiousness.

  DOROTHY pulls a dark wool pageboy cap from her purse, stares an it, then sticks it on top of her head crooked and sits stone-faced; a reincarnation of her daughter, VALERIE.

  DOROTHY: She was so sweet, always offering to wash up the dishes after dinner, or mop up the floors on the weekend. Her father made a big production out of giving her a nickel when she did the weekend chores without being asked. After dinner on Sundays? . . .

  Valerie would start cleaning up, and he’d say, “Hold it there, little lady. Before you lift another dirty plate, I have a few words to say to you.” And she would sit down giggling.

  Then he’d say, “Little princess, because you are such a good girl, Daddy wants you to have this small token of his appreciation.”

  SOUND Music up slightly.

  Enter GOLEM.

  As DOROTHY speaks, he plugs in a movie projector in the corner.

  VIVIAN walks around, stretching, starts speaking halfway through DOROTHY’S next speech. She is increasingly frantic and trying desperately to stay under control.

  DOROTHY: She took the nickel from him and then gave him the biggest hug her little arms could give. After looking at that nickel for a second, she’d shove it into her pocketbook and immediately start cleaning up the dishes.

  One day, her father got drunk and ran out of money. He tore apart the whole house until he found Valerie’s little pocketbook and emptied it out on the table in front of her.

  She screamed, “Daddy, you said that money was mine!” And he screamed and slapped her across the face and sent her flying.

  I tried to stop him and he hit me with his fist and knocked out one of my teeth.

  He counted all the money—there was only $1.50—but it was all the money she had. He gathered it up and walked out the front door, leaving the empty pocketbook on the table.

  VIVIA
N: She was always sort of outside the scene. She had her own agenda. But she was always around. I was walking one afternoon on a beautiful day on methedrine, cocaine, vitamins, and . . . I forget . . . something else . . . and, anyway, I was thinking about a painting I was going to do of the Pope, naked in a supermarket, and some plans for building a plastic Kabuki house and starting my own clothing line made from empty coke cans . . . and Andy, of course.

  And just at that moment, Valerie walked up to me and started asking me, “Why do you let Andy exploit you?” And I realized, what she meant wasn’t Andy, really, but all men, and she was right. Andy exploited women, just like other men.

  DOROTHY begins singing.

  VIVIAN: Even though he always gave them the option. Women would come up to him and say, “Can I be in your movie?” and he’d say, “Yes, if you take your shirt off.” And they’d think about it for, like, two seconds, these fallen society women looking for kicks, and they’d show up the next day and take their shirt off.

  While VIVIAN rants, GOLEM starts projector. During VIVIAN’s previous speech, DOROTHY, wearing the cap, begins to dance and sing in the beam from the projector. Movie is a black-and-white 16mm film of VIVIAN and GOLEM kissing.

  DOROTHY: (sings) I want to be in the movies / I want to be the way you are / I’ll do anything you want / Just make me a Super Star!

  GOLEM squats and frames his hands around DOROTHY looking for perfect camera angle.

  GOLEM: (poetically) The blue light of her eyes. . . the raven hair of youth hides under silver . . . the smile breaks from years . . . inside, a heart lies . . . another heart speaks only truths.

  Pause. GOLEM stands.

  GOLEM: I could just as soon be living a lie, where everything is made up, including you.

  GOLEM turns off projector. Exit GOLEM.