by Tony Kushner
Roy puts the receiver back in its cradle and puts the phone aside. He turns to the empty chair where Ethel had been sitting. He talks to the chair as if she’s sitting in it.)
ROY: The worst thing about being sick in America, Ethel, is you are booted out of the parade. Americans have no use for sick. Look at Reagan: he’s so healthy he’s hardly human, he’s a hundred if he’s a day, he takes a slug in his chest and two days later he’s out west riding ponies in his PJs. I mean who does that? That’s America. It’s just no country for the infirm.
Scene 3
Same day. The Diorama Room of the Mormon Visitors’ Center. The room’s a small proscenium theater; the diorama is hidden behind closed red velvet curtains. There are plush red theater seats for the audience, and Harper is slouched in one of them, dressed as she was in her previous scene. Empty potato chip and M&M bags and cans of soda are scattered around her seat. She stares with dull anger at the drawn stage curtains. She’s been here a long time.
Hannah enters with Prior, dressed in his prophet garb.
HANNAH: This is the Diorama Room.
(To Harper) I thought we agreed that you weren’t—
(To Prior) I’ll go see if I can get it started.
(She exits. Prior sits. He removes his scarf and dark glasses. He wipes his face, startlingly pale and clammy with sweat, with the scarf. He breathes in and out, feeling tightness in his lungs.
Harper watches this with a level stare and a flat affect—jaded, ironic disaffection she’s self-protectively, experimentally assumed.
The lights in the room dim. After a blare of feedback/static, a Voice on tape [the Angel’s] intones:)
A VOICE: Welcome to the Mormon Visitors’ Center Diorama Room. In a moment, our show will begin. We hope it will have a special message for you. Please refrain from smoking, and food and drink are not allowed. (A chiming tone) Welcome to the Mormon Visitors’—
(The tape lurches into very high speed, then smears into incomprehensibly low speed, then stops, mid-message, with a loud metallic blat, which frightens Prior. The lights remain dim.)
HARPER: They’re having trouble with the machinery.
(She rips open a bag of M&Ms and offers them to Prior.)
PRIOR: No thanks, I—
You’re not supposed to eat in the—
HARPER: I can. I live here. Have we met before?
PRIOR: No, I don’t . . . think so. You live here?
HARPER: There’s a dummy family in the diorama, you’ll see when the curtain opens. The main dummy, the big daddy dummy, looks like my husband, Joe. When they push the buttons he’ll start to talk. You can’t believe a word he says but the sound of him is reassuring. It’s an incredible resemblance.
PRIOR: Are you a Mormon?
HARPER: Jack Mormon.
PRIOR: I beg your pardon?
HARPER: Jack Mormon. It means I’m flawed. Inferior Mormon product. Probably comes from jack rabbit, you know, I ran.
PRIOR: Do you believe in angels? In the Angel Mormon?
HARPER: Moroni, not Mormon, The Angel Moroni. Ask my mother-in-law, when you leave, the scary lady at the reception desk: If its name was Moroni why don’t they call themselves Morons. It’s from comments like that you can tell I’m jack. You’re not a Mormon.
PRIOR: No, I—
HARPER: Just . . . distracted with grief.
PRIOR (Startled): I’m not. I was just walking and—
HARPER: We get a lot of distracted, grief-stricken people here. It’s our specially.
PRIOR: I’m not . . . distracted, I’m doing research.
HARPER: On Mormons?
PRIOR: On . . . angels. I’m a . . . an angelologist.
HARPER: I never met an angelologist before.
PRIOR: It’s an obscure discipline.
HARPER: I can imagine. Angelology. The field work must be rigorous. You’d have to drop dead before you saw your first specimen.
PRIOR (A beat, then deciding to confide): One . . . I saw one. An angel. It crashed through my bedroom ceiling.
HARPER: Huh. That sort of thing always happens to me.
PRIOR: I have a fever. I should be in bed but I’m too anxious to lie in bed.
You look very familiar.
HARPER: So do you. But—
But it’s just not possible. I don’t get out. I’ve only ever been here, or in some place a lot like this, alone, in the dark, waiting for the dummy.
(Dramatic music as the house lights dim in the Diorama Room, the red curtains part and stage lights come up to reveal a brightly painted, brightly lit backdrop of the desert between Colorado and Utah, mountains looming in the distance. Posed before the backdrop, in silhouette, a family of Mormon pioneers, seated in a covered wagon.)
A VOICE: In 1847, across fifteen hundred miles of frontier wilderness, braving mountain blizzards, desert storms, and renegade Indians, the first Mormon wagon trains made their difficult way towards the Kingdom of God.
(During the above, Harper noisily rips open a bag of Nacho-Flavored Doritos, which she holds out to Prior:)
HARPER: Want some Nacho-Flavored—
(She stops as, to the accompaniment of the sounds of a wagon train and the Largo from Dvořák’s 9th Symphony, stage lights illuminate the Mormon family of costumed mannequins: two young sons, a mother and a daughter, and, driving the wagon, a father, who looks a lot like Joe.)
HARPER (To the Mormon father): Hi Joe.
(The music and background sounds give way as the diorama scene begins. When either Caleb or Orrin speaks, his immobile face is hit with a pinspot; this has an unintentionally eerie effect. The father’s face is animated, but not his body.)
CALEB (Voice on tape): Father, I’m a-feard.
FATHER: Hush, Caleb.
ORRIN (Voice on tape): The wilderness is so vast.
FATHER: Orrin, Caleb, hush. Be brave for your mother and your little sister.
(Louis suddenly appears in the diorama. The lights onstage and in the dark auditorium shift, subtly.)
LOUIS: OK yeah yeah yeah but then answer me this: How can a fundamentalist theocratic religion function participatorily in a pluralist secular democracy? I can’t believe you’re a Mormon! I can’t believe I’ve spent two whole weeks in bed with a Mormon!
JOE: Um, could you talk a little softer, I—
LOUIS: Are you busy?
JOE: I’m working, but—And it’s closer to three weeks, almost, it’s—
LOUIS: But you’re a lawyer! A serious lawyer!
(Joe nods yes.)
LOUIS: Jesus, Mormons everywhere, it’s like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I don’t like cults.
JOE: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is not a cult.
LOUIS: Any religion that’s not at least two thousand years old is a cult. And I know people who would call that generous.
JOE: Are you upset about anything?
LOUIS: Oh, you, you noticed? Yeah, I’m . . . (Continue below:)
PRIOR: WHAT IS HE DOING IN THERE?
(Joe gets down from the wagon and goes to Louis.)
HARPER: Who? The little creep? He’s in and out every day. I hate him. He’s got absolutely nothing to do with the story.
LOUIS (Continuous from above): I am, I’m upset about, about . . . (He starts to cry, then stops himself) You . . . unsettle me. You . . . abandoned your wife, and that’s terrible, but you’re not a terrible person, and yet you seem so unbothered by what you did, and that’s terrible, too, but you’re so decent and openly kind and truly sweet in bed, and I don’t see how that’s possible, but with you it seems to be, so, so . . . (Continue below:)
PRIOR (Standing, grabbing his things in a panic; to Harper): Can you turn it off? The . . . I’m leaving, I can’t . . .
LOUIS (Continuous from above): Is it just that, you know, belonging to a political party that’s one half religious-zealot-control-freak theocrats and one half ego-anarchist-libertarian cowboys, you’ve had a lot of practice straddling cognitive dissonance? Or, or what?
(Joe kisses Louis.
Prior starts to leave, but the pain in his leg stops him; he’s too weak to run. He turns back to the diorama, and calls:)
PRIOR: Louis!
LOUIS (Hearing him): Did you . . .
JOE: What?
LOUIS: Sssshh! I, I thought I heard . . .
(To himself) Fucking hell.
(To Joe) We have to talk.
JOE: I can’t leave the office in the middle of the—
LOUIS: Fuck work! This is a, a crisis. Now.
(Louis exits. Joe follows.)
HARPER (Alarmed): Oh! But the, but he—The dummy never left with the little creep, he never left before. When they come in and they see he’s gone, they’ll blame me.
(Harper rushes to the diorama stage and pulls its curtains closed. She turns back and sees that Prior is crying.)
HARPER (Trying hard to sound hard): You shouldn’t do that in here, this isn’t a place for real feelings, this is just story-time here. Stop.
PRIOR: I never imagined losing my mind was going to be such hard work.
HARPER: Oh, it is.
(Her tough veneer starts to crack) Find someplace else to be miserable in. This is my place and I don’t want you to do that here!
PRIOR: I JUST SAW MY LOVER, MY . . . ex-lover, with a . . . with your husband, with that . . . window-display Ken doll, in that . . . thing, I saw him, I—
HARPER: OK OK don’t have a hissy fit, I told you it wasn’t working right, it’s just . . . the magic of the theater or something. Listen, if you see the creep, tell him to bring Joe, to, to bring the mannequin back, they’ll evict me and this is it, it’s nothing but it’s the last place on earth for me. I can’t go sit in Brooklyn.
(Hannah enters with a flashlight.)
HANNAH: What on earth is going—
(She sees Prior crying. She glares at Harper)
What did you do to him?
HARPER: Nothing! He just can’t adjust, is all, he just—
(Hannah goes to the diorama.)
HARPER: NO WAIT, don’t—
(Hannah yanks the curtain open. The father dummy is back—a real dummy this time.)
HARPER: Oh. (To Prior) Look, we . . . imagined it.
HANNAH: This is a favor, they let me work here as a favor, but you keep making scenes, and look at this mess, it’s a garbage scow! (Continue below:)
HARPER (To Prior): It doesn’t look so much like him, now. He’s changed. Again. (Continue below:)
HANNAH (Continuous from above): Are you just going to sit here forever, trash piling higher, day after day till—well till what? (Continue below:)
HARPER (Continuous from above, to Hannah): You sound just like him. You even grind your teeth in your sleep like him.
HANNAH (Continuous from above): If I could get him to come back I would go back to Salt Lake tomorrow. (Continue below:)
HARPER (Continuous from above): You can’t go back to Salt Lake, you sold your house! (Continue below:)
HANNAH (Continuous from above): But I know my duty when I see it, and if you and Joe could say the same we—
HARPER (Continuous from above, to Prior): My mother-in-law! She sold her house! Her son calls and tells her he’s a homo and what does she do? She sells her house! And she calls me crazy! (To Hannah) You have less of a place in this world than I do if that’s possible.
PRIOR (To Harper): Am I dreaming this, I don’t understand.
HARPER: He saw an angel.
HANNAH: That’s his business.
HARPER: He’s an angelologist.
PRIOR: Well don’t go blabbing about it.
HANNAH (Losing the little cool she came in with; to Prior): If you aren’t serious you shouldn’t come in here.
HARPER: Either that or he’s nuts.
PRIOR (To Hannah, also losing it): It’s a visitors’ center; I’m visiting.
HARPER: He has a point.
HANNAH (To Harper): Quiet!
(To Prior) It’s for serious visitors, it’s a serious religion.
PRIOR: Do they like, pay you to do this?
HARPER: She volunteers.
PRIOR: Because you’re not very hospitable. I did see an angel.
HANNAH (Blowing up!): And what do you want me to do about it? I have problems of my own.
The diorama’s closed for repairs. You have to leave.
(To Harper) Clean up this mess. (She exits)
(Harper and Prior look at each other.)
PRIOR: Oh God, I’m exhausted.
HARPER: You don’t look well. You really should be home in bed.
PRIOR: I’ll die there.
HARPER: Better in bed than on the street. Just ask anyone.
(Prior gathers his things. He looks around the Diorama Room, and then at the trash around Harper’s seat, and then at Harper.)
PRIOR: Maybe you should leave, too.
HARPER: I’m waiting.
PRIOR: For what?
(Harper points to the Mormon Mother in the diorama.)
HARPER: His wife. His mute wife. I’m waiting for her to speak. Bet her story’s not so jolly.
(Prior looks at Harper, afraid. He remembers where they’ve met.)
PRIOR: Dreaming used to be so . . . safe.
HARPER: It isn’t, though, it’s dangerous, imagining to excess. It can blow up in your face. Threshold of revelation.
(Prior startles; then, as he searches for something to say:)
HARPER: Till we meet again.
(Prior leaves.
Harper sits alone for a bit, then, addressing the Mormon Mother:)
HARPER: Bitter lady of the Plains, talk to me. Tell me what to do.
(The Mormon Mother turns to Harper, then stands and leaves the diorama stage. She gestures with her head for Harper to follow her.
Harper goes to the diorama, gets in the Mormon Mother’s seat.)
HARPER (To the dummy father): Look at us. So perfect in place. The desert the mountains the previous century. Maybe I could have believed in you then. Maybe we should never have moved east.
(To the Mormon Mother) I’m stuck. My heart’s an anchor.
MORMON MOTHER: Leave it, then. Can’t carry no extra weight.
HARPER: Was it a hard thing, crossing the prairies?
MORMON MOTHER: You ain’t stupid. So don’t ask stupid. Ask something for real.
HARPER (A beat, then): In your experience of the world. How do people change?
MORMON MOTHER: Well it has something to do with God so it’s not very nice.
God splits the skin with a jagged thumbnail from throat to belly and then plunges a huge filthy hand in, he grabs hold of your bloody tubes and they slip to evade his grasp but he squeezes hard, he insists, he pulls and pulls till all your innards are yanked out and the pain! We can’t even talk about that. And then he stuffs them back, dirty, tangled and torn. It’s up to you to do the stitching.
HARPER: And then get up. And walk around.
MORMON MOTHER: Just mangled guts pretending.
HARPER: That’s how people change.
(They exit.)
Scene 4
Late that afternoon. Split scene: Joe and Louis at Jones Beach, and later, Prior in his apartment, and Louis at a Brooklyn payphone.
Joe and Louis are sitting shoulder to shoulder in the dunes, facing the ocean. It’s cold. The sound of waves and gulls and distant Belt Parkway traffic. New York Romantic. Joe is very cold, Louis as always is oblivious to the weather.
LOUIS: The winter Atlantic. Wow, huh?
There used to be guys in the dunes even when it snowed. Nothing deterred us from the task at hand.
JOE: Which was?
LOUIS: Exploration. Across an unmapped terrain. The body of the homosexual human male. Here, or the Ramble, or the scrub pines on Fire Island, or the St. Mark’s Baths. Hardy pioneers. Like your ancestors.
JOE: Not exactly.
LOUIS: And many have perished on the trail.
I fucked around a l
ot more than he did. No justice.
(Little pause.)
JOE: I love it when you can get to places and see what it used to be. The whole country was like this once. A paradise.
LOUIS: Ruined now.
JOE: It’s still a great country. Best place on earth. Best place to be.
LOUIS (Staring at him a beat, then): OY. A Mormon.
JOE: You never asked.
LOUIS: So what else haven’t you told me?
Joe?
So the fruity underwear you wear, that’s . . .?
JOE: A temple garment.
LOUIS: Oh my God. What’s it for?
JOE: Protection. A second skin. I can stop wearing it if you—
LOUIS: How can you stop wearing it if it’s a skin? Your past, your beliefs, your—
JOE: I know how you feel, I keep expecting Divine Retribution for this, but . . .
I’m actually happy. Actually.
LOUIS: You’re not happy, that’s ridiculous, no one is happy. What am I doing? With you? With anyone, I should be exterminated but with you: I mean politically, and, and you’re probably bisexual, and, and I mean I really like you a lot, but—
(Joe puts his hand over Louis’s mouth.)
LOUIS: So, like, this is kind of hot . . .
JOE: Shut up, OK?
(Louis nods. Joe takes his hand off Louis’s mouth and, after looking all around, kisses him, deeply.)
JOE: You know why you find the world so unsatisfying?
(Louis shakes his head no.)
JOE: Because you believe it’s perfectible.
LOUIS: No I—
JOE: You tell yourself you don’t, but you do, you cling to fantasies of perfection, and, and kindliness, and you never face the sorrow of the world, its bitterness. The parts of it that are bitter.
LOUIS (Intrigued): Huh.
JOE: You have to reconcile yourself to the world’s unperfectibility.
LOUIS (Nodding): Reconcile. And . . . And how do you do that?
(Joe kisses Louis again, begins to unbutton Louis’s shirt.)
JOE: By being thoroughly in the world but not of it.
LOUIS: You, you mean like a like an Emersonian kind of kind of thing? I don’t see how that’s um workable, practical, given, you know, emotions and—
(Joe bites Louis’s nipple.)
LOUIS: Oh God . . .
JOE: You have to accept that we’re not put here to make the entire earth into a heaven, you have to accept we can’t. And accept as rightfully yours the happiness that comes your way.
