Every community has its hi-fi superconcussive sound nut. Find yours. Hire him. How? Lurk around your local woofer-tweeter outlet store. The guy with his hair standing on end, with a blind gaze and a bottle of ear medicine in his hand, is the expert at weird auditory hallucinations. Put up with him. Trust him. He will gladly run you up a sound tape of electronic moans, groans, and future musics as will fill the bill for The Veldt, and To the Chicago Abyss! Ignore the fact that he belongs to a motorcycle gang and is an astrology freak. You can’t have everything. Right now, the world of the future can be juiced into existence by superkinks such as he. I have had three tapes invented by a variety of unwashed technicians. All have been amazing. All have been of fine good use in providing yet one more element for our future plays.
In putting together your sound tape for The Veldt, your technician should be the next thing to an electronic composer. The scene where George commands the playroom to build him Egypt, the Pyramids, the Sphinx, Paris at the blue hour, etc., must be electronically orchestrated so we hear those things being reared up out of the earth into the sky, surrounding the audience with the sounds of electric creation.
Of course, if you are in high school or junior high school, lacking the hi-fi freak in the student body, search for some faculty member whose wig is permanently frazzled from too many hi’s and not enough bass. Every school has one. Flatter him by asking for his help. And when in doubt, simplicity is the answer here, also. A few bits of electronic sound and some really good lion roars will save The Veldt.
We have spoken at length about The Veldt. Now, let us move on to To the Chicago Abyss and The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit.
In both of these plays we used magic lantern projections, immense photographic eels tossed up on scrims behind the actors to indicate changes of scene.
My good friend Joe Mugnaini, who has illustrated many of my books during the last nineteen years, painted a series of futuristic sets which we projected in images roughly ten to fifteen feet tall, enabling us to shift scenes, change locales, in two or three seconds flat. The six young men pursuing life in their Ice Cream Suit were thus able to race from street to suit emporium to apartment to Red Rooster Cafe with no long mood-shattering pauses for set-movers to strike and rebuild.
Similarly, in To the Chicago Abyss, my Old Man who remembered mediocrities could amble from park to interior apartment to night train, crossing empty midnight country in the merest breath of time, because of our illustrated projections.
Joe Mugnaini painted us the whole interior apartment house in skeletal outline so one could x-ray up through floor levels at hundreds of rooms, empty of furniture, haunted by lonely people. At the play’s finale, he painted a eel on which were lumped and crammed the crowds of sleeping shadow people surrounding the Old Man on the late-night passenger train.
The inhabitants of the Ice Cream Suit live in a needed world of fantasy woven for them by the suit. The Old Man on his way to Chicago Abyss lives in his memories. Projected backgrounds, then, add yet another proper, right element to the people in these plays, immersed in dreams or half-dreams.
A minor but important detail. The scene in the Red Rooster Cafe where Toro grabs the Ice Cream Suit with Vamenos inside it must be played in SLOW MOTION, as indicated. This was an idea of Charles Rome Smith’s which came to him during rehearsals. It proved to be beautiful in execution, enabling the audience to savor every small part of this major encounter, the terror and despair of all the young men surrounding Toro, trying to get him to let go of the suit, the bravery of Gomez coming back again and again to say “Hit me, not him,” and being clouted for his trouble. All, all in the slowest motion, so we can see and hear every special instant up to the beautiful moment when Toro, struck on the head, slowly debates whether to accept unconsciousness, then, like an avalanche, subsides to the floor.
You are not going to be able to find six actors all with the same “skeletons” as Gomez puts it. So I dread to tell you the news, but you must have three or four or perhaps even five suits made and ready for the members of your cast, for the proper fit, and for the quick changes demanded by the scenes. We had five suits, which had to be cleaned two or three times a week. Luckily, our cleaner liked the play, and gave us rates!
Here, then, are the first three plays I wrote for my Pandemonium Theatre Company. Why such a company name? Because it pleased and delighted me. Because it was an unexpected and frivolous name to give a company of glad fools. And because it meant when you came into our theater, you never knew what special kind of hell might break loose.
Now…Let the lions run.Let the old man talk.The Pandemonium Theatre Company,from here on, is yours.
Ray BradburyLos AngelesAugust 22, 1971
The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit
Production Note: The simpler the sets the better. The scrim that represents the “city” should give way easily to the poolroom, which is no more than a pool table, a chair, a light, and a scales. The clothing store could easily be nothing more nor less than a collection of men’s dummies, with perhaps one small display case, a tie rack, and a mirror. The white suit itself could be enclosed in a curtained area to one side, and from it the “light” of the wonderful suit would emanate. The tenement room would be cots placed in a rough quadrangle. The bar would be a line of stools and some neon beer signs in the dark. The props should be everything: bright objects against dark backgrounds.
As the curtain rises, we see:
A lamppost in front of a cafe, a poolroom, a tenement. Three men lounge in various attitudes, enjoying the evening air. A jukebox is playing faintly somewhere. The three men seem to be waiting for something. They look here, they look there. Then: A stranger walks briskly through. He drags on a cigarette, throws it over his shoulder as he exits.
The cigarette makes a lovely arc of fire in the air, lands on the sidewalk, but is there only a moment when it is retrieved by Villanazul, perhaps the oldest of the six men we will meet whose lives are joined in this summer evening. Villanazul is our dreamer-philosopher, but his movements are swiftly practical for all that.
He lifts the cigarette high and comes back, exhibiting it to the others.
VILLANAZUL
A meteor falls from space! It leaves a path of fire in the dark. It lands among us. It changes our lives. He takes a deep puff, passes it to Vamenos, the dirty one, who sucks at it greedily. The third man, Martinez, has to seize it away from him. He takes a leisurely puff, hands it back to Villanazul. Then, together, the three men turn, look at the sky, the city, and exhale a soft breath of cigarette smoke.
ALL
Ahhhhh…
MARTINEZ
It’s a swell night, huh?
VAMENOS
Sure.
VILLANAZUL
Feel that silence. Ain’t that a fine silence. A man can think now. A man can dream-
VAMENOS
(puzzled but impressed)Hey … sure.
VILLANAZUL
In such weather as this-revolutions occur.
MARTINEZ
Nights like this you wish-lots of things.
VILLANAZUL
Thinking, I approve. Wishing however is the useless pastime of the unemployed.
VAMENOS
(snorts)Unemployed, listen to him! We got no jobs!
MARTINEZ
So we got no money, no friends.
VILLANAZUL
You, Martinez, have us. The friendship of the poor is real friendship.
MARTINEZ
Yeah but… Martinez stops, stares. The others stare with him. A handsome young Mexican with a fine thin moustache strolls by, a woman on each careless arm, laughing. A guitar plays beautifully as they pass. When they are gone, the guitar goes, fading, with them.
MARTINEZ
(slaps his brow)Madre mia, no! Two! How does he rate two friends?!
VILLANAZUL
Such friendships are easily come by.Economics, compadre.
VAMENOS
(chews his black fingernail)He means-that
guy’s got a nice brand-new summer suit. Looks sharp.
MARTINEZ
(watching the people go by)Sure. And how am I dressed? Eh? Who looks at me? There! In the tenement. You see her?(points)In the fourth-floor window, the beautiful girl leaning out? The long dark hair. She’s been there forever. That is to say, six weeks. I have nodded, I have smiled, I have blinked rapidly, I have even bowed to her, on the street, in the hall when visiting friends, in the park, downtown. Even now, look, I raise my hand, I move my fingers, I wave to her. And what happens-?
The others look, with Martinez, up and off in the air, waiting. Martinez lets his hand fall at last. They all slump.
VAMENOS
Nothing.
MARTINEZ
And more than nothing! Madre mia!If just I had one suit! One! I wouldn’t need money, if I looked OK…
VILLANAZUL
I hesitate to suggest that you see Gomez. But he’s been talking some crazy talk for a month now about clothes. I keep on saying I’ll be in on it to make him go away. That Gomez.
Another man has arrived, quietly, behind them.
THE MAN
Someone calls my name?
ALL
(turning)Gomez!
GOMEZ
(smiling)That’s me.
VILLANAZUL
Gomez, show Martinez what you got in your pocket!
GOMEZ
This?
Smiling, he pulls forth a long yellow ribbon which flutters in the air.
MARTINEZ
(blinking)Hey, what you doing with a tape measure?
GOMEZ
(proudly)Measuring people’s skeletons.
MARTINEZ
Skeletons?
Gomez squints at Martinez and snaps his fingers.
GOMEZ
Caramba! Where you been all my life? Let’s try you!
He measures Martinez’s arm, his leg, his chest. Martinez, uncomfortable, tries to fend him off.
GOMEZ
Hold still! Chest-perfect!Arm length-perfectamente!The waist! Ah! Now the heightTurn around! Hold still!
Martinez turns. Gomez measures him from foot to crown.
GOMEZ
Five foot five! You’re in. Shake hands!
MARTINEZ
(shaking hands, blankly)What have I done?
GOMEZ
You fit the measurements!(he stops)You got ten bucks?
VAMENOS
(pulling out money)I got ten bucks! I want a suit! Gomez, measure me!
GOMEZ
(shunning Vamenos)Andale! Andale!
MARTINEZ
(in awe)I got just nine dollars and 92 cents. That’ll buy a new suit? How come? Why?
GOMEZ
Because you got the right skeleton.
MARTINEZ
(pulling back)Mr. Gomez, I don’t hardly know you-
GOMEZ
Know me? You are going to live with me! Come on!
Gomez rushes through the poolroom door. The poolroom lights flash on to show us no more than one pooltable, a hanging overhead light, one chair, perhaps, and a weight scales to one side. Reluctantly, Martinez is pushed into the poolroom by a quietly competent Villanazul and an eager and fawning Vamenos. Two men, Manulo and Dominguez, look up from their game of pool as Gomez waves wildly at them.
GOMEZ
Manulo! Dominguez! The long search has ended!
MANULO
(drinks from wine bottle)Don’t bother him. He has a most important shot.
All stare as Dominguez uses his cue; the balls roll. They click. Everyone is happy. Gomez leaps in.
GOMEZ
Dominguez, we have our fifth volunteer!
Dominguez has tabled his cue and taken out a little book.
DOMINGUEZ
The game is done. The game begins. In my little black book here I have a list of names of happy women who-(he breaks off)Caramba! Gomez! You mean-?
GOMEZ
Yes! Your money! Now! Andale!
Dominguez is torn between his little book and his news. Manulo is torn between his wine bottle and the news. Finally Dominguez puts the book down, takes some rumpled money from his pocket, looks at it, throws it on the green table. Reluctantly, Manulo does the same. Villanazul imitates them, once cynical, but caught up at last now, in the excitement.
GOMEZ
Ten! Twenty! Thirty!
They look to Martinez who, disconcerted, nevertheless counts out his bills and change. To which Gomez adds his own money, lifting all the cash like a royal flush, waving it.
GOMEZ
Forty! Fifty bucks! The suit costs sixty! All we need is ten bucks!
VILLANAZUL
And the sooner the better, Gomez. That wonderful ice-cream suit won’t last forever. I seen people looking at it in the suit-store window. Only one of a kind! We got to hurry.
MARTINEZ
Wait there, hey! The suit? Uno?(holds up one finger)
GOMEZ
(does likewise)Uno. One.
MARTINEZ
Ice cream … ?
GOMEZ
White. White as vanilla ice cream, white white like the summer moon!
MARTINEZ
But who gets to own this one suit?
VILLANAZUL, MANULO, and DOMINGUEZ
(quickly, smiling, one after another)Me. Me. Me.
GOMEZ
Me. And you! OK, guys, line up!
Villanazul, Manulo, Dominguez rush to put their backs to the poolroom wall. Gomez lines up with them, fourth in line, and snaps a command at Martinez.
GOMEZ
Martinez, the other end!
Martinez takes his place at the other end of the line.
GOMEZ
Vamenos, lay that billiard cue across the tops of our heads!
VAMENOS
( eagerly)Sure, sure, sure!
Vamenos places the cue across the tops of the five men’s heads, moving along. The cue lies flat and without a rise or fall. Martinez leans out to see what is happening and is stunned with revelation.
MARTINEZ
Ah! Ah!
Gomez turns his head to smile down the line at Martinez.
GOMEZ
You see!
The men are laughing now, happy with this trick.
MARTINEZ
We’re all the same height!
ALL
(laughing almost drunkenly)Sure! Sure! The same!
Gomez runs down the line with his tape measure, rustling it about the men so they laugh even more.
GOMEZ
Sure! It took a month, four weeks, to find four guys the same size and shape as me, a month of running around, measuring. Sometimes I found guys with five-foot-five skeletons, sure, but all the meat on their bones was too much or not enough. Sometimes their bones were too long in the legs or too short in the arms. Boy, all the bones! But now, five of us, same shoulders, chests, waists, arms, and as for the weight? Men!(points)
The men march onto the weight scales, one after another. Vamenos, eager to be of service to his gods, puts in a penny for each. The machine grinds and lets drop for each a tiny card which he holds up to peer at, to read aloud, to announce proudly.
Bradbury, Ray - SSC 17 Page 2
