GAME 6 (from SPT's Poet's Theatre Jamboree 2005)

GAME 6
a play by John Sakkis
directed by Kevin Killian

Characters
The SPORTSCASTER Geoffrey Dyer
AELFRIC’S COLLOQUY Stephanie Young
The REV Judith Goldman
JON BON Kevin Killian
MAN in BLACK Brandon Brown
bARNONE Logan Ryan Smith

[Setting: Concord, California. Characters have gathered in a house to watch the 2002 World Series. San Francisco Giants vs. Anaheim Angels, Game 6, Seventh inning. Giants lead 5-0. A living room. Characters scattered about the stage all looking at the television.

Scene opens with The Scorpions “Send Me An Angel” playing (0:00-0:10 seconds)]

The SPORTSCASTER (from downstage). Bottom of the seventh, Giants lead the Angels 5-0, Ortiz on the mound, what a gem he’s pitched so far.

[AELFRIC’S COLLOQUY walks from stage left to stage right in front of characters holding a sign that reads “ON HAPPINESS.”]

SPORTSCASTER (as she walks across the stage). You may remember the tenth century grammarian, Aelfric, and the the form he invented, the Colloquy, just as you may remember the famous Rally Monkey, the beloved people’s mascot of the Anaheim Angels.

The REV. You’re the Jon Bon right?

JON BON (distracted). Yeah. [To the television.] Eight outs people, just eight more outs.

The REV. Jon Bon Jovi?

MAN in BLACK (MIB). I thought you lived in New Jersey.

JON BON. Nah. That Jersey thing’s just a schtick. I was born and raised here in Concord, California the (hand gestures the “quote” signal) “New Jersey” of the Bay Area.

The REV (to the tune of “Shot Through the Heart”). A wake, a bat, a vespertune
The little boy must row
To sway and paddle to the moon
Fall Classic here we go!

[The REV and MAN In BLACK (MIB) begin a “mimed” heated conversation.]

bARNONE (to himself and audience). A cold flower bursting willow before that white gurgling fish! One compartment sour, though closed for the better. To the hall, the one, the second floor up, hovering, still-sour, a foot print on the face of the room.

[Only now do we hear the heated conversation.]

The REV. Um . . . but that’s exactly what I’m talking about. I mean from red string, what that implies, to ribbon, “sugar and spice and everything nice,” to scrunchie, like . . .like . . . like . . . to . . . well, a Giants baseball cap (points at JON BON’s head). My point is, Natalie Portman might be at the game right now, or Sean Young for that matter, or Ashlee Simpson. And none of them are wearing a red ribbon!

The SPORTSCASTER. Looks like they’re pulling Russ Ortiz after giving up two consecutive singles. Boy oh boy what a night he’s had!

JON BON (more to himself or the television). You know my wife’s a martial artist. Black belt in Tai Kwon Do. She’s an A’s fan. Sometimes we have to fight over the television, you know, conflicting schedules and what not, she usually wins. I don’t really mind though, the A’s have really good commercials.

MAN in BLACK (MIB). The knot, how I see it, is as antiquated as “a red ribbon in her hair”—(pulls a red ribbon from pocket, swings it in front of The REV’s face, who is annoyed)—or for that matter, “The Thong Song.” It seems to me we’re talking about a kind of fashion, and as you know—(points at The REV’s outfit)—well actually, fashion is something that exists in the process not the product.

bARNONE. Two kinds of magic. The law of contact or contagion and the practice of similarity. Among themselves, the red crack of salt.

JON BON and The REV (together, holding hands, sung as a ballad). A wake, a bat, a vespertune
The little boy must row
To sway and paddle to the moon
Fall Classic here we go!

AELFRIC’S COLLOQUY (dressed as the Anaheim Angels “Rally Monkey” walks from stage left to stage right holding a sign that reads “ON DESPAIR” while shouting). Teacher, what do you say, plowman, how do you perform your work. Plowman, dear lord, I work hard!!!

JON BON (to bARNONE). I remember watching the last episode of Family Ties a few years back, probably 11 or 12. One of those cop out finales where the family sits around the living room reminiscing about all the crazy times they’ve had, usually because someone is going to college or getting married or whatever, while the viewer has to revisit those crazy times through flashbacks to old episodes from past seasons, at least I think it was one of those episodes. Anyway, outside of that episode I only remember two others, the one where the blonde haired sister, not Justine Bateman, the ugly one, throws a weekend kegger while her parents are away, and when her parents get home, the only reason why they know anything went on is because they find an empty beer bottle behind the drapes in the living room. The third episode is when Alex’s girlfriend cheats on him with Alex’s best friend, actually come to think of it, scratch that, it was the other way around. Alex’s best friend’s girlfriend cheats on Alex’s best friend with Alex. Yeah that’s right. Out of all the half hours I spent watching that show why in the hell do you think those are the only three episodes I remember?

The SPORTSCASTER. Two men on and Scott Spiezio at the plate . . .

[The next dialogue should be read hurriedly, a flurry of one liners.]

bARNONE (excitedly). “Hermione is chaste, Polixenes blameless, Camillo a true
subject . . .”

The REV. I think I know this one!! But who said “the pun is vulgar to the vulgus?”

bARNONE. “Leontes a jealous tyrant.”

The REV (to MAN in BLACK (MIB). What’s the etymology of “hella”?

bARNONE. As if Eurobus was a sea-board and all that blood.

JON BON. Hey—Barnone. I got one. What do you call people from the Bay Area?

MAN in BLACK (MIB). Bay Areans?

JON BON. Okay so how many Bay Areans does it take to screw in a light bulb?

[All characters stop what they’re doing and turn to JON BON.]

bARNONE. Bearing the golden bough. “I can’t imagine what the Duke of Wellington would say about the music of Duke Ellington . . .”

JON BON (impishly). Well . . . how many?

ALL. “Hell’ve em.”

bARNONE. Come to think of it, dancing and laughing on the beach. The spine of the ear would snap, the sludge or anybody’s heart.

[JON BON starts walking stage left shaking his head in contemplation.]

The REV. Where you off to? This is your party. Hey, who said “the baby glove of a pharaoh can be so presented as to bring tears to the eyes”?

JON BON (to The REV). Really, you should stop. You guys heard of Steve Orth, ‘from the caves of cocaine!,’ or something like that. I swear, fucking guy thinks he’s Bruce Springsteen.

bARNONE. That even in savage bosoms, allows us to connect it to a precise modality. Beard as a mask to disguise it for Christ’s sake!

The REV. Longfellow . . . right? typical.

bARNONE (to MAN in BLACK). What about movies?

MAN in BLACK (MIB). What about them? . . . I guess I liked Return To Oz . . .

JON BON (now interested, though still watching the game). Oh yeah...with that girl from that teenage witch movie, real cat-toothed, Sabrina something right?

MIB (flatly). Fairuza Balk.

bARNONE. Cat-teeth, twin sister of Apollo, methinks I stand on thorns till I begin, in other words, all that this earth can afford.

JON BON. Fairuza Balk.

bARNONE. When in Concord I held a café door open for a woman, she passed me, turning toward me, tensed up, looked at me as if I were American.

AELFRIC’S COLLOQUY (from backstage; this speech should be read simultaneously with JON BON’s on stage though in a slightly lower voice). For pony is griffin can me magi gone and past world for when mod Sefan mine new guess worse, pony is ear-lift eel gone pence, who his far-lice fleet often on, mode magi-Pegasus. Say piss miss-and-year eel ray dog-ray get him dressed and feel it; for pony no magi war-pony with where air hearse winter dale in world rice. With a seal Gepyldig, no seal no to hath car not to red-word, no to whack with a not to when-dig, no to fort not to fakin’ no to fee-fire, no nefarious Gepyldig to gone, air he gear Angel.

The SPORTSCASTER (in the middle of AELFRIC’s and JON BON’s speeches shouts loudly over both of them). Spiezio hits a home run!! Spiezio hits a home run!! An a-mazing turn of events! This is the meaning of Seventh Heaven ladies and gents! The Rally Monkey has spoken!

JON BON. You know, this all reminds me of someone. Jimmy Keys is just like Jimmy The Jeweler . . . you know . . . in Concord they got Eddie The Hat. We know all those guys. Spooky Steve, Tommy Thumbs. You know, Joey Keys. The cuteness of it is that he’s a little slow, and yet he was the bag man, or he was the guy who could pick a lock, or he was the guy that you thought was a moron. But it’s a fictional character. I was thinking of The Pope Of Greenwich Village, and we talked about the relationship between Mickey Rourke and Eric Roberts, and “Charlie, they got my thumb” you know . . . and guys like that are always in the romantic version. They’re gonna win! They’re gonna make it! And the Giants . . . the Giants are like Elton John on “Yellow Brick Road . . .”

MIB and The REV (together). In a bit hollow tears the beaker back, the tear in a shell comes out after the sun, and waking or ripping, the peal, the sun that feels its bundle wayward under sack.

bARNONE (should begin the line at “the sun that feels its bundle” in the line above). And burns what feet it finds cracking as stone and brine, and beginning to run after picking-up on the peal under that bike-trail weaving partly through the tracks.

MAN in BLACK and The REV (together; should begin the line at “and beginning to run after” in the line above). In the crab-apple some sour falling prickly stems mashed in the cracks of peal, or moths the salty wings and powder brings the red-light and bark-tree, or smoke reeling.

bARNONE (should begin the line at “powder brings the red-light” in the line above). About the wicker-webs and small window opened, or occurring in the full heel.

JON BON (to audience sung as a ballad). Buckner was a fine excuse
and through his legs went all
the Giants blew the chance to win
which way went the ball

[END.]