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Below we have reprinted with kind permission colin talbot's one-person play called "Faust Unplugged".

The Travenworld Reporter reviewed this play's opening season, at the Universal Theatre in Fitzroy, and we were so knocked out by the show, that we decided to reprint part of the text. This play, 'This text (or part thereof) is copyright (c) Colin Talbot 1999.

There is only the larger part of the first act presented here, and if you wish to perform this play, please email us for the whole text and we will arrive at some mutually beneficial agreement. And to go to further information sheet about the play, please click on this one!

presenting

the new classic play....

"Faust unplugged"

By colin talbot

50 minutes


1999©

Faust is a fading rock star on the eve of his 50th birthday, talking to us in the dressing room before he takes the stage for yet another show.

...

SLOW FADE UP.
ROOM WITH A TV. BED. CHAIR. NEWSPAPER.
GUITAR CASE.
ENTER FAUST STAGE LEFT WEARING BLACK
FRAME SUNGLASSES. DRESSED LIKE A COOL
WITH-IT SUPERSTAR . LONG WIG. ABOUT TO GO ONTO STAGE.
CONFIDENT. SUNGLASSES USED AS DESIRED
THROUGHOUT THE FIRST ACT
TWO TELEGRAMS SLIPPED UNDER THE DOOR.
WATCHES. FINALLY. PICKS UP TELEGRAM ONE.
READS.

‘Break a leg.’ That’s original.

NOW TELEGRAM 2.

‘Happy 50th birthday Faust
50 years of good rockin’
kick arse tonight!’

Thanks thanks a million pal.
Fifty!
Get thee behind me, fifty!
To a nunnery get thee fifty.

MAKES OUT TO WARD OFF INVISIBLE FOES
PLAYS WITH SUNGLASSES.
RECITES

Shades away!
vanish from mine eyes shades shades,
aye and I will hold fast,
as if we were, as it were, tied to the
mast, and fuck the ghosts
of christmas past.

WALKS TO THE BIN.

And quieten, hush my startled heart

SCREWS UP TELEGRAMS PUTS IN BIN.

Used to get fuck-0-grams. Horny chick
comes in some kind of bikini or lingerie.
Sings ‘Happy birthday mr president.
unwrap this’. Weeeooo

PREPARES FOR THE STAGE

(SINGS SLOW BEATLES BALLAD STYLE)
my heart does sing
the magic that you bring
the love you are making
apathy, apathy
*************

Used to be this graffiti
up in north carlton square.
apathy rules, that’s what it said,
on a nice brick wall up there.
pissed me right off it did
so I went and wrote ‘who cares’.
who cares without the question mark,
as if the statement didn’t care.
as if the very statement
didn’t care

I don’t know if the sign’s still there,
might be. might not be.
I been there and back I swear.
Hollywood even did the story.
Fifty million reasons not to care

Man wakes up one morning
and discovers that he’s gone blind.
a fungool day as the Italians say
guaranteed to blow your mind...

No, he wakes up to discover that he has
turned 50.
the big 5.0.

(BEGINS TO APPLY MAKE-UP)
There’s a newspaper in the room.
Obviously been read. Or at least glanced
at.
That surely proves I have interests in
things! That I’m young. That I need a hit
of rock n roll every day!
I’m not old. Or, do old people read
newspapers? That’s what they do! They
read newspapers. That’s a known fact.

Why else would I have a newspaper? I
wouldn’t read a newspaper if I was young,
that’s what they’d think. Perhaps I had
better feign disinterest in things.

LAUGHS FOR THE PARANOID’S HIDDEN CAMERA,
THE WAY THE PARANOID WILL ALWAYS ACT AS
IF BEING SPIED UPON. PACES. PICKS UP
NEWSPAPER & READS.

‘A star who recently turned 50, yesterday
claimed that fame had not changed a
thing. He still is the warm funny and
lovable guy that everybody remembers from
the small town.
He said quote If I had to do it all over
again I would . . .
Kill myself. Unquote.’

(IMITATING LAWYER AT ANNOUNCER)
Trial of Faust.
Murder in the First.
Exhibit One. The Newspaper.

IMITATING LAWYER
Your Worship, learned colleagues, ladies
and gentlemen of the jury, I put it to
you that my client has a great interest
in life! He reads! He is not dead of
spirit.
Except I’m fat. I’m fucked and I’m 50.
Te moraturi Salute
All right, a man has turned 50.
Somewhere a timekeeper has taken a stick
from one pile and placed that stick in
another pile, you got a fucking cosmic
beancounter. That’s all you got.

ADDRESSES AUDIENCE.
Look. I am you. And you are me. And
we...are...
Ageing.
The whole fucking universe is ageing.
Some bits fauster than others.
Oh well.

LOOKS AT NEWSPAPER

This newspaper yesterday’s. The news is
old, stale, rehashed.
Yesterday’s Paper, yet I’ll wager few can
spot the difference.

THROWS THE NEWSPAPER DOWN

I’m not ashamed of yesterday. It was,
aye, there’s the rub, that much is known.
Alas poor yesterday, I knew it well, a
day of infinite just.
(STARTS TO GET HIS STAGE EQUIPMENT READY)

In fact, that’s where history is.
Yesterday. So when the poets say that
love can never die, and love conquers
all, and love this and love that, well
it’s just...
...so much fucking crap. Pardon a moi
french.

She’s gone for something, and she won’t
be back.
(PAUSE)
Seems so long ago now...
Just another show, a gig I did in some
small town, just one for the road.

I don’t even think about her that often.

(SINGS LOW KEY BALLAD A LA LOU REED)
It’s always the same, da da da.
Sooner or later let pain come,
Just like an old friend you’ve not seen,
in many a year.
The love you once held near is spilt now,
drippin’ down the drain
like leftover wine, da da da da,
like leftover wine.
**************

50 years old man.
50 fucking years old.
Fucking 50 fuckin years fucking old. Man.

Who said Grey is theory but green is the
tree of life? Someone who never worked in
a coalmine.

Someone who had never turned 50. Someone
who had it all. Someone who had a hit
record last week. Someone who never knew
The Hunger! Someone who didn’t know
colour theory.
Someone who was so much younger

First time I was on tour, we were
supporting this American band.
And I pulled this bird, as we called
babes then, in Adelaide of all places, on
tour as I said, and took her back to the
motel. TV and two beds. We were only
third on the bill didn’t have the A-Grade
accomodashe. I was sharing the room with
this guy from another band he was fast
asleep held in the arms of Morpheus so
outside the door I can hear this noise
and I get up and have a look and it’s--
Get this—a line of fucking guys.
Must be 20 guys. And it’s raining
outside. Cheap Motel. The door opens
straight onto the open balcony. In this
lineup of guys--Our roadie, couple of the
guys from the American band’s road crew,
couple of members of the other band, two
guys I never seen before. All pissed as.
Swaying around smiling mindlessly. Not
really looking at me. Avoiding my gaze.
‘You done yet?’ the first guy says. Like
Huh? Like What? Slowly sinks in. This be
your gang bang.
And I say excuse me for a moment and I
ever so nice
close the door and turn to the girl, that
whose name I can’t recall offhand, and I
say,

SINGS
I’m aint no hero who is heaven sent
aint no superman under this clark kent
aint no lions or tigers in this zoo
just some fat fucking freak turning 50.
Aye oh!
I aint no santa claus come to
free the masses
I be just some poor dude
Got his feet stuck in molasses
And the golden moment is gone
It’s just the memory lives on
Just the memory
lives on.
scooboobababababandadoob a doobopa
langbang skippity skagaloo
**********
TURNS ON THE TELEVISION SET. IT FLICKERS
GREY ON A NON CHANNEL

PULLS OUT A GREY HAIR FROM HIS HEAD.
EXAMINES IT.

256 shades of fucking grey.
Oh man. Like bad reception on a black and
white TV. All grey man, all these shades
of grey. The Big 5-0.




My manager says I have to dye.
Spell check was required from the
motherfucker. From Mr Fucking 50 per
fucking cent.

That’s d y e not d i e

Something’s just have to be spelled out!

I played at the End of Vietnam War
concert in Central Park in 1975.
They wanted Bette Midler to be there,
they said Hey! the war is over Bette. And
she said, spell it out for me...does that
mean all the killing has stopped? And
they said, ah, well, by and large. By and
Large. The killing has stopped by and
large.

And she never did play.
Patti Smith was there.

Abbie Hoffman said never trust anyone
over 30.
He said Never trust anyone who doesn’t
smoke dope at least once a day.
Now I’m fucking 50. Abbie Hoffman’s dead,
man. The revolution? The revolution was
inside and that’s dead.
Happy Birthday to me bullshit.

GOES TO THE TELEPHONE. RINGS. NO ANSWER.
Fuck. Fuckalino Fuckissimo. Oh man.

STARTS SINGING.
‘I’m going down to the old supermarket
With that stolen credit card
In my hand.
With the stolen American express card
carrying communist plastic exploding
inevitable motherfucking nightmare on
turning fifty street burning a hole right
here in my elbow.
***************
HOLDS HIS ARM OUT. LOOKS AT HIS ARM.
MIMES A STICK-UP.

Give me all ya got!

Me and This Guy, had this scam, walked
into the bank, this is going back quite a
few years, only had bankbooks then, no
plastic,
Lunchtime man, the bank was full-on.
Crowded to fuck, man. Big lines. Friday
afternoon. Business banking.

So we decided to come back Monday. Lucky
Lucky lucky. They were waiting for us.
The Commonwealth Po-lice.
They didn’t have us, just the bankbook
number. We never went back. And they
never came knocking. Just dumb luck I
guess. Huh.
The other guy, he died of an OD a few
years back. Lived the drug outlaw life.

Such as it was. Better him than me.
Ladies and Gentleman, Mr Faust has left
the building

All my friends are dead or in jail or
living overseas, or working in hit
musicals on Broadway or making half a
million a fucking film in Los Fucking
Angelinos and not returning my calls.

And I was one of them.
I was one of them who wouldn’t return the
call of someone like me who didn’t have
anything to offer anymore.
Because there was like a big long endless
line of rock and rollers with their
guitar carry cases and the ones behind
were looking at the ones in front and
wishing they were them and the ones in
front were looking at the ones further up
the line and so on.

No one was happy man.
And nobody dared to look back.
Where is truth. Behind you? Or in front
of you? Or where you are?

WIPES A TEAR FROM HIS EYE.

Still things could be worse. Depression’s
a luxury. You gotta laugh, Aye you do
indeed lad.

Sometimes I got a heavy heart. So much
sadness.
It is with a heavy heart that I must
announce that we have commenced bombing.
Bombing bubbly bouncing bambinos in
Bombay. Bombing bulging bazzoomers on Big
Broadway Babes. Bombs Away my beautiful
children, we’ll just drop a few more,
then I promise we’ll stop. Okay? And
we’ll all have icecreams on Uncle Sam!
How’s that sound? Sweets all around!

SINGS
Snatches of a song half forgotten
A tune half remembered
A body half dismembered
Half hanging out of one dimension
Half Hanging In another

TRIES THE PHONE AGAIN.
My heart is heavy man. It’s
transubstantiated. Had a heart of gold
Now it’s lump of fucking base metal
dragging around my neck like a goddamn
ball and chain.

I sold the good bits long ago.
Anything that wasn’t bolted down that I
couldn’t rip off or tear off or snip or
rip or tear or lever off or roll down
hill or push through a broken fence or
slip it into the boot or hide it under
the overcoat…or palm down my sleeve or
leave it at the pawn shop.

Anyone who had a transplant would look at
me and see a hollow man. Someone on the
waiting list.
There goes a Dead Heart. They would say.

Alone I traverse the icy wastelands
searching for a donor.
I’ll cut the fucker’s heart out, I’ll
kiss it and make it mine. Make it mine.
Make it mine.

I’m 50 years old. I been in this business
for 30 years. But Tonight. I turn 50.
Actually. Out there. Out in the
spotlight. I suppose it’s all
approximations, I don’t know. But at
midnight I was borne. One minute past.
Equivalent to in the middle of my set. In
the middle of a fucking crowd pleaser,
some piece of shit I have been doing for
the last 15 years straight. An audience
favourite.

That’s when I’ll turn 50. Symbolically
open my eyes to the world. On stage. The
operating theatre. Fat fucked and fifty.

ENDS ACT ONE

BLACKOUT. SINGER EXITS TO GO ON IMAGINARY
STAGE. THE ROAR OF THE CROWD. THE MUSIC
STARTS & VOICE WHICH COULD BE FAUST
DISGUISED COMES OVER A P.A.
ladies and gentlemen put your hands
together for a living legend, the rock
superstar faustus

INTERMEZZO


then follows act two, fabulous of course, worth a read.

the world premiere of this play was performed in

Melbourne in March 1999 by

Lindzee Smith.

ENDS

Faust unplugged