I.S. is...
Scene 1: ISOLATION SOCIETY. Kate comes up from the audience and stands up in front of the ear sign…
Kate: Listen.
Talitha sits on the edge of the stage reading the Metamorphosis and wiggling her feet. She reads:
Talitha: When one morning David Crawford awoke from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.
Alex and David alone. David looks over to Alex
David: sorry, pal, I have to do this alone.
Alex backs up hesitantly. David steps up.
David: There comes a time when we all have to stand up and face our own identity head on. My time has come. through the years I have felt a certain unsettling feeling, you know, that knot in your throat that keeps you from crying sometimes. My inner self was telling me, that something in me needed to be discovered, and I have discovered this, and with you as witnesses, I now declare: I , David Robert Crawford, am…..a feminist.
Alex: it’s ok, you’re not alone.
CHORUS LINE ENTERS FROM SIDE OF STAGE: F-E-M-I-N-I-S-T-S
Apple rolls from the side of stage, Yi-Tao bends down to pick it up, and is separated from chorus line. all react in disgust, rejecting him, clustering and gossiping, “they’re coming to take you away, haha.” cumulatively.
Yi-Tao: NOOOOOOO! (everyone leaves) Here they come.
Brian and Michael and Cez, lipsinging “Here come the Men in Black”, take him away.
Scene 2: Call Box sign:
Jenna: Communicate.
The MIB come in with Wai-tai and throw him. (is there anybody out there) One by one the inmates enter and stare at him. (Blair, Lisa, A, Kate, Liz, Ariela) Once they have all arrived, Talitha walks across, reading a book. Inmates and Why-tie? follow her across with their eyes.
Yi-Tao: So…..
Kate: What!?
Jenna (from offstage): Oh, she can’t hear anything.
Yi-Tao: Oh, Ok…why?
Sarah walks across with box saying “What makes a good question?” (Sarah always goes unnoticed) Yi-Tao shakes hands with everyone.
Kate: Welcome to our happy home.
Lisa (who must shake with her left hand because her seed is in her right): You’re going to love it here.
Liz: No one loves it here. (Yi-Tao goes right through Liz.)
Blair: The w… the wall…
Kate: Speak up!!
Blair shakes his head. Yi-tao tries to shake Ariela’s hand. Ariela spasms.
Scene 3: U-Turn Sign
Cez: There’s no turning back.
Tifanny goes to IS sign, tears it down. New sign reads: INANE SUBJECTION. Cez starts handing out pills. He almost touches Ariela’s hand when he gives it to her. She pulls back, he puts it on a table, she picks it up. When the inmates have taken their pills, they cluster near the piano, playing checkers, chess, etc.
Cez: Next
Lisa (who is next): It won’t grow. How can I make it grow?
Cez: Try some water. (which he has to help them swallow the pills. She pours the water, and stares at the seed. It doesn’t grow. She takes her pill and swallows it. Sarah carries across box with “Is it ever too late?”)
Cez: listlessly Next (Kate is next. She can’t hear.) NEXT! (She looks up.)
Kate: Hm? What? Speak up! (Cez sighs, shoves pills in her hands. She takes them.)
Cez: Next (Liz is next. )
Liz: Why are you trying to fix us? Some things are meant to be broken.
(Cez can’t see her. He continues to shout next until, exasperated, Liz moves away and Amy moves up, taking a pill.)
Cez: Hey, where are your glasses?
A: I don’t need glasses!
Cez: Put them on!
A: I lost them!
Cez: Where did you last see them?
A: I mean, they broke…
Cez: How?
A: Well, I fell off the roof, and they were crushed.
Cez: We’ll fix them!
Liz (to whoever’s near her): Some things are meant to be broken! (Noone hears)
A: Ahhhhh! Here they are. (She puts them on, walks away, and takes them off.)
Cez: Next.
Blair: The wall is… (Cez shoves the pill in his hand. He stops talking to take it)
Kate: Speak up! (Blair rushes to where everyone else is. Wongo sits at the piano. She plays a song, squinting at the music without her glasses.)
Ariela: Play something of your own composition. (Wongo takes away the music, plays one note. Talitha starts walking across the stage with MacBeth)
Ariela: That’s so perfect!
Kate: So balanced, so stable.
Lisa: So unified.
Liz: But it’s boring! (Nobody hears. Nobody ever hears Liz. They look right through her.) What’s the point of creation with a possibility of variation if different is seen as incorrect?
Blair: Spotless, infallible.
Talitha: …Out damn spot!
Everyone but Liz: Perfect. (Blackout)
Scene 4: One Way Sign
Kenneth: There’s only one way.
Tiffany pulls off sign. New one says: INTELLECTUAL STAGNATION. Jenna enters the classroom, picks up the conch, and blows. Although there is no noise, the students file into the classroom and sit.
Jenna: All right, today we will be doing math. Now, did you all do the assigned problems?
Liz: No
Jenna: Good. (Sara walks across with shopping cart with “ And she just leaves you alone in here?”) Too bad my hitman Guido only works on the weekends… Now, here is the correct way to do it. (She turns and writes on the board)
Inmates whispering: We don’t need no education (She turns)
Liz immediately raises her hand. Jenna looks placidly at the class. Eventually Ariela raises her hand. At that instant, Jenna points to her and says “yes?”
Ariela: Isn’t there another way to do that?
Jenna: There’s only one way. (she turns back to the board)
Inmates whispering: We don’t need no thought control. (She turns to the class. Blair raises his hand; she calls on him.)
Blair: The wall isn’t… (Jenna turns away)
Inmates whispering: No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Kate: What? (Time to go…Jenna leaves Tiffany pulls away next sign to reveal: IN SANITY)
Inmates shouting: Teachers leave us kids alone! (Teachers Leave Us Kids Alone)
Scene 5:
Lisa: I still can’t get it to grow, guys!
Talitha (walking across with Candide): We have to cultivate our garden.
Liz (to Ariela): Doesn’t the word In Sanity imply that we’re the only ones who are sane?
Kate: Plants need light. (Lisa brings it to a lamp, looks at it, shakes her head.)
Liz (to A, frustrated): Why are the ones who want to be heard the most the ones we condemn to silence?!
Ariela: Sing to it. (Lisa hums Twinkle Twinkle, looks down, looks up dissappointed)
Liz (to Blair): Have you ever noticed that our society condones driving on parkways and parking on driveways?
A: Why don’t you plant it?
Liz (to audience): She can’t let it go.
Lisa: NO! I need it to be near me. I can’t let it go.
Sarah comes in with question “Where is the past?” on a Nordstrom’s bag
Kate: Where IS the past? (She did not see Sarah. Noone ever sees Sarah.)
Liz (to Kate): It’s in the pills. (Kate hears, and makes eye contact with Liz before announcing to the group.)
Kate: It’s in the pills.
Inmates (echoing): It’s in the pills! (They sing the pills song)
Liz: They steal our memories with every swallow. (Kate echos, shouting, to inmates. They uproar)
Liz: Are we to stand by as they erase our past? (the same Sarah walks across with Ariela’s straightjacketed child picture. She turns it around. On the back it says “Who stole my rubber chicken?”)
Liz: Are we going to lie down and take this oppression? (Never!)
Liz: UNITE!
Kate: Inmates of the world…. UNITE! We will no longer tolerate this isolation from society, this intellectual stagnation! (Inmates uproar, move into a line, all holding hands except Ariela, who grudgingly raises her hand, keeping it away from contact. They begin to sing: )
Inmates: No more isolation, the chains of the inmates untied! A new… (Evita interrupted by Men in Black. Men In Black enter, with a flourish from The Wall. The inmates freeze until the MIB move off to the corner. Spotlight on MIB, as the inmates continue their revolution in darkness. Except for A, who stand under the Caution Sign)
Scene 6:
A: Individuals at work. (Moves back to inmates. )
Brian: Hey, dude, what do they think they’re doing?
Michael: Yeah, I don’t think they’re supposed to be doing that…
Alex: Hey, David (Sarah starts to cross the stage with the flyswatter, from which dangles “Why did the chicken cross the road?” Talitha follows, reading a book.)
David: Yeah?
Alex: Why’d the first monkey fall out of the tree?
David: Dunno.
Alex: It died. Why’d the second monkey fall out of the tree?
David. Dunno.
Alex: It died. Why’d the third monkey fall out of the tree?
Michael: It died?
Brian: No, peer pressure.
Talitha (from book): To get to the other side!
Brian: Come one, guys, you know what we have to do.
Cez (coming out of the wings): It’s vegetable time!
(Their revolution is stopped by the MIB, who restrain the inmates and lead them off , all but Ariela. A MIB tries to grab her, she spasms and quotes Ophelia.)
Scene 7: Exit Sign
Y-Thai: There must have been a door there in the wall when I came in. (Sarah walks across with a large, strange object, which says “Where is the door?” Tiffany pulls across the sign which reveals: INTERNAL SUFFOCATION. Why-Thy goes to sit down with the rest of the inmates, who are looking around confused. They are tied down, but make no attempts to break free, except for Talitha, who is contorting herself to reach the book stuck to her ankle.)
Lisa: Why are we here?
A: I don’t know.
Liz: Maybe this is our time of judgement.
Kate: What? Speak up!
Ariela: Nobody said anything, Kate. (Trial Music starts to play (stops before words). Kenneth steps up to his pulpit, bangs gavel.)
Kenneth: Oyay, Oyay, all rise for the honorable Judge Wu. (Nobody stands) All RISE! (Still nobody) Oh, forget it. Now, we’re here to try the inmates of In Sanity. I personally think they should get the death sentence.
Ethel: No, don’t lose your temper, Judge Wu. (Sarah walks across with Uncle Vodka and a bottle)
Amy: You’ve already sent two innocent people to be boiled down to soap.
Kenneth: Aya…. TWO people, just TWO people!!!
Wen: Now, these inmates have been charged with individual thought….
Julia: Nonconformist attitudes….
Ethel: Revolutionary conspiracy…
Amy: Violation of the copyrights of Pink Floyd…
All Prosecuters: And singing out of tune to Evita!
Kenneth: Guilty!
Wye-Tye: Don’t we even get to defend ourselves? Kenneth: Let the persecution I mean prosecution begin! (Trial Song starts at words.)
Prosecuters: Good morning Wu your honor The crown will plainly show The prisoner who now stands before you Was caught redhanded showing feelings Showing feelings of an almost human nature Shame on him This will not do.
Kenneth: Call the schoolmaster!
Jenna: I always said he’d come to no good In the end your honor If they’d let me have my way I could’ve Flayed him into shape But my hands were tied The bleeding hearts and artists Let him get away with murder Let me hammer him today
Yi-Tao: Crazy, Toys in the attic I’m crazy They must have taken my marbles away (Inmates echo, then music stops.)
Ethel: We call as our next witness
Prosecuters: Yi-Tao Wang. (Spotlight on him. Sarah walks across with bottle, now empty, which says “Why me?”)
Julia: What started the revolution in the Southeast Inmates Ward ?
Wen: Where were you on the night of July 8th at 9:17 pm?
Ethel: What is the average velocity of an unladen sparrow?
Amy: Did you or did you not paint the roses red? (Stop music starts)
Why-Exactly-Tai?: Stop. I wanna go home Take off this uniform and leave the show And I’m waiting in this cell because I have to know Have I been guilty all this time? (Stop music stops West Side Story Gap Commercial music starts, “crazys” dance against the “sane” )
Wen: I call Lisa Hollingsworth (Spot on her)
Lisa: I was just trying to make it grow. Why won’t it grow?
Amy: I call Catherine Fox. (Spot on her. She does not change her expression or position. Louder) I CALL CATHERINE FOX!
Kate: Speak up, for God’s sake!
Brian: I call Ariela Ronay (Spot on her)
Ariela: The plague spreads through touch.
Liz: So does conformity.
Michael: I call Blair Beverly (Spot on him. It flicks on Liz, who starts to speak, and continues to Blair)
Blair: The wall isn’t there… The wall isn’t there to…
Prosecuters and MIB: That’s enough
Alex: I call Amy Lee Wong. (Spot on her) Where are your glasses?
A: I can see better than you can.
Alex: You can’t even read your music.
A: No. (to prosecuters and MIB) I can see that you are scared of us for our self-possession. (to Kenneth) I can see you are going to sentence us for falling out of your man-made order. (to Yi-Tao) I can see that he doesn’t belong here at all. (to audience) I can see…
Alex: That’s enough
A: I can see that none of us do! (Trial Music starts again)
Y-TY: Crazy Over the rainbow I am crazy Bars in the window There must have been a door there in the wall when I came in
Inmates: Crazy Over the rainbow he is crazy.
Kenneth: The evidence before the court is Incontravertable there’s no need for the jury to retire
Liz: There is no jury!
Kenneth: In all my years of judging I have never heard before Of someone more deserving The full penalty of law They way you made them suffer your exquisite wife and mother Fills me with the urge to defecate But my friend, you have revealed Your deepest fear I sentence you to be exposed before your peers
Inmates: Tear down the wall! (Tear Down the Wall… The curtain begins to close. Lisa, Blair, A, Kate, Liz, Ariela, and Why-Not? run out, pushing through the rapidly closing curtain. They stand in a line facing the audience. Tiffany runs out, pulls to reveal final sign: INDEPENDENT STUDY)
A: Just because I’m almost blind doesn’t mean I can’t see.
Kate: Speak up for what you believe in
Liz: Even if noone wants to listen
Ariela: Don’t be afraid to reach out.
Lisa: Or to let go.
Blair: The wall… The wall… (deep breath) The wall isn’t there to keep us in, it’s there to keep them out.
Inmates: The wall isn’t there to keep us in, it’s there to keep them out.
Yi-Tao takes out his apple. Bites. Blackout.
* ~ * Back to Potter Storm * ~ *
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