PUTANEK´S FEST

PUTANEK’S FEST

Operetta in two acts

Libretto: Candelaria Saenz Valiente

Music: Candelaria Saenz Valiente &
Marcin Masecki

“Putanek’s Fest” is a satire written both in verse and in prose, both sang and spoken. Many of the smaller sung parts are ad libitum and atonal.

“Putanek Fest” was originally conceived as a mostly black and white LIVE FILM (the audience being part of the film), performed and recorded live during the first three performance nights. The final montage of the film was intended to work separately in Film Festivals. This cinematic element is not a necessity to the project.

The dark, high contrast, obtuse and oblique angled aesthetics throughout is borrowed and developed from german expressionism. Video art elements and pre-filmed segments can be flashed on the scenery walls.

The music is unsettling, harsh and beautiful. As with some of the ad libitum sung parts, it is flexible to improvisation under a defined structure. It is meant to be performed live by a small, avant-garde jazz orchestra directed by Marcin Masecki: 13 members aproximately, consisting of synthesizers, Wurlitzer keys, upright piano, electronic performer, bass, drums, timpani, percussion -gong-, small string section & small brass section: 2 trombones, 2 trumpets, 2 french horns -optional- and a tuba.

MUSICAL OVERTURE

SCENE 1

The curtain opens to a stage in complete darkness but for a light on an oversized toilet (down left); standing beside it is young Putanek. He is dressed in black tights and a short gothic vest; he wears a belt around the middle of his protuberant belly. He is abominably jolly.

YOUNG PUTANEK (sings): Ha, haaaaaaaaa!

He is decisively bursting with glee as he grabs from the floor a neon sign with the word “Good”.

YOUNG PUTANEK (sings): Gooooooooood!

He then drops it into the toilet and flushes it down by pulling on a long chain.

YOUNG PUTANEK (sings): Ha, haaaaaaaaaaaaaa! (he sings his laughter in a higher pitch than the last).

Putanek grabs his crotch as if peeing.

Enter advancing forward motionless and silently (deep center) a choir of traditionalists (three women with handkerchieves on their heads). They have come begging for some sense and good tradition, some poetry perhaps and even a melody they can follow.

Putanek grabs another sign saying “Beauty”.

YOUNG PUTANEK (sings): Beauty!

He drops it into the toilet and flushes it down with the chain.

YOUNG PUTANEK (sings): Ha, haaaaaaaaaaaaaa! (even higher pitch).

Young Putanek has entered a state of complete and ecstatic delight. As he stretches his arm out to grab the next sign, his eyes slightly roll over with a wave of sick rejoicing. He grabs his crotch and pulls the next sign saying “Truth”.

YOUNG PUTANEK (sings): Truth!

CHOIR of TRADITIONALISTS (baring prominent camel toes - sings):
Oh, Young Putanek,
What have you done!
What are you doing?
No!

YOUNG PUTANEK (sings): Shut up!

CHOIR of TRADITIONALIST (sings):

Young Putanek,
You are flushing our values,
Our trust in the absolute dilutes.

Young Putanek contracts his quivering face and drops “Truth” down the toilet.

YOUNG PUTANEK (Full force and even higher pitch): Ha, HAAAAAAAAAAAAA, ha haaaaa!

CHOIR of TRADITIONALISTS (sings): Young Putanek, no!

Y. Putanek takes one more sign “Fair Enough”.

YOUNG PUTANEK (sings): Fair enough!

CHOIR of TRADS. (sings): No, Young Putanek, no!

YOUNG PUTANEK (sings): Yes, shut up!

TRADITIONALIST (sings): Putanek you’re an ass!

Young Putanek drops the sign and flushes the toilet, his face contorting and his legs crossed.

YOUNG PUTANEK: Haaaaaa, ha ha, HAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAA!

CHOIR of TRADS. (sings):

No, Young Putanek, no
Oh, Putanek, oh…
He dilutes; he deforms; he abstracts.
He destroys!
Oh, tradition will survive
The jest of Putanek’s value fest.
Its empty vessel won’t go far!
We will drown him, yes!

YOUNG PUTANEK: Shut up! You sickening obstacle.

He throws objects at them, bathroom items, odds and ends. The Traditionalists escape/exit.

CHOIR of TRADS. (sings): All we want is a song to sing with a melody that sticks.

Aunt Lauda’s monochord voice calls for Putanek through an intercom: Putanek.

Aunt Lauda (right) sits on a thronelike armchair surrounded by 2 metre high piles of crossword puzzle and sudoku magazines in the living room. She is doing a sudoku.
PUTANEK (through the intercom): Yes, Aunt Lauda.

AUNT LAUDA (without lifting her eyes from the scrap book): Get over here, Child. (Putanek reappears by her side). There is a fact, and that is, that since you are a bit of a genius, you are also quite retarded. It seems yesterday you spun a little too far. (She grabs a newspaper from her side and shows him). You were caught walking naked down the street yesterday evening.

PUTANEK: They were late. I was done with the manifesto.

AUNT LAUDA (unimpressed): You are a brilliant writer, a savage painter; quite the pop icon. Even your opinion on politics has weight in this society; it is unbelievable, but it has. Do you realize what your role is and the behaviour (sings) you should aqcuire, child!

(music : strings & synth)

YOUNG PUTANEK: Mmieeh…

AUNT LAUDA: Mm. What have you done to yourself? You have a wild eye.

Putanek rubs his eye.

AUNT LAUDA (her tone is informative, fast and secretarian): You have a conference to give at the Boy Scouts Club at five. Children, they buy into anything.

YOUNG PUTANEK: But they are interrupting…

AUNT LAUDA (dreadfully serious): It is 5 now.

Putanek turns to exit.

AUNT LAUDA (jolly - sings)

But please be gentle to them!
They are softer than the belly of a Darwinian frog,
and they are prouder than what
they’re soft.

YOUNG PUTANEK: Yes, Aunt Lauda.

AUNT LAUDA (sings): Goodbye!

YOUNG PUTANEK (sings): Yes, bye!

Aunt Lauda sinks into her sudoku as a blackout fades her off into darkness.

SCENE 2

(Screen. Gothtronic Orchestra)

Putanek’s figure on the screen walks forward, bouncing, (the ground moving underneath him like an anime cartoon) amongst images of forests and land. The images progressively distort into a plasma of chaos, the pulp of the basic organization of subatomic elements.

CHOIR OF TRADS. (voice off):

No, Putanek no.
Oh, Young Putanek oh.
He dilutes. He deforms.
He abstracts. He destroys.
Oh, tradition will survive
The jest of Putanek’s value fest.
Its empty vessel won’t go far!
We will drown him, yes!

SHORT BLACKOUT (chining of bells)

SCENE 3

(Boy Scouts gymnasium. The tempo of the spoken or sung words are of importance in this scene especially).

Putanek is brought in seated by jesters on a thronelike elevated armchair (left). Two nuns and a german redhead woman with robust hips and an outdoor sportslike authoritarian clutch, stand by his side, one of the nuns is Mother Superior. They are in an underground gymnasium.

The second chining of bells preceeds a group of 12 boy scouts marching in their absurd uniforms. Their marching choreography is well disciplined and orderly, (the bulky arm of the redhead trainer asserts them with halfly concealed directions); they’ve entered diagonally from the back announced by a trumpet, and, swaying their small triangular red flags they march following complicated diagrams. They have assumed, inhaled and regenerated into the proud carriers of The Pride and The Good Sense. Their eyes wreak of inmaturity. Putanek grabs his chest.

When the procession comes to an end, the young boy scouts stand in front of Putanek, their cheeks are pink by the glare of their joy and reverence. They sing at first a tidy cannon but quickly after, the rising brio of their fervour turns their song into an amorph blob. The german trainer is proud of her children’s brio, her protruding dental apparatus is displayed.

BOY SCOUTS (sing):

By God we stand here,
To help we’re sent in His name.
We’re young and frail
but we feel no fear,
To serve and learn we have come today.
But oh, what a feast this is to us,
Our living legend is here to tell,

Young Putanek, Young Putanek,
Young Putanek, we love your stories,
We live its glories…

MOTHER SUPERIOR (sings): Ooooooooooh, children! Be quiet.

BOY SCOUTS (sing): Yes, Mother Superior.

German trainer gestures them to sit. Snap, they are seated. Mother Superior nods to the young nun who is meant to say a few words. The young nun steps forward. She exchanges smiles with the children.

YOUNG NUN - SISTER JILL (shyly reads from a note): It is an honour and a delight to have you here. The boys are big fans of your work; your books have lightened their days of serious endeavours. This has balanced the depth of the children’s goodness.

Mother Superior disapproves of this last phrase and makes the nun shut up by interrupting her with great force.

MOTHER SUPERIOR (sings): Oooooh, let Young Putanek talk! Let him answer the questions! (to the tallest boy scout) Kevin Alois, do ask, ask Child, for there is not much time on this earthly life.

KEVIN ALOIS (standing up in the middle of the crowd of boy scouts): I would like to ask, only if Young Putanek would be so kind as to answer, whether he created his characters based on his own self, and if so, if these were an authentic depiction of him.

…

YOUNG PUTANEK (sweating heavily): Depiction! (he gesticulates like a man on the verge of a breakdown)

Some of the boy scouts giggle. Mother Superior disapproves. Kevin Alois is embarrassed.

KEVIN ALOIS (hurrying his second question): Why does Fronda need to casually collapse in Chapter 6? Did this mean she died? Are you implying her death is inconsequential because you personally think death is unimportant?

YOUNG PUTANEK: Belgaaaaeeergl!

The strength of the word pervades the room; their faces constrict, their eyes wander desperately seeking for a proper reaction to this subversion.

KEVIN ALOIS (stricken with shame, yet consistent like a mountain goat): How does it feel to be a hero amongst the young?

The boys relax with Kevin Alois’s ever self-negating-discomfort.

BOY SCOUTS: An idol! Our idol!
(Fervour)

BOY SCOUT 1 (with pimple on nose and the voice of an oboe): When did you start wri…?

YOUNG PUTANEK (with music): Pluooooootaaaa elll!

(Imperceptible yet existing stupor.)
The redheaded trainer, who is constantly overwhelmed by her own effectiveness, tries to impose order and coherence by pointing her German arm and finger at one of the boys holding his hand up.

BOY SCOUT 2 (Richie): Where in the second book…?

Richie stops as Putanek gets off the throne and explores the space.

BOYSCOUT 3 (agitated): How…?

YOUNG PUTANEK (assertive): Bal!

KEVIN ALOIS (angry): Why are you…?
The boys are now flushed with anger, their faces red as boiling lobsters. Putanek walks center stage.

Mother Superior orders Sister Jill to go see whatever has happened to Putanek. She stands beside him. He has taken out some headphones from his pocket and put them on his ears (atari electro music). Sister Jill talks to him (only mimics) but he can’t hear. Putanek stands up and lifts his arms up slowly while everyone watches aghast. Then, as his hands close over his head and back down again, he commences to dance in the fashion of a man who is completely dislocated from his environment and his limbs. Sister Jill runs off to hide behind mother Superior. Putanek’s trance develops as the lights focus on him and the ignited red face of Kevin Alois, who watches him. Not without Fury and resentment.

The trainer and Mother Superior herd the boy scouts offstage to avoid them the horror of such a disgrace.

They exit except for Sister Jill (petrified and fascinated).

SCENE 4:

(the music goes berserk)

His absorption is momentary as he sees the young nun standing alone in a corner with her pen and notebook held tight to her chest. Putanek goes after her like a caveman, upon which the nun rapidly throws her items (pen and notebook) to the floor. She swerves around the room with Putanek after her. The persecution turns into a tempestuous pas de deux, in which some words are muttered. The nun is both terrified and fascinated by the situation. He is demanding in posture; her only answer is “God” to which he replies “Dog”. The longer his “dog” demands, the longer her “Gods”. It is a rape attempt, but not of the flesh. Finally she cries desperately “Love-God”. He is not satisfied and falls to her feet. Compassion overcomes the nun. She drops over him, with relentless stillness and calmly repeating:

NUN (sings): God, love.

Y. PUTANEK (exhausted): Dog.

NUN (she sings strong and patient): Good.

Y.PUTANEK: Nude.

NUN: Love, God.

Y.PUTANEK (sings): Dog.

NUN: Dog Love!

He squeezes her leg. The nun moves aside, kneeling low, her body is suddenly weakened by the absurdity of his word. She utters again, without much conviction, repeating herself.

NUN: Good.

The nun collapses on the floor. The music strikes with horns as the peeking face of Kevin Alois becomes evident behind a high barred window in the back.
Putanek rises and looks down at the nun on the floor.

Putanek exits down left.

Kevin Alois is left alone over the remains of what to his eyes has been a massacre of the pure; he then executes a beautiful ode to all that is known to be chaste.
The nun lies still on the floor.

KEVIN ALOIS:

Young nun,
Depravity got your spine
In ruins is your mind!
Putanek is my idol no more,
He has mocked us, played the fool,
Scattered pearls into an empty pool.
A destroyer of the peace,
A manipulating beast!
(sings) A devil! The devil!
In the language of my dead father
I sing to thee sweet purity:

Some German crap/beautiful ode or Kirie Eleison.

BLACKOUT

SCENE 5

(Putanek’s house. Damp reverb - no music. )

Aunt Lauda awaits with a clock strapped around her head. She has a guest for tea. Lauda is chirp when she has company. It is seven forty four. Ticking there is, overlapped ticking, the teaspoon beats the cup, the pearls on Anne Sophie’s necklace tink with struendous rhythms, the clock on Lauda’s head beats furiously. The guest, Anne Sophie, is Aunt Lauda’s friend from botanical garden class, they’ve done Carmen’s nard and lilly section last month; a wonderful corner of eden full of springtime spirit,- it could be recalled.

Enters Putanek.

AUNT LAUDA (she talks fast): Nephew! Let me introduce you to… What’s with the wild eye? It’s about to pop out right here in our sitting room! (she laughs) Who’s life did you ruin today, you irresponsible beast?

PUTANEK: I a…

AUNT LAUDA (cutting him off): Now, let me introduce you to Anne Sophie, she and I have arranged Carmen’s section of the garden with wonderful nards and lillies, it’s been first page in last month’s “Botanical Garden” issue, the top, first, number (Fades in extremely slowly a drone with low synth pads) one portion of eden, full of springtime spirit and charm, bla, bla, pfth… . Anne Sophie is a single mother, her boy is a very promising brat. You might have lots in common you two since Anne Sophie also enjoys good cups of tea in odd places.

ANNE SOPHIE (very shyly): I had a cup of tea with the president of Macha-Hatá Leható, Mr. He-en Hatá Iche-e inside a phone booth in Thailand.

Aunt Lauda finds this revivingly hilarious and laughs with subtle excessiveness.

Putanek stands on the edge of freaking out, his lip twitching slightly.

Y. PUTANEK: Why do you have a clock attached to your head?

AUNT LAUDA: It delays menaupause and … well, death, consequently; the needles tick slower than normal, the brain, you know, electric processes, fooling the brain, the Fooling of the Brain.

Anne Sophie, who sits, stands impetuously in case standing is what’s cool; her arms, though, arrange themselves on her waist awkwardly and then fall stiff to the sides, not knowing what to make with them, she sits.

Y. PUTANEK: I must go lie down.

AUNT LAUDA (she approaches Putanek and whispers): I just received (sings) The Call… (speaks) Your books aren’t selling, they have all of a sudden succumbed into a whirlpool of nothingness, a black hole of uninterest… (she sings) People are starting to think you’re a demented freak! (speaks) Your manifestos are ruining everything; if ever, they will only pay off in fifty years; we need to survive now… You have a few choices.

Aunt Lauda nods with her fingers intertwining.

Y.PUTANEK: Sell your jewellery?

AUNT LAUDA (sings):
Marry the girl.
Marry Anne Sophie! It’ll
Show your sanity. You see,
Respect will come for you,
The people will care; then,
You can silently split from the world
Knowing you can always return,
For it will be waiting. It’s brilliant! (he tries to get away but she retains him)
She is also
(very high pitch) Splashing about with money
From her dead husband.
(speaks) Your wild eye, Putanek, I’m no fool, you are dreaming as we speak, day dreaming, submerged in a plasma, you seek to connect with the basket of collective recollection; I know about these things, you strange people are so predictable. Don’t you know I am aware of your Intention.

Y.PUTANEK: There is no intention, and, I am already married.

AUNT LAUDA: But your wife has been dead for five years now. (sings) Dead!

Putanek grabs her by the neck and chokes her; some rattling and shaking. (They sing at the same time in harmony: Dead & Bastard.)

PUTANEK (sings): You bastard! - LAUDA (sings): Dead!

AUNT LAUDA (freeing herself): Alright; (proposing) you marry the girl, you’ll rarely see her face - her shyness is an excruciatingly narrow pit; for you it will be just a façade for your public persona, your reflourishing career, personal economics, it’s propaganda for our well being, your relaxed persuit of the Intention.

Y.PUTANEK: I have no in…

AUNT LAUDA: Of course you don’t! I quote what you said, February 1992: “Admitting to others one’s secret purposes ensures their failing. The Rosacrutians, the stealing of the chocolate cake…”

PUTANEK (intolerant): Yes, yes!

AUNT LAUDA: I could daily remind you how ridiculous your quest is, how redundant it is to prove the absurdity of a system by acting like a cynical deconstructivist: absurdly. What do you think you will find? Other things, nothing? It’ll be the same things! The saaaame thiiiings…, unnamed! You don’t like what you get? Go live in Pluto where you’ll surely miss the earthly heat of love and the vigor of truth, - the Friend in Faith. (She mocks in Eric Cartman’s voice.)

Y.PUTANEK: SHUT UP!!! Mediocre!!!

(End of low pads, drone remains alone)

Lauda bursts in hoarse and muted laughter.

Exits Putanek.

AUNT LAUDA (to Anne Sophie): Fantastyczne!

Lauda sits and reaches for the drawer on her side table, the other smiles on top of the shock she feels after Aunt Lauda’s bold matchmaking.

AUNT LAUDA: Didn’t you want a father for your son? There, I got it for you. Your son’s idol will now be his father. A good mother should never do less than this. What do you say?

ANNE SOPHIE: Thank you.

(Music fades in, it is a hotel-elevator up tempo bossa over the back drone. The light changes on the couple drinking tea as they drift off to the back with the arm chair, table, everything over wheels. The bossa is deconstructed into minimalism and the drone becomes the protagonist again, now a step up.)

SCENE 6

(Putanek’s bed is wheeled in; he is sleeping on it. The choir of traditionalists appear to the left, almost as if peeking on his sleep.)

CHOIR OF TRADS. (sing):

He dilutes he bla bla…
In the cup of good value
The cup of good nature and truth
We will drown him. Yes!

They take him out of bed and carry him towards a big cup filled with water on the floor. (The music starts pumping a furious rhythm with a steady beat. On the screen appears the shadow of an animated thumblike object that grows bigger as the beat gets louder.)

CHOIR OF TRADS. (sing): Accept Putanek, rest.
Drink what you’ve been bred.

MAIN TRADITIONALIST (sings): Drown quietly, submerge.

CHOIR OF TRADS. (sing): Accept Putanek, rest.
Drink what you’ve been bred.

MAIN TRADITIONALIST (sings): Drown quietly, submerge.

One of the traditionalists puts a pen in Putanek’s hand. A man dressed in a grey suit approaches swiftly on wheels with a piece of paper and puts it under the pen.

CHOIR OF TRADS. (sing): Sign!

Putanek signs it. The man in grey leaves as swiftly as he’s come.
Some of the Traditionalists start to panic with the thumping noise that makes them jump slightly from the floor. The thumblike figure on the screen is increasing, threatening the completion of their mission. Putanek is heavy, but the cup is close.

MAIN TRADITIONALIST (yells in a man’s voice): GET HIM IN!

The rest are in panic, specially after such deranged voice coming out of their leader. They are about to make it, but they miss the cup and instead they tip it with Putanek’s forehead. The water spills on the floor. Putanek is dropped.
The thumping stops, the thumblike image dissapears and Putanek awakes by the fall. He stands with some pain and goes to the toilet (left) and sits, oblivious of what has happened. The choir of Traditionalists are beat.

MAIN TRADITIONALIST (sings):

The pulp of life has been closing in,
it’s only time till he understands
the nature of the thump.
The nature of the thump.
Avoid him the nature of the thump.
We could sooth by drowning.
The empty cup has spilled,
the empty cup has spilled.
Never to be filled, we know, oh, fear!

Putanek pulls the chain above the toilet. The traditionalists retreat backwards and to the right. Putanek comes back and grabs the empty cup. All the while the choir repeats as they leave: “The empty cup has spilled, never to be filled.”

A waiter approaches Putanek inmediately and serves him champagne; he needs to pour the whole bottle into it, as the other shows no indication of fullfillment.

Party music pumps up, some noises of people, guests, party lights. The place starts crowding, some guests lay on the bed and talk madly. Others gather around a long table in the back. The screen shows images of people at a party.

Putanek (to the waiter): What is going on here?

The waiter doesn’t answer, frightened by what seems to be a deranged question.

AUNT LAUDA (appearing from the back right): Putanek, don’t be vulgar! In your own wedding party and everything!

Y.PUTANEK: But, I was just sleeping! (He takes her by the arm) Is this a dream?

Aunt Lauda slaps him on both cheeks and leaves. Putanek pours savagely the whole cup onto his mouth, spilling most of it over his face and chest.
In the meantime, people fill the place. Anne Sophie appears from behind Putanek and taps him on his shoulder. He turns around.

ANNE SOPHIE (wearing a plain matrimonial dress. She speaks timidly): Young Putanek, I’d like to introduce you to my son.

Y. PUTANEK: What? I can’t hear you.

Aunt Lauda brings Kevin Alois in.

ANNE SOPHIE (under excrutiating embarrassment she tries her loudest yelling moth voice): My son, I’d like you to meet my son! Everything has been arranged so quickly! This is my son. (To Kevin Alois) Kevin Alois, this is my surprise: I’d like you to meet your new father, your idol, Young Putanek.

(The music develops into a symphonic crescendo of extraordinary proportions.)

Anne Sophie smiles with hope and content for her son’s expected joy as he greets Putanek, his idol, as his father. But Kevin Alois’s face ignites with horror and a maddening rage eats up his entrails. (A red light fades in on him) Standing opposite to him is Putanek seemingly drunk, but truly confused. Without recognizing Kevin Alois, Putanek gives in: he looks about him, at his aunt, his new wife; he lowers his head and stretches his hand out to the boy. Kevin Alois doesn’t respond, instead he stands assaulted with contracting tension. He then runs off to be alone. Putanek means to exit (back left), defeated by the social sensibilities and obligations; impediments to his own unsocial desire to vanish. He cannot leave though, people want to congratulate him; waiters, people dancing, chatting, boredom, dizziness, entrapment.
Meanwhile, Kevin Alois expresses his pain. (Downstage center right - lights on him alone, dimmed in the back)

KEVIN ALOIS (sings):

Oh, most unlikely disgrace!
The hands of such undeserving man
Hold my Sweet mother …
The treacherous unconsulting whore
As his wife. I shall never
speak a word to her again.
Mother no more
As father he shall not be to me.
Such destroyer. Iconoclast!
(in german) Papa from the heavens I beg you,
Tell me what to do.

He awaits still with his hands in a begging position. Time passes in fast motion: the screen is in fast motion, the people move in fast motion, also the lights and even the music. Then, in the middle of the time moving hassle, a voice speaks distinctly from an illuminated cloud of smoke above the audience’s head that has the contoured figure of a man.

GHOST(voice off in german): Rache.

KEVIN ALOIS: What?

GHOST: Rache.

Enters Choir of Traditionalists, center back.

KEVIN ALOIS:

Rache: Revenge!
(sings) Revenge!

Tempo goes back to normal.

Kevin Alois shrieks “Revenge” in a falsetto that wraps up his Kiri Eleison’s previous finale.

All the while, the Choir of Traditionalists lift Putanek, put an apple on his mouth and deliver him onto a silver tray in the middle of a long table in the back. The guests surround him; they laugh and clap.

(The music ends with timpani and horns, violins raging and Kevin Alois’s perfect pitch scream - CURTAIN DOWN)

END OF ACT ONE

INTERMISSION

ACT TWO - 10 YEARS LATER

INSTRUMENTAL OVERTURE

SCENE 1

(Putanek’s house. music: b38 on the korg)

Putanek sits on the floor like a shrunk grape hugging the toilet to the left. Orpheus (a character in one of Putanek’s books) is sitting by the toilet on a wicker arm chair. He lights his cigarette. They are onto a tight chess match. Orpheus moves a pawn.

Y. PUTANEK (who’s been staring at Orpheus): I missed you terribly. I had no one to talk to for such a long time. I should have never finished that book, I should have kept you awake. I am very sorry Orpheus.

ORPHEUS: Yes, I miss the life too. Although full of suffering, it’s a wonderful life the one I repeat in my head again and again. But it doesn’t end for me, that’s why I keep hoping there will be a development; I enlarge situations in my head, I elaborate my memories. Such few brush strokes you gave me. I wish you had written some more about it all.

Y. PUTANEK: Yes, I am very sorry. I miss you so much - (Orpheus takes a long drag) How does it feel to be read by others?

ORPHEUS: Like being someone else each time. I’m just acting out their wishes, it is strange. I wouldn’t want to be abused by too many brains, it would feel like having one’s boul of soup licked by too many random people. Ah, and then there are the bastards who read your book, and I have to be there in their brains; it’s disturbing.

Y. PUTANEK: The life of the character must be fantastic though. You hover, suspended, no fear, no burden, it is a dream of constant reality. I wouldn’t mind that, I have nothing here, no one. I’ve been distracted, crippled by other people’s sensible demands. Strange things have occured these last 10 years. I turned into a bourgois, more of a potato, really; no, into a chicken that runs headless: I go about my affairs, I shop for groceries, I even have the respect of the intelectual creme; I teach! I am dampened by humanity! My mouth is full of words. The energy to plunge into the void and find what one must find is all gone now. I am lying on a flan of indetermination. (He moves his rook F4) ...

... I am a common modern man that holds on to his comfortable securities, I try to save tradition from the inevitable erosion of time. Some claim corrosion. I should have corrupted it all, emptied the cup and try to move ahead to the Total Erosion, to the beggining! (Orpheus lifts his index finger up; he has something to say). Instead, I remained hanging from the slow web of forgetting. I am, like many, a fragmented piece, an unconscious fragmenter, a specializer, a divider.
(Orpheus moves his queen).
I live contemporarily with those who weave forgetting. Yet our struggles against senselessness mount to nothing under the speed, the monstruous density.

ORPHEUS: But, the Total Erosion, the beggining? It is contra natura. Culture was inevitable, logic was inevitable. Its Total Erosion doesn’t seem feasable.

PUTANEK: Ah … ; but culture and logic are mostly inherent to the rational system of man! The brain and its actual grid, will, one day become obsolete. Its inefficient processes of comprehension will be exchanged “snap” with complete awareness. Physical evolution will bring us to the beginning, but, on a higher “plateau”. (His mouth sticks out like that of a duck). Lightness will appear from under the weight. We will walk through to it, like a man who traverses the earth through its core.

ORPHEUS (cynically): Mm. So, you mean you wished to jump ahead twenty thousand years from now… with that brain and stomach. You were off your tits, obviously.

PUTANEK (embarrassed): I thought the time had come to snap.

Orpheus cracks up laughing.

PUTANEK (defending his position): Well, a giant thumb used to appear to me at night and thump! Extraordinary. I thought it was a sign or something. That thump is still my only meaningful root!

ORPHEUS: Yes, I know what it is, I have it too.

Y. PUTANEK: What? What is it, you smart ass?

ORPHEUS: I will explain it to you, now, yes. It is the enormity of the thumping universe that is a flick of imagination. It is all but a ball of imagination. It is not nothing nor something, it’s a dream by itself, which is not something concrete, but it’s neither nothing, it thumps. Or not.

Y. PUTANEK: Damm, I’m always expecting some certainty from you, but it never comes.

(Putanek moves his horse. Orpheus’ queen knocks down Putanek’s King).

PUTANEK: Ah, turd! How is it possible that I’ve created you and still you always win?

ORPHEO (putting his cigarette down. He chuckles): I plan to disguize as a woman and be part of the choir of traditionalists that haunt you. They won’t know I am your secret agent. I’ve got things to do, it’s not as if I’m jobless.

Y. PUTANEK: But these cretines… what do they want?

ORPHEO: They mean well, they want you to avoid the miseries of finding out the inextricable nothingness; they need time to coat it with the ineffable everything. They are like yiddishe mammeles, they protect. They want you to sink in the cultural roots (speaks fast) of the time/space in question.

Y. PUTANEK: Pain in the ass.

ORPHEO (lighting another cigarette): You do care, about others?

Y. PUTANEK: Yes, very much; too much unfortunately; it’s so that sometimes I suspect I don’t care at all.

ORPHEO: And, how are you?

Y. PUTANEK: Alone. And you?

ORPHEO: I’ve got you and the rest, you know, the gang.

Y. PUTANEK (almost in tears): Yeees, they are wonderful! I haven’t spoken to them since I finished the book. Send them enormous helloes.

Someone knocks on the bathroom door.

KEVIN ALOIS: I need to go to the bathroom, Father.

Y. PUTANEK (annoyed): For f… sake’s. Don’t call me father! I am not your father!

(Orpheo dissapears as the light fades out on him and he is wheeled out of stage.)

Putanek allows Kevin Alois to walk in. He is about twenty five years old now. He has an arresting torso and germanic features. He holds a carton box with cornflakes. Putanek stands by the door grabbing his chest.

KEVIN ALOIS (intrigued yet eternally offended): What, what is it?

Y. PUTANEK (almost to tears): A friend told me he wasn’t jobless, but he is, jobless and bored, and it is my fault for abandoning him.

KEVIN ALOIS (surprised by the confession he softens up to the prospect of having his appreciation): Mm. Well, when I become Senator I will make sure everyone has a job they like.

Y. PUTANEK: I hope that when you become Senator you will get yourself your own bathroom, this is mine.

Kevin Alois is left alone in a rage.

Putanek Exits to the right.

KEVIN ALOIS (to himself): Youth destroyer! Bastard! Devil!

He accomodates his blond political hair.

BLACKOUT

SCENE 2

(In the convent. Half (right) stage - unlit: Putanek’s house)

The young nun, Sister Jill, gets up from the floor and dances farting with her tongue, she has turned her grey nun gown inside out and displays now fantastic colours and her naked cunt. Mother superior and the german trainer enter the room, Mother Superior carries a tray with food. They stand and observe appauled. (front left, where Kevin Alois was standing before)

Sister Jill dances freely and then leaves. (center back)
A tall small table appears by itself in front of the two women with a big old fashioned black telephone on it. Mother superior puts down the tray on the table and makes a call.

MOTHER SUPERIOR: She has left.

(The screen splits into two -closeups-: Mother Superior - Kevin Alois.)

KEVIN ALOIS: When?

MOTHER SUPERIOR: Just now. We saw her… leave.

KEVIN ALOIS: Well… go after her. Gosh!

MOTHER SUPERIOR: Yes, Sir.

She hangs up the phone; both Mother Superior and the german trainer remain standing there with their serious idiotic faces.

MOTHER SUPERIOR (sings): He says to go after her.

The German trainer jumps slightly on her place and runs at full speed towards the exit with her enema kit in her hand. (center back)

BLACKOUT left stage (abrupt)

SCENE 3

(Putanek’s house. Kevin Alois, two men in dark suits, Aunt Lauda and Anne Sophie are in the sitting room to the right; this becomes lighted - the nun and the telephone are gone - Putanek’s house seems to be underground, among various water leaks. The reverb on the voices is damp.)

Two unusually big men in dark suits bring in and accomodate Kevin Alois’ desk while he sits behind it.

Kevin Alois shows them with his hand that the location of the desk is good and that they are no longer required.

Men exit.

Aunt Lauda is sitting on her arm chair, busy doing crossword puzzles. The piles around her have grown double in size and in height. Anne Sophie is seated by her side reading a Botanical garden magazine.

KEVIN ALOIS (stands and walks up center stage. He is wearing a Superior Boy Scout’s outfit. His legs spread out): Justice will be equally brought upon the local unfairness. The good of tradition will be plucked out like fists from the ground and reign through the wide extensions of our souls and consciousnesses, uniting the separateness that is diverted by entretainment and thrusting the flesh of society into a level of truth and good sincerity; it will bring the nature of our culture to its height, so that we rejoice in the conservation of its unmuted authenticity, and only rejoice in that plentiful authenticity; this is what (sings) my campaign is about!

Anne Sophie puts down the botanical magazine and claps effusively.

AUNT LAUDA (sings): What an amount of horrendous crap, Kevin Alois, you pompous brat!

Kevin Alois returns to his desk, indifferent and proud; he caresses the edges of his desk obsessively.

AUNT LAUDA: How exciting, really. It is wonderful how a desk can be the best friend of a man. My best friend, the desk; my true love, the soft edges of the desk… the argonometry of its perfectness allures me, it fills me with erections.

KEVIN ALOIS (sings): Shut up!

ANNE SOPHIE (to Kevin Alois): Would you like some tea, my child? (Kevin Alois doesn’t answer - to herself she sings) Oh, misery, my son won’t talk to me!

The phone rings on Kevin Alois’ desk.

KEVIN ALOIS (answers the phone): And?

A squirrel voice sounds on the other side of the line.

KEVIN ALOIS: Did she try the (sings loudly) metro station?! The pizza place, the plaza?!

The voice sounds anxious on the other side.

KEVIN ALOIS: Mmm. Sister Jill, our precious, purest treasure, Mother Superior; lost in town!

Voice sounds on the other side of the line.

KEVIN ALOIS: Yes. Have the boys come as scheduled. I do not cancel! I do not postpone!

He hangs up.

Moment of atonal music. The bell rings.

KEVIN ALOIS (sings): So swift?

Kevin Alois remains seated at his desk. Anne Sophie answers the door.

Enters Putanek, head down, with a dead plucked chicken, followed by the orderly choir of Traditionalists.

KEVIN ALOIS (sings): Ah, it is him.

Putanek waves the chicken in the air, hitting one of the Traditionalists in the face, and smacks it down on Kevin Alois’ new desk. He strolls to his room. The choir follows him in a tight group, they seem not to want to leave the room.

KEVIN ALOIS (sings): Pale chicken, no; not on my escritoire, Putanek! You better measure your assaults to my sensibility, I will soon be Senator you decadent fool! I can procede to…

Kevin Alois is interrupted by the sound of a male choir that is heard in the distance. The boy scouts arrive to the door and march straight in singing. They are grown up but still wear their starched tight uniforms from when they were boys. Mother Superior arrives with them as well. Putanek stops just before exiting.

BOY SCOUTS (waving red flags with kevin Alois’ face on them. They sing - five part harmony, fortissimo):

What pride, what joy!
Our Kevin Alois will soon be Senator!
What pride, what joy!
Kevin Alois will save the truth;
The law of the Lord!
Oh, God that you have chosen him to guide us
Through these times of evil run free autonomy!
Dangerous thoughts of disenchantment
From what is holy and true!
Save us from modernity’s
Spirit aniquilating machine!
Let the Lord’s will reign,
None shall interfere!
Fiercely like fists plucked out from the ground!
Oh God, father! Jesus, Saint Peter and John!
Oh, blessed Mary, child and thorns!

PUTANEK (transformed - as if in slow motion - sings): Haaaa! Ha, haha, hahahaha haaaaa hehahahehe hehehehe haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ha! Austrian sausages! Lord compote!

MOTHER S. & TRADS. (sing): Aaaaaah!

MOTHER SUPERIOR (sings): Lord Compote! Blasphemy!

BOY SCOUTS (thrilled, sing): Lord Compote!

KEVIN ALOIS (sings): Disgraaaaace!

MOTHER SUPERIOR (sings): Is this the same cretine who ruined our Sister Jill?

KEVIN ALOIS: It is.

PUTANEK (with relish): Who, when?

MOTHER SUPERIOR (to Putanek): Ten years ago you drove our Sister Jill mad, she remained secluded since, but till today! She has ran amock down the streets showing things one should (sings) never see! (speaks) We can’t find her, she is gone, aloof like a mad cow.

Boy Scouts (sing): Mad cow!

PUTANEK: Mm.

Mother Superior takes Kevin Alois to the side (front left). Putanek commences to horrorize the boy scouts using the chicken as a muppet.

CHOIR OF TRADS. (center back - sing softly): No, Putanek, no!

MOTHER SUPERIOR (to Kevin Alois): What is he doing in your house?

Kevin Alois contorts with embarrassment. The Boy Scouts gasp because of the chicken.

KEVIN ALOIS (sings): I have kept this a secret from you, all these years, oh, shame! He is my mother’s husband. My stepfather that would be. I live with him in his house!

MOTHER SUPERIOR: Shame indeed! A threat to your campaign!

KEVIN ALOIS (speaks desperately, sickeningly): He has at times tried to persuade me into his sick condition, but I was stronger; yet something in me began to rot as he has moistened me with tears. I hate him, he is perverse; Iconoclaaast! I confess that I’ve wished… I thought, if I became Senator, perchance one could do something about him and his kind… Correct them… legally… Punish their sins! Imprison! For iconoclasm and deviation!

Boy Scouts gasp at the chicken.

CHOIR OF TRADS. (sing softly): Oh!

MOTHER SUPERIOR (sings): Don’t be naiiiiiive…, Dear Magnanimous Sir! You can only have him “taken care of “. (She does the inverted commas with her fingers)

KEVIN ALOIS (sings): Precisely! I will have him “taken care of “!

Mother Superior grabs her chest, her head lowered. She retrocedes swiftly, tormented, and guides the Boy Scouts out the door like a herd dog.

MOTHER SUPERIOR (to Putanek indirectly): Our reunion must come to an end because of foul persons interrupting our splendid would have been soiree. (to Aunt Lauda and Anne Sophie) Mesdammes.

Aunt Lauda is absorbed doing her crossword puzzles.

AUNT LAUDA: Ah, splendid! (she fills in the blanks) Yes.

Exit Boy Scouts and Mother Superior. Putanek exits to his room. He leaves the chicken on Kevin Alois’ desk. The Choir of traditionalists remain disconcerted, crestfallen.

Kevin Alois (to himself with a thread of a voice; sublimely): Reveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeenge!

BLACKOUT

SCENE 4

(screen)

Putanek walks alone, bouncing, while in the back occur deconstructed images: boomerangs and the back of the neck of a man being slapped by a fish.
All of a sudden Putanek on stage meets Sister Jill by chance. (Screen Putanek fades)
Jill dances desperately, she needs help as she is escaping from the german trainer. He is involved in lifting her up in the air various times; her obtrusive dancing seems to require it. They end up dancing a most explosive pas de deux.

They exit.

BLACKOUT

SCENE 5

(Putanek’s house. In the screen: Putanek’s subjective view of Aunt Lauda is out of focus.)

Y. PUTANEK (announces): I brought a guest.

Jill does bizarre pantomimes throughout the scene.

AUNT LAUDA: He speaks! Oh, how wonderful! Please come in!

She takes the clock off her head with embarrassment. She looks at him astonished. He rolls his eyes.

AUNT LAUDA (thrilled): Would you like some tea? Your wife can make us some tea. (Yells to Anne Sophie backstage) Tea, Anne Sophie!

JILL: You have a wife?

Y. PUTANEK (sings): No. Had. She died.

JILL: They are persecuting me.

AUNT LAUDA: Who’s persecuting you?

JILL: The german trainer.

AUNT LAUDA: Ah.

Y. PUTANEK (as they leave): Aunt cretine, you’re slightly out of focus, did you know that?

AUNT LAUDA: But I was behaving like a normal nice person, what did I do? Why do you put me through your blurred vision, why? What did I do to deserve it?

Exits Putanek and Jill to the left.

AUNT LAUDA (sings):

Oh, how I hate being so nice!
Such an unrewarding effort!
Politeness shouldn’t be allowed,
as pearls shan’t over turtlednecks, no.
Don’t I love my nephew though?
It is everyone I have! And yet,
I shouldn’t stick to being nice!
Sometimes I wish there could be
something good that I could do!
Phallus! (laughs) (cries)

(There are four knocks at the door.)

AUNT LAUDA (sings): Who is it?

MEN (sing): We come from the… Editorial!

Aunt Lauda rushes to open the door. Two big men with moustaches and wearing dark suits come in.

MEN (sing): We’ve come to speak with Young Putanek about the millionaire reissuing contract of his book “Rash”. We shall want to talk with him… privately!

Aunt Lauda smiles.

AUNT LAUDA: Naturally! Although I am his “agent”, it is me with whom you’ll want to speak!

Enters Anne Sophie over wheels (center backstage) dressed in a kimono and carrying a tray with tea and cups.

ANNE SOPHIE (sings): Tea!

The men refuse with their head, their hands negate profusely. Anne Sophie insists with an uncommonly talented geisha persuasion. She inflicts the japanese subtle and acupunctural convincing successfully, as in the end they take the cups. Aunt Lauda is tormented by Anne Sophie’s excess of politeness and goes to her corner to sweat and contort for a while.

The men drink the tea. Anne Sophie stares at them expectantly. Inmediately after drinking, the men display their dental apparatus; bluntly smiling away with no shame or reason. They soon engage in a series of mouth quiverings and cheek flushings.

AUNT LAUDA (to Anne Sophie): What have you done?

ANNE SOPHIE: This tea is my special chuckle from the Hihi plantations in Thailand, the President, Mr. Macha-Hatá Leható gave it to me.

Aunt Lauda is horrified.

MEN: What a lovely boudoir! (they giggle. Sing) Delightful dress! How well it suits your complexion! Mmm, la la la leeeel! What are we here for, we forget!

AUNT LAUDA: The millionaire contract of Putanek’s book!

MEN: What? What book, what book?

AUNT LAUDA (to Anne Sophie): What have you done you… (controlling herself) silly goose aaaaasssssss!

ANNE SOPHIE (sings wailing): I’ve never been more certain of my doings in my life!

The men get drousy. Still smiling, they crawl and lie on top of each other on the carpet like a pair of boneless ferrets. Anne Sophie goes up to them and removes their coats.

AUNT LAUDA (sings): Will you… rape them now?

Anne Sophie removes from them a massive gun and rips the moustaches off their face. They moan shortly. Aunt Lauda is taken aback.

Enters Kevin Alois. (Music)

KEVIN ALOIS (sings pointing his index at the men on the floor): What’s this?

Both women remain silent. Anne Sophie holds the gun.

KEVIN ALOIS (sings): What has she done? What has she done?

ANNE SOPHIE (sings - calls for him): Putaaaaaanek! (ravenous music) I should have known better. Putaaaaaaaaanek!

Enters Putanek.

Anne Sophie walks to Putanek and points the gun to his head. Kevin Alois points his index at Putanek and his mother.

KEVIN ALOIS (sings): What will you do?!

ANNE SOPHIE (sings): Ah, he speaks to me! Isn’t this what you wanted?

She lowers the trigger. Aunt Lauda gasps. Kevin Alois is perplexed.

ANNE SOPHIE (sings): I will count up to nine and then I will shoot him.

PUTANEK: What is it I’ve done now that’s causing so much agitation?

ANNE SOPHIE: One…! Two…! Three…!

AUNT LAUDA (sings): Why? (to the sleeping men) who? what, when? (to Kevin Alois) How? (to Anne Sophie) Oh!

ANNE SOPHIE (sings): My son hired them to “take care of” Putanek; I saw it coming, it’s a mother’s thing. Yet, I’d rather do it myself; if that’s his wish, I should grant it for him. A good mother should never do less than this.

AUNT LAUDA (sings half concealing her admiration for their evil): Oh! You creeps!

KEVIN ALOIS (sings): Mother, you ruined everything! Now Lauda knows!

ANNE SOPHIE (sings): We’ll have to take her down as well, my dear! We’ll blame it all on me, now don’t you fear!

AUNT LAUDA (sings): Aaaaaah!

Enters Jill doing her awkward pantomimes. It seems these are nervous tics.

JILL (sings): Check mate!

Kevin Alois, overwhelmed, points his finger at Jill. Jill freezes.

ANNE SOPHIE: Four!

KEVIN ALOIS (sings): But, Mother, Sister Jill is here!

ANNE SOPHIE (sings): She’ll have to wait her turn.

Kevin Alois is sucked by the abysmal turmoil of indecision and horror that comes with the loss of strength of a secret revealed.

KEVIN ALOIS (sings): Ooh, I hate him, yes! I want his death! Iconoclast! But this has gone out of control! Oh!

Kevin Alois picks up his telephone and calls Mother Superior.

KEVIN ALOIS (sings): Mother Superior, Jill is here and everything’s gone wrong. Come swiflty, please!

ANNE SOPHIE (trembling): Five…! Six…!

Suddenly Jill jumps over Anne Sophie and both struggle for a while for the gun.

Follow spot Light on them alone (screen: close ups of the struggle).

The gun flies in the air (screen: gun flies in slow motion) and hits Mother Superior in the head who has just walked in the house with the german trainer.

KEVIN ALOIS (sings): Mother Superior!

While Kevin Alois rushes to hold the body of Mother Superior, nine Tibetan monks waltz in. Anne Sophie jumps over Kevin Alois and tries desperately to hug him. There is a triangle, a clot. The german trainer interferes. The Tibetan monks start taking the furniture. Aunt Lauda hurries to find the gun on the floor and tries to stop them by pointing it at them to no success. The Tibetan monks try and take Jill with them. Putanek is impasive, abstracted. When the Tibetan monks take the desk, Kevin Alois, while holding Mother Superior and having Anne Sophie attached to his neck, grabs the foot of one of them and holds him back. The german trainer throws one of the Tibetan monks out the window. Three Tibetan monks stumble with the sleeping bodies of the men in the dark suits. These wake up and look around them bewildered. One of them sees Aunt Lauda with the gun and with no fear takes it away from her hand and points it at Putanek. Aunt Lauda jumps over his arm and they both fall into the mountain of people that has been formed. A ball of chaos; gun shots, chairs, legs, hair, teeth.

Screen: The pumping pulp of existence: a black dot, closes on from a far distance.

Putanek throws Aunt Lauda’s clock into the human ball and puts his finger on Mother Superior’s knee.

Screen: the pulp is approaching at tremendous speeds - or, we are approaching the pulp.

The mountain of people - ball of chaos, quivers as if reached by a magnetic wave. Rapidly the objects on scene are transformed, transmuted into other shapes; they reconfigure. These pieces of the puzzle are brought to a new light along with a womb-like sound. The “music” seems to stretch the matter.

The audience’s bodies are subject to a trance - trance of the flesh - (vomit or defecation may occur) which is caused by a low frequency resonance along with a series of intervals played in a specific tempo, called the Mass Vibration Experiment by C.S.V.)

Screen: The black pulp covers the screen completely.

BLACKOUT

The pulp of existence appears on the stage replacing the people engaged in the mountain. It is a massive metal ball (3 m. in diameter) which has attracted and absorbed all matter at a speed of light.

Putanek who watches aghast, comes closer and puts his ear against the ball. He knocks on its surface. He stands back. He goes forth trying to be absorbed by it. He is knocked off. He moves away and stands looking at it. Not participating. Those inside unable to grasp what they feel. Putanek able to grasp what he doesn’t feel.

Then there is darkness.

BLACKOUT

END