The Plays
Life [sample]
by Charles L. Mee
a urinal brought in by a half dozen of the actors
INSTALLATION PIECE
Omigod, it’s the urinal!
URINAL
Hi!
INSTALLATION PIECE
Hello.
SECOND INSTALLATION PIECE
Wow! The urinal!
A celebrity!
THIRD INSTALLATION PIECE
Right!
I know!
SECOND INSTALLATION PIECE
What are you doing here?
URINAL
What are you doing here?
SECOND INSTALLATION PIECE
I mean are you having an appearance?
You’re going to make a speech or something?
URINAL
I’m just visiting friends.
SECOND INSTALLATION PIECE
Wow.
I’ve always wondered like
what it’s like to be a urinal.
I mean not that I want to be pissed on.
I mean I’m sorry
I’m not meaning to make bad jokes about it or anything
I mean I really always wondered
after I heard about you
what it was like to be a urinal
a famous urinal.
URINAL
Well. Sure.
Well, you can imagine.
SECOND INSTALLATION PIECE
Well no, not really actually.
[Some actors come back in to see the urinal
An Arcimboldo vegetable face guy
A Louis XIV woman in court dress
A Niki de Saint Phalle figure
A person looking like a gold clock from Versailles
A cubist head and face atop a plain suit
One of the prologues
FIRST INSTALLATION PIECE
You know
if no one else has anything in mind
I have a poem I’d like to recite
is that ok?
I mean I don’t want to take attention away from the urinal
This was actually something I wanted to do
even before he got here
if that’s ok with everyone.
SECOND INSTALLATION PIECE
sure
FIRST INSTALLATION PIECE
It’s something in fact that I hope everyone will join in on
if you like
SECOND INSTALLATION PIECE
Sure.
That would be great.
FIRST INSTALLATION PIECE
So, I’ll start
and you join in?
SECOND INSTALLATION PIECE
Good.
[And, in fact, after the first installation piece begins,
as the poem gets going
the other installation pieces join in
along with the actors.
They can recite it.
Or they can sing it the way it has been sung.
It is Kurt Schwitters’ poem Ursonate.
And the urinal can take a solo in the middle.]
FIRST INSTALLATION PIECE
UHNUHNUHNUHNUHNUHNUHNUHN
UHNUHNUHN
EEEEEEEEEEEE
POOH-POOHPOOH-POOHRRRA
slslsl
