THE ENTERTAINERS PENNY LAMB: A sixteen-year-old, sister of Ezra. EZRA LAMB: A thirteen-year-old, brother of Penny. PLAYING STYLE Physical. Very physical. But truthful. The acting should be as frenetic and as over-the-top as possible, but with real acting intentions and subtlety. A clock with a soul. MUSIC The whole play should be underscored, but not with current pop. Instead, past tunesmiths like Elvis, Hank Williams, Berlioz and Beethoven. Ambient music is fine occasionally as background. The soundscape sets the rhythm of their game.SOUND Q #1—Last song preshow. Fade out sound as the house lights come down. Two spotlights, one on PENNY LAMB, the other on her brother EZRA. PENNY is a young woman wearing French braids and a private school uniform; she has a bright smile. Holding a piece of paper, she stands over a music box that plays a sweet, monotonous melody. EZRA, an intense thirteen-year-old, sits cross-legged in a chair, with a neutral expression on his face. He, too, wears a school uniform, plus a black cape, a single white dress glove and Chinese slippers. He has a fixed gaze on one audience member of his choosing, a fixed gaze he maintains practically throughout the proceedings. PENNY Hello. My name is Penny Lamb, and | am an aspiring animal conservationist. PENNY slams the music box. There is a flash. The stage exposes a large garbage can full of toys and a makeshift puppet theatre upstage centre made of household miscellanea: flashlight as footlight, a red curtain, etc, At the back of the wall there is a screen for various slides. EZRA should run the show as much as possible. Whatever the layout, it should look like it is designed by two industrious children ... including the slides; imagine two children, witha solid year to design a show. PENNY speaks at an incredible speed, being an immensely nervous and self- conscious teenager. She literally trips over her words—a volcano of passion and eloquence. Hello again ... (stage left) Welcome. (stage right) Welcome. (centre stage) Welcome ... Welcome to my presentation. (reading from her card) This is where I tell you, after two hundred hours of community service, how never to turn out like me. It is my hope that after my hours of community service (looking up) that have culminated in this presentation, (reading) you will all go out and ... and well ... (looking up) lead fuller, lawfuller lives! (reading) I would like to thank Miss Peachery—(looking up) my social worker—(reading) for giving me the ultimatum of doing this presentation ... (looking up) ot, like, pick up other people's trash for an entire year on some crummy expressway ... (reading off a cue card, at a machine-gun pace) So first off | want to tell people never to shoplift, jaywalk, beat up kids, swear, knock on people’s doors and run away, be mean to overweight people, talk back to your parents. Stop, drop and roll. Never let your uncle touch you in places you feel uncomfortable with— (looking up) even if it’s, like, your elbow. (looking down) Don’t do drugs—unless they are prescribed by a licensed practitioner of the psychiatric profession ... and stay away from sex, but if you ever get into super sexy stuff... use a condom ... Oh ... and it’s entirely natural to masturbate ... i looking up) but never in a public place.She stops reading. Whew. Well that should cover a lot of ground, considering that’s like every high school play or movie I’ve ever seen in, like ... ten seconds flat. And, I didn’t do any of the above mentioned stuff. I’ve taken all of those lessons to heart, and obeyed them. Beat. (fast) However, I did sell and traffic drugs in two countries, and horribly maim this man. This man I truly loved. Beat. Look, I was fifteen then. I was all screwed up ... I’m sixteen now. Beat. I would also like to thank Ezra ... for doing all the art direction and putting all the pizazz into this whole stupid thing. Oh, this my brother Ezra Lamb. Together ... we are the Lambs. Say hi-a, Ezra Lamb. 13,PENNY assumes a vaudeville punchline pose. EZRA casually takes off his white glove and throws it on the ground. He walks daintily next to PENNY, taking his time, leading with his feet, still focused on his one audience member. He talks like a nutcracker, breaking up his words. He has an other-worldly voice, and is practically expressionless throughout the proceedings. ZRA Hi-a, Ezra Lam EZRA assumes the Vaudeville pose, but with a performance art edge. -ENNY (giggling) That’s a joke ... We make those. You can laugh ... or not. Beat. EZRA (with intensity) Hi-a, Ezra Lam ... (extremely loud) “BU”! Beat. PENNY Um, he has ADHD, which means—EZRA Attention Deficit Hy-per Act-ive Dis-or-der. PENNY Which means— EZRA Five milligrams of Ritalin, five milligrams of Dex-ahhhh- drine. PENNY And— EZRA Ihave strong apprehension to the scientific claims of my dis-or-der, PENNY He's pretty smart though—for a thirteen-year-old basket case. Are you going to talk like that through the whole presentation? EZRA Yes. PENNY In real life he doesn’t talk like that. EZRA In real life I don’t exist.EZRA No. PENNY EZRA Yes. PENNY Ha! EZRA (defeated) I exist. PENNY Why don’t you tell us something about yourself, Ezra? SOUND Q #2—“Gnossienne.” EZRA exposes a sad-looking doll. He acts out the motions of the little man in the puppet theatre. Eric Satie’s “Gnossienne #1” plays. EZRA Well ... I did read in the paper awhile ago ... Jeffrey Dahmer, you know that serial killer that killed and ate all those people? Well, he pulled double night shifts in a factory making chocolate Santa Clauses. Did it for years. So I imagine the austere fluorescent lighting, the endless chocolate Santas 17 Qat .EZRA No. PENNY EZRA Yes. PENNY Ha! EZRA (defeated) I exist. PENNY Why don’t you tell us something about yourself, Ezra? SOUND Q #2—“Gnossienne.” EZRA exposes a sad-looking doll. He acts out the motions of the little man in the puppet theatre. Eric Satie’s “Gnossienne #1” plays. EZRA Well ... I did read in the paper awhile ago ... Jeffrey Dahmer, you know that serial killer that killed and ate all those people? Well, he pulled double night shifts in a factory making chocolate Santa Clauses. Did it for years. So I imagine the austere fluorescent lighting, the endless chocolate Santascoming down the conveyer belt, the gloomy faces punching in the clock ... The desperate silence of a cog in a forever festive machine ... going to work at sunset, to bed at sunrise ... This goes on for years ... Until finally he falls on his knees going ... He makes the puppet fall on his knees. (in a southern accent, dramatically) ’'m going to break. I'm simply gonna’ break. -ENNY Uhh ... Okay. So I can explain ... we were both home schooled. EZRA I mean it would drive you— Fade out sound. PENNY (gritting) Okay, that’s enough about Jeffrey Dahmer! Let me whisk you away to happier times. Play some whisking-away music, Ezra. SOUND Q #3—Whisking-away. EZRA plays whisking-away music on his ghetto-blaster. SLIDE #1—Uranium City. 18PENNY Welcome to Uranium City, Saskatchewan! Oh, the sun is out today, I see. We both grew up on the Elysium Community Farm, just outside of Uranium City, which means— EZRA A lot of people walking around naked, quoting eastern philosophy, and never shaving their pubes. PENNY Right, and all the kids there were named Rainbow, Sunshine, Trotsky. Ezra even had a best friend named Noam Chomsky ... SkyTrain. We lived on Elysium with our mom Marie-Jose Blanche—and our dad—Rudolf. They met at some college waaaaaaaaaaay back in the nineties. He took her in his arms and danced her ass off to “Hungry Eyes,” and they also found that they both thought modern civilization was— EZRA A sausage factory, crushing individuals’ self-worth, turning them into soulless, neurotic robots. PENNY Toads. And that got them both real hot! So that very same night, I was conceived. Three years later, Ezra. Lookit, where we grew up? Elysium Community Farm? Everybody was totally into all that happy hippy stuff. You know, sitars, sunshine, philosophy, love, Humanism, ganja weed. We talked and laughed, learned lots ... And sometimes at night Ezra would put on super cool puppet shows about German Nihilism.ZRA The nail that sticks out gets hammered down! EZRA gestures, punching his hands together. -ENNY It went on like this for years, this all-enlightened, home-made living; there was only one drawback ... Now, we didn’t want to hurt the good people at Elysium, but there was this crummy rule that kids couldn’t go to Legoland until they were sixteen—oh, by the way, that’s what they called everything here outside Elysium—“Legoland” (She winks.) -Fade out sound. Okay so lookit! When I got to thirteen ... I was getting kind of itchy, you know? To see a world that didn’t consist only of naked, smiling, enlightened hippies ... And Ezra ... Well, Ezra was getting kind of weird ... playing with his little monkey in his room all day. EZRA removes a monkey hand puppet wearing a little bowler. Oh, that’s his little monkey, Afenschwanz. EZRA Afenschwanz in German means monkey dingle. 20PENNY Ezra has been always been all mad into the Germans. I mean, that Nietzsche guy had a saying for everything! EZRA The last Christian died on the cross. PENNY A joke is an epitaph on emotion. EZRA Without music, the world would be a mistake. PENNY Ah, That’s my absolute favourite! Without music, the world would be a mistake. Beat. Awesome! Nietzsche’s so dreamy. So, | got the hankering to go to Legoland ... more specifically, Uranium City. I knew kind of what to expect, because I read a book called Anne of Green Gables. 1 mean, sure the whole town would be weirded out by our precocious mannerisms at first. But after a while we'd all be embraced by these nice people ... Banker Mudge ... Farmer Pete ... Baker Jones. Oh, and little Gilbert, my high school sweetheart who— Y-—= . aZRA When we got to Wal-Mart, it wasn’t anything like that ... SZRA & PENNY Wal-Mart! SOUND Q #4—Wal-Mart. PENNY ... A big old slab of bright blue and concrete ... plastered with yellow smiley faces. Cars spilling in and out. EZRA An endless line of people coming and going. PENNY Looking down at their feet, holding their bags. The only ones smiling are the people that work there. EZRA & PENNY Crazy jack-o’-lantern smiles! PENNY Thousand of magazines of famous people in tons of make-up, telling you that without all their make-up, they'd look just like you. EZRA And without all their fame ... 22EZRA & PENNY They'd act just like you! Fade out sound. PENNY Anyway ... Wal-Mart was super awesome ... But ... everyone was all busy ... Now, we tried our darnedest to strike up friendly chats with people in Wal-Mart ... But it was strange; if you talked to people they acted like you were touching your dingle in front of them. We snuck out several times, but no matter what we did, no one talked to us! So that’s when we came up with this ... Jeez, it was such a stupid idea ... I was thirteen then ... So we ... EZRA falls down on the ground and starts convulsing. (mechanically) Oh my God! That little boy is having a seizure. We have to get him on his stomach so he doesn’t swallow his tongue! EZRA jiggles around. PENNY shakes him several times, He revives. EZRA (coached) Thank you, I would have been a goner if it weren’t for the collective need I sensed in all of you for my survival. a Ce.ENNY So, Ezra started faking seizures in the Wal-Mart, and I'd pretend to revive him. And now—I know, I know, I know! ... it is not socially acceptable to simulate human catastrophe in order to strike up a conversation. But I have to say, when people think you're on the brink of death ... Well ... they can be really super awesome! The whole crowd of people would break out into applause, old ladies’ mascara would run from tears of joy, families would cry out, “Oh, thank God he’s all right! Oh, thank God that little boy is all right!” You see, every time Ezra had one of his spaz attacks, there was real love in the Wal-Mart ... It wasn’t just a place to get cheap junk anymore ... No! It was a community. So, we did it a couple of times— EZRA Thirty-six times. PENNY Thirty-six times ... and after a while, the manger got wise ... and, well, he called the police ... and they drove us home. And that’s when ... Well, that’s when ... all that trouble happened ... SOUND Q #5—Hippy. Beat. EZRA is in the puppet theatre acting out the drug bust with toys. g 24PENNY As it turned out ... Elysium was the largest fricking organic pot farm in the Prairies! ... The constable got on his CB ... before you knew it, all of Elysium looked like a cheesy action film. All the parents were rounded up in paddy wagons ... The next day we all made the national news. All these pictures of us Elysian kids looking all doe-eyed ... And they set fire to everything ... I mean everything ... And I know it’s bad to feel bad for people who've violated the sacred sanctity of like ... Never. Getting. High ... but the parents on Elysium, our parents, my parents ... they loved us and taught us kids a lot of cool stuff like, how to make ... Fade out sound over fifteen seconds. EZRA Non-toxic forms of penicillin. PENNY The fundamentals of chemistry, agriculture, astronomy—and every Sunday the kids would have the humanistic talent show—where everyone came in first! We were really kind of ... amazingly happy. Beat. Anyway, after my folks got fifteen for cultivation and trafficking of narcotics ... we were sent to a boarding school ... First day. Teacher pulls me up in front of the class. 25SOUND Q #6—School bell. Sound plays out. Beat. ENNY The instant I see the boys staring at me like gaping fish with their heads cut off... and the girls looking at me with those Queen of England smiles ... Oh, little Penny wasn’t in Kansas anymore ... Uh-uh ... I was sent to the charred black bowels of everlasting Hell! Beat. (brightly) But all the teachers liked to call it— EZRA & PENNY Saint Cassian Catholic School! SOUND Q #7—Thunder and religious music. EZRA The actual Saint Cassian was lynched by his students, pinned down and brutally stabbed in the throat with their styli. PENNY & EZRA How perfect! 26PENNY Saint Cassian, a blend of everything insane in both science and religion. EZRA Jesus without love. PENNY Science with no reason. And I was given the dubious distinction of being branded the high school— EZRA & PENNY LESBIAN! Sound fades out. PENNY Everything I did was wrong. My hair, how I talked, what I loved, liked, listened to! Boys writing “Dyke” on my locker with indelible Jiffy-marker. Being pushed down stairs, pushed up stairs, pushed to the side of stairs, soon avoiding stairs altogether—which made it very difficult, because my locker and most of my classes were on the second floor! Girls going up to me all, like— EZRA pops up in the puppet theatre with three Barbies, all speaking in EZRA’s voice; he attempts very little characterization, still giving his flat delivery. 27ZRA (Barbies) Penny, me and the girls were wondering, are you, like, some kind of a lesbian? ENNY I don't ... How many kinds are there? ... What ... is a lesbian like? ZRA (Barbies) Like you! Tee-hee, tee-hee. EZRA and the Barbies giggle. -ENNY Obh, their laughter! Like a pack of bleached-blond, screeching banshees! And in class, in class, it was actually worse! | mean, I didn’t know you weren't supposed to actually know anything in school! EZRA (as the teacher) So, class, in Lord of the Flies, what is William Golding trying to express? PENNY, in a chair, puts her hand up excitedly. PENNY Uh ... The Lord of the Flies. So these children are on an island without parents, right? And they revert to a Darwinian state where savage conformity rules, the intelligent, the spiritual 28the moral. Picked off ... one by one! Crushed under rocks! Stuck like pigs! EZRA (as the teacher) Penny, we’re Catholics, we don't believe in Darwin! (Barbies) Ha, ha, ha, not only is Penny a lesbian, she’s a feminist lesbian! PENNY Well, who’s ever heard of a misogynist lesbian. EZRA (as the teacher) Penny, stop using big words. PENNY Big words? This is an English class! Wh-wh-what big words? EZRA (as the teacher) Words, like “conformity” and “intelligence.” (Barbies) All we want to do is, like—read? ... books? PENNY (powerfully) Read?! The only things you beepin’ hussies like to read are your pregnancy tests! EZRA (as the teacher) Penny! Get out of my classroom! Take your wicked keister down to (EZRA's voice) Dr. Prattle’s office! 29