Act Two – in which the
players are given the task
of finding their names
P1:1 Is it clear to you, P2, how much time has passed?
I must say I do feel somewhat rested.
I had begun to fatigue, but it didn’t last.
Have we slept, and if so, just where were we nested?
P2: The very questions I wanted to ask.
Are you listening, sir, for info requested?
But no reply. I’m talking to a speechless mask.
P3: Slow down a bit, nurse. Easy on the knees.
I do hope he’ll be around to help with the task.
When you address him, nurse, you should learn to say please,
as on his pleasure seems to rest our fate.
P4: I ain’t aimin’ either to offend or appease,
but I’m figurin’ it’s best to deal with him straight.
P5: Mind you keep your distance from her, Seven.
Will you pick up your pace a bit, you weak-kneed prate?2
P6: How on earth is it I find myself clean-shaven?
I’m sure I didn’t bring along a blade.
P7: Is the narrator leading us into Heaven,
Mummy? I would have thought it was a steeper grade.
Am I assigned an angel of my own?
I wonder if newcomers receive lemonade.
P6: Into what new situation have we been thrown?
P5: It doesn’t seem to differ from the first.
P1: What he wishes us to do now is all that’s known.
P3: With a frail and aging memory I’ve been cursed.
Would you repeat for me what we’re to do?
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1The performers enter one by one, P4 accompanying P3 as usual.
2Line addressed to P6.
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P2: Yes, it’s wise, perhaps, that our task should be rehearsed.
P6: We’re to find our names. Apparently, there’s some clue.
P4: Where that’s to be found is anyone’s guess.
P5: I’m eager to discover what I’m called, it’s true.
P4: I believe that we do so happen to be blessed
with a regular interpretive sage.
P1: [to P2] Yes. Maybe you can think how to begin our quest.
P5: Do, if you will, please. Do lead us out of this cage.
P2: I didn’t bring along the Book of Life,
And if I had, I doubt that I’d find the right page.
P4: Then what about you two of the domestic strife.
Why doesn’t one of you say something smart?
I’m talkin’ to you, Jaw, and your mother or wife…
and that demon of yours – your impertinent fart.
P5: I can’t abide her another minute.
P6: I rather enjoy her rant. It touches on art.
P3: I do believe, Nurse, you should respect some limit.
P2: Yes. A moratorium on insults.
We’re in a situation, and we’re all in it.
Apart from Seven, I believe, we’re all adults.
P1: We’re likely to have everything we need
without having to pry the floorboards from the bolts.
I’m sure it’s important for us to work with speed.
We just need to put our heads together.
As he told us, each name must be found and then freed.
Narrator: And thus P1’s name is released from its fetter.
P1: Huh?
P2: I think that means, Freed, you’ve found your name!
P5: Freed from what?
P2: Why, freed from the law of its letter!
P7: Is this what he meant when he said ‘twould be a game?
P2: I think it has something to do with speech.
Our search takes place in its non-extinguishing flame.
P3: I’m afraid I find what you say quite out of reach.
P2: I mean our names are lost within our words.
P6: Perhaps each one’s to be found in a hole or breach.
[Melody to be inserted. See footnote.]
Freed:1 Then may the holes be stopped at octaves, fifths and thirds?
P5: How are words from names to be distinguished?
P7: It sounds to me like separating whey from curds!
P3: At any rate, it seems that P1’s relinquished…
Freed, that is.
P4: That’s one down and six to go.
Freed: You wanna bet who’s next?
P4: Maybe little English.
P7: That’s the language I speak, if you happen to know.
Why is Mr. Narrator so quiet?
P6: He isn’t of us.
Freed: Nor does he live on our row.
P4: Our row? That’s a damn long stretch, Freed. I don’t buy it.
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1Freed's sung line may be minimally accompanied by an offstage piano or programmed soundtrack.
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P6: We do seem to be caught in a rhyme scheme.
P5: Is there no getting out of it short of riot?
Narrator: There’s a way out, but you must find it as a team.
P2: We’ve just discerned our metrical tunnel.
Unknowingly, we’ve been wading a scansioned stream.
P3: It’s as if our words are dropping through a funnel.
P2: Although from time to time one has a choice;
one opts for this clear rill over that dark runnel.
We come together in a counterpoint of voice.
P4: Yeah? Well this ain’t no choral brotherhood.
If you mention harmony, my eyes won’t get moist.
P2: Yes, precisely. Don’t let me be misunderstood.
Not harmony, but rather counterpoint.
P6: Elaborate a few steps further, if you would.
P2: Well, attempts to see eye to eye will disappoint.
P4: If not, it wouldn’t hardly be no fun.
In fact, I’m beginning to sort of like this joint!
P5:1 You can be sure we like you, too.
P4: How much?
P5: A ton.
P2: Further, we follow an unconscious scan
that contracts into now a speech and now a pun.
Tension, not harmony, is the key to the plan…
P6: …though harmony works provisionally.
P2: Of course, but not beyond a stipulated span –
not (what I meant to say) unconditionally.
Either it was there, or else it wasn’t.
It could never be tacked on additionally.
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1With sarcasm.
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P5: In other words, praised be God, she’s not our cousin.
P4: Yes I am, if you believe in Adam.
P7: You mean in God? Mummy does and Daddy doesn’t.
P4: Adam only knows how the three of you happened.
P3: Belief in God and Adam aren’t the same.
P4: Yeah. God never had no troubles. Adam had ‘em.
P6: A danger: Now that we know the rules of the game,
we’re more inclined to treat it as a farce.
P5: Indeed, this last one from P4 was rather lame.
Freed: In truth, the options we have are frequently sparse.
P4: Why do I often gaze upon his ass?1
And the only word that comes to me now…
Freed: …is arse!!
P3: Hey! I was just thinking of a mule in tall grass!
P5: I as well – though I called it a donkey.
P7: Me too, Mummy! He was rounding a narrow pass.
Freed: Our images and words, then, are somewhat on key.
P6: “In key,” I believe, is the correct term.
P4: Ha! I’m hearin’ and I’m thinkin’ “English honky”!2
P7: And he’s thinking “ambisexual Yankee worm.”
P2: An intricate mesh of word and image.
No matter how crazy we get, the structure’s firm.
But is this revelation or merely scrimmage?
And are we at its center or its edge?
Have we located it to our best advantage?
Does it bear an emblem to be worn as a badge?
Is it marked at each precipitous ledge?
Are there snipers to ambush us at every hedge?
Does it spell out a sacred oath to which we’d pledge?
Or overlay a fundament of sledge,
up out of which, if it fell, it couldn’t be dredged?
Are we scouting a valley or guarding a ridge?
It seems as if I’m inserting a wedge…
________________________________
1P4 is referring to P6.
2With reference, of course, to P6.
________________________________________
Freed: I think you’re working up to your name.
P2: Ha! It’s Madge!
Well then! How do I get down safely off this bridge?
P6: Just one more “d-g-e” and then you’re fine.
P7: I’ve got it! “She fluttered down like a wounded midge.”
P3: That one was dragged up through a rather murky brine.
Freed: Well, Madge – you made it through.
P5: Although she squirmed.
P6: Perhaps that’s what he meant by a “fortified mine”.
P3: “Fortified mound”, I believe, is how it was termed.
P2: But we haven’t heard from the narrator.
Freed: Yes. Doesn’t Madge need to be confirmed?
Narrator: She’s confirmed.
P5: I hope I’m not considered an ill-bred traitor,
but as I’m here to provide dissonance,
and as I’d speak my mind rather now than later –
even if you may wish to bid me good riddance…
P4: Why, she can’t seem to get it off her tongue!
Freed: Counterpoint, dissonance – maybe. But dissidents
who wish to see the jury permanently hung…
our narrator warns that they’re forbidden.
P4: Right. You ain’t walkin’ along. You’re walkin’ among!
P5: Well, I see that I stand chided.
P4: Ma’am, that’s “chidden.”
Madge: Though Webster’s, I believe, has OK’d both.
P6: Something monitors our grammar, and it’s hidden.
It’s as if it checks that we’re respecting the oath
to which P2…Madge was just alluding,
weeding out any extraneous verbal growth
springing up where we seven are now colluding.
P3: So which of us may enter the sanctum?
P5: Will some of us be prevented from intruding?
P7:1 You two should be grateful. You haven’t yet thanked him.
P4: He says he’s in someone else’s employ,
so take it easy, my little English plankton.
P7: Well, you all seem to fear he’s equipped to destroy!
P5: Yes. The Americans lend him too much credence.
I’m of the opinion he’s all mere ruse and ploy.
P4: Yeah? Well, I’ll remind you now, Lady Impedence,
we “bloody Yanks” seem to be gettin' through.
P7: You’re all still winning your War of Independence!
P3: Enough, enough – before this turns into a zoo.
P6: Has anyone been keeping track of lines?
P4: Are you sure we can’t shove her back into the flue?
Freed: It’s funny how insult with reason thus entwines.
P4: Just like little Miss Goldipox’s braids.
P7: While good Mrs. Yankee Monkey swings from the vines.
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1Line addressed to Madge and Freed.
________________________________________________________
Freed: I’m just glad we weren’t allowed to bring along blades!
Madge: Although I’m quite enjoying all this breeze,
our barque now slows to a deadly lull on the trades.
P6: She’s asking you to stifle yourselves, if you please.
P5: Yes. Do ignore each other for a while.
Madge: They flow on by with rather disconcerting ease,
making rapid transit between the coarse and vile
and an elegance full of charm and wit.
P6: One first becomes adept and then chooses one’s style,
later thinking how it may with the others fit,
what one may contribute to the debate.
Freed: Of course, there’s padding and filler…
P4: …and all that shit.
Madge: Or words are taken out to make the lines look straight.
Freed: At times one wants to beat around the bush.
P6: Does it sound like High Art?
P3: To me it sounds like fate.
At my age, what’s there to do but embrace the whoosh
of its ominous yet soothing Doppler.
Out of the vanguard of its unremitting push,
out of the search for its left or right, its top or
bottom, one shades oneself, one takes a rest,
though the stage be barren of maple or poplar.
Do we wax in the east? Do we wane in the west?
At eighty, I’m quite unsure whether I’m
at the apex of life or well beyond its crest.
Is there any way for me to arrest the time?
These are questions that bother me, truly.
Does senility possess an innermost rhyme?
Could I reach it if I had the proper pulley?
Is my curiosity unduly?
Perhaps I don’t understand my questions fully.
Youth knows no rule, but age is downright unruly.
Pardon – this do-lays us…
P7: You mean, “de-lays”.
P4: That ain’t no Freudian slip – your name is Dooley!
Madge: And at last his name appears to us through the haze.
P3: Dooley? Did that come out of my own mouth?
Freed: A simple flaw in your speech, a mistake of phrase.
P7: It’s not very common.
P4: But it damn sure beats “Ralph”.
P5: Neither are Madge nor Freed, in point of fact.
Freed: It’s the way of things on the Stage With No True South!
Narrator: North. You may let Dooley rest until the third act.
Dooley: Thank you. But I’ll be glad to stick around.
Age will help youth maintain civility and tact.
Freed: Well, who do you all suppose is next on the mound?
P7: What, you mean you haven’t figured it out?
Consecutively is the way our spool is wound.
P4: They call that a mixed metaphor, my English sprout.
Ain’t nothin’ can be numbered on a spool.
P7: And that’s a double negative, my Yankee lout.
P5: You could just as well have called her your Yankee fool.
P7: But we still don’t know that she’s not a him.
P6: You seem to fancy it that my sister’s so cruel.
P4: Yeah. I like her speech ‘cause it’s full of wit and whim.
If it weren’t for the two of us, you all’d
be homilizin’ stiff, or composin’ a hymn.
And the action almost certainly would have stalled.
It’s all we can do to keep the air fresh.
This stage don’t get no air. It’s most thoroughly walled.
What’s more, I’m rather taken with her infant flesh.
Don’t think I mean anything weird by that.
I remember when my own skin was smooth as mesh.
And I was similarly wordy as a brat.
So, if you’ll allow me to summarize,
I consider it quite the convivial spat.
Freed: I believe you’re trying the meter out for size.
P4: Exactly. Don’t think I’ve finished my speech.
You can bet I’m workin’ to earn that golden prize.
My name, that is. For so long it’s been out of reach.
Don’t know how much I liked the one I had.
So let me gab for a while. Allow me to preach.
This is like jottin’ down notes on a writin’ pad!
If I ever get back, I’ll make it known.
I’ll popularize it as a regular fad.
It’s a method of determinin’ what’s your own
and leads you right up to epiphany
without deviatin’ from quirks to which you’re prone.
(Not so soon, little Miss, my name ain’t Tiffany.1
Narrator, will you cut this line some slack?)
That is, you discover your true affinity.
It’s just a matter of feelin’ around the track.
Though you reckon there’s much that can’t be said,
you realize it ain’t yours but the outfit’s lack.
It’s a matter of gettin’ it all in your head
and bein’ aware that you’re bein’ led.2
(Don’t go gettin’ your hopes up yet, for I ain’t Fred!)
It’s up front now, but soon I’ll be gettin’ ahead.
Mind, I’m workin’ my way into a groove.
I’m facin’ up to what I might otherwise dread.
Now, I know you’re bankin’ on my name to remove
doubts you all entertain as to my sex.
Well, I ain’t doin’ nothin’ to prove or disprove
what any odd one of you conceives or expects.
I’m aimin’ to leave your suspicions vexed.
“Is he male or female? Or is he neutered? X’d?”
I ain’t givin’ it away. Quit strainin’ your necks.
I’m holdin’ tight and leavin’ you perplexed.
I can sway like Nancy and I can pump like Rex.
I’ve acquired a physique that everyone respects.
Narrator, I’m fixin’ to name my name.
_____________________________________
1P7 has gestured as if to speak.
2Suddenly turning to the other performers, to whom he addresses the following parenthetical remark.
______________________________________________
Narrator: Name it.
P4: As I can flex both ways, just call me Flex!1
P5: Congratulations. You’ve certainly aced the game.
Dooley: Note how he set it all up by himself.
Flex: Thanks. I’m takin’ it home and lookin’ for a frame…
like an Oscar. Could be it leads to fame and wealth.
I’ll be fendin’ off the paparazzi
at fancy spas where I’ll go to regain my health.
They’ll wonder, “Is he hotsy or is she totsy?”
The most I’ll give the media is clues.
I’ll perform the role of a cross-dressin’ Nazi.
When Goebbels spots me goose-steppin’, he’s all confused.
At long last, I land in one of them camps,
where I sing it up in German-accented blues.
Himmler chooses me as one of his secret tramps.
I cause the prison’d troops to be released.
It all concludes on one of them Hollywood vamps.
It’ll surely rake in fifty million, at least.
I’ll be rich, but you bet I won’t retire.
P5: You’ll have to remember to bring along a priest,
as fifty million viewers will surely expire.
Flex: Yeah? So what do you know about drama?
P5: This is a stage, right? Apparently I was hired.
Flex: She just can’t refrain from insertin’ her comma.
P5: Ha! I rather thought it a question mark!
P7: A request please, Flex. Say to Mummy, “Yo’ Mama!”
Flex: Child, ain’t there no gettin’ over the fact I’m dark?
P7: It’s not your color. It’s the way you speak.
Madge: I suggest we mind the direction of our barque.
__________________________________________
1Line followed by bemused applause from the other performers.
_____________________________________________________
P6: Excellent. I think it’s about to spring a leak.
Flex: That’s fine with me. It’s time I had a rest.
Can’t linger on Everest once you’ve hit the peak.
Ain’t no holdin’ out on Mt. Sinai past the crest
(fact the Israelites learned the hard way).
I’ll shut my mouth now, not wishin’ to be a pest.
Freed: Well, now that our Flex has had her night on Broadway,
I’d say we’re under the aspect of Five.
P5: Though I’ve had the luck to hear three speeches, oddly
enough I’ve not much to add to this droning hive.
So don’t expect a polished monologue.
Dooley: What if your holding out means we do not survive?
P5: But you all seem rather fond of this stainless bog.
And the Narrator’s given me a hint
that he’ll simply not brook my attempts to unclog
this conceptual pipework or free it of lint.
See if you can extract a name from that!
For I’ve nothing more to say. I’ve ended my stint.
P6: You’re a person who likes to think your meaning’s pat,
that you don’t mince it with words lacking sense,
that you’re as self-sufficient as the Cheshire cat.
Your composure, Mummy…Darling, is half pretense
(I no longer care what they think of us),
and you’re holding out at the rest of our expense.
Flex: They’re gettin’ down to it now. Do you think he’ll cuss?
Which several of our human taboos
have they broken so as to stir up such a fuss?
In Noah’s day the beasts were introduced in two’s
that were matched up evenly, each to each,
without havin’ no laws of kinship to abuse.
Espousin’ one’s next of kin was quite outa reach…1
as were the monstrosities so produced.
P7: But surely one knew one’s banana from one’s peach!
Narrator: HUM! HUM!
___________________________________________
1Now directing his/her gaze towards P7.
______________________________________________________
Madge: Thank you, Narrator. Flex, you had a truce.
If my count’s right, our time is running thin.
Now’s not the time to subject P5 to abuse.
So please hold off for now with your punning on sin.
I’m not sure how solid is your King James,
though you’d make a rather fun seminarian.
Now we’ve got to get at Miss Lady-on-the-Thames.
A while back, Flex, you called me Socrates.
As P5 is reluctant to enter the games,
I’d like to ask her some questions, if she agrees.
P5: All right – for amusement, not charity.
Madge: Your reluctance, I believe, holds one of the keys
to our survival – your treasured disparity.
What do you most censure…dislike, I mean,
in this concerted struggle?
P5: Lack of clarity.
But it’s the stage as well…the fact that nothing’s green.
The fact that there’s no Nature here to mar.
Madge: And do you like your Nature wild?
P5: I like it clean.
Uncluttered. Something to be admired from afar.
“Clean,” though, is not the word. I want it clear!
That’s right…all clear. As the Germans say, “Alles klar!”
My Nature is rather unnatural, I fear.
It’s like this stage, in fact. It’s sparse. It’s spare…
with three hundred and sixty-five days in its year –
a barrenness that on occasion yields the rare.
Madge: It’s written in all these stacked up CL’s:
uncluttered, clarity, cleanliness. You are Clare!
P5: Is that right, Narrator? So Clare is what it spells?
Narrator: That is correct.
Clare: Then I owe Madge my thanks.
I appreciate now the way the discourse swells.
Our allegorical stage has ranges and banks
which house our speeches, our words, our logics.
Through a sixth sense we scan their invisible ranks,
communed about in hidden minims and crotchets
that strive to come to unmelodied sound.
Does this describe it at all? I feel I’ve botched it.
Dooley: Unknowingly, I think you’ve ascended your mound!
P6: It seems to be one that would to music.
Madge: Indeed, this is often like singing in a round.
One must claim one of seven parts. One must choose it.
Dooley: It doesn’t matter if one’s voice is coarse.
The trick lies in discovering how to use it…
Freed: …and not letting it run like an unbridled horse.
P6: Though it’s important not to overtrain
and to allow it to enjoy its mastered force.
To learn when to lead the pack and when to refrain,
to learn that one has portion in one’s breath.
And that’s why a song is both an air and a strain:
We breath a common air with our neighboring clef;
we strain at times to share the breath we take,
to ensure that our seven-clef staff isn’t cleft.1
How odd it is that I only now feel awake!
I haven’t mentioned it…that I’ve struggled.
How much I’ve wanted to contribute, to partake!
But while you all with great energy have huddled,
I’ve been cursed with a constrained inaction.
In comparison with Madge, my mind is muddled.
I’m not at all bent on holding out or faction.
It’s just that I’ve no notion of my part.
Perhaps I’m not capable of interaction.
Perhaps I’ve simply no talent for such an art.
I cannot make it mine – this air we breathe.
And I’ve no idea of where to make my start.2
Perhaps you should give me something on which to teethe.
I’d rather paint a picture, make a wreath.
But I can’t seem to shut my mouth, and now I seethe.
And something’s straining to escape from out my teeth,
as if it would to life or would to death.
Narrator: Performer Six, speak out your name.
_____________________________________
1P6 pauses as the others gather around him, aware that he is becoming the focus of attention.
2With growing consternation.
______________________________________________
P6: My name is Heath!1
And now, if I may be allowed to catch my breath.
Dooley: We’ve seen the expiry of youthful doubt.
Young sir, yours is the bass, the fundamental clef.
Without you, our best interplay is merely rout.
Heath: Still, if all I am is merely figure,
numerals for the harpsichordist to read out…
Freed: Yes, but it’s your line that guarantees our rigor.
Madge: And anyway, it’s not like figured bass.
Think of your doubt as a special fuse or trigger –
a suggestion for us whose contours we must trace.
Dooley: It doesn’t undergird, it undermines!
We check our progress by the doubt upon your face.
Madge: It’s a doubt that divides and a doubt that divines!
In a pocket of your divided youth
there is lodged a variety of vintage wines.
Though no single one is an elixir of Truth,
Truth is manifest each time you imbibe.
In your name, Heath, you may find that pocket, that booth.
Flex: Whoa, that’s way out there, Madge. Are we of the same tribe?
Is youth so serious as all of that?
Freed: Well, doubt is one of its props. The other’s the jibe,
the prank of your local university frat.
Flex: And if that sort of thing starts gettin’ old,
you can fill it all up with nonsensical scat,
and stuff it in so that it seeps back through the fold…
Narrator: HUM! HUM! Your remaining time is precious.
There are seven names but only six have been told.2
Dooley: Is our overseer going to be vicious
with P7, the youngest of our young?
Heath: Or will he let her have any name she wishes?
________________________________________
1Line followed by a stunned and winded pause on the part of P6/Heath.
2At this point, the other performers begin to gather around P7, who is visibly frightened.
__________________________________________________
Clare: My darling, you're our seventh and ultimate rung.
Madge: Yes. You're our portal, our screen, our passage,
our threshold. The last of seven strings to be strung.
P7: I fear that I'm no more useful than a vestige
whose tininess safeguards its existence.
I'm not sure I would understand any message
my speech might speak to me in one of its instants.
For these past few minutes I've been silent.1
As time's closed in, I've felt an inner resistance.
It's not, though, that I don't wish to be compliant.
To tell the truth, it's simply that I'm scared.
I wouldn't even know how to be defiant.
Flex: As I feel we're kin due to the insults we've shared
(yes, shared - in as much as they were traded),
I'll help you out as one who's already been spared.2
And we'll have this solved before a minute's faded.
A hand please, Madge, if I seem to get stuck.
You'll find I've simplified your method I've raided.
Child, another word, please, for fold.
P7: [pause] That would be tuck.3
Flex: What do nurslings do at nipples?
P7: They suck.4
Flex: What's the American word for "lorry"?
P7: It's truck.
Flex: If you're out in a storm you're likely…
P7: …to be struck.
Flex: Tell me another word for dirt.
_________________________________
1On the verge of tears.
2Flex takes P7 in his/her arms and places her on Dooley's cot, subsequently assuming the posture of a defense attorney.
3In the following exchange, P7’s replies at first are tentative and made with hesitation. As the exchange proceeds, she becomes more confidant and replies with greater promptness.
4At this point, the other performers begin to look on warily, expecting to hear a dreaded word.
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P7: It's muck.
Flex: The mother of the ugly duckling…
P7: …was a duck.
Flex: Either your fortune's up…
P7: …or your down on your luck.
Flex: Who's Shakespeare's sprightliest character?
P7: Puck.
Flex: Combine luck with Puck. You are what you have.
P7: I'm Pluck!!1
Flex: And you all were expectin' I'd make her say "Fuck"!
It's true she's called me just about as bad.
(And I'll just add in passing that chickens go "cluck".)
Y'all will have to thank my ass for savin’ the lad.
Exactly what I'd have done for my own.
I'm just practicin' for when I'm a mom…or dad.
I’d go out on such a limb for my youthful clone.
Freed: Leave off, Flex, patting yourself on the back.
Madge: It seems we’ve succeeded before our time has flown.
Our barque will presently shift to another tack.
Perhaps this is the most rest that we'll get.
We would do well to enjoy these few minutes' slack.
Who knows what awaits us on the third and next fret?
Dooley: You know, something has just occurred to me.
We haven't received word from the narrator yet.
Clare: You mean whether to the name of Pluck he'll agree?
Flex: Hey, Narrator - you have any problem?
[silence] He ain't answerin'. I suppose that means we're free.
Heath: You know, I've a great suspicion that at bottom
he doesn't care as to the names we chose.
He didn't censure Flex.
Freed: Nor did he applaud him.
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1P7's revelation is followed by an extended pause so as to allow her to express her bewonderment. Flex's next line is obviously calculated to take the others off guard. They react to it with bemused disgust.
________________________________________
Flex: Maybe all he cares is that we ain't speakin' prose.
Whatever names we choose will do just fine.
Dooley: And we're figuring this out now, right at the close.
Clare: And all that worry about a "fortified mine".
It turns out, after all, it's just a ruse.
Heath: We thought we were after some transcendental sign.
Pluck: A pack of dogs chasing after a wooden goose!
Flex: But there was lots of good speechifyin' -
and not all of it was especially obtuse.
Pluck: Are you changing your name back to Sue or Ryan?
Flex: "Flex" happens to be of my own choosin'.
News of my sex is as recondite as Mayan.
But do we ever knows whose Thing folds out, whose in?
Leastways, I sure as hell ain't lettin' on,
though everyone's curiosity be oozin'.
Heath: Will he speak to us before we'll be getting on?
Clare: He's somewhat of an absconding master,
like certain fishes after they beget their spawn.
Freed:1 Who art thou and where, oh heart of alabaster?
Answer such questions as we put to thee!
Madge: Are the measures slowing down, or are they faster?
Dooley: Are we on a losing or on a winning spree?
Flex: If winnin', do we get some bonus lines?
Can we end a few lines early and take a pee?
Clare: Do they unravel easily, these braided vines?
Heath: Can our progress be read as on a map?
Pluck: Does it trace itself as with itself it entwines?
Narrator:2 I've been quite busy while concealed behind this flap.
Rest assured that I've monitored this throng.
If all had gone awry, I was ready to snap.
The search, in the third act, will have to do with song.
The players now rest to make themselves strong,
and the auditors break until they hear the dong.
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1The performers make their exits individually upon asking their respective questions.
2The narrator speaks only after the stage has been cleared.
[Next: Act Three]