First Person
One of the stars of our show | AP Photo/Sigmund Freud Museum
Why True Love, Financial Success, and Inner Peace Have Eluded Me Thus Far; or Hamlet’s Ghost; or Doctor! Doctor! I Can Walk!
A musical play in one act written at the request of the editor of M_____ W_____ then quickly and quietly rejected
(A bar in Austin, Texas. A YOUNG MAN and SIGMUND FREUD sit on opposite sides of a small table. A checkerboard sits between them; they are mid-game. FREUD is drinking scotch out of a tumbler; the YOUNG MAN is drinking red wine out of a bottle. A CHORUS of male singers sits at various tables and on stools at the bar. A small band plays a sweet, sad song. FREUD is ruddy and handsome; the YOUNG MAN, meanwhile, is handsome and ruddy. They are both drunk, as is the author of this play. We join them mid-conversation.)
FREUD: And yet you still have not told me why you think your life has turned out so … unexceptional.
YOUNG MAN (Taking a long swig of his drink): I think you’re missing my point. (He lights a cigarette and takes a long drag.) The simple fact is, doctor, I am a contrarian. And that’s all there is to it. (He takes another drink.) Wow, it’s good to get that off my chest after all these years. (He moves a checker.) King me!
FREUD: (He lights up a cigar and “kings” the YOUNG MAN’s checker.) I’m not sure I understand.
YOUNG MAN: No? Okay. Here’s an example: When I lived in New York, surrounded by all those millions of ambitious people running about being productive, I couldn’t do a thing. I felt paralyzed. It’s like the city was a train, and I had to jump off and stand on the side of the tracks, thumbing my nose as it went by. I had to, see? I can’t say why, exactly.
FREUD: Hmmm …
YOUNG MAN: So then I came to Austin, a city famous for being full of people without ambition, and everywhere I looked there were thousands of people lining up to do nothing: to swim, to hike, to ride bicycles, to play acoustic guitars, to drink margaritas in the afternoon – in the afternoon, doctor! On weekdays no less! Thousands of people … enjoying life! And I saw them and I saw how happy they were, and straight away I went out and forced myself to be ambitious and busy and productive. Not because I wanted to, because I had to. It’s like there’s a voice inside me all the time saying, “Do the opposite! Do the opposite!” (He drinks and puffs on a cigarette.) Is that normal?
FREUD (Stroking his beard): Well …
YOUNG MAN: I also have a paralyzing fear of floral curtains. But only on Tuesdays. Is that normal?
FREUD: Hmmm ….
YOUNG MAN: Give it to me straight, doc. I can take it.
FREUD: It’s difficult to say. (He moves a checker.) King me. (The YOUNG MAN leans forward and stares at the board.) Here’s one that never gets old: Tell me about your mother.
(Suddenly soused and overcome with rage, the YOUNG MAN jumps to his feet and violently swats the checkerboard off the table. Checkers go flying everywhere.)
YOUNG MAN : My mother?!! King you?!! Difficult to say?!! You son of a bitch!! My mother is a saint and to hell with you for asking!
FREUD: Okay then, tell me about your father.
YOUNG MAN (Cheerfully): Oh, well that’s a different story…
(The YOUNG MAN jumps onto his chair and points at a chalk board men from the CHORUS have rolled onstage and upon which is taped the picture of a middle-aged man. This is the YOUNG MAN’s father. The band begins to play a bright and upbeat tune. The CHORUS gathers around him and each member bobs his heads along to the music.)
YOUNG MAN (Putting on a straw hat and a red vest and speaking rapid-fire like a traveling salesman while the music builds in the background): Step this way folks and I’ll tell you about my father, the world’s heavyweight champion of damned stubborn contrarians. All his life he was the smartest guy around. All his life he was the one who could do anything, could be anything, could go anywhere. Everybody said so. But my father – dear old Dad! – he showed them all (by god, he did!) … by doing nothing, being nothing, and going nowhere! Clever boy! Yes, sir!
CHORUS: Yes, sir!
YOUNG MAN: My father had his own way of doing things, see, and he couldn’t understand why a man like him with a brain like his and ideas like those should be forced to accommodate himself to the middling expectations of the world! So he didn’t. And since he was never able to reconcile his dreams with the demands of other people – oh, boy! ….
CHORUS: Oh, boy!
YOUNG MAN: … my father’s dreams were deferred until it was too late!
CHORUS (Feigning sympathy): Awww!
(The band begins to play a march. The YOUNG MAN sings along briskly as if reciting a memorized lesson in school, or a military oath.)
“Dear Old Dad”
YOUNG MAN (singing):
My father whistled “The British Grenadiers” better than any man since or ‘fore.
When he died he was found on the ground on his side just one foot from the bathroom door.
He was five foot ten with a devious grin but a heart that had limited store.
What more can you say at the end of the day when your father dies lonely and poor? Hey!
(The YOUNG MAN sits down again and drinks a great gulp of whiskey. He lights a cigarette and leans back in his chair. The straw hat and vest have mysteriously disappeared. The band returns to its dirge.)
YOUNG MAN (Speaking): It’s funny. Two days after my father died, my sisters and I had to go to his tiny apartment and rummage through thousands of file folders filled with scribbled notes, to-do lists, papers, documents, and bills because we had to find the one that had his life insurance policy in it. And when I finally found that morbid folder, do you know what that son of a bitch had written on the tab for us to find after he was dead?
FREUD: What?
YOUNG MAN: “The Last Hurrah.” That’s what he’d named it. “The Last Hurrah.” Tell me, doctor: What exactly is a son supposed to learn from a father who writes things like that? Except that everything is ridiculous and there’s no point to anything we do? (He drinks again.) True love? Financial success? Inner peace? Why bother? I’m fine as I am. Really. I’m hereby resigning myself to physics and biology.
FREUD: I see. (He strokes his beard thoughtfully for a moment and then looks at the YOUNG MAN) May I tell you a story? I think you’ll find it instructive.
YOUNG MAN: I doubt that very much, but, by all means, go ahead.
(FREUD leaps out of his chair directly onto the bar, as if by magic. The band begins to play an upbeat Eastern European dance number, more klezmer than mizurka. FREUD stomps around the stage. The CHORUS dances behind him in a line.)
“The Good Doctor’s Warning”
FREUD (singing):
In Vienna 1893
A student of philosophy
Stroked his beard and challenged me
To map the human soul.
“The soul,” he claimed, “Cannot be seen
Through superegos, ids, or dreams
But only by philosophic means.”
And oh, the boy was droll.
CHORUS (Their arms raised high to heaven):
And oh, the boy was droll!!!
FREUD:
He thought he knew the answers to
The questions plaguing me and you,
And this at only 22;
The lad was quite precocious.
Questions like Why are we here?
And Why is “far” the thing not near?
And Why is death a thing to fear
When we know not where it throws us?
CHORUS (Going through the motions of tossing a large ball or a small animal):
When we know not where it throws us!!!
FREUD:
He claimed to know the root of things,
Said he was wise as Hebrew kings,
And made phrenological mutterings
‘bout gifted family crania.
And then this man went on to say
He could theorize thus all day.
But I diagnosed him right away:
Acute me-ga-lo-ma-ni-a!
(The CHORUS jumps upstage to do a jig.)
CHORUS:
Acute me-ga-lo-ma-ni-aaaaaaa!!!!
Hey! Hey! Hey!
Me-ga-lo-ma-ni-aaaaaa!!!
Cha! Cha! Cha!
(The CHORUS steps back again into a line behind FREUD.)
FREUD:
He believed that nature put birds here
To provide sweet music for his ear
And came to see the midnight clear
As born out of his musing.
He could not love and would not love
Though God himself from up above
Showed him beauty like the dove;
Only himself he found amusing.
CHORUS:
Only himself he found amusing!!!
(They dance a Viennese waltz. The YOUNG MAN dances as well, drunkenly, from his position sitting at the table. Then FREUD turns toward the YOUNG MAN and points at him accusingly.)
FREUD:
And you, sir, are the same as he,
That student of philosophy.
Your self’s the only thing you see;
You think you’re up above!
An unrepentant narcissist,
A self-reflexive solipsist,
Drowning in self in-ter-est,
Incapable of love!
CHORUS:
Incapable of Love!!! So sad!! So sad!! So very saaaaaaddddd!!!!
(The YOUNG MAN stands up from his chair, indignant, and takes menacing steps toward FREUD, who recedes back downstage in fear.)
“A Genial Retort“
YOUNG MAN:
That’s not true; I see it all,
From physics to the Wailing Wall.
And I’ve returned at least six calls
From friends who were in need.
It’s not that love is not for me;
It’s only that I fail to see
The need to love eternally.
I do it with more speed.
CHORUS:
He does it with more speed!!
YOUNG MAN:
The problem, Doc, I think, is you,
Who condemns without conceding to
The fact that he’s Narcissus too.
You don’t know who you are.
I love I, and who can blame?
Not I, says I, nor does it shame
A man like me to worship me,
My favorite by far.
CHORUS:
His favorite by far!!!
(Again, the CHORUS begins to jig.)
Acute me-ga-lo-ma-ni-aaaaaaa!!!!
Hey! Hey! Hey!
Me-ga-lo-ma-ni-aaaaaa!!!
Cha! Cha! Cha!
(The YOUNG MAN spins wildly with his hands on his hips as the CHORUS repeats this phrase and dances up a storm around him and FREUD vanishes into a hole in the stage. Slowly the CHORUS starts to disappear into the shadows as the music fades away, leaving the YOUNG MAN alone on a dark and silent stage.)
YOUNG MAN (reciting to the audience, as a chorus closes a Shakespeare tragedy, yet out of breath):
An Empty Epilogue
Here I stand, I fear it’s true
Just one more solipsistic Jew,
Believed predestined for the skies
In the world’s discerning eyes;
Yet one who fails to see the point
In pointless life, so out of joint.
A man who knows he could be great
But now who’s off to masturbate.
Tra la la! Tra la la! Tra la la!
(Exit)
Comments
6 Comments
Catchy tune.
Honestly where do I even start with this one?
It’s about time you shared your Off Off Off Broadway prospects with the real world, and delighted all with your textbook Psych 101 family dysfunctionality. I’m more than a tad pleased.
[...] Your Manager: It’s about time you shared your Off Off Off Broadway prospects with the real world, and delighted… [...]
i wish i was a rich benefactor who could benefact this raging beauty into existence.
I knew your father when he ran
He ran so hard and he ran so far
I wished he could outrun the death of his heart
But now I hear even he had to depart
He tried harder then, than most anybody I knew
To create the world he wanted to live in,
but even on vacation he packed his running shoes
and some weird glue gun to patch their soles
when it was his soul that was leaking
Even the great and un-great in this world
may die squeaking,
but the heart, the heart
sets up a holler
Finding the depth of life in its end,
it doesn’t matter the color of your collar.
Add a Comment