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Title: Illyria Street Commune
Author: Fredy Perlman
Date: 1979–2011
Language: en
Topics: collectives, critique, housing, plays, relationships, theater
Source: Scanned from original script
Notes: This play was written and performed in Detroit in 1979. For another take on collective living and other anti-authoritarian issues see the play Revolutionary Purity Showdown by Richard Ades

Fredy Perlman

Illyria Street Commune

to Donna

— Ben

A note on performing Illyria Street Commune

A dash at the end of a speech indicates that the next speaker begins

before the previous one is finished. In general, there should be no

pauses; props can be carried in and out while the action develops.

Sequences in different parts of the room can sometimes be done

simultaneously, depending on the discretion of the performers. If a

prompter is necessary, it would be consistent with the play (“Ben’s

play”) if Ben sat in a corner with a script, and intervened to correct

lines, stepping out of his corner into scenes in which he takes part.

In general, only plot and character developments have been worked out;

mannerisms, motions, and also actions of other people in the house, have

not. Since the setting is the main room of a commune, much will probably

be happening all the time. But in developing such actions, criteria like

“This will really go over” or “They’ll lap this one up” should be left

to writers of commercials and TV scripts, since such criteria contradict

the content of this play. Such elaboration will probably be possible if

aspiring professionals confine themselves to roles of aspiring

professionals, and if drop-outs play drop-outs, although an unstunted

imagination should be able to grasp both. In short, people who might

have lived in such a house should develop the actions in accordance with

their own potential experiences in it.

The illusion to be created is that the action takes place in a room of

such a house, not the illusion that “This is Theater” or “This is Art.”

If “artists” require spotlights, that’s fine; they can keep them. The

best lights for the room would be bright room lights. If sunlight is to

be simulated, a spotlight, or another device created by the ingenuity of

the participants, may become necessary (outside the picture window, for

instance), but this is dictated by the needs of the play and not by

conventions which are totally extraneous to it, like Legitimate Theater

conventions. With such provisos, of course, “It won’t sell.” Selling is

one of the activities disparaged in the play. Some effort should go into

making sure that “it doesn’t sell.”

Illyria Street Commune

(The setting is the front room of a large house on Illyria Street. The

outside door is on the left; the archway on the right gives access to

the kitchen, back yard and upstairs. On the wall between the exits is an

enormous picture window, almost completely covered by hanging potted

plants.)

1.

TAPED NARRATOR (voice of Olympia played through a tape recorder): It

began with isolated strangers in the big city, hostile and suspicious

individuals surrounded by shells, their tentacles warning them of

constant dangers.

VOICE OF OLYMPIA (from right): Your garden is extremely well kept.

VOICE OF DONNA: It’s what I like best about this house, especially now

when the sprouts start coming up.

VOICE OF OLYMPIA: I’ve never seen such an enormous kitchen and so well

equipped!

VOICE OF DONNA: I guess they just ran off and left all their stuff, as

if the city were being invaded.

VOICE OF OLYMPIA: What’s in here?

VOICE OF DONNA: I don’t know what they used this room for, but I’ve been

putting things here I didn’t have the heart to throw away.

VOICE OF OLYMPIA: That chandelier — did it actually hang somewhere?

(DONNA & OLYMPIA enter from right)

DONNA: Right in the middle of this room. But it was so old fashioned we

couldn’t stand it. Do you think you’ll take the room?

OLYMPIA: Do I ever? I’ve never had such a large room all to myself. Do

you mind if I have my friends over?

DONNA: Have parties if you want. (Goes to right and calls) Philip!

VOICE OF PHILIP: What is it?

DONNA: One of the new roomers is here.

VOICE OF PHILIP: Just make sure they’re able to pay the rent.

DONNA: I thought you’d at least want to meet her.

VOICE OF PHILIP: Oh, all right.

OLYMPIA: Are there other applicants? Are you going to choose among them?

DONNA: I don’t understand — Oh, no, nothing like that. Only one other

person answered my ad, and I asked you both to come here tonight when

Philip and I are both home —

(PHILIP enters, stands in archway)

OLYMPIA: I’m sorry. I guess I’ve filled out so many applications that

I’ve come to suspect every new situation of being another application.

PHILIP: Hi. I’m Philip.

OLYMPIA (turning around): Oh, hi. I’m Olympia. I think this house is

unbelievable.

DONNA: She’s employed at —

OLYMPIA: I work part time as a waitress. I’ve got all kinds of projects

which I intend to use my room for and they are increasing every minute —

but none of them are noisy or smelly.

PHILIP: Fine. Any arrangement Donna makes is acceptable to me.

DONNA: Philip, she’s trying to tell you about herself.

PHILIP: Oh. Pleased to meet you. Sorry. I’m Philip.

(PHILIP exits right)

OLYMPIA: I’m all in a sweat — I’ve never had such a cold reception —

DONNA: Don’t mind him. He was always a little like that — quiet, I mean

— but he’s gotten worse since his wife left him. That’s why I’m trying

to rent the rooms. Becky was the life of this house, always giving

parties for her friends and her kids friends. She’s had three already

and she’s only my age. I just turned twenty. Becky and I were friends in

high school. When we graduated we both got jobs in the same office, the

year of the riots. I was telling you about Philip. Two weeks ago Becky

packed up her two youngest sons, left Philip with the oldest — a four

year old brat — and ran off with Rick. Rick was my boyfriend.

OLYMPIA: I’m sorry.

DONNA: Don’t be for me. I mean, I could see the storm brewing for the

whole past year. But I guess Philip didn’t see anything. Anyway, it’s

not because of the money that I put the ad in the paper. With Becky gone

the house seemed like a tomb. She’s the one who did all the redecorating

and she kept changing everything every week. It was always so full of

people, like a constant carnival. The kids parties sometimes got on my

nerves. But I guess I understand how Philip feels. I miss the noise and

the parties and Becky more than I miss Rick. He got to be such a slob,

expecting me to do things —

OLYMPIA: I know exactly what you mean.

DONNA: He called me his broad and even his old lady. We did have a

marriage certificate, but that’s no reason. We all got married together,

right in this room. Becky arranged for this Jewish priest to do a

non-religious service since none of us believed any of that — You’re not

religious, are you?

OLYMPIA: I was brought up a strict Mormon and I’ve been rebelling

against it ever since.

DONNA: I wasn’t brought up a strict anything but I can’t stand it

either, all that hocus pocus about a bath. Maybe when people didn’t

bathe, but what’s the point nowadays? Anyway, as soon as I saw what was

happening I started dating Steve. He was a typewriter repairman then; he

works for the phone company now and he promised to get my phone hooked

up so I don’t have to pay —

OLYMPIA: How does he manage that?

DONNA: I guess you can do a lot of things like that when you work for

the phone company. I could tell he liked me the first time he fixed the

machine in my office. He’s older, I don’t mean that he’s old. He’s in

his thirties. As soon as Rick started going for Becky, my typewriter

started going on the blink once a week. It was a ball until he got fired

— not because of me, but because he wired the assistant manager’s

dictaphone to the loudspeaker system and the whole building split

laughing. Steve is real shy; he must have had some bad experiences but

he doesn’t like to talk about it. For the whole past year Rick was

arranging to meet Becky so I wouldn’t know about it and I was seeing

Steve at this bar near here twice a week. He walked me home for the

first time last week. He likes to sit and just look at me while he sips

his beer. I’ve never had anyone like me like that —

(Doorbell rings)

OLYMPIA: I’ll get it.

BEN (entering): I called you earlier about a room? I suppose it’s the

maid’s room in the attic?

OLYMPIA: That’s what I thought when I read the ad. You’re in for a big

surprise. What’s your name? Mine’s Olympia.

BEN: I’m Ben. Then you’re not the woman who’s renting? —

OLYMPIA: That’s Donna. Why would you want a maid’s room, Ben?

BEN: See, I work with a group that puts out an underground paper and we

—

DONNA: Gosh, are you connected with those four students who were shot to

death? —

BEN: You mean in Kent? No, I’m not connected, I, er —

DONNA (disappointed): You’re not?

BEN: Maybe I am connected. What an odd question. The fact is I would

have liked to see four guardsmen go down instead of four students.

DONNA: Gosh!

BEN: Are you still willing to show me the room?

DONNA (runs to right, calls): Philip! The other roomer is here! Could

you show him a room?

OLYMPIA: I didn’t even know there was an underground paper in this town.

(PHILIP appears in archway)

BEN: Oh, sure. It’s one of the oldest in the country; it’s been going —

PHILIP: How do you do?

DONNA: Ben works for an underground newspaper, Philip. Isn’t that

exciting?

PHILIP: What do you do for a living?

BEN: I was about to explain. I don’t get paid at the underground paper.

I’m on welfare. Disability.

OLYMPIA: Really? I’ve been trying to get on that for years!

BEN: I actually have a disability.

PHILIP: Fine. I guess we could hardly ask for a steadier source of

income than the government. Would you follow me?

(PHILIP exits right with BEN)

OLYMPIA: It isn’t clear to me who owns this enormous house.

DONNA: I do.

OLYMPIA: It must be terribly expensive. Are you — I hope I’m not prying

— rich?

DONNA: Me? Gosh, do I look like it? I guess you don’t know how cheap

these houses were selling, even a year after the riots. Come to think of

it I was rich. I was the only one of us who had a bank account; that’s

why I got to fill out the loan application. It’s funny. Philip went to

college for four years and got a degree in chemistry or something, and

then he spent ages filling out applications. He did finally get a job

with a chemicals firm — as a shipping clerk. Becky and I had one

interview during our senior year and we started working two weeks after

we graduated getting half again as much as Philip gets now, and a year

later I’d saved over a thousand dollars. Rick and Becky couldn’t hold on

to money; they strewed it around like confetti. Here comes the

underground.

VOICE OF BEN (from right): You actually do chemistry experiments in your

room? Couldn’t you blow up the house?

VOICE OF PHILIP: Not very likely.

VOICE OF BEN: Would you be into making bombs?

VOICE OF PHILIP: I beg your pardon?

OLYMPIA: What kind of experiments?

DONNA: He makes silver, I think. Then he makes things out of it and

melts them down again. And pottery.

OLYMPIA: In his room?

VOICE OF BEN: Cripes what a kitchen. My friends’ll think I sold out. I

can’t even cook. Mind if I look at the garden?

VOICE OF PHILIP: The light switch is by the door.

OLYMPIA: What if — ?

DONNA: Shhh — I want to hear this.

VOICE OF BEN: This sure looks well kept. Just the two of you work on

this?

VOICE OF PHILIP: I hate plants.

DONNA: Can you imagine?

VOICE OF BEN: And the rent — did I misread the amount?

VOICE OF PHILIP: Those arrangements are not my department.

BEN (in archway): You’re putting me on!

DONNA: I don’t understand.

BEN: Forty dollars a month for a room in this house? Half the town

should have been here trying to rent it.

DONNA: If four of us each pays forty, that covers the loan, tax,

utilities, plus some left over for repairs —

BEN: I know, but — are you sure you own this house?

DONNA: Do you want to see the papers?

BEN: The plants in that window are out of sight. Did you do that?

DONNA: I’m glad you like them. I thought you underground people didn’t

care about things like that.

BEN: Will you still own the house an hour from now when I come back with

my bags?

(BEN runs out left)

DONNA: Some people sure are odd. I did give you the keys, didn’t I,

Olympia? Good night.

(OLYMPIA exits left, DONNA exits right)

2.

TAPED NARRATOR: For almost a year we failed to break down the isolation.

We remained strangers, tenants in an apartment house, miles apart at our

jobs during the day, walled off from each other at night, polite and

suspicious, unwilling to share, afraid to touch each other. One

experimented in the privacy of his room, another smoked in the privacy

of his, the third continued to tend her garden. The house was big — but

dead. And then something happened; it started to come alive.

VOICE OF PHILIP (from right): If you break that vase one more time I’ll

break your ass! Play with your own things. (Upstairs door slams)

(OLYMPIA and TONI enter from right)

TONI: How can you expect me to move in here when you haven’t even told

them about me?

OLYMPIA: I thought it would go more smoothly if you helped create an

atmosphere.

TONI: What kind of atmosphere? If they’re all as uptight as you say —

OLYMPIA: They’re not all uptight. Shh — someone’s coming.

(PHILIP enters from right)

PHILIP: I guess I’m early — (turns to leave)

OLYMPIA: You’re not early, Philip. Everyone else is late. I wanted us to

try to — I don’t know how to say it — Do you realize that you and I have

hardly spoken to each other since the day I moved in? I thought we could

— I wanted to introduce all of you to my friend Toni.

PHILIP: Good evening. Pleased to meet you. (Sits down)

TONI: Olympia has been telling me all kinds of things about you.

PHILIP: Oh? Who told Olympia? (silence) What’s supposed to happen next?

TONI: (rolling a joint): That’s the kind of thing she told me —

OLYMPIA: Philip, Toni’s son Leon is almost the same age as Alec.

PHILIP: Congratulations.

OLYMPIA: I know it’s none of my business, but Alec spends every evening

locked up in your room —

PHILIP: I never lock it —

OLYMPIA: I didn’t mean literally. What I’m getting at is that you and

Alec don’t exactly seem to get along. Don’t you think he might enjoy

playing with someone closer to his own age? —

PHILIP: You’d have to ask Alec.

TONI: (passing joint to Olympia): Olympia told me you take Alec to a

nursery every morning and you don’t even care what they teach him there.

PHILIP: What am I supposed to do? Take the kid to work?

OLYMPIA: What if you didn’t have to take Alec to the nursery. What if he

had a playmate right here, and someone to help? —

PHILIP: Is she going to organize a nursery at this house?

(DONNA enters from right)

DONNA: Who’s organizing what?

OLYMPIA: Oh, Donna. No one’s organizing anything. I was trying to

introduce Philip to Toni. She happens to have a son and — well, I wanted

to introduce her to you too.

TONI: Pleased to meet you, Donna. (Shakes Donna’s hand, and then passes

her the joint)

DONNA: No thanks, I don’t smoke — Gosh! Is this marihuana? I’ve heard so

much about it but I’ve never tried it. What do I do?

TONI: Is this for real?

DONNA: Honest.

OLYMPIA: Inhale it deeply and hold it in. That’s it.

DONNA: I don’t feel anything.

TONI: You will.

PHILIP: Isn’t that dangerous?

TONI: For your health or your police record?

PHILIP: I understood it was bad for your health. And what if the police

did happen to look in just now?

DONNA: Philip, we’d ask them to stop peeping.

OLYMPIA: The reason I wanted you to meet Toni is that she’s just been

evicted from her apartment, and I thought, since two of the upstairs

bedrooms are empty —

DONNA: Did Philip object to that?

PHILIP: She was telling me not to take Alec to the nursery.

TONI: It’s not the nursery. It’s the discipline and the brainwashing and

the stifling of the child’s imagination —

PHILIP: So you’re against our entire educational system?

TONI: You’ve got it.

PHILIP: But what can you do about that?

TONI: I can keep my child out of it.

DONNA: What does this have to do with Toni’s moving in?

TONI: You mean you don’t object?

DONNA: Me? I think it’s great. Here, let me give you keys. First of all

we could each pay less rent — let’s see —

OLYMPIA: Wait a second, Donna. I’ve been thinking about something. Let

me just lay it out to see what people think —

(BEN enters from left)

BEN: Sorry I’m late. We had a meeting. Hey, is my nose hallucinating?

OLYMPIA: Oh hi, Ben. Look, people, it seems to me that someone is

getting exploited around here, and that someone is Donna. She doesn’t

want to play the role of landlady so she charges us ridiculously low

rent and now she’s proposing to lower it even more. Yet she’s the one

who faces all the hassles and does all the work around the house while

the rest of us just stretch out in our rooms taking it all for granted.

BEN: Right on —

OLYMPIA: Now what if, for instance, we continued paying forty a month,

even though there were five of us, only instead of giving it to Donna we

deposited it in a common purse, a sort of house kitty.

PHILIP: I don’t see —

OLYMPIA: Wait, I’m not done yet. Out of that kitty we could pay all the

bills and make repairs and then decide what to do with what’s left over

—

PHILIP: Who would decide that?

OLYMPIA: We would, by meeting like we’re doing now. The other side of

the arrangement is that we’d all share the work of cleaning, mowing the

lawn, maintaining the garden, repairing —

PHILIP: That doesn’t sound efficient to me.

OLYMPIA: You’d rather have cheap rent and no work?

PHILIP: All those things get done more efficiently if one person makes

all the decisions, especially if that person happens to own the house.

DONNA: Well I think the idea is great! That’s exactly how Becky — oops,

that’s just — great! As for the ownership papers, I’ll have them

transferred to the people living in the house. That way, Philip, you’ll

just do work on the part you own. I should have done this four years

ago!

BEN: This is far out. I’ve been underestimating the revolutionary

potential of marihuana.

TONI: Don’t be cynical.

BEN: I’m not. This morning I was living with the straightest people in

the city; I come back at night and they’ve all turned to heads

organizing a commune.

DONNA: A commune?

PHILIP: Is that a good thing?

OLYMPIA: Won’t you try even a drag on this, Philip?

PHILIP: What about all the health propaganda?

TONI: Don’t they also say, “Try it and see?”

BEN: How was I being cynical?

TONI: You know perfectly well, or you ought to, that it’s the people and

not the pot that gets things going.

BEN: Then why have we been playing the landlord-tenant apartment house

in the big city routine since I’ve been here? And how do you know what I

know?

TONI: Olympia told me you worked on that underground rag, and if you

want my opinion of those male-chauvinist counter-culture oriented —

BEN: You must be thinking about another paper which is called —

TONI: See what I mean? You’re telling me what I’m thinking.

DONNA: I feel odd.

BEN: It’ll get worse.

TONI: Better!

DONNA: Philip? Are you willing to give it a try?

PHILIP: I guess so. Until something better comes along.

DONNA: Gosh, Philip, are you going to go on grieving for the rest of

your life?

OLYMPIA: Honestly, Philip, are you actually content to work at your

experiments behind the closed door of your room, without ever sharing

your project with anyone, without interacting with the people in your

own house?

PHILIP: I guess I’m willing to try it and see.

TONI: That’s the spirit!

PHILIP: Am I supposed to be feeling something now?

TONI: Yes. Good.

PHILIP: I’d better go now. It’s Alec’s bedtime.

(PHILIP exits right)

BEN: You know, it’s funny. I’ve been writing articles about

self-organized activity since the riots. But when it actually starts

happening in my own house I suddenly find myself empty, like I don’t

have anything to share. I don’t even know how to boil an egg.

DONNA: I’m starting to float.

OLYMPIA: I’ll tell you what, Ben. Why don’t you not go to your greasy

spoon for breakfast tomorrow morning. How can you afford to eat all your

meals out on welfare anyway?

DONNA: Good night, everybody.

TONI: Good night, Donna. Thanks. You’re a gem.

(DONNA exits right)

OLYMPIA: Meet me in the kitchen at 9 and I’ll show you how to boil your

egg.

(OLYMPIA exits right)

BEN: Do you have far to go?

TONI: I take a bus.

BEN: Mind if I walk you to the station?

TONI: Not if you don’t mind hearing what else I think of that

pseudo-revolutionary thing you call a paper, neither vertical nor

horizontal, too big to fit in a purse but too small to wrap around

packages —

BEN: Are those your keys on the table?

TONI: Thanks. Another thing I’ve wondered about is where do you guys get

your pot? I have this friend who could get it for us dirt cheap; his

name is Grover —

(TONI & BEN exit left).

3.

TAPED NARRATOR — Five isolated particles started to come out of their

shells, to shed their tentacles, to form a community bristling with

life. And as soon as five of us stepped out of our prisons, other

lonely, isolated individuals were drawn to us like bees to flowers.

(During the narration, ALEC and LEON have installed themselves on the

floor near the picture window)

ALEC: It’s my turn.

LEON: No, it’s mine.

ALEC: All right, it’s yours.

LEON (Shakes and throws dice): My armies invade Ran!

ALEC: That’s Iran. (throws): My armies invade Syria!

(TONI enters from right)

TONI: What are you two doing?

LEON (throws): Mine advance to the Tigers.

ALEC: We’re playing a game my father gave me.

TONI: Can I just see one of those?

LEON: But we’re playing!

(Alec hands Toni a sample)

TONI: Jesus, a soldier! (Runs to archway and shouts) Ben, come here a

second. Look at what Philip is teaching the children.

VOICE OF BEN: I can’t leave this omelet!

TONI: What’s this game called?

ALEC: World Conquest.

TONI (shouting from archway): It’s a game called World Conquest!

VOICE OF BEN: I can’t hear you!

(TONI exits right)

ALEC: It’s my turn.

LEON: No, it’s mine!

ALEC: Oh, all right.

(TONI and BEN enter from right)

LEON: My armies invade everything up to the sea!

BEN: That’s incredible.

ALEC: My armies defeat yours! You’ve got to retreat.

TONI: It’s worse than television. Here they’re actually involved in it.

BEN: Have you talked to Philip about it?

TONI: Ben, I’ve tried. Last month he had them playing a thing called

Nuclear Holocaust. I could have strangled him. I burst into his room and

asked how anyone could be stupid enough to buy children a game like

that. You know what he told me? “The kid’s eventually going to face the

world that’s out there, not the world that’s in your head.”

BEN: He sure hasn’t learned anything.

TONI: As if the world that’s out there were unrelated to the games

parents buy their children!

BEN: I’ll call Olympia. (exits right)

TONI: I’ll be right there.

VOICE OF BEN: Olympia! Breakfast!

TONI: Are you two coming?

LEON: We’re right in the middle.

ALEC: We’ll be right there. My armies advance to the Indus.

(Doorbell rings)

OLYMPIA (running from right to left): I’ll get it!

(Mattie, DAN and LISA at the doorway)

MATTIE: Hi. We’re neighbors and we saw your sign —

OLYMPIA: Come on; we mean what the sign says.

(BEN at archway)

MATTIE: We’ve got our little girl with us —

TONI: That’s great! She can play war games with our two little boys.

DAN: War games? What kind of place is this?

TONI: We’re all anti-war except the kids — almost.

DAN: Ha! Don’t trust anyone under ten!

BEN: I was just fixing breakfast, could you join us?

MATTIE: We’re early risers; we’ve already eaten.

BEN: How about just coffee, then?

DAN: Sure. I’ve always got room for more coffee.

TONI: Come on, I’ll help you set three more places.

(TONI and BEN exit right)

LEON: What does the sign say?

ALEC: Illyria Street Commune, Everyone Welcome. My turn.

OLYMPIA: I don’t know how to tell you what kind of place —

DAN: What I meant was —

OLYMPIA: Of course. You meant the war games. That would have thrown me

for a loop too. That’s Philip’s thing. Not even. They’re his idea of

being a good father by giving his son presents.

MATTIE: How many of you are there?

OLYMPIA: Seven, counting the boys. Philip and Donna are out on jobs, the

boys are Alec and Leon, and you just met Ben and Toni. Ben suggested the

word commune, but none of us knows enough about communes to be sure it

fits. Actually each of us is into his own thing most of the time, we eat

together when we can, and we take turns doing the chores — not that all

of them are unpleasant. But I’d like to see us expand into other things

and involve more people in the community.

DAN: What community? Do you relate to a larger group, a political

organization?

OLYMPIA: It’s funny you ask that. I put up my sign three weeks ago and

you’re the first people who’ve responded. I guess people read “Everyone

Welcome” and think it refers to everyone who belongs to a certain club!

We mean the community, the neighbors, everyone.

DAN: Aren’t you afraid of drunks or cranks dropping in?

MATTIE: Dan! That could just as well be us!

DAN: You’re right. We haven’t even told you about ourselves. I’m Dan.

MATTIE: I’m Mattie and she’s Lisa.

OLYMPIA: What did you expect when you saw the sign?

DAN: Just what we found, I guess; a commune. See, I was politically

active during the student movement days. I helped typeset the campus

paper, the radical one. I dropped out of everything when the sects took

over. Now I study history on my own and I work part time, typesetting in

a bank, doing for capital what I learned to do in the movement. Coopted.

But if someone convinced me that was it, the end, I’d commit suicide.

OLYMPIA: That was beautifully put.

DAN: I’ve thought of getting a standalone, that’s just a glorified

typewriter, in our apartment so as to work at home and typeset things

that interested me —

OLYMPIA: Isn’t that something that could involve a lot of people?

VOICE OF TONI: Olympia! Your omelet is getting cold!

MATTIE: That’s why we dropped in here —

OLYMPIA: Would you mind joining me in there? (Shouts to right) We’re

coming. Our new friends have all kinds of suggestions for projects!

LISA: Can I play with them, mommy?

MATTIE: I guess that’ll be all right. But be sure not to disturb their

game.

(OLYMPIA, MATTIE and DAN exit right)

LEON: Where can I put my armies now?

ALEC: You lost!

LEON: I did not either!

LISA: Can I play too?

ALEC: Only two can play this game.

LEON: You want to see our tree house?

LISA: Mommy!

VOICE OF MATTIE: What is it, Lisa?

LISA: Can I go see the tree house?

VOICE OF MATTIE: Just a second, Lisa — Oh, all right. But be sure you

don’t fall!

(LEON, ALEC, LISA exit right)

(TONI enters)

TONI (rushing toward game): I’ll burn it! I’ll burn it! (picks up board)

Shoot, I can’t do that either. (Shouts to right) Hey you guys! Come back

in here and put your stupid game away!

(MATTIE enters, places game in box)

MATTIE: I spend most of my day picking up the things Lisa leaves lying

around.

TONI: Well I don’t! And they don’t expect me to.

ALEC (enters from right): Where is it?

TONI: Mattie put it on the table. And Alec, do me a favor. Put that box

someplace where you can’t find it again. And tell Philip —

ALEC (running out with box): Yes, Toni. (exits)

MATTIE: Having two of them around must keep you all running all the

time.

TONI: (picking up glasses, ashtrays) The kids? They’re so deep into

their own thing they don’t even want the rest of us around. Come on,

I’ll show you the tree house they built in the garden. Then we can talk

while I do the dishes.

MATTIE: They built it? Will Lisa be safe?

TONI: Oh sure. We didn’t even know they were building it, we’re so busy

with our own things; I’ve started to study midwifery —

MATTIE: I don’t see how you find the time! Lisa takes up every second I

have —

TONI: Say, aren’t you pregnant? What’ll you do with two? —

(OLYMPIA, BEN, DAN enter from right)

OLYMPIA: Is everything you want on this grocery list, Toni? I’ve got to

get going. There were several other errands I wanted to run —

TONI: Add dried garbanzos; I’ll make humus.

MATTIE (exiting with Toni): Could you tell? I only became aware —

(MATTIE, TONI exit right)

OLYMPIA (shouting to right) We think we can get the typesetting project

off the ground!

BEN: I’ve got to split.

VOICE OF TONI: That’s great. We can call ourselves the Revolutionary

Birth and Type Commune.

BEN (shouts to right): Revolutionary horseshit!

VOICE OF TONI: You’re the one who wades in that.

DAN: Are you opposed to the typesetting commune?

BEN: Man, everything the capitalists did in the nineteenth century is

called Revolutionary when we or the Chinese do it.

DAN: What do you call it?

BEN: Hasn’t Nixon’s visit to Chou En-lai made everything clear? Their

Great Leap is a leap into capitalism, repressive, informer-dominated,

right wing capitalism right up Nixon’s alley, and Nixon knows it; the

only ones who don’t know it are leftists who —

DAN: Why do you keep bringing up China? I wasn’t ever a Pee Ell-er. I

wasn’t advocating that we start building the Party. We were talking

about independent activity, organized by the people themselves —

BEN: Shit, man, you two were talking about starting a small business in

this house. Business is what the whole fucking system is all about.

Independent and self-organized business. You’re mangling words. You

don’t step out of the system to do that; you step into it. It organizes

it for you from the minute you decide to play that game. You start by

getting a loan for the basic equipment —

OLYMPIA: Aren’t you being awfully narrow and selfish, Ben? You’ve got

your steady welfare check and that’s the only reason you don’t have to

worry about your survival. But we can only get part-time welfare, the

rest of the time we’ve got to rummage in the garbage for the leavings.

It’s the state that gives you the vantage point from which to look down

on us while we’re rummaging.

DAN: What kind of steady welfare are you on, Ben?

BEN: Disability.

DAN: Really? Mattie gets ADC; officially we don’t live together —

OLYMPIA: So does Toni. I myself have been getting food stamps since they

expanded the program after the riots. My point is, what’s wrong with Dan

wanting to get out of a bank job, and with the rest of us getting

involved in something that could put us in closer touch with the

community?

BEN: I think everyone should abandon banks. It’s just that I object to

calling wage labor revolutionary, even when it’s done at home. I’ll see

you tonight. Welcome to the tribe, Dan.

(BEN exits left)

OLYMPIA: He’ll come around. He almost has already.

DAN: What kind of name is Olympia?

OLYMPIA: It’s Greek. It’s actually Olympia’s. But that’s odd, like it’s

plural. I think it’s a mountain in southern Greece.

DAN: I thought that was spelled with a u.

OLYMPIA: I was third generation and never learned any Greek. What do you

think?

DAN: About the typesetting?

OLYMPIA: Ben criticizes everything we do around here. That’s all he knew

how to do until he learned to cook. But as soon as a project gets

started, he works harder on it than anyone else. I think you’ll get

along with Ben all right. The one that’s impossible is Philip. Whenever

you ask him to share something, he thinks you’re a dentist coming at him

with pliers. At one meeting some of us suggested we might like to learn

pottery making. He molds it right in his room and bakes it in the

basement. He stiffened as if he’d just drunk poison. “Of course you know

there are patents on these things.”

DAN: How did a person like that ever get involved with a commune?

OLYMPIA: He came with the house. At an earlier meeting we were trying to

deal with the transportation problem. Only two of us have cars, the two

with jobs, and they sit in lots all day long. Philip would have had to

get up half an hour early to pool a ride with Donna, but nothing could

move him to do that. As it is, whichever of us is going to need a car

has to drive Donna to work and pick her up again. Do you have a car?

DAN: An old one, but we don’t mind sharing it.

(TONI, Mattie, LISA enter from right)

MATTIE: I think that’s fascinating. How long have you been studying?

TONI: You still here, Olympia? I thought you had all those errands.

OLYMPIA: Cripes, I’m always doing this. I guess I’ll be seeing a lot

more of you two. I’m positive that loan is going to work out. Donna’s

credit is as solid as a rock.

(OLYMPIA exits left)

TONI: It was Olympia who got me to actually start studying it. I only

griped about doctors until then. I’ve learned they’re a lot more vicious

than I ever imagined. It’s like having the Marine Corps cutting up

women. Olympia is into it because she thinks it’ll involve other people.

I’m into it because I like kids, at any age, and I can’t stand what’s

done to them in hospitals, or to the mothers.

MATTIE: She’s been telling me about midwifery.

DAN: You people sure are into a lot of interesting shit.

(LEON runs in from right)

LEON: When’re you coming back, Lisa?

TONI: She’ll be here a lot, so you and Alec had better start thinking up

a lot of games for three — and I don’t mean war games. That Philip. When

I waved Nuclear Holocaust in his face he said, “What’s wrong with it? I

played monopoly when I was a kid.” So I said, “Don’t you think it shows,

Philip?” His face looked like he wished the nuclear holocaust on me.

LISA: Will you show me the witch in the tree next time?

(LISA, Mattie, DAN exit left; TONI, LEON exit right)

4.

TAPED NARRATOR: The ice was broken. Two members of the community joined

us, then a third, and still others followed, even actual street people.

We were no longer a green island surrounded by indifferent, salty sea;

the waters receded and new land began to appear. The community around us

became aware that something live and vital was stirring in its midst.

(During the narration, a typesetting machine, a desk and a chair are

brought to the room. ALEC runs in from left, panting, and slams the

front door. OLYMPIA runs in from right)

OLYMPIA: What’s the matter? Is something wrong?

ALEC: Nothing’s happening yet. Toni wanted me to get the largest pan

we’ve got.

OLYMPIA: I know the one she means.

ALEC: Phone fixed yet?

(OLYMPIA, ALEC exit right)

(Doorbell rings. OLYMPIA runs to left. STEVE enters)

OLYMPIA: You must be Steve. Am I glad to see you!

(ALEC enters from right with pan)

ALEC: You the phone man?

STEVE: I guess so.

OLYMPIA: Does Toni need me, Alec?

ALEC: Naw. She says one more would be in the way.

(ALEC exits left, clowning with pan)

OLYMPIA: What an awful time for the phone to go out! Mattie’s giving

birth.

STEVE: Donna told me she was due. I’m sorry I couldn’t come yesterday.

(Starts to take apart the telephone)

OLYMPIA: I’ve been dying to find out how you managed to rig us up a free

phone.

STEVE: It’s not a free phone. It’s a regular phone with an unlisted

number, bills are sent out monthly, and I’m making a standard service

call —

OLYMPIA: But we never get any bills —

STEVE: That’s because the bills are sent to the General Motors

Corporation.

OLYMPIA: You’re kidding.

STEVE: This phone is regular in every way, only it’s located in an

executive office at GM headquarters. This particular office isn’t likely

to report discrepancies —

OLYMPIA: That’s ingenious!

STEVE: It’s just wire and a splice. I’ve been trying to connect your

electricity to the same office —

OLYMPIA: Do you do a lot of that?

STEVE: Not really. One time I put two people who weren’t supposed to

know about each other on a party line. Another time I put eight such

people on a party line.

OLYMPIA: That’s hilarious! I meant, do you do things like this for other

friends than Donna?

STEVE: I’m not familiar with that many executive offices.

OLYMPIA: Donna told us you can fix all kinds of things.

STEVE: Oh that’s what you mean! I used to fix a friend’s van and he’d

get me things I needed from his plant. But he retired and moved away.

OLYMPIA: Have you ever thought of relating that way to our commune?

STEVE: Donna keeps asking me that. I don’t know. Recently I did some

wiring for some young people like you who are setting up a printing

cooperative —

OLYMPIA: An actual printing plant organized like a commune?

STEVE: I wouldn’t call it a plant. They’ll be able to do a few books and

brochures, nothing large. When I was done they all offered to do things

for me, and I was sorry I got involved.

OLYMPIA: I don’t understand.

STEVE: There, it works now. Look, they offered to do printing for me.

Now why would I need anything printed?

OLYMPIA: Couldn’t they offer you something more useful?

STEVE: That’s just it. Why did they have to offer me anything?

Everything was fine while we worked together. Then everything went foul.

I became some kind of charity case.

OLYMPIA: I think I understand. What if each of us is so involved in his

own thing that no one remembers to thank you?

STEVE: I’d better go now before the company gets suspicious. I’ll think

about it.

OLYMPIA: Dan’s car is on the blink and he can’t afford to take it to a

garage.

STEVE: Donna could have told me that. When does he need it?

OLYMPIA: There’s no hurry, he’s using Donna’s. Philip finally agreed to

drive Donna to work.

STEVE: I’ll try to get to it this weekend. You’re Olympia, right?

(STEVE exits left)

OLYMPIA (Shouts left): Steve! When will you do our electric wiring?

VOICE OF STEVE: As soon as I get to it.

OLYMPIA: (slams door and dances to phone) We’ve got it made now! (dials)

Hi, Leon. Tell Toni the phone works and I’ll be right there.

(Doorbell rings)

OLYMPIA (opening door): Did you forget something — Oh.

VOICE OF BARRY: Hi, what’s happening? We’ve been seeing this sign you’ve

got, and —

OLYMPIA: Please come in.

(BARRY AND SHARON enter from left)

BARRY: Thanks. I’d like to introduce you to my girl Sharon. And your

name is? —

OLYMPIA: Olympia. Won’t you sit down? Would you like something? Coffee?

Beer?

BARRY: Don’t mind if I do. Beer will be fine.

SHARON: No thank you.

(OLYMPIA exits right)

SHARON: You don’t have to order things the minute we arrive!

BARRY: Shit, Sharon, how else are we going to find out what it’s all

about?

(OLYMPIA returns with beer)

BARRY: Me and Sharon, we got a pretty clear idea what a commune is. I

read in the papers about this commune in West Germany, the Red Army

Fraction —

OLYMPIA: Oh, we’re nothing like that!

BARRY: I guess not, or you wouldn’t have that sign. The way I see it,

it’s not a problem for me. What I mean is, I quit high school two years

ago. I figured, it’s boring and there’s so much out there. I haven’t

actually reached a lot of it yet, but I’ve got big plans. Last year I

worked as a migrant farm worker, and then I went to see what was

happening up in Alaska. I’ve got this assembly job now, except on my day

off, and in a few months I’ll be going down to check out Mexico. Como

esta usted? This dude I work with is clueing me in on the lingo. So it’s

not a problem for me, see. But now my girl here, Sharon —

SHARON: I quit high school two weeks ago. Oh, it’s not Barry who talked

me into it. I’m committed to experiencing the underside of life, and I’m

convinced I can learn about life and people more profoundly on my own —

(Phone rings)

OLYMPIA: How old are you, Sharon?

SHARON: Sixteen, but —

OLYMPIA: (on phone) Hello — Dan! Yes, I’m still here. The funniest

people dropped in. How is she?

BARRY: That was a little heavy, Sharon. Besides, it’s Underground, not

Underside.

SHARON: What do you want me to say?

BARRY: Couldn’t you tell them about wanting to be an actress? They’re

probably into shit like that.

OLYMPIA (on phone): I can bring it and be right over with it! — That’s

silly! Just tell me where it is! (hangs up) Please go on. I’m sorry

about the interruption. One of us is giving birth.

SHARON (gesticulating with her arms): Oh how exciting. I love newborn

things —

BARRY: It’s probably a kid, Sharon —

SHARON: and particularly babies.

OLYMPIA: You said you wanted to experience the underside of life —

SHARON: Well — that’s only half of it. When I was little I dreamed of

being a movie actress. And last week I got my first job — in a clothing

factory.

OLYMPIA: As a start, you mean?

BARRY: You blew it, Sharon.

SHARON: Ever since two weeks ago I’ve been staying at Barry’s. But we

both feel we can experience life more profoundly if we continue to live

independently.

OLYMPIA: You mean you’re looking for a place to stay?

BARRY: Aw, Sharon, you really blew it.

SHARON: I’m not just out looking for a room. I know I’ll be able to do

everything that’s done in a commune. I’ve seen Dr. Zhivago and —

OLYMPIA: We have an empty room and you’re welcome to it. The thing is,

do you foresee any difficulties?

SHARON: You mean I can move in? I promise there won’t be any

difficulties. I told my parents to fuck off — I mean, they’ve messed up

their own lives and I don’t want them messing with mine!

BARRY: I hope you don’t get the wrong idea, Miss — Sister — I’m not just

dumping Sharon on youse here. I’ll come around and see what’s happening.

(DAN, LEON enter from left)

DAN: All right, Leon, go and play your war game in the tree house.

LEON (plays the “marine,” stops in front of Barry): I’ve seen you on the

corner! You’re the one with the motorbike.

BARRY: Cool it, kid.

LEON: Bang. You’re dead.

(Leon Exits right, running)

OLYMPIA: I could have brought Toni’s things, Dan, if you’d told me —

DAN: I needed the walk. Mattie’s just gone into labor. Toni’s really

competent, and Ben is being very helpful. Even Alec and Lisa are

helping. Compared to their usual energy level they’re like robots. But

Leon of all people is a royal pain in the ass. Are these the people who

dropped in?

OLYMPIA: This is our newest member. Sharon is moving into the empty

room. She’s an actress.

SHARON: Pleased to meet you.

DAN: Charmed, I’m sure.

OLYMPIA: And this is Sharon’s chaperone, Barry.

DAN: Her what?

OLYMPIA: I’m not joking!

BARRY: What’s happening, man?

DAN: Fine, thanks. I’d better go look for Toni’s things.

(DAN exits right)

OLYMPIA (shouts from archway): I’ve just spent the most exciting

afternoon! Everything’s happening all at once —

VOICE OF DAN: You mean there’s more than Sharon?

OLYMPIA: There’s Sharon’s acting and the puppet theater Toni’s been

talking about. Barry’s an experienced farm worker and he’ll probably

help us grow our own produce in the garden. And that’s only a start. You

can drop that service contract with IBM —

VOICE OF DAN: Sharon doesn’t own IBM!

OLYMPIA: Donna’s friend Steve, the phone repairman, used to repair

typewriters, and he’ll fix it free of charge. He also knows some people

starting a revolutionary printing commune, so you can consider those

brochures we’ve been talking about as good as printed —

DAN (entering from right): You’re putting me on.

OLYMPIA: This coming weekend Steve’s going to fix your car, and if you

act as if you take that for granted he’ll teach us all to fix cars and

we can open a revolutionary garage, solve our transportation problem

once and for all, and start something the community could really get

involved in.

DAN: Ben will flip when he hears about the revolutionary garage.

OLYMPIA: Ben isn’t the only one. Philip’s ears perked up when I asked if

I could photograph his silver plates before he melted them back down.

Watch his ears when we tell him we can put those pictures in a printed

brochure with typeset texts explaining what they are!

DAN: I can’t take it all in. Are you coming?

SHARON: Do you have a name picked out yet?

DAN: Dimitri if he’s a boy, Rose Anne if she’s a girl.

SHARON: Do I call you Brother now?

DAN: I’d rather you called me Dan.

SHARON: Being as I’m a member of the commune now, Dan, can I come and

watch the birth? I’ve never seen one.

DAN: Sure. Let’s all go. (to right) Leon, coming with us?

VOICE OF LEON: Don’t come any closer! You’ll never get me alive!

(OLYMPIA, DAN exit left)

BARRY: I told you that actress bit would do it.

(SHARON, BARRY exit left)

5.

TAPED NARRATOR: Strangers became friends, formerly hostile enemies

became allies tied by bonds of common projects, formerly warring tribes

were drawn together in a federation of kinsmen, brothers and sisters. If

the initial suspicion and hostility still survived, it was only a

diminishing residue.

(An easel and a crib are placed near the typesetting machine)

(BEN, MATTIE with ROSE ANNE in her arms, enter from right, sit)

MATTIE: Your kish was wonderful, Ben. Dan sometimes succeeds with a pie,

but whenever I try making something with a crust it somehow never comes

out right. Were you always a good cook?

BEN: (rolls joint; smoking continues during the scene) Before I came

here I knew how to cook instant coffee, and that was all.

MATTIE: You’re kidding! No, you look like you mean it. Come to think of

it, I could say the same thing about myself. I never realized how deeply

other people affected what one does. Before, I couldn’t find the time to

read even newspaper headlines in between running after Lisa, feeding her

and changing her. When I was pregnant with Rose Anne I thought things

would get twice as bad, and they would have if we hadn’t met you people.

Suddenly I’ve got the time to read and to do some typesetting and

Olympia is even pushing me to learn to paint —

(SHARON enters from left)

SHARON: Did I miss everything? Those bastards kept us overtime.

MATTIE: You almost missed Ben’s delicious kish but I think there’s a

slice left.

SHARON: Good, I’m starving. (runs out right)

MATTIE: I’d never have agreed to have Rose Anne at home if I hadn’t

thought Olympia and Toni would consider me a spoil sport —

(PHILIP enters from right. MATTIE hands him joint & he smokes)

MATTIE: Wasn’t that meal something?

PHILIP: It was good.

BEN: I liked the melted peanut butter dish you made the other day. Where

did you get the recipe?

PHILIP: Cook book.

BEN: Where are the kids?

PHILIP: Toni took them to a farm to look at pigs.

(DAN, OLYMPIA enter from right; OLYMPIA takes ROSE ANNE)

DAN: You sure go through a lot of pans when you cook, Ben.

BEN: I guess my teacher neglected that part of my education.

MATTIE: You’ll learn when you have to clean after yourself —

OLYMPIA: How’s my little Rose Anne, the first full-fledged communard?

MATTIE: Thanks to you! Although by rights I should be considered the

first; I came alive thanks to this place several months before she did.

(Places Rose Anne in the crib)

OLYMPIA: We haven’t yet reached the point of giving out certificates.

Philip, why don’t you bring your surprise?

PHILIP: Donna isn’t here.

OLYMPIA: Neither is Toni but who knows when either of them will turn up.

Besides, didn’t Donna say she might work overtime today, and then eat

out with Steve and Barry?

PHILIP: All right. (Exits right)

OLYMPIA: Oh, did we tell you Steve connected our electricity to the same

GM office that pays our phone bills?

DAN: That’s far out! Do you suppose he’d be willing to do the same thing

four our apartment?

OLYMPIA: Ask him. Barry worked with Steve on that. Maybe Barry should do

it. He’s been picking things up at lightning speed.

MATTIE: How could Barry ever find the time, with all the garage work

he’s been doing? Dan, isn’t it time you brought the booklets from the

car?

OLYMPIA: No, no, wait until Philip comes back.

DAN: Maybe I’ll talk to Barry about our electricity.

(PHILIP and SHARON enter from right, carrying trays with colorful, fat

candles)

SHARON: How can you find it again after that?

PHILIP: The wax always stays separate.

SHARON: I’d think you’d get soup. Can I watch you sometime?

PHILIP: Sure, that’s how Olympia learned.

SHARON: Where should I set this?

OLYMPIA: Here, Sharon, I’ll take it. I’m glad you’re so interested, I

had thought you weren’t into the things we do around here.

SHARON: You mean because I had a date that night when you —

OLYMPIA: Oh, no, of course not, Sharon. I’m sure Philip will be glad to

show you everything he showed me. Well, go on everybody, take your

choice. There’s a candle here for everyone in the commune; the bitty one

is for Rose Anne.

MATTIE: (taking one): My, they’re gorgeous. Who could blame Sharon for

wanting to learn to make them? I’d like to learn myself.

PHILIP: I wasn’t exactly intending to start a school.

OLYMPIA: Hmm. That’s an idea.

DAN: They’re so colorful. These are out of sight, Philip.

PHILIP: Olympia made them.

MATTIE: You mean she didn’t just watch you?

OLYMPIA: I watched Philip shape two, then I melted those down and

started again on my own.

PHILIP: She’s a fast learner.

OLYMPIA: Get the books now, Dan.

(DAN exits left)

MATTIE: Unfortunately everyone knows what the next surprise is.

SHARON: I don’t.

OLYMPIA: No one’s actually seen the finished product. (DAN returns with

carton) Let’s see how they came out.

(DAN passes out brochures)

BEN: It looks far out.

SHARON (reads): “Metamorphoses, Illyria Street Commune.” What is this?

OLYMPIA: The first genuine commune production, created by communards at

every single stage.

SHARON: Aren’t these Philip’s vases?

OLYMPIA: Those are printed reproductions of photographs of Philip’s

objects.

PHILIP: It’s a record of a finite portion of the infinite metamorphoses

of an initial given quantity of raw matter.

SHARON: I see — I think.

DAN: Olympia photographed Philip’s objects before he melted them down

again to make other objects with a different combination of the same

materials and with other processes. At least that’s how I understand it.

OLYMPIA: Ben wrote poems for some of the objects and edited Philip’s

technical texts explaining some of the processes. Dan typeset all the

textual material, and we printed it at the cooperative print shop run by

Steve’s friends.

DAN: Olympia and Barry did the printing.

SHARON: Barry worked on this? He never told me anything.

BEN: Maybe he wanted one person to be surprised.

(DONNA, STEVE, BARRY enter from left)

DONNA: I’m sorry we’re so late.

OLYMPIA: You’re just in time for the biggest surprise.

DONNA: Barry’s been telling me about it. (examining brochure) It’s

unbelievable. I never expected anything like this to happen when I

advertised rooms three years ago. Did you, Philip?

PHILIP: It’s very well reproduced considering it’s only in two

dimensions. Do you see this grayish outline? It’s the shadow cast by

this elevation located at the opposite extremity.

OLYMPIA: I was sure you’d be pleased, Philip.

MATTIE: I should hope so! It’s beautiful.

BARRY: Hey, Sharon, what’s happening?

SHARON: Nothing at all, Barry. You don’t even live here and you know

more of what’s going on than I do. Why didn’t you tell me about this

book?

BARRY: Busy, Sharon, Busy.

OLYMPIA: Isn’t it your turn now, Mattie?

MATTIE: Mine’s going to seem so plain compared to what you all did.

DAN: It’s the valleys that make the peaks.

MATTIE: Oh, Dan, it’s the first one I actually finished.

DAN: Did I say valleys were bad?

MATTIE (turns easel around; it contains a reproduction of the crib

standing next to it): Well, there it is. I’m not sure it’s worth

sharing.

OLYMPIA: You finished it!

MATTIE: I rushed to get it done by the time the brochure was printed.

OLYMPIA: Your technique has really improved.

PHILIP: It’s obvious why you picked that subject.

OLYMPIA: It’s nearly a perfect reproduction, Mattie.

(BEN has been distributing sheets to all, and people are reading them)

BEN: I’ve been saving a little surprise of my own.

OLYMPIA: Oh? What is it?

BARRY: Hey, it’s poetry.

SHARON: Who’s the cool lady?

DAN: Do you know the Italian word for lady?

PHILIP: It’s also clear from “her sumptuous rooms, plant-cluttered

window, precious garden” —

BEN: “ — conspiratorial smile.”

DONNA: I’m going to kiss you, Ben.

BEN: That’s what I hoped you’d do when I wrote it. (DONNA kisses him)

DONNA: I’m going to cry.

SHARON: I’ve been saving something too — for the commune.

BEN: Good for you, Sharon.

(Sharon exits right)

DONNA: They’re no longer mine to give, the rooms, the window, the

garden. And they were all I had to give.

BEN: There’s still the smile; that’ll always be yours to give.

DONNA: You’re sweet.

STEVE: I think it’s really nice for a person to be able to make this

kind of gift to another.

OLYMPIA: I think the poem is as corny as the conversation. But I

certainly am surprised. “The Cool Lady”! Ben, I thought you and your

newspaper preached the liberation from wage labor.

BEN: I thought so too.

OLYMPIA: Donna, how long have you worked in your office?

DONNA: I guess it’s going on five years. But I don’t understand what

that —

OLYMPIA: Have you ever thought of quitting?

DONNA: I can’t imagine what I’d do with myself. The company organizes my

time better than I ever could. Why do you —

OLYMPIA: I was asking Ben about his paper.

BEN: That’s not very cool, Olympia.

(TONI, GROVER, ALEC, LEON & LISA enter from left, all high)

LEON: Mattie, can Lisa spend the night here?

LISA: Can I, mommy?

MATTIE: Actually, I think it’s time for us to leave.

TONI: You two can’t leave. I brought you something.

MATTIE: Oh all right, Lisa. But don’t be too rowdy.

(LEON, LISA & ALEC exit right)

TONI: I’m sorry I missed it all. Grover and his friends insisted that we

all try samples of everything. Oh, is this the brochure? It looks great!

Mattie, you finished the crib!

MATTIE: And you probably want to know why.

TONI: If you could paint something imaginary with as much realism it

would really be out of sight.

DAN: Olympia gave each of us a candle.

(SHARON returns, sets a second easel on stage, sits down near it)

DONNA: And Ben wrote me a poem. Could one ever give anything nicer?

TONI: I bet I could. That’s why I dragged Grover in. I wanted to give

him.

PHILIP: Give him what?

TONI: Don’t play dense, Philip. Doesn’t anyone get it? I’m giving him.

I’ve kept him to myself all these years through no fault of my own, and

now I’m sharing him —

GROVER (auctioneering): ...going twice, going three times, sold; the

left arm goes to the lady in the back row. Now the head; do I hear a

nickel...?

TONI: Stop clowning, Grover. Why is this so obscure? It’s gift giving

day, so I’m giving Grover. I mean, he’s the gift — I’m giving him to —

to everyone — to the commune —

PHILIP — But why? Or what for? What does it do? Sing? Lay eggs?

TONI: I’ve never in my life —

BEN: You’re keeping something from us, Toni. Are you asking us to

reintroduce cannibalism?

TONI: I’ll be damned if I’m not on the verge of tears. I’ve been raving

to Grover about the only bunch of genuine radicals in the world, the

only ones who didn’t treat a person as some kind of thing, and all you

want to know is what the thing is for and how it tastes! I’m not

reintroducing cannibalism! You are cannibals.

BEN: Worse, Toni. Ten thousand years of progress worse —

TONI: Grover is my best outside friend and my resource person and it’s

thanks to him that I always have free pot and —

PHILIP: Say, what kind of farm did you take the kids to?

GROVER: We’ve been to a cabbage farm. That’s what it says on the sign.

Head cabbage. And that’s all you see growing when you drive up to it

either way. But that cabbage is for the pigs. The cabbage for the heads

is Michoacan and Acapulco gold and Colombian —

PHILIP: Are those the brands of marihuana you had Alec sample?

GROVER: Man, that’s the only kind of farm I’d ever want to get close to

—

BEN: Why haven’t you brought him around before, Toni?

GROVER: That, my man, was executed at my request. Why would you want to

weld a U-haul to your car when you were pulling it all right with a

hitch and chain?

BEN: I don’t get it.

GROVER: Look, my man, the connection, to be on the safe side —

BEN: Why did you want to be on the safe side?

GROVER: Now we’re getting to the historical nitty gritty, as my business

associates call it. The fact is, it’s not just the pot that’s being

watched nowadays. Anyone that even looks like someone from a commune has

five investigators assigned to him at every airport in the country.

Remember the French revolution of 1968? Well me and this other dude ran

M-38’s across the border and our companeros on the loyalist side shot

the bodies of priests full of holes and burned Notre Dame to the ground.

Now if the pigs ever added two plus two together, they’d get the

connection. Dig?

DAN: I’d thought not a single shot was fired in France in 68.

GROVER: That’s what everyone thought, but that was the most successful

media blitz in history. The news was kept under such tight control that

even the companeros themselves didn’t know that those large bricks they

kept passing each other were actually crates loaded with machine guns —

TONI: The first thing you should all know about Grover is that he’s a

terrific storyteller. But he’s got contacts all over this city who can

make his stories come true. When I told him what Steve had done with our

phone and electricity —

GROVER: I figured, why stop with the corporations, my man? The State’s

the biggest corporation of them all and Agnew is up there in the

vanguard, raising our consciousness about some of the possibilities.

BEN: Don’t you mean Nixon?

PHILIP: Didn’t you know, Ben? The vice-president was found guilty of

defrauding the government of several thousand dollars. I thought you

followed these things.

BEN: I do, but not up close.

GROVER: You know what’s even better than free phone and electricity?

Listen to this. I know this lawyer who could rig up papers and they’d

look like the cabbages on this farm, everything legal from the road but

don’t invite your neighbors for lunch. I’m not talking about paying no

tax on this building; I’m talking about negative tax, about getting huge

checks from the government, refunds, like when you run your gas meter

backwards with a vacuum cleaner —

DONNA: I think your friend is hilarious —

TONI: He’s hardly gotten started yet. Grover could help that typesetting

co-op get off the ground.

DAN: Really? In what way?

GROVER: Without exaggerating I’d estimate that every radical in this

town goes through me for one thing or another, and they’re the wordiest

people you’d hope to find —

DAN: But how could we make contact?

GROVER: Easiest thing in the world, my man. Next time a dude starts

telling me about his newest theory, I’ll just ask if I can borrow it so

as to get an estimate. That way you can decide if it’s up your alley

before taking it on. Dig? I could keep a whole room full of you at your

machines round the clock —

MATTIE: Oh, wow, from rags to riches!

STEVE (near Sharon’s easel): It’s very moving. Did you do it?

SHARON: I intended it as my gift to the commune.

BEN: When did you bring this in, Sharon? I’ve never seen anything like

it. It’s fantastic!

GROVER: I understand some of you are into the business of repairing the

four-wheeled life preservers marketed by Ford and General Motors. Say,

do you have something to soothe a parched throat, something a little

stronger than beer?

BARRY: Come with me and pick out what you want, Grover. Yes, we’re into

fixing cars —

(GROVER & BARRY exit right)

BEN: You can really paint.

SHARON (gesticulating wildly): It’s all of you who did it to me, doing

all kinds of things you’ve never done before.

DAN: Have you honestly never painted before? This is so powerful it

stands off the canvass —

SHARON: It’s not even canvass; when I started I didn’t know —

TONI: It’s so naively expressive, so perfectly unspoiled. Have you seen

it, Philip? She had to quit school to express herself like that; if

she’d stayed two more years they would have squeezed it out of her,

boxed her imagination, conventionalized her perception —

PHILIP: It certainly is original. I think it’s good.

TONI: Admit that it’s good in spite of what she was taught in school.

PHILIP: Was Sharon educated on samples of five different brands of

marihuana? —

TONI: You’re evading the issue, Philip!

OLYMPIA: I thought you wanted to be an actress, Sharon. How do you find

time to develop your acting and also to paint?

SHARON: I don’t know, Olympia, but I know that every morning I wanted to

go on until it was finished; I even got up before dawn —

OLYMPIA: Oh, Sharon, the paint is already cracking; any number of people

could have showed you how to mix paint properly —

SHARON: You’re right, I didn’t have time to learn all that. Once I

started I wanted to give all my time to it and my job became unbearable.

I set my alarm for six hours after I reached bed, and I rushed up every

morning —

TONI: Don’t get so excited, Sharon, you’ll knock something over!

OLYMPIA: Oh how could you, Sharon? This is a sheet of paper, stapled to

a frame.

(BARRY enters from right)

BARRY: Hay Steve, come here a second. This dude Grover says he could get

us cheap car parts — the garage would have it made.

STEVE: I could use a strong drink —

(STEVE & BARRY exit right)

SHARON: When I started I didn’t know there was a right way to do it.

TONI: There isn’t.

SHARON: I just started the painting on the back of one of Barry’s travel

posters, but after a point it started to curl so bad I almost gave up.

The man who sold me the easel showed me how to mount canvass to a frame,

but by then I loved what was here — I just stapled the poster to the

frame. The paint cracked when the sheet flattened, but I liked that so

well I was intending to start with another travel poster —

OLYMPIA: But part of the painting curves around the frame and continues

on the back, and has staples going through it.

SHARON: I thought it was honest to let the painting tell how it became

the way it was.

OLYMPIA: Toni, your friend sure is a bullshit artist. I don’t see why

everyone’s so taken in.

PHILIP: He’s a blabbermouth. And probably dangerous. He admitted he was

a dope dealer.

DAN: You have the impression he wont come through with the typesetting,

Olympia?

TONI: Don’t worry about that. He’ll come through.

OLYMPIA: Even if he does, is that the kind of basis we want? What do you

think, Ben?

BEN: He uses the word Business an awful lot: garage business,

typesetting business —

DAN: Aw, Olympia, why are you winding Ben up on that track? I thought

we’d resolved that, and it’s the first time I actually have a prospect

of quitting that bank job —

(GROVER, STEVE, BARRY enter from right, BARRY with tea pot)

BARRY: I made tea for everybody that wants some.

GROVER (standing in front of Sharon’s painting): I picked up from Toni

that you people were into some fancy shit, but I never expected anything

like this. You’re Olympia, right?

OLYMPIA: Yes, but —

GROVER: You probably know this without my telling you, but there isn’t a

painting can hold up a candle to this in any gallery in town. This is

post-naive post-abstract expressionism post-everything.

BARRY: Tea, anyone?

OLYMPIA: I’ll have some.

SHARON: Me too, Barry.

(BARRY pours for each and sets SHARON’S cup on a surface between Sharon

and her painting)

GROVER: The only painter I know who did anything like this is Kahlo,

that Mexican woman who’ll outlive her husband Diego Rivera. She went

right off the canvass and painted all over the frame and the easel and

probably the wall, although they don’t bring the wall in on the

traveling exhibits. But this has a different kind of power. Did you do

this yourself? How did you get that cracked paint effect?

OLYMPIA: Actually it’s Sharon who painted it. She started with a large

sheet of paper, a travel poster in fact. I’m sure she’d love to tell how

she got the paint to crack.

SHARON (gesticulating): It’s because I didn’t know you couldn’t lay

thick layers of oil paint on paper. It started to shrink and curl and

whenever I tried to straighten it —

(SHARON’s arm flies wildly into her tea cup, sending cup and tea into

her paper painting)

GROVER: Sorry I asked.

STEVE: Maybe it can be fixed.

TONI: Poor Sharon. Your arms. They’re so uncontrolled.

BARRY: They’re always like that when she’s excited.

GROVER: Now don’t cry, kid. You did one, you can do more. Now this one

dude I know, his whole house burned down and he lost —

SHARON: I have an awful feeling that I did something wrong, but I don’t

know what it is! (Runs out right)

GROVER: Well, I guess I did my harm for tonight. See you around. Thanks

for inviting me, Toni.

BARRY: Can you wait a second, Grover? I thought of some more things I

wanted to ask about the car parts. You coming, Steve? I’m counting on

you for a ride.

(GROVER, BARRY, STEVE exit left)

DAN: Oh, shit, I thought of some things I wanted to ask him too. (DAN

exits left)

MATTIE: I guess I’ll just leave Lisa up there.

TONI: Don’t worry, Mattie. She’s so high she won’t know where she slept.

(TONI exits right)

MATTIE: It’s really too bad about the accident.

OLYMPIA: Don’t lose sleep over it.

(MATTIE with ROSE ANNE exits left)

PHILIP: I melt mine down after I finish them.

OLYMPIA: Yes, I suppose it’s the same principle.

PHILIP: Too bad you didn’t take a photograph.

(OLYMPIA, PHILIP, BEN exit right)

6.

TAPED NARRATOR: At last the isolated fragments were unified into a

community, a federation, a union — but the unity was still fragile.

Generations of isolated growth had left their scars; outwardly unified,

the community still bristled with resistance toward the launching and

implementation of common projects.

(DAN enters from left, begins typesetting. Door opens at left)

VOICES (from left): Come on Grover. A little sunshine won’t hurt you.

GROVER (to left): Me and flowers is like icicles and ice cream. Tell me

when you get to the poppies. Closes door) Hey, my man, how’s business?

DAN: I’m trying to finish that paper on “Non-hierarchic demythologized

forms of subversion.” It’s as boring as anything I typed at the bank.

GROVER: I thought you looked them over before taking them on.

DAN: I figured I could have part of it typeset during the time I spent

reading it. Listen to this. “The whole notion of harmony and

fulfillment, separated from their hypostatization in the form of

systematization to a functionalization became a purposeless

purposiveness —”

GROVER: Don’t knock it, man; that dude was fired from three universities

for not being scholarly enough.

DAN: At least in the bank you could see the point, once you knew where

you were. But this shit — Oh, hell, at least I can work on my own hours.

How’s that tax refund scheme going?

GROVER: Still working on it; give me two or three more weeks.

(OLYMPIA enters from right)

OLYMPIA: Where’s the boiler repairman?

GROVER: Who’s that?

OLYMPIA: Your friend —

GROVER: Oh, him. He couldn’t make it, seeing as it’s Sunday and his only

day off.

OLYMPIA: But he can’t come on a weekday because he works then!

GROVER: Six days a week. That’s what I mean. You can’t expect a dude

like that to work on his free day too, can you? Now don’t get upset,

Olympia. Actually, he taught me all he knew about boilers, and then

some. In fact, I knew a lot about them myself. Fixing them is the

easiest thing in the world. All you really have to worry about is that

the temperature of the water doesn’t rise above 212 degrees Fahrenheit.

Let’s get to it; where’s this boiler located?

OLYMPIA: Grover, are you sure you’ve seen a boiler before?

GROVER: I would have brought the boiler school diploma nailed up above

my bed if I’d known you’d —

OLYMPIA: I suppose you’re right; there can’t be that much to it. Why

don’t you go study it; I’ll get the others.

GROVER: Where’s this thing at?

OLYMPIA: In the basement, Grover!

GROVER: This one dude I knew had one of these things explode on him.

(GROVER exits right)

OLYMPIA: Can you come now, Dan?

DAN: I’ve got five pages left of this paper, and I’ve got —

OLYMPIA (shouting left): Come on, everybody! Boiler repair time!

(PHILIP & BEN enter from left)

BEN: I didn’t see Grover come with anyone.

OLYMPIA: His friend couldn’t come, but Grover says he knows about

boilers.

BEN: Good luck. Holler when you need us. (Exits left)

OLYMPIA: Isn’t anyone else coming? Grover is already downstairs.

PHILIP: Grover knows about boilers?

(PHILIP & OLYMPIA exit right. DAN typesets. MATTIE enters from left,

goes to archway)

MATTIE (calls right): Lisa!

VOICE OF LISA (from right): Yes, mommy!

MATTIE: When are you coming out?

VOICE OF LISA: Right away, mommy.

MATTIE: You should come out too, Dan, it’s such a beautiful day.

DAN: I’d rather get this done before getting my hands dirty.

MATTIE: You should see how Donna does it. She digs a separate hole for

each seed.

DAN: Of grass?

MATTIE: No dummy. We’re planting flowers all along the wall and the

fence.

(MATTIE exits left. Dan typesets)

VOICE OF OLYMPIA (from right): Dan, Ben or somebody!

DAN: What is it?

VOICE OF OLYMPIA: Turn on the faucet!

DAN:(Opens door) Hey Ben. Could you give the boiler crew a hand? I’m

trying to get this thing typed.

(BEN enters from left, exits right. Dan typesets)

VOICE OF BEN (from right): Which faucet?

VOICE OF OLYMPIA: The hot water, Ben.

(TONI enters from left)

TONI: Are Leon and Lisa in the tree house?

DAN: I think they’re in your room watching TV.

TONI: Oh damn! (Goes to right and calls) Leon, come outside, it’s the

first day of spring!

VOICE OF LEON: Just a second. We’re coming.

TONI: What’s that you’re doing?

DAN: A boring paper I’d like to finish by tomorrow.

TONI: Busy as beavers, aren’t we? At least I don’t have a birthing

today. Barry and Steve are trying to have a car rebuilt by tomorrow.

DAN: They’ve been spending seven days a week in that garage.

TONI: I guess they’ve both got money problems. Steve got fired — one

splice too many, I guess. And Barry’s saving up for his next trip; he

keeps saying he’s glad to have a Base to come back to.

DAN: Does he mean us or the garage?

TONI: He means us, Dan; he’s a generous guy. Where are those damned

kids? (to right) Leon!

VOICE OF LISA: Toni!

TONI: What is it?

VOICE OF LISA: Leon wants me to ask what Expletives Deleted means.

TONI: Who the hell cares! Tell him to get his ass out here! We’re

planting flowers!

(BEN enters from right)

BEN: Have you ever thought of sabotaging that TV?

TONI: I’ve thought of it, but sometimes they show a program I’d like to

see.

VOICE OF OLYMPIA: Ben!

VOICE OF GROVER: Holy shit!

BEN: what’s the matter?

TONI: Sounds like they’re having fun.

(BEN exits right. TONI exits left. DAN typesets)

VOICE OF GROVER (from right): Where’s the central spigot?

(OLYMPIA runs in from right, dripping)

OLYMPIA: The basement’s flooded! (exits left)

DAN: Oh no! (to right) Is there anything I can do?

VOICE OF GROVER: Shut the water off!

VOICE OF PHILIP: The oven is ruined.

(MATTIE & TONI enter from left, cross to right)

MATTIE: Lisa! Come down here this minute)

TONI: Leon!

(MATTIE & TONI exit right)

VOICE OF GROVER: We’re drowning!

(STEVE, BARRY & ALEC run in from left)

BARRY: That Grover sure is a trip.

(STEVE, BARRY & ALEC exit right)

(DONNA & OLYMPIA enter from left; BEN in archway on right)

DONNA: You’re acting as if it were my fault!

OLYMPIA: We’ve been talking all week long about having the boiler

repairman over on Sunday. And we were all going to take part so as to

know what to do in case it ever broke down again.

DONNA: Well I’ve been looking forward to doing the planting for the past

three weekends, and this is the first day it hasn’t rained.

OLYMPIA: It’s a question of priorities, Donna.

DONNA: It’s a question of getting the seeds into the ground before

summer! (She walks toward archway)

BEN: Are you going to plant the garden now?

DONNA: Let her do it. I’m going to have a drink. (Exits right)

BEN: Did you want all of us to learn how to flood the basement?

OLYMPIA: I didn’t see either of you down there when the trouble started.

(GROVER enters from right, dripping)

DAN: What happened?

GROVER: Had a little accident.

OLYMPIA: Where’s Philip?

GROVER: Trying to salvage his oven.

VOICE OF BARRY (from right): Is anyone up there?

VOICE OF TONI: What do you want?

VOICE OF BARRY: Try the hot water.

VOICE OF TONI: It works!

GROVER: Well, it looks like we’ve got things under control.

(PHILIP enters from right, dripping)

OLYMPIA: What about the flood?

PHILIP: Steve found the drain; it was plugged up.

OLYMPIA: And your oven?

PHILIP: I don’t actually know what water does to it.

GROVER: I guess that wasn’t the right connection —

OLYMPIA: It’s not your fault, Grover. Who would have known all that

water would gush out as soon as —

PHILIP: I knew.

OLYMPIA: Well fortunately it was only water.

GROVER: That’s what I say. This one dude I knew had one of these things

blow — I guess I told you that one. You know, Philip, I’ve been giving a

careful look at that brochure you people made —

PHILIP: I’d better go up and put some dry socks on —

GROVER: If you want my opinion, I don’t think you should melt that shit

down. It’s good. What I like best are the caricatures of religious

objects, like the one of god playing with his dingy —

OLYMPIA: That’s what I’ve been telling him, but he’s so modest.

GROVER: I’m serious. That shit could sell. Now if you just built some

shelves here, this room would make an ideal space for a display:

hand-molded pottery and shit like that.

PHILIP: Do you really think so?

GROVER: Of course you’d need better light; maybe we could take some of

that vegetation back out to the country; and more space —

BEN: Look, Grover, I think you misunderstand —

(MATTIE enters, takes Rose Anne from crib)

MATTIE: You people look like wet rags: We’d better get started, Dan;

your brother is supposed to arrive in half an hour.

DAN: Oh, shit, I’ll never finish this.

MATTIE: If you’ll be planting the back later this afternoon, I’ll try to

come back.

OLYMPIA: I don’t think Donna is up to any more planting today. How about

tomorrow?

MATTIE: I thought Donna couldn’t make it on a weekday.

OLYMPIA: Oh, that’s right. What if we schedule it for next weekend?

MATTIE: Could you call Lisa, Dan.

(MATTIE exits left. OLYMPIA, PHILIP & BEN exit right)

DAN (in archway, shouting): Lisa! (exits right)

7.

TAPED NARRATOR: The scars left by the environment of hostile and split

individuals became open sores. The community closed in on itself,

discouraged and demoralized. The fragile unity almost fell to pieces.

Inertia set in as the resistance to common projects hardened; creative

breakthroughs were no longer made; the period of the commune’s growth

seemed to be over.

(From right enter SHARON, DONNA & LEON, now 7 or 8, carrying the

components of a puppet stage which they assemble during the scene)

LEON: It ought to go here.

DONNA: Then here it goes. It’s your show.

SHARON: The greatest thrill is being involved in every part of it.

Imagine having to just learn lines, or just paint scenery. That would

take all the fun out of it.

DONNA: I can see why everyone’s so eager to show you things, Sharon;

you’re so full of enthusiasm.

LEON: Steve has a crush on her.

SHARON: Leon! Don’t —

LEON: Everyone can see it!

DONNA: I haven’t seen Steve so happy since I’ve known him.

SHARON: I’m sorry — Steve’s been so helpful. So has Philip. Everyone’s

been so wonderful — I never thought Steve would —

DONNA: Don’t be childish, Sharon. Steve and I are good friends, as we’ve

always been, and we need each other less now than we ever did before; we

both know so many other people now. I used to meet Steve in a bar years

ago when my husband took up with another woman —

LEON: That was Alec’s mother, wasn’t it?

(STEVE & PHILIP enter from right carrying bookshelves which they align

along one wall and assemble during scene)

SHARON: Leon! I’ll —

LEON: Not if you don’t catch me!

PHILIP: Do you need my help setting up the puppets?

LEON: Not yet; we want to change some things when Lisa comes.

DONNA: Sharon’s been telling me how helpful you both are — even you,

Philip.

PHILIP: Sharon’s a fast learner.

SHARON: It’s like building a complete world with your own two hands. I’m

doing things I never dreamed I’d be able to do.

PHILIP: Me too. I fixed my car yesterday, with Steve’s help.

STEVE: I only watched.

DONNA: You, Philip?

PHILIP: It’s a lot simpler than I thought.

(TONI enters from right, arranges blanket with 17 pillows on floor)

TONI: Ben thinks we won’t all fit in the kitchen and that sitting on the

floor will be in the spirit of the meal.

LEON: What’s he making — dog biscuits and catnip?

TONI: We’re preparing some Japanese specialties.

SHARON: Steve, can you show me how this joint is supposed to fit? I wish

we were doing all these things just for ourselves, especially the puppet

show. Why does Grover have to bring people tonight?

PHILIP: Grover said they were people who’d be highly sensitive about the

kinds of things we’re doing here.

TONI: And we all know that Grover’s word is as reliable as inflated

money.

PHILIP: I happen to be interested in finding out what other people think

—

TONI: I could care less.

STEVE: I agree with Toni.

SHARON: So do I. The puppet theater is ours and it’s only meant for us.

I can’t imagine what outsiders are going to see —

PHILIP: Maybe that’s true of the puppet theater.

SHARON: I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking of your things. Somehow I can never

say the right —

TONI: Let’s drop it. What’s Olympia doing in the garden?

PHILIP: She told me she wanted to improve the soil.

TONI: But it’s freezing out.

DONNA: What was wrong with the garden before?

PHILIP: How should I know. She says if we wanted to grow our own food,

we should do certain things to the soil —

(From left, enter LISA, now 7, MATTIE with ROSE ANNE, now three)

LEON: Come on, Lisa, and you too Sharon. We’ve got to change the faces

of the two presidents.

LISA: Did you and Alec decide if we’re going to erase them or cover them

with paint?

LEON: Alec thinks we can’t erase them.

LISA: You want to come with us, Rose Anne?

(ROSE ANNE cries. Leon and Lisa exit right with Rose Anne)

SHARON: I’ll be right up. Steve, where does this dowel go? Oh, that’s

right. Those kids are out of their minds.

PHILIP: Really? In what way?

SHARON: They’re such a trip when they’re together. If any of you think I

contributed anything to the play, you’ll be dead wrong. I can hardly

keep track of my own parts, and Alec changes half the play every other

day! He’s probably changed it again since I’ve been down here.

(PHONE rings. TONI answers)

TONI (shouts to right): Olympia! Barry’s on the phone. Ben, do you need

me yet?

(OLYMPIA enters from right)

VOICE OF BEN: In about ten minutes; I’m washing the vegetables.

OLYMPIA (to phone): Did you find it? — Can you cut through it? — Well

can you find a way to climb over it? — Yes, everything here is almost

ready. (Hangs up)

DONNA: Aren’t you going to join us with the preparations, Olympia?

OLYMPIA: I’m busy with preparations of my own. And you’re a funny one to

ask, Donna. That time when I was inside working on the boiler you told

me the garden was your priority.

SHARON: I guess I’ll go up and join the kids. (Exits right)

DONNA: I’m sorry I asked.

(OLYMPIA exits right)

STEVE: You want to put up the shelves now?

PHILIP: If you don’t mind, Steve.

MATTIE: Can I start putting my things in the finished shelf?

(MATTIE, STEVE & PHILIP exit right)

DONNA: What was wrong with the garden before, Toni?

TONI: Nothing, Donna. It was beautiful.

DONNA: Did you ever sit inside the arbor on a hot summer day and eat the

grapes right off the vine?

TONI: I guess I never found the time.

(STEVE & PHILIP enter from right carrying a second bookshelf which they

assemble along the other wall)

STEVE: Sharon sure does enjoy those kids.

PHILIP: Ever since they started the puppet theater they’ve been

extremely creative.

TONI: No thanks to school.

PHILIP: What do you mean?

TONI: The imagination of an eight year old is unbounded if it’s left to

develop on its own and not stunted by repressive education and that

idiotic television —

PHILIP: It so happens that Alec is an inveterate TV watcher and he’s

well into his third year in school —

TONI: But Leon and Lisa aren’t!

PHILIP: Many of the ideas are apparently Alec’s.

TONI: Do you think he learned them in school? What schools produce are —

are people like you, Philip!

PHILIP: Thank you.

TONI: You’re not actually a good example, since the conditioning is

breaking down. And you’re not the only w one whose conditioning is

breaking down. I’ll read you something.

(TONI exits right and returns with a copy of the Underground paper’s

version of the campus paper)

PHILIP: If it’s from the underground, you can skip it.

TONI: It’s the campus paper; Ben brought it home yesterday. The biggest

educator in town quit his job. Listen to this. “Citing what he called

the massive dehumanization which distinguishes this and every other

university, the 57-year old administrator said he could no longer

justify a single day more at the helm of the state’s third largest

university.”

PHILIP: Let me see that.

TONI: He admitted that “the university’s real function is the

socialization of individuals into unquestioning acceptance of the status

quo.”

PHILIP (takes paper and examines it): “The repressive power of the

system rests on sold labor” — This must be a bluff!

TONI: Who’s bluffing, Philip? The only two of us who still sell their

labor every single morning —

PHILIP: How often do I have to be reminded? TONI: Are you and Donna.

DONNA: And I’m almost convinced —

TONI: All the rest of us are finding it’ possible to get along by

contributing as little as possible and if possible nothing at all.

(GROVER enters from left)

GROVER: Well! The place is really looking up! (Picks up the paper) Ha!

You’ve seen the gag perpetrated by the local hippies.

PHILIP: I thought so!

TONI: I’d better go help Ben. (Exits right)

GROVER: Remember that tax scheme? This lawyer I know had all the details

worked out and we were about to get the first check from the state —

DONNA: And what happened?

GROVER: It fell through. Our contact in the government fell with the

rest of Nixon’s crew. But I’ve got another scheme worked out which is

almost as good — .

(MATTIE enters from right, with tray full of ceramic houses)

MATTIE: Where are your guests, Grover?

GROVER: They’ll be here. Ah, Philip, you’ve been baking houses.

PHILIP: Mattie made those.

MATTIE: Philip watched me but I shaped them myself.

(SHARON enters from right)

SHARON: The puppets are ready now, Philip — Oh, hi Grover. Why do you

have to bring people tonight?

PHILIP: We’d better get these shelves filled.

(PHILIP & MATTIE exit right)

GROVER: These aren’t just ordinary people, Sharon. I’ve been telling

them about the things we do around here, and they can’t wait to see

them. And speaking of those things, I don’t see any of your new

paintings around.

SHARON: There aren’t any. I’ve been spending all my time on the kids’

puppet theater. That’s closer to my life’s dream.

GROVER: Aw, Sharon, I’ve been telling them how good you were:

self-taught artist, a genuine modern primitive or post-primitive —

(BEN & TONI enter from right carrying platters of sliced vegetables and

batters, which they distribute on the blanket)

SHARON: I wouldn’t have wanted people like that looking at my painting.

GROVER: Get off it, Sharon. All of us want people looking at our stuff,

and the more people the better.

BEN: Are you also bringing culinary experts to sample my meal —

GROVER: Ben, I never could understand —

BEN: I agree with Sharon. We’ve only just started to learn to share as

if we mattered to each other, without being creative geniuses

entertaining a passive public —

GROVER: What about your paper preaching to masses of passive readers —

(PHILIP & MATTIE enter from right with trays of ceramics, plates,

pottery, which they place in the shelves)

BEN: A thousand readers aren’t a mass.

PHILIP: Sour grapes.

GROVER: Hey, those shelves are out of sight. That’s a great display.

Ben. But it’s not for us.

(BARRY enters from left)

BARRY: Damn, Grover. Next time you have a lead, check it out before

sending someone out on it. (Goes to right and calls) Olympia, what

should I do with this shit?

GROVER: What happened? The price wasn’t right?

BARRY: I got it free and it seems organic, all right, but Jesus, Grover,

I’m rushing to get in on things that are happening over here, and this

shit is located on the other side of a six foot barbed wire fence, with

me and my wheel barrow standing on the wrong side —

GROVER: Ever heard of wire cutters, my man?

BARRY: Sure, if you’d told me ahead of time. I filled the wheel barrow

by throwing shovelfuls through the fence and got the stuff all over me;

I was sure I’d get caught but I made such a mess on the sidewalk that

people crossed the street and held their noses the other way.

(OLYMPIA enters from right)

OLYMPIA: Where is it?

BARRY: Out front, but the drive way is all blocked up; we’ll have to

take it to the back tomorrow.

OLYMPIA: But I spent all day preparing to get it on the ground today!

BARRY: We can’t get through, Olympia.

OLYMPIA: Can’t you bring it through here?

BARRY: I guess so, but I’ll need a hand —

OLYMPIA: Grover, couldn’t you help?

(BARRY, GROVER & OLYMPIA exit left)

MATTIE: I’m starting to feel the way Ben does.

PHILIP: About his paper?

MATTIE: About this display not being for us.

(OLYMPIA enters from left, followed by GROVER & BARRY with wheelbarrow)

OLYMPIA: Don’t set your shoe on the blanket, Grover!

(GROVER removes shoe while he and Barry lift the wheelbarrow over the

blanket; avoiding a platter, GROVER’S foot slips and the contents spill)

OLYMPIA: Oh my god!

GROVER: Looks like a little accident. SHARON: Barry, you bas —

BARRY: If you’d waved your arms a second sooner, Sharon, you could have

kept it from spilling.

(Doorbell rings)

GROVER: Good, here they are — and not a second too soon.

BEN: This is it for me. Never again.

(BEN exits left, leaving door open. Action freezes)

8.

TAPED NARRATOR: On the very night when the lowest point was reached and

the commune was on the verge of disintegrating altogether, a new spark

of life was injected into it, and it came from the larger community.

(Action unfreezes)

GROVER (at door): Well come on in. I’ll introduce you to my friends.

VOICE OF ANASTASIA: I see we didn’t wear the right clothes.

GROVER: Don’t worry about that. These people won’t even see what you’re

wearing so long as it’s not a priest’s smock or a nun’s habit.

(LYMAN & ANASTASIA enter, wearing nightclub clothes)

BARRY: What do we do now?

OLYMPIA: Let’s carry the whole thing out.

(BARRY & OLYMPIA raise the blanket)

BARRY: We’d better remove the plates and silverware before dumping it.

(BARRY & OLYMPIA exit right with blanket)

GROVER: Lyman, Anastasia, I’d like to introduce you to my closest

friends. That over there is Toni, the one picking up the pillows. Her

specialty is —

TONI: You leave me out of this, Grover.

GROVER (shouting to right): Hey, Olympia. I’d like to introduce you to

my friends.

VOICE OF BARRY: Bad timing, Grover.

DONNA: I’m going to the bar.

GROVER: For Christ’s sake, what’s the matter with everyone tonight? I

thought we could all display some of our things for our friends here —

DONNA: I don’t have anything to display.

GROVER: Aw, Donna, set a couple of your plants in those shelves for

decoration; they’ll go for that.

DONNA: Nothing of mine will ever be in these shelves.

(DONNA exits left. OLYMPIA & BARRY enter from right)

ANASTASIA: You must be Olympia. Grover has been telling us about the

wonderful set of alternative institutions you run in this house and —

OLYMPIA: Then Grover’s been up to his usual fibs. I personally don’t run

anything —

LYMAN: Please don’t misunderstand us. Grover made it perfectly clear

that each activity is altogether spontaneous, initiated and organized at

the grass roots level by the participants themselves.

PHILIP: That’s very well put.

OLYMPIA: I guess I did misunderstand your statement.

ANASTASIA: Anastasia.

OLYMPIA: Welcome to our commune, Anastasia.

ANASTASIA: What I find hardest to believe are the things you do with

children.

OLYMPIA: That’s the same as our other activities. You see, we don’t

believe in one person running things, and we’re convinced such a variety

of different activities could never arise if one individual —

GROVER: (To Sharon & Steve, who are moving toward the door) Hey, you two

aren’t leaving, are you? You haven’t even met —

SHARON: We’re not in the right mold to meet anyone, Grover.

PHILIP: And the puppet show?

(SHARON waves her arms; she and STEVE exit left)

LYMAN: Do you mind if I examine some of this pottery?

PHILIP: Not at all. Some of it is Mattie’s.

TONI (to right): The show is off, kids! (She exits right)

LYMAN: Anastasia, have a look at this. I believe nothing like it has

ever been exhibited.

OLYMPIA: Really? We all consider Philip extremely original, but I never

thought —

(DAN enters from left, with the sign “Illyria Street Commune, Everyone

Welcome)

DAN: This was on the ground; I guess it fell off.

OLYMPIA: Oh, that sign. Throw it out. I’m sick of looking at it. (DAN

props it up)

GROVER: Meet our new friends, Dan. Lyman, Anastasia, this is Dan, the

typesetting man.

DAN: Pretty fancy get-up.

GROVER: Yeah, they’re on their way back from a costume party this other

friend of mine was giving and —

MATTIE: What took all day, Dan?

DAN: Strangest meeting. They decided to dissolve the group, and half of

them are going to do a critique of political organizations; I said I’d

typeset it.

ANASTASIA: Politics is something I could never understand.

PHILIP: Neither could I.

GROVER: Say, Dan, you’ve been turning down everything I’ve been sending

your way.

DAN: I’ve decided not to type any more papers for profs, Grover, but I

appreciate the effort you went to. It’s too much like a job.

GROVER: Isn’t that like cutting off your nose to —

DAN: Maybe it is, Grover. But I’d rather stick to stuff that interests

me. We got this place together so as to get away from that crap, and

then I started to bring the crap inside here —

OLYMPIA: You’re starting to sound just like Ben.

LYMAN: I take it the designs on these plates are all your own originals?

OLYMPIA: Philip’s.

LYMAN: They’re simply marvelous. Don’t you agree, Anastasia? Grover

tells me you melted down the objects displayed in your first brochure.

What a shame.

PHILIP: They were just experiments.

GROVER: While we’re on the brochure business, Lyman here was asking me

if we’d be into making a second brochure, only this time the pictures

would show things that are actually available —

OLYMPIA: That’s an excellent idea; we were so together when we did the

first one.

GROVER: In this time we could run several thousands instead of a measly

two hundred —

MATTIE: Why in the world would we need that many?

LYMAN: You don’t seem to understand how much potential interest there is

in the creative work you’ve been hiding behind these walls.

GROVER: There’s a hungry public out there, Mattie, just begging to see

this stuff. Could you see your way to typesetting it, Dan?

DAN: I guess so.

MATTIE: I’m not sure Ben would be willing to write the texts.

GROVER: That’s a shame. But Lyman here can compose a snappy text or two.

DAN: Who’d want to print thousands?

OLYMPIA: I’d gladly do the printing, if Barry agrees to work with me.

BARRY: Any day, Olympia. Man, I’d really like to make some of this

stuff.

OLYMPIA: I’m sure Philip would be glad to show you.

BARRY: These plates really are out of sight, Philip. I never really

looked at this shit before.

ANASTASIA: This — ?

GROVER: Oh, that’s just a commune expression, a type of shorthand.

LYMAN: You certainly don’t have the best light for looking at it.

OLYMPIA: Grover has mentioned that several times. We’re working on the

lighting.

LYMAN: Have you ever thought, Philip, how much you might want to charge

for one of these yeses?

PHILIP: You mean moneywise?

DAN: Hey wait a minute! Are all these things in shelves because they’re

for sale?

MATTIE: That wasn’t my idea when I helped put them there only an hour

ago.

OLYMPIA: I don’t see what’s gotten into you two.

DAN: Maybe I sound like Ben, but I have a feeling that something I don’t

like is creeping all over me.

BARRY: So do I, but I know what mine’s from.

DAN: I thought we’d never reach the point of actually selling our stuff

—

OLYMPIA: Don’t be a bore, Dan. We settled that question years ago and

you’re being hypocritical —

DAN: What did we settle years ago?

OLYMPIA: Please don’t play the fool, Dan. You’re the one who argued most

loudly against Ben on the question of selling the typesetting.

Do I have to remind you that Toni’s birth center, the garage, your own

typesetting co-op —

DAN: All revolutionary businesses.

GROVER: I need a drink. (Exits right)

OLYMPIA: Call them what you like. They were set up to cover their own

expenses and support the people engaged in them so that those people

could be liberated from the mindless jobs done for poisonous

corporations —

BARRY: Unreported to boot, so that we could draw unemployment and

welfare while earning —

DAN: It’s no liberation if we transform this space into a poisonous —

OLYMPIA: You’re being so narrow, Dan. Why is something cool when you and

Toni do it, but not when Philip or I do it?

DAN: All the shit I brought here in trickles, you’re proposing bringing

in by truckloads —

LYMAN: Do you often have political arguments?

DAN: What do you call political? I’m talking about our fucking lives!

OLYMPIA: Dan, do you need to shout at our guests?

DAN: Sorry, I thought I was asking a question.

LYMAN: You’d easily win with me, Dan, since I couldn’t put up a fight.

I’ve never been able to wind my way through the contorted mazes of a

political labyrinth.

PHILIP: That’s a good word for it.

LYMAN: If you don’t mind my changing the subject, Philip, I wanted to

ask about these house-shaped ceramics.

ANASTASIA: They certainly do look out of place in the midst of all those

expressive motifs —

LYMAN: It’s not that they lack originality —

OLYMPIA: Those aren’t Philip’s.

MATTIE: Let’s go, Dan. I see that standards are being set, judges are

being appointed, and it’s a contest I never agreed to be in.

(MATTIE exits left)

DAN (shouts to right): Lisa! Rose Anne! We’re leaving.

VOICE OF LISA: Just a second!

(DAN exits right)

ANASTASIA: What I found most exciting of all that Grover told us was the

educational experiments you’ve been carrying out with children.

OLYMPIA: I don’t know as I’d call them experiments. The kids are into

their own things, just like the rest of us.

ANASTASIA: That’s exactly what I mean.

OLYMPIA: I don’t know what we could show you. That’s a puppet stage

Philip helped the kids design and build.

ANASTASIA: You certainly are a mine of original ideas, Philip.

PHILIP: Actually, the kids had the ideas.

ANASTASIA: Are any of the kids here?

OLYMPIA: I think two are about to leave, but maybe we could introduce

you.

BARRY: Come on up.

(BARRY, ANASTASIA, LYMAN exit right)

PHILIP: I think I’ve reached a decision.

OLYMPIA: What is it, Philip?

PHILIP: I’ve decided to give my notice at the shipping department.

OLYMPIA: Philip, congratulations! I must say it’s about time.

PHILIP: That way I could devote more of my time to my work.

(OLYMPIA picks up the sign; she and PHILIP exit right)

(Puppet stage, etc., have been gradually removed)

9.

TAPED NARRATOR: The larger community became increasingly involved in the

activities of the commune, giving rise to new projects and enlarged

perspectives, while old members, whose participation was ever more

marginal, resisted the changes with a growing ferocity. Something like a

fight to the death began between the dynamism of the new people intent

on pushing the commune in new directions and the stultifying negativism

of the freeloaders intent on bringing all activity to a dead halt. This

was one of the historical instances when the living were not crushed

under the weight of the dead.

(OLYMPIA enters from right, removes a plant from the picture window.

DONNA enters from right)

DONNA: Please be careful with that one! (Donna takes down another)

PHILIP (enters from right, removes a plant): This is the greatest move

we’ve made in years.

OLYMPIA: Where do you want them?

DONNA: Just set them on the floor. I’ll arrange them later.

(OLYMPIA exits right with plant)

DONNA: Philip, please do be careful. (Exits with plant; then PHILIP)

(BARRY enters from right with pail, starts cleaning the cleared portion

of the window)

BARRY (shouts to right): I never even knew there was glass here!

(OLYMPIA & PHILIP & DONNA return from right, repeat plant removal)

OLYMPIA: Oh, wow, what a workroom! No painter’s studio could be brighter

than this.

PHILIP: Give people a chance to actually see what we do here.

BARRY: Anastasia and Lyman said they’d be here about now.

PHILIP: Maybe something came up. They’ve sure made a lot of useful

suggestions.

OLYMPIA: What I’d like to know is, where are the other people who are

constantly talking about improving this place?

PHILIP: Who else knew about this?

OLYMPIA: Grover, for instance.

BARRY: Yea, Grover has a big mouth, but when it actually comes to doing

the work he’s fifty miles away turning someone else on to a project.

DONNA: There won’t be enough sun in my room to keep all these plants

alive.

OLYMPIA: You could get one of those lamps.

PHILIP: You’re not changing your mind, are you?

DONNA: No, Philip. It’s the first house-decorating idea you’ve had since

you’ve been here, and I agreed.

(OLYMPIA, PHILIP & DONNA exit right with plants. MATTIE enters from

right)

MATTIE: Do you know where iodine and bandages are kept, Barry?

VOICE OF OLYMPIA: They’re in the bathroom cabinet.

BARRY: Cut yourself?

MATTIE: Rose Anne bruised her knee climbing to the tree house. Spring

cleaning?

BARRY: Sort of. We’re removing the plants.

MATTIE: Permanently? But that window is such a perfect place for them;

they get sun during most of the day —

BARRY: Yea, but look at the landscape you can see now.

(OLYMPIA, PHILIP & DONNA return from right, remove last plants)

MATTIE: The landscape! Is that why you’re doing this? You can see the

same landscape by opening the front door, by sitting on the lawn, by

walking — I’m sorry to see those plants go, especially now that I’ve

finally gotten Rose Anne to stop trying to pull them down.

OLYMPIA: If you like them so well, Mattie, why don’t you put some up in

your living room.

MATTIE: Thanks for the suggestion. Maybe I’ll do that. (Exits right)

OLYMPIA: What a crock that is. She doesn’t only stay away from the work,

but she’s full of good ideas about how I ought to do my work.

PHILIP: It’s true that Mattie hasn’t been very cooperative lately. She

used to be so interested.

DONNA: Do you ever wonder why, Philip?

OLYMPIA: Once this is clean, we’ll have to schedule our next steps.

DONNA: All I want to know is when you schedule the planting.

(PHILIP, OLYMPIA & DONNA exit right with plants, DAN enters from right)

DAN: What a change!

BARRY: Yea, you’ll be able to see what you’re typesetting.

DAN: I suppose so. But I never had trouble before.

BARRY: You too?

DAN: Me too what?

BARRY: Never mind.

(OLYMPIA & PHILIP enter from right, clean with Barry)

OLYMPIA: Dan, I know you’re awfully busy, but do you think you’ll find

the time to fit our brochure in between all those political things

you’re doing?

DAN: I haven’t been doing much of anything, Olympia, and I didn’t know

you were in a hurry for it. When Philip gave me the manuscript he said

he wanted me to look it over.

PHILIP: That was two weeks ago. Did you look it over?

DAN: Yes. I suppose I could start on it next week. When do you want the

typesetting done?

PHILIP: What did you think of it?

DAN: Frankly, I liked the first brochure we did a lot better. In spite

of his whiney politics, Ben writes intelligent texts and good poetry,

whereas your friend Lyman —

OLYMPIA: We’re a commune, Dan. When did we start discriminating between

your friends, my friends, his friends?

DAN: When didn’t we? I can’t stand this character and I don’t consider

him my friend, comrade, fellow communard —

BARRY: You don’t even know him, Dan.

DAN: He’s a hack, a PR man, an author of advertising copy, and his

material stinks; the whole thing reads like an advertising brochure. I

thought you might be willing to ask Ben to write the texts.

OLYMPIA: We’ll think about it.

(DAN exits right)

PHILIP: I didn’t see anything wrong with Lyman’s texts.

OLYMPIA: I think they’re much more to the point than Ben’s were.

PHILIP: Then what’s there to think about?

OLYMPIA: Wait. I have an idea.

(SHARON enters from left, in overalls)

SHARON: Has anyone seen the lug wrench? It’s not in the garage.

OLYMPIA: Yes, it’s in the kitchen; I needed it as a pry bar.

SHARON: What did you do to Donna’s plants?

BARRY: What did we — we smashed them, Sharon, that’s what we did.

OLYMPIA: Of course you wouldn’t know, would you Sharon? Ever since your

Hollywood movie romance started you haven’t had time to find out what’s

going on around here.

SHARON: I do my share, and more —

OLYMPIA: Don’t we all, Sharon. But we don’t all criticize the work other

people are doing. Why do you decide you like the window dirty the moment

when someone finally starts cleaning it? Why do you decide you’re no

longer interested in improving this place the moment when people with

fresh ideas start making improvements?

SHARON: I — I don’t know. (Runs out left, without lug wrench)

OLYMPIA: Speak of negative energy! She wants tomatoes in precisely the

spot where you’re planting parsley, and it you’d put tomatoes there

she’d talk your head off about parsley.

BARRY: She’s always been like that. I don’t see how Steve can work with

her.

OLYMPIA: He’s another person who’s had his head up his ass since that

great romance began.

(GROVER, ANASTASIA & LYMAN enter from left)

GROVER (roaring with laughter, waving a newspaper): Has everyone seen

this morning’s news? “Easter Canceled. Christ’s body found.” Look at

this picture! “The feet that once walked the Sea of Galilee here

protrude from the mud, still showing the nail scars.”

BARRY: Let me see that.

PHILIP: We’re almost done.

LYMAN: I’m terribly sorry we’re so late. Grover’s car broke down and —

OLYMPIA: And you probably had to wait for him for an hour. We know

Grover. What do you think?

ANASTASIA: It’s fantastic!

LYMAN: What a transformation!

BARRY (reading): This is a riot!

OLYMPIA: Grover, what do you think?

GROVER: About what?

OLYMPIA: The window!

GROVER: Oh, the window! The vegetation is gone.

PHILIP: Is that all?

GROVER: The thing I like least about plants is that people who already

believe God exists point to a plant and tell you it proves he exists;

makes me associate plants with religious icons.

OLYMPIA: The three of us have been discussing the exposition you

suggested, Lyman, and we don’t think we could have it together in less

than six months.

PHILIP: We wouldn’t want to have it in summer.

OLYMPIA: Barry and I have barely started photographing Philip’s new

creations, and Philip wants to revise several old ones and make a whole

series of new ones.

LYMAN: I didn’t have any kind of deadline in mind. The sooner the

better, I say.

OLYMPIA: There’s a minor bottleneck. Have either of you ever typeset on

a machine like this one?

ANASTASIA: Certainly. It’s an ordinary office typewriter.

OLYMPIA: I know, but it has some special attachments.

ANASTASIA: It has that device on the right if you want to justify copy;

my friend Lamia operates a machine just like this one; she’s a

secretary.

OLYMPIA: Do you think Lamia could typeset the texts for the brochure?

ANASTASIA: I know she could; she’ll be flattered to be asked. I’ve told

her about you and she’s absolutely thrilled about your programs. Shell

has an interest in primitive mythology and art, and particularly in

modern revivals of ancient forms.

OLYMPIA: That’s wonderful. Then there is no bottleneck. (Shouts right)

Dan! Could we talk to you for a second?

(DAN enters from right)

OLYMPIA: Could you return the brochure manuscript to us sometime today?

There’s no hurry. We’ve had a change of plans.

DAN: You’re going to reconsider the texts?

OLYMPIA: We’re going to reconsider everything. We’re playing with the

idea of having the commune women prepare an exposition.

DAN: The idea seems good.

OLYMPIA: I knew you’d think so. Of course we’ll want the women’s group

to do all the work that’s involved.

DAN: I understand. I’ll bring the manuscript by after lunch.

OLYMPIA: And the machine is going to be in use some of the time.

DAN: Obviously. I don’t have many projects now, so that won’t

inconvenience me.

(DAN exits right)

PHILIP: A women’s exposition?

OLYMPIA: Of course we’ll still exhibit your things, Philip, but we’ll

take care of all the other arrangements, isn’t that right, Anastasia?

GROVER: I don’t get it.

OLYMPIA: Let it settle gradually, Grover. It’s such a beautiful day, why

don’t we discuss this some more while walking. We should also talk about

our schedule for the coming months.

(OLYMPIA, PHILIP, ANASTASIA, LYMAN & GROVER exit left)

10.

TAPED NARRATOR: It took most of a year to get together all the elements

required by the commune’s first and most memorable exposition. The

continuing indifference, and even outright hostility, of the numerous

passive onlookers who had nothing better to do with their time than

cripple our commune’s project, did not help expedite the various tasks.

That the event took place at all is almost a miracle, and is entirely

due to the profound involvement of the larger community and its devotion

to the commune’s continuing development.

(DAN enters from left, typesets. TONI enters from right)

TONI: Well, it’s Dan.

DAN: Hi, Toni. (They embrace)

TONI: You’re almost a stranger. Find new friends?

DAN: No I haven’t, Toni. But I have felt like a stranger. I couldn’t

take Olympia or Philip greeting me with another Political Pamphlet Dan.

And I didn’t want to get in their way.

TONI: That’s been Philip’s sole concern for the past months — that the

commune not get in the way of his Expo.

DAN: I heard it took place this past weekend.

TONI: Didn’t they invite you? No, I guess they wouldn’t have. They know

how you feel about the friends Philip has been waiting for all his life.

DAN: How did it go?

TONI: I didn’t go either, although they did invite me. Have you seen the

brochure? (Hands him one from a surface)

DAN: I see they left Lyman’s texts. I thought it was supposed to be a

women’s project.

TONI: That’s news to me. I thought it was Philip’s coming out party. He

acted like a kid all last week; it must have been the greatest

experience of his life. Remember when he used to melt down his objects

and you could only see them in pictures? That’s ancient history. Now

he’s prolific. He produces art objects by the crate. What are you

typing?

DAN: Can’t you guess?

TONI: “Another political pamphlet, Dan? When will you political people

learn to put your ideology into practice?” That’s exactly what she puts

into practice: her ideology.

DAN: That’s actually more than I’ve been doing.

TONI: Something happened?

DAN: Not exactly. My unemployment ran out and I had to get a part time

job. In a print shop, with no window facing the outside. I really like

it here now. I thought there’d be some interesting things to set, but

it’s all ads. And you?

TONI: The same. I heard that Lisa started school.

DAN: Just this year. And Leon?

TONI: We’re still holding out. But it’s impossible with no other kids

around. Leon has the TV schedule memorized and he’s glued to the tube

all day. It’s ten times worse than school. At least in school you’re

with others and you can rebel. He just sits and watches.

DAN: What about all the projects he and Alec had going?

TONI: Alec’s in boarding school.

DAN: Really? I didn’t know.

TONI: Philip didn’t want anyone or anything between him and the Expo.

DAN: Did Donna take part in the preparations?

TONI: Are you kidding? Donna’s like a ghost. She lives here but no one

sees her.

DAN: She used to be such a lively person.

TONI: She was a real trip when I first came here. I’ll never forget her

“Gosh, is that marihuana? I’ve heard so much about it — what do you do?”

DAN: That’s cute.

TONI: It’s true. She used to be excited by everything and interested in

everyone. Funny how people change. She still cares for the garden; she

comes alive once a year, when the seeds get planted. The rest of the

time she goes from her job to the bar and back.

DAN: I remember she was already a little like that years ago, that night

Ben wrote a poem to her.

TONI: I remember that night too, and I’ve always regretted missing Ben’s

reading because of Grover’s antics. At that time I thought those two

would make a go of it.

DAN: Ben and Donna? Are you kidding? The radical hippie and the straight

secretary?

TONI: It wasn’t so ridiculous then.

DAN: I remember she thought him “sweet.”

TONI: After her miserable high school marriage, Donna apparently didn’t

want to get involved. But around the time of Ben’s poem, I know she

would have accompanied Ben to a farm commune in Saskatchewan or

Mongolia. But except for his poem, Ben never made a move nor said a

word, and over the years they drifted apart.

DAN: I saw Ben a couple of weeks ago; I had some research to do at the

underground paper. I hadn’t seen him in over a year. He hasn’t changed.

He still thinks a revolution would only make things worse, so why do

anything? Maybe that’s why he never approached Donna, because that’s

pointless too if you practice the politics of despair.

TONI: At one time I agreed with you, Dan, but now I know you’re wrong. I

was very close to Ben for almost two years. He’s someone who doesn’t

just talk about independent human beings — he actually believes it. He

thinks a revolution will be significant only if it’s made by independent

individuals who act on their own. If they can be talked into it then

they can be talked out of it, and worse, they can be talked into

believing they got it when they didn’t. That’s why he rejects all kinds

of propaganda. And that’s why he never tried to convince Donna to quit

her job or join us in our projects or move to Mount Tabor or wherever.

Poor Donna was dying to be convinced, to be invited, but Ben wanted her

to decide on her own. His poem wasn’t an invitation. It was a gift, a

love offering; Donna accepted it as that and disappointed Ben by

continuing to repeat her crummy routine. She waited for his invitation

to make a move, but the invitation never came. Donna remained the “Cool

Lady” to Ben and Ben remained “sweet” to Donna.

DAN: You’re a generous person, Toni. I’m sorry I never really got to

know either of them. I never even knew about you and Ben.

TONI: We never loved each other. Ben and I are too much alike; we’re too

movementy for each other’s tastes. Ben and Donna loved each other. It’s

sad.

DAN: When did you break up with Ben?

TONI: I didn’t. Ben broke up with the house when the new friends started

dropping by. I guess Ben expected me to drop out too, or to spark a

confrontation or make a scene or at least let him know he wasn’t alone.

And I guess I disappointed him the same way Donna did. Nothing was clear

to me.

DAN: Does Ben really have nothing to do with the commune?

TONI: It’s just a house now, Dan. And it’s a hotel to Ben. He leaves in

the morning and comes back at night. If he runs into any of us he greets

us the way he’d greet the hotel receptionist or elevator operator. It

isn’t what you call despair. Ben is full of hope, but his hope is

constantly disappointed.

(BARRY enters from left)

BARRY: Ah, Dan. Nice to see you’re coming around again.

TONI: Yes, we do so much to make our friends feel at home here, don’t

we?

BARRY: Why so sarcastic on such a lovely morning, Toni?

TONI: Who’s being sarcastic? Dan told me he’d heard through the

grapevine that a commune event took place last weekend. Thank god for

grapevines.

BARRY: We told you about it, Toni, and you didn’t come.

TONI: Did you also tell Donna about it? And Ben?

BARRY: Neither of them has taken part in any commune activities in

years, and you know it.

TONI: I bet Sharon would have loved to work on the preparations.

BARRY: Tony, have you ever tried working with Sharon? I tried for years

and believe me it’s impossible.

TONI: You never had trouble working with Steve. Why was he excluded?

BARRY: Who’s excluded, for crying out loud? You’re making a political

ideology out of your own paranoia. Ever since his great romance, Steve

dropped out of everything.

TONI: Mattie worked all right with everyone, she hasn’t had a great

romance in recent years, and she was really into the pottery for a

while; why wasn’t she —

BARRY: Is this a third degree? Look, I hate to say this, but Olympia,

Philip and I don’t enjoy working with Mattie.

DAN: Since when?

BARRY: If you’ve got to know, it’s because she gives off the wrong kind

of energy, negative energy —

TONI: So some people are excluded because they’re too eager and others

because they aren’t eager enough.

BARRY: No one’s excluded from anything; you’ve got a butterfly in your

noodle this morning, Toni.

TONI: Why did Dan have to learn about the event from the grapevine?

BARRY: This discussion is a waste of time. Look, a couple of people gave

a small party for their friends. That’s common enough, right? It so

happens that Dan wasn’t the best friend of some of the friends. For

crying out loud, Dan, I thought you couldn’t stand Lyman Sanders! Don’t

you ever give parties? Do you invite everyone you know in the whole

city? Look, I’ve got some work to do. (Exits right)

DAN: I’ll be damned.

TONI: Won’t we all. Were you calling this a commune?

DAN: How long has this been going on?

TONI: Long, I think. You were still one of the friends when it started.

DAN: You mean when I sided against Ben about the typesetting?

TONI: Even before that, I suppose. But why ask me? I was one of the

friends until last week. My work was a bona fide commune project, it

didn’t interfere with their preparations, and I didn’t exude any

negative energy —

DAN: You mean you didn’t question anything they were doing.

TONI: It can’t be that simple, since Mattie didn’t either.

DAN: Mattie said something when they were taking the plants to Donna’s

room, and she knew at the time —

TONI: Is that it? And I always thought Mattie was such a meek person.

(GROVER enters from left.)

GROVER: Man, am I glad it’s you two.

TONI: Why us two? Doesn’t the whole town love you any more? Cops after

you? This is the last place they’d look, you know.

GROVER: Have you heard about the shit that went down last weekend?

TONI: We’ve been waiting for you to clue us in. But why the sudden fury?

I thought you were one of the impresarios.

GROVER: There was all this talk about the women’s group doing all the

work.

TONI: If it hadn’t been for such talk, you would have worked your ass

off, wouldn’t you, Grover?

DAN: I thought you were one of the women, Grover — you and Philip and

Barry and Lyman —

GROVER: How was I to know that Mattie, Sharon and Toni and Donna weren’t

in on it?

DAN: what happened?

GROVER: Women’s art exposition, my ass. It was a religious revival, a

mystical seance, and we’d better confront them —

TONI: Welcome to the club.

DAN: A seance? Are you serious?

GROVER: I thought it couldn’t be serious. That’s why I went along. I

kept waiting for the twist, the April fool’s joke. But it was no joke.

They were serious.

DAN: What kind of seance? I can’t believe it.

GROVER: Anastasia brought down these friends of hers: a woman called

Lamia, who turned out to be some kind of palm reader, and this dude Earl

who’s supposedly into self-publishing.

TONI: Presumably you didn’t know any of Anastasia’s friends when you

first brought her here —

GROVER: All I knew was she was into the shit we did here.

DAN: Go on, Grover. The seance.

GROVER: Anyway, Anastasia starts it all up with a rap about this commune

being a return to the origin, resurrecting the spirit of our earliest

ancestors. I could go along with her shit because I thought it was some

kind of poetry. Then she introduces this Lamia as someone with powers to

put us in direct contact with the dead ancestors.

TONI: Oh wow, you are serious. And here I was thinking that Sharon and

Mattie and Steve would have loved to take part in the preparations.

Wrong track again!

GROVER: Candles, burning incense, hands on the table, the whole thing,

and Olympia saying “Oh how exciting, I’ve never contacted an ancestor

before.” I laugh and ask if there’s a translator in the room to tell us

what the mummy says. Philip and Barry are sitting there transfixed, like

they expect a Neanderthal to walk in any second. Then Lamia gets into

this incoherent rap, like she’s oh deed on LSD although I didn’t see her

take anything, and it turns out she’s the ancestor.

DAN: Incredible.

GROVER: That’s bad enough. But then I start recognizing bits and scraps

of her rap, and it turns out it’s not even original; it comes out of an

old Life magazine article on the Aztecs that I happen to have read. I

keep expecting someone to say something. I look at Philip, but he thinks

he’s seeing Kukulkan on Illyria Street. Finally I can’t take it any more

so I get up. Lamia snaps out of her trance and says I broke the spell,

and the others look at me as if I’d set the house on fire. So I split.

TONY: That’s heavy.

GROVER: I phoned Lyman yesterday to ask about the meaning of what went

down. Listen to this. “I hope you don’t feel embarrassed,” he tells me,

“not everyone is strong enough to support such an experience.” Can you

dig that? It turns out that Lamia and this Earl character bought $500

worth of Philip’s pottery, so my splitting didn’t break the spell.

DAN: Philip sold his pottery?

TONI: What did you think the Expo was for?

DAN: Then the brochure texts sounded like ads because they were ads.

TONI: It settles slowly, doesn’t it?

GROVER: It’s not the sale that bugs me —

TONI: That’s why we considered you one of them, Grover.

GROVER: It’s the religious shit that gets me. Is that what we’ve been

building up to? I think you people in the house had better get it

together; I’ve got to split.

TONI: Why we people? Why not everyone who ever related to the commune?

GROVER: That’s what I’m talking about. There’s got to be some kind of

confrontation over this seance business —

TONI: The seance and the selling and the exclusions — Are you still free

on weekends?

GROVER: Weekday nights, weekends anytime, but be sure you tell me in

advance. (Exits left)

TONI: I had an idea when Grover started talking.

DAN: So did I. What’s yours?

TONI: It has to do with going back to the origins.

DAN: That’s it. We’re too Movementy for each other, Toni.

TONI: We could have a resurrection — our version of one. Remember that

Japanese meal Ben and I were preparing?

DAN: Sounds great!

TONI: And the puppet play that was never performed, and the alternative

to school that never got off the ground, and the commune that almost

started to be real, and the —

DAN: Too much has been lost to get all that back, Toni. But I know

Mattie will be eager to try; she’s literally been doing nothing at all,

what with two kids, and Rose Anne home all day long.

TONI: I’m sure Steve and Sharon will be willing, even Ben, and I know

Donna is longing to go back to one of the intersections where she failed

to make a turn; she’s not the only one.

(OLYMPIA enters from right, rushing)

OLYMPIA: Oh hi Dan. Working on another political pamphlet?

TONI: Cripes, Olympia. He’s hardly been here for a year.

OLYMPIA: Really? I hadn’t noticed.

DAN: Thanks a lot.

OLYMPIA: Oh, nothing personal, Dan. I’ve been so busy with so many

exciting projects and friends —

TONI: Some of us would like to talk to you about those projects and

friends, Olympia.

OLYMPIA: I was on my way out, Toni. What is it?

TONI: I don’t mean now. I mean when everyone could be present — everyone

who wasn’t invited to last weekend’s event.

OLYMPIA: I don’t have time to discuss anything with those people;

there’s too much else to do in life.

TONI: That’s one of thing things we’d like to talk about: how and when

some of my friends became “those people”.

OLYMPIA: I have no idea what you’re hinting at.

TONI: I’m not hinting! What you call “those people” now includes

everyone who helped make this place what it once was. And I’m intending

to give a party for all “those people.”

OLYMPIA: You can give all the parties you want, Toni, anytime you want.

How does that concern me?.

TONI: Some of us have questions that concern you, like critiques of last

weekend’s Expo.

OLYMPIA: The Expo was the commune’s most significant event so far.

TONI: We heard all about it from Grover.

OLYMPIA: What did Grover tell you about it?

TONI: He said it was a seance.

OLYMPIA: He should have talked to me first!

TONI: Why should he? If that type of thing is taking place in this

house, we should all know about it and we should talk to each other

about it at a meeting where everyone is present.

OLYMPIA: I told you I was in a hurry.

TONI: We’ll walk you to the car. Are you afraid to defend your seance —

OLYMPIA: I happen to have nothing to hide. Let’s meet tonight to talk

about the scheduling —

TONI: We’d like to schedule it right now.

OLYMPIA: Fine. I’m free the day after tomorrow.

TONI: It’ll have to be over the weekend; Donna can’t meet on weeknights.

DAN: Neither can I.

OLYMPIA: Well I’ll be out of town this coming weekend. The following

weekend then. I’ll shift what I intended to do then to midweek —

(OLYMPIA, TONI & DAN exit left)

11.

TAPED NARRATOR: (Sound of rewinding tape. Then:) ...expedite the various

tasks. That the event took place at all is almost a miracle, and is

entirely due to the profound involvement of the larger community and its

(Stop)

(OLYMPIA, PHILIP, BARRY, LYMAN, ANASTASIA, EARL, LAMA enter from right,

laughing and chatting)

LYMAN: You really ought to attend that fair; I’m sure you’ll get some

marvelous ideas for your next exposition.

OLYMPIA: Philip and I are seriously considering it.

BARRY: I’ll be sorry to miss it, but I’ve already got plane tickets for

next week.

(MATTIE enters from left)

MATTIE: Oh gee, don’t stop. I didn’t mean to put an end to the

conversation. (Silence)

PHILIP: Those people are always late.

MATTIE: I thought the meeting started at two.

PHILIP: It’s ten after two.

(GROVER, STEVE & SHARON enter from left)

GROVER: Is everyone here already? I thought we were early.

PHILIP: You’re not.

GROVER: Then let’s get this show on the road. I take it the purpose of

this meeting is to discuss what went down two weekends ago —

OLYMPIA: Is that the purpose of this meeting? (Silence)

PHILIP: There are far more important things to talk about.

GROVER: But I thought —

OLYMPIA: Lyman has a friend, a painter, who was scheduled to have his

first show in a downtown gallery. It was to open in a week. But for some

mysterious reason the gallery turned him down at the last minute. So

Lyman suggested he might be able to rent space from the Illyria Street

Commune — only this room, obviously.

MATTIE: (to Grover) But she can’t! What about our party?

GROVER: Hey wait a minute. Toni and Donna aren’t here yet.

PHILIP: How long are we supposed to wait?

(TONI enters from right)

GROVER: Not long, Philip. Olympia is talking about renting this place —

TONI: Are you crazy? She can’t rent it! It’s in all our names —

OLYMPIA: I meant all of us.

TONI: What’s going on here? I thought we were going to talk about

certain critiques —

PHILIP: We’ve discussed that already.

BARRY: We put our critiques into action, Toni.

TONI: What the hell does that mean, Barry? And what do you mean, You’ve

discussed that already? Did you resolve it all in fifteen minutes?

Grover alone —

GROVER: I started to bring it up —

(BEN enters from right)

OLYMPIA: I hope we don’t let this meeting degenerate into a shouting

match. We were discussing the possibility of renting this room to an

artist —

TONI: You can’t and that’s that. Let’s talk about real things now —

OLYMPIA: We can’t, Toni? Don’t you think it’s up to the entire commune

to decide that?

EARL: May I ask, have we ever turned anyone down before? I understood

that the principle of openness —

TONI: We? Who the hell are you?

OLYMPIA: Oh, I’m terribly sorry. This is Earl. He’s gotten deeply

involved in the commune and has numerous ideas on how to improve it.

Earl, this is Toni. Shall we go around the room saying our names —

MATTIE: I don’t believe in it.

BARRY: In answer to your question, Earl: No, we’ve never excluded anyone

before. But then, I don’t think we’ve ever gotten that kind of request

before.

TONI (to Sharon): How does it feel to be invisible?

SHARON (to TONI): Must be the same as being dead.

LYMAN: Of course my friend agrees to pay whatever reasonable rent we

ask, and he also assured me he would rectify any changes he felt it

necessary to make.

TONI: Of course.

MATTIE: Do you need the money or something? Why are you doing this? Are

you going to become landlords?

PHILIP: No, Mattie, we don’t need the money.

OLYMPIA: I personally don’t think we should become landlords —

TONI: Then why are we discussing this?

MATTIE (to Toni): I’d better led Dan get in on some of this. I can see I

botched something by keeping my mouth shut when it started. (She exits

left)

BARRY: We’re discussing the principle of excluding someone.

TONI: Oh is that what we’re discussing? In that case let me bring up

some cases that aren’t hypothetical!

OLYMPIA: We haven’t settled this matter, although I personally feel

that, since we don’t need the money —

BARRY: That’s true. Philip made a good point.

LYMAN: Fine. I’ll tell him the commune decided against it.

PHILIP: What’s next on the agenda?

TONI: Have you gone off your rockers? Since when do we have an agenda?

LAMIA: Well I’ve never in my life —

BARRY: I can’t imagine what’s gotten into you today, Toni. You’re so

uptight. Obviously there’s no agenda. We haven’t become a parliament.

That was just Philip’s way of asking if there were other matters that

concerned the whole group.

(DONNA enters from right)

OLYMPIA: We must make a terrible impression, Lamia. We’re not usually so

rowdy. I hope we don’t spend any more time on trivialities. I wanted to

bring up a question we’ve been discussing for years, and one which

certainly does concern the whole commune. That’s the question of space

and light for our work, our displays and even for parties. Several years

ago Grover suggested the possibility of enlarging this room. This wall,

for instance, blocks direct access from the front room to the kitchen.

BARRY: If we could knock a three foot hole through it, and put a doorway

right here —

STEVE You’d better not put it there, Barry; that’s where the chimney

passes through.

LYMAN: What about putting it over here?

GROVER: To hell with a three foot hole! Why aid don’t we knock the whole

wall down? The room between here and the kitchen serves no other purpose

than to accumulate garbage anyway. Once we took care of the kitchen wall

we could have light coming in from both sides. Think of all the shelves

we could put in — and our work area would still be twice as large as it

is now.

(DAN enters from left)

LYMAN: How do you propose to remove this wall, Grover?

GROVER: Easiest thing in the world if you’ve got the right tools, isn’t

that so, Steve?

STEVE: I guess so — if you’ve got the right tools.

GROVER: Mm. Let me see. It shouldn’t take but three or four hours to

take the whole thing down; patch up the paint and rough spots, and throw

out the crud in that room.

LYMAN: But how?

GROVER? How? That’s the least of it. Nowadays they’ve got all kinds of

machinery for crap like that. They’ve got these small bulldozers — isn’t

that right, Steve?

STEVE: How would you get a bulldozer in here, Grover?

GROVER: Let’s see. Ah, that’s it. We’d remove the front window. Nowadays

they’ve got demolition units rigged just like those snow removal outfits

that melt the snow and cart it off as water. With that kind of unit we

could get the wall down in two seconds flat, and then we apply this huge

suction unit —

STEVE: And you’ll cart it all off as liquid plaster, wood, nails —

GROVER: That’s right! And while we’re on that front window —

DAN: Have you gone out of your mind, Grover? Why are you talking about

tearing this place apart three weeks before our party? I thought there

were all kinds of other questions —

LAMIA (to Anastasia) Who’s that?

ANASTASIA (whispers to Lamia): Another crank.

DAN: Another what?

BEN (who sits near Anastasia — loudly): Another crank!

OLYMPIA: Dan, do you think we should never make changes in the space

where we live and work?

GROVER: Somehow we got into this other subject, Dan, and the fact is

that Lyman here has a whole theory about that picture window.

LYMAN: I wouldn’t exactly call it a theory. It’s my feeling that if

you’re going to use this room as a display area, the presence of that

window defeats your purpose.

DAN: If we’re going to do what?

GROVER: What Lyman means is this, Dan. With that window there, we can’t

focus the spectator’s eye on our work. Now if I had my business laid out

oft those shelves, I sure as hell wouldn’t want the spectator’s eyes

wandering off to look at the landscape!

DONNA: But you had them remove my plants because you said you wanted

more light.

GROVER: That’s right, Donna, but that was years ago, and I forgot it

would be natural light that streamed through that window. What art needs

is artificial light.

TONI: Grover, you are such an incredible bullshit artist —

OLYMPIA: Is that really true, Toni? I hear Grover trying to make the

commune’s expositions even livelier and more meaningful than the first

one —

GROVER: Holy shit! I’ve got an appointment ten minutes ago! If anyone

gets that demolition equipment be sure to let me know; I’d like to be in

on that. (Grover exits left)

BEN: That’s the sickest farce I’ve ever seen.

ANASTASIA (to Olympia): Who’s he?

BEN: Yet another crank, lady. This place is infested.

OLYMPIA: I don’t understand what you’re calling a farce, Ben. We’ve been

discussing improvements that have been needed for at least five years,

and I personally think the various suggestions are creative and

exciting.

TONI: Even though you know it’s all bullshit.

OLYMPIA: Do you think it’s bullshit, Toni, to improve the space where we

spend most of our working hours?

BEN: I don’t want to get sucked into the debate about the walls; I have

my own opinion about its significance.

OLYMPIA: Could you give all of us a glimpse — ?

BEN: No, I couldn’t, Olympia. Something else bugs me. I thought there

were some things we all took for granted. I thought some things were

repulsive to all of us. I thought we made certain compromises only in

order to survive. Recently I learned —

PHILIP: If this is the beginning of another arid political debate, I’m

leaving.

OLYMPIA: Wait a minute, Philip. I’d like to know what Ben learned

recently.

BEN: I heard you were applying for a State grant to the arts.

BARRY: Where did you hear that?

DAN: Cut the innocent act, Barry. I heard about that grant over a year

ago.

OLYMPIA: Ben, you seem so agitated. I’ve never seen you like this. Are

you really so upset about a nonexistent grant, or are there Bother

things?

PHILIP: Perhaps your own political frustrations, Ben?

DONNA: I don’t understand what’s going on. Olympia, you talked to me

about such a grant two years ago. I didn’t see what was wrong with

accepting it. But why are you three acting as if Ben were crazy?

OLYMPIA: Oh, Donna, I didn’t know you were here. Yes, that’s just the

point. All the people in this room have been talking about that grant

for the past two years. That’s why I don’t understand Ben’s surprise,

his sudden agitation.

TONI: Two years! Then how come this is the first time I’ve heard

anything about it?

BARRY: Where have you been, Toni?

SHARON: I haven’t heard about it either.

OLYMPIA: Well, now everyone is acting as if I’m crazy. Dan and Donna

seem to have known all about it.

TONI: Who else knew all about it?”

OLYMPIA: Apparently everyone in the community except you, Toni. I myself

discussed this question with almost everyone in this room.

BARRY: I don’t see the relevance of this discussion.

BEN: Do the world a favor by dropping the word “community,” Olympia.

Your newest circle of friends, concerned as they are with our displaying

and marketing our commodities — that’s not community; it’s the exact

opposite.

OLYMPIA: You’re hurting people’s feelings, Ben.

BEN: A state subsidized art business — that’s not community; that’s what

tears community to shreds, which has been happening right here; it’s

like that demolition machine Grover invented earlier.

OLYMPIA: Are you finished?

BARRY: You don’t even know what you’re talking about, Ben, and this

isn’t either the time or the place —

TONI: When is?

PHILIP: Labyrinthine, that’s what this discussion is. Byzantine. Ben,

you sound just like a political crank resurrected from the sixties.

OLYMPIA: Surely you’re exaggerating, Philip. But honestly, Ben, your

outburst certainly does seem irrational and unmotivated. The fact is,

and you know it, we’ve never received any type of grant from the State

and we’re rot getting such a grant now.

BARRY: Which means, Ben, that there’s nothing to discuss, and you’ve

been wasting everyone’s time.

DAN: What happened? Did the State turn you down?

OLYMPIA: Why Dan, I don’t understand your tone. You thought the grant

such a great idea when I discussed it with you.

DAN: I — I hadn’t thought out its implications.

LYMAN: Excuse me for intervening on this matter, but this debate seems

to be taking place in a vacuum. Many people here seem to be unaware that

there are no implications to this grant, there are absolutely no strings

attached. And secondly, we did not get turned down. Many of the

commune’s programs are eligible for funds earmarked for precisely such

programs. We didn’t receive a grant for this fiscal year only because we

submitted the application too late —

BARRY: Lyman, this isn’t the time or the place for that —

OLYMPIA: I’m thoroughly confused. Your words to me, Dan — I don’t

remember them exactly — were: “What’s wrong with us ripping off the

State for some bread if we can get away with it?”

DAN: I guess the verb tripped me up. I should have asked: What’s wrong

with us being financed by the State.

OLYMPIA: I don’t see the difference.

DAN: It’s what Ben was trying to say. You get so you depend on the State

to support a community independent of the State, and finally you make

friends with bureaucrats like these two dudes to help you apply for

larger grants.

PHILIP: I won’t have you insulting our friends, Dan. They have as much

right in this community as you do, and it so happens I’ve felt more

comfortable working with them than I ever felt with you.

TONI: When will you introduce us to the rest of your community, Philip —

the politicians on the city council, the corporation directors?

PHILIP: I haven’t met any of them yet.

BEN: But you’ll call them the community as soon as you meet them.

PHILIP: I’m not able to contend with this harangue of political

rhetoric, and its volume hurts my ears. I take it that the meeting is

over.

(LYMAN, ANASTASIA, EARL & LAMIA exit left)

PHILIP (at door): Are you coming, Olympia? Barry?

OLYMPIA: I’d like to get to the root of these rumors being spread behind

my back. People should really have come to me first.

PHILIP: We’ll be at Lyman’s.

(PHILIP exits. TONI gets up and follows him, shouting)

TONI: You asshole. It’s your ignorance that makes you shout abort

politics as if it were something you didn’t do! You and Olympia are the

biggest politicians here!

(TONI exits)

DAN: Toni said it! You and Philip have been throwing the word politics

in my face for years, but I’ve never in my life seen a dirtier pair of

politicians than you two, I’ve never been to a political meeting where

I’ve felt more manipulated than at this afternoon’s wall-moving session,

I’ve never seen one person wind up another the way Grover was wound up.

Machines that liquefy walls! Jesus! Now that you and Philip —

OLYMPIA: Is this what I stayed to hear? Have I really been throwing

things in your face for years?

DAN: Now isn’t the best time for you and Philip to denounce politics.

You’d learn to cover your game better if you studied a little politics.

Like the politics of Friends —

OLYMPIA: Please leave our friends out of this; it’s no secret you have

no great love for them.

DAN: I’m about to split, Olympia. But first I’d like to tell you

something I read about the politics of friends. Long ago the members of

ancient Macedonian tribes called each other friends. Later each tribe

started to have a matriarchal chief, and her advisers were called the

friends of the tribe. Finally one of the chiefs became queen, and her

consort became king, and the top officials of the court were known as

the friends of Macedonia. Friendship wasn’t a personal relation any

more; it became an office to which you got appointed by the queen or her

consort. If a friend was ousted, he was considered an outsider, a

traitor, a crank. Your namesake was the most famous of the Macedonian

queens; she went through friends the way we go through kleenexes; she

blew her nose in them and threw them away. That’s about all I had to

say. Good bye, everybody.

(DAN exits left)

OLYMPIA: And good riddance.

BARRY: People who never do anything around here come up with the most

brilliant critiques —

BEN: You’ve got a bucket of shit in your mouth, Barry, and you know it.

BARRY: You know something? I’ve been asking myself all afternoon: What’s

Ben doing at this meeting? You announced years ago you didn’t want

anything more to do with this place.

BEN: Why do you say that with such glee? If you’re thinking “good

riddance” why are you pretending to reproach me with it? And why don’t

you bother to remember the circumstances in which I said that? You had

spilled shit all over —

BARRY: You’re not going to dig up that little accident again!

BEN: Maybe it’s because of little accidents that so many people are

turned off from working here.

OLYMPIA: Why bring up the past? Can’t we just let bygones be bygones?

We’ve always had respect for you, Ben, all of us. We respected your

opinions even if we didn’t always adopt them, and whether or not you

helped with the work. I personally was almost heartbroken when you

turned against the community. If you’d stayed with us, we would never

have waded through a mass of bureaucratic forms to apply for a State

grant, because you would have made the implications of such an

application perfectly clear to us. I’d still like you to clarify some

things for me. Every person in the commune has accepted checks from the

State. If I’m not mistaken, even you —

BEN: You know damn well —

OLYMPIA: Of course I know. We all know. You’ve collected monthly welfare

checks from the State ever since I’ve known you. You haven’t drawn a pay

check for the past eight years —

BEN: If you don’t know, or no longer know the difference —

OLYMPIA: Of course, Ben. Your illness. No one can reproach you with

that. What I don’t understand is how you can sit there and lecture to us

about how evil we would be if any of us ever accepted a check like that.

BEN: Can I talk now?

OLYMPIA: Of course, Ben. I asked for your opinion.

BEN: I’ve been postponing a decision for a couple of years. I finally

made up my mind this afternoon, while Grover was demolishing the wall

and the front window. I’m going to leave this house as soon as I get my

suitcase packed —

OLYMPIA: Surely you don’t think we were trying to push you —

BEN: I’ll be moving to Kentucky — not to a commune, not to join striking

miners. Just a shack with a yard.

OLYMPIA: What about your paper?

BEN: Thanks for your concern, Olympia. The paper can survive without me.

Some six years ago this place, the commune, became my main commitment,

but that ended some time ago. I’d like to make sense out of what

happened to us during the past eight years, to figure out how much was

real and how much an illusion I kept reviving in my own mind. I don’t

think it was all illusion. I’m fairly sure that not a single one of us,

except maybe Philip, started out wanting to be a potter or a painter or

a writer or any other thing that fits into the slots of this society. We

didn’t start out being an Artists’ Commune. Just a commune. We only

wanted to be human beings to each other. We each had something to give,

but nothing to sell. At least nothing to sell voluntarily. We accepted

paychecks and welfare checks because otherwise we couldn’t survive in

the prison we’re still in. You used to know that, Olympia. I fantasied

that we didn’t create this commune as a further extension of that

prison, but as a break from it —

OLYMPIA: That wasn’t a fantasy, Ben. That’s truer now than it ever was.

BEN: I fantasied that we didn’t want to sell our creations, our ideas,

our dreams as if they were merchandise, and that this was the free space

where we didn’t have to do that, the free space where we didn’t have to

do pottery displays or art shows or whatever the contract called for,

the free space where we could share what each could give. But that was

just my own private fantasy.

OLYMPIA: How can you say that, Ben? Barry and Philip and I have lived by

those principles.

BEN: Philip’s principles came out of his mouth this afternoon. If he

didn’t sell himself before, it was only because there weren’t any

buyers. If he treated us as human beings, it was only because he hadn’t

met the better set yet. As soon as the first opportunity appeared,

Philip was ready to sell himself and the commune and to throw the rest

of us in on the bargain — or else to dispose of us as trash.

BARRY: You’re raving, Ben. You couldn’t be more wrong about Philip.

BEN: I don’t know where you’re coming from, Barry, nor where you’re

going. I was talking to Olympia. Sure I’m raving. Weren’t we called

cranks this afternoon? Isn’t that what cranks do — rave? Dan was right,

Olympia. You and Philip don’t reject politics. You chaired the meeting,

intimidated the opposition, determined the agenda, excluded all

relevance, squelched all critique. You’ve got so much politics the whole

house reeks of it. Principles are what you and Philip don’t have. Why

not call things by their names? What Philip can’t stand about Dan or

Toni or the rest of us is that there are certain things we won’t sell,

for any mount of money.

OLYMPIA: Are you done? I promised to meet Philip.

BEN: Almost. I’d like to ask a favor. If you continue not to see the

difference between a welfare check and a state grant to an art bazaar,

between a commune and a merchandising mart, between a relatively free

human being and a salesman, forget that I was ever a friend of yours.

That’s the favor. Because I intend to forget that you were ever a friend

of mine.

(BEN walks toward archway)

DONNA: (weakly) Ben?

BEN: Donna. I’m exaggerating. It wasn’t all hell. I won’t ever forget

the moments I spent with you. But by staying on here you’ll just get —

oh hell, you’ve got to figure that out for yourself.

(BEN exits right)

DONNA: (to the empty archway) You’ll never make it all alone, Ben. Take

me with you.

BARRY: Man, what a stuffed shirt he’s become.

OLYMPIA: He’s no great loss either. Let’s go.

DONNA: Olympia?

OLYMPIA: What is it, Donna? I’m in a hurry.

DONNA: Why didn’t you tell me you were doing the planting last Sunday?

OLYMPIA: Didn’t anyone tell you?

DONNA: You had to tell me, Olympia, since you decide —

OLYMPIA: Donna, how can you expect people to keep telling you about

events if you never show up at any of them?

DONNA: I haven’t missed a single planting, ever, since I bought the

house ten years ago; I look forward to it all years long —

OLYMPIA: None of us can tell what you look forward to, Donna, since none

of us are mind readers. I personally know that you were told about at

least five work sessions, and there was neither hide nor hair of you at

any of them. How can you expect us to keep considering you a working

member of the commune? Admittedly you still live here, but you’ve become

marginal.

DONNA: Me, marginal?

OLYMPIA: Maybe that’s not the word. But I don’t see how you can blame

me. Honestly. You go to the bar whenever you feel like it; you’re not

obliged to tell me or anyone else. And I do my gardening whenever I feel

like it —

(DONNA runs out right)

OLYMPIA: As if I were under some kind of obligation to tell her when I

intended to brush my teeth or make my bed.

(OLYMPIA & BARRY exit left)

SHARON: (to the closed door) Everything we built together is your garden

now, isn’t it Olympia?

(SHARON & STEVE exit left, their arms around each other)

12.

TAPED NARRATOR: (Sound of rewinding tape. Then:) ...hostility still

survived, it was only a diminishing residue. At last the isolated

fragments were unified into a community, a (Stop)

(Phone rings. TONI enters from right)

TONI (on phone): Yes — Yes, I’m her sister — What hospital? —

Oh my god! — Wait while I get a pencil. Could you tell me the wing and

room number again? I’ll be right there. (hangs up. Shouts to right)

Olympia!

VOICE OF OLYMPIA: Telephone for me?

TONI: No, it’s Donna. She’s in the hospital. She was hit by a car.

VOICE OF OLYMPIA: Really?

TONI: She tried to commit suicide!

VOICE OF OLYMPIA: I’ll tell Philip. Maybe he’ll be interested.

(TONI throws pencil at picture window and exits right)

13.

TAPED NARRATOR: (Sound of tape rewinding. Theme) ...like bees to

flowers. The ice was broken. Two members of the community joined us,

then a — (Stop)

(MATTIE enters from right with a tray full of ceramic houses and some

plates. She dusts them and slowly places them in the shelves)

(TONI enters from right, arranges a blanket and eight pillows in the

center of the room. DAN enters from right with trays of vegetables,

which he places on the blanket)

MATTIE: I can’t get over it. How can someone build all that and then

smash it — all those friendships, all those dreams, all that work?

DAN: I read about this monarch who had his eye cut out, his collar bone

fractured, his hand and leg mutilated —

TONI: I heard about a woman who did everything for her kid until he

started to become independent — then she hacked him to death.

(DAN & TONI exit right. MATTIE wipes. SHARON & STEVE enter from right

carrying the components of the puppet stage. Sharon borrows a rag from

MATTIE and starts to dust them)

MATTIE: Something’s missing, isn’t it?

SHARON: Steve went with her once, you know. She was younger than I am,

but married. How does this joint fit, Steve? — Oh, I remember.

MATTIE: You two be sure to drop over, you hear? I’m home just about all

the time. It would be such a shame to let everything die out —

SHARON: We will, Mattie, but it’ll have to be on a weekend. We’re both

working now.

MATTIE: So’s Dan. He’s typesetting books now. It’s a lot more

interesting than his previous two jobs.

STEVE: That can be a trap too.

MATTIE: In what sense, Steve?

STEVE: Well, it’s interesting, but it’s not your interest; it’s good

enough, but it’s not good — and you keep on doing it.

(TONI & DAN enter with bowls of batter, dishes)

DAN: I think we’re ready.

TONI (to right): Grover! Leon! Rose Anne! Supper’s ready.

VOICE OF GROVER: We’ll be right down! MATTIE: Did they exclude you,

Sharon?

SHARON: I didn’t want to be in it. Without Alec or Lisa it’s not the

same.

MATTIE: Lisa just insisted on going to her girlfriend’s; I’m sorry.

SHARON: Don’t be. Lisa is so much older now. I’d feel embarrassed.

TONI: (to right) Grover! For crying out —

VOICE OF GROVER: I’m on my way.

TONI: I bet!

(GROVER enters from right)

TONI: And the kids?

GROVER: Well Leon got us started watching this program, and we got all

engrossed —

SHARON: And the play?

GROVER: Oh Christ, the play! You know I could do this gag I did once

when —

DAN: Skip it, Grover.

TONI: Leon!

VOICE OF LEON: Coming!

TONI (lights joint): Maybe this’ll give us an appetite.

MATTIE: I sure need one.

STEVE: When Ben first came here she called him the Underground.

SHARON: Ben thought she was an heiress, can you imagine?

STEVE: She told me he made her feel like an heiress, made her feel like

giving her fortune to some cause, only she never had a fortune.

SHARON: He thought she was renting him the maid’s room.

GROVER: Yea, she was a good kid. I know this one woman who had an

accident when —

TONI: Oh shut your trap, Grover!

VOICE OF LEON: It’s almost over!

MATTIE: Aren’t we trying to do the same thing they did at their Expo?

DAN: Only we don’t have a Lamia.

GROVER: Hey wait a minute! This isn’t —

TONI: It isn’t, Grover. We’re trying hard, but we’re not succeeding. We

cooked Ben’s meal, but Ben won’t help us eat it.

SHARON: Alec was eight, Leon was seven and Lisa was six when we made

that stage. I had just turned nineteen, but I was the youngest of the

four.

MATTIE: Donna’s “gosh” is in the air and I keep looking around for her.

TONI: Philip accused me of “politicizing” her death by calling it

suicide.

STEVE: Does Barry know?

TONI: He was already on his trip when it happened. Poor Barry.

SHARON: Misplaced pity.

TONI: I’m not sure. He kept talking about having this base to come back

to. Maybe he was just trying to be sure it was still there when he came

back, only he didn’t know how to do that.

STEVE: Maybe.

SHARON: I thought he knew everything when he first brought me. I was all

excited and afraid. He told me police sirens would wake me in the middle

of the night, and their guns would shoot holes in the walls, and I’d

have to run down through the secret passageway and then through the

city’s sewers with my machine gun.

TONI: Did you really believe that?

SHARON: I couldn’t get over how peaceful you all were, how quiet the

house was. I tried to put it all in my painting because I couldn’t say

it in words. What I expected and what I found and what I had wanted but

no longer did because I knew I’d hate it when I got it.

GROVER: Hell, I remember that painting. That was the best —

SHARON: I don’t think you ever saw my painting, Grover. I think only Ben

understood the things I was trying to say. They’re the kinds of things

Steve and I can talk to each other about, sometimes without even saying

any words, sometimes by deciding to go out and eat sometimes only by

looking at each other. I never dreamed my painting would be graded

without anyone seeing it, like I was in school: C for grammar and E for

punctuation; I thought I had quit school.

TONI: Ben said something similar a few days ago.

DAN: Did you see Ben?

TONI: I finally reached him by phone a few days ago; I tried to talk him

into coming to our “memorial for Donna.”

DAN: And he couldn’t?

TONI: Wouldn’t. He said he felt guilty and didn’t want to infect us with

his guilt. He also said he was writing her a memorial of his own.

SHARON: What else?

TONI: He said we couldn’t go back to the origin because there was no

origin. We had started something beautiful — but none of us knew it,

none of us supported it, none of us protected it and none of us

developed it; we had involved ourselves in a project, but none of us

carried it — “except maybe Sharon and Donna,” he said. Donna carried it

in her eyes, she tried to speak to us with her eyes, with the smile in

her eyes, but none of us knew how to hear her. It sounded mystical to me

when Ben said it.

SHARON: Ben didn’t know how to hear her either, did he Toni? Steve did.

And I took Steve away from her.

(Doorbell rings. GROVER opens door. LAMIA & EARL enter with suitcases)

LAMIA: I hope I’m not imposing. I’m sorry to do this when Olympia and

Philip are away, but it was my only free night.

GROVER: What are you about to do?

EARL: Lamia has the intention of moving into one of the empty rooms. I

believe this was all arranged.

GROVER: Beats me. (LAMIA & EARL exit right)

GROVER: Is that woman moving in here?

TONI: Looks like it.

GROVER: Was this brought up at a house meeting?

TONI: What’s the point, Grover? Sharon spends most of her time at

Steve’s, and I’ll be moving out soon.

GROVER: You’ll be moving? Where to? TONI: I don’t know yet.

DAN: Shall we start the meal?

MATTIE (pacing): For some reason I’m not at all hungry.

(LAMIA & EARL enter from right with a large box)

MATTIE: Aren’t those Donna’s plants? You’re not throwing them away?

EARL: Well we certainly aren’t going to keep them. They look like

they’ve been dead for years.

(The lights go out)

14.

TAPED NARRATOR (sound of rewinding, somewhat lengthy. Stop. Then): It

began with isolated strangers in the big city, hostile and suspicious

individuals surrounded by —

(LYMAN turns off the tape recorder on his desk after the lights go on)

(Same room. The shelves contain sandals, plates, pottery and packaged

commodities. The desk no longer contains a typesetting machine. In the

place of the picture window there is a wall. A large portrait occupies

the center of the wall — a portrait of Philip, somewhat older and in a

suit. The remainder of the wall contains the following statements:)

ILLYRIA STREET COMMUNE, INC.

COMMUNITY ARTS

FOR EVERY HOUSEHOLD

RESURRECT THE PAST

WITH ISC

AM = ALTERNATIVE MEDIA

EXPERIENCE A GREAT LEAP FORWARD

WITH COMMUNAL PRODUCTS

(E.G.L.F. — C.P.)

DO YOUR OWN THING: EAT FROZEN YOGURT

BUY NOW!

Pay for the rest of your life.

(LYMAN SANDERS, considerably older, sits at the desk, which contains the

tape recorder, an intercom box, and of course paper. A reporter, with a

pad, sits on the other side of the desk. Both are dressed as befits

executives)

REPORTER: So the enterprise remained unified until the founder’s

mysterious death. Did he simply vanish?

LYMAN: It is believed that the founder died in an accident in connection

with his last interest, horses, but the causes are unknown.

REPORTER: Did his wife take over immediately after his demise?

LYMAN: Not immediately. Their son managed the business for a brief

period, and I must add, to his credit, that he kept it unified. But in

other respects he left a mess by perpetrating innumerable disturbances

and untold upheavals with his gang of motorcycle friends.

REPORTER: He was awarded some kind of medal for distinguished service,

if I’m not wrong.

LYMAN: That’s correct. He did heroic service in the Far East. He died in

Iran.

REPORTER: Is it true that he died of a fever contracted from a drinking

orgy?

LYMAN: I believe that story is apocryphal.

REPORTER: So the founder’s wife salvaged the operation —

LYMAN: I wouldn’t put it that way. The founder’s wife did step in on two

or three occasions during the stormy interregnum that followed the

demise of the son —

REPORTER: So the real work of salvage —

LYMAN: That’s correct. The real work of salvage is due entirely to the

efforts of the three friends — I could almost say kinsmen — of the

founder.

REPORTER: Among whom you were the senior member.

LYMAN: Correct again. We established a partnership. However, centrifugal

forces soon made themselves felt, and ultimately these forces tore

asunder what had once been a unified enterprise.

REPORTER: Two of the partners established competing empires —

LYMAN: In actual fact the competition was minimal. One of the partners

set up Alternative Media Enterprises and specialized in all the lines

related to self-publishing, but this was at a time when ISC was playing

down the share of those lines, and at this point we’ve gotten out of

them altogether. The other partner detached the part of our activity

that was inherently non-competitive, namely the educational sector, and

that enterprise, the Alternative Schools Corporation, recently merged

with an institute of behavioral psychology; as you probably know, their

largest contracts are with the Pentagon.

REPORTER: Is it true that both of the successor enterprises are now

larger than the original home base?

LYMAN: It depends on what you mean by larger. ISC retains the vast

wealth of accumulated tradition, and we continue to have an edge over

the other two in the more, shall we say, philosophical and artistic

manifestations.

REPORTER: I’m deeply grateful, Mr. Sanders —

LYMAN: On the contrary, the pleasure was all mine. Will I be able to see

the material before publication?

REPORTER: I’ll see to it. And the typescript?

LYMAN: Yes of course. (Presses button of intercom)

VOICE OF LAMIA (through intercom): Yes, Mr. Sanders.

LYMAN: Lamia, would you see to it that the gentleman from the News is

given a typescript of the Foundation Tape?

VOICE OF LAMIA: Yes, Mr. Sanders.

(REPORTER exits after handshake. Intercom’ buzzes)

LYMAN: What is it, Lamia?

VOICE OF LAMIA: Lyman, are you ready to hear the day’s report now?

LYMAN: Shoot away, Lamia.

VOICE OF LAMIA (Light and sound fade during this exposition): Two

hundred pairs of sandals, 76 with straps; assortments of pottery, mainly

vases, amounting to 137 pounds; forty eight paintings, half of them for

the sepia version of number nineteen; a problem order for frozen yogurt,

much too large for us to fill — a rush order from a natural foods

cooperative in northern Wisconsin for 500 cases of frozen yogurt, and as

you know our total weekly production is 50 cases...

(Lights and sound fade out)

End