Recovering playwright, once won a STRANGER Genius Award for theater. Now writing a bloated novel about… G-d help me! Theatre.
I recently mentioned this play in my last essay “The Misuses of Art” and then realized I had not posted it anywhere for those who might want to read it.
I had great fun watching my son open and close this piece at last year’s SOAPFest, as well as witness the exquisite work of his fellow cast members Tracy Hyland, Michael Patten and Heather Hawkins, so masterfully directed by Annie Lareau. Such a great staging. I’ll never forget it.
Every work of art is a message in a bottle, a hope that whatever it is you were trying to share when you created it makes its way to someone who can use it, ideally to make their lives, if only for a moment, a little bit better, clearer, nobler, happier, or more hopeful or truthful, or at the very least, more fun.
Original Works Publishing has just released a sweet, sexy and sleek new edition trade acting edition of my play The Sequence, about the real-life race to decode the human genome. The new edition features a flat binding, super-gloss cover, larger print, ample margins for blocking, and extra pages for notes.
Original Works is a great outfit, with plenty of new titles from some of the hottest American playwrights including Elizabeth Heffron, Jeff Goode, Gwydion Suilebhan, Adam Szymkowicz and on and on. If The Sequence ain’t your cup of tea, you’ll still likely find something at OWP that is. Head on over and check out their deeply impressive catalog of hard copy and electronic titles.
Last night I got to meet a man I’ve known for 10 years, albeit only in the very arcane and narrow way that a playwright can know one of his living subjects. In addition to being an actual living person, J. Craig Venter is a character in my play The Sequence, which dramatizes the real-life race to decode the human genome. Venter drove the private side of the race, while Francis Collins, now head of the NIH, drove the public side as then head of the Human Genome Project. Some years ago, I had the honor of meeting Dr. Collins at an early public reading of the play at George Mason University. He came late, sat in the last available seat, in the front row about eight feet from the actor playing him. It was the most nerve-wracking night of my life. But when the reading was over and the bows were taken, Collins graciously, spontaneously joined the post-play discussion. And at the reception after, Collins happily chatted with my all my friends, as well as my mom, brother and niece who had driven down from Maryland to attend. He later emailed me asking for a signed copy of the play to give his mother. Collins impressed me as a deeply affable and approachable person. Dr. Venter, however, proved more elusive—that is, until last night when I attended his lecture at Town Hall Seattle, at which he introduced his new book, Life at the Speed of Light, which details his recent efforts to “boot up” an artificial organism from DNA code “written” by his team.
I learned a lot of things last night. Here’s a sampling, in order of increasing “inside baseball” genome geekery:
“That dust in your house? That’s you!”
This direct quote from Venter came as he described how life is a constant process of renewing worn out proteins. If the trash doesn’t get removed, you wind up with some particularly nasty afflictions like Alzheimer’s and Mad Cow Disease
Life happens because of Brownian Motion.
Brownian Motion, the constant random motion of water molecules, theoretically confirmed by Albert Einstein, creates a turbulence within living cells with a force comparable to a Richter 9 earthquake. This constant agitation drives the enzymatic processes that allow life to exist and do all the cool things that life does. Brownian Motion is temperature and phase state-dependent, which is a fancy way of saying life requires water in a liquid state.
Biological teleportation is coming.
Instead of transporting organisms, we will beam their digital genomic code to far flung places, like disease control centers around the globe during a pandemic, or even farther, to places, like Mars. And conversely,when we do find life on Mars (for Venter it’s a “when” not an “if”) we will sequence it’s DNA in situ there, then beam back the digital code to earth so that the Martian life-form can be “printed” into terrestrial existence, for… ya know… further investigation.
Artificial life gets watermarked.
“We think it’s very important, when making a synthetic species, to mark the species as synthetic.” Gee, Craig. Ya think?! So Venter’s team inserted “watermarks” into the DNA of their artificial organism: widely recognizable English phrases consisting of quotes from James Joyce, Robert Oppenheimer and Richard Feynman. Shortly after Venter’s team first published their results, they got a call from the Joyce estate demanding to know why permission hadn’t been sought.* My friend attending with me last night, who had also seen a reading of The Sequence at Seattle Public Theatre a few weeks ago, remarked how ironic it is that Venter should be so irked, when back in the 1990’s he was an outspoken advocate of gene patenting. As my buddy put it, “Intellectual property law can be a bitch.”
Artificial life needs kill-switches.
If (more likely when) we introduce human-designed organisms into the wide world beyond the laboratory, which we might do for any number of legitimate purposes — health care, food production, energy production, environmental clean-up, reversal of global warming, etc.— we are going to want to the means to – ahem—un-introduce them.
Venter became an amateur science historian.
In his lecture he frequently referenced the fairly obscure work of 18th and 19th Century scientists and thinkers, the ideas of whom he seems to have used for inspiration and guidance when sailing the uncharted seas of artificial life creation. As an amateur science historian myself, this charms me.
Venter and I share a fascination with a brilliant little book by the guy who gave us the “neither-dead-nor-alive” cat.
What is Life?, was published in 1944 by quantum physicist Erwin Schrödinger. In it, nearly a decade before Watson and Crick’s discovery of DNA’s structure and mechanisms, Schrodinger posited that the information processing required for the propagation of life might in fact be the result of a simple digital code. Some day I need to write an essay about “What is Life?” It’s an eminently accessible book for the lay reader, and in it Schrodinger goes on to posit theories much more outlandish than digital life. Indeed the entire book seems to point at a potentially universe-reversing conclusion that life might provide a powerful negating counter-punch to the seemingly unbreakable 2nd Law of Thermo-dynamics, such that entropy may not, in fact, have the final word that we have all been taught it must.
Not even scientists get to fudge history.
Both Venter, and the comparable genius who introduced him, the University of Washington’s own Leroy Hood, worked hard at times last night to needlessly and speciously burnish Venter’s legacy. For instance, Hood asserted in his introduction that Venter made his company Celera’s work product freely available during the genome race as a reference for competitors, like Collins’ team at HGP, who were also attempting to read every one of the 3 billion letters of the genome. In fact the opposite was true. The public side HGP data was used by Celera to double-check its enormously long, but doubtfully accurate sequences. (The “Shotgun” sequencing technique which Venter developed was fast, but sloppy.) Celera held their sequences under wraps as private and proprietary information which they hoped to sell in a paid subscription model like Bloomberg Professional Services. That plan never came to fruition.
Venter’s DNA was not God’s gift to humanity.
After getting fired from Celera, the company he founded, Venter publically released the bombshell news that the genome sample the company sequenced was not, as it should have been, from a randomly selected anonymous donor but rather from Venter himself. He had snuck his own DNA into the lab at the very beginning of the process. Last night Lee Hood maintained that Venter’s bizarre action has been widely praised in the scientific community and beyond, when in fact, it is almost universally viewed as an ethically questionable stunt of astounding hubris.
Venter was against junk DNA before he was for it.
Junk DNA is one of the great mysteries of biology. Over 98% of the human genome is noncoding DNA, meaning it doesn’t get translated into proteins. It just sits there, doing what? Maybe nothing. When asked a question about junk DNA last night, Venter said he had always argued against a commonly held notion that junk DNA has little value; but actually back at his first company TIGR, he was indeed dismissive of junk DNA. Here’s a snippet from early in The Sequence, before Craig decides to join the genome race:
KELLIE: So tell me. Why is it so important to sequence the human genome?
CRAIG: It’s not.
KELLIE: It’s not?
CRAIG: No. 95 percent of it is junk. I’m only interested in the five percent that does something. The sequences that make up genes. I don’t care if we ever sequence the other stuff.
Nitpicking aside, I had a delightful evening. If nothing else, seeing Venter up close and personal helped reassure me that I had gotten him right in The Sequence, capturing his brash confidence and brilliance, his impatient pursuit of achievement.
My play is at least a blip on Venter’s radar.
Upon the lecture’s conclusion, I bought Life at the Speed of Light and stood in line to have Venter sign it. I had also brought along a copy of The Sequence which I personalized to him during the lecture. “For J. Craig Venter. Thank you for driving this amazing story, and this astounding achievement in human history. ” When it was my turn to get my book signed I said, “Dr. Venter, my name is Paul Mullin and I wrote this play about you.” I handed him the script along with his book to sign.
“Oh, so you’re the guy,” he said.
“Yes. I am the guy.”
We smiled at each other and shook hands.
“Can I make changes to this?” he jokingly asked.
“Sure,” I countered “Mark it up and sent it back to me.” I wasn’t really joking.
Then he signed my book and we wished each other well. Alas, I didn’t get a picture. Maybe next time.
*The quote was from Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. “To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life.” I could’ve have told them that Joyce’s people are notoriously stingy with permissions. The issue is now moot, however, since most of Joyce’s major works fell into public domain on January 1, 2012. Thank goodness!
Even after a quarter of a century, I still don’t know whom to give my plays once I’m finished drafting them. No one really wants to read a play, and I don’t blame them. Plays aren’t meant to be read. I have less trouble convincing people to come see my plays, but in order for that to happen, someone has to read them first, right? It is this catch-22, multiplied by others, that is nudging me elsewhere, but before I go I have to figure out what to do with my final script, Philosophical Zombie Killers.
When I am at a loss for what to do in a given situation, I sometimes try to make a game out of it. So here’s what I have come up with:
I will make 13 hardcopies of Philosophical Zombie Killers, and you will tell me where to send them. If you know of an institution or development opportunity that you think, based on the character breakdown and synopsis attached below, will leap at the chance to produce this play’s world premiere, terrific! Put that organization’s information in the comments. If, on the other hand, you just want a copy of the play for your own personal pleasure, to have and hoard, that’s fine too. Just let me know in the comments, and we’ll work together off line to determine the best way for me to get it to you.
I will make 13 copies. Just 13. You will tell me what to do with them. First come, first serve. And that’s the end of it. I agree this solution might seem a touch asinine, but really, no more so than any of the other ways I have pointlessly distributed my plays over the last 25 years.
So, it’s up to you. What should I do?
PS, if you just want to hear the play read out loud by some pretty terrific actors (and myself) just come to Freehold Theatre, on Saturday night, September 14. Here’s more info on that: https://www.facebook.com/events/181930878655353/
DAMNED FUGUE
by
Paul Mullin
Characters:
SOMEONE– A man
SOMEONE ELSE– A man
SOMEONE DIFFERENT– A woman
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT– A woman
SOMEONE: This is a shotgun.
SOMEONE ELSE: You are a hero.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: She is heroin.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: That is the story.
(beat)
SOMEONE: This is a shotgun.
EVERYONE ELSE: — kissed.
SOMEONE ELSE: You are a hero.
EVERYONE ELSE: — missed.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: She is heroin.
EVERYONE ELSE: –blissed.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: That is the story.
EVERYONE ELSE: –sold.
(beat)
SOMEONE ELSE: This is a twelve-gauge pump-action sawed-off.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: You are the owner/operator.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: She is somewhere else.
SOMEONE: That is the bottom line.
(beat)
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: This is–
EVERYONE ELSE: Life.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: You are–
EVERYONE ELSE: Life.
SOMEONE: She is–
EVERYONE ELSE: Life.
SOMEONE ELSE: That was–
EVERYONE ELSE: Life.
(beat)
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: This is a–
SOMEONE ELSE: Hero–
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: Harrowing–
SOMEONE: Shotgun–
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Life she blessed you with.
SOMEONE: You are a–
SOMEONE ELSE: Sawed-off–
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: Heroin–
SOMEONE ELSE: Pumping–
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Missed-gauge–
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: Operator–
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Somewhere else.
SOMEONE ELSE: She owner-sold–
SOMEONE: Bottom-line story.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: This is–
SOMEONE: Do you?
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: You are–
SOMEONE ELSE: Do you sing?
SOMEONE: She is–
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: do you sing now?
SOMEONE ELSE: That was–
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Do you sing now in the shower?
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: Life.
SOMEONE (overlapping): Life.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT (overlapping): Life.
SOMEONE ELSE (overlapping): Life.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: Do you sing now in the shower of blood foamed bone and brain–
SOMEONE ELSE: Heavy metal rain crashing up through your cranium–
SOMEONE: Shattered–
SOMEONE ELSE: Cranium through down crashing rain metal heavy–
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: Brain and bone foamed blood shower now sing! You do.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Now you do, do you?
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: This–
SOMEONE: You–
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: She–
SOMEONE ELSE: Was–
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Is–
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: Are–
SOMEONE ELSE: Is–
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Was–
SOMEONE: Shotgun–
SOMEONE ELSE: Hero–
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: Heroin–
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Story.
(Rest.)
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: Go…. Baby, go!
(Beat.)
SOMEONE: The writer was thinking of play he wanted to write called “The Septarchy” the day the window fell on him.
SOMEONE ELSE: “Septarchy”.
SOMEONE: “Rule of Seven.”
SOMEONE ELSE: All day he was figuring significances of the number seven.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: But there were four horseman riding out of Harlem. Four project buildings in the skyline to the north which seemed to stand out for him.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Darker somehow.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: Riding in a row, same height, same features.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: He kept seeing them in the February wind mist like grim relentless riders. Not really moving, mind you–
SOMEONE ELSE: But closing in… as he went from vacant apartment to vacant apartment, popping out seventy-five pounds of framed glass from the sliding window tracks, mop squeegee swiping clockwork, then popping it back in.
SOMEONE: They jammed.
SOMEONE ELSE: All the time.
SOMEONE: All day.
SOMEONE ELSE: Relentless.
SOMEONE: Who fitted these fucking windows?
SOMEONE ELSE: They’re the worst. Every fucking frame misaligned.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: No lunch but a slice and a can of coke.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Up all nights working a graveyard as hotel porter.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: Aunt who’s a nun coming to see his play about abortion and dreams about nuns in lace lingerie–red, of course, bright blood red.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Oxygen.
SOMEONE: Couldn’t get them back in without help sometimes. Had to ask Big Al, the Puerto Rican super’s assistant who followed him keying him into the apartments, to help muscle them back in sometimes.
SOMEONE ELSE: He thought about it.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: “What does that mean?”
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: “Four riders into seven.”
SOMEONE: Four-thirty.
SOMEONE ELSE: Last apartment.
SOMEONE: Breeze through the living room.
SOMEONE ELSE: On to the bedroom.
SOMEONE: Clean the inside glass.
SOMEONE ELSE: Then do the outside lean work.
SOMEONE: Saving the bitch pop-out for last.
SOMEONE ELSE: Pop it out.
SOMEONE: Clean it.
SOMEONE ELSE: Pop it in…. Pop it in!… Pop the bitch in, fucker! Don’t get weak. Don’t let the arms go. You fucker, you lose this window you’re fucked, y’hear? You’re fucked.
SOMEONE: Get it in.
SOMEONE ELSE: Shit.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: The writer props it up on the ledge, and walks to the door to call Al in to help him. He walks back towards the window.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: There’s a gust.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: There’s a crash.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: There’s glass everywhere.
SOMEONE ELSE: Great, you broke the fucking window. That’s got to be a hundred bucks easy.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Al’s freaking.
SOMEONE: Al, why are you freaking?… What?
SOMEONE ELSE: Oh shit, I’m bleading.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: Dark.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Vein blood?
Al’s freaking.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: Al…
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Al…
SOMEONE ELSE: Al!…
SOMEONE: Get me to a hospital.
SOMEONE ELSE: Al.
SOMEONE: We got to find out how bad I’m cut.
SOMEONE ELSE: Take it easy. It’s all right. You got to get me to a hospital. I don’t know where I’m cut
SOMEONE: Could be bad, Al. So I don’t want to lose too much, you know? Got to stay in.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Can’t go out.
SOMEONE ELSE: So just get me to a hospital. Okay?
(Rest.
Someone comes center and kneels. Someone Different stands over him from behind. Someone Else approaches one side of the audience while Someone Else Different approaches the opposite side.)
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Ever wonder how to get the taste of dying out of your mouth?
SOMEONE ELSE: Oh, come on. Everybody dies. All the time.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Did you get that? That’s an important point. Everybody dies all the time.
SOMEONE ELSE: Don’t deny it. You just did it.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: And you… just now. What just went away in your eyes?
SOMEONE ELSE: It happens.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: All the time.
SOMEONE ELSE: Want to know how to get the taste of dying out of your mouth? Okay. I figured it out. Take the barrel and point it at your face.
(Someone Different takes Someone’s chin in her hand and lifts his face. On the next line, she puts her mouth to his.)
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Now put your mouth to it. And… yeah… explore. It’s got a shape. It’s got a flavor.
SOMEONE ELSE: Now run a hand down the length.
(She finds his zipper.)
SOMEONE ELSE: Now wait a second.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Take it easy.
SOMEONE ELSE: No need to rush it. It’s all there in your hands and in your mouth.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: The shape.
SOMEONE ELSE: The flavor.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: The trigger.
SOMEONE ELSE: The last thing anyone truly experiences.
(Rest.
Everyone returns to their original places.)
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: Baby, go. You’re on.
(Rest.)
SOMEONE ELSE: When the doctor pressed the needle of lidocaine into the writer’s face was the only real pain he felt from the shattered glass.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Like bliss.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: Like heroin, he sucked the pain in.
SOMEONE ELSE: It felt so good… real… like hell.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: Feel it.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: You feel it.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: You’re alive.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: You’re alive.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: You feel it.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: You wouldn’t if you weren’t.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: A bargain.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Bliss.
SOMEONE: His then future wife now soon to be Ex told the writer later–
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: That after the she got the phone call from his boss saying he’d been in a window cleaning accident–
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: She sat in the dark apartment for an hour and did nothing.
SOMEONE: The writer wondered what took her so long getting to the hospital only twenty blocks away.
SOMEONE ELSE: Years later the writer would have a really bad reaction to some really strong pot and had to be rushed to the hospital.
SOMEONE: Thought he was dying insane.
SOMEONE ELSE: Praying to himself.
SOMEONE (repeating underneath the following lines): Be the hero of this…. Be the hero of this…. Be the hero of this….
SOMEONE ELSE: But the words twisted, deteriorated.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT (sotto voce at first, then gradually crescendoing to dominate Someone’s chant): Be thee here or this?… Be thee here or this?… Be thee here or this?…
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: The writer’s wife stood for a moment on the back porch of their triplex wondering if she should go along in the ambulance.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: After all what could she do to help?
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Everyone dies alone.
(Rest.
Someone Different steps forward.)
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: Go…. Baby, go…. You’re on, baby. Go.
(Someone steps forward.)
SOMEONE: Why?
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: Why?… Baby.
SOMEONE: I don’t love it.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: What?
SOMEONE: The roar. It just roars… all the time. And I don’t love it.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: Baby.
SOMEONE: I’m out there singing about gang rape; I’m out there singing about dying–“Polly Wanna Cracker”. And they got their lighters lit like it’s fucking “Freebird”.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: They don’t get it.
SOMEONE: Right.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: That’s why you’re singing, right?
SOMEONE: What?
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: So why’d you become a rock star, asshole? Isn’t that what this is about? Jamming your fingers into narrow cherry minds? You wanna preach to the converted, go write little self-important plays and put ‘em on in fringe theatres downtown somewhere…. But baby, you got to go now… you’re up.
(Someone steps forward.
Beat.
Someone steps back. Then both Someone and Someone Different step back to join the other two.
Rest.)
SOMEONE: This is a shotgun.
SOMEONE ELSE: You are a hero.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: She is heroin.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: That is the story.
(beat)
SOMEONE: This is a shotgun.
EVERYONE ELSE: — kissed.
SOMEONE ELSE: You are a hero.
EVERYONE ELSE: — missed.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: She is heroin.
EVERYONE ELSE: –blissed.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: That is the story.
EVERYONE ELSE: –sold.
(beat)
SOMEONE ELSE: This is a twelve-gauge pump-action sawed-off.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: You are the owner/operator.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: She is somewhere else.
SOMEONE: That is the bottom line.
(beat)
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: This is–
EVERYONE ELSE: Life.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: You are–
EVERYONE ELSE: Life.
SOMEONE: She is–
EVERYONE ELSE: Life.
SOMEONE ELSE: That was–
EVERYONE ELSE: Life.
(beat)
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: This is a–
SOMEONE ELSE: Hero–
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: Harrowing–
SOMEONE: Shotgun–
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: She blessed you with.
SOMEONE: You are a–
SOMEONE ELSE: Sawed-off–
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: Heroin–
SOMEONE ELSE: Pumping–
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Missed-gauge–
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: Operator–
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Somewhere else.
SOMEONE ELSE: She owner-sold–
SOMEONE: Bottom-line story.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: This is–
SOMEONE: Do you?
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: You are–
SOMEONE ELSE: Do you sing?
SOMEONE: She is–
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: do you sing now?
SOMEONE ELSE: That was–
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Do you sing now in the shower?
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: Life.
SOMEONE (overlapping): Life.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT (overlapping): Life.
SOMEONE ELSE (overlapping): Life.
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: Do you sing now in the shower of blood foamed bone and brain–
SOMEONE ELSE: Heavy metal rain crashing up through your cranium–
SOMEONE: Shattered–
SOMEONE ELSE: Cranium through down crashing rain metal heavy–
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: Brain and bone foamed blood shower now sing! You do.
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Now you do, do you?
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: This–
SOMEONE: You–
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: She–
SOMEONE ELSE: Was–
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Is–
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: Are–
SOMEONE ELSE: Is–
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Was–
SOMEONE: Shotgun–
SOMEONE ELSE: Hero–
SOMEONE DIFFERENT: Heroin–
SOMEONE ELSE DIFFERENT: Story.
(End of play.)
Ms. Jolie’s piece in The New York Times echoed for me with a play I wrote a few years ago about the race to decode the human genome, thus gaining access to all sorts of new information which we now have to face with sober eyes.
KELLIE: . . . You discovered the Breast Cancer Gene.
FRANCIS: The BRCA 1 sequence. Helped to discover. Yes.
KELLIE: My mom died of breast cancer.
FRANCIS: I’m sorry to hear that.
KELLIE: Ashkenazi Jew.
FRANCIS: Then you must know Ashkenazi Jew’s are several times more likely to develop the mutation
KELLIE: Yup. And if they have it they face an 80% to 90% chance of getting breast cancer in their lifetimes, particularly at a young age. And you must know that some women who test positive—and I can’t say as I blame ‘em—elect to under go prophylactic mastectomy.
FRANCIS: Yes I do know that. May I ask: have you tested for the sequence?
KELLIE: No.
FRANCIS: You should.
KELLIE: I know.
FRANCIS: You shouldn’t wait too long.
KELLIE: I’m not in a rush to chop my tits off.
My Dec. 29, 2007 journal speculation on why Curt Dempster, now deceased Founding Artistic Director of Ensemble Studio Theatre, commissioned me to write The Sequence, which dramatizes the race to decode the human genome: a race accelerated and sharpened by bio-tech entrepreneur J. Craig Venter.
“Curt wanted me to tell this story ‘cuz he recognized in Craig a kindred spirit: a kinless prickly genius who gets things done.”
Yesterday I posted smart-alecky status on Facebook about April being misunderstood as the cruelest month. In no time, my good friend Michael Doyle chimed in defending the bumbershoot-toting Hollow Man who posited the fourth month’s excessive cruelty. (If you’re not reading Doyle’s blog regularly, here’s why you should be.) The string was quickly unraveling into adjacent subjects, adjacent poets, when Doyle made one of the funnier and more insightful analogies I have ever come across. “Pound is to Eliot what Cheney was to Bush.”
It made me think of this section from an early draft of An American Book of the Dead* The Game Show†. Why was it cut? Official history blames structural redundancy: it echoed the first act’s “The Bardo of American Heroes of Violence” without advancing the second act’ action significantly. But an alternative legend purports that the bardo was actually blown away because the costume/design concept for the original L. A. production was so painful to watch unfold that the author, egged on by the actor who played Walt Whitman, simply wiped the whole shebang rather than risk having to watch something like it again.
Still, I’m proud of the “Poet’s Bardo”, and believe it sort of stands on its own as a bizarre bit of poetry geek fan fiction. (Plus, any time we can see Ezra Pound returned to his rightful gorilla cage, earned with the nastiest bits of bigoted treason, well, that’s a good time by me.)
