Happy Birthday, Wanda June

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ACT ONE:

SCENE ONE:

SILENCE. Pitch blackness. Animal eyes begin to glow in the

darkness. Sounds of the jungle climax in animals fighting.

A SINGER is heard singing the first bars of "All God's

Chillun Got Shoes." HAROLD, LOOSELEAF, PENELOPE, and WOODLY

stand in a row in the darkness, facing the audience. They

are motionless. A city skyline in the early evening

materializes outside the windows.

The lights come up on the living room of a rich man's

apartment, which is densely furnished with trophies of hunts

and wars. There is a front door, a door to the master

bedroom suite, and a corridor leading to other bedrooms, the

kitchen and so on.

PENELOPE:

How do you do. My name is Penelope

Ryan. This is a simple-minded play

about men who enjoy killing--and

those who don't.

HAROLD:

I am Harold Ryan, her husband. I

have killed perhaps two hundred men

in wars of various sorts--as a

professional soldier. I have

killed thousands of other animals

as well--for sport.

WOODLY:

I am Dr. Norbert Woodly--a

physician, a healer. I find it

disgusting and frightening that a

killer should be a respected member

of society. Gentleness must

replace violence everywhere, or we

are doomed.

PENELOPE:

(to LOOSELEAF)

Would you like to say something

about killing, Colonel?

LOOSELEAF:

(embarrassed)

Jesus--I dunno. You know. What

the heck. Who knows?

PENELOPE:

Colonel Harper, retired now,

dropped an atom bomb on Nagasaki

during the Second World War,

killing seventy-four thousand

people in a flash.

LOOSELEAF:

I dunno, boy.

PENELOPE:

You don't know?

LOOSELEAF:

It was a b*tch.

PENELOPE:

Thank you.

(to all)

You can leave now. We'll begin.

WOODLY:

(to the audience,

making a peace sign)

Peace!

All but PENELOPE exit.

PENELOPE:

(to the audience)

This is a tragedy. When it's done,

my face will be as white as the

snows of Kilimanjaro.

(hyena laughs)

My husband, who kills so much, has

been missing for eight years. He

disappeared in a light plane over

the Amazon Rain Forest, where he

hoped to find diamonds as big as

cantaloupes. His pilot was Colonel

Looseleaf Harper, who dropped the

bomb on Nagasaki.

(hyena laughs)

I should explain the doorbells in

this apartment. They were built by

Abercrombie and Fitch. They are

actual recordings of animal cries.

The back doorbell is a hyena, which

you've just heard. The front

doorbell is a lion's roar.

(to the wings)

Would you let them hear it please?

(lion roars)

Thank you.

PAUL, her twelve-year-old son, enters from corridor, a

sensitive, neatly dressed little rich boys.

PENELOPE:

And this is my son, Paul. He was

only four years old when his father

disappeared.

PAUL:

(radiantly, sappily)

He's coming back, Mom! He's the

bravest, most wonderful man who

ever lived.

PENELOPE:

(to audience)

I told you this was a simple-minded

play.

PAUL:

Maybe he'll come back tonight!

It's his birthday.

PENELOPE:

I know.

PAUL:

Stay home tonight!

PENELOPE:

(ruefully, for they

have been over this before)

Oh, Paul--

PAUL:

You're married! You've already got

a husband!

PENELOPE:

He's a ghost!

PAUL:

He's alive!

PENELOPE:

Not even Mutual of Omaha thinks so

anymore.

PAUL:

If you have to go out with some

guy--can't he be more like Dad?

(sick)

Herb Shuttle and Norbert Woodly--

can't you do better than those two

freaks?

PENELOPE:

(resentfully)

Thank you, kind sir.

PAUL:

A vacuum cleaner salesman and a

fairy doctor.

PENELOPE:

A what kind of doctor?

PAUL:

A fairy--a queer. Everybody in the

building knows he's a queer.

PENELOPE:

(knowing better)

That's an interesting piece of news.

PAUL:

You're the only woman he ever took

out.

PENELOPE:

Not true.

PAUL:

Still lives with his mother.

PENELOPE:

You know she has no feet! You want

him to abandon his mother, who has

no husband, who has no money of her

own, who has no feet?

PAUL:

How did she lose her feet?

PENELOPE:

In a railroad accident many years ago.

PAUL:

I was afraid to ask.

PENELOPE:

Norbert was just beginning practice.

A real man would have sold her to a

catfood company, I suppose. As far

as that goes, J. Edgar Hoover still

lives with his mother.

PAUL:

I didn't know that.

PENELOPE:

A lot of people don't.

PAUL:

J. Edgar Hoover plays sports.

PENELOPE:

I don't really know.

PAUL:

To only exercise Dr. Woodly ever

gets is playing the violin and

making that stupid peace sign.

(makes the peace sign

and says the word effeminately)

Peace. Peace. Peace, everybody.

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