LET DOGS LIE

A play in one act

by Susan Smith Nash

copyright 2001 by Susan Smith Nash, all rights reserved

Please register all performances in advance by contacting Susan Smith Nash at susan@beyondutopia.com Also, please inquire about scholarships, grants, and prizes available for those who perform this play and provide information about the performance (reviews, photographs, copy of the program, etc.) Special incentives / prizes available to repertory groups using high school and undergraduate students. Please note that this play and others are collected in catfishes & jackals, published by potes & poets press, and available through Small Press Distribution. http://www.spd.org

The Characters:

Renssalear: a woman in her late thirties

Joli: a man in his early twenties

Vandergraft: a woman in her late fifties

Grizz: a man in his early thirties

Mouchie: a pink dog of indeterminate gender

Machiavelli: a reddish dog

Montaigne: a blue dog

Mallarme: a brown dog

****************

A bare room. Gray, interior light. Renssalear is at a table. Four unmatched chairs at the table. There is nothing on the table but a large, gift-wrapped box. The dogs are lying to the side of the stage on a blanket. The background, of a floor lamp and a side table with an large, empty vase, is dim. A refrigerator stands to the side. A large window is on the side, with movable curtains.

RENSSALEAR

(In a monotone, without energy.) Money. Control. Complications. I never asked for any of it. I'm sick of being misunderstood.

(Pause.)

Someone said "get a dog!" So I bought someone else's soul and called it a pet. Now it's time. It's time.

(Pause. In a duller voice.)

I said "It's time."

(Pause.)

No one ever gets it.

(Pause.)

They will, though. They will.

(Grizz walks in through the door. He doesn't notice the dogs. They notice him, and turn and look at him. He is wearing a faded t-shirt, torn and paint-splattered sweatpants, and ragged basketball shoes.)

GRIZZ

(Speaks in a loud voice.)

Hey!

(Pause.)

Hey!

(Pause.)

Aren't you going to answer?

RENSSALEAR

Overpopulation. Sacrificing one species so the rest can survive.

GRIZZ

You're still pissed at me for taking the towels at the Motel Six.

(Pause.)

I don't know why you're pissed. They expect it. They charge too much and when that happens, I'm taking something.

RENSSALEAR

Self-righteous is not a word. Self applies to a moment in time that can be identified by the perceivable bag of skin and bone that's stuck up in your face -- in the mirror or in your bed.

(Pause.)

Righteous, as opposed to "left-eous" is even more meaningless.

(Pauses, acknowledges Grizz for the first time.)

Are you still working at the dog lab?

GRIZZ

I never did work at the lab. You know that.

(Sits at table.)

Joli still works there, in case you're wondering.

RENSSALEAR

And you're taking something.

GRIZZ

Well, shit. I don't see any towels, so I don't see how I can take anything here. But they way you're not communicating with me is making me feel pretty ripped off.

(Pauses. Pulls chair up close to table.)

RENSSALEAR

You mean "entitled" to something?

GRIZZ

Motel Six hand-towels make great kitchen towels, especially when I'm barbecuing.

RENSSALEAR

Things to ruin then throw away.

(Pause.)

Stain, stain, stain. Sin and barbecue sauce.

GRIZZ

I'm hungry. I thought you said you were cooking dinner tonight.

RENSSALEAR

I had a dream last night. I was shovelling in a room. A big room. Mounds of stuff I was shovelling.

You know what I was shovelling?

I was shovelling dead mice -- mainly hairless babies -- as if they were snow or piles of coal. No more squeaking. Nothing.

There's a tape of me playing the piano. With squeaking. Lots of squeaking. I listened to it and wondered what the squeaking was. A mouse dying in a glue trap under the piano.

Squeaking is a kind of music. Right?

Death is another kind of music entirely.

GRIZZ

Youth culture, huh.

RENSSALEAR

I hate it that you know me so well.

(Pause. Looks at box on table.)

Youth culture. Yeah right. Youth is preyed upon and projected upon. It has no power, no rights.

I wonder if the box will start squeaking. Mounds and mounds of pink flesh and brown fur.

GRIZZ

Music.

RENSSALEAR

Squeaking.

GRIZZ

Scored for The Man Without Qualities.

RENSSALEAR

A little nachtmusik. A little nichtmusik. Death, right?

GRIZZ

Nope. You're wrong.

(Pause.)

Again.

(Stands.)

And denial makes me want to get another tattoo.

RENSSALEAR

Death. (Doesn't acknowledge Grizz.) Death.

(In a far-off voice, with far-off expression.)

Death-music.

(More matter-of-factly.)

Fucking makes me realize we only pretend to give a shit about the youth. What we want is to exterminate anything that can breed. That's part of survival. Kill off the breeders so there's more left for the already-bred.

GRIZZ

Oh God. Not again. You said all that bullshit when you were yapping about PACs and big business buying big government.

RENSSALEAR

I hate it that I'm still in love with you.

GRIZZ

You think you hate it!

RENSSALEAR

What's this freaking present for anyway?

GRIZZ

I thought you brought it.

RENSSALEAR

Just what we need. A Pandora's Box motif.

(Pause.)

Death is not eroticism, no matter what anyone might say. I see a package here that is obviously a metonymic equivalent to "The Womb" or "The Random" -- I mean if it goes off & does a Unabomber routine.

(Pause.)

Money. Control. Complications. I never asked for any of it.

GRIZZ

(Rummaging around in refrigerator.)

Hey, you got any beer in here?

The dogs, which have been lying asleep until now wake up at the sound of the word "beer." They roll and stretch. They shake their collars and make rattling noises.

MOUCHIE

Beer?

MACHIAVELLI

No. I mean yes. He's wanting beer. He's also wanting to make her shut the fuck up.

MOUCHIE

What makes you think you're such hot shit when it comes to human interpretation?

Montaigne and Mallarme stir. Mallarme stretches.

MONTAIGNE

Don't you just hate being in heat? It interferes with my ability to concentrate. I'm trying to write a series of essays about the human condition, and all I can think of is my canine condition.

MALLARME

Canine condition?

MONTAIGNE

In heat, man. In heat.

MALLARME

That sounds like a human condition to me. An observation borne out by birth rates & other statistics, I might add.

MONTAIGNE

And grandiose delusions.

MALLARME

Savior (I mean sperm-spreader) of the universe?

MONTAIGNE

God I fucking hate that ugly fucking blasphemous mouth of yours.

MALLARME

And that's why you mount me in your sleep and bay my name, right?

MONTAIGNE

I'm onto your scent.

MALLARME

And I'm an animal.

MONTAIGNE

Anger is the same as sudden courage.

At the close of Montaigne's words, Mallarme lunges forward and bites Montaigne on the leg.

MONTAIGNE

Hey! Stop it!

(Mallarme looks up.)

Mallarme, you are so stupid when you've been reading Hobbes.

(Mallarme bites Montaigne on the other leg.)

Shit! Stop it! Bite someone who matters. I'm an artist & a writer. No one will give a shit if I agree or don't agree with your political viewpoints, Mallarme. You've gotta bite someone who matters.

Looks over to center-stage to Grizz and Renssalear.

Like them.

MALLARME

(Howling) What do I have to make you start loving me again?

MONTAIGNE

For one thing, you can stop biting me. It messes up my train of thought.

RENSSALEAR

(Wistfully.)

When I was a little girl, my mother used to tell me that once I put a razor to my legs, they would never be the same. They would be covered with thick, curly, dark hair and I'd be forced to shave them every day, or be scorned by all men.

(Pause.)

I didn't shave my legs until I was 15. (Pause.)

That's not exactly true. I used to try my mother's razor when I was 5, 6, 7--until I got sick of cutting myself on her scary & tricky safety razor.

(Pause.)

"Safety." What a stupid word. It always indicates a condition of falseness. Of deliberate obfuscation of danger.

The dogs settling down on the rug again. Montaigne and Mallarme are sniffing the air cautiously. Machiavelli is scrutinizing Grizz and Renssalear. Mouchie is rolling on the rug.

MACHIAVELLI

Look at her. She's trying to get his attention by making some stupid melodrama out of razor blades. Look at that manipulation -- she's not as good at it as she thinks she is, though. Razor blade talk is always some kind of code for suicidal tendencies.

(Pause.)

She cut herself?

(Makes a disgusted pfff sound with lips.)

Please.

I'd like to see that.

(Says next lines in high-pitched falsetto)

Oh dear. Rescue me, help me, work me, save me.

I'll show her suicidal tendencies!

MOUCHIE

Aren't you the classic dog?

MACHIAVELLI

Huh?

MOUCHIE

The classic pampered pet.

MACHIAVELLI

What the hell are you talking about?

MOUCHIE

You think you're a human. But you're still just a dog.

(Sits up. Points a paw at Machiavelli.)

A DOG.

(Montaigne growls at Mallarme. Mouchie pauses for emphasis.)

D-O-G.

(Mallarme yelps as Montaigne lunges forward.)

Shut up, you two. You're as bad as them. (Gestures to Renssalear and Grizz, who are frozen in melodramatic poses, Renssalear with head bowed on table, Grizz with arms crossed defiantly.)

D-O-G.

MACHIAVELLI

Acronym for GOD.

MOUCHIE

Well, you sure don't know a thing about dogs, or canine-nature.

MACHIAVELLI

What's there to know?

MOUCHIE

For one thing, you're a pack dog. A hunter. So what you think is hot-shit analysis isn't that at all. You're not analyzing. You're hunting. You're a scent-hound. It's bred into you. It's in your genetic code.

MACHIAVELLI

If you're trying to tell me that I'm just some genetic experiment --

MOUCHIE

Gone horribly wrong--

MACHIAVELLI

And my talents--

MOUCHIE

Your instincts--

MACHIAVELLI

Were only developed to be exploited--

MOUCHIE

Used in a fox hunt so young rich boys can get their "first blood"--

MACHIAVELLI

Right now I want to bite the shit out of you. Is that instinct or free will?

MOUCHIE

You're a scent-hound.

(Machiavelli lunges forward and bites Mouchie in the haunches.)

Hey! Why'd you bite me? That hurt!

MACHIAVELLI

Just instinct, I guess. I'm not responsible, right? I'm bred that way.

A chair clatters to the floor. Renssalear abruptly lifts her head. Grizz smirks at the audience.

Grizz turns to the audience and addresses them.

GRIZZ

What'ya think of that? Thanking me for shutting her up? She's so full of shit. You see it. I see it.

(Pause.)

So why do I love her so much?

(Leans over and straightens up the chair he has knocked to the floor. Renssalear appears to be in a state of shock. She is looking blankly at the box on the table. It is obvious she is emotionally affected by Grizz's interruption, but she cannot respond in a direct way to him. Even her gaze toward him is indirect. She seems very fragile, if not in flesh in spirit.)

RENSSALEAR

"Woman Shaving Her Legs." "Eau de lisque." "Man Surrounded by Enigma." "Mr. X-Ray."

(Pause.)

Do you have to name something in order for it to be art?

(She reaches for the box.)

It's time. It's almost time and I hate it.

GRIZZ

Most of the time she doesn't even know I exist. Oh sure, when it's convenient for her, or when she's lonely, she'll throw me a bone. But most of the time, she just uses me to keep her act going -- her "Miss Superior" act I mean -- she just has to be the Queen Bee.

I still emulate her, though.

RENSSALEAR

(softly)

Emulation is grief arising from seeing oneself excelled or exceeded by his or her concurrent.

GRIZZ

Hey! Don't you have even just one original thought? Here you go ripping off Hobbes again. Why can't you think for yourself?

RENSSALEAR

The passion contrary to glory, proceeding from apprehension of our own infirmity, is called humility.

GRIZZ

I know you'll try to keep running. Ruin my life. Such as it is. Aphorisms are comfortable but you're no Rochefoucauld.

RENSSALEAR

Mesh. Echoes in a closed room. Blues played in a freight elevator. You've got a lot of nerve.

GRIZZ

A lot of hiding going on.

RENSSALEAR

Lot of words used to ward off fear.

(Pause.)

Words like "friendship" and "love" and "commitment" and "values."

Abstractions I practice by keeping a pet. That's why I have dogs.

(Assumes a very stern expression.)

Dogs are dogs in spite of categories --

(Pause.)

or breeds --

(Pause.)

or scents.

Vandergraf enters the room with Joli. Vandergraf is holding a handful full of receipts. Joli is carrying a handful of scarves and a globe of the earth.

VANDERGRAFT

Ever since I started shopping in the menswear department, I've gotten compliments on my cooking.

JOLI

Picasso would not have admired your need for unity.

VANDERGRAFT

Gray socks are more versatile than the others. Men's shoes are too predictable. I see the disorder in the most careful arrangement.

(Pause.)

Reality is a three-piece suit.

(Pause.)

That's the trendy way to say it.

(Pause.)

Really, all I'm doing is trying to dehumanize art. That's not new. It's irresponsible.

JOLI

Rehumanization is equally irresponsible.

(Pulls out a scarf and ties it around his left arm.)

Look.

(Pause.)

An armband.

(Pause.)

Or a tourniquet.

I'm either mourning a life lost or attempting to save my own. What difference does either make?

VANDERGRAFT

Tourniquet? Armband?

(Sits at table noisily. Renssalear and Grizz do not pay attention. Now they are looking at each other, holding each other's hands.

Fashion. Life is fashion. Plague or its symbols are thrill-seeking.

JOLI

More definitions.

VANDERGRAFT

Art?

(Picks up box. Looks at it slowly.)

A cheap engineer. Tinguely's destruction machines never worked right. And they called that art.

(Picks up a beer can, takes a long drink.)

The real artists never get the credit.

JOLI

When I surgicate the dogs, that's art.

MOUCHIE

Surgicate? What kind of language is that?

MALLARME

He means "operates on and mutilates." They used to call it vivisection. Civilized countries outlawed it.

MOUCHIE

And it's legal here?

MALLARME

Of course. The government even gives universities, corporations and not-for-profits a lot of money to do it.

VANDERGRAFT

Jean Tinguely made all those sculptures that would blow up. I don't see how working in the dog lab is art.

MOUCHIE

I wish she'd shut up.

JOLI

Tomorrow I'm doing open-heart surgery on a couple of labs. I'm gonna make them infarct--

VANDERGRAFT

Give them heart attacks?

JOLI

--then sew them back up & stick them back on the treadmills. I want to see how long it takes them to have another heart attack.

VANDERGRAFT

That's about the most obvious kind of research I can envision. What's the point? Isn't it obvious? Do you learn anything at all that's new?

JOLI

No. Of course not. But it gives us pre-meds a lot of practice in the OR.

(Pauses.)

That's what makes it art.

MOUCHIE, MALLARME, MONTAIGNE, AND MACHIAVELLI

(Sit up. Look appalled. Speak lines separately and in unison.)

I'm going to be sick. How can they do that?

Why don't we bite them to see how quickly they bleed to death. That will teach us something about dogs. Right?

That's assuming we want to say that human bleeding is a key to all animal bleeding. But humans are different.

Won't anyone stop them?

I'm going to be sick.

VANDERGRAFT

Oh. I get it now.

That's really cool.

(Pauses.)

I love art.

JOLI

Salt. Pepper. Box. Pandora.

(Pauses.)

False groupings. A mistake. A false positive i.d.

Language loses its flavor.

It has to be opened up.

(Pause.)

Pandora.

Now that's one archetype that won't go away.

(Vandergraft looks down at the table -- won't look at Joli.)

That's really what happened, isn't it. That's why you're here now.

VANDERGRAFT

Why don't you stop?

(moves box across the table.)

Wasn't it enough to pretend you loved me? It makes me sick to think about it. I didn't want to live. I felt so ashamed.

(Looks at Joli.)

Ashamed!

Don't you know what that is?

JOLI

Of course.

(Puts hand to face. Watches Vandergraft, who is very uncomfortable.)

I'm not going to let you play "wise woman" to my "foolish young pup" role.

(pulls up chair closer to table.)

If you had been more in reality instead of in your fantasy, delusional world, maybe you could have convinced the cops that the person who ID'd you was wrong.

VANDERGRAFT

No one believes an old woman.

JOLI

I believe you. Doesn't that count?

VANDERGRAFT

No. You're supposed to say, "But Graffi, dear, you're not an old woman -- and you especially weren't when that happened. You're a vibrant, alive, alluring mature woman.

JOLI

You care more about that than if someone believes you or not?

VANDERGRAFT

People always believe the seductive charmers.

JOLI

Or they never believe them.

RENSSALEAR

What do I have to make you believe I love you?

GRIZZ

Honey, a lot more than you're doing now.

RENSSALEAR

I hate you, you cold-hearted wretch!

(Bursts into loud weeping and rises from table.)

GRIZZ

And I'm supposed to believe that you love me now?

(Picks up the box and throws it on the floor.)

You torment me to no end, woman!

(Exits stage.)

RENSSALEAR

(Picks up box and puts it on the table.)

I'm so sick of having to prove myself!

(Resumes weeping and exits stage.)

(Softly, between sobs.)

Play chess.

Study moves.

Memory, memory, memory.

MALLARME

I want to bite the shit out of that asshole who is so proud of his vivisection. Surgicate! I want to surgicate his throat!

(whines.)

Would it be okay?

MONTAIGNE

We've gotten rid of two witnesses. Now if we can get rid of this woman, we can do it.

MACHIAVELLI

Who cares if we have a witness.

MONTAIGNE

You want to be put down?

MOUCHIE

Like put to sleep?

MACHIAVELLI

Like offed?

MALLARME

Like killed?

MONTAIGNE

Right.

VANDERGRAFT

They said I was the one who killed the sign painter and put her hands in a box, packed in salt.

JOLI

Someone had been reading too much Arthur Conan Doyle or Edgar Allan Poe.

VANDERGRAFT

What could I have against signs, anyway?

(Pause.)

I think they all disrupt themselves without any help from the local vigilante amputator. (Pause.)

I see this box, and I, like everyone else, expect it to contain someone's head, an ear, or a set of hands.

Unopened, the box is redolent with symbolic promise.

(opens the box. Turns it upside down. Something wrapped in gauze falls out.)

JOLI

Tomorrow, I'm surgicating the two dogs we got in last week from a man who said he had a few left over from the litter his beagle had last summer.

(Pause.)

I can't wait to operate on a small dog.

VANDERGRAFT

(Unwrapping the gauze.)

I can't believe I was so intoxicated by your flattery, and what I thought was your human warmth.

This will obviously tell me something about betrayal.

Amputation.

Metonymy for abandonment? Betrayal?

(Pause.)

Being cut off?

(Pause.)

I'm sorry. There was not call for that pun.

JOLI

It's too late.

The rehumanization of art is irresponsible.

We don't need someone to glue some bad attitudes onto art and call it "culture" or "wisdom."

VANDERGRAFT

Was this really necessary?

(Holds up a small paw. A dog's paw. The gauze lies heaped up on the table.)

JOLI

Ah, the resurrection motif.

I love it.

(Vandergraft exits stage left. Her exit is almost soundless.)

MALLARME

I'm tearing off his feet.

MONTAIGNE

His feet?

MACHIAVELLI

Not his hands?

MOUCHIE

Not his throat?

MALLARME

Forget it. The sight of blood makes me ill anyway.

(The dogs go back to the rug and lie down. The stretch, roll around, and rattle their collars. Finally they settle down and go to sleep.)

(Vandergraft returns quietly to the center stage.)

VANDERGRAFT

(Sadly, quietly.)

Sleep, sleep, sleep. Let waking dogs sleep before the hot sun warms their fur and makes them dream of immortality. Project that thought into art and make it dismemberment.

(Pauses.)

That's the sad thing about it all.

(Picks up the box. Looks at it again.)

The artist always gets blamed for instigating the dismantling of a culture, but, in the end, the sociopaths are the ones who take the utopian vision and wreck it just for the thrill of wrecking it. I suppose that's the true art. It's not utilitarian. It has no social purpose. There is no "justice" or benign tyranny of moralizing. I suppose I'll spend time in jail again. This time for cruelty to animals. Am I guilty? I'm an artist, but it's been years since I've been honest. Yes, I'm guilty. But it's a guilt that only I have the right to decide upon. The world tears apart its dogs and its undesirables. Who decides? Who gets blamed?

(Pauses.)

Tomorrow I'm sure I'll return to jail.

(Sighs.)

In many ways, it will almost be a relief.

(Exits stage right.)

END