Palm Sunday (31 page)

•   •   •

SCENE
3:
THE BARE STAGE OF THE MILDRED PEASELY BANG-TREE MEMORIAL THEATER—A FEW MINUTES LATER.

[At the rise: All the students, except for JERRY, SALLY, KIM-BERLY, and SAM, are onstage. They are excited about doing
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
POPS is looking on. The girls are still in nightgowns
.

Accompanied by scary music, they experiment with turning into monsters, uttering maniacal laughs, and generally trying to scare the hell out of each other
.

JERRY, SALLY, KIMBERLY, and SAM enter, loaded down with Victorian costumes and props.]

JERRY:
Okay, kids—we found all this stuff in the costume loft. Come and get it.

[They throw down the costumes, and people set about clothing themselves, including SALLY, KIMBERLY, and SAM.]

POPS:
Can I pick a costume, too?

JERRY:
No. You’re perfect as you are. We need a comedy cop.

POPS:
[Offended]
There’s real bullets in my gun.

JERRY:
You’re kidding! They shouldn’t trust you with a squirt gun loaded with lemonade!

POPS:
Thanks a lot.

JERRY:
Any time.

[LEGHORN enters from the wings, impressed by a machine he has seen back there.]

LEGHORN:
Mind if I watch you geniuses work?

JERRY:
Glad to have you, Dad.

[Everybody but JERRY and LEGHORN and POPS turns his or her back to the audience, and applies monster makeup, becoming Dracula or Frankenstein or Wolfman or whatever.]

LEGHORN:
You can stop calling me that. Your mother and I have filed for divorce.

JERRY:
Well, whoever you are, take a seat somewhere.

LEGHORN:
There’s a hell of a machine back here. Looks like one of my old industrial chicken roasters—from the early days.

[Jerry has a look, is thrilled.]

JERRY:
Oh, boy! A fog machine—left over from our rock and roll version of
Macbeth
.

LEGHORN:
Some boat whistles, too.

JERRY:
Left over from our rock and roll version of
The Old Man and the Sea. [He takes his place stage center.]
Okay, gang—face this way, please.

[Everybody faces him—with horrifying effect.]

JERRY:
Oh, no—everybody can’t be the monster!

SALLY:
But everybody loves monsters so.

[
This starts off a production number about how everybody loves monsters, but that not everybody is lucky enough to be a monster, that some people have to be good-looking and therefore hated by everyone, and so on.]

JERRY:
Gee—I wonder how the real-life Jekyll is doing over in the lab?

LEGHORN:
He can’t even light a Bunsen burner, if you ask me.

CURTAIN

•   •   •

SCENE
4:
DR. JEKYLL’S LABORATORY—A FEW MINUTES LATER.

[At the rise: Idiotic rock music can be heard coming from the theater through the open window. It consists of a repetition of “Jekyll and Hyde! whoe whoe, baby, good old Jekyll and Hyde!” JEKYLL is
alone, happily adding LSD and the unknown diet supplement for chickens and so forth to a large beaker, which is giving off unwholesome fumes
.

JEKYLL closes the window, shutting out the music. He continues about his business, singing to himself, to the tune of “Humor-esque.”]

JEKYLL:
[Singing]
We were walking through the park,

A-goosing statues in the dark.

If Sherman’s horse can take it,

So can you—oo!

[There is a knock on the door.]

JEKYLL:
[Aside] Hmmmm. A possible guinea pig.
[To knocker] Entrez, s’il vous plait
.

[Jekyll’s wife, a gorgeous, tragically neglected older woman, enters. He does not recognize her. She immediately sings to him in a rich contralto a show-stopping song about her total devotion to him.]

JEKYLL:
May I ask who you are?

MRS. JEKYLL:
I’m your wife, Henry.

JEKYLL:
Right, right, right. Got it now.

MRS. JEKYLL:
When you failed to come home for supper, I called around to find out what had become of you.

JEKYLL:
[Genuinely concerned]
Am I all right?

MRS. JEKYLL:
Here you are.

JEKYLL:
Thank God. I could be lying in a ditch somewhere.

MRS. JEKYLL:
They said you were going all out for the Nobel prize.

JEKYLL:
[Intensely]
It’s the new me, Mildred.

MRS. JEKYLL:
[Correcting him]
Hortense.

JEKYLL:
It’s the new me, Hortense. Say—you look thirsty to me.

MRS. JEKYLL:
Thirsty?

JEKYLL:
[Offering the beaker]
This’ll put hair on your chest.

MRS. JEKYLL:
Why would I want hair on my chest?

JEKYLL:
Just a friendly expression. You have to pick me up on every last little thing? I don’t know how our marriage has lasted as long as it has.

MRS. JEKYLL:
That stuff smells vile!

JEKYLL:
But you love me so much. That was you, wasn’t it?

MRS. JEKYLL:
Yes—it was I.

JEKYLL:
Okay—so drink, chug-a-lug, chug-a-lug; so drink, chug-a-lug, chug-a-lug!

MRS. JEKYLL:
This is the first thing I have ever refused you.

[MRS. JEKYLL exits with dignity.]

JEKYLL:
[Aside] If it’s anything that burns me up, it’s women’s lib.
[To himself]
Okay, big boy—if you’re ever going to get to Stockholm, you’d better drink this stuff yourself. Here goes nothing.

[He holds his nose and drinks. Nothing happens for a moment, then a horrible transformation starts to take place. He claws at his throat, makes subhuman sounds, drops to the floor, rolls out of sight under a desk. When he emerges, he has become an enormous, homicidal chicken. He flings open the window, and, flapping his wings, jumps out into the night.]

CURTAIN

•   •   •

INTERMISSION

•   •   •

SCENE
5:
THE STAGE AT MIDNIGHT THE SAME NIGHT. THE STUDENTS HAVE BUILT A SET TO REPRESENT A NINETEENTH-CENTURY LONDON STREET. THERE ARE THREE FACADES FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: A LOW-LIFE PUB, A SINISTER STOREHOUSE WHERE JEKYLL DOES HIS EXPERIMENTS, AND JEKYLL’S
RESPECTABLE HOME. ALL HAVE OPERATING DOORS. THERE ARE STREETLAMPS. THERE IS A PROMINENT SIGN ON THE SECRET LAB SAYING, “SECRET LAB.”

[Before the rise: College library clock strikes twelve
.

At the rise: Full cast, except for WHITEFEET, DR. JEKYLL, and MRS. JEKYLL, is onstage. All except LEGHORN, who is a mere observer in his regular business suit, are dressed in Victorian costumes from every level of society. POPS is a bobby, already on duty. SALLY is a whore with a heart of gold, already waiting for customers under a lamppost. JERRY, who is going to be Dr. Jekyll, wears a top hat and evening cape, and directs many students who are still working on the set, painting, driving nails. Among them is SAM, wearing a tweed suit and derby, who is to be Utterson, Jekyll’s best friend, and KIMBERLY, who is dressed as a nursery maid. Her elaborate perambulator is parked on the street. LEGHORN has been interesting himself in the fog machine, which is now putting out wisps of fog.]

JERRY:
Okay, kids—that’s close enough. We just want to give the general idea. No point in getting it absolutely perfect tonight.

[Students put down their tools, assemble on the street, awaiting instructions. LEGHORN goes to JERRY.]

LEGHORN:
I got your fog machine going.

JERRY:
I see.

LEGHORN:
It really is one of my old industrial chicken roasters. Didn’t realize they were being sold now as fog machines.

JERRY:
It wasn’t cheap.

LEGHORN:
Nothing ever is. If you ever wanted to roast a half a ton of chicken in five minutes, you still could—feathers and all.

JERRY:
That’s nice to know.

SALLY:
I love you, Jerry. I’d die for you, if you wanted me to. JERRY: That’s nice to know. Places, everybody!

[JERRY goes into Jekyll’s house. LEGHORN withdraws to one side of apron. SALLY stays under lamppost. POPS continues to patrol. Lower-class types go into pub. KIMBERLY, with her pram, and SAM exit into wings. The rest compose a London street scene in the late afternoon
.

A rock band in the pit strikes up appropriate music to be written by somebody else, and a nonstop rock ballet about Jekyll and Hyde begins
.

The story, to be choreographed by somebody else, goes roughly like this, with some information being sung:

Everybody on the street is happy, but worried about nightfall and fog. There has been, only a few days before, the murder of a whore under the lamppost where SALLY stands
.

Dr. Jekyll, played by JERRY, comes out of his house, the image of civic decency, and is recognized and adored by all. He is trying to get into his secret lab without being observed. While biding his time, he performs acts of civic virtue which are noted and admired by one and all. He picks up a piece of trash dropped by somebody else, puts it in a waste barrel, gives money to a beggar, politely declines an invitation from SALLY the whore, giving her a gentle lecture, and so on. KIMBERLY enters with her perambulator, and he admires the baby, chucks it under its chin. KIMBERLY exits into wings, to return, going in the opposite direction, a few minutes later
.

A fight breaks out in the pub, spills into the street. POPS rushes in to break it up. Everybody but Jekyll goes to watch. Jekyll takes the opportunity to duck into his lab. Lights go on in there
.

The fight is broken up, and one of the fighters invites everyone into the pub for a drink on him
.

Many accept, go into pub. Some refuse, exit into the wings instead. SALLY resumes her post by the lamppost. The street is otherwise deserted
.

Utterson, the lawyer, played by SAM, enters in a state of agitation. He carries a huge briefcase on which is written, “Lawyer.” He is on his way to Jekyll’s house, is propositioned by SALLY. They dicker. Her price is too high and her services too limited, and he is too busy anyway. He goes and bangs on Jekyll’s door. Nobody is home. He sings to the audience that his client and closest friend, Dr. Jekyll, has just written a will leaving everything to a man named Hyde, about whom Utterson has never heard before. He fears that Jekyll has gone insane or is being blackmailed. He gives up, dickers briefly with the whore again, goes into pub for a needed drink
.

JERRY, now as the monstrous Mr. Hyde, peers furtively out the secret lab door, sees nobody around but the whore. He whistles to her, crooks his finger at her. She is appalled, but needs the work. She goes into the lab with him, and the door is closed
.

A drunk comes out of the pub, sings a song about the beauty of love, staggers off into the wings
.

The lab door opens. The whore reels out, her clothes in frightful disarray. Hyde throws money after her, heaps scorn on her as she picks it up. She exits in disorder and shame. Hyde remains in the doorway, looking up and down the street for other opportunities to do evil
.

KIMBERLY enters with her perambulator, on her way home from the park. She seems an ideal target of opportunity. She pauses, giving him a chance to duck into the lab to get a black spherical bomb with a fuse sticking out of it, which he shows to the audience. She starts coming again, and he stops her, pretending to be solicitous, hiding the bomb behind his back. He tells her that she should be careful, that he thinks someone may be following her. She looks back, and he tucks the bomb in with the baby and lights the fuse
.

She moves on, looking back over her shoulder, exits. Hyde ducks into lab, closes door
.

There is a terrific explosion offstage, people come pouring out of the pub, exit in direction of explosion
.

They return, filled with horror. Some carry pieces of the perambulator. Utterson carries a wheel. Last of all come POPS and KIMBERLY. Pops has his pad and pencil out, trying to get Kimberly’s story. Most of Kimberly’s clothing has been blown away. Her face is black. She still holds the handle of the perambulator
.

Utterson draws aside, muses over the clue of the wheel. He sings that he knows his friend Jekyll has been performing secret experiments of great importance and behaving queerly. He wonders if he could be making bombs
.

Somebody suggests that everybody go into the pub to have a drink. KIMBERLY says that she certainly needs one. All exit into the pub, except for Utterson, who goes to Jekyll’s house and knocks again. JERRY, now a respectable Jekyll again, comes out of the lab unobserved, again picks up a piece of trash, puts it into a barrel
.

Jekyll comes up behind Utterson, scares the daylights out of him. Utterson asks him if his research involves bombs. Jekyll says he has discovered a means of controlling human character with chemicals. Utterson says this is more dangerous than bombs. Jekyll says it is perfectly safe, with no harmful side effects. He confesses that he turned himself into Hyde many times, and that he isn’t going to do it anymore, that Hyde is dead. “No harmful side effects?” says Utterson. Jekyll echoes this, but with qualifications
—
blurred vision sometimes, constipation, swollen ankles, nothing serious. Utterson asks how he feels now. Jekyll says he never felt better, but then has an attack. He turns into Hyde
.