YOUTOPIA
(10 Minute Play)
Dramatis personae:
Vicky Pèdia (blabbermouth, MC – Master/ Mistress of Ceremonies)
Mr. or Ms. Y. Tube (androgynous canned self with a tendency to self-promotion)
Mr. or Ms. Y. Porn (androgynous canned self with a tendency to pornographic self-promotion)
Leaks (a sinister fellow welling up from the abysmal depths of our culture)
Site: on a hard disk, at an information hub of the World Wide Web
Time: in the eternity archives of the www
Notes for direction:
The figures can all be played by one or two actors.
Of course the four characters can be played by four different actors.
Each figure can also be played by several persons, for example by a chorus of at least 3 actors – the number of possible choir members is unlimited. According to the latest estimates, ca. 6 billion, 653 million, 452 thousand, 301 persons are possible, whereby the cast can fluctuate after each sentence as a result of births and deaths.
The play can be staged without a single visible person on stage: the figures can be transmitted in livestreaming with monitors facing each other.
These figures can also be mangas or other computer animations that converse in a very artificial and high pitch.
With an appropriate recording, 3D glasses can be distributed to the audience.
Vicky Pèdia, for example, can also be played by a puppet; Leaks can be played by an aging Shakespearean actor who no longer gets roles or as a quotation from the earliest talkies of an aging Shakespearean actor who no longer gets roles.
Many, many things are possible.
1 Facebook
Vicky Pèdia (to the audience):
Hello. I’m Vicky Pèdia. Hello, friends! I hope you are all my friends. If you are not yet my friends, please enter your addresses. I’ll send you my link and a request that you become my friends. Please become my friends. We’ll have lots of fun together. I’ll send you photos from my childhood and you’ll see what a sweet little butterball I was back then. Please send me your childhood photos in return. I love photos and collect them all. Please write me what you think, what you wish, what you like to eat, and who you are. And whether you’d rather be a super-talent or a pop star. Just write everything down: hobbies, place of residence, favorite animal, favorite food, favorite friends…
I already have lots of friends. But I’m still lacking many, many more. I want everyone to be my friend. Please, all of you, become my friends, too…
If you contact me, you’ll make me the happiest person in the world – I promise you! Because, honestly now: there is nothing more important in life than friends. So please, please write me, write me soon…
Enter Y. Tube and Y. Porn
Vicky Pèdia:
Today we have two guests in our talk show. I am very glad to greet you both; I’m so glad you’re here. Excuse me, is it Mister or Ms. Tube?
Y. Tube:
Just Tube. Y. Tube.
Vicky Pèdia:
Aha. And the second one is: Y. Porn. Welcome in the studio. Great to see you… fantastic to have you here this evening…
Y. Porn:
Ah, hello. Congratulations! Your show is outstanding, I record every installment. I’m glad to be here and have the opportunity to say what I have to say….
Vicky Pèdia (interrupting him):
Mister… Ms.? (looks at him/her, trying to discern the answer)...
Tube, first of all, how do you feel today? What is your profession, your hobbies, what animal do you like best, what is your favorite color, favorite actor, place, dinner, work of art…
Y. Tube:
When I look into the mirror I welcome the genius I am. My genius in millions and millions of versions… I’m a poet, a musician, a politician… an artist… a man and a woman… a black and a white… tall and thin, small and grin… as I use to say…
Vicky Pèdia (interrupting again):
Thank you very much for your fascinating statement… (looks at Y. Porn for a moment) Ms. Porn, what do you expect from your audience?… do you have friends… hobbies… do you train for your performances…
Y. Porn:
Mister. For the moment: Mister. Sorry. Well, I’d like to tell the audience here and at home how I see it. This is finally the big chance I’ve always been waiting for…
The only part of my body that was visible was always my genitals. My work consisted of going in front of a camera and fucking someone or being fucked by someone… depending. Sometimes my partners fit me well, sometimes not so well. A question of applied anatomy. I was also the sound behind my partner. Sometimes I had the feeling we were going through each other, until no more resistance could be felt, into the void, the cosmos, the universe. I had become one with another actor, we became a single body whose parts fit together as one, an image that cannot be further divided. But believe me: my work was fun. I was a giant, constantly erect cock and a timelessly moist, gaping pussy. In action, I had the wonderful feeling of dancing around the center of the earth. Without any evasion, I was what we humans want: an unceasing orgasm without shameful pauses. What was great about it was that I could watch myself, endlessly, without ever growing weary of it.
Vicky Pèdia (interrupts again):
Thank you, thank you. Unfortunately, our time is almost up. What a shame, what a shame. But our two guests are happy to remain in the studio after the program to answer your questions in a live chat…
(Y. Tube and Y. Porn politely say goodbye and disappear in the www.)
2 My space
Enter Leaks
Vicky Pèdia:
And who are you?
Leaks:
I’m called Leaks: understand?
I bite off everyone’s hand.
Vicky Pédia (extends her hand to him):
Do you want to be my friend?
Leaks laughs in a raspy, empty voice. He bows to Vicky, then bites her extended hand. Vicky stands, as if rooted to the spot, her face distorted in pain and her eyes and mouth wide open. It is as if she were catching her breath.
Leaks:
Fair is foul and foul is fair,
Almost cut my hair.
Vicky skillfully intones a classical horror film scream.
Leaks:
Almost cut my hair
Sitting on an electric chair.
Vicky skillfully intones a classical horror film scream.
Leaks:
Sitting on an electric chair
I almost cut my hair.
Leaks looks about in the audience.
Leaks:
I shall murder all of thee
Under a lemon tree.
Vicky skillfully intones a classical horror film scream.
Leaks:
I will bury all of thee
Penny coin is my fee.
Leaks makes a gesture as if he wanted to collect money from the audience.
Leaks:
Fair is foul and foul is fair,
Almost cut my hair.
Vicky skillfully intones a classical horror film scream that seems unending.
Leaks advances on Vicky and strangles her. He destroys her image so completely that at most a wild collection of illegible numerals and data flit, shadowlike, across the monitors or floor.
Vicky Pèdia implodes theatrically, in brilliant colors and sinks back into infinity.
3 Dot com
Darkness.
A visual message: a row of letters in a box and a conspicuously large red arrow pointing to a smaller box with the label “OK”:
An error has occurred.
If you would like to report it,
click here now: OK.
After awhile, the red arrow reaches the box and a click is heard. Then a multiple-choice block appears, read aloud by a soft female voice:
Please select your choice:
1. DON’T WORRY.
2. WORK HARD.
3. BE A BELIEVER.
4. LET EVERYTHING BE OKAY.
This is accompanied by a rather old-fashioned sound: the busy signal of a telephone from the 1980s. The multiple-choice block disappears. The stage goes dark. A purring female voice is heard:
The number you have dialed is currently unavailable. Thank you for your patience.
The number you have dialed is currently unavailable. Thank you for your patience.
The number you have dialed is currently unavailable. Thank you for your patience…
And so forth until the entire 3-acter ends after precisely 10.00 minutes –
infinito in finito.
———–
-2009 für eine Ausschreibung des English Theatre Berlin, ins Englische transferiert von Mitch Cohen und Wolfgang Heyder
