Interlude

Political and plot happening. Not so sure it's meaningful plot, but events do occur.

Open interlude

[Pompo walks out from behind the curtain. He is holding a glass of wine and a flashlight. The lighting remains low as he begins to speak.]

Pompo: Last night the power went out. It made me think about how a lot of the superpowers we think are really dumb could actually have been really quite useful for people for thousands of years. [He sips from the wine glass.] For example, one of the nonsensical aspects of the powers of the Iron Fist, a Marvel character, is that he can concentrate his life force into his fist and—this part is a bit more typical and useful, at least in a comic book, it becomes near invulnerable; he can punch bullets, block an incoming sword, he can do anything with it—but, also, full of his life energy, his hand glows! [In a derisive voice] So cool! [Moving back to his regular tone of voice] When you think about in detail, though, you see that this is in fact quite cool. The power of fire for most humans in our history was the power of light, in addition to the power of warmth and, possibly, the power to inflict pain, that we more likely associate it with today. The Iron Fist carries that power of light which brings with it, rhymingly, the power of sight, in the palm of his hand. You don’t think about this often! I didn’t think about it until last night, when the power went out. The power went out and I realized I couldn’t turn on a light! [He turns on the flashlight and passes it over his face.] Now I had to find a flashlight in the dark. How dumb of me to put myself in this position, but how prepared are we for such circumstances usually? [He sighs.] Being taken by surprise… This reminds me… [His voice trails off and he talks a long sip from his glass of wine. From the stage behind Pompo, the ghostly form of Fred also crosses onto the stage.] I used to think that Wonder Woman’s lasso was a stupid weapon—or rather tool, right?—for her to have. I didn’t see what was so important about it. How could the truth always set you free?

Fred [as he comes on stage]: You there! [He points down into the audience.] Have you ever had a lover? [He looks around in the crowd, pointing out different people.] Have you ever had a lover who cheated on you? Or have you cheated on someone? [Pompo finishes the glass of wine. As he speaks again, Fred continues, below.]

Pompo: Marston, of course, well, you know. He was obsessed with detecting lies. A man who raised oh how many of his own children under the lie that their real father was another man, an invented character, a lie. Just like Wonder Woman!

Fred [speaking over Pompo, above]: I think that’s where the importance of trust first started. Sex! But not in the sense that we think of it. Rather, sex as the cause of childbirth and the need to protect you and yours. Because you cannot save the whole world.

Pompo: And in a way, wouldn’t it be so odd if she were to rope the wrong person with the lasso and gets the response, “We’re all just characters in a comic book! None of this is real.” There isn’t some magical woman who can right every wrong! It’s disconcerting, reading fiction that uses the importance of truth as a theme or motivating force. But that’s not fair. It wasn’t even Marston’s own idea, or not solely his idea, to lie to his children. [Fred pulls down a smaller version of the black and white screen from the previous scene behind Pompo but in front of the curtain. At first the image appears blank, though rustling behind the curtain can be heard. Pompo appears lost in thought for a few minutes before speaking again.]

Pompo: Last night, I had another Gal Gadot dream. We met at the courtyard of my high school, near the roped off H that no one dare walk over [As he speaks, the screen lights up on what appears to be a cement table, with Carl wearing a bald cap so as to appear to be Pompo facing the audience, another person with long dark hair that appears to be a woman facing Carl, away from the audience, and a square on the floor with an H inside it that is surrounded by red velvet ropes.] Like usual, she was talking to me about Wonder Woman, what it took to get her into the character… She said…

Pompo as Gal Gadot [the words appear on the screen as they are spoken]: But the dream of America is so wonderful, so strong, so beautiful, [Carl as Pompo nods, and the words begin to disappear, to be replaced by…] you can see why Diana, why Wonder Woman would want to stand for that spirit, that hope, that belief. [Pompo coughs.]

Fred: If only America were telling the truth! If America would admit Thomas Jefferson’s the father!

Pompo: I’m always a bit frightened of women, of talking to women. But in dreams, you can just let it out… I replied…

Pompo as Carl as Pompo [Carl lip synchs as Pompo speaks]: What scares me is how the American Dream has grown this false history to it… There’s this appeal to a great nation of the past, when really, the past was absolutely awful. And people say how that was just the way things were done…

Fred: If Francis Scott Key told the truth…

PGG: Make America great again!

Fred: Land of the free, home of the slave!

PCP: Yes, because it was so great before we let women vote, when black people were merely labor animals, when there was no such thing as rape in a marriage. It’s like, if Wonder Woman were to wear the American flag, she would first have had to change America… To build something that held true to those ideals that were never actually upheld.

PGG: To earn the colors.

PCP: People say how freedom isn’t free, but when the cost of freedom is freedom itself, what is left? If this is what America is, then what does America mean?

Fred: Depends on who you ask.

PGG: Who dreams the American dream?

PCP: And is it simply a nightmare. [Fred pulls down on the screen and it retracts into itself.]

Pompo: So when there’s a power outage, you realize how useful a glowing fist would be. Maybe when the country loses sight of itself we need our symbols all the more: Captain America and Wonder Woman walking across states, being bad citizens, holding the country to standards that it was never interested in actually adhering to…

Fred: Except they aren’t real.

Pompo [voice raising as he speaks]: Not so much violence but potential, the dream deferred ready to explode, the implication, the sheer insistence of it all… Because no one is fucking listening!

Fred: Except they aren’t real. And you cannot…

Pompo: We don’t need to dream a new America, because the problem has never been the dream. [He coughs and reaches for something in his pocket.] But that we were so keen to let the dream wash away so quickly upon waking! But what about… What about [he pulls a particularly familiar wispy, blond toupee out of his pocket] hair?

Fred: You cannot save the whole world.

Pompo [putting the toupee on his head]: We are human. We are imperfect. There are questions we cannot answer, problems we cannot solve. [He shrugs while speaking.] So we just build giant walls around our castle and hide inside? Ignorance…

Fred: Bliss! [He falls through a trap door in the stage. Exit Pompo.]

End interlude