Open Feature
[Curtain rises on a campus office. The Anthropologist is seated at a chair with his feet rested on a coffee table. He is not wearing his disguise from before and may be mistaken for Carl. The American flag is still draped around his shoulders like a blanket. He is furiously writing.]
The Anthropologist: Oh, um… [He looks down at his hands and his writing tablet. Unconvincingly, he speaks...] This isn’t what it looks like? Look, I’m the show man! I’m the filmmaker! All directors hate writers, but ideas, they come. I don’t have a better technology than written language quite yet. I’m not Justin Timberlake! [He appears to notice the continued use of exclamation points and clears his throat.] Anyway, we know what you are here for. [He gets up and walks to the side of the stage and begins to manipulate a machine offstage. A screen, similar to a film screen, slowly comes down from the roof.]
TA [as his head is eclipsed by the screen]: How do I look? [The screen places a black and white filter over the stage. The Anthropologist walks out from behind the screen, briefly getting caught in the side of the curtain on the edge of the stage. As he becomes visible again, the American flag around his shoulders is still black and white, as if changed by the filter.] How would our view of the past be different if black and white film never happened? [He picks up the flag with one hand and concentrates on it with his gaze.] And it’s such an odd thing, really. What’s the physics of it? And I’ve heard some people dream almost exclusively without color… What does black and white mean? Obviously age and a seriousness, I’d say. And with age comes death, so it all becomes funereal… Sometimes I think about current films set in the past, you know, stupendous period pieces... I think they are somehow surreal, popping with such sharp color. Something seems wrong. And contemporary films that use black and white somehow also seem false. It’s so funny to me, you know, theater was always in color. Ha, what if the remake of Psycho also used chocolate sauce for blood? Hm… Let’s think about Wonder Woman in a World War running out into battle in black and white. Does she stand for less or more? [He looks up from the flag and seems deep in thought. After a few moments he walks up to the front of the stage where a small box is visible. He begins speaking as he starts to bend down towards this box.] Sometimes I think Hollywood did something to America, damned it to forever see itself in black and white, rather than variants of color, to focus on those contrasts… [He makes a disgusting face.] Oh my god, I’m writing… [He hits a button on the box and jumps off the stage, running once again out of the theater.]
The screen now shows an empty campus office in black and white. Words begin to form on the screen as if being typed. This begins with two quotation marks: “” The letters and words that follow then become the quote.]
Screen: “You can see all of this from a great height” [Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android” begins playing lightly in the background, midway through the song, as Thom Yorke sings “from a great height, from a great height.” As the message continues, the sound of typing can be heard and grows louder.]
Screen: “You can see all of this from a great height and zoom out until it is no longer visible or you can zoom in on the writing hand or the face of the dead, zoom in until it’s no longer a face. Or you can click on something and drag it. You can adjust the color” [A ripple goes through the screen and the stage appears briefly back in color before returning to black and white as the next sentence is typed.]
Screen: “You can see all of this from a great height and zoom out until it is no longer visible or you can zoom in on the writing hand or the face of the dead, zoom in until it’s no longer a face. Or you can click on something and drag it. You can adjust the color or you can make it black and white.” - Ben Lerner, Leaving the Atocha Station [The typing has grown quite loud, but ends as the message is completed.]
The message stays on screen for a moment. Suddenly the door to the office opens at the rear of the stage--the music and the message disappear in unison. In walks a man in his forties who looks vaguely like Jude Law.
Bill [to self]: I am the lie detector! [He takes off his hat and places it on the hat rack by his desk. He then sits down with his back to the audience. He mutters again...] I am the lie detector! [He removes papers from his desk and begins grading them, as I should be.] I am-- [His outburst is interrupted by a quick knock at the door. The back of Bill’s head appears quizzical, unsure of this new information as he continues to speak in confusion.] the lie detector? [A young woman enters the room, appearing somewhat like Alessia Cara. She wears large metal bracelets that appear heavy.]
Olive: Mr. Marston! Mr. Marston! [Bill jumps at his name each time.] I needed to talk to you about the extension on my paper.
Bill: Ms. Byrne, you were not at the lecture today--I had assumed you took that time to complete your work.
Olive: I was, I was! But I realized I had to change my conclusions!
Bill: Your cun clue shuns? [He seems atypically focused on the word.]
Olive: Yes, I realized that my assumptions about dominance and submission were based in large part on forced servitude. I had not considered the loving loss of one’s freedom, the way one gains a family and its needs. [Bill increasingly becomes agitated.] To give oneself up entirely, to become not-one with another… or more.
Bill: And in changing this conclusion, how does that impact the premise of your paper?
Olive: It causes ripples…
Bill: Ripples?
Olive: ...that run back through my consideration of gender. Gender as play--in either sense, as fun or theater!--when power becomes simply performance, gender, it finds itself all the more fluid. [As she speaks, above Bill on the screen an image appears of a thought bubble. In this bubble subsequent images appear.] I’ve become interested in the image of a man submitting himself to a woman, giving up himself in order to become one with her. [A whip appears in the bubble.] That is essentially what the jewelry [she fondles her bracelets as she speaks], ring is, [a diamond replaces the whip] a symbol of the man minimizing the importance of his work, a bowing down, metaphorically on one knee if you will. A giving up, an acceptance. [The diamond is replaced by an acceptance letter to university.]
Bill: Yes, well, and do you only consider man?
Olive [as she speaks, the letters appear on the screen in a similar fashion to the epigraph]: Yes, well [Olive mirrors Bill’s inflection], not even girls want to be girls as long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power. [Bill becomes even more agitated than before.]
Bill: Wha--? Those are…
Olive: But I think, I think actually, that the archetype itself is the problem. That there isn’t a way we, and I certainly mean me and you [she gestures to Bill] should have to act. We are not simply statistics, we need not reflect medians, meanings, and modes.
Bill: Those are my words! [He gets up and moves toward his hat. As he reaches it, he removes a folded up piece of paper from within the bill. He looks over the paper and then turns to face Olive and the audience with a face of fury.] Who sent you?
Olive: I am here for myself. Or in some way, you sent me, or your office did, your position. I am here to ask for another extension.
Bill: Ex ten shun? No, you have stolen my words, who sent you?
Olive: Your words?
Bill: I am the lie detector. I will determine your true purpose.
Olive: Mr. Marston, I was inspired in part by your opening lecture in which you spoke of the standards our society has set for women, but you spoke then…
Bill [muttering]: Someone must have seen me writing. Why am I always writing? Only the suchest of idiots write! [Raising his voice.] They rejected my machine but hired you to come here and what? Drive me insane! [He enunciates the last word with emotion.]
Olive: In say in? [Bill begins to study Olive in detail.] Mr. Marston, you spoke then of the Platonic form of woman, the ideal woman, you said “Lilith or Eve?” you weren’t sure, you were being playful. I was reviewing my notes while I thought I was finalizing my paper…
Bill: I am the lie detector… and you… do not appear to be lying…
Olive: Lying?
Bill: I cannot know without my machine.
Olive: You said, were she real, oh how we would wonder over that Woman.
Bill: I must test you with my machine. [He opens a cabinet and removes a machine with wires coming off it.] Roll up your sleeves.
Olive: I thought, but what would be so wonderful about her then? She is wonder because we cannot conceive, we cannot know, she is inconceivable and that is the wonder. The unknown -- faith, love, and faith.
Bill: I must know the truth!
Olive: Can you not just believe in anything? [Bill moves across the table and begins to set up his machine.] Is it really so hard to imagine? A similar thought. There are only so many words. Monkeys, typewriters, and Shakespeare. You are not a snowflake. [Bill places a blood pressure cuff on her arm.] You get that she never comes right? That is the wonder.
Bill: This may feel slightly uncomfortable.
Olive: If I’m already lying, shouldn’t I lie down? [She gestures to the couch on the other side of the stage.] Think about it, you can’t even trust yourself. You think, “Did I have these thoughts before?” Did I share them? Who am I? Give yourself away. [She stands up, letting the cuff fall to the floor.] At least in one way I will be lying! [She moves to the couch and lies down.]
Bill: But if it’s true, belief, faith, god… If it’s true it’s god. How many words? The permutations. Absolute proof of the existence of the divine. I am the lie detector. Yes, lie down. [He looks to Olive on the couch, then he turns back to the audience.] Aside: But I’ve always been so sure of my life. [He looks desperate as he speaks.] This could make it all come down. [He nearly sobs…] What do I do?
Olive: Mr. Marston, let’s see your lie detector, let’s see your machine!
Bill: I am the lie detector. I am… machine? [The curtain unceremoniously falls over the screen.]
End Feature
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