"Waiting for Gadot," final scene

Make sure you read in order!

Open Scene

You can be seen in the crowd. Carl appears in the distance. (Director may choose to use a musical cue or neon sign to spread the knowledge that the final scene is beginning through the crowd—ideally this is done in an understated fashion or not at all.) He approaches a podium, set up in the middle of the staging area constructed by the audience alongside Pandrio and Pasha. (The writers have left as the set has been finalized. The set construction team are in simple dress and may blend in with crowd.) Carl wears a simple superhero costume, perhaps a Cyclops X-Men mask, while members of the crowd are also dressed in superhero outfits of various detail.

Carl: [upon reaching the podium] Welcome! Welcome! One and all! Welcome to the first annual Superhumans for Humanity event here at State College. This is Cosplay [he gestures towards his mask] for a Cause! Unfortunately, Ms. Gadot cannot be here, so you’re left with me [he now gestures to his whole body], a poor replacement. Yet this changes not the reason we are here: we’ve come here to fight the forces of evil in this world, one measly money-raising relay event at a time! We are here to raise money for [insert good cause here] and to show our support to the countless struggles we face in this nation today. Why, though, must we dwell on the negative? We are here to show our power, to be empowered, to make a difference… We are here [he stands up straight] to make a stand. Years later, we will look back and think, “We mattered.”

A commotion goes through the crowd and Carl stops speaking, realizing that he is no longer the center of attention. He has an uncertain smile on his face and is thinking of something, but I’m being too much of a writer here. Across from Carl, a person is down on one knee in front of another person, asking for a commitment to their love. After the response, the audience around them cheers briefly, perhaps wondering if this is an actual proposal or part of the play. It’s not necessarily either. Carl begins to speak again some minutes later.

Carl: Now, there we go! Let’s think about the good things. That’s how we’re going to get through dark times—turn up the contrast and see the light, beautiful moments that still exist in life. Now we’re not going to take up too much of your precious time here, but we do have a few people who have a few things they’d like to say before we get out there and start running laps! Let me bring up our first speaker, a high school teacher and graduate from this university, Peter Andriotis!

Peter: [approaching the podium as Carl exits] Thank you, Carl! Let me begin by asking a silly question: Can art make a difference? I think a lot of artists ask this question, but it’s almost always internal. I can ask it about myself as an artist—I can mock myself for calling myself an artist—but I can also put on a Bloc Party album and never think while listening to it, “Does this matter?” Of course it does. You can’t read the poetry of Langston Hughes and say “Can art make a difference?” It can. Maybe we need to ask another question: Can heart make a difference? I could make a pun here, noting how we need to hear art in order to take it to heart, take it to he’art, but I won’t do that. (I just did it, didn’t I?) Art and heart can both make a difference, but only with effort and faith. That’s the great power of Hughes’s poetry: he speaks of the struggles of the America he lived in and then he sings of the beautiful future he can imagine. It’s hard for me to imagine that future these days. The one where we actually find the American dream, that myth of equality and actuality. The meritocracy. What we maybe don’t do enough, though, is consider something that I personally have no business ignoring. As I teach my students, you cannot write a great essay without planning it beforehand. Well, you can’t change the world without planning, without imagining, the new world. “Be the change you want to see in the world.” The funniest part about the quote is that it’s sometimes so hard to see that change I want. (Maybe it’s my difficulty with visualization, maybe it’s just cynicism.) So I’m going to try to do it, imagine a future of which I could be proud.

                It’s hard for me to even speak of this, because I am a superposition of privilege. Another cis straight white man—what can he really have to say? Not much, I’m sure, but let me tell you two stories. When I was really young, my mother worked as a secretary in a construction company. She was a member of a group called Women in Construction (WIC for short). Let’s think about this for a minute: Women in Construction… I could start a gender constructivist lecture here, “Women in Construction,” constructing women. I could talk about how Miley Cyrus’s lyric “I’m a female rebel” can either position her as taking the archetypal male role of “the rebel” for women or as rebelling from establishment expectations for the feminine. Women in construction because women working in the field of construction is so unexpected that it could possibly require constructing new expectations of women, where hopefully we do not simply view women as only capable of so-called women’s work. I could give you a whole lecture on this, but who am I to do this? [He motions to himself.] I don’t work in construction! [He laughs.] There’s another way to read WIC, Women in Construction; I think it’s the way most people would initially read it, but, you know, I’m weird. [He laughs awkwardly.] Women in Construction. A safe space for the discussion of the trials and tribulations faced by women in this largely male industry. Why would such a group need form? Because the concerns, one would assume, of women in construction, would often fall on deaf, male ears. Because men in construction did not consider or care for the perspectives of women. Women in Construction—these labels don’t simply appear out of thin air. Let’s remember that.

                When I was in college, I took a course in African American history. My stepfather questioned it, “Why would a class only consider African American history?” Because that history is not present in your average American history class. The class I took wasn’t the problem, it was the solution. It gives voice to a history of the country that is so frequently swept under the rug. Avoided, disputed, and ignored. People ask the same question now, in a new context. “Why black lives matter when all lives matter?” And I think back and I remember, the labels don’t come from nowhere. African American history was silenced and black lives have so often been treated as if they don’t matter, as if only certain types of death are met with any value. The fact that we see organized debate against people saying a simple fact, “Black Lives Matter,” seems to speak for itself.

                There’s a movement in our culture at this moment against what is called identity politics. As if we shouldn’t be interested in who we are as individuals! What’s interesting about this push is how easily it forgets why identities and labels formed in the first place. So now I can bring us back to a plan for America, a dream for America, ironically no different than the American Dream ever really has been, the dream, in many ways, of Martin Luther King, Jr., that these labels, these identities, need not be politicized. That people of color and white people would embrace one another and value what each and every one of us has to give to our country. But politics does not exist in a vacuum, and there is a reason that we wage this political battle over women’s rights, minority rights, LGBTQ rights. I see an America where the melting pot metaphor doesn’t mean that all claims to heritage are abandoned and everyone embraces baseball, the hot dog, and apple pie. I see an America where women need not expect to be judged on their appearance in every situation they face. I see an America where the country is much more interested in what people can do for their country, rather than what they can do to themselves in order live a more pleasant life. I see this America… I see it even with my poor visual imagination… Which is to say it’s not easy to see. I have to focus on it, to concentrate, to think, and to believe. “Tomorrow,” in the words of Langston Hughes, tomorrow it’ll come. We’ll “see how beautiful” America is in all its diversity. And, looking back, we’ll “be ashamed” of all that we have denied the country, the dreams we have deferred. Thank you. [He walks off the podium.]

Carl: Thanks, Peter. Well, that’s enough of that nonsense. [He smiles comedically, spinning a finger around his ear.] Now for something entirely different! The man who needs no introduction, the Dragon himself, Andrew Peters! [Andrew, wearing a cheap Dragon Ball Z costume, approaches the podium and takes the microphone from Carl.]

Andrew: [smiling] Fuck you, Carl! There’s a magic to us all coming together for this event. A type of magic that is sorely needed in the world right now. Some of you among us have chosen to hold onto that magic, to celebrate and commemorate it for years on end. Come forward!

Couples in the audience come forward and are commended by Andrew. The number of people varies based on the director’s wishes and the size and participation of the audience. Andrew performs a marriage ceremony for each couple in their turn, cheered on by the crowd. At the end of the ceremonies, he returns the microphone to Carl.

Carl: Beautiful! Beautiful! Now, join me in walking our ceremonial first lap in this Superhuman for Humanity event. Those of you who have pledges based on your number of laps, please make sure you register at our lap counters’ booth. [He pulls the microphone free from the podium and walks down to the ground and over to the track.] We’ll be here through the afternoon, into the evening, and going strong into tomorrow morning. All those night owls out there, we need you all to keep up the energy. [He begins to walk along the track and various people from the crowd join him.] I’m sure you will all pass me on this track soon, but remember that we run, walk, or crawl for the journey, not for the destination. The time we spend going the distance matters oh so much more than where we end up. We— [A commotion goes through the crowd on the opposite side of the field from Carl.] What the fuck?

Across the field, a car barrels into a group of participants preparing to begin walking. Several are injured. You dies. A wave of shock spreads throughout the characters and audience. The car stops in the distance and Pompo gets out of the car.

Pompo: [breathing heavily, speaking under his breath] Love me. Love me.

The curtain does not fall.

-fin-