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Updated 7/31/03

MONOLOGS FOR YOUNG MEN (cont'd)

(The times given
are informed guesses)

#6 (2:15 min.)

(It is 415 B.C. ANDOCIDES, 24, accused of a capital crime by Dioclides, a paid Informer, and Pisander, a young demagogue, stands before The Athenian Assembly, and for the first time in history, puts forward an astonishing idea - that an Accused person should be believed innocent until proven guilty)

ANDOCIDES: Gentlemen, I am a free citizen. (thrusts his shackled wrists at them) Why, against the Law, am I in chains - I am not yet even Indicted. (he eyes them) I have been promised an impartial Hearing. Gentlemen, I must ask you to be more than impartial - You have already given my Accuser, Dioclides, your partly-pledged belief, or you would not have brought me here before you, in chains. I must now plead for what remains of your belief - with suspicion hanging about me like a deadly pall. Therefore, I must ask for more than your impartiality - I must ask you to believe in my innocence. For how am I Charged, gentlemen. I am charged with a "secret" conspiracy. In heaven's name, was there ever a conspiracy that wasn't secret? Yet this word "secret" has been insinuated over and over again into the Charge. If I say, "It is not so," Pisander will say, "You see - the Accused is still a secret Conspirator." The only course of action he would leave me, is to say that I am guilty. Then Pisander would inflate his chest and say, "You see - it is as I told you." (beat) It has been charged that on the night of The Mutilation I was seen in the company of three hundred other conspirators -- fifty-two of whom have already been apprehended. And executed. Gentlemen, on the night of The Mutilation I was confined to my bed with a fractured collar bone. I had fallen from my horse. Hipponicus the Physician treated me at my house. (beat) Like many others in fear of their lives, Hipponicus has since fled the city. It has been said here that no innocent man need fear you. But I am innocent. And I fear you. For, gentlemen, the most difficult thing in the world to "prove" is innocence. Guilt is easy - both to imply and to admit to. But who was ever criminally Charged with nnocence? I repeat, Gentlemen: I must ask for more than your impartiality - I must ask for your belief in my innnocence.

#7 (1:20 min.)

(April 30th, 1975, Dixey's And Sophie's Loft-Studio in NYC's SoHo. An Extempore Party to memorialize The End of South Vietnam is in progress. DIXEY, a Nam Vet, now 25 and successful as a TV & Radio Spokesman for several national products, introduces his new partner - another Nam Vet)

DIXEY: (a little high on booze) Folks, meet Willy Mack Mc Crossen. First Marines and PR man. Met up again on the plane in from the Coast. Back in Nam - with the high run of adrenalin - ole Willy Mack was what you call a regular PermaDick - pointed for action 24 hours a day. In civilian clothes, tho', he's kind of had to throttle down a little. Anyway! Willy Mack and me, we have Ay Announcement! La-dies and Gentlemen! It's been said that the best revenge is living well. Now who were the fuckers that sent us to Nam - politicians - both parties, take your pick, they all lied to us. So we're going to regroup. Now, what we need is power - (beat) - so Willy Mack and I are going to grab for some. First, got to have access. Elections are coming up next year, and the times, they are a-changin' - TV and Radio are going to be the key. And Willy Mack says the reason I've won 3 Clio's for Voice Overs, is because my voice has a natural-born fuck in it. (beat) So Willy Mack and I're going to take that voice and build with it. First, I'm going to do some straight acting, build a national image. Willy Mack'll handle the PR. Then we're going to sell me as the Voice of some State Party Candidates Both Parties, until we find a winner - then we go with him. How's that for access! I mean, is that an idea or is that an idea!

#8 (1:30 min.)

(The Time And Place: Mid-Summer, 1972. A Beach House, Lonelyville, Fire Island, NY. Outside, heavy rain. Inside, Three Couples, all Nam Vets, are recuperating from last night's blowout. CISCO HERRERA, 27, is mediating betwee "True" Truman - his friend and war buddy - and his date)

CISCO: Trust Ole True, Lisa love. Back in Nam, didn't he get me out of the swamp, into Bien Hoa and a nice air-conditioned Ground Radar Control Unit? (Memory Time!) Ah, yes."By the waters of Ba Ayun - " Had to evacuate our air base and fall back on the Ba Ayun River - no sleep, eaten alive by you name it, up to our asses in mud. Well, this gung-ho buffo chicken-colonel from HQ shows up. "For morale", he says, "we are all going to have a sing." We just stared at this asshole. Then Ole Truman Paige, here - it was one of those things that just came to him - (chants) "BY THE WATERS OF BA AYUN, THERE WE SAT DOWN, YEA, WE WEPT WHEN WE REMEMBERED ZION - " That's how we got tight - I knew the verse - (chants again) "WE HANGED OUR HARPS ON THE WILLOWS IN THE MIDST THEREOF. FOR THERE THEY THAT CARRIED US AWAY CAPTIVE, REQUIRED OF US A SONG - AND THEY THAT WASTED US REQUIRED OF US A SONG, SAYING, 'SING US ONE OF THE SONGS OF ZION.' HOW SHALL WE SING THE LORD'S SONG IN A STRANGE LAND?" (chuckles) Well! This asshole was a Born-again Christian! Thought we'd said "Babylon" Said, "Boys who could recite a Psalm out in the jungle - well, next thing you know, Ole True got us transferred out of that swamp and into an air-conditioned Ground Radar Control Unit. Posh stuff. Secret stuff. (grins) Illegal stuff. Unit guided B-52 strikes on Cambodia. What do we know about radar you may well ask? Beside the point. (gaily) We were in charge of burning the printouts of all bombing coordinates!

#9 (1:25 min.)

Adapted from NOT NOW ( One Act Play) © 2001 Kevin O'Morrison

(The Municipal Building NYC, The Day "The System" collapses, and the Bureaucrats - as the only ones possssing any kind of social organization and funding - take over. Citizens who have come here for services have been been herded into a "Processing Line", and one of them - ZACK, 20 -25 years old - has just been called "depressing" by the attractive young woman on Line in front of him)

ZACK: Listen, Miz Addis, I'm sorry I -- like -- well, it's my personal style, is all. It's, you know, a relatively depressed kind of style. (beat) Which -- is good on some levels. I mean, it lets me make a connection with -- depressed people. Which is, by extension, pretty nearly everybody - if you wait long enough. (when she doesn't respond...) Which, I'm sorry I didn't make that connection with you. Because even with we've got to stand in this line, I'm not depressed now. Matter of fact I've got this great euphoric feeling. Practically woke up with it. Been coming and going all morning - mostly coming. Especially since I met you. But even before that - right after I woke up, I kind of knew. (an odd kind of elation builds in him) I never felt anything like this feeling in my whole life. Always I have these wishy-washy feelings - wouldn't bet on any of them - which is why, even when I am, like basically happy I'm still kind of depressed. It's, like I say, my personal style. Because the Probability-Distribution of my Life-Factors is not vectored for happiness, you know what I mean? I mean, for me, nothing up to now would potentiate any long-term increment of happiness. But standing here, in this line, right next to you - that's already a beginning of --(triumph)-- an increment of happiness, you know what I mean?

#10 (3:05 min.)

Adapted from The Mutilators © 2000 Kevin O'Morrison

(AthenS, 415 B.C., The Day BeforE Embarkation for The Invasion of Syracuse. ANDOCIDES, 24, aristocrat, and veteran of The Slaughter of Melos [something like our own My Lai,in Vietnam] - has come to the Athenian Assembly to ask them tp atone for the Slaughter before sending troops to loot the Syracusan Treasury. As we meet him he is being shouted down by the Members of The Assembly)

ANDOCIDES: GENTLEMEN, LET ME SPEAK! (he appeals to the Presiding Officer) POLYSTRATUS, I HAVE COMPLIED WITH ALL POINTS OF THE LAW IN PREPARING THIS PRESENTMENT. THE LAW NOW REQUIRES THIS ASSEMBLY TO LET ME PRESENT IT! (he obtains quiet) Members of the Assembly, tomorrow we embark for Syracuse. But what good is the stoutest ship, if the hands on the oars are enfeebled by doubt? Gentlemen, since The Slaughter of Melos there has come among your sons a doubt for which we've found no name - but we have heard it whisper to us often since Melos. I heard it first when - on your orders - I was pulling my spear from the throat of a conquered and disarmed Melian youth. As his blood choked him, his eyes caught mine in fatal disbelief that an Athenian soldier could be his executioner. So I ask each of you now, "Do you reckon the killing of innocents a Victory?" (he looks questioningly from eye to eye of the front ranks) We soldiers have been very patient with you, our elders: not for a few moments only - but for a lifetime. When you are 24, 17 years of war are a lifetime. (beat) Gentlemen, we have destroyed the Melians because they wished to remain neutral in our war with Sparta. If we now loot the treasury of Syracuse to fill our own - by what subtle distinction will our friends recognize us from our enemies? The cynics among us say they will recognize us by our power, but, Gentlemen, our forebears once sailed as pridefully from Troy as we are about to sail for Syracuse. They, too, scorned the Sacrilege of pride. The gods cast them upon alien rocks. Once more, the cynic will say that the gods are a few hundred years older and wiser, now - more prone to see that "guilt" and "sacrilege" are a matter of your point of view; that neither our pretensions nor our conduct has been in any way contrary to what men believe of the gods: for by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can. And so do we. And because we were firm at Melos, others are less likely to defy us - thereby saving Athenian lives. I submit to you that that is the argument of blind men. Men who cannot see that our friends have read The Slaughter as a sign of arrogant desperation. Until The Slaughter, every nation thought us invincible: the serenely strong who could tolerate freedom in others. Our friends now see us as merely stronger than themselves - and dangerously so. They fear that strength which once they trusted. You have purchased a barren scrap of land at the price of our invincibility! There are those among you who say that the weaker must always yield to the stronger. To them I say, you should have been at Marathon. Or Thermopolae. Or Salamis! The Persians, outnumbering us 20 to 1, could have sent you to insist to our grandfathers that the weak must yield to the strong. Then our grandfathers would not have been fools enough, impractical enough to fight - and win - a totally impractical Victory! Gentlemen! If Athens once had a soul which lighted the world - let us say so. And proudly. If Athens has now pawned her soul to buy chains with which to secure her possessions - let us say that, too. If not proudly, at least boldly. It will not do - to bestride the world - nervously.

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