Now This
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Photos by Paige Willson
Joel Sandel as the First Voice
First Voice:
Now this.
It is September. Starless night in the small town of Purple Mountain.
Hush now. No words. For all the consumers of the muted town are sleeping now.
Unplug, be still, and listen, for you alone are wide awake at this unpowered
hour of the Unisom night.
(L to R): Domonique Champion as Bud Starkist, Melanie Burke as Merit McNugget,
Alan Wales as Hefty Rogaine, Lauren Ballard as Avis Adderall, and Chris Battle-Williams
as Nerf Goodyear
The Dead:
But, how are things above? Are there still willow trees and saxophones? Pineapples
and hummingbirds? Ice skates and fields of Lupine? Silk pajamas and windchimes?
Bubble baths and pecan pie? Shooting stars and fireflies?
Lisa Wartenberg as Purelle Swiffer
Purelle Swiffer:
O, Morty, you know I don’t ever pick up the phone. Don’t you know how many
germs can fit on that receiver? A hundred billion. That’s more germs than there
are people on this planet. That’s more germs than there are stars in the Milky
Way. I know you think I can wipe them all out with one spritz of 409. But not
all of them will be gone. Some of them will survive. And the survivors will
reproduce, and reproduce, and reproduce, and in a few days, from those few
hardy survivors, there’ll be another hundred billion germs back on that receiver.
Now look around this house. How many receivers can fit into this house? Millions?
Billions? See, that’s why I can’t sleep at night. The germs. It’s impossible
to defeat them. And they’re everywhere.
Andrew Garrett as Mr. Hyper-Griper
Mr. Hyper-Griper:
Damn it! What in Lucifer’s eternal inferno is wrong with these nano-wit dog
owners? They go to the trouble of picking up their dog’s poop, and then leave
the non-biodegradable bag behind on the ground? Who do they think is going
to pick up after them? The butler? Here’s a tip for you, you feces-pieces-dropping-sphincter-heads:
take the doggie-bag home with you!
Benjamin Reed as Mort Soloflex and Sam Brown III as Trauma
Trauma:
Let’s not pretend now, Morty. I know you’ve seen my shadow. I’ve been walking
behind you for a long time now. Are you prepared?
Sam Brown III as Trauma and Benjamin Reed as Mort Soloflex
Mort Soloflex
Wait! I’ve heard that you play Monopoly. Is that true?
Alan Wales as Lunesta Richman
Lunesta Richman:
That’s right—I want you to buy up every available parcel on Jupiter…What do
mean there’s no real estate on Jupiter?…Nothing but gas, huh?….Well, what’s
in the neighborhood?…Fine. Buy up Europa….All of it!…Fine, Ganymede and Callisto,
too…Io?…Sure, fine, buy the entire thing….I don’t care what it costs. I want
every piece of solid ground in orbit around Jupiter by Friday closing. Got
it?
Benjamin Reed as Warner Fox and Kevin Lusignolo as Randy Lencrafter
Warner Fox
Tell us, Randy, how did you decide to become a film-maker?
Kevin Lusignolo as Randy Lencrafter
Randy Lenscrafter:
Well, Warner, when I was a kid, I saw Fred Astaire dance on the ceiling in
a movie called Royal Wedding, and it made a huge impression on me.
The idea of being so in love that you could dance up the walls and onto the
ceiling. That love could defy the laws of gravity! Of course, I was desperate
to know how the trick was done. This was before CGI, you understand, so the
way they did it, they built the room inside a huge revolving drum, so when
Fred dances, the room rotates around Fred, not Fred around the room. Wow.
Of course, what Fred’s doing is amazing—so amazing that you never think about
the guy who’s strapped to the drum, operating the camera, as the room spins
around on its axis. That’s the guy that really amazes me, hanging
upside-down, laying sideways, going around in circles, watching Fred dancing
without ever losing track of him. He doesn’t get dizzy or throw up or black
out. He just sticks with his man, tilting and panning, till the dance is
over. That’s the guy I’m impressed with.
Andrew Runk as Sergeant Hartz
Sergeant Hartz:
It’s all right, boy, it’s all right. You don’t have to explain
it to me. I know why you bit that kid. Chained to that post day after day;
running in circles till you’ve dug a trench in the dust; eating, sleeping,
and shitting in the same spot month after month, starved for love and affection
and companionship year after year, until nothing is left of your life but the
sound of your own barking. You needed a taste of blood, didn’t you? To know
you were alive. I understand that. Don’t worry. When we get you back to the
shelter, I’m gonna take good care of you. Gonna take all that pain away. And
your long winter of neglect will finally be over.
Joel Sandel as First Voice, Kevin Lusignolo as John Donne, and Alan Wales as
Pastor Poligrip
Pastor Poligrip:
For you, my love, I wish that I were Donne,
For then my graceless love would grace these lines
With words arrayed in heavenly designs
Desiring that your soul and mine be one;
I then would burn my verses, being done,
And penitently watch as fire consigns
My sinful words and damnable designs
To ashes till my love is all undone.
But God in Heaven knows I am not Donne,
Nor ever shall be done with loving you,
Though fire consume the ever-lasting sun
And ashes choke the earth from God’s own view.
Yet, even now, these lines I must destroy,
That give me hope, and promise lasting joy.
Richard Sabatucci as Joey Adderall, Kevin Lusignolo as Randy Lenscrafter, and
Sawyer Estes as Bobby Starkist
Bobby Starkist:
In the Mall parking lot, on the way in to buy Amy a present, I saw a rusty
nail on the pavement, and stooped to pick it up. I spent an extra two-point-five-three
seconds picking up that nail, hoping to prevent someone from blowing out
a tire, hoping to improve some stranger’s future, hoping that God would see
my deed and know my love for Him. That nail, that stoop, those hopes, those
two-point-five-three seconds, put me at the back of the line at the McSlushie
counter, at that exact spot, at that exact moment, where a bullet and my
brain intersected in space-time. So now I’m lying here with a black hole
in my gray matter.
By Scott Kaiser
University of Houston Production
Director: Sara Becker
Scenic/Projection Designer: Clint Allen
Costume Designer: Paige A. Willson
Lighting Designer: Travis Horstmann
Click here for an excerpt [pdf]
First Voice:
Now this.
It is September. Starless night in the small town of Purple Mountain.
Hush now. No words. For all the consumers of the muted town are sleeping now.
Unplug, be still, and listen—for you alone are wide awake at this unpowered
hour of the Unisom night.
Listen. It is night down Brownfield Road, where the Dasani Creek trickles
into the Aquafina River, where the Allosaurus and the Smilodon once drank deep,
where the Dasani tribe once civilized a small village, where the first euro-settlers
set up camp, where the lumber mill was built, where the garment factory stood,
and where the waste-water treatment facility now stands.
Look. It is night along Big-box Boulevard, where the Clear Cut Mall stands
like a suburban fortress moated by a vast black asphalt sea, flags waving gallantly
in the valley’s Frigidaire, rising high above white windowless
walls bursting with the paparazzied glare of store signage and security floodage.
It is night at Richman’s Auto-Mart on Lemonworth Way, where this year’s plus-sized
models line up hip-to-hip along the sidewalk, bumpers bared and headlights
high, like a kick-line of rotund Rockettes, framed by a midnight-rainbow of
buxom balloons, and splashed with Edison-daylight.
It is night on State Highway 29, heading south-south-south into town, where
bang-the-drum billboards boast of 24/7 moldy-oldies on KPUR radio 98.6, the
Cracker-Jack news team on TV-13 KPMT, the Best-Fricken-Sports-Channel-Ever
on Red Rocket Satellite Radio, cheap diesel at the Ramparts Truck Stop and
Car Wash, slots and 21 at the Dasani Creek Casino, and eighteen championship
holes at the Broad Stripes Golf Club.
It is night at the Land-of-the-Free Gun Shop & Range, where locked glass
cabinets of sidearms and loaded racks of rifles proudly wear the names that
tamed the savage west—Eastwood Revolvers, Wayne shotguns, Fonda Rifles, Costner
pistols, Hackman handguns, Ford Derringers, Cooper carbines, Stewart semi-autos,
Mitchum Muzzleloaders, Palance pump shotguns, Autry assault rifles, and all
the ammo, blammo and camo needed to regulate an uninfringed militia.
Time passes. Come closer. And listen.
It is night at the Unilever Hospital, where overworked Birth hit the in-vitro-trifecta,
bringing three fresh consumers into the world, hand-delivered one-by-one-by-one,
naked, hungry, and sleepy, through amnio-slick mortal-portals, placed in shopping
carts, and left to rest quietly, lit by the Dura-flame of
their mother’s flushed face.
It is night in a rock-a-bye corner of the Walbox parking lot, where RVers
freely spend the do-not-pass-go night—resting their weary bones in save-a-bundle
trundle beds aboard The GuzzleGreen, The FossilFeast, The LaneWeaver, The ReaperRacer,
The GrandeFinale, and The DieBroker.
It is night at the Purple Mountain Eucerin Church, on the corner of Proctor
and Gamble Streets, where the title of Pastor Poligrips’s upcoming sermon—“Don’t
Discount your Unborn Child”—splashes the root-ruptured sidewalk with black
Lucite letters lit from within.
It is night at the Bright Stars Strip Club, where Trix-elated Trauma knocked
back shots with Mort Soloflex, who drank, in one happy hour, four-fifths of
a fifth of scotch before hurtling himself home at hypersonic speed along Highway
29, sliding out of control at the sharp left turn by Ginsu Drive, executing
an Olympic triple-axel down the embankment, and smashing to an unscheduled
stop courtesy of an old stone wall buried beneath a BlackBerry patch.
Come still closer now. Quietly. And look.
For only you can see the wired-tired citizens of Purple Mountain drowsing
in their lay-away bedrooms ’round the town—on View-lust Lane, where late shows
flicker like unwatched plasma campfires; on Consumption Street, where smartphones
snooze in kitchen-counter cribs, sucking electro-sustenance from the teat of
the grid; on Sprawl Street, where dentures pillows zippers undies nails have
been clipped, stripped, zipped, flipped, and dipped; on Encroachment Road,
where romance novels lie, well-thumbed, in lonely laps, the lights still blazing;
and on Have-more Street, where Beamers and Benzes, tucked nighty-night in triple-A
garages, Beautyrest;
Listen. For only your ears can hear the hopes, wishes, prayers, fears of the
recharging residents of Purple Mountain, lying quietly in the beds they made
for themselves, as the spendthrift night consumes the unused
minutes of their lives.
From where you are, you can hear their dreams.
Rosie Ward as Lilly Eli, Andrew Runk as the Duke of Darvon, Alan Wales as the
Earl of Aricept, and Sam Brown as the Prince of Paxil
Lilly Eli:
Dancing like Cinderella at the royal ball, in a prescription-pad paper-gown,
conjured by my Pharma-Godmother, spinning, waltzing, flying, with—The Earl
of Aricept! The Duke of Darvon! The Prince of Paxil! And then, one after
the other, the Count of Crestor, the Viscount of Vicodin, The Baron of Boniva,
the Marquis de Motrin, Lord Lexapro of Lyrica, The Emir of Ritalin, The Grand
Duke of Zithromax, Sir Prozac of Prilosec, the Shah of Questran, and the
Sultan of Januvia!
Kevin Lusignolo as Amerigo Vespucci and Jenna Simmons as Activia Green
Activia Green:
That’s a great question, Triscuit. If Columbus discovered America in 1492,
why don’t we live in the United States of Columbus? Anybody know the answer?
Anybody? How did Amerigo Vespucii’s name end up on the map of the new world,
rather than Columbus?
Kevin Lusignolo as Amerigo Vespucci
Amerigo Vespucci:
Ha! That’s easy! Better connections! Better marketing! Better Public Relations!
Lauren Ballard as Red Shoes, Melanie Burke as Store Mirror, and Kimberley Hicks
as Amana McNugget
Store Mirror:
You actually think red jump-me-hump-me pumps are the answer? A man would have
to be desperate and blind to hook up with you! Look at those jowls. No way
you can cover that up with mineral make-up. And that belly! That Jell-O ain’t
ever comin’ off. And those hips! You’d barely fit through the Panama Canal.
Face it, hon, it’s all over before the fat lady even hits the stage!
Melanie Burke as Store Mirror, Kimberley Hicks as Amana McNugget, and Lauren
Ballard as Red Shoes.
Red Shoes:
No, Amana! She’s wrong! Don’t listen to her! She distorts everything she sees. Don’t
trust her. She’s an empty frame, a glass parrot, a gawking mockingbird! From down here,
I can see what you really are. You are a beautiful, sexy, intelligent woman! Look at you!
What red-blooded American man wouldn’t want you? With me on your feet you look like
a thirties movie-star! Or a singer for one of the big bands!
Kimberley Hicks as Amana McNugget, Sawyer Estes as Benny Goodman, with Miguel
Garcia, Domonique Champion, and Chris Battle-Williams as Amana’s Dancers
Benny Goodman:
Thank you. Thank you. We’re gonna start things off with an old favorite, sung
by the lovely Miss Amana McNugget.
Kimberley Hicks as Amana McNugget, Sawyer Estes as Benny Goodman, with Miguel
Garcia, Domonique Champion, and Chris Battle-Williams as Amana’s Dancers
Amana McNugget: (Singing)
I never believed
That love at first sight
Was a thing that might happen to me
To just say hello
And suddenly know
Was something that I thought I’d never see.
So who would believe
That love at first sight
Would come at me right out of the blue
One how-do-you-do
I suddenly knew
The thing I never saw was you.
Kimberley Hicks as Pharma-Godmother, Rosie Ward as Lilly Eli, and Sam Brown
III as The Prince of Paxil
Pharma-Godmother:
Lilly, wake up!—The Prince of Paxil is still here. He’s going to propose!
Sam Brown III as The Prince of Paxil and Rosie Ward as Lilly Eli
The Prince of Paxil:
Come with me, Lilly! We shall be wedded in my castle in the Zoloft Mountains,
and you shall become Princess Lilly of Paxil, and all of Cymbalta will rejoice,
and we shall live happily-ever-henceforth!
Joel Sandel as First Voice and Melanie Burke as 911 Operator
First Voice:
At 4:32 in the afternoon, Joey Adderall, sitting in the food court, on the upper level of the
south-end of the Clear Cut Mall, sipping the spit sip from the bendy straw of his Super-
Brain-Freeze, watching tweeners shopping, MILFs pushing babies, janitors wiping tables,
flips open his cell, and dials 911.
Joel Sandel as First Voice and Chris Battle-Williams as a Citizen
First Voice:
And we hear the stupefying, time-tasering sound—bouncing off the tower on Verizon
Hill—of gunshots pop-pop-pop-popping like punctured balloons, echoing off
steel tile glass block stone into the tiny pin-prick receiver of the germ-permeated
cell left behind on an anonymous table at the food court.
