Comp 101

SETTING: The words “EdgePlay will be remembered for its virtuosic display of errors.” are projected on a white screen high upstage center.

AT RISE: ARTSCHOOL STUDENTS enter, carrying backpacks, binders, dance bags, and other artschool paraphernalia, and sit down against the upstage wall, arranging their things as if for the beginning of a class. PROFESSOR enters stage left carrying a tall stool and similar professorial paraphernalia and walks to place the stool stage center, and sits on it facing the STUDENTS upstage, then takes out a clipboard or notepad and a pen as if preparing to take notes. Throughout all the performances in this scene, the PROFESSOR continues to take notes studiously and impassively, always facing directly upstage regardless of where on stage the performances are actually taking place.

PROFESSOR
So, I ended our last class by giving you all your very first assignment here at the extremely prestigious and selective Seattle Institute of the Arts, where you’ll spend the next four years going into nothing worse than debt in order to pay a tuition only slightly higher than that of Princeton or Harvard, while experiencing the security of knowing that, upon graduation, you will have earned an income potential comparable to that of an entry-level janitor. Let’s see what you came up with.

(FEMALE FIRST-YEAR ARTSCHOOL STUDENT rises, walks to a performance area downstage of the PROFESSOR and faces the audience. SHE is very pale, with shocking red lipstick, dressed stylishly in a gothic black dress.)

FEMALE FIRST-YEAR ARTSCHOOL STUDENT
This is, like, kind of a dance slash spoken-word performance-art type thing.

PROFESSOR
Dance Theatre.

FEMALE STUDENT
Right. Dance Theatre. This piece is entitled “Epipheny”.
(STUDENT goes into (meta)character, does “epipheny” gesture in front of face, then looks up, still in (meta)character.)
Wow. I never saw it like that before.
(drops HER performance character.)
I think this piece really expresses like really well just how everyone ought to feel about my art.

PROFESSOR
Hmmmm... Your, uh, concept demonstrates a great deal of, ah, ambition. All the same, I think you might want to consider doing your next assignment as a, um, collaborative project.

(FEMALE STUDENT resumes her seat against the back wall. Two MALE FIRST-YEAR ARTSCHOOL STUDENTS rise, walk to the same downstage performance area and face the audience. THEY are costumed as stereotypical hippies.)

MALE STUDENT 1
This piece is about the Earth.

MALE STUDENT 2
The Earth as the Goddess Gaia.

MALE STUDENT 1
The Earth as Divine Mother.

MALE STUDENT 2
The Earth in Her procreative aspect as creator of us all.

MALE STUDENT 1
This piece is called Big.

MALE STUDENT 2
Fat.

MALE STUDENT 1
Juicy.

MALE STUDENT 2
Booty!

(The two MALE STUDENTS tear off their hippie garb to reveal faggy club clothes underneath. They are joined by two FEMALE DANCERS from the wings, and go into an extremely campy yet technical dance routine to the booty-house track “Big Fat Juicy Booty”, including a “dildo-poi” doubles section.)

MALE STUDENT 1
(Dance routine has just ended.)
By the way, I just wanted to let all of you lovely girls here know that that stereotype, you know,

MALE STUDENT 2
that all male dancers are gay

MALE STUDENT 1
(HE moves, flirtatiously, closer to MALE STUDENT 2)
is absolutely

MALE STUDENT 2
(HE reciprocates, moving flirtatiously towards MALE STUDENT 1)
completely

BOTH TOGETHER
false!

(THEY abruptly move apart and begin focusing their libidinous attentions on the two FEMALE DANCERS.)

MALE STUDENT 1
Dude, I love pussy.

MALE STUDENT 2
Yeah, male dancers, see, we only act like fags.
(a beat)
So, sugar

MALE STUDENT 1
if you ever wanna

MALE STUDENT 2
you know

MALE STUDENT 1
just you and me...

(FEMALE DANCERS reject MALE DANCERS by walking abruptly off. The MALE DANCERS look at each other, shrug, then begin making out with one another. They continue making out as they return to sitting in their place along upstage wall.)

PROFESSOR
Hmmmm... technically interesting, but there was a certain, ah, frivolity that I found, um, disturbing.

(BALLET STUDENT rises carrying a notepad in one hand and a glass liquor bottle in the other. HIS/HER dress may or may not be gender-appropriate, but is otherwise that of a typical ballet student. HIS/HER physical movements are those of a ballet dancer who is highly trained but also highly intoxicated. HE/SHE is hanging HIS/HER head as if in shame.)

BALLET STUDENT
(intoxicated, and as if making excuses for not completing an assignment)
I was in technique class on Friday, it was the men’s class. I was the only one who couldn’t turn. Everyone else was doing triples and quadruples. I was only doing doubles.
(does a sloppy double pirouette)
And not very good doubles at that.
(does another double, slightly sloppier than the first)
I kept hopping my landing, or releasing in my torso and letting it wobble all over like a piece of jello.
(BALLET STUDENT continues to punctuate HIS/HER monologue with double pirouettes that get sloppier and sloppier until they become, rather than bad ballet, rather good and technically impressive release-technique Modern turns, though HE/SHE is clearly more and more frustrated by HIS/HER efforts.)
I hate myself when I can’t perform. I hate myself when I’m not perfect. I spent all day Saturday in the studio. All day and all night. Practicing those turns. I couldn’t get it. No matter how hard I tried, no matter how much I concentrated on engaging my abdominals and holding my rotation in the working leg, using my deep rotators and not my quads, and attaching the big toe of the working foot to the side of my knee on the standing leg and feeling my sits bones pointing down to the floor while thinking about my head and spine dangling from an imaginary string attached to a giant meat hook embadded into the top of my skull and about making a circle of energy with my arms as if I were hugging a huge beach ball filled with radiant white chi, and keeping my pelvis lifted by imagining a lit cigarette being held dangerously close to my perinium, keeping my standing leg straight and pressing through the arch of my foot and keeping the weight just behind my second toe, which I think is the piggy just before the one that went “wee wee wee” all the way home, keeping my weight right there on that penultimate piggy, but it was no good. I kept falling off my second turn. I thought maybe I wasn’t spotting quickly enough. I often turn better if I can spot on someone sexy, so I pinned my favorite centerfold to the wall of the studio.
(BALLET STUDENT attaches erotic centerfold photo to the PROFESSOR’s back, then continues to do turns.)
But it didn’t help. I thought maybe I was too tense, I just needed to relax, so I pulled out my faithful bottle of tonic and took a few medicinal swallows.
(BALLET STUDENT takes a swig from the liquor bottle, does a few more turns while taking more swigs.)
But that didn’t help either. I got so frustrated I smashed the bottle on the ground.
(raises bottle as if to smash it. PROFESSOR shakes head slightly and raises one hand. BALLET STUDENT seems to break character.)
Right. Of course not. Wouldn’t want to slice up our little dancer feet.
(BALLET STUDENT rolls bottle quickly but carefully along the floor to the other students, then resumes character, this time pantomiming the bottle.)
I got so frustrated, I smashed the bottle on the ground.
(pantomimes smashing the bottle)
Maybe my feet needed just a little toughening up.
(raises one foot)
Maybe some blood on my soul would give me that extra spin I needed.
(stamps foot on imaginary broken glass, face registers extreme pain, as if the glass were real)
No pain, no gain.
(stamps other foot into imaginary glass)
I sliced them down to the bone. My feet, the studio, everything covered in blood. And I turned and I turned and I turned. And I still couldn’t do a triple.
(a beat)
So then I got this idea for my next project. I’m going to be like this Christ figure: you know white robe, crown of thorns, the whole deal. And then for the climax of the piece I’ll have myself crucified on stage, sort Balanchine meets Marilyn Manson kind of stuff. Or something like that.
(BALLET STUDENT returns to his place along the back wall.)

PROFESSOR
Hmmm. Hmmmmmm.
(lights are fading to black)
Hmmmm....


END OF SCENE “COMP 101”