Mother Fucker
(Noah Pierson)


A Dream Play
By No One

© Timothy R. Pickerill- All rights reserved

Cast:

Noah Pierson
Four Clowns

 

Props and Costumes:

Noah is dressed in a suit. The Clowns (two men and two women) all wear individualized costumes and each with their own accoutrements. They carry out all the operations and actions as a group. They have as props a tuning case containing sound effects units, a strobe light, a siren, a music box, tarp, plastic bats, large flash lights, toilette plunger, new years party favors, noose, blindfold, mattress, gas masks, plague doctors masks, walking stick, donkeys tail, Polaroid camera, ax, soundless whistles, wedding dress, telescope, firecrackers, flour sifter, fishing pole, boom boxes, nine numbered placards, the days news paper, a fresh salmon, flowers, and mirrored glasses; a pick nick basket, with wine, food, all empty or rotten, red and white checkered cloth, and a birdcage with a dead canary in it; a birthday cake and party favors, tall cone hat, sparkle dust, and sparklers; a dinner table, chairs, place setting and red jelly dinner; a living room with a television, rug, easy chair and couch.Staging: The space is open and exposed, no chairs, no concern for tidiness. A mnemonic system with transport circuit is attached to the space. Props lay around and amidst the various dioramas: a living room, a dinner place, a flop (mattress). Video projectors cover the walls, scattered trash, dirty clothing, newspapers, a club, survival gear, gas masks, canned food, liquor, empties, candles, four flashlights, and a bucket of water. There is a video follow spot, a chemical smoke machine to fill the space.


Pre-show:

The four clowns are hiding in the shadows. Television sets hang at stage left and right and receive a feed by video cameras and a mixer with pre-recorded tapes and loops as well as current TV broadcast. The living room diorama has a TV running with something tuned in and playing loudly for the audience. Video projections cover the space in TV static (snow).


Video: Shadows emerging out of the static.


Action: Noah walks in with the day’s newspaper in hand.


Noah:
Excuse me! (Shouting over the audience and TV.) Excuse me! Is this the survivalist seminar?


Action: The Clowns run up from behind Noah with their bats and capture him with the tarp, wrapping him up and beating him up with their bats. They then light firecracker’s run about busily surveying the space and looking over Noah. One clown raises another’s hand in triumph then unwrap him and tie him to a pillar. A clown pulls out a whistle and blows it but it makes no sound. Another clown walks through the crowd with the first placard.


1


Video: TV channel surfing buzzing by quickly and pulsed with lots of static.


Clowns: A Clown turns on the electronics of the tuning case and begins to tune the space. The others sit at the couch and watch TV, a tape of Bush talking. Now and then one gets up and beats on Noah. Whenever they plot among themselves they only make squawking sounds, giggling and laughter.


Video: Faces laughing, contorted, surreal and hallucinatory.


Action: The Clowns cut Noah down, and throw water on his face to rouse him; then they open Champaign and have a drink with the audience. Eventually Noah passes out and again the Clowns must intercede with their tuning case to wake him up, while tossing him in the air singing.
“For he’s a jolly good fellow…”
Noah then crawls to the corner scurrying around the room like a bug as the Clowns continue to tune the space and sing.


Sound: All sounds sucked out with a whoosh then bring in laughter.


Action: A Clown walks around the second numbered placard.


2


Action: A backwards segment begins with the Clowns backwards record player. They put a blindfold on Noah and pin a tail on him then proceed to spin him and push him around the space, and throwing candies into the air. Music on the record player is backwards, everyone dances and runs around backwards and speaks backwards. By the end of this Noah is standing on his face, with the assistance of a Clown holding one foot up in the air and a fishing pole in the other. This Clown then poses for a Polaroid taken by one of the other Clowns.


Video: Street scenes, masses of people, etc.


Action: The lights flicker and dim as the Clowns prompt the audience to get up, then lead them backstage with their flash lights and then back to the seating area.
“Sit Down”


Action: As this finishes the Clowns fill the space with smoke from the chemical fogger. Within the smoke screen the Clowns set Noah at the dinner table and force him to begin reading the News. They obscure the audience’s view of Noah with their backs facing the audience and their pants falling down showing their asses as the fog clears.


Female Clown: Sitting at the couch screams;
Where are you?


Clowns:
He’s over here.
No he’s not.
Then who is this?
Imposter. (Knock him over)
How do we find him?
A séance.
Of course.
We need a corpse.
Throw that body on the table it’s dead.


Noah:
No I’m not.


Action: A Clown walks around with the third numbered placard.


3


Clowns: The Clowns carry out a séance and one of the female Clowns is turned into Maaaaaaaaa, while the other two poke at Noah.


Noah:
Ouch


Clowns:
Sure is loud for a corpse.
Its just gas letting out.


Maaaaaaaaa: Maaaaaaaaa grabs the picnic basket and a birdcage, which has a dead canary in it. She sets both down and lays out the picnic which includes (trash) a red and white checkered cloth, an empty bottle, dry heals of bread, empty yogurt containers, etc. She fusses with the items and props up the canary. She fidgets, waits and fusses about talking to herself about wounds, scabs, picking at scabs, cutting away dead wood, removing limbs, etc. repeating herself and obsessing then lies down for a bit, then gets up and screams at the others to shut up.


Clowns: The Clowns continue to poke at Noah talking incoherently to them selves while he yelps.


Maaaaaaaaa: She screams at the other Clowns.
Shut up.
Get away from him.
She chases them away and drags Noah off the table and over to the picnic.


Maaaaaaaaa: Looks at the audience and screams at them.
What are you looking at?


Maaaaaaaaa:
Duck and cover!
Mother Fuckers!
Duck and cover!


Action: Maaaaaaaaa runs around forcing people down, and the lighting goes down considerably accompanied by sirens and flashes. A Clown draws a shadow around him by sifting flour over him and around him.


Clown: A Clown is pacing in the background (mocking her) holding flowers, plucking their petals one by one.
She loves me.
She loves me not…


Maaaaaaaaa:
You’re Fucking Dead!
Do you here me?
You’re already dead!
Your time is up Mother Fucker!


Video: Two opposite walls are flashing with a busy city crowd and the other two walls have projections of dark shadows.


Sound: Distorted cut-up soap operas, commercials, and propaganda.


Maaaaaaaaa: Cursing everyone there.
Three fingers have I
To wield the sword
To severe the head
To clear the field
Three fingers have I
To wield the knife
To end the dream
To uncover the eye
Three fingers have I
To wield the ax
To fell the tree
To recover the life


Video: A slowed down crowd, playground with children laughing, at end fade in static, and then go out.


Maaaaaaaaa: After much cursing and fuming she begins the rest of the text. Noah covers his ears and begins to shake and twitch.
I know what you are thinking
I see your sneers
But I know better the stink that’s in you
That you try to cover with your Masquerades
The pustules between your legs
Held tight
(Laughing)
Where I stand I see the reek
run down your thighs
And when your towers of gold crumble
and heavens fall,
How will you shriek?
When famine runs your family through
and flies feast on bosom and bone,
What think you then of one as me?
Will you fight?
Will you take flight?
When tongues grow fat and cracked
How will they wag?
(Laughing and spitting out curses)


Maaaaaaaaa: Speak slowly, precisely, and pantomime.
(Right hand over eyes)
(Silence, finger over lips)
I might remain
Spinning
Opening outwardly
In waves unfolding
Delight
I remain not
Turning away
I am not for you
To hold
No… no…
But to chase or be chased
(She wanders off spitting out curses)
I am the mother returning to take back the Rotten earth slobbering down
Bloodied thighs and shit crack
Sipping poison from virgin lips
You’ve idolized death
And called it life
You’ve run aground
Time to kill the captain
I am the Assassin
Come for your ticket
Soon we depart (Laughing)


Action: A Clown walks the fourth numbered placard through the space.


4


Video: Shadowy faces that are barely visible emerge slowly as Maaaaaaaaa curses and spits. As she begins her dance a sped up street scene pulses in.


Noah: Begins falling then stands again, repeat.


Clowns: Maaaaaaaaa begins the ring dance around Noah, 3 x counter-clockwise.


Ring around the rosie
Pockets full of puss
Ashes
Ashes
We all fall down


Video: Static cut with bursts and flashes.


Action: Flash the strobes.


Maaaaaaaaa: Screams then runs around the stage.
Amok!


Video: Static cut with quick bursts of random amok, news, and war, quick shots and interjections of laughing children.


Noah: He is thrown about by the text and tries to escape but they push him about then laugh at him while he crawls to the mattress.


Clowns: Broken into three parts and said at once.


(Part 1)
Thrown apart
Against the wall
Blind folded
Singed
Burnt
A coup
A riot
An uprising
A virus
Freedom fighter
Terrorist
Revolutionary
Traitor
Freeman
Patriot
Reactionary
Slave
Intervention
Censored
Programmed
Gunshot
Tear gas
Roadblock
Car crash
Drive by
Forced down
Restrained
Censored
Retrained
Strategic bombers
Smart bombs
Lasers
Microwave guns
Anti personnel mines
Collateral damage
‘Dead or alive’
‘Dead or alive’
Guns pulled
Finger on the trigger
On the button
Razor wire
Watchtower
Compound
Cage
Ethnic cleansing
Electric fence
Cyanide gas
Mass grave
Killing field
Machete


(Part 2)
Ovens
Concentration camp
Trap door
Hangman’s noose
Camera in the corner
Watching you watching me
Relocation
Refuge
Crying baby
Crying man
Dead mother
Falling building
Fallout shelter
Firestorm
Firebomb
Sirens
An air raid
Duck and cover
No more shelter
Buzz bomb
Suicide bomber
Martyr
Madman
Angry mob
And mad dog
Lynching
Guillotine
Table and syringe
Dead end
Suicide
Empty shell
An atom bomb
Electro magnetic blast liquidating souls
Foaming at the mouth
Warheads
Glistening teeth
Red flashing lights
Open mouths
Screaming
Flash burn
Blisters
Radiation Poisoning
Silhouettes
Empty
Lost

(Part 3)
A running crowd
Falling down
Panic
Stampede
Alarms
Cops with whistles
Breach the barrier
Molotov
Boiling over
Raised heartbeat
Sweaty palms
Red in the face
Eyes bugged out
A paddy wagon
Raised club
Barking dogs
Shadows
Stitches
Trash cans overturned
Cars set aflame
Over run
Pepper spray
Rubber bullets
Bloodied face
Torn clothing
Blood being washed down the gutter
White silhouette on the pavement
Fear
Power
Powerless
‘Your either with us or you are against us’
The sky is falling
Only a shadow left
Aids
Anthrax
Smallpox
Plague
Biochemical
Nuclear arsenal
Strategic reserve
Total war


(All)
‘Even the birds were on fire’


Video: TV channel surfing and images of earth, masses of people walking, etc on the walls.


Clowns: Sets off all the wind up alarm clocks around him, laughing.


Noah: Crawls around turning off the alarm clocks.


Maaaaaaaaa: She runs to the audience forcing them to duck and cover. The other Clowns run around extremely agitated.
Duck and cover!
Game over!


Video: Bubbling Tar.


Noah: Lays slumped while the video has blacked out, then the video follow spot comes up.


Clowns: Sneak away.


Video: From black out a succession of current news reels sped up and backwards is pulsed in briefly.


Maaaaaaaaa: She throws bread at the Clowns.
You are all dead
Do you here me?
You’re already dead!
This is not life!
This is not life!


Video: Still of body, twitching frame, gray fog and clouds.


Clowns: Run around nervously preparing something.


Maaaaaaaaa: Dances around Noah’s body, 3x counter clockwise. She also appears dancing on the video.
Ring around the rosie
Pockets full of puss
Ashes
Ashes
We all fall down


Maaaaaaaaa: Whispering into Noah’s ear.
NoOne
NoOne
You are a walking corpse
Shit and rotting blood of maggots
Piled high
Caricature of life


Video: Falling buildings, people with vacant stares, then fade to black.


Maaaaaaaaa:
My lips
Brake
All is silent
I has wandered
No thing
No where
No shelter
No sky
No mountain
No valley
No skin
No flesh


Video: Desolation, gray, rubble, etc., then come in with an old woman in loop, fading with static to black out.


Sound: Lightning and subsonic rumble comes in and out for some time.


Maaaaaaaaa: Screams into Noah’s ear.
Dead!
Dead!
Dead!
You’re already Fucking Dead!
(She then nocks him over.)
Time is up! Mother Fucker!
(She is crying)


Action: A Clown walks the fifth numbered placard.


5


Clowns: Dance around Noah and Maaaaaaaaa 3 x counter clockwise.
Ring around the rosie
Pockets full of puss
Ashes
Ashes
We all fall down


Maaaaaaaaa: (She perches on top of him.)
Time has ended
With an open mouth and an open ass
Screaming into the void
As my sex crawls beneath the night
My sex…
Enveloped in the boiling of the sky
My sex…
Tuberous snouts probing
A cankered earth
Extracting poisons
Time honored
Tongues
Canceling the void
Silence scattered
Between cries


Maaaaaaaaa:
The radioactivity of my sex
Emits nightly
Half-life
All death
I cannot help
But to… (Wrenching body, puceing)


Clown: Prompts the audience to gag loudly.


Sound: Space tearing apart amidst the subsonic rumble.


Maaaaaaaaa:
Everything is upside down
Somewhere between
The heart
And the mind
Something went wrong
(Maaaaaaaaa collapses laughing.)


Video: Shadows going by emerge out of the black.


Sound: Add in sweet haunting voices of children.


Maaaaaaaaa: (Slowly and methodically.)
So
Forget
Forget
Everything
Forget
Everything that
Has ever been written
Or said
Forget all that you have been taught
Forget it
Forget
Everything that
Has ever been done
Forget
Everything
Forget
Everything
Your
Time is up!
Fucker!
Born Dead
You must choose to live


Action: A Clown walks the sixth placard around.


6


Action: The Clowns dress up with Milanese Doctors Plague Masks, and places a noose around Noah’s neck. Then lead Noah around by the noose showing him to the audience. They nock Noah over and all laugh boisterously. Then they carry him over and set him at the dinner table.


Video: His life flashes before his eyes. The strobing from outside fades into a 1950’s family eating dinner and Maaaaaaaaa is served up to him with the serving’s coming from between her legs ( red jelly slabs)


Action: The Clowns spin Noah around until he falls and everyone dances around him poking fun at him. Noah lies down in the center and passes out of exhaustion. The Clowns strip Noah naked. They put a cone hat on the Noah’s head and spin him around while encouraging the audience to laugh, and heckle him.


Action: Everything else disappears except the subsonic rumble and a clown begins the cut-up from newspaper of that day. Maaaaaaaaa walks over and stops the Clown, and then everything slows down.


Video: Speed of Light video on the video follow spot.


Video: Noah is tuned on the walls with one added after the other then on the video follow spots.


Action: As Noah is slumped in a heap on the ground, a Clown draws yet another shadow around Noah. Maaaaaaaaa dressed in a wedding dress helps Noah stand, and then kisses him sweetly.


Video: Game show contestants clapping and laughing.


Clowns: Prompt the audience to applaud, and then bring in a live Salmon to Noah.


Clowns: A Clown again begins tuning the TV ( different news talking heads. Noah gets up and runs around ranting bizarrely and ecstatically, in glossalia holding the salmon.


Video: Shadows with the sound of whispering voices.


Video: Shadows emerging out of the video static on the walls.


Noah: Thrown around naked by the Clowns running around with boom boxes (scratches, repatching) trying to revive him.


Action: A Clown walks the seventh placard around.


7


Noah:
I want to live.


Clown:
He thinks he’s alive. (Laughter)
You haven’t even begun to live.


Clown:
That’s all we have here,
Not to keep here
It’s a lesson, a doorway.
You can’t stay. It’s not allowed.


Noah Pierson:
Stop!


Sound: Tape-recorded Laughter.


Action: A Clown walks the eighth placard around.


8


Maaaaaaaaa:
These lips are not for you to kiss?


Clowns:
The Salmon returns to its source giving up its body to project itself in time.


Action: A game show host appears with the game show grand prize, a Salmon Of Knowledge and the Clowns standing in a row to play, with Noah lieing beside them.


Video: Game show footage.


Clown:
What fish, at maturity, returns to its birthplace to spawn?


Noah:
The Salmon.


Clown:
That’s right. The Salmon returns to its source giving up its body to project itself in time.


Action: A Clown walks the ninth placard around.


9


Action: The Clowns bring in a birthday party forming on the platform. While this happens a female Clown begins reciting everything that she wants.


Video: Children clapping and laughing.


Action: A Clown with the salmon holds it up to him and smiles.


Noah:
Where am I?


Clown:
I, has gone


Noah:
Mirages are more real and solid
But I do not believe them
Where am I?


Bride:
I am here.


Noah:
Where have I gone?


Bride:
I am not the one
That did the leaving.


Sound: Laughter and whispering.

Noah: He collapses at her feat.


Action: The audience is prompted to applaud as champagne is opened and passed around with new years celebration streamers etc with, flowers, and a kiss from all for Noah who is awarded the fool’s baton, a toilette plunger. The Clowns then sing,
For he’s a jolly good fellow…