Three Dead White People Sitting Around Talking (8.10.14)

Prompt: Recall (in detail) or re-read one of the worst plays you've ever seen. Write another play inspired by that play.

This one's for you, Drama Lit II. I never saw this play, but I thoroughly hated every minute of reading it.

Side note, I fully admit and acknowledge I started work on this play before 31/31 but made edits and expanded it some, and it's also 4 AM so I need sleep. Gimme a break.

#10: THREE DEAD WHITE PEOPLE SITTING AROUND TALKING

MAN 1: (to Man 2) Why did you come to Copenhagen?

WOMAN: Our children are dead.

MAN 2: No one understands my visit to Copenhagen.

WOMAN: We should have been watching them.

MAN 1: Are we in Hell?

MAN 2: It depends. What is hell?

MAN 1: Other people.

MAN 2: Original.

WOMAN: Hell is not being with our dead children. Why aren’t we with our dead children?

MAN 1: Hell is rush hour traffic into New York City. Or standing on your feet for too long with no furniture to sit down on.

MAN 2: Hell is on earth.

WOMAN: They drowned in the sea. And we will never see them again. They’re dead.

MAN 1: Hell is the inability to love.

MAN 2: Hell is being in love.

MAN 1: Hell is the steel trap that it is the human mind.

WOMAN: They were all good, the people who came to Copenhagen. It’s a shame our children had to die.

MAN 2: Hell is living in the past.

MAN 1: Hell is the present.

MAN 2: Hell is no windows.

MAN 1: Hell is no doors.

MAN 2: Hell is just four blank walls.

MAN 1: Like this one?

MAN 2: Like this one.

WOMAN: If only. 

MAN 1: Hell is brimstone.

MAN 2: Hell is cold.

MAN 1: Hell is room temperature. Or slightly off room temperature.

WOMAN: If only.

MAN 2: What is room temperature?

MAN 1: I don’t know I suppose it varies from room-to-room.

MAN 2: So it’s subjective? Then why is it such a universal term?

MAN 1: Because every room has a temperature, the temperature simply varies. For instance, room temperature in an igloo is much different than a room temperature in a house in the middle of Siberia.

MAN 2: Is this really what happens when we die?

MAN 1: Hmm?

MAN 2: What if we’re just all in a coma and we’re just...our minds are just...it’s like a…joined hallucination?

MAN 1: No I think we’re dead.

WOMAN: Like our children.

MAN 1: I don’t know. I guess I just...pictured Hell differently.

MAN 2: How so?

MAN 1: I pictured brimstone. Flames. A red minotaur with a pitchfork. And all the bad dictators--Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler--

MAN 2: I think Hitler was misunderstood.

MAN 1: Know your audience.

MAN 2: He was troubled--he was just trying to...to…

MAN 1: To what? Exterminate an entire portion of the human race?

MAN 2: Well--

MAN 1: Need I remind you we’re Jews?

MAN 2: I once read Hitler quite enjoyed skiing.

MAN 1: I like skiing, but not with Hitler.

WOMAN: I like skiing. But not our children. They’re dead. (to Man 2) You know. I never really liked you.

MAN 2: Why is that?

WOMAN: Because. My children are dead!!!!!!!

MAN 1: (to Woman) I mean. We did agree--he was always going to be a great physicist. 

MAN 2: Why are you talking to me as if I’m not here!

MAN 1: Because we’re in Hell! Just because we’re all trapped together doesn’t mean every conversation MUST involve you! (under his breath) Nazi.

MAN 2: Hey. What. I wish you had come skiing in Germany.

MAN 1: You know exactly why we couldn’t come skiing. In Germany. 

(A silence)

MAN 1: You know, the Nazis stratified theoretical physics because there were so many Jews working in that field. And why were so many of them Jews? Because theoretical physics were viewed as inferior to experimental physics, much as the Jews were looked down upon as INFERIOR to the Aryan race.

MAN 2: We were only set to meet about physics then.

WOMAN: It’s also politics...and dead children. Our children are.

MAN 2: Sometimes shit gets mixed up. Politics and scientists. I get it.

WOMAN: Hey are we like Shrodinger's Cat? Because we're alive and dead at the same time? Like being in both states of being?

MAN 1: Oh, you poor talking vagina. Shrodinger's Cat was imaginary. A theory.

WOMAN: And whose to say we aren't?

MAN 2: We're all just molecules bouncing around.

MAN 1: We're all atoms! 

WOMAN: Our children are dead atoms!

ALL: WE'RE DEAD ATOMS!

(The play starts over again. And again. And again)