Doig - The Musical with No Singing, No Dancing and Very Little Music by Greg Freeman
ACT ONE
SCENE 1
There is a chair and table on which is a plastic cup, bottle of water,
notepad, pen.
DOIG sits staring into space. He is seriously depressed. SMITH stands
SMITH: What would you do if you had just three minutes to
live?...I'd know what to do. If I had three minutes. I know exactly
what I'd do.
Pause
SMITH: Are you religious?
Pause
SMITH: If you knew you only had three minutes left on this earth, I
think you'd find religion pretty damn quick. Problem is if you've
only got three minutes, which one are you going to choose? I mean
which one is it eh? Which one of all those religions are going to get
you pass the bouncer on the door. Which one's going to be the magic
ticket to paradise. Eastern, Western or one of those obscure
religions tucked away in the South Pacific. What would you do with
your last three minutes? Come on.
DOIG looks at SMITH then looks away.
SMITH: Me. I would write a list of my achievements.
SMITH hands DOIG the pad
DOIG does not move
SMITH puts it on his lap
DOIG brushes it onto the floor
SMITH: Maybe some of us feel we haven't achieved anything. That we
have nothing to write.
SMITH picks up pad, hands it back to DOIG who just lets it sit on his lap.
SMITH: But that's not true. Remember failure is an achievement.
DOIG looks at SMITH again, then looks away.
SMITH: Billions of people around the world will never be a Prime
Minister. So they can write "I failed to be Prime Minister so I
didn't fuck up the world." Or "I failed to write a novel, so
think of the trees I've saved." "I failed to pay into a pension
scheme and I've only got two minutes left, who's the winner
now!" Want a drink?
Pause
SMITH: Want a drink?
DOIG grunts.
SMITH: Am I to presume that grunt means yes? Yes. I would like a
drink.
DOIG grunts again.
SMITH: I believe we have the makings of a conversation. Albeit on a
very
basic level. But communication none the less.
SMITH goes to the table, pours out a plastic cup of water and goes
back with it to DOIG
DOIG limply puts his hand out to take it.
SMITH drinks the water and hands the empty cup to DOIG.
SMITH: How does that make you feel? Is the simple grunt adequate.. or
do you now need words.
DOIG, for the first time, tenses.
SMITH: Go on crush the cup. Express how you really feel. You want to
squeeze the life out of it, don't you? Go on squeeze it..
DOIG suddenly becomes limp again and drops the cup.
SMITH: That's it, squeeze the life out of your own body, relax.
DOIG picks up an open newspaper, leans back and puts it over his
face.
SMITH: Good. Now you're in a dark place, focus your mind. What's
important? Come on. Think I'd be shocked? You can't shock me.
I've heard it all. You know what some people say? Three minutes
left on the earth, and they'd choose a quick fuck and a burger.
Yes, a sad reflection of our instant gratification society. It's
usually the men and they don't really mean it. Faced with just ..
SMITH looks at his watch.
SMITH: two minutes thirty-nine, two minutes thirty-eight. Two minutes
thirty seven. Faced with slipping time. Two minutes thirty-five. They'd
probably like the idea of the distraction. Two minutes thirty-three.
(conspiratorial) It's something bad isn't it. You'd do something very bad.
You know there are some people who secretly ... if given a chance ... would
take someone with them. Is that what you want to do? Kill someone?
DOIG throws off the paper
DOIG: Piss off
SMITH: Good. Two words.
DOIG: Just piss off
SMITH: Three words. (beat) Come on, keep going.
DOIG: (calls) Daisy
No reply
DOIG: (calls) Daisy
No reply
DOIG: (calls) Daisy
SMITH: There's no point calling your sister. She can't answer.
I've tied her up with tape.
Pause
DOIG: Liar
SMITH: Why would I lie?
DOIG gets up and has hardly moved towards the door when SMITH takes
the opportunity to slip into DOIG's chair.
SMITH waits for some reaction from DOIG. DOIG gives a shrug of acceptance.
SMITH: I'm in your chair
DOIG grunts
SMITH: How does that make you feel?
DOIG shrugs
SMITH: Do you feel tricked? Cheated? Out manoeuvred?
DOIG shrugs
SMITH: You must be feeling angry, but you're not showing it, it's
all being swallowed. You're standing there seething with anger.
Rage boiling away, ready to explode.
DOIG impassively lies down on the floor
SMITH: That's it. Lie down. Put your ear to the groundlisten to
the rhythm of the earth, the pulse of nature, that's what really
matters the throb of the turning planet, can you hear the cycle of life.
Annoyed DOIG sits up
SMITH: That's it sit up.
Annoyed DOIG lies down again
SMITH: Now lie down again. Listen to the earth spinning through the
universe.
DOIG sits up.
SMITH: That's it up again, reconnect with the world around.
DOIG lies down
SMITH: Now down again
DOIG sits up
SMITH: Up
DOIG lies down
SMITH: Down.Up..Down.Very good sits up are very good for
you. Exercise stimulates the formation of new brain cells.
Rattled DOIG stands up. SMITH offers the chair.
SMITH: Now sit down.
DOIG looks at the chair and at SMITH weighing up what to do.
SMITH: Sit.
Pause
SMITH: This is all about control Doig and you are losing.
DOIG: (explodes) What do you want ?!
SMITH: Finally. Curiosity has broken out. Welcome back to the land
of the living.
DOIG: Who the fuck are you?
SMITH: Two questions. We're cooking on gas, it's like breathing
Doig. Curiosity is our life force, it's what gets out of bed when we hear a noise, it's
the main ingredient of gossip, it's why we commit adultery. Curiosity burns our fingers
and kills cats but it also gives us change. Do you want to remain this miserable sod who looks
out of the window all day or do you want to change?
DOIG: Bollocks.
SMITH: Now you're using two syllable words, you've already changed.
DOIG: (shouts) DAISY
SMITH: You're walking about.
DOIG: (shouts) DAISY!
SMITH: We have movement.
DOIG: (shouts) DAISY!
SMITH: You may actually have to leave the room.
DOIG: Where is she?
SMITH indicates the door
DOIG goes to move to the door, but instead moves to sit down.
SMITH sits in the chair first.
Pause
DOIG weighs up his options. DOIG sits down on top of SMITH
DOIG: Now what are you going to do?
SMITH: Nothing. Though I might unzip my flies.
DOIG jumps up.
SMITH: You may not like me, you probably hate me, but one thing I do
Doig, is I get results.
DOIG: What are you trying to prove?
SMITH: I am a prick of light, trying to invade your darkness.
DOIG: Oh please.
SMITH: I want to help you.
DOIG: I do not need help. I do not want help. I did not ask for help.
SMITH: Ten seconds left, how do you want to be remembered?
DOIG: I don't want to be remembered. I want to be swallowed up and forgotten.
SMITH: But that's not going to happen. Is it?
Pause
SMITH: You will be remembered Doig, but for the wrong things. But you
can
change that. You can turn it around. You can re-invent yourself.
DOIG: How?
SMITH: Asking 'how' is the first step to re-invention. See this tin can.
SMITH produces a tin can and places it down on the floor.
SMITH: Let's say this is you.
SMITH stamps on the can.
SMITH: Now that's how you feel at this very moment. Crushed.
DOIG goes to slump into the chair, but SMITH pushes it away.
SMITH: That can's life is not finished. It could be reborn. It could
be recycled couldn't it?
SMITH points at crushed can
SMITH: Does that crushed metal want to remain crushed metal or does
it have aspirations. Aspirations of being recycled into a car part.
Into a car part for a Ferrari. That tin could have a better life, a
more fulfilled life driving across the alps or hanging out on a beach
in the South of France, with a Maserati. If only that poor bastard
could just get itself to a recycling plant. But how the hell it's
going to do that? I tell you how. It has to move
The crushed can appears to move across the floor by itself.
SMITH: Move! And then anything is possible!
Pause
DOIG: That's just a trick. Clever trick. But a trick
Pause
SMITH: Of course it's a trick. It has to be a trick.
Pause
SMITH: Have you never put something down on a table? ... Have you
never put something down on your desk. You go away. You turn away. You
take your eye off that thing and when you look back it's gone. Or it's moved.
And science can't explain it. And yet. And yet you swear that that thing moved.
It wasn't where you put it.
Pause
SMITH: Never had that experience?
DOIG: Possibly.
SMITH: You saw that move. Because they let you see that move.
Pause
DOIG: They?
SMITH: But if you'd turned around and turned back and it had moved.
Would it still be hocus-pocus? Alakazam? Abracadabra? A cheap
trick. It doesn't occur to you that maybe the pixies moved it.
DOIG: Not for one second.
SMITH: That's sad. I feel sorry for you. Cynicism is the enemy of
the pixies. Do you believe in gremlins? Gremlins are blamed for
things that go wrong, but do you praise them for when things go
right.
DOIG looks at SMITH
SMITH: Do you? Because the gremlins can be on your side, but you have
to believe.
DOIG: Where exactly have you come from?
SMITH: Do you believe in Father Christmas?
DOIG considers SMITH a moment.
DOIG: What do you think?
SMITH: I think you have lost touch with what really matters. You are
disconnected from terra firma. You have lost faith in believing in
the unbelievable. How will you ever believe in yourself, if you
don't even believe in pixies?
DOIG: I'll be all right tomorrow.
SMITH: Self-delusion. Self-delusion.
Pause
SMITH: What will change tomorrow?
Pause
SMITH: The date. And that's all that will change in your life.
DOIG: This is temporary.
SMITH: Temporary? No. This is permanent my friend. Everything is
permanent. Until it changes. Everything is stuck, fixed, rooted until
it's blown over, or falls off, falls over, falls to bits. Until it
moves. It's only then when it moves, does it move to the state of
temporary. You are permanently depressed.
DOIG: Okay enough!
SMITH: Enough! Enough of what?
DOIG: You're wasting my time.
SMITH: Am I? What exactly am I preventing you from doing?
Pause
SMITH: Is it me, who is wasting your time…or is it you wasting your
own time.
DOIG: How much is this is costing?
SMITH: Oh so you're worried about wasting money, but you're
content to throw your time away. Time is a more valuable commodity
than money. Do you know how much time you have left? Money does not
buy you more time. There are people with a billion pounds in the bank
who only have the same amount of time left as you? And what are you
doing with your time? You stare out at a brick wall.
DOIG: Fuck off!
SMITH: And who are you saying that to?
DOIG: You!
SMITH: But not just me, think about it who else are you saying it to?
DOIG: Everyone!
SMITH: Everyone is not specific enough, I want names, give me names.
DOIG: Names?
SMITH: I'll give you names. Doubt. Fear. Humiliation. Ridicule.
Shame. Tell them to fuck off out of your life, banish them to another
continent.
DOIG: That's easy for you to say. Your face is not all over the
fucking newspapers.
DOIG throws a newspaper at SMITH
SMITH: I know what you've done and I am not here to judge you.
SMITH picks up the newspaper
SMITH: This must be humiliating for you.
DOIG: I've been destroyed.
SMITH: Very humiliating.
DOIG: Yes very humiliating.
SMITH: And why do you feel humiliated?
DOIG: Why? Why? Are you mad? I've been roasted in the
newspapers. How the hell do I face the world?
SMITH: You stop hiding. And you stop caring. Life is simple, it's
people who make it complicated. Who create the morals?
SMITH points to newspaper
SMITH: They do. If two dogs are photographed humping in the park, do
you think the dogs feel humiliated? No. If a dog cocks his leg
against a police car, who feels humiliated, the dog or the owner.
The dog doesn't care. Think like the dog, not like the owner.
Stop caring.
Looks at paper
SMITH: Of course. Your situation is much worse. Much, much worse.
But the mechanism remains the same. If you don't care what people think,
they can't control you. Humiliation is a weapon of control. How do
they break down the human spirit of prisoners? They strip them naked
and make them perform sexual acts. You cannot humiliate the brazen.
If you have no shame, they have no control. They can't judge you,
they can't make you hide away. Be brazen. Go out and…