KCACTF Region 2 Finalists!

Good news! Two of the plays from this website, 1, 2, 3 and Understanding are finalists at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival! This means they'll be performed at Festival 44, the Region 2 conference in Pennsylvania, and have a chance of moving on to the finals in Washington, D.C.

This is particularly exciting because from the whole of Region 2 only six plays were selected as finalists, and two were mine. So cross your fingers and hope the odds keep working in my favor!

More new short plays, analysis, and the continuation of my thoughts about U.S. and East European theatre will continue, though the holidays seem to have brought a short hiatus while I work on my new full-length play, tentatively titled Classes.

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Do No Harm

This was part of an evening of "La Ronde," in which each playwright inherited a character from the previous play. I inherited character "B" and had 24 hours to write this. And here it is.

Do No Harm
by Jacob Juntunen

(B is sitting at a table. C is standing.)

C
Nice basement.

B
I expected you sooner.

C
She died at 2am, it’s only 3:30 now—

B
I mean before 24 patients died.

C
Why don’t you call and turn yourself in? It will be simpler.

B
I want my job back.

C
I would have been here sooner if all the deaths had been in oncology. Besides, it’s not like you updated your address in the hospital directory after you quit.

B
How did you track me down?

C
I called your mother. You talked to her everyday on your breaks, so—

B
She’s upstairs if you want to say hi. She still makes that chocolate cake you like.

C
It’s a little late for a visit.

B
So why don’t we just discuss the terms of the hospital rehiring me—

C
There’s no way the hospital’s hiring you back after 24 deaths.

B
You fired me, but didn’t press any charges. You have some new evidence?

C
It’s nice your mom let’s her forty year old son sleep in her basement.

B
We shop together. I help her with the housework she can’t do anymore. She’s pretty weak at 84.

C
You could afford the best home for her, instead you get this crazy notion, and just because you can’t be prosecuted—

B
This is the best way to help these people. I was the best you had.

C
Until you went crazy.

B
You’re the one pumping people full of toxins, shooting them through with radiation—

C
I don’t kill them.

B
I offer the family a way towards the inevitable that is faster and more merciful than—

C
We took an oath: Do no harm.

B
Oh, Jack. Just leave if we’re going to have the same conversations from the break room. This is the twenty-first century. We both know rules are passé.

C
(putting phone on table) Why don’t we see if the police think rules are passé?

B
It’s no crime to die. I saved the ones that could be saved and—

C
The woman tonight, she was my patient. She wasn’t terminal.

B
I saw the chart—

C
Then our interpretations of her symptoms differ; she was scheduled to begin treatment tomorrow—

B
Now, Jack, you can’t have it both ways. First you say there are rules, now you say there are different interpretations of a chart. There’s either truth or there’s not.

C
There’s truth—

B
And you know it?

C
Sometimes. (holding up container) I know, for instance, that this contains enough morphine to kill your mother.

B
That’s a fact, but hardly a truth—

C
Your mother’s old. She’ll die sooner or later. There’s no cancer yet, but otherwise her case isn’t much off the woman you killed tonight—

B
I’m a doctor. I don’t kill people, I give family members the means to let their loved ones go. I don’t give the injection.

C
Then you won’t have any guilt when I kill your mother.

B
Now who’s the crazy one? I just want my job back, and you’re talking about killing—

C
You think I won’t put this into your mother’s vein?

B
And give up your storybook life? What would the wife and kiddies say?

C
If it will keep my patients from dying, it’ll be worth it.

B
And when the police come?

C
I’ll tell them about the 24 bodies at the hospital that died for no reason after you left, after all those talks we had about you perfecting a way to painlessly let them drift away.

B
What if I promise no more deaths?

C
A murderer doesn’t get to work at a hospital.

B
I’m not guilty of anything.

C
Then you shouldn’t feel any guilt when I kill your mother. You can just stand by and watch. Or you can accept that the outmoded rules apply, pick up the phone, and turn yourself in.

B
There’s no chance of getting my job back?

C
Just pick up the phone.

(A moment. Then B picks up the phone)

B
Fine. Put your morphine away.

C
You won’t regret this. I’ll vouch for your character, what you were trying to do, try to get you clemency—

(B hands C the phone)

B
I have a much more sophisticated compound than morphine.

C
For what?

B
We’re going upstairs and telling mother goodnight together. Once you’re done with mother, I trust you can show yourself out?

(blackout)

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Rewritten, Code Name: Astrea

As promised, here's the version of Code Name: Astrea that was performed in Chicago this weekend.

Code Name: Astrea
by Jacob Juntunen

Characters:
APHRA BEHN: A young woman.
HAROLD BLOOM: An older gentleman.
JOHAN BEHN: A young man.
YOUNG WOMAN: A young woman.
CHARLES II/DUTCH PRINCE: The same handsome man; could be two puppets.

Set:
A table and chair downstage right. Properties needed: A white sheet, cardboard crown, a composition book, a pen, and a few bills of money.

(APHRA BEHN sits at the table writing in a composition book. JOHAN BEHN and YOUNG WOMAN hold up a white sheet between them, like a screen, center stage. JOHAN BEHN and the YOUNG WOMAN will hold the sheet throughout the play. HAROLD BLOOM stands in front of it.)

HAROLD BLOOM
Welcome to “How to Read and Why,” radio edition. I’m Harold Bloom of Yale University, and tonight we discuss a film coming this summer to theatres everywhere, Code Name: Astrea which dramatizes the life of Aphra Behn, a writer hailed by the Modern Language Association as the sexiest bisexual spy playwright ever.

APHRA BEHN
The king wanted my code name to be “Sex Kitten,” but I chose “Astrea” based on the pseudonym of the cross-dressing female character in Pedro Calderon’s play Life is a Dream.

HAROLD BLOOM
The film begins in a period just after England’s civil war, and Charles II has regained the throne soon after Aphra Behn’s marriage:

(JOHAN BEHN holds out his hand to APHRA BEHN)

JOHAN BEHN
My love—

APHRA BEHN
I’m writing my husband’s obituary, actually.

(APHRA BEHN tears a page from the book and hands it to JOHAN BEHN)

JOHAN BEHN
I’m dead?

HAROLD BLOOM
I find that an unlikely story. Your husband was a young man and it’s only been—

(APHRA BEHN takes the paper from JOHAN BEHN and gives it to HAROLD BLOOM)

APHRA BEHN
Here it is. In ink. Indelible. Once it’s printed, it’s a fact: no man can change it.

HAROLD BLOOM
There are some, in fact, who doubt whether Aphra Behn’s husband ever existed—

APHRA BEHN
If he didn’t exist, then where did his obituary come from?

HAROLD BLOOM
You wrote it.

APHRA BEHN
From my pen to the paper of record. A fact.

HAROLD BLOOM
We shall see.

APHRA BEHN
This exquisite and charming young woman here is going to take it to the newspaper, making my writing part of history.

(APHRA BEHN kisses the page and hands it to the YOUNG WOMAN who puts it near her heart)

YOUNG WOMAN
I will always treasure this obituary.

HAROLD BLOOM
Back to the movie, then. It is a period just after Civil War, and Charles II regained his throne soon after Aphra Behn was widowed and thrown into financial crisis.

YOUNG WOMAN
Did your mother leave you any money?

APHRA BEHN
She was just a nanny.

YOUNG WOMAN
My father isn’t going to give me money unless it’s my dowry.

APHRA BEHN
I could write a novel about the African king I met in Venuzuela.

YOUNG WOMAN
Oh, yes, please, put all those lurid details in public.

HAROLD BLOOM
You were never in Venezuela.

APHRA BEHN
It could make a fortune.

HAROLD BLOOM
She was never in Venezuela. It’s a novel she wrote. That’s all.

YOUNG WOMAN
I could always return to my father’s house.

APHRA BEHN
Something else then.

(APHRA BEHN returns to her writing table)

APHRA BEHN
(scribbling in the composition book) So this is the part where the king helps me.

HAROLD BLOOM
Why would the king help the likes of—

(CHARLES II pops up from behind the screen wearing a cardboard crown)

CHARLES II
I’m declaring war on the Netherlands. Go there and get information from the youngest prince.

APHRA BEHN
(kneeling) Your majesty!

CHARLES II
He keeps a portrait of you in his bedroom. He stays up nights dreaming of you, just waiting for you to release him from his… information.

APHRA BEHN
I’m not sure I’m the right kind of woman for this job.

CHARLES II
You’re a widow. Knowledgeable in the ways of men and able to travel alone without suspicion. Plus I’d pay you.

APHRA BEHN
How much?

YOUNG WOMAN
Maybe you should write that novel about Venezuela.

CHARLES II
You’ll never worry about money again.

YOUNG WOMAN
Don’t you want people to know about slavery in the New World?

APHRA BEHN
(holding her book and pen out to CHARLES II) Write down the amount.

(CHARLES II writes a sum; APHRA BEHN looks at it and is impressed)

APHRA BEHN
Sign it.

(CHARLES II does so)

APHRA BEHN
(to CHARLES II) When’s the next boat to the Netherlands?

YOUNG WOMAN
But you gave me your husband’s obituary.

APHRA BEHN
(to YOUNG WOMAN) Don’t worry. I’ll write you.

(APHRA BEHN and CHARLES II move behind the sheet)

HAROLD BLOOM
This movie’s being called the summer’s sexiest blockbuster costume drama spy thriller.

(DUTCH PRINCE [played by CHARLES II actor] pops his head over the screen)

DUTCH PRINCE
(Dutch accent; very distracted from APHRA BEHN’s actions below the sheet) So, oom, thees are ze Egyptian cotton sheets voo vanted to, oom, see. Zey make zee bed quite nice, yes?

APHRA BEHN
(muffled from behind sheet)

DUTCH PRINCE
Soar-y— oom— um— deed voo awsk soom theeng?

(APHRA BEHN puts her head above the sheet and wraps her arms around DUTCH PRINCE)

APHRA BEHN
Dear, dear prince. Are the troops moving East or West?

DUTCH PRINCE
Power ees quite thee awphroodeesiac for you, ees it?

APHRA BEHN
Maybe it’s not proper for me to be alone with you in bed, a poor widow and all—

DUTCH PRINCE
West! West! We moving theem Westerly!

(APHRA BEHN and DUTCH PRINCE duck behind the sheet)

HAROLD BLOOM
But Aphra Behn was betrayed!

(APHRA BEHN emerges from behind the sheet)

YOUNG WOMAN
Aphra was betrayed? The only letter I received from her was the one begging me to send money for her fare back to England.

APHRA BEHN
No other money was forthcoming.

(CHARLES II pops his head up from behind sheet)

CHARLES II
Oh, hello, Aphra. Got to run. Empires to build.

APHRA BEHN
You said I’d never worry about money again.

CHARLES II
What an odd thing to say.

APHRA BEHN
(holding out her book) We had a contract.

CHARLES II
You could appeal to the king— oh, wait. Sorry.

(CHARLES II exits)

HAROLD BLOOM
Critics are calling it the most daring debtors’ prison escape in all cinema history.

APHRA BEHN
(moving to her table) Debtors’ prison? No, no, no— She’ll help me.

YOUNG WOMAN
I hope you’re not talking about me.

HAROLD BLOOM
But escaping debtors’ prison is hardly the same as a real prison escape, not nearly as dramatic—

(After furious scribbling from APHRA, YOUNG WOMAN throws money at APHRA who scampers around the ground picking it up.)

HAROLD BLOOM
That’s a bit dues ex machina, isn’t it? In Shakespeare you would befriend a guard or fight—

YOUNG WOMAN
You look good on all fours.

APHRA BEHN
This is still my story. You don’t even have a name, and I become the most produced playwright of the 1670s.

HAROLD BLOOM
After John Dryden.

(APHRA BEHN returns to her table and starts frantically writing)

APHRA BEHN
But I did it on my own, a widow, with no help from the likes of you. (at YOUNG WOMAN to hurt her) I even wrote that Venezuela novel where a woman loses her virginity to her real love, an African king. (back to HAROLD BLOOM) I’m in anthologies!

HAROLD BLOOM
A sign of the dumbing down of American culture, like this film. I’ll take that.

(HAROLD BLOOM takes APHRA BEHN’s book; she remains sitting)

APHRA BEHN
No! Wait! I haven’t written the ending yet!

HAROLD BLOOM
There’s no need to show any more.

(HAROLD BLOOM motions to YOUNG WOMAN and JOHAN BEHN)

APHRA BEHN
But I’m the playwright! I get to write my own ending! Hey!

(YOUNG WOMAN and JOHAN BEHN cover APHRA BEHN and her writing table with the sheet)

HAROLD BLOOM
Despite the hype, Code Name: Astrea remains a deeply flawed film. It mainly demonstrates that sex sells and lurid curiosity keeps a fourth-rate playwright taught alongside the men who count. Skip this movie, skip Aphra Behn altogether, and read the only playwright that matters: William Shakespeare. This is Harold Bloom of Yale University signing off from another episode of “How to Read and Why,” radio edition. Thank you and goodnight.

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Code Name: Astrea being performed in Chicago!

A revised and slightly longer version of my short play, Code Name: Astrea, will be performed in Chicago as part of Caffeine Theatre's Aphra Behn Coffeehouse! I'll be there for the Saturday performance. Check it out, if you can, and I'll publish the revised text on this blog Monday.

Saturday, November 5, 2011, 1pm
Newberry Library, 60 E. Walton, Chicago

Sunday, November 6, 2011, 4:30pm
Collaboraction Theatre, 1575 N. Milwaukee Ave, Chicago
IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE 3PM PERFORMANCE OF OR,

BOTH EVENTS ARE FR

Caffeine Theatre brings together local and international performers, writers, composers and choreographers to celebrate and respond to Aphra Behn’s work. Winning entries of our poetry contest, Golden-Pointed Darts, Or, a Contest in Poesy to Honour the Incomparable Astraea and other Adventuresses, Spies, Writers, and Thespians will also be performed.

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Understanding

Understanding
by Jacob Juntunen

(VECTĒVS and BEN sit at a table with a piece of paper between them. An awkward moment. MADARA enters. VECTĒVS and MADARA wave.)

MADARA
(to BEN in accented English; italics have accent, regular font does not) You are the American?

BEN
Oh, um, yes, you are—?

MADARA
Only one who speak English in village. From waitressing in Riga summers. May I see photo please?

BEN
(holding out piece of paper) It’s just a photocopy. Do you know this woman?

MADARA
(no accent) Oh, she’s so young.

BEN
In English, please?

MADARA
(showing it to VECTĒVS who cradles it) I told you she didn’t die for nothing.

BEN
What are you saying?

MADARA
Here he is, come to thank us.

BEN
I’m sorry, I don’t speak Latvian.

MADARA
(accent again) You come all this way and learned none first?

BEN
(holding out guidebook) I have this phrasebook—

MADARA
(not taking guidebook) Yes, “Where is toilet?” Is nothing but tourist sentences.

BEN
My grandfather died of cancer last month. I found this photo cleaning his bedroom drawers. On the back it says, “This woman saved my life,” and then it has this address written on the back of it, so I came here, but this man—

MADARA
You ask him who she is?

BEN
He was dead; I never even saw the picture before—

MADARA
No, I mean you ask this man here, in this house, who she—

BEN
I showed him the picture and he cried a little. He said something, but I didn’t understand.

MADARA
It is his sister. If you spoke Latvian—

BEN
(holding out guidebook again) I tried to use the guidebook—

MADARA
(tossing guidebook on table) Useless.

BEN
I thought maybe whoever lives here might know how my grandfather survived the war—

MADARA
Did you ask your grandfather?

BEN
He was just American to me. Until he got sick I never thought—

MADARA
(to VECTĒVS; no accent) He never even talked about us.

BEN
I wish you would speak in English.

MADARA
You never thought of your grandfather in Latvia. So why would little gay Jew come all the way here now?

BEN
He never talked about Latvia until he was sick, then he talked about the forests and wanting to thank someone—

MADARA
So you come to thank?

BEN
For what?

MADARA
Go to Rumbula Forest. Go to synagogue in Riga. Find out what to thank. No one living in this house saved your grandfather.

BEN
But maybe you could help me speak to other villagers who might know—

MADARA
(no accent) Oh, I know. Everyone here knows, but you could never understand.

(VECTĒVS takes the photo, cradles it, and begins to softly cry.)

BEN
I don’t understand— Why’s he crying again?

MADARA
He’s crying because his sister was helping Jews leave our village and hide in the forest.

BEN
Please talk in English.

(VECTĒVS stands and takes a few steps towards the audience, reaching out to empty space)

MADARA
He’s crying because when they came, they said they would shoot his daughter if he didn’t point to who was helping the Jews.

(VECTĒVS points to empty space next to him, as if to someone kneeling on the ground)

BEN
Okay, I get it. I should have learned Latvian, but I came all this way—

MADARA
The Jews his sister saved have descendents. Like you.

BEN
You keep saying Jews. I know that word.

MADARA
His sister has no descendents. And you don’t even know the sacrifice. That’s why he cries.

BEN
Do you need money? Is that it?

MADARA
(with accent) An American always thinks big tip at the restaurant means he should get laid.

(VECTĒVS returns to the table)

BEN
He wants me to know. He tried to tell me. Ask him. Ask him if he wants me to understand—

MADARA
Your child and your sister kneel on ground, cold metal pressed against the back of heads. Who you point to?

BEN
His sister died?

MADARA
You must watch head explode of child or sister. Whose blood you clean off ground?

BEN
I don’t have a child.

(MADARA tears the picture in half)

MADARA
You lack imagination.

(MADARA leaves.)

BEN
Wait! Please!

(VECTĒVS picks up the two pieces of the picture of his sister. He puts them back together as best he can, gently kisses it.)

BEN
(pointing at picture) Your sister? She died? Died? You had to choose?

(VECTĒVS stares blankly, not understanding. BEN picks up guidebook and reads from it)

BEN
(in East European accent) Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
[Ben pronounces this slowly, haltingly, reading phonetics: “Sank voo wery mooch.”]

(VECTĒVS nods)

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My Family's Mascot

My Family’s Mascot
by Jacob Juntunen

(LINDA, BEN, and SARAH sit, eating.)

BEN
You can’t even keep the soup warm until we eat?

LINDA
You were on the internet for twenty minutes after I said dinner was ready.

BEN
That’s called work, Linda.

LINDA
You’ve gone pro at Fantasy Football?

BEN
I swear I don’t know why we even live together, I could send you a check every month and you’d be just as happy—

LINDA
Well I wouldn’t have to watch dinner getting cold every night—

SARAH
Oh, you two don’t mean it, don’t fight.
I need to write my college essay,
See if there’s a bright
Idea in my head. It’s due today.

(SARAH starts to leave)

LINDA
(to BEN) Every time I call you to dinner you’re online and we sit here waiting—

BEN
I have a real job, okay, and the e-mails don’t just stop at five—

LINDA
My cooking blog is making more money than—

BEN
It won’t be when I make partner, so I need to get this brief written, or maybe I should just go back to the office—

LINDA
Or the bar.

(BEN starts to leave, but SARAH returns to the table and they both sit as she speaks)

SARAH
I forgot to say,
I got first place at the science fair today.

LINDA
Oh! That will put Elise in her place! I’m so tired of hearing about her daughter.

BEN
I knew hiring that tutor wouldn’t be a waste.

LINDA
I helped Sarah glue all those charts to the poster board while you were working late.

BEN
I showed her Excel to make the charts.

SARAH
You both were both so great.
You have to
know how much I appreciate
you two.

BEN
We do make a good team.

LINDA
We made something pretty amazing.

SARAH
Well, I need to write
My essay and e-mail it there
By midnight tonight
Or not get in anywhere.

(SARAH starts to leave)

BEN
I’m going to back to the office, to finish up that brief—

LINDA
Do the dishes first, I cooked.

BEN
It was soup. Rinse out the bowls and put them in the dishwasher. This goes to trial in—

LINDA
Soup’s a very popular recipe on my blog. People say they can’t even tell it doesn’t have meat—

BEN
Why don’t you cook a real dinner sometime, something where an animal died?

(BEN starts to get up; SARAH returns to the table, and they both sit as she speaks)

SARAH
Oh, now that we’ve ate,
did I say
I got a firm date
for my SAT?

It’s two days from now,
But I’m ready anyhow.

BEN
The Kaplan classes are good, but maybe we should get some computer practice tests?

LINDA
I could pick those up tomorrow on my way home from work.

SARAH
I have these vocab flash cards.
Could you two help me?
I feel like such a retard,
But I don’t want to be—

LINDA
Your Dad’s got some stupid brief he needs to get written tonight, so—

BEN
Get out the cards. We’ll go over them together.

(They all sit at the table and SARAH starts to hand out the cards)

SARAH
Hey, do you two
Remember Wednesday family date
night? We played Uno.
College will have to wait.

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You Are Brave

You Are Brave
by Jacob Juntunen

(A WOMAN addresses a group.)

WOMAN
You are brave.

Coming all the way to Romania. Sitting in this church. And so many of you. Ready to jump over the hurdles President Clinton set in your way. When the Berlin wall fell a few years ago, hardly anyone could point to Romania on a map.

But here you all are. So many of you willing to make this sacrifice to help a child escape poverty.

Have you been to a Romanian orphanage? They won’t let me take pictures, but if I had some here to show, you’d think you were looking at a concentration camp. And you are. A communist concentration camp for babies, open sores on their faces, screaming and rocking in their cells, their cribs, while attendants lounge in the hallways smoking and drinking coffee.

I’ve seen grown men fall to their knees weeping when they saw the thousands of little blonde-haired babies shrieking.

But you are brave enough to help these most innocent victims of communism.

And Clinton is making it harder, setting up insane background checks. Right now it can take years to get one of these babies out of the country, and then it’s too late. The attendants touch the infants five minutes a day. That causes permanent damage.

And Doctors Without Borders is against us! They say every one of you in this room cannot be a good parent. That you don’t understand the culture. That removing them from Romania will harm them permanently.

The last Romanian woman I met who dropped off a baby already had two children at home, no husband, and lived on twenty-five dollars a day from a government pension. She buys two loaves of bread, potatoes, and sometimes some beans. Instead of milk, her two children get tea with sugar. So it’s not like you’re robbing these children of some glorious Romanian culture. If you adopt a baby, you’ll give them milk, won’t you?

And they’re white. I know, I know: no one wants to say that out-loud, but when you’re pushing your Romanian baby around in the grocery store no one’s going to know it’s adopted just by looking at it. You know that matters, and an African or Asian baby isn’t going to fit into your family the same way.

You are brave. All of you are willing to come here, to a foreign country, and meet with me, even though our government says what we’re doing is illegal. They say people like me are profiteering. They say pedophiles want white little girls more than black ones. But you’re not a pedophile, are you? We’re all just in this room for the same reason: to help these children. And if Clinton and Doctors Without Borders would get out of our way, we could help thousands of children get out of this horrible country where these children have no hope and no future.

So if you have the cash with you, and, yes, I’m afraid the payment needs to be in cash, we have the children in the next room.

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