Copyright to all intellectual property contained on this website (including text, images, audio and video) is held by Manhattan Experimental Theater Workshop.
Because MXTW is a teaching program, each year some pieces are more derivative than others of the models embodying the styles our student authors have studied in preparing their scripts. In some scripts, there are even borrowed lines.
Naturally, MXTW's copyright claim does not extend to those elements of these scripts.
That said, you are free to use these in performance ON THREE CONDITIONS:
* You acknowledge the influences, the workshop authors, and the MXTW copyright
* You provide a citation to mxtw.org
* You notify us – at mxtw AT mxtw DOT org – of the dates and times of your performances
If at all possible, we would like to attend your performance or to see a recording.
A Body Twisting
Written & performed by Ashley Flinn, Lisa Hamer, Peter Oviatt, and Kevin Terry
Directed by Chris Gregory
Under the influence of Antonin Artaud
Dog and Duck
Goose: Come, live among the wild, unmarried geese who say quack and be happy.
Ugly: I shall come and live amongst them and be happy.
Goose: Life is wonderful, is it not?
Ugly: Life is wonderful indeed!
Gun sounds, Piff paff, and the goose falls dead. Blue smoke rises and world fades to black as the duckling finds himself bewildered and alone. Dog enters.
Dog: My tongue falls from my mouth, my sharp teeth gleam and I am fearful.
Ugly: I thought I knew, I saw the pond I saw the ducks I saw the eel squirm and mark his territory, I was learning, I understood who and what and why, oh where is reason?
Dog: You’ve lost your way, eating, drinking, swimming, aesthetics, there are no particulars to any of this, as for you, you should be satisfied with your ugliness, that’s it, that’s life.
Ugly: Oh, do what you will with me!
Dog: That has nothing to do with me, so long as you do not marry into my family.
Dog circles, sniffs, and moves on as the aroma of death surrounds the duckling and he fades into obscurity, the sounds of the battle with him.
Ugly: Gaily. O heaven be thanked!
Metamorphosis
A body twisting. The tubes change. They spit out neurotransmitters like sour grapes without the seeds.
Below, a feather. The duckling studies it, studies the brown tips of the yellow fallen piece of flesh. At the end of the feather is a piece of skin still stuck to it like a bandage that has been ripped out with the puss of an infection still attached. The flesh of the duck begins to tear out of flaking skin that drips with oil and is putrid and delicious. This creates a tingle that starts at the the oldest part of the brain. THE UGLY DUCKLING begins to enjoy the feeling as he buries his beak into his skin. Shakes and convulses and begins to feel as though his body is rearranging.
Webbed feet flail as pain shoots from opened pores that are becoming all at once to red for white and the beak is thrust into genitals. It is pain and pleasure combined in the swirling testosterone that devours the sex.
THE SWAN emerges victoriously and stands with head and anal passage erect and ready for action. Yes, but it’s too large and peculiar. And therefore it must be put down.
Duck in the City
Swan: Fish.
Dog: Runs in. Are you her!? Yes, yes, you are high, full, and white!
Rogue: Your neck is long and ugly, no one will ever fuck you. I am fat and wonderful. My sperm is holy! My DNA is a scripture of unknown desires and pleasures. FUCK ME!
Dog: Psychotic, mad, raving. Have you seen her? She is white and has a black ring about her neck. I must find her! Runs out of room, shouting.
Swan: It isn’t, it’s red.
Mother: The highest calling, yes, none is higher, we pray with our feet. Water is our -- At this point an Eel who pops in wiggles around and then explodes, comes back together, and then leaves Mother. The head, ooh, groping the head! I must have it! Runs after eel.
Swan: God is a fish and I spear him everyday.
Dog: Besides God.
Swan: Flesh is harder to cut through than water.
Mother: Aqueous substances are the highest calling one can have.
Ugly: From where did I come?
Swan: The Water the water
is filled with fish
so many fish
I have to stab
the blood the blood
runs down my legs
and makes my stockings red
Old Lady and Her Pets
The house was dilapidated, and here came a woman. Watch the lady as she awaits her eggs and makes sparks, sparks make flame and flame is no excuse for eggs. She controls half the world.
The cat purrs, which is still no excuse for eggs. The house did not know which way to fall but it did know that swimming was not enjoyable and to dive down to the bottom was no excuse for curving one’s back and letting out sparks.
So the duckling slipped through a little door in the crack. The Duckling asks the mistress if she has any desire to swim, and to let water close above her head. He doesn’t understand the cat. But the cat does purr and makes sparks and he is half the world. The far better half.
And so the duckling was admitted into a trial for three weeks. No eggs, and the world old woman was not satisfied. Ugly sat in the corner and was melancholy long before Chikabiddy Shortshancks was given her position.
Cat: Do go out into the world and make sparks.
Woman: Screaming. I hope it is not a drake! We shall see about that!
Cat: Only in a dark barn.
The curtain rises and lights come up to show a lonely old woman dying of pet dander and a hen who somehow controls her temperament.
The shack makes its decision and falls toward domestic animal incest as one half of the world collapses into water still perpetually awaiting duck eggs from a drake. Insensitive prick.
Birth
Sibling: No mother, let it sit and rot in its festering little capsule. So long as it pains you.
Mother: That bastard never even comes to visit.
Sibling: The feather crawls under a blanket of leaves and reptiles.
Ugly: Let me lick you.
Sibling: He is more appreciative of the depths.
Mom: No! It’s a turkey! Shit. Fuck. Did that big egg come out of me? That thing is enormous! But I think I'll sit on it a little longer.
Sibling: Let it lie there a few more days just as you please, and went away. Quack. Quack.
The Brothel
Once upon a time a duck came across some wild ducks that told him there were some ladies that never got play from anyone but their demented veterinarians who wear clogs and, OH GOD, ow, yesss.
“Good mother duck, are you about?” The Spanish Mother Whore enters, busily tying her kerchief around her leg. “Oh, do come in It’s warm in heeeeere.”
The sluts exists within themselves. Density becomes a primary objective as the duck fondles his surface. He’s already done, but who’s customer is he?
The girls emerge from behind the shadows, their cloacas flapping open and shut like camera shutters capturing the aroused and confused duckling.
A break in the action. The Spanish Whore grows enormous breasts which fill the room. She owns his sexuality as he swells with discontent knowing he lacks what he longs for. The geese are castrated but he will get what he came for, etc.
The duckling flees from the the pit of incest, his wings flapping and trying desperately to penetrate himself with feathers he finds strewn about the ground like used condom wrappers.
He will not make his fortune here.
Children
Children: Come here and play, bird.
Ugly: I cannot agree.
Children: We are good.
Ugly: AAAA
Children: We want to HAVE you.
Ugly: AAAA
Child A: We cannot hurt you.
Child B: We want to play.
Child C: We want you
Children: We want to PLAY!
Child A: We do not hate you.
Child B: We want to play.
Child C: We love you.
Children: We want to PLAY!
Ugly: Fight death hurt.
Children: Love, fun, good
Ugly: Fast, scary, burn
Children: Calm, free, orgasm
Ugly: I am scared.
Children: We are deluxe.
Ugly: You are kill.
Children: We are beloved.
Child A: Ducks and other waterfowl by nature are obsessed with penetration, this is due to their possession of the cloaca.
Child B: Gills are important in some quarters. So are penises.
Child C: Swans have gills under their feathers.
Ugly: We are all confused and I must go and powder my cheeks.
Migration
Pain, a gradual numbing of the senses, punctuated by cold freezing choruses. Water solidifying in the realization of the loss of odds, non-migratory suffering colliding head with a natural death song. Scurrying activity decreases as does potential for method. Ice envelops and imprisons. Ice envelopes and imprisons. Existing is dying. The wish for shift of location comes too late. Pain is evident. The body is a breeding ground for it. It expands and multiplies leaving the body sick, crying with no time for craving. Winter stifles flight stifles life.
