EMCEE:  Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a performance piece. If you derive any pleasure from this piece it is strictly coincidental. This is art, and as such, should be view by the audience with the same appropriate gravity as any beleaguered granting agency. This piece, in triplicate, has been sent to our advisory board for review. A moment please, I can’t work without a cigarette hangin’ out of my mouth. . .Art is.

TWO:  Art is a sedative for the obsessive compulsive.

EMCEE:  It consumes.

ONE:  It penetrates.

TWO:  Hurry!

EMCEE:  Admit One.

TWO:  Are you an Enemy of the Future?

EMCEE:  Art rips your heart out.

ONE:  But you think you did it to yourself.

TWO:  Art is a channel changer stuck on scan.

EMCEE:  Time Flies.

TWO:  If it’s not funny, I won’t watch.

EMCEE:  I wanna be President of the United States!

ONE:  I wanna be noticed.

TWO:  I wanna be the Blind Date that will not leave.

ONE:  You’ll forget the you ever hated me.

EMCEE:  I will keep you happy!

ONE:  Art is apolitical.

EMCEE:  Bullshit.

ONE:  How do you figure?

TWO:  Every Shakespeare test I take is about kings and power. I had a test this week over King Richard III.

ONE:  That’s an unusual position.

EMCEE:  Are these your orals?

ONE:  Multiple choice?

TWO:  All of the above.

EMCEE:  Will you have that with or without artistic merit?

ONE:  Now is another winter of our discontent.

TWO:  You are a winter without content.

EMCEE:  1 fist, two fist, red fist, blue fist.

TWO:  Plow your manifestoes up your ass.

ONE:  Be legendary.

EMCEE:  Admit one.

ONE:  Are you obstructing justice?

TWO:  I got this place in my h–

EMCEE:  Late.

TWO:  I got this place–

EMCEE:  Late.

TWO:  I got this place–

EMCEE:  Late. Do it again–

EMCEE:  Good.

TWO:  -- that ain’t right without you.

ONE:  People are listening.

TWO:  You don’t explain enough.

ONE:  Time flies.

EMCEE:  Admit one.

ONE:  Do you believe what they tell you?

TWO:  And so it was that I wore Green Monkey socks to the
. . .What’re Green Monkey socks?

ONE:  You don’t remember?

EMCEE:  Oh God

ONE:  They were these socks–

EMCEE:  Keep going!

TWO:  And so it was that I was wearing Green Monkey socks to the End of the World.

ONE:  A sacrificial offering.

EMCEE:  to Art-- I mean, theater.

TWO:  Time flies.

ONE:  It’s a blood thirsty God.

EMCEE:  It amuses

TWO:  It’s not fun.

ONE:  You stole that didn’t you?

TWO:  No.

ONE:  She’s got her fingers crossed!

TWO:  I did not steal it.

EMCEE:  Keep going! Admit one.

ONE:  What would drive you to riot?

TWO:  The Maladies on the Fringe of Society–

ONE:  The who?

TWO:  Y’know, the three sisters.

EMCEE:  The Fates.

TWO:  The kindly ones. Well, the Maladies’re the kid sisters of the Fates.

EMCEE:  On the fringe of Society

TWO:  They are elegant and unprejudiced.

ONE:  They make you

EMCEE:  clutch but

ONE:  Never capture

TWO:  And they taste good too.

ONE:  Time flies.

EMCEE:  Admit one.

ONE:  Who would be your prophet?

TWO:  I suck you in.

ONE:  I spit you out and

EMCEE:  Relish the Smear of Madness

TWO:  Bounce on the Hot beds of Impotence

EMCEE:  Media Whore!

ONE:  It’s the American Way.

TWO:  I found it.

ONE:  Will you have that

EMCEE:  With music or without?

TWO:  Is it Funny & light hearted?

ONE:  I won’t go if it’s not funny.

EMCEE:  Does it have meaning?

TWO:  It was challenging.

ONE:  Theatre must become conscious

TWO:  of the implications of the changing social order

EMCEE:  or the changing social order with ignore,

TWO:  and rightly,

ONE:  the implications of theater.

EMCEE:  Please remember to wash your hands after the show!
(Pause.)
Welcome to Theatre Outside the Bell Jar.