The Plays
The Glory of the World [sample]
by Charles L. Mee
CHORUS
As Saint Augustine said:
God is not what you imagine or what you think you understand.
If you understand you have failed.
CHORUS
As Isaac Bashevis Singer said:
Life is God’s novel. Let him write it.
CHORUS
As the Reverend Jerry Falwell said:
I feel most ministers who claim they’ve heard God’s voice
are eating too much pizza before they go to bed at night,
and it’s really an intestinal disorder, not a revelation.
CHORUS
As Mary Crowley said:
Every evening I turn my worries over to God.
He’s going to be up all night anyway.
CHORUS
As Chuck Palahniuk said:
All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring.
We must never, ever be boring.
BOBBY
When you think about God
sometimes I think:
okay,
heaven.
Well, I don’t need to wait till I die
to go to heaven.
I have some heaven right here on earth,
spending time with friends
afternoons on the beach
or just having lunch on the terrace
overlooking all the hills and the beautiful grass
BENNY
or going to the south of France
BOBBY
or to Paris!
I mean, honestly,
I think this is better than the heaven people talk about.
And I think so who needs heaven.
Although
then
of course
I have some hell on earth, too.
BENNY
Really horrible times
not just joking about it
or covering it all up with these unemotional generalizations
like horrible.
BOBBY
And then of course
I might wish I would just be in heaven all the time.
Although I think the times of hell on earth
make me love so much more the times of heaven on earth.
I feel it so much more intensely.
And I think the heaven everyone talks about
in the afterlife
doesn’t it get a little boring?
Just going on day after day in that bland sort of heaven
or even if it is ecstatic heaven all the time
wouldn’t you need a break
and a little change of pace
just to really remember to enjoy it
to relish it deeply?
So I’m not really eager to go to heaven in the afterlife
and honestly
I think heaven in the afterlife was just made up
by people who don’t quite know how to enjoy it on earth
or, probably more tragically,
who are not well to do enough
to have a lot of heaven in their daily lives.
And I’m truly sorry about that.
And I wish there would be a heaven in the afterlife
for all those people.
But unhappily I can’t quite get myself
to believe in heaven in the afterlife.
CHORUS
As Woody Allen said:
God is silent.
Now if only man would shut up.
A guy turns front and takes a dance posture—
keeping his mouth firmly closed—
putting one shushing finger over his lips—
and so, because his other arm is free,
he flexes his bicep in his free arm.
Music.
The guy flexes his bicep to the music.
Music.
Music.
Music.
Music.
Music.
Music.
Music.
Music.
Music.
Music.
Music.
Music.
Music.
Music.
Music.
5 guys join him in bicep flexing dance
bicep flexing dance
bicep flexing dance
bicep flexing dance
bicep flexing dance
bicep flexing dance
bicep flexing dance
all in unison
and then they all do a hip thrust
hip thrust
hip thrust
hip thrust
hip thrust
hip thrust
hip thrust
hip thrust
very macho
then turn upstage and wiggle their butts
wiggle their butts
wiggle their butts
wiggle their butts
wiggle their butts
wiggle their butts
wiggle their butts
wiggle their butts
(not SO macho)
they move through other male display dance moves
finger snapping, etc.
then three others step up
three others
three others
three others
three others
three others
three others
three others
and do the same display moves.
Some guys enter with lawn sprinklers and set them off so the stage is drenched in water.
One or two of them dance among the lawn sprinklers.
The rhinoceros enters
while the dancing is going on,
and the rhinoceros looks around at the dancers and
then slowly crosses the stage.
