The Frogs Revision
by Aristophanes David Berg, Andrea Piercy, Eduardo Zevallos, Jan Taubman,
Act 1:
SCENE 1: Lights come up on Britney Spears at one end of the stage and Ricky Martin at the other. Both sing a few lines in turn as Dionysus and Xanthias come across the stage. There is static between the Spears and Martin songs, as if someone is changing the channel on a radio station.
Dionysus is dressed in a purple button down shirt and platform shoes. Over the collared shirt he is wearing an oversized black t-shirt and around his neck is a silver necklace with large silver ‘O.’ In one hand he holds a black cane. He is wearing an obvious wig of long, straight, black hair. Xanthias is dressed in butler’s clothing and wears two white gloves. He is riding behind Dionysus on a razor scooter, and carries a boom box draped over the handle of the scooter and a cooler filled with beer on his shoulder. He has a guitar and a violin strapped to his back and various electrical wires hanging out of his pockets. He is making adjustments to the boom box as the Spears/Martin music plays and eventually fizzes out.
Xanthias: [surveying the audience] Pretty pathetic state we’re in. What about one of the old jokes?
Dionysus: All right, Xanthias, but don’t just keep screeching “Oops…I did it again.” I’ve got enough to put up with as it is.
Xanthias: Something a bit wittier, eh, sir?
Dionysus: Yes, but don’t start off with “Backstreet's back, alright.”
Xanthias: Oh. Pity. What can I give them then? - Oh, you mean something really funny?
Dionysus: Yes, and I don’t mean just stripping off one of your gloves and grabbing your…
Xanthias: Well, how about this:
If nobody will take away my beer
I’ll drink it all and roll right out of here
Dionysus: Keep the beer until I need to be inebriated.
Xanthias: Do you mean to say I’ve been lugging all these props around and now I’m not even allowed to get a laugh or a sound out of them? It’s the regular thing, I tell you. Jackass, Tom Green, and all the other popular shows do it. Brainless “I dare you” antics. Guaranteed to be funny.
Dionysus: Well, there’s not going to be one here. Every time I get near a kid on a razor scooter, I get run over and fall on my ass. I have a very tender ass.
Xanthias: Oh, my fine jokes, and all for nothing.
Dionysus: Do you want to know what the real joke is? That I, Dionysus, have to struggle along on foot, while this pampered creature is allowed to ride, so that he won’t tire himself out carrying our luggage.
Xanthias: I like that. I am carrying the luggage, aren’t I?
Dionysus: Of course not, you’re riding a scooter.
Xanthias: Never mind, I’m carrying the luggage just the same.
Dionysus: I don’t get that.
Xanthias: No, I’ve got it, and I’m telling you it weighs a ton.
Dionysus: But the razor is carrying all that.
Xanthias: Oh, is it? You ask my shoulders!
Dionysus: Ah, well, in that case the scooter's not being much use to you, is it? You better let me ride it.
Xanthias: Oh, for heaven’s sake. You’d fall right on your ass, you would. And be bitching about it the rest of the way.
Dionysus: Come on, get down off that thing. Here we are, if I’m not dead wrong. This is where we pay our first call. You see, I’ve walked the whole way.
[Xanthias tries to get off the scooter but slips and falls down with a grunt. Beer cans from the cooler spill all over the stage. Dionysus knocks on the door cautiously as Xanthias begins to clean up the beer. There is no response, but an Ozzy Osbourne song can be heard faintly through the door]
Hi there!
[No response. Remembering his disguise, he swings his cane, hitting the door with a resounding crash.]
Hey there, you fuckin’ asshole, open up!
Ozzy [within]: Hey, fuckin’ ‘ell, who’s banging on my door. Mormons? Jehovah witnesses? Fuckin’ solicitors?
[The door opens, and Ozzy Osbourne himself appears, holding a half-eaten bat in one hand, and wearing the same black T-shirt, dark sun glasses, and ‘O’ pendant as Dionysus. Osbourne's music becomes louder as the door swings open. Ozzy stares in amazement at Dionysus.]
What… who…?
[in a convulsion of mirth and amazement he collapses to the ground.]
Dionysus: There, did you notice?
Xanthias: Notice what?
Dionysus: How I frightened him.
Xanthias: Mistook you for a crackhead, I expect, sir.
Ozzy: Oh, shit, man, I can’t stop laughing [he struggles to his feet and retires into the house.]
Dionysus: Come back a minute, man, there’s something I want to ask you.
[the music cuts off abruptly]
Ozzy [returning]: Sorry, man, but I really can’t help it. A black t-shirt and ‘O’ pendant on top of- what’s that, a pimp shirt? What’s the fuckin’ deal, man? Why the platform shoes? An’ the cane? Where’d you get that pendant?
Dionysus: Well, it’s like this. I was a roadie at OZZFEST.
Ozzy: OZZ- [he sputters] Saw a good bit of concerts, yeah?
Dionysus: Oh yes, and we went partying with the band after every one.
Ozzy: Oh hell, wasn’t it you bastards that got kicked out of the party for gettin’ pissed and wankin’ in front of those groupies?
Dionysus: Hell yeah.
Xanthias: And then I woke up.
Dionysus: Well, as I was saying, I was at OZZFEST and one day-I was listening to “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” at the time-and do you know, I suddenly felt the most passionate longing-you can’t imagine how I longed-
Ozzy: For a woman
Dionysus: Nah, not a bit.
Ozzy: A boy? [Dionysus shakes his head.] A man, then?
Dionysus: Oh come on, really!
Ozzy: Oh, fuck off. You did say that you were at our concerts?
Dionysus: Don’t laugh at me, man, this is deadly serious. I’m in a terrible state. Consumed with desire.
Ozzy: Yeah, but what sort of desire, man?
Dionysus: Ah, you wouldn’t understand. Let me put it this way. Have you ever felt a sudden craving for- let’s say-pea soup?
Ozzy: Ah, now I’ve got you! When do I not want pea soup? [He smacks his lips.]
Dionysus: Well, that is the kind of desire I feel for-Mick Jagger.
Ozzy: Yeah, you and ev’ry middle-aged woman this side of Chicago. But anyway he’s a corpse! Died in that-what was it? Oh, yeah, that horrible pyrotechnic incident. I mean, fuckin’ ‘ell!
Dionysus: No one on earth can stop me from going to seek him out.
Ozzy: What, down to Hades?
Dionysus [dramatically]: And deeper still, if need be.
Ozzy: Why?
Dionysus: I need a musician who can perform. Britney Spears, Backstreet boys, N’sync are all products of corporate America who perform behind pretty faces. They sing un-original melodies composed entirely behind an office desk. There are only two kinds of musicians these days, the awful and the dead.
Ozzy: Oh, fuckin’ come on. What about Bob Dylan’s son, Jakob?
Dionysus [sarcastically]: Have you heard the Wallflowers?
Ozzy: Why not get Bob Dylan, if you must have a musician? He was better than Mick Jagger.
Dionysus: Not till I’ve seen how Jakob manages without his father to help him. Besides, Mick Jagger will be readier to sneak away with me, he’s a much more slippery customer; whereas Dylan, well, he always took life as it came-he’s probably taking death as it comes, too.
Xanthias: Never a word about little me. And look at my poor shoulder; it’ll never be the same again.
Ozzy: But I’m sure there’re dozens of musicians churning out songs these days: for sheer lyrical complexity, if that’s what you want, they leave Mick Jagger in the fuckin’ dust.
Dionysus: Small fry, I assure you, insignificant screechers and hooters, like a lot of cover bands. A disgrace to their art. If ever they do get a hit, what does their submission to the annals of music history amount to? One cock of the hind leg and they’ve pissed themselves dry. You never hear them again. I bet you can’t find a really seminal musician in the whole lot of them: someone who can write a set of truly fine lyrics.
Ozzy: What do you mean, seminal?
Dionysus: A musician who can produce something really audacious, like Sympathy for the Devil or Satisfaction, or that business about Angie.
Ozzy: You like that sort of thing?
Dionysus: I love it.
Ozzy: But that stuff’s all shit, you know. And it’s downright immoral.
Dionysus: This coming from a gothic rocker.
Xanthias: Never a word about little me.
Dionysus: But to come to the point-I see you’re looking at my black t-shirt and ‘O’ pendant. Well, I thought, seeing that you traveled in those parts when you went down on vacation-well, I wondered if perhaps you could give me a few tips: any useful contacts down there, where you get the boat, which are the best restaurants, coffee-shops, bars, brothels…And which places have the fewest pests.
Xanthias: I might as well not exist.
Ozzy: You don’t seriously want to go down there? You’re fuckin’ out ‘o your head!
Dionysus: Never mind that, just give me a simple answer: which is the quickest way to Hades? I want a route that’s not too warm and not too cold.
Ozzy: Let me see. You could go with a shotgun pulled by your big toe: that’s a very quick way, if you don’t really like the back of your skull.
Dionysus: Don’t give me a headache!
Ozzy: Well, there’s a good short way of doing it, with booze and pills. That’s used a lot these days-you can sleep right through it and it's the fuckin’ rage.
Dionysus: Valium?
Ozzy: That’s right.
Dionysus: Now you’re making me all woozy!
Ozzy: You want a way that goes straight down?
Dionysus: Exactly.
Ozzy: Well, you know the Empire State Building? Just go and hang off the top of the tower and watch the marathon from above. When they count one, two, three go!, you go too.
Dionysus: Where to?
Ozzy: To the bottom.
Dionysus: Oh, no, just think of the mess. I’m not going that way.
Ozzy: Which fuckin’ way do you want to go, then?
Dionysus: The way you went.
Ozzy: Ah, but truckin’ that’s a long, strange trip. The first thing you come to is a big bot’omless lake.
Dionysus: How do I get across?
Ozzy: There’s an old ferryman who’ll take you across in a tin boat, really fuckin’ small, for ninety-nine cents.
Dionysus: Amazing what you can do with ninety-nine cents these days!
Ozzy: Ah, yeah, it was Carrottop who introduced the idea down there. Annoying little shit. Well, after that you come to the snakes and the wild beasts-thousands of ‘em.
Dionysus: Don’t try to scare me off.
Ozzy: And then you come to the Great Muck Marsh and the Eternal River of Dung-you’ll find some pretty fuckin’ nasty characters down there: people who have wronged a guest, or had a pretty whore and not paid her, or knocked their mothers about, or punched their fathers in the face, or pimped out their sisters, or-worst of all-cheated on a college exam [Ozzy looks out into the audience]
Dionysus: Or learned to dance disco, like John Travolta, or produced an album by Vanilla Ice, or-
Ozzy: After that you’ll hear the sound of guitar playing, and you’ll come out into brilliant daylight. Then you’ll see fields of daises, and happy groups of partiers, men and women, tripping around and clapping their hands and that kind of shit.
Dionysus: What the hell for?
Ozzy: Oh, those are the just some fuckin’ hippies. Been through Woodstock and all that.
Xanthias: After taking stock of my wood, I think I need a rest
[Xanthias puts down his cooler and grabs his crotch. He begins to heave the boom box off his shoulder.]
Ozzy: They’ll tell you anything you want to know-they’re too fuckin’ stoned not to. They’re right on the road to Pluto’s place. Well, see ya man. Good luck.
Dionysus: Don’t worry, I’ll be all right. Bye-bye.
[Ozzy waves goodbye and goes indoors]
Now you! Pick up our stuff and we’ll get going.
Xanthias: I haven’t even put it all down yet.
[He starts to lazily get his stuff together and get back on the razor]
Dionysus: Come on, wake up!
Xanthias: Now look, your worship, what luck! Look at all these stiffs they’re carrying out. Might have been ordered specially,
[Several corpses are carried in slow procession across the stage. Mournful music. Xanthias takes a violin off his back and begins to play]
Go on, hire one of them to take your things down with him.
Dionysus: Supposing they won’t?
Xanthias: Then I’ll do it.
Dionysus: Well, all right. - Ah, here comes one, I’ll ask him. Er-hi, excuse me! Yes, you there! Stiff!
[The bearers of the last litter come to a halt. The corpse sits up with a jerk.]
Ah, would you do me a favor and take my baggage to blazes?
Corpse: How many pieces?
Dionysus: Just these.
Corpse: That’ll be two hundred dollars.
Dionysus: Too much.
Corpse: Bearers, proceed!
Dionysus: Hey, wait a minute! Can’t we come to some arrangement?
Corpse: Two hundred dollars, cash down, or nothing.
Dionysus [counting out crumpled dollars into his hand]: I can pay you nine dollars.
Corpse: I’d sooner live!
[The corpse lies down again with a jerk, and is carried off.]
Xanthias: Well, of all the stuck up bastards. He’ll come to a bad end. [Resignedly] All right, your worship. Load me up again.
[Dionysus helps him raise the boom box and cooler to his shoulders, and they begin to move on.]
Dionysus: That’s a good boy. Now, where’s the boat?
Charon: [off] Stroke! Stroke!
[The stage grows darker and more eerie]
Xanthias: Where are we?
Dionysus: This must be the lake he was talking about, and - look! Here comes the boat.