Four Baboons Adoring the Sun and Other Plays by John Guare

Author:John Guare [Guare, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2016-11-29T00:00:00+00:00

END

A DAY FOR SURPRISES

A DAY FOR SURPRISES was first presented in August of 1967 at the Caffe Cino, in New York City. The director was Bernie Wagner.

The play was also included in The Best Short Plays 1970, edited by Stanley Richards.

CHARACTERS

A Virginia Blue

B Robert Frink

SCENE: The pasting room of a very large library.

TIME: The present.

At curtain, B is pasting books. Peace. A Vivaldi runs through his head: Autumn. The door bursts open. A staggers in: Sacré du Printemps. His stern look makes her straighten into, shape up into the formality he demands of a subordinate.

A: (A gasp.) Pppppppardon me, Sir—bbbbbbbbut you have got HAVE GOT to llllloooook out your window—

B: (With great distaste.) Your paste pot is dried up.

A: Sir, you have got to look out—

B: (Pasting, muttering.) Less time picking up coffee nerves on coffee breaks, more time collecting overdue fines, we might have more of a library— (She collapses on her chair in a paroxysm of hysteria.)

A: Mr. Falanzano, you have got to look out your window—

B: (Pasting, laughing.) And you used up your two-week vacation? Frazzle frazzle frazzle. Another nightmare year in the overdue fine room.

A: SIR!

B: (Exasperation.) All right all right. (He looks out the window. First left. Then right. He collapses.)

A: (A last bid for sanity.) Tell me what you see—

B: (Aghast.) It’s what—what I don’t see—

A: What don’t you see????

B: The lion—the lion closest to Forty-second Street—

A: Yes? Yes?

B: (Grabbing up the phone.) Operator, operator. (No response.) The lion closest to (click click click) to Forty-second Street is—

A: (Putting the phone down.) It’s missing, isn’t it?

B: The stone lion is missing.

A: (She is calm now.) I know where it is.

B: That stone lion weighs 28,000 pounds…

A: I know where the stone lion is. (He looks up at her. Her knowledge stabs her with pain again. Quietly.) The stone lion is in—I assume it’s the same one— There’s a lion in the Ladies’ Room and it’s eaten Miss Pringle. (His hands fly to his face.) It’s sitting in the Ladies’ Room with Miss Pringle’s feet sticking out of its mouth—out of the lion’s mouth. I know it’s Miss Pringle as I’d been admiring her blue beaded shoes only this morning and the way she braided the hair on her legs into the new black lacy stockings. The lion’s on its haunches right by the washstand just the way it sits out front—only…only Miss Pringle’s feet are sticking out its mouth…

I ran out of this library screaming—I ran right out onto Fifth Avenue and when I saw the lion closest to Forty-second Street was not there—was absent—was A.W.O.L.—I thought I had gone insane—thought I had snapped! All this library paste. Kids sniff this stuff! I thought it had got to me—but you see it too! I’m not alone! Oh God, thank you, Mr. Falanzano! Thank God for you…(She hugs him. She is calmed. She hangs on to him. He raises his head. His face is a pitiful sight.)

B: It’s eaten Miss Pringle? (He leaps up and runs out of the room to the ladies’ room.

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