this won best script.

“Dead but Dreaming” by David Byrne and Sean MacPhee
Distilled Drama for a New and Dispirited World

Dramatis Personae
Noble Russet Montego – Dapper. Forgets things constantly as a side-effect of experimentation.
Bobby Bullock – Zombified Cyborg. Should be dressed in all black, and will constantly have an unlit cigarette hanging from his mouth. Will wear Red boxing gloves – these are his robot hands. Will start the play wearing a fuzzy black hat, which will be holding his brain coolant inside his head. Has the enclosed symbol, marked “Bobby”, tattooed across his face.
DJ Tanner – Was never in a full house. Orphan. Researcher at the underground lab. Resurrected Bobby, her boyfriend.
Admiral Richard Gwydion – Considers Bobby his due. Well-appointed and slightly effete without being overly dainty (fancies himself a military man, if Navy). Forgets things constantly as a side-effect of experimentation. Has a tattoo on the inside of his wrist – you’ll figure out which one during blocking – of whatever pleases.

Properties
Fuzzy hat
Red Boxing Gloves
Can of Nail Polish
Cigarette
Bottle of Glue
Two Mugs
Table and a Chair if procurable. Ultimate set is up to your dreams.

* * *

(NOBLE runs screaming across from SL to SR, runs into ADMIRAL, ADMIRAL is flattened, NOBLE keeps running offstage, and screams back to ADMIRAL)

NOBLE
I LIKE YOUR SHIRT!

ADMIRAL
THANKS COCKFACE!
(Pause)
(NOBLE reappears, walking slowly this time.)

NOBLE
Excuse me?

ADMIRAL
I just said ‘thanks….sock face.’

NOBLE
What, a sock with your cock in it?

ADMIRAL
(Triumphant.)A sock to your face needs a cock in its place!

(NOBLE and ADMIRAL perform an elaborate secret handshake.)

NOBLE and ADMIRAL
(In unison, linking arms and do-si-do-ing) The Boys will link arms, with chins lifted proud, one heart touching God, FOR NO GIRLS ALLOWED!

(They skip off SL)

(BOBBY walks on from SR with an unlit cigarette in his mouth, DJ marching behind him)

DJ
Yes, it was May 27th, 1922 in Belgravia, London. Of course I know that, Bobby-dear. Then he was taken by his mother to Switzerland, where he first had a taste for villainy as the title role in the play, Rumplestiltskin! Oh Christopher Lee, if only that performance were preserved, so I might bask in your sinister glory! Bobby-dear, get the door.

(BOBBY obliges, and enters first. He is always melancholy.)

BOBBY
Yes, as always, DJ Tanner.

(DJ enters and sharply turns around to make sure BOBBY enters after her and closes the door. She sits down and BOBBY stands waiting.)

DJ
Make us some tea, Bobby-dear. I will have Sweet Dreams. You will have Sleepy Time.

BOBBY
I thirst only for human blood.

DJ
But you will have Sleepy Time. And while I appreciate your input, I don’t need to hear about your lousy cannibalism fetish every damn time! And don’t make my tea too strong, or I’ll flood your chest cavity with Raisenettes! Sure, they start out hard, but when they get warm and sticky, they’re like a chocolate-covered cancer! Watch your back, Bobby Bullock, or I will unmake you!

(BOBBY returns with tea mugs, and is rhyming.)

BOBBY
Tea’s ready, DJ Tanner.
And I wrote in your planner.
I hope you can forgive me,
But the date we’re going to go ski,
Well it wasn’t written down,
And it’s been a couple days now.

DJ
Bobby-dear, you must be joking.
Either that or you’ve been toking.

BOBBY
DJ Tanner, you know I cannot.

DJ
(Accusatory)If you could would you smoke pot?
I mean, seriously Bobby-dear,
You don’t have me to fear.
I’m the only one who cared enough to bring you up when you were down.
Now tell me what naughty things you’d do if I’m ever out of town.
To tap into your memories is beyond even my ability.

BOBBY
So is leaving town in this underground research facility.
(End RHYME.)
(DJ and BOBBY silently sip tea. NOBLE and ADMIRAL enter SR. They are clearly buddies now. They are also clearly rhyming now.)

NOBLE
Oh, Admiral Richard Gwydion, how could I have forgotten you, you old fuego!

ADMIRAL
And how could I have forgotten your sweet ass, Noble Russet Montego! (Slaps ass)

NOBLE
My memory is flooding back, aspeckle with Admiral Richard Gwydion!
Remember how we camped out once and tried to catch a Gideon?

ADMIRAL
My memory too returns, welling first from deep within.
To be blunt, it floods my colon first, then seeps into my skin.
It rises, tickling my sensations, until it reaches yea high (indicates his neck).
Then fills my throat as desperation must’ve filled the Magi.

NOBLE
You mustn’t quote the bible without noble intentions!

ADMIRAL
My apologies, dear Noble, for leaving out your mention!

NOBLE
Oh every joke about my name is really such a great hit.
But look, I see a purple line-

ADMIRAL
-What say you we follow it?

(They do. It leads to DJ’s door. So anyways, NOBLE and ADMIRAL bump their heads into the door, since their heads are down as their following the purple line on the ground, they look up, open the door, look down and walk in.)

ADMIRAL and NOBLE
What are we doing here?

DJ
(At the same time) What are you doing here?

ADMIRAL
Oh, well we were just following this purple line on the ground here, and uh.

(DJ waves her hand to dismiss the situation.)

DJ
You two aren’t supposed to be wandering around.

ADMIRAL
Again, hag, we weren’t wandering, we were following a line. See? (Points to the ground)

BOBBY
I’m sorry, it’s my fault. I’m leaking.

NOBLE
Leaking purple?

BOBBY
Presently.

DJ
As long as you two are here, make sure he (points at BOBBY) doesn’t get away. As if he could. I’ll get you back to your rooms later. But I need to patch his head, and it’s very important, so stay here and don’t screw up. (Says pleasantly:) I do need to tinkle first. It relaxes the nerves. (Screams) Bobby! Don’t move! (Exits SL)

BOBBY
I will stay in place, DJ Tanner.

ADMIRAL
Bobby, she doesn’t treat you right. Fight a little!

NOBLE
Complain a little!

ADMIRAL
Just live a little!

BOBBY
I’m not really alive, you know.

(BEGIN RHYME!)

ADMIRAL
Life is what you make of it, my dispirited, darling man

BOBBY
I’ll bet the Admiralty, sir, did not design you to understand.
But my design, so damned precise, will not explain me how
Wires, tubes, and patchwork glue, should be my spirit now.
If life I have, I live for love, or things I remember which
My heart, DJ Tanner, would yearn at night-

ADMIRAL
-oh, that godforsaken bitch?
I implore, my boy, you look beyond that woman’s vicious lies
And forget about that filthy maw gasping between her thighs!
You are young and dazzling and yet somehow you aren’t a man who’s free
You stoop and mourn!
Ragged, forlorn!
And to your heart invite murderous scorn!
As you toddle on that wretched Tanner’s leash!

BOBBY
Honestly, my Admiral, if I were still animal, I would consider your advice.
But now I’m something different-

DJ
(Entering from the bathroom in a righteous fury, holding the glue bottle aloft. As she delivers her line of the rhyme, she removes BOBBY’s hat and tosses it offstage, then tends to the back of BOBBY’s head with the glue bottle)
-something grander, something excellent, forged out of molten, deadly life!

(End RHMYE)

ADMIRAL
Ma’am! This boy belongs with the military! With me!

NOBLE
Are you really an admiral?

ADMIRAL
As long as there is a hopeful child, somewhere, who admires me. Admiral’s about admiration. If the children stop believing, I revert to a deckhand, to a sour old pumpkin.

NOBLE
Gorgeous.

ADMIRAL
You, son, are coming with me. (ADMIRAL hooks his arm into BOBBY’s.)

DJ
(Shoves ADMIRAL away from BOBBY) Why are you trying to take him from me? He’s mine, you bastard! I loved him, I lost him, and I found him.

ADMIRAL
I want him. Give him to me.

BOBBY
(Pulls away and moves upstage from everyone. Twitches his unlit cigarette in his mouth) I never even enjoyed a funeral. I should have liked a funeral.

NOBLE
Good way to avoid a funeral, is to not ignite that fag.

(ADMIRAL turns quizzically to NOBLE, hesitantly pointing at himself. NOBLE firmly points to the cigarette in BOBBY’s mouth)

NOBLE
That fag.

BOBBY
(Even more melancholy) Wouldn’t matter anyway… with these robot lungs.

DJ
Bobby-dear, we’re leaving. We’re leaving these men!

NOBLE
Give the boy a voice!

DJ
I rebuilt his voice by loving hand! I made it perfect!

ADMIRAL
Give the boy to me!

DJ
No!

BOBBY
I…

(DJ pushes BOBBY out the door to her house and follows him out.)

DJ
Bobby, if you love me – and I know you do -

BOBBY
(BOBBY bows his head a little, and puts his hands to his head) DJ Tanner, please…

DJ
Bobby Bullock!

BOBBY
(BOBBY cracks, and shouts:)DJ Tanner, how can I love you!? How can I love anyone with these robot hands, with this robot heart?

(ADMIRAL and NOBLE come outside as well. ADMIRAL is applying nail polish)

ADMIRAL
Oh, then just don’t love her, son.

NOBLE
You can’t just turn off love like a light switch, Admiral Gwydion.

DJ
(Inarticulate, exasperated noise) It’s more of a button, really.

ADMIRAL
(To BOBBY, suggestively) I’ll show you where my button is. (BOBBY ignores him, lost in electronic thought. ADMIRAL turns to try NOBLE) I’ll show you where my button is.

(More RHYMING)

NOBLE
A button like yours would be old and rusted!
A bottom like yours would be leaky and crusted
With barnacles! And crustaceans! With scuttling black crabs!
Oh Admiral, my Admiral, you salty old ham!

(End RHYME)

(BOBBY slowly stands up. If the actor playing BOBBY has long hair, it should be draped over his eyes. He starts creeping slowly over to NOBLE, and grabs NOBLE’s arm as best he can with his robot hands.)

NOBLE
I say boy, what have you got there?

(BOBBY just stares at the arm, inner confliction obvious on his face.)

BOBBY
I hate you, sir, because I am unable to hate DJ Tanner. I want to eat your arm.


NOBLE
I’m opposed to this.

BOBBY
(BOBBY caresses the arm) I want the life that is coursing through this arm, sir.

ADMIRAL
(Gesticulating broadly with the nail brush) It sounds to me like you need direction in life, young man. A good masculine influence, not this mammoried old boot!

BOBBY
There is emptiness inside of me, Admiral Gwydion. I want to feel the meek explosions of a heart, be crushed by the suffocation of a lung. My brain is kept oxygenated by a small compressor at the back of my skull, you know. Everything else is gone, or has been replaced by machinery, or is… altered, in some way, that allows it to be left alone. Preserved. Pickled.

DJ
(Quietly, staring at the floor)
You don’t understand…

ADMIRAL
Aha! Abomination! He’s a sinner!

DJ
No!

NOBLE
Unnatural! He’s a scoundrel!

DJ
No!

ADMIRAL
Murderous! He’s a criminal!

DJ
(Clutching her hair in panicked distress) NO!!!!! Oh Jesus God, he’s a Robot! (In a defeated voice) God help me, he’s a zombified cyborg.

ADMIRAL
Is this true, Bobby? Or is this another one of her feminine beguilements?

BOBBY
What she says is true.

ADMIRAL
Faith and Begorra! (Thrusts brush into the air. BOBBY grabs his exposed forearm and examines it)

BOBBY
You have a tattoo, Admiral.

ADMIRAL
(Grabs BOBBY’s face) You have a tattoo, Bobby.

BOBBY
I can’t remember what it felt like. I can hardly even remember getting it. (They mutually release)

DJ
(Frustrated and sad) It’s the sigil of the Watcher. I’ve… I’ve tried to remove it. But it’s everywhere in him, now. You can only see it on his face, but it’s in every part of him that was ever alive. It was probably that tramp, that Sparky. She wouldn’t have known the consequences of using it that way.

BOBBY
Sparky…

DJ
(Edge of tears) You were with her the night you died. You were at that club, the Satan one, Ninth Circle, Ninth whatever-

NOBLE
(Helpfully) Ninth Ring. They make a great Despairing Russian.

DJ
She let you die, Bobby! She didn’t love you! I loved you enough to reach across the seven gates of the Zonei to bring you home to me!

NOBLE
And what have you done? Stuffed some old Bobby meat into a new shell? He’s like a rancid burrito now, one that none shall eat, and will only ever hunger for that which is beyond his reach…

(As each person delivers his or her initial burrito line, they step upstage and address the audience.)

BOBBY
Burritos, burritos, burritos! An analogue for constrained lives!
Miscellany squeezed to confounding bricks in damning tortilla hives!

NOBLE
Burritos, burritos, burritos! Tubes of conflicted taste!
Which vomit up their secret hearts when their wrapped enclosures break!
And as their shame in naked flames is laid out to your wide-eyed stare
Unflinching hearts return your gaze, which long for your outerwear.

ADMIRAL
Burritos, burritos, burritos! Food which demands your gloried lot!
Their dreams are haunted by gleaming treasures, and tasty souls succumb to rot.

DJ
Burritos, burritos, burritos! Ghosts of unwanted shelves-
For heaven never held for cuisines that could not hold themselves.

BOBBY
Burritos, burritos, burritos! Edible egocentricity!

ADMIRAL
Burritos, burritos, burritos! Oral avaricity!

DJ
Burritos, burritos, burritos! You heed a blackguard’s rule-

NOBLE
Burritos, burritos, burritos! Covetous, brutish, cruel !

ENSEMBLE
Burritos, burritos, burritos!
Burritos, burritos, burritos!


BOBBY
DJ Tanner, I love you, but only because you won’t let me hate you to the core of my remaining being.

ADMIRAL
That’s right, Bobs! Cut her a new one!

NOBLE
Apparently, there’s a criminal statute for female genital mutilation in New York State.

BOBBY
Then I have no other choice.

DJ
Bobby, we can’t move again.

BOBBY
No, DJ Tanner, we cannot. DJ Tanner, I caused the fire in the Ninth Ring. That night, I finally knew for certain that I only wanted you, and lit my black book aflame. I wanted to leave everything - Sparky, everything - as ashes behind me. I imagined myself as a Phoenix rising, not just some roast duck.

DJ
Bobby-dear…

BOBBY
I rose, but I’m not a Phoenix. I have nothing burning inside, I’m all new and nothing new. No longer the person I was - I hate him the most of all. He had everything that I want. I have these robot arms, this robot heart (pauses) and this robot self-destruct core!

DJ
HOLY SHIT BOBBY, DON’T-

BOBBY
(In robot voice!) SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE INITIATED!

(Everyone says “BOOOOOM!!!!!” At the same time. BOBBY pantomimes blowing into pieces, and NOBLE, DJ, and ADMIRAL tumble away from the explosion, broken.)

The End.