Table Of ContentFERLINGHETTI
t
1
SEVEN PLAY FOR
S^
NEW THEAtRE
A
UNFAIR ARGUMENTS WITH EXISTENCE
SEVEN PLAYS FOR
NEW THEATRE BY
A
UWRENCE
FERLINGHETTI
NEW DIRECTIONS PAPERBOOK
A
UNFAIR
ARGUMENTS
WITH
EXISTENCE
©
Copyright 1962, 1963 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 63-21384
All Rights Reserved, including the right of reproduction in
whole or in part in any form.
Caution: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that
the seven plays in this volume, being fully protected under the
copyright laws of the United States of America, the British
Empire, including the Dominion of Canada, and all other
countries of the world, are subject to royalty. All rights, in-
cluding professional, amateur, motion picture, recitation, tape
or phonograph recordings, lecturing, public reading, radio
broadcasting, television, and the rights of translation into for-
eign languages are strictly reserved. Permission for any such
use must be secured from the author's representative, New
Directions, 333 Sixth Avenue, New York 14, New York.
Manufactured in the United States of America
New Directions Books are—published by James Laughlin
New York Office 333 Sixth Avenue
CONTENTS
NOTES ON THE PLAYS
vii
THE SOLDIERS OF NO COUNTRY
1
THREE THOUSAND RED ANTS 29
THE ALLIGATION 47
THE VICTIMS OF AMNESIA 65
MOTHERLODE
85
THE CUSTOMS COLLECTOR IN BAGGY PANTS 105
THE NOSE OF SISYPHUS 115
Other Books by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
PICTURES OF THE GONE WORLD (Poems)
A CONEY ISLAND OF THE MIND (Poems)
HER (Novel)
STARTING FROM SAN FRANCISCO (Poems)
THIRD STREAM THEATRE (in preparation)
NOTES ON THE PLAYS
These rough drafts of plays for a new theatre, or for one that
barely exists, these beat-up little dramas taken from Real Life,
these unfair arguments with existence (groping toward some ten-
tative mystique) were written in little over a year, dreaming in the
back of the Caffe Trieste San Francisco or elsewhere nowhere
near a stage. Yet they seem to me very theatrical, in the best &
worst sense. People tell me they are "weird" or have "terror" in
them. One said there is a "lack of hope." Which I say isn't so, and
point to the symboUsm of light in several plots. It is for audiences
and directors to decide whether these Arguments are "unfair" to
life or to those who argue with it, to some God or to the actors.
We
all act out strange scenarios in photo clothing.
These seven plays are variations on similar themes, meant to be
played together, moving progressively from the representational
—
toward a purely non-objective theatre with still a long way to go.
Seen together, in combinations of two or three as they might be
presented in one evening, these scripts develop curious juxtaposi-
tions of symbols & imagery, and "third meanings" independent of
what the plays separately say.
The Soldiers of No Country & The Victims of Amnesia, for in-
stance, are two soundings of the same eternal situation in very
different terms, the first an exercise in conventional realism, its
argument in the old sense of "plot" quite a cliche, its argument
with existence quite obvious, its argument with the audience even
—
vtii Notes on the Plays
more so. Yet there is life, there is light, in—spite of all. And the light
grows: As in Three Thousand Red Ants a little parable of the
crack in anybody's egg or universe, through the looking glass
ontology at its most simple-minded.
The Alligation can be taken literally in several ways, depending
upon the identity of Shooky. He may also be "represented" as a
Man in a Union Suit; his skin may change color; his suit may be
striped. Directors should follow their Sisyphitic Noses. Uphill. On
the other side of the Indian Head we have grown alligators roam-
ing the sewers of New York. (This is the only play in the book
which has been produced. First performance: at the San Francisco
Poetry Festival, June, 1962, with Erica Speyer as Ladybird, Tom
Rosqui as Blind Indian, Bill Raymond as Shooky, directed by Lee
Breuer. Second production: Nov.-Dec. 1962, at the Hamlet,
Houston, Texas; Ned Bobkoff, director.)
The Victims of Amnesia came into being this way: Two pas-
sages in Breton's Nadja one night seemed to be spinning in my
head, years after I'd read them. The first: "She enjoyed imagining
herself a butterfly whose body consisted of a Mazda (Nadja) bulb
toward which rose a charmed snake (and now I am invariably dis-
turbed when I pass the luminous Mazda sign on the main boule-
vards). ." The second: "... a man comes into a hotel one day
. .
and asks to rent a room. He is shown up to number 35. As he
comes down a few minutes later and leaves the key at the desk,
he says: 'Excuse me, I have no memory at all. If you please, each
time I come in, I'll tell you my name: Monsieur Delouit. And each
time you'll tell me the number of my room.' 'Very well, Monsieur.'
Soon afterwards, he returns, and as he passes the desk says: 'Mon-
— —
sieur Delouit.' 'Number 35, Monsieur.' 'Thank you.' A min-
ute later, a man extraordinarily upset, his clothes covered with mud,
bleeding, his face a—hnost not a face at all, appears at the desk:
'Monsieur Delouit.' 'What do you mean, Monsieur Delouit?
Don't try to put one over on us! Monsieur Delouit has just gone
—
upstairs!' 'I'm sorry, it's me I've just fallen out of the win-
. . .
