Please - share your wisdom!
Suburban Bohemia
by Todd Barty
(The setting includes a bed with trendy ethnic looking bedding, a sofa with a similar throw rug, a coffee table, a vanity with a basin and personal hygene products scattered around, a desk with a computer and a bar. With the sound of a click and a buzz, Xander Zanii wakes up and sits up in the bed. He is pale, tall and slightly plump. He has eyeliner that his smudged and his hair, obviously styled into spikes the previous night, is now unkempt. He wears satin pyjamas and a kimono that hangs open.)
Xander: (Looking at audience) Morning chaps, were not ready yet, hold on.
(He shakes a lump that is in the bed next to him.)
Xander: Darling, the camera men are here, darling...
( He pulls the bedding aside to reveal a cushion and a pillow. He is crestfallen.)
Xander: (To audience). Must've had an early start.
(Standing and straightening up.)
Xander: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I, for those of you so sheltered that you don't know me, am Xander Zanii, Artistic Director of Group Z productions in Sydney (or London). I'm a contemporary performance maker, and this is the first day of my art research and development mission in the regional city of Townsville (or insert regional city name). Just bear with me... you can edit this later...
(Xander goes to the basin and puts toothpaste on his toothbrush.)
Xander: I'm quite well known for my contributions to the avant-garde over the years. Excuse me...
(Xander brushes and spits. He sticks out his tongue and scrapes it with the brush, then spits distastefully.)
Xander: You might have heard of my German Expressionist inspired multi-media rave installations... (Rinses mouth)... or my dance/theatre piece - The Thousand Eyes of Caligari.
But were here because we .. Are you taping?... Because this would be good for publicity... Were interested in engaging with... diverse communities... by reflecting the present and the prescient past in... accessible hybrid works... with the participation of a broad demographic... how's that?!
Now...
(Takes some tablets for the bar and puts them in in his mouth.)
Xander: Today...
(Picks up a bottle and takes a swig. Squints and looks at the bottle - it is 'Cinzano'. He puts it down and picks up a bottle of water and guzzles.)
Xander: Today my associate director Lily Von Lieberslieder - is coming to join us - you'll recognise Lily of course from her cabaret work.
(Xander sits down at the computer.)
Xander: Let's see... I get piles of emails, you have no idea... I've been looking for a new administrator... ah, Lily...
(Xander squints to read. He looks around and picks up a magnifying glass and reads the screen through it.)
Xander: Shit... what time is it... she'll be here...
(Xander runs off and returns with Lily.)
Lily: What a dump.
Xander: Hello Lily.
Lily: What are they doing here?
Xander: The documentary.
Lily: For goodness sake, Xander. Early nineties, pastels, bourgeois kitsch.
Xander: Its free. It's my niece's old place. I've got a few things.
Lily: Get rid of this would you.
(Hands him an empty Vodka bottle.)
Xander: Did you just have this in the car then?
(Xander tips it up to get the last drop.)
Lily: You bring me to this horrible place...
Xander: (To audience.) Lily has a problem with alcohol...
Lily: No I don't, I drink it, I enjoy it, no problem!
(Lily sits. They laugh)
Xander: (To audience.) We were married... very briefly. It was annulled.
Lily: We passed out straight after the reception and had a fight when we woke up....
Xander: (To audience.) One week later...
Lily: Then we got it annulled.
Xander: Still good friends, though.
Lily: You'd make a friend stay here?
Xander: We can put it as in kind contribution...
Lily: Don't talk about grants to me.
Xander: You've never stayed awake long enough to write one.
Lily: I don't want to be here, Xander?
Xander: Lily, we've been over this in Sydney.
Lily: I don't want to do this.
Xander: Its a regional conversation.
Lily: I don't like regional work.
Xander: Only because you got find for punching a community development officer.
Lily: She was coming at you with a knife.
Xander: She was cutting a cake!
Lily: Ah, shut up.
Xander: There's money in it, Lily - we've got regional and remote, at risk youth, Indigenous, Non-
English Speaking, Elderly we have it all covered in this one...
Lily: Get me a drink.
Xander: You're doing the women's stuff.
Lily: What have they got.
Xander: Lucy's not a big drinker...
Lily: Uh...
Xander: There's half a bottle of Cinzano here...
(Xander starts making drinks.)
Lily: Who?
Xander: Lucy, my niece - she's a project administrator for some marketing firm.
Lily: Here?
Xander: Yes.
Lily: Where is she?
Xander: Lives with her fiancee.
Lily: Oh, Liz's kid.
Xander: Yes.
Lily: Oh, that little bitch...
Xander: We need her, Lily...
Lily: Why?
Xander: We need a new administrator.
Lily: Not Her!
Xander: She's qualified.
Lily: She has a fiancee?
Xander: Yes.
Lily: I can't believe someone actually wants to marry her.
Xander: She's a nice girl, Lily.
Lily: Boys want a bad girl.
Xander: Perhaps but I don't think they're looking for some demented old ash tray with
implants.
Lily: Bastard.
Xander: Extra Dry and Lemon. There are a couple of cleanskins there too.
Lily: Shit.
Xander: Anyway Lily, you would know about this regional stuff if you'd stay awake for long
enough at an arts conference.
Lily: I do!
Xander: I had to put your sunglasses so that no one would notice. I convinced the people next to us that you were a blind mute from the Arts Inclusion. Network.
Lily: I just keep them on now.
Xander: Probably a good thing.
Lily: Are you insinuating that my face needs covering.
(Xander brings the drinks over.)
Xander: Here..
Lily: I'm not the one who looks like a fat raccoon.
Xander: Really? Lose the sunglasses.
Lily: Piss off.
Xander: Some of the people we're working with have rarely ever been to a theatre or an art gallery,
Lily. They get food from those multinationals our parents have shares in - sometimes they
eat it out of plastic. Their clothes are brightly coloured and shapeless. The live in houses
with low ceilings, in suburbs, rather than lofts and refurbished factories in the city and
they shop at those sprawling, neon-lit emporia... Shopping centres...
Lily: The ones with all the concrete around?
Xander: Yes.
Lily: And the words... 'Enter', 'Exit'...
Xander: Yes those...
Lily: And the painted lines...
Xander: Yes, Lily.
Lily: Ghastly.
Xander: I know, Lily... but its their culture. We have to be sensitive.
Lily: What's this Women's thing?
Xander: Women's group, annual general meeting. They want successful women in the creative industries...
Lily: Fantastic.
Xander: I've told them you'll do your 'Burlesque-ercises'.
Lily: 'Bump'n'grind your way to a fitter you.'
Xander: Yes, 'Bump'n'grind your way to a fitter you' - but don't get them to take any clothes off.
Lily: Fat?
Xander: Some of them.
Lily: No one wants to see fat people undressing. Too much like our wedding night.
Xander: Before you passed out.
Lily: Are champagne?
Xander: No nothing, but there's a delivery coming.
Lily: What?
Xander: French champagne, Vodka, some olives, capers, artichokes... delicious things...
Lily: When does it get here?
Xander: No, Lily, we can't just sit down, we've got to get organised.
Lily: What are you talking about?
Xander: Lucy's coming today.
Lily: To find every last bit of joy and kill until its dead, I suppose.
Xander: No, to check on the house.
Lily: Just as I thought.
Xander: And she's hardly going to agree to be our new administrator if we can't present an organised front.
Lily: You should have kept Guy.
Xander: Guy was a tight fisted bastard, Lily.
Lily: But, Lucy...
Xander: Guy was a philistine who wouldn't know creativity if it stuck its nose between his man-tits and went brrrrrrrr.... (Makes a horse-ish noise and wobbles his face.)... like that.
