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Bonus Thirst Play

Casablanca

p. 59-76 of the screenplay by Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, Howard Koch from the play “Everybody Goes to Rick’s” by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison

deconstructed for the 2006 Minnesota Fringe Festival “5/5 of Casablanca” fundraiser by Alan M. Berks and Thirst Theater.

Excuse me. Sorry. Sorry. I didn’t mean to [interrupt you]. Go back to [what you were doing] —


I’m looking for someone. Have you seen - ? I heard from, people, that he’d be — He owns, I guess, he’s the owner. Of the theater. His name is Rick. Has anyone seen Rick?


I’m sorry. You were listening, watching, a show. I’m sorry.


Tall man. Kind of good-looking. In a sloppy sort of way. His mouth always sideways a little so that you can’t tell whether he’s smiling or sneering. The type of guy you want even when you don’t want him. When you know you shouldn’t. That’s why I’m here.


You know who I’m talking about. You’ve dated him. — Have you dated him? I didn’t mean that you dated him exactly. I meant that you dated guys like him. You know — I shouldn’t be here. . . Has anyone seen —


They’re trying to do a show. Let them do their show.


Play

Rick.

Play it again.

Rick, I have to talk to you.

I saved my first drink to have with you tonight.

I don’t drink anymore.

You don’t like?


Here.

No. No, Rick. Not tonight.

Especially tonight.


What are you looking at? [This is] My theater. You’re not even renting it. I gave it, loaned it, to you. They say I don’t do anything for the cause anymore. I gave you the theater. For a drink, though, you gotta pay me though.

Please. — Excuse us. — Please.

Why did you have to come to Minneapolis? There are other places.

There aren’t.

What does that mean?

The country is overrun with people who would spy on their own grandparents. They’re scared of terrorists.

Are you scared?

I wouldn’t have come if I had known you were here. Believe me, Rick, it’s true. I didn’t know.

It’s funny about her voice, how it hasn’t changed. All these years. Like a 1940s movie starlet. I can still hear it. “Richard dear, I’ll go with you anyplace. We’ll get on a train.” She said train. Beat that. For romantic. Not a plane. A car? A hot air balloon. So many choices. Amtrak is bankrupt, but she said, I’m not kidding like a 40s movie star, I can still hear it, “We’ll get on a train and never stop.”. . . Except the ocean. We’d stop at the ocean, on the train, wouldn’t we?

Please don’t, Rick. People are staring.

I don’t care. My theater!

I can understand how you feel.

Huh! You understand how I feel. How long was it we had, Honey?

I didn’t count the days.

Well, I did. Every one of them. Mostly, I remember the last one. A wow finish. A guy standing on a station platform in the rain with a comical look on his face, because his insides had been kicked out.


Can I tell you a story, Rick?

Do you want to hear a story?


Has it got a wow finish?

I don’t know the finish yet.

Well, go on, tell it. Maybe one will come to you as you go along.

It’s about a girl who had just come to New York City from her home in Oslo, Minnesota. At the apartment of some friends she met a person about whom she’d heard her whole life, a great and courageous person who opened up for her a beautiful world full of knowledge and thoughts and ideals. Everything she knew or ever became was because of this person who she looked up to and worshipped with a feeling she supposed was love.

Yes, that’s very pretty. (to audience) Don’t you think? I heard a story once. As a matter of fact, I’ve heard a lot of stories in my time. They went along with the sound of gangster rap playing from the pimp’s car on the street below. “Mister, I met a man once when I was a kid,” it’d always begin. Huh. I guess neither one of our stories was very funny. Tell me, who was it you left me for? Was it Laszlo, or were there others in between? I hope you used protection. This is the 21st century after all. . . Or are you still the old-fashioned type? Aren’t you the kind that tells?


Are you enjoying the show?

I am, mostly. thank you.

That’s strange. This is the Fringe Festival. No one is supposed to enjoy the shows. We come because its our civic duty.

Is that so?

Me? I just come hoping for some nudity. I’m here for the young actresses. How about you?

Am I here for the young actresses?

You swing that way, don’t you?

Do we have some, uh, business together?

I won’t mince words. You’re a lesbian.

And you are?

You are an escaped prisoner who’s been fortunate enough so far. But it is my duty to see that you disappear for good this time.

I thought it was your duty to support the arts.

I don’t really believe in that. Do you? The arts are dying, if you get my meaning. . .

Whether or not, you succeed in killing me too is, of course —

Not so hard. Since I’ve been freed from following any particular laws. This comes directly from the President. As long as I say that I did what I did for national security, you don’t have any protections anymore.

It doesn’t matter to you at all that everyone is seeing us, looking at us. They’ll remember your face.

They don’t know what they’re watching.

They won’t allow you to —

They don’t know you. I could shoot you right now and they’d think it was part of the show. And if they discovered later that you were a terrorist, then they wouldn’t have to wonder. Trust me. They just want a good night’s sleep.

I think you’re wrong.


Is that all you wanted to tell me?

You know the leaders of the underground movement.

If I didn’t give their names in one of your secret detention centers, where you had more “persuasive methods” at your disposal, I certainly won’t give them to you now.

No one is listening to any of you! You publish manifestos on line. Organize your little meetings. No one cares. No one knows. They think you’re a crazy feminist lesbian who just wants to the right to marry someone. They don’t know what you’re fighting for. They don’t care. There’s nothing left to fight for. This is America.

Then why are you here?

I do what I’m told. I blow with the prevailing winds.

And the prevailing winds from Washington are afraid of the moment when they do hear, when they do listen, and they rise up from every corner of the world — the decent, the lonely, the poor, the ones you don’t even bother to count — hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands will rise up to say that what happens to one of us, happens to all of us. Even Nazis can’t kill that fast.

Are you calling me a Nazi?

What are you?

I’m no Nazi. I’m a conformist, like everyone else.


Look. You have a reputation for eloquence which I can now understand, but no one rises up. Look.

These people are here because they believe in something.

The Arts? Ha. . . I’m trying to decide whether you’ll die resisting arrest or from all the drugs in your system. Drugs, you know, are the scourge, you know, of these anti-government activist types. That’s why we don’t have to bother with you publicly. We just tell people you couldn’t stay away from the drugs.

I don’t even drink.

They don’t care.

Are you quite finished with us now?

Us?

We have come to enjoy a show.

You still love them?

You don’t know them.

Love will get you killed.

Are you finished?

For the time being.

Excuse us for the interruption. Play title of something here. Play. Please. Excuse us for the interruption.


My show in the fringe last year, we totally sold out once, right after Dominic Papatola — he’s an asshole —- wrote that everyone should avoid it “like the plague”. Fuck him, right. It was cool. I was great.


If you’re an out of towner and you need a place to stay, you can stay with me. . . I mean, we’re that kind of nice around here in Minnesota. . . I mean, unless you don’t like nice. I can be not nice. If you like not nice. . . I mean, out of towners get a lot of action. If you know what I mean. . . If you want action, I mean, I don’t mean, I mean - You’re hot, Lady.


Is he bothering you?

I mean hot in a temperature kind of way. The coffee is hot. Hot coffee. You’re a friend of Rick’s? I was just telling her, Rick, that she can’t bring a drink in here. Is all.


It doesn’t matter.

But for a special friend of Rick’s. . .


I know Leah Cooper. She runs the festival. She wants me. I can get you a special Ultrapass maybe.

Your story before had me a little confused. Or maybe it was the bourbon.

Thank you. I’m not really interested.

He’s a drunk. He can’t even get it up.

I like girls.

Me too.

I find men to be, disappointing.


O. . . oooo. . . Bitch.


Go sell some T-shirts.

Fuck you.

I’ll tell Leah.


Did you come to tell me why you ran out on me at the railway station?

Yes.

Is that all?

. . . Yes.

You can tell me now. I’m reasonably sober. . . I sober up quick. I’m a better class of drunk these days. I’ll be good.

I don’t think I will, Rick.

Is it because we’re in public?

No.

I got stuck with a railway ticket. Railway tickets today are not as valuable as, let’s say, plane tickets. So I think I’m entitled to an explanation. Let’s call it closure.


They’ll understand.

He’s a different man than he used to be. As is the country. The Rick I knew in New York, I could tell him. He’d understand. But the one who looks at me with those bitter, dead eyes. All you know is hatred.

I support the arts!

I’ll be leaving Minneapolis soon and we’ll never see each other again.

We’ll see you on television, leading a protest or some other waste of time.

We knew very little about each other when we were in love in New York. If we leave it that way maybe we’ll remember those days and not here, not now.

Did you run out on me because you couldn’t take the uncertainty? Because I was unstable?

You can believe that if you want.

I’m settled now. Minneapolis is a nice place to live. Lakes. Culture. A new library. Maybe a new baseball stadium. The Guthrie. I own a house. I own stuff. A business. It’s a theater but. . . We can escape from the rest of the world here.

I don’t want to escape from the world.

All the same, you’ll lie to Laszlo one day. You’ll come back to me.

No, Rick. I won’t. You see, Victoria Laszlo is my husband. . .and was, even when I knew you in New York.


Hey! That’s, that’s not right.

Shut up. I think that’d be my line if I could unglue my tongue long enough to say it.


A chick can’t be a husband. Not in this state. In my state. In my country even. That’s a constitutional thing, an amendment or something.

Leave.

Hey. It’s a free country. I don’t have to —

Shhh.


Dance with me, Ilsa.

People are staring. They’re waiting for a show.

Dance with me.


I don’t want to watch that. Stop them.

On what grounds? This is the Fringe. It’s gay friendly.

Yeah but that’s supposed to be quietly gay friendly. I don’t want to have to watch. I only want to see the musicals. Do something.

I don’t think these people can help us.

They’re Minnesotans. They’re nice.

I know, but its not worth their life to do anything for me.

I’m sure in a little while —

It will take a miracle for me to get out of Minneapolis. And the Christian Fundamentalists have outlawed miracles for anyone but themselves.

Don’t be so hasty.

No, Darling, Listen -


I won’t let you stay here. It isn’t safe. You need to return to New York, and somehow, I promise, I promise to join you there.

If the situation were different, if I had to stay, would you leave without me?


Yes, I would.

I see. When I had trouble with Homeland Security boarding a plane to Washington D.C., why didn’t you leave me then. And when I was sick in Louisiana and held you up for two weeks and you were in danger every minute of the time, why didn’t you leave me then?

I meant to, but something always held me up. . . I love you very much, Ilsa.



I think your secret is out.

I don’t mind.

I might hurt you.

And you might get hurt.

Yes.

Yet we’re still dancing together.

Yes.

Are they still watching?

I’m not afraid.

What do you think they’re thinking?

You’re a very lucky woman.

I know.



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