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Who Do You Love? -------------A Romantic Comedy of Epic Proportions
Cast:
Alexander-the-Great
Hephaistion
Bagoas
--------------------------All playing themselves
Chorus-----------------Peridot-Plath & kittimarlowe
Act I
Scene I
The corridor is lit by torches shining yellowly in the languid afternoon air. It leads to the gardens on Stage Left, it turns into a dark corner on Stage Right. The wall facing the audience has a door in it.
Enter Chorus lowered from above
Chorus: Here we find ourselves, once again
Mars, red star of carnage, circles above.
War is at hand and not in the bloody
Fields where the warlike Carthagnians
Marched, nor in the fiery seas where boats
Were set aflame. Lo, here it approaches
With the mad murmurings of Venus
Her watchful eye on the golden circus.
Exeunt Chorus.
Cymbals clashing from the wings.
Enter Hephaistion from Stage Left. He is tall and casts a long shadow in front of him.
Enter Bagoas from Stage Right. He and Hephaistion bump into each other in the middle. Bagoas looks up, Hephaistion looms over him; the lamps flicker.
Bagoas: Where were you when he died? You coveted his presence, you made it happen!
Hephaistion: He died to get away from you!
B: You would not dare blaspheme him. He loved me!
H: You're fooling yourself, every morning when he woke up he ran away, to me.
B: He was just afraid of hurting your feelings! He knows you're clingy!
H: Ha! Who was the one who couldn't keep his hands to himself?
B: Only because you couldn't get close enough.
H: Plato rocks! True love is from the heart. He most definitely loves me! Anyway, you let just about anyone have fun with you.
B: I did not. I had a tragic life. Someone forced me into prostitution.
H: Oh really? What about the time your one true love married Roxane? Where were you?
B: I was very upset. I wasn't thinking straight!
H: Yeah right, and the Persian lesson, we all know how that went.
A very Persian lesson.
B: He wanted it.
H: No he didn't, you did. He wanted me all along.
B: How do you know what happened at all that night? You weren't peeking were you?
H (flushes): Of course not, unlike a certain somebody in front of me. Anyway, I too am Alexander, I know what he's thinking.
B: How do you know you're not delusional? Or is it just denial? It was really quite obvious who his one true love is. It's destiny, you can't run and you can't hide!
H: Oh, look who's talking now!
B: Since you're so convinced you're right, you'll never believe the truth even if it's there. For the sake of my sanity, we'll ask him ourselves, then maybe you'll stop dreaming.
Exeunt Hephaistion and Bagoas.
Scene II
All is quiet in the garden. The morning air is clear and light. A fountain burbles in the middle, the water glistens beautifully.
Enter Alexander from Stage Right. He sits on the edge of the fountain and takes deep whiffs of the rosy air.
Enter Hephaistion and Bagoas from Stage Left. Alexander looks up and smiles as he sees (in his innocence) that they are finally getting along. They walk up to him.
B (smiles ever so sweetly): Al'skander, Hephaistion here thinks that you love him, is that so?
A: Oh, of course that's so.
H (smiles brightly): You see—
B (looking stricken): And what about me? You don't love me anymore!
A (begins to get an inkling of what's going on, the alarm shows on his face): Uh…no, that—that's not what I meant at all.
H: So you're saying you don't love me?
A: No, no, no. you've both gotten me completely wrong!
B: So what do you mean?
A: I mean that I love both of you!
H: But you can't love both of us, not at the same time. There can only be one true love in a relationship, that's what all the harlequin novels say! Unless you've been two-timing us all along!
B: Yes, yes that's exactly it Al'skander, you can only love one of us and the other one is a pet!
A (looks desperate): Well, in that case…
B & H (together, bearing down on him): Well, what? Who do you love?
A (looks around): Oh, look, I suddenly remembered…my—my mother-in-law wants me, I've got to go. He quickly gets up and runs for it.
Exeunt Alexander.
B & H (startled): Hey!
H: I can't believe it! He ran away, just like that!
B: Traitor!
H: We must get the truth out of him.
B: Definitely.
Exeunt Hephaistion and Bagoas.
Act II
Scene I
Just after dinner. The entrance to the dining hall is dark and shadowy, Hephaistion stands on the right side of the entrance, holding a rope and a sack. Bagoas stands on the right, armed with a long cane. They have been plotting at how to get Alexander to themselves so that he cannot get away (due to previous experience). The two of them wait quietly as everyone clears out of the hall laughing and talking.
Enter Alexander from the dining hall. He is alone and weary after finally getting rid of Roxane and his mother.
H (whispers): Now!
Just as Alexander passes the entrance where Hephaistion and Bagoas are standing, he realizes that he has not seen them all day.
Alexander: Hmm, where were—
Bagoas sticks the cane right in his path, Hephaistion takes the chance as Alexander stumbles and whips the bag down over his head (CAUTION: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME). After successfully 'bagging' him (no pun intended), he ties the sack up. Alexander screams bloody murder and is rewarded with a whack to the head with aforementioned cane—courtesy of Bagoas—and is out cold.
B: Now we've got him.
H: He can't get a—way-ay!
Exeunt all (Alexander is carried away by Hephaistion and Bagoas in the sack.).
Scene IV
The room…is not really a room. It's Roxane's too-large-to-be-legal walk-in closet, rather musty because she can't be bothered to send the clothes out to the laundry and leaves them strewn all over the floor. As Alexander comes to (he is tied to a roughly-hewn wooden chair—after all, they don't want him getting away, now do they?) there are two figures, murky in the unexplored turf of Roxane's closet. One taller, one shorter.
H (swings a lamp in the direction of Alexander's face, he flinches in response. It is the only bright thing in the closet. It becomes apparent that there is also a television and radio and a stack of unidentifiable discs.): Sooo—what do we have here?
H and B are wearing gas masks, a luxury A has been denied. They are lit from below and very ghostly in quiet rage.
B: Al'skander.
H: Alexander.
A: What am I doing here?
H: I, I, I; it's always, always about you.
B: Yes, it is. Well, now it's about us. You are going to give us a straight answer to every question you are asked or face a dreadful punishment.
H: And believe us, it's bad.
A: I am dead now, there's nothing to fear.
B: Oh isn't there? We shall see.
H: First question, if both of us fell into the river, who would you save first?
The gleam in their eyes is manic.
A: Bagoas, he—
H slaps him, A squeaks but can't retaliate. B is triumphant, until,
A: All I meant was Bagoas can't swim very well! You can!
H: Really—oh, poor, poor darling Alexander! (Strokes his bruised cheek smiling indulgently. Alexander leans into the touch—he could never turn away love, besides, he thinks that the worst is over.)
B: You're not supposed to answer them that way! Who would you kill if the three of us were ambushed by bandits and they wanted one of us to…you know…
A: To what?
B: You know, oldest profession in the world…
A (squirms uncomfortably): ...Bagoas.
H (to Bagoas): See, he doesn't really want you around.
(Meanwhile, Alexander is at the receiving end of Bagoas' furious and relentless left hook.)
A (spluttering wildly): I'm just being practical! They don't want Hephaistion!
H: Just what are you implying about me?
A (deep in thought): Anyway, I'm so good I'd be able to rescue you rather quickly and kill all the bandits.
(A is beginning to sink into the sweet memory of triumph on a bloody battlefield, until…)
H: Alexander…remember Achilles and Patroklos?
A nods apprehensively, by now, everything seems suspicious.
B: I was wondering if you were beginning to think a little differently about them after all we've been through, so the—
H: You've idolized Achilles for a long time now. The question is, if you are Achilles, who's your Patroklos?
Both H and B look menacing at this point in time. Neither look the part of the devoted sidekick-cum-best boyfriend ever.
B (for a minute he softens and begins to resemble the Persian boy A desperately wants him to be) : Go on then, tell us what you really think.
A (Sizes both of them--whom are maintaining a healthy balance of sweet and doe-eyed while glowering at each other--up.)
Oh dear, Hephaistion's much bigger and he looks ready to give me a serious pummeling unless he likes what he hears…oh, oh, Bagoas will be alright, he'll cry and all that though. Hephaistion it is then!—no, not at all, all those videotapes we made in the bedroom.
A (finally): Um…ah…Roxane!
She's my wife! You have to be totally in love with your wife!
B and H: No you don't! You can be a tragic, romantic hero and love someone you can't marry!
A: Don't you want me to be happy?
H: Selfish, selfish boy!
Both pounce onto him.
Enter Chorus suspended above the scene below.
Chorus (smiling ironically): O Alexander! Such is the price of perfidy,
Thou stirred up envy from the depths below
For thou thought Love tameable. Love, a god,
That looms in the wide empyrean weaves much
Madness.
Turn to audience
Now, good people, learn from our friend's tragic
Fate and allow our muse not to sing of you.
THE END