DRAG TIME – a musical number prologue parody in far too many parts.
By WittyFae
(A young boy in short pants enters the stage with large bug glasses and a giant lollypop in the style of a turn of the century dandy. He has a pronounced lisp)
EDGAR
Thith ith the true thtory of three thocial groupths
MOTHER
Hello!
TATEH
L'Claim!
COALHOUSE
Wazzup!
EDGAR
Picked to live in a thentury
MOTHER
Oh dear!
TATEH
Oy!
COALHOUSE
Damn!
EDGAR
Thee what happenth when people thtop being polite
MOTHER
I never!
TATEH
Kish mine tuches!
COALHOUSE
Bitch please!
EDGAR
And thtart being drags…
Drag-Time 1906.
MOTHER, TATEH, COALHOUSE
What would bring us together
All on one stage
Straight off the page!
TATEH
(YES this was a book!)
MOTHER, TATEH, COALHOUSE
With stories overlapping
All intertwined
They'll coincide
COALHOUSE
(Don't expect a map!)
MOTHER, TATEH, COALHOUSE
And what will you be seeing
As hours of your life pass you by?
We bet you still won't know
After the actors go
Cause the show is so slow
Drag time!
(Characters retreat to their corners)
(Fade in on the little stiffy upper class corner)
FATHER
Mother where the devil are my slippers?
MOTHER
They're next to your side of the bed.
FATHER
I see. And where are my glasses?
MOTHER
On your head dear.
FATHER
uh huh…what about my straw hat?
MOTHER
You threw it in the lake, remember Darling?
FATHER
Quite right, well, I'm ready to copulate, so heed to your wifely duties.
MOTHER
Alright, just as soon as I finish this suicide note.
FATHER
impatient Women…soon they'll want to vote!
to the audience
Father was a man dealing with his little family in the best way he could – by running out on them to forage for decadent Eskimo sex in the Yukon. But he provided well for them. Not bad for being the product of centuries worth of marriage between first cousins.
MOTHER
The house where she hated her life was Mother's domain. Every day she took joy in thinking of new ways to end her life. They were happy times, cleaning, feeding her son's oedipal complex…
FATHER
Mother, I'm WAITING! You're keeping me from years away surrounded by seaman!
MOTHER
And seeing to it that Father could find his own ass with two hands and a flashlight.
MOTHER'S YOUNGER BROTHER
Sister! Will you pin my gloves to my coat so that they won't get lost!
to audience
Mother's younger brother was a useless waste of life, perfectly content to masturbate violently to the thought of explosions and various hootchie cootchie girls of the time. Sometimes he would put the fantasies together and the sight of their scantily clad bodies exploding drove him to a sexual frenzy only dreamt of by the white upper class.
(Grandfather enters disoriented and crazed looking)
GRANDFATHER
Where the hell am I? Who are you? What have you done with Stella! Stella! Where's my supper?
to audience completely normal
Grandfather had been faking insanity for years now to keep from doing anything. But there was one thing he never faked. He truly was a rat bastard son of a bitch.
MOTHER
WE'RE ALL UNHAPPY HERE
FATHER
THAT'S WHY I DISAPPEAR
MOTHER (with a bag of heavy rocks)
I WONDER IF THE TIDE'S IN…
(lights up on speak easy saloon)
COALHOUSE
Row row row your boat gently down the stream!
WOMEN
SWOOOOOOON
COALHOUSE
Yeah, you know it! Mr. Coalhouse Walker Junior the Third Esq M.D was a sexy mutha –
SARAH's FRIEND
Shut yo mouth!
COALHOUSE
But I'm talkin' 'bout Coalhouse
SARAH'S FRIEND
Then I can dig it!
COALHOUSE
Down in Harlem, there were no honkeys, only honky tonk pianos, and Coalhouse was God's gift to the ladies.
SARAH
Coalhouse…
COALHOUSE
You could say he had 88 keys to their heart
SARAH
Coalhouse I…
COALHOUSE
Yes sir, if there was one thing Coalhouse had it was action
SARAH
Coalhouse, I love you
COALHOUSE
And by action I mean that he had numerous hot sweaty affairs with so many ladies and a even a few men and was completely unfaithful and untrustworthy
SARAH
Coalhouse please listen to me!
COALHOUSE
One time I even had sex with four women on my girlfriend's mother's grave and…
SARAH
Coalhouse! I'm leaving you goodbye!
sour chord on the piano
COALHOUSE
bewildered
Why? I don't understand! Why would she leave me! WHY GOD WHY! WHAT DID I DO!
SARAH'S FRIEND
Don't worry Coalhouse we'll help get her back into this abusive one sided relationship, don't ya'll worry.
COALHOUSE
You're the best! Play your cards right and there may be a solo in this for you lata winks
SARAH'S FRIEND
mmmmmHMMMMMM
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
Pardon me my good sir, I am a symbol of the African American hope for freedom and equality, could you direct me to the Morgan Library?
COALHOUSE
Morgan Library? Never heard of it! I wouldn't be caught DEAD THERE!
BOOKER T.
CAREFUL THE THINGS YOU SAY
YOU'LL GIVE THE PLOT AWAY!
IF ANYONE'S STILL FOLLOWING….
(light's up on the docks of some god-forsaken harbor)
TATEH
Mche ALACKKKKK ICHCHHHHHH shpreichhhh hhhhhooohah tuchhhhas muchhh muchhh Goylacccchhhhh.
LITTLE GIRL
What did you say papa?
TATEH
Nothing, I think I swallowed a bug in steerage class.
to audience
Tateh was one of the faceless walking dead of Europe who decided to uproot his whole family from Latvia to come and take jobs away from Americans.
LITTLE GIRL
Is that true papa?
TATEH
SHUT UP! YOU NO TALK!
nicely to audience
He was a man with a pair of scissors and a dream!
OTHER IMMIGRANT
A barber?
TATEH
No
OTHER IMMIGRANT
A tailor?
TATEH
NO!
IMMIGRANTS
Then what!
TATEH
I cut out little pieces of paper and glue them to OTHER pieces of paper and by doing what a four year old does for mother's day I've got the bright I idea I'm going to be rich!
LITTLE GIRL
…you've condemned us to die.
TATEH
WHAT DID I TELL YOU! tugs on her rope
LITTLE GIRL
SORRY!...(shmuck)
EDGAR
Look poor foreigners! It's Houdini!
HOUDINI (appears in a sigfriend and roy ensemble that would make Liberace blush)
Hey HEY hey!
(crowd oohs and ahhhs as Houdini does shadow puppets)
HOUDINI
Harry Houdini was like every other mensch in show business. He started just a little meeshkite from the projects of Europe and thanks to hard work and a mother with no boundaries or sense of humanity he rose to become the biggest thing since…giggles I said biggest thing!
HOUDINI'S MOTHER
pinches his cheek and gives him a bottle
THWOEJRL;AGJWERAUIOEWBHN (eastern European gibberish)
HOUDINI
His mother thought he was FAAAAAABULOUUUUUUSSSS!
EDGAR
Houdini!
HOUDINI
Hi sweetie pie!
EDGAR
Warn the duke!
HOUDINI
Ex-queeze me?
EDGAR
WARN THE DUKE! runs off
HOUDINI
WAIT!...how do I get this guy Duke's address!
(lights up on the down stage center empty space)
J.P MORGAN
There are some characters that make a play great! Then there are others who are just filler and there for historical accuracy! J.P Morgan was one of these characters!
HENRY FORD
So was Henry Ford! Great men, whose job it was to sing one song then die in obscurity playing 12 other chorus roles! Never getting the respect they deserve!
EMMA GOLDMAN (pushes them both aside like the butch she is)
EMMA GOLDMAN REFUSED TO BE ONE OF THOSE CHARACTERS! SHE WAS A BRUTE BUTCH WOMAN WHO SCRAPED AND CLAWED UNTIL SHE GOT MORE SONGS! SHE STOOD FOR FREEDOM, ANARCHY AND SHE YELLED A LOT. THE ONLY THING SHE HATED MORE THAN OPPRESSION WERE SISSY GIRLS WHO USED SEX TO GET ATTENTION!
EVELYN NESBIT (off stage)
WEEEEE!
EMMA
OY!
EVELYN NESBIT (is lowered on a half broken swing with a bottle in one hand and her hair a mess. She looks like spring break gone horribly horribly wrong)
slurring
Ev'lyn Nesbit wuss the mos' beautifulgirlintheworld…HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! glug glug glug
Shhhe was famous for….famous for….
EMMA
BEING A GOLD DIGGING SLUT!
EVELYN
RIGHT! Thank you dear! She was a gold digging slut who did something…to someone…or maybe it was…I know there was swing…Does anyone know where we are in the script, this is getting really confusing…hiccup
MOTHER'S YOUNGER BROTHER ENTERS AND SEES HER.
MOTHER'S YOUNGER BROTHER
Oh…Oh…OH….
whips a stick of dynamite out of his coat pocket and starts to stroke it then runs off stage grinning perversely
EVELYN
He was nice.
EMMA
THOUGH EMMA'S SCENES WOULD BE THE MOST TELLING AND PROVOCATIVE OF ALL OF THE SCENES THE AUDIENCE KNEW THAT THE PLAY WAS ONLY BEGINNING…
EVERYONE
AND THERE WERE 8,000 MORE SCENES TO GO!
(all scenes come together and join in a giant mob downstage)
EVERYONE
AND THERE'S THIS CONSTANT MUSIC
SCORING THE SCENES
PUSHING THE THEME
LA LA LA LA LA!
A STRAIN OF CONSTANT MUSIC
SOON IT'S OLD NEWS
ILLICITING BOOS
EVELYN NESBIT
Did someone say booze!
EVERYONE
THIS PHRASE WILL STICK IN YOUR BRAIN
AFTER YOU ALL HAVE GONE HOME
THIS IS THE OVERUSED TUNE THAT YOU WON'T FORGET
AND IN CASE YOU MIGHT WE'LL BEAT YOU OVER THE HEAD WITH IT
IT'S STILL JUST THE PROLOGUE AND IT'S 8:49!
WE TOLD YOU THIS WOULD DRAG TIME!
DRAG TIME!
DRAG TIME!
DRAG TIME!