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LIBRARY
Michigan State
University

 

 

 

This is to certify that the
thesis entitled
Science Fiction Drama:
The Past Seen Through the Future
presented by

Paul M. Frazier

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

MaSter ' S degree in Theatre

 

//://4’/ ‘ f/ I if" y
W /$v~) . // //V""
7
/” Major professor

Date 3 77/77
/

/

0-7639 MS U is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution

 

 

MSU

LIBRARIES
-—.

‘

 

 

 

RETURNING MATERIALS:
Place in book drop to
remove this checkout from
your record. FINES will
be charged if book is
returned after the date
stamped below.

 

 

 

 

SCIENCE FICTION DRAMA:
THE PRESENT SEEN THROUGH THE FUTURE

BY

Paul M. Frazier

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Theatre

1987

96
I1

di

t3:

ABSTRACT

SCIENCE FICTION DRAMA:
THE PRESENT SEEN THROUGH THE FUTURE

This study attempts to explore the science fiction
genre as it appears in dramatic literature since World War
II. Plays were selected for analysis based on their
differing approaches to themes common in science fiction.
The analysis focuses on both the literary merits of the
plays as well as their production posibilities.

The themes of utopia and dystopia are represented by

Solitaire by Robert Anderson and A Bunch of the Gods Were

 

 

SittingiAround One Day by James Spencer. These plays are

 

analyzed as differing views of family life, one in a
dystopia and the other in a nascent utopia. Visions of a
post-nuclear holocaust world are examined in To The Chicago

Abyss by Ray Bradbury and The Tin Can Riots by Edward Bond.

 

These plays define an optomistic/pessimistic spectrum of
attitudes toward this possible future.
The last chapter analyzes the production problems of

these four plays.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

 

 

Page

CHAPTER I

Introduction .................................... 1
CHAPTER II

Dystopia and Utopia: Solitare and A Bunch of the

Gods Were Sitting Around One Day ...... . ........ . 13
CHAPTER III

After the Holocaust: To the Chicago Abyss and

The Tin Can People ...... . ..... .................. 42
CHAPTER IV

Conclusions and Suggestions for Further Research 72
APPENDIX 1

Bibliography of Plays for Adult Audiences....... 81
APPENDIX 2

Bibliography of Plays for Young Audiences....... 86
BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................... 90

iii

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Since man started writing, the element of the fantastic
has been a part of literature. We have been entertaining and
educating ourselves with myths and legends since the earliest
times. Eventually, these tales were written down, giving us
such stories as Homer's Illyad and Odyssey. These myths told
of heroes and their adventures in far-off lands, as well as
teaching moral lessons and attempting to explain the world in
which the writers lived.

In recent history, science fiction has taken the place
of these myths and legends. Science fiction creates the same
sense of wonderment that the ancient myths did. The worlds
and peoples created by science fiction writers are strange
and wonderful. They are sometimes dangerous, but always
interesting. Much of the attraction of science fiction films
is due to the special effects used in them. Audiences want
to see what these other worlds and creatures look like.
Science fiction also supplies some moral and ethical
instruction. Many stories are of the "if this goes on"
variety. These stories suggest that if some situation
continues without change, something terrible will come of it.

Also, many stories have stereotypical Good and Evil

2

characters who are in conflict. Good is usually rewarded,
and Evil is usually punished, thus supplying a moral lesson.

In its beginnings, science fiction was a literature of
technology. Each story was centered around a particular
technological advance, and showed how the world could be made
better (or worse) with its use. As more and better writers
entered the field, the quality of the stories improved.
Instead of focussing on the newest technology, the stories
began to focus on the people affected by that technology.
According to Asimov, this change occurred because the older
type of science fiction story was overtaken by reality too
quickly. The stories were becoming outdated before they were
published because technology was advancing at an incredible
rate and the fantastic new machines described in the stories
written today were being sold in the stores tomorrow. So the
writers turned from stories about the hardware of technology
to stories about the software of human beings to avoid being
overtaken. The changes in social structure brought about by
changes in technology occurred much more slowly than the
changes in technology themselves (103). As this change took
place in science fiction literature, it became a genre of
recognizable people in recognizable relationships living in a
world different from our own, altered by technological

change.

3

Because of this evolution of science fiction, developing
a precise definition for the genre is difficult. Different
critics have defined it in different ways to suit their own
purposes. Millies offers what is perhaps the most all-
encompassing definition. She defines science fiction as "a
prose narrative that deals with a situation that could not
happen in the world as we know it, but deals with it so that
it appears scientifically plausible and realistic" (1).

Asimov defines science fiction by considering its social
backgrounds. Both science fiction and fantasy deal with
events played against social backgrounds that have not
existed and do not exist today. Lumped into what he calls
"surrealistic fiction" are such divers works as Gulliver's
Travels, The Jungle Book, The Lord of the Ringg, and The War

of the Worlds (17). He further divides the two types of

 

surrealistic fiction by defining science fiction as stories
which have a surreal social background which could
conceivably be derived from our own by appropriate changes in
the level of science and technology. That change could be an
advance, such as colonies on Mars, or a decline, such as the
destruction of our civilization by nuclear disaster. By a
liberal application of this rule, we can include such things
as time travel, faster than light velocities, etc. in science
fiction. Fantasy, on the other hand, includes those social
backgrounds that cannot reasonably be supposed from our own

by any change in the level of science and technology (17-18).

4
Stories of magicians and fairies, which cannot generally be
explained by any alteration of the level of technology in our
world, would fit into this division of surrealistic fiction.

Asimov goes on to say that what is crucial about science
fiction is its perception of change through technology. It
is not that science fiction predicts one specific change or
another, it is that it predicts change in general (19-20).

If there is one thing about our world today that is constant,
it is that it is always changing. In nearly every field of
endeavor, new discoveries and advancements are being made
daily, and the general populace is often hard-pressed to keep
up with the changes in their own field of interest, much less
in every other field as well. Science fiction writers
explore the effects of change on our society and ourselves.
This is the purpose of their predictions. They are not
harbingers of what gill be, but of what gighg be.

Both Millies and Asimov were writing about science
fiction stories, i.e., narrative literature. But what of
dramatic literature? If we replace "prose narrative" with
"drama" in Millies's definition, we have not significantly
altered its meaning or applicability. Also, Asimov's
discussion of surrealistic social backgrounds does not
preclude a dramatic presentation. All that Asimov requires
for science fiction is a social background that can be
achieved by a reasonable and explained change from today's,

and a perception of that change as a part of the literature.

For the purposes of this study, I will use a definition
of science fiction very similar to Asimov's: science fiction
is any literary work set in a world that differs from the
real world in a way that is, or can be, plausibly explained.
This explanation will be deemed plausible if it is primarily
based on a change in technology (either an advance or
decline) from that of the Earth in 1987. As in Asimov's
definition, what is important is not that the change has
occurred, but that the change, and the social situations it
has brought about, are fundamental to the plot.

By this definition, A Bunch of the Gods Were Sitting

Around One Day is science fiction because it is set on

 

spacecraft that left the Earth to colonize another planet.
Our current technology allows us to build vessels that can
travel in space to other planets, (1.9., the Moon) but we are
not yet able to travel faster than the speed of light. The
ability to build vessels that can travel faster than the
speed of light is fundamental to the plot of that play.

Also, the situation that the characters find themselves in is
brought about by this technological advance. They are
trapped inside the ship when it is in "hyperspace," and must
live with the very strict rationing of resources this
captivity forces upon them. Therefore the play is science
fiction by the above definition because it postulates nothing

more than a change of technology from our world; and the plot

31

6
centers around the effects of this technology when it has
gone awry.

The world of Solitaire is a world not very advanced

 

beyond our own, but the society depicted in the play has
taken their technology and created a world more suited to its
machines than its people. People live in sterile cubicles
that are completely controlled by computers. The problem
with the world is that the computers rarely work properly,
and the people have no recourse to the decisions made by the
computers. They are considered infallible.

To the Chicago Abyss is set in a world devastated by

 

war. The abyss of the title refers to the bomb crater that
is where Chicago used to be. In the aftermath of the war,
and the decline in technology that accompanied it, a
totalitarian state has arisen which forbids any connection to
the better days of the past, including remembering it.

The Tin Can Riots occurs in a world nearly sterilized by

 

nuclear war. The last survivors try to preserve their own
lives in a world where the only food comes from the canned
food that was not destroyed by the bombs. This preservation

goes on, even at the cost of the lives of other survivors.

The second criterion used in this study was that the
plays focus on identifiable characters and relationships.

Sam, the main character in Solitaire, is an old man

 

alone in this world of rampant computerization. He remembers

7
the past, before the System came into being, and is unable to
adjust to the new ways of the world. This refusal to adjust
to new technologies and the social structures that surround
them is widespread today. One need only look at the large
number of people who are "computer-phobic," or frightened of
computers and therefore refuse to use them, to identify Sam's
connection with the real world.

A Bunch of the Gods Were Sitting Around One Day focuses
on the members of a family who love each other so much that
they would die for each other, and love each other too much
to allow another member to die for them. In the ideal family
that we all wish we had, this sort of selfless love is the
norm. Most real families come close to this kind of love.
Perhaps we don't think about giving up our lives for our
loved ones, but in times of crisis, we often risk our own
lives for them. In many cases, people do lose their lives
trying to save their children or spouses.

To the Chicago Abyss shows us an old man who remembers
the "good old days" and tries to tell his younger
contemporaries about them. Everyone has or knows of an
elderly person who tirelessly talks about the days "when I
was young." Such characters are so common that they have
become a stereotype.

The Tin Can Riots shows how fear and prejudice can grow

 

out of control in an atmosphere of ignorance. One need only

8
look at South Africa today or the American South of a few

years back to see real world examples of this situation.

The last criterion for inclusion in the study was that
the plays present a spectrum of themes common in science
fiction.

1 The Dystopia, a world where social and humanistic values
have been subordinated to mechanistic or scientific ones
(Aldridge ix), is one of the cornerstones of science fiction,
particularly since the 19603. This period in science fiction
is frequently called the New Wave, and is characterized by a
mood of deep pessimism (Asimov 104). These tales tell of a
world, originally designed to be "perfect" for its

inhabitants, gone awry. Solitaire is such a play, wherein

 

the computerized environment, intended to make life perfect
for all mankind, instead makes life impossible for some men.
The quest for a perfect world, or for Utopia, is also a
common theme in science fiction. These stories blossomed
during the Golden Age of science fiction, the 1920s and 303,
when it seemed as if technology could solve any problem that
faced the world (Asimov 102). A Bunch of Gods Were Sitting

Around One Day tells the story of a group of people trying to

 

find the perfect world to colonize, one better than the Earth
that their ancestors left hundreds of years before.
The Atomic Bomb has existed in science fiction since

H.G. Wells first wrote about it (Asimov 100). Fears of a

9
world devastated by nuclear war have flourished since the
bombs were first used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. To the

Chicagp Abyss shows us a world changed by a devastating war,

 

perhaps nuclear, perhaps not, but shows it with a sense of
optimism. We might actually survive such a war if its

aftermath were as Bradbury depicts it. The Tin Can Riots

 

shows us the aftermath of a nuclear war as bad as most modern
scientists have predicted. Bond's world is a world that will
probably be spared the burden of human life a few years after
the play's end.

In Aquino's discussion of science fiction as literature,
he dismisses science fiction dramatic literature because of
an argument made by Tolkien. He quotes Tolkien as saying
that science fiction drama cannot exist because drama
attempts to create an illusionary world by its very nature,
even though this world is based on our own. To introduce
into this illusory world another level of illusion, that of
the science fiction or fantasy world, would strain the magic
of the theatre to the breaking point; it would be a world too
much (13).

Tolkein's argument is not without its merits, but it
breaks down when one considers such plays as Brecht's Egg

Threepenny Opera or Weiss's Marat/Sade. These plays have

 

both worked on the stage with great success, and also have
multiple layers of worlds or illusions. These and many other

plays show that audiences are quite capable of accepting very

10
complex layerings of illusion; much more complex than those

called for in plays examined in this study.

This study attempts to fill a void in the study of
science fiction literature. Since 1980, there have been 21
doctoral dissertations and two master's theses written on
some aspect of science fiction literature, according to

Dissertation Abstracts International and Masters Abstracts.

 

Not one of them considered the genre as it appears in
dramatic literature, not even those which focused on the work
of authors who have written science fiction plays. For
example, Bradbury has written science fiction plays, one of
which is examined in this study. But the dissertations on
his work do not consider them at all. There is no scholarly
writing dealing with the genre of science fiction as it
exists in dramatic literature.

Yet science fiction plays have had an effect on our
language and history. For example, the word "robot" was
coined by Capec for his play R.U.R. The word is based on the
Czechoslovakian word for "worker" (Elrick 217). Also, Orson
Welles's radio broadcast of War of the Worlds and the panic
it caused is a part of the history of radio drama, as well as
of our cultural consciousness.

Another important aspect of science fiction drama is its
tremendous box office potential. Films such as Star Wars

have drawn record audiences to the movie houses which have

11
shown them. Theatres wishing to capitalize on this tide of
popularity should be made aware of the extant plays, and be
given some method for judging their merit. The selection
criteria for this thesis were chosen with that idea in mind.
I do not suggest that my criteria are the only ones, or the
best ones. They simply are a reasonable method for
evaluating these scripts.

Lastly, science fiction plays present their own unique
set of challenges for the theatrical artist. A costume
designer cannot research a period that is yet to be. What
does the interior of a starship look like, and how can a set
designer realize it on stage? What kinds of motivations does
a robot have? These challenges are exciting, and theatrical
artists should be made aware of them, and have the
opportunity to face them. In fact, the plays examined in
this thesis have simple technical requirements, and provide
no major obstacles to their production because of impossible
sets or costumes. Rather, they would allow designers to
indulge themselves (within the confines of the scripts) and
create the worlds of the plays quite freely based on their
own artistic senses.

In conclusion, highly imaginative elements have been a
part of literature in general, and dramatic literature
specifically, since Man began writing. Man's early writings
had a strong mythical element, and this element provided a

sense of wonderment and frequently supplied some moral

12
teachings as well. Since the explosion of technology in
recent history, science fiction has taken the place of
mythology in our society. Science fiction creates the same
sense of wonderment that the ancient myths did, and also
supplies some moral and ethical instruction. These stories
are often cautionary tales, warning us that if some situation
continues, dire results are likely. In addition, in many
stories good behavior is rewarded and bad behavior punished.
In both these cases, a moral lesson is being taught. Plays
from this new "mythology" are being written, and theatrical
artists should be made aware of the artistic challenges and

the box office potential that they hold.

CHAPTER II
Dystopia and Utopia:

Solitaire and
A Bunch of the Gods Were Sitting Around One Day

 

One of the significant genres of modern science fiction
is the Utopia. Ruppert, in his Preface, describes'these
stories as often telling of a one-dimensiOnal dreamworld,
showing unearthly visions of peace and perfect harmony,
homogeneous in order, precision and happiness, which seem to
provide us with comforting reassurance (ix). In this
process, they appear to ignore difference, to reduce
multiplicity and diversity, and to exclude choice, conflict,
complexity and history. Therefore the easy solutions they
offer are false, they are only escapist dreams that
oversimplify the way things really are (ix).

Ruppert goes on to say that in spite of their
simplification and their devotion to unity and order,
utopias leave us with a productive sense of uneasiness and
ambivalence. The very sites that utopias construct so
meticulously to maintain their visions of order are unreal
and unreachable: they are fictional places reachable only
by fictional roads. But these fictional roads are built

from the discarded bricks of our quite real social constructs.

13

14

In the twentieth century a new variation of the Utopian
genre has arisen: the Dystopia. Aldridge describes the
dystopia as not being simply a utopia in reverse, but a
specific category growing from our contemporary attitudes
towards utopia (ix). While it can be said that utopias are
an effort to restructure society in a scientific and
analytical way, the dystopia always aims to critique and
ridicule that world view for its elevation of functional and
collective ends over humanistic and individual ends. The
dystopia is not anti-science or anti-technology in the sense
that it represents machine phobia. Instead its writers are
warning of the intrusion of scientific values, such as
objectivity and neutrality, into our social values. They
criticize the replacement of a humanistic ethic with a
scientific or technological one: they assail the
scientizing of a society (ix).

Robert Anderson's play Solitaire is an example of the

 

Dystopia play.

Solitaire was written in 1969, and produced for the

 

first time at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven starting
on 12 February 1971. The company traveled with it to the
1971 Edinburgh International Festival, opening on 6
September 1971. It opened on Broadway at the John Golden
Theater on 30 September 1971 (Anderson viii).

As the play begins, we see a cell-like room. Sam

enters and begins to settle into his Servocell for the

15
night. A computer voice asks him to register, and with this
we begin to see the problems in this Dystopia. This place
is controlled by rampant computerization and automation, and
little of it functions properly.

Sam tries to comply with the computer's command, but
the computer does not recognize his voice because he has a
slight cold. He developed the cold from staying in a
Servocell the night before where the heat didn't work. Not
only does the heat operate imperfectly in the Servocells,
which are supposedly designed for every convenience, but the
computer registrar is unable to recognize someone if they
have a cold.

After identifying himself with a Lifetime
Identification Card, Sam starts to arrange his possessions
around the room. This includes displaying a picture of his
wife on a projection screen.

He tries to cool the cell down by adjusting the
temperature controls, which don't work. The television
doesn't work. He is requested to pay an outstanding bill at
the store which he has paid, and has sent numerous tapes
confirming the payment to the computer. The only thing
which works is the liquor dispenser, which reminds him that
his liquor quotient is used up for the week.

The idea of marriage no longer exists. It is taboo.
Families are outlawed, and children are conceived through

artificial insemination of women, who then give their

16
children up at birth. Their method of child—rearing is not
described, but it is implied that children found
unsatisfactory in some way are done away with. All males
with an "Intelligence Quotient-Sperm Qualification Count" of
200 or better must leave weekly sperm samples to facilitate
the production of satisfactory children.

To satisfy the need for family life, there are
Marriage-Minus-One tapes, which are recordings of one half
of a conversation between spouses, with pauses for the
appropriate responses from the listener, intended to comfort
the listener by providing a simulated familial experience.

As Sam enters the cell, we see that he is depressed.

He tries to contact the doctors at Central Counselling in
order to ease his depression, but they are all busy, so the
computer plays for him a selection from the Marriage-Minus-
One tapes called "Husband Comes Home":

WIFELY VOICE: Is that you, Honey? (SAM has heard
this a hundred times and just lies there) Did you have a
good day? (He snorts at this) Dinner's almost ready. It was
a lovely day, wasn't it? (There is, of course, a pause
between the questions for the other half of the
conversation. But SAM does not respond.) The man came to
fix the television set but he said it couldn't be fixed.
We'll have to get a new one. You'd better get yourself a
drink or smoke a little grass before I tell you some of the

other things that happened. . . . Oh, anything at all. Get

17
your feet up and enjoy your drink. I'll be in in a few
minutes. (Anderson 6-7)

This placebo only depresses him more, and he turns to
the picture of his wife and plays a tape of a conversation
that they had before she "chose early self-disposal":

FLORENCE (on tape): Hello, darling. Are you home?

SAM (on tape): Yes, I'm here.

FLORENCE: Did you shop for dinner?

SAM: Yes. I knew you'd be late. . . How are you?

FLORENCE (Kissing and snuggling): Mmmm. I Hate it

when they keep me late at the office. Get out of the

kitchen. I don't want you in here.

SAM: I don't mind. I like to cook.

FLORENCE: But I mind. I'm getting fat on your

cooking. Nothing but cream sauces.

SAM: You taught me how to make it.

FLORENCE: Well, I wish I hadn't. Now come on, get

out. I'm going to make dinner.

SAM (Seductive): Why don't we let dinner wait?

FLORENCE: Aren't you hungry?

SAM: Yes. (He makes it clear it's a different kind of

hunger)

FLORENCE (Laughing): Oh, you're impossible.

SAM: You love it, and you know it. (Anderson 9-10)

18

There is a clear contrast between these two versions of
family life. The conversation between Sam and Florence has
an intimate quality to it, as if the people speaking knew
and cared for each other. There is also an implied
history. Sam's lines, "I knew you'd be late", "You taught
me how to make it", and "You love it, and you know it", and
Florence's line "Well, I wish I hadn't" all refer to past
aspects of or events in a continuing relationship.‘

Both intimacy and history are missing in the Marriage-
Minus-One tape. The only reference to the past in the tape
is that of the television repair man, but that is a
reference to another person outside the relationship and an
object. Neither of them concern the relationship between
the listener and his taped companion. The only attempt at
intimacy is the line "Get your feet up and enjoy your
drink", which, coming from the computer which controls Sam's
life, is more of an order than an expression of affection.

Listening to his taped conversation with his wife has
made him more depressed instead of comforting him. So that
he might make it through the night, he flirts with early
self-disposal. He goes through the sequence of buttons
until the last, irrevocable, step and then stops, saying,
"This moment always excites me, Florence. . . It's the only
moment of the day when I really feel alive" (Anderson 11).

After toying with the last button, he places a phone

call to a "Call Family." The Madam of a Call Family

l9
arranges for a family of the client's description to act out
a particular scenario of family life for the client. There
are some restrictions, however. There can be no sex, also
no physical expressions of affection such as touching or
kissing. Should the Call Family House be raided, however,
the only way for the customer and the Madam to avoid trouble
with the law is for the customer to remove his clothes and
make love to his wife.

After Sam receives his last instructions, his playlet
with the Family begins. He has requested that they act out
Father's Day. The Daughter greets him as he enters the
kitchen with more of the meaningless chit-chat that we saw
in the Marriage-Minus-One tapes:

DAUGHTER: Let me take your jacket. Did you have a

good day?

SAM: Actually, I had a terrible day. The moving

sidewalks broke down, and this evening the monorail

stopped at the rush hour.

DAUGHTER: Oh what a shame. Poor Daddy.

SAM: And the union man caught me working today. I

wasn't supposed to be working. But I went to the

library and took out this book I'm taping and went way

back in the stacks. . . but he caught me. . .

DAUGHTER: They shouldn't treat our nice Daddy that way.

Did you bring me anything from your trip? (Anderson

17)

20

Soon the Son enters, and Sam is startled by the Son's
resemblance to himself at that age. He is convinced that
the Son is really his son, sired from the weekly sperm
donation Sam is required to give. This idea is unnerving
for both Sam and the Son, for Sam because of his longing to
make some connection with his family, and for the Son
because it is taboo to know one's own parents. The System
has been set up to make such things impossible. The Son
calls the Madam into the room to straighten Sam out, and she
tells Sam to think what he wants, but to obey the rules.

The Wife comes in and enacts hgg stereotypes. She
claims that she needs the help of a "strong man" to open a
jar, which Sam opens with ridiculous ease. She then
presents him with an eggbeater which is broken, and he makes
the simple repair with the screwdriver that she has handy.
She inspects his clothing and finds a loose button and a
spot on his lapel. She gives these items to the Daughter
for her to fix.

After this comes an almost obligatory scene:

SON: Dad, can I have the car tonight?

SAM: Well, uh . . .

DAUGHTER: (into their routine) You had it last night.

SON: But only for an hour.

DAUGHTER: But you had it! I never get to use it.

SON: Never! Ha-ha.

21

DAUGHTER: Never! And I always have to buy the gas.

SON: You buy the gas. What a laugh.

WIFE: Children. . . children.

SAM: (A broad smile of appreciation on his face) No.

. . no. . . Let them. . . It's lovely.

SON: I spend all my allowance on gas.

DAUGHTER: You leave the tank absolutely empty. You

must push the car into the garage.

WIFE: That's enough now! It's time for dinner.

Sister, help serve. (Anderson 23-24)

After this scene, and a scene where Sam's "Father" is
brought in for display, smoking a cigar and saying nothing,
Sam succombs to the warm sentimentality of it all. The
warmth is, of course, supplied by his imagination, not by
the specious family he has hired to live out his fantasy of
family life. Sam is so moved by everything that occurs that
he proposes marriage to the woman playing his wife. At that
moment the Madam interrupts to say that his time is up, and
he must leave immediately so that they can prepare for the
next customer. As they are wrapping up their business, a
police Captain enters, wanting his usual scenario, to play
trains with the Son from Sam's Family. The Madam reveals
that the Son has left for good, disgusted by Sam's emotional
excesses. We see the power of self-suggestion that
motivates this world of Call Families from the Captain's

reaction towards the Son. The Captain says, "But he was my

22
son. He looked like me. He talked like me. . . " (Anderson
30). Both of these older men, who cling to the ways of the
past (before the System took hold), are unconsciously trying
to make some connection with their sons in a world which
forbids it.

In response to the Son's leaving the Call Family, the
Madam throws Sam out, and forbids him to return. Being
denied this tenuous grip on his past, Sam returns to his
Servocell, and prepares to commit suicide in earnest. He
leaves his slide and tapes of his wife to posterity, leaves
his last words ("I just don't like it here anymore"
(Anderson 32)), and presses the final button, with which he
has only flirted in the past.

The computer presents him with a pill and a glass of
water and is told to take the pill and lay down on the cot
in the cell. Sam looks at them and is terrified. He tries
to return the pill so that he can stay alive, but the
computer tells him: "We are sorry. You were warned the
last step was irrevocable. Someone else is already
breathing your air" (Anderson 33).

Anderson's Solitaire is a play about the relationships

 

between a man and his family. In the first scenes we see a
comparison between a real, imperfect, man and wife and a
sterile representation of them which we can assume is
"perfect" in the view of the System, which created the

Marriage-Minus-One tapes for the well being of its citizens.

23

Instead of an unpredictable and anarchistic relationship
between man and wife, we have an assembly line version in
the Marriage-Minus-One tapes. There are a number of
different scenarios depicted on the tapes, but each one is a
fixed recording. It cannot react to the responses given by
the human listener. Even the pauses are of fixed length,
thereby defining the acceptable responses to some degree.
Also, once a tape is heard, it is known. It cannot be
varied. It is predictable.

This is Aldridge's scientizing within a Dystopian
society, where science tries to restructure the unacceptable
aspects of a society in an analytical way. The
unpredictable passions of family life are replaced with a
passionless, and predictable, substitute.

This substitute is characterized by a lack of genuine
communication. For example, the girl playing the Daughter
is pregnant, presumably by their artificial insemination
program. Sam is told that he may not mention it, and to
pretend that it does not exist. When Sam sugests that she
play his Wife, and that his Wife gg pregnant, the Madam is
repulsed. Relationships can be fulfilling only when both
parties communicate with each other. That is the point of
this play. We are shown relationships that contain no
communication, in fact, honest communication is impossible
in this situation. We can see how unsatisfying they are to

the people involved. We are also shown a contrasting

24
relatibnship that has communication and that fulfilled its
partners. By making this contrast, we see how communication
of any sort is necessary, and therefore how valuable
intimacy is.
At the other end of the Utopia -- Dystopia spectrum is

James Spencer's play, A Bunch of the Gods Were Sitting

 

Around One Day. It deals with a group of people trying to

 

create a utopian society. This play is not set in Ruppert's
dreamworld, but its characters are looking for the road to
it.

§gg§ was first presented on 3 through 22 December 1973
at the American Conservatory Theatre of San Francisco
(Spencer 268).

In contrast to Anderson's vision of the future, Spencer
shows us a family desperately trying to communicate with and
love one another. In this play there are seven people
trapped in a malfunctioning starship which has been
travelling faster than the speed of light (in "hyperspace")
for 182 years. Because Sri, the ship's primary computer
which controls their engines, is not working, they are
unable to slow down and find a planet to colonize. Because
the life-support systems are not operating properly, they
only have enough food, air, etc. for seven people to live
indefinitely. Should there be a larger crew, their supplies
would be exhausted, and they would all eventually die.

Therefore, when the time comes for them to have a child, so

25
that the mission can carry on, one of the crew members must
be chosen to end his life to make room for the child,
thereby keeping the crew limited to seven members. This has
been going on for seven generations, so by this time they
are all at least cousins to one another. This is the
fulcrum on which the plot balances.

As the play opens, the seven crew members are
meditating in the control room of the ship. As they arise
and go about their duties, we see the tension in their
relationships. It is Christmas Day, and while some wish to
relax and celebrate, others press on with their work:

BETH: (softly) Kelly.

KELLY: (without looking up) I have work to do.

BETH: On Christmas Day?

KELLY: Can we afford to waste one day?

BETH: It's only day of year we celebrate.

KELLY: Let's celebrate when we have reason. (He

returns to the command console and sits, peering into

the dome. Action gets up.) Action, would you bring
tector? Something funny here. (Action goes to the
backup console and looks into the dome.)

ACTION: Hm. Theta shell? (He goes to the door, stage

right and exits. . . .)

BETH: Isn't this reason? Seven people, alive in

immensity of universe? (Spencer 212)

26

Ling is the last one to arise from meditation. She is
wrenched from her trance by a vision of the death of one of
the men in the crew. Action uses the moment to bring up the
topic that they all have been avoiding on this day of
celebration, that some man in the crew must in fact die to
make room for the next child to be born into the crew. Since
there are only three women in the crew and they need three
women to keep as broad a gene pool as possible, none of them
can be the one to die until a girl child is born. Action
announces that he will call a council for the next day to
vote for someone to die. Ever since they had to limit the
crew to seven 182 years ago, they have held such councils.
The vote to choose someone to die must be unanimous.

Sasha tries to convince them that he should be the one
to be killed for the good of the crew, and in fact they will
eventually vote for him anyway:

SASHA: (scoffing) Action, are we going to kill woman?

Destroy genetic base? You? Only one of us who can

land ship without Sri's help? (Going to Kelly and

touching his shoulder) Our genius engineer? (Going
toward Ram) Our yogi, zoologist, botanist, biochemist,
astronomer and Sri knows what else? Are we? We're
going to pick me. Scientific dabbler. Curator of
museum. Poet. (gesturing toward the bubble harp)

Builder of bubbles! I knew this day would come. We

all did. (looking around at them) I'm not

27
complaining! Why should you? Cheer up! (He grins,

and picks up the goblet and the urn-shaped wine

pitcher.) What do I have to do. . . campaign? (waving
the goblet, expansive) How about . . . Vote for Sasha!

 

If elected, he will not bore you with speeches? How's

 

that? Or what about. . . (brightly, holding up the

pitcher) Candidate who urns his keep! Hah hah! Get

 

it? (Spencer 219)

Kelly tries to convince Sasha that he can get the ship
functional in another year, and therefore Sasha should not
die, nor should anyone else, but Sasha does not believe him.

As a rebellious attitude begins to grow among the crew
members, who say that no one should have to die to make room
for someone else, Action shows them old tapes of the Earth,
and reminds them of their mission, and the beauty that they
are searching for, by looking for a planet to colonize. He
tries to inspire them to continue their search for a
suitable planet, but they only remember the unsatisfactory
places that were found before they became trapped in
hyperspace. Action tries to convince them with great
rhetorical fervor, but even he has doubts:

BETH: It's been seven generations since anyone on ship

saw stars. Does it matter?

ACTION: (with deep conviction) Beth, I tell you, we

shall see them. We shall repair ship. We shall find

28

planet, and human race will live again as meant to

live.

BETH: (shaking her head, sorrowfully) I wish I had

your faith.

ACTION: So do I. (Spencer 223)

In the next scene, Sasha has gotten a gun and intends
to kill himself, but is unable to find the courage. Ling
finds him and begs him not to do it. She claims that
because of her love for him, she would die of sorrow if he
died. She resorts to aiming the gun at her own head to get
him to reconsider. Sasha responds, "Ling, stop it! How
long do you think ILQ live if anything happened to ygg?"
(Spencer 226). Ram, their yogi adept, enters the room and
decides to end the argument of who is to die by using his
abilities to kill himself. He argues that since he is the
oldest, it should be he who is to die. He also reminds them
that there is no way that they could stop him if they wanted
to, since his yogic powers are greater than any of theirs.
He tells them that he will do this in seven days. He
chooses to wait a week so that his memories and knowledge
can be stored in the computers for the rest of them to call
upon if needed after he is dead. Action bargains with him:
if they find some hope of repairing the ship and Sri within
the seven days, Ram will not kill himself. Ram agrees to

this.

29

As the rest of the men try in vain to find some
evidence to convince Ram not to kill himself, Beth tries to
rally the women to stop all the killing. Beth proposes that
the women threaten to kill themselves, one woman for one
man, until all the killing stops permanently. Tia and Ling
refuse to join with her. They see the mission as
outweighing individual concerns. Since they won't join with
her, Beth decides to do something on her own.

Sasha overhears this conversation, and again decides to
take matters into his own hands. He convinces Kelly to
release one of the suicide pills that is used when a vote is
taken. These pills provide a merciful death, without pain.
Normally it requires a touch command from every member of
the crew to release one, but since Kelly is the engineer, he
can get one without such a command. Sasha says that since
he and Kelly both love Ram, and since the only way to stop
Ram from killing himself is if there is no need for him to
die, Kelly should help him get a pill so that Sasha can die
in his place. Sasha threatens that he will find some way to
kill himself, and asks Kelly to give him a merciful death
with the pill.

While Kelly fetches the pill for Sasha, Action tries to
stop Ram from killing himself by forcing a council vote:

ACTION: We're going to choose, Ram. What we vote is

law. If you disobey, it's mutiny.

RAM: (getting to his feet, a bit angry) lg it?

30

TIA: Ram. .

RAM: (raising his hand to quiet her) Another killing

will destroy us. (pause) Action, you and I voted at

council that chose Beth's father. Remember what it
felt like after he died? Remember what Beth was like?

(to Beth) It's a miracle you healed enough to love us

again. (Spencer 241)

Ram refuses to change his plans. He feels that by
continuing to elect someone to die for them, the idea of
killing would become so impersonal and natural that they
would eventually be able to kill without any feeling of
guilt whatsoever.

As the rest of the crew leaves the control room, Ram
prays to Sri that it might find a way for them all to live.
Tia enters quietly and observes him. As soon as he finishes
his prayer, the alarms go off, indicating a "Class A
Emergency," which requires all seven of them to deal with.
As the curtain falls for the end of Act I, they are
frantically working to repair the damage to the ship which
brought on the emergency.

Act II takes place twelve hours later, after they have
gotten the emergency under control. During the emergency,
Sasha saved Kelly's life and was injured in the attempt.
Sasha regains consciousness after seeing a vision of all of

the crew living on an earth-like planet. The key elements

31
of this vision are that no member of the crew was missing,
and that there was a young child with them.

Kelly listens to this, and while treating Sasha for his
injuries, explains the transcendent experience gg had during
the emergency:

KELLY: I learned lesson, Sasha. I never lost

consciousness. I had about two seconds left when you

knocked me out of the field and took full force of it.

I could feel myself dying. I had flashbacks, just like

they say. My mother, holding me in her arms. My first

tour of power cell. First time I made love. Thousand

memories. I saw it all slipping away. . . my life. .

fading like a flicker of smoke into eternity. And I

wasn't ready. I wasn't ready. (brief pause)

Yesterday expedition came before anything else. Today.

. . today I care nothing about expedition. All I care

about is six people. Whenever I look into their faces

I'm so glad to see them I feel like falling on my

knees, thanking them for existing. I thank ygg for

ngl. (Spencer 252)

After telling Sasha this, he demands that Sasha give the
suicide pill back to him. Kelly cannot ask anyone to die so
that he might live after his experience. Sasha refuses to
return the pill, and Kelly swears that he will keep him from

using it.

32

In the next scene, the council has been called so that
the crew can vote for someone to die. For nine ballots,
every member of the crew except Action has voted for
himself. Action has voted for Sasha. Action argues that if
the stalemate goes on, Ram will kill himself, and without
his leadership and knowledge the mission would be doomed.
Action calls for a tenth ballot, and the same results occur.

Ram takes this as an indication that he must kill
himself, because there will be no consensus. Kelly
interrupts to reveal that he obtained a suicide pill for
Sasha, who has hidden it. Because of this new revelation,
Ram decides to move the time of his death to tomorrow, so
that Sasha cannot use the pill. He instructs them to watch
Sasha very closely until he is dead.

In an effort to dissuade Ram from his suicide, Tia
relates the coincidence of Ram's prayer and the emergency.
She claims that it was engineered by Sri, who is somehow not
inactive, but is in fact controlling the ship in some way.

As the rest of the crew debates the possibility of
this, Sasha goes to the bubble harp, where he has hidden the
suicide pill, and tries to swallow it. Ling spots him and
stops him. Action takes possession of the pill, and decides
that he should have been the one to die from the very
beginning, since he is the captain. Kelly responds with the
clearest statement of the underlying motivations involved in

all three volunteers:

33

KELLY: (with a lunatic glint in his eye) That's all

we needed! Three heroes! Shall we make it four?

Anyone else? Ling? Tia? Why don't we just blow up

ship? (Spencer 260)

Every one of the men has volunteered to die for the
good of the mission and refused to let anyone else die.
Each has claimed that he loves the others too much to watch
them die on his behalf. This is clearly true in all cases,
but it also seems true that each of the men wants to die as
a martyr or hero for the mission. The mission has been
elevated to some sort of sacred quest. In their passion to
fulfill the plan of the Builders, they have lost sight of
their own needs and wishes.

Beth sees this insanity going on to its dreadful
conclusion. She decides that this is the time to act, or it
will be too late. She takes from the control console a
metal rod attached to a cable, and plugs the cable into the
ship's main power conduit. She tells them that the moment
one of them commits suicide, she will touch the rod and kill
herself, whether someone does it now or at some time in the
future. Action tells her that without limiting the crew
size to seven, they will soon all die, which would mean the
end of the human race, since they believe themselves to be
the only humans alive. Beth responds:

BETH: Who will miss us? Who will cry? Who will

search for us? (looking around) I know nothing of

34

future. Or past. I know only what's here. Right now!

Us! That's all that matters! (Spencer 262)

The men eventually promise not to kill themselves, or
anyone else, ever again. As soon as this occurs, Sri lights
up and tells them to prepare for landing. Sri had in fact
been observing them for all these years, waiting for the
members of the crew to mature beyond the need to kill. Sri
reveals that they have been orbiting a suitable planet for
sixty four years. Sri was holding them in quarantine until
they would no longer kill for any reason whatsoever. The
play ends as the crew begins the landing procedures to take
them to their new home.

Spencer's gggg is a play about communication within a
family group. In this case, the group is faced with a
critical decision: do they continue to follow the plans of
the Builders, who died many years before, or do they live as
themselves and for themselves. If they throw out the plans
of the Builders, they negate the reasons for their
existance, and in fact risk their own deaths, and the death
of their race. If they follow the plans, they will destroy
their family, and will have nothing to give to their
descendants who might colonize a planet some time in the
future. As the plot unfolds, they work their way to their
decision: they must live for themselves, rather than for

some people who are long dead.

35

The characters in this play communicate with each other
in an imperfect, but effective way. On many occasions, one
character or another intends to commit suicide, and is
dissuaded by the others in the family. Even though the
people who are talked out of suicide often return to that
option, eventually the greater and greater risks taken by
the other members of the family group convince them all to
eschew killing for good. This transcendent decision is the
one that they need to make to solve their dilemma, and it
brings them to "paradise."

These two plays deal with a number of similar ideas.
The most obvious commonality is suicide. In both plays, the
characters desire to live in a world that is better than the
one in which they live. Sam wants to live in the world he
remembers from before the System's takeover. He longs to
know his children, he wants to live with his wife again, he
wants to do meaningful work. Since none of these things are
possible, he wants at least to share his grief with someone
who understands. As long as the Call Families are available
to him, he can believe that someone is listening and cares
about his pain and longing. Once they are taken from him,
he has no method to cope with the world as it is, and he
ends his life. Of course, he changes his mind at the last
minute, but the world rejects him just as the Call Families

rejected him moments before.

36

All the characters in gggg are striving to find the
"perfect" place to live as well. Their quest is aimed
towards creating the future instead of remembering the past,
but they are trying to find something that they can only
imagine, just as Sam is. They have pictures of the Earth
and the other planets that they found before they were
trapped in hyperspace, and they look at these a number of
times in the play. These images help them visualize what a
planet is like, since they have never set foot on one, but
they really have no idea of what they are going to find when
they land, or even if they will land. The main difference
is that they have a family group to help bear the stresses
of their quest, where Sam has none. Eventually the family
support saves them all from death, both physical and moral.

Another common theme is the use and effects of

communication. In Solitaire, we are shown how a lack of

 

communication can lead to tragedy. Sam is slowly stripped
of his ability to communicate with others. First, before
the play begins, his wife kills herself, leaving him alone
with the Marriage-Minus-One tapes for company. He resorts
to using the Call Families to sate his hunger for
communication. They offer him enough to get by on, but it
is obvious how specious their communication is. It is rife
with stereotypes and trivialities. There is no genuine
feeling backing up the words being said. As he tries to

make the communication carry more emotional value, he

37
alienates the 'prostitutes' and is stripped of that outlet
for communication as well. As he despairs of ever
communicating with anyone again, he attempts to kill
himself. At the last minute, he clutches at the hope of
communication with the computer, telling it not to kill him.
The irony of this play is that the only time the computer
honestly communicates with him is when it tells him he is
going to die regardless of what he does.
gggg shows how reasonably honest communication can
avoid disaster, and in fact bring the communicators all that
they hope for. The characters have strong beliefs about who
should die for the good of the others, and why some other
person should not die. Each character is vocal about their
feelings, and willing to listen to the feelings of the
others, at least to some extent. By keeping these lines of
communication open, they are able to discover who they are
and what they really want from life and from each other.
The message of Spencer's play is that this is the path to a
good society. Spencer shows the flip side of the message
shown in Anderson's play: that without communication, we
must eventually die.
By looking at these two plays, we can see that the
playwrights are examining the same ideas from two different

points of view. In Solitaire, we see a man who is

 

completely overcome by the circumstances in which he finds

himself. He is unable to reach out to some support group,

38
in this case a family group, bound together by love.
Without this support group, he is swallowed up and destroyed
by the troubles with which he is faced. As long as he has
some support, no matter how slight, he is able to continue
with his life. His life is not perfect, but he is alive.
When the last of these supports is gone, he is lost. In
gggg, we see a group of peOple who are working with each
other to achieve a common goal, and to keep each other happy
and healthy. As much as they are working at cross purposes,
and are trying to manipulate each other into doing what they
want, they manage to achieve the goals that they set out to
achieve, even though they don't know it at the time.
Regardless of what they do to and for each other, as long as
they support each other, the eventual outcome is positive.

Even though these plays are different in tone, Solitaire is

 

pessimistic and gggg is optomistic, they both have the same
message: without good communication, any relationship is of
little value to those involved.

The characters in both of these plays are recognizable
people with problems that we can understand, even if the
specific situations are foreign to us. Sam, from Solitaire,
is an older man looking for a life that no longer exists,
and will never return. He misses his dead wife, and wishes
that the life that they once had could happen again. His
decision to attempt suicide, even though he tries to abort

it while it is happening, stems from his despair. He

39
realizes that he cannot fit into the world around him.
Sasha, from Eggg, is a man who realizes that he must give up
his life to save his family. In an ideal family, everyone
would feel this way. If they were called upon to sacrifice
themselves for the rest of their family, they would do it.
At the same time, the others in the family would not want
the sacrifice to occur, if they could prevent it. Both of
these men, separated from their environments, are familiar
to us. We know people just like them.

By the same token, their situations are familiar to us.

Neither of them has happened, but given reasonable changes
in technology and society, they are both possible.

Sam's society has outlawed the family. In our society,
there are people who have no families, or who have become
estranged from their families for some reason. There are
also social subgroups in which there is no affection for
one's family members. Almost everyone longs for more
affection than they are getting.

Sasha's family is isolated in hyperspace. We don't
have the technology to travel faster than the speed of
light, but we all have experienced isolation at some point
in our lives. Few of us have had to face the choice of
dying to save our families, but many people have considered
the possibility. Both this world and Sam's are strange

places made up of common things.

40

Neither of these plays present production problems
beyond the capability of modern stagecraft. Sam's Servocell
is mostly flashing lights and push buttons. There is a
projection screen for the picture of his wife and a cot
which can slide into and out of the wall. The kitchen in
the Call Family House is simply a dirty kitchen. In fact,
the kitchen could be suggested by some chairs and a table
stacked with dishes. The control room for the ship in
hyperspace is somewhat more complex. Most of the effects
are lighting problems: lights on the control domes shine on
the faces of the characters who are operating the controls
and the landing control domes are lit from inside when they
are activated. The most interesting set piece is Sri, the
computer. It is described as a fairly large mobile made up
of colored rings of glass. It occupies the upstage center
position on stage.

There is a peculiar costume element in gggg. Each of
the characters wears a 'third eye.‘ It is a headband with a
circle of lights on their forehead. When the characters
meditate, the lights flash; otherwise they are dark.

When these plays are stripped of their science fiction
trappings, they have a message that applies to here and now.
We all have families and we all need support at some time in
our lives. We all long for a life that is different in some
way from the one we are now living. We can cope with the

bad times with the help of our support groups. This is the

41
value of these plays to the here and now. They show us the
need that we all have for some sort of meaningful
communication, and how we suffer if we cannot communicate

with someone.

CHAPTER III

After the Holocaust:
To the Chicago Abyss and The Tin Can People

 

 

Every religion has its myths concerning the "End of
the World," and fables of what life will be like at
that time. Today, that and seems very possible, given
the advent of nuclear weapons. Many stories are being
told today of what a nuclear war would do to the
Earth, from Carl Sagan's Nuclear Winter to predictions
of the Second Coming of Christ. This is one of the
more common themes in modern science fiction: what
would life be like after a nuclear holocaust?

Ray Bradbury, in his play To the Chicago Abyss,

 

paints a picture of the United States after some sort
of war has wreaked its havoc on it. Bradbury spends
little time discussing the war; why and how it
occurred are not important to the plot. What he
focuses on is the effect it has on the survivors.

As the curtain rises, we see a park. On one bench,
a woman is unweaving a sweater and balling up the yarn
so that she can use it to knit something else. On the

other bench, we see a young man intently drawing in the

42

43

dirt with a stick. The Old Man enters, searching for

something.
THE OLD MAN: Coffee! (The woman gasps and
stiffens, she ceases work, but does not look at
him. Eyes still shut, he goes on.) Twist the
key! Hissss! Bright red, yellow-letter can!
Compressed air. Ssssst! Like a snake, a snake!
Psssss! (The woman snaps her head about as if
slapped, to stare in dreadful fascination at the
old man's moving tongue, his hands tumbling in
pantomime on his lap.) The odor, the scent, the
smell, the aroma of rich dark wondrous Brazilian
beans, fresh ground! (The woman leaps up, reeling
as if gunshot, steadying herself on the back of
the bench. Her yarn ball falls to the ground.
The old man, feeling her leap, opens his eyes.
Perhaps he hopes to make her sit back now, just by
talking her down.) (sniffs) The first sniff.
Ah, like the warm air rising off the dusky earth
in hot summer twilight. Coffee. Coffee. . .
(That does it. She breaks to run, remembers her
yarn, turns, is afraid to reach for it.) No,
don't. . . please. . . (She scrabbles for it. He
hands it to her. She grabs it and bolts off.)

Please, I didn't mean. You needn't -- (resigned)

44

Gone. (Which indeed she is, clutching her goods,

looking back at him as if he were insane.)

(Bradbury 130-131)

As the play unfolds, we see the reason for her
behavior. It is illegal to remember the past, before
the war. There are Special Police who have the job of
tracking down people who do such things and locking
them up. It is implied that mere association with such
people is also unlawful. Again, the reasons are left
unexplained in the text.

After watching her leave, he spies the Young Man on
the other bench. By this time the Young Man is rolling
a cigarette out of a piece of old newsprint and some
dried grass. The Old Man watches with fascination, and
then begins to remember cigarettes with the same
passion he has for coffee.

In these remembrances he is not really talking to
anyone but himself: he is not performing, just
remembering for the sheer pleasure of it.

The Young Man hears his monologue, and yells at him
to be quiet. He tries to bring the Old Man into the
real world by discussion, and then by argument, and
finally he becomes so angry that he resorts to beating
the Old Man:

THE YOUNG MAN: Why don't I just blast the living

Jesus out of you. I ain't hurt no one in so long.

45

. . (He shoves the old man, which gives him the

idea to pummel, which in turn gives him the idea

to punch and then rain blows upon the old man's

shoulders, arms, chest. The old man tries to fend

off this rain of assault.) Candies, damn it,
smokes, damn you! Kents! Kools! Baby Ruths,

Butterfingers! Kents Kools Butterfingers!

Butterfingers! (Bradbury 135-136)

The Young Man realizes what he is doing, and turns
away, weeping. The Old Man understands that the Young
Man wasn't striking him, but was trying to strike out
at the world at large, and he just got in the way. He
tries to comfort the Young Man, but the Young Man
responds, "You. . . you can't go around making
people unhappy. I'll find someone to fix you. I'll
find . . . someone! (exits) Someone!" (Bradbury
136-137).

As the Young Man runs off, shouting for the Special
Police, the Stranger enters and quietly calls the Old
Man a fool. He tells the Old Man that he is taking him
to his home. The Stranger reveals that he has been
looking for the Old Man for some time, and that the Old
Man is very precious to him. As they hear sirens
approaching, they run out.

When they get to the Stranger's home, they are

greeted by his Wife. She gives the Old Man some wine,

46
and they sit down to dinner together. The Wife puts a
plate of food before the Old Man, and he begins to
examine it:

THE OLD MAN: 17, 18, 19 strands of spaghetti.

25, 26, 27, 28, 29 green peas. (glances up)

Forgive me. But I shall pray over these like a

fine rosary! 19 strings of spaghetti, 29 peas,

and -- no -- one meat ball! What a still life!

How fine! (The others pull up their chairs.)

But, madame, you have only 28 peas, and you, sir,

27! It's not fair I have 29.

THE WIFE: You are the guest.

THE OLD MAN: So I am, and most grateful (Bradbury

141).

Bradbury's post-Holocaust world is one of great
poverty. There is little food, so little that one would
count one's peas if one were a guest, and so little that
one would give the extra pea to one's guest as a
gesture of hospitality. From the Young Men's grass
cigarette and his beating the Old Man over the memory
of candy bars, we can see the deprivation of this
world.

As the Old Man tries to entertain his hosts with a
joke, there is a loud knocking at the door. The Special
Police have come. The Stranger and his Wife give the

Old Man his plate and fork and hide him behind a

47
sliding panel. This panel is made of scrim, so that we
are able to see the‘ silouette of the Old Man, and hear
his asides in the next scene.

It turns out that the Special Police are looking
for the Old Man. They are offering a reward for him
consisting of a week's rations, plus a bonus of tens
cans of vegetable soup and five cans of beans. The Old
Man overhears the offer, which is tempting his
benefactors almost too much, and says to himself:

THE OLD MAN: Real tin cans, it must be, real cans

with brignt red labels. Cans that flash like

silver meteors, oh I can see them even in the

dark. What a fine reward. Not $10,000 for the

old talking man, no, no, not $20,000, but. . .

something that counts, that really ggggg

something. . . ten incredible cans of real not

imitation soup, and five, count them, five

brilliant circus-colored cans of exotic beans.

lglgk of it. Think! (Bradbury 145)

As tempted as they are, they do not turn in the Old
Man, and the Policeman leaves, going down the hall of
their building, knocking on other doors looking for the
Old Man. As his voice fades down the hall, the couple
open the panel behind which the Old Man is hiding. He
asks them why they did not turn him in, admitting that

he was almost tempted to turn himself in for the

48
reward. The Stranger rushes to the table and begins to
cram food into his mouth to stave off his fears, needs
and appetite. With some anger in his voice, he sends
his Wife out to get the other people in the apartment
house.

The Old Man starts in fear, but the Stranger speaks
to him:

STRANGER: Old man, look, if you're going to run

risks, shoot off your mouth, why not do it in the

aggregate, one fell blow? Why waste your breath
on one or two people if -- (There are noises of
people now approaching, murmuring, a shuffling of
feet, and many shadows. The old man looks around
as if the room were filling.)

THE OLD MAN: Yes, but what shall I lgll them?

STRANGER: What gggll you tell them! Isn't it

better than taking a chance in the open?

(Bradbury 148)

The Old Man begins to eat, and the combined effects
of a full belly, the presense of the crowd, and the
urging of the Stranger start the Old Man remembering.
The crowd around him reminds him of movie-houses, and
sitting in the balcony, and popcorn and gum and soda
pop, and he remembers these for them. And then the Old

Man tells them why he started to remember in the first

49
place. He saw a ruined world around him, and asked
himself what he could do to make it a better place:
THE OLD MAN: What did I have to offer a world
that was forgetting? My memory! How could my
memory help? By offering comparisons! By telling

the young what once was. By considering our

 

losses! I found the more I remembered, the more I
ggglg remember! Millions of things. (Bradbury
151—152)

He begins a long monologue, explaining that he was
never good at remembering the great things in life. He
could remember only the mediocre from the old world, but
that was enough for him. "Mediocre must be, so most-
excellent fine can bloom" (Bradbury 154). The crowd is
moved by his speech, but is ambivalent, "not knowing
whether to applaud the poetry or damn the sad upheaval
of old memory" (Bradbury 155).

The Stranger shares this ambivalent attitude. In
his pity for the Old Man, he gives him a one-way train
ticket to the Chicago Abyss. This is the inhabited
area around the bomb crater where Chicago used to be.
He urges the Old Man to continue west from there, and
never to remember to anyone again. As he leaves, the
Old Man's only concern is whether the people who

listened to him heard and understood him.

50

The next scene takes place on the train to the
Chicago Abyss. The train is filled with huddled people
wearing ragged clothing. The Old Man looks around at
this strange environment, and starts to remember, but
stops himself. A boy begins to stare at the Old Man, a
look of lonliness in his eyes. The Old Man is tempted
to speak to the boy. He argues with himself, looking
at and then away from the boy. At last, he gives in,
and asks the boy his name. The boy responds:

THE BOY: Joseph. (The train sways and creeks,

snow light falls down in a silent blizzard of Time

around them.)

THE OLD MAN: Joseph. . .? (he nods) Ah. . . (He

looks around one last time and leans further

forward toward that pale face, those great round
bright waiting eyes.) Well, Joseph. . . (The old

man lifts his fingers softly on the air.) . . .

once upon a time. . . (All freezes in tableau.

The lights dim.) (Bradbury 160-161)
and the play ends.

This play has many elements to it. It is a
nostalgia piece. It reminds us of the joys of younger
days, and the things we enjoyed then. It is Bradbury's
enshrinement of his childhood. Another point he wishes
to make is that we should enjoy all the things which

make up our lives. He says in his Introduction, "lg

51

the Chicago Abyss says: Enjoy! If we took all of the

 

junk out of life, our juices would dry up, the sap
would go dead in the trees, we would occupy an
intellectual graveyard and read each other's

headstones" (xiii). Another element is his wish for us
to see that there is nothing wrong with mediocrity. It
does not hurt us or make us less able to achieve
greatness. In fact, greatness would not exist without
mediocrity to hold it up. Things that happen every day
are just as important as things which happen once in a
lifetime.

This play shows how mediocrities can elevate a man
above himself and what surrounds him. The Old Man
abhors the world as it is, and therefore denies it in
favor of the world of his memories. The world around
him denies the world of his memories for the good of
the people around him. The real world is one of
deprivation and oppression. There is little for
anyone. In order to knit herself a sweater to keep
herself warm, a woman must cannibalize an older
sweater, which has become useless, for the yarn of which
it is made. The only amusement a young man has is to
draw pictures in the dirt, and he has only grass
cuttings and newspaper to make a cigarette. A weeks

rations and fifteen additonal cans of food is a large

52
reward, reserved for those Most Wanted by the Secret
Police.

All of these things will keep the body alive, but
none of them can keep the spirit alive. This is the
value of the Old Man's memories. They keep him
spiritually alive. Without hope and the knowledge that
things have been better, things cannot become better
again. The Old Man rises above the real world by
remembering what a former real world was like, against
the wishes of those now in power. For whatever reason,
those in power feel threatened by the legacy kept alive
by people like the Old Man. What they do not realize
is that there are poeple like the Stranger who are old
enough to remember, if reminded, and young enough to do
something about it. Oppressed people will find some
means to revolt, even if it is only in small ways. This
play says that a world like that which the Old Man
remembers must rise again, not like Phoenix from its
ashes, but like a flower pushing its way through the
pavement. This sense of hope is the power of
Bradbury's play.

In contrast there is little sense of hope in Edward
Bond's play The Tin Can People. This is the second play
in a trilogy of one-act plays called The War Plays,

dealing with the effects of nuclear war.

53

This play opens with a chorus describing the
immediate effects of the blasts as they saw them:

I thought the explosions had thrown strange sea

creatures onto the bridge whose ancestors had long

ago retreated under the ocean. (You see how
confused I was.) These fish-shaped, fin—footed
creatures stood on one spot and waved. Green
seaweed hung from their walrus heads. If in hell
there are zoos, they would have been shown in
them. Then I saw that they were people whose
skin hung down in knotted strips. I told them to

die. (Bond 33)

The first section of the play is called "Paradise
in Hell." In its first scene we see the First Man
wandering around and speaking to himself in a
semicoherent manner. Through this monologue, we see
the deprivation in which he is living: "I steal grass
from skeleton's teeth. All I eat is bitter. My body
poisons my food. My shit has more goodness in it than
food" (Bond 33). Then he stumbles upon a tin can of
food on the ground. While he is cautiously examining
it, the First Woman approaches him. She is glad to see
another living human, and offers him a can Opener so
that he may eat. He suspects that it is a trap of some

kind, perhaps poison, perhaps something else. She

54
In the second scene, the Second Man and the Second
and Third Women enter carrying a stretcher bearing a
dead body. It is one of the men who has been living
with the group for some time, and they are taking him
to be buried. They pause on the road to have a burial
service for him. They talk about his death, and about
the things that they saw together since the war, and it
becomes a funeral service for the world:
THIRD WOMAN: How can you talk about the
destruction of the world and be normal? My
parents talk to me in my sleep: they don't know
they're dead: I feel guilty as if I'm keeping the
secret from them. (To the SECOND WOMAN) You
haven't suffered more that the rest of us. . . .
Please interrupt me: I can't stop speaking. Of
course babies suckled their dead mothers and
mothers tried to give milk to their dead babies.
But these things have been going on since the
earliest times -- put in books -- I saw something
I shouldn't have seen -- because no human being
should ever be in the world where it happened
because they could never be at home there -- when
I came to a part of town I didn't know -- where
there was a great white square I hadn't seen
before -- no doubt it had been made by a bomb --

and I walked over it -- the heat had turned the

55

ground to glass. And dotted across it were dark

shapes -- long black brown bundles -- melted --
gluey -- I didn't know what they were -- brown --
streaked with red and yellow - and I thought they
were giant's turds -- the simplest explanation was

that a giant had walked over the square and shat

-- and as there were bones in the turds I saw they

were bodies. So I said die, die, die. I walked

over the square saying die as if I were saying
good morning because that's what I'd heard other
people say -— in fact it had become the greeting

in that city. I told everything I saw to die.

(Bond 35-36)

After this, the First Man and First Woman enter.

group on stage is ecstatic that another person is

They fire questions

The

alive and has come to join them.

at him and the First Woman, and eventually they let him

speak. At first he speaks in gibberish, and then

begins to make sense as he becomes used to them:

FIRST WOMAN: He's been on his own for years -- that's

why he talks like that.

FIRST MAN: Seventeen. I konw you're people

because you're corpse-shaped. (He goes to the

stretcher and looks at the covered body.)

SECOND MAN: He's dead.

56

FIRST MAN: (ponders) When there are people, they

cover the dead. Why? Yes -- they can't feel the
cold. (He points.) You are women -- and men.
(Bond 36)

And then he lays down and falls asleep.

While he sleeps, secure in the company of newfound
survivors, they try to puzzle him out by examining his
body and the behaviors he has shown since they met him.
The Second Man shows some signs of suspicion, and says
that the First Women should have questioned him about
himself before he had time to make up a false story.

In general, however, they are overwhelmed by excitement
over finding a new man in their midst.

The First Man awakens from a nightmare, and they
calm him by telling him of their prosperity. They are
prosperous, after a fashion, because they found an
enormous warehouse full of canned food that was
untouched by the war. The First Man responds with the
story of his seventeen grueling years in the desert,
with no one to keep him company but the rocks and
decaying corpses. And then he says about these people:

FIRST MAN: Now you people . . . as if stones

could speak. Let me stay with you and my journey

will've been a green track over the desert. Fetch
your water -- open your tins. All I want is --

look at your faces -- and speak. (Bond 38)

57
As soon as he finishes his speech, the Third Woman
falls to the ground, dead. They struggle to bring her
back to life, but to no avail. The Third Man comes in
and tries to pull the First Man from the body of the
Third Woman. He is trying to resuscitate her, but the
Third Man thinks that he has attacked and killed her.
Eventually they decide that the Third Woman did not die
from radiation, since they all know the symptoms, but
that the First Man has brought some how disease with
him, and is contagious. For safety's sake, they send
him down the road to a garage, where he can wait in
quarantine. They promise to bring him food and
blankets.
They all leave in fear, leaving the First Man on
stage with the corpse of the Third Woman. He says:
FIRST MAN: Dead: seen it so often when I was
with the bones . . . (He turns to face the THIRD
WOMAN) Three causes of death in her face. Legs
-— like a child's playing dead. Breast -- empty
paper bag -- rummaged clean by a starving man.
She's got a broken jar for a mouth. Hair moves --
wind isn't interested in death -- moves like a dog
searching for its dead master. She counted on
those fingers. Ruined houses throwing bricks at

each other. Carry her till she's cold. (The

58
.: -,--_ ‘ mid. J

FIRST MAN picks up the THIRD WOMAN and carries her

rout.) (Bond 40)

All of the characters in the play are profoundly
effected by the death around them, but each in his own
way. In general, all the other characters react from
fear, but the First Man reacts with a sense of respect
and dignity. He clearly fears death, but is not willing
to let his fears overtake his humanity. The others
left the body of the Third Woman to rot where it lay,
even though they had known her for years. The First
Man carries her until she has completely gone. This
is an act of respect and caring, and he would probably
bury her if he could. Her friends treat her as if she
is another empty tin can to be left where it fell.

" The second section of the play, "The Tin Can
Riots,” begins with another chorus reading. It
describes more sights from after the war was over:

The world was made into a crucible for an

experiment. The effects couldn't have been

forseen. We called them the voice of the bomb.

It spoke everywhere: we don't know how its orders

were put into effect. The tornados whirled like

gambling wheels: where they stopped, someone
might live.’ I saw one man who had stood by an

iron railing when the bombs fell. From the waist

59

up the bars had been wrapped around him and

knotted so that he walked with his trunk and head

in a cage: his head nodded like a bird. It was

chance. (Bond 40-41)

In the next scene, the First and Second Women and
the Second Man argue whether they should kill the First
Man, and how they should do it. The First Woman is
trying to be the voice of reason in the argument,
saying that they can't kill him because they don't know
for sure that it was he who caused the death of the
Third Woman. She suggests that they build him a depot
of food and shelter in the desert, and wait to see if
he dies from the disease. In the mean time they have
not killed the only new person that they have seen in
years, and they won't be harmed by a disease that he may
be carrying. Eventually the machismo of the Second Man
and the panic of the Second Woman win out. They decide
to kill the First Man with a spear that the Second Man
has fashioned out of an old piece of iron. The Second
Man decides that he cannot return after his killing
because he might become infected with the disease that
the First Man carries. He says:

SECOND MAN: He could have carried the disease for

seventeen years -- and it could be the same for

me. I can't come back. Don't try to change my

mind. We have to make certain he dies: I'll

60
(As the SECOND WOMAN speaks, the SECOND MAN picks
up the spear and holds it in the war-memorial pose
of a soldier preparing to go into battle.)

SECOND WOMAN: When you're gone, we won't forget

you. (Bond 43)

It seems clear that the significant motivations for
the Second Man are heroism and the desire to become a
martyr. He is reviving the motivations and spirits
that destroyed the world in the first place. He
apparently has not learned anything from the death and
destruction which surrounds him. This is another
indication of the lack of respect that they have for
life, unlike the First Man. He has seen death, and has
growm from the experience. These people are ready to
kill again and again.

The First Woman tries to get the Second Man to
agree to the drawing of lots to see who will kill the
First Man. This seems to be an effort to circumvent
the killing, but it is short-lived, because the Second
Man drops dead in the middle of his next speech. Panic
begins to grab them, when the Fourth Woman runs on to
report another unexplained death, just like the others.
At this moment, they all panic.

They try, in their panic, to analyze the disease
and why some people have caught it and others have not.

They first decide that they can only die if they are

61
standing still, therefore they must keep moving at all
times. Then they decide that all the deaths occurred
when they were doing things having to do with death, so
they decide to have nothing to do with it, even to the
point of turning their backs on the corpses. And they
must also eat continuously, since that is a sign of
life, and always have food on their persons.

They decide that this was all a test to see who
could survive, perhaps so that they could be used to
colonize another planet, or repopulate this one with a
better stock of people. They decide that the reason
that the bombs were dropped was to eliminate the
destructive and undesirable elements from the
population. The Second Woman looks at the corpse of
the Second Man and tells how he found the good shirt he
is wearinmg, and how she could have had it in the first
place if he had not tricked her. She removes the shirt
from his body, and begins to kick his body around the
stage. She is joined by the rest of them in expressing
her righteous indignation. As the scene ends, they
decide to burn his house with his corpse in it.

In the choral reading that follows, they talk of
the inevitability of the war. They speak of the
inherent madness of the world before the war:

Before the bombs dropped these people lived in the cold

shadows at the feet of stone idols. How could they

62
know what is true when the oracles amd newspapers and
radios lied? The lake doesn't sparkle when you fill it
with wrecked cars. You wouldn't ask them to swim
oceans or put out volcanos with bare hands. Yet you
asked them to practice virtue when they worked for
thieves. Be philOSOphers when they lived in noisy
blocks where no one could think. Learn the arts of
peace when each must fight his neighbors for work. Or
be generous when they must beg for the state handout.
And be restrained when the leaders arm themselves for
terror. . . . Wonder that not until the bombs were
dropped did these people run mad. (Bond 46- 47)

In the next scene, the First Man describes the
riots which he has witnessed. He saw the group opening
cans and wasting the food, smearing it on themselves.
They gorged themselves and set fire to that which they
couldn't eat. A man fell into the burning food, and
they ate him with the food without noticing. The First
Man ran and hid. He found a dark room and discovered a
woman laying in the corner. As he gets to this part of
the monologue, be begins to speak in fragments, as he
did in the beginning of the play. He is reverting to
his speech patterns from when he was alone and fearful.

The Second Woman comes on bearing the spear. She
blames him for the riots: he had the disease that

started the panic which caused the riots. In response

63
to her threat, the First Man pulls a knife, but says,
"I don't want to kill or hurt you" (Bond 48). She
calls for help, not because she feels threatened, but
because she wants the others to see her kill him. The
First Woman and Third Man arrive. The First Woman
tries to talk the Second Woman out of the killing.
Because of all the fires, the disease may have been
burned out, she says. The Fourth Woman enters and
decides that if they pretend to be dead, the disease
won't get them. She starts to walk about slowly, and
pretends to be dead. The Third Man reasons that the

First Man must be killed, regardless of his having the

disease:
THIRD MAN: He's real -— we're in a dream: we
can't suddenly eat real food -- or lose real

blood. We can't let anything be real after the

bombs. If it's beautiful -- makes you happy --

kill it. The dead can't bear to be with the
living: we only ask to be buried. With or

without his disease he has to be killed. (Bond

49)

The Second Woman lunges at the First Man with the
spear. The First Woman joins the struggle, and gets the
spear away from the Second Woman and puts her arms
around the First Man. She decides to sleep with him,

in the hopes that they will be able to bear children.

64

The group has not been able to bear children among
themselves, but they cannot tell why this is. The
First Man reveals that he had sex with the woman he
found in the dark room during the riots, and that it
was the First Woman. After this revelation, the Third
Man throws the spear at the First Man and wounds him.
The First Woman gets the spear and orders them to take
the First Man to the first aid area, which they do.

Section Three, "The Young Sages," starts with
another chorus section. It starts by asking the
question: "Why were the bombs dropped?" (Bond 50).
They try to answer the question with Zen-like
obfuscations, for example: "Suppose we said bombs were
better food on one plate than on another?" (Bond 50).
From these statements they go on to talk about justice
and injustice. Injustice is harmful when it is seen:
when it's unseen the disaster is terrible. To justify
injustice, words, beliefs, opinions, faiths, passions
-- all are corrupted. Soon people need an interpreter
to understand the words that come from their own mouth
and would have to be someone else to know the passions
in their own breast! (Bond 50)

The balance of the choral speech makes the point
that we must learn to create justice, instead of

injustice, which is the spawning ground for the bombs.

65

After the choral speech, the First Man and the
First and Fourth Women enter and sit. The Fourth Woman
speaks:

FOURTH WOMAN: We don't learn from other people's

mistakes -- not even from most of our own. But

knowledge is collected and tools handed on. We
can't go back to the beginning, but we can change

the future. (Bond 51)

To do this, they have decided to use only what they
make, and eat only what they grow. This will mean a
life much harder that their life in paradise, but at
least they will own everything that they have, and will
therefore be in control of it. If they use the things
left for them and not the things created by them, they
feel that they are owned by the objects and are not
their owners. That is the reason for the insanity of
the tin can riots. They did not own the food, it was
owned by someone else, and so they were also owned by
the same people.

They talk about the generations to come returning
to this place and seeing the first field that they grew
food on, and their library of things that they remember
from before the war. The First Woman looks forward and
sees their descendants living in justice:

FIRST WOMAN: They'll look back at us and say we

lived in prisons. They'll live in justice.

66

Justice is a stone woman sitting in a stone room

trying to make human gestures. If our children

live she'll learn to make them -- and then the
stone will be as human as these hands which open

tins. (Bond 51)

As they leave the stage, they are greeted by the others
who are carrying a light in the darkness.

This play presents a much bleaker, and perhaps more
realistic, picture of the effects of nuclear war. It is
filled with powerful descriptions of it's after effects
as seen by those who survived. And worst of all, it
shows how little we are likely to learn from such an
experience. No sooner does something unexplained
occur, but they decide that the stranger is the cause,
and he must be killed so that it won't happen again.
This is the same thought process that drove the Salem
witch trials. If someone behaves in a strange way, and
strange things happen, they must be a witch and must be
killed. There is no room for rational thought, no room
for justice, in this mind set.

Everything that happens in the world of the play
concerns the ideas of justice and injustice. The bombs,
the riots, the attempted murder of the First Man, all
of these things are unjust and irrational. This play
says that as long as we react from panic and fear, we

will be unjust to ourselves and our neighbors.

67

But the play offers some hope at the end. They can
try to rebuild their world. They must start from
scratch, and remember all the things that they did
wrong, so that they will not be repeated. They can
build paradise with their own hands. The last image of
the group walking "into the light," is clearly meant to
give us that hopeful message. But it is an ambivalent
message at best. Throughout the play we are shown the
power of human stupidity, and are reminded not to
underestimate it. The group of survivors fear,
mistrust, hate and envy each other as much as we do
today, if not more. There is little reason to believe
that these traits will be removed from human beings
just because a few more people have died. Billions had
died, and the survivors still do the same things, how
can the deaths of a few more make any difference?

This play offers sentimental imagery in the guise
of hope. In reality, it suggests that the riots will
go on until we all die. The reaction to the arrival of
the First Man is elation. They finally have an
indication that there are other survivors. He may not
be sterile with the women, so they will be able to have
children at last. But within a matter of minutes, they
drive him off to exile and decide that they must kill
him. The remainder of the play is driven by their

hate and fear. At the end of the play, we are asked to

68
believe that things will now be different: they have
learned their lessons from the riots. If they did not
learn their lessons from the war, how could the riots
teach them anything? The death and destruction of the
riots are insiginficant compared to that of the war.
At the end of the play, they are happy that the
troubles are over, and that they can start anew, but we
see nothing to convince us that they have changed.
Some time later, something will happen to make them
panic and start all the killing again. The end has a
hopeful feel to it, but it is an empty hope.

Both of these plays deal with the effect that some
holocaust has on the life of a single man. Neither one
tries to explain the hows and whys of their respective
wars, but they do show how one man is alienated from
the rest of the survivors because he has learned
something from the experience, and they have not. The
world wants to continue down the path it chose before
the war happened: The Old Man's world has grown more
and more oppressive, to the point where it is unlawful
to remember the past; the First Man's world is a Petri
dish for hate and fear, where the best of Man will
finally be bred out, and only the animal remain.

Into Bradbury's world steps a man who dares to
remember the past, not the best things and not the

worst things, but the average things. The things he

69
remembers are attainable things. The people to whom he
speaks can be inspired to make them happen again, and
not frustrated by their impossibility to the point that
they give up hope. A moon landing is beyond the
wildest dreams of these people, a Clark Bar is
possible. At the end of the play, we see that he will
continue to inspire people to strive for that
attainable life.

Into Bond's world steps a man who has learned from
close association that death is final and very real, and
life is a precious thing. As soon as he believes that
the things around him are people, and not a mirage, he
falls into a deep sleep. This is a sign of complete
trust. He believes that they have the same respect for
life that he has. This is, of course, not true. He is
astonished at the fear in the others which blinds them
to the world around them. The food that they have is
precious, as are their lives, but they waste both as if
there is an endless supply. Because he is different,
they want to kill him. They are eventually killed by
their own hate. At the end, we are asked to believe
that hate has exterminated itself, but the play has
made us too wise to believe that.

Both of these plays, like those in the previous
chapter, create characters that are recognizable to

today's audiences. The Old Man, from To the Chicago

70
Agygg, is the grandfather who is always telling
stories about the Good Old Days. The people around him
want to hear about these days because they ggg better
than the ones in which they are living.

The First Man, from The Tin Can Riots, is

 

essentially an average, caring man who is around when
strange things begin to happen. He is a stranger to
the rest of the characters in the play, and they fear
him as they fear anything that they don't know. Acting
out of their fear, they decide to lynch him. All of
these peOple are familiar to us when removed from the
science fiction worlds that they inhabit.

Their fictional worlds are made up of things that
we recognize as well. The Old Man's world is a
totalitarian society. Such places exist today, and the
world of the play is simply an extrapolation of these
sorts of societies into a post-holocaust world. We
have all seen the effects of great disasters, and these
effects are also extrapolated into a world—wide
catastrophe. The First Man's world is reminiscent of
witch trials and race wars. It is a world of fear and
discrimination. All of these things are familiar to
us. It is also a world spawned by our worst nightmares
of nuclear holocaust. We see all the things that we saw
as a result of Hiroshima and Nagasaki expanded to

engulf the world.

71
These plays can be produced given contemporary
stagecraft. In To the Chicago Abyss, there are only two
benches in the first scene and a table, chairs and scrim
door in the second. There is no setting called for in
the third scene: the train is suggested by lighting

and sound effects. The Tin Can Riots requires only

 

hand props, the script specifies that there are no
other settings.

Both of these plays show us men who overcome the
worlds around them. Their names are generic, they are
the Everyman in these mystery plays of survival. There
is a strong sense of good versus evil in these plays,
not in the Biblical sense of God against Satan, but of
the good side of man against his bad side. The good is
shown in an individual, the bad in the society around
him. In both cases, the single person can make a
difference in his world, and can bring joy into the
horrors of daily life. This thought has value to
today's audiences. We all have difficult lives, but we
can overcome our troubles. That is the message these

plays have for us.

CHAPTER IV

Conclusions and Suggestions for Further Research

As we have seen in the previous chapters, science
fiction drama can create identifiable characters on the

stage. Sam, from Solitaire, is an older man longing for a

 

past that he cannot recreate, and a future that denies him.
He wishes for a return to family life and his wife. This is
impossible, since his wife is dead, and the society in which
he lives forbids any sort of connection with one's children.
As the last alternatives to his desired lifestyle are
stripped from him, he chooses to die. Sasha, from A Bunch
of the Gods Were Sitting Around One Day, is a man who loves
his family, and since the survival of his family requires
someone to give up his life, he decides that he is the one
to do it. In the ideal family that we all wish we had, any
member would give up his life for the others to survive. At
the same time, the other family members would try to prevent
the death of one of their own. The Old Man, from To the

Chicago Abyss, is a grandfatherly man who remembers the good

 

old days, and never tires of telling people about them. The
people around him enjoy listening to him because they wish

that their life was as good as the one he is talking about.

72

73

The First Man, from The Tin Can Riots, is a normal, caring

 

man, who just happens to be a stranger in the area when
strange things occur. The other people decide that he is
responsible for the strange things, and is a threat to their
lives. Because of their fear of the unknown, they decide to
lynch him. All of these people, when removed from their
science fiction backgrounds, are people who are familiar to
us, either from contemporary life or from some historical
period.

Likewise, their situations are familiar to us. None of
them have happened in the course of history, but they are
plausible given an appropriate change in science and
technology. Sam faces a society which has outlawed the
family. This has not happened in our world, but there are
members of our society who have no family, orphans and such,
or whose family has become seperated from them for some
reason. Some people exist in social subgroups where there
is no love and concern given to the others in the subgroup.
It seems certain that some members of these subgroups would
want something more. Sasha and his family are facing a
situation that depends on something completely foreign to
us: there are no such things as faster-than-light
spaceships trapped in hyperspace, but we can all understand
the isolation that they are suffering. Few of us have had
to face a situation where we have had to die to save our

loved ones, but many of us have thought about it. Sasha's

74

world ia a strange one made up of things that are not
strange to us, only the trappings are different. The Old
Man lives in a totalitarian society. Such places exist
today. The play is based on an extrapolation of this sort
of society into a world decimated by a disasterous war. We
have all seen the effects of great disasters, and the
deprivation that they bring. The Old Man's world is simply
an examination of these two things taken to an extreme. The
First Man's world is sadly reminiscent of the Salem witch
trials and the race troubles of the American south. It is a
place where anything strange is cause for fear and loathing.

It is also a world where our fears of the effects of nuclear
war are brought to life. The First Man's world is the world
of our nuclear nightmares.

The production requirements of these plays are not

beyond the capabilities of the contemporary theatre.

Solitaire has two sets. One is the interior of Sam's

 

Servocell which has some push buttons and flashing lights,
some sliding panels, and a projection screen for the picture
of Sam's wife. It also requires a cot which slides into and
out of the wall. The second set is simply a dirty kitchen,
which could easily be only a table and chairs. The set for
gggg is somewhat more involved, but still possible. Most of
the effects are created with lights, but there are two
control domes and the landing controls which are lit from

inside, and Sri. Sri is described as being a mobile of

75
variously colored glass rings set in the upstage center
position. It is dark through most of the play, until it
comes to life at the end of the play, when it is brightly
lit. The only set pieces that are specifically mentioned in

To the Chicago Abyss are two benches in the first scene, and

 

the table, chairs, and scrim door in the second. The train
in the third scene is suggested by lighting. There are no

set pieces called for in the script of The Tin Can Riots,

 

all the action requires are a few props. In terms of
costuming, the only pecular requirement is in gggg, where
all of the characters wear a 'third eye,‘ a sort of headband
with a circle of lights over the forehead which is dark most
of the time, but flashes when they are meditating.

In addition to the merits suggested by this study to
this point, these plays have many more things to offer
producing organizations. All of these plays are

characterized by a beautiful use of language. In Solitaire

 

the contrasts between vital relationships and relationships
as plastic as the boxes fast food comes in are clearly shown
through the various uses of language. In gggg the drift of
languages is shown by the lack of articles in their speech.

In To the Chicagg Abyss, Bradbury uses simple language to

 

evoke tender images of things that we know, some of which no
longer exist in our day, much less in the world of the play.
Bond creates wrenching images through his use of language in

The Tin Can Riots. He does not let up for a moment; he

 

76
drags us out of our complacency and makes us face the
realities of nuclear holocaust. His is a haunting vision
not easily forgotten.
These plays also present acting challenges unlike most
found in contemporary theatre. All four of them require the
actors to create fully fleshed out images of the worlds in

which they are living. Sam, from Solitaire, needs to

 

personalize his relationship with his dead wife, know
exactly what the world was like before the System took over,
and create a personal history for himself that is based on a
world completely different from any in which the actor may
have lived. The actor can draw from real world situations,
but the world he must create is entirely his own. No amount
of research will give him all the information he needs.

This is true of all the plays examined in this study. None
of these worlds exist, but enough of each of them exist to
extrapolate the rest.

The actors in gggg must find a way to alienate
themselves from experiences on an entire planet. The
characters have never seen one, all the world that they know
is the inside of a space ship. This environment must also
be created whole cloth from the imaginations of the actors.
The characters in To the Chicago Abyss must also create a
new world for themselves. The Old Man must have an iron
grasp on his memories of the Mediocre, or the monologues in

To the Chicago Abyss will land flat on the audience; they

77
must be moved to care about these things as much as he does.

The actors involved in The Tin Can Riots also need to create

 

a world decimated by nuclear war, and create the living
images of the dead and dying that are in the play. The
wholesale slaughter of humanity suggested by Bond has not
been seen since World War II and the Nazi atrocities. And
compared to the imagery of Bond's play, the Nazis were
amateurs.

All of these plays offer challenges to designers as
well. While most of the sets have few requirements, the
places and things that they represent are foreign to our
eyes. The designers are free to do what they will to
realize these places on the stage, and this freedom has a
double edge. The designer can do whatever he wants, but he
has only himself and his artistic senses to guide him.
There is nothing available to him for research into the
various places represented. He succeeds or fails on his own
merits. This is an exciting risk to undertake.

For further research, there are many other categories
within science fiction drama which merit further
investigation.

There are Absurdist plays, such as The Bedsitting:Room
by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus. This play takes place
after World War III, which is, of course, a nuclear war.
The main character visits an Army Surplus and Psychiatric

Store for advice and treatment. He believes that, due to

 

78
radiation poisoning, he will turn into a bedsitting room.
The doctor gives him some anti-bedsitting room pills and
sends him on his way. At the beginning of the second act,
we see the room that he has become. His doctor convinces
him that charging rent will aggravate his condition, and
volunteers to live in him, without paying him rent, to
continue his treatments. We soon discover that Mrs. Gladys
Scroakes, the current Queen of England, has become a chest
of drawers, and is a part of the furnishings for the room.
The Prime Minister has become a parrot. This play is a
British import worth examination.

There are many plays dealing with various social
issues. Decibels, by John Hale, deals with noise pollution.
The sound effects of trucks, planes, and such are so loud

that the characters do not speak to each other, they read
each other's lips. When they must use sound to communicate,
for example, when they are in other rooms or on the phone,
they must use bullhorns to be heard above the din. A
husband and his wife are the main characters in the play,
and the only moment of silence occurs when the husband buys
his wife a set of earphones which will block out all noise.
She puts them on, and the noise level drops to half. When
he puts his matching set on, there is total silence. She
finds it so uncomfortable that they both remove them, and
the noise level returns to normal. Let Me Hear You Whisper,

by Paul Zindel, deals with the use of animals in scientific

79
experiments. A group of scientists is trying to teach a
dolphin to speak without success. One night the cleaning
woman, who loves animals, comes into the lab and finds out
that the scientists plan to dissect the dolphin to discover
why it doesn't talk. As she cleans the room alone, the
dolphin asks her to help him. The dolphin shows her that
the scientists want to use him for military applications,
and he doesn't want to do that. She is stopped from trying
to return him to the sea by the scientists. They eventually
ask her to help them in their experiments, since she has
started the animal talking, but she refuses.

There are also many political plays. The War Plays

 

trilogy by Edward Bond is an example of plays that make
political statements. Red Black and Ignorant deals with the
life a baby born in the midst of a nuclear war didn't have
because he died during the war. The character is called the
Monster, and is black from head to toe, the color of
charcoal. It has scenes depicting Learning, Love, Eating,
Selling, Work, The Army, Humanity, and Death for the

Monster. The third play, Great Peace is yet to be published

 

in a separate volume by Methuen. All White Caste, by Ben
Caldwell, is a vignette about the oppression of blacks by
whites, and the effect a final race war has on our society.
There are also a large number of science fiction plays
written for children. A worthwhile example of these plays

is David Mamet's Revenge of the Space Pandas. This play

80
centers on Binky Rudich who has built a two-speed clock
which will fling him off the Earth and to another planet.
He lands on a planet inhabited by Space Pandas, and he and
his friends have many adventures trying to get away from the
Pandas and get home for lunch.

All of these areas merit further examination for
producton possibilities and literary value.

In addition to the plays mentioned in this chapter,
there are two appendices to this thesis, the first listing
science plays for adults, the second listing plays for
children. These may provide further areas for
investigation.

There are two notes regarding the appendices. Since I
could not obtain copies of many of the plays in them, many
of the bibliographic entries are missing such things as the
place of publication and the pages on which the play occurs
for a play appearing in an anthology. This information was

not available from the Play Index, which was the main source

 

for the lists. Also, the division between adult and

childrens plays was taken from the Play Index. Some of the

 

plays not marked as being for children, and therefore
included in the adult list, seem to be children's plays
judging from the titles. These plays have been left in the
adult list due to a lack of objective evidence that they
belong in the children's list, since I have not read most of

them.

APPENDIX 1

Bibliography of Plays for Adult Audiences

APPENDIX 1:

Bibliography of Plays for Adult Audiences

Alberts, Kevin. Christmas from Mars. n.p.: Bakers Plays,
1974.

 

Anderson, Robert. Solitaire. Solitaire / Double Solitaire,
New York: Random House, 1972. 3-33.

 

 

Arlett, Vera I. A Long Way from Home. n.p.: Epworth,
1967.

 

Armer, Alan and Walter E. Grauman. To Be Alone. Vest
Pocket Theatre. n.p.: French, 1955. n.pag.

 

 

Bergen, Candice. The Freezer. The Best Short Plays, 1968.
Ed. Stanley Richards. Philadelphia: Chilton Book Co.,
1968. 51-58.

 

 

Birnkrant, Samuel. The Termination. n.p.: Pioneer Drama
Service, 1976.

 

Bond, Edward. Red Black and Ignorant. The War Plays: A
Trilogy. London: Methuen, 1985. 5-17.

---. The Tin Can People. The War Plays: A Trilggy.
London: Methuen, 1985. 33-51.

 

 

Bradbury, Ray. The Pedestrian. n.p.: French, 1966.

 

---. To the Chicago Abyss. The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit
and Other Plays for Today, TomorrowL and Beyond
Tomorrow. London: Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, 1972. 127-
161.

 

 

---. The Veldt. The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit and Other
Plays for Today, Tomorrow, and Beyond Tomorrow.
London: Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, 1972. 73-125.

 

Brenton, Howard. The Churchill Play. n.p.: Eyre Methuen,
1974.

 

Caldwell, Ben. All White Caste. Black Drama Anthology.
Eds. Woodie King and Ron Milner. New York: Meridian-
New American Library, 1971. 389-397.

81

82

Capek, Karel. R. U. R.. Trans. Paul Selver and Nigel
Playfair. New York: Samuel French, 1923.

Capson, Louis. To Become a Drummer. n.p.: Playwright's
Co-op, 1972.

 

---. I Love You, Billy Striker. n.p.: Playwright's Co-op,
1972.

 

---. In Search of the Last Paradiddle. n.p.: Playwright's
Co-op, 1972.

 

Catron, Louis E. At a Beetle's Pace. n.p.: Bakers Plays,
1971.

 

---. Touch the Bluebirds Song. n.p.: Bakers Plays, 1971.

 

---. Where Have All the Lightnigg Bugs Gone?. n.p.:
Bakers Plays, 1971.

 

Carr, Dorothy. The Way to Norwich. n.p.: Evans, 1963.

 

Chorpenning, Charlotte Barrows. Think Machine. First
Performance. Ed. Nora MacAlvay and Virginia Comer.
n.p.: Harcourt, 1952. n.pag.

 

 

Cogswell, T. R. and G. R. Cogswell. Contact Point. Six
Science Fiction Plays. Ed. Roger Elwood. New York:
Pocket Books-Washington Square Press, 1976. 251-281.

 

 

Duffield, Brainerd. The War of the Worlds. n.p.:
Dramatic, 1955.

 

Eaton, James J. and Michael Juste. Atomic Journey. n.p.:
Michael Houghton, 1954.

 

Elliot, Paul. The Legacy. n.p.: French, 1974.

 

English, Arnold. Miss Tarzan into Space. n.p.: Evans,
1962.

Fisher, Aileen and Olive Rabe. Rocket to Freedom.
Patriotic Plays and Programs. n.p.: n.p., n.d.

n.pag.

Gorelik, Mordecai. Paul Thompson Forever. n.p.: Baker, W.
H0, 1950.

Gorham, Melvin. The Ring Cycle. n.p.: Sovereign Press,
1979.

 

83

Greth, Le Roma Eshbach. The Ghost from Outer Space. n.p.:
Bakers Plays, 1958.

---. The Kid from Mars. n.p.: Bakers Plays, 1957.

 

---. The Sky's the Limit. n.p.: Eldridge, 1959.

 

Gurik, Robert. API 2967. Trans. Marc F. Gelinas. n.p.:
Talonbooks, 1974.

Hale, John. Decibels. Prompt Three: 5 Short Modern Plays.
Ed. Alan Durband. n.p.: Hutchingson, 1976. n.pag.

 

Henderson, John. Space Ship Ahgy. n.p.: Eldridge, 1960.

 

Hillman, Barry L. Project E. Bibs and Bobs. Robert G.
Newton and Barry L. Hillman. n.p.: Hub Publications,
1975. n.pag.

 

 

---. 2002. Bibs and Bobs. Robert G. Newton and Barry L.
Hillman. n.p.: Hub Publications, 1975. n.pag.

 

Jakes, John. Stranger with Roses. Six Science Fiction
Plays. Ed. Roger Elwood. New York: Pocket Books-
Washington Square Press, 1976. 285-327.

 

Jennings, Coleman A. The Honorable Urashima Taro. n.p.:
Dramatic, 1972.

Kelly, Tim. Crazy, Mixed-up Island of Dr. Moreau. n.p.:
Bakers Plays, 1977.

Koch, Howard. The Panic Broadcast. n.p.: Little, 1970.
Langham, Mark. Operation Plughole. n.p.: Evans, 1962.

Larson, Victor and Frank A. Magary. Message from Mars.
n.p.: Dramatic, 1954.

Leiber, Fritz. The Mechanical Bride. Six Science Fiction
Plays. Ed. Roger Elwood. New York: Pocket Books-
Washington Square Press, 1976. 332-355.

Lengyel, Cornel. The Master Plan. n.p.: Dragon's Teeth
Press, 1978.

Leydon, Bob. Johnny Jones, Space Cadet. n.p.: French,
1953.

Majeski, Bill. The Invisible Lady of Barnaby Tech. n.p.:
Dramatic, 1981.

84

---. Guess Who's Coming to Earth Tonlght?. n.p.:
Dramatic, 1979.

---. Don't Try to Hyde from Me, Dr. Jekyll. n.p.:
Dramatic, 1977.

Martin, Gilbert M. Pardon Me, is this Planet Taken?. n.p.:
Dramatic, 1973.

 

Milligan, Spike and John Antrobus. The Bedsitting Room.
Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, Gt. Brit.: Hobbs, M. and J.,
1970.

 

Nicholson, Norman. Prophesy to the Wind. n.p.: Faber,
1950.

 

Oboler, Arch. Night of the Auk. n.p.: Horizon Press,
1958.

 

Olson, Elder. The Illusionists. Plays and Poems, 1948-
1958. n.p.: University of Chicago Press, 1958.

n.pag.

 

 

Owens, Rosemary J. Final Edition. n.p.: Eldridge, 1959.

 

Priestley, John Boynton. I Have Been Here Before. Plays.
6 vols. n.p.: Harper, 1945-50. 1:n.pag.

 

---. Summer Day's Dream. Plays. 6 vols. n.p.: Harper,
1945-50. 3:n.pag.

Reese, Willard F. Holy Meteors. n.p.: Dramatic, 1970.

 

Ressieb, George. Danger from the Sky. n.p.: French, 1957.

 

Rogers, David. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. n.p.:
Dramatic, 1970.

Saunders, James. The Island. Bye Byg Blues and Other
Plays. n.p.: Amber Lane Press, 1980. n.pag.

 

Sergel, Christopher. Take Me to Your President. n.p.:
Dramatic, 1964.

Shaw, George Bernard. Farfetched Fables. The Bodley Head
Bernard Shaw. 7 vols. n.p.: Bodley Head, 1973-74.
7:n.pag.

 

Sinclair, Upton Beall. Enemy Had it Too. n.p.: Viking,
1950.

85

Spencer, James. A Bunch of the Gods Were Sitting Around One
Day. Playwrights for Tomorrow. Ed. Arthur H. Ballet.
12 vols. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1975. 12:207-268.

 

Stephenson, Ginny. Star Message. n.p.: Clark, I. F.,
1979.

 

Terry, Megan. Megan Terry's Home; or Future Soap. n.p.:
French, 1972.

Trevor, Joy. The Moon Chase. n.p.: The Author, 1973.

 

Tuson, Neil. Moon Rocket. n.p.: Longmans, 1955..

 

Vornholt, John B. Way Out. n.p.: Dramatic, 1976.

Ward, Philip. A Musical Breakfast. n.p.: Brewhouse
Private Press, 1968.

 

Zindel, Paul. Let Me Hear You Whisper. Six Science Fiction

 

Plays. Ed. Roger Elwood. Pocket Books-Washington
Square Press: New York, 1976. 357-388.

APPENDIX 2

Bibliography of Plays for Young Audiences

APPENDIX 2:

Bibliography of Plays for Young Audiences

Alderman, Elinor R. Anyone for the Moon?. Prize Contest
Plays for Young People. Ed. A. S. Burack. n.p.:
Plays, Inc., 1962. n.pag.

 

 

Anderson, Robert A. Panic in Space. Space and Science
Fiction Plays for Young People. Ed. Sylvia E.
Kamerman. n.p.: Plays, Inc., 1981. n.pag.

 

 

---. Trouble in Outer Space. Teenage Plays for Classroom
Reading. Eds. Donald D. Durrell and B. Alice
Crossley. n.p.: Plays, Inc., 1971. n.pag.

Bauman, A. F. Close Encounters of a Weird Kind. Space and

 

Science Fiction Plays for Young People. Ed. Sylvia E.
Kamerman. n.p.: Plays, Inc., 1981. n.pag.

Boiko, Claire. The Book that Saved the Earth. Plays and
Programs for Boys and Girls. n.p.: Plays, Inc., 1972.

n.pag.

 

---. Escape to the Blue Planet. Space and Science Fiction
Plays for Young People. Ed. Sylvia E. Kamerman.
n.p.: Plays, Inc., 1981.

---. The Marvelous Time Machine. Children's Plays for
Creative Actors. n.p.: Plays, Inc., 1967. n.pag.

 

---. Pandora's Perilous Predicament. Plays and Programs
for Boys and Girls. n.p.: Plays, Inc., 1972. n.pag.

 

---. Spaceship Santa Maria. Children's Plays for Creative

 

 

Actors. n.p.: Plays, Inc., 1967. n.pag.

---. Take Me to Your Marshal. Plays and Programs for Boys
and Girls. n.p.: Plays, Inc., 1972. n.pag.

 

 

 

Bradley, Virginia. What Took You So Longz. Is There an
Actor in the House?. n.p.: Dodd, 1975. n.pag.

 

 

87

---. Destination Moon. More Plays for Large Classes.
n.p.: University of London Press, 1963. n.pag.

 

Campton, David. Time-Sneeze. n.p.: Eyre Methuen, 1975.

 

Cieslinski, John and Maureen Cieslinski. Close Encounters
of the Third Grade. n.p.: French, 1980.

 

 

Dias, Earl J. The Little Man Who Wasn't There. One-Act
Plays for Teenagers. n.p.: Plays, Inc., 1961. n.pag.

 

 

 

Dobson, Brian. The Boy from Outer Space. Modern Adventure
Plays. n.p.: Blackie and Son, 1961. n.pag.

 

 

Fendrich, Shubert. Star Trip. n.p.: Pioneer Drama
Service, 1976.

 

Fischer, Aileen and Olive Rabe. Invasion from the
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