LEGOLAND

THE ENTERTAINERS

PENNY LAMB: A sixteen-year-old, sister of Ezra.

EZRA LAMB: A thirteen-year-old, brother of Penny.

PLAYING STYLE

Physical. Very physical. But truthful. The acting should be as frenetic and as over-the-top as possible, but
with real acting intentions and subtlety. A clock with a soul.

MUSIC

The whole play should be underscored, but not with current pop. Instead, past tunesmiths like Elvis, Hank
Williams, Berlioz and Beethoven. Ambient music is fine occasionally as background.

The soundscape sets the rhythm of their game.

SOUND Q #1 -- Last song preshow.

Fade out sound as the house lights come down.

Two spotlights, one on PENNY LAMB, the other on her brother EZRA. PENNY is a young woman
wearing French braids and a private school uniform; she has a bright smile. Holding a piece of
paper, she stands over a music box that plays a sweet, monotonous melody. EZRA, an intense
thirteen-year-old, sits cross-legged in a chair, with a neutral expression on his face. He, too,
wears a school uniform, plus a black cape, a single white dress glove and Chinese slippers. He
has a fixed gaze on one audience member of his choosing, a fixed gaze he maintains practically
throughout the proceedings.

PENNY: Hello. My name is Penny Lamb, and I am an aspiring animal conservationist.

 PENNY slams the music box. There is a flash. The stage exposes a large garbage can full of toys
and a makeshift puppet theatre upstage centre made of household miscellanea: flashlight as
footlight, a red curtain, etc. At the back of the wall there is a screen for various slides. EZRA
should run the show as much as possible. Whatever the layout, it should look like it is designed by
two industrious children… including the slides; imagine two children, with a solid year to design
a show. PENNY speaks at an incredible speed, being an immensely nervous and self-conscious
teenager. She literally trips over her words -- a volcano of passion and eloquence.

PENNY: Hello again… (stage left) Welcome. (stage right) Welcome. (centre stage) Welcome… Welcome
to my presentation.

(reading from her card) This is where I tell you, after two hundred hours of community service, how
never to turn out like me. It is my hope that after my hours of community service (looking up) that have
culminated in this presentation, (reading) you will all go out and… and well… (looking up) lead fuller,
lawfuller lives!

(reading) I would like to thank Miss Peachery -- (looking up) my social worker -- (reading) for giving me
the ultimatum of doing this presentation… (looking up) or, like, pick up other people’s trash for an entire
year on some crummy expressway…

(reading off a cure card, at a machine-gun pace) So first off I want to tell people never to shoplift,
jaywalk, beat up kids, swear, knock on people’s doors and run away, be mean to overweight people, talk
back to your parents. Stop, drop and roll. Never let your uncle touch you in places you feel uncomfortable
with -- (looking up) even if it’s, like, your elbow. (looking down) Don’t do drugs -- unless they are
prescribed by a licensed practitioner of the psychiatric profession… and stay away from sex, but if you
ever get into super sexy stuff… use a condom…

Oh… and it’s entirely natural to mastubate… (looking up) but never in a public place.

She stops reading.

Whew. Well that should cover a lot of ground, considering that’s like every high school play or movie I’ve
ever seen in, like… ten seconds flat. And, I didn’t do any of the above mentioned stuff. I’ve taken all of
those lessons to heart, and obeyed them.

Beat.

(fast) However, I did sell and traffic drugs in two countries, and horribly maim this man. This man I truly
loved.

Beat.

Look, I was fifteen then. I was all screwed up… I’m sixteen now.
 Beat.

I would also like to thank Ezra… for doing all the art direction and putting all the pizazz into this whole
stupid thing. Oh, this is my brother Ezra Lamb. Together… we are the Lambs. Say hi-a, Ezra Lamb.

PENNY assumes a vaudeville punchline pose. EZRA casually takes off his white glove and throws
it on the ground. He walks daintily next to PENNY, taking his time, leading with his feet, still
focused on his one audience member. He talks like a nutcracker, breaking up his words. He has an
other-worldly voice, and is practically expressionless throughout the proceedings.

EZRA: Hi-a, Ezra Lam…… “bu.”

EZRA assumes the Vaudeville pose, but with a performance art edge.

PENNY: (giggling) That’s a joke… We make those. You can laugh… or not.

Beat.

EZRA: (with intensity) Hi-a, Ezra Lam… (extremely loud) “BU”!

Beat.

PENNY: Um, he has ADHD, which means --

EZRA: Attention Deficit Hy-per Act-ive Dis-or-der.

PENNY: Which means --

EZRA: Five milligrams of Ritalin, five milligrams of Dex-ahhhh-drine.

PENNY: And --

EZRA: I have strong apprehension to the scientific claims of my dis-or-der.

PENNY: He’s pretty smart though -- for a thirteen-year-old basket case. Are you going to talk like that
through the whole presentation?

EZRA: Yes.

PENNY: In real life he doesn’t talk like that.

EZRA: In real life I don’t exist.

Beat.
PENNY: Yes, he does.

EZRA: No, I don’t.

PENNY: Yes, he does.

EZRA: No, I don’t.

PENNY: Yes.

EZRA: No.

PENNY: Yes.

EZRA: No.

PENNY: Yes.

EZRA: No.

PENNY: No.

EZRA: Yes.

PENNY: Ha!

EZRA: (defeated) I exist.

PENNY: Why don’t you tell us something about yourself, Ezra?

SOUND Q #2 -- “Gnossienne.”

EZRA exposes a sad-looking doll. He acts out the motions of the little man in the puppet theatre.
Eric Satie’s “Gnossienne #1” plays.

EZRA: Well… I did read in the paper a while ago… Jeffrey Dahmer, you know that serial killer that
killed and ate all those people? Well, he pulled double night shifts in a factory making chocolate Santa
Clauses. Did it for years. So I imagine the austere fluorescent lighting, the endless chocolate Santas
coming down the conveyor belt, the gloomy faces punching in the clock… The desperate silence of a cog
in a forever festive machine… going to work at sunset, to bed at sunrise… This goes on for years… Until
finally he falls on his knees going…

He makes the puppet fall on his knees.

(in a southern accent, dramatically) I’m going to break. I’m simply gonna’ break.

PENNY: Uhh… Okay. So I can explain… we were both home schooled.

EZRA: I mean it would drive you --

PENNY: (gritting) Okay, that’s enough about Jeffrey Dahmer! Let me whisk you away to happier times.
Play some whisking-away music, Ezra.

SOUND Q #3 -- Whisking-away

EZRA plays whisking-away music on his ghetto-blaster.

SLIDE #1 -- Uranium City.

PENNY: Welcome to Uranium City, Saskatchewan! Oh, the sun is out today, I see. We both grew up on
the Elysium Community Farm, just outside of Uranium City, which means --

EZRA: A lot of people walking around naked, quoting eastern philosophy, and never shaving their pubes.

PENNY: Right, and all the kids there were named Rainbow, Sunshine, Trotsky. Ezra even had a best
friend named Noam Chomsky… SkyTrain. We lived on Elysium with our mom Marie-Jose Blanche --
and our dad -- Rudolf. They met at some college waaaaaaaaaaay back in the nineties. He took her in his
arms and danced her ass off to “Hungry Eyes,” and they also found that they both thought modern
civilization was --

EZRA: A sausage factory, crushing individuals’ self-worth, turning them into soulless, neurotic robots.

PENNY: Toads. And that got them both real hot! So that very same night, I was conceived. Three years
later, Ezra. Lookit, where we grew up? Elysium Community Farm? Everybody was totally into all that
happy hippy stuff. You know, sitars, sunshine, philosophy, love, Humanism, ganja weed. We talked and
laughed, learned lots… And sometimes at night Ezra would put on super cool puppet shows about
German Nihilism.

EZRA: The nail that sticks out gets hammered down!

EZRA gestures, punching his hands together.

PENNY: It went on like this for years, this all-enlightened, home-made living; there was only one
drawback… Now, we didn’t want to hurt the good people at Elysium, but there was this crummy rule that
kids couldn’t go to Legoland until they were sixteen -- oh, by the way, that’s what they called everything
here outside Elysium -- “Legoland.” (She winks)
 Fade out sound.

PENNY: Okay so lookit! When I got to thirteen… I was getting kind of itchy, you know? To see a world
that didn’t consist only of naked, smiling, enlightened hippies… And Ezra… Well, Ezra was getting kind
of weird… playing with his little monkey in his room all day.

EZRA removes a monkey hand puppet wearing a little bowler.

PENNY: Oh, that’s his little monkey, Afenschwanz.

EZRA: Afenschwanz in German means monkey dingle.

PENNY: Ezra has always been all mad into the Germans. I mean, that Nietzsche guy had a saying for
everything!

EZRA: The last Christian died on the cross.

PENNY: A joke is an epitaph on emotion.

EZRA: Without music, the world would be a mistake.

PENNY: Ah, that’s my absolute favorite! Without music, the world would be a mistake.

Beat.

PENNY: Awesome! Nietzsche's so dreamy. So, I got the hankering to go to Legoland… more specifically,
Uranium City. I knew kind of what to expect, because I read a book called Anne of Green Gables. I mean,
sure the whole town would be weirded out by our precocious mannerisms at first. But after a while we’d
all be embraced by these nice people… Banker Mudge… Farmer Pete… Baker Jones. Oh, and little
Gilbert, my high school sweetheart who --

EZRA: When we got to Wal-Mart, it wasn’t anything like that…

EZRA & PENNY: Wal-Mart!

SOUND Q #4 -- Wal-Mart.

PENNY: … A big old slab of bright blue and concrete… plastered with yellow smiley faces. Cars spilling
in and out.

EZRA: An endless line of people coming and going.

PENNY: Looking down at their feet, holding their bags. The only ones smiling are the people that work
there.
EZRA & PENNY: Crazy jack-o’-lantern smiles!

PENNY: Thousands of magazines of famous people in tons of make-up, telling you that without all their
make-up, they’d look just like you.

EZRA: And without all their fame…

EZRA & PENNY: They’d act just like you!

Fade out sound.

PENNY: Anyway… Wal-Mart was super awesome… But… everyone was all busy… Now, we tried our
darndest to strike up friendly chats with people in Wal-Mart… But it was strange; if you talked to people
they acted like you were touching your dingle in front of them. We snuck out several times, but no matter
what we did, no one talked to us! So that’s when we came up with this… Jeez, it was such a stupid idea.. I
was thirteen then… So we…

EZRA falls down on the ground and starts convulsing.

PENNY: (mechanically) Oh my God! That little boy is having a seizure. We have to get him on his
stomach so he doesn’t swallow his tongue!

EZRA jiggles around. PENNY shakes him several times. He revives.

EZRA: (coached) Thank you, I would have been a goner if it weren’t for the collective need I sensed in
all of you for my survival.

PENNY: So, Ezra started faking seizures in the Wal-Mart, and I’d pretend to revive him. And now -- I
know, I know, I know! … it is not socially acceptable to simulate human catastrophe in order to strike up
a conversation. But I have to say, when people think you’re on the brink of death… Well… they can be
really super awesome! The whole crowd of people would break out into applause, old ladies’ mascara
would run from tears of joy, families would cry out, “Oh, thank God he’s all right! Oh, thank God that
little boy is all right!” You see, every time Ezra had one of his spaz attacks, there was real love in the
Wal-Mart… It wasn’t just a place to get cheap junk anymore… No! It was a community. So, we did it a
couple of times --

EZRA: Thirty-six times.

PENNY: Thirty-six times… and after a while, the manager got wise… and, well, he called the police…
and they drove us home. And that’s when… Well, that’s when… all that trouble happened…

SOUND Q #5 -- Hippy
 Beat.

EZRA is in the puppet theatre acting out the drug bust with toys.

PENNY: As it turned out… Elysium was the largest fricking organic pot farm in the Prairies! … The
constable got on his CB… before you knew it, all of Elysium looked like a cheesy action film. All the
parents were rounded up in paddy wagons… The next day we all made national news. All these pictures
of us Elysian kids looking all doe-eyed… And I know it’s bad to feel bad for people who’ve violated the
sacred sanctity of like… Never. Getting. High… but the parents on Elysium, our parents, my parents…
they loved us and taught us kids a lot of cool stuff like, how to make…

Fade out sound over fifteen seconds.

EZRA: Non-toxic forms of penicillin.

PENNY: The fundamentals of chemistry, agriculture, astronomy -- and every Sunday the kids would have
the humanistic talent show -- where everyone came in first! We were really kind of… amazingly happy.

Beat.

PENNY: Anyway, after my folks got fifteen for cultivation and trafficking of narcotics… we were sent to
a boarding school… First day. Teacher pulls me up in front of the class.

SOUND Q #6 -- School bell.

Sound plays out.

Beat.

PENNY: The instant I see the boys staring at me like gaping fish with their heads cut off… and the girls
looking at me with those Queen of England smiles… Oh, little Penny wasn’t in Kansas anymore…
Uh-uh… I was sent to the charred black bowels of everlasting Hell!

Beat.

PENNY: (brightly) But all the teachers liked to call it --

EZRA & PENNY: Saint Cassian Catholic School!

SOUND Q #7 -- Thunder and religious music.

EZRA: The actual Saint Cassian was lynched by his students, pinned down and brutally stabbed in the
throat with their styli.
PENNY & EZRA: How perfect!

PENNY: Saint Cassian, a blend of everything insane in both science and religion.

EZRA: Jesus without love.

PENNY: Science with no reason. And I was given the dubious distinction of being branded the high
school --

EZRA & PENNY: LESBIAN!

Sound fades out.

PENNY: Everything I did was wrong. My hair, how I talked, what I loved, liked, listened to! Boys writing
“Dyke” on my locker with indelible Jiffy-marker. Being pushed down stairs, pushed up stairs, pushed to
the side of stairs, soon avoiding stairs all together -- which made it very difficult, because my locker and
most of my classes were on the second floor! Girls going up to me all, like --

EZRA pops up in the puppet theatre with three Barbies, all speaking in EZRA’s voice; he attempts
very little characterization, still giving his flat delivery.

EZRA: (Barbies) Penny, me and the girls were wondering, are you, like, some kind of lesbian?

PENNY: I don’t… How many kinds are there? … What… is a lesbian like?

EZRA: (Barbies) Like you! Tee-hee, tee-hee.

EZRA and the Barbies giggle.

PENNY: Ohh, their laughter! Like a pack of bleached-blond, screeching banshees! And in class, in class,
it was actually worse! I mean, I didn’t know you weren’t supposed to actually know anything in school!

EZRA: (as the teacher) So, class, in Lord of the Flies, what is William Golding trying to express?

PENNY, in a chair, puts her hand up excitedly.

PENNY: Uh… The Lord of the Flies. So these children are on an island without parents, right? And they
revert to a Darwinian state, where savage conformity rules, the intelligent, the spiritual, the moral. Picked
off… one by one! Crushed under rocks! Stuck like pigs!

EZRA: (as the teacher) Penny, we’re Catholics, we don’t believe in Darwin! (Barbies) Ha, ha, ha, not
only is Penny a lesbian, she’s a feminist lesbian!

PENNY: Well, who’s ever heard of a misogynist lesbian.

EZRA: (as the teacher) Penny, stop using big words.

PENNY: Big words? This is an English class! Wh-wh-what big words?

EZRA: (as the teacher) Words, like “conformity” and “intelligence.” (Barbies) All we want to do is, like
-- read? … books?

PENNY: (powerfully) Read?! The only things you beepin’ hussies like to read are your pregnancy tests!

EZRA: (as the teacher) Penny! Get out of my classroom! Take your wicked keister down to (EZRA’s
voice) Dr. Prattle’s office!

PENNY: Dr. Prattle, the Catholic psychiatrist!

EZRA & PENNY: Jesus, Freud and pills.

EZRA: Now, there’s a bitter cocktail!

PENNY: I got to Dr. Prattle’s office -- wham, bam, thank you ma’am. I was now the proud owner of a
brand new --

EZRA & PENNY: Neurological disorder!

Fade out sound.

PENNY: Bipolar! Manic depressive… Survey says!

SLIDE #2 -- Pill.

EZRA: Five milligrams of Paxil two times a day!

PENNY: And Ezra was soon sent to the good doctor, too.

EZRA: It was after my science presentation.

SOUND Q #8 -- Masterpiece Theater.

SLIDE #3 -- Syphilis.

Masterpiece Theater theme plays. A slide comes up reading, “The Syphilis Hall of Fame,” with
pictures of several philosophers.
EZRA: The Syphilis Hall of Fame. Nietzsche, Shakespeare, Voltaire… Question: What made these the
great thinkers they are today? … Answer: syphilis.

Fade out sound.

PENNY: That’s when Ezra was diagnosed with severe --

EZRA: ADHD. Five milligrams of Ritalin, five milligrams of Dexedrine.

PENNY: Anyway, there we were -- doped up to the gills -- in Hell. Well, I was. Ezra was kind of --

EZRA: (proudly) Sold my meds to teenagers and college kids. Ten bucks a throw.

PENNY: Kids on the street called him “lil’ E-Z,” as it --

EZRA: One “Lamb,” and you can take it EEEE-ZEE. For two E-Z payments of five dollars you get high
as a kite, sharp as a tack, get wiggedy wiggedy wack, or your money back.

PENNY: He had a massive eighteen-year-old football player named Todd on salary,

EZRA: He was always coming up short, skimming the product. (blurts with passion, yet without tension
in his voice) Fucking junkies!

PENNY: EZRA GINSBERG MARTIN LUTHER WOODY GUTHRIE LAMB! … This is a theatre…
you can’t say the F-word unless you’re pretending to be poor! Anyway, lil’ E-Z was making a go at his
whole drug syndicate thingy… And I was kind of… well…

Beat.

PENNY: Like, sleeping in my room all day… tearing my hair and throwing up, kind of suicidal and
depressed and everything… So, one day a bunch of girls were setting fire to my school bag -- second time
that week -- and I wasn’t even crying anymore… because, you get to a point… when you’re waaaay
beyond crying.

Beat.

PENNY: “Not waving but drowning.” Stevie Smith. “This is my life… Whoomp (There It Is).” Tag Team.

Beat.

PENNY: But then! … Tammy Edwards sat down next to me and, like… took Christian pity.

EZRA: Tinky winky tinky winky tinky winky tink.

 SOUND Q #9 -- Harp.

PENNY: … Tammy was the only one in that crummy crack house Catholic school, I think, who actually
believed in Jesus. So, she was all, like… into shaking hands with lepers -- or lesbians, as the case may be.

EZRA enters in a tutu, spinning around fairy godmother-like.

EZRA: (as Tammy) Look… the other kids make fun of you because you don’t wear, see or listen to
anything cool.

PENNY: … But… how do I become cool?

EZRA: Only the Lord knoweth what is truly cool… Take this CD. If you listen to this -- all is forgiven.

EZRA hands her a CD.

Fade out sound.

PENNY: I ran to my room. I put the CD in my player. Then… Ohhh, then…

SOUND Q #10 -- Classical.

She starts to hyperventilate, the crescendo of Handel’s “Hallelujah” chorus plays.

PENNY: Ohhh, my ears were lavished with a rhapsody of pure bliss. Musical ecstasy, I believe akin to the
ascent of one’s soul rising towards the heavenly spheres! I was bathed in the melody of God and all His
angels and cherubs. For at that instant I experienced rapture, only felt before by the likes of naked hermits
in the desert. For it was that golden day I first heard… the boy band…

Fade out sound.

EZRA & PENNY: Seven Up!

SOUND Q #11 -- Xanadu.

SLIDE #4 -- Seven Up.

Slide comes up of a boy band named Seven Up… They are next to a gas station, wearing singlets
and jeans, looking all sexy and bad-ass.

PENNY: Seven Up was founded in Orlando, Florida, after an international American talent search. The
goal was to put five of the most talented men in a sound studio, with various composers, a choreographer,
a designer --
EZRA: A chartered accountant.

PENNY: And see what happened. Well, I’ll tell you what happened, people! … Seven Up!

Fade out sound.

PENNY: Seven Up consists of five members. There is Johnny Moon (trembles)... and four other guys:
Sammy Thorndike, the preppy; Billy Benton, the jock; Tony Capelli, the bad boy; and Juan Carlito
Ramirez… the… they only ever described him as the Spanish guy. Now, a lot of kids make fun of the fact
that Seven Up only has five members… when the name Seven Up would lead one to assume they had -- I
dunno -- seven members?

EZRA: There are seven deadly sins: sloth, gluttony, envy, lechery, avarice, pride and wrath -- they
encapsulate them all nicely.

PENNY: And last, but definitely not least… Drum roll, Ez’!

EZRA sputters his lips.

SLIDE #5 -- Johnny on the Moon.

SOUND Q #12 -- “Flower Duet.”

Slide of Johnny Moon shoots up. The choral part of Delibes’s “Flower Duet” plays.

PENNY: Ohhhhhh, Johhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhnny Moon!

Beat. PENNY stares at the picture for a long time, suddenly breaking into a dance. Drawn to the
slide, she embraces it, to EZRA’s increased agitation.

EZRA: (barking) RUFF RUFF!

Fade out sound.

PENNY: Everyone loves them, everyone, even Ezra, loves them!

EZRA: Henry Ford created the assembly line, creating mass production, creating mass-marketed messiahs
on crosses of Velcro… Seven Up: manufactured, soulless, hip-gyrating robots… hence, the true
troubadours of globalization!

Beat.

PENNY: You see, Ezra loves them! So there I was in my room, listening to their debut track, “Sincerely
Yours”... “For if my life is a love letter, that letter is yours, the end being signed… ‘Sincerely Yours.’”...
Okay, the first time I heard that song? … My heart’s getting all giddy and floody bloody right now… (to
herself) Chill, Penny. Chill. (to the audience) I wish I could just sing you the song, but I can’t on account
of my shrink… and the restraining order… I mean, how do you explain music. (EZRA produces a ukulele,
hands it to PENNY.) Well, okay, lookit I did write this song… a song I composed after I heard “Sincerely
Yours”... I play an instrument, this is my axe Shaneekwa. Okay, so here goes… (She plays the ukulele.)

(singing) Every twenty-four hours or so,

The earth it spins around,
One part day, one part night,
Depending where you’re standing on the ground.
And in between the turning,
Babies walking, talking, lesson learning,
there might come one day when you resolve,

(talking) What’s the point, we all die, and all love dissolves
But then I hear you singing,

(singing) No matter where you roam,

You are not alone,
All through history,
Walking hand in hand in misery

(talking) Dear Johnny, we haven’t met before, but I feel we’ve met a hundred times in the republic of my
dreams. I don’t want to freak you out of anything, but before your music… I thought I was destined to die
alone… you know, to be one of those people that you read about in the papers that people only realize are
dead because their bodies start to stink. But you restored my faith through your genius… I don’t just hear
the most kick-ass awesome pop music ever… in your music, I can see history -- like, eternity -- and my
place in it. For in your voice, I understand I am a note, in a bar, in a movement, of a song, of a symphony
of music! A symphony that builds to an orgasmic, rapturous crescendo. A state of bliss so overbearing it
literally hurts! Building, building, BUILDING, BUILDING, BUILDING,
BUUUUUUUUUILDIIIIIIIIIING! …

(singing) No matter where you roam,

You are not alone,
All throughout history,
Walking hand in hand in misery

And that’s the closest I can explain how I felt when I heard Johnny Moon sing “Sincerely Yours” for the
first time. (unenthusiastic as hell) Oh… and Tony Capellu raps a little on it… Something like,
“Champagne in the brain in Spain,” which was good… ish. ANYWAY, the band proved crazy prolific,
producing over three short years a staggering hundred and sixty-eight albums, and that’s not even
including their holiday albums -- Christmas, Easter, President’s Day --

EZRA: Ramadan.
PENNY: You couldn’t even swing a cat without hitting a Seven Up song. Radio, TV, internet chat rooms,
key chains, T-shirts. I had finally tapped into something everyone liked. I was finally cool -- for, like, two
seconds!

EZRA: (pulling out the Barbies in the puppet theatre) Seven Up is so five minutes ago! All their songs
sound like they were written by a retarded child on a Tilt-A-Whirl… the only ones who listen to them are,
like, zit-faced Twinkies and --

PENNY: Lesbians, you were going to say. Lesbians, right?

(The Barbies cackle.) Tee-hee, tee-hee.

PENNY: The critical mass had turned on Seven Up, like a pack of Pharisees.

SOUND Q #13 -- Tchaikovsky’s “Russian Dance.”

PENNY: An angry toothless mob howling for their death! And all who believed in the universal message
of “Love” were branded with the mark of Cain! Kids breaking into my room, writing little thought
bubbles on my Johnny Moon posters saying, “I like it up the bum-bum” and “I like to suck pee-pee”!
Only they didn’t write “pee-pee” or “bum-bum”! Johnny! Poor Johnny. A living walking set-up for an
endless series of punchlines. Seven Up stuck together as long as they could -- soon doing only concerts in
Eastern Europe. But then… tragedy struck. Billy Benton was swarmed by an angry throng of pre-teens in
Moscow for his three-hundred-dollar tennis shoes -- dragged to the centre of Red Square -- and ripped
apart like a chicken cutlet…

Fade out sound.

PENNY: After the funeral, the band broke up. Johnny tried to keep his dignity, but soon found himself…
making celebrity testimonials in infomercials, singing songs about Viagra and vacuum cleaner nozzles..
then whoosh, he vanished! I wrote him a few times.

EZRA: Three thousand, five hundred and sixty-seven times.

PENNY: Right. And one day he sent me a real letter… and actual letter. Ezra!

SOUND Q #14 -- Johnny’s letter.

EZRA: (as Johnny) Dear Penny, thank you for being my greatest fan, my most loyal fan. In fact, these
days, my only fan… Always keep the faith, girl… Sincerely yours, Johnny Moon-moon-moon…
Headshot enclosed-closed-closed-closed.

Beat.
 PENNY pulls out his headshot and kisses it, on the verge of tears.

PENNY: But then, then! After a painful year, feeling half-dead, I come across a small little ad in a
crummy magazine… “Johnny Moon’s New Solo Album, soon to be released in an HMV near you!” A
solo album? … A solo album?! A solo album! I wait two painstaking months! The day before his new
release, I stayed up all night -- by the record store -- I wanted to be the first to hear his new magnum opus.

Fade out sound.

PENNY: I run into the record store, grab the CD and without looking I run home and throw it in my CD
player! I throw on the first track… every cilium in my ears is taut with anticipation of Johnny’s unfettered
muse breaking forth in all her glory!

SOUND Q #15 -- Ezra’s rap.

A haunting rap beat plays. EZRA enters with a microphone. He raps rhythmically -- but without
any characterization of an actual rapper.

EZRA: (toasting) Yo! Yo! This is JK-47,

Been dope since 9/11
Yo, I’z gotz something to say that’s real rich,
So listen up, bee-yotch.
(rapping) So you’re looking at me, ya sucka’ MC?
You wanna come at me like you’re fucking Bruce Lee?
When you’re this big, bee-yotch, they call ya mistah,
And if you don’t believe me, go and ask your sistah,
If she’s not home I know another,
Here’s a quarter, little bitch, go and call your mother,
Yo! I got style, I gotz the grace,
I go out with the ladies and I punch ‘em in the face,
So rip off your panties, take off your bra,
Tonight I’m going to fuck you wit’ my chainsaw.
… Fuck you wit’ my chainsaw, fuck you wit’ my chainsaw, fuck you wit’ my chainsaw --

PENNY screams.

Cut out sound.

PENNY: (screaming) Urrgh! I can’t take it! ENOUGH! STOP! (trembling) Johnny’s Moon was now
eclipsed… In his solo effort, sweet, loving Johnny had morphed into…

EZRA & PENNY: JK-47!

SOUND Q #16 -- JK-47 underbeat.

 Sound plays out or fades.

SLIDES #6 to #10 -- JK-47 (five slides of JK-47 in various gangsta poses).

PENNY: (shaking) JK-47, a frat boy puking up solid black venomous bile, rubbing his dingle like it was
his lucky rabbit’s foot. His new album called The 6 B’s! stood for booze, bluntz, the name for a female
dog, the bling-bling and… no one knows what the last B stands for. I dunno? Band-Aids? Bosnia?! I
listened to all twenty-six unrelenting tracks, with the relish of a Rabbi being force-fed a hotdog. Well it
appeared little mister-potty-mouth had come up a long way from singing with a Sea Cow about “Eating
your Broccoli.” And, of course, talking about his days growing up in the ‘hood. Yes -- his days in the
mean old ‘hood. In -- Portland, OREGON! But I had faith this was a blip, a glitch, no one would actually
subject themselves to this musical rape! … It wouldn’t sell, the critics would tear him apart, his fans
would turn on him, he would --

EZRA: “Fuck You Wit’ My Chainsaw” became bigger than “Macarena,” “Who Let The Dogs Out” and
“Don’t Worry, Be Happy” combined.

PENNY: Every critic was heralding JK-47 as the Bob Dylan of our generation. Oh, I can see the
comparison -- “The Times They Are A-Changin’” to “F’ You Wit’ My Chainsaw.”

EZRA: (as a critic, in the puppet booth) Five stars out of five. JK-47 is the real thing. He’s angry, he’s
white and he just doesn’t give a fuck!

PENNY: EZRA! “FUDGE,” NOT F-MM-UCK!

EZRA: I just gangster rapped about copulating with a power tool.

PENNY: Fine! And that… song! It was everywhere! Action figures of JK-47 and his ex-girl, Sandy…
with a detachable head! OH SANDY came with many novel accessories a gal can’t be without these days
-- a toe-tag and a fake suicide note for the cops! T-shirts! Pepsi cans! Even our own priest -- a man who
referred to sex as “the Devil’s pilates” -- was now quoting the song liberally! And all the girls at that
crummy school were all loving Johnny again! Of course! (to the audience) So all those domeless wonder
girls are all, like --

EZRA: (Barbies, in the puppet theatre) Hey, Pen’, you still like JK-47? He’s so dreamy.

PENNY: Yeah, you’d have a swell date with him, maybe he’d bring his chainsaw.

EZRA: (Barbies) He’s being ironical. Gawd, you’re such a lesbian femi-Nazi.

PENNY: Listen to me, Jezebels! You wouldn’t know irony if it crawled up your ass to start a soup kitchen
-- to feed its three starving friends -- Wit! Integrity! and Intelligence! (to the audience) I was suspended
for saying the word “ass” -- Now, I lie in my room, glaring at the newspaper. I bought every newspaper I
could find with JK-47. I couldn’t look away. It was a train wreck…

Beat.

PENNY: Anyway, I pick up and read the letter Johnny wrote me -- when he wasn’t the anti-Johnny…
Blinded with tears, I can scarcely see, and I drop the letter. The letter lands on a paper from the Orlando
Sentinel… announcing a CD-signing in JK-47’s new chain of nightclubs, (murmuring) the Bitch Slap… I
look at it…

Beat.

PENNY: Of course! I love this man, I believe in this man, I have faith in this man! I adore this man! I
didn’t want to go to Orlando! I just had to go… So I came up with this plan; Ezra, had some drug
money… Johnny’s favorite coffee is a special blend, named after him. It’s called the Moonbeam, and only
sold at the Space Needle in Seattle, Washington.

EZRA & PENNY: The Moonbeam! A no-fat double latte --

EZRA: A thrilling mixture of Zapatista Dark Roast…

PENNY: Castro Morning Blend…

EZRA: Che Guevara Decaf, and the secret ingredient not disclosed --

EZRA & PENNY: On pain of death!

PENNY: I would get his coffee… bring it to him -- and he would have no choice but to hear me out! I
would go all the way to Johnny’s CD-signing at (mumbling) the Bitch Slap in Orlando… We had a week
to get there by bus, and eight hundred and seventy dollars!

EZRA: Several vials of Ritalin and Dexedrine.

PENNY: By sundown we were on our way to the land of liberty --

SOUND Q #17 -- “Star-Spangled Banner.”

EZRA: Silicone breasts and fundamentalists.

EZRA & PENNY: Otherwise known as the USA!

Sound fades out.

PENNY: We took the bus. Ez’ wouldn’t fly with an American terror alert at level Ernie.
EZRA: The American Homeland Security Advisory System, for potential travelers to the USA.

SLIDE #11 -- Homeland Security

EZRA: Levels of terror, in order of safe to deadly,

SOUND Q #18 -- Homeland Security

Sound plays out.

EZRA: Oscar the Grouch, you can slouch; Cookie Monster, do not stir; Bert, be very pert; Ernie, pack a
gurney… Lastly, Tickle Me Elmo, take a bow, chump, it’s time to go…

PENNY: Ez’ won’t fly at any terror rating higher than a Cookie Monster. Anyway!

We board a Greyhound for our cross-country pilgrimage! I am giddy with the anticipation…
Wondering… Would I, like Kerouac, find the true spirit of this American land? … We arrive at the --

EZRA & PENNY: United States border crossing!

PENNY: Now the nice customs officer --

EZRA: A total jingoistic bastard.

PENNY: Well, he wanted to know why two young people were traveling without the accompaniment of a
parental unit, he went up to Ezra and said, (in customs voice, holding a He-Man action figure) “Aren’t
you two a little bit young to be traveling by yourselves?”

EZRA: (to PENNY) I’ll handle this… (to customs officer) Hello, my good man, excellent work you’re
doing keeping the Hun at bay. This is for you.

EZRA slips some money in PENNY’s hand.

PENNY: I don’t take bribes -- and besides, that’s only a Loonie. Look, son, where are your parents?

EZRA: Well, if you really must know… (crying)

SOUND Q #19 -- Sentimental music.

EZRA: This is very hard to speak about, you understand -- tragic really -- they were taking a cruise to
Israel… when… the ship was seized… they were both tortured and killed by agents of the… Al-Qaeda…
Penny wants to light a candle in Salt Lake City… You see, we’re devout Mormons. My father always said
he’d rather be a pile of ashes in America than alive anywhere else in the world. Daddy…
 Sound fades out.

SOUND Q #20 -- “American Woman.”

Sound fades out.

EZRA & PENNY: Seattle, Washington. The Evergreen State.

PENNY: Thirty-one endangered species, including the Grizzly Bear.

SLIDE #12 -- Homeland Security

EZRA: Terror alert has sunk to a balmy Cookie Monster.

PENNY: We get off the bus, and I run to the Space Needle; with money in hand, I ask for a pound of the
Moonbeam. It cost a bit.

EZRA: A hundred and twenty dollars.

PENNY: But well worth it for its rich aromatic blend of famous Latin American revolutionaries. I
wondered what the secret ingredient is. Well, after the coffee… well, we kind of already spent our money,
so we started --

EZRA: Hustling my medication for dead presidents.

PENNY: We just went up to people, struck up conversations, and Ezra’s concentration pills sold like
hotcakes… By the end of the day we had enough money for two bus tickets and a meal at McDonald’s!

EZRA & PENNY: Ohhhh, McDonald’s!

PENNY: You see, we kids at Elysium never, I mean ever, got to go to the “McDonald’s,” that was like a
cardinal sin. Eating at McDonald’s was like --

EZRA: Drinking your grandfather’s semen.

PENNY: Ugh, Ez’... Okay, gross. Gross!

SLIDE #13 -- McDonald’s.

A slide comes up of PENNY and EZRA standing outside McDonald’s.

PENNY: So we actually got to go to the Golden Arches for the first time! Anyway, it was super awesome.
The music! The sights! The sounds! We hadn’t even had anything like a Pepsi before. Now, I’m a
pescetarian -- which means I only eat fish; even though I feel bad for them, I can’t relate to them at all. So
I had the Filet-O-Fish and Ezra got the Chicken McNuggets Happy Meal. We never had Happy Meals
before; they’re super awesome!

EZRA: They made me… happy.

PENNY: They came with free toys! Free cross-promotional toys!

EZRA: I got Action Man on a snowmobile.

PENNY: I got Rapping Rock ‘n’ Roll Barbie. Seattle rules! We waved goodbye to the Space Needle and
all the good people we dealt concentration pills to and boarded the Greyhound.

Dance transition.

SOUND Q #21 -- LA.

Sound plays out.

EZRA & PENNY: Los Angeles, California! The Golden State!

PENNY: One hundred and eleven endangered species, including the Kangaroo Rat.

SLIDE #14 - Homeland Security.

EZRA: Terror alert miraculously drops to lovely Oscar the Grouch!

PENNY: A whopping one hundred milligrams of Ritalin and Dexedrine.

EZRA & PENNY: We go to McDonald’s for Happy Meals.

SLIDE #15 -- McDonald’s.

PENNY: I get Hollywood Hair Barbie.

EZRA: I get a Fry Guy in a fire truck. It amused me.

He laughs for the first time in the entire play, a stifled unnatural laugh.

PENNY: We say goodbye to all the famous people in LA and board the Greyhound.

Dance transition.

SOUND Q #22 -- Las Vegas.

 Sound plays out.

EZRA & PENNY: Las Vegas, Nevada! The Silver State!

PENNY: There are twenty-six endangered species, including the Virgin River Chub.

SLIDE #16 -- Homeland Security.

EZRA & PENNY: Two hundred milligrams of Ritalin and Dexedrine.

PENNY: We go to McDonald’s. Get Happy Meals.

SLIDE #17 -- McDonald’s.

PENNY: I get Babe the Pig. I ask if I can get a toy that isn’t actually on the menu.

EZRA: I get a condom.

SOUND Q #23 -- Utah.

Dance transition.

Restore. Sound plays out.

EZRA & PENNY: Salt Lake City, Utah.

PENNY: Mormon central.

EZRA & PENNY: (danger trill) Dun-dun-daaaaaa!

Ten-second pause, as the kids freeze in pose.

PENNY: Mormons are creepy. Twenty-one endangered species, including the Utah Valvata Snail.

SLIDE #18 -- Homeland Security.

EZRA: Due to a scandal in Washington, terror alert rises to a freezing Bert.

PENNY: No concentration pills are sold.

SLIDE #19 -- McDonald’s.

EZRA & PENNY: We both get Mormon pamphlets in our Happy Meals.
EZRA: Making me extremely un-happy. In fact, downright fuck --

SOUND Q #24 -- Texas.

Dance transition.

Sound plays out.

EZRA & PENNY: San Antonio, Texas! The Lone Star State!

PENNY: Twenty-eight endangered species, including the Helotes Mold Beetle.

SLIDE #20 -- Homeland Security.

EZRA: The Terror has begun. TICKLE ME ELMO’S REIGN OF NATIONAL TERROR HAS NOW
BEGUN!

EZRA & PENNY: Ten milligrams of Ritalin.

PENNY: We go to McDonald’s. Get Happy Meals. I get Cool Country Barbie.

EZRA: I got a junior membership to the NRA.

SOUND Q #25 -- Alabama.

Sound plays out.

EZRA & PENNY: Montgomery, Alabama! Yellowhammer State!

PENNY: There are eighty-eight endangered species, including the Cumberland Monkeyface.

SLIDE #21 -- Homeland Security.

EZRA: Ugh! To be in Alabama while Elmo’s red furry paw has the country by the nuts.

PENNY: I get a crushed beer can.

EZRA: I get a Jim Crow Let’s Go A-lynchin’ Kit.

SOUND Q #26 -- Florida.

Dance transition.

Sound plays out.

EZRA & PENNY: Orlando, Florida! The Sunshine State! AT LAST! ANNNNNNND JAZZ HANDS!

They do jazz hands.

PENNY: There are fifty-six endangered species, including the Choctawhatchee Beach Mouse.

EZRA: And American-style democracy.

PENNY: Well, we were pretty stinky, having been on the bus for seven days. I wanted to get to a Howard
Johnson for a bath, a nap and some other food. Any food other than McDonald’s.

EZRA: I was developing the first stages of scurvy.

PENNY: When we get to the room I take a shower. I plop into the bed, but I can’t sleep! So I get my
Sincerely Yours CD… and then we walk down to the local Starbucks and pay them twenty dollars to make
the Moonbeam. We leave with a steaming batch of the brew in our ultra-seal Thermos -- that way it will
remain hot for up to twelve hours.

EZRA: Steaming, boiling, piping-hot Moonbeam. Remember that.

PENNY: We arrive in line at the (murmuring) Bitch Slap. There is a line-up like --

EZRA: A sparkly line of white suburban boys in baseball caps and squishy shoes.

PENNY: Oh BOY! All these guys are going to be in for a big surprise after I get to him. I wait for three
hours in line, with the patience of a sphinx.

EZRA pulls out a baby doll in a bonnet, who represents the bouncer.

EZRA: (in home-boy, with puppet) Yo! You got any ID?

PENNY: ID?

EZRA: (home-boy baby) You need ta’ be twenty-one to get into the Bitch Slap.

PENNY: But… I’ve come… all the way from Uranium City, Saskatchewan.

EZRA: (baby) Don’t madder to me. No ID, no entry. Ged’ away from the door, bitch! (to PENNY) Let me
handle this.

EZRA falls down on the ground and has a seizure.

PENNY: (mechanically) Oh my God! That little boy is having a seizure! We must get him on his stomach
before he swallows his tongue… (to the audience) The bouncer goes to Ezra. I sneak into the
(murmuring) Bitch Slap.

SOUND Q #27 -- Club beat.

EZRA gets up and begins arranging his human size puppet in a chair. The puppet resembles
JK-47, all macked out with a tennis hat cocked to one side and gold chains. The puppet should be
revolting-looking, like a corpse with decaying flesh. On its shoulder EZRA places his monkey
puppet, who acts as D-Dawg.

PENNY: Strobe lights are flashing. It’s covered with a throng of pimple-faced scowling white kids in
parkas, looking down at their feet, grabbing their dingles through their oversized jeans. I’ve never been to
a bathhouse before, but this certainly feels like one. There is a short line leading to a solid white desk. I
can hear Johnny’s voice, his real, live flesh-and-blood voice!

She turns.

PENNY: I see him! … Look, girls, he’s even dreamier in person!

He’s sitting in his chair scowling as he signs CDs, without looking up. I recognize his sidekick from his
new album, D-Dawg, As I walk up to him, my legs buckle. I feel as if I could tell him everything and
nothing at the same time. Yet the moment I see his blue eyes look into mine, I know this is going to go
just swell.

PENNY proudly walks up to JK-47 holding her Thermos. She is nervous and smiling. She slides
her Sincerely Yours CD onto his desk. She plays the rest of the scene to the audience, as though
she is facing JK-47.

PENNY: (really fast) Hello, I’m Penny Lamb, your greatest, greatest fan. Oh God! I feel like I have so
much to say to you, I could explode… Would you believe I’ve come all the way from Uranium City,
Saskatchewan to see you -- that’s in Canada -- and, no, I don’t have a dogsled -- bad joke -- I’m so
nervous -- I was homeschooled -- I mean until they sent me to this school where everyone called me a
lesbian. Anyway, along the way I picked up something very special. Mr. Johnny Moon, in this airtight
Thermos is your… Moonbeam. Taa-daa! Yes, your favorite drink, brought alllll the way here to you, for
you, by me. With the secret ingredient that cannot be revealed on pain of death. A gift from me… to you.
For the gift you gave me. For because of you, I know something about true love. Look, I don’t believe in
good and evil -- I think believing you are, like, an evil, rotten little dude in a black hat who thinks he’s so
darn good that he can, I dunno, blow people up? -- But I do believe in love and hate. There are two roads
to go down, Johnny… There is the Lover Lane, or the Super Hate Highway. I fear -- because the world’s
been so heartless to you -- you’ve gone down the latter.

Beat. PENNY smiles at the puppet. The puppet begins shaking its head.
EZRA: (manipulating JK-47) Get this bee-yotch out’ here ‘for I smack this crazy-ass ho.

PENNY: Wh-wha… What?!

EZRA: (JK-47) Yo’z heard me, bee-yotch, I got no time for no shiznit from no corny-ass teeny boppahs.
I’m JK-47! (referring to a character off stage) T-Bone! Get this ho out of hee-rah. (EZRA manipulates the
monkey puppet as D-Dawg, who has a high voice.) Yah, he don’t got time for you, he’s JK-47. T-Bone,
T-Bone!

PENNY: B-b-b-but I brought you a coffee all the way from the Space Needle.

EZRA: Yo, Skeezah, I gotz a closet full of that shyyit. I’m JK-47! T-Bone! (monkey puppet) He’s JK-47!
T-Bone! T-BONE! T-BONE!

PENNY: Yes, but… it… doesn’t have the secret ingredient… It couldn’t! They’d kill whoever leaked it.

EZRA: (JK-47) Bitch, it’s cinnamon! Even D-Dawg know that, and he’s a crackhead. Boo-ya! I’m JK-47!
T-BONE!

PENNY: Cinnamon… I-I-I-I’ve traveled all that way… for cinnamon.

EZRA: (monkey puppet) It’s cimamin, even I know that, and I’m a crackhead. It’s cimamin. T-BONE!
T-BONE!

Beat. PENNY begins to cry.

EZRA: (JK-47) What? You g’wan cry… little skank. Smack you up, beee-yotch, ‘cause I’m --

PENNY: JK-47! YES! I BELIEVE THAT’S BEEN (containing) established.

She pulls out her letter.

PENNY: Just -- here, I haven’t read you my letter yet. It’s really quick. (reading) Dear Johnny, we haven’t
met before, but I feel we’ve met a hundred times in the republic of my --

EZRA: (monkey puppet) T-Bone! T-Bone!

PENNY: (to the audience) T-BONE finally enters, all 350 pounds of him! I can hear his footfalls over the
music, he’s like an albino King Kong! All the suburban boys form a circle around me, swearing, grabbing
their dingles, spitting! I have to read this letter! (to JK-47) Dear Johnny, we haven’t met before, but I feel
--

EZRA: (JK-47) I’m JK-47! T-BONE! (monkey puppet) He’s JK-47! T-BONE! T-BONE!
PENNY: Dear Johnny, we haven’t met -- (to the audience) T-BONE grabs me. Ezra leaps on T-BONE,
knocking him to the ground. Ezra disappears in the folds of massive flesh, like a ball-bearing dropped in a
vat of vanilla pudding! (to JK-47) Dear Johnny, we haven’t met before but --

PENNY: (reading) Hello, my NAME is PENNY LAMB and --

EZRA: (JK-47) What are you, anyway, bee-yotch? (monkey puppet) T-Bone! T-Bone!

PENNY: Hello, my name is Penny Lamb, we haven’t met before --

EZRA: I know’z what you be, ho!

PENNY: Hell --

EZRA: (JK-47) You be one of them… lesbians. You be one of them --

PENNY: Right. Hello, my name --

EZRA: (JK-47) Femamist lesbian.

PENNY: Hello, my name is…

She turns to the puppet.

Fade out sound.

PENNY: What did you just say?

EZRA: (JK-47) … I said, you iz… a femamist… lesbian. (monkey puppet) Femamist lesbian, femamist
lesbian, (echo) lesbian, lesbian, lesbian… lesbian… lesbian…

PENNY: You see, that’s what I thought you said.

SOUND Q #28 -- Epic build.

The sound of a clap of thunder. “Montagues and Capulets” by Prokofiev plays. PENNY is
suddenly bathed in a red spotlight. PENNY turns slowly to the audience with a wide psychotic
expression on her face, both her knuckles balled up.

PENNY: (hissing) Hello, my name is Penny Lamb… and I know FOR A FACT… we haven’t had the
pleasure of meeting before… For you, my deep-fried messiah, are about to be welcomed to a level of
leveling you have yet to revel, for now I, Penny Lamb, am the Devil… come now to SEND YOU TO
THE REPUBLIC OF…. HELL.
Ohhhh!

THE FAITH YOU create as an attraction MUST PROVIDE SATISFACTION…

AND… OR… HELL…

For now I do not merely want to hurt you, Johnny… No, no, no… Mm-mm. I want… to TASTE YOU.
Bite! Into your flesh with my incisors. Have your skin corrode in the BOILING lava cauldron that is now
my stomach! PENNY IS ECLIPSED! THE BURNING SUN HAS PASSED OVER THE PASSIVE
MOON! I can vomit fire.

She turns and throws the contents of the Thermos (brown confetti) in the puppet’s face.
She grabs it by the head.

I! …

CAN! …

VOMIT! …

(screaming) FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRE!

Fade out sound.

She sinks her teeth into the puppet and disappears behind the desk. The lights go back to normal.
EZRA stands on the stage blinking. EZRA stares at the audience awkwardly. He picks up his
monkey and holds it nervously… Suddenly, he comes up with an idea.

EZRA: Ladies and Gentlemen. In these troubled times! I know the question on all your lips. A question
for which tonight I shall provide you with satisfaction. For now for the first time in the history of
mankind, we shall dare to ask the question! Can a mere puppet break the theatrical fourth wall -- the wall
between audience and performer.

SOUND Q #29 -- Monkey.

Sound plays out.

A drum roll plays. EZRA opens up his puppet theatre. His monkey stands in the puppet theatre in
profile. The monkey ever-so-slowly turns its head to the audience. The drum roll stops. To the
sound of roaring applause, the monkey bows and exits the puppet theatre. PENNY stands up
sheepishly, with a waning smile, holding a piece of paper.

PENNY: (sheepishly) Anyway… um… after that whole Johnny cheek-biting incident thingy…
fortunately for me, Johnny’s public relations firm thought it best that he drop all of the charges.
Apparently, JK-47 having the caa-caa beaten out of him by some fifteen-year-old girl, what with him
being a “stone-cold bad-ass who shoots people to watch them bleed” -- that was pretty bad for his “rep”...
Anyway. I was extradited back to Canada. But sadly… the story was leaked to the major media. It ruined
JK-47’s “street cred” and they have some new “stone-cold, bad-ass” flavour-of-the-month now… I
dunno… Ron the Rapping Rapist, or something… And… I was kind of famous for a bit. They even made
a movie of the week of my real, live true-life story… JoJo played me.

EZRA: I was played by one of the Culkin boys.

PENNY: Anyway, I stood trial for drug dealing -- they gave me probation. And that’s when Miss
Peachery -- my social worker -- asked me to talk to you all here tonight. To teach you all how to be better
citizens… and never turn out like me… And I’ve got some lessons for you.

(slowly) Never shoplift, jaywalk, beat up kids, swear, knock on people’s doors and run, be mean to
overweight people, talk back to your parents. Stop, drop and roll. Never let your uncle touch you in places
you feel uncomfortable with. Don’t do drugs, Unless they are prescribed by a licensed practitioner of the
psychiatric profession… and… Lastly, I want to say I know something about true love. And I know most
of you guys wouldn’t think I would… ‘Cause I’m, like, this psycho cannibal kid… But this… this is
something I’ve thought about my entire life, okay?

So. True Love.

True love is, like, when they call you up and tell you, “Oh my God, my Mongolian Gerbil just died!”
You’re not all, like, “My condolences” or “My heart goes out to you in your time of need.” Like some toy
robot that can wind itself up… barfing out ten shiny socially acceptable stock phrases. No, when your true
love calls… it goes way beyond that.

Way.

SOUND Q #30 -- Music Box.

Sound plays out.

PENNY: Like, when they call you up and say, “My mom is a cud-mulching cow,” their mom is a
cud-mulching cow. But when they call you back and say, “I changed my mind, my mom is an angel with
gossamer wings.” Guess what, their mom is an angel with gossamer wings…

Oh, and I really like that word… “gossamer.” There are some really amazing words in English -- for such
a crummy language… Anyway… Okay let me put it to you straight and simple because we don’t got all
day, and everybody’s got to get places.

(whispering, slowly) In a world where we are ultimately alone, and die in our own arms, love is the
closest you come to another person… because it is the closest you come to being another person. So be
very careful what you love.
 Beat.

PENNY: Penny Lamb. Aspiring animal conservationist. Signing out.

Beat.

PENNY: You got anything to add, Ez’?

EZRA: Yes… Wrestling is real -- it’s the world that’s set up.

Beat.

PENNY: (brightly) Hm.

Blackout.

SOUND Q #31 -- Curtain call.