Double Feature

Written by Jerry Mouawad

• Press Release
• Synopsis

Synopsis

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING SYNOPSIS CONTAINS SPOILERS. THEY MIGHT RUIN YOUR SURPRISES OF THE PLOT DEVELOPMENTS WHEN YOU SEE THE SHOW.

Double Feature is two one act plays influenced from several sources including Philip K. Dick, Eugene Ionesco and Samuel Beckett.

Serial Killer Parents

A magicians finds himself alone in a black void. Speaking directly to the audience he questions the reason for the audience’s presence as well as his own. He contemplates the nature of life. He makes a woman appear and discusses with the audience if this act was an act of spiritual power or a consequence of fate. The woman says she appeared because “It was written in the script.” When the man says the audience might not believe her because they will recognize she is his wife, she says that she didn’t marry him out of choice. The man is stunned and wants to know the reason for her deception. Why didn’t she didn’t marry him of her own free will? “There was something else happening” is her reply. Her response drives the man into despair and anger. He says “How can you spring this on me?” “Spring what? You made me appear,” she says. He questions her marriage vow and she accuses him of adultery. He asks why she is bringing this up in front of the audience. She responds by saying “It’s my job..You wrote me into the script to humiliate you.” He wants to start the play over and makes here disappear. She returns to ask him if he is dead. “No, did I say I was dead?” he responds. She informs him that he dropped the first line of the play in which he informs the audience of his death. The man is shocked that he ‘dropped’ a line. “You dropped a whole life” she says. She informs him the play will get worse. “This is depressing,” he says. “Wait until act two,” she replies. She tell the story of their meeting, moving in together and having a child, but she says he forget what the child became. She says she couldn’t marry because “I knew what we breed” He wants a clarification and she says she can’t say for another page. He says that she can’t continue using such devices. “You don’t really have anything up your sleeve do you?” the man asks. The woman pulls out a knife. “This play was suppose to be a comedy” the man says. The woman describes in gritty details the methods used by her murderous son. The man can’t understand what went wrong in the upbringing of the son “I gave him school books, prayer books, comic books” The woman continues “It didn’t matter… It’s all from the same goop.” The man returns to the question of her vow to him and she says she can’t stand to be with him much longer. They realize their son will be executed later in the play. “When will that be?” she says. “Page 29,” he answers. “Characters should live longer than page 29,” she laments. The man suggest they rewrite the play so that they raise two children, the other one could be an angel. When they fight about whether the angel should be a boy or girl the woman pulls out the knife and …. --------- THE REST OF THIS SYNOPSIS HAS BEEN OMITTED, COME TO THE SHOW

The Father-thing

Inspired from a Philip K. Dick Story

Mother talks to her best friend on the phone about the strange way her husband is acting and about his very bad body odor. When the father enters the house, the neighbor insists she must get to the truth “You got to know. Go smell him” The mother almost faints from the odor. The father goes to his room without speaking. The teenage daughter runs through the house to her room barely speaking to the disgruntled mother. The mother finally has a meaningful conversation with her teenage son who explains that one of his professors at college is being censored because “He is teaching that man is lost.” Mother agrees saying “Well, we are lost.” The son clarifies saying “No. Not women. Just men.” The son says he’s protesting at the college. The mother forbids him to go. That night the father, mother, daughter and son are having dinner. It’s a strange meal as father talks about smell, the outdoors, going through woods chasing animals and the beginning of life. He sniffs the ground saying “We never use our noses anymore.” When father leaves unexpectedly, his strange behavior is further accented when the family receives a call from his work saying he will be fired if he doesn’t return soon.

That night, the father returns late and the mother won’t get near him because of his horrible smell. The son returns from the college while the father is upstairs and after delivering a moving poetic speech about the human condition the mother begs him never to leave the house. The mother asks the son to ask the father to come see her. The son goes up the stairs to find his father. When the father returns, the mother is shocked to discover the father now smells like “flowers from heaven.” She is intoxicated and wants to have sex with him. The son returns in shock. He can hardly speak. The mother asks the father to wait for her upstairs. The son confides in the mother that he saw two forms of the father, two separate bodies. He says the one who was just with his mother is a ‘thing’. The mother accuses the son of hallucinating.

Later, when the parents are out of the house, the son tries to convince the daughter that their father is an imposter and they begin to search the house for the real father. They discover a box in his study. In the box are the only remains of the father – his skin. The next morning the son’s teacher Professor Bimbimbup has joined the children to try to resolve the mystery of the two fathers. The mystery becomes more confusing when they realize perhaps the father is alive and has killed people for their skin. The mother returns but refuses to accept any of their scenarios.

The father returns to ask the group to eat raw meat with him. When the group confronts the father, the mother defends him because he smells of heaven and in the climax of the scene the mother takes the box that contains the skin and . --------- THE REST OF THIS SYNOPSIS HAS BEEN OMITTED, COME TO THE SHOW.