Theatre Limina's 2005 "Summer Shorts" staged reading of "In the Cool Cool Cool."
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IN THE COOL COOL COOL
--EXCERPT-- |
**Boston Theatre Works Unbound Festival Selection**
**Theatre
Limina's "Summer Shorts: On the Edge" Selection**
NARRATOR
In the cool cool cool of the afterlife
operating room, the cars went zoom zoom crash on highway ninety-five west,
and they all breathed deep the fearful lies they weren’t afraid to keep.
All breathe in together. All exhale together.
PATIENT
(rising from the table, addresses the audience, perky
and upbeat)
I am patient. the patient. must. be. patient. next time. I will not lie. a
sunny sunday spent indoors. a christian bookstore. I’ll be the manager. (a
moment of reverie, then somberly) I’ll learn how to manage. to get by. without
lying. (Noticing
the gaping hole in his stomach, he makes his way back to the operating table.)
lying with a bullet in my belly.
He lies back down on the table.
NURSE
doctor. we’re losing him.
DR
HOPPER
I
fear you are right. I fear we will lose. him.
I fear fear.
NURSE
doctor. hopper. that is your name. and the name of your popper. and your mother.
who popped. you came out of the bubble. always troubled. she loved you double.
now she’s on zoloft.
DR
HOPPER
I’m leaving my wife. strife. the death of a lovesong. no more good night sleep
tight everything’s all right. the kids are home crying. billy is smart.
his heart. like a dart.
PATIENT
"mommy, daddy don’t want you? don’t want you no more?"
NARRATOR
in the linen closet, the doctor deposits a lifetime of absentee fatherhood
dreaming. the linen needs cleaning after all of that creaming. but the linens
of the next lingering losing love love-affair line the next shelf.
DR
HOPPER
the patient! the patient! clear! baboom. clear! baboom. a tree falls in the
forest. baboom. no one to hear. he’s dead. he bled. too much. he’s messy.
too messy. too dirty. to go home to that house tonight. to move. in the morning.\
An organ quietly begins to wail.
NARRATOR
(clasps her hands together)
in
the mourning.
NURSE
time of death? (checking her watch) time of death. he’ll live again.
wear nicer sweaters. acrylic.
The organ stops. DR HOPPER and NURSE drop their bloody gowns and gloves to the floor and make their way offstage together. The NARRATOR is left by the bedside of the dead PATIENT.
NARRATOR
in
the cool cool cool of the operating room the doctor walked away when he wanted
to run. the
patient is dead western medicine lead in the poisonous stream that he drank
from his sterile white bubble-boy dream. the families are weeping for what
they have lost. they all thought they new better. but who can know thoughts?
and driving through darkness on the way home for the last time from surgery-sex that day a crow grazed his saturn the stars looked away.
the
roadkill eat roadkill
the
doctors get paid
somebody
got eaten
somebody got shot
and somebody got laid.
and somebody’s wife ex-wife to be read a DR SEUSS book in a voice sad and sweet in a small room by the shore.
>From IN THE COOL COOL COOL (C) 2004 Peter Papadopoulos
To read the entire script email .