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BIOGRAPHY
Will Eno’s plays have been produced by the Gate Theatre, the SOHO Thea- tre, BBC Radio, the Rude Mechanicals Theater Company, and Naked Angels. He is a Helen Merrill Playwriting Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and an Ed- ward F. Albee Foundation Fellow. His play The Flu Season was recently awarded the Oppenheimer Award. His new play Thom Pain (based on nothing) premiered in August 2004 at the Edinburgh Festival (Fringe First Award, Herald Angel Award). It was produced in New York by Bob Boyett and Daryl Roth at the DR2 Theatre, and was named a Finalist for the 2005 Pulit- zer Prize in Drama. Mr. Eno has recently been awarded the Alfred Hodder Fellowship, which includes a term at Princeton for the 2005-2006 academic year. His plays are published by Oberon Books, TCG, Playscripts, Inc., and have also appeared in Harper’s, The Antioch Review, The Quarterly, and Best Ten-
Minute Plays for Two Actors. He is presently at work on a new play, as well as a
new translation of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt. Mr. Eno lives in Brooklyn, New York.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Vaudeville, Population Two was originally produced by The 24 Hour Company
at the Ohio Theatre in New York City on December 16, 2001. It was di- rected by Julie Bleha with the following cast:
ONE...Veronica Newton TWO ... Emily Helming
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
ONE TWO
SETTING
Stage as currently set.STAGE PROPERTIES
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VAUDEVILLE,
POPULATION TWO
ONE and TWO enter. ONE holds little pumpkin, and wears a sombrero. TWO hold empty guitar case. Lights up.
ONE. (Comes downstage, strikes a pose, as if delivering a soliloquy:) Nothing but
limits, paltriness, vaudeville, crooked television, a broken snow machine— ridiculous trappings all for me to gently and without meaning die amidst.
(ONE and TWO move snappily toward each other, stand too close together.)
TWO. So guess what? ONE. What?
TWO. I don’t know.
ONE. You’re kidding! That’s great! TWO. Thanks.
ONE. No, really. To be so honest. Just straight out: “I don’t know.” That’s
great.
TWO. Thank you. Really, seriously—thanks. But what about you? ONE. I’m pregnant. And I have cancer. Of the uterus, of all places. TWO. Wow. Cancer of the uterus. That’s pretty serious.
ONE. I know.
TWO. They got you coming and going, didn’t they? ONE. I know. They did. I try to keep a sense of humor. TWO. How so?
ONE. With jokes, and joking. I make them up out of the blue. For instance.
So, let’s see, this pregnant woman who’s dying of uterine cancer walks into a bar. Just for a drink, you know, to kill some of the pain she feels all the time, both physical and emotional. The bartender goes, “Hey, why the long face?” And she goes, “I’m pregnant and I’m dying of uterine cancer, which, inciden- tally, has spread like crazy through me everywhere. By the way, the father left me.” And everyone in there, everyone in the bar, goes, “I can’t believe life would do something like that.” And the woman goes, “It would. It really would. It did. It will again.” Then the phone rings and the bartender is, like, “Hello?” But there’s no one there. (She laughs. TWO laughs.) You have to laugh. Which is why I just laughed.
TWO. It’s good we can laugh. Just what the doctor ordered.
ONE. Actually, the doctor ordered that my mid-section be blasted with a
potentially lethal does of radiation until all my fingernails fall out and even the word “food” makes me violently sick to my stomach.
TWO. Yes, sirree. Good old laughter. Just what the doctor ordered. Oh,
WILL ENO 40
ONE. Why, I don’t know. Whoever did you run into?
TWO. Somebody named—I’m going to say—Michael? Miguel? Again, you
know—I don’t really know.
ONE. How mysterious. And so what did he say? TWO. Honestly? Do you really want to know? Nothing.
ONE. Ah, life. Wonders seriously never cease. Can you believe, the young
Mexican who impregnated me and gave me this sombrero was name Miguel. Ah, life. I go through each day as if in the night in my sleep someone drew glasses and a mustache on my face with a Magic Marker. I bear my sacred chalice down the aisle, toilet paper on my shoe, a sign that says “Destroy me,” taped to my back.
TWO. Right. You know, you have to keep in mind that—wait, wait, hold on
(Begins to remove a hair from her mouth.), I’ve got a hair in my mouth. There. Ta-
da! Look at that. How do you think that ever got in there? The craziest things happen to me. You’re right. Wonders never cease. Seriously, they never cease. Do you know what I love about stuff like this?
ONE. Stuff like what?
TWO. I don’t know. You know, stuff like this. (Pause.) Hey, my leg’s asleep. ONE. I’m going to die. We’re going to die. Unhappily, in pain.
TWO. Did you even hear what I just said? (Shakes her leg.) Wake up, leg.
There she goes. Now I feel it.
ONE. Yes, “Wake up, leg.” Well said. My Mexican hat is off to you. Bravo.
Muchas gracias. (Pause.) Ah, desperation. Ah, terrible friends. First-year Span- ish. Tawdry tawdry life. The dismal theatre of appearances. The abysmal in- ner non-workings of the diseased and self-defeating self. All to end in a ri- diculous trickle of artificial snow.
TWO. Do you like what I’m wearing?
ONE. Maybe you could play a song? (Motioning toward guitar case:) So I could
cry. About my life. About which I have little or no feeling left.
TWO. Oh. This. (Referring to guitar case:) This is empty. It’s sort of a meta-
phor.
ONE. Of course it is. (Pause.) I’m sorry, a question. Why, may I ask— TWO. (Interrupting, to finish the question:) —do I carry it around if it’s empty? ONE. —do you think we’re alive?
TWO. I thought you were going to ask a totally different question. ONE. Forget it. You’re right. Not important. No es muy importante.
TWO. No, I could try. “Why are we alive?” Hmm, hmm, hmm. It’s a
gooder, a real doozie. “Why are we alive?” You don’t hear that one much anymore. (Pause.) You know, I really don’t know. Huh. Isn’t that funny? That
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