The play is set in a sylvan
glade, somewhere deep in
High Park, Toronto. The time is early evening. The setting sun casts long pale shadows
before an assembled gang of culture-working hopefuls—writers, painters,
dancers, curators, designers, chefs and sex-workers. All of them are eagerly awaiting the appearance of Cacophony,
The Muse of Awards and Award-Giving.
THE PAINTER: I wish she’d hurry. It’s getting cold.
THE WRITER: She’ll be along. She’s a Muse, isn’t she, and we invoked
her. She’s got to come now!
THE SEX-WORKER: How do you know she’s female ?
THE CHEF: She’s female alright, even if she’s a
male.
THE WRITER: And we invoked her! Conjured her!
Over at stage left, there’s a
sudden cloud of smoke
and heavy, erratic footsteps,
as if someone were coming from the shadows, wearing the weighty metal boots of
a deep-sea diver. The long-awaited
newcomer is a huge amazonian, woman-like entity, with a brass helmet. She is puffing violently at a giant
cigar.
CACOPHONY (throwing away the
cigar, stomping her feet, and repeatedly slapping her beefy arms against her tree-bark
body, in a futile attempt to warm up):
God, it’s fucking freezing! How can anyone seriously expect to receive an award in a
glade as cold as a refrigerator?
THE DESIGNER: We’re sorry for the cold, your
Muse-ness, but we all hope that it won’t alter your promise to bestow upon the
most illustrious of us the laurel wreathes we so richly deserve…
THE PAINTER: And the pittance
of money that often comes with them!!
CACOPHONY (elaborately
bored): Why aren’t you all home
with your I-pods like the rest of the universe?
THE DANCER: We are artists, Ms. Cacophony, and we
live for beauty.
CACOPHONY (getting as
Muse-sized headache): Then why
aren’t you off somewhere perpetrating beauty??
THE CURATOR: We came here to receive a boon from the
very FOUNT of Beauty!
CACOPHONY (paying scant
attention): I see—and where’s
that?
WRITER (quietly,
respectfully): He was referring to YOU, O bountiful One.
CACOPHONY (sitting down on a
handy rock and smiling fiercely):
I think you’ve made a small but ruefully amusing mistake, you arty
little children of the night.
THE ASSEMBLED THRONG
(speaking in unison): Don’t say
so!
CACOPHONY (deeply irritated):
Listen, you puffed-up sheep of abject self-expression, go home and do something
useful, and do it for the sake of doing it, without the phone number of some
pathetic, award-granting organization on your speed-dial! See how much art you make if nobody has
a delicate present wrapped up in pink paper and waiting for you in the wings!
THE WRITER (aghast): But, your Generous-ness, are our
labours not, then, to be rewarded?
CACOPHONY (turning to go): Yes, by all the gods, they are! By MORE labours! And then more and more. Art is long, chum! Go get busy!
THE ASSEMBLED THRONG: And in what way, then, do you help us,
O Lofty but Uncooperative One?
CACOPHONY (heading back into
the darkness): I smile at you when
your backs are turned. That ought
to be enough.
(curtain)
