Circus Valentine

Circus Valentine was first produced at Actors Theatre of Louisville as part of the 1979 Humana Festival of New American Plays. It was directed by Jon Jory with the following cast:

Fred	Jim Baker
Goldie	Diane Tarleton
Eva	Lynn Cohen
Trina	Sherry Steiner
Oz	Kent Broadhurst
Tony	Bob Burrus
Kelly	Leo Burmester
Reeves	Michael Kevin

INTRODUCTION

This play has never been published before, or produced again since its premiere, a night of humiliation and failure so complete as to almost destroy my ability to remain in the theatre.

I hadn’t believed it could happen to me. (I should’ve known.) What saved me was the certainty that it would never happen again. (Are you laughing yet?) Never again would I read such terrible things about a play I had written. (About half would go down, actually.) Never again would I have to go backstage and visit a cast about to go out and perform a play that had been so badly reviewed. (Still the worst part.)

As it has turned out, Circus Valentine was only my first failure. But from those failures have come my other work, what the world calls my “best” work. Knowing you still have plays to write doesn’t make it easier to survive a critical catastrophe. It simply makes it necessary.

We survive receiving hideous reviews by admitting that it happened, talking to fellow playwrights about how much it hurts, and by realizing that even on the very day the critics thrash us in public, we’d still rather be us than them. Small comfort, I know. But hey.

CHARACTERS

FRED VALENTINE: a heavy set man in his 40s. The ringmaster and manager of the circus.

GOLDIE VALENTINE: Fred’s wife, Trina’s mother, Eva’s sister. Fortune-teller and cook with the circus, out of shape and in her 40s.

TRINA VALENTINE: Fred and Goldie’s daughter, Eva’s protégé on the trapeze and bareback ponies, 19 or so.

OZ VALENTINE: Fred’s brother, the elephant keeper, close to Fred in age and size.

EVA VLADIMIROV: Goldie’s sister, Tony’s ex-wife, a small, wild-haired aerialist. She is in her late 30s and speaks in a fake Russian accent most of the time.

TONY NAVARRO: the lion tamer. Eva’s former husband. He is handsome and in his late 30s. He is not Spanish.

REEVES: an efficient but sweaty, successful but unenlightened businessman. He owns the shopping center where the circus is performing.

LEROY: a thief in his early 20s. He is restless and hungry, but not uncivilized.

TIME AND PLACE

The play takes place in the wardrobe tent, in the center ring, and in areas outside the circus tent during the first matinee performance in the back parking lot of a rather ordinary and unimpressive shopping center.

 

Circus Valentine

ACT I

The circus band begins to play and general hubbub is heard from the crowd coming up to the ticket window. Colored lights sweep the stage and roustabouts may be seen setting up various pieces of equipment.

FRED: (In his spotlight.) Ladies and Gentlemen! Only ten minutes left to buy tickets to the uniquely fabulous and gloriously original 1978 edition of Circus Valentine.

Bring those little ones to see the circus the way the circus should be seen, under an acre of canvas sky. Smell that sawdust and slide onto those genuine wooden seats, for you are about to experience the most fearless and fantastic performers, both animal and human.

You’ll see the courageous and daring Antonio Navarro, whose ferocious lions and tigers are not tamed or trained, but held captive by his hypnotic gaze.

You’ll thrill to the death-defying flight of Countess Eva Vladimirov, the rebellious darling of the Moscow Circus.

You’ll warm to the sight of Grace Kelly, seven thousand pounds of elephantine elegance, pirouetting delicately on her jeweled ball.

But I know who you really came to see. Brad and Bill Evans. Circus Valentine’s very own set of authentic Siamese twins, their inside arms joined fingertip to shoulder, standing and sleeping side by side, walking arm in arm for life. And juggling. Yes, juggling. You won’t believe it. Even when you see it you won’t believe it. But it’s absolutely true. Welcome to Circus Valentine, the most awe-inspiring and spellbindingly superlative little circus in the entire world.

Step right up. Just a few good seats left.

IN THE WARDROBE TENT

Goldie and Eva are inside the wardrobe tent, just before the show begins. Goldie is wearing one half of the Siamese twin clown costume, Eva is avoiding getting in the other half.

GOLDIE: Get your ass in this costume, Eva.

EVA: No.

GOLDIE: The crowd paid to see the twins.

EVA: And where are the twins?

GOLDIE: I don’t know. But if the crowd doesn’t see the twins in the opening number, they’ll want their money back.

EVA: So give it to them.

GOLDIE: Give their money back and cancel the show?

EVA: (Submitting, but complaining.) What I do for that idiot you married!

GOLDIE: Freddie is not an idiot.

EVA: He’s cheap. He’s fat. He’s got a thing for freaks. And he got you pregnant and stopped you from flying.

GOLDIE: I was never good enough to fly with you.

EVA: I wanted us to be together.

GOLDIE: Well. This is your chance. Get in here.

EVA: I hate you.

GOLDIE: Lift your foot.

(Eva steps into the costume.)

EVA: You should never have married Freddie.

GOLDIE: What’s the matter with Freddie? He hauls your trapeze from town to town, he hires your websitters and feeds your ponies.

EVA: They need a bath.

GOLDIE: Tell Oz.

EVA: Not the ponies need a bath. The twins need a bath. This costume stinks. (Getting more disgusted by the minute.) What kind of mud show asks the aerialist to dress up as half of the freak brothers?

(They should both be in the costume now, except that Eva isn’t wearing her mask.)

TRINA: (Calling from outside.) Mother!

EVA: She’s in here.

(Trina enters, but doesn’t see Goldie in the costume.)

TRINA: Where?

EVA: (Pointing to the other half of the costume.) In there.

TRINA: What’s going on? Where are Brad and Bill?

GOLDIE: (Taking off her mask.) Daddy took them somewhere, honey. I think they hurt their foot.

TRINA: Brad or Bill’s?

EVA: It’s all right, darling. They’ve still got three left.

TRINA: Eva, how can you—

GOLDIE: So Eva and I are doing the opening number in their costume. Do you need something?

TRINA: Not really. I just wanted to tell you that some limpster broke into your tent and stole your crystal ball.

GOLDIE: I told Freddie not to book this town. We don’t know this town.

TRINA: It’s O.K., though. He ran around by the menagerie and tripped over Grace Kelly’s chain, and the ball went flying out of his hands and landed in a big pile of elephant shit.

GOLDIE: Oh good.

(Goldie puts on her mask, so that they look like the twins now.)

FRED: (From offstage.) Five minutes.

(The band begins to play. Oz Valentine walks in, dragging a long heavy chain.)

OZ: Brad? Bill?

TRINA: It’s not them.

(Eva takes off her mask.)

EVA: And here is the man whose future was always in the elephant shit.

(Goldie takes off her mask.)

TRINA: Oz. What happened to the twins?

OZ: Your Dad says they had an accident.

EVA: They did not have an accident. They are an accident.

OZ: And they find you hopelessly disconnected. (To Goldie.) Oh, and Goldie, I caught the guy who stole your ball and chained him to the fence. He’ll dig it out for you when he wakes up.

EVA: Leave it there. That’s where it belongs. It’s where this whole show belongs. Mangy ponies, frayed ropes, freaks, fatsos and fortune-tellers!

GOLDIE: (Slaps Eva.) Eva!

(Eva kicks her back and what looks like a girlhood fight breaks out, both sides of the Siamese twin costume on the attack.)

TRINA: Oz. Stop them!

(Tony enters, dressed for the opening number.)

TONY: Brad! Bill! What are you—

TRINA: It’s not them, Tony.

TONY: My darling…

(Eva flips up her mask.)

EVA: It’s us, bear brain.

(Goldie flips up her mask.)

GOLDIE: And my daughter is not your darling.

TONY: Oh, but she’s everyone’s darling. Where are the twins?

TRINA: They got hurt, but it’s nothing serious.

TONY: If they’re hurt, it’s serious.

TRINA: They went bowling.

TONY: They’re weird.

EVA: Freaks are weird. Thank you, lion tamer.

OZ: Tony. I found some mint growing under the lions tunnel. I think I got it all, but be careful.

TONY: You know what will happen if the cats smell mint!

OZ: I got it all, O.K.?

EVA: But there’s always hope. Maybe one little sprig left…maybe your Sheba will smell it, and…

TONY: If the cats kill me out there, Eva, I’ll steal your show.

EVA: Just don’t bleed too much. I don’t want to mess up my shoes.

TRINA: You’re making me sick, all of you. Brad and Bill are hurt and all you’re thinking of is yourselves…

(Fred enters, dressed in his Ringmaster costume.)

TONY: Fred. Where are the twins?

FRED: They’re at General Hospital. Oz will go pick them up during the show. We might have to hold the second act for a few minutes, but…

TONY: You took them to a charity hospital?

FRED: It’s the best emergency room in town. But it was just a precaution. They’re going to be fine. They’ll take some aspirin and—

EVA: Do they take two aspirin or four?

FRED: Shut up, Eva.

EVA: That’s two accidents, Freddie darling. First the twins, then Goldie’s ball. The third one will be the worst.

TRINA: That’s an old wives’ tale.

EVA: So I am an old wife. You wait. Maybe my old husband will be clawed to death by his lions.

TONY: (To Fred.) Fire her or I quit.

EVA: Fire him or I quit.

FRED: Fine. You’re both fired.

TRINA: You can’t fire Tony, Daddy.

FRED: The only people I can’t fire are the twins and Grace Kelly.

GOLDIE: And me.

OZ: And me.

TRINA: And me.

EVA: And me.

TONY: And me. You owe me money.

FRED: Right. Now. Can we do this show?

(Suddenly, everyone relaxes and begins to get ready to do the show.)

OZ: I need to see you during the first clown stop, Fred.

FRED: Sure.

TONY: I said…you owe me money.

FRED: I’ll pay you tonight. As soon as I meet this local presenter guy, I forget what his name is…Reeves. I’ll pay you as soon as he pays me.

(Tony exits, followed by Trina.)

TRINA: Tony!

(Fred notices Trina’s interest in Tony. But decides not to do anything about it today. He pulls a flower pot out of his coat sleeve, and turns to Goldie and Eva.)

FRED: All right, girls. It’s not enough just to have the twins’ costume, you have to do their walkabout. So. Goldie, you start taking the pot up to somebody in the crowd. Then just as they get it in their hands, Eva, you grab it away. Then Goldie you get it back somehow—point to something in the sky, hit Eva over the head, something—then it starts all over. Goldie’s so glad to get the pot, and to give it away, only Eva takes it right out of their hands. Got it?

EVA: No. I won’t do it.

GOLDIE: Shut up, Eva.

(They walk off toward their entrance into the tent, and lights begin to swirl.)

FRED: (In his spotlight.) Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, the moment you’ve all been waiting for! Lights down, please. Welcome to the wonderful world of Circus Valentine!

(We hear applause and music for the opening number, the parade that precedes the first act.)

IN THE ANIMAL AREA

Lights come up on Oz, brushing one of the elephant blankets. The thief wakes up and finds himself chained to the fence.

LEROY: Hey!

OZ: Nice nap?

LEROY: What the hell? Chains are for animals, man.

OZ: Dig that ball out and you can go. It’s under all that shit somewhere. Use my shovel.

LEROY: You can’t make me do that.

OZ: Yeah, and you can’t make me unlock your chain.

LEROY: (Takes the shovel, begins to dig.) It’s Leroy.

OZ: Nice to meet you. Name’s Oz.

(Suddenly, a businessman approaches. Not happy.)

REEVES: Where’s Valentine?

OZ: Show’s on.

REEVES: I know that. I just watched the start of that “parade”…

OZ: It’s good, huh.

REEVES: It was a joke. Whoever that is in that Siamese costume, it’s not those boys. Now, I told Valentine, as long as this show had those Siamese twins, we had a deal. But no boys, no deal. And that’s not only for here, that’s for every one of the dates I set up for him for the next four weeks. Where are the twins?

OZ: How’d you know it wasn’t them?

REEVES: I saw them in Owensboro. Those boys can juggle. Whoever this is, they’re doing good to walk.

OZ: Well. I wouldn’t know, Mr…

REEVES: It’s Reeves. You tell Valentine he better have those twins when I catch up to him. I do not like to lose money.

OZ: Hard on your heart, I guess.

REEVES: You just tell him. It takes more than a dozen gypsies to fool me.

LEROY: How many does it take?

(Oz laughs. Reeves ignores him.)

REEVES: And you. Do something about this smell. (Reeves storms off.)

(Oz goes back to work.)

LEROY: Where are the twins?

OZ: Are you hungry?

LEROY: Hey, great. Thanks.

OZ: I’m offering you a job, not a meal. The countess needs a websitter, somebody to hold her ropes. Pays 42 bucks a week, plus a bed, plus the cook-house. (Smiles.) Put you in the center ring.

LEROY: You only got one ring.

OZ: Is that so?

LEROY: You got one elephant, a coupla worn out ponies and a pack of scrappy lookin’ dogs, one cute chick that’s getting it on with the lion tamer, and a bunch of chickens under that ticket booth. What’s her name?

OZ: Eva? Trina? The elephant?

LEROY: Trina.

OZ: You stay away from Trina. The last towner that fell for her, Freddie put him in the hospital.

LEROY: And the twins. I guess you’ve got the twins. Do you honest-to-God shovel animal shit for a living?

OZ: I shovel elephant shit. I don’t like animals.

LEROY: Elephants are animals.

OZ: Nope. Animals are smaller.

LEROY: Where’d you get her? I mean, you guys can’t afford an elephant, right? I bet you can’t even afford to feed her, am I right?

OZ: A petting zoo left her in Marietta. She had colic, some idiot fed her cold water, she coulda died from that. Anyway, we were in Dalton, I read about it in the paper. Fred took everybody else on to Decatur, and I went to her. The U-Haul wouldn’t rent me a truck when she got well. So you know how we caught up with them? We walked. And… (Angrily.) you’d think nobody in the whole state of Georgia had ever seen an elephant before!

LEROY: O.K. You’ve got yourself a boy, a what’s it? A websitter? But just for today.

OZ: We don’t hire by the day.

LEROY: Well, I don’t work any other way. Do you want me or not?

OZ: (Wearily.) The animals all need fresh, lukewarm water, when you’re through here. (He walks off.)

LEROY: (Calling after him.) She does the trapeze too, right? That Trina chick?

(He mimes a lion tamer cracking a whip.) Back! Back!

(Lights down on Leroy. Swirling lights in the center ring. Spanish music is heard as offstage, Fred begins the intro.)

FRED: (In his spotlight.) And now, in the steel arena, vicious beasts from the wilds of Africa and Asia, under the hypnotic domination of the dashing, daring, death-tempter from Madrid, Antonio Navarro.

IN THE CENTER RING

Tony runs into the spotlight. He bows and snaps the whip for the “lions” to be let into the arena. Growls and roars are heard. We may see pedestals and hurdles, a huge ball, and a large ring. During his “Act” he will imitate the positions the lions take on these objects. This must not look funny, but as though he is doing it without thinking about it. As though he is the one who is trained. Tony is extremely intelligent and well-educated. He has not come from a circus family, and no one is more surprised than he to find himself traveling with this circus.

TONY: (In a mock Spanish accent.) You have maybe noticed the tightness of my pants. It is so the lions will not catch them in their teeth. Or maybe for some other reason having to do with the young girls in the audience, eh? (Dropping the accent.) I’m thinking of dropping the accent. What do you think? (Cracking the whip.) Back! (A moment.) Eva bought me these pants. Only decent thing she ever…No, there was one other thing, although I didn’t think it was so decent at the time. She was only 19 then. Calling herself Eva Sparrow. Tiny little body, tiny little feet. I learned this from her. It’s a bluff. The whole thing’s a bluff. You can stay alive if you can keep the lions from making a correct appraisal of the situation. (Remembering to talk about animals.) Cats start to go bad at about ten years old. If a cat chews on one side, it’s probably got a toothache. Have to watch for that. Feeding a live chicken will pick up a sick cat’s appetite. And bears are not afraid of gunfire.

Eva worked snakes when she was a girl. They’d get these baths in milk to keep their skins shiny. You ever watch a wild-haired woman wash a snake? Tiny white hands stroking up that scaly hide? Still gives me chills, dammit. I was a private person then. In school, in fact. University of Florida, animal husbandry. Thought I was giving all that up to marry Eva. Wrong. (Back to the animals.) Right. O.K. You can’t let the cats hide meat in their cages after a feeding. They bring that meat into the arena with them, and you don’t break up that fight. You just hope like hell you can get out before it’s too late. (Angrily.) All I ever wanted from Eva was one of those milk baths. Like the snakes. So I fed her ponies and fed her dogs and rubbed her feet, but that wasn’t enough. So I taught lions to tell left from right and tigers to roll over and bears to ride bicycles and finally she married me. (A moment.) But I never got that milk bath. I never even got what the snakes got from Eva. I asked. Oh, yes. I had to ask. The snakes didn’t have to ask, but I did, and she said, (Imitating her accent.) “Don’t be silly” for years. It was silly. I knew it was silly. Oh for God’s sake, this whole thing is silly. (Calmer.) I understand now. I didn’t get a milk bath because I wasn’t part of the act, and I wasn’t dangerous. I was just useful. But not useful enough, so she divorced me. But by that time I was a animal trainer so what the hell. I am a good animal trainer. One of the best. (Back to the bravado.) I have quite the footwork, eh? Yes. I do have a way with them, animals. But I do not be their husband any more! (Tony stands for his final applause.)

FRED: Ladies and Gentlemen! Antonio Navarro!

(Tony jumps down from the platform, then turns once more to the audience. Casually.)

TONY: I gave Eva’s snakes to a Chinese family. They were tough old snakes, but they ate them anyway. (Tony exits.)

(Offstage in blackout, we hear a fire engine siren start up for the clowns’ Fire Brigade stunt.)

FRED: (In his spotlight.) Help! Help! There’s a house on fire! And look! There’s someone at the third story window and I think…Oh no! She has a baby in her arms! Someone must help her! Hurry! Save that poor woman and her baby! Wait! Stop! That’s not the Louisville Fire Department! Those are the famous Cardwell Clowns!

(We hear screams of hysterical laughter as the clown stunt starts.)

OUTSIDE THE TENT

Fred rushes out to meet Oz, his tone changing drastically from the clown intro.

FRED: Can’t this wait til intermission?

OZ: I need ninety pounds of horsemeat.

FRED: So buy it.

OZ: There’s no money in the safe.

FRED: Oh, yeah. I paid off the tow trucks. Damn Owensboro mud cost us everything we took in.

OZ: So how are we gonna make payroll?

FRED: That’s my business.

OZ: Fine. I need ninety pounds of horsemeat.

FRED: Take one of Eva’s ponies.

OZ: Feed one of Eva’s ponies to Tony’s cats?

FRED: Dogs then.

OZ: What’s with you?

FRED: You seen a guy named Reeves around here?

OZ: Yeah. And he’s looking for you, too.

FRED: He’s got your feed money. We’re doing four weeks for him.

OZ: Not unless he sees the twins, we aren’t. He saw the opening of the show. He knows they’re gone.

FRED: They’re not gone.

OZ: Whatever. Look. I need ninety pounds of horsemeat, one hundred pounds of hay, twenty pounds of grain, and twenty pounds of whatever you want to feed the dogs today.

FRED: What we should’ve done, was salt down the chimps when they died.

OZ: This is not a joke.

FRED: Of course it’s a joke. This whole thing’s a joke. I spend my entire day every day hustling money to buy horsemeat for the cats to eat so they’ll be strong enough to tear up their cat wagon, which I then have to pay to have repaired, and then have to pay to have hauled out of the mud because the water truck can’t pull it because it needs new tires. But I gotta have horse-meat every day, because if the cats don’t eat, we’ve got no reason to buy new tires for the seat wagon, or a new drive shaft for the stake puller so it can get this show on down the road where the cats will need to eat again. Yes sir, this better be a joke Oz or I’m dumber than I thought.

(Oz finds the piece of paper Fred gave him earlier. He studies it.)

OZ: Did you already pay the Emergency Room for the twins?

FRED: All you gotta do is pick them up.

OZ: Is there something you’re not telling me about this? No. Are you gonna tell me what you’re not telling me about this?

FRED: I’ll tell you later.

IN THE WARDROBE TENT

Eva and Goldie enter getting out of the Siamese twin costume.

EVA: We didn’t fool them. They knew we weren’t the twins.

GOLDIE: You didn’t even try. You kept running away from me.

EVA: I’m ashamed I agreed to do it in the first place.

GOLDIE: You’re ashamed of me. Even disguised, you’re ashamed of me.

EVA: I am not ashamed of you. It’s just that…

GOLDIE: You wish I were more like you. You wish I were exactly like you. You’d like me so much better if I weren’t so deep down ordinary. How can somebody like me be your sister? Just doesn’t seem fair, does it, Eva.

EVA: That’s ridiculous.

GOLDIE: It’s the truth. Well. I’m not you. I’m not as pretty as you. I don’t have any talent on the trapeze…

EVA: You do have talent. You should…

GOLDIE: The men never lined up to see me. Even Trina likes you better. I’m not you. But I’m used to not being you, so you can please quit feeling so sorry for me.

EVA: Are you happy?

GOLDIE: Sure. Why not? You?

EVA: A triple somersault would make me happy. Other than that, I really don’t care.

GOLDIE: It’s all you’ve ever wanted, that triple. You and every other flyer I know.

EVA: But I’ll get mine someday.

GOLDIE: What happens if that’s all you ever get?

EVA: Then I’ll have two things. Right now, I just have one. You. (She makes some small affectionate, but not mushy gesture.)

(Trina enters.)

TRINA: I think something is the matter with the twins.

EVA: They’re coming unglued?

GOLDIE: Stop it. Just stop it.

TRINA: I’m serious. They were drinking yesterday. And fighting. And Brad didn’t want to play chess and Bill didn’t whistle once, all day.

GOLDIE: It’s just hard, that’s all.

EVA: They have a sick relationship.

GOLDIE: And you’ve had such healthy ones, Eva.

EVA: Their relationship makes me sick.

TRINA: Dad says they’re pretty good bowlers.

EVA: And every town we play, Freddie’s got to pay who knows how much to get some bowling alley to open early so they can be alone, together. I need new harnesses and Fred spends the money I earn renting them bowling shoes.

TRINA: They just want to go be ordinary.

GOLDIE: Well, they’re not doing it any more, not if I have anything to say about it. They get hurt and where are we? Beached til they get well.

EVA: We could go on without them.

GOLDIE: No we couldn’t. Everybody else has everything we have except them. Nobody else has them.

EVA: Nobody else has me.

GOLDIE: No, Eva. Everybody else has you. Only the you they have is Trina’s age.

EVA: And I guess you think you could tell fortunes for Ringling.

TRINA: I hate this argument. It’s always the same, stupid, boring thing.

GOLDIE: It’s all we have. She’s ashamed of me and I feel sorry for her.

EVA: Don’t ever have any sisters, darling.

GOLDIE: If she had some sisters, maybe we could keep this show going without the twins.

EVA: But why should Freddie want to make babies when the flyer he married grew up to be a fortune-teller and cook?

GOLDIE: And if you hadn’t dumped every man who ever loved you….

EVA: I can’t be having babies. I have to fly.

TRINA: If this is the new argument, I’ll take the old one back.

GOLDIE: We don’t have much family.

EVA: So we don’t have much circus.

TRINA: I could get married.

EVA AND GOLDIE: No!

TRINA: What do you mean, no. I guess I can get married if I want. I guess I can kill myself if I want. And if you don’t think I can, do whatever I want, you just watch me.

EVA: Why do you want to get married, darling?

TRINA: I didn’t say I wanted to get married. I didn’t say what I want to do. I only said I want to do what I want to do.

EVA: You just keep working.

GOLDIE: You have real natural talent, honey.

EVA: Later, there will be time for men. Now. There is only time for the trapeze. There are some timing things that you have to learn right now or you’ll never get them right. In a few years, after a bad marriage, it will be too late to come back to the trapeze.

TRINA: Tony said he would teach me how to eat fire.

GOLDIE: Tony is not for you.

EVA: And his fire is not so hot.

GOLDIE: (To Eva.) It was when you met him. You put it out!

TRINA: He said there were just four little rules. Don’t eat fire in a high wind. Don’t eat fire if you have a beard. Don’t eat fire when you have a cold that would make you sneeze or cough. And don’t use…something, I forgot what. Some kind of fuel…Don’t use it. It turns you blue.

GOLDIE: We’ll find you somebody nice. You’re a special girl. You can’t have just anybody.

TRINA: I like Tony.

GOLDIE: He’s too old.

TRINA: He’s just going to teach me how to eat fire. I don’t mean to marry him.

EVA: I didn’t either.

(Offstage, Fred’s intro begins.)

FRED: (In his spotlight.) The first people on Earth wanted to fly.

TRINA: What’s for dinner?

FRED: Wanted to soar with the birds over the primeval forests and swamps below. Sure, we built airplanes, but they’re no more than passenger electric room fans. Eva Vladimirov flies.

TRINA: What’s for dinner?

GOLDIE: I heard you the first time. I don’t know.

EVA: We won’t even know while we’re eating it.

GOLDIE: You cook it then. And I’ll ride your precious ponies in the second act.

EVA: You’d break their backs.

GOLDIE: (As she walks off.) And we’d all die of ptomaine.

FRED: Eva Vladimirov flies. With her young protégé, Trina Valentine, she dares the seagull to be more graceful, dares the hawks to be more powerful, dares the eagles to be more serene. You will never see, this side of Heaven, a more dazzling aerial display.

(Eva and Trina wait in the wings to go on.)

EVA: I love your Mother’s pancakes.

TRINA: She has neat hair.

EVA: It runs in the family. Smile, darling.

FRED: And now, ladies and gentlemen, directing your attention first to the shimmering rope ladder, then to the tiny platform at the very top of the Big Top…Trina Valentine, and the incomparable Countess Eva Vladimirov.

IN THE CENTER RING

Eva watches quietly as Trina steps into the spotlight and does her act.

TRINA: You can’t just decide you want to be circus people. If you’re not born to it, you won’t ever be it, really, no matter how hard you try. I was born to it. And when you’re born to it, you don’t ever have to worry about what you’re going to do because it’s going to be the same thing you’ve been doing since you could ever remember doing anything.

I don’t go to high school. I take correspondence courses from the Calvert School in Baltimore, it’s the law. Sometimes I think it would be fun to go to high school, but my arms are real muscular, you know, so I might feel funny out taking pictures for the yearbook or something.

I’m working the trapeze now. Eva and Mama did a great double trap turn when they were young. The Sparrow Sisters—da da. Eva did a triple somersault once. It was in practice, but she did it just the same. It’s all Time, see, and knowing how to fall, cause you’re going to fall, that’s for sure. Most of the time, something breaks and that’s why you fall. But sometimes people just let go. It’s “casting,” that’s what we call it. And nobody knows why people do it. One minute they’re fine and the next minute they just let go. And it’s not when they’re doing something hard, they could be doing some little flying return or something and it just happens. Their fingers just unwrap and straighten out all relaxed and they’ve let go, only they didn’t mean to. It’s not a mistake. They don’t lose their concentration or anything. It’s weird. They just let go.

If they tuck and fall right, they’ll be O.K. though. You have to know how to fall right. Oh, I already said that. Lillian Leitzel once fell 55 feet from the top of the tent, and she didn’t use a net either. The swivel on her wrist ring broke and she fell all the way, but she lived. She stood right up and took a bow. She died in the hospital a coupla days after that, but she looked just fine right after. Can you believe that, she stood up after that fall and took a bow.

Oz has this motorboat and we go waterskiing sometimes. My arms are real strong, like I said, so I’m kinda good at it. The best part, the very best part is at the end of the ride when one minute you’re skiing along and the next minute you just open up your fingers and the bar goes flying off after the boat and you just sink down so slow into the water. And that water feels so cold on your hands where they’ve been holding the bar for so long.

Oz says we could probably ski straight home from here. Down the Ohio to the Mississippi and across the Gulf and right into Tampa Bay and be home. And it probably wouldn’t take more than…I don’t know… (Laughing at herself.) Forever.

IN THE OFFICE TRAILER

Goldie is changing into ordinary clothes so she can start supper. Outside, Reeves pounds on the door angrily.

REEVES: Valentine!

GOLDIE: (Calling out.) Not here!

REEVES: Where is he?

GOLDIE: Doesn’t travel with the show. Just a name, Circus Valentine.

REEVES: I don’t know who you are in there, but I brought you here whoever you are and I own this mall so you open up this door.

GOLDIE: O.K. O.K.

(Goldie opens the door. Reeves offers a stern handshake.)

REEVES: It’s Reeves. I own this mall. Where’s Valentine?

GOLDIE: He’s not here.

REEVES: I didn’t ask you where he isn’t. I asked you where he is.

GOLDIE: Show’s on.

REEVES: You people! What’s the matter with you people? You think you’re too good to talk to anybody or what? Show’s on. Show’s on. Your elephant man said show’s on, and now you say show’s on. I know the show’s on.

GOLDIE: We say that because it’s true. Freddie is announcing the show and the show is…on. O.K.?

REEVES: Where are the twins?

GOLDIE: The twins?

REEVES: I give up.

GOLDIE: I’m the cook. What do I know?

REEVES: You were the fortune-teller this morning.

GOLDIE: Yeah. Somebody stole my ball, you know. Now, if you’re so in charge, you owe us some security.

REEVES: I don’t owe you anything but a place to park and I’m having second thoughts about that!

GOLDIE: You owe us bathrooms.

REEVES: They’re inside.

GOLDIE: If we go inside and people see the costumes, they got no reason to come to the show. Also. If you make us use the ones inside, we steal the toilet paper and write on the walls. Our lion tamer, he steals faucets. I know, but we’re collectors. Picture postcards, little glass bottles, lightbulbs, display tables, popcorn machines…

REEVES: How many bathrooms do you want?

GOLDIE: Two would be nice.

(Fred opens the door, sees Reeves, hesitates a moment.)

GOLDIE: Fred. Mr. Reeves is here to see you.

(Fred slaps on a big, confident smile and steps into the trailer.)

REEVES: Valentine.

FRED: Mr. Reeves. Good to be here.

REEVES: Where are the twins?

FRED: They went bowling…They dropped a ball on their foot.

REEVES: I want them in the show.

FRED: So do we. I just sent my brother to the hospital to get them. You know. Accidents happen.

REEVES: Either they’re in the evening show or you can get this zoo off my property.

FRED: Of course they’ll be in the show. Unless they can’t walk or something, and in that case, it might be another day or so before…

REEVES: If they can’t walk, you put them on that elephant and parade them around, or if they can’t be lifted up, they you put them on a stretcher.

FRED: Don’t have a double stretcher.

REEVES: I don’t care if they’re unconscious. You put them on, I don’t care how you put them on, but you show tonight’s audience those Siamese twins and you show that they’re hooked together absolutely real and forever, or that is it! No bathrooms, no parking lot, no four weeks of big malls, nothing to do with me or my friends again, ever, and I have a lot of friends.

FRED: Don’t worry about the boys, Mr. Reeves. Brad and Bill are born entertainers. They’ll be back as soon as is humanly—

REEVES: I’ve had posters printed and advertising. I’ve told the people that we’ll have a circus with Siamese twin clowns and I will have a circus with Siamese twin clowns or I will have no circus.

FRED: You see the show yet?

REEVES: I’ve seen enough to know…

FRED: Got some great acts. The twins aren’t really that talented.

REEVES: Oh for Christ’s sake. They’re Siamese. I’m a businessman, Valentine. And a fair man. And we could do a lot of business for a long time, you and me. But it’s gotta all be real simple. We make an agreement. Then I keep my part of the agreement, and you keep your part of the agreement. Or else I haul your ass into court and you spend the rest of your life in jail while I cut up your tent and sell it for sailboats.

FRED: Good. We understand each other.

REEVES: No, Valentine. You understand me.

FRED: Right.

(Reeves exits. Fred closes the door behind him and sits down. There is a considerable pause.)

GOLDIE: You should’ve told him to shove it, Freddie.

FRED: How could I do that?

GOLDIE: He treated you like shit. Why do you let people do that?

FRED: Get off my back, Goldie. We’ve had this conversation.

GOLDIE: No. We’ve started this conversation. When we get really close to having this conversation, you always say we’ve had this conversation.

FRED: I let people treat me like shit because I have to.

GOLDIE: You do not.

FRED: I do. Because that’s how your sister gets to keep flying and her ex-husband gets to keep subjugating the ferocious beasts. Because that’s how my brother gets to hide behind his elephant and how we keep our daughter from marrying some jerk that pumps gas.

(She is angrier than she knows. She plunges into forbidden territory.)

GOLDIE: It’s also how you forget that you grew up in the side show. It’s also how you forget that you’re the son of the Fat Lady.

FRED: (Grabs her by the arm.) I didn’t hear that. And you didn’t say it.

GOLDIE: I’m sorry.

FRED: I’m going to watch Eva’s somersaults. See you later.

GOLDIE: Freddie. I don’t know what made me say that, what I said about your mother. I don’t know what’s the matter with me today. I can’t get going somehow. I need to start thinking about supper but I keep wandering around like I’m in a big grocery I haven’t been to before and I can’t find where they put the raisins. Freddie. I want to have a baby.

FRED: No.

GOLDIE: No? You just say no?

FRED: We can’t afford it. The doctor and the hospital and the clothes and the baby food and the playpen. It could cost a thousand dollars, Goldie, and that would put new tires on all the trucks.

GOLDIE: We’re going to make good money playing these big malls, aren’t we?

FRED: Goldie. Baby me, Goldie. I need it.

GOLDIE: Are the twins going to be all right?

FRED: You just leave them to me.

GOLDIE: That’s what we’ve always done, honey. We’re just worried, that’s all.

FRED: I gotta go.

(Fred runs out, as we hear applause coming from inside the circus tent. A drum roll begins and continues through Fred’s offstage intro.)

FRED: (In his spotlight.) Ladies and Gentlemen, we must ask for absolute quiet, please. Even the smallest whisper can shatter the total concentration a flyer needs at this moment. (A pause.) The spotlight will find and follow her for you, fifty-five feet in the air…Countess Eva Vladimirov, performing the double twisting somersault on the flying trapeze.

IN THE CENTER RING

Spotlight on Eva. The Russian Accent is somehow softer and more believable.

EVA: Flying. Oh Flying. I do not have much to say about flying. Except this. The day will come when I will fly for the last time. But when that day comes, I pray God I do not know it is that day. It is like the grandparents making love. The last time does come. But they do not want to know it is the last time they will be together in that way. It is the same with flying. Oh Flying.

(Eva takes a proud bow over enthusiastic applause. The spotlight goes out quickly, allowing her to disappear from the stage.)

IN THE OFFICE TRAILER

Trina enters the office trailer, quite excited.

TRINA: We were fabulous. Did you hear the applause?

GOLDIE: No.

TRINA: Eva wanted to try the triple. I could tell. She was just dying to try it.

GOLDIE: You can’t do a triple somersault in a tent, you know it and she knows it. There’s not enough room over your head. And it’s also very hot up there. If the ropes stretch just this much, we could lose her. So don’t you encourage her. And Trina…

TRINA: Yeah?

GOLDIE: Stay away from Tony.

TRINA: But you were already married to Daddy when you were my age.

GOLDIE: There are some nice boys at home.

TRINA: They won’t look twice at me. We’re not with the Big Show so they don’t care what I can do or who I am, even.

GOLDIE: There’s that Christiani cousin, and the Rock-Smith Flyers have—There’s Jorge Barrada.

(Apparently a very handsome young lion tamer.)

TRINA: Sure.

GOLDIE: Don’t you worry. There’s somebody out there waiting for you. Somebody just perfect.

TRINA: Daddy’s not perfect.

GOLDIE: He was when I married him.

TRINA: He’s such a cheapskate. Eva can’t have new ropes this year, and Tony has to pull the cats’ teeth himself because Daddy won’t pay for a vet. Sometimes I think Daddy hates the circus.

GOLDIE: Sometimes I hate it.

TRINA: Then what are you doing here? You could’ve gone to college. Daddy could own a deep-sea boat and take tourists out to catch marlins. He could be an anchorman on TV. You could have your hair done in a beauty shop, and maybe start a boutique or a plant shop. Yeah, selling orchids or something.

GOLDIE: You wish I sold plants.

TRINA: Sometimes. Yeah. Sometimes I wish you sold plants.

GOLDIE: And your Daddy were an accountant and you got an allowance and I signed your report card. You wish we were normal people. Well. We’re not normal and you should be proud of it. If being normal were any fun, people wouldn’t be so happy to see the circus.

TRINA: I guess.

GOLDIE: I don’t want to sell plants, honey.

(There is a moment.)

TRINA: I had this great idea. I told the twins they should write a book and go on TV. Do variety shows and Christmas specials and stuff. In the off season, I mean. They don’t look so weird they’d scare people. Wouldn’t that be terrific? Go on the late show, even.

GOLDIE: They don’t want to be stars, sweetie.

TRINA: But think of the money they could make.

GOLDIE: If they were interested in money, they’d be gone already. Besides, that would be like being back in the sideshow. Your daddy rescued them from that a long time ago, and I don’t think they want to go back to it, even if it means lots of money.

TRINA: I’m gonna work real hard this winter.

GOLDIE: Good.

TRINA: If I worked really hard…

GOLDIE: You could do anything you wanted.

TRINA: I could do a triple.

GOLDIE: You could do anything you wanted.

(There is a knock at the door. Goldie goes to open it.)

LEROY: You Goldie? Oz said to tell you I’m one more for supper. But I’m not really one more cause your websitter or whatever you call it blew the show and I’m just taking his place for today. It’s Leroy. (Extends his hand.) Hi.

GOLDIE: Supper’s at six. Have to wear a clean shirt. And there’s no snacks between meals so don’t ask.

(She starts to close the door on him.)

LEROY: So what do I do?

GOLDIE: Trina can tell you. I’m in the kitchen if you want me, honey.

TRINA: O.K.

(Goldie leaves, Trina sits down, takes off her headpiece, primps, very aware that he is watching, but is very condescending about it.)

LEROY: Well?

TRINA: You sit on the floor and hold our ropes. Just the ones for the sliding descent. The others are on stakes.

LEROY: What do I do during the act?

TRINA: Watch, I guess. I don’t know what the last guy did during the act. I don’t see anything once I’m up there.

LEROY: You don’t see how far down it is?

TRINA: I know how far down it is.

LEROY: You couldn’t pay me enough money to get up there.

TRINA: You probably don’t have the arms for it anyway.

LEROY: Well, you sure do. Punched anybody out lately?

(Trina moves toward the door.)

TRINA: Get out of my way.

LEROY: (Catches her.) Hey, I’m sorry. I really only came over here to meet you. That supper business was an excuse. You are one great looking girl.

TRINA: Thank you.

LEROY: So what are you doing messing around with that lion tamer? He could be your father. Unless that’s your thing, you know, a father thing.

TRINA: It’s none of your business.

LEROY: No, I know that. But what are you doing with this two-bit show? You’re swimming in the wrong pond, baby.

TRINA: This is no two-bit show.

LEROY: You could do better.

TRINA: My Daddy owns this show. I couldn’t ever leave the circus.

LEROY: Who said anything about leaving the circus. I just meant go with a big show. Ringling doesn’t use hand-me-down costumes, I bet. I’d like to see you in something that really fit. Whose is this, anyway?

TRINA: Who are you, anyway?

LEROY: They’ve got you locked up here like some fairytale princess.

TRINA: What do you want?

LEROY: I don’t know.

TRINA: Well if you think I’m gonna believe you’re some talent scout or something, you’re wrong. And I’m not about to run away with you either.

LEROY: Honey, I didn’t ask you to run way with me, O.K.?

TRINA: You were about to.

LEROY: No I wasn’t either. I want one night, that’s all. What time are you through?

TRINA: Is this how you get girls? You just walk right up and say I want to go to bed with you?

LEROY: Sure is.

TRINA: And they go for it?

LEROY: How about 10:30?

TRINA: Why should I go anywhere with you? You came busting in here to tell me I’m pretty only the way you said it was I must not be any good or I wouldn’t be afraid to try out for Ringling.

LEROY: When’s the next try-out?

TRINA: Sometime in February, the 14th, I think.

LEROY: You should be there.

TRINA: I have to get ready for intermission.

LEROY: 10:30. Yes or no?

TRINA: Maybe.

LEROY: That’s the spirit. Tell your lion tamer you’re going out for some exercise.

(Tony enters without knocking.)

LEROY: Hey man. How’d it go out there?

TONY: Do I know you?

LEROY: Must take a lot of guts to get in there with those cats. This outfit got a good retirement plan?

(Tony opens the door for Leroy.)

TONY: The best. You work til you die. We’ll see you later. (Tony takes Leroy by the arm, ushers him out.)

LEROY: Sorry I can’t stay and talk.

TONY: We understand.

LEROY: See you guys later.

(Tony closes the door behind Leroy.)

TRINA: Hi.

TONY: Come here, you pretty girl.

TRINA: Mother says to stay away from you. She says you’re not for me.

TONY: (Embracing her.) And what do you say?

TRINA: I told her you were teaching me to eat fire.

TONY: Bet she loved that idea.

TRINA: When can we go, Tony?

TONY: Your Daddy owes me money, baby.

TRINA: I have some money.

TONY: He owes me my bonus from last season. I mean, I’m glad he didn’t pay me then or I wouldn’t have signed on for another season, and then I wouldn’t have been here when you…grew up…

TRINA: Am I good enough for Ringling?

TONY: Tell me you love me.

TRINA: I want to go to Spain.

TONY: It would hurt your mother.

TRINA: I know. We’re worse than the twins. You poke me in the middle of the night, and she wakes up.

TONY: Your father would kill me

TRINA: Not if we were far enough away.

TONY: Look. This is a bigger town than we’ve played before, and we’re doing these malls for the next four weeks. That’s got to mean money. Your Daddy will pay me and we’ll just blow this old show.

TRINA: Tell me you love me.

TONY: We’ll be inseparable.

TRINA: Like the twins.

(They laugh and kiss. Trina is giggling rather than laughing. They do not see the door open.)

TRINA: Eva!

EVA: Get dressed.

TONY: The Countess Vladimirov.

EVA: (To Trina.) Leave us, darling. (Tony pats her affectionately.)

TONY: Go on, Trina.

(Trina exits.)

EVA: What are you doing with my Trina?

TONY: Trina is a big girl now.

EVA: What are you doing with my Trina?

TONY: She’s not your Trina. She’s her very own Trina, and the only reason she’s stayed with you this year is because I’m here.

EVA: You think you’re keeping her here?

TONY: I know it!

EVA: You with your slimy charm? With your boring experience? All you’re really good at is taking off your shirt. And then…you don’t even have any good scars to show her. She ever ask you how you made it through fifteen years as a lion trainer without a single scratch? It’s easy enough to figure out. You never got close enough. Your act is all show…And anybody who knows anything about lions knows it. You’re still working here because all Freddie knows about lions is what they eat.

TONY: Speaking of which, could you excuse me

EVA: Does she know you hate the circus? That you look down on all circus people, and that includes her, because we’re not smart enough for you? You could’ve been a marine biologist. You could’ve been a plastic surgeon. How many times did I have to hear what you could’ve been. Well, you can’t be either one of those things or anything else any more. You had your straight-A life and you ran off with the circus. And now all you are is a flashy old man with six mouths to feed.

TONY: (Tries again.) Speaking of which, could you—

EVA: And if you try to take Trina away from us…if you talk her into leaving the circus and going to middle-age with you…if you destroy all that we have worked for…if she stops flying…If I find out that you have even touched her, I will kill you.

TONY: Are you through?

EVA: You will be in the cage with the cats and I will shoot you in the legs and let the cats tear you apart. You may live long enough to see quite a bit of it, this killing of you.

TONY: Yeah, yeah.

EVA: Or I’ll brush your hair with pepper. You won’t even know it. Sheena will sneeze and bite your head off.

TONY: Eva…

EVA: Accidents happen.

TONY: I believe you.

EVA: You’d better.

TONY: I also remember Count Vladimirov.

EVA: You touch Trina and I will kill you.

TONY: Poor Court Vladimirov. Shall I tell your darling Trina about the last days of the rich, old, and very foolish Count Vladimirov? Shall I tell your precious protégé and niece that her has-been aerialist goddess drugged her invalid husband and pushed him down the stairs, and then had the nerve to keep his name and his money!

EVA: There was no money.

TONY: I could’ve told you that when you married him. Look, Eva, the guy was gonna kick off pretty soon anyway, so I don’t much care that you killed him or not—

EVA: It was an accident and you know it!

TONY: —but what bugs the shit out of me is that you even kept his accent.

(Now in a different tone.) I think I’ll tell her.

EVA: She won’t believe you.

TONY: She believes everything I say.

(Eva picks up the starters pistol he uses in his lion-taming act.)

EVA: You’re also going to be deaf in a few years from shooting this. Does she know that?

TONY: It’s loaded.

EVA: Do you remember how many shots you fired in the ring? You started with five blanks. (She fires two shots.) Did you shoot three out there so the next one is the bullet? Or was it two, so the next one is still a blank. Or was one so you have two more chances? A younger man would remember.

TONY: One.

(She fires another shot.)

TONY: There’s one more blank.

EVA: Or was it two? Or was that yesterday you only shot one? If it was two today, this next one is for real.

TONY: Give me the gun.

EVA: (Backing toward the door.) You were wrong. You shot one yesterday and two today. This one will kill you. I always count. Still think you’re right? One little squeeze… (She hands him the gun.)

TONY: Thank you.

EVA: Don’t touch her.

TONY: Don’t kill me.

(The door opens and Oz and Goldie enter, very upset and disturbed to find anyone in here.)

GOLDIE: (To Eva and Tony.) Get out!

EVA: Get out?

GOLDIE: You were going out. So go.

TRINA: What’s up?

OZ: Nothing.

TONY: Something is up all right.

(Offstage, Fred makes the intermission announcement.)

FRED: (In his spotlight.) And that, ladies and gentlemen, brings us to the end of the first half of today’s performance of Circus Valentine. So take a few minutes, get some popcorn and a soft drink, and hurry right back for the experience of a lifetime—

OZ: I have to see Fred.

TONY: We all have to see Fred. It’s the price we pay to work here. You have to see Fred about what?

FRED: (Continuing offstage.) —hurry right back for the experience of a lifetime, those brilliant Siamese twins, Brad and Bill Evans, right here in the center ring, along with Grace Kelly, Ella and Elvira Esterhazy, and a whirl of other attractions.

TONY: What’s going on?

GOLDIE: It’s none of your business.

FRED: Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls. It’s intermission.

(We hear the intermission music over the continuing argument.)

EVA: Everything that happens here is our business. We are the show.

TONY: Shut up, Eva. (To Oz.) How are the twins?

OZ: I don’t know.

TONY: What do you mean, you don’t know?

EVA: You didn’t bring them back?

OZ: No.

TONY: You just left them down there or what? You had something else to do or what? You had a flat tire? What, Oz?

TRINA: Hey! What’s going on in here? It’s intermission. I need change for the cotton candy and people are stealing the programs and (Now seeing how upset they are.) What’s going on in here?

GOLDIE: Get Leroy to help you, and the tent crew. Don’t worry about the programs. Just drinks and cotton candy and popcorn. You know what to do.

TRINA: Forget about the programs?

GOLDIE: Just go.

TRINA: O.K., O.K. (She leaves.)

(Tony turns to Oz)

TONY: Tell us about the twins, Oz.

GOLDIE: I think we better wait for Fred.

TONY: Oz?

OZ: They didn’t go bowling. There wasn’t any accident.

TONY: Then where are they? If they left us for some other show, I will personally…

(Fred opens the door, sees them all, tries to get back out, but Goldie stops him.)

TONY: Fred. What is this?

OZ: You took them to a hospital all right, but it wasn’t General, it was Jewish. And it wasn’t because of any accident.

FRED: They asked me not to tell.

GOLDIE: To tell what? What’s wrong with them?

EVA: What do you mean, what’s wrong with them? They’re Siamese twins!

OZ: Well not for long. The surgery to separate them is scheduled for tomorrow morning. That’s why they’re in the hospital.

GOLDIE: Oh no.

OZ: Seven, tomorrow morning. Take all day, the nurse said.

FRED: God no.

TONY: They can’t do that!

OZ: They wouldn’t see me, but I found them. The hospital has the best hand surgeon in the country. That’s why they picked it. They’re trying for five fingers on each hand. Never been done, the nurse said.

TONY: We have to stop them!

EVA: I could’ve told you. I could’ve told all of you.

TONY: No you couldn’t either, so shut up. Now. Fred. I say we cancel the second act and get down to that hospital and spring them out of there.

FRED: We’re doing the second act.

TONY: But the twins are the second act.

FRED: Not today, they’re not. Now what we have to do is get ourselves together and give Mr. Reeves a second act he will like even better than the twins.

GOLDIE: The only thing he’d like more than the twins is if we all went out there and killed ourselves.

FRED: Tony can do his old springboard act.

EVA: That will kill him, anyway.

FRED: Goldie can juggle. (To her.) What was that name you used to call yourself?

GOLDIE: Dumbbell…Moron?

TRINA: Mom hasn’t juggled for years.

FRED: She taught the twins to juggle, and they’re great at it. How bad can she be? And you and Eva will do the long version of the pony act, and the clowns will do three turns instead of two and…

EVA: And I could try the triple.

EVERYONE: No.

EVA: Why not? If I made it, we would be history.

TRINA: And if you didn’t make it?

TONY: Well then, only she would be history.

FRED: Nobody is going to be history. Not us, not the twins, and not this circus.

TONY: We have got to stop them from having this surgery.

FRED: We can do that after the show.

GOLDIE: We can’t do the show while the twins are in—

FRED: If we do a second act that Mr. Reeves likes, then maybe we can still have a circus, even without the twins. If that’s how it turns out.

GOLDIE: Are you telling us everything, Freddie?

FRED: It’s going to be O.K. The twins are going to be fine, and we’re going to be fine.

EVA: The show must go on?

FRED: Yes.

TONY: Why?

FRED: Because it’s our job. Because this is how it works. We are the clowns and they are the farmers, and if we make them laugh, they will feed us.

TONY: You hope.

FRED: We don’t have any choice. Now. Five minutes to the top of Act II. Everybody.

(All around, there are looks of crisis and despair. A combination of fear and urgency about the upcoming second act and the much longer future that will follow it. The sky has fallen, and the house lights with it.)

END OF ACT I

 

ACT II

OUTSIDE THE MAIN TENT

FRED: (In his spotlight.) Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome back to the greatest little show on earth, the one, the only, the original, old fashioned, orchestrated oscillation of arms and legs, balls and pegs, and men and beasts and beauties… (Seeming to forget where he is.) Not the least of which is our very own African Queen, performing without a master for she has none, seven thousand pounds of grace in motion. Here she is, Ladies and Gentlemen, Circus Valentine’s great, gray, grand dame, Grace Kelly. (Oz comes out of the tent, having just sent Grace Kelly into the ring to perform.)

OZ: She knows something is wrong, all right.

(Tony jumps up and down trying to warm up for his springboard act.)

TONY: I think you’re in love with that elephant.

OZ: You should be so lucky.

(Leroy and Trina come up together.)

LEROY: Hey man, I hate to tell you, but somebody stole your trampoline.

TONY: I’ve got one chance of not killing myself on the springboard and that’s to get warm, so shut up!

(Leroy just stands there.)

TONY: I said get out of here.

LEROY: No, you didn’t. You said shut up.

OZ: Watch it, Leroy!

(Leroy begins to jump up and down, shadowboxing.)

LEROY: (Laughs.) Here’s the world famous boxing kangaroo. Coming right up, folks. Throw the left, throw the right—

(Eva and Goldie walk up, Eva dressed for the bareback act, Goldie juggling some oranges.)

EVA: The lion tamer demonstrates the law of gravity.

TONY: Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!

(Fred enters talking.)

FRED: O.K. Tony will do his springboard act, then Goldie will go on and juggle, then Eva and Trina will do the bareback act, then—

TRINA: (Interrupting him.) You can’t let Tony do the springboard, Daddy. He’ll get hurt.

FRED: Then he better be careful, hadn’t he.

TRINA: Daddy!

FRED: You’re going on with him.

GOLDIE: No!

TRINA: Doing what?

FRED: You’re the assistant. The drums will roll, Tony will do some leap or other and when he lands on his feet—

TONY: If he lands on his feet…

FRED: You raise your arms in the air, and go “da-da.”

TRINA: I just stand there?

FRED: You got a better idea?

TRINA: He’s going to get hurt. Anything is better than somebody getting hurt.

FRED: No. Anything is better than no second act. Now get ready. Everybody! Goldie are you set?

GOLDIE: How long do I have to stay out there?

FRED: (Turning to Tony.) Come on, Tony!

TRINA: Be careful, Tony.

LEROY: (To Tony.) Should I call the ambulance now, or wait?

FRED: (To Leroy.) Just clear the springboard as soon as he’s done.

LEROY: Got it.

(Fred, Trina and Tony exit.)

GOLDIE: He’ll kill himself.

EVA: (Unconcerned.) Well, crippled, anyway. Even when he could do it he wasn’t good at it.

(Everybody stands and watches the beginning of Tony’s act.)

LEROY: (To Oz.) Want me to feed the cats?

OZ: We don’t have anything for them to eat.

GOLDIE: What are you talking about?

OZ: Fred spent the feed money.

GOLDIE: On what?

OZ: Tow trucks.

EVA: How many did he buy?

FRED: (In his spotlight.) Ladies and Gentlemen, Circus Valentine is proud to present a brand new act, making his appearance for the first time anywhere in the world, with a fabulous display of jumps, turns, and spins from the springboard. This young leaper is destined to hurl himself into international fame. And you saw him first. Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, Alberto Ajanian.

OZ: (As he exits.) I’m going after Grace.

LEROY: Anybody ever fall from Grace?

GOLDIE: Look, buster. We need you to clear the ring and hold the ropes and set up for the ponies, but most of all we need you to shut your mouth.

EVA: Who are you anyway?

LEROY: Nobody.

EVA: That’s what I thought.

LEROY: You got a whole bunch a nobodies who paid to see this show, lady. I’d be nice to me if I were you.

(We hear the first “da-da” and it is received with only scattered applause.)

LEROY: What’s he doing out there?

EVA: Not much.

GOLDIE: Do you want him to kill himself?

EVA: It would save me the trouble.

LEROY: That ain’t a happy crowd.

GOLDIE: They have no idea how long it would take them to learn to somersault as poorly as Tony. They don’t care that we risk our lives for their money. They think we enjoy it. Karl Wallenda took his last walk for sixty lousy people.

LEROY: Hey, it’s not their fault. They don’t ask you to get out there.

GOLDIE: The hell they don’t. If nobody came, we wouldn’t have to perform.

LEROY: So quit if it makes you so miserable.

EVA: We can’t quit. They need us. They love us.

GOLDIE: They feel something for us, but it isn’t love. Nobody loves someone who really would die for them.

EVA: They come to see us fly.

GOLDIE: Oh for God’s sake. They come to see us fall. I hate them.

EVA: I don’t.

GOLDIE: You need them.

EVA: You don’t?

LEROY: You people are very strange.

GOLDIE AND EVA: Leave us alone.

IN THE ANIMAL AREA

Oz catches up to Fred.

OZ: You lied to me.

FRED: We’ll do this later.

OZ: You lied to me! You sent me all the way down there and you knew I wasn’t going to find the twins at that hospital. Now I want the whole story.

FRED: I had to do it. Later, O.K.?

OZ: You forget who owns this show.

FRED: Right this minute Reeves owns this show. Unless we can convince him to help us out.

OZ: He won’t do it.

FRED: When he sees the second act he might.

OZ: He won’t.

FRED: It’s our only chance.

OZ: It’s your only chance. I can sell my tent, and sell my trucks and sell my costumes, and move to Iowa.

FRED: And leave Grace Kelly?

OZ: And take Grace Kelly and go to Iowa.

FRED: What the hell is there to do in Iowa?

OZ: It’s not what there is to do in Iowa, it’s what there is to eat.

FRED: Hay.

OZ: (Pointing to the tent.) $40,000 will buy a lot of hay.

FRED: But she won’t get to perform.

OZ: She’ll get to stay alive. You keep running my show and she’s going to starve to death.

FRED: We’re in this together, Oz.

OZ: Not any more.

FRED: You’ve never wanted anything to do with running this show! You just want a cover for your love affair with that elephant.

OZ: Dad gave me the money. I can take it back.

FRED: You couldn’t wait to get rid of Dad’s money. You said, “Take it, Freddie. I don’t want to be tied down by it.” That’s exactly what you said. Put on your boots and went to work at the zoo. Only now that I’ve spent it for you, you want it back. Terrific.

OZ: I’ve changed my mind.

FRED: No you haven’t, either. Do you own a car? Do you read magazines? Do you date women? Men? Better yet. People? No. You live for that damn elephant. And all you want to do is brush her blankets and clean out her ears and hose her down when she gets hot. And as long as the two of you stay in the circus, you can get away with that. But if you go set up housekeeping in some Iowa town, I’ll be able to hear them laughing wherever I am in this country. You take your elephant to Iowa and you’ll be a class A freak, Oz.

OZ: So I’ll be a freak.

FRED: I’ve taken care of you since you were twelve years old.

OZ: You’ve taken my money is how I see it.

(Fred realizes he needs to apologize and fast.)

FRED: (Calling after him.) Oz!

OZ: What?

FRED: If the twins go through with this operation…

OZ: What do you mean, “IF”?

FRED: If we lose the twins, “your” circus is going to need “your” elephant.

OZ: Are you asking me not to abandon you?

FRED: Yes, Oz. I am.

OZ: O.K. I’ll think about it.

FRED: And there’s one other thing. Goldie thinks I own the tent.

OZ: You lied to her too, huh? Well that’s not my problem.

FRED: I was going to tell her someday.

OZ: Maybe.

FRED: Oz, I had to tell her something. I wanted her to marry me. Why should she marry me unless I had a tent. How could I be the ringmaster unless I had a tent? I wanted her to marry me, Oz.

OZ: You don’t lie to people you love.

FRED: That’s easy for you to say. The person you love doesn’t understand English.

OZ: The hell she doesn’t.

FRED: OK. O.K.

OZ: Goldie is too good for you.

FRED: I loved her, Oz. I just wanted to be with her.

OZ: I understand that.

FRED: You won’t tell her?

OZ: I won’t lie to her if she asks me.

FRED: But you won’t go find her right now and tell her?

OZ: No.

FRED: All right. Good. Thanks.

OUTSIDE THE MAIN TENT

Goldie and Eva are standing just outside of the tent as Fred intros Goldie.

GOLDIE: (Still practicing juggling.) This is going to be ridiculous.

EVA: Your juggling isn’t going to keep their money in our pocket, if that’s what you mean.

GOLDIE: Just ridiculous!

EVA: The only way to do that is for me to try a triple.

GOLDIE: Now that’s really ridiculous.

EVA: It is not. They’ve never seen one.

GOLDIE: And you’ve never done one.

EVA: It would save the show.

GOLDIE: That’s all we need, Eva. The twins in the hospital, and you dead in the sawdust.

EVA: The fall might not kill me.

GOLDIE: If you’re going to kill yourself, will you please do it sometime when I’m not watching.

EVA: I might make it, you know.

GOLDIE: It wouldn’t matter. These people wouldn’t even know what they were seeing. They’d think it was some kind of a trick!

EVA: I’m not scared of it, if that’s what you’re thinking.

GOLDIE: (Realizes she is serious.) Wait til this winter. Outside. There’ll be enough room for your spin. You’ll be rested. You won’t be mad at Tony or me or Freddie or anybody. You’ll be in Florida. You’ll be home. That will make all the difference.

(Eva doesn’t answer. We hear Fred’s intro.)

FRED: (In his spotlight.) And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, the marvelous Margobella, manipulating a myriad of rings, balls and pins. She will amaze you. She will amuse you! Here she is…Mademoiselle Margobella!

(Goldie runs on. Eva watches her begin her act.)

EVA: (Imitating Fred’s style.) Ladies and Gentlemen. You are about to see something really stupid. (Really down.) Watch the cook drop the oranges.

IN THE WARDROBE TENT

Trina and Tony enter from the tent, Tony is limping, Trina is helping him.

TRINA: Is it bad? Does it hurt much? Tony…say something. Are you all right?

TONY: It’s broken.

(Eva enters.)

TRINA: He was great! Did you see him?

TONY: (Louder.) My ankle is broken. (He doesn’t say this to Eva, but rather to the air.)

TRINA: It’s probably just a little twisted. You were wonderful.

EVA: They booed him.

TRINA: They’re stupid. What do they know about acrobats? They didn’t understand what he was trying to do.

EVA: Neither did he.

TONY: I made a fool of myself.

TRINA: Well I thought you were terrific. I’ll kiss it.

(Tony looks away from both of them as Trina bends to kiss the ankle.)

EVA: You were a fool.

TONY: Shut up.

EVA: I never shut up.

TONY: I know.

TRINA: (Standing up.) There now.

EVA: (To Trina.) Get a bucket of ice from the snow cone machine and then get dressed.

(Trina leaves.)

EVA: (To Tony.) Sit down.

TONY: Leave me alone.

EVA: Your tucks weren’t tight enough. What you should’ve done was our old Risley act.

TONY: With Trina?

EVA: With somebody.

TONY: Trina doesn’t know it.

TRINA: (Enters with ice.) Trina doesn’t know what?

TONY: The Risley we used to do.

TRINA: (Bending down.) I didn’t know you did that. That’s hard.

TONY: Eva had the hard part.

(Eva reaches for the ice and begins to pack Tony’s ankle.)

EVA: Go get dressed Trina.

(Trina reaches for the ice.)

TRINA: I’ll do it.

TONY: Let Eva do it.

TRINA: Just tell me what to do.

TONY: (Very sharp.) I don’t have time to teach you. I’m hurt now.

TRINA: But she hates you.

TONY: She knows where I need the ice.

EVA: (To Trina.) Go on, baby. Go watch your mother.

(Eva bends down and takes off the shawl she has been wearing. She starts to bandage Tony’s ankle as the spot comes up for Goldie’s act.)

IN THE CENTER RING

GOLDIE: (Very embarrassed, but still trying to juggle.) It’s very nice to be here. I’m Goldie Sparrow Valentine. Isn’t that silly, Mother named me Golden Sparrow. Everybody knows there aren’t any golden sparrows. Well mother’s have the right to hope, I guess. I’m not a juggler. I imagine you can see that for yourself. I’m only out here because…

(The balls all fall to the floor.)

IN THE WARDROBE TENT

Lights come up on Eva and Tony. She is now taking a ribbon out of her hair to tie up the bandage. This tenderness is in direct contrast with their talk.

TONY: What am I supposed to do now? I can’t go into the ring with the cats like this. I have to get my money from Fred.

EVA: He spent it.

TONY: But it might be weeks before I can find another show. How am I supposed to feed the cats in the meantime?

EVA: You could turn them loose. The police would round them up…

TONY: They’d shoot them.

EVA: Exactly. Then you wouldn’t have to feed them.

TONY: I could sell them to a zoo, then buy them back when I got on my feet again.

EVA: Zoos already have lions. That’s how they got to be zoos…having lions already.

TONY: I could sell them to…

EVA: Everybody who already wants lions already has lions.

TONY: I’ll make some calls.

EVA: To whom?

IN THE CENTER RING

Goldie struggles on.

GOLDIE: Mademoiselle Margobella. I knew Fred would make up some name or other, but Margobella! Margobella! Know where he got that? (Pause.) Margobella is the name you can still read on the back of the pink plastic plates we eat off of, Miraclewear’s Margobella. The miracle, as in miraclewear, is that they won’t wear out. That’s what will survive the nuclear disaster at the end of the world—pink plastic plates. (Slowly.) What I would give for plates that would break. Some plates so nice I could worry about breaking them. And while you’re at it, (Speaking as if to some unseen benefactor.) I’d like some hooks on the walls for pots and pans. I can’t hang my pots on the walls now, because every night of my life, my walls roll 100 miles down some road to some other town. And once, before I die, I’d like to open my kitchen window and not smell horses. Is that too much?

IN THE WARDROBE TENT

Eva and Tony continue.

TONY: And I suppose you know exactly what you’re going to do?

EVA: I do.

TONY: What?

EVA: Circus people know me.

TONY: Who knows you? All your boyfriends died. Their sons, no, their accountants are running their circuses now. And accountants don’t care about fake Russian accents and beautiful legs. This was your last tour anyway and you know it. This was your home run, sweetheart.

EVA: You think my legs are beautiful?

TONY: Your legs are beautiful, yes.

EVA: Why didn’t you ever say it?

TONY: I didn’t want to wait in line.

EVA: They were nothing, those men.

TONY: They were nothing. I was nothing. Everything is nothing to you.

EVA: No.

TONY: Yes. You are everything for yourself. Well, you should be happy now because you are all you are going to have left. Oh, I know! Maybe the Smithsonian would take you. Rig up your trap right next to the Wright Brothers plane. Little bronze plaque with black letters. Miss Eva Sparrow Navarro Vladimirov, The World’s Oldest Living Flying Machine.

EVA: I hate you.

TONY: I know.

EVA: Do you hate me because of all those men?

TONY: I don’t hate you. I hate me. I love you.

EVA: (Pretending not to be touched, but she is.) You are a fool.

TONY: Yes.

EVA: But you are not stupid.

TONY: Oh no. Never been stupid.

IN THE CENTER RING

Goldie continues. The crowd is booing now.

GOLDIE: The only thing we own…That’s worth anything, is this tent.

IN THE WARDROBE TENT

(Reeves storms up to Tony and Eva. He indicates the treatment.)

REEVES: Somebody get hurt?

TONY: It’s nothing.

REEVES: Where’s Valentine? (Tony starts to point.) No. Where are the twins?

EVA: (A little threatening, but not belligerent.) Who are you?

REEVES: Name is Reeves. I own this mall. Where are the twins?

EVA: (Very nearly coy.) You must be a very busy man.

REEVES: I can handle it.

TONY: It’s a real nice set up you have here.

REEVES: Just have to know what you’re doing. Are the twins going on?

TONY: I hear these malls are a good investment. You don’t make money with work, you make money with money.

REEVES: Where are the—

EVA: (Seeing that Reeves wants an answer.) The twins keep pretty much to themselves. Is there anything else we could do for you?

TONY: Seen the show?

REEVES: No.

(Reeves looks inside the tent. The crowd is laughing now. Tony and Eva are worried about that.)

TONY: One of the finest little circuses in the world.

EVA: I wouldn’t fly for anybody else. Fred is the best.

(Trina enters, dressed exactly like Eva for their bareback act.)

TRINA: Is your ankle broken?

EVA: Trina, darling, this is Mr. Reeves.

(Trina curtsies, as the laughter continues outside.)

IN THE CENTER RING

Goldie continues. The crowd is booing louder now.

GOLDIE: Fred bought this tent because he wanted to be somebody. Well this time, Fred Valentine, I want to be somebody. I’m not some no-talent rope girl who’s afraid of heights. I’m a middle-aged fortune-teller who’s sick of cheap. I’m tired of secondhand, discount, giant economy-sized plastic plate cheap! I want a house, I want a mailbox and neighbors. I want an inside telephone. (Picking up the balls.) I’m sorry about this. But…I never said I could juggle.

(There is a smattering of unenthusiastic applause, and a couple of boos. Goldie leaves the spotlight without bowing. There is one final laugh from the audience, and then we hear Fred’s voice.)

FRED: (In his spotlight.) Ladies and Gentlemen, the Marvelous, the Hilarious, Mademoiselle Margobella!

IN THE WARDROBE TENT

Goldie bursts into the room, hopping mad. Eva, Tony, and Trina hold their breath as she enters.

GOLDIE: You’re going to be sorry, Freddie, you sunuvabitch. You’re going to be sorry you made me do this.

LEROY: (Following her, carrying all her juggling things.) We took some real heavy shit out there, folks.

GOLDIE: I’ve never been so humiliated in all my life.

EVA: Goldie, darling, this is Mr. Reeves.

GOLDIE: We’ve met.

EVA: He owns this mall.

TRINA: Mother!

GOLDIE: They laughed at me. They thought I was a clown. I’m in there being laughed at while you’re out here cozying up to this bozo because you think he can save you.

REEVES: You shouldn’t have said that.

LEROY: She can say whatever she wants, buddy.

GOLDIE: It wasn’t smart.

REEVES: No it wasn’t.

GOLDIE: Well, I didn’t get where I am today by being smart.

TONY: Obviously.

GOLDIE: It’s all over anyway. Your precious twins, Mr. Reeves, your cute little Siamese freaks that you want paraded around in front of your mall so your people will spend more money in your mall, well those twins are in the hospital today. Some doctors are going to cut them apart.

TRINA: Mother!

REEVES: Cut them apart?

GOLDIE: Two for the price of one.

EVA: Shut up, Goldie.

REEVES: I knew it! I knew it!

(Offstage, Fred begins to introduce Eva and Trina’s bareback act.)

FRED: (In his spotlight.) No circus would be complete without two beautiful ladies on horseback.

EVA: Trina, get up here! We’re on.

FRED: (Continuing offstage.) And here they are, in an exhilarating exercise in equine equilibrium…

REEVES: (To Goldie.) I hope this is one of your little jokes.

GOLDIE: (Straightening Trina’s costume.) I already did my clown act, buster.

FRED: (Continuing offstage.) Excitement unequaled west of Eastern Europe…

TRINA: (To Reeves.) Don’t pay any attention to her. She always says stuff like that when she’s mad at daddy. Come watch our act.

FRED: (In his spotlight.) Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, the enchanting Ella and the electrifying Elvira Esterhazy.

(Horse music starts up and Eva and Trina exit.)

REEVES: (To Goldie.) I guess you know what this means?

GOLDIE: Yes, I do. Brad and Bill could die in that operation.

REEVES: That’s not what I meant.

GOLDIE: (To Reeves.) Of course it’s not what you meant. You’re going to cancel our tour. Because you don’t think enough people will spend enough money if they don’t see enough freaks. Well, you’re the freak, mister.

(Tony shakes his head in disbelief and despair.)

GOLDIE: The only thing you have in this world is money.

REEVES: While you, on the other hand, can juggle.

GOLDIE: So tell me something your money does for you.

REEVES: Do you give away tickets to this show? No. If people don’t have the money, they don’t see the elephant. If they don’t pay you the money, you don’t feed the elephant. You have to have money. You went out there and juggled for money. I run this mall for money and it’s the same damn thing.

GOLDIE: But I don’t do what I do for the money. It happens to be my life. The only reason you own this mall is to make money.

REEVES: Oh shit! People like me keep the world going while people like you act like you’re doing us a favor by enjoying yourselves in it. You’d starve to death without us. We paved your playground, little girl. We dug up the rocks and put in the swings.

GOLDIE: Yeah well, your money is dead and so are you.

LEROY: That’s telling him.

TONY: You’re going to shut up or I’m going to…

(Tony restrains Leroy, who is trying to get closer to Reeves and Goldie. As Reeves talks, Tony and Leroy ad-lib, Leroy determined to get loose and Tony muscling him to stay out of it.)

REEVES: O.K. My money is dead and so am I. But your little show is about to be dead because that’s the price for not keeping your part of our deal.

GOLDIE: No twins, no show.

REEVES: That’s right. And when your show is gone and all your animals starve and all your people are out of work and all that’s left is a worthless piece of rotten canvas, when your show is over, I’ll still have my money and my show will go on.

GOLDIE: Fuck off.

REEVES: (Grabbing her.) What’d you say?

LEROY: (Breaking away from Tony.) I told you to lay off the lady.

REEVES: This is no lady. Ladies don’t…

(Leroy grabs Reeves, turning him around, freeing Goldie in the process.)

LEROY: Listen you..

(Tony rushes over, but doesn’t arrive in time.)

TONY: Leroy!

REEVES: Take your hands off me, hobo.

(Leroy throws a swift punch, which knocks Reeves out cold. Goldie gasps. Tony shakes his head. And they stand in shocked silence as the equestrian act comes to an end.)

FRED: (In his spotlight.) Didn’t I say they were exhilarating? Didn’t I say they were enchanting and electrifying? Ladies and Gentlemen, Ella and Elvira Esterhazy, two extraordinary equestriennes. Coming up next, the Cardwell Clowns and their hysterical hounds.

TONY: (Backing away from Leroy.) Oh shit!

(Eva and Trina run out of the tent and into the silence surrounding Reeves.)

TRINA: (Before she sees Reeves.) Leroy, you’re supposed to clear the ring!

TONY: He’s not touching one more piece of this show.

TRINA: (Now she sees Reeves.) What on Earth?

GOLDIE: (To Leroy.) Why did you hit him? This had nothing to do with you.

TRINA: (To Leroy.) You knocked him out?

GOLDIE: Who the hell do you think you are?

LEROY: Yeah, well…

TONY: Get out of here.

LEROY: Guess it is about time. (To Trina.) Guess I can’t make it tonight, princess.

TRINA: Get out of here!

(Fred rushes into the scene, passing Leroy on his way out.)

FRED: I just announced the clowns. Where are they?

TRINA: (Running offstage.) I’ll find them.

GOLDIE: (As Fred sees Reeves.) Don’t ask, honey. Go on back in there.

FRED: And do what?

GOLDIE: I don’t know. It’s your turn. (Then turning away from him.) Get me some water, Tony.

IN THE CENTER RING

Act lighting comes up on Fred, taking him somewhat by surprise.

FRED: (In act lighting.) Oh. Yes. All right. Well. While we’re waiting for the clowns, well, maybe you wondered why my picture wasn’t in the souvenir program book.

(Goldie takes the water Tony brings her and begins to bathe Reeves face, holding his head.)

FRED: No, no. Let’s see. Well would anybody like to know how I keep my top hat shiny? I brush it in a clean cloth dipped in beer, that’s how. Now, What else…uh…Did you see my silver trailer out there? That’s circus tradition, the manager’s wagon is always silver.

(Reeves comes to, now, and sits up shakily. Then as Fred continues, he tries to stand, resisting Goldie’s offers of help.)

FRED: There’s just not much to say about me. My mother was a Fat Lady in a Freak Show. They paid her pretty well and she invested it well, and Dad gave all the money to Oz when she died and we had to have a special coffin made to carry her and it took twelve pallbearers at the funeral. She couldn’t stand up for the last fifteen years of her life and I bought her this hand mirror so she could see her feet. All that money she had and the only thing she’d buy for herself was shoes.

(Reeves stands, straightens his suit, and wipes the blood from his mouth.)

FRED: She had more pairs of shoes. Oz put them on for her, but if I hadn’t given her that mirror, she wouldn’t have even been able to see them. She really liked that mirror, but she never looked at her face. I tried to tell her she should look because she was pretty, but she said she didn’t want to know because she thought it would kill her if it were true, that she was pretty. (The spotlight moves to Reeves as he walks up to Fred.)

REEVES: Ladies and Gentlemen, I hate to interrupt this…

FRED: I’m not finished. What are you doing?

REEVES: Get out!

FRED: I’m not finished talking about my mother. They paid their money and I’m gonna tell them—

REEVES: The management of this mall has just learned that the Siamese twins we promised you in our advertising, will not be appearing with Circus Valentine. We have, therefore, decided to return your money.

FRED: You can’t do that! That’s our money. We did the show.

REEVES: You may receive a cash refund in my office on the second floor of the mall. Or, you may come to the table my assistants are setting up just outside the main entrance to the tent.

FRED: That’s all the money we have.

REEVES: You may trade your ticket stub for two chances on the Honda moped being given away next Saturday at the Arvin’s Amusements Old-Fashioned Fair right here in this same location, or you may receive a free pass to the Elvis Presley Automobile Show, beginning next Sunday in the front parking lot. The Show features every car owned by Elvis on the sad day of his departure from the Earth. Sit where he sat, see the pictures of his mother framed in the door of the built-in medicine cabinet…

FRED: We did the show.

REEVES: (Looking up as if to the light booth.) Cut the lights on this man please. (The light goes out on Fred.) I apologize for disappointing you today and I take full responsibility for what has happened here. The Midtown Mall deeply regrets the inconvenience we have caused you, but we hope our refund offers will convince you of our sincere desire to deal honestly with you, whether you are in our stores or enjoying one of our attractions. Thank you for your attention. This is the end of the show.

OUTSIDE THE MAIN TENT

TONY: He can’t close the show!

EVA: He already did.

TONY: You should’ve shut up, Goldie.

GOLDIE: You should’ve held on to Leroy.

EVA: Where were you Oz? You know better than to leave the back door during the show.

TRINA: It’s Mother’s fault. She started it.

GOLDIE: You all made me sick, out there buttering him up when I came off.

TRINA: He’s going to keep all our money.

GOLDIE: He better not touch that tent.

TRINA: People are taking all the programs!

EVA: He has no right to do this!

TONY: I should’ve killed him when I had the chance.

EVA: (Starting to run into the arena.) That’s my rigging. My rigging stays up.

(Fred catches her on his way out of the tent.)

GOLDIE: I’m calling the police. He can’t throw us out.

FRED: Nobody calls nobody.

GOLDIE: Freddie, do something!

OZ: He did.

TONY: I want my money.

EVA: You owe me ten more weeks.

TRINA: Daddy, you have to give Tony his money.

FRED: I have to find Reeves. I’ll be back.

GOLDIE: No you don’t.

EVA: He can’t see you right now. He’s giving away our money.

TONY: This is all your fault, Valentine. It’s all your fault.

TRINA: Daddy didn’t start the fight.

TONY: The fight was just an accident. Reeves was going to close the show anyway cause we don’t have the twins. And Daddy made that deal, doll. (Vicious.) Now talk Valentine.

GOLDIE: Say something, Freddie.

FRED: I’ve told you everything I know.

GOLDIE: Who’s doing the surgery?

FRED: I don’t know.

EVA: They had to plan this.

OZ: You don’t just drop into town and lie down on the table.

TONY: Tell us where they got the money, Freddie, you no good sunuvabitch, tell us where they got the money.

OZ: Be thousands of dollars.

TONY: No, don’t tell me where they got the money. I know where they got the money. It was our money. Tell us how they got the doctor. They don’t drive and we haven’t been here before.

EVA: Didn’t they come here about a month ago to have some new poster pictures taken?

GOLDIE: They did! And you came with them!

FRED: I came to talk to Reeves. I dropped them off at the bowling alley.

OZ: Reeves never saw you before today.

GOLDIE: So the three of you came up here…

OZ: And saw the doctor. You didn’t see Reeves and they didn’t go bowling.

GOLDIE: You set up the surgery and then you booked us into this town.

EVA: And who paid the fee?

TONY: (Screaming.) We paid the fee! Tell them Freddie. We paid the fee!

(Reeves breaks into the group.)

REEVES: I want this lot cleared by the morning. I want your lions gone and all their shit shoveled up. I want your posters down and your ticket booth out. And your power lines are being disconnected right now and if anybody tries to hook them back up, for any reason, I’ll have them thrown in jail. They’re coming after the tent at 7:00 and I want all of you out…gone. And I don’t want to hear from you or any of your friends ever again.

OZ: You’re not taking that tent.

GOLDIE: That’s our tent, Bozo.

REEVES: It’s my tent. And if you signed a contract with this man, (Indicating Fred.) I’d sue him if I were you. Oh, and don’t come in to use my bathrooms. There’s a gas station three blocks down.

EVA: Just who do you think you are?

REEVES: You set foot inside my mall and I’ll have you arrested.

TONY: You miserable sunuvabitch.

GOLDIE: Get out!

REEVES: You still don’t understand, do you? You’re the one who’s getting out. No more talk, just out. Now, I have other things to do. (Reeves exits.)

OZ: You sold my tent?

GOLDIE: It was our tent.

FRED: It was his tent, Goldie. It was the only deal I could make, Oz. He didn’t want to take us. The tent was like collateral. Against our losses. I guaranteed him we’d make him a thousand bucks a week or he could take the tent.

EVA: How could you be so stupid?

FRED: I didn’t have any choice.

GOLDIE: I want to know how you thought this was going to work out. You hocked our tent to pay for destroying our main attraction?

FRED: I thought if we were all here together…

GOLDIE: (Nearly hysterical.) Freddie? How did you think we were going to get out of this? If the operation was a success, the twins would be separated and we would lose our tent because we have no twins. But if the operation was a failure and the twins died, we would lose our tent because we have no twins. And with no twins and no tent, there’s no circus.

FRED: I thought they might change their minds.

EVA: Their mind.

FRED: I thought they’d…

TRINA: But what about us?

TONY: You’re gonna do fine, Trina. We’re the ones with no place to go. We’re not going to find other shows, Fred. It’s the middle of the season, so even if we knew somebody who needed us, we wouldn’t know where they were. And even if we knew where they were, you’ve spent all our money, so we couldn’t get there. At our age, you’re either a star and you get by on reputation, or you’re out. We’re out. You’ve destroyed what we like to think of as our lives, Fred. What are we going to do?

FRED: I don’t know what you’re all going to do. I don’t know what I’m going to do. Oz can get a lawyer and get his tent back from Reeves. Reeves can sue me. You can all sue me, but I don’t have anything. All I really had was all of you. But I only had that as long as those boys kept on being Siamese.

TRINA: They didn’t mind.

GOLDIE: That’s stupid, Trina. (To Fred.) Go on.

FRED: There really was never any reason for them to stay together. Except of course that they’d always been that way.

EVA: Are you telling us this was your idea?

FRED: The operation is tricky, of course, and maybe they’ll each lose partial mobility in one hand, but I heard about this surgeon in town here…

TONY: (Interrupting.) You’ve lost your mind, Fred. Lost your mind.

FRED: I don’t think so. I told the twins about the surgeon and asked them what they thought. And do you know what they said? They said the only reason they were staying together was because of me. Because I was kind to them. Because we played pinochle. Because I never laughed at them. Because I took them out of the sideshow and Goldie taught them to juggle. Because we were a show. They stayed together all this time because of us!

OZ: Oh man.

TONY: What is that supposed to mean?

FRED: Well I wasn’t about to be the reason that they stayed together. And (To Goldie.) I don’t know how I thought we’d get out of this. I didn’t think about it. It didn’t seem important. What I did for them, that seems important. I think it’s the only important thing I ever did and if it means I never see any of you again, well, I’ll miss you.

TONY: (Slowly.) It was your idea. You found the surgeon. You told the twins about it and brought them up here for the consultation. You scheduled the surgery and booked us into this town. You checked them into the hospital this morning and you took every penny any of us has in the world and you paid the doctors’ fee.

FRED: Yes.

TONY: And you think they’re gonna like what you’ve done to them? They’ve been together for twenty-five years. Are they supposed to break up just because you’ve decided they shouldn’t be freaks anymore? How will they earn a living now? Sure, they can juggle, but they only know how to do it Siamese. They’ll never perform again. That’s a pretty heavy decision to make for somebody else, Freddie.

OZ: Easy, Tony.

FRED: I wanted them to have a choice.

TONY: You made it for them, Fred. It was simply not acceptable to you that they should remain…they way they were.

FRED: No, it wasn’t. And I think they felt the same way.

GOLDIE: You think.

TRINA: Wow.

EVA: Well, I say…

FRED: (Still calm.) Yes?

EVA: Well, I say, ‘Good for you, Freddie.’

OZ: (After a while.) Yeah, so do I.

GOLDIE: Me too. I’m glad you didn’t ask us, Freddie. We’d still be arguing about it, and it’s really pretty simple after all. How could we live on them for so long. They’ll do just fine, Tony. They’ll be normal people and that’ll be just fine.

TRINA: But what are we going to do? Are we going to be fine?

(There is a moment.)

OZ: Of course we are. What did you think, we were going to starve to death because we lost our tent?

GOLDIE: We couldn’t play towns like this.

OZ: Couldn’t even play fairs until we got another tent.

GOLDIE: (To Fred.) Do we still have the trucks?

FRED: We’d have to sell one to repair the others.

OZ: And sell another one to feed the animals.

EVA: The animals have to go. We can’t afford them.

TONY: So what do we have? An aerialist and a fortune-teller? That’s not a show.

FRED: (To Oz.) Do we still have an elephant?

OZ: We have an elephant.

GOLDIE: We’ll keep the animals.

OZ: We need some new acts. Make some calls.

FRED: We couldn’t pay them.

TRINA: I bet some newspaper would pay us for the twins’ story. They could go on talk shows.

TONY: No.

TRINA: It would help them get a new start, you know? Make them some money.

TONY: Only freaks go on talk shows. They want to stop being freaks. That’s why they’re having the operation. We’re the ones who ought to go on talk shows. We actually want to stay freaks.

FRED: There’s an amusement park, here, down in the west end. They have a pavilion, we could set up there.

GOLDIE: An amusement park?

OZ: We’ll put everything in one truck. Set up at big gas stations on the turn-pikes, or state parks. Yeah, state parks is better.

EVA: State parks? Without the tent, it’s not the circus.

FRED: O.K. County fairs. We can sell the stake puller and sell the generator truck. Keep the microphones and hook up to their system. Strip the concessions truck cause they’ll already have them.

OZ: The lions won’t move in with Grace Kelly if that’s what you’re about to say.

FRED: Well, they might not like it, but we could do it. And the ponies too, all in the bull truck.

GOLDIE: And we all sleep in the office trailer?

FRED: And we’ll go back to county fairs where we know people.

EVA: Who’ve seen us already.

TONY: Who’ll wonder what happened to our tent.

GOLDIE: And where, since there’s no tent, everybody can see the show so there’s no point in selling tickets.

FRED: So we have to play inside somewhere.

EVA: Like where?

FRED: Like industrial shows, I guess. Mobile home shows, Lawn and Patio shows, Recreational Vehicle shows. Three or four half hour spots a day, set up at one end of the exhibition hall. Or, You know, Ladies’ Entertainment things at insurance conventions.

TONY: Birthday Parties…

TRINA: It might not be so bad.

GOLDIE: Trapeze in the backyard and lions in the garage? Birthday parties? It would be the end.

(There is a long moment.)

GOLDIE: It is the end.

TONY: (Very calmly.) Damn television. Damn Ringling and spaceships. Damn electric corn poppers and Wild Kingdom and zoos and damn me. It’s alright about the twins, Freddie, I just wish it was 1910.

GOLDIE: (After a while.) Will the trucks get us home, Freddie?

(Freddie doesn’t answer. There is dead silence. Finally, Oz takes the bottle Trina has given him earlier, out of his back pocket. He takes off the top and takes a drink.)

OZ: Give me your gun, Tony.

EVA: Here. (Hands it to him, from the pocket of her bathrobe.)

OZ: All right, Fred.

TRINA: Oz. Don’t do this.

OZ: Stand back everybody.

GOLDIE: Oz. This is stupid.

(Oz sights down the pistol, aiming at Fred.)

FRED: Ready.

OZ: Aim. (Takes his stance.) I’ve been thinking about the tent.

FRED: Yeah?

(Oz uses the tip of the pistol to push his hat back on his head. A gesture he has seen in the movies sometime. He smiles.)

OZ: I think we should spread the tent out in the front parking lot, and drive the stake puller and the concessions truck and the generator truck and the cookhouse up on it. And take the keys with us. And Mr. Reeves can have his tent if he can figure out how to get it out from under 95,000 pounds of beat-up trucks.

(Oz hands the gun to Tony. Tony looks at it a moment. He uses it for some other he-man gesture, as he thinks.)

TONY: Yeah. Maybe I’ll just leave my lions in the mall.

GOLDIE: Be fair, now, at least leave the empty cages at the front door just as a little warning, you know.

TONY: Happy to. Be happy to. What do we do about the rather large amount of elephant shit out there?

OZ: What do you mean? I think it’s real attractive right where it is.

TONY: So. We go see the twins and come back and stage our little going away party, and then we’ll just blow this old show.

EVA: There is, however, one last act in this circus.

(Eva takes off her bathrobe, and walks away from them all, back into the tent. The others chase her.)

TRINA: Where’s she going.

GOLDIE: To try the triple.

TRINA: She wouldn’t.

TONY: Come on, Eva. Stop this.

FRED: What the hell?

IN THE CENTER RING

Tony gets to her first.

TONY: Just can’t be out of the spotlight, can you. Not even now.

EVA: Don’t touch me. (She starts walking toward the rope ladder.)

OZ: This isn’t going prove anything, Eva.

EVA: (Stops and turns around.) I’m going to do a triple. Somebody can catch me, or you can all just stand there and watch. I really don’t care.

TRINA: Mother!

(Fred, Oz, and Tony exchange glances. Then Tony moves.)

TONY: I’ll catch her.

TRINA: You hurt your ankle. You’ll fall too. I’ll do it.

GOLDIE: She’s my sister. I’m going.

FRED: You haven’t flown for years. You’ll go down with her.

GOLDIE: She’s my sister. I want to be the…

TONY: The last one to touch her alive? Thanks. I’ll do it. Trina doesn’t know the timing. And your fear of heights isn’t going to disappear just to save your sister’s life. I’ll catch her up there. And if I miss, well, you catch her down here.

(Goldie slaps him and heads for the rope ladder at the side of the ring.)

EVA: (At the same time as the slap.) Get up here, Goldie.

TRINA: (In near hysterics.) She’ll kill herself.

TONY: Eva!

OZ: (Catching Tony as he tries to run after Eva.) Let her go. Tony.

(Tony drops to his knees, he would pray if he could close his eyes or if he believed it would help.)

OZ: Well, come on, Valentine. Run this show.

(Fred straightens his coat, puts on his top hat and picks up a microphone. The lights dim and there is one spotlight on Eva, at the top of the ladder, and another one on Goldie, climbing her ladder. The others wait below, quite afraid for them, but quite aware that she has the right to do this. Oz holds Trina.)

OZ: She knows what she’s doing, honey.

TRINA: She did it in practice, she told me.

FRED: (A drum roll starts.) Ladies and Gentlemen, when a performer attempts the dreaded triple somersault, she walks straight into the cold mouth of death itself. As her hands release the trapeze, Eva Sparrow’s tiny body will be traveling at 60 miles and hour. She will tuck and spin, once, twice…By now she is nearly unconscious and only as she straightens out at the end of the third somersault will her brain fight back the blackness for one desperate stretch toward the catcher’s hands. She cannot see the catcher’s hands for her eyes will not focus at such speeds. Those hands, that life giving lock, arm in arm, simply must be there. Their wrists must slap. Their fingers close around each other and hold. There is no second chance with the triple.

AT THE TOP OF THE TENT

EVA: Are you ready?

GOLDIE: Are you scared?

FRED: So now, directing your attention to the very top of the Big Top, Ladies and Gentlemen, the most daring, the most beautiful, the most graceful aerial genius in the world today. Performing the triple somersault from the flying trapeze, Ladies and Gentlemen, the lovely Miss Eva Sparrow.

(The drum roll peaks, Eva and Goldie raise their hands in a salute. The trapeze, previously unseen, swings toward Eva. She grasps it with both hands and the lights hold on the sisters.)

EVA: What are you doing up here?

GOLDIE: What do you think I’m doing? Talking you down.

EVA: (After a moment.) So talk.

GOLDIE: It’s a pretty short speech, Eva. It’s either die or go on.

EVA: I think it’s pretty much the same thing.

GOLDIE: It is not and you know it. For one thing, if you die, you won’t have me to feel superior to.

EVA: I envy you.

GOLDIE: I know that. Jesus it’s scary up here. Can we go down now? I mean, you can jump if you want to, but you will really miss me. (Goldie starts down the ladder.)

(Eva calls after her.)

EVA: I hate you.

GOLDIE: I hate you more.

(Eva starts down the ladder.)

EVA: You do not.

GOLDIE: What do you know?

(Lights come up on the group gathered below. And as the familiar argument begins, Oz and Fred start to argue, and Tony and Trina begin to argue.)

FRED: You should’ve taken down her rigging already. You knew she try something like this.

OZ: Yeah, well, I thought maybe you sold it.

TRINA: You don’t even like the circus, do you?

TONY: I don’t no. I only like the costumes.

TRINA: Daddy. Did you hear what he said.

(By now Goldie and Eva are down, and they turn and exit without ever looking at the others. The others follow them offstage, arguing, and we have…)

THE END