Fourteen Hundred Thousand was first produced in the Firehouse Theatre, Minneapolis, under the auspices of the Office of Aid to Drama Research at the University of Minnesota. It was directed by Sydney Schubert Walter and played by Steve Friedman, Antoinette Maher, Raymond Henry Stadum, Greta Giving, and David Burns. It was subsequently produced on National Educational Television.
A white wall upstage running the width of the stage. A door in the wall stage left. A large bookcase stands from floor to ceiling stage right up against the wall. There are no books in it and it looks as though it’s in the process of being built. Sawdust, nails, pieces of wood, saws, etc., are scattered around the floor. TOM stands on a stool in front of the bookcase with a hammer in his hand and nails in his mouth. He wears no shirt and is sweating a great deal. ED stands in the doorway with the door half open, talking to TOM, whose back is to the audience. The lights come up fast to bright blue.
ED: The leaves change color now so it looks even more protected than it really is. Vacant is better. No, protected. Something like that. Come up anyway if you get a chance.
(ED shuts the door behind him and exits, the lights change very fast to white, one of the shelves falls off the bookcase onto the floor, TOM looks at the shelf for a while, then climbs down off the stool, picks up the shelf, and climbs back up; he replaces the shelf in its former position, the lights change back to blue, the door opens, and ED reenters carrying some lumber, sets the lumber on the floor downstage center.)
TOM: (With his back to ED) This is a rented cabin or something?
ED: No.
TOM: You bought it?
ED: No. It was given to me, donated to me. It’s mine to use. One full room. I have to fix it, though. It needs patching, plumbing, electricity, et cetera.
TOM: That’s nice of them.
ED: (Yelling to be heard over the hammering) Nice of who?
(TOM stops hammering.)
TOM: What? Oh—nice of whoever gave it to you.
(TOM starts hammering again.)
ED: (Yelling) Not so nice! I mean they didn’t even give it that much thought one way or the other! They weren’t really trying to be nice at all. Like I said, it was more in the spirit of a donation!
(ED sits on the lumber with his back to the audience.)
TOM: (Looking at the bookcase; he stops hammering) That’s even nice, though. They don’t have to be necessarily aware of the niceness of what they were doing. In fact if they had been it would have made it anything but nice. It would have gone into the realm of charity. I mean the spirit of charity. But they gave it out of no particular spirit at all. It was devoid of any spirit whatsoever, which makes it beautiful and free from emotional claptrap.
(TOM hammers loudly for a while as ED looks up at him.)
ED: (Yelling) Anyway it’s a full room if you want to come up! Bring a sleeping bag or something! Take the train and come when you can!
(TOM stops hammering.)
TOM: (Still staring at the bookcase) You’re going to walk out on me. Is that it? Right in the middle of a job.
ED: Look, I got the structure built for you. You can put in the shelves yourself.
TOM: Thanks, friend.
ED: I have to finish the cabin before it snows.
(ED stands as though to leave.)
TOM: (Without turning) And it does snow up there! Boy, oh boy, the way it can snow when it wants to. A little tiny, eety, beety, teeny, weeny cabin like yours in the midst of a raging blizzard. In the midst of hail and snow and sleet. Calling out for some insulation. Calling for someone to warm its little hearth and seal up its cracking paint. Run to its side before it’s too late! Run to its aid and attention!
(A shelf falls off the bookcase onto the floor, the lights change to white, they both stare at the shelf; DONNA enters carrying two cans of white paint and two brushes, she kicks the door shut and smiles at TOM and ED.)
DONNA: Hello there and I got some paint. Isn’t that fine? So we’ll paint it all up between the three of us.
(She sets the cans downstage left on top of each other and sits on them with her back to the audience, TOM climbs down off the stool, picks up the shelf, climbs back up, and replaces the shelf.)
TOM: Ed was just thinking about us going to his cabin in the woods.
(ED sits back down on the lumber.)
DONNA: Seems to me as though that’s a bad idea offhand. Bad for several reasons. Bad because we’re meeting people, bad because we’re building shelves, and bad because we have to paint them. Of course it’s good for Ed, however. It could be good for us too if we didn’t have so many strikes against us already.
TOM: It’s an idea that we had tossed haphazardly into the air without considering all the strikes against us or pondering it for long periods of time.
DONNA: Well.
(She stands and slaps her thigh, she crosses to the bookcase.)
How’s it coming?
ED: Tom thinks it could be finished in short order. Seeing as how the frame is all finished, the rest should be easy.
DONNA: Good boy!
ED: The thing is I can’t wait around for the grand finale. I have to leave.
DONNA: Oh, it won’t be anything to see, Ed. It’s just a functional piece of basic furniture for around the house. For everyday use, so to speak.
TOM: Everyday. Everyday nothing. Once! It will be put to use once in its lifetime and that’ll be the end. You never read the books to begin with. The ones you did read you read halfway. The rest you bought for their color or thickness or just to fill up some space. Fourteen hundred thousand books to put in a bookcase once and never touch them again till the day you die.
DONNA: I read like a fool, Tom. You know that and yet you’d like Ed to believe otherwise. In fact you’d like him to believe the exact opposite which is a lie. I could even prove it if it came to a matter of my having to defend my knowledge of books. Would you like me to prove it?
ED: No.
TOM: I don’t really care actually. It just seems that books read once are better off in the trash can than they are sitting around on dusty shelves. That’s a personal point of view.
ED: Not really. At times I’ve found myself very briefly getting very attached to books. Very emotionally attached. Like you would with a pet dog. It becomes something that’s very hard to give up. You can’t just throw it in the garbage with any kind of ease.
TOM: You throw away the book, not the effect. The response of the book stays with you wherever you go, whatever you do. In sickness and in health and through the long sad wintertime.
(He starts hammering; DONNA yells.)
DONNA: We’re not going on no vacation until this gets done! Until it’s nailed, sanded and painted, and stacked with books on every shelf! Then it’s waxed, polished, and smells like the great outdoors! After that then we go! Not before or in the middle!
(TOM stops hammering, the lights change to blue.)
TOM: It’s an impossibility. We’ll be here forever. The winter will pass without a vacation, without a change of scenery. There’ll be no free moments to wander around through yellow fields or climb purple trees. The task will last forever.
(The door opens very slowly and MOM enters with her arms full of books, the other three watch her as she slowly crosses downstage right and stacks the books in a pile on the floor, she sits on the books with her back to the audience; DONNA sits on the cans of paint, all three of them look up at TOM, who turns around now on the stool to see them.)
MOM: Whew! It’s such a long ways up. It’s like climbing three or four mountains in succession. It’s also very much like rowing a rowboat in a rowboat race or running many miles over rough terrain in the freezing coldness. My goodness. Dearie.
TOM: I’m not on display, you know.
DONNA: (Still sitting) Hi, Mom. I see you brought up some of the books for me. Thanks.
MOM: Yes. A few. They made it very much tougher on me. They must weigh a great deal nowadays. They’ve changed since I was a schoolgirl in my schooling days.
TOM: I’m not up here for my health, you know. I have a job to do.
DONNA: It’s worth it though, Mom. When they’re all stacked in and divided into topical categories, it’s really a sight to see.
MOM: Oh indeed. Libraries fascinate me to death. Like ancient tapestry or Chinese urns or butterfly collections that I’ve seen in the past. Many times. Goodness yes.
TOM: This is not a show! I happen not to be a professional carpenter or an expert nailing person. There’s no reason to watch me work.
ED: It’s not you in particular. It’s what you’re making.
TOM: But I’m making it! You’re watching me make it!
MOM: Should we leave here?
DONNA: No, no, no.
TOM: It’s turned into some kind of funny picnic or something which I don’t like. I prefer to do it alone if I have to.
ED: We won’t pay attention. We’ll talk to each other.
DONNA: Right.
(DONNA crosses over to ED and MOM and sits on the floor; they gather around in a circle and talk, ignoring TOM.)
ED: That’s right.
MOM: Oh that’d be very fine. I’d like it. I certainly would.
(TOM turns back to the bookcase and starts hammering loudly again; the other three yell at each other.)
DONNA: Such peace in the mountains!
MOM: Yes! And birds!
ED: Singing all the time!
DONNA: Such fun!
MOM: Lovely! Lovely!
(TOM throws down the hammer and goes out the door, slamming it behind him; the three stare at the door, then DONNA stands and picks up the hammer, she climbs slowly up on the stool with her back to the audience; ED and MOM watch her.)
DONNA: The time I spent deciding which books to choose and how and why. All that time perusing tiny bookstore shelves and never a thought as to where they’d wind up. Never one little thought about how to store books, how to keep them.
ED: I know.
DONNA: And it could be so lovely, too. So very pleasing to the eyeball. With various sizes and shapes and groups together. Without concern for what they’re about or what they mean to me and who wrote them when. Just in terms of size and shape and color.
MOM: Yes, dear.
DONNA: But I’m at a loss. I’m really not ready to hammer and nail just yet. I can’t bring myself around to it. I’d like it all done. I’d like to see it all finished and done and through with.
(ED stands.)
ED: I was going to—
(DONNA turns abruptly on the stool toward ED.)
(ED sits on the lumber again.)
Do you have to feel guilty about something you have nothing to do with!
MOM: That’s true.
DONNA: Do you! I didn’t ask you to apologize to me for not having finished my bookcase. Did I? No I didn’t. As a matter of fact I was talking to myself rather than to anyone in particular. I wasn’t even conversing actually. Of course there was no way of your knowing that.
ED: I was just saying—
DONNA: You were just going to say that you felt bad inside your heart because you didn’t finish my bookcase when you were supposed to. That instead of finishing you pawned the job off on my husband and went off on a nifty little vacation in the woods somewhere. And finally that you allowed my poor old mother to haul books up eight flights of stairs in the midst of her old age.
ED: I—
(The lights change to white; the door opens slowly and POP enters with his arms full of books, he crosses slowly down left and stacks the books in a pile, then sits on them with his back to the audience as the others watch.)
MOM: There he is. I love him.
DONNA: But you don’t need to.
(She turns slowly upstage again, facing the bookcase.)
It’s quite all right with me. In fact it’s perfect. It gives you something to project into the future as a future reference. Next time we’ll know what to do. We’ll have gathered together our joint experience and be able to use it as a kind of guidepost or maybe even a kind of guiding light.
POP: Boy, oh boy. Lots of stairs. I’ll say that.
DONNA: (Without turning around) Lots of books, Pop. I’m glad to see you helping, even though it must be painful.
POP: There’s many more. Never seen so many. Tons and tons down there. All piled up.
MOM: (Still sitting stage right) Poor baby.
(ED stands again.)
ED: I should go down maybe.
(DONNA turns on the stool.)
DONNA: No! Sit down there and stay sitting!
(ED sits back down.)
The books will make their way up gradually. Ever so slowly. They’ll come up an armload at a time. Carried by friends or relatives or people who might pass them accidentally and offer a helping hand.
ED: I’d like to help.
MOM: Yes, dear.
DONNA: That’s fine. That’s really all right but I’ve just decided against it, Ed. I’ve decided you might just gum up the works. And we can’t have that. Not at this stage of the game.
POP: It’s like climbing hills.
DONNA: Not that we have to be overly careful. But selectivity has its good points now and then.
POP: There’s nothing like a climb now and then.
DONNA: After a while, in fact, you forget the whole business. The preparation, the blueprint, the ideas, the measurements. We just pass through the room and take the whole shmear for granted.
MOM: Yes.
ED: I know, but I made it to order. It’s precisely done. Just nail up the shelves and it could be considered a finished piece of work. Not even painted it would serve its purpose.
POP: What I was thinking was about a pulley. A dolly arrangement with heavy cables to pull up so many books as that.
MOM: Yes, dear.
DONNA: You mean out the window? Very good, Pop! Hang some pulleys out the window.
ED: My cabin.
MOM: Oh.
DONNA: That’s right. A one-room place, right? In the woods somewhere?
ED: Yes.
DONNA: How did you come by such a nice little place as that?
ED: It was given—donated, rather.
MOM: Oh yes.
DONNA: It could be fixed into a year-round house, I imagine.
ED: That’s what I’m working on.
DONNA: With heat and gas and electric lights all around. Like a Christmas house.
ED: Christmas?
POP: In the snow.
DONNA: Comfortable and homey, I imagine. Somehow I see it lost in the woods and nobody even living there.
ED: Really?
DONNA: Yes. And somehow it maintains itself all year round. Somehow it adapts itself to every change in the weather and turns on its own lights at night and then turns them off again in the morning. It even flushes its own toilet and builds its own fires and makes its little bed. There’s no footprints around at all. Just buried one-quarter of the way in snow, and smoke coming out its chimney. Just sitting there in a small clearing about half a mile from a frozen lake. A Christmas house.
ED: There’s no lake at all and I haven’t even built the chimney yet.
POP: Oh too bad.
DONNA: But you’re going to?
ED: I might.
DONNA: Well how will you stay there all year round if you don’t have a chimney?
ED: Who says I’m staying?
DONNA: You did. You told me that.
ED: I might.
DONNA: You will. I can tell you will. You won’t ever come back once you get all moved in.
ED: You make it sound very definite. Like I have no choice.
DONNA: I’m sorry.
ED: It’s a place for retirement, if you really want to know. A place for resting and walking and not doing much else.
DONNA: Well that’s fine then. You should have no trouble. This then is your very last job on earth, I take it. And to think you’re leaving it unfinished. That gets to me a little when I think of it. An unfinished piece of work.
ED: For Christ’s sake, I finished the frame.
(The lights change to blue; the door opens and TOM enters, his arms full of books, he kicks the door shut, he stands holding the books and looking around at all the people.)
TOM: You still here?
ED: I guess.
POP: Tommy boy.
TOM: Are you finishing up, my dear?
DONNA: Yes, I thought I would.
(She turns toward the bookcase and starts hammering loudly on the shelves; the rest yell their lines.)
ED: I really have to leave! I’m sorry!
TOM: Well go then! Go! It’s under control! It’s not going to be hard at all, once we get it organized!
MOM: A Christmas house!
ED: But I’d like to help some more!
TOM: No need! We have enough hands as it is! You’re only in the way!
(DONNA stops hammering but does not turn around, TOM still holds the books.)
ED: I’m really sorry. Well all right. So long then.
(ED slowly crosses to the door and exits as the others watch him.)
’Bye.
(He waves to them, then closes the door behind him.)
DONNA: (Still facing the bookcase) Pop used to talk about a house like that when I was a girl and he was a father. How come you stopped thinking of that house, Pop?
(TOM crosses slowly to extreme stage right and sets the books in a pile, then sits on them with his back to the audience.)
POP: Whereabouts?
MOM: Oh dear.
DONNA: How could it happen like that? I mean so easily. Without any regrets. To start hauling books for your very own daughter.
MOM: Yes, dear.
POP: They’re all heavy.
DONNA: Not minding at all one way or the other. Letting things slip away from you as though it didn’t matter. As though it were all a joke and talking about a Christmas house doesn’t really mean there will ever be one. I can see that!
TOM: Donna!
(She turns slowly around on the stool and faces TOM.)
DONNA: Yes, dear?
TOM: Shall we paint or not?
DONNA: Not just yet, I don’t think. I don’t care that much one way or the other.
TOM: We can’t leave them plain.
(He crosses to the cans of paint and opens them.)
DONNA: We could. Of course we could. If worse came to worse we could sit on the books all year round and forget about the shelves. Like a bunch of hens. How about it? They might even hatch.
MOM: Yes, dear.
(TOM kneels facing the audience and stirs the paint with one of the paintbrushes.)
TOM: We can’t leave it plain no matter how you look at it. We bought the paint already.
(She gets down off the stool and crosses to the pile of books that TOM brought in, she picks a few of the books up; she turns as though to go back to the bookcase, TOM stands with the paintbrush in his hand.)
TOM: Just leave the books where they are.
(DONNA stops and faces TOM, her arms full of books.)
DONNA: Look. I don’t give a damn anymore about how it looks.
TOM: That’s just too bad. We started it and now we’ll finish.
DONNA: We started nothing. You never even wanted a bookcase at all. In the beginning.
TOM: But now it’s there and it has to be finished.
DONNA: Has to be nothing. We leave it as it is.
(She approaches the bookcase.)
TOM: Stay where you are!
(DONNA stops, MOM and POP remain indifferent throughout all this.)
DONNA: Is it that important to you really? I mean in your heart of hearts?
TOM: Most important. It’s become essential. It’s become overpowering to me. Coloring every moment of my waking hours. I wake up thinking of this bookcase and I sleep dreaming of it. I walk around with the smell of it in my nose and I can see it in the future. I have a picture in my head of what it might become and I plan to fulfill that picture if it’s the last thing I do.
DONNA: Swell!
(She drops the books abruptly on the floor, TOM swings the paintbrush through the air so that paint streaks down the front of DONNA.)
Shithead!
(They stare at each other but do not move, MOM and POP simultaneously pull a book out from each of their respective piles and start reading them with their backs still to the audience.)
TOM: I could have compromised a day or two ago while it was still in the planning stage. But now it’s too late. Now it’s definitely too late.
DONNA: You’ve become very definite very fast.
(She moves slowly toward the second paintbrush as TOM stalks her, holding the brush in front of him like a weapon.)
TOM: I find it helps. I’m not so wishy-washy and I can make fast decisions on a moment’s notice.
DONNA: Right on top, as they say.
TOM: Exactly.
DONNA: Must be nice.
TOM: It is. I feel at home in any situation. I baffle everyone around me and I’m known for my wit.
DONNA: A joy to be with.
TOM: Of course.
(DONNA grabs the other brush and dips it in the paint, TOM makes a lunge toward her but backs away, they hold the brushes in front of them and crouch for attack.)
DONNA: People must flock to your side. You must have what they call “magnetism,” a pulling sensation. That’s the opposite of repulsion. Something like yin and yang.
TOM: Very close to it.
(They rush at each other and slap the brushes across each other’s face—this should happen almost as though they were making a mockery of the fight, like two old gentlemen slapping each other with gloves—they back away and resume the crouch more typical of a street fight with knives. MOM and POP gradually turn toward the audience while sitting on their stacks of books, they become very engrossed in their reading, POP turns toward stage left and MOM toward stage right.)
DONNA: How could it lie dormant for so many years? Just under the surface and itching to pop out.
TOM: I had no chance. No field to practice in. I’d throw rocks now and then but there was always something left over. Some extra zest.
DONNA: All the windows you broke in preparation. All the dirt clods you threw. And the people chasing you across acres of vacant lots, firing shotguns and swearing your name.
TOM: My name was death in the neighborhood. I hung around with enemies of the town. Even enemies of myself.
DONNA: But now!
(They charge and slap each other again with the brushes, then back away.)
TOM: Yes! And my health has changed for the better. Even my eyes sparkle and my ears are clear. My whole body pulses with new life.
DONNA: The trouble is the longevity. Its lasting power. It seems like a stage to me. Just a frame of mind. Temporarily manic is the way I’d put it.
TOM: But that’s so wrong. So easily overlooking what’s right in front of you. You can’t see it the way my veins stand out? The way my temples throb?
(They charge and slap each other, this time more deliberately and enjoying it less, they back away.)
DONNA: You’ll fall back into it again. Wait and see. You’ll sleep for days, afraid to get up. You’ll wet your bed.
TOM: I’ll jump out of bed! You don’t even know. You haven’t seen me when I’m at my best.
DONNA: You’ll tremble under stacks of blankets, afraid to show your face. How will you account for the lies you’ve told?
TOM: Nothing false about it. I’ve gone through that stage. That pubic stage.
(By this time MOM and POP are directly facing the audience and remain that way to the end of the play, deeply absorbed in reading.)
DONNA: Prone on your back forever and ever. You’ll cry to be read to. You’ll want a bedtime story twenty-four hours a day. And no lights. I’ll have to read to you with a flashlight tucked under my arm. The room will be dark and you’ll whimper until you fall asleep.
TOM: It could never happen now!
(They charge and viciously paint each other with the brushes, then back away; they are both covered with white paint by now.)
DONNA: All you’ll have is a tiny little glimmer of your present excitement. The rest will have gone and you’ll lie there forever, trying to get it back. The bed will be your house and home and your head will be glued to the pillow. Your arms will be stuck to the sheet and your legs will be paralyzed from the hip down. You can’t turn your head because you drool from the mouth and pus will run out your nose. Your eyes fill up with water and pour over onto your cheeks and each ear hums from hearing nothing. You lie in pools of urine and feces for days on end until the bed and you become one thing. One whole thing and there’s no way of telling where the bed stops and you begin. You smell the same, you look the same, you act the same, you are the same.
(The lights change to white; the door opens and ED enters with his arms full of books, he kicks the door shut, DONNA and TOM drop the brushes on the floor and look at ED, MOM and POP keep reading.)
ED: Hi.
DONNA AND TOM: Hi.
ED: Decided to bring up a load.
DONNA AND TOM: Good.
ED: Where should I set them?
DONNA AND TOM: Oh, anywhere is all right.
(ED crosses and piles the books down center, then turns and looks at the bookcase.)
ED: How’s it coming?
DONNA AND TOM: Not bad.
ED: There’s not as many down there as you had me believe. I mean by the way you were talking anybody would think you were flooded with books. But there’s just a few. A couple more trips and you’ll have it done.
DONNA AND TOM: We decided to stay.
ED: What? No, I mean a couple more trips up the stairs and you’d have it all finished. The books.
DONNA AND TOM: We’re staying up here.
ED: Well, I can’t bring them all. One trip is all I have time for. It won’t take very long and you forget the climb after a while. You were probably counting the flights as you came up. That’s always bad. If you stop counting, it’ll go much faster. I can assure you of that. I personally find work to be easier if I distract myself rather than pour my full concentration into it. That way you forget about your body and therefore you’re not conscious of being fatigued or exhausted. In fact I usually finish up a day’s work fully refreshed. I know that seems odd to most people but it’s true. Work tends to boost my energy rather than diminish it.
DONNA AND TOM: That does seem strange.
ED: The trouble is I don’t have enough time. I wouldn’t mind bringing the rest up for you but I really have to go.
DONNA AND TOM: That’s quite all right.
(They both turn upstage and stare at the bookcase with their backs to ED.)
ED: It’s just too bad all the way around. We should all take some time off. You know? Why don’t we do that? We could all go up there this very minute and take a little rest. We’d be just in time for the first snow. And we could make some kind of special dinner. You know, a turkey dinner with cranberry sauce. Then we could build a fire and sit around drinking hot chocolate. Then we could—
MOM AND POP: (Reading from the books) And the snow started early and came so soft that nobody even noticed. The only way we could really tell was the way the trees slowly changed from green to white.
ED: We could do that. It would just be a visit. I’m all moved in so I don’t need any help.
MOM AND POP: It fell for hours and hours, then days and days, and it looked like it wouldn’t stop. In fact everyone decided that it wouldn’t stop and it kept going on. Falling down and down.
ED: There’s really enough room even though it’s small.
MOM AND POP: But the funny thing was that there wasn’t any wind and there wasn’t any cold. It just fell and changed everything from the color it was to white. But it got thicker and thicker so the people went outside but it didn’t get any better. It got thicker and thicker and covered all their trees.
ED: I really can’t hang around. I have to get back to my house now.
MOM AND POP: It got so bad that they had to climb a hill and watch from the top while their houses disappeared. It happened very slow but they never sat down and their legs got very strong.
ED: I’ll even buy the food and cook it all myself.
MOM AND POP: It happened very slow and they stood very still until the smoke went away from their little chimney tops. Then the trees disappeared while they all just looked and didn’t say a word but stood in a line looking straight ahead. The blanket moved up and the valley disappeared but the people didn’t cry and it kept coming down and it kept piling up and they all just stared and didn’t say a word.
ED: If I could stay I would!
(Everyone but ED says the next lines simultaneously in perfect synchronization. MOM and POP still reading and facing front, DONNA and TOM still facing the bookcase, and ED somewhere in the middle.)
ALL BUT ED: The place was in white as far as they could see and not a sound or a wind or a hint of cold or hot. Not a taste in their mouth or a sting in their nose. And they moved very slow away from the place. And they moved and they moved and they didn’t say a thing. Didn’t laugh, didn’t cry, didn’t moan, didn’t sigh, didn’t even cough as the snow came down.
ED: It’s just too bad!
ALL BUT ED: And once they turned they didn’t turn around and once they walked they didn’t even stop and they met more people as they went along, all new people as they went along, and the ground was white for as far as they could see and the sky was white, as white as it could be, and the crowd was thick and the air was thin but there wasn’t any cold and there wasn’t any hot and they couldn’t even stop.
(ED joins in at this point as they all say the lines in perfect unison; they don’t wait for ED, he simply joins them.)
ALL: So they just moved on and on and on and as the story goes they never did stop, they never did drop, they never lagged behind or even speeded up. They never got tired and they never got strong and they didn’t feel a thing. And nobody knows how they ever got lost, how they ever got away. To this very same day nobody knows how they ever got away.
(The lights change to blue, all the shelves fall off the bookcase onto the floor, none of the actors move; the blue light dims out very slowly to the end of the play, MOM and POP stand slowly as the other actors start to hum “White Christmas” very softly, begin picking up all the debris from the floor and carrying it offstage through the door. MOM and POP read alternately from the book, staying on either side of the stage; the other three clean the entire stage, starting with the debris, then the books, then dismounting the entire set and taking it off so that the stage is completely bare by the end of the play; they hum the tune more loudly as they continue, likewise MOM and POP read more loudly.)
POP: The original plan unfortunately hasn’t changed, despite publicity to the contrary. The radial city exists much the same as it always has in the past. In fact it never really occurred out of a preconception on the part of individual architects or city planners.
MOM: It occurred more out of a state of frenzy and a complete lack of consideration for the future function of a place to live and/or work. The present condition is only the outcome of that lack of consideration.
POP: Consequently the city as it exists today affords certain people who live in certain areas many more benefits and varied ways of living than it does certain other people. This situation occurs in terms of center points similar to the hub of a wheel. The center of a city always offers people more diversions, more necessities, and more of everything they need to stay alive.
MOM: Therefore the center is densely populated and has a greater coagulation of excitement in the air. The farther one gets from this center point the less one is aware of the excitement. As one moves toward the country and more rural areas the excitement has all but disappeared.
POP: The problem seems to be one of accommodating people with the pleasures and necessities of the city and at the same time offering them plenty of open green space—since city parks are nothing more than tiny breathing places or overly synthetic versions of the real thing and they also make it tremendously difficult to forget the city (if that be their function) for the simple fact that they were conceived in the midst of horrendous skyscrapers.
MOM: Skyscrapers, too, have never solved any congestive problems since they were built more out of the need for space than with any consideration for the human being. Hence when the day’s work is done, there is a terrible conglomerate of people pushing their way out of the base of each building and rushing to more rural developments.
POP: The obvious alternative to this radial concept seems to be what might be called the “linear city” or the “universal city.” As an example the city would stretch in a line from the tip of Maine to the tip of Florida and be no wider than a mile. The city would stop immediately at its mile width, at which point the country would commence. This would allow any citizen with the ability to use his or her legs to walk from the midst of the city into the midst of the country.
MOM: Unexcelled transportation systems would be put into use for the traversing of the city’s length. An underground system traveling at the speed of two hundred miles an hour. An overhead system traveling at the rate of four hundred miles per hour. Two very wide belts, much like conveyor belts, would stretch from Florida to Maine and be in perpetual motion twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. One belt moving at the rate of four miles per hour, the other at eight miles per hour.
POP: These would be primarily used for any person walking from someplace to someplace and if they couldn’t afford the higher-speed systems. A person walking on the four-mile-an-hour belt would obviously be walking four miles an hour faster than his normal pace. If he or she became tired he could then sit down on the eight-mile-an-hour belt and maintain the same speed.
MOM: Skyscrapers would be eliminated in preference to elongated parallel structures with many outlets along their sides. Thus eliminating heavy congestion at one exit.
POP: Cultural centers would be evenly distributed along the entire length of the city. Museums, concerts, movies, theater, et cetera, would be readily available to everyone rather than the chosen few.
MOM: State borders would disintegrate and all police cars would be the same color as well as all license plates.
POP: Schools would be functional rather than regional and the children could walk to the country on their lunch hour.
MOM: Employment opportunities would vastly increase.
POP: Water shortage would be extinct.
MOM: Cross-country linear cities would develop.
POP: Stretching from coast to coast and crisscrossing the vertical cities.
MOM: The vertical cities stretching north through Canada and south through Mexico.
POP: All the way into South America.
MOM: Each city no less than ten miles from the next city.
POP: Forming ten-mile squares of country in between.
MOM: Desert cities and jungle cities where cities have never been.
POP: Ocean cities and sky cities and cities underground.
MOM: Joining country to country and hemisphere to hemisphere.
POP: Forming five-mile squares in between.
(The stage is bare by this time, the other three actors are offstage but still humming the tune, MOM and POP still face front.)
MOM: Elevated cities suspended under vacuum air.
POP: Forming two-mile squares in between.
MOM: Cities enclosed in glass to see the sky.
POP: Forming one-mile squares.
MOM: Cities in the sky to see the glass.
POP: Forming squares in between.
(MOM and POP close their books, the lights dim out, the other three actors stop humming offstage.)