Get-It Get It
Cast:
Val
Shane
Setting: Art gallery
(Lights up, several pictures hung on walls, back wall is entirely covered by one picture which is a hastily slapped-on canvas of a gigantic red "X", enter Val and Shane)
Val: (looking at smaller painting) I like this.
Shane: Yeah, but...
(they both turn to face the massive "X")
Val: Wow... that's... uhh...
Shane: Big!
Val: (almost at the same time) ...big... yeah.
Shane: Really, really... big.
Val: It's... yeah... ummm...
Shane: Huge!
Val: Exactly.
Shane: (in awed tones) Honey. We are in the presence of greatness here.
Val: Yeah? Well...
Shane: I am stunned!
Val: ...it's big, alright.
Shane: But! Look! It's enormous!
Val: Right, I get it.
Shane: And it's an "X"!
Val: Sure.
Shane: A freaking humungous "X"!
Val: (reverence wearing off) Yeah. It's very big, and it's an "X".
Shane: So entirely, unapologetically red!
Val: Yeah... I see that, dear.
Shane: I mean, you get this, right?
Val: A big, red "X"?
Shane: But... do you get it!?
Val: It's really just a giant "X". That's all it is.
Shane: Jesus! You just don't get it, do you!?
Val: Shane! I GET it!
Shane: But do you get-it get it?!
Val: Alright, apparently, I don't get it, Shane. Tell me, what's to get?!
Shane: (grandly, dancing with the words) Well, look at the line, the texture, the immediacy, the permissiveness and the simultaneous sense of the forbidden, it's haunted past and scent of a harbinger of what's to come!
Val: (not buying it) Like "Y" and "Z"?
Shane: Yeah!
(long pause)
Val: It's a big, red "X". That's it.
Shane: Why are you so confined by the visual?
Val: Probably because we're looking at paintings.
Shane: But, something like this...
Val: I hate this painting.
Shane: (shock) What?! But...
Val: You've bought it too, haven't you?
Shane: Bought what?
Val: The Line.
Shane: The Line?
Val: Yeah... the Line: the less you see, the less you understand, the greater the concept, the greater the art.
Shane: (with pity) That's sad.
Val: No, it's true, and you've swallowed it, completely. You attempt to join in the descent toward incomprehensible comprehension.
Shane: Not even remotely true.
Val: It is true. You, and people like you, try so hard to "get" it, assuming you achieve greatness through obscurity of language. The first person who can "get" it, and make everyone else realize they don't "get" it, wins.
Shane: No, you lie.
Val: Shane. Repeat after me: it's an "X".
Shane: No. It's so much more!
Val: No...
Shane: Literally... it reminds us that the bigger the art, the better.
Val: You can't be serious.
Shane: It's applies across all artistic endeavor. Painting, sculpture, dance, music, writing.
Val: Hardly.
Shane: The bigger the art, the better it is. Simple statement of fact. Hardly a descent to incomprehensible comprehension, I think.
Val: You know, this... (indicating both Shane and the "X" with a dismissive wave) just gives me a big, big headache.
Shane: All the better.
(Val throws up her hands and walks off)
Val: I'll be in the car.
(watches after her, then turns back to the "X", rests his chin on his thumb and nods appreciatively at it for a while)
Shane: Thank God for big.
(lights fade out as he continues to appreciate the art as only he can)
(end)
No comments:
Post a Comment