RAT More High Cheeze

[Julia Pearlstein <msjuliap@earthlink.net>]

Here at last is a transcription of the Red Team’s response to the
High Cheeze Challenge. The Challenge was to create a theater piece
at  the Los Angeles Theater Center that:

--had 3 distinct sections
--contained a surprise
--had a musical element
--used the line “If I don’t kill that rat he’ll die” (Beckett)
--involved the audience in some way.

Also, each team was given a secret, “impossible “ stage direction
to fulfill.  The Red Team was told that we had to “destroy the
universe.”

The Red Team’s effort was created and performed by Frankie Cohen,
Leon Martell, Diane McGee and Julia Pearlstein. We didn’t win, but
we lost magnificently!

RED TEAM HIGH CHEEZE SCRIPT:

The audience assembles in the lower lobby of  the Los Angeles
Theater Center, and is lead down to the sub-basement dressing rooms
by Melody, LATC's House Manager.   They gather outside a door
marked "No Admittance", in an area that has been festooned with
balloons and streamers, as for a child's birthday party.

Frankie Cohen, costumed as a young girl, greets them.

FRANKIE :  We're going to a party.  I'm your guide.  Don't worry,
I'll take care of you.  Don't let it bother you that I'm not old
enough to buy  beer...or drive...or see most movies....and they
won't let me read   "Flowers of Evil"  or "Huckleberry Finn"  or
"The Naked Lunch".   But I   do know how to have fun!  And if you
want to have fun, just be quiet   and DO WHAT I SAY!  (she giggles)

Frankie opens the door and hands the end of the guide rope to the
audience.  Audience members, holding on to the rope, are ushered
down a narrow, dimly lit flight of stairs.

FRANKIE:  Come on!  Shhhh!  Stay against the wall, single file and
stop at   the bottom of the stairs.  Stay crunched!

Frankie guides the audience to the base of the stairs, where they
are met by Diane McGee, dressed in post-apocalyptic vagabond-chic.
Diane stands in the mouth of a tubular tunnel which is about 7’
high and 40’ long.  Between the stairs and the mouth of the tunnel
there is a small landing with an open grate.  Flowing beneath the
grate (well, trickling, anyway...) is the Los Angeles River --
though it looks more like a sewer.

FRANKIE: Here's all my friends for the party.

DIANE:  Party?  It's a parting.

FRANKIE:  Oh.  (to the audience) This is the LA River.  Be careful
crossing.    We don't know where it's been.

As the audience crosses the river, Diane  marches them into the
tunnel, shushing them and herding them up against the curved wall.
She sprinkles them with salt and pepper.

DIANE:  It’s not a parting;  it’s a departure.

An operatic aria is heard as the audience is ushered to a  hidden
stairwell at the tunnel’s end.  In this stairwell a flickering
fluorescent lamp illuminates a macabre tableaux-vivant:  Leon
Martell (the bewhiskered Rat King)  is noisily performing
(simulated) cunnilingus on Julia Pearlstein (the bedraggled Rat
Queen), who is hanging upside-down and spread-eagle on the
railings.

JULIA:  (bellowing between groans) I'm not hungry now!  Go away!

The audience (more than 50 people!) gets shooed along by Diane and
Frankie, until everyone has filed past the tableaux and returned to
the tunnel, where they are huddled against the walls as in an
air-raid drill.

DIANE:  She always loses her appetite when he eats.

The music ends as the Rat Queen reaches an anti-climax.

JULIA:  (emerging from the stairwell) If I don't kill that rat
he'll die.

Laughing grotesquely, she traipses through the tunnel to the
entrance.

DIANE: I think it's time I let you all know:
   You were led here to satiate the Rat Queen,
   but it appears she's already been.
   Ah well, a rat by any other name...
   would smell... the same.

JULIA:  Now why can't I get a grant for that?

Leon emerges from the tunnel dressed in flashy checkered polyester
disco-wear.  He sports whiskers and a bull-whip tail.

LEON:  Because this isn't TCG; it's the RAT conference.

JULIA:  I'll have to think about that. Wait right here.  Don't
move!

Julia pulls the rip-cords on an auto-inflating Mae West-style
floatation device she swiped from an airplane and disappears up the
stairs.

LEON:  Do you know why women love rats so much?  I can tell you.
          It’s our inquisitive noses.
          It’s our relentless effort.
          It’s our endless numbers.

DIANE: You're wrong.  Women hate rats.

LEON:  Why?

DIANE:  It’s your naked tails.  Something about a naked tail makes
a
        person...squeemish.

Frankie has been playing with a wind-up toy rat.  She releases it
and it scampers about.

FRANKIE:  I can do a walkover.  Spot me.

DIANE: What does that involve?

FRANKIE: You are all responsible for my safety no matter what I do.

Frankie does 2 walkovers in a row!

DIANE: You could have a career in this town.

FRANKIE:  Ya think?

The Rat Queen reappears.

JULIA:  I've decided to let you all go.  But I must tell you:
time  underground  is           different.  Since you've been here
the universe has  been destroyed.

DIANE:  That's what happens when you go into a theater.

LEON:  All the buildings have fallen.

DIANE: The media has been unplugged.

FRANKIE:  I can do a walkover!

DIANE & JULIA:  Not now!

LEON:  But the Rat Queen is merciful....

JULIA:  I have rebuilt the universe.  Replicated it as it
was....but with a   few changes.      Go on up and see if you can
spot them.

FRANKIE: That's all, folks.  You don't have to go home, but you
can't stay   here.

The audience is ushered out of the tunnel and up the stairs to
freedom and fresh air.

THE END