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Here are some very very very short plays I have written. Enjoy!
The Dog by Jared Logan, Blerds Playwright-in-Residence
An apartment. A GUILTY MAN is being questioned by a POLICE OFFICER.
GUILTY MAN.
I swear on my life, Officer. You can ask my dog, Buster. I was here the entire time.
POLICE OFFICER.
I don’t see a dog here, Sir.
GUILTY MAN.
Goddammit! That dog was my entire alibi!
GUILTY MAN runs and jumps out the window.
THE END.
The Golden Arm by Jared M. Logan
A fine Victorian bedroom. It is so dark on stage that the details of the room can barely be made out. We can see a mysterious FIGURE in the room, sitting on the bed, but cannot make out any details. From offstage, we hear a voice. The voice is that of THE GHOST.
THE GHOST (offstage)
Who’s got my golden aaaaaaaarm? Who’s got my golden aaaaaaaarm?
THE GHOST enters the bedroom slowly. He is pale and ghastly. He has one arm. As he enters, light shines in through the door he enters through.
THE GHOST (onstage)
Who’s got my golden aaaaaarm? Who’s got my golden aaaaarm? YOU’VE GOT IT!
Light from the door illuminates the FIGURE on the bed, revealing him to be a FAT GUY wearing tight leather underwear, a domino mask, and a princess tiara. He has a golden arm stuffed down the front of his underwear and is manipulating it in order to arouse himself.
Beat.
THE GHOST looks as if he’s about to speak, then quickly leaves the room again, shutting the door behind him. Stage goes dark.
THE END.
Difficult to Stage by Jared M. Logan
The stage is an exact replica of the palace at Versailles, but upside down, so that the furniture is on the ceiling, lighting fixtures on the floor, etc. SEAN enters. He is a quadruple amputee of obvious Polynesian descent. He is able to move through the use of a wheelchair operated by a remote control in his mouth.
SEAN (speaking with remote in his mouth, yet enunciating very clearly)
Salutations, fair audience. May the joys and mercies of my ancestral god, Taringa-Nui, the fisherman’s God, be upon you. I have come here to meet a man made of glowing crystal.
A MAN MADE OF GLOWING CRYSTAL enters. He is made completely out of shiny translucent crystal. The crystal glows with its own internal light.
SEAN.
Ah. There you are.
MAN MADE OF GLOWING CRYSTAL
Check this shit out!
MAN MADE OF GLOWING CRYSTAL transforms, before the audience’s eyes, into a fine crystal vase, then into an egg. Then back into MAN MADE OF GLOWING CRYSTAL. Then he melts into nothingness.
SEAN (Bursting into flame)
And so the cycle of empire is renewed.
CURTAIN.
THE END.
HANGING OUT WITH PAUL HENDRIX
A bohemian studio apartment in Greenwich Village, New York City. Three really groovy people, ALAN, CARLA, and PAUL HENDRIX, the son of Jimi Hendrix, are hanging out and smoking from a large hash pipe. All three are dressed like cool young bohemian jet-setters, but PAUL emulates his father’s appearance to a tee, with a big poofy hairstyle, headband, tiny goatee, and hip retro clothing.
ALAN
Greatest rock ‘n roll performance of all time? Man, that’s a hard one. Gee. Well, I don’t know if you can exactly consider it rock, but I’d have to go with Jeff Buckley at The Sin, summer of ‘93.
CARLA
Good one, Alan. I’m going to have to go with George Harrison’s concert for Bangladesh in August of ‘71. I wasn’t born yet, but my mother was pregnant with me and she went to the concert. I have fetal memories of Harrison and Clapton’s duo on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
PAUL HENDRIX
Wow. That’s so great. It’s so great that you experienced that. I guess if I had to pick what I thought was the greatest rock ‘n roll music performance of all time–and we’re talking out of every rock ‘n roll performance ever– I guess I’d have to go with… (pause). I guess I’d have to go with my father, Jimi Hendrix, and his performance of the Star Spangled Banner at the Woodstock music arts festival in 1969.
ALAN
Oh really. You’re going to go with your father?
PAUL HENDRIX
Yes. My father. Jimi Hendrix.
Long pause.
ALAN (begrudgingly)
Okay, yeah. I guess that could be, you know, “the best of all time.”
Long pause.
CARLA.
This pipe is cashed. You guys want to watch Toy Story?
ALAN and PAUL HENDRIX
Sure!
They all exit.
Curtain.
Feel free to post a critical review of any of these plays. I’d love to hear your feedback. Be sure to call me dirty names and be as hurtful as possible. It’s the only way I’ll “learn.”
by Jared Logan
29/01/2007
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January 29th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Difficult to Read
by, Nathan Craig
New works for the stage are rare these day at BLERDS.com. Actually there aren’t any ever. Which is why Jared Logan’s latest collection of short plays entitled, Several Very Short Plays to be Read for Your Enjoyment, was so eagerly anticipated by him. He new that there was a fresh angle on comedy and character work that had not yet been exploited by the staff’s feverishly distracted brains. Logan, who will here to fore be referred to as, shit thoughts, realized that he was definately going to fill this void.
The collection explores several styles of story telling. Short was the theme.
Out of all of the works, one stood out as at least not a terrible premise. “Difficult to Stage”, a tale of a crippled man exploring his sense of purpose, stood out as one that, if nothing more, was accurately titled. It takes us on a wheelchair ride through fantasy with mystery as a tour guide. Or at least that’s what it tried to do. What shitthoughts failed to accomplish in Difficult to Stage, was a connection between the man made out of crystal, and the “empire” which cycle he “renews” by putting on such a display. Unless the man in the wheelchair is god, which would be trivial, considering that he would then religate himself to biased spectator with limitations by introducing the perameters of “Empire”, then the relationship must be explained, or at least made the focal point of the play. Instead it is treated like a circus act. A freakshow, glass blowing, fantasy happening that doesn’t even compliment itself with more references to things made out of crystal.
Shitthoughts may have found short plays an adequate vehical to showcase ideas, but he has failed to make them entertaining. Perhaps a better arrangement in the presentation of these play could’ve helped the flow, but it wouldn’t have been able to excuse the reader from feeling like they’d been dipped in Shitthoughts own urine. In the future perhaps shitthoughts will consider not sucking so bad.
January 29th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
I am currently glad to read any piece of text, be it on paper or CRT, that doesn’t have the words “Brian Urlacher” in it somewhere.
Please publish more non-Urlacher related stuff as soon as humanly possible.