ACT IV
Scene 2
(LUTHER and JAKE get into screaming match over alcohol, JONAH
tells them to "SHADDAP!", LUTHER accuses FEY of territoriality.)
FEY: "TERRITORIAL? Is THAT what you think?
Oh-h-h-h, have I got a surprise for you. You want the territory?
It's yours. You want these signs? Take them."
(She knocks the signs over one by one, with particular fervor
"LOVE: the SANE CHOICE." JONAH packs up his papers.)
JONAH: "Come on."
FEY: (Grabs her backpack.) "My sentiments
exactly."
(They EXIT, JONAH leading. Other characters stunned, suitable
comments.)
(Spotlight rises on REPORTER at typewriter.)
REPORTER: "I report this only for the sake of
history.
"This is a story about Romeo and Juliet, but it didn't happen on
stage; it happened in the wings ... in the park.
"It is the story of two people, a married couple, who were pushed
to the breaking point by circumstances beyond their control; and
in a moment of abject frustration they decided that they could
say more to the world by dying than by suffering the onslaught of
(as they see it) fools.
"I was sitting in the Home News office on Capitol Hill when the
phone rang: It was Fey calling and she sounded as if she
had been crying."
(Second spotlight rises on FEY sitting with phone
in hand, under WORK FOR PEACE banner spread out in
SITA's apartment. In a corner JONAH is at table
sorting through legal papers.)
FEY: "Wrong!"
REPORTER: (Picks up phone, swivels around in
chair; chuckles.)
"Now tell me you didn't cry."
FEY: "That's my business. And this is pure
fabrication."
(Reads.) "'Well, Fey couldn't take it anymore: she bolted
from the park in tears....' WRONG! '...and Jonah, who feels
guilty if he spends even one moment not thinking about world
peace and anti-nukes, followed her out of the Park.' "Wrong
AGAIN!"
REPORTER: "Great, you just gave me this week's
story. Juliet denies crying."
FEY: "That's no story, and you know it. Yellow
journalism doesn't suit you. You want stories, write the truth."
REPORTER: "All right. How DID you feel when you
and Jonah decided to terminal fast?"
FEY: "Like a jagged walnut had just settled into my
pancreas.
When I slept I saw my children crying."
(Body slumps in remembered pain.)
REPORTER: "And you didn't cry? C'mon...." (Fey
scowls.)
"So how did you feel when you decided not to fast?"
FEY: (Straightens into lotus position.)
"Relieved. Reborn. Renewed. Ready." (As she sings,
Lafayette Park backdrop appears.)
"There's a radical awakening
somewhere,
somewhere,
with dirty fingernails and rumpled hair.
No time for vanity.
I'm not afraid. Not I,
not while the moon can ride a sky
of salmon pink or green.
I thrust upstream
to lay the seed of sanity,
content,
content to die
rather than live a lie
or leave my bit of truth untold."
(Turns to audience, points as (crying?) children appear one
after another on screen behind.)
"And you, my children --
rapt upon a picture tube
and trapped within old lies --
open your eyes.
Imagine moons unseen
and empty streams where salmons spawn no more --
the only life
the tides unswum,
bitter, clean,
and cold."
(Intense visuals of nuclear winter, fading OUT.)
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