about the (re)making project

Please feel free to take the plays from this project and use them freely as a resource for your own work: that is to say, don't just make some cuts or rewrite a few passages or re-arrange them or put in a few texts that you like better, but pillage the plays as I have pillaged the structures and contents of the plays of Euripides and Brecht and stuff out of Soap Opera Digest and the evening news and the internet, and build your own, entirely new, piece--and then, please, put your own name to the work that results.
But, if you would like to perform the plays essentially or substantially as I have composed them, they are protected by copyright in the versions you read here, and you need to clear performance rights. For professional performance rights, contact Thomas Pearson of International Creative Management at tpearson@icmtalent.com or 212-556-56600. For amateur performance rights, contact Libby Edwards at charlesmeeplays@yahoo.com.
- Charles Mee

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bobrauschenbergamerica

by C H A R L E S L . M E E





An empty stage covered by a blank canvas.
A ladder.
The actors come out to remove the ladder and canvas.

Big Music.


1 Title

A chicken slowly descends from the flies on a string.
It has a sign around its neck that says:
bobrauschenbergamerica


2 What I Like

A roller skater bursts in with a big red umbrella, and the rest of the characters come out immediately, some with objects--the trucker has a bathtub on wheels with a light set in the mass of crunched steel where the showerhead should be, and maybe a One Way sign on the side of the tub. Susan has a stuffed deer on wheels, or maybe a goat with a tire around its stomach. Becker the filthy, rag-dressed, disheveled, offhand derelict has a cardboard box, Phil's Girl pushes a baby carriage with a stuffed chicken inside, Wilson has a house window on wheels. Allen crosses the stage carrying a ladder

while a voiceover is heard:

VOICEOVER
What I like to do is...
I start with anything,
a picture,
these colors,

I like these colors,

or I might have an idea about something I'd like to try with a shoe,
or maybe I just feel:
happy.

Look,
everything overlaps doesn't it?

Is connected some kind of way.
Once you put it all together, it's just obvious.
I mean, tie a string to something, and
see where it takes you.
The biggest thing is
don't worry about it.
You're always gonna be moving somewhere so
don't worry about it.
See?
Start working when it's almost too late at night,
when your sense of efficiency is exhausted
and then just,
let it come on....

[The sign disappears and the characters exit as the voiceover ends.]


3 Bob's Mom

Bob's mom comes out onto the front porch.
She talks, while we hear crickets,
and while photos are projected behind her on the wall--
but her talk and the photos don't match up:

BOB'S MOM
That's Bob's 1st Birthday Party
on the back porch with the morning glories all in bloom
that's Butch East,
Johnnie East,
Susan East,
she just got arrested for drugs,
Billy Kraemer and Alex Cameron.

And that's Bob with Johnnie East in their canvas swimming pool
when they were about four
Johnnie popped that beach ball later that day
and I told Bob I wasn't buying another one.

There's Bob with his dog Jab.
He used to feed him the cheese sandwiches I made the boys for lunch. They're under the porch.

This is some kind of hut they made in the back yard
out of crates and branches and clothes.
You can see Bob's feet out the side.
That's Donna Kraemer trying to get in the back.

There are the boys outside Dobson's 5 & 10 cent store.
They almost died blowing up those balloons--
they're 6 feet long.
It's Johnnie East, Bob and Tommy Hoffman.
The Port Arthur Independent ran this picture
on the front page of their second section for the 4th of July.
Tommy Hoffman got meningitis and died.
That was a real sad day for all of us.

Art
art was not a part of our lives.

[We hear a newspaper boy's bike bell. A newspaper is thrown onto the stage. Bob's Mom picks it up, waves, and goes back inside.]


4 Our Town

BECKER
Where I grew up
you could walk to the end of the block
and step right into the countryside
field after field
nobody owned this land so far as we knew.
It had little lakes where we would cut down saplings
and build lean-tos
and camp out
no grownups, just the kids, boys and girls