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 212-556-5600. For amateur performance rights, contact Libby Edwards at charlesmeeplays@yahoo.com.
- Charles Mee

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The War to End War

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





I. The Treaty of Versailles

(The lights go out suddenly with a terrific explosion and a flash of light.
Sirens. Explosions. Whistles. Explosive flashes of light. Machine guns.
Bottle rockets. Flares. Tons of shattering glass. Dense fog. An operatic
aria is heard, or several long, lamenting high notes held by a singer.
This all goes on for a very long time. A sickening green light gradually
pervades the theatre.

As the fog clears, imperceptibly at first, we hear Satie playing a
Nocturne.

A dozen ornate nineteenth century chairs are scattered helter skelter
around the stage, and ice buckets with champagne in them, and, at
center, a table covered with green baize, not much larger than a card
table, with crystal, and a deck of cards.

Gradually, as the fog lifts during this next scene, we see that the entire
rear wall is a vast shattered mirror in several large, elaborate, gold-gilt
frames-as though a mosaic of broken shards of glass. It is an old
mirror, dulled and smoky and incompletely silvered.

To one side is a headless tailor's dummy. Elsewhere, a urinal.

Nicolson enters, dressed in morning coat, carrying an umbrella. He sits
in one of the chairs, crosses his legs, listens to the Satie Nocturne. This
time of listening amounts to a musical interlude. Near the end of the
Satie piece, he speaks.)

NICOLSON
We generally meet at ten, there are secretaries behind. . .

PROUST VOICEOVER
(whispering)
Mais non, mais non, vous allez trop vite. Recommencez.

NICOLSON
(after a moment, slowly, exactly.)
The dominant note is: black and white. Heavy black suits, white cuffs
and paper. Crucial to get something right I suppose. (He takes a glass of
champagne from the nearby table.)

PROUST VOICEOVER
Precisez, mon cher, precisez. . .

NICOLSON
Relieved by blue and khaki.

PROUST VOICEOVER
Vous prenez la voiture de la Delegation. Vous descendez au Quai
d'Orsay. Vous montez l'escalier. Vous entrez dans la Salle. Et alors?

NICOLSON
(sighs, hesitates, resumes)
The only other colors would be the scarlet damask of the Quai d'Orsay
curtains, green baize. . .

PROUST VOICEOVER
Precisez, mon cher, precisez. . .

NICOLSON
pink blotting pads, innumerable gilt of little chairs.
(Silence)
For smells you would have petrol, typewriting ribbons, French polish,
central heating, a touch of violet hair wash.
(Silence)
The tactile motifs would be tracing paper, silk, the leather handle of a
weighted pouch of papers, the foot-feel of very thick carpets alternating
with parquet floors. . .
(Silence)
What would be the point? What quite had been the point? Of course,
there were matters of substance: the structure of the Old World; old
empires crumbling; new ones reaching for the spoils; former colonies
squirming to stay free; the old order of the Congress of Vienna coming
apart, well, and for that matter, Newtonian physics as well, traditional
painting, the notion of God, none of it in such good repair really,
whether as cause or effect, and then the endless disputes. Matters of
honor. Or of interest. Altercations. The assigning of blame. The study
of causes. Although, who could say? In time one became more inclined
to see systemic features-the eternal business of those who had the
power and those who wanted it. One had entered a logic trap. One