This is the end, my friend, a play in one-half act

Characters
Miss Prunella Vulgaris, The Duchess of Hammer-on-Dulcimer, esteemed member of the Peonage
Juan, The Earl of Valdez, less esteemed member of the Peonage
Captain Single-eye, Sovereign Grand Inspector General of the Island of Heretofore Unaccounted Knavery, relation of Ivar the Boneless, who had both eyes until the day of his decease, unlike his descendant who had only one, as previously mentioned
Dog-bird, hideous laboratory creation and anthropomorphic hench-creature
Alexander Nevsky, part-time Russian folkhero & full-time spectral entity
Benito of the Hamlet, anachronistic blackshirted blackguard
Just Like Che, noted motorcycle enthusiast & muse of hep cats everywhere
Ivan, Russian Bear & camp guard
Wojtek, Polish Bear & prisoner
Lady Herefordshirebroke, The Marquess of Upper Silesia, esteemed member of the Peonage
Noman, background scenery
Master Baytes of Tampa, dread piratical buccaneer
Jack the London, noted Western wildman
Jack the Kerouac, noted Neolithic hipster
Jack the Ripper, noted English arch-slasher
Mysterious Stranger, chapeau'd
Lemmy, noted baritone bassist & collector of blow-em-up baubles
Fryer Bungy, English conjurer & skillet gourmand
The Potato Witches of the Caucasus, pastiche weirdos who know a big secret
Baba Yaga, dancing Slavic sorceress
Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, made not of iron but of duh
Aide-de-camp, NPC & Hessian
King Diamond, King Diamond
Hannibal, no-star general & playboy son of a noted Tripolitanian fashion plate
Fadades, Gaulish misanthrope, pretend musician, & sky pie aficionado
Zardoz, freshly served serf who in fact wasn't eaten by Bear but your humble playwright is too lazy to retcon an explanation
Erich Zann, noted viol player, concert master, & lunatic
Zombie Johannes Brahms, famous composer & corpse
Zombie Clara Schumann, famous pianist, keeper of the mad, & corpse
Kid Darkthrone, not-very-noted local misanthrope, reformed
Good King Wenceslas, Duke, not King, of Bohemia
Krampus, legendary dread purloiner of joy & stuff various & valuable not that your playwright still humble is saying that joy isn't valuable only that it's fleeting & you shouldn't get too attached
Michael Buffer, egomaniacal microphone
The Infant of Prague, Our Lord and Savior
The Christmas Goat, Swedish Wicker Man knockoff
Snowpocalypse, noted archfiend
Children, children
Stagehand, stagehand
Cashier, cashier
Bear, bait, & lovable ursine scamp 

When we last left our intrepid Peonage, well, your humble playwright doesn't remember. It's better to burn witch burn but let's try that fading away gig instead because it's less work. Anyway, a bunch of dread piratical buccaneers, led not by the dreadest, most piratanical buccaneer of the hairy palms, but CAPTAIN SINGLE-EYE himself because someone said he was the supervillain told you I didn't remember, have abducted, no I don't know how, probably magic or some crap, most, if not all, of the characters from past one-acts and brought them to his mysterious island, new and improved with extra knavery.
 
DUCHESS: Are we fucked?
EARL: Probably.
NEVSKY: Veer are vee?
BENITO (to NEVSKY): Communist!
JUST LIKE CHE (to BENITO): What of it?
IVAN (to no one in particular): Growl.
MARQUESS: [in Polish]
WOJTEK: [growling in Polish]
NOMAN: Huh?
MASTER BAYTES: Wha?
JACK THE LONDON: Bah?
JACK THE KEROUAC: Bah?
JACK THE RIPPER: Black sheep?
LEMMY: Historically inaccurate.
MYSTERIOUS STRANGER: So this is what it feels like when Lemmys cry.
FRYER BUNGY: Food soothes the savage bassist.
POTATO WITCHES: Tubers!
BABA YAGA: Wait! Where's --
OTTO: -- my Fabergé Potato?
AIDE-DE-CAMP: Where's his Fabergé Potato?
KING DIAMOND (singing): It's for the Peonage, so lay off the doobage!
HANNIBAL: Veni vidi arrivederci!

HANNIBAL exits, gets eaten by a cannibal. See, extra knavery.

FADADES (screeching): SCREECH!
ZARDOZ: Do I have to work?
ERICH ZANN: Tentacles from beyond!
ZOMBIE JOHANNES BRAHMS: Clara, I love --
ZOMBIE CLARA SCHUMANN: -- my brains?
KID DARKTHRONE: Speaking of brains --
WENCESLAS: -- how are we going to get out of this?
KRAMPUS: You aren't! Nor are your children!
CHILDREN: No!
MICHAEL BUFFER: Let's get ready to rumble!
INFANT OF PRAGUE: Waaaa!
CHRISTMAS GOAT: Bleat the halls!
SNOWPOCALYPSE: So, what's the deal, Single-eye?
STAGEHAND: Yeah, I still haven't gotten paid for last time.
CASHIER: Don't look at me, this economy's a bitch.
DOG-BIRD: Caw!

CAPTAIN enters, brandishing a rick derringer.

CAPTAIN: You tell 'em, Dog-bird!

BEAR enters. 

BEAR: Growl.

CAPTAIN: Enough of this hoochie koo! All of you! I've got your precious Fabergé Potato, and as for the Krypton Stone, let's just say I had to call in a few favors of the congressional variety. Oh, the Third Thing, oh, that Third Thing, one and two and three makes true universal power you were born to be my baby and I was born to be your man, but since Captain Single-Eye couldn't find it --
DUCHESS: What a diva.
CAPTAIN: I've decided to blow you all, but just you and no one else especially not me, to that third-rate Zeppelin knock-off, Kingdom Come!
EARL: What, no Trixter reference? Who writes this shit?
KID DARKTHRONE: Use your allusion.
DUCHESS: Don't feed the fintroll.
EARL: Ahem. Single-eye, it's Doomsday, Single-eye, the end of the world. Can't you understand? For God's sake, help us!
CAPTAIN: Stay away from me!
EARL: You damned animal!
CAPTAIN: Don't touch that!
DUCHESS: Help us! Help us!
CAPTAIN: You asked me to help you? The Peonage is evil, capable of nothing but destruction!
EARL (confused): What the fuck.
DUCHESS: Shush. He's on a roll. The sooner he's done, the sooner we're outta this off-Broadway train wreck. Um. (leafs through the script) Ah, here we are. You bloody bastard!
CAPTAIN: Evil!
KRAMPUS (to CAPTAIN): Fire! Fire!
NEVSKY: Foor Good's sock, eetz the Doomsday bomb, zee end of zee vorld!

KRAMPUS takes gun from CAPTAIN SINGLE-EYE, shoots EARL, whose body falls on the button.

In one of the countless billions of galaxies in the universe lies a medium-sized star. And one of its satellites, a green and insignificant planet, is now dead.

EVERYONE exeunt. Except EARL who is woken by a pinging noise.

EARL (waking): You won't believe the dream I just had. Damn golf balls. Wait.

EARL gets up and looks out the window.

EARL: Oh. Well, this suc --

In one of the countless billions of galaxies in the universe lies a medium-sized star. And one of its satellites, a green and insignificant planet, is now dead. No, really. Go home. Don't forget to stop at our gift shop!

fin

Who d'king, Part II, a play in three-quarters act

Characters
Miss Prunella Vulgaris, The Duchess of Hammer-on-Dulcimer, esteemed member of the Peonage
Juan, The Earl of Valdez, less esteemed member of the Peonage
King Diamond, King Diamond
Fadades, Gaulish misanthrope, pretend musician, & sky pie aficionado  
Kid Darkthrone, not-very-noted local misanthrope, reformed
Bear, bait, & lovable ursine scamp

When we last left our intrepid Peonage, they interstellar overdrove like 'twas Space: 1999. Thus exhausted from both the shark attack & a bad Jules Verne mock pastiche, they would gladly resume their lives of quiet desperation at the Museum of Palimpsest Oddities. Aliens always fuck shit up, ask any abductee.

EARL: Where are we?

DUCHESS: Not Prussia.

KID DARKTHRONE: Not Russia.

EARL: Nor Tunguska.

DUCHESS: That's -- nevermind.

BEAR (pointing): Growl.

EARL: This is like a bad Jules Verne mock pastiche.

DUCHESS: Only real.

FADADES enters.

FADADES: screech screechscreech screech screech!

EARL: Ja ja ja, mach schnell mit der explanation things, huh? I must get back to Dancecentrum in Stuttgart in time to see Kraftwerk.

DUCHESS: This is your brain on zero gravity.

KID DARKTHRONE: I've an idea.

KID DARKTHRONE whispers to BEAR. BEAR turns to FADADES.

BEAR (with menace): Growl.

The spaceship crashes near where it first blasted to the stars.

FADADES: screech screech screechscreech screech!

DUCHESS: Okay, now this is just lazy writing -- hey!

EARL: I can't move!

KID DARKTHRONE: Me either!

BEAR: Growl!

DUCHESS: Oh no! Pyramid power!

KING DIAMOND enters.

KING DIAMOND (singing): Osiris! Anubis!

FADADES (flabbergasted, like hearing Cold Lake for the first time): screech!

FADADES exits, running off into the desert, probably to pass out from screaming in abject horror then get eaten by a camel but since your humble playwright has no plans to bring him back, who cares.

DUCHESS: King Diamond! What are you doing here?

KING DIAMOND (still singing): Lady, gentlemen, & ursine tragic,
the most fantastical, blackest magic
from darkest depths was bestowed upon me
by the metal gods! The ability
to know the most silly of vocal traits;
heed Fadades well, headbangers, do not wait!
A clumsy attempt to save all of you,
why he attacked Hannibal's ship, 'tis true.
You know the legend of the Krypton Stone --
but where it lie, this modern Croatoan?
Beware! The Gaul's no villain of the piece,
but a fool, a poorly-chosen lackey!
In desperation doth wrathfully groan
the grim shadow behind his comic throne --
this, your heaviest metal advantage!

EARL: Who do we look like, the Avengers?

DUCHESS: A bad Marlowe mock pastiche.

KING DIAMOND (yes, still): Kid, whilst I recover from heart surgery,
I dub thee caretaker of metal, temporarily!

KID DARKTHRONE: Golly gee, Mr. Diamond, that's swell!

DUCHESS: How sweet.

EARL: Sniff.

DUCHESS: Back to work on time?

EARL: Got nothing better to do.

KING DIAMOND & KID DARKTHRONE board the former's viking longship, sailing down the Nile into the sunset, BEAR returns to Poland to devour any rowdy fans at Euro, & DUCHESS & EARL considered beginning to contemplate the next one-act but what can a Dr. Doomish cat really do in three months' time? There's no cat.

fin

Who d'king, Part I, a play in three-quarters act

Characters
Miss Prunella Vulgaris, The Duchess of Hammer-on-Dulcimer, esteemed member of the Peonage
Juan, The Earl of Valdez, less esteemed member of the Peonage
Hannibal, no-star general & playboy son of a noted Tripolitanian fashion plate
Fadades, Gaulish misanthrope, pretend musician, & sky pie aficionado
Kid Darkthrone, not-very-noted local misanthrope, reformed
assorted piratical henchmen, paid in scale
Bear, bait, & lovable ursine scamp

When we last left our intrepid Peonage, they partied like 'twas 1899. Thus exhausted from both the debauchery of Baba Yaga & Lemmy's nuptials & the recovery of the Fabergé Potato, they gladly resumed their lives of quiet desperation at the Museum of Palimpsest Oddities. Books not having brains of their own however, but ones under the control of drawer-ridden parchments desirous of a window view, a vacation was in order lest bedlam reign, DUCHESS & EARL sailing the wine-dark sea to the coast of Barbary, because what entirely predictable turn of events could possibly take place there.

PIRATICAL HENCHMAN #1: Ye scurvy dogs!

PIRATICAL HENCHMAN #2: Ye be walkin' the plank!

PIRATICAL HENCHMAN #3: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern ye ain't.

DUCHESS: Blame the playwright.

EARL: Fourth wall already?

PIRATICAL HENCHMAN #1: Ye be seein' four walls!

PIRATICAL HENCHMAN #2: Aft' ye walk the plank!

PIRATICAL HENCHMAN #3: Mademoiselle, monsieur, my humblest apologies. They're new, & obviously stupid. At any rate, come with me if you want to live. My master wants to avaunce or find doubloons or something. Whatever.

Now prisoners, Number 6, I mean DUCHESS, & EARL are taken by ASSORTED PIRATICAL HENCHMEN to an ostentatiously extravagant jumbo schooner, a veritable star destroyer of the seas, if your humble playwright knew what a star destroyer was which, Lucasfilm, Ltd., he doesn't.

HANNIBAL: mumblemumblemuble!

PIRATICAL HENCHMAN #3: Your incandescent desertship, pay attention to the man behind the curtain.

Curtain raises.

HANNIBAL: That's me!

EARL: Huh.

DUCHESS: It's not Captain Single-Eye. Didn't see that one coming.

EARL: Now that's good writing.

HANNIBAL: Throw her --

Timpani beat from behind the curtain.

HANNIBAL: -- in the shark tank!

EARL: This has to be performance art.

PIRATICAL HENCHMAN #3: Um, your excellent spookiness, don't you wish to question them before killing them?

HANNIBAL: Indeed! Knave! Knavette! Where is --

Timpani beat from behind the curtain.

HANNIBAL: -- the Krypton Stone?

EARL: Bad performance art.

DUCHESS: What the hell are you talking about?

HANNIBAL: No time for interrogatives, Dr. Jones!

PIRATICAL HENCHMAN #3 (sighing): At least it's work. Um, your magnificent --

The loud report, not of corsairs firing their cannon, but of the roof of the great hall collapsing, collapses everyone's perception into a little squished thing like a creepy crawlie left out in the sun too long, but creepy doesn't truly cover the aghast-nesse of all parties as the shark tank shatters, filling the hall with water & sharks that proceed to eat ASSORTED PIRATICAL HENCHMEN but not DUCHESS & EARL because what entirely predictable turn of events could possibly take place now.
 

DUCHESS: When you see the world --

EARL: -- the world sees what's for lunch.

BEAR & KID DARKTHRONE enter.

BEAR: Growl.

KID DARKTHRONE: Come with us if you want to live!

DUCHESS: Yogi Berra could write something better than this.

From the inflatable raft of KID DARKTHRONE & BEAR, DUCHESS & EARL watch the boat of the billionaire playboy son of a noted Tripolitanian fashion plate sink to the bottom of the Mediterranean. 

DUCHESS: What just happened?

EARL: Why don't you ask the playwright.

DUCHESS: Sarcasm. Didn't see that one coming.

KID DARKTHRONE: Hey, it's getting cloudy.

DUCHESS: That's no cloud.

EARL: That's a spaceship.

FADADES enters.

FADADES: screech screechscreech screech screech!

A door in the bottom of the flying saucer opens, & a shaft of light engulfs DUCHESS, EARL, KID DARKTHRONE, & BEAR, somehow pulling them upwards into the gravity-defying contraption.

DUCHESS: We're so fucked.


fin

You know I'm born to lose, and gambling's for fools, a play in one-half act

Characters
Miss Prunella Vulgaris, The Duchess of Hammer-on-Dulcimer, esteemed member of the Peonage
Juan, The Earl of Valdez, less esteemed member of the Peonage
Lemmy, noted baritone bassist & collector of blow-em-up baubles
Fryer Bungy, English conjurer & skillet gourmand
Kid Darkthrone, not-very-noted local misanthrope, reformed
The Potato Witches of the Caucasus, pastiche weirdos who know a big secret
Baba Yaga, dancing Slavic sorceress
Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, made not of iron but of duh
Aide-de-camp, NPC & Hessian
Bear, bait, & lovable ursine scamp

When we last left etc., 'twas some Jedi mind tricksy that both created a new alliance with such deft aplomb that the League of Nations would be sucking their thumb in laudanum shock, & freed the rebellion from the nefarious clutches of the Dark Lord of the Skillet, Fryer Bungy. DUCHESS, EARL, LEMMY, & KID DARKTHRONE stand, having left the German dime store with ten thousand marbles & one other thing, you'll see. Drink up, shoot in, let the third act begin.

DUCHESS: We're --

LEMMY: fucked --

KID DARKTHRONE: mumblejumblewhiskey.

EARL: Stay mellow, hep cats.

OTTO, FRYER BUNGY, & AIDE-DE-CAMP enter, exiting a billowing cloud of dust & a strangely rhythmic yet dissonant rumble in the distance that's less distant with each dissonant yet strangely rhythmic rumble.

LEMMY (enraged): Fuckin' wankers!

LEMMY clocks AIDE-DE-CAMP on the skull with his bass, knocking him out.

OTTO (chuckling): That Hessian was our last hope.

FRYER (giggling): No, there is another.

OTTO: (cackling with snotty glee): & another, & another, & so on, & so on, & so on.

A colossal column or ten of Berk-heads, each of each of the hundreds as tall as a really tall house with equally tall pointy olde tyme helmets you know the ones, march menacingly out of the dust, with menace, & probably some guns.

EARL (chortling): You fool! You foolish fool!

OTTO: Ja, sie blieben quieten und don't call me stupid!

POTATO WITCHES enter.

WITCH #1: Earl --

WITCH #2: use --

WITCH #3: the --

EARL: Schwartz?

WITCHES, ALL THREE: The earplugs!

EARL rolls the marbles, all ten-thousand of them, one for each foot of OTTO's army, that's five-thousand, & since they're marbles & these are real big contraptions made of iron what else, but rest assured that the POTATO WITCHES didn't rest but sent a carrier pigeon to call not for help in desperation, but to initiate phase two of their brilliant counter-counterstrike that would make the Grande Armée blush if they hadn't been freezer burned outside Pooty-Poot's Playhouse. Oh yeah, while the Berk-heads are busy stomping, all the good guys put in their dime store ear plugs. BEAR enters.

BEAR (growls with gusto): *growl*

FRYER: Everything louder than everything else!

The shockwave rattles not just the bones of all present, but the moustache off OTTO & onto the German soil, swimming in shards of Krazy Leim.

OTTO: Gott im himmel! Mein ears! Mein moustache!

In the obfuscating confusion, KID DARKTHRONE, being a kid & thus smaller than everyone else, rushes in between the giant metal legs tripping over each other, grabs the prize moments before it is crushed like so many marbles, & since the stache was magical like a Bag of Holding or a +1 broadsword, I hope that was clear if not sorry, the army crumbles into nuts & bolts & galvanic whirring machines, rusting real quick like one of those time-lapse photographic essays.

DUCHESS: Now, Lemmy, to fulfill your part of the bargain, help us find --

BABA YAGA enters riding her dancing hut & holding the Fabergé Potato, which she pickpocketed from OTTO in the inveigling discomfiture.

BABA YAGA (crowing): this?

DUCHESS: Baba Yaga!

BABA YAGA: That's my name --

EARL: We'll wear you out!

BABA YAGA (sighing): Who writes this thing?

EARL: Don't ask.

WITCH #1 (serious): You --

WITCH #2 (seriouser): must --

WITCH #3 (seriousest): retrieve --

LEMMY: Lemme ask ya somethin' Baby Yags, howsabout --

BABA YAGA: You have the bluest eyes I've ever seen.

LEMMY: They's brown ya fuckin' blind bird.

BABA YAGA (winking): I do need glasses.

LEMMY (nudging): I fuckin' knows how ta get two pairs for the price 'a one.

BABA YAGA: Oh, Lemmy.

LEMMY: Oh, Baby Yags.

You would of course be cordially invited to the wedding of Miss Baba Yaga & Mr. Ian Kilmister but since that was a textual interpolation by a hand devious cough DUCHESS cough, we'll stop here. As for loose ends, FRYER BUNGY either escaped into the Black Forest, was abducted by Atlanteans, or was hired as cook by a traveling harlequin comedie-burlesque troup depending on which rumor you choose to believe; OTTO VON BISMARCK went back to Berlin where conflicts with Der Kaiser would almost sideline Germany's chances in the 1974 World Cup; the Fabergé Potato is back on the mantle in the Museum of Palimpsest Oddities where it belongs; & as for who caught the bouquet, oh, let's say Moe.

fin

You know the chase is better than the catch, a play in one-half act

Characters
Miss Prunella Vulgaris, The Duchess of Hammer-on-Dulcimer, esteemed member of the Peonage
Juan, The Earl of Valdez, less esteemed member of the Peonage
Lemmy, noted baritone bassist & collector of blow-em-up baubles
Kid Darkthrone, not-very-noted local misanthrope, reformed
The Potato Witches of the Caucasus, pastiche weirdos who know a big secret
Stagehand, stagehand
Cashier, cashier

When we last just one last this time left our not-that-intrepid-you-remember Peonage, 'twas a not-that-jolly-you-remember jaunt to Incarceration Nation. With the traitorous FRYER BUNGY as their fixer-cum-traitor until his betrayal, the Peonage next encountered a fellow traveler, wow, that's like on two distinct levels, how this has no chance to win a Pulitzer your humble playwright will never know.

DUCHESS (angry): Now wait a goshdarn minute --

LEMMY (angrier): You wait a fuckin' minute --

KID DARKTHRONE also steps forward from the jailhouse shadows.

KID DARKTHRONE (angriest, but not as angry as Lemmy): How about you both wait a minute!

EARL (incredulous): Kid Darkthrone!

DUCHESS (flabbergasted): He's reverted back to nefarious diabolism!

KID DARKTHRONE (okay you can stop now): Nein!

EARL: See, he's working for the Iron Chancellor, just like Che, I mean, Bungy!

LEMMY: Don't know no fuckin' Bungy but Bismarck's a bloody bleedin' bastard & I aim t' burgle --

EARL: Gasp!

LEMMY: the rarest piece of war memorabilia since Arminius's fossilized wienerschnitzel --

KID DARKTHRONE: Otto's stache!

LEMMY (über-emphasizing): His fake stache. Bloke didn't start winnin' till he glued that on his fuckin' face.

EARL: You're not stealing it for yourself, you're stealing it for England!

LEMMY: Fuck off. Wouldn't gimme a work visa. No work visa, no Star-Club featurin' Motörhead, & soon, no fuckin' victories.

STAGEHAND enters. STAGEHAND holds idea bulb over DUCHESS' head. 

STAGEHAND: Ouch!

DUCHESS (whispering): You're not supposed to use a real one. Jeez.

STAGEHAND & bulb exeunt.

DUCHESS: Listen up! We can join together, because two sets of meddling kids are always better than one for purloining perps. That creepy thing for you, & for us --

THE POTATO WITCHES OF THE CAUCASUS also step forward from the jailhouse shadows, also.

WITCH #1: The Fabergé Potato.

Everyone gasps except LEMMY.

WITCH #2: We see all.

WITCH #3: We know all.

LEMMY: 'cept how to avoid Polizei. Parlor trickin' chicksmumblejumblewhiskey.

WITCH #1: We are here --

WITCH #2: because you need --

WITCH #3: our help.

LEMMY: Bloody 'ell.

LEMMY sneers, but THE POTATO WITCHES, through incredible potato alchymie, shift dimensions or tear a hole in space-time or some technobabble but a mystick technobabble because that always sells to certain demographic groups your humble playwright doesn't mind selling out but he prefers the term buying in & send DUCHESS, EARL, LEMMY & KID DARKTHRONE to the refuge of an escape tunnel.

LEMMY (crawling): What the fuckin' 'ell? Why not just fly us to safetymumblejumblewhiskey.

DUCHESS (crawling): My sentiments nearly.

KID DARKTHRONE (crawling & singing): ♪ Laaaaaand of the loooooost ♫

EARL (crawling): Woo-wee-ooh-ooh. I know exactly what the witches' plan is!

DUCHESS (still crawling): How?

EARL (still crawling but now pointing): Look!

Our four still-not-intrepid heroes okay maybe LEMMY exit the tunnel & find themselves in full daylight, the awesomely imposing facade of a dime store lording over them, a German dime store because they're still in Germany. DUCHESS, EARL, & LEMMY enter whilst KID DARKTHRONE stands watch.

CASHIER (bored): Limey gonna purchasen somezing, ja?

EARL: May I have ten thousand marbles, please?

You know me, you can't resist, devil's grip, the iron fist, a play in one-half act

Characters
Miss Prunella Vulgaris, The Duchess of Hammer-on-Dulcimer, esteemed member of the Peonage
Juan, The Earl of Valdez, less esteemed member of the Peonage
Lemmy, noted baritone bassist & collector of blow-em-up baubles
Fryer Bungy, English conjurer & skillet gourmand

When we last left our intrepid Peonage, Christmas was nine kinds of crazy, but when we last last left our not-that-intrepid Peonage because how intrepidish is working in the Museum of Palimpsest Oddities really, not very now that your humble playwright thinks about it, they had won the famous Fabergé Potato from the Czar. Anyway, the Towering Slab, interior, though as always it's hard to tell blah blah blah, DUCHESS and EARL are complaining about something, as always blah blah blah.

EARL: Verily, that band sucks. 

DUCHESS: Your crassness is -- great Caesar's ghost! The Fabergé Potato!

EARL: Gone! All gone! No turkey! No turkey sandwiches! No turkey salad! No turkey gravy! Turkey hash! Turkey a la king! Or gallons of turkey soup! Gone, all gone!

EARL feints faints. DUCHESS revives him by dousing him with the heated elixir of St. Drogo.

EARL: What the fuck, man.

DUCHESS: No time for complaining, Dr. Jones. If that Potato falls into the wrong hands, it could finance weeks, nay, months of supervillainy.

EARL: There can be only one person of interest.

DUCHESS: You listen to way too many wax cylinder procedurals.

EARL: Back to Siberia 'tis.

DUCHESS and EARL use their network of contacts to commandeer transport to the continent. As you no doubt correctly guessed, they have no contacts, but they do have a couple of guineas, a give-em-hell attitude & after crossing the channel, a serious bout of seasickness.

DUCHESS: I knew I shouldn't have eaten that shellfish before we left.

EARL: Someone's coming! Hide!

DUCHESS: Someone's always coming, we're in the middle of Paris.

FRYER: Le halt! Who goes there!

DUCHESS and EARL: Merde!

FRYER: Bloody 'ell, I'm jus' kiddin', ya bird n' bloke. I be Fryer Bungy, a conjurer & right citizen o' the Crown, like ye selves. Come wit' me if ye wan'a live.

FRYER BUNGY takes DUCHESS and EARL to his secret hideout hidden secretly in the Rue Morgue. The sickly stench of death is overpowered by the sickly stench of whatever cast iron slop he's conjuring in his crusty pan.

EARL: So, what straunge beast is after us? The Terminator? An Ourang-Outang?

FRYER: Who stole the Fabergé Potato. You seek who stole the Fabergé Potato.

DUCHESS: You know him?

FRYER: Mmm. Take you to him, I will. Yes, yes. But now, we must eat. Come. Good food.

Skeptical as they are, DUCHESS and EARL were surprised that the foul-smelling slime was indeed good. Naive as they are, DUCHESS and EARL would have been surprised that the foul-smelling slime was also magicked but since they were passed out, their surprise awoke only when they did, as prisoners in some prison.

FRYER: The Iron Chancellor was once the learner, but now he is the master!

FRYER exits, locks the door behind him, one of those real loud locks, the tumbler rumbling like Prussian artillery or the digestive track after a run to Taco Bell.

EARL: That rat bastard. He must be spellcasting for the Czar!

DUCHESS (exasperated): Don't you ever pay attention?

EARL gets up, looking past the window bars at the too-green grass.

EARL: Not enough snow, & it's not as cold as it should be.

DUCHESS: Clevelandia?

LEMMY (gruffly): Deutschland.

DUCHESS: And you are --

LEMMY steps forward from the jailhouse shadows.

LEMMY (gruffly with an extra dollop of gusto): Someone who's come to steal something, something very valuable, & no one is gonna stand in me way. Not these bars --

Dramatic pause.

LEMMY: Not even you.

Keeping up with the Krampuses, or, Someone Is Thinking of the Children, A Sequel In One-Half Act

Characters
Miss Prunella Vulgaris, The Duchess of Hammer-on-Dulcimer, esteemed member of the Peonage
Juan, The Earl of Valdez, less esteemed member of the Peonage
Good King Wenceslas, Duke, not King, of Bohemia 
Krampus, legendary dread purloiner of joy & stuff various & valuable not that your playwright still humble is saying that joy isn't valuable only that it's fleeting & you shouldn't get too attached 
Michael Buffer, egomaniacal microphone
The Infant of Prague, Our Lord and Savior
The Christmas Goat, Swedish Wicker Man knockoff
Kid Darkthrone, not-very-noted local misanthrope
Children, children
Bear, bait, & lovable ursine scamp  

Non-library, interior, daytime perhaps but it's difficult to tell because all the heads are wreathed with wreaths of despair & slithering lights of black, don't think because it's the most wonderful time of the year that everyone's getting baked which they are but it's a pastry of horror not anything special for GOOD KING WENCESLAS, DUCHESS and EARL to choke on whilst thinking about the CHILDREN won't someone please think about the CHILDREN someone still is so shut up already.

DUKE, NOT KING: Shit!

EARL: Mellow out, man.

DUCHESS: Yes, cheer up, good buddy, we'll get the children back.

EARL: Though it *is* nice to not hear them whine about watching TV.

DUCHESS: Settle down. Verily, we must storm our brains with ideas.

EARL: I suggest getting blotto.

Inconsolable, GOOD KING WENCESLAS cries.

EARL: And a box of Kleenex.

DUCHESS: Eureka!

EARL: The town?

DUCHESS: Burma!

EARL: The country?

DUCHESS: A mission of Burma!

EARL: The band?

DUKE, NOT KING (crying): Shut up!

DUCHESS: Verily, we shalt return!

Verily, DUCHESS and EARL exit, journeying offstage to Burma, winning rare spices through rigged games of Three-card Monte, these rare spices used to purchase pigeon's blood rubies, which in turn are used to purchase a Craigslist ad sure to fool KRAMPUS, check out that literary symmetry & please ignore the fact that Craigslist is currently free, it wasn't in the 1890s, you remember learning about the Great Bandwith Shortage in school of course you do.

DUCHESS: "Central European folkloress & "doll" collector seeks legendary monster for a good time sale, maybe more. Making port at Gdansk Bay, Tuesday, Fjord Cruise Lines, meet on board, dining room."

EARL: The bastard's too clever to fall for that.

DUCHESS: Not even the glad-handing Williams Gladstone and McKinley love babies as much as, the bastard, as you so eloquently put it. He'll answer the ad.

EARL (pointing): What about him?

DUCHESS: For once, you had a good idea.

Even more verily, DUCHESS, EARL, and a quite blotto & thus manageable GOOD KING WENCESLAS journey offstage out of Bohemia and into the frying pan of Gdansk, full of cutthroats, ne'er-do-wells and scalawags, and that's just the town government. Using his credentials as a beloved figure in all Polandia, GOOD KING WENCESLAS shakes his red nose and commandeers the dining room on Fjord Cruise Lines' love boat.

DUCHESS: Now we wait.

EARL: Now we eat.

DUCHESS: Typical male.

EARL: Says the woman who suggested a wres --

KRAMPUS enters with cliched gusto. KID DARKTHRONE follows him.

KRAMPUS (strutting in place with confidence): Where is my Central European folkloress and doll collector? I wish to make a deal wink nudge! Hench-kid, see that there is no funny business but mine!

MICHAEL BUFFER enters.

MICHAEL BUFFER: Let's get ready to --

DUCHESS: Stop right there, Buffer. We spent all our rubies and can't afford the stiff penalties for trademark infringement, you lawsuit-happy bastard.

EARL: How eloquent.

KRAMPUS: Quiet! No delivery of children? If it's fisticuffs you want instead, it's fisticuffs you get!

DUCHESS: Oh, we've a delivery -- a special delivery of pain!

KRAMPUS and KID DARKTHRONE step into the space on the floor where a bunch of tables and chairs used to be but is now a makeshift ring. THE INFANT OF PRAGUE and THE CHRISTMAS GOAT enter and if you thought the clanging cacophony was dissonantly cacophonous last time out, you're right, but still, four titans of the turnbuckle, four eight fists of fjordish fury, blood from hidden razors and mock blindness, maybe a wrench or two, that's a lotta cacophony but lo, behold THE CHRISTMAS GOAT pinned by KRAMPUS and about to succumb until one last, desperate tap brings THE INFANT OF PRAGUE somersaulting over the imaginary rope whereby he flings a dreidel on the ground, its orbital spinning of circularity hypnotizing KRAMPUS long enough to himself be pinned.

DUCHESS: Turn over the children, Krampus.

EARL: Unless you've already eaten them.

KID DARKTHRONE (incredulous): Eaten?

DUCHESS: He wasn't taking them to Kiddie Park.

KID DARKTHRONE exits, returning with CHILDREN.

KID DARKTHRONE: Helping Krampus out was a pretty douchebag move, I know that now.

CHILDREN: Can we watch TV?

EARL: And knowing is half the battle.

BEAR enters.

BEAR: *growl*

KRAMPUS exits, pursued by BEAR. 

fin

Keeping up with the Krampuses, or, Won't Someone Think of the Children, A Play In One-Half Act

Characters
Miss Prunella Vulgaris, The Duchess of Hammer-on-Dulcimer, esteemed member of the Peonage
Juan, The Earl of Valdez, less esteemed member of the Peonage
Good King Wenceslas, Duke, not King, of Bohemia 
Zardoz, freshly served serf who in fact wasn't eaten by Bear but your humble playwright is too lazy to retcon an explanation 
Erich Zann, noted viol player, concert master, & lunatic 
Zombie Johannes Brahms, famous composer & corpse
Zombie Clara Schumann, famous pianist, keeper of the mad, & corpse
Krampus, legendary dread purloiner of joy & stuff various & valuable not that your still humble playwright is saying that joy isn't valuable only that it's fleeting & you shouldn't get too attached 
Children, children
Bear, bait, & lovable ursine scamp 

Non-library, interior, daytime perhaps but it's difficult to tell because all the windows are wreathed with leafy green wreaths & slithering lights of red & white because it's the most wonderful time of the year & the Museum of Palimpsest Oddities is closed because DUCHESS and EARL (and ZARDOZ too) are helping GOOD KING WENCESLAS think about the CHILDREN won't someone please think about the CHILDREN someone is so shut up already.

DUKE, NOT KING: Shit!

EARL: What's the matter?

DUKE, NOT KING: This Christmas charity concert was a wonderful idea!

DUCHESS: We live to give.

CHILDREN: Can we watch TV?

ZARDOZ (creepily): Someone will live to give -- to me!

EARL: Shouldn't you be putting out the sheet music? Can't have a concert for the children without sheet music.

DUKE, NOT KING: Yes, serf, hop to.

ZARDOZ (even creepily-er): Yes, sheet music.

Laughing one of those ominous supervillain laughs, ZARDOZ exits.

DUCHESS: Now that that is settled, Good King, where did you find this band on such short notice?

DUKE, NOT KING: Craigslist, dear lady.

CHILDREN: Can we watch TV?

EARL: You remember the last time you used Craigslist.

DUCHESS: A riot worse than when New World constables hot peppered those industrialized Luddites.

ERICH ZANN enters.

DUKE, NOT KING: Good people, I assure you -- oh, 'tis about to begin?

ERICH ZANN: Ja wohl! Eyes uppen zie hier!

A clanging cacophony of cymbals clatter over symbols on the page masquerading as notes because they are but they're also not if you follow & if you don't you soon will, even ERICH ZANN is like, whoa, that's not music.

ERICH ZANN: Das ist eine kleine nachtmusik nein!

ERICH ZANN exits whilst smiling one of those ominous supervillain smiles, did you catch that?

DUKE, NOT KING: Egads, most precious Baby Jesus, what is that racket?

ZARDOZ (from offstage):  Racket! It is the cry of love!

CHILDREN: Can we watch TV?

EARL: If Hendrix was alive, he'd be spinning in his grave.

DUCHESS rolls her eyes with such force that everyone can see even those in the cheap seats & now she'll need to see an optometrist. ZARDOZ enters.

ZARDOZ: Oh, a grave is spinning, I assure you of that!

A cacophony with more clang than the last clatters eardrums, drumming them into motionless submission as, from the shadows, a motion-full shadow also clangs, but it's a ghostly clang of rattling chains, you've all seen a movie version of A Christmas Carol so you know what I'm talking about. ZOMBIE CLARA SCHUMANN enters.

DUKE, NOT KING, DUCHESS and EARL: Zombie Clara Schumann!

ZARDOZ: My love, I have loved you from afar, but now you are near, so I may love you here!

ZOMBIE JOHANNES BRAHMS enters.

ZOMBIE JOHANNES BRAHMS: Save the weak ass rhymes for yo mama!

CHILDREN: Can we watch TV?

ZARDOZ (incredulous): But, how?

ZOMBIE CLARA SCHUMANN: Johnny!

ZOMBIE JOHANNES BRAHMS: We are here in Bohemia, where das Craigslist Konzertmeister secretly replaced the pablum they usually serve with something different but similar enough. Let's see if anyone can tell the difference, that's right, no one could especially a certain serf!

ZARDOZ (flustered): Oh, it doesn't matter! She's mine, beardo!

DUCHESS: WTF.

A symphony of crying children, flying fisticuffs of fury, scattered necromancy, & rigor mortis clatters even louder than the previous two cacophonies & thus sets some kind of record but because GOOD KING WENCESLAS doesn't care about records, only winning, he calls in his guards who promptly arrest ZARDOZ, rebury ZOMBIE CLARA SCHUMANN & ZOMBIE JOHANNES BRAHMS &, as ERICH ZANN disappears screaming into some extradimensional vortex, GOOD KING WENCESLAS wonders aloud about the existential dilemmas that plague mankind no matter which century it is.

DUKE, NOT KING: Dear friends, three questions: how did the composer Brahms appear in the first if the serf himself didn't raise him? Who is this Hendrix?

DUCHESS: Let us not waste our good cheer on the many, many plot holes, such as why you only asked two questions.

EARL: Joy to the world.

DUCHESS: All the boys & girls -- wait, in aftermath of all this unprecedented tomfoolery, where are they?

KRAMPUS enters on his sleigh.

KRAMPUS: Where you aren't!

DUKE, NOT KING, DUCHESS and EARL (beyond incredulous): Krampus!

BEAR enters.

BEAR: *growl*

KRAMPUS: There will be no ursus ex machina this time!

KRAMPUS and CHILDREN exeunt.

To be continued...

Like potatoes in the distillery, these are the days of our lives, a comic fairy pantomime burlesque in three-quarters act

Characters
Miss Prunella Vulgaris, The Duchess of Hammer-on-Dulcimer, esteemed member of the Peonage
Juan, The Earl of Valdez, less esteemed member of the Peonage
Alexander Nevsky, part-time Russian folkhero & full-time spectral entity
Benito of the Hamlet, anachronistic blackshirted blackguard
Just Like Che, noted motorcycle enthusiast & muse of hep cats everywhere
Ivan, Russian Bear & camp guard
Wojtek, Polish Bear & prisoner
Bear, bait, & lovable ursine scamp

Non-library, exterior, daytime perhaps but it's difficult to tell because all is grey all the time always including the gruel. The hypnotizing snowy glow of the rat-infested earth is broken by the rambling tamble of shared resignation and righteously dueling indignation, for DUCHESS and EARL are nowhere near the Museum of Palimpsest Oddities, where they still work, and will, forever, but stuck in a Muscovite gulag, having been accused by the Czar himself with attempted robbery of the famed Fabergé Potato.

DUCHESS: Well, here's another fine mess you've gotten me into!

EARL: This was your idea!

DUCHESS (exasperated): Oh, yes, everything is my fault.

EARL: I didn't say that, I said --

A whooshy cloud of spooky manifests in the dusty tumble of their hovel shared with 374 other souls, but since it is so dusty, DUCHESS and EARL assume, incorrectly, that it is dust, but it is not, for if the dust were dust, the play would end right here because acting out a slow, agonizing starvation on stage isn't dramatically gripping enough to recoup production costs.

ALEXANDER: Vill yoo too pipe down? Loud as Russian poorgatory! I um the ghost of Alexander Nevsky! Smiter of Swedes! Gravedigger of Germans! Morgue of Mongols!

DUCHESS and EARL: WTF.

ALEXANDER: Leesen! Czar not keep Russian spirit alive! Yoo must eescape vit objeck!

DUCHESS (feigning ignorance): What object, pray tell?

EARL (whispering): It's a trick.

ALEXANDER (yelling with a fierce ferocity): Englishkanski! Eez no trick! Yoo must neenja past guards, steel objeck, and weeturn to London-Town or vorld go boom!

This haunter of the dark lifted from a half-price penny dreadful vanishes like a glassy smudge does after the vigorous application of Windex.

EARL: I still think it's a trick.

DUCHESS: Don't be daft. I've an idea.

DUCHESS and EARL exit the dusty hovel into the courtyard dusted with snow where a gathering has gathered to watch an epic debate between ideals more extreme than Poochie, a monumental demagoguery of which there will surely be many monuments one day until they are pulled down for photo ops by the next batch of power-mad jackasses.

BENITO (strutting): Fascism! (strikes own chest, manfully)

JUST LIKE CHE (circling BENITO on his motorcycle): Viva la revolución!

DUCHESS (throwing her voice): Hey Just Like Che, you smell like manure!

JUST LIKE CHE (incensed): I keel you!

BENITO (also incensed): Not if I keel you first!

The mother of all fisticuffs ensues, ensnaring not just the prisoners, but the guards, the wardens, their families, assorted camp followers and, tragically, the milkman, with much suing to have followed if there wasn't that whole pesky system of repression, but that's of little import because DUCHESS and EARL see something important, their chance at freedom, and a second important thing, which the audience will see right now.

DUCHESS (incredulous): Bear?

EARL: It can't be! Bear isn't Polish, and besides, he's in the woods, testing that old saw about --

DUCHESS: Wojtek!

EARL: The Wojtek? Of the 22nd Artillery Supply Company of the Polish II Corps? We must help him!

The just-formed power trio powers their way through the shadows and grit, spitting mostly in contempt but mostlier because of all that grit, and some dust, too, and because of their final obstacle before their final one.

Enter IVAN.

IVAN: *growl*

WOJTEK: *growl*

Enter BEAR from who-knows-where, as usual.

BEAR: *growl*

To make a long and obvious story short before this turns into a full one-act play, all three bears come to the realization that they are triplets having been separated at birth. Reunited and it feels so good, yet enraged at such duplicity, they immediately proceed to slaughter the guards, free the prisoners except BENITO and JUST LIKE CHE lest they end up fashion statements, and help DUCHESS and EARL steal the Fabergé Potato which they forgot to do and who could blame them because gulag food sucks and they were really jonesing for some bangers and mash and were thus distracted.

EARL: Yippee skip-to-my-Queen Victoria, but how the hell do we find our way back to London-Town? We're in the middle of Russia in the middle of winter --

DUCHESS: -- in the middle of earth.

EARL: Don't be ridiculous, Tolkien hasn't even been born yet.

DUCHESS: Neither has Just Like Che, and Benito is just a baby.

EARL: As if our lives would start making sense now.

To wrap this up, they commandeer a boat from a passed-out-drunk Varangian Guard, everyone says their tearful goodbyes as Wojtek heads to Krakow, Ivan to St. Petersburg, and our English trio back to London-Town where they dismiss handing the Fabergé Potato over to the feds, half-contemplate putting it up for auction because civil service doesn't pay as much as you'd think but decide instead it would look swanky on the mantle since who knows how many agents of Captain Single-eye are out there masquerading as potential buyers. Shit, your humble playwright forgot the burlesque. Next time. 

fin

Yrokkes rolle, a play in one-half plus two-quarters act

Characters
Miss Prunella Vulgaris, The Duchess of Hammer-on-Dulcimer, esteemed member of the Peonage
Juan, The Earl of Valdez, less esteemed member of the Peonage
Lady Herefordshirebroke, The Marquess of Upper Silesia, esteemed member of the Peonage
Captain Single-eye, Sovereign Grand Inspector General of the Island of Heretofore Unaccounted Knavery, relation of Ivar the Boneless, who had both eyes until the day of his decease, unlike his descendant who had only one, as previously mentioned
Jack the London, noted Western wildman
Jack the Kerouac, noted Neolithic hipster
Jack the Ripper, noted English arch-slasher
Mysterious Stranger, chapeau'd
Bear, bait and loveable ursine scamp

Non-library, exterior, daytime, the hypnotizing concrete glow of the grime-ridden road is broken by the rumbling ramble of the publick carriage transporting DUCHESS and EARL to their employ at the Museum of Palimpsest Oddities.

EARL: Another day, another shilling. Knock, knock.

DUCHESS: No one's in yet, Newton.

EARL: Verily, thou art the epitomicall archetype of seri --

MARQUESS (muffled): Help! Help! I'm being repressed!

EARL: Ahem.

DUCHESS: Lady Herefordshirebroke, why are you here on thy day off?

The door flies open, revealing the villainous revelation.

CAPTAIN: Because she is my hostage!

EARL: Knave!

DUCHESS: Cur!

CAPTAIN: Yes, yes, there will be time for pleasantries later. But now, behold, in light of my dismal failure in harnessing the awesome Biblickal powers of the ostentatiously baroque Gothick castle undone brick by brick to brave the monstrously behemothicall dangers of the high seas of deep depths housing the most dread of creatures such as Leviathan only to be rebuilt brick by brick in the sultriest of tropicall & paradisaical island kingdoms as befitteth my Viking heritage in order to avenge, in the finest berserker style, my enemy upon ye, Her Majesty's foremost investigators --

DUCHESS, MARQUESS and EARL: Zzzzzz.

CAPTAIN: There will be time for a nap later! But now now, behold, the Max-O-Minimum Schell!

A piercingly grinding galvanic whir cuts the air and beats the drum of all ears within shot as a large metallic shell in the shape of a giant almond opens.

DUCHESS: Gosh that hurts!

EARL: Asshole!

MARQUESS: (something in Polish, which yr humble playwright knoweth not)

CAPTAIN: Behold, now! now! now!

Three Olympian lightning bolts strike out, striking the grime-ridden road.

JACK THE LONDON: London-town mine! My name! Me wolf! Jack crush! Crush now?

JACK THE KEROUAC: Crush now, daddy-o.

JACK THE RIPPER: Yanks, always sharp as Hemingway. If I knew who that was.

MARQUESS: Is this the part where we declare just how fucked we are?

An even more piercingly grinding galvanic whir cuts the air quickly filled with the kicked-up dusty grime of the grime-ridden road and a new, fouler stench.

DUCHESS: Oh my God, Bear is driving without horses, how can that be?

MARQUESS: And who is he with?

MYSTERIOUS STRANGER (whispering): Bspsbspsbsps.

MYSTERIOUS STRANGER hands DUCHESS a raspberry beret before BEAR drives them off in a little red corvette.

EARL: Verily, who wast that chapeau'd man?

MARQUESS: And what sayeth he? Dammit, now I'm talking like an idiot.

DUCHESS: Yeah, the Earl'll do that. Quickly, Purple Prose Powers, activate! Shape of, a Proust!

EARL: Who?

DUCHESS: Just blather on interminably within the shell --

CAPTAIN (visibly shaken): No!

DUCHESS: -- of patently undiagrammable sentences!

DUCHESS, MARQUESS and EARL blather on interminably within the shell of patently undiagrammable sentences whose violently violet purpleosity is so heinously indigo that classy society demands it not be reprinted here. Oh, the Three Jacks fizzle like candied soda fizz, and no one ever speaks of the strange mechanized horseless contraption again.

CAPTAIN: I'm taking my shell and going home.

CAPTAIN stomps off and DUCHESS throws the raspberry beret up in victory until she realizes they still have eight hours of work.

fin 

99 luftballons give or take, a play in three-quarters act

Characters
Miss Prunella Vulgaris, The Duchess of Hammer-on-Dulcimer, esteemed member of the Peonage
Juan, The Earl of Valdez, less esteemed member of the Peonage
Captain Single-eye, Sovereign Grand Inspector General of the Island of Heretofore Unaccounted Knavery, relation of Ivar the Boneless, who had both eyes until the day of his decease, unlike his descendant who had only one, as previously noted
Dog-bird, hideous laboratory creation and anthropomorphic hench-creature
Bear, bait and loveable ursine scamp

Non-library, exterior, daytime, the grimy industrial glow of smokestack lighting is broken by the comradely banter of DUCHESS and EARL, their it-only-looks-expensive discount threads gleaming in the play of glimmering water and the overhanging sun, bringer of life, omens and melanoma.

EARL: This lunchtime jaunt down the Thames was a splendid idea, as were these beverages. I'm quite keen on this rooty beer floating on, what do you call this frozen confection?

DUCHESS: I believe the traveling cart salesman told me it was iced – whirlpool!

A terrible descent into some kind of maelstrom has left DUCHESS and EARL unimaginably shipwrecked on an uncharted desert island that unimaginably has a gothic castle on a hill, though your humble playwright humbly requests that you do imagine otherwise production will have to be shut down immediately. Your patronage is most welcome.

Enter CAPTAIN and DOG-BIRD.

CAPTAIN: Welcome to my island of wealth and taste , I am –

DUCHESS: We know who you are.

EARL: We read the programme.

CAPTAIN: Then you know why I've brought you here. Members of the Peonage are renowned the world over for their skills in the arcane book depository arts, and I need all of my magickal works in yon Schloss Klausenburg catalogued with both speed and distinction --

EARL: Huh?

CAPTAIN: Just the witty repartee I expected from the likes of you, halfwit. I've spies in every civilized village from Timbuktu to Paris, simple man, and every savage one from Cathay to Cleveland.

DUCHESS: Why us? You could have --

CAPTAIN: Used anyone with similar experience for the job, ‘tis true. But my spies have also made me aware of your brilliant tag-team defeat of Master Baytes, dread piratical buccaneer and constant thorn in my gentle side, a pox upon his scurvy crew scattered to the four winds!

DUCHESS (muttering): Tag-team, right. That was my idea.

EARL: What are you getting at, imitation Prospero?

CAPTAIN: FYI, Juan, words hurt. The Duchess is correct, of course. I could have hired, or in this case, kidnapped, anyone. No, I needed Her Majesty's foremost investigators imprisoned on this forlorn isle to nip in the bud your goody-two-shoes scheme to gaol the Captain in a room with large bay windows. There’s no Dr. Van Helsing coming to save you, diabolical laugh! Now, on to plunder your beloved London-Town through judicious real estate ventures!

DUCHESS: Putting aside for a moment that we're not law enforcement and that we’ve never heard of you –

CAPTAIN: Your beauty is exceeded only by your contempt!

DOG-BIRD growls with gusto.

DUCHESS: Anyway, your plan consists of a plot point lifted from a moving picture produced by a film studio yet to be founded, a picture with sound, a technology that hasn't been invented, based upon a novel that has yet to be written about a creature that doesn’t exist?

EARL: Ingenious!

CAPTAIN: Enough! I've much to formulate. As for you, defenders of the realm, be not imps of Ahab and get thee hence to the bookes!

Exeunt CAPTAIN and DOG-BIRD.

EARL: How will we ever escape this conspiracy?

DUCHESS: Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

EARL: Probably not.

DUCHESS: There, you ass, look!

DUCHESS espies a grove of tropical balloon trees conveniently nearby and DUCHESS and EARL climb up for closer inspection.

EARL: We can construct a hot-air balloon out of these balloon-shaped leaves!

DUCHESS: Exactly! Traversing the atmospheres to safety and he'll never --

Enter CAPTAIN, armed.

CAPTAIN: Expect it? My dear Duchess, why, I counted on it!

EARL: We are so fucked.

Just as the ensuing scuffle is about to ensue, BEAR appears in the traditional, timely manner of the ursus ex machina, fierce teeth and claws holding the terrible sorcerer at bay long enough, probably an hour or three, to permit DUCHESS and EARL to construct a hot-air balloon out of the convenient grove and the nails and glue they also conveniently found lying around. DOG-BIRD, who knows where it's at. Oh, and don’t worry about the hot air source, that’s what EARL is for.

CAPTAIN: Curses! Foiled again! (DUCHESS and EARL bob and weave towards London-Town in safety) I'll get revenge upon you two, if it's the last thing I do and it won’t be unless it is!

fin

Hold the line, not a song by Toto, a play in one-half act

Characters
Miss Prunella Vulgaris, The Duchess of Hammer-on-Dulcimer, esteemed member of the Peonage
Juan, The Earl of Valdez, less esteemed member of the Peonage
Zardoz, freshly served serf 
Noman, background scenery
Master Baytes of Tampa, dread piratical buccaneer
Bear, bait and loveable ursine scamp

Library, interior, nighttime. the misty asbestos glow of artificial lighting is broken by MASTER BAYTES' glaring retort deigning to glare at the glare of ZARDOZ THE SERF, a field recording recorded twixt bewilderment and astonishment by MISS PRUNELLA VULGARIS.

MASTER BAYTES:  I am here to walk me plank! Ye can try an' psychology me!

ZARDOZ:  Ho ho, look at the wank!

NOMAN: Hee hee! What rhymes with sank? Sock!

MASTER BAYTES: Mock me, ye scurvy dogs? I'll run ye through!

DUCHESS: O, what filthy swine. Silence, the whole lot of you!

MASTER BAYES: Arr! Find pleasure in me scowl!

DUCHESS: Bloody wanker. Wait, a plan deviously foul!

BEAR: Growl!

BEAR greedily devours MASTER BAYTES, ZARDOZ and NOMAN

fin

Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental, a play in three acts.

Act the first

Lord Boomer, Viscount of Foxglove: Bob Dylan remains The Finest Exemplar of the Cosmic Greatness*, whilst John Lennon is his worthy apprentice who in some learned circles, surpasses the master, & the Lady Yoko is a vastly underrated reservoir of non-migraine songcraft.

"What about me, I stung like a bee, chump."

Miss Prunella Vulgaris, The Duchess of Hammer-on-Dulcimer, esteemed member of the Peonage: /yawn/

Juan, the Earl of Valdez, less esteemed member of the Peonage: /Olafian metal face/

Lord Boomer, Viscount of Foxglove: Well, I never! /stomps/


Act the second

Baron Bald of Aquarius: Access to the Sacred Wisdom of Our Age will reveal to the universe how to be saved, love & peace, man, I saw Hair back in the day. I have a big house. My taxes are too high.

Miss Prunella Vulgaris, The Duchess of Hammer-on-Dulcimer, esteemed member of the Peonage: /rolls eyes like that young chick in the Exorcist, was there pea soup, who can say, not I, your humble playwright/

Juan, the Earl of Valdez, less esteemed member of the Peonage: Oh, do tell!


Act the third

"The World devolves into chaos, oil & water ever vanishing,
yet when the last Arbiter of Things by a Demon ravishing
boils in its own bloody red,
Authority now lies dead
& the survivors survive on glorious Power Chording --
-- & processed food, how ironically ironic!"

fin.

Who is driving? Oh my God, bear is driving! How can that be? A Play In One-Half Act

Characters
Miss Prunella Vulgaris, The Duchess of Hammer-on-Dulcimer, esteemed member of the Peonage
Juan, The Earl of Valdez, less esteemed member of the Peonage
Bear, bait and loveable ursine scamp
Snowpocalypse, noted archfiend

Library, interior, nighttime. SNOWPOCALYPSE's Artificial Contraption of Contrapuntal Precipitation has trapped DUCHESS and EARL in a Doppler Spiral of Infernal Immobility.

EARL: What a gaff. I feel like I'm in a bad episode of Placeholder Place.

DUCHESS: But you repeat yourself.

EARL: 'tis another snow job, 'tis.

SNOWPOCALYPSE:  I snow what you mean.

DUCHESS and EARL: Snowpocalypse! You hold a candle to the devil!

SNOWPOCALYPSE: I know you are. But what am I.

Snow continues to fall.

EARL: You won't get away with th -- hey!

DUCHESS: Are you two alright?

EARL: Where's the fucking stage manager? Fake snow, dumbass, fake! It's hot as fuck in here, this is gonna melt and now I smudged my makeup. Wardrobe!

SNOWPOCALYPSE: Erm, should I stay in character?

DUCHESS: Shhh! The audience can hear you!

SNOWPOCALYPSE: What audience?

DUCHESS: Good point. Anyway, to wrap this up, Bear stopped toking long enough to drive his super off-road dayglo horse-drawn carriage through the drifts to save the Peonage, keeping the world safe for the noble pursuit of book learning. Bravo.

SNOWPOCALYPSE: We're still getting paid, right?

DUCHESS rolls her eyes as SNOWPOCALYPSE shakes his fist towards the heavens in a combination of haughty hubris and ash-in-mouth defeat like all supervillains do after finding out there's no cold cut tray backstage.

fin

The Tenth Circle, A Play In One-Half Act

Characters
Agent Stockholm, intrepid government lackey
Syndrome, noted archfiend

Interior, SYNDROME's Fortress of Black, Naughty Evil. The villain has trapped AGENT STOCKHOLM in his Apparatus of Apparent Apparel.

















AGENT STOCKHOLM: "Do you expect me to talk?"

SYNDROME: "No, my dear agent, I expect you to watch!"

The first grisly image appears in hi-def.


















AGENT STOCKHOLM: "That's it? About as frightening as my string of ex-wives. Nice picture quality though, old chap."

Ever classy, SYNDROME nods his appreciation.

AGENT STOCKHOLM: "However, I heard that you were a supervillain. That's not even a cat you're stroking."

SYNDROME: "No, but it is the flesh of the last one to cross me!"

AGENT STOCKHOLM: "Yawn. Try again, nefarious ne'er-do-well."

SYNDROME: "You'd be well advised to watch your tongue. I might make it into a sandwich."

The second grisly image appears in hi-def.


















AGENT STOCKHOLM: "Amateur. Is that the sickest you've got?"

SYNDROME: "Methinks your brazen tone will go best braised --

dramatic pause accompanied by an off-stage organ riff

-- if you survive the final horror."

The third, and final, grisly image appears in hi-def.


















AGENT STOCKHOLM: "NOOOOOOO! You bastarrrr......."

AGENT STOCKHOLM faints.

SYNDROME: "Muahahahahaha. Time for dinner."

SYNDROME rubs his hands together like all supervillains do after having taken a squeeze of anti-bacterial. An undercooked Big Mac is nothing to trifle with.

fin