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    Goose and Tomtom: A Play
    Goose and Tomtom: A Play
    Goose and Tomtom: A Play
    Ebook119 pages1 hour

    Goose and Tomtom: A Play

    By David Rabe

    3/5

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    About this ebook

    “[A] violent, surrealist romp” from the Tony Award–winning playwright of Hurlyburly and Visiting Edna (The Brown Daily Herald).
     
    David Rabe explores the struggle between hope and anguish in the human spirit in this story of two small-time jewel thieves united in a strangely unsettling friendship and the constant fight to prove to themselves and others how tough they are. But when their frantic scheming suddenly begins to betray them in mysterious ways, they find themselves trapped into a kidnapping and a murder over which they seem to have no control. Or do they? David Rabe’s language creates and recreates reality in constantly surprising ways, magically dramatizing the danger of the power of illusion—and the illusion of power—with force and insight.
     
    “A potluck smorgasbord of surrealism, dream soliloquies, science fiction, noir potboiler and fairy tales, with the ghosts of such other writers as David Mamet, Harold Pinter, Sam Shepard and even novelist Thomas Pynchon hovering nearby . . . boasts ample proof of a top-notch writer at work.” —Chicago Tribune
     
    “A fast-paced, visceral work with a manic, anarchic energy . . . a chaotic examination of power and powerlessness in a frightening, irrational universe.” —The Brown Daily Herald
     
    “[A] surrealist, hilarious, mind-fuck of a play . . . a wild, high-energy ride through plot and action.” —LAist
     
    Praise for David Rabe
     
    “Few contemporary dramatists have dealt with violence, physical and psychological, more impressively than Rabe.” —Kirkus Reviews
     
    “A remarkable storyteller.” —Chicago Tribune
     
    “Rabe’s mastery of dialogue is the equal of Pinter and Mamet put together.” —The Boston Globe.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateDec 1, 2007
    ISBN9780802196941
    Goose and Tomtom: A Play
    Author

    David Rabe

    David Rabe’s drama has been honored by the Obie Awards, Variety, the Drama Desk Awards, the New York Drama Critics’ Society, and the Outer Critics’ Circle. He has won a Tony Award and has received the Hull Wariner Award for playwriting three times. Born in Iowa, he received a BA from Loras College and an MA from the Graduate School of Drama at Villanova University. He began his writing career as a journalist and has also written several screenplays. He lives in Connecticut.

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      Book preview

      Goose and Tomtom - David Rabe

      Act One

      TIME: This was recently.

      PLACE: An apartment in the underworld.

      The interior of what appears to be a small apartment. Stage right is a tiny kitchen, with a table, some cabinets. Center stage and stage left is a living room, with a couch, armchair, and hassock, all of cheap construction and design. The floor is partly covered with a rug. In the wall of the living room is a doorway to the bedroom, covered by curtains. The bedroom doorway must be prominently placed so that all entrances and exits are instantly visible, and someone merely standing in the doorway would have a powerful stage position. Somewhere along the stage left wall, or perhaps in a tiny little cubbyhole downstage at the farthest point of the stage left area, is a desk and chair on wheels. There are maps and notes, maybe a globe. There are crates piled near the desk. There are crates piled in other areas about the stage, wherever there is an empty upstage spot. The wallpaper is tattered, the cracks of the concrete cinder blocks behind the wall and wallpaper showing through in places. The front door is in the kitchen, and there are many locks on it. Perhaps there is a mirror at the desk, some toilet articles and travel cases. In the kitchen is a window, the blind drawn fully down. Suitcases and crates are piled about in the upstage left corner, and in the desk area, if it is separate from the kitchen area. It might be best to have the desk in a corner of the kitchen and the office chair on wheels located at the kitchen table, enabling Tomtom to scoot back and forth between the kitchen table and the desk. Coats and hats hang on a coat tree by the door or on hooks on the wall there.

      Lights up. Tomtom lies on the couch, sleeping. He twists suddenly, struggles, groans, and yelps, sitting up. He is a large man, in his forties. He pulls a pistol from a shoulder holster and leaps to his feet, looking warily around. He hurries to the bedroom door and, flattening himself against the wall, is about to slip into the bedroom when he hears a position himself behind the door, it opens. In comes Goose, younger, slighter, carrying a newspaper. He looks around, sees no one.

      Goose: Hey.

      Tomtom: Hey! (Kicking shut the door, he jams the gun in Goose’s face.) How you? ‘At’s what I been waitin’ for. I been onna edge a my chair.

      Goose: So I’m here. (They hug, pat each other down, Tomtom’s hug evolving into an arm around Goose’s neck, a knuckle on the top of Goose’s head.)

      Tomtom: Yeh. ‘At’s good. It’s good. How you doin’? You want some coffee?

      Goose: You got some coffee?

      Tomtom: I could make some. (He flicks on the switch of a hot plate on which a teakettle sits.)

      Goose: ‘At’s what I like about you.

      Tomtom: What?

      Goose: You know.

      Tomtom (threatening to clip Goose): You could tell me.

      Goose: I don’t wanna.

      Tomtom (threatening to clip Goose): ‘At’s okay.

      Goose: ‘At’s what I like about you.

      Tomtom (patting Goose on the cheek): So how you doin’? (Tomtom goes to the mirror for cologne, Binaca, Goose following along.)

      Goose: Hey, terrific. Terrific. I’m doin’ terrific. I come by. You’re here. I was in the neighborhood. I come up the stairs. The door’s open. I don’t even knock. It ain’t locked. I come in. I’m hopin’ maybe I’ll come in on you, and you an’ Lorraine’ll be onna floor fuckin’. I can watch. It ain’t goin’ on, though. You’re just here. So we start talkin’. You’re sittin’ there. I’m standin’ over here. We’re talkin’. I feel good. You ask me how I’m doin’, I tell you fine. I’m doin’ fine. How you doin’?

      Tomtom: Hey. You’re lookin’ at me. How do I look? (Crossing to sit down in the armchair, he grabs Goose’s newspaper.)

      Goose: ‘At’s what I mean. You got an opinion about dreams? I had this fuckin’ dream.

      Tomtom: Sure I got an opinion.

      Goose: What is it?

      Tomtom: You really wanna know?

      Goose: I’m askin’.

      Tomtom: They’re a buncha shit.

      Goose: You think so?

      Tomtom: It’s clear as day.

      Goose: A buncha shit.

      Tomtom: That’s what I said.

      Goose: A buncha shit.

      Tomtom (standing up): You asked for my opinion.

      Goose: How long you had this opinion?

      Tomtom (shoving Goose in the chest so Goose goes flying): What else you gonna think? What the hell else you gonna tell me? You gonna tell me somethin’ else? I mean, you’re layin’ there, am I right so far? You’re layin’ there flat on your back, you got all this stuff like, these things like, goin’ on under your hat. What the hell else it gonna be, you see what I’m sayin’? I mean, Goose, you was sleepin’ you had this dream, right? I mean, this was a dream you had you was flat on your ass. I mean, that’s the kinda dream we’re talkin’ about.

      Goose: Yeh.

      Tomtom: So what else it gonna be?

      Goose: But I remember it.

      Tomtom: Big deal. I remember a lotta shit. But it don’t mean a fuckin’ thing. This green fuckin’ witch, she come into my house. I was little. Scared the crap outa me.

      Goose: Whatta you talkin’ about?

      Tomtom: This green goddamn witch. You never heard a such a thing? (Silence.)

      Goose: Yeh, sure.

      Tomtom: You have, huh? (He hits Goose on one side of the head with the newspaper.)

      Goose: Yeh. Sure.

      Tomtom: When? (He hits Goose on the other side of the head with the newspaper.)

      Goose: Whatta you askin’ me?

      Tomtom (gesturing at Goose, who flinches): Whatta you sayin’ to me?

      Goose: You heard me.

      Tomtom (hitting Goose on the side of the head): What’sa matter you don’t know what I asked you?

      Goose: Yeh, I know. I heard you.

      Tomtom (clipping Goose again): So whatta we talkin’ about?

      Goose: I got a headache. You got a headache?

      Tomtom: So can I tell my fuckin’ story?

      Goose: Where’s the coffee? You says there was coffee.

      Tomtom: What are you, a wise guy? Don’t be a wise guy, Goose!

      Goose: I want some coffee, I got a headache, you oughta offer some aspirin. I hate aspirin, but I got a headache. (He clutches his head.) Oh, oh, oh. It’s like a clangor in it, bangin’ in this bell. And you’re callin’ me an asshole. It’s all upsettin’. I’m gonna take a nap. I’m gonna lay down. Take a nap. (He flops down on the floor.)

      Tomtom: I got excited.

      Goose: You hurt my feelings.

      Tomtom: I got excited.

      Goose: You don’t have a headache, huh? (Tomtom takes a bottle of aspirin from some downstage crates and tosses the bottle to Goose.)

      Tomtom (crossing to the coffee to prepare two cups): No. So can I tell my story?

      Goose: It’s okay. I apologize. You was sayin’?

      Tomtom: So this green goddamn witch come into my house. I was little. I could walk, I wasn’t crawlin’, but I fell over a lot. That was the age I was: where you fall over a lot. And so into this room I was in comes this green goddamn witch with eyes like full of little beehive holes and she’s got this snake in her hand; it’s wigglin’, hissin’ like a witch’s voice—you want cream?—and she stood lookin’ at me. I was playin’; her face was green, her lips had these wrinkles like grooves. She was starin’ at me. I fell over backwards. She scared the crap outta me and I fell over backwards. (He sets the two cups of coffee on the kitchen table.)

      Goose (moving to join Tomtom): A witch, huh?

      Tomtom: Yeh.

      Goose: I saw a witch once. She wasn’t green. She put me in a sack. She tied the top. I was in

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