RETURN TO AMNION
FAREED OMBEE
*This piece is best read on PC due to formatting settings.
Cast of Characters
Breeetweezer: A man.
Play-By-Play: A man.
Color: A man.
Musician: A man or woman.
Scene
A living room.
Time
Today and 1971.
AT RISE: Two armless chairs, a TV set, a couch.
The armless chairs are placed toward the front of the stage, facing the audience. They flank the TV set, the screen of which faces backstage toward the couch. The couch can be atop a platform or riser, if appropriate.
Whatever equipment MUSICIAN requires – for example, instrument(s), music stand, stand light, seat – is positioned toward the back of the stage and off to one side.
Positioned toward the back of the stage, and off to the other side, is an office chair and desk, on top of which there is a laptop computer and a headset. The seat faces the audience. The office chair and desk can be atop a platform or riser, if appropriate.
Located behind the couch, toward the back of the stage, in between the office table and MUSICIAN’s set-up, is a plain rice paper screen.
Stage is evenly lit, at the level of, and with the quality of, an autumn afternoon.
(MUSICIAN enters. Dressed in formal concert attire. Bows to the audience. Takes up position and adjusts sheet music, music stand, stand- light, etc.)
(Pause.)
(PLAY-BY-PLAY and COLOR enter, both dressed in black full dress tails or other formal concert attire. Each carries a choral folder.
Proceeding to front and center, they bow to the audience. They then take their seats on the chairs flanking the TV set. The choral folders remain unopened on their laps.)
(Pause.)
(BREEETWEEZER enters. Dressed in casual, Sunday-afternoon clothes. BREEETWEEZER – unlike MUSICIAN, PLAY-BY-PLAY, and COLOR
– does not acknowledge the audience. BREEETWEEZER proceeds to the desk and sits down.)
(Pause.)
BREEETWEEZER
(Puts on headset.)
Hello . . . I hope you’re having a pleasant Sunday afternoon, too, sir . . . no . . . no . . . no . . . no, sir . . . not yet, sir . . . not really, sir . . . not that I’m aware, sir . . . no good reason, sir . . . no excuse, sir . . . no further delay, sir . . . no problem, sir . . . enjoy the rest of your Sunday, too, sir.
(Takes off headset. Exhales, sighing.) (Pause.)
BREEETWEEZER
(Puts on headset.)
Hello . . . yes, it is a beautiful fall afternoon, ma’am . . . yes . . . yes . . . yes … yes, ma’am . . . truly, ma’am . . . absolutely, ma’am . . . positively, ma’am . . . immediately, ma’am . . . enjoy the rest of your Sunday, too, ma’am.
(Takes off headset. Puts head down on the desk, groaning.)
(Pause.)
BREEETWEEZER
(Lifts head. Sits up. Begins typing on laptop.)
Password. What is my password?
(Pause.)
(Begins typing.)
PIN. Personal . . . Identification . . . Number. Fuck.
(Pause.)
(Begins typing.)
What was my favorite childhood food?
(Pause.)
(Takes hands away from the keyboard. Sits back in chair and pushes back from the table. Puts hands behind his head and leans back. Closes eyes.)
(Pause.)
(MUSICIAN makes a clicking sound to simulate the sound of a large analog TV set being switched on manually. Generic stadium crowd noise begins.)
(Pause.)
MUSICIAN
(Speaking in imitation of an older person’s voice.)
There’s lots of chili and macaroni shells left over from lunch. Do you want it for dinner or do you want to take some to school tomorrow?
(BREEETWEEZER opens his eyes wide and sits up
straight.) PLAY-BY-PLAY
(Stands, opens choir folder, declaims.)
And the give is to Harraway . . . he’s hauled down just shy of the 45 . . .
(MUSICIAN blows a whistle.)
. . . after a pick-up of two.
COLOR
(Stands, opens choir folder, intones.) They’re keeping it on the ground.
MUSICIAN
(BREEETWEEZER gets up out of chair and starts walking, gingerly, around the back portion of the stage. Has a quizzical look on his face, as if trying to identify the source of what he is hearing.)
PLAY-BY-PLAY
Pitch-out to Brown . . . he’s wrestled out of bounds after a gain of maybe one at most.
COLOR
Robertson, first-year man out of Southern University, knows how to read plays.
(COLOR pauses.)
The problem for me with that last call is because he’s not normally on the weak side so now if he comes up to stunt he can come right in and then the back is in a bind.
(Pause.)
(Lights down a level. Crowd noise sound down a level.)
(BREEETWEEZER has by now found the rice paper screen and is trying to peer through it toward the couch.)
PLAY-BY-PLAY
Ball is at the 45 yard line, third and eight . . .
MUSICIAN
(Speaking with a mute over mouth and/or sotto voce.)
72 . . . FB West Right Slot . . . 372 . . . Y Stick Right . . . 3 95 . . . 3 95 . . . hut hut . . . hut.
PLAY-BY-PLAY
He sends both backs out . . . and then gets in a lot of trouble and is buried by Deacon Jones.
(MUSICIAN blows a whistle.)
COLOR
Last year they thought he might need shoulder surgery . . . but he wouldn’t go anywhere near a doctor . . . and he has been anything but damaged goods this season.
MUSICIAN
(Speaking in same imitation of an older person’s voice.)
Did you get all of your homework done this weekend?
(BREEETWEEZER is prowling around in the back portion of the stage, pressing his face up against imaginary windows as if peering in at the couch and the TV set.)
I see a flag.
PLAY-BY-PLAY
(Crowd noise sound down a level.)
COLOR
Maybe Bacon jumped? . . . Or maybe Rock moved?
(MUSICIAN blows a whistle.)
Rams are walking backwards.
(Lights down a level.) (Pause.)
PLAY-BY-PLAY
Encroachment.
(Pause.)
COLOR
It’s mental mistakes that kill you.
(Pause.)
PLAY-BY-PLAY
That’ll bring up third and three.
MUSICIAN
(Speaking again in imitation of an older person’s voice.)
Do you have practice after school tomorrow?
(Pause.)
(Now positioned behind the rice paper screen, BREEETWEEZER begins to cry in imitation of a newborn.)
MUSICIAN
PLAY-BY-PLAY
Play-fake . . . looking for Jefferson.
MUSICIAN
(Suddenly BREEETWEEZER bursts through the rice paper screen and enters the space just behind the couch. Startled, he looks around and begins exploring the space, and touching the couch and the TV set.)
PLAY-BY-PLAY
It sails over his head. Incomplete.
PLAY-BY-PLAY
And so on comes the punting unit and they’ll kick it away.
(Lights down a level.)
MUSICIAN
PLAY-BY-PLAY
With 8:48 left on the clock.
(Crowd noise sound down a level.)
(BREEETWEEZER sits down on couch and stares at the TV set.) MUSICIAN
COLOR
You know, I wanted to talk about Dallas.
MUSICIAN
(Pause.)
MUSICIAN
(Pause.)
(BREEETWEEZER lies down on couch.)
COLOR
People are asking if the Cowboys are for real.
(Lights down a level. Crowd noise sound down a level.)
MUSICIAN
(Sehr mässig und zurückhaltend.)
(Noch immer und allmählich zurückhaltend.)
(Pause.)
(Lights dim steadily over MUSICIAN and also over PLAY-BY-PLAY and COLOR as they take their seats.)
(Spotlight appears on BREEETWEEZER.)
(PLAY-BY-PLAY and COLOR and MUSICIAN are now in darkness as the crowd noise sound begins to diminish, gradually dying away.)
(Generic ocean surf noise sound begins, softly, and gradually increases.)
(Pause.)
(BREEETWEEZER curls up in fetal position. Spotlight shrinks steadily until only his face is lit.)
(Ocean surf noise sound steadily increases.)
(Pause.)
(BREEETWEEZER closes his eyes.)
(Pause.)
(BLACKOUT
) THE END
Background Notes
Play-By-Play and Color represent one of the most enduring dyads in the history of broadcasting. For major American professional sports leagues, the combination of a play-by- play announcer and a color commentator emerged in the 1940s and became standard and ubiquitous. Thus the “dialogue” of Play-By-Play and Color can be presented with the (faux) solemnity of any oral art form characterized by ritualistic, formulaic incantation. The utterances of Play-By-Play and Color are cliché in the extreme. The performers might consider rendering them with that in mind, e.g. by proceeding from imitation of real-life delivery of the lines, perhaps via a rallentando, to a ponderous enunciation that reveals the absurdity beneath the banality.
Musician may play on any instrument(s). The musical notation that appears on page five is a quote from the theme music for the CBS television network’s 1969 broadcasts of National Football League games. As are subsequent snippets of musical notation on pages seven and eight, which extend the quote from that theme music.
When Musician speaks with a mute and/or sotto voce on page five, it represents the voice of a football player (specifically, a quarterback) on the field, as it would be heard on the broadcast.
The blowing of a whistle by Musician equals, naturally, the blowing of a whistle by an on-the-field referee.
Starting at the bottom of page eight, the directions written in German, as well as the musical notation they accompany, are from Gustav Mahler’s second symphony (first movement, at measure 117). The directions can be translated as very moderate and reserved and gradually more reserved.
Fareed Ombee is a writer, poet, playwright, and stand-up comedian. He lives in Washington, DC.
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