Writer’s Playful Dream Crumbles Into Wilder Reality

SUNFLOWER AVENUE

A Musical-in-Progress

(Weepy yet Tart)

*

Setting: A sprawling newspaper building on that famous street in Costa Mesa, Calif. One-time promising newspaper columnist DRAM MONDESON, now withered beyond his years and with a hunted look in his eyes, hunches at a desk in a remote, corner office and stares maniacally at the video display terminal screen. The office door is closed and the blinds are partially drawn, letting him see out but no one see in. His mutterings as he types are punctuated by dog-like yips. He appears delusional.

*

Act One:

MONDESON: (feverishly typing): Ha! This is great! Let them scoff, those no-talent toadies. What do they know about genius? What do they know of column-writing?

(Knock on the door. ARTIE LEWIS, Mondeson’s editor, enters.)

LEWIS: Hurry up, Dram. That column was due an hour ago. You used to be fast.

MONDESON (haughtily): I’m still fast. It’s the newspaper that got slow.

LEWIS (blanching while reading the copy): You call this a column? Do you expect us to run this?

MONDESON: Of course, I expect you to run it. What’s the matter? Too intellectual for you? Too profound? What, not bland enough? I could make it duller, you know.

LEWIS: Dram, we gotta talk. We go back a long ways. You’ve written lots of columns for us. Some damn good ones too. You used to have flair, some style! But you’re losing it, man. People are talking. Maybe you need a little time off.

MONDESON: If it needs a little punching up, why don’t you just say so?

LEWIS (sighing): I don’t think there’s a way to punch up a column about a pelican picking garbage out of a can.

MONDESON (jumps atop the desk and performs show’s first song: “When Everyone Around You Is Nuts.”)

LEWIS: Look, you had a good run. Maybe it’s time to think about something else. How many columns you written anyway? A thousand?

MONDESON (sneering): That shows what you know. A thousand, two hundred and thirty-four. And you want me to stop now? I’ve never been better, you tiny little man. If I gave this up, who would explain it to my public? Who’s going to give them what they want?

LEWIS: Dram, I didn’t want to tell you this today, but we’ve taken surveys. Your recognition level with the public is somewhere between the chess column and the listing of public notices.

MONDESON: Oh, taking surveys, are we now? That is so typical of you. I don’t believe surveys. What about these letters I got this month? (Opens the desk drawer where they’re kept.)

LEWIS: Dram, I see four letters in there. The security guards get more mail than that.

(At this point, stage lights dim. LEWIS, spotlighted, sings “The Annoying Little Clown.”)

MONDESON: I see what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to embarrass me into quitting. You’re trying to make me lose my temper, aren’t you, you disgusting piece of lint. Well, it won’t work. I was writing columns when they used Remingtons. I was writing columns when they set the type by hand and you could see the sweat of the pressman on every page. I was writing columns while you were still trying to figure out the bus transfers so you could find your way to work.

LEWIS (momentarily taken aback): Dram, is that mascara you’re wearing?

MONDESON: What if it is? What if I get tired of looking the same way everyday? A little individuality scares you, doesn’t it? Yancy, get me a fruit drink! Tangerine, if they have it!

LEWIS: Yancy? Do you mean Yancy Dugan?

MONDESON (sarcastically): No, I mean Yancy Hornbuckle. Of course, I mean Yancy Dugan !

LEWIS: Dram, Yancy was your best friend. He died six years ago.

MONDESON: Yancy Dugan? Dead?

LEWIS: Yes, you spoke at his funeral.

MONDESON: And Yancy Hornbuckle?

LEWIS: There is no Yancy Hornbuckle. You just made him up.

MONDESON: And the pelican column?

LEWIS (hushed voice): I don’t think we can run it, Dram.

MONDESON: Too soft? Too disjointed? What parts didn’t you like?

LEWIS: The part about the pelican, and the part about the garbage.

MONDESON (pleadingly): Well, maybe I could rework it, y’know, rearrange some things. Remember how you used to say I could make anything work?

LEWIS: Yeah, I remember saying that, Dram. We used to say you could make a pig sing opera. . . . Why don’t you knock off for the night? We’ll talk tomorrow.

(LEWIS exits. Stage lights begin fading as spotlight narrows on MONDESON. He walks around his desk and peers through the blinds at the other workers. Alone in his office, he does show-stopping number, “I Don’t Remember Losing It.”)

When he finishes, he turns out the light in his office and we fade to black . . .

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.