Most recently, I'm only now coming off of a 29-hour Play-in-a-Day odyssey, which culminated in my family joining me as the inestimable Adventure Theater team knocked the piece that follows out of the park.
Yes, it's another installment of It Was Awesome and You Missed It.
Hardheaded Woman of Mine
Seamus Sullivan
Pygmalion, facing downstage, kneels in front of an invisible statue, sculpting it with an invisible chisel and mallet. Galatea enters behind him.
GALATEA
Gods, Pyggy, not another one.
PYGMALION
Yes, another one. Almighty Zeus! Pygmalion the sculptor, sculpting. Who ever could have foreseen this.
GALATEA
I hope harpies eat your rotten guts.
PYGMALION
Galatea, my sweet, in my mind you are plummeting into blackest Tartarus, toes wiggling indignantly at the heavens.
GALATEA
You couldn’t chisel her with a shirt on, for once?
PYGMALION
You know that’s not how it works. Now. If I may-?
He raises the chisel with the utmost care. Raises the mallet.
Galatea coughs extremely loudly.
Pygmalion ruins the statue.
PYGMALION
GNAAAAAAAAAAH
GALATEA
Sorry, am I distracting you?
PYGMALION
Woman! I call you toppler of enterprise! Ruiner of things!
GALATEA
Sculpt dogs or gods or dolphins! How hard is it to not carve sexy women!
PYGMALION
Really hard! That’s my whole thing!
GALATEA
Carve all the rock-hard bellies you want, Pyggy. The gods have not seen fit to outfit you with biceps or a strong chin. They have bestowed unto you a paunch.
PYGMALION
Your skin is cool to the touch and your half of the bed sags.
GALATEA
Your pipe cleaner arms end in calloused paws.
PYGMALION
You don’t sweat and I’ve grown to find that creepy.
GALATEA (A concession.)
…I miss feeling your calloused paws.
PYGMALION
…I have to go get more marble because now Daphne here has no toes.
GALATEA
She looks a little derivative.
PYGMALION
YOU LOOK A LITTLE DERIVATIVE!
GALATEA
I mean if you’re trying to copy Antiphones of Argos-
PYGMALION
SHUT UP I HATE YOU FOREVER!
He punches her in the shoulder, injures his hand.
PYGMALION
AAAhahaaaHAGHUH
GALATEA
You make it so easy for me.
PYGMALION
Some Gorgon vomited poison into your quarry when you were still a block of marble. That’s the only explanation for your enduring malevolence.
I think I broke a finger.
GALATEA
Good.
How did we get like this?
EROS
He carved you to be the most beautiful statue in the world, fell in love with you, and then I brought you to life because I do that sort of thing.
Enter Eros, God of Love, stroking a pink pillow which he carries on his arm like a Bond villain’s fluffy cat. He is pansexual, omnipotent, and out of his mind. Might look like David Bowie.
EROS
I’m Eros, God of Love. And this is Matthew. Matthew was a ravishing discus player who spurned my advances, and now he’s my magical flying pillow. Don’t stare.
PYGMALION
Oh, gods.
EROS
Yeeeessssss!
Pygmalion and Galatea fall to their knees.
GALATEA
Please don’t turn us into trees.
EROS
Now that depends on us working through this little speed bump in your marriage.
PYGMALION
I am so sure we can work through it.
GALATEA
Or birds. We’d be terrible birds. He has no sense of direction.
PYGMALION
It’s true.
EROS
Goooooood. The true love thing comes right apart if you hate each other. Can’t have people think I’m losing my touch.
Now come fly with me and Matthew on a magical love journey.
He stands on the pillow. Galatea and Pygmalion eye him nervously.
EROS
I said come FLY!
They jump on the pillow next to him. It’s a tight squeeze, and Galatea lets out a little squeak as Eros pinches her. Then Pygmalion does the same thing. Then they fly through the air on a magical love journey.
EROS
Makes you want to sing a romantic duet, doesn’t it? With the wine-dark waves churning below, and maybe some fireworks going off in the background when we hit the third verse? No?
Matthew agrees with me. Love you to pieces, Matthew.
Here we are!
Galatea and Pygmalion go flying off the pillow as it comes to a sudden stop. Eros steps off briskly.
EROS
The island of Aeaea. Circe leases it for team-building retreats.
PYGMALION
Oh, great and omnipotent Eros, that terrifying flight over the Mediterranean straightened me out completely and opened my eyes to some issues my wife and I have with trust and expectations and I am so ready to go home and work on those-
EROS
Nononononono. You’re two of my headliners! You need drama! Solidarity in the face of adversity! Two against the gods, like Odysseus and Penelope! Theseus and Ariadne! A love to survive cataclysms and endure for centuries!
I’ve devised some labors for you both, and if you complete them before the five minutes it’ll take for me to get bored and turn you into tubs of feta, I think you’ll really grow as a couple.
GALATEA
What if we do what you say and you get bored with us anyway?
EROS
What? Would I do that? (Seeking a character witness.) Matthew? (Remembering he has turned Matthew into a pillow.) Oh! I suppose I would. Muahahahahahahaaaah!
GALATEA
Give us some kind of handicap. Like Odysseus had Athena and Theseus had his ball of twine.
PYGMALION
Look at the current events major!
GALATEA (Pointed)
I’ve had a lot of time to read in bed lately.
EROS
Oh, I like that! Okay! If you can get me to say this sentence, you can banish me from this plane of existence: “Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries.”
PYGMALION
That doesn’t seem like something someone would say.
EROS
Nope! It’s from a movie that hits theaters in five thousand years.
Wipes his eyes with the back of his hand.
EROS
It’s beautiful.
GALATEA
That time just now didn’t count?
EROS
Nope! Ready? How should we start them off, Matthew?
Matthew says build a model acropolis out of office supplies! Aaaaaand go!
He shakes the pillowcase and number of pens, binder clips, Styrofoam cups, and other gewgaws tumble out onto the ground.
PYGMALION
Here, now we want to space the cups evenly to get the weight distribution right-
GALATEA
Gee, Pyggy. If the next challenge is build a sand castle shaped like a pile of girl parts, you’ve got this in the bag.
PYGMALION
I told you, I work within the constraints of my medium!
EROS
Aaaaaaaand you have to speak in limerick!
GALATEA
Now hand me that binder clip, dear
While I shore up this wall over here.
Though the verse makes me dizzy
We’ll keep your paws busy
And not on some tart statue’s rear.
PYGMALION
My treasure, I wish you’d abstain
From this tiresome, nagging refrain.
Your beauty’s quite rare,
Your form sculpted with care,
But your voice is like nails in my brain.
My sculpting is what keeps us fed-
GALATEA
And the reason you pass out in bed
Next to your gorgeous wife
Who’d trade years of her life
If just once you’d try giving her-
EROS
Boooooring! I declare your acropolis wimpy but serviceable. Now you must fall backwards and catch one another! You may continue fighting in sonnet form.
PYGMALION
It snowed the morning that I led a crew
To prise your block of marble from the soil
White muffled footsteps marked our path to you
The ground was hard, and broke with hours of toil.
He catches Galatea.
When dusk came and your body lay enshrined,
Stony bed laid out upon twin racks,
I paused without and spared a glance behind
At the white hills we’d marred with brown sledge tracks.
Galatea catches him.
The blank still grandeur of that snowy morn
We’d smeared and broken with our muddy feet.
Just as the chalk white block of stone we’d borne
I’d now defile to make your shape complete.
He catches Galatea.
I loved you then, but I love even more
Blank stone, beginnings, wond’ring what’s in store.
He falls and smashes into the ground, Galatea having thrown up her hands in disgust.
EROS
Tell your partner two truths and a lie about yourself! Also, you’re a wildebeest!
Pygmalion, who was in the act of dusting himself off, turns into a wildebeest. He seems upset about this.
GALATEA
One. So if I’m hearing this right you find our relationship stifling and fantasize about starting over and doesn’t that make a girl feel wanted. Did I say wanted? I meant want to kick your little wildebeest head off!
Pygmalion makes a wildebeest sound.
GALATEA
Yep. Truth.
Two. When I was in the stone I heard voices in the earth, mountain uncles and tectonic plate grandfathers, and they all said the scruffy little sculptor with the pickaxe and the dreamy look in his eyes was bad news and I’d be sorry I went with him.
Pygmalion makes the same sound.
GALATEA
Truth. Two for two.
Three. I think we should stay together.
Pygmalion makes a long, sad wildebeest sound.
GALATEA
Caught me. You’re good at this game.
EROS
Same deal! YOU can only talk in haiku! YOU’re a meerkat!
Hold me Matthew. This is riveting.
Pygmalion ceases to be a wildebeest, while Galatea transforms into a meerkat.
PYGMALION
Chisel bites the stone
Marble dust unveils women
Each one leaves our house
Galatea makes an angry meerkat gesture.
PYGMALION
Let me rephrase it.
Statues are not dear to me.
I love the making.
Galatea makes a puzzled meerkat gesture.
PYGMALION
I miss making you.
Living with you panics me.
This is why I sculpt.
EROS
Ahem.
PYGMALION
I owe you a lie!
Killed two bears as a baby.
Can we be done now?
EROS
YES!
He applauds. Galatea turns back into a woman.
EROS
ALMOST! FIGHT FOR MY AMUSEMENT!
Pygmalion turns back into a wildebeest and Galatea turns back into a meerkat and they fight. They roll around and nip at each other’s necks. Eros cackles and waves Matthew in rings over his head.
EROS
Behold, Matthew! They’re beautiful! Beautiful! Two against the gods! Muahahahahahaaa!
He stomps his foot and they turn back into people rolling around the stage.
There is a momentary beat where they realize they are people again and stop fighting.
They begin to make out. Maybe they continue to roll around the stage, making out.
GALATEA
That sonnet…gods above! Those haiku! I didn’t know you could do that!
PYGMALION
You were a meerkat!
GALATEA
I was!
PYGMALION
This is what it was like. Taking the marble away to find you.
GALATEA
Hearing your chisel through the rock, getting closer.
PYGMALION
We can do this! It can be like this!
EROS
Make out some more! We’re not even here!
GALATEA
What are the magic words again?
EROS
I’m not going to tell you NOW.
GALATEA
“Your mother was a horsethief?”
PYGMALION
“And your father smoked ligonberries?”
EROS
“Your mother was a HAMSTER and your father smelt of ELDERBERRIES.”
GALATEA
There it is.
EROS
Whoops.
He and Matthew float into the air.
EROS
BeinloveforeverorI’llturnyouintofigtreesokaybyyyyyyyyyyyyyye!
He and Matthew vanish. Husband and wife regard each other.
PYGMALION (fondly)
You’re not how I saw you in my head.
GALATEA
Deal.
The End
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