SPECIAL
OPERATIONS
Special Operations text excerpt:
SCENE I.
Two men sit facing each other across a table. There are two glasses on the table and a clear water pitcher. US Center there are two black flats, approx 7' tall and 4' wide, with an opening between them of approx. 4')
Man 2 There is a woman...
Man 1 Always a woman
Man 2 Says you violated the rights of her husband. Says you permitted, committed, incited. I'm reading off the wire. (turn head US)
Man 1 There were no wires.
Man 2 The report. I only wanted to warn you, not quibble over language.
Man 1 It was language. Nothing but language.
Man 2 (helpfully) We come into a strange place...
Man 1 Foreign. Unknown. Unwanted.
Man 2 I have also a memo from command, from Molly's people.
Man 1 I follow no commands but that of my god
Man 2 They are threatening to end your contract.
Man 1 I have no contract other than that with my maker
Man 2 They are saying you serve two masters
Man 1 The chattering of magpies does not concern the man of valor. Our work remains unaffected by labor disputes.
(silence)
Man 2 (as if taking a new tact) There's a woman...
Man 1 always a woman
Man 2 says her husband was taken by your...
Man 1 Not mine! Ours. Always ours. Collective innocence, collective guilt.
Man 2 (hesitant) Our forces...
Man 1 Go on then
Man 2 Our forces are accused of abducting
Man 1 Yes of course. (takes a sandwich out of a bag, and extracts a piece of meat from it) They want to be able to munch happily away on the sausage without knowing how it is created. What we did to make it possible for them to consume this, this information. This story. (crumples bag and throws it off stage. There is an enormous crash, as if the bag were a ball thrown through a glass window)
Man 2 I can't tell them that.
(pause)
Man 1 You can, but you won't.
Man 2 I would cease advancing.
(pause)
Man 1 Yes, you would.
Man 2 And advance, personal advance, is necessary if I am to pull the rest of the troops, the men...and women behind me, along.
Man 1 To higher ground. We are now, as you are concluding correctly, in the flood plain. And we move to higher ground. Moving from the black world of secrets and necessary suffering, to the light of the white.
Man 2 There is an audience out there. (gesture to indicate audience)
Man 1 (circling table while keeping head facing DS) Advocating, as the secretary, Mr. Kissinger, said, "the tyranny of small decisions." So one tries to placate, answer the many objections to every move. And so one does not move at all. Engulfed. Enervated. (sits) Embedded in sheets of lead.
Man 2 We have been flooded with facts. Contrary facts. Might I share some of the specifics with you?
Man 1 Yes, but, be aware of what was said regarding details, "small decisions"...
Man 2 First we...(leans forward; during the next several lines they counter each other's leaning forward/backward in seesaw-like motion)
Man 1 (leans back) Not to mention "deniability." That from an earlier chapter, one I trust you recall.
Man 2 Yes. (pause. Lean forward) We took them into a room and...
Man 1 This room was where?
Man 2 On the base in...
Man 1 (lip-syncing Ronald Reagan from 1980 debate with Jimmy Carter) "There you go again!" It was no place we know of. It was a compartment, a siding.
Man 2 Understood. (pause) Except there were...recordings made.
Man 1 (jovial) Of course there were! Always record. This is our work. History requires documentation and appropriate signatures. Otherwise the history is "instant," unverifiable, unheralded, forgotten. (passionate and sincere) We have nothing, ever, to be ashamed of!
Man 2 But there were complications, deviations. Also recorded.
Man 1 (they are both leaning forward now) These "deviations" (push Man 2 away); they were observed by others, by those in the...white...?
Man 2 Yes. The operation went in sterile, (looks at water in glass) became contaminated. (throws water behind him. We hear an enormous splash)
Man 1 And blame for this has been assessed?
V/O WE ASKED THAT THERE BE NO BLOWBACK.
(one looks US, the other looks DS as if for source of voice)
Man 1 As our Contractor just clarified.No blowback. Not an option. (they look at each other)
Man 2 Not in so many words, no.
Man 1 But an analysis, a report written, submitted, and duly discredited.
(Sounds of thunderstorm)
Man 2 (a little boy, reaching for glass of water) They were hounding us like dogs from outside. We could hear them yelling at us. (recoils from glass) It was frightening.
Man 1 I am sure it was.
Man 2 (he is reaching over table so much he is out of chair) The yelling from inside as well. It was distracting.
Man 1 I am sure it was.
(Thunderstorm ends.Silence. They both look up for a long time. Man 2 slowly sits)
Man 1 We have other accounts
Man 2 Who?
Man 1 You said yourself that there were others present.
Man 2 All of them accounted for...
Man 1 Not all, no, not all. There are several fingers for each of our hands. Fingers operating in opposition.
Man 2 (Anxious) No one can point me out in any of this. I was simply reporting.
Man 1 They work, you were told, like ghosts, disappearing ghosts. Always watching. While appearing not to. Coarse exterior, but very sensitive. Beginning in the black, ending in the white, leaving us, however, in the clear. (wipes hands)
Man 2 There is a woman...
Man 1 (very slowly pouring water into his own glass) Always a woman. Waiting. Expecting.
Silence
She has nothing on us at this time. You may tell her that.
Man 2 She is not...here to tell.
Man 1 So there is no problem. The problem...buried itself?
Man 2 Deep in the report.
Man 1 No photo?
Man 2 Blank. All white. Exposed.
Man 1 And pure. As we were, as you were, urged to be. Vanished. No problem.
Sound of an enormous building falling down. Earthshaking.
Man 2 Still, there is a woman.
(sound of a machine gun)
Man 1 There was a woman. A phantom, now forgotten. So, forget.