| | [Enter PC, stage left. A group of punters mills around at right.]
PC: Some new contenders here for twentieth-century composer.
PUNTER 1: [Angrily] Avant sir! How darest thou have the flagpole run up with such lightweight flimsiness...
PC ...such flimsiness a point to make ...
PUNTER 2: [Moving towards PC] ...and takest thou the piss out of Sibelius, Stravinsky ...
[The group of punters moves forward as a mob, grumbling angrily, and continue forward as the scene develops.]
PUNTER 3: ... and Bartok and Shostakovich!
PUNTER 2: Yeah verily, what about them!
PUNTER 1: [Undaunted] Hast thou never heard sing the wondrous melodies of Mahler and Richard Strauss?
PAINTER: [from the back of the stage] And what sayest thou of John Cage, huh?
[Silence, for a beat. The punters turn to the painter.]
PUNTERS: Aroint thee, wretch! [The rump-fed ronyons cry. The painter's to Chattanooga bound. Master the tiger, he goes.]
PC: Hold hard villeins. [The punters turn to face him.] Talkst thee of Richard of Strauss, but born in 1864 he was. Of melodies next-to-none, and by your wishes only is he in twentieth-century squeezed; your point is unmade. [Sounds of grumbling.] And of Mahler the unmelodious, when in 1864 in the world was first found, yon wishful thinking travels on apace...
PUNTER: ... but Bartok, you fiend and ...
PC: ... and with Bartok finds you wishing noise was music. If Bartok's your bag then Stockhausen's your vote. Of Shostakovish the same, though better. My worry is that votes there are already for Stockhausen and Webber of Andrew Lloyd, and rumblings now for Wakeman of Rick. With such contenders as these, and yon squeezing so desperate from one century to another, is my point of the poll not yet clear? Zounds! Think, villeins, think!
[The punters pause and scratch their beards.]
(Edited by Peter Cresswell
on 4/19, 4:25pm)
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