One-man Water Cooler Lysistrata

One-man Water Cooler Lysistrata
~ or ~
Oh my god!

A burlesque in 5 acts

~ Origninally adapted by Christopher Arnott as published in the New Haven Advocate ~
~ Original script at this link. ~
~ Adapted for one-actor performance by Wm Leslie Howard ~
Videography by Douglas James of douglasjames.net
Photomantage: Wm Leslie Howard

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Act I Scene I: Lysistrata and Marilynos.

Lysistrata: Oh my god. I call a meeting for all the women in town and no one shows up! If I had said it was a Tupperware party I would have had 250 women here by now. If I said it was a negligeé party with toys for sale I would have had 500 women here ten minutes ago all looking for the latest thing at the best bargain! At last here comes someone. Hello Marilynos!

Marilynos: Hello Lysistrata, Oh my goodness, honey, what's up? You look like hell.

Lysistrata: I'm so disappointed! I'm embarrassed for all women! I organize this critical meeting, and they're all still in bed.

Marilynos: They'll get here, Lyssy. You can't expect a woman to just walk off the job. You can't expect a woman to just leave a volunteer post. You can't expect a woman to just leave the kids or stop pacifying her husband for a short notice meeting in the middle of a Monday afternoon in downtown at 3:33 can you?

Lysistrata: Well, this is important. What I have to talk about is hard, it's massive, it's throbbing with significance.

Marilynos: Oh! Ah! Ooooh! How long is it? I mean the meeting.... How long is the meeting going to be?

Lysistrata: We could have mankind in the palm of our hands. Women can save this country!

Marilynos: And how do you think we can pull that off? Our circle of friends ain't exactly the storm-the-battlements type. Look where they are now—home, pleasing their warrior husbands, wearing frilly nighties and perfume, watching the kids when hubby goes to war.

Lysistrata: Those will be our weapons. Here's my plan—No nookie. No sex. Until we get peace.

Marilynos: No!

Lysistrata: Yes!

Marilynos: No!

Lysistrata: Yes!

Marilynos: No Lysistrata! No! It will never work!

Lysistrata: Of course it will. Don't you get it? It's a boycott! Of boy cocks!
All we have to do is sit around in our sexiest outfits, bathed in perfume, all plucked and pretty. They'll be begging for us to spread our legs. And we'll have to beat them off... with sticks! We'll just push them away, keep them away until they give in.

Marilynos: What if they overpower us? Oh, I love that word just let me say it again. What if they overpower us? Oh my goodness, just one more time. What if they overpower us?

Lysistrata: Don't let them get the upper hand. Be indifferent. Give them no pleasure. Nobody gets a piece until we get PEACE!

Act II Scene I: Lysistrata before the assembly of women.

Lysistrata: Welcome Ladies!
Are you all ready to take the vow?
Are you all ready to take the vow?
Repeat this oath after me—
To lovers or friends I won't open my thighs
Even if he's of exceptional size
His sexual passion I'll nip in the bud
I'll scorn the advances of every last stud.
If I don't keep this oath, and I really oughtta,
Let the goddess change this sweet wine into water.
Do you all swear to keep this vow?
Do you all swear to keep this vow?
Do you all swear to keep this vow?

Man: (offstage:) Rape! Loot! Pillage!

Lysistrata: Oh my god! The boys are back from the war. We've got our work cut out for us.

Act II Scene II: Soliliquy

Man: (continuing): Burn, Keeeeeiiiiiillllll! Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! I'm baaaaack! Hi honey I'm home! Where's my dinner?
Oh hay, Ajax, what's up? Yah, we just got back from pilfering Persia. You know that land down there is so nice with the Tigris and the Euphrates, the cradle of civilization and all that, I bet they'll still be fighting over Baghdad in the year two thousand and, I don't know, three!
There was a problem though. We were dragging that big wooden horse the Trojans gave us. Boy was that a mistake. We were going to try to pull the same trick down there but it didn't work out. Nah, I don't want to talk about it.
But there are some not so great things about Persia. Pulling that horse across the sand it would get stuck every now and then, and this black stuff would ooze up from the sand. Really disgusting shit. Smelled like dead animals. Was really slippery and it got all over everything. Now if they could just get rid of that stuff, they might have a country worth conquering.
Yah the war went pretty well, fuckin' a. Oh, they had a couple of minotaurs and a basilisk, but we had the Great Gorgon so the playing field was pretty level. Yah lotta guys got turned to stone. We lost Strepsiades and his son Pheidippides. Pheidippides. You don't know Pheidippides? Kind of good looking kid lived around the corner there? Oh well. Lost a lot of Boeotians, too, but they're a dime a dozen.
Listen Ajax, I have to level with you, the Phillistines were about to kick our ass. At the last minute we got the Pelopennisians to join our coalition. You won't believe how we did it. We offered them 200,000 piasters! We're seven trillion drachma in the hole and they think we're going to give them 200,000 piasters? Some people will believe anything!
Huh?
What? (Turns and sees Lysistrata).
Holy Shit! Speaking of the Great Madusa! Oh my god! I go off to war and come home to an insurrection. From the ladies no less! I'll handle this.

Act III Scene I: Lysistrata, Man, Alan Greenspan, Fed. Reserve Board Member

Man: Hello ladies. We're back from the war and we brought you a bunch of stuff. We have servants for you. Jewelry. Spices to cook with. Some hot chocolate. So why don't you just unchain yourself from the gates right now, before I have to call in the armed guard.

Lysistrata: Call off your men. We've got several armies worth of women—your wives, your mistresses, your mothers, and your mothers-in-laws. I don't think your guards will want to mess with us. And don't get any closer or we'll douse you, just like we watered down everyone who's tried to get in our way.
(Throws water in the air. Man is drenched)

Man: How do we tame these wild beasts? Can they be serious? Is it money you want?

Lysistrata: Yes, we want you to stop spending money on war. Money's the root of your evil. We women have been handling household budgets for years—we'll take over the treasury.

Man: Who? Alan Greenspan? You can have him!
(Man puts on Groucho glasses and toots horn).
I'm going to make the interest rate go UP! No, I'm going to make the interest rate go DOWN! Everyone will think I'm going to make it go DOWN, so I'm going to make it go UP! No DOWN! No up AND down!
I don't care if everyone in the United States is UNEMPLOYED we will not have ANY I~N~F~L~A~T~I~O~N. NO inflation, evil inflation, bomb inflation, KILL, MURDER, MAIME inflation! CUT THE DAMN THING ONE-AND-A-HALF POINTS!

Board Member: But Mr. Greenspan, it's already at point two five. You can't slash it one-and-a-half points!

Greenspan: Watch me! The Prime Lending Rate is now at NEGATIVE one-and-a-quarter POINTS! HA! HA!

Board Member: But Mr. Greenspan, what will we charge people to temporarily give them money? What are we going to do?

Greenspan: I don't know. It's an EXPERIMENT! It's a great mystery! We'll just have to wait and see!!! (Mad Dance). I make the interest rate go up, I make the interest rate go down. I can do the charleston!

Lysistrata: Are you through?

Man: Charleston, charleston. Yah, I'm through.

Lysistrata: Alan Greenspan is the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, not the Treasury. They're different.

Man: Yah? You can have them both!
(Pause)
What?

Lysistrata: That's not your line.

Man: Yes it is.

Lysistrata: You're supposed to say you can TAKE them both.

Man: Oh my god! Why are you doing this to me?

Lysistrata: Well, what do you think, this is some sort of improv group or something?

Man: No, I think it's a one man show and you are talking to yourself. Let's go. These people don't have all day. And I'm sure they just want us to cut to the giant dick scene anyway, right? See!
So you can TAKE them both. I suppose the next thing you'll want is to vote!

Lysistrata: You need to be saved from yourselves, and we're the ones to save you.

Man: And what if we don't feel like being saved?

Lysistrata: Oh you just shut up! We've put up with your way of running things for too long. (Mockingly.) "War will save the economy." No, it won't! "War will bring us honor." No, it doesn't! "War will make peace!" That's like saying fornicating will make virginity! War, war, war! It's all you ever talk about, it's the only thing in the news. It's sad how far gone you are.

Man: I'll be damned if I'm going to take advice from some nagging shrew who just needs a good screw.

Lysistrata: You are damned, you old fool, and you'll be the one begging for sex. From now on, war is women's business. Our loving ways will make us the peacemakers!

Act III Scene III: Lysistrata, Man at home

Man: No woman's gonna tell me when I can't use my sword!
(Man chases Lysistrata around room. Lysistrata giggles, taunts him.)

Lysistrata: He loves me, he loves me not. Whew! This is tiring!
(Exit, persued by a bare.*)

Act IV Scene I: Lysistrata, Marilynos

Marilynos: Liz, we're fed up with not being filled up.

Lysistrata: Tell me about it. I've had to stop every one of you from going back on our vows.

Marilynos: You should have just asked us to hold a bake sale... Oh! Look at the time! Gotta go.

Lysistrata: And where do you think you're going? We're on strike, remember?
(Marilynos begins to throw up. | Violently.)
Oh my god, Marilynos, what's wrong?

Marilynos: I'm pregnant.

Lysistrata: You weren't blowing chunks yesterday.

Marilynos: I'm due any moment. It's going to be a boy.

Lysistrata: You are not due any moment and you are not going back to your husband now. We're so close to victory—It's in the stars. Listen to today's horoscope: "Farmers! Separate the hens from the cocks. All your worries will soon be at an end and you'll be on top."

Marilynos: With the men on the bottom?

Lysistrata: But if the hens pick at each other, then our goose is cooked.

Marilynos: Well, that's pretty clear. I guess we can hold out, at least until the next horoscope. (Sudden look of shock.) Except here comes my husband now!

Act IV Scene II: Lysistrata, Cinesias

Cinesias: (staggering, bent at the waist due to blue balls): I am Cinesias, son of Phallus.

Lysistrata: Your father's name has been on all of our lips.
And your wife, she can hardly look at a banana, or a tree, without sayng "I miss my SIN-esi-ASS."

Cinesias: Well, you saw me catch her just now. I took her home and made her promise to do me, but she kept teasing me and stalling me.
(Miming the actions, uncomfortably because of his swollen crotch.)
She had to take off her jewelry. Then her girdle. Then she had to wash her hair. Then she needed a blanket. Then she wanted me to shave. Finally, when I was all ready, she said was I ready to sign the Peace treaty? I said I'd sleep on it, and she ran away! Arrrrgh!

Lysistrata: I'm ready to arbitrate if you are.

Act V Scene I: Ensemble

Man: (Huge erection sticks out under his clothes).
Okay, we're ready to talk peace. This situation is getting explosive.

Lysistrata: I see what you mean. Time to divest?

Man: Is it time to divest?

Lysistrata: Is it time to divest?

Man: Is it time to divest?

Lysistrata: Is it time to divest?

Man: It's time to divest! (Celebratory Terpsichore.)
The sooner the better.

Ensemble: Make love, not war!
Make love, not war!
Make love, not war!
Make love, not war!
(Curtain falls to mad rejoicing.)

* From Shakespeare's Winter's Tale one of the longest stage directions in the catalog: Exit pursued by a bear.

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Act I Scene I: Lysistrata and Marilynos.
Lysistrata:	Oh my god. I call a meeting for all the women in town and no one shows up! If I had said it was a Tupperware party I would have had 250 women here by now. If I said it was a negligeé party with toys for sale I would have had 500 women here ten minutes ago all looking for the latest thing at the best bargain! At last here comes someone. Hello Marilynos!
Marilynos:	Hello Lysistrata, Oh my goodness, honey, what's up? You look like hell.
Lysistrata:	I'm so disappointed! I'm embarrassed for all women! I organize this critical meeting, and they're all still in bed.
Marilynos:	They'll get here, Lyssy. You can't expect a woman to just walk off the job. You can't expect a woman to just leave a volunteer post. You can't expect a woman to just leave the kids or stop pacifying her husband for a short notice meeting in the middle of a Monday afternoon in downtown at 3:33 can you?
Lysistrata:	Well, this is important. What I have to talk about is hard, it's massive, it's throbbing with significance.
Marilynos:	Oh! Ah! Ooooh! How long is it? I mean the meeting.... How long is the meeting going to be?
Lysistrata:	We could have mankind in the palm of our hands. Women can save this country!
Marilynos:	And how do you think we can pull that off? Our circle of friends ain't exactly the storm-the-battlements type. Look where they are now—home, pleasing their warrior husbands, wearing frilly nighties and perfume, watching the kids when hubby goes to war.
Lysistrata:	Those will be our weapons. Here's my plan—No nookie. No sex. Until we get peace.
Marilynos:	No!
Lysistrata:	Yes!
Marilynos:	No!
Lysistrata:	Yes!
Marilynos:	No Lysistrata! No! It will never work!
Lysistrata:	Of course it will. Don't you get it? It's a boycott! Of boy cocks! All we have to do is sit around in our sexiest outfits, bathed in perfume, all plucked and pretty. They'll be begging for us to spread our legs. And we'll have to beat them off... with sticks! We'll just push them away, keep them away until they give in.
Marilynos:	What if they overpower us? Oh, I love that word just let me say it again. What if they overpower us? Oh my goodness, just one more time. What if they overpower us?
Lysistrata:	Don't let them get the upper hand. Be indifferent. Give them no pleasure. Nobody gets a piece until we get PEACE!

Act II Scene I: Lysistrata before the assembly of women.
Lysistrata:	Welcome Ladies! Are you all ready to take the vow? Are you all ready to take the vow? Repeat this oath after me— To lovers or friends I won't open my thighs Even if he's of exceptional size His sexual passion I'll nip in the bud I'll scorn the advances of every last stud. If I don't keep this oath, and I really oughtta, Let the goddess change this sweet wine into water. Do you all swear to keep this vow? Do you all swear to keep this vow? Do you all swear to keep this vow?
Man:	(offstage:) Rape! Loot! Pillage!
Lysistrata:	Oh my god! The boys are back from the war. We've got our work cut out for us.

Act II Scene II: Soliliquy
Man:	(continuing): Burn, Keeeeeiiiiiillllll! Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! I'm baaaaack! Hi honey I'm home! Where's my dinner? Oh hay, Ajax, what's up? Yah, we just got back from pilfering Persia. You know that land down there is so nice with the Tigris and the Euphrates, the cradle of civilization and all that, I bet they'll still be fighting over Baghdad in the year two thousand and, I don't know, three! There was a problem though. We were dragging that big wooden horse the Trojans gave us. Boy was that a mistake. We were going to try to pull the same trick down there but it didn't work out. Nah, I don't want to talk about it. But there are some not so great things about Persia. Pulling that horse across the sand it would get stuck every now and then, and this black stuff would ooze up from the sand. Really disgusting shit. Smelled like dead animals. Was really slippery and it got all over everything. Now if they could just get rid of that stuff, they might have a country worth conquering. Yah the war went pretty well, fuckin' a. Oh, they had a couple of minotaurs and a basilisk, but we had the Great Gorgon so the playing field was pretty level. Yah lotta guys got turned to stone. We lost Strepsiades and his son Pheidippides. Pheidippides. You don't know Pheidippides? Kind of good looking kid lived around the corner there? Oh well. Lost a lot of Boeotians, too, but they're a dime a dozen. Listen Ajax, I have to level with you, the Phillistines were about to kick our ass. At the last minute we got the Pelopennisians to join our coalition. You won't believe how we did it. We offered them 200,000 piasters! We're seven trillion drachma in the hole and they think we're going to give them 200,000 piasters? Some people will believe anything! Huh? What? (Turns and sees Lysistrata). Holy Shit! Speaking of the Great Madusa! Oh my god! I go off to war and come home to an insurrection. From the ladies no less! I'll handle this.

Act III Scene I: Lysistrata, Man, Alan Greenspan, Fed. Reserve Board Member
Man:	Hello ladies. We're back from the war and we brought you a bunch of stuff. We have servants for you. Jewelry. Spices to cook with. Some hot chocolate. So why don't you just unchain yourself from the gates right now, before I have to call in the armed guard.
Lysistrata:	Call off your men. We've got several armies worth of women—your wives, your mistresses, your mothers, and your mothers-in-laws. I don't think your guards will want to mess with us. And don't get any closer or we'll douse you, just like we watered down everyone who's tried to get in our way. (Throws water in the air. Man is drenched)
Man:	How do we tame these wild beasts? Can they be serious? Is it money you want?
Lysistrata:	Yes, we want you to stop spending money on war. Money's the root of your evil. We women have been handling household budgets for years—we'll take over the treasury.
Man:	Who? Alan Greenspan? You can have him! (Man puts on Groucho glasses and toots horn). I'm going to make the interest rate go UP! No, I'm going to make the interest rate go DOWN! Everyone will think I'm going to make it go DOWN, so I'm going to make it go UP! No DOWN! No up AND down! I don't care if everyone in the United States is UNEMPLOYED we will not have ANY I~N~F~L~A~T~I~O~N. NO inflation, evil inflation, bomb inflation, KILL, MURDER, MAIME inflation! CUT THE DAMN THING ONE-AND-A-HALF POINTS!
Board Member:	But Mr. Greenspan, it's already at point two five. You can't slash it one-and-a-half points!
Greenspan:	Watch me! The Prime Lending Rate is now at NEGATIVE one-and-a-quarter POINTS! HA! HA!
Board Member:	But Mr. Greenspan, what will we charge people to temporarily give them money? What are we going to do?
Greenspan:	I don't know. It's an EXPERIMENT! It's a great mystery! We'll just have to wait and see!!! (Mad Dance). I make the interest rate go up, I make the interest rate go down. I can do the charleston!
Lysistrata:	Are you through?
Man:	Charleston, charleston. Yah, I'm through.
Lysistrata:	Alan Greenspan is the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, not the Treasury. They're different.
Man:	Yah? You can have them both! (Pause) What?
Lysistrata:	That's not your line.
Man:	Yes it is.
Lysistrata:	You're supposed to say you can TAKE them both.
Man:	Oh my god! Why are you doing this to me?
Lysistrata:	Well, what do you think, this is some sort of improv group or something?
Man:	No, I think it's a one man show and you are talking to yourself. Let's go. These people don't have all day. And I'm sure they just want us to cut to the giant dick scene anyway, right? See! So you can TAKE them both. I suppose the next thing you'll want is to vote!
Lysistrata:	You need to be saved from yourselves, and we're the ones to save you.
Man:	And what if we don't feel like being saved?
Lysistrata:	Oh you just shut up! We've put up with your way of running things for too long. (Mockingly.) "War will save the economy." No, it won't! "War will bring us honor." No, it doesn't! "War will make peace!" That's like saying fornicating will make virginity! War, war, war! It's all you ever talk about, it's the only thing in the news. It's sad how far gone you are.
Man:	I'll be damned if I'm going to take advice from some nagging shrew who just needs a good screw.
Lysistrata:	You are damned, you old fool, and you'll be the one begging for sex. From now on, war is women's business. Our loving ways will make us the peacemakers!

Act III Scene III: Lysistrata, Man at home
Man:	No woman's gonna tell me when I can't use my sword! (Man chases Lysistrata around room. Lysistrata giggles, taunts him.)
Lysistrata:	He loves me, he loves me not. Whew! This is tiring! (Exit, persued by a bare.)*

Act IV Scene I: Lysistrata, Marilynos
Marilynos:	Liz, we're fed up with not being filled up.
Lysistrata:	Tell me about it. I've had to stop every one of you from going back on our vows.
Marilynos:	You should have just asked us to hold a bake sale... Oh! Look at the time! Gotta go.
Lysistrata:	And where do you think you're going? We're on strike, remember? (Marilynos begins to throw up. \| Violently.) Oh my god, Marilynos, what's wrong?
Marilynos:	I'm pregnant.
Lysistrata:	You weren't blowing chunks yesterday.
Marilynos:	I'm due any moment. It's going to be a boy.
Lysistrata:	You are not due any moment and you are not going back to your husband now. We're so close to victory—It's in the stars. Listen to today's horoscope: "Farmers! Separate the hens from the cocks. All your worries will soon be at an end and you'll be on top."
Marilynos:	With the men on the bottom?
Lysistrata:	But if the hens pick at each other, then our goose is cooked.
Marilynos:	Well, that's pretty clear. I guess we can hold out, at least until the next horoscope. (Sudden look of shock.) Except here comes my husband now!

Act IV Scene II: Lysistrata, Cinesias
Cinesias:	(staggering, bent at the waist due to blue balls): I am Cinesias, son of Phallus.
Lysistrata:	Your father's name has been on all of our lips. And your wife, she can hardly look at a banana, or a tree, without sayng "I miss my SIN-esi-ASS."
Cinesias:	Well, you saw me catch her just now. I took her home and made her promise to do me, but she kept teasing me and stalling me. (Miming the actions, uncomfortably because of his swollen crotch.) She had to take off her jewelry. Then her girdle. Then she had to wash her hair. Then she needed a blanket. Then she wanted me to shave. Finally, when I was all ready, she said was I ready to sign the Peace treaty? I said I'd sleep on it, and she ran away! Arrrrgh!
Lysistrata:	I'm ready to arbitrate if you are.

Act V Scene I: Ensemble
Man:	(Huge erection sticks out under his clothes). Okay, we're ready to talk peace. This situation is getting explosive.
Lysistrata:	I see what you mean. Time to divest?
Man:	Is it time to divest?
Lysistrata:	Is it time to divest?
Man:	Is it time to divest?
Lysistrata:	Is it time to divest?
Man:	It's time to divest! (Celebratory Terpsichore.) The sooner the better.
Ensemble:	Make love, not war! Make love, not war! Make love, not war! Make love, not war! (Curtain falls to mad rejoicing.)
* From Shakespeare's Winter's Tale one of the longest stage directions in the catalog: Exit pursued by a bear.
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